“Hey! Daimon!” one of his classmates had called him. “What are you going to do after school?”

Daimon was an eighteen-years-old boy, a strong and fast one at that. And if it wasn’t enough, he was still one of the best of his class and very handsome. The attractive light brown skin over his defined muscles made most of the girls of the whole school look at him and sighs as in wanting a part of that body for themselves.

But as the world normally is, no one can be perfect. Daimon was one of the most famous troublemakers of his school. No one was able to run from him whenever he wanted to play a prank or just give someone a nice beat up.

“Still haven’t quite thought of that,” raising his feet and placing them over the back of the chair in front of him, ‘accidentally’ hitting the head of another student, that said nothing. “I guess I have no plans as yet. Why?”

“There are two very good options. First is this new arcade that opened just down the street,” said one of the three boys surrounding Daimon’s chair. “The other is… this new guy on the other class. He claims to be at our grade, but he likes those girly shows you said made you sick.”

Daimon looked at the one who said that and raised an eyebrow, “You said a boy likes My Little Pony? You gotta be kidding me!” Using his left foot to call the attention of the boy sitting in front of him, Daimon asked, “Hey you! Can you confirm this story?”

“Yes, Daimon… I heard about it too…” said the boy, mostly afraid of really being trashed if he said something different.

“Damn… It’s already bad enough that I have to hear whenever my little sister is watching those shows…” Daimon commented. “I’m starting to know a few names of those damned horses.” Then Daimon’s eyes lighted with a sadistic smile, “Maybe it’s time for him to see that they’re nothing more than horses at a girly show…”

The trio that always followed his plots chuckled at what was about to happen. Another hit on his head by Daimon’s foot and the small boy looked back.

“What now, Daimon?”

“Don’t forget to do my homework, okay? I will be kinda busy playing with a horse lover.”

As the boy nodded and turned, Daimon hit him again just for the fun of it.

***

After the class finished, Daimon and his friends walked past the gate and waited. When one of his followers saw their victim, they began to follow him.

A few minutes and turns later, Daimon’s group made as if to pass him but actually turned and pushed him inside an alley where there was no movement.

Throwing the small boy against the wall at end of the alley, Daimon looked at him with a large sadistic smile. “Hello there, friend!” he started. “I heard you’re new at our school!”

“Yes, I am…” the boy said afraid of what would happen to him.

“Well, let me tell you one thing. We are the big guys of the school. My name is Daimon and I don’t like girly boys around. And it came to my knowledge that you’re a fan of those girly shows…”

“My Little Pony isn’t a girly show!” the boy said sure of himself. “It has a proper history, with adventures and battles of its own way!”

“Oh yeah, we believe…” and the trio behind Daimon burst out laughing. “Tell you want, boy. Call any character of that show of yours that you think has the power to stop me. But until that character appears or my arm gets tired, I will punch you. We have a deal?”

Not even waiting for an answer, Daimon started punching the guy in the belly. He tried the best that he could, but couldn’t quite stop the bigger and stronger guy.

After very long five minutes of punches and kicks, when finally the boy was at the ground, Daimon and his, now laughing, friends decided to leave. However, Daimon stopped when he heard the boy whisper, “You’re just like Luna… Right now… you are the same… as Luna’s Nightmare… Moon…” There was a small pause. Daimon walked to him slowly, “But… maybe you could return to… your equivalent… of Luna’s gently…”

Daimon got the boy by his collar and, pressing him against the wall once again, looked angrily at his eyes. “You never dare to compare me with something of that fucking series!” Daimon said in pure fury. “If this repeats, I swear you won’t return home ever!”

“May Luna… help you see… your own light…”

Furious, Daimon put all his strength in a last punch that rendered the boy unconscious.

***

After that, Daimon went back home. There, he first went to his room, just to find her little sister playing on his own computer a chapter of the very same show he had just spanked a boy.

“Elisa! What are you doing in my room?” he asked. On the screen had just appeared the name of the episode: 'Magical Mystery Cure'.

“Dad’s using the computer at the living room and mommy allowed me to watch there!” the young girl answered her brother without any hint of fear at all.

There was only one person that Daimon respect: his own mother. While he was an athlete by option, his mother wasn’t. She didn’t have the resources that her children have to study. Besides she knew that it would be up to them decide their own futures, she decided to give them the best chances to choose correctly.

“At least put the headphone!” he then turned his back to her sister and started the video-game. Not wanting to annoy his brother, the little girl did so and they got intertwined into their own way until she saw the episodes she wanted and left.

There were a few things that Daimon had to do on the internet before he could call his day officially done. Then, he took a long bath and decided to sleep.

***

He had never been one to dream during his sleep. But this time he did dream. He was in a long and beautiful plain, an occasional large shadowy tree. At distance, he could see a lake with a bit more trees around it. Quickly he decided to get there.

Then, everything got dark. Suddenly, he looked up. The sky, once clean, was now completely covered in clouds that he could only judge as strange. They were dark blue, and were moving in various directions, not in one direction, blown by the winds. It was like they wanted to close the sky.

“Very interesting,” said a female voice. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. “You know, often we only hear pleas of our subjects. But one time or another, pleas from peoples of other worlds can reach our mind.”

“Who are you?” he asked.

The voice that answered him wasn’t the same that had said before, “You should speak more carefully to us. We could easily turn you into nothingness right there, right now.”

“Try your luck!” Daimon said, getting in a defensive stance.

From nowhere, a small cloud of dark blue clouds started spinning and, from it two creatures left. Horses. One was a bit smaller than him, wearing a quite cute crown with obsidian in the main focus. The deep blue coat was slightly darker than the long mane and tail that moved along the non-present wind in the plains, as if they had a life of their own. The horse also had a rather long horn and a pair of wings, carefully folded on its back. At this small horse’s side, there was another, this one a lot taller than him, with pitch black fur and apparently the same color of mane and tail, wearing a armor on most of its back, and also being a winged unicorn, or a horned pegasus, he didn’t know exactly. Both also had same turquoise eyes, besides the taller one had lizard-like pupil and the smaller pretty normal big round eyes, and a drawing of a moon in their flanks.

“You were using your size and mass to cause harm to those weaker than you,” said the pony. “We could hear his distress from where we live.”

“Horses? I’m talking to frigging horses?” Daimon grinned and burst out laughing.

The taller mare downed her horn and shot at him a light ball that, upon hitting his chest, threw him about ten meters behind and a few more once he hit the ground. He felt how much that had hurt and then got up surprised. When you’re hurt in a dream you wake up, right?

“Most of times, yes,” said the mare that had hit him. Looking up, Daimon saw her already in front of him. Trying to back away, he hit the smaller pony. “But since we’re rulers over the night and dreams, we can keep you under a bit more deeper sleep, so you can enjoy small pleasures, as pain, without waking you up.”

“Likely story…”

“Don’t you believe in us?” Daimon turned to look the cute small pony in surprise. Her horn started to glow in a phantasmagoric blue light and he began floating slightly above the ground. “Should we warn you that, if you happen to die in the dream world, you will never wake up?”

“If I was to die, I would wake up!”

“As with the pain,” said the horse with a sadistic smile. “No. I really don’t believe that you wanna to be proven wrong.”

“Maybe we should punish him in some other form?” the pony asked with a smile.

“Let’s bring them to our world,” suggested the larger mare. “At least until he learns that his feelings shouldn’t be imposed into others.”

“Seems pretty good to me,” was the small pony’s reply. Both horses then began chanting something he didn’t understand and soon a bright light took virtually anything that he could see…

***

The only thing he could remember was that his head hurt like hell. He touched his head and felt his fingers caressing his hair gently. There was no blood and no bumps, so it should be a headache only.

Opening his eyes, he saw he was in a large room, with wooden ceiling. And that was not his room.

Looking around, he saw nobody else. The only things there were medical objects, but they were… different. As if they would be used by something not human, something without hands…

He shook his head and took off his blankets. He was nude, but his clothes were just at his side, already cleaned. Judging by the sun through the window, it was about midday and he hadn’t had his breakfast. Putting his clothes on, he had just finished his pants and was getting his shirt when the door behind him opened.

“Oh… You’re awake now. Feeling any better?” asked a gently female voice behind him.

“Yeah. Where am I?”

“Canterlot’s hospital,” she answered. “You were found by Princess Luna unconscious.”

At that name, his eyebrows raised. Turning around, he saw a yellow unicorn with white mane and tail and a small mallet with a red cross on it. Then his eyes widened a lot and he tripped on his own feet when trying to back away, falling on the ground once again.

“Are you alright?” the pony asked, getting to him.

“Stay away from me, freak!” he menaced, holding his fist closed.

“What?”

Getting up, he quickly looked around and noticing the wooden bed, quickly broke its fancy leg, ready to use it as a crude club, menacing the pony in front of him with that.

“Listen, and listen well!” he called the pony. “You will take me to this Luna person right now!”

Frozen in fear, the pony barely nodded. Daimon then placed the club on his back, held by his belt against his body. It wasn’t comfortable, but at least, it wouldn’t show that much over the clothing. However, to their surprise, he was enveloped into a gently golden glowing magic field and slowly lifted from ground. A blue magic field took his weapon from his back and handed it to a lavender glow, which restored the bed’s leg as if it was new.

A large and tall horse entered, her horn covered in a golden glow and stepped aside, so her followers could enter. She was majestic in her walk and he couldn’t help but notice that she also had a pair of wings a large horn like the mares in his dream. Her completely white fur made her mane and tail looks like the aurora boreal and on her flank was a marking like a small sun. On her head was a golden crown with a few small gems adorning it and around her neck she also had some kind of ornament with a large purple stone on.

The next to enter was another of these winged unicorns. This one, though, didn’t had a crown, was completely covered in lavender fur and her purple hair was cut in half by a pink stripe. On her flank was a big purple star, with smaller stars all around it.

And then his eyes widened again. The next one to enter was exactly the small pony he had seen in his dream! “YOU!” he exclaimed, trying to point at her, but found his arms restrained.

“Are you sure of your researches Twilight?” the one holding him in the air asked while looking at the lavender pony.

“Yeah. The magic flux inside his body is completely different from ponies. If he knows how, he can cast magic by each of those appendages, as if they were a unicorn horn each,” was the answer of the lavender filly.

“So we meet again, don’t we?” the dark blue unicorn said with a smile. Opening her wings and flapping it, she was quickly at his face’s height, holding a large smile. “Good to know you accepted our invitation. Had you made a safe trip?”

“You brought me there! Send me back!” Daimon tried attacking her, uselessly.

“I can’t,” she said with a smile. “Not until you learn a valuable lesson.”

Twilight then turned to the medical pony, “Go. We take care of things here.”

The scared pony nodded and ran outside the room.

“Luna, you shouldn’t talk to him like that. He can be dangerous,” said the voice of the larger mare.

“Come on, ‘Tia. We both know that his world doesn’t know magic. He would have a hell of a time trying to learn it on his own!” Luna answered with a sadistic grin. For the briefest instant, Daimon could see her pupils turn to slit and return to normal.

“I don’t need magic to take you down!” Daimon tried once again break free, without success.

“You should calm down,” the one that he heard being called ‘Tia’ answered. “You still don’t know where you stand with us. Your position is not that much strategic to defy the only ones that could help you.”

“Help me… Help Me…? HELP ME?” he then looked at the mare with the sun mark. “Fuck you! If you wanted to help me, you would send me back to my world!”

“As it was said already, you are here because you need to be taught a very important lesson,” the white mare continued. “You will be learning with my personal protégé about all the characteristics of a true friendship.”

“And if I happen to say ‘no’?” he said and tried to spit at Luna’s face. She, though, only focused her magic on it and threw his own spit at his face.

“It’s so cute how you think you have any say in the matter…” Luna said chuckling, while she slowly returned to the ground and to the other’s side. “Where should we place him, sister?”

“You are taking this rather personal, Luna,” the white princess commented. “What happened?”

“You know how I’m responsible by ponies’ dreams, ‘Tia,” Luna answered. “What I never told you was that sometimes, dreams that are strong enough can reach my consciousness and my curiosity take me to peek at them.

“Last night, I was reached by a very peculiar one. A human boy was having a nightmare about another one attacking him for something he didn’t like,” her grin then widened and she looked deep into his eyes. “He even asked me that I helped this other boy to see his light.”

“What? So other worlds know about us?” Twilight asked.

“This can be a very close coincidence, my dear. Anyway, I am inclined to follow my sister in helping recover this boy. My name is Celestia. And who are you?” Celestia asked looking at the boy.

“Who I am doesn’t concern you!” Daimon answered.

“This is going to be a tough one. Are you sure I can help you, Princess Luna?” Twilight asked.

“If anyone can, that is you, Twilight,” Luna answered with a smile. “And you have the help of Fluttershy.”

“I won’t change who I am just because you want me to!” he said.

Luna looked deep into Daimon’s eyes and, without any of the other Princesses notice, her eyes turned into slits again and she smiled sarcastically. “Then you’re never going home. You’ll be trapped in this girly show forever!” Daimon heard inside his head. His eyes widened when he noticed that maybe they were serious.

Celestia noticed that he wasn’t trying to get free as much and downed her captive slowly. Luna then returned to herself and just smiled. “You seem to have understood that you don’t have that much a choice,” Celestia said gently, and slowly freeing him from her magic field. “You’re going to live in Ponyville with Princess Twilight Sparkle. She and her friends are the ones that will help your change.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s a great idea!”

“And before you think on faking yourself so we will return you home early, remember that we have magic of our own,” Luna said looking him in the eye. “We’ll make sure that you’re true to your word before sending you to your home."

"Twilight, I'll have transportation so you can go to Ponyville as soon as possible and he can start his… exile… can we say it?” Celestia said with a smile. “For now, I guess that Daimon needs something to eat.” Next Chapter: Episode 02: The Exile Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 11 Minutes