Once upon a time, there was a human named Kyle. Whoops, I forgot we were going for originality. I’ll start over….
Once upon a time, there was a human named Kevin. Now, Kevin had a terrible life. He hated his school, hated his job, hated his family; he had this general hate of everything, really.
None of his teachers in high school would cut him any slack. He worked part-time at a grocery store, forced to fake a smile for hours on end. He was an only child, and his dad – whom he hated – was pretty much the only remaining member of his family: His unpleasant uncles and aunts lived very far away from him. His grandparents (on both sides) were dead, his mom was dead, even he was dead. Oh, scratch that. He wasn’t dead yet; that comes a little later in the story.
He was dying, though. He had cancer, and only had three months to live. After that, he would die, and his doctor said he’d let him know when that happens.
One rainy morning, he was driving to school in his rusty old 1984 Buick Century. He wasn’t particularly cheerful that day, especially since he ran out of milk and had to eat his Cheerios dry for breakfast.
He had been thinking about life, and death, and life-and-death sorts of things. He had been debating which would’ve been a better alternative to dying of cancer; a freak car accident or suicide. An idea popped into his head, and he realized he didn’t have to choose. He drove his car off of a 258-foot-high bridge into a gorge, doing both at the same time.
And then, he died. But, he didn’t actually die. Well, he did, but he came back to life shortly after.
Kevin opened his eyes, looking up at the sky and feeling the grass underneath him. He wasn’t dead, like he had expected. He had awoken in the middle of a mysterious forest full of trees. Something was off about this place, something didn’t seem right…
Slowly, he got up and noticed a butter-yellow pegasus staring at him. He jumped up and backed into a tree, startled by its giant, disproportionate head and eyes.
“What are you?” he asked the strange creature.
“I’m… I’m Fluttershy.”
He couldn’t hear her, but he didn’t bother trying again. “Whatever. How come you can speak English?”
“I… I don’t think I understand-”
“Why do you look so weird?” he asked, tilting his head. “I’d like to say you’re a horse, but you don’t quite look like one.”
She shrank back. “Well, I’m a pegasus, and-”
“Where are you from? Where am I, for that matter?” He had almost forgotten to ask that question.
Fluttershy drew circles in the ground with her hoof. “Well, I live in a cottage, just outside of-”
Kevin sighed. “Please, just tell me something useful. Is there anything at all you can help me with?”
Hesitantly, she stepped out of character. “Well, I was just going to take you to my house, lie you down on the couch, see if you were hurt or needed anything, all the while asking you what you are and commenting on how the closest thing you look like to me is a tall, hairless monkey. Oh, and then I’ll secretly fall in love with you, if I haven’t already.”
Kevin shrugged. “That’s cool and all, I guess, but could we save that for later? I think we need to move this story along.”
“Oh… sure, sure,” Fluttershy agreed. “I’m sure Twilight could help you out; she always knows what to do.”
Then, they locked arms and skipped all the way to Twilight’s house. Well, almost all the way to Twilight’s house; they were interrupted along the way. I’ll get to that in a bit.
Kevin, skipping with Fluttershy, crossed the bridge into a strange town. It was like something from 17th century England, with all the thatched-roof houses and carriages and what have you. It was a quaint little town, but nothing he could spend too much time thinking about. He had to find out where exactly he was, after all: not necessarily what exactly was where exactly he was.
As they made their way further into town, a pink pony popped up right in front of him. “Hiya! I’m Pinkie Pie, and I like throwing parties!”
So that’s exactly what she did.
She dragged the two to a gingerbread house, inside of which plenty of other strange horse creatures were milling about. Extravagant party decorations were everywhere, with plenty of things Kevin would expect to see at a six-year-old’s birthday party. Streamers, balloons, cake, even piñatas – oh, never mind, those were just more ponies.
When Kevin arrived, that’s when the place was really jamming. He became acquainted with all of Pinkie’s friends, but most importantly with the Main Five Plus Applejack. All of them had a chance to introduce themselves in only the most stereotypical way. We’ll skip that, for now. It’s not really important to the story, but if you really want to hear them, stick around afterwards. Refreshments are provided. Even those little finger sandwiches.
I’m only kidding. I can’t afford finger sandwiches. Narrators get lower salaries than you’d think.
When the introductions were all over with, the pink party pony proffered him some punch. “Here, have some punch!”
“Okay,” he replied, and took a sip. It was the best punch he had ever tasted! However, he cringed as he thought of the word “punch”, because it reminded him of his dad. For a second, he had forgotten all about his past and the importance of continuity.
Wanting to distract his mind, he walked over to where a mint green pony was and sat down, so that he was eye level with her. She looked depressed, so he figured he could relate to her. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “This is the second party Pinkie has thrown in an hour. I mean, it’s okay to have one every day, but not every time somepony new comes to town! Or, whatever it is that you are.”
“I’m a human.”
“Yeah, okay,” she muttered, slouching. “Still, this is a waste of my time. I could be playing the lyre right now, but nooooo. Every single pony in Ponyville has to show up to these stupid parties.”
Just then, a loud roar shook the house. Everypony ran outside to see what was going on. A monstrous animal was looming in the middle of the road, not too far off from their party.
Kevin panicked. “What… What is that thing?”
Rarity gasped. “Dear me, it’s a Manticore!” She turned to Fluttershy. “Fluttershy, darling, could you please do something, dear?”
The yellow-butter pegasus shook her head. “I’m sorry. I would, of course, but we do need to give the main character a chance to shine. This is his story, after all.”
They all looked to Kevin, who took a brave step forward. “This is my fight, and my fight alone,” he said with a squint. The squint wasn’t an attempt to be epic; he was nearsighted. His glasses had fallen off in the crash, so they hadn’t come with him to Equestria.
Kevin ran up to the animal, leapt into the air, and struck it in the head with his fist. As it turns out, he had been well-trained in a multitude of martial arts. It was very convenient for not only the ponies, but especially for the storyline, for how else could a Multicore be vanquished?
Using several techniques that he had learned in his time as the Batman, he landed a fatal blow to the Manicure’s jugular, which was enough to kill it. Then, it died.
Instead of being afraid of this strange and dangerous creature called Kevin, everypony cheered. Murmurs swept through the crowd. What was this strange creature? Where did he come from? Why was he so unbearably attractive?
Nopony asked these questions to Kevin directly, of course. They stuck to simply thanking him for being so brave, courageous, and strange. A thought emerged in the back of Kevin’s mind as he shook everypony’s hooves: Maybe this place isn’t so bad after all…
Kevin wiped the sweat from his forehead. It had been a long day of hard work, as well as a hard day of long work, and not to mention a long, hard work day.
He had been employed at the apple farm for the day to pick apples. In his first week in this Equestria, he had become something of an odd jobs man – doing things that ponies would otherwise have no trouble doing with digits on their appendages. This had amounted to tightening bolts, opening jars, turning book pages, cutting things with scissors, and hitchhiking. And, now, picking apples.
Now, he had seen the apple pony getting fruit down from the trees. From what he saw, she did it in a much more efficient manner. With one kick of the tree, all of the apples would get just the right amount of momentum to fall into three small buckets. He didn’t understand why what he was doing now was better in any sort of way. It took much longer to pick every apple by hand, and he was working up quite a sweat in the hot sun.
The apple pony trotted over to him and beckoned him to come down from the ladder. She handed – er, hoofed – him a glass of apple juice, and he took a long drink of the sweet relief in a glass.
“How’s the apple pickin’ comin’ along?” the orange mare asked.
Kevin took a break from drinking to answer. “Well, it’s tiring, that’s for sure.”
The apple pony nodded. “Well, Ah reckon that’s bound ta come wit’ hard work n’ all. Keep at it, pardner, n’ yule git through t’ orchard in no tahm ay ‘tall.”
He didn’t quite understand what she said, but he continued anyway. “I don’t see why you need me to do it. I mean, you can kick apples out of an apple tree in ten seconds. I’m doing that in an average of ten minutes! What gives?”
She grinned. “’S cuz yew luk ah mait uhttrahctive win yer swehtin’ laik uh hawg n’ awll that.”
He had even more trouble understanding this time, but he was fairly certain she had said something like the word “attractive”. This made him slightly uncomfortable.
Before now, he hadn’t been sure if he wanted to find a way back to the world he had come from. The ponies had been kind to him, sure, but he wasn’t exactly aware of why. Now, he was getting an unsettling idea from the way the apple pony was looking at him, and the way she was stroking his arm, and the way she was licking his fingers.
“Excuse me, apple pony,” Kevin said to the carrot-coloured steed, “but I have to run.”
So that’s exactly what he did. Well, he ran for a distance of about twenty metres, but slowed to a walk once he remembered how tired he was.
“There has to be something, Twilight,” Kevin encouraged.
“I know, I know, just… shut your mouth for a second,” Twilight said, looking through all of the library’s books. “I can’t find anything.”
Kevin watched her zip back and forth across the library, hands in his pockets. His pockets were in his pants, which were a worn-down pair of blue jeans. He had gotten those jeans a year or so ago, when they were having a sale at K-Mart. It was a “Buy one pair, get the second pair half-off” kind of deal, and he always kept an eye out for those sorts of things, being short on money and all. He was a coupon clipper, too. His dad always thought it was a waste of time. However, Kevin enjoyed rubbing his frugality in his father’s face. Who’s laughing now, Dad? I saved a dollar and fifty-two cents on okra last week!
Whoops, I forgot that Kevin was only in the story, not narrating it. My bad.
Anyway, Twilight started going through another shelf of books, flipping through all of the books’ pages. Kevin sat down and sighed, wondering just how long he’d have to wait for the plot to move forward. “Are you sure there’s absolutely nothing on humans? Is there any possible way I could’ve gotten here in the first place?”
Twilight rubbed her chin, as her mind wandered into a flashback…
$ $ $
“Twilight, come look at this!” Spike called out as he pushed aside some books in the library.
“What is it, Spike?” Twilight grumbled, coming down the stairs from the upper floor of the library. “This had better be quick. You know how important it is for me to study, alone and undisturbed.”
“I was cleaning the shelves and sorting some of the books, and I found this!” From behind some books, Spike pulled out another book, this one dusty and old.
“Well, gee, Spike. You found a book. In a library full of books,” Twilight observed sarcastically.
“Well, if you look inside,” Spike continued, opening the book, “it tells of all sorts of strange, ancient beings and old prophecies. I really think you should look into this more.”
Twilight yawned, obviously too tired to pay attention to important plot points. “You know, I’ll look into it later, Spike, but only because I pity your lack of intelligence.” She picked up the book telekinetically and headed back upstairs. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my studies. And remember to knock first before you come in.”
$ $ $
“Nope, not that I’m aware of.” Twilight stopped rubbing her chin as the flashback ended.
Kevin shot a puzzled look at her. “But what about the book in the flashback? Could that have anything to do with this at all?”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Oh, fine. I guess we could pop it open and have a look.”
She trotted up to her bedroom, and Kevin waited behind in the library. As he waited, he noticed a door open on the other side of the library. Behind it, a small purple dragon peeked his head out.
“Hello,” Kevin began. “You must be Spike.”
“Why, yes, it’s nice to meet you,” Spike said in a fairly loud voice. Glancing upstairs, he mouthed the words “help me” to Kevin.
Twilight came back down the stairs, and scolded the little dragon. “Spike! Get back to writing those letters to the princess about what I learned about friendship.”
Spike rubbed his wrists. “But Twilight, I’m getting hungry…”
“You can eat when I’m a princess. Now, get back to work!” Twilight snapped.
He nodded with a fearful look on his face and closed the door.
Twilight brought the book to the center of the library and placed it on a pedestal. She wiped the dust off of the front cover of the book and opened it. The book made a cracking sound, for the binding was becoming old and worn. In the very first page of the book, she pointed to a bunch of what Kevin thought looked like hieroglyphics.
“These are hieroglyphics,” Twilight said. “But, once you turn the page, there’s this strange spell that I found about a week ago. I cast it, not entirely knowing what it did. But, now that you’re here, I guess I do.”
Kevin saw a crudely drawn picture on the opposite page, of a car traveling across a bridge. It looked like it had been scribbled in crayon. “Is there anything else other than the spell?”
The violet equine nodded. “Yeah, it goes on with some ambiguous predictions and prophecies and junk.”
Kevin began reading the opposite page. “‘On one rainy morning, in a place very far, a human will be driving in his car. His mood shall be glum and his face bear a frown, for Cheerios without milk tend to make one frown. Tires will spin and the car will veer, and the human in Equestria will appear…’ Wait a minute. This is saying exactly what happened to me!”
Twilight wasn’t really paying attention. “And…?”
“And we should keep reading, if we want to know what’s going to happen!”
So that’s exactly what they did. They leafed through the entire story, from the beginning to the part where he met Fluttershy, and the part where he slayed the Manatee, and the part with him and Fluttershy in the sauna, and the part where he picked apples for that one pony, and the part where he died, but didn’t actually die, but did, and the part where he did actually die, but then they realized that they were much too far ahead, so they skipped back several pages.
Eventually, they found the end of this story, where Kevin was standing before Celestia. Twilight’s hoof came up to her face, and she muttered, “Of course…”
“What? What is it?” Kevin inquired.
Twilight threw her hooves up in the air. “Well, if I’ve learned anything in my time here in Ponyville, it’s that Celestia shows up at the end and fixes everything. So that’s it; we just go to Canterlot and get this over with.” She pushed the book away and started back up to her room.
Kevin looked back down at the book, at a picture of a massive, dark monster. When Twilight came down again, he asked, “Well, would Celestia have anything to do with this?”
She walked by and took a quick glance at the page. “Eh, I’ll bring the elements just in case. Which means I’ll have to bring my friends, too,” Twilght grumbled.
So, Twilight went to gather her friends and they all boarded the next train to Canterlot. Again, I’m trying to skip the boring parts here, so excuse me for paraphrasing. Those page breaks break my concentration sometimes. You know what else breaks my concentration? When someone chews gum with their mouth open in a movie theatre. Also, when the narrator rambles off-topic. Eherm.
They arrived at Canterlot and began their way up to the princess’s castle, where the princess was, when a strange disturbance halted them. A giant, disfigured monster was stomping around the city and throwing everypony into a panic. It let out a terrible and ear-splitting roar into the sky.
The human and six ponies watched it as it rampaged through the city and punched buildings, destroying them. It was also breathing fire, and was setting the destroyed buildings ablaze. It also had laser vision, which would cause the already burning buildings to explode. No ponies were dead, though, because this is a cartoon for little girls.
Now, which pony hasn’t spoken yet? Ah yes. “What is that thing?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Twilight. “I think I brought a book on it, though, so we’re good.”
“Whatever it is, it needs to be about twenty percent cooler,” the Columbia blue winged horse observed.
Twilight shuffled through the backpack she had brought along on her back and produced that old book that Spike had found. She skimmed through the pages, finding the one that had a crayon sketch of the monster they were up against. She began to read, although it was hard to now that she was not in a library.
“It says here that a monster named Humanis was unleashed upon your arrival, Kevin. It’s the manifestation of the dark nature of humanity; greed, pessimism, anger, dishonesty, unloyalty, and cutting people off on the highway.”
“I have brought this upon us,” Kevin realized as he looked off into the distance. He couldn’t really see much of anything in the distance, so he just looked in the general “out” direction.
“But, there’s more!” the plum quadruped exclaimed. “It can only be defeated with the elements of harmony; pretty dresses, epicness, dorkiness, apples, undisloyalty, and being utterly adorable. Good thing I brought them with me. But, we also need… a seventh element?” She reread the passage in the book. “But, there are only six elements!”
Kevin took a look at the monster, which looked more like a massive, blurry blob. He came to a stark realization. “The seventh element... is me.”
As he spoke, an orb of light appeared over his head. A necklace materialized from it and floated down, attaching itself to his neck. The jewel upon it was shaped like a five-pointed star, with all of the points turned up towards the sky.
“The seventh element…” Fluttershy marveled. “What is it?”
Kevin looked down at her and smiled. “Fingers.”
Made speechless by pure wonder, they all formed a formation facing the monster. Twilight handed out the elements, and each of them became seriously serious, knowing what had to be done.
As the seven of them focused, a rainbow circled around them, twisting this way and that. It went up into the air, and it went back down, and then it shot straight at the monster, focusing a powerful beam into its heart. Then, it died. Well, it didn’t really die. The bad qualities in all of us never really die; they are just overcome by the power of friendship and rainbow hyper beams. So, it stopped rampaging, stood there for a moment, and then walked away.
Everypony cheered, even amongst all the demolished buildings and such. They celebrated briefly, and then everybody went up to Princess Celestia. The castle was actually in excellent condition, for the princess had put up a protective spell for that part of the city, such that there would still be a castle in time for the resolution.
The seven protagonists walked into the royal throne room. Seeing that Celestia was taller and had longer and sparklier hair than the other ponies, Kevin knelt down before her. “Your highness,” he assumed.
Celestia acknowledged him with a gentle smile. “Brave and honourable Kevin, you have proven your courage and dependability. You’ve conquered the terrible Humanis, and for this great feat, we shall immortalize you with a stained glass window in my palace.”
“Thank you, your highness,” Kevin accepted humbly.
Celestia nodded. “You may be wondering why it is that you’ve come to this universe. It was I who brought you here, Kevin, and do you know why?”
Kevin straightened up. “To fulfill my destiny as a hero? To learn about the true value of friendship? To realize how much better ponies are compared to humans?” Seeing Celestia shake her head, he asked, “Why, then?”
The princess chuckled. “Because I thought it would be hilarious! And trust me, it was, especially with that steamy scene with Fluttershy at the sauna,” she said with a laugh. “But, I suppose you have to return to your universe at some time or another.”
Then, a bright glow came from her horn. Kevin found himself enveloped in a white aura, and was lifted into the air. Everything became brighter and brighter, until there was nothing around him but white. He hung midair there for a bit, in that never-ending region of whiteness, and then, everything went black. Then it went white just one more time, until finally reverting to black after a few seconds.
He tried to open his heavy eyelids. He was in a bed, and an uncomfortable one, at that. His body was too heavy to get up, so he remained laid back. From a quick scan of his surroundings, he found that he was in a hospital room. A nurse – a human nurse – was seated by his side, and he forced his mouth to form words. “Where am I?”
She smiled. “You’re in the hospital.” She wrote some things down on a clipboard and read it over. “You’re very lucky, you know. You weren’t actually dead; you were only in a coma from that car crash for about a year and a half. Also, your cancer has gone away, and you’ve got a full, happy life ahead of you.”
Taking the clipboard with her, she got up and opened the door. “Speaking of which, I believe you have some company.”
At that moment, Kevin’s family came into the room. Not only was his father there, but also all of his aunts and uncles, and they brought his cousins. Even his grandparents and mom were there because, as it turns out, they weren’t actually dead either. They all were happy to see him, and he was happy to see him too, being no longer dead and all.
And they all rode off into the sunset, all on the same horse. It was a very long horse.
The End
Author's Note
Since this story didn't get enough views, stay tuned for the clopfic sequel! Kevin x Lyra OTP!! :DDD
Special thanks to NotSoSubtle, Somepony New, GC13, and Inane Antics for prereading.
