Ryan Miller was having a hell of a day.

After being dragged into a whirling multicolored vortex of destruction and pain brought by a mysterious stallion with a ‘magical’ blue box, it suddenly occurred to him that maybe – just maybe – that had been a bad idea.

He screamed wildly through the air, spinning haphazardly toward the earth as they picked up speed. Ryan’s own voice was lost in his ears as he fell alongside screaming ponies and draconequus alike.

“SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!” the words were torn from his lips the moment he spoke them, his beady black eyes nearly blinded by his greasy black hair. Ryan flailed uselessly, the earth drawing closer and closer.

“Everypony!” Twilight screamed over the sound of falling wind, desperately straining to gain the attention of Rarity, Applejack, and the flapping Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash was struggling through the air, but barely managed to stay aloft for long – and Fluttershy was curled up into a tiny little yellow ball. “Everypony, stay close!”

Twilight summoned as much magical energy as she could, funneling every last bit of it into a spell to simultaneously gather her friends and hopefully teleport them all to safety. A bright violet light burned atop her horn, and –

Nothing happened.

Twilight blanched in shock, the fear and panic rising in her in a way that it never had before.

So, not only was she stranded miles above an alien planet on her way down at an alarming rate, but for the first time since before magic kindergarten, Twilight was completely deprived of magic.

Twilight began swearing just as much as Ryan was.

Surprisingly, even Discord, who had apparently been dragged along with them, looked pretty freaked out. However, he was handling the situation with unnatural speed, winding through the air in a serpentine fashion as he fell.

“Grab onto me!” Discord shouted over the wind, the ground coming closer and faster. “Before the temporal rift closes completely!”

Which begged the question as to precisely why a living god with nearly limitless power would be panicking. Twilight’s suspicion grew, and he finally tore away from her in despair as he threw himself around a couple of the other ponies.

There was a flash of brilliant indigo light above them, and Twilight knew no more.

A single lightly tanned hand burst out of the sand, scrabbling weakly into the air.

Ryan gasped for breath, pulling himself feebly from the dirt. He hacked and coughed into his dirty shirt, shaking sand from his pants and shoes as he struggled to free himself from the earth’s grasp. Ryan simply lay on the ground for a while, the hot sun bearing down on him and crisping him neatly.

He could worry about the intense heat later.

He was alive.

Which seemed rather bizarre, considering the fact that he had just been ludicrously high in the sky, along with –

“Twilight!” Ryan jerked up sorely, stumbling around the desert. The sun shined brightly off of the sand, stinging his eyes as he peered around for the unicorn. There was no sight of her whatsoever.

Panic stung the back of his tongue, and his heart pounded loudly in his ears. Feverishly, Ryan began digging through the sand with his bare hands, shouting madly the whole while.

“Twilight!” Ryan screamed, digging faster and harder. “Hang on, kid! I’ll dig ya out, I’m comin’, I’m comin’!”

“Ryan.”

“Don’t stop me now!” Ryan flung up a hand toward the staring unicorn, just long enough to end her protest before he continued violently digging. “Gimme a minute, kid, I gotta dig out – Twilight!”

Twilight grunted when Ryan threw his arms around her neck, cackling madly. He couldn’t quite tell why she looked a little off, but at this point, Ryan just didn’t care.

“You’re alive!” Ryan cheered, slowly peeled away by the disturbed unicorn. “Holy shitballs, kid! We’re alive! How did you do that?”

It was then that Ryan backed away a couple of paces, goofy overexcited grin still plastered on his face before it sunk in. Twilight didn’t quite look the same because his perception had altered, just as it had done when he first arrived in Equestria – and he saw her as he saw things before, like he was back in his own world.

Twilight seemed to have come to this conclusion herself long previously, as she was still throwing troubled glances at him and herself.

“I didn’t,” she answered quietly, looking around the burning desert with squinted eyes. “I-I think Discord just saved us.”

“The fucked up puzzle-piece dude?” Ryan straightened his back, pouring some more sand out of his shoe. Now that he was certain that he wasn’t about to be flattened like the world’s worst meat-pancake, Ryan could focus a little more on just what he was supposed to do now. “Why would he do that?”

“Ryan,” Twilight began slowly, again attempting to reach for power that wouldn’t answer. “Just what did you do.”

He stared hard at her for a minute, his old hostility replacing the thrill of being not-dead.

“The fuck d’you mean, what did I do?” he shrugged. “I just did what the Doctor guy said. I fucked up the time machine and saved the world.”

“I am almost positive that’s not what he said,” Twilight argued as they began walking, trudging through the heavy sand. The overbearing heat was so sweltering that Twilight desperately wished that she had a few ice cubes to hide beneath.

“Close enough,” Ryan shrugged, stumbling alongside her. “I stopped ‘im, didn’t I?”

“Idiot!” Twilight snapped, stamping the sandy ground. “You – you moron!” she shouted, actually surprising him a little. “Ryan, we might as well all be doomed now!”

“Uh, kid –”

“You blithering oaf! Do you have any idea what kind of disasters you might have caused, tearing apart a paradox device? Trapped in an alien dimension with no idea where we are –”

“Kid.”

“- with no idea where Discord took my friends –”

“Kid.”

“- and no magic to do anything at all! That’s like losing an appendage, you blundering, stupid, INSUFFERABLE –!”

“Twilight!” Ryan bellowed, causing her to lurch back. She breathed heavily, her left eye twitching hard.

Ryan silently pointed toward a dirty cement road, the highway winding far into the distance as a single tumbleweed blew across it.

“… Oh,” Twilight said simply. “… Well. That is most certainly… convenient.”

Ryan snorted, stumbling to the road and looking around hopefully for the nonexistent vehicle that would spare them a lot of walking.

“You know what would be more convenient? Not bein’ in fucking Arizona.”

Twilight gawked at the roadsign, the strange symbols on it swimming before her eyes in the heat.

“Er… what’s an ‘Arizona’?”

“The devil’s anus, that’s what,” Ryan grumbled bitterly as he started down the long highway, the uncomfortable sweat making him regret not digging deeper into the sand and waiting until nighttime.

“So… now what?” she asked in confusion, honestly out of answers. Twilight had no idea where she was, and could only follow the same ‘idiot’ that had gotten her into this mess. The ‘Doctor’ stallion and future Discord were nowhere to be seen, along with their mysterious blue box – and the younger Discord had snatched her friends away before she could manage to even save herself.

‘Now what’ was a damned good question.

“Now?” Ryan seethed, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Now we get dirty and tear it the fuck up.”

Fluttershy freefell through the air, Rainbow Dash’s hooves jerked roughly away from her as a violet light overtook her.

For what felt like the longest time, Fluttershy only felt as if she were falling forever.

Without warning, Fluttershy burst through a tiny sliver, jittering and skidding across hard, cruel pavement.

She cried out as one of her wings snapped, and she tried to roll with the landing. Curling herself into the tightest ball that she could, Fluttershy rolled over the asphalt in confusion and pain, finally coming to a whimpering halt at the base of an old iron fence.

Unsure of whether or not she had passed out at some point, Fluttershy pried open her aching eyes and blearily tried to drag herself to her hooves. She winced in agony, her stiff left hind leg bleeding badly. Fluttershy wasn’t certain of how badly the other landing injuries had been, but it felt as if she had busted her lip as well. Her right wing didn’t respond to her commands anymore, and it took all of her strength just to keep standing.

Fluttershy steeled herself, forcing her breathing down and tried to remain calm as spots danced before her eyes. It was extremely difficult to see, but that may have been because of the dark.

Strange. She could have sworn that it was daytime just a couple of minutes ago.

Wearily stumbling forward on shaking hooves, Fluttershy involuntarily dragged herself forward, no matter where forward may have been. It was difficult for her eyes to focus, and she feared that she may have been partially blinded – however, her eyes adjusted eventually, and it threw her off even further to discover that her perception had… shifted.

It was as if she were looking through a pair of tinted shades.

This whole world seemed darker, more finely detailed. Fluttershy stared in awe at a single tree trunk behind the iron fence for far too long, fascinated by the incredibly minute detail of every grain and whorl. It was as if just a single piece of the world had been touched by an artistic god’s hand, every last aspect masterfully crafted in such a hypnotic way.

Fluttershy didn’t know how much longer she would have spent, completely satisfied staring at a piece of wood were it not for the intense pain. She almost fainted again, but tiredly managed to drag herself a little further through the wooded area, which seemed to be some kind of park.

For hours on end, Fluttershy wandered.

Had it really been hours?

Was she simply dragging herself in circles?

Perhaps she had hit her head harder than she thought, as Fluttershy finally stumbled toward the sound of running water. Spotting a glinting metal shelter in the dark, Fluttershy frailly flopped beneath it, her heavy breathing the last sound in her ears before passing out on the gravel.

The splash of water was dulled by the sound of the wind, and a single trail of cigarette smoke wandered lazily into the air, only to be blown apart moments later.

Were one to notice the shadow of the mountainous man that dusted his hands silently, one might notice that the intimidating shadow was the least frightening thing about him. Standing several heads above the average man, the musclebound hulk cracked his neck, rolling his bald head around his shoulders with a practiced grace that years of training provided him.

He exhaled through his nose silently, the shorter – albeit, possibly even more dangerous – man behind him flicking the butt of his cigarette into the river.

He wouldn’t even still be doing these kinds of jobs if they could solve their current ‘financial issues’.

“Ain’t got all night, Bruno.”

“Yes, sir,” the gargantuan beast of a man rumbled with a voice like pebbles on sandpaper. To any unfortunate passersby, it might have seemed rather strange that such an enormous man bowed so readily to the commands of the shorter, stubbly one with an eye patch. However, the eye patch only complemented the curved scar just along his cheek; both parting gifts that he easily could have lived without.

Bruno slipped the keys into the Hummer, the specifically modified ignition rumbling quietly to life as the bulletproof armored vehicle roared with the force of a caged tiger. Bruno loved the sound of starting engines; they reminded him of his time as a marine. It almost brought a rare smile to his thick, stony face.

Almost.

Bruno waited in the vehicle for a couple of moments, before realizing that his employer hadn’t actually gotten inside.

“Sir?” Bruno asked, tingling of paranoia rising.

“Hol-ee shit, Bruno,” his boss whispered, kneeling just beside the vehicle. The demonic grin spreading over his features made a creeping shiver crawl up Bruno’s spine, and as he turned to him, Bruno saw just why the malicious smile spread even wider.

The battered yellow pegasus lying limply in his arms answered a great number of his questions, and gave him many, many more questions with no answers at all.

“Bruno,” Carlos Caesar grinned. “I think I just solved our financial issues.”

Author's Notes:

And...
Here-
We-
GO.