A little past midnight, on a whim, Luna entered the Royal Library's horror section.
As she wandered between the stacks, she noticed a small, angular shadow in the middle of one of the shelves. Looking closer, she saw it was cast by a thin book, sticking out from between two larger volumes.
Then, she did something she would soon regret: She pulled it from the shelf, and examined it.
At its title, The Great Purple Unicorn Troll, she raised an eyebrow. At the byline "Anonymous," she raised the other. It was more a pamphlet than a proper book; the words had been printed on long papers, which were folded over and stapled in the middle—rather crudely, in fact. It numbered only eight pages, including the cover.
The first page inside read, "Published by Trollestia Press". There was no other information, and no serial number.
Her curiosity piqued, Luna turned the page and began to read. As her eyes moved down subsequent pages, her brow furrowed, her mouth's corners bent downward, and her nostrils flared.
At last, she snarled out loud, and there was a white flash as she flung the book against the far wall.
Nearby, in the Library's main hall, a guard found himself startled by the booming voice that shattered the midnight silence.
"GUARD! BRING US A BASIN! WE ARE GOING TO BE SICK!"
* * *
The Great Purple Unicorn Troll: Ultimate Edition
by
Anonymous
Once, there was a brony named Warren Peace. Warren had two childhood friends: Tommy Gunn, and Hugh Jass.
Even at the best of times, Hugh had never liked cute things. And as he was sick of his Internet haunts being spammed with ponies all the time, he hated them in particular. He knew the ponies' names, though, because they were sold at the store where he worked. Hugh also knew about Warren's appreciation for them, and busted his balls about it all the time. But they were still friends, 'cause friendship is magic.
There is a stereotype that men think about sex all the time, and if the only man you knew was Tommy, you might actually think it was true. And when he wasn't thinking about that, he was thinking about Facebook. Often, when he visited Warren, he would ask to use Warren's computer to check it. But Tommy was not up on much Internet culture beyond that, so he didn't know about ponies.
One day, knowing Tommy was coming over, Warren set this illustration as his desktop background, just to see what would happen.
Tommy didn't react at first, but a few minutes later, as the three men chatted around the card table, he asked about it.
"Those characters are strippers," Warren lied. "Their stage names are Applejack and Rainbow Dash."
"I like 'em already," Tommy said.
But Hugh, recognizing the names, put his palm to his face. "Where's the bad guy from Roger Rabbit when you need him?" he groaned.
Hugh didn't blab to Tommy about where the characters were actually from, though, because he could appreciate a good prank. And if Tommy knew about ponies, it would ruin another, more elaborate prank that had already been going on.
* * *
Tommy spent so much time trying to get laid, he didn't have time for anything worthwhile, like ponies. As Warren would soon prove, what you don't know can easily be used to get your goat.
One day, Warren came up with a way to tell whether his friends knew about ponies, without letting on that he himself knew. He asked them this question:
One morning, you wake up to find a strange creature in your bed. As your vision clears, you're amazed to find it's a purple unicorn. Before you can do anything, it turns to you and says, in a sexy voice, "Good morning, lover." How do you react, and why?
Most people answered with some variation of, "Wow, this is some good shit."
Others were more creative. One said, "You look a lot different from last night."
Another said, "WHERE'S THE OTHER THREE HORSES I FUCKED?"
Hugh said, "I'd buy a one-way ticket to Baffin Island, 'cause it's too cold for unicorns there."
But Tommy had the best response: "If I can't remember what happened, better do it again. Since it's a mythical creature, it just might be the best sex ever."
That's Tommy, ladies and gentlemen.
Anyway, as I said, Tommy liked to check Facebook every few hours. One night, he went to do so while he, Warren, and Hugh were watching a werewolf movie. But Tommy was about to encounter something a lot scarier. You see, before Tommy dropped by, Warren had set this as his desktop image:
Warren, still watching the film, kept a straight face while his computer, which was in a room down the hall, powered up.
Then, there came a sound, something like this: "AAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGHH!"
Tommy bolted out of the computer room, tore down the hall, and pointed an accusatory finger at Warren.
"You sick bastard!" he yelled.
Thus, from that day forward, every time Tommy dropped by, he found a different sexy picture of Twilight Sparkle on Warren's desktop. And since he still didn't know about the pony show, he found himself increasingly flustered.
But wait—there's more.
The day after Tommy's first encounter with Twi's plot, the two chums were talking, and the subject of the previous night's prank happened to come up.
"You're sick, man," Tommy said. "Sick."
"Oh, yeah," Warren said, in the most boorish voice he could manage. "I'd tap that hot purple ass."
Tommy sighed resignedly, and said, "Yeah, so would I."
* * *
Later that same day, Warren's computer started having hardware problems. It would function for about thirty seconds before freezing. Luckily, Warren was able to quickly make use of those seconds, and change the desktop background.
Otherwise, the repairman would have turned it on and gotten a face full of pony ass.
* * *
Warren discovered ponies in July of 2011. He kept it a secret, because in his neighborhood, people would take one look and say, "Warren, this shit's gay and it'll make you gay." Warren had a ready retort, ("It stars six naked females; you're gay for not watching.") but he didn't feel like rocking the boat.
After he had been a fan for some months, when one day, Hugh, wearing a particularly sour expression, mentioned how annoyed he was at the latest plague sweeping the Internet.
"What?" Warren said, though he was sure he knew.
"Ponies," Hugh said, his voice dripping venom. "They're everywhere, and they won't leave. They're worse than the Jehovah's. And I'm looking at this, and I'm thinking, are these people serious? I could understand if the ponies were secretly badass, or were being horribly dismembered..." (If only he knew, Warren thought.) "...But they aren't. What's this Internet coming to?"
Some months later, Warren approached Hugh and said he had something to confess.
Hugh immediately said, "You like ponies, don't you." It wasn't a question.
"I'd stop if I could," Warren said, "but I can't. It's an addiction."
This was by far the worst thing Warren could possibly confess. If he had preferred the company of men or liked to dress in women's clothing, Hugh would have been quietly supportive. But liking ponies was unforgivable.
It's not machismo; that's just the way Hugh is. Even if he gave the show a try, he would find it boring at best. And if you try to kill him with kindness, he'll kill you with his glare.
But Hugh would never blab about Warren's liking of ponies, because he has integrity, and because he happens to be the most secretive man in the world. He's so secretive, if you ask him when his birthday is, he says, "February 30th."
I suspect a part of Hugh is secretly glad he has more material for the busting of Warren's balls. Whenever the opportunity arises, he tells Warren he's going to Brony Hell.
"It's the tenth level," he once said. "Dante didn't mention it, because it's too horrible. It resembles a subway tunnel stuffed full of sweaty, naked fat guys, under whom you will smother for all eternity."
Ironically, without knowing it, Hugh proves the pony show's main theme correct. The two have been friends since the sixth grade, and it would take a lot more than a cartoon to change that. A true, true friend can get away with busting your balls when times are good, because you know you can count on him when times are bad.
* * *
Hugh was a big fan of Left 4 Dead, but not for the cooperative aspect. No, he was a troll, always turning on his teammates at the last second and setting them up to be devoured by monsters.
One day, Warren mentioned that Gabe Newell, the big boss at that particular game's production company, sometimes trolled in his own games. Warren wondered aloud how Hugh would react if Gabe trolled him.
Hugh's response: "I would say, 'It is an honor to be trolled by you, sir!'"
Warren didn't have the heart to tell Hugh that Gabe was a brony.
* * *
Once a year, Warren crashes at Tommy's place, so as to attend an annual outdoor party, held by some of the neighborhood's more prominent (for better or worse) members.
A few hours before this particular year's soiree began, the two pals were at Tommy's dad's place, chatting about nothing in particular. At one point, Tommy excused himself, as he had to briefly run a work-related errand.
That was when Warren sprang into action.
He had brought along a flash drive with this picture...
...modified with an advice animal-style caption: "Show me how humans do it."
Tommy's dad watched quietly as Warren uploaded it to Tommy's computer and set it as the desktop background. "Well," he said at last, "Tommy can dish it out, so he'd better be able to take it."
When Tommy got back, he didn't react as explosively as the last time, only saying, "You're sick, man."
Warren cackled fiendishly. "You know how unicorns are fantasy animals?" he said. "Well, she's my fantasy animal."
But Tommy didn't take the image down right away. No, it stayed there for a good twenty-four hours, while the computer was still being used, off and on.
The next day, Warren, Tommy, Tommy's dad, and Tommy's girlfriend decided to watch a movie. Since they didn't have a DVD player, Tommy had hooked his computer up to his dad's big-screen TV. So when he turned both machines on, there, for all to see, was a seductive Twilight Sparkle, asking for sweet human-style love.
The girlfriend asked about it, and Tommy said, "Yes, it's a purple unicorn. There's a lot of this stuff on the Internet, and I wish I didn't know about it."
"Unicorn?" the dad said. "I thought she was a cat. Shows how much I pay attention."
"You know," Warren said, "since she's a pony, she's used to doing it from behind. You should do her missionary-style. She'll think it's really kinky."
"Alright, that's it," Tommy said. And he changed the desktop image back to SpongeBob.
* * *
Tommy was a contract worker, and sometimes the job sites were a long way from his home. Sometimes, when the sites were closer to Warren's place, he let Tommy crash on his couch, so as to save his pal the trouble of a long commute early in the morning.
Warren saw an opportunity that was too good to pass up. He bought a cheap molded-mane Twi figure, and waited.
One night, hours after Tommy had drifted off, Warren took the figure, and crept toward the couch. He crawled on his hands and knees, stopping every few feet to listen for interruptions in his friend's snoring. At length, he reached the cell phone that Tommy had set up as an alarm clock. The phone's flat surface made a perfect perch for a pony.
So, when Tommy's alarm went off a few hours later, he reached down and put his hand directly on Twilight Sparkle. He thought, What the hell is this thing? And when he picked it up, looked at it, and fully comprehended what it was, he had a good laugh.
"You should make that your calling card," Tommy said, when Warren got up a few minutes later. "Get a big tub of 'em..."
Hugh hadn't woken up yet, so Warren went into Hugh's office and put Twi on his keyboard. Tommy and him chuckled a bit at this, but were disappointed when Hugh had no apparent reaction when he went into his office later that morning.
Later, when Hugh was away, Warren went to retreive the figure, but couldn't find it. He searched the office as thoroughly as he dared, but it was nowhere to be found. So when Hugh returned, Warren approached him rather sheepishly.
"This is the least manly thing I will ever say," Warren said, "but can I have my pony back?"
* * *
Completing the stereotype of the dirty-minded construction worker, Tommy really liked strip joints. Once, while talking about his latest visit to one, he happened to conclude with the highly sophisticated declaration, "Thank God for strippers!"
"You don't believe in God," Warren said. "Thank Celestia instead."
"Who's that?"
"The winged unicorn goddess of the sun. She has a sexy voice, and is easy on the eyes."
"Well, thank Celestia for strippers, then!" Tommy said.
At that moment, for some reason, Warren thought about John Joseco's artwork.
* * *
Lou Slipps, another pal of Hugh and Warren's, came to visit. The three got into a rather animated discussion about an original universe Hugh was creating. While explaining something to Lou, Warren attempted to reference a town from this universe, but slipped and said, "Ponyville".
Oops.
If you've never witnessed two grown men literally ROFLMAOing, it's a sight to behold. As Warren's friends rolled on the floor, laughing their asses off, their faces grew red from exertion. But not as red as Warren's.
Warren knew he would never hear the end of it if he didn't do something about it soon. A short while later, Hugh made a joke about Warren going home to Ponyville. Warren sprang into action.
"Oh yeah, I own a trailer in Ponyville," he said. "I like to sit on the porch with a beer in my hand, and make lewd comments at passing mares. 'Hey, nice flanks, baby. Yeah, that's right, walk away... keep that tail up. That's what daddy likes'."
"He belongs in jail!" wailed a mortified Hugh. "Will nobody stop this animal?"
Thus ends the Great Purple Unicorn Troll.
* * *
As Trollestia strutted into the one-room shack that housed the printing press, her entire editorial staff looked up at her, sneered, and returned to his work.
"Gooood morning, Mr. Fearcraft!" Trollestia said, a particularly diabolical grin on her muzzle.
"Boss, you have got to find some better contributors," the grey stallion said. "I'm sick of correcting basic errors. I've seen schoolkids write better than this."
Trollestia stuck the tip of her tongue at him. "If they're funny, who cares? Anyway, I just got back from distributing the latest masterpiece to libraries across the country, whether anypony likes it or not. I'm sure they'll..." She put a hoof to her muzzle to stifle a laugh. "...Be absolutely delighted."
"How quaint. That 'masterpiece' took me four hours to make readable." Fearcraft's left eye twitched a bit. "And since it was only six pages long..."
He was interrupted by a booming voice from outside. "ATTENTION PERPETRATORS OF TROLLESTIA PRESS! SURRENDER AND PREPARE TO FACE JUSTICE!"
Trollestia looked out the small window to see Princess Luna and a platoon of pegasus Guards, hovering in the air around the shack.
"Here comes the Party Carriage," Trollestia said. "What ever happened to freedom of the press?"
"In an autocracy?" Fearcraft said. "Now I know you're trolling."
Trollestia stuck her head out the window, and shouted, "Do your worst, coppers! You'll never take us alive!"
She pulled back from the window and looked around for her editor, but he had vanished. The only trace of him was a large piece of paper on his writing desk. Upon this, hastily scribbled, was the phrase "EARLY RETIREMENT".
