“Because, you don’t quite seem to grasp the concept of ‘nice’.”

“No idea what you’re talkin’ about, Purple. I am a pleasant mother fucker.”

Ryan sat, once again, at the wooden kitchen table as he nursed his bruised chin with a bag of ice Yellow had gotten for him, which made him thoroughly suspicious that it wasn’t filled with scorpions. Melted water from the ice gradually began to drip onto his hand, and he wiped it on his faded green shirt. Purple paced around the kitchen nervously, continuously looking back at the tiny dragon. Spike sat on the counter, kicking his legs out of boredom. The yellow one, Fluttershy, sat across from Ryan, two front hooves propped up on the table in front of her, almost like she was getting ready for a game of poker.

And she just kept staring at him.

He would’ve been genuinely disturbed, had he not been in a few stare downs before. Actually, one of said stare downs lead to a friend of his being stabbed in the eye.

Completely on accident, of course.

… Mostly.

In his defense, the events leading up to it had been pretty damned funny. Well, funny according to approximately one person. But that’s another story.

After a few minutes of Yellow giving him the evil eye and listening to the dragon’s small feet rap and tap against the counter, Ryan sighed and scratched his head. “Look, Purple-“

“Twilight. Twilight Sparkle.”

“Whatever. Purple, you don’t have to keep me in here. I promise not to light too many things on fire.” He proclaimed conversationally. Anything to distract him from Yellow. Maybe, so long as he ignored it…

“Who said anything about fire?” Twilight asked concernedly, tilting her head. It was then that Ryan noticed that this tree house doubled as a library. Which really should have been evident, considering the massive number of books lining the wooden walls.

Also his defense, he had quite a few other things on his mind. That, and, again, he simply wasn’t paying attention.

“Well, see-“ he started, but was cut off by a rather loud belch from Spike.

“Hey, I was talkin’, ya’ rude little fucker!” Ryan growled, pounding the table with his fist for emphasis. He whirled around to give the baby dragon a piece of his mind, when he realized that the fire-burping lizard was barfing up what looked like a scroll, which Twilight immediately levitated over to herself to read.

“… Ew.” He turned back in his seat, awaiting this new development and Jesus Christ the yellow pony was still staring at him.

“So… I guess you don’t need a ‘You’ve got mail!’… thing.” Ryan’s pitiful attempt at humor caused Twilight to look up briefly and blink at him before returning to her letter. She read it curiously, though her eyes widened nearing the end and she levitated a couple of golden tickets into the air with an excited ‘squee’!

“What, is Willy Wonka havin’ a field day, or somethin’?”

“No,” Twilight said, her horn glowing brightly as she floated the tickets right side up to show Ryan. “These are tickets from Princess Celestia, invitations to the Grand Galloping Gala! It’s one of the biggest events to happen this year, and the Princess herself will be there!”

Ryan could’ve sworn he heard Yellow’s neck snap, her head turned so fast.

“The Grand Galloping Gala?” she quietly repeated. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to go to-“

“No, no, wait wait wait.” Ryan said, holding up a hand. He then pointed accusingly at Twilight. “How. Purple, how the fuck did you know those would be here?” he asked suspiciously, sitting backwards in the wooden chair, his legs going off the sides. He would’ve rested his chin on the back of the chair, but, well…

“Hm?” Twilight asked, looking at him. “Oh. I didn’t. I was already waiting on a letter from Princess Celestia, after I informed her of your arrival. You were unconscious then.”

Ryan thought for a moment, running a hand through his greasy black hair. “Huh. So, you tell your princess that an alien shows up, and she sends you party invitations. Makes perfect fuckin’ sense.” His first thought was that it was just cartoon logic, but something about the whole thing just seemed amiss.

“I said,” Fluttershy restated slowly, “I’ve always wanted to go to the Grand Gallopi-“

“You should totally go to that party!” Ryan cut her off loudly. “And take me with you!”

“What.” Purple said bluntly, deadpanning.

If looks could kill, Ryan would have been six feet under by now. He could almost feel the heat waves coming off of Yellow.

“No, seriously! I mean, think about it.” Ryan said, accentuating with his hands. “You tell the princess that an alien shows up. She sends you two – two tickets to this shindig. Evidently, she’s planning on having you unveiling the arrival of an alien! Just think about how important you’ll be!”

Ryan was pulling all of this out of his ass, although Purple didn’t seem to be catching on. Even better, Yellow’s eyes were nearly bugging out of her head, and one of her eyes were twitching furiously. It was clear she was trying to restrain herself.

And it brought no end of joy to Ryan watching her struggle with it.

Again, in his defense, it was pretty damned funny.

“You do make a pretty good point,” Twilight agreed with him.

“Damn straight,” Ryan said, reclining in the wooden chair and propping his feet up on the table. The table sagged under the weight, and his dirty and worn shoes dropped with a clunk directly in front of Fluttershy. Although he could no longer see her face, he was almost positive that she was on the verge of snapping.

And the filthy, oversized shoes directly in front of her muzzle weren’t going to help. His grin widened.

“So, when do we blow this popsicle stand?” Ryan asked, pretending to check the time on an invisible watch on his wrist.

“The Gala won’t be for quite a while longer, so we have some time to kill before then. I suppose I could practice your introductions with some of my friends, if you’d like to meet them.” she said, thinking.

Ryan twirled his hand around, resting it on his chest in what he hoped was a very fancy manner. “Madam, I would be supremely fuckin’ honored to meet your many midget acquaintances.”

“Okay, then!” Twilight said, excited. “Let me just grab a few things, and we can go see Applejack. Come along, Spike!” and with that, she trotted off, rambling to herself about some kind of… bucking season, from the sound of it. He quickly tuned her out, shrugging. Applejack sounded like some kind of cereal. His stomach growled at the prospect.

Then again, he’d never had any good experiences with cereal. For the most part, they all tasted like sugar-coated chunks of cardboard. Come to think of it, he hated cereal. He wasn’t even certain that this new pony had anything to do with it, but he made sure that he wouldn’t like him either. Or her. Hell, it was probably a her.

Slowly spreading his feet apart, he gazed down the table at Yellow to see if any changes had occurred.

His shark-like grin only widened into a beaming smile when he discovered that she was positively livid.

“Before phase seventeen of the plan. But don’t move until then, okay?” Twilight instructed Ryan, who sat crouched in the large and leafy bush.

“Gotcha.” He said for the umpteenth time, giving her a thumbs up. She stared at it for a moment, confused, before shaking her head. Spike clung to her mane with his tiny claws, trying not to fall off her back.

“Okay, but not before then. We don’t need to go causing any kind of panic, so remember to come out slowly only on my signal, okay?”

“Gotcha, Pur- uh, Twilight.” Ryan said, doing his best to sound convincing. He crouched even lower, and gave her his most winning smile. Unfortunately, this only served to make him look like a very fleshy pink velociraptor, and Twilight nervously took off at a brisk trot toward the farmhouse that they’d stopped at. A single orange pony could be seen pulling what looked like a very heavy plow along a fence line, gradually tilling up the ground. Twilight zoned in on it, and began chatting animatedly, although Ryan couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Which wouldn’t really be a problem, considering he was about to fuck things up for everybody anyway.

He allowed himself a wide predatory grin, before he quietly slipped out of the bushes and began creeping up on the ponies.

Fuck diplomacy.

His heart beating loudly, Ryan did his best to tiptoe over the grass, desperately trying not to step on any branches or twigs, mainly moving when he saw the pair talking. As he crept closer, he noticed what looked like a picture of apples on the pony’s flank. He supposed the markings must have something to do with their names, as both Purple and Yellow had markings as well. He pushed it out of his mind as he stealthily drew closer, trying to make himself as shadow-like as possible.

I am invisible.

I am a ghost.

“So, I hope you won’t be too surprised when-“

“Aw, shucks, y’all aren’t tryin’ to weasel yer way outta hard work, are ya’?” the orange one asked suspiciously, giving Twilight a sly grin.

“Wha- no, no, not at all! What I’m trying to say, is-“

Ryan ignored them, sneaking up even closer. He was almost directly behind the orange one now, and his heart was beating so loudly he could feel it in his throat. This was going to be so completely worth it.

I am a shadow. I am… that one guy from Assassin’s Creed. I am mother fuckin’ Batman.

“I am the night, mother fucker!” Or, rather, that is what Ryan wanted to have shouted as he leapt up behind the rather surprised orange pony. Instead, all he managed to blurt out was a weak “Blargleflargle!”

Being kicked directly in the testicles makes speaking a little difficult.

“HOLY HORSE FEATHERS, WHAT IS THAT?!”

Ryan barely had time to blink (or breathe, for that matter) before Orange quickly followed up with yet another powerful kick. This time, directly to the face.

Christ, why is it always the face?

A hoof blocking his field of vision was all he managed to see before he blacked out.

“Look, I said I’m sorry about the money. But I just don’t have it right n- oof!” Ryan strained to stand up, and Carlos kicked him in the side again. Bruises covered most of Ryan’s body by this point, and he was pretty sure he had a cracked rib. A steel toed boot came crashing into his stomach once more, and Ryan tried to roll with the kick, but only wound up lying against a curb.

The cold night air didn’t help much to assuage the fire in his left leg; although he could still move it, which was a good sign.

“Bullshit.” Carlos stated calmly, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked relaxed, like he almost always did. Cool, collected. Regardless of the fact that he was beating the living hell out of someone. “I tried bein’ nice. I tried, real hard.” Carlos kicked him again, and this time Ryan definitely heard a crack. He groaned in pain, struggling to get to away, but the worn black steel toed boot slammed down on his left leg once again, keeping him from escaping.

“But you don’t just take that much money and then fuckin’ walk away.”

“This- isn’t personal, is it?” Ryan wheezed, desperate for air.

Carlos deadpanned, pointing to the shiny new black eye patch he was sporting.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” he said brusquely.

Carlos kicked him again.

Author's Notes:

More on the way, folks.