Of Arms, Legs, and Hooves

by TheHouseholdWarrior

Rating: teen
Tags: Human, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Other, Slice of Life, Crossover
Length: 23089

Rin's gone missing, and it's been a while already. Where on Earth is she? Is she even on Earth?

Rin's gone missing.
Guess this should've been to no surprise, her being an airhead and all, but it's been a while. And Emi's worried. Enlisting the help of Hisao, Emi sets out to find her lost friend... wherever she may be. After all, it's just a small town, so it shouldn't take long at all to find her.

But finding her might prove to be harder than it seems, especially when there's a world with talking ponies involved. And they seem to be missing a friend of their own.

(Yes, this is a Katawa Shoujo fanfic. It starts after the end of Emi's route, during the summer vacation the follows. Have fun, and enjoy!)

Published 2012-09-25 11:54:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-03-29 15:50:29 UTC

Chapter 1- Something More Dire Than Weekends

Knock knock knock

Dammit.

Knock knock

Dammit.

Knock

Well, glad that's over. I quickly snuggle back into my blankets, my eyes forced shut as I try to drown away the little voice in my head beckoning me to open the door. I successfully do so, and quickly drift back into slumber. it's been a very tiring day, and I've really been looking forward to-

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBA-

"WHAT?" I asked, jumping out of bed and opening the door in a fit of anger as I look for the person that dared disturb my beauty sleep.

"Hey, Hisao!" said a girly, high-pitched voice.

I breathe out a sigh of relief. At least it's not Kenji. I have to force myself not to shiver visibly at the thought.

"Dammit, Emi..." I said, rubbing my eyes as I begin to calm down. I try my best to look as tired as possible, because I don't want to do anything other than sleep at the moment. Then again, I don't think there's any need to try. "Don't you know what time it is?"

"It's half past seven, Hisao." said Emi, narrowing her eyes as she looked up at my face.

Well, that totally backfired.

"Never mind." said Hisao. "So, what's up?"

"I'd tell you, but you should at least put on a shirt first." said Emi, trying hard to suppress a giggle. "And some pants. It's not polite to show off your body like that, especially to a girl."

Dammit. I completely forgot that I was virtually naked. In fact, all I had on other than my underwear was the blanket that I had unconsciously wrapped around myself.

"Come on, you've seen me naked before. Cut me some slack." I said, walking back into my room. Emi, without invitation, quickly follows me inside the room and closes the door behind her. I shift my feet a bit- she might be my girlfriend, but I'm still very self-conscious about my body. Throwing away all my inhibitions, though, I throw my blanket back to the bed and pick up a shirt, tie, and some pants.

"Please, come in." I said. Emi ignores my sarcastic comment, and I hear her jump on my bed and lie there.I decide to do nothing about it, though. She's like that at times, and I've had plenty of time to learn to deal with it.

"I've never been in your room before." said Emi, looking up at the ceiling. "It's so plain..."

"Yeah, I never bother with decorating my room." I said, picking up my belt from the table. "Even back at the city, my room kinda looked something like this. Well, except the desk. My desk was always full of stuff."

Hearing me say that, I sense Emi's eyes shift from the ceiling to my desk. There's not much there now, only a few papers, a desk lamp...

My medicine.

I discretely try to hide it from sight by moving in between Emi and the pills, but Emi was quick. She was able to move past me easily and sit on my desk chair, her eyes staring at the many bottle of pills.

"W-Wow..." said Emi, sounding distracted as she stared intently at the bottles. Knowing her, she's probably counting how many there are. "There's so many..."

"Well, yeah." I said, trying not to sound too disheartened about the fact that she found out about my meds. "I don't like to admit it, but I'm pretty dependent on them."

"Okay." said Emi, possibly sensing the gradually lowering mood and deciding to end the discussion there. She turns to stare at me, and I immediately realize that I haven't put on a shirt yet. I quickly move to do so.

"Anyway, you still haven't told me why you came." I said, starting to button up my shirt.

"Why?" asked Emi, widening her eyes in the attempt of making herself look absolutely adorable. It's working. "Can't I come just 'cause I miss you?"

"We just ran together three hours ago." I said, trying to point out the obvious. "And knowing you, there's probably a reason for you."

I straighten up my tie, and Emi jumps off the desk chair. Her expression quickly turns to one of worry, and she lowers her head. She still looks adorable, though.

"It's Rin." said Emi, starting to pace around the room. For a girl with no legs, she certainly seems to walk around much. Much more than the usual person. Maybe even more than me. But while Emi is the type of person who had the tendency to become restless and pace around while deep in thought, I'm the type that would much rather be lying down while thinking. Although that changed a bit as I spend more and more time with her (turns out you can think better while running. Who knew? Well, I think there was a book on that somewhere...), I still tend to think while lying down. Or maybe I just like to lie down a lot.

'What about her?" I asked, sitting down on the desk chair while my eyes followed her around.

"I can't find her!" said Emi, plopping down on the side of my bed. "I mean, I looked everywhere! Her room, class, the art room, the library, the school grounds... Hell, I even went all the way to town!"

You gotta give Emi credit for her dedication. I mean, when she wants to do something, she'll not stop until she does it. I suddenly remember the time we shared in that shed... Hopefully my shivering isn't too noticeable from the outside.

"How long's she been gone?" I asked. I didn't realize it until very recently (as in a few seconds ago), but Rin sort of grew on me. Her messy hair and uniform, her carefree nature, her... 'quirkiness', I don't think there was a day when I didn't see Rin get all worked up over nothing or not get worked up over everything.

"She's always back by dinner time." said Emi.

"So she's been gone for, like... only an hour and a half?" I asked, rather sarcastically. Emi doesn't seem to take it that way, though.

"Not only an hour and a half, but already an hour and a half!" she said. I stare at her. Mostly because of her terrible grammar, but at how ridiculous she sounds as well.

Immediately, she began to blush. My stare can be awesome at the best of times.

"Fine, it's only been an hour and a half." said Emi, throwing herself on to the bed at full force. She then begins to mumble as she lies face down on my bed. "Bfut she'sh awlwaysh bfack bfy djinner."

I let out a long sigh before standing up and walking over to Emi. I sit at the end of the bed, Emi's legs right next to me. I chuckle a little bit as I consider the fact that despite Emi being one year older than him, she's really not quite my level in maturity in more ways than one. Then again, she acts really motherly towards Rin, taking care of her every need. In fact, Emi's so protective of Rin that Rin actually told him a few days ago when he was helping her pack about how Emi fusses a lot over nothing. Then again, these are words coming from a girl who actually came up with a theory about how the reason I came to Yamaku is 'in my pants'.

Turning my head to look at Emi's face-down, unsuspecting body on my bed, my face slowly cracks into a wild grin. I quickly jump as high as my legs could take me, lying down on the side of the bed right next to Emi. Of course, the impact of my landing makes my bed jump, and Emi flies a bit in the air and crashes into the floor. I start laughing madly as I see Emi pick herself up from off the ground with a enraged look on her face.

"Why, you little-" said Emi, picking up a pillow and starting to beat me to death with it. Soon enough, I find her sitting on top of my waist, swinging the pillow wildly from side to side. I try to fight back, but she keeps attacking me with unrelenting force. She's also beginning to laugh as heartily as I am, her worries about Rin quickly disappearing into the happy atmosphere. It seems as if her energy was not going to die down for a long time too.

I feel my chest begin to throb painfully from my laughter and her attacks, so I decide that its best to stop our activities here. At least for the time being.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Everypony knows that a malfunctioning spell is every unicorn's worst nightmare, because nopony ever knows how badly they've managed to screw up the spell.

Well, 'worst nightmare's got no shit on this.

She should've known better. She should've thought about it at least a little bit. How could she be so stupid?

Come on, Twilight, get it together! This is no time to be blaming yourself! Eventhoughthewholethingwasreallyyourfaultinthefirstplace.

Twilight let out a long, resigned sigh. The voice in her head (her conscience, whom she calls 'Tiny Twilight') was right. Never mind how horrible, stupid, irreparable the problem was, the thing she should think about is the solution!

Oh god, I feel so stupid.

She brought her head back and banged it with full force against the wall.

"Stupid... stupid... stupid..." she said, earning one head bang with every 'stupid' that comes out of the mouth.

"Uh... Twilight?"

"Stupid... stupid... stupid..."

"Twilight..."

"Stupid... stupid... stupid..."

"TWILIGHT!"

Twilight immediately stopped, dropping to the ground with a bump as large as an orange on her forehead.

"Come on, Twilight!" said a high-pitched male voice from across the room. "The girls are all ready downstairs. We better get going."

"All right, Spike..." said Twilight, her head still spinning. "Just gimme a minute, willya?"

And with that, Twilight laid her head on the ground. Her little assistant sighed and left the room, the pitter-patter of his scaly footsteps beaing heard clearly as he walked down the stairs.

Owowoww... My head hurts... Why did I bang my head against the wall like that...?

"Stupid... stupid... stupid..." said Twilight, although she doesn't quite bang her head this time.

The whole event played through in Twilight head once again. It's already been much longer than half a day, but it feels as if it had just happened. She should never have let Pinkie help with the experiment. That was the stupidest mistake in her whole life. Out of all her friends which were just there, simply watching, she HAD to pick Pinkie Pie, the craziest, most spontaneous, sugar-rushiest pony in all of Equestria. It would be a surprise if everything DID go well.

If only this thought had occurred to her then...

Now Pinkie's gone, and it's all because of her. And that's not even the worst part!

The WORST part is that there was absolutely NO KNOWN WAY to get her back. The aptly named Superspecialawesomehappyfuntimeoneuseonlytimetravelling Portal Machine (temp) was purely theoretical until recently, and that was the very first experiment. It was still in it's alpha stage, and she knew that she should've started on a smaller scale first, but that was next to impossible considering what she was trying to pull.

She had spent YEARS researching wormholes and their application for time-travelling (at the side, of course), and it had finally reached its peak. Taking a break from Celestia's tutelage for a while, she started to pull all-nighters trying to find a way to 'create' a wormhole. And she did. She found a way to do it.

But everything went far too wrong far too quickly. She had put a yellow tape on the floor that shouldn't have been crossed in the first place, for Celestia's sake! Why did she have to cross the damn tape! NONE OF THIS WOULD'VE HAPPENED IF SHE HAD NOT CROSSED THE TAPE!

Twilight found herself breathing heavily- in both anger and despair. She was standing on all four hooves, her mane and coat glistening with sweat. Finding inner peace all of a sudden, she shook her body once, sending beads of sweat flying around the room, and began to trot down the stairs to where everyone else was. Hopefully they weren't worrying about her too much.

I'm so sorry, Pinkie...

As she reached the base of the steps, she felt five heads turn towards her all of a sudden.

"Heya, Twi..." said the familiar soothing voice of her farmpony friend. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm splendid." said Twilight, immediately regretting her sarcastic comment. "I'm sorry, AJ, I didn't mean that... I-"

"It's fine, Twilight." said Applejack, an honest smile on her face. "We'll find Pinkie Pie. Ah'm darn sure of it."

"Thanks, Applejack." replied Twilight, giving her a bashful smile.

Awkward silence.

"Soo..." said Spike.

"What are we supposed to do now?" asked the rainbow-maned pegasus flying in loops near the ceiling. "How're we supposed to find Pinkie?"

If there was one good thing that could've come out of that experiment, it was that it worked. The Superspecialawesomehappyfuntimeoneuseonlytimetravelling Portal Machine (temp) worked. If it didn't work, then the failsafe that she installed would've stopped anything from happening. But something DID happen, and Twilight had proved that time travel was indeed possible. However...

"Well, one thing I know for SURE is that we sent Pinkie somewhere back in time." said Twilight. "Not to the future, as we hoped, but to the past. To tell you the truth, however, the mere fact that we're still standing here at this moment actually proves the many-worlds theory. But that same fact works against us as well- it would be near impossible to locate where Pinkie Pie stands in spacetime, and we don't know which of the infinite worlds she's in. But the thing I hate the most, and i can't stress this enough, is the fact that WE DON'T KNOW HOW FAR BACK WE SENT HER TO THE PAST!"

The rest of the assembled group couldn't do anything except blink and tilt their head. They all did it in such unison that it would've been comedic if the situation weren't so dire.

Twilight sighed, always herself to recompose before trying to explain the whole thing again.

"You see, the universe in the past and the present has a constant mass. If we all live in a linear timeline, then the fact that Pinkie's mass had been subtracted from the present and added to the past's total mass would create a temporal anomaly."

She saw a four hooves and a claw being raised into the air. Twilight sighed again.

"Life would not exist as we know it." she said, this time with a more frustrated tone to her voice. "You guys really need to read more. Now, the fact that we are still living right now means that the time does not exist in a linear timeline (in Equestria, at least), proving the many-worlds theory, which states that there are an infinite number of possible worlds. So our lives are not threatened at the moment."

Spike rose a claw.

"If sending things back to the past was so dangerous, why'd you want to do it in the first place." he asked, genuinely confused as to why Twilight would do such a stupid thing.

"I told you before, Spike..." said Twilight, pressing her hoof against her temple. The longer they take here, the farther Pinkie goes in her universe, wherever it is. "I meant to send the damned banana to the future! I never meant to send it to the past, and I put a failsafe there to prevent such a thing from happening!"

"Then why-"

"I made a small miscalculation, alright?" said Twilight angrily. "The machine absorbed so much of my power that I couldn't provide enough to the failsafe."

"Um, Twilight?" called Fluttershy.

"Yes, Fluttershy?"

"I'm sorry to ask, but... does Princess Celestia know about this? She might have a way to fix the problem."

"No no no!" said Twilight panickedly. Fluttershy jumped back in shock. "Princess Celestia mustn't know about this! Not just yet. If she finds out I made a time machine without telling her..."

Twilight suddenly gave a loud yelp and fell to the floor, cradling her tail in a fetal position. Her friends wanted to come closer, but they daren't. Twilight was acting especially creepy at the moment. Twilight, however, wasn't going to stop there.

"Okay, now all we have to do is to rebuild the machine again." said Twilight, still in her fetal position but managing to look straight at her friends. It was like her body was divided into two- her head was calm, collected, and always thinking, while the lower part was simply bat-crap crazy. "Do any of you know how to use any tools or instruments?"

Rainbow Dash raised a hoof into the air.

"No, Rainbow Dash, ponyradish is not an instrument." sighed Twilight. "We have to start construction as quickly as possible, so-"

BANG!

The entire library shook. There was a sudden bright flash of purple light, and everything seemed to have been silenced. No one could make a move, and all feeling disappeared into thin air. For a few moments, there was nothing.

And then it all came rushing back.

Twilight found herself on the floor next to one of her bookshelves, with books hopelessly strewn all around the floor. Slowly and dazedly opening her eyes, Twilight coughed began to call out for her friends in a shaky voice.

"Girls? Spike? A-are you alright?"

"I'm okay, Twilight." said Rainbow Dash, who quickly flew back up to the ceiling. However, she suddenly pressed her hoof to her neck, wincing badly in pain as she did so. "O-ow... That crash must've hit me hard..."

"We're fine here too, Twi!" called out Applejack, who was carrying a shivering, wide-eyed Fluttershy on her back. Fluttershy didn't make a sound.

"I'm here too." said Spike, not looking at all affected by the sudden... blast? Blast seems appropriate.

"What about Rarity?" asked Rainbow Dash. "Where's Rarity?"

"Oh no..." said Fluttershy. "What if she's hurt? Or worse... what if she passed out?"

"Everyone, quickly dig into the piles of books and try to find Rarity! We need to-"

"EWWW!"

Well, she's conscious alright.

"I've got book dust all over my coat!" complained Rarity. "Twilight, darling, you owe me a shower."

"Whatever happened just now, it came from outside. Let's go check it out!" said Rainbow Dash.

"Rainbow, wai-" started Applejack, but Rainbow Dash had already flown out the library door to the open night sky. "Consarn it, Rainbow Dash! C'mon girls, let's make sure that hotheaded friend of ours don't get hurt."

"I'm not a girl..." mumbled Spike in a low, inaudible voice as he reluctantly stepped outside to join the group.

Strangely, nopony else in Ponyville seemed to be affected by the blast. In fact, everything looked perfectly normal. Looking back at the library from the outside, Twilight found that it was still perfectly straight as well.

How strange...

"Nothing seems wrong here." said Rainbow Dash, stopping for once to take a good look around. "What was that?"

"I don't know, but i have a good feeling that we won't be getting any answers here." said Twilight. "Let's go check out the Everfree Forest. The blast seemed to have come from that direction."

"T-the Everfree Forest?" repeated Fluttershy, scared out of her wits.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to stay back as well." said Rarity, standing next to Fluttershy. "After what just happened, I don't think that it would be... advisable to come close to its origin."

"Come on." said Rainbow Dash, flying behind Fluttershy and beginning to push. Fluttershy tried to stop herself from moving forward, but she couldn't. And after the blast, her wings didn't seem to respond to her. Rarity sighed and hesitantly followed the girls.

While walking towards the entrance to the forest, Twilight had some time to think. What was that blast? What caused it? What's going to happen because of it? But the most important question, of course, was...

"Was it because of what happened earlier?" asked Twilight to herself, looking up at the sky.

I'm sorry, Pinkie. Do you think we'll ever get to meet each other again?

"Twilight." said Applejack, stopping right in front of her. The rest of the group stopped as well, confused as to what's going on. Rainbow Dash stopped pushing Fluttershy (who wasn't trying to move anyways) and flew to see what's happening. Suddenly, however, Twilight noticed Applejack shivering. She quickly stepped to Appplejack's side.

"Applejack, what's wro-"

She didn't need to answer that question, as Twilight was looking at the answer herself. There was a shadowy figure right in front of them, limping slightly to the side, and it was walking towards them.

"Wh-what is that, Twilight?" asked Spike, hiding behind Twilight's hooves. Twilight couldn't answer that... because she didn't know herself.

The shadow began to creep closer to them, and Twilight knew that the whole group were ready to hightail it out of there anytime. But they were scared to.

The shadow came even closer to them, and Twilight noticed that it was standing on two hooves. Two, very long hind hooves. And it also had two very short forehooves. Or was it the other way 'round? Twilight was never good at identifying monsters.

"F-Fluttershy, do you know what that is?" asked Twilight. Fluttershy didn't answer, nor did she boldly go to meet and care for this creature. That either meant that this was NOT an animal, or it was a dragon. It probably isn't a dragon.

As it came closer, Twilight could see even more distinguishing features- there was a tuft of hair around the shadow's head, and the shadow seemed to have some kind of mutation, with its hind hooves ending in a flat surface that was wider than the hoof itself, and that its forehooves seemed to shrink in the middle. All this just proved to make the monster look even more horrifying. The shadow was so close now.

"No such thing as ghosts, no such thing as monsters, no such thing as zombie ponies..." Twilight found herself reciting.

'G-g-g-g-ghost?" yelped Fluttershy.

"Z-z-zombie pony?" gasped Spike.

Twilight wanted to run. She wanted to run and not stop. She wanted to run all the way to Stalliongrad and have tea with the Pzar. But she couldn't. She was rooted into place, unable to move even a muscle. At some point while she was waiting, she might've even forgotten to breathe, but she didn't care about that. All she wanted to do was run.

And then the monster came into view, the shadow melting away from it. It had dark, messy red hair, a white body and forehooves, green hind hooves, and a rather round, beige face. It didn't seem to have a muzzle.

As it came closer, Twilight discovered that the monster was barely taller than she was. But that didn't stop Twilight from being terrified- the monster was staring her directly at her face. It had murky green eyes... the eyes belonging to the likes of a swamp monster.

Twilight finally managed to look away, but she still wasn't able to move. Being at the front of the pack when she stepped in front of Applejack earlier, Twilight found the monster going for her first.

The monster was now right in front of her face, studying Twilight's face intently... possibly trying to figure out if she's edible or not. Twilight managed to let out a high-pitched 'eep!' rivaling Fluttershy's as the monster got even closer to her, tilting her head as she looked at Twilight's terrified face. This is it. It's over. It's done.

The monster then opened her mouth, and quickly shut it again, releasing a sound which sounded vaguely like the Equestrian language. Twilight managed to open one of her eyes.

"I said hello."

Chapter 2- What a Gentleman Does

"Nomiya-sensei!"

The eccentric, white-haired, and rather fat art teacher looked up at us from the table. There was a violent twinkle in his eyes as he stared into our own, and it took Emi and I everything we had to not bail and run off. But the twinkle was wiped away in a heartbeat (not referring to mine, of course), only to be replaced by a tense smile. Looking down on his table, I saw two stacks of papers and a single pen. It seemed as if we had disturbed him in the middle of some important paperwork.

"Yes?" replied Nomiya, trying to disguise his annoyance. "Are you here to join the Art Club? It's quite late now, so I'm not sure if-"

As much as I'd liked to let him continue speaking so as to not induce his rage any further, this was a matter of too much importance.

"I'm sorry, Nomiya-sensei, but have you seen Rin anywhere?" I interrupted with a lot of internal conflict. "Rin Tezuka?"

Much like Mutou, it seemed that Nomiya didn't appreciate being interrupted in the middle of speaking at all. For a while, the violent twinkle came back to his eyes, and Emi looked at me with an unfamiliar scared look in her eyes. So even the bold and headstrong Emi was at least kinda afraid of this guy.

Nomiya is a plump, middle aged art teacher. He always wore the same thing- a white shirt that's been completely buttoned up, covered by a bright pink blazer. He wore a yellow and red polka-dotted tie, and dark blue jeans held up by a belt. He tucks his shirt in, so his layers of fat can easily be seen flowing out of those jeans. Yes, he looked weird. Or in other words, exactly like an art teacher.

Oh, and another thing that every Yamaku art club student should know- Nomiya may look approachable and friendly, and most of the time he is, but he can be really scary when pissed off. I heard that he'd start insulting you, putting you down and he'd walk off somewhere and abandon you where he last got pissed at you. Of course, these are nothing but rumors, but we're still scared nonetheless. It's surprising that even though Emi and Rin were so close, she didn't know anything about this scary art teacher. It's like he didn't exist anywhere outside art class. Like outside the art room was a vacuum in which he couldn't pass through, or in any way interact with. I've never actually seen him walking around school before. Maybe he can teleport from the art room to his home. From what I heard so far about this guy, I wouldn't be surprised.

"Yes, I'm familiar with who Mrs. Tezuka is. She is in my art club after all." said Nomiya, laughing the tension in the room off. It might've worked for him, but the two high-schoolers here was still ready to bolt off anytime in case Nomiya blew a fuse. But for now, we stood our ground. We need to know as much as possible about where Rin was. It was starting to get worrying.

"So do you know where she is?" asked Emi, her worry for her best friend overcoming her fear of the art teacher.

"I'm afraid not." said Nomiya, still grinning that obviously-false thousand watt smile. The edges of his right eye and mouth was twitching, probably from being tired of holding up his 'cheerful' facade for too long. "Why, is she missing?"

"Yeah." I said. "Did she tell you anything at all about where she went yesterday? Or maybe what she was doing? Any bit of information could help."

"I'm sorry, but I didn't see Tezuka at all yesterday." said Nomiya, his smile disappearing as the realization of his favorite student (or so Emi told) disappearing all of a sudden. I was actually half-expecting Nomiya over-dramatizing the whole situation, probably bending on his knees, his head and arms up in the air, and with teary eyes shouting something along the lines of: "Oh, Rin Tezuka! Tezuka Rin! My favourite student! I didn't take the chance to finally say goodbye, and how I regret it so! Where are you? ANSWER MEEEEE!", but I guess I expected too much.

"Okay then." said Emi, determined to wrap this conversation up as soon as possible. "Could you please inform us if you find out or remember anything?"

"I'll make sure to do just that." said Nomiya with a small smile. "And I won't inform the higher-ups, if that's what you were going to ask next."

Emi and I widened or eyes in surprise. He's psychic? My teleportation theory might be correct after all.

"T-thank you then, Nomiya-sensei." I said, slowly closing the door. "Have a nice day."

"You kids have a nice day too." said Nomiya before sighing heavily and going back to his dull work with an angry look in his eyes. We didn't want to stay any longer, so we just closed the door shut and walked away quickly.

But with the adrenaline of having to talk with such a person gone, our worry for Rin came back tenfold, as if to make up for when it was gone a few moments ago. My heart began beating with much greater force than before (despite the fact that there was nothing immediately threatening him now, unlike the encounter before), but thankfully it's still stable, and thus not hurting yet. It's sudden increase in weight feels bad, though.

"Oh, Rin..." said Emi, a worried look in her eyes. It just occurred to me that I've really not seen this kind of look before this situation. I've seen looks like this one, but I've not actually seen this one. She looks much less energetic than usual. Perhaps if this school was as crowded as it was a week ago, people might've asked us what was wrong, how they could help, et cetera et cetera, but since it's the summer holidays, there were barely twenty to thirty kids left in the school. I don't know if I should feel disappointed or relieved.

But now, I can't let our morale fall. if there's something I learned in 'the Art of War' that I can apply immediately, it's that the morale of the soldiers is a major factor for victory in war. It's not wartime, however, but I guess the general rules still apply. i have to cheer Emi up. If not just because I want to, then to achieve victory. Or something like that.

I put a hand on her shoulder, and she looks up at me. Instead of seeing her usual cheerful and bubbly face (the second bubbliest face I've ever seen, since the first goes to Misha without a doubt), I saw a face filled to the brim with anxiety. If I didn't know about the situation at hand, I probably would've guessed that her dog died or something, but I know exactly why she's looking like this.

"It's gonna be fine." I said. "We'll find her. I'm sure."

Emi immediately pulled me into a tight hug, taking the breath off of me. She must've noticed this, because she immediately pulled back afterwards. See, that's the downside of having a heart problem. You can't give or receive tight hugs. Although I'm not really the type to hug, that realization still kinds of burns me a bit. Ouch.

"S-sorry." said Emi, blushing hard.

"It's okay." I said, trying my best to keep a nonchalant face. "I'm not that weak. You helped me with that."

Emi didn't look convinced, and I could see that she was fighting a hard battle with herself- she could either take me (whether I wanted to or not) to the nurse, but that would bring up a lot of awkward questions. The only choice now was to leave me as I am.

"I'm okay, Emi." I said. "Completely fine. We should really focus on finding Rin again."

Rin. That was enough to distract Emi completely. I put my hand on my chest while she is deep in thought.

Badump.

Badump.

Badump.

It's still beating heavily, but it seems alright. Looks like there really is nothing to worry about.

A few months ago, I would've said that I hated my heart. I hated my situation. I hated all the medications and doctors and checkups. I hated all the precautions I had to take. I guess even now, I still hate it. But it's a bit different, because now I've come to accept it. I've come to embrace the arrhythmia.

Heh. Embrace the arrhythmia. That sounded stupid, even in my head. But it's perhaps the best way I can describe my relationship with my heart.

"We've searched everywhere!" screamed Emi all of a sudden, banging the wall loudly with her fist and bringing me back to reality. I could've sworn that the painting at the end of the hall (which has a name I never bothered to find out) became slightly crooked. 'We've asked everyone who could've known, we tried searching for clues, but there's nothing at all! Shit!" She banged the wall again.

I stood there, completely speechless. Seeing her this distraught was very unsettling. Plus, it's still really strange to see someone like Emi swear like that.

But what she said gave me the confidence to say what I've wanted to say from before.

"We've definitely talked to those who might know..." I said, stopping myself before saying 'except her parents'. "But what about those who might not know? I think it's about time we spread the news."

"Spread the news?" Emi repeated. This is obviously something she didn't want to do. Knowing her, she would want to find Rin alone, or at least together with me. But there's really no choice here.

"Yeah, but not like wildfire." I said. "Only to the people who can help us or are trustworthy enough to keep it a secret."

Emi thought about this for a moment, looking down at her prosthetic feet.

"Fine." said Emi, looking away. "But who can we ask? None of the student council is here, and they should know everything about the happenings in our school! Who else can we ask for help."

That is the question, isn't it? Who can we ask?

We can ask those we can place our trust in.

"Come on, let's-"

Bang!

B-bald!

Except for the small amount of hair on the monster's head, it was completely bald.

Twilight cowered even further, which made the monster come even closer to her. It seemed to be... studying her thoroughly.

"Hey, back off!" screamed Rainbow Dash from behind, immediately flying in between Twilight and the monster with her hooves ready to fight.

"Hello." said the monster again, this time to Rainbow Dash. The voice's utter calmness when addressing them was very unnerving.

"Don't you lay a hoof on my friends, or I will- Huh?" said Rainbow Dash. "What did you say?"

"I said hello." said the monster. "Is that word unfamiliar? Maybe you can understand it when I say it backwards. Olleh."

Rainbow Dash looked like she had just been struck by lightning, along with the rest of the group. Not only was the monster not eating any of them yet, but it could talk, too?

"Olleh." said the monster. "Oot sdrawkcab ti dnatsrednu t'nac uoy ebyam."

The monster shook her head, as if trying to shake off something from her messy hair.

"My name is Rin. Tezuka." said the monster. "Most people call me Tezuka. It's the social norm. But my friends call me Rin. I don't know what ponies should call me, though. I think you should call me Rin."

None of them knew how to properly react to what the monster just said. The monster itself, however, didn't seem to mind. Nor did she notice their silence. Twilight would've thought that she was simply talking to herself, if she hadn't addressed them so frankly.

"You don't have hands." said the monster that called herself Rin, staring intently at Rainbow Dash's forehooves as she spoke. "So I guess neither of us knows what a handshake feels like."

Rainbow Dash suddenly hid both her forehooves behind her back, as if feeling self-conscious because of 'Rin's staring.

"W-who are you?" asked Twilight, finally standing up and walking next to Rainbow Dash. The rest of the group followed suit. All of a sudden, the monster seemed much less threatening than it was a few moments ago. Maybe it was because they now had strength in numbers, but the monster's social awkwardness probably played a factor as well. Then again, aren't ALL monsters socially awkward?

"I'm Rin." said the monster. Rin seemed like a suitable name for a monster like her, though, since the name itself seemed... foreign. Maybe they should start referring to her as Rin.

"Okay, Rin." said Twilight, making sure to get the pronunciation right so as to not anger the monster, as unlikely as it may seem. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't know." said Rin. That seemed to answer all their questions.

For a very long time, there was silence. In the meantime, Rin looked away from them and at the night sky, staring at it with half an open mouth.

"I seemed to have gone to another world, though." said Rin. If there was water in any of the ponies' mouths, they would have all spit it out at that last statement.

"Ya seemed to have WHAT?" asked Applejack incredulously.

All of a sudden, Rin began to chuckle to herself. Not a straight-out laugh, nor was it a secretive giggle. It was a chuckle.

"Heheh." said Rin, smiling as she looked over at Applejack with her lazy, green eyes. "You talk funny."

Applejack immediately exploded into a full blush. Her accent has always been one of Applejack's touchy subjects, ever since she went to that Equestrian Agricultural Society meeting a few years ago and asked the head for a full refund on the shipment of apples that was lost on its way to the Canterlot Market. Although Applejack didn't specify as to what actually happened there, the rest of her friends knew that it had caused enough of an uproar not to ask her. Although Rainbow Dash always managed to get a good insult in on her accent whenever possible nowadays.

"No, ah don't..." mumbled Applejack, hiding her face in her hat and looking away. Rainbow Dash tried to stifle a laugh, causing Applejack to look at her with a glare that seemed to say: 'Wait for me. I'll kill you later.'

Twilight, however, was still rendered speechless. What king of being could say "I seemed to have gone into another world" that calmly?

"When you say 'gone into another world'... what do you mean?" asked Twilight.

The monster, Rin, thought about that for a moment. She doesn't seem to be able to maintain eye contact with anypony.

"Well, I used to not be in this world..." said Rin. "And now I am. That's it."

Twilight could feel her face drop a million hooves. But no matter how unsatisfactory Rin's answer was, there was no denying that it was probably the only right answer. This made her heart drop just as much as her face.

Just what in Equestria is this thing?

There seemed to be a neverending supply of calm in Rin's blood, as if there was absolutely nothing that could make it respond emotionally. It was as if the Elements of Harmony themselves had hit her with a supersaturated calming spell, with effects that last forever. Or maybe even longer than that.

"You still haven't told me your names." said Rin, shocking Twilight out of her deep thoughts. Rin was looking at Twilight expectantly.

Can I trust this thing? At first glance, my answer would've been 'no', but...

She really didn't seem all that dangerous. Nor did she seem to have any malicious aura or intent about her. She was simply asking for her name.

"I-I'm Twilight." said Twilight, bowing her head awkwardly. She sensed that Rin did the same thing, except with more force and energy. "Twilight Sparkle."

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Sparkle."

"Call me Twilight."

"...Twilight."

The awkward silences that come from talking with this monster are just way too unnerving. Twilight had more than half a mind to just abandon this crazy monster and run off back to the Library, but just couldn't. Her studious, curious self didn't allow her to do such a thing. She quickly nudged Rarity's side. Getting the point, Rarity began to introduce herself.

"I'm Rarity, and this is Fluttershy." said Rarity, pointing a hoof to herself first before pointing to the yellow and pink bundle of fur to her side.

"Rarity. Fluttershy." said Rin, bowing her head just as she did with Twilight before. She probably thought that it was some kind of tradition around here.

"And I'm Rainbow Dash!" said Rainbow Dash as she flew over from picking on Applejack in her usual boisterous manner to introduce herself. "Fastest pegasus in all of Equestria!"

"Do I call you 'Rainbow' or 'Dash'?" asked Rin. "Or both? Or Raindash? Maybe Dashbow? Bowdash? Dashrain? Or-"

"Just 'Rainbow Dash' is fine." interrupted the rainbow-maned pegasus. She seemed to be nervous around Rin as well.

"And ah'm Applejack." said the farmpony, walking to Rin with a huge blush on her face.

Rin chuckled again, causing Applejack to turn around and quickly walk to where the rest of the group is.

And after that... awkward silence. It really seemed as if there was nothing else to say at this point. Twilight began to feel beads of cold sweat flowing down her cheeks from the sheer nervousness of meeting such an... intriguing subject.

The silence, of course, is broken by the one who started it.

"I'm hungry." said Rin. Her body looked tense, but her voice was as calm as ever. It was as if she were fighting against something in her own body.

Nopony knew how to respond. The monster sure was friendly enough, and it was DEFINITELY harmless. But there was no way in Pony Hell were any of them going to allow Rin into their houses. Even Fluttershy, who always catered to ponies and animals in need, didn't dare to invite Rin over.

"I'm tired, too." said Rin. "Very tired."

She looked away again.

"I think I'm about to faint."

What?

And with that, Rin's legs gave way, making Rin fall down to the side with a loud 'thud'.

Chapter 3- Understanding Jellyfish

"Lilly! Hanako!"

Hearing the obviously panicked sound of Emi's voice, Lilly and Hanako turned back to look at us, worry clearly etched on both their faces.

I lagged behind, jogging instead of running to them. The sudden explosion had rattled my heart enough, and I definitely didn't want to risk getting another flutter. Especially at a time like this.

"Is that Emi?" asked Lilly's usual, reserved voice.

"Yup!" said Emi. "Hey, Hanako."

"H-Hi..."

"What happened?" I asked as I caught up to them. "What was that sound?"

Clearly, that question was in everyone else's minds as they started streaming out of the dorm rooms and the main school building. Luckily, that explosion didn't happen anywhere near the school. But then where was it?

"I don't know, Hisao..." said Lilly. "But perhaps it would be wisest to let the proper authorities see to that first. It'd be best not to go searching for trouble, anyhow."

She's right. There's no denying that even if we found what or where that explosion was, there was nothing that we could do about it. I instinctively put my hand on my chest again. It's still good. Those running sessions with Emi have really helped me improve my heart. I really owe her a lot.

However, Emi still looked like she wanted to dash off to see what happened. Having been with her for a good few months now, I can probably guess her line of thought- Rin's mysterious disappearance might be linked to this mysterious explosion. I really have no idea how (perhaps she was a terrorist? Osama Rin Laden? God, that felt stupid...), but it's possible. And that's usually enough for Emi to start acting immediately.

But now, Emi was hesitant. Perhaps it was because of the large nature of the problem. Perhaps she could feel danger lurking about.

"Emi!"

Suddenly, a tanned, well-built girl ran towards us. She's built up quite a lot of steam, so I immediately tried to dodge her, but...

Crash!

Badump.

Badump.

Badump.

For a while, I couldn't hear anything except for my heartbeat. I couldn't feel anything but pain. I balled my hand into a fist to try and contain the pain, but it was futile.

"Oh, hey. Hey, are you okay?"

I quickly try to put on a nonchalant face, but that failed terribly. I feel myself fall on the ground on my back, but I couldn't move.

Breathe... Breathe slowly... Breathe deeply...

God, this is hard.

The pain just made it harder to breathe as I normally would. I feel myself breathing shorter and faster breaths. The pain in my chest just kept expanding, and I started to hear something akin to static in my ears. My strength all sapped out from me, my heart clenched tightly and I allow my head to fall to the floor.

Damn.

I couldn't see anything anymore. Everything seemed to be fading. I try to remind myself that it'll get better, but to no avail.

Then all of a sudden, I hear a familiar voice.

"Hisao, I want you to relax."

I feel a hand pushing my own off of my chest with no resistance, feeling my irregular heartbeat. I then begin to feel those hands putting pressure on my chest, pumping it with great force.

"Breathe, Hisao." said the voice, whose voice is calm despite the force being exerted on my chest. "You have to breathe."

I feel my breaths getting deeper and fuller. My hearing is now good again, and my vision is starting to clear as well. I breathe even more as I start to relax my contorted face, feeling the beads of sweat roll down my cheeks. As I open my eyes, I see a friendly, grinning face.

The nurse.

"There you go, Hisao." said the nurse, standing up and offering a hand to me. I quickly take it, balancing myself as I stumble trying to get up. "You better now?"

"F-fine..." I wheezed, rubbing my palm against my chest. What happened just now was probably the closest thing to my first attack that I've gone through since coming here. But what happened? I was fine when Emi crashed into me in the halls on my first week here. This was a little bigger than that, but I should have been stronger than this.

"I am SO SORRY." said my attacker, giving me a short, awkward bow. "I was just so caught up in catching up to you guys after the explosion, and I..."

Of course. The reason my heart gave out was not because of the crash alone, but the events that happened before it. The shocking, loud explosion, and me jogging out into the open. I should've been more careful.

"S'all right..." I say, wiping the sweat from my brow before looking up at my attacker. Tanned, well-built, and a stump for a left hand that is covered by bandages...

"Miura, isn't it?" I ask, more out of courtesy than genuine friendliness.

"Please, call me Miki." said the girl, now looking much more cheerful compared to how she looked just a few moments ago.

"HISAO!"

I turn around to see Emi looking back at me. She seemed like she wanted to hug me, but was afraid to cause another attack to happen. I suddenly feel much downer. Even my own girlfriend seemed to be limited by my own disability, and she isn't even limited by her own! It made me feel no less than a jerk, even though I know that I can't control these circumstances.

In the end, though, she hugged me anyway.

It was a long hug, but she finally let go of me. She then turned to Miki.

"Miki!" scolded Emi. "What did you think you were doing?"

Miki's face suddenly darkened again.

"I'm sorry..." she said, bowing her head.

"I thought you were in the same class as Hisao!" scolded Emi. I move to try to stop her, but the nurse looked at me from the other side of the one-sided argument and shook his head. "Didn't you know about his heart problem?"

Heart problem. Those words stung me a little. Emi recognized it as a problem. Damn, that burned.

"I'm sorry..." repeated Miki, bowing even deeper this time.

"And you!" screamed Emi, looking back at me. I stepped back, suddenly surprised by Emi's sudden target change.

"Why didn't you move out of the way when you saw her running?"

"I did!" I said, sweating even more than when the attack happened. "Or at least, I tried, but..."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the nurse snickering to himself. He might've saved my life, but I can't help but feel betrayed. Luckily for me, though, he walked towards us and put a hand on Emi's shoulder.

"It's nothing to get worked up about." said the nurse, grinning at Emi brightly. "It's over and done with now. Just relax, or you'll be getting a heart attack as well."

He starts laughing, and Emi stopped scolding me. But she still looked pissed though, in that adorable but angry way that only Emi can pull off. I couldn't help but smile along with the nurse.

"I'm fine, Emi." I say, ruffling her hair.

"A-are you sure... Hisao?"

I turn around to see Hanako guiding Lilly to me, both having concerned looks on their faces. Hanako more so, since she actually saw everything unfold. Lilly looked more confused than upset, but quickly decided to dust off the matter.

"You should really be more careful, Hisao." said Lilly. "You too, Miura."

Miki hung her head. I smiled.

"I'm fine. Now what were you trying to say before, Miki?" I asked, trying to chase the subject away from 'me' as quickly as possible. Miki's face also brightened up at the change of subject.

"Oh, I was just going to ask you, Emi, if you saw something pass your way." said Miki, rather vaguely.

"Huh?" asked Emi.

"It was something big." said Miki, trying to accentuate the fact by holding both arms as far from each other as possible. But since one of her arms ended in a stump, it really wasn't that long. And it was sad.

"B-big?" asked Hanako.

"Yeah, it was big." said Miki. "I tried to chase it as quickly as possible, but it was really fast. I only ran less than half a mile before it went out of sight."

Something big... and fast. That was still a very vague description, but since it ran past Miki without giving her time to look at it properly, it was probably the best they can get. From there, it would most probably an animal. We just need a proper description on 'big' now.

"Big?" asked Lilly, looking intrigued. Being unable to see, Lilly seems to be prone to wearing her emotions on her face, even though her voice always sounds the same- calm and reserved. It was unnerving.

"Yeah, like that." She unsuccessfully uses her hand and stump to show her definition of 'big'.

Everyone else's face (except Lilly's, for obvious reasons) visibly dropped at that statement. And right after that...

"Hey, Miki?" called Emi. "Did you see Rin anywhere?"

"Rin?" repeated Miki as she seemed to be deep in thought. Then she snapped her fingers. "Oh, you mean the crazy armless girl?"

Everyone stepped back in shock at her description of Rin. Sure it was fairly... accurate, but the whole bluntness of that statement was surprising. Even Lilly's eyes had widened a fair bit.

"She's not crazy!" said Emi, even though she looked doubtful herself. "Okay, maybe a little, but that's not the point! Have you seen her anywhere?"

"Sorry, but no." said Miki, shrugging. "I haven't seen her around this whole week."

Emi sighed, before turning to Hanako and Lilly.

"How 'bout you guys?" asked Emi, rather desperately as she bent her body forwards. "Have you seen them?"

I nudged Emi with my shoulder, and she seemed to get what I was trying to say immediately.

"Erm..." said Emi, scratching her head. "I mean..."

Lilly chuckled, making Emi's face flatten. Emi was a good person at heart, but it was this kind of carelessness that usually brought her (us) into trouble. Strangely, I couldn't help but smile at that fact.

"It's fine, really." said Lilly, still smiling. "But I'm sorry, I haven't run into Ms. Tezuka at all lately."

"M-me neither." said Hanako.

"Damn..." said Emi. "Okay, thanks anyway. Come on, Hisao!" She grabbed my arm and began to drag me back into the school.

"Hey, wait up!" called out Miki from behind us. I looked back to see her jogging towards us, stopping a good distance before walking towards us cautiously. I felt my heart drop again. She wanted to avoid crashing into me.

"I want to help you find Tezuka." said Miki, smiling brightly. "It's the least I can do after what happened... just now..."

"It's okay, Miki." said Emi without any deliberation. "We can find her ourselves." She then started walking back towards the school with me in tow.

"Emi..." I mumbled. "We tried to find Rin everywhere, but we didn't even get a clue as to where she's gone. We're gonna need all the help we can get."

"No, Hisao." said Emi with a strange determination. "Sorry, but I can't do that. Miki! Tell us if you see or remember anything, okay?"

Miki nods dejectedly, and I sigh deeply. Even now, Emi has trouble accepting help from others. She at least trusts me enough now, but what would happen if I was gone, along with Rin? Who could she trust then?

I hang my head, knowing that I can't answer this question.

Focusing her magic on carrying Rin's body and opening the door at the same time, Twilight walked back into the library.

Using magic to do more than one thing at a time was already effortless at her skill level, but the whole situation had gotten her feeling down and depressed.

WHY is it ME who has to take care of this monster...

The answer was simple, though. Out of the six ponies who were there just now, only Twilight and Applejack had any spare beds that Rin could fit in. But Applejack didn't like Rin because of the comments Rin made on her accent. Well, they weren't really comments, but it was insulting all the same.

Twilight sighed as she silently closed the door, but not before allowing her little dragon assistant to come back in the library first. Spike seemed to be too sleepy to be in any mood to talk, so she slowly guided Spike back up to the sleeping quarters of the library. Stifling what would've been a loud yawn, Twilight began to walk back up the stairs as well.

As soon as Spike curled himself up in bed, Twilight slowly laid down Rin's lifeless body on her bed, covering it with her blanket. Now that it's come to Rin sleeping in her house, perhaps she shouldn't really call Rin 'it' anymore. She sounded female, so she's just going to assume that unless proven otherwise. Besides, what would her parents, or Princess Celestia say if she told them that she had a male (Spike doesn't count) staying over in her house? Twilight shivered at the thought.

Yawning a little more freely this time, Twilight used her magic to bring up the spare bed she always kept for guests. Spike had always wanted to use this bed, but she never allowed him to. This bed had broken down more than one time (ever since the Sleepover Incident with Applejack and Rarity, which severely weakened its structure), and Twilight had never managed to fix it thoroughly. Now, however, she didn't have a choice.

Hopping into the secondary bed herself, she dug herself deep inside the blankets. She loved the feeling of euphoria when jumping into bed for the first time after a long, tiring day. However, she was really disheartened by the tiny 'squeak!' that came with her getting herself comfortable inside the bed.

By all means, SHE should be the one on the safe bed while Rin slept on this one, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Rin, as monstrous as she is, looked to peaceful asleep to disturb, and she couldn't help but at least give her some comfort. For tonight, at least. Sometimes she just hates her good nature.

Tucking herself in, she stared at the ceiling for a long while.

Where is Pinkie Pie?

She rolled around to one side, trying to knock the thought out of her head and get down to sleeping.

But of course, that was impossible.

Twilight sighed. If she didn't find out where she went and get her back as quickly as possible, then Pinkie might forever be lost in whichever time she got stuck in. And now there's the matter of taking care of Rin.

Picking up a pillow and holding it over her muzzle, Twilight started banging her head on the bed.

She should've studied more on the subject before actually attempting it. And now she'd regret it for eternity.

Celestia save us... she thought as she slowly drifted off to sleep, her exhaustion washing away all worry and thought.

Twilight woke up with a start.

Looking at the clock on the other end of the room, she noticed that it was already 10 in the morning. A complete four hours after the time she usually wakes up.

Stretching and yawning, Twilight straightened herself up in bed.

Thank Celestia today's a Sunday...

As she slowly opened her sleepy eyes, however, a strange sight greeted her.

On the bed at the other side of the room sat Rin, sitting upright on Twilight's bed, looking out the window. Her face still showed no clear emotion, and her presence seemed nonexistent. Yet, she was there. With her abnormally blank face. It was unnerving, just like everything else she does.

"Good morning, Rin." said Twilight, attempting small talk. "Did you sleep well?"

Rin shrugged.

"Medium normal." said Rin. "Where am I?"

"You're in my house." said Twilight, getting herself out of bed and using magic to start straightening the pillows and blanket again. "Or as most would call it, the Ponyville Library."

Rin didn't reply, instead choosing to rest her head against the bed's headboard. She seemed to be very deep in thought about something.

"Is something wrong, Rin?' asked Twilight, finally done with making the bed.

"No." said Rin. "Yes. I don't know. Maybe."

"Would you mind telling me?"

"Maybe."

Twilight stood there, dumbstruck because of Rin's complete social awkwardness. No matter how much she tried to force a conversation out of her, it never seemed to work. Twilight sighed.

"But since you're nice enough to ask, I guess it's okay." said Rin. "I realized that I could talk to horses."

"H-horses?" said Twilight, rather insulted.

Rin nodded fervently.

"I guess that makes me a horse whisperer, doesn't it?"

"A what?"

"A horse whisperer." repeated Rin without any doubt at all in her voice. "There are some people who can talk with hamsters, so that makes them hamster whisperers. And people who can talk to rabbits are called rabbit whisperers. And people who can-"

"Okay, I see your point." said Twilight.

She thought about what Rin said for a moment. If being able to talk to a certain species made one a 'whisperer', then what does that make Fluttershy? Is she more than a thousand types of whisperers, or is she just generally called an 'animal whisperer'. And what does that make Twilight. A Rin whisperer?

Twilight shook her head. The fact that Rin found such things interesting itself is strange enough. The fact that she made Twilight think about these things further in depth, however, made her feel like jumping off the top of the library tree.

"I'm still hungry, you know." said Rin, distracting Twilight from her line of thought.

"I know; I am too." said Twilight. "I'll ask Spike to make us something quick."

"Already done!" said the young dragon, walking up the stairs carrying a plate on each claw. "I woke up earlier than you, Twi, and I found Rin already awake, so I decided to make something quick, andWOAH!"

Spike accidentally dropped a plate. Luckily for them, Twilight has grown to be accustomed to these sorts of mishaps, and was ready to catch that plate.

"Thanks, Spike." said Twilight, looking at her plate. A daisy sandwich? Spike really went out of his way this time. He usually just mixes some bran cereal with milk or gives her some store-bought cake or something for breakfast. Perhaps it's because they had a visitor this time. Regardless, she quickly gave in to temptation and began eating.

Rin, on the other hand, just stood there and stared at the food. Then, she took out one of her limbs (the bottom ones), and picked up the sandwich with those (being helped by the little, stubby things on the edge of those limbs), and bringing it up to her mouth to eat. It was disturbing, to say the least.

Rin took a cautious bite, chewing what seemed like a million times before swallowing.

"This is inedible." said Rin. Both Twilight's and Spike's jaws dropped.

"WHAT?"

Daisy sandwiches are the most beautiful thing in the world. Ain't nopony gon' diss daisy sandwiches!

But Twilight's line of thought was again distracted. Rin was still nibbling on the sandwich, staring out of the window again.

"I thought you said that it was inedible?" asked Twilight.

"It is." said Rin, closing her eyes and nodding solemnly with the wisdom of a thousand Starswirls.

"Then why are you still eating it?" asked Twilight.

"I'm hungry." said Rin, shrugging. Twilight facehoofed. This monster was impossible to talk with for more than 10 seconds.

Monster...

"Which reminds me, Rin..." said Twilight, knowing what she has to ask but hesitating to ask it. "Erm... Uh..."

"You can ask." said Rin. "I won't get offended."

"Okay." said Twilight, taking in a deep breath. 'W-what are you?"

Rin, however, didn't seem offended. Hell, she didn't even seem to care! It felt insulting for some reason.

"That's a good question." said Rin.

Pause.

"T-that's it?"

"Yes."

"So..."

"So so."

Twilight wanted to explode from frustration.

"What are you?"

"I'm Rin."

"No, WHAT are you? What species do you belong to? What kind of animal are you?"

Pause.

"Those are all good questions."

Oh, good grief.

Author's note: Hey guys! How are you enjoying the story so far? Although I won't go so far as to say this story will be very long-lived, it IS going to be quite the long story. So before I go that far, I'd like to correct any and all mistakes I could've made first, so please leave a comment or two below.

Now, there's been another idea stuck in my head to develop this fanfic further, but I REALLY need your approval for this, because it is kind of crazy. What I want to do is put in this story a character(s) from another universe. As in, it has no relation at all to Katawa Shoujo or My Little Pony, but will definitely be able to make this story much more interesting and fun to both read and write. But I need your approval for that! So if you accept the idea, leave a comment below. And if you don't, leave a comment below.

Now I can't give you the name of the character(s) or which universe they came from for the sake of not letting out spoilers, but you're free to PM me if you're either really dying to know or want to know the character to make a decision (although I'd rather you not ask me, since it is REALLY crazy, and I'd rather surprise you than tell you).

Oh, and if you guess the character and their universe correctly, I will give you a million internet muffins (but don't announce it here- PM me!)

Thanks for reading, everybody!

Chapter 4- Art, Drugs, and Time Machines

Still no sign of Rin.

I walked up to my dorm room, one step at a time, my legs barely being able to take it anymore.

We've double-checked every single spot she could've been, running up and down the school, up and down the dorms, and even up and down the entire town. It's a great thing that my heart was still able to take it despite my little 'episode' earlier though, but still.

It's getting pretty late. Probably past curfew. I lift up my right arm and bring it closer to my line of sight. Then I quickly pull up my sleeve to take a look at my watch.

Only to remember that I don't have a watch.

Sighing, I make my way back to my room, trudging like a zombie. I must've been emanating some kind of presence, because all the room I pass seem to suddenly quieten all of a sudden. Not that I'm complaining.

There it is. My room. A sight for sore eyes.

I immediately search around my pocket, trying to get a grasp of the key, when-

"Hey, man. 'Sup?"

I bang my head against the door once. Hard.

"Hey, Kenji." I say, leaving my head leaning against the door so as to not make eye contact. Don't pay attention to Kenji, and he won't pay attention to you. Just like a lion. Hopefully.

"You look awful, man. What's happening?" he asks in the usual tone.

"Nothing at all." I say, trying to end this conversation as quickly as possible. "But I'm really tired, so please-"

I hear Kenji jump back in shock. Turning around, I see that he looked very much taken aback, one of his legs lifted and his arms looking ready to karate chop anyone that dared touch him. I don't think there's anyone crazy enough to do that, though. Hell, I live right in front of him!

"It's that track bitch again, isn't it?" asked Kenji. "I told you to be careful around her, man. She's perhaps the most dangerous one there is! She sucked the energy out of you, didn't she? Oh, it all makes sense! I'm telling you, she's evil!"

"Yeah, okay." I say. "Good night."

"Good idea." said Kenji. "Take some rest, and regain your energy. We'll figure out how to take that bitch out tomorrow. 'Night."

Well, glad that's over. I put my key in the hole and immediately ran inside the room, before throwing myself onto the bed. In hindsight, that probably wasn't a really good idea. I grab at my slightly throbbing chest as I immediately began to fall asleep.

...

I jump out of bed, my whole body shaking and sweating heavily.

I try to feel my heartbeat. To my surprise, it was perfectly normal.

But something woke me up. I didn't fall off my bed, the air was normal and warm, the bed seemed perfectly comfortable enough... Ah, it was the dream.

The dream... I didn't understand it. And I'm beginning to forget. I distinctly remember me, Emi, and a few others grouped up as we looked at a screen... I remember some kind of swirly purple thing that is about the same height as me... And i remember there being a face I've never seen before.

What did that mean? As hard a thinker as I am, I don't know what the hell to make of it. The screen, probably a computer or a TV. The swirly purple thing? No idea. As for that other man... he looked familiar, but I don't know who he is. Sighing deeply, I try to push those thoughts out of my mind. I must be overthinking things, as usual. They probably mean nothing.

Looking out the window, I notice that it was still dark. But since all plans of sleeping were abruptly taken away from me, it looks like I'll have to do something to pass the time, at least until I felt sleepy again.

Going out of the room, or worse, the dorm building, was out of the question. So I can't go anywhere or visit anybody.

I'm already done with all the books I've borrowed, and there's really no point in reading them.

And I definitely can't drop on the floor and do some push-ups or other related heavy exercises.

In the end, though, i simply resorted to putting my pillow on top of my head and forcing myself to fall back to sleep. Surprisingly enough, it worked.

...

Screw alarm clocks. Seriously.

I bang my fist against the alarm clock, silencing it. There was a soft 'thud', most probably from it falling down the small table and crashing into the floor. Not that I care. Alarm clocks in the morning are probably my greatest enemy. It's the goddamn summer holidays, dammit!

Then again, I was the one who set it up the night before. Ah, well.

Trying to snuggle back into the covers, I grab all the sheets I can and hide under it. One second passes. One minute passes. One hour passes. An eternity passes.

Futile.

Knowing that there's no going back to sleep at this point, I angrily stand up and walk to the cupboard for a change of clothes. Just as I was about to change, though...

BANG BANG BANG.

I swear, if anyone wasn't really paying attention, those would've sounded like gunshots to them. Cursing and muttering under my breath, I groggily walk to open the damn door.

Swinging it open, I see Emi standing right outside, her hands on her hips and looking quite pissed with me. It was kinda cute.

"Hey..." I said, letting my voice drawl out.

"That's not what you say to a lady when you greet her." said Emi, pouting. "How impolite."

"Sorry, sorry..." I said, trying to blink away sleep from my eyes. "Do you need anything, are did you come just to disturb my otherwise beautiful sleep?"

"You promised me that you'd meet me outside an hour ago!" said Emi, punching my arm. I lost balance and nearly fell down, probably because my brain still hasn't fully woken up yet. "Bad Hisao!"

"Don't worry, please. Just let me just change first." I say, walking back into my room. As I look back, however, I see Emi still standing in the doorway.

"Well?" I ask. She seemed confused.

"You either come in, or wait outside." I say in the nicest tone possible for that kind of statement. "I can't leave the door open, because I don't want my body to be shown to the world like that. Even if it's probably only going to be guys."

"Owhhh, is Hisao feeling shy?" Emi teased in the worst possible way. I feel blood rush to my face.

In a way, it's good that Emi's now back to her normal spirits. Did Rin come back?

Sighing, I gestured her to come inside. She playfully obeys, closing the door shut as she jumps to sit in my bed. One thing I've noticed about her is that she always seems to jump into everything. Literally, and metaphorically.

I quickly take off my pajamas and put on some clothes, my back turned towards Emi. Despite all the time we've spent together, I still feel insecure about my scar. She's definitely seen it before, but...

Aw, dammit. Conflicting feelings suck.

After I finished putting on my beloved sweater vest (in the hopes that Emi will take the hint and not do as much running today), I turn back towards her.

"Where to now?" I ask.

"I thought..." said Emi, sounding rather mutinous. "That we should go to where the explosion happened last night."

I step back in surprise, my eyes wide and jaw almost dropped.

"Are you serious?" I ask. She still seemed unfazed. "The place is under heavy protection! There's no way that-"

"It's not~!" said Emi, in a teasing, singsong voice. I got even more surprised, not only because there was nobody at all there, but also because of how she can still be so calm about going there.

"W-what?"

"I went and had a look." said Emi, standing up and winking at me. "Nobody else's found the place yet, since it's deep in the middle of the forest and all, so I quickly ran all the way up here to take you with me to investigate."

"I thought you said to wait in front of the school..." I mumble, before something struck me. "Wait, why'd you not just investigate yourself? It seems like a lot of extra work just to come and take me along."

Emi shifted uncomfortably where she stood. My brain clicked with realization, a wide grin spreading where my look of annoyance should be.

"O-ho!" I exclaim, surprised at the words that just came out of my mouth. "You're scared, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not!" shouted Emi, although her blush and overall facial expression gave her away.

"You're a bad liar." I say as I open the door to let her go first.

"So are you." said Emi. Chuckling, I move to close the door.

"Where is this place, anyway?" I ask as we begin to descend the steps and walk to the grounds. As I remember it, the explosion happened quite far away, and I wanted to run as little as possible that day.

"You know that old forest just around the corner, right?"

"You mean the one on the side of the road just in front of that little ramen shop you go to?"

"Yeah, that one."

"How'd you know it was there?"

"The Chef!"

I tilt my head and look into her face with my best impression of a quizzical look.

"He told me that he was right there when a huge explosion, complete with all the colorful lights, made the trees sway violently before standing up straight again. He then started to talk a lot about what humans can learn from trees, like: "You see, trees don't stay down. They stand back up. And look at us humans. See the difference? One explosion is still not enough for the trees to give up and stay down, but one explosion in the World Trade Center would-"

"We're straying off topic." I said , to direct her back to the subject at hand.

"Oh, yeah." she said, quickly correcting herself without even a bit of embarrassment. "Anyway, he told me where the explosion was, and I decided to take a quick look. When I came back, he told me that he's already reported all of it to the authorities, but for some reason, they hadn't come yet."

"Interesting..." I say, putting a hand to my chin as we descend on the road to the little town below. "Oh, and it's an inside job, by the way."

"What?" Emi asked, genuine confusion in those big eyes of hers. I chuckled to myself.

"Never mind." I say, grinning widely.

From then on, we began to quicken our pace a bit, until we reached said noodle shop in not more than four minutes. I look to my left, and there was the forest.

It was really a forest I've never seen before. Forests I normally see have all different types of trees and vegetation so tightly packed together that there's hardly any place to breathe, so I grew accustomed to that kind of sight (I've only been in two forests of the sort though, bringing the total number of forests I've been in to two). However, this was a totally different kind of forest- it was very neat and ordered, with only pine trees being spread out evenly in between each other, promoting a sense of security and peace among the people... Or at least that's how I feel it to be. Getting ready for Christmas must be so easy around here.

"Come on." said Emi, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me inside the forest. It looks as if my hypothesis was right- Emi is scared. Although I must admit that I can't really see what she's so scared about.

Until, of course, I get inside.

Despite everything looking so nice in the outside, the inside definitely was creepy. It was absolutely silent, for one, and for some reason, no light was able to get through the trees. It became hard for us to navigate around the place, and we always seem to find ourselves accidentally hitting a tree or slipping over a rock. No serious damages, though.

"Are we still far from the site?" I ask, having had quite enough of vines, thorns, insects, and rocks at the moment.

"We should be getting closer." said Emi, sounding quite sure of herself. I didn't know what to make of that. However, I quickly direct all of my senses to walk around the forest, closing my eyes to increase my concentration as I knew that it would be useless in a dark forest like this. For a while, it worked. I was able to avoid many things that I couldn't have if I weren't concentrating.

Until of course, I crash into a tree.

"Oof!" I exclaim, staggering backwards.

"Hisao?" called Emi. She was still holding tightly to my hand, so at least we knew where each other was at every present moment. "Hisao, are you alright?"

"No, I'm fine." I said, opening my eyes. "I just crashed into a WWEEEARRRRGHHHHHH!"

Right there, in front of me, was a face.

The tree-with-a-face began to shout loudly as well, albeit in a higher pitched tone of voice. It was then that I lost balance and fell on the ground, still screaming.

For a while, this went on.

As soon as I regain my calm, however, I immediately recognize the face of the 'tree' I just bumped into.

"Miki!" I scream, my hand tight around my chest. Still fine, despite the crazy shock. "What is with you and causing me heart attacks?"

"Oh, hi Hisao!" replied Miki, completely oblivious to the mood. "Hey, you okay?"

"I am." I said, rubbing my heart a few times before finally letting go. "I'm pretty sure my heart hates you now, though."

Miki laughs wholeheartedly, before offering a hand for me to stand up.

"Hisao?" called Emi from somewhere behind me. Even though the mood's considerably brightened, the forest sure isn't. "Where are you? Is that Miki?"

"Right here!" I call back. Luckily, Emi managed to find me by sound, holding onto my hand again. This made me blush a little for some reason, and I gave praise to my luck for being in a place where nobody can see me.

"Hi, Emi!" said Miki, with what I can imagine is a silly looking grin on her face.

"Oh, hi Miki." said Emi. "What are you doing here?"

"Probably what you're doing here." said Miki. "To investigate the explosion!"

She said that with such confidence in her investigative abilities that I couldn't help but smile.

"You came alone?" asked Emi.

"No, I brought some friends." said Miki. "Lilly, Hanako?"

Lilly, Hanako, and Miki? Quite the unlikely trio. They must've bonded quite a bit since Emi and I left yesterday. Sure enough, there was a small rustling of leaves before we hear another voice.

"My, my, Miki." said Lilly's soft voice. "You brought us some friends already?"

"F-friends?" asked Hanako's timid voice. It seemed as if three people was already too much for Hanako at the moment (especially since the third is Miki, of all people), and I really don't know if she can handle five. It's too late to turn back, though.

"Hi, Lilly, Hanako." I say, greeting the two of them.

"Hisao, is it?" asked Lilly. 'I'm assuming you brought Emi along with you."

"Yup!" shouted Emi. 'I'm right here!"

I could hear Lilly giggle to herself at what she said.

"Very well, then." said Lilly. "I found a clearing close by, but I'm not sure if it was caused by the explosion or not."

"Okay!" said Miki. "Lead us on, Lilly!"

Lilly didn't respond, and instead I began to hear more rustling of leaves. Thinking that it was probably our cue to move, I start walking slowly towards the sound of the rustling. During this time, I realized that I am the only guy in a dark place with four girls. I quickly push the thought out of my mind though, since a potentially dangerous forest shouldn't be home to some dirty thoughts.

After a few more seconds of extreme darkness, we finally reached the clearing.

"So here's where the explosion happened?" I ask.

"Pretty much, yeah." said Miki.

"How did you find this in the first place, Emi?" I ask.

"I... didn't." she replied, nervously chuckling. "I quickly ran off to school right after going inside the forest."

"And here I thought you still had at least a little bit of courage in you." I said, earning me another punch to my arm. The strange thing is that she always hits the same spot, so I'm pretty sure it's black and blue now.

"T-there's a c-crater there... I-in the middle." said Hanako.

"You're right." I said. "I'll go check what's in it."

I began walking towards the rather large crater, and I peeked inside. It wasn't really deep at all. As I want to comment on this to the others, my eyes move toward the center of the crater and my voice gets stuck in my throat.

"Guys..." I said. "You might wanna come here."

I hear the four girls approach the clearing, and they all stop at the same time. Even Lilly, who I knew couldn't see what shocked the rest of us, stopped in place.

"Wha... What is that?" I hear Emi ask.

I didn't answer. I was still too shocked.

But it was definitely obvious what that thing was.

Lying there, in the middle of the crater, sprawled out on the ground...

Was an unconscious pink pony.

"Tell me why we're buying all these things again, Twilight?"

Spike, carrying a huge bag of assorted things, was walking alongside a rather tired Twilight Sparkle. Twilight herself was carrying some heavy load with her magic- an easel and a few canvases to be exact.

"I'm sorry, but it can't be helped, Spike." said Twilight, in a soft voice so as to not attract attention. "Rin needs something to do at home when we're all outside, and since we can't simply let her roam free around Ponyville, we'd better give her what she likes to do best."

"Art?" asked Spike. "Her mouth didn't seem so flexible, and she didn't seem to be able to use any magic! How is she going to paint?"

Twilight dwelt on that thought for a while.

"I have no idea."

Soon enough, though, both Twilight and Spike were right outside the Library, fumbling to get through the door.

"Rin?" called Twilight. "Are you here?"

No reply.

"She might be sleeping." said Spike. Twilight sighed.

"I'll go check." said Twilight, teleporting herself to the top floor... and allowing the easel and the canvases to fall down on Spike's head.

"You really need to be more careful with where you drop your things, Twi..." mumbled Spike as he went to arranging all of the art stuff.

"Rin?" called Twilight again. "Rin, where are you?"

For a while, a terrible thought struck Twilight. Did Rin run away? Did she steal all of her belongings and hightailed it before Twilight and Spike came in? Or... did she accidentally fall of the balcony?

"I'm here." called a small, muffled voice.

Sighing a breath of relief, Twilight quickly teleported to her study, or as she prefers, the Observatory. Sure enough, Rin was sitting on the fencing on the balcony, studying a sky as if it were a heavy, confusing book. Yet, the blank look in her eyes once again seemed to contradict everything she believed in.

"I saw a cloud." said Rin all of a sudden.

"Uh, sure..." said Twilight. "There're lots of those around here."

"I know." said Rin. "There're lots of them where I come from as well."

"Anyway, I bought you everything you need to start painting." said Twilight, trying to steer the conversation away from another awkward silence. "It's downstairs. Spike's preparing them for you."

"Oh." said Rin, still not budging from her spot.

Awkward silence. Twilight felt a voice in her head shouting "FAILURE!" out loud.

"You still haven't answered me, Twilight Sparkle." said Rin, not even bothering to look back.

"Answered... what?"

"Where I am." said Rin. "Where I was yesterday. Where I will be two seconds later. Three seconds."

Twilight stared blankly at Rin. Even the monsters in the Everfree Forest knew that they were in Equestria, in the rule of the royal Princesses Celestia and Luna. Then why didn't Rin know?

"You don't know?"

Rin slowly shook her head from side to side.

'W-we are in Equestria." said Twilight. "The holy nation, ruled by the royal sisters Celestia and Luna."

"Oh." said Rin, still studying the sky. "How strange."

Strange? Does this... thing even know what she's talking about?

"Okay, now that I've answered YOUR question, you must answer mine." said Twilight.

"Okay." said Rin.

"First of all... what are you?" asked Twilight. "I've never seen you here before, and none of my books can refer to you... so..."

"I'm Rin." said Rin. "A human. Rin the Human. Human the Rin. Whichever works fine, I couldn't care less."

"O-okay, Rin." said Twilight. What in Celestia's name is a human? It seemed as if the more she knew about her, the more she needed to know. It's better to stop the inquiries here, lest her curiosity explode from everything she wanted to know about Rin. With her, every question leads to possibly ten more.

But there was still one more thing bugging Twilight. Her self-consciousness, however, held her tongue. She was just about to leave Rin to her musings when Rin suddenly spoke up again.

"I told you before, Twilight." said Rin. "You can ask me anything. I won't be offended."

"Sure..." said Twilight, taking a few moments to get herself together. "Where... did you come from? I mean, we all saw you walk out of the Everfree Forest like that, but everypony knows that no monster can walk out of the Everfree Forest, and you don't seem to know anything about where you were, despite it being common knowledge even in such places as the Everfree Forest. So... where did you come from?"

"I... don't know." said Rin. "If I had to give one answer, though, it'd probably be Earth."

Twilight felt her face convulsing and twitching even more at that statement. She was right- one question did lead to ten more.

"See, I'm an easy person to talk to, right?" said Rin, turning her head back to look at Twilight, her eyes closed in a genuine smile on her face.

Twilight desperately wanted to shout: "LIKE HELL YOU ARE!", but she couldn't help but blush at Rin's smile. Plus, shouting like that would be impolite. She'd hate to be impolite.

"Come on now, Rin." said Twilight. "Spike's already done preparing everything you need. It's all downstairs if you feel like painting. I'll be off to see my friends, then."

"Can I come?" asked Rin, turning her whole body around, her face innocent and her eyes wide as she asked Twilight this simple query.

Twilight blushed even harder. She'd definitely like Rin to come to Sweet Apple Acres with her, but there was no way to fully transport her there without being seen. She could try to cast an invisibility spell, but that probably won't last all the way to the farm. And with all of Applejack's family there, she'd probably incur the wrath of the whole lot with her off-hand comments on their accents. By all means, Rin could not go with them.

But Twilight couldn't simply say no. Rin was under her care, after all. Granted, she didn't ask for it, but Rin is her responsibility now.

Twilight sighed. The reason for their meeting was to once again figure out how to bring back Pinkie Pie. It's already been a full day by now, and they haven't even done a THING to get her back. Things were going much, much slower. And if Rin came, would she improve, or hinder what little progress they have? It's very risky. And once one is done, there's no turning back.

Taking a blanket from her bed, Twilight immediately performed some magic on it, and gave it to Rin. Rin looked up at Twilight quizzically.

"Wear it over your head, and make sure to cover everything." said Twilight. "Let's go take some risks."

Author's note: I've decided to go ahead with my plan on bringing in that character. Said character won't be appearing in this story until some time later, though.

Thanks for all the support, guys! I would've definitely been more conflicted about this decision had you not given me the green light. And now, I'll do everything I can to make this story amazing.

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 5- Throwing Up in a Fetal Position

"The f*ck is that?"

I can sense Hanako quickly hide behind Lilly as Lilly stares holes into me. I immediately regret my earlier outburst.

And for a while, an awkward silence begins. Who would've thought that such a thing could happen in a place with both Miki AND Emi in it?

But then again, this is no normal circumstance, is it?

I try to think rationally. What would a pink, spray-painted horse with a darker pink, curled mane and tail be doing in the middle of a crater in the middle of the forest in the middle of early morn?

No ideas. At all.

Maybe a horse from a circus somewhere found its way here, thought it was a good place to rest, and slept?

A circus somewhere... in Russia? To hell with that idea. Too unrealistic, too unrealistic...

Maybe this was a horse that came from... ANOTHER WORLD? ANOTHER DIMENSION? Probably from some village called 'Ponyville' in the 'magical land' of 'Equestria'?

I wanted to kick myself in the balls for thinking that. There is no place in the world that could be that stupidly punny. Equestria. Equines. Heh.

But is there a LOGICAL explanation?

None come to mind.

"If what is inside that crater caused out dear Hisao to swear with no restraint, then it must be something very amazing indeed." said Lilly, with a hint of a smirk amidst her disapproving look.

As soon as Lilly says that, I begin to walk slowly towards the lifeless horse.

I peer closer at it. It's chest was still moving, pumping up and down very slowly. It was still alive.

Naturally, I go even closer. This horse was definitely smaller than the horses you'd normally see in ranches and petting zoos, but it was still big. If it stood up, it'd probably be as tall as me. Maybe shorter.

I lean closer with a hand outstretched.

"Hisao, wait!'

I quickly feel two hands wrap around my body, pulling me backwards with great force. It was Emi.

As soon as I get pulled back, I turn around with a defiant look on my face.

"What?"

"We still don't know what that is, Hisao!" said Emi. "We should wait, o-or call someone!"

Strange.

"This... this isn't like you, Emi." I said, raising an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"N-Nothing!" said Emi, with quite an obvious blush on her face. "If you want to touch that... horse so badly, then do it!"

I chuckle to myself, and ruffle Emi's hair.

"Hey!" she said.

"You're so cute when you're worried." I say, making Emi pout and cross her arms angrily. I then turn to the others.

"A pink horse lying still in the middle of a crater most probably caused by the explosion." I said. "I don't know what to think of it, and I don't dare to. For the time being, what should we do?"

Lilly raised an eyebrow and tilted her head, but everyone else was deep in thought. Even the still red-faced Emi seemed to be thinking about what to do.

"I think we should leave it here." said Emi. "We're only a group of high school students. Even if we find out about some things, what are we going to do about it?"

No answer.

Until, of course, Lilly spoke up.

"She may have a point." said Lilly. "If what Hisao said is true, and that there really is a pink pony lying there in the middle of a large crater, then perhaps it is something we shouldn't meddle with."

All of us nod in agreement.

"However..." said Lilly, before putting on an expression I could never have imagined Lilly using. Doubt. "I feel that the right thing to do is to take it with us."

"WHAT?" asked Emi. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hanako go even further behind Lilly.

"I think... it's the right thing to do. For now." concluded Lilly.

"I-I agree." said Hanako.

"You can't be serious!" said Emi.

"I think it'll be a lot of fun." said Miki, clearly not sensing the atmosphere. Emi said that she's usually a very perceptive girl, but...

"Emi..." I whisper. "Remember what you said... about an hour ago?"

Emi didn't answer. No, she seemed shocked. She understood what I was talking about before I even said it.

"It... might have something to do with Rin's disappearance."

For a while, Emi didn't say anything. All of us looked at her with worry, waiting for her final verdict to be passed down. Emi can't deny that this... all of it... is mysterious. There's something wrong here. And it might not be out place to know what, but that's beside the point. We have to know.

"Okay." said Emi, softly. "Let's do it."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yeah!" said Emi, her usual cheerfulness coming back. "If it's for Rin... then yeah!"

I gave her an involuntary smile.

Me, Emi, Lilly, Hanako, and Miki. Five high school students on summer break, suddenly finding themselves in the middle of the forest one morning, and agreeing to work together to solve a problem. It's just like the story of a book, the one where five high school students find themselves in the middle of the forest and agreeing to work together. Were we a team now?

What defines a team, anyway? A group of people working together for a common aim? A group of people who would do and sacrifice anything for each other? I don't really know, but I think... I think that we're a team now. And everyone else seemed to agree with this silently, even though we don't know each other too well. Whichever the case, the shock of finding the unconscious horse is almost gone now, lifting the atmosphere a little bit.

"Okay." I said, clapping my hands once. "Now, all of you have to remember that there's no turning back from here."

"W-what?" asked Hanako.

"There's obviously something strange going on here." I said. "That much is clear. The explosion, the pink horse, Rin's disappearance... I can't help but feel that it's connected in a way. And I don't think we should talk to anyone about this."

"Alright!" said Emi and Miki at the same time. Lilly and Hanako simply smiled and nodded. I couldn't help but grin as well.

"I'm not sure if you all agree, but I think that we're a team now, guys. Comrades. And from here on, our main priority is to find out what happened to Rin, and what happened to this horse. If we can find that out, everything should start piecing itself together." I said.

"We are a team, aren't we?" asked Miki. I nodded, and everyone else followed suit. It's agreed, then.

"So, the first step is to take care of the pink pony, right?." asked Lilly. I found it strange that she used the word 'pony'. "To do that, we have to bring the pony back to the school."

"Oh, yeah..." I mumbled. I immediately squeeze my fist in frustration. It's not even a few seconds since the resolution is made, and we already came across such a huge landmine. How do we bring the po- no, the horse home?

I feel everyone turn their gaze to me, their stares drilling holes into my bare neck.

Ah, sh*t.

"This is a nice place."

Rin was still walking behind Twilight under the 'cloak', hiding her from the rest of the town. Not that anyone would've seen her, of course. Ponyville's always secluded at night.

Of course, they had planned to go earlier, but we couldn't discuss anything as long as Big Macintosh and Granny Smith were there. This whole business has to be top secret, and they couldn't allow anypony to know anything about Pinkie Pie's disappearance.

Because we're going to find Pinkie Pie as soon as possible.

She'd always thought like that. But when exactly was 'as soon as possible'...? She shook her head to free herself from that thought.

"It is, isn't it?" Twilight replied. "It's the second largest building in all of Ponyville, and the land here is the largest amount of land to be owned by one name."

Rin doesn't reply anymore, making Twilight blush furiously. Soon enough, though (but not as soon as Twilight could've hoped), they finally reached the huge barn in the middle of Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack's home.

"Applejack?" said Twilight.

As soon as the word came out, the door swung open, revealing the inside of the barn to both Twilight and Rin.

Of course, everything looked the same to Twilight. The orange walls, the huge dinner table, the wooden, rickety stairs to the second floor, old pictures of the family, even Winona. But Rin, however, looked absolutely dumbfounded.

She was staring at every little detail inside Applejack's barn, much unlike how she was in the Library. Her sharp eyes shifted from left to right, as if taking everything and imprinting it inside her brain. Her mouth hung open during that whole time. It was kinda cute.

"Twi!" said Applejack, grinning. "Yer finally here. Everypony's inside already."

"Thanks, Applejack." said Twilight, returning Applejack's grin. "Oh, and if you don't mind, I brought a friend."

"A friend?" asked Applejack, looking at Twilight incredulously. "I thought ya said-"

At that time, Rin took off the 'cloak', revealing herself to Applejack. Applejack's face immediately dropped.

"Hello."

"Oh, Celestia..." said Applejack. "Come in, come in..."

With that, both Twilight and Rin entered the barn, with Applejack following behind them right after closing the door.

When they entered the living room, they discovered that what Applejack was said was true- everypony was there. And it looked as if they had been waiting for a long time as well.

"THERE you are, Twilight!" said Rainbow Dash, throwing her head up and sighing. "Do you KNOW who long we've been waiting for you?"

"Please don't shout..." said Fluttershy.

"Anyway, now that Twilight's here, let's get down to-"

Rarity swallowed the rest of her sentence as soon as Rin walked in the room.

"What is she doing here?" hissed Rarity in a voice that Rin (who was still loitering around the door and looking at the room in amazement) couldn't possible hear. In fact, it was most likely that only Twilight heard it. Rarity might have learned how to do that in her years of secretly telling gossip behind ponies' backs. Not that Twilight would point it out, though.

"Just let her stay." said Twilight. She, however, held her tongue about her suspicions about Rin being in related to Pinkie's disappearance in some way, because it might just as well be useless conjecture. "I promise that she won't be a nuisance."

"Anyway, back ta business." said Applejack. "Twi, you've got everythin' ready with ya, right?"

"Right." said Twilight, taking out a few pieces of paper from her saddle pack. "If we're going to bring back Pinkie Pie, the obvious thing we have to find out is where she went in the first place, and how she got there. So I'm going to propose a series of experiments."

Everypony else glanced nervously at each other. Rin, however, was busy lying down on the carpet, staring into the sky for no particular reason. Perhaps she has 'Lost in Another World Syndrome'? Does such a thing even exist?

"Anyway..." said Twilight, trying to force herself off stupid thoughts. "Here's a list of the things I need to recreate the experiment."

Twilight took out a two-paper list from her neat stack and laid it out on the table for everypony to see. Of course, it's filled edge to edge with small letters. 'Cause that's Twilight's style.

"Forty 30 centimeter beams of wood..." read Rarity.

"Twenty bits of silver or steel..." read Rainbow Dash.

"Two magic amplifiers..." read Fluttershy.

"Seven small electromagnifiers..." read Applejack.

"Just a few things I need." said Twilight, before they managed to complete reading the whole list.

"A few, huh..." mumbled Rainbow Dash, turning over the pages. Twilight ignored it, for the sake of the group.

"And when do ya need all this, Twi?" asked Applejack, with the same look of disbelief on her face which Rainbow Dash had on. In fact, all of her friends seemed to have the same look about them.

"I told you already, as soon as possible." said Twilight. "We have to get Pinkie out of there as quickly as possible, before she progresses too far in that timeline, making us lose her... Making us lose her forever."

Twilight bit her lip and looked up. For a few moments, no more words were said. There was only silence.

Twilight had almost never thought about what life would be like without Pinkie Pie. And the times she did, she had never imagined that it would turn out like this.

Twilight had always found Pinkie to be spontaneous, annoying, hyperactive, and idiotic to an extent, but Pinkie had tons of good qualities as well. She was caring, surprisingly perceptive, and fun. Without Pinkie Pie around, the atmosphere around the Elements of Harmony was darker, and more tense. It was as if laughter had disappeared right before their eyes.

Then again, Laughter did disappear right before their eyes.

Letting out a big sigh, Twilight looked down to face her anxious-looking friends again.

"Anyway, until we get everything on the list, we won't be able to start experiments to try and bring Pinkie Pie back." said Twilight. "So until then, I'll be going out to find anything and everything that could give us a clue as to where Pinkie had gone in the first place."

"All right, then." said Rarity, For a few seconds, Twilight turned to face her with an expression akin to surprise, as she almost couldn't believe that they would accept it so easily. But it seemed that once again, she had underestimated her friends.

"Do you, um... Do you have a lead?" asked Fluttershy.

"I think so." said Twilight. All of her friends' ears immediately perked up, eagerness and excitement filling up their eyes and faces.

"R-really?" asked Rainbow Dash. "What is it?"

"Erm..." said Twilight, biting her lip again. She then subconsciously shifted her eyes towards the tall figure to her right.

"I... I think that Rin's sudden appearance has something to do with all this." said Twilight.

"Are you saying that the reason Pinkie Pie disappeared is because Rin appeared?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"No, no..." said Twilight. "I think it might be the opposite."

"That is?" asked Rarity.

"I think... that the reason Rin appeared is because Pinkie Pie disappeared."

"Isn't it the same darn thing, Twi?" asked Applejack.

"No... not at all." said Twilight. "It's two very different things. Anyway. we have to get as much information as possible out of Rin at this stage."

"That's gonna be hard..." said Rainbow Dash.

Twilight sighed.

"You bet."

Chapter 6- Slugs Made of Sea Slugs

It's been a week since the explosion.

That horse (which we've all decided to call 'pony' due to its overwhelming cuteness) has been staying in Lilly's dorm room ever since I brought it here, and it still hasn't woken up yet.

Even right now, i still can't believe how easy it was to smuggle that pony into the school, despite its tight security and the like.

Even though the pony was rather big (although not as big when compared with other horses), it is completely weightless. Picking it up felt like picking up a feather. Hell, just for fun, I was even able to throw the pony into the air and catch it back. It was like only 1% gravity affected her body. It was like carrying a beach ball, except lighter and much larger.

Smuggling it into the school was easy enough. However, the path to the school itself caused some difficulty, since the pony was big and because carrying it around in plain sight would catch attention, which would definitely make for some great problems in the future (although Lilly simply used the excuse: "Hanako dislikes attention".) In the end, all we came up with was a very crude plan- we would all place a hand to lift the pony up, and we would walk in such a way that all our bodies were stuck tight together so that no traces of bright pink can be seen. Of course, five high school children walking together in a small circle would still attract attention, but it would probably be a different kind than the one you get carrying a pink, lifeless pony over your arm like it was nothing. To my surprise, the plan worked. Strange how well life blesses you at times.

And when we reached school, the plan (MY plan) was simple. Emi and Hanako would go inside the school and wait behind the wall we designated, and I would throw the pony over the wall, allowing it to land safely in their hands. Then we would all run to the girl's dorm and into Lilly's room in the same formation we used on the way here. It was a completely hole-ridden plan, but it definitely worked. Surprisingly.

Ever since we took the unconscious pony in our care, we've all been taking turns taking care of it (even me, although I tried to get out of it using the excuse: 'I live across from you', but that didn't work one bit). And by taking care, all it means is watching over the bed it was sleeping in and trying to give it food and water, although that failed magnificently.

Food. Food was a problem as well. Every morning, before anyone else in the school wakes up, Emi and I have to run down to the tracks and start picking out grass by hand, stockpiling it all inside the shed and bringing a few handfuls to Lilly's room each time. Of course, not only was the pony too dead to eat it, but the headmaster was dead furious about there being huge holes in the otherwise perfect patch of grass around the track. I tried to convince Emi to go a bit further into the nearby hills or something to pick that grass, but she convinced me otherwise, simply saying that it would look weird if we had to walk a long way carrying grass in our hands, not to mention the fact that we have to return and gather even more grass if our hands were too full. Which of course, if just Emi's excuse when she's reluctant to admit she's too lazy to do something.

Then again, since when did Emi turn down a chance to move more? Something to think about another time.

Trudging back to the boys' dorm after an entire morning of sympthatizing with rice farmers, I once again began to think about the pony, and what implications it brought. Up till now, the explosion is still unexplained. Scientists (forensic scientists, chemists, etc.) from all over the region came into this quiet city and studied it, but to no avail. The explosion still remains a mystery.

And that's not all. Because of how sudden and unexpected the explosion was and how relatively large-scale it was, many people started pouring into the city in the hopes of getting a peek at the investigation. All I can say now is that it was good for us to have taken action immediately after seeing the pony, or god knows what those scientists are going to do to it.

And with the amount of people in the town, it's getting harder for us to move around so much. Hanako's absolutely refused to go to the little town, and even Lilly's finding it hard to walk ten feet ahead of her without inadvertently crashing into someone. The town's now lost most of the quaint charm that attracted us students there.

Sighing, I begin walking up to the stairs to my room, hoping to get a nice rest in and a shower later on.

"Hey, man."

Bless my luck.

"Not now, Kenji."

"That's cold, man." said Kenji, frowning. "Real cold. I bet those bitches have finally gotten to you didn't they? I can see it in your eyes."

"Please, Kenji..."

"You look like a man devoid of all life." said Kenji, ignoring my protests. "I should know, because I'm such a man as well. Maybe I should take back what I said about how two people can't be the last sane people in the world together. 'Cause you now know how I feel, don't you?"

"I'm going back to my room." I said as I took out my key and opened the door.

"You know, there was this one bitch I knew that-"

I slammed the door shut in his face. I didn't mean to be a bad person, but I was too damn tired to listen to any more of Kenji's crazy rants. In fact, I've become so accustomed to his craziness that I actually expect him to rant to me about the feminist conspiracy at least once a day. I don't think I can imagine a whole day without Kenji trying to tell me how feminists can brainwash men with their tiny beams coming from their chests (since men always look that way), and how a feminist's touch can completely freeze anything it touches. But that would definitely be bliss.

"Hey, man..." said a muffled voice behind my door. "It's rude to close the door in front of people like that. It sends out a wrong message."

No, this is exactly the message I wanted to send you.

And don't you always close the door in my face?

"I saw you with that track girl outside, you know." said Kenji.

What?

"I saw her forcing you to pull grass while she sat on your back, laughing like the evil bitch she is." said Kenji.

Well, she did trick me into assuming the body posture the stereotypical rice farmer uses and then proceeding to rest on my back, but that's beside the point.

Somebody saw us?

"I admire you, man."

Eh?

"Your devotion to the anti-feminist movement was so great that you would even degrade yourself and become a slave to their eyes in order to gain intel." said Kenji. "Even I don't think I could've gone that far."

This is bad...

Bad, bad, BAD.

But then again, this is Kenji we're talking about. Even if we were to simply ignore him and whatever he saw, nothing would probably happen. There's about a 99.999% chance that absolutely nothing would happen.

The problem, however, is that 0.001%.

If Kenji were to look even deeper into what happened, or if someone he told this to believed him, then then it's most likely that all five of us (and the pony) would be rightly and truly screwed. There would be questions, and threats, and they'd almost definitely take the pony away.

And that would mean losing our only lead to Rin.

Of course, there's no definite proof that the pony is in any way connected to Rin in the first place. In fact, it's highly unlikely. It seemed rather foolish for us to pin all our hopes up on this pony in the first place, as there's a very small chance that they'd actually find Rin through this pony.

But even though it's small...

The chance is there.

And there's no way in hell that I was gonna pass this chance up.

But the only way to keep this chance safe is to turn that 99.999% to a perfect 100%.

In other words, I have to make sure Kenji doesn't tell of his findings to anyone.

"In any case, man..." said Kenji, still standing outside the door. "I want to join you."

Join... me?

"I always thought that I'm the type of guy who works best alone, just like that guy from that TV show who works best alone, but seeing your efforts in stopping the damned feminists, I think I can put aside my pride and make us a duo. Whaddaya think?"

I leap out of my bed and open my door, looking at a startled Kenji in the face.

"Watch it, man!" said Kenji, fixing his glasses.

"If you want to join me, then you should know that I'm not alone in this enterprise." I said, feeling a bit guilty for leading him along like this, but knowing that it's for the best.

"Others...?"

"Females." I said.

"Oh, that's fine."

"That's... fine?"

"Yeah, man." said Kenji, frowning a bit. "I told you I was against feminists, but I'm not at all against women in general. In fact, I have to stand up for the rest of the female non-feminist community, or they'd all be rounded up and raped by the feminists. Hell, you might not believe it, but I even had a girlfriend once!"

I choked on my own breath.

"WHAT?"

"Hey man, that's rude." said Kenji, his frown becoming more prominent. "Anyway, it's true."

"Fine, fine..." I said, catching my breath and plastering a smile on my face. "So, you'll join?"

"Yeah, sure!" said Kenji, his frown being replaced by a small smile.

In any case, this was the perfect scenario.

Kenji's not the type to reveal a secret to anybody, nor is he the type of betray anybody (at least, I think so). In order to get Kenji to keep his trap shut, this is probably the best way I can think of. It's something I- no, something everyone would want to avoid, but it's necessary. Plus, we get a free pair of hands for our little team! To paraphrase Yosemite Sam: "If you can't beat 'me, let 'em join you."

Now all we have to worry about is how he'll react when he realizes that the rest of the 'group' are two girls from the track team, his class representative, and a shy, 'suspicious' girl.

This will probably not end well.

Turning on the table lamp, which has now become the only source of light in an otherwise completely dark room, Twilight looked at Rin straight in the eye, her magic holding up a memo pad and a pencil.

Twilight, together with Fluttershy, have already classified Rin to be some kind of more developed monkey, capable of very high cognitive processing, speech, and critical thinking. Of course, such a creature has never been seen before in the history of Equestria (she looked), which could mean three things- her entire species except for her are genii (or, as they're more usually called, geniuses) in concealing themselves from the rest of the world, Rin is the first of her kind, or that she had some kind of link with Pinkie Pie, and that her appearance here might be related to where Pinkie Pie went. Hopefully the third is the right answer.

"So, Rin..." said Twilight, twiddling with her pencil. "Where did you come from?"

"... Earth." said Rin.

"Could you elaborate?" asked Twilight, pleased about how she had so easily gotten a direct answer. "What did it look like? How exactly was it shaped?"

Rin paused and slowly closed her eyes, as if in silent meditation. Not long after, though, she opened them again.

"It was big."

Twilight's spirits fell.

"Big...?"

"Yes." said Rin. "This... big."

Puffing her cheeks, Rin spread out both of her tiny arms as far as she could, trying to explain what she meant by 'big'. She failed miserably.

"Any other details?" asked Twilight.

"Um..." Rin closed her eyes again, this time with increased concentration.

"If you look at it from my point of view, it's a huge landscape spreading out everywhere without stopping, but if you look at it from outside, it's really just a big ball of watery, dirt-y, greeny weeny... stuff." said Rin with words full of her sage-like wisdom.

Twilight hit herself in the head with the memo pad. Of course this wasn't supposed to be easy. It's Rin, after all.

"Okay, let's try another question." said Twilight, drawing a huge line in her memo pad striking through 'Ask where she came from'. "What were you doing when you suddenly found yourself here?"

"I was... standing." said Rin, without batting an eyelash.

"Standing?" asked Twilight. "Any details?"

"I was standing... up." said Rin.

At this point, Twilight desperately wanted to scream as loudly as she could and jump off the window. At the moment, death seemed like an easier road than a simple conversation with this crazy creature.

However, Twilight knew that in order to get any information about Pinkie, she'd have to remain level-headed. Taking a few deep breaths, she began to speak again.

"Where exactly were you standing up?" asked Twilight.

Rin took another long pause, as if trying very hard to remember where she was standing exactly three and a half days ago. It was then that Twilight noticed how Rin's eyes never seemed to be able to focus on one exact spot, always shifting its gaze to another spot on the wall, or a brightly colored book, or a little fly that buzzed into the room. It was strangely fascinating.

"It was a forest." said Rin. "I think."

"A forest?" asked Twilight, getting excited. "Where?"

"On Earth." said Rin, causing Twilight to fall to the ground in despair.

"Okay, okay." said Twilight. "That's all we need from that point..." Twilight immediately drew a line on the memo pad that struck through 'Ask what she was doing when she appeared in Equestria'.

"Next question." said Twilight. "I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this, but I'll ask to be sure- are you male or female?"

"Female." said Rin. "I think. It depends."

Twilight was almost going to ask 'depends on what?', but she thought better of it. It's best to leave such things alone, lest she suddenly blow up with all the pent-up frustration boiling inside her at the moment.

"Good enough." said Twilight. 'Now, in your world, does everyone look the same like you?"

Rin shook her head quickly, her auburn hair swaying left and right.

"Okay..." said Twilight. "Are your species the dominant species in your world?"

"Dominant...?" asked Rin, looking confused. She began shifting her gaze even more quickly.

"Sovereign." said Twilight. "Supreme. Assertive. Prevalent. Transdescent."

"Um..." said Rin, opening her mouth a little before shaking her head violently side to side. "Twilight...?"

"Yes?"

"What's the word you use when you want to say that someone is asking you too many questions that you cannot answer, and would very much like them to stop before your brain explodes?"

Chapter 7- Unique Disabilities

"What... What the hell is this..."

I said, my heart filled with a despair I had never felt before. You could even say that this level of despair is more or less equal to the first time my doctor told me I had arrhythmia, and that wasn't good.

I stared at the sight in front of my eyes, and I knew that there was only one word to describe it.

Hell.

Death, death everywhere. All the enemies tried to shoot him and his partner, and they had no choice but to take turns and shoot them back... And they never died falling. They'd always explode into little pieces. But the worst part is that we have to pick those pieces up and bring them with us. It was horrifying. But we knew that no matter how many lives our side lost, we still had to continue and defeat the mastermind.

But I had died for the last time.

Pushing Emi's laptop away with great force, I immediately prepared to flip the table over. But I quickly stopped, not because it was reckless and destructive, but because I just remembered that the table was against the wall.

I looked once again at the laptop's screen, which showed, in large text, the words 'Touhou Project: Subterranean Animism'. Scowling at it, I immediately proceeded to slam the laptop shut, not bothering at all to quit the game first. I've had enough of playing that game for the night.

The infernal arcade music still playing in my head, I felt a sudden sense of nausea flood over my brain.

"I guess that bullet hell game really was a bullet hell, huh..."

I silently snickered and looked up at the clock.

3:42 a.m.

I've been playing 'Touhou' for over six hours now. I should've listened to my common sense and stopped after one try and do something else instead, but I guess what you could call the "Asian Spirit' awoke inside me and refused to let myself give up. And now, it's been over six hours and I still haven't progressed at all yet.

Losing all the strength in my legs, I sat down, leaning against the wall adjacent to the bed, and closed my eyes to wash away the pain and the stupid, STUPID music. But I should have guessed- nothing changed. I hesitantly opened my eyes to see the fingers of my right hand twitching, as if the muscle memory of playing Touhou got permanently implanted in my brain.

"Oh god... Make it stop..."

Then again, this was probably all my fault in the first place, seeing as how I complained so much to Emi about not having anything to do during tonight's shift. Emi, still sleepy from the full day shift, probably didn't want to argue with me and go straight to sleep, so she left me her brand new laptop and told me to play 'Touhou'. Looking back, this was probably revenge against me for bothering her so much about the night shift being boring.

Sighing loudly even though nobody is around to hear, I shifted my gaze back to Lilly's bed. Where, until two weeks ago I would have seen Lilly sleeping soundly in (although I never got to, not that I ever wanted to, though), I saw instead a large, pink body silently snoring away. Since the time we found the pony, we've left her on Lilly's bed, and didn't even disturb her to change the bedsheets. Since then, we've all taken turns to look after and take care of the pony, with Emi sleeping in my room during my shifts to let Lilly stay in hers. Since I was the only guy who could take care of the pony properly, this is the only complex arrangement, whereas otherwise Lilly would just sleep in the room of whoever's turn it is.

I say that I'm the only guy because Kenji doesn't count. If he were to take care of the pony, he'd probably just do more bad than good, so obviously I was the one who had to take care of it. It's not like I have anything else to do, right?

...

Actually, that's right. I really did have nothing else to do. My mood suddenly went even more down the drain after that sad realization mixed with the fact that I had just tried and failed to play that damned Kuso game*.

Having to deal with this kind of sickness isn't easy at all. The symptoms of whatever I'm experiencing could probably be compared to that of a hangover, at least from what I've read. I'd slip in and out of consciousness for minutes at a time, and I'd often find myself banging the back of my head against the wall to try and forcefully knock the pain away. As expected, it only got worse. Feeling terrible would be an utter and complete understatement.

All I can say now is that I'm glad I wasn't epileptic. Thank god I wasn't epileptic.

"Pain, pain, go away~" I sang, admittedly really horribly because of the high-magnitude throbbing in my head.

It was then when it started.

My heart began fluttering. At first, it was really faint, incomparable to the pain in my head, especially since the headache was what caused it in the first place.. But the more the pain in my head grew, the more my heart began to sped up, making the pain more noticeable to the point where it could be called an attack.

I grasped at my chest as I fell down on the floor, unable to scream for help. When I realized there was an attack, it was already too late. My chest was constricting my ability to breathe, and I slowly began suffocating on the floor. The pain in my chest then further disoriented my mind, and with the headache utterly destroyed my ability to think of a way out of this. All I could think about was the pain, the terrible pain in both my head and my chest, threatening to silence me once and for all.

"U...unggghh...!" I moaned, the pain making me spasm on the floor. I couldn't hold out much longer.

Needless to say, it was a much more terrible pain when compared to all the ones I had experienced before (thanks, Touhou!), and my mind was flashing white, rendering me unable to even think about the pain I was going through, instead just feeling it 100%.

It won't be much longer before I collapse. There's a dependable chance that I won't die from this, but I'll almost definitely pass out. Then again, I'd take a few hours of unconsciousness over death any day.

I heard a strange shuffling sound, but that was it before darkness took me once again.

"So are we ready?" asked Twilight.

"READY!" shouted everyone in unison.

Twilight then lit up her horn and aimed it at the lever. She then immediately pulled it down, causing the new, copy version of the Superspecialawesomehappyfuntimeoneuseonlytimetravelling Portal Machine (temp) to start wobbling scarily. But that was to be expected- the machine was trying to generate a wormhole after all. She had already improved upon the failsafe, so nopony should be going for a trip through time anytime soon. Since the blueprints have been lost in the fire, it was actually pretty hard to have to try and replicate the original Superspecialawesomehappyfuntimeoneuseonlytimetravelling Portal Machine (temp), but hopefully they'll be able to pull it off with this one. The machine then started to shake even more, as if simulating an earthquake, and then a strange noise started to come out. Then after that some smoke. And a bit of flames.

"T-Twi...?" stuttered Rainbow Dash. "W-What's going on?"

"Nothing good." replied Twilight. "Nothing good at all. RUN! GET OUT OF HERE, QUICK!"

Everyone panickedly moved in sync outside the library, and just as the last pony got out...

BOOM!

There was a huge sound, but luckily nothing more than that. Twilight had known that there was a pretty good chance something like this might happen, so as long as all of them escaped in time, everything would be fine. Of course, she only reinforced the exterior of the Library, so everything inside would be a real mess. Of course, that was nothing a little hard work wouldn't fix.

"Oh no..." sobbed Spike, his knees on the ground. "NOOOOO!"

"What's wrong, Spike?" asked Applejack.

"It's gonna take a whole month to clean all that up!"

Everyone started giggling, and rightfully so. However, it's gonna take quite a while to make a new one, and Twilight knew that before they could even start making said new one, she still had to figure out what was wrong with the blueprints and find a way to address that problem, which would probably take more than a few tries depending on what they had to fix- some may only be fixed through trial and error of different alternatives, for example. Hopefully the machine wasn't utterly destroyed, then there'd at least be some parts left to study.

"By the way, Twilight." said Rarity, trotting up beside Twilight. "Wasn't Rin still on the second floor of the library?"

"Uhuh." said Twilight. "I put a pretty powerful barrier to separate the first floor from the second floor, so she should be safe. Even if she wasn't there, though, I would've still put that barrier anyway, since I really don't like my bedroom being messy."

Twilight sighed. This was gonna take quite a long time.

"I hope Pinkie isn't hurt..." whispered Twilight under her breath. "Come on, everypony. Let's get back in."

With Spike at the back, everyone moved in a single file back inside the Library. As expected, the inside was a huge mess. The bookshelves were no more, there was a huge hole in the floor, and even the window frames in the inside were half-vaporized. Of course, Twilight had protected the most precious part of the library, the books, using her magic. So there was no problem there, at least.

The machine, however...

"It's... still there." whispered Fluttershy, who was understandably shaking. That explosion could've taken out the whole of Ponyville in a single blast if she hadn't placed those magical barriers there, yet the machine was still, in its entirety, intact. As far as she knew, that was impossible. The materials that she used couldn't have withstood a blast of that magnitude. Hay, even a blast small enough to just take out the first floor itself without the magical barriers would've at least blown up the machine and made the parts spread across the room.

Yet there the machine was, not only still intact, but completely good as new. The arches, the command box, everything... It was as if that was the only thing in the entire library (besides the books) that didn't just have the room they were in blow up. As far as Twilight knew, this was completely unexplainable.

"Spike, get everything cleaned up by tonight." said Twilight, walking up the stairs to the second floor. "I'll have to be able to look around and investigate the machine by tomorrow. Girls, come on up."

With Spike grabbing a broom with an indignant expression and mumbling the word 'curses' over and over again, everyone else went up the stairs into the second floor. There, they saw Rin painting with her strange flat hooves (seet? leet? keet? One of those, anyway) with her back leaning against the wall and a canvas in front of her. She looked to be rather focused on her work, so she probably didn't even notice them going inside the room. Twilight decided not to bother her.

"Okay, so..." began Rainbow Dash as soon as they had gathered around the table Twilight had put in her room. "What just happened?"

"I'm still thinking." said Twilight, hastily looking through the stack of notes and blueprints scattered around the table. "It shouldn't be possible, so what happened? Rarity, could you pass me that green colored sheet right there? Thanks."

Rarity's horn lit up and brought the single sheet of paper over to Twilight, which Twilight hastily took with her own magic, brought it in front of her face and started reading.

What was going on? There are lots of possible explanations, of course, but all of them were too far-fetched. In fact, the closest ones include the machine sucking a bit of the magic that was in abundance all around the library, or that maybe a wormhole was formed, but it was only big enough to protect the machine from the bla- no, that isn't possible. The blast had to come from within the machine, and if the wormhole had been formed inside the machine, then the blast would never have reached outside the machine, formed the hole and vaporized almost everything else.

"Let's review what we actually know." said Twilight, still frantically scanning through her notes and blueprints. "We started the machine, it started fuming after a while, it caught on fire, we ran out while the machine showed no sign of having created the wormhole, and just as everyone got out safely, there was an explosion."

Everyone nodded, agreeing with Twilight's recollection of events.

"Now, what we don't know." said Twilight. "Everything in the Library was destroyed except for whatever I had placed the barriers on. With that logic, the machine should've been the first to be destroyed, having been the origin of the blast. Yet, other than the books, the machine was the only one that was still safe and intact. Why? How did it happen? Any ideas?"

Everypony looked at each other with blank faces, expecting the next pony to come up with the situation-changing answer. Of course, nopony ended up speaking.

'Must I really do everything myself...?' thought Twilight.

"I've come up with a few theories," said Twilight. "but none of them could be trusted at this point. Well, at this point... there really is no right or wrong answer."

Just then, Twilight heard a shuffling sound behind her. Everyone immediately looked at the source of the sound, which was nothing but Rin standing up. Rin herself looked confused as to why everyone was suddenly staring at her, but like most other things related to her, she quickly shrugged it off.

"I need a glass of water." said Rin. "I'm done."

"Really?" asked Applejack, who from her bad start in her relationship with Rin actually came to like her. "What'ja draw there, Rin?"

Heh. The name seemed funny coming out of Applejack's mouth.

But suddenly Applejack's curious smiling face turned to one of absolute horror.

"AJ?" asked Rainbow Dash. "What's wrong?"

For a while, Applejack didn't answer. She just stood there, her mouth shivering but no sound coming out from it. Her eyes were full of that kind of horror one would imagine a character in those thriller novels would look like. And seeing that this pony was Applejack, one of the bravest ponies in all of Ponyville and was once actually hailed a hero, the impact must've been a huge one.

"T-Twi..." managed Applejack, her mouth still shaking like crazy. "E-everypony... Y-Y'all had b-better come and s-see this..."

Since everypony was obviously curious, they all surrounded the canvas to take a look at it.

"W-what!?"

'What?' is correct. Twilight's jaw dropped and she could feel herself shuffling her hooves backwards.

"N-no way..."

What is happening?

Refocusing her vision on the canvas, Twilight gasped another gasp of surprise.

Drawn and fully coloured on the canvas was the splitting image of their lost friend, Pinkie Pie.

"W-what are you...?"

I had recovered almost immediately after passing out because of some strange power that had sucked all my pain away.

It speaks.

The pony speaks.

Right in front of me was a little pink pony, giggling like a madman while jumping- no, bouncing in front of my horrified face.

"Hi there!" said the pink pony. "My name's Pinkie Pie, and I hope we can be the bestest of bestest friends forever and ever!"

Hey, TheHouseholdWarrior here.

First and foremost, I'm sorry for having disappeared off the face of the planet for over half a year. There were a lot of things I had to take care of, and although I've finally found the time to continue this story, I can;t say that I'm done with even half of those things I had to do. Of course, I'll start being fairly regular with the story now, although I definitely can't promise you a chapter a day like what I did last time. Thanks for understanding.

Now, back to the story. How was it, everyone? Finally, some plot development! It seems that Pinkie has finally woken up from her coma, and is now going to spell destruction for the whole of Yamaku and beyond! Get ready to see Hisao finally start getting crazy over something!

And at the Equestria side, it seems as if Rin actually did have something to do with Pinkie (as if anybody didn't know). But what was that relation? How did Rin know what looked like to the point that she could draw Pinkie perfectly out of memory? Questions to be answered as the story progresses.

I'm planning to finish this story in one go, so unlike They Walk Among Us, it will have no sequel. And since I haven't written any pony fics for a while, my characterization and the like may have gotten a bit rusty. Please note out some out-of-character spots and tell them to me! Besides that, any sort of constructive criticism and advice is welcome too!

Thanks for waiting, and thanks for reading!

I'll be waiting for you at the next chapter of 'Of Arms, Legs and Hooves'.

Author's Note

* In Japanese, Kuso is a swear word that they use which can be compared to 'shit' or 'dammit' in English. So, Kuso games are pretty much games that make you swear a lot. Unwinnable games.