I slipped out of bed and went looking for a Bible. Something troubled me about finding a human Twilight Sparkle in my bed. Okay, actually a lot of somethings.

Having found the book and turned to the correct page, I cleared my throat loudly while standing over the bed. Twilight jerked awake and sat up, looking confused and wary of the dark room.

I read from the book, just barely making out the print with a sliver of daylight that came in around the window screen.

“Then their eyes were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from Him among the trees to conceal their nakedness. But the Lord called out, “Where are you?” The man replied, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked.” The Lord said, “Who told you that you were naked?” The man said, “We ate the forbidden fruit and it revealed to us many things, namely the fact that we were buck-ass naked all along.”

“Um, what?” said Twilight.

“In case I wasn't clear enough, you're naked. Cover up before you catch a chill." I reached for the light switch. "Watch your eyes.”

She squinted, looking around rapidly. It was the first time I’d gotten a good look at her. As a human, she wasn’t bad looking, in a trim-but-not-quite-sexy-librarian kind of way. Her hair was a medium brown color and her eyes were blue. I guess just like me in Equestria, the whole jumping-to-different-universes thing made you look like one of the locals.

She was also still naked, having completely ignored what I’d said earlier. I flushed a little and pretended to read the book.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“You know me as Valiant. You want exact location, or just generals?”

“Um, just generally.”

“I’m over here, you’re over there and naked.”

“Is this the human world?”

“Bingo! I always knew you were smart.” I clapped a little. “Now cover up.”

Twilight stared at her hand, appearing to have no trouble flexing the fingers. Since I had intuitive control over four legs in Equestria, that made sense, or as much sense as it could in the multiverse.

“My ex girlfriend left some clothes here, so you can use them.” I dug in the bottom of my dresser. I had been nice and washed them on the off chance that she ever came back.

“Is this your French-speaking ex?”

“No, this is my lawyer ex.” Twilight stared at me. “I have a lot of exes, okay?” I tossed her most of the pieces of a business suit, the shirt, jacket, and slacks. I apologized if they didn’t fit and had gotten rumpled in the drawer.

I had no idea how long Twilight might be here, but decided that we would only breach the uncomfortable subject of underwear if it turned out to be longer than a day.

“I understand the clothing for heat purposes,” she said. “Obviously, there’s no full-body coverage of hair. It’s warm enough for me in here, though.”

“That’s not the point. We have cultural taboos on nudity, and unless you want to get thrown in jail for public indecency, suit up."

Twilight flushed red once she realized what I was saying. It took a bit for her to work out the mechanics of sleeves and buttons.

When she was presentable, I opened the bedroom door. My roommate happened to be passing by at that moment.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you had company last night.” He grinned. “What’s your name, cutie?”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twilight Sparkle…” He took in her bedhead and bedraggled clothing. He laughed. “How much did she cost, bro?”

Calmly, I said, “Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I was going to punch you in the stomach, but I didn’t want to get puke on me. Guess it’ll have to be the groin, then.”

He took a step back. An ass he may be, but my roommate is no idiot. “I’m just going to go.”

After the front door had closed behind him, Twilight asked, “What did he mean by that?”

“There’s an encyclopedia set over there,” I said, pointing to the book shelf. It may have been from 1985, but I thought the set added a touch of class to the apartment. “Look up ‘streetwalker’. I’m going to neaten up.” I stepped into the bathroom.

I would have suggested that she use the internet instead of the encyclopedia, but I could only imagine what horrors that might cause.

A few minutes later I came out with fresh clothes and breath. Twilight was quickly flipping through the encyclopedia to subjects that didn’t involve prostitution.

“Are you hungry?” I asked. “I’m going to make breakfast.”

“What do you have?”

“To go with the eggs? Bacon, sausage, turkey sausage, hamburger, steakburger, and maybe some veal.”

Twilight flipped through the books, looking up those words. After the first couple, she looked ill.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her into the bathroom. “Look in the mirror. Open your mouth. Incisors and canine teeth, see? You’re an omnivore now.”

“I’m not sure I like this.”

“It’s pretty cool. You can eat anything that you can kill.” I thought for a moment. “Actually, I suppose you can eat some things while they’re still alive, if you’re into that.”

We had pancakes for breakfast.

“I hope nopony wonders where we are,” Twilight said.

“Did you notice me missing when I was in the other versions of Equestira?” We’d talked about my universe-skipping.

“No, honestly. I’ll have to do some more research on how the rock works. It must use reality dilation principles.” She launched into some technical stuff that I didn’t understand.

“In other words, whoever is affected by the rock slips by unnoticed in the fabric of time and space," she finished.

“Stupid ugly rock.”

“What are you talking about? This is an amazing discovery!”

“I told you about the note, the one that said ‘Enjoy the multiverse, sucker’. Somebody has this thing, and then decides to troll me with it? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s too bad you got drunk and didn’t get to hear yourself tell you who is behind it,” she said tersely.

“But at least Twilight the stallion didn’t get to put the moves on me.”

Twilight’s face went bright red. “Can we talk about something else?”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Well, I’d really like to know more about your world. Can we go outside?”

We went outside. About eighteen hours later, we came back.

“I don’t want to know any more about your world,” said Twilight.

“Come on, you have to admit that was pretty amazing.”

“It sure was,” said totallynotabrony. “I wish you readers could see the mental imagery I’ve got going on right now. I may even write a story about it next week.”

“Regardless,” said Twilight, “I just want to go home.”

“Well, it’s late. With any luck, you’ll end up back there and I’ll stay here.”

“I hope so.”

I gave her my bed, and left the rock sitting on the bedside table. I took the couch. It seemed so familiar…

…because I woke up back in Equestria.

“Well, doesn’t that just take the muffin,” I muttered.

“We’ve got a lot to do today, Valiant,” said Twilight, walking down the stairs.

“Wait,” I said, “you did visit Earth, right? I didn’t dream that?”

“Um, I thought I was dreaming.”

“You dreamed that you went to Earth, and I dreamed that you went to Earth, so maybe it wasn’t a dream at all and there really is something to this multiverse idea.”

She sighed. “It looks that way.”

“Congratulations! You owe me an apology!”

“For what?”

“Here let me help. ‘I’m sorry I doubted you and thought you were crazy.’ Just like that.”

Suddenly, Pinkie came in. “Hey guys, Applejack is about to come home! We need to go get her surprise party ready!”

Distracted, Twilight went with her. I sulked, unapologized to.

I had breakfast with Spike. At least he seemed interested in Earth. While he didn’t agree with my plan to get Twilight drunk and take her back again, he didn’t say he was going to stop me, either.

I eventually ambled off towards Sweet Apple Acres. I encountered a sad-looking mail pony on the way.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well, it’s my birthday and I thought those ponies were throwing me a surprise party, but it turns out they weren’t and now I’m all depressed.”

“Oh really? Come on, I’ll help you crash it.”

We walked back towards the barn. The pony’s name turned out to be Post Haste. I was just telling him how funny it was that he delivered mail when Applejack’s friends went running by.

The food had been left behind, though, so we had a nice little birthday for Post. I figured that since I wasn’t crazy, was actually just a visitor here, and this wasn’t a dream, I could try being a little nicer to everyone.

I went back to the library late in the day. Twilight was busy organizing a trip to Dodge Junction to go after Applejack. The farm pony apparently hadn’t come back on the train.

“Could you fly us there, Valiant?”

“Maybe.”

There were several seconds of silence.

Twilight sighed. “Fine. I’m sorry.”

“Cool. Spike, take a letter.”

The dragon grabbed a piece of parchment and looked up expectantly.

“Well, what did you learn, Twilight?”

Twilight gritted her teeth. “Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that you should never make an assumption about somepony unless you’re absolutely sure. Instead of being crazy, they might instead turn out to be an alien from another universe.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go get Applejack. Oh, and this is my friend Post Haste.”

“It’s my birthday!” said Post.

“Yeah, I was going to take him for a ride in the Monstrosity anyway. He might as well come along if we’re going somewhere.”

We flew out to Dodge Junction. I hung out with Post in the saloon while the other ponies looked for Applejack. All that was on tap was sarsaparilla, but I worked on setting up a deal with the bartender to start selling something a little harder. I was cautiously optimistic that it could happen.

We met up with the others later. Apparently, Applejack didn’t want to go back.

“Well, girls, we seem to be striking out,” said Twilight.

Rainbow said, “That's 'cause we're playing too nice.”

“Yes,” Rarity agreed. “Desperate times do call for desperate measures.”

Rainbow nodded. “It's time to call in the big guns.”

“Oh boy!” I said.

Twilight nodded. “Pinkie’s mouth.”

“Awww.”

“It’s okay,” said Post. “I still believe in you.”

“Thanks, man. It means a lot.”

After that, we got Pinkie to talk Applejack into submission. She promised to reveal what had being going on at breakfast the next day.

Instead of actually coming to breakfast, Applejack ran off. Pinkie said something about a broken promise. I wasn’t paying attention, because overnight a rattlesnake had gotten into the VTOL and I spent several agonizing seconds airborne before plowing through the local cherry factory and managing to shake the snake off.

“Isn’t pest control your job?” I said to Captain Falcon.

He shrugged as if to say, Everything but the poisonous snakes, bub.

Luckily, there was no damage to the aircraft and I took off again. By the time I caught up with the rest of the ponies, they had already concluded an epic chase. They’d even managed to force out Applejack’s terrible secret: she hadn’t won the rodeo.

“Seriously?” I said. “That was what all this trouble was for? We ruined Post’s birthday because you wouldn’t quit bothering your friend about something she was ashamed of?”

Needless to say, the ride back to Ponyville was spent in uncomfortable silence. It got even worse when we realized that we’d left Pinkie and Rarity out in the desert somewhere.

Author note:
In the last chapter, I commented on reaching 500 unique views. Well, in the last 24 hours, the total chapter views took a huge spike and are now OVER 9000. Thanks, FIMFiction!