The trip overland had been a long and uneventful one. It consisted mostly of waking up, following the lingering ball of fiery light, snacking on blomberries and fresh fish, and sleeping. Peter’s mood had gone from hopeful to monotonous to dark throughout his two-week travel.

Because throughout that time, Faust had never showed up in person. When She did talk, it was usually brief and about the day only, not about what to do when he reached Manehattan. Her decreasing time spent with him made Peter sullen, made him feel like there was something wrong he was doing. Peter did try talking to the ball of light as he walked along, but it didn’t respond, so he eventually stopped altogether. Three days on his journey, Peter didn’t even speak a word.

In fact, the day before he came to the outskirts of Manehattan, Peter hadn’t said anything either. There was nobody to talk to. So Peter replayed The Incredibles and Shrek in his head to keep his mind busy when the trail was slow. For the moment, Peter was going through Toy Story, and he had just gotten to Buzz Lightyear’s mental breakdown when he emerged from the edge of the forest and came to the crest of a green hill.

Peter squinted in the early morning sun and gazed upon the faraway grey, smoky skyline of Manehattan. He scratched at his patchy blonde beard adorning his cheeks and chin, and wiped some sweat from his sunburned forehead.

Even at a hazy distance, Manehattan looked unappetizing. Peter had always thought cities were ugly, but Manehattan seemed even worse than the ones back on Earth. On the hills outside the city, Peter had a good view of the harbor and some of the bigger buildings rising above the garden of steel.

A prominent landmark, of course, was the Mare of Liberty. Peter squinted at the faraway statue, his face pulling uncomfortably at the sight of the Mare of Liberty holding an enormous penis above her ahegao mouth. If there was ever a sign that this world was cartoonishly evil, it was that one statue.

Peter raised his arm, half giving thought to the idea of making the Mare of Liberty explode on the spot. How many children saw that statue daily? It represented reprehensible ideas and a descent into madness. Equestria would be so much better off watching it topple off its crumpled base and land with a deafening sploosh into the harbor. Peter could see it now…

…No, he eventually came to. He lowered his hand and clenched his fist. That’ll just draw unnecessary attention. That can wait for when the city falls eventually. Right now, I need a train.

And Peter scowled and turned away.

Peter’s hardest part was actually traveling on foot to the nearby outlying suburbs, on their own little plots of land. He came into the closest quiet neighborhood by lunchtime. Peter’s first stop was when he came to an abandoned, boarded-over shack with garbage strewn all over its weeded front lawn. He then bent down and turned a piece of scrap metal into a baguette. Breakfast of champions.

Peter ate on the road. He came out of the residential area, traveled on the dry dirt roads leading to town, and put up his hood. Peter kept his eyes peeled in the public square and wandered the small town, observing local maps posted on the dirt street corners and keeping his profile low. There wasn’t much of anyone out and about, anyway; it was working hours. Eventually, he found the location of a subway station in the late afternoon.

When he found the staircase leading underground right outside a sugar-and-dandelion cafe in the rural streets, Peter put on his mask, tramped downstairs into the dark, cool tunnel air, and came to the Ticketmaster’s glass booth; it was a slow hour, so he was the only one there.

The Ticketmaster herself paled at Peter’s approach. Her ivory fingers trembled on the iron register, and her cap vibrated atop her turquoise mane.

“Hi,” Peter said laconically.

“Oh… m-my goodness, I-I…” The ticketmaster was tremulous. She picked at the very shallow collar of her blue officer uniform and squished her breasts together. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Peter confirmed. Twilight must have spread his description to all the media she could. Poor mare, having public enemy number one just walk in. He spotted her shaky hand slowly reach for a button on the desk, and Peter waved a hand. “You don’t need to call for security.”

The Ticketmaster’s movement halted. And she swallowed. “...I don’t need to call for security.”

Peter swished a hand again. “I’m not the man you’re looking for.”

“You’re not the man I’m looking for.”

“You will open the gate.”

“I will open the gate,” the Ticketmaster agreed, and she fiddled with something out of Peter’s sight. The barred metal gate separating him from the tunnels swung open.

Peter headed for the gate and waved his hand once more as he passed through. “I wasn’t here.”

“You weren’t here,” the Ticketmaster agreed.

Peter swiftly made his way through, his breath coming quickly. He darted into the tunnels leading to the station before the Ticketmaster noticed.

So that was what a Jedi Mind Trick felt like? It was a strange sensation to actually try it out and have it work. Peter felt a buzzing in his veins, a thumping in his chest. He could just do that to anyone? And it would work?

And then his racing mind slowed down, and he drifted to a snail’s pace, and Peter actually thought about what he’d done. He had dazed and confused her, and overridden her personal choices. She was putty in his hands, and he had brushed it off as a cool party trick.

Well… Peter thought about it. It’s just a temporary thing. And it was tame compared to the brainwashing and agency-overriding going on all over Equestria. But still, am I just rationalizing things? Maybe Faust wanted me to do something else. I don’t see Her doing that willy-nilly. Could I have handled things differently?

That last question had haunted him ever since Ponyville. Was there no other way?

Peter arrived at the cavernous train station and waited, wrapped up in his black cloak over the bearskin garments. When he finally came onto the train car once it arrived, he was alone in the car. And for every stop until the end of the line, Peter was alone.

Always, always alone.

Peter emerged from the Maneway station. The violet dusk had fallen, and darkness and noise permeated the crowded streets of Manehattan. Peter’s gaze came to the vehicles; they were cars now, instead of pony-drawn carriages. For an anthropomorphized Equestria, there was really no way to keep it in continuity with the show unless it was like the little carts in China or Indonesia, or wherever– a rickshaw, that’s what it was.

The cars were late 1960s or 70s in style, at stark contrast with the more modern infrastructure of the city. Peter glared around, already feeling something awful creep up his back. It was too noisy, and it seemed like everyone was focusing on the wrong things.

Is there something inherent about cities that breeds contention and sin? Peter wondered as he strode along on the sidewalks deeper into the city. Pride, perhaps. Secularism. Removal from nature. Monotony. Pollution. The high concentration of people. We tend to see everyone else as beneath us, but here especially, since they just all blend together.

Which included him. ‘A million deaths is a statistic,’ and whatnot.

It wasn’t Peter’s plan to immediately flip the island over like a pancake; he wanted to give the citizens some time to repent. Even if it was just out of fear, it would be enough for now. Which was the point of the media outlet he was trying to visit. But now that he really thought about it…

“Where is it?” Peter muttered, lifting his eyes up. None of the dark buildings on the street he was on really stood out. He came to the next intersection and turned left, and the city grew darker somehow. There were few ponies on the sparsely lit streets, and those that Peter saw were engaged in other things off to the side or by themselves, so Peter came along unnoticed. He still drew the hood of his cloak up, just to be safe.

Faust, Peter prayed. Where should I go?

Silence, of course. Peter kept walking.

He passed the next intersection and crossed the street. And Peter spotted, on the lamp-lit corner of the street he was heading to, a barely-dressed, pale pink whore. She was expectant, in more ways than one.

“Hey, handsome,” the pregnant prostitute crooned as soon as he hit the sidewalk.She tossed her golden tail with one hand and narrowed her violet eyes seductively. “Wanna dip?”

Peter walked on without turning his head. His eyes narrowed as well, but with fury.

“Hey!” the prostitute yelled after him, her fists in the air. “At least give me an answer!”

Peter didn't respond. His mind was busy working.

Why didn’t she get an abortion? Peter wondered, keeping his head down. That doesn’t have a stigma here. Perhaps she wants to make a live child sacrifice, but perhaps she just wanted to be safe for as many creampies as possible. And the closer she can come to the delivery date, the riskier. It would add an element of urgency, some more adrenaline. It would also cater to a specific taste in her clients.

The more Peter saw in this world, the worse it got. Was that just Faust trying to demonstrate that Her measures were appropriate? The rationalizing of a Goddess? Was that another reason Faust needed him to come here, to get him to see things more in Her light?

If that was the case, then She was stringing him along more than he thought. Could Faust be desperate? Afraid? Jealous?

That line of thought didn’t go much further before Peter saw another prostitute come out of the next alleyway he came to. And Peter’s stomach churned at the sight.

A lime green child, no older than middle school age, emerged from the shadows and posed on the wall, swishing her thin magenta tail. Her underdeveloped breasts were completely exposed, and Peter kept his eyes up and forward– not because of lust, but from secondhand embarrassment.

“Feeling pent-up, mister?” the small mare asked as he came closer, her voice still squeaky from youth. “You look like you could use some tight young pussy.”

This time, Peter did turn his head as he passed by. The child very clearly became uneasy at the sight of his fanged mask. “And you look like you need to go back to school.”

“Come on!” the child protested as Peter left her behind. “Hey, not even a donation? I just want to buy a new watch, that’s all!”

Poor wretch, Peter thought, his posture becoming stiffer with anger. As he hurried along with his head down, he began pondering. She didn’t grow up thinking on her own, ‘I want to suck for a living.’ Someone encouraged her to do this, likely since she was a baby. Her mother, perhaps. But who encouraged her mother? Her peers, duh. But where did they get the idea that this is sustainable or desirable? Gotta be public media, or someone with the power to influence public media. Who in the upper class would have something to gain from weakening Equestria like this? It goes back to what Pinkie said, someone needed to tell them sexual sin was all okay and then suppress their consciences.

So who was the main culprit here? The princesses? If they were, then why would they just weaken their own country like this? Perhaps the princesses were simply on someone else’s payroll. Peter began to run through his mind any known Equestrian villains focused on money, or anyone cunning enough to take over Equestria from the inside out.

Nightmare Moon was gone. Unless they found some way to separate the consciousnesses. But Peter hadn’t seen her statue in Ponyville, so he dismissed it.

Discord? That one did seem more plausible since he was now in the Bizarro timeline, but this wasn’t exactly Discord’s style of doing things. Sure, this was a different dimension, but some things remained consistent– the Mane Six were all the same, if a bit insane. Peter wasn’t going to rule Discord out, but it was unlikely. Discord wanted chaos, not entropy.

Tirek was dead. Or in Tartarus. Peter still had no idea how that worked. Tirek also wasn’t nearly as subtle about his villain techniques.

The Flim Flam brothers were small-town con artists, not master manipulators. Starlight Glimmer fell into that category too. Day Breaker hadn’t manifested. The Pony of Shadows wasn’t even relevant yet.

Queen Chrysalis? Here, Peter began to solidify a theory. Why wouldn’t Chrysalis, the love changeling, be behind the sexualization of Equestria? She didn’t understand love, so this sick, twisted perversion of love could be her attempt to cultivate Equestria into her own doomed farmland. She’d send her forces to silently take down the culture from within, like boiling a frog degrees at a time. There could be changelings in high levels of government, infiltrating positions in education, commerce, media, religion, and the press. All of them advancing their own interests and purposes. A multi-generational soft war, turning the inside of the nation to mush like a spider’s prey, so when the wolves eventually break through the fence, Equestria would be too doughy to resist. Sure, Chrysalis would have attempted it already with the Canterlot wedding, but perhaps as a front only, to think the end had come for the changelings, so their plan would be even more of a surprise.

How deep does it run? Peter blankly thought, his hands balling into fists. Who has the patience to do this? What’s the end goal here?

“Lost, mister?” came a young mare’s Boston accent. Peter sigh-grumbled and turned to see, sure enough, another lady of the night come out of her alley. She was light blue, with solid poofy magenta hair. A white flower was near her ear, and her body was only sparsely covered with fishnets.

Actually, I am, Peter realized before he could bolt off. Could this be Faust’s answer to my prayer?

“Feel like a quickie?” the blue whore teased, winking one teal eye.

Peter turned his feet to her, and the prostitute flinched at the sight of his mask. Peter folded his arms and kept his gaze up. “No. I just need to get to a broadcasting headquarters. What’s the best one in Manehattan? I’m new here.”

The prostitute’s face fell. “Well, uh, if you want to go on TV here in Manehattan, the best is PBS.”

Peter jolted in place. “Sorry?”

“Pony Broadcasting Station.”

It made sense, but the name was still uncanny. “Ah.”

“There’s also EBC, but PBS has better programming.”

“Where can I find the headquarters?” Peter pressed after a small smile had passed over his face.

The prostitute pointed a slim finger up and to the left. “About three blocks that way, then turn right and go a little further. It’ll be the one with giant red letters PBS way up and on the side, all right?”

Peter nodded. “Thanks.”

“You know, every one of us wants to go on TV and show our talents for Equestria to see,” the blue prostitute informed Peter, sidling closer and tossing her poofy pink mane. “Each of us wants to be the next Baby Belle– she was an aunt of Rarity’s, by the way, believe it or not! And we would do anything to become the next big star!”

Peter nodded, uneasy at the revelation, and started to turn away. “I see,” he said.

“Oh, before you go!” the whore desperately cried. “You really gonna pass me by? Best blowjob in Manehattan, for only two bits!”

“Where's your mother?” Peter asked without looking back.

The blue mare nodded in understanding. “Oh, you want her? Can't complain, she does have more experience. She's over on Bridleway.”

And Peter's mind drifted back to his own mom. Would she ever go into prostitution? Was there any scenario where a successful mother willingly would?

“Your mother failed as a parent,” Peter said matter-of-factly.

“Excuse me?” the prostitute growled, maneuvering in front of Peter’s path. “You gonna repeat that?”

“You heard me the first time, whore,” Peter expressionlessly fired back. As he strode forward, he shouldered her aside. “Go back to your alley.”

“You son of a bitch!” the daughter of a bitch cried, striking Peter in the back. It didn’t hurt much because she was weak and Peter’s bear fur was thick, so Peter kept walking. She kept up her assault, though, latching on to his arm and pounding him on the back and screaming. Peter sighed as he came to the intersection and she still was yelling incomprehensible things in her Bostonian accent. It was drawing attention from the dozen or so ponies waiting for the light, though, so Peter wrenched his arm free.

“He’s a piece of shit!” the blue prostitute yelled at the crowd. “He just told me to go to Tartarus and he started to touch me! He raped me!”

Peter, jolted at her words, turned to her. “Ew, no.”

The whore screamed with outrage and punched Peter again in the front. Though it didn’t hurt, Peter retaliated by backhanding her to the ground. She couldn’t follow him around forever.

Immediately, there rose a clamor from the dozen well-dressed ponies at the corner. Two of them attended to the (obviously faking) unconscious prostitute, and the rest of them started yelling and accusing him, telling him to take off his mask, to fight like a real stallion, to go to Tartarus.

Peter allowed them to yell at him for a bit. Then he quickly swished his fingers, and every one of them started to groggily drift off, their voices dropping, their limbs becoming lead. One by one, they slumped to the ground as well and fell asleep.

When there were only two left on their feet, the blue prostitute opened her eyes in annoyance and sat up. Seeing the bodies all around her, though, she gasped in horror.

“Take a night off,” Peter advised her, and swished his hand. “Sleep on it.”

She closed her eyes and sat back as well. Peter hissed with concern when her head hit the sidewalk, but it wasn’t hard, and there wasn’t any blood, so after checking the corner again, he crossed the street, going off the directions she had given him.

When he reached the opposite side, Peter sensed, but he couldn’t be sure, of eyes watching him from every direction. Surely they’d seen his activity on the street corner. They’d call the police sometime soon. A shame, of course, but he also couldn’t be inconspicuous forever. Peter hurried his pace.

Thinking back on it, Peter traced it back to his decision to insult the prostitute’s mother. It wasn’t needed– at least, not in the moment. It wasn’t nice, or even kind. And it wasn’t the sort of thing that Faust would have done.

So am I unworthy to use God's power now? Peter wondered uneasily. Faust, I'm sorry. That wasn't what I should have done. Please, just lend me your power for a little bit longer! I still want to do your will! I'm just prone to error, that's all. I'll try and watch my tongue. Promise!

Peter felt a burning in his chest again, but it was subdued, not as strong as it could be. Peter didn't want to push the limit.

But it might happen again, in a crucial moment. If his power cut off then, what would happen?

“Freaks, the whole lotta them,” Broad Sweeper denounced, peering over his coworker's shoulder.

“They're not freaks!” Flash Light defended, stacking up his Polaroids with pink on his navy blue cheeks. “It's called transpeciesm, you take part of an animal and you graft it on in place of your own. It's the latest fad, all the younger models are doing it.”

“Doesn't mean it's not freaky,” Broad mumbled. He folded his light gray arms across his fat chest, barely contained by his black security guard uniform. “Back ten years ago, this sorta thing was unheard of.”

“And we managed to think of it all by ourselves!” Flash rebutted. He stood up from his booth to address his fellow guard, who was moving away to the front of the hall, towards the doors leading into the streets. “It's a novel idea, a bright one. I mean, we thought it was strange when we figured out you could swap sexes, but it's all for the better that we did.”

“Broad, Flash!” came their superior's stern voice, and the two stallions snapped to attention as the head guard emerged from a glass door in the wall and approached them with claks of her high heels. “Talk about your fetishes on your own time. Police have been called on a street corner a few blocks away from here. Keep your guard up for any intruders.”

“Gotcha, Chief Petal,” Broad Sweeper reluctantly reported to the lithe green mare.

“Roger, Chief Petal,” Flash Light sighed, letting his gaze linger on Chief Petal's smooth but short pink mane.

“I've already informed the other guards on this level,” Chief Petal continued, casting a wary yellow eye on the glass doors. “It's getting late for visitors anyway. Let's close the security gate.”

Flash nodded quickly and headed to the front desk. Shutting himself inside, he fiddled with the buttons and activated the gate. A droning hum came from the doors as a metal grid, like an ancient portcullis, clattered in place and finally halted when it reached the floor.

Just in time, too; there was a pony that came to the glass doors right after the portcullis fell into place. Chief Petal reached for her truncheon on her barely-covered hip, and Broad Sweeper came closer to the gate, making shooing motions and visibly enunciating with his mouth. “Go away!” he emphasized to the lone pony. “The tower’s locked up!”

And the figure did stop in his tracks. But he didn’t obey Broad’s further movements. Instead, he raised his own arm and laid it on the glass. And the guards could see by now that he wore a fanged mask over his face.

That was enough for Chief Petal. She drew her weapon out, and so did Flash, in his booth. “Halt! Stay where you are!”

The Prophet let loose an exasperated grumble and narrowed his eyes.

“How’s the show coming along?” Director Apple Bee barked, coming to the front of the stage control room. Apple Bee was enormous, but not from muscle. His red tie, matching his flat mane, hung loosely around his neck, and the top two buttons were undone, exposing his glistening brown chest. “Everyone ready?”

His booming voice carried above the chattering of the PBS backstage booth, and everyone working inside began reporting at the same time.

“Gotta realign the lighting,” the teal lighting technician said, testing the controls on her console. “Gimme a sec. Whoops. Wait, hold on.”

“Sound’s all good,” the blue sound technician reported, giving a thumbs-up.

“Radio’s connected,” the ivory radio operator said.

“Camera’s good. Looks like makeup’s doing its last touches out there,” the green camera manager observed.

“As if Johnny boy needed more,” Director Bee grumbled, and took a sip from his coffee mug. There was something about it that just screamed at you to drink more. “All right, lights, are we good?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” the teal lighting technician was happy to report.

“All right, we’re live in 30. Keep your eyes peeled– wait, make sure the line’s closed.”

The sound technician checked, then drew his head up. “It’s closed. We won’t be heard.”

The pattering of feet could be heard, and the heavy steel studio door swung open, sending every head turning. A young and wirey intern came in, a stack of papers pressed to his dress shirt. He passed the two miffed security guards beside the door and arrived by Apple Bee’s side, letting the heavy door close by itself. “So sorry I’m late, sir,” the young boy panted. “I was just getting those reports you wante-”

“Hush, boy! We’re starting in ten!” Apple Bee cut off, and he snatched the papers from his hand. “All right, everypony, let’s do this cleanly and calmly. In five, four, three–” He held up two fingers, then one, and bent it.

The camera manager selected the clips, and they began playing on his small screen and also on the monitor way up front. It was nothing much, just an intro with jazzy music and pop-up visuals of Manehattan. It eventually faded to the camera out in the studio panning and zooming in on the stallion of the hour: a pony with golden skin and short, smooth, curled salt-and-pepper hair. The deep blue sapphire of his eyes was echoed by the light blue tie on his full suit. His stage smile sparkled like diamonds, and the slight bow and wink he threw the audience sent them cheering and clapping anew, which the camera showed briefly before cutting back.

“Hello everypony, and welcome to The Tonight Show with Johnny Cake,” Johnny himself magnanimously introduced. “And for those at home just listening without those fancy new televisions, it’s a shame, because I look so devilishly handsome tonight.”

Approved laughter came from the paid audience he was addressing.

Johnny began gesturing with his golden yellow hands. “It’s been a long week so far in Equestria. Countess Colorotura’s latest scandal of the month’s kept us up all night, I promise you. We don’t have an interview with her tonight, shocking enough. But when you’ve retreated to Guatamarela for the month with her griffon escort, it’s a bit hard to keep in touch.”

More tame laughs.

“I can’t say I blame her, though– we all have been wanting to escape somewhere better than this world,” Johnny conceded, doing more useless hand gestures. “Ever since the, uh, events of a few weeks ago, there’s been a surge in demand for more of those fancy televisions, and I really gotta say, if you don’t have one, you’re missing out. We’re on air every day, and we’re not even pegasi!”

Back in the control room, the intern gave a quizzical look at the enormity of Director Apple Bee. “I thought Johnny Cake was a comedian.”

“He is,” Apple Bee said like the intern was stupid for asking.

“But he’s not funny,” the intern noted.

“That’s not the point!” Apple Bee barked, and the intern flinched. “Ponies listen to him. So if he can say relatable things by sacrificing ‘humor,’ then so be it. Besides, I don’t want to see you get fired, do you?”

The intern shook his head.

The show went on without complications for about an hour more. Johnny did about ten more minutes of his unfunny stand-up before the first celebrity came on: a griffon named Gabe Grayhorn who had written a new bestseller about a griffon serial killer who killed, raped, and ate his female victims in that order. It was a social commentary or something, and Johnny was very careful to not say anything bad about the griffon. Then there was a team collaboration onstage where Johnny, a single mother, and her five-year-old filly all played dress-up, complete with undressing down to the underwear, and Johnny Cake filled it with plenty of coquettish jokes. Commercial breaks for erotic lotion, hayburgers, mental illness medication, life insurance, other TV programs, and sex toys were played every twelve minutes.

At the end of one of these commercial breaks, Johnny was about to start yet another monologue when the two security guards at the entrance put hands to their earpieces and bowed down. It made Apple Bee glance warily at them.

“Sir, there’s an intruder,” the maroon guard on the left reported, his face resolute. He hefted the taser out of his holster. “No order’s been given to evacuate, but be on guard.”

Apple Bee froze in place. So did the rest of the workers, who looked uneasily around.

“Should we report to Johnny?” the intern asked tremulously.

“Wait,” Apple Bee advised. It was the best move so far.

About another minute passed, then the other guard, an olive-green one, widened his violet eyes. “Sir?” he asked, then swallowed; his mouth had evidently gone dry. “Visuals are coming in. It… matches the description Twilight gave. It’s the Prophet! He’s heading for the elevators!”

And now the entire room was filled with dread, and had gone silent. Soon all that could be heard was the whirring and buzzing of machines and monitors.

“Well, shit,” Apple Bee grunted. With a shaky hand, he set his coffee mug down on the nearest table. “Keep me informed, but we don’t stop running the show. If anypony’s gonna catch him on film, it’ll be us.”

The control room pressed on, and sweat adorned everypony’s foreheads. Death itself was coming upstairs. Johnny Cake’s dull routine was completely abandoned by now.

The maroon guard, after some static feedback, reported again. “He’s out of the elevator. He’s coming this way!”

The intern was gasping for breath now, backed into a corner. Apple Bee was pulling at the front of his tight shirt. Surely, the Prophet wasn’t thinking of coming onstage, right? Or was he just invited, and it was a surprise for everypony?

“He’s in the last hallway. Forces are engaging!” the olive green guard said. He drew out his own taser and peered out of the glass on the control room door.

But oddly enough, for the entire control room, there were no sounds of fire, no audible reports of tasers. Everything had gone silent.

And soon enough, there were new sounds. The cadence of footsteps, clear but soft.

The two guards peered out of the glass again.

Someone was staring back. Out of a blank fanged mask some distance away from the door, two vivid blue eyes caught the guard’s gaze.

Neither party moved. The guard’s hands clearly glistened with sweat.

And one of the Prophet’s eyes briefly went dark. He had winked!

The two guards exchanged worried glances.

The Prophet turned away and moved on, his black cloak billowing out behind him.

“Sir,” the maroon guard hoarsely hissed. “He’s heading for the studio!”

“Then keep the camera on him,” Apple Bee ordered. He turned back to the screen, to the doomed Johnny Cake. “If he does something on live TV, the entire country will see it. Ponyville was a personal tragedy. This might be a public one. And if he’s doing what I think he’s doing, we’ll have time for backup. Call a SWAT.”

“So let’s address the manticore in the room. Now we have this very pressing issue in Equestria right now,” Johnny Cake introduced, allowing his signature smile to fall. “Ever since Ponyville became a cinder several weeks ago, everypony has been wondering why, and who did it. I’ve got a personal interest in this guy, I’ve already told you; some of the casualties included my aunt and uncle, who ran a shop called Sugarcube Corner. I’m planning on erecting a memorial on the spot where it once was, as a… a testament against hate.”

Johnny wiped away a sniffle from his nose, which was obviously fake, but it was still there, and the crowd ‘aww’ed. After a deep breath, Johnny continued.

“You know, I thought it was strange, that someone would want to come along and undo everything we’ve worked so hard to accomplish in the past fifty years or so. But looking at this new guy, this ‘prophet,’ and doing some thinking, I think I understand now. For those of you who haven’t heard of Princess Twilight’s description by now, this guy calling himself a prophet is, uh, unique. He’s tall, so he’s got that going for him. And he’s got bright blue eyes, they almost shine like a lightbulb. But he doesn’t have a horn, or wings, or a tail. Or a face. Or a conscience. Or empathy. Or a dick.”

Approved laughter came from the small studio audience.

“But Johnny, why? I know that’s what some of you are saying. Why do you understand now why the prophet would do the things he does? Why is the prophet destroying everything we have, all our inclusive arts and culture and whatnot?” Johnny leaned forward conspiratorially. “It’s because he’s jealous!”

The crowd responded with approved laughter.

“He’s jealous, he’s just mad that no one in this world would want to suck his dick. No mare, no stallion, no filly, no foal. Not even the animals!” Johnny smiled at his own joke. “Maybe it’s because no one can find it, you know? It’s so small!”

Even more canned laughter followed.

“Yeah, that also makes a lot of sense, why he teamed up with this Faust,” Johnny realized with exaggerated shock. “Because he’s a lonely shut-in who just wanted to take all of his internalized bigotry and hatred out on the world, and because even a Goddess gets lonely sometimes, Faust gave him this power to hurt others, and in return, she and him…” He laughed. “They get together and partake.”

And from the other side of the studio, where he could see it, the metal doors blew inward, banging one at a time on the walls. Johnny Cake, startled, looked up.

A silhouetted figure, rippling like Johnny was looking at him through a fire, stood tall in the dim red lighting. The bright shine of his blue eyes identified him immediately, however.

The figure said nothing as he and Johnny locked eyes. Then the Prophet strode forth between rows of the stage audience. The seated ponies shied away as he came close, but every eye was upon him. Even the in-studio camera had swiveled away from Johnny and rested on the Prophet as he came up to the stage. He paused right before coming onstage, however.

“Anything else?” the Prophet mildly asked Johnny. His tone, however, betrayed a softly-boiling fury.

Johnny grew a smile, but it was forced. “Well, that depends. How much time you got?”

“Plenty.” The Prophet swept up to the stage floor, headed for the guest chair, and swiftly settled down, flattening his black cloak. He turned to Johnny Cake, glaring through his mask. “Let’s get your viewership up, shall we?”

Johnny cleared his throat. “Well, for those friends listening at home, we have a surprise guest that just came into the studio. Everyone give it up for, er, the most wanted figure in Equestria: the Prophet of Faust!”

Author's Note

I've noticed that there's a lot of arguments, but not enough reviews or feedback. I'm not one to beg for it, but I'd like some sign of what I'm doing right/wrong literature-wise.