Equestria's Greatest Cartoonist

Chapter 1

Kai adjusted his dark-blue tie, making it as straight and comfortable as it can be while impatiently tapping his shoe onto the floorboards of the train. Next to him was a brown suitcase, freshly purchased and something he routinely checked over and over to ensure everything was tidy. A bit overbearing, but considering the craziness that could happen at any point, he had to be cautious.

For the past two hours, he had been sitting inside this small Equestrian train, being unable to withhold the substantial anticipation that’s been bugging him ever since, well, months ago. This is because, in around another hour or so, he’ll be going to an art convention being held in Baltimare, one made specifically for an illustrative creation of his. Or, rather—to stay true to copyright—an adaptation of an illustrative creation from his world.

It crazy, really, just how quickly he shot up in popularity within such a short amount of time, and he was still processing it. But one thing he can definitely say for sure now is that he did not regret that one evening.

Months prior...

It was evening. Wednesday evening. That type of evening during the middle of the week where you simply lounge around cause you got that extra few hours of free time. Kai was using that timeframe of precious free time… rather unproductively.

He was currently in the library of Ponyville, or more like the local public castle of glitter and friendship. Even though he’s become accustomed to how much nicer this place was, it still befuddles him how castles seem to be so public when compared to his homeland... uh, home reality. Like, seriously. Set a foot into Buckingham unauthorized and say hello to eight bayonets plunged into places you didn't even know you had. Maybe it was just his own limited perspective talking there and it really wasn't as bad as it sounds, but his point still stands.

He was currently reading a book that caught his interest. A comic actually, since many of the books here weren’t even that good in his opinion (never tell Rainbow Dash that he dissed out Daring Do). It was a short comic though, with only eighty pages or so, but the writer managed to compact enough dialogue and text to make it a comfortable one-sitting read. Power Ponies it was called; yeah, the puns in this world are not shy.

Right now he is nearing the climax of the fight between the P.Ps and Mane-iac, the most standard city villain he’s ever seen in his life. Seriously, all of her motives ever since he started the comic series are just stupid. Fill the entire city with hair spray that freezes everyone in place? What? That sounds more like some extreme senior prank than an actual villain’s diabolical Armageddon. None of that kickass world domination shit you’d see Master Xandred trying to do.

Kai continued to reluctantly read for a bit, to at least give the book a chance ‘till the breaking point. But it wasn’t a surprise that the climax, which should be the best part of the entire comic, was a huge fucking letdown. No ultimate attack, no final trump card team attack; hell, they weren’t even throwing ha—hooves!

“ You know what, screw it. These equestrian comics are lame,” he grunted out loud, tossing this supposed latest and highly grossing issue behind his back without a margin of fuckery. He’s read toddler comics back home that had more action than this. But, honestly though, what can he expect from this 200% pacifist society?

“ Gah!?” A discomforted grunt echoed from his left side of the room, and the source of the sound then rapidly moved to his back to catch the soaring illustrative disappointment. They managed to do it from what Kai could tell from the extremely relieving sigh that escaped their mouth. He turned back with a slow glance, looking down at a purple dragon child, who was holding the discarded comic in his small arms and cradling it like an infant. Of course, with how he was interreacting with that bundled waste of paper, it was pretty obvious that the small drake was giving Kai the hard glare.

“ Did you really have to go that far to catch that stupid little thing?” Kai asked blandly, digging a pinkie in his ear, “ That stuff ain’t even good as a time passer. It’s shit.”

“ No way, Kai, it’s just you that’s sh—uhh, crap!” Spike took a quick and wary glance towards the door then sighed, patting at the overly colorful cover of the comic to remove any imaginary dust.

Kai sighed, bringing his gaze up towards the kaleidoscope that was the ceiling. " If you're gonna cuss, at least try to act confident."

Spike huffed heavily in response, walking towards one specific shelf near the right side of the main door. There, he carefully returned the comic back into its rightful place at the end of a row of other Power Ponies comics. It was nothing in comparison to the multiple rows of neatly organized mangas Kai used to have in his bedroom.

The purple dragon then turned back to Kai, crossing his arms and giving him an invisible raised brow. “ How could you even say it’s lame anyways? It’s Power Ponies, for Celestia's sake!”

“ My world already has a version of Power Ponies that is astronomically better than this low–budget version,” Kai snorted, shuffling a hand into the black duffle bag next to his seat. And no, it obviously wasn't a duffle bag stuffed with stolen cash. It was the ones you’d see at the gym, and one of the few things he was able to bring along in his multiverse transfer (partly because he was just coming out of the gym that same day). The bag was essentially something he brought everywhere he went, both as emotional support and for convenience... and not because he momentarily experienced homelessness. A digressive story for another day.

He pulled out a disarranged hexagon Rubik's cube, one gifted by the one and only Discord for his last birthday, and began to absentmindedly solve the piece that somehow always seemed to morph into four shades every time he looked away.

“ Oh, really?” Spike responded to Kai's comment with a hint of challenge in his tone. “ What makes Power Humans better than Power Ponies? It doesn’t even sound as cool.”

“ ...Ok, first of all, you got it all wrong. It's Power Rangers, Spike,” Kai corrected, grunting quietly as he pushed against a stiff turn on the cube, “ Secondly, don't say humans like its something shitty. We humans have many things better than what you got here."

" Like?"

" I'm sure you've listened to me and Twilight's conversations."

Spike crossed his arms, undeterred. " So? What's any of that gotta do with comics?"

"..." The drake's response caused Kai grinned widely. This was one of the few things he liked about Spike. He knew when shit was real. " Well, we have cooler, more intensive fights. And we also have explosions.”

Spike snorted out while waving his hand dismissively. “ Please, Zap can make an explosion on the spot. Heck, Radiance made a big one on issue twenty-three. Blew up Crodilac's lab all at once."

“ Deadass?" With a proud nod from Spike, Kai hummed. " Damn, ok. Kinda skipped that issue."

Kai scratched his chin, thinking over his argument. " Alright, sure, Power Ponies have explosions. But are they big explosions?”

“ I just said that Radiance blew up Crodilac's laboratory! Hay, they even blew up entire buildings at one point… but most of them were brainwashed in that issue... a-and it was also fixed pretty quick, so no harm was done!”

" ... Sounds pretty tame to me."

" Huh??? No way, that's totally intense! I doubt your comics can even pull that off!"

...

That was quite the understatement, especially when All-Star Superman issues flashed through Kai's mind.

Kai huffed in exasperation, shaking his head. “ So you think human comics don't pull off feats like that?"

" ... I-I mean, I don't know, but I doubt—"

" Dude, our villains blow up entire cities on an average basis.”

“ ..?!?” the purple dragon did a double take, his eyes widened like saucer plates. But the reaction seemed a bit over exaggerated, especially for a statement like that. With what Kai has read, city-level feats were like child's play. " ...F-For real?"

" Fuck yeah. And guess what?" Kai added, grinning wildly. " It is all live action. Not just in the comics!"

“ L-Live action... like in real life?!” Spike gawked. He was momentarily stunned at Kai's words, but he then forced a snort through his nose, as if he didn’t think it was anything cool. In Kai's view, the drake was lucky nothing flew out from his nose, else it would've become a nasty embarrassment the man would've prodded him 'til for no end. “ Pfft, it’s not that cool. Like I said, Power Ponies can also do explosions.”

“ But are they live actions? Nope,” Kai insisted while absent-mindedly punching in a block that sprung out comically from the Rubik's cube, “ Do they have a kickass giant robot that blows up aliens bigger than skyscrapers? Not even fucking close, my little dragon friend.”

“ W-Wait, you’re joking,” Spike’s composure was easily shattered, and he returned back to gawking at the human, “ you’re telling me that Power Rangers have giant robots that blow up giant aliens... and it’s all acted out?!”

Kai winced a bit at the louder tone from the baby dragon but nodded his head otherwise. “ Yeah, I can get why you can’t really comprehend something like this when the best you guys got here are black and white movies about old peo—pony romance... but it's true.”

Spike shook off his stupor, returning to a more normal expression of shock. He seemed to be thinking up some counter argument to make Equestria not seem less cooler than Kai’s homeworld was. “ ...Well, actually, we’ve faced real villains here in Equestria, so it really isn’t that shocking,” he then crossed his short arms with a little pout, “ …but a giant robot suit would be cool to have...”

Seeing that he was yet again getting nowhere with his little contraption, Kai threw the cube back into his bag with an exasperated sigh. “ Spike, that’s not even scratching the surface of all the badassery humans have made over the years. Like, Powers Rangers alone has ran for, what, thirty years when I was back on earth? And with over twenty-eight variations of the five rangers, each team had a different theme, powers, and everything.”

“... wow, that’s a lot of Power Rangers.”

“ You see what I mean when I said Power Ponies were lame? I’ve seen this shit a plethora of times, dude, and that’s not even including other varieties from other countries.”

Spike rose a brow at the last statement, doubt present on his face. “ Ok Kai, you’re pulling on my leg there now.”

“ ...Spike, did I ever tell you there were a total of about 200 countries back on Earth?” Kai asked, simply and plainly. He leaned back on his chair, crossing his arms over his head as a confident grin took over his face. Who wouldn't? The even more baffling stupor on Spike's face was priceless.

“ N-NO, YOU DIDN’T TELL ME THAT?! 200 COUNTRIES?! THE HAY?!”

The doors to the room suddenly swung open, with a slight ticked off Twilight glaring at the two of them. “ Can you two keep it down! I can’t even hear myself read with this noise!”

“ Not a chance, purps," Kai waved the alicorn off dismissively with a yawn, " we’re having an important bro talk here. Just read on the roof or something."

Twilight's eyes very visibly twitched as she let out a frustrated groan. For a moment, Kai was expecting himself to be teleported into the heavens, but instead the alicorn stormed her way out of the room, slamming the door behind her. A dead silence filled the entire castle, probably the entire world outside too, as Spike and Kai stared at the closed entrance.

Kai blinked before simply shrugging. “ Well, she's kinda bad at keeping her feelings closed, huh?”

“... you instigate it a lot, Kai.”

" Meh, I'll volunteer to help her with her labs later as an apology," Kai hummed, leaning back with both hands behind his head, “ now, back to the country thing. Yes, Earth has 200-some recognized countries across the planet, and in many of the top advanced ones, there’s a wide variety of entertainment to pick from. And because of mainstream, or in other words majority preference, very highly rated entertainment content gets mimicked or flat out copied from industries all over the world, which explains that copies of Power Rangers.”

“ That... makes sense,” Spike nodded slowly, scratching the back of his tilted head, “ but then how would you find the original version from all of those fakes?”

“ Normally all original content is protected by law, so it isn’t easy to just flat out take another’s creation without risking getting fined or even arrested. But some entertainment content, especially comics, cartoons, and anime, are so popular it’s kind of hard not to know what the original is.” Kai explained, seeing that he’s gotten Spike’s full attention. In fact, the little dragon had completely forgotten about the Power Ponies issue he was reading a few minutes ago, laid face-down on its page on the table.

“ Damn,” Spike dared to swear, raising an invisible brow at the black-haired human, “... what’s an anime?”

Kai paused for a second—not even realizing he said that word in his explanation—before giving the biggest grin he could give to the little purple drake. “ Ohohoho, now that’s some of the best entertainment humans have ever made, Spike.”

“ Really?”

“ Hell yeah,” Kai stretched his shoulders as he looked at the time on his clock. 5:30, so he had another two hours before he had to go do his night shifts at Sugarcube (yes, apparently they had a graveyard shift that rarely any of these ponies knew about). “ ...I think I have enough time to explain to you the whole concept behind this awesomeness that is anime. So just sit back and listen, cause it’s going to be a bit long”

“ I’m guessing this is one of your favorite things from back home?” Spike asked, chuckling a bit as he got himself seated comfortably.

Kai didn’t know his grin could ever get this big before. “ You don’t even know, my man.”

Author's Note

Rereading this, I realized I kinda didn't make much progress. That's why this is part one of potentially more to come! If this story gets 10 likes, then I'll post part 2!