Is Your Friendship Mistaken?

A\N: To those of you, the reference was from Mass Effect 2.  The Collector General Harbinger always says stuff about direct intervention.

“And then, I-“The navy pony continued, but was cut short by Kyle looking out the window at the setting sun.

“Holy crap!  I’m sorry Luna, but I have to run.  I had a meeting set up later tonight with a few friends.”

She kept her demeanor the same.  “Oh, I won’t keep you then.  Have fun.”  She waved a hoof as if to send him off.

He turned and left the room at a jog.  She hung her head after he left sight from her window.

“Became Nightmare Moon...”  She finished for herself.

Kyle was at Ponyville within fifteen minutes.  He was at Twilight Sparkle’s house in three minutes.  The other six ponies were already waiting around chatting idly.

As he entered all of them turned to face him.  “What’s the big idea?”  Rainbow Dash asked, getting in his face.

He held up his hands in submission, “I’ve got a few things to explain... Just sit down or something and I’ll get to it.

By the time he finished with his explanation of Blackheart and his night of freedom (sans Celestia’s crazy plan), the ponies were speechless.  Fluttershy had hidden under the table when he began to tell about his infiltration of the castle, but the others stood speechless.

Then, without a word, he turned and left, heading to bed.  He wanted to give them a chance to think about what he told them.

For once, the night went by without disturbance for Kyle, and he dreamed about being a lamp salesman.  It was a fairly exciting job when being a lamp salesman really meant being a James Bond-esque secret agent.

Kyle woke at the reasonable hour of around 9:30 in the morning.  He had closed the curtains so Celestia wouldn’t blind him, and slept peacefully, which was rather fortunate, considering the lack of sleep was catching up to him.

Twilight was nowhere to be found, but this wasn’t a problem, most of the ponies woke up around 8 o’clock, so she was probably out with her friends.  Who wouldn’t be after having that explained to you and then promptly going to bed?

Spike was nowhere to be found, but he had probably gone with Twilight to talk about Blackheart.  He wasn’t prepared to tell them about Luna, or Celestia’s solution, so it would make sense that they’d want to find a solution.

Suddenly, an odd feeling gripped him, and before he could sit down, his legs gave out, and the flooring rushed to meet his rapidly approaching head.

He landed on the boards with an audible thump, had anyone or anything been around to her it.

When he woke up, he felt wrong.  It was if he knew something was off, but there was no placing what.

All that he could do was pull himself off the ground and take a look around.  He knew something was wrong immediately.  The floor was covered in scorch marks, and books were all over the floor, some of them burning.

Kyle reacted swiftly, stamping out the fires complaining, “Who in all seven circles of hell sets FIRE in a TREE?”

After smothering the remaining fires, Kyle rushed outside to inform Twilight somebody had just tried to burn down the library.

The sight that greeted him was one of perfect horror.  The town was falling apart at the seams from the looks of things.  Building had holes in them, and entire buildings were burning or rubble.

Panicking, the teen raced down a side alley, only to come face-to-face with a twisted sight.  There, was the spitting image of himself, in the act of hanging a pony from a tree in the center of town by its hooves.  The other him turned, and seeing the original Kyle, dropped his prey, which promptly ran off, and stalked toward him.

“You like?”  The pretender asked, a bemused smile playing across his features.

“What the hell are you?  Who are you?”  He asked, his voice lowering in fear and shock

“That would ruin all the fun, now wouldn’t it?  I thought you’d know better, being a master of games and all.”

“How do you know?”  Kyle asked his copy angered and surprised.

“Take a look at my face genius.”  Was the snarky reply, which would have been rather like Kyle on a regular day.

Kyle made a quick decision, this guy had to be stopped, he looked like he was going to kill everybody if he got away with whatever he was doing.

As if the imposter read his mind, he sank into an impossibly low ready stance.  Kyle reacted with a head-on charge.  He bum-rushed his foe, but cut it short with a palm strike to his aggressor’s head.

Smooth as summer silk, the facsimile of the teen weaved out of the way, grabbed his arm, and punched it at the back of the elbow.  He struck with more force than the boy had ever felt before.  His joint shattered, and he shrieked in pain, and attempted to draw his arm back.

His foe did not relent, and grabbed his arm at the broken joint and armpit, and threw him.  The landing dislocated his shoulder, and a grunt passed from his lips.

The Other Kyle stood over him, and spat on his shirt.  “By the way, I’ve got three things to tell you.  First: I’m not you.  If that wasn’t obvious enough, I’m telling you.  Second: Celestia’s going to test you, to see if you’re ready to leave.  Finally: You might want to fail that test.  When you go back, you’ll go into a world where your sister’s a year younger, and hates you for running away.”

With that, he spun and walked away.  The injured boy couldn’t move from the pain, and could only watch his foe left his sight.

Only four words stuck in his head, drowning him in mind.  For a moment, he forgot the pain, he forgot where he was, and he forgot what happened.

Your sister hates you