“Checkmate.”

“Bullshit!” Danielle roared, flipping the entire chessboard over the dining room table. Pawns, rooks, and assorted chess pieces scattered through the air, a couple bouncing off of her younger twin brother’s forehead.

“There’s no need to be a sore loser,” the teenage boy said smugly, readjusting his glasses and struggling to keep the smirk off of his face. “Everybody loses a game now and then.”

“Frickin’ cheater,” Danielle grumbled, brushing a lock of inky shoulder length hair from her face, helping her brother put the pieces away. “It doesn’t count if you always win.”

“I always practice,” her brother stated with an air of superiority, upon which point she thumped him on the back of the head.

At five feet and eleven inches, Danielle Miller was fairly tall for a girl of her age; almost in stark contrast to her younger-by-eight-and-a-half-seconds fraternal twin, who barely topped off at five feet. He was a short, wiry person, but his thin wrists and spindly fingers flicked gracefully across the table as he plucked chess piece after chess piece between his fingers, rolling them lovingly back into the box.

Of course, Donald loved chess a lot more than Danielle did. He always won.

She insisted that it was because he cheated, but it might have had something to do with the fact that the already-graduated boy was a perfectionist at strategic board games.

“Screw it,” Danielle seethed quietly, stretching her arms out and shifting her white tee shirt so that it was a little more comfortable. “I’m going back to my Nazi zombies. They don’t tear up my little horsy pieces.”

“Suit yourself,” Donald grinned quietly, stretching his own arms and back before putting the chessboard away. He scratched lightly at his thinly brown haired head, and Danielle resisted the urge to jab him in between the eyes again. “This is why you never win.”

She blew a loud raspberry at her brother, and stomped sourly up the flight of stairs to her own room on the second floor of the old house. A worn but sturdy building, the Miller household had been built generations ago; and Donald ensured that the place was kept in neat and tidy condition with fresh paint, spic and span upkeep, and constant care.

It helped that her brother was obsessive compulsive. He did most of the cleaning.

Deliberately tipping and tilting photographs as she hummed her way down the hallway, Danielle wound her way to her own room and snagged her ‘secret weapon’ for when her brother got a bit too full of himself. After careful consideration, she decided that his ego was indeed far too large, and it was her job – no, her civic duty – to deflate it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Donald sighed contentedly at the silence, basking in the quiet at last as he poured himself another cup of strong black coffee. It wasn’t often that Danielle actually stayed quiet for long, meaning that she was either sufficiently distracted, or asleep.

And sometimes, she wasn’t even quiet in her sleep.

The girl snored.

Loudly.

He had just finished filling the cup when his dreaded foe returned with a vengeance.

Plink!

The speeding projectile bounced off of his head, knocking his glasses around to dangle from the tip of his nose.

“For crying out loud, Danielle!” Donald scowled as he readjusted his wire frame glasses, carefully protecting his liquid gold as his sister cackled and loaded another marshmallow into her handheld slingshot.

“Whassa matter, Donny?” Danielle snickered, flinging another puffy white ball-o’-doom whizzing over his head. “Don’tcha like marshmallows?”

His unamused glower answered her question fairly well as yet another projectile bounced off of his forehead, landing with a splat into his coffee. She loaded another one into her slingshot, sticking out her tongue from the side of her mouth and closing one eye as she took aim form the bottom of the stairs.

“One more and you can cook your own dinner tonight.”

Danielle dropped the slingshot and gasped dramatically, giving him her best puppy dog impression.

“So-so mean to poor Danni…!” she mock sobbed loudly, flinging her face into the crook of her elbow. “Woe is me! The cruelty I face, ‘tis simply too much for mortal kind to bear!”

“Do you want to get any lasagna tonight, or not?” Donald deadpanned, crossing his arms grumpily.

“Hey, I can cook!” she argued.

“Then why don’t you?” her brother mumbled as he set about taking care of his sister’s latest mess.

“Well, ‘cause I’m lazy. Duh. I thought we went over this, mister ‘genius pants’.”

Donald dropped the marshmallows into the kitchen wastebasket humorlessly, giving the girl a flat stare.

“I assure you, my pants are in no way intelligent.”

Danielle rolled her eyes and snorted. She swore, if somebody didn’t explain a joke to him, he wouldn’t even understand what it was about. But he was the smart one?

“♫Oh, who lives in a farm house and always bothers me?♫” she sang to the displeasure of her brother.

“Oh, dear lord, I thought you stopped watching Spongebob.”

“♫Who’s squishy, pale, doesn’t exercise, and boring is he!♫”

“I despise you with a deep intensity, Danielle.”

“♫DONALD SQUAREPANTS, DONALD SQUAREPANTS-!♫”

“So much.”

Danielle let out a little quiet sigh as she watched the roiling storm clouds churn and toss through the sky, covering the stars. The thunder storms out in the little empty place always seemed bigger and grander than they did in the city. Ever since she was a little girl, Danielle had loved storms. The bigger, the better.

She loved the rush of wind, the cold burst of rain on a hot summer’s evening as lightning split the sky. The static and energy in the air gave her a sense of wonderment as she leaned a little closer to the windows, her breath beginning to fog the glass a little as a small smile tugged at her lips. It was little moments like this one that brought back fond memories. Of the first time she had ever seen a thunderstorm, how the crack of thunder had scared Donald senseless.

Oh, now that was funny.

Or the one time she and her family had picnicked beneath an old oak, soaked to the bone before they could escape the oncoming rain. They had run laughing and shrieking through the pouring rain, sopping wet as they all tumbled into their little red car before it was eventually scrapped, and the family managed to get a dingy old van.

Right before her mother had died.

The smile slowly faded from Danielle’s lips as she lost sight of the brewing storm and memories flooded over her vision, a little sting in her eyes as she remembered the funeral. That had been when Donald started becoming so much meaner, more formal and stiff. Sarah Miller was like a bigger Danielle; they even shared the same vibrant green eyes.

And then her father had run off with some floozy from Las Vegas, and she spent every single day waiting by the phone, expecting that one call when he told them he would be home soon…

Of course, that had been months ago.

It took Danielle a full minute to realize that she had assumed the same mean, angry scowl that her brother often wore. She shook her head slowly, pulling away from the chilled glass as another rumble of thunder vibrated through the air. Suddenly, she didn’t feel much like watching the oncoming storm anymore.

She had just begun to trudge quietly up the stairs to prepare for the next day of summer vacation when a peal of lightning ripped through the air, crackling loudly enough to make her jump when the remaining lights flickered out. Heavy sheets of cold rain began falling in earnest against the house, their rhythmic drumming beating a tuneless song into the air.

Danielle stood in the dark of the stairwell in silence for a couple of seconds, and eventually sighed.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiii-crap,” she groaned loudly, her skin prickling uncomfortably. “Donny!”

“I know, I know!” she heard from the top of the stairs. “Give the backup generator a minute!”

“I am not going into the basement in the dark!” Danielle shouted back up the stairwell as her brother began to descend crankily in his silken blue pajamas. “Don’t you know the pretty girl always dies in the horror movies?”

Donald grumbled something unintelligible as he slipped past her, small flashlight in his hand as another loud bam! sounded off when the storm slapped another gigantic electrical fist against the earth, blue neon brilliance zipping through the windows momentarily.

“Fine,” he pushed his way toward the basement door. “I’ll get the damned thing myself.”

Danielle was all too glad to let Donald force the old backup generator to life on his own when she stopped him with a sudden tap on the shoulder. He jerked jumpily, frowning as he shined the light in her eyes. A sudden metallic banging juddered on one side of the house, and Danielle guessed that the garage door had just been hit by something in the storm.

“Don’t do that, Danni,” he grimaced, and she agitatedly pushed the light away from her face.

“Shh!” Danielle hushed him, holding a finger to her lips. She cupped her ears, listening intently to the sound. She could have sworn that it was just her imagination, but she definitely heard something…

Her brother waited for a moment before shaking his head.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said dryly as he pried open the creaky wooden door to the basement. “Hold the torch for me, will you?”

“I ain’t going down there!” Danielle shook her head viciously, taking a step back. What if that odd noise she heard had been originating from the basement?

Donald exhaled heavily through his nostrils, and stomped down the basement stairs into the cool dark room below.

“Don’t get eaten by the boogeyman!” Danielle called down after him cheerfully, earning a very rude reply from her sleep deprived and cranky brother.

She waited impatiently in the dark for a little while as Donald struggled to coax the generator into pumping energy again, and before long, the lights flickered back on as the house was illuminated once more. Danielle breathed a silent sigh of relief as Donald stomped back up from the basement, and she almost managed to ignore the noise that she heard once again.

This time, however, Donald froze just as he closed the basement door, his eyes wide behind his wireframe glasses.

“… Heard it too, huh?” she mouthed, and he nodded noiselessly.

“Get the baseball bat.”

“Well… uh, you see…” Danielle started sheepishly.

“Now!” he hissed, following the high pitched, teary noise. Danielle was gone in a flash, and returned seconds later and out of breath with a bright orange plastic stick.

“I, uh… kind of lost the wooden one,” she admitted with a grin. “But I’ve got a wiffle bat!”

Donald pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, following the sound through the house. The closer he got to the entrance to the garage, the louder the noise got; and he could have sworn that it sounded almost like… crying?

Danielle followed close behind, plastic bat held menacingly before her as she stalked through the house. The garage itself was connected to the house through the kitchen, thankfully, and Donald quietly unlatched the lock to the garage, shining the light inside.

The outer garage doors were indeed blown partway open; almost as if something heavy had hit them and caused a large indent, and another part had been completely torn off. Quite a large piece of the doors to the outside, almost person-sized. Wind and rain blew in violently, soaking the floor and walls with water and the intermittent flashes of lightning.

However, Donald and Danielle were far more interested in the source of the crying.

The thin young woman huddled in the corner shook uncontrollably as the light shined over her, her quiet sobs the only sound aside from the storm.

Donald started to take a step back, only to find that Danielle was already trying to move forward. She snatched the flashlight from his hands, carefully moving closer to the crying woman. Upon closer inspection, she couldn’t have been much older, if at all, than Danielle; but her brightly colored blue and white hair stood out against the dingy colors of the basement. It didn’t help that the cold air blowing in made the naked woman shiver and shake even worse, and she scrambled to back away from the approaching girl and only pushed herself further into the corner.

“Whoa, whoa!” Danielle held up a hand with the wiffle bat placidly, eyes wide. “You okay, lady?”

The naked woman was nearly hyperventilating, eyes flickering madly back and forth between Danielle and Donald. She occasionally glimpsed down at her own hands in panic, spluttering incoherently whenever she tried to speak.

In a matter of moments, Donald was beside his sister with a large green towel. He frowned at Danielle and tilted the light downward so that it wasn’t shining in the woman’s eyes, and carefully approached with the towel.

“Ma’am?” he said quietly, extending the towel to her and trying not to look very closely at the exposed woman. “Here, take this. Kindly remain calm, my sister and I are in the process of contacting the local authorities.”

The woman stared in terror at him for a moment, unable to retreat any further. She gawked at him behind lengths of her oddly colored hair, and Donald momentarily wondered if the lost woman were on some kind of drug. Her large, bloodshot eyes seemed to denote as much, and he suddenly felt much more uneasy as she extended a jittering hand out and snagged the towel, clinging desperately to it.

Donald wordlessly backed away, nodding to his sister and retreated to find a phone. Danielle awkwardly tried to help her to her feet, wondering how on earth she managed to make that big of a hole in the garage doors in the first place.

“W-what’s going o-on?” the young woman strained to speak, her lips quivering in fear. “Where am I?”

“In our garage,” Danielle replied with a playful little grin. “Doi. How did you even – actually, are you okay?” she asked carefully, and the woman stared down at her hands in shock and confusion. She wiped away a couple of tears with her palms, opening and closing her hands over and over again.

“Trixie does not know if she will ever be okay with-with this,” she sputtered in horror.

Danielle blinked, the pieces coming together ever so slowly as she thought.

No.

No, it was too coincidental. It couldn’t be.

“… Trixie?” Danielle started slowly. “Trixie… who?”

Don’t say Lulamoon. Don’t say Lulamoon. Don’t say Lulamoon.

“Lulamoon,” the shivering woman stuttered, and Danielle’s heart skipped a beat. “Can somepony please tell Trixie what is going on? What-what are you – what am I?!”

Danielle’s brain seemed to have shut down temporarily as she struggled to keep up with the information. It had to be a deranged fangirl obsessed with cosplay, or something to that effect. This sort of thing didn’t just happen.

“Some… pony,” Danielle worded carefully as she began backing away from the obviously mad woman.

Trixie stared at her, looking back down at her cold hands and pulling at her hair in distress. She seemed to be at a loss for words every time she looked at herself, and was on the verge of crying again whenever she did so.

“Hey,” Danielle patted her on the shoulder softly, causing her to jump. “Easy, lad- Trixie, easy. I’m, uh… I’m just going to be right back, okay?” she asked sweetly, smiling friendlily at the woman.

After a moment, Trixie nodded silently and clutched even more tightly at the green towel.

“Donny?” she whisper-shouted after she ensured that the garage door was firmly locked behind her. “Donald, you’re not going to believe this…!”

Author's Notes:

This started off as just a little short story to the side of the Millerverse, but who knows where it could go.