You ever have one of those moments where something just kind of hits you out of the blue, but looking back on things, you just want to smack yourself and scream HOW DID I NOT REALIZE THAT SOONER? Because, you know, it’s so fucking obvious when the whole picture comes into view?

It makes you feel like a total moron, doesn't it?

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah…after me and Twilight had sex and managed to not do it again while we got cleaned up, I headed over to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

In regards to how it was structured against the human instructional system, I would have said it was one of the snazzier private schools that parents pay exuberant amounts of money for their children to attend, combined with your everyday college that has people fork over tons of dollars in return for a bit of paper that the latest economists said were kind of worthless thanks to the state of the job market when I left Earth. Meaning that ponies from all ages attended classes. Celestia paid special attention to the classes full of younger students, but tended to let the older ones do as they pleased. So, the older students a teacher had, the more freedom he was given.

Since I pretty much had the super advanced class on a subject that no one had really even tried before, Tia didn’t do much other than ask for an outline of what I planned to do. And since there would only be a single meeting of this stupid class before I guaranteed an F for anypony stupid enough to stick around more than the first day, I hadn’t even bothered to check my roll sheets to see how many students would be getting.

Boy was I stupid.

So anyway, me and Twilight headed into the university levels of Celestia’s school, and found my room. It was a big room, like the auditorium sized ones that the really big colleges have for classes that are expected to be so large a student wouldn't be able to ask a professor anything during class kind of big. It actually left me feeling a little nervous as to just how many ponies had actually signed up for the damn thing. If they assigned rooms based on class size, then I might of actually had a problem going ahead with my plan.

After getting worried about the size of the room, I looked around over to my desk with three stacks of paper that were just the same sheet copied over dozens of times. The fact that there were three fucking stacks of the damn things made me flinch since the test only needed a single page.

But, I told myself it didn’t matter. Just one hour of this crap, and I would be off to go do a victory dance that involved me shaking my ass in Celestia’s face as I gloated over my one-upmanship of the alicorn’s intelligence. I'm serious, I even had a redone version of ‘I will destroy you and steal your fiance’ worked up for her.

So, with my domain fully scouted and my victory assured, I looked at the clock hanging on the wall and turned back to Twilight. “Well Twi, it’s almost time for class. Looks like you’d better be…” I stopped unsure just what the hell to say. I mean, she wasn’t here to visit any old professors or anything. Twilight had been taught by Celestia personally so…other than wishing me good luck, I had no idea why she had followed me this far.

“Oh, you’re right!” Twilight exclaimed before she went over to a set of desks in the middle of the first row and sat down.

OH…

Then, she opened her saddlebag to pull out some quills, ink, paper, and a notebook.

…GOD…

After that, she sat at attention and put her hooves on her desk while smiling happily.

……NO!

Then, things got worse when the door opened to admit my…other first student. It was a tall white unicorn with blue hair and a gnarly kind of voice to whom Twilight let out an excited gasp when she saw. “Shiny you made it! Come on, I saved you a seat. We can be study buddies just like when I was in magic kindergarten!”

My eye twitched as Shining Armor walked down the stairs to take a seat next to Twilight.

“Shining Armor,” I mumbled.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked in an even tone that took some effort to do.

The unicorn looked at me in confusion for a moment, then back to Twilight, who shrugged before he turned his attention over to me. “Well, considering the material involved, Princess Celestia thinks that this course might make a good edition to the ROTC. So, I decided to come and evaluate it myself. Plus, it does give me an excuse to come and see my sister once a week. So…”

I continued to glare as he just shrugged at me, and I moved my attention to Twilight. “And you?”

She just gave me the blankest look imaginable. “What? I thought it would be fun.”

I managed to pick my mouth up after only five seconds. “But...it...you...you’re a princess!” I exclaimed. “You finished your studies under Celestia!” I may have blocked out the horror that was Magical Mystery Cure because it was pretty damn depressing when you knew the ponies personally, but I was pretty damn sure that Celestia said Twilight’s studies were done!

“Well, that doesn’t mean I’m done learning Fae. Plus, you um...managed to defeat Chrysalis single-hornidly in an...interesting way that nopony would have thought of so...I figured the class would have some things to teach me,” Twilight admitted after tripping over just how I managed to one-up Mom.

This time, I couldn’t resist. I actually did face hoof and let out a groan. “Twilight…we’re sleeping together. Isn’t that going to…” I paused as she just gave me an odd look. Wait a second…this might actually work out for the best.

The test I had designed was made for the single purpose of failing every single pony in the room, forcing them to drop the class early in exchange for a refund of their tuition. But as the class had already been established, the room reserved, and all that, I’d still be getting paid. Plus, it was an experimental class, so even if the number of ponies enrolled dropped to 0, it wouldn’t be canceled.

But with Twilight being around…considering her eccentricities…I couldn’t…really…fail her. She’d probably try hanging herself or something. But on the other hand…sleeping with the student always gets teachers fired on Earth, so…why not Equestria?

Then, as I completed my plan, the rest of the ponies started to file in, and as dozen after dozen began to fill the seats, I wondered just how the fuck did my brand new experimental class that had only existed a month before the start of the term actually manage to gain a full… I looked over to Princess Twilight Sparkle and Prince Shining Armor sitting front row center.

And why do I have the feeling that Celestia’s behind this too? I asked while watching unicorn after unicorn march through the door.

As I took a look around at the students, I noticed a disturbing similarity with a lot of them. A good deal of the them were stallions, taller than the average unicorn, and had a gruff expression on their faces that just screamed ‘I AM A ROYAL GUARD’.

So, I quickly made an addition to the beginning of my plan to thin the herd, since my original idea would not work with the three hundred some odd ponies that were taking their seats in front of me. Once they had all found a place to sit, I waited for another group of unicorns to come in and take up positions on each side of the room. The last group were all of black coats like me, and lacked cutie marks.

Basically, they were the changelings that worked my hive-mind telecommunications stuff in Canterlot.

After slamming the door closed with my magic, I took a look around the room before I moved behind my desk to rear up and rest my hooves on top of it. “Now,” I began in the most authoritative voice I could manage. “I don’t know what you’ve heard that this class is going to cover, and to be frank, I don’t really care.

“However, what it won’t be is some pretty…pony,” I managed to say after reminding myself Twilight was in the room so I couldn’t say princess. “Cupcake class where I hold your hooves and lead you through the academic road. If you fall behind, I’m not waiting up, if you lose your way then get lost, and if you can’t cut it, then expect to be cut from the roll. This class will not be a waste of time, and by that, I mean mine.”

As the faces in front of me turned to looks of confusion, anger, a bit of fear and an eyebrow raise coming from Twilight since she probably thought I was just doing the whole human humor thing again, I just took a few seconds to let what I said sink in.

“Now,” I went on. “I’ve been informed the offices close in about ten minutes, so if you wish to resign and get your money back, now would be the time.” After giving the ponies ten seconds to leave, and not seeing any go, I used my magic to lift half the papers from the middle stack of tests.

Since no one was going to take the easy way out, I shrugged and went on. “Okay then. We’re going to start with a test so I can actually find out how many of you are actually worth teaching, and how many of you are dead weight. Therefore, this test will count for fifty percent of your final grade. If you do not pass it, you are guaranteed to fail the course. If you do not turn one of these in, you will automatically get a zero.

“Oh,” I added as green flames consumed the remaining tests I had left on my desk, “and I only have enough tests for about a sixth of you.”

Then, I threw the remaining sheets of paper into the air above the class.

I was kind of surprised when Twilight was the first one to react by leaping into the air and snatching at the papers. “MINE!”

What followed was…beyond my wildest hopes and dreams. Even a bar full of drunken pirates hadn’t been able to match the ferocity of the brawl that the classroom became after I 'passed' the tests out.

Right after Twilight snatched her paper, the entire room erupted into pandemonium as unicorns tried to grab papers with their telekinesis, teleport them closer, or just knock out the guy who got his test before attempting to defense his prize from other unicorns that tried to take it from him in turn.

Bodies dropped like crazy as stun spells were hurled in so many colors, had I been human, I probably would have gone into epileptic shock even without the condition. Then, shields were razed and battle lines drawn as the survivors of the opening bout finished with their Mexican standoff and either tried to fortify themselves, or actually gathered together in groups to attempt a defense against the vastly superior number of ponies that didn’t have tests.

“Is that allowed?” Twilight asked from behind her force field, still sitting in the long, three seated desk that she was sharing with Shining Armor. The five ponies that had been stupid enough to try and breach her barrier sat in a small hamster cage that she had conjured on my desk for attempting to cheat off her paper.

My response was a simple shrug. I never actually had a plan for what was going on. Once Twilight turned out to be a student in the class, I threw out the Naruto Chinin entrance exam idea I was going for, and just went with something that took me all of ten seconds to come up with.

Then, as fortifications were made, the students ran into their second hurdle…

“What the hay are these symbols?”

“Am I needing glasses now?”

“Somepony help! I can’t read the teacher’s writing.”

“Oh…I know this! You wrote the test in human!” Twilight exclaimed before she happily read and answered the first question.

Well, technically I wrote the tests in English but…you know. So, faced with ten questions that only one pony in the room could read, the only logical step for the ponies without a cryptologist within their ranks was to either try and make an alliance with the ones that did, recruit a pony who could decipher languages without help, or try and take Twilight Sparkle’s test.

As several of the ponies were trying to take it before she had completed the whole thing, I kind of wondered about the intelligence of the average royal guard. But then, they were attacking an alicorn teamed up with a unicorn who could at least create a magical shield as strong as Celestia so…yeah…

Ten more ponies went down a second later and more leaped forward to scavenge the two tests they had in their possession. The pony that got both of them managed to wake up one of the smarter-looking unicorns, then bartered his way onto the largest of teams that consisted of twelve ponies.

As for what else was going on…

With the odds so stacked against them, a few ponies beat a hasty retreat out of the room to try and get a refund for being foolish enough to sign up for this class in the first place.

A group of five unicorns were holding off all comers with a magic shield. Although from the looks of things, not a single one could read the questions.

A unicorn mare with a pink mane and a stallion with a tornado cutie mark had holed up in the classroom’s top right corner with a single test between them. Although, it seemed the guy only cared about protecting his girlfriend and watching the show going on down below.

Two of the other teams had small scraggly ponies looking at their tests while the rest formed a defensive barrier, taking potshots at the other groups when they could.

Unicorns rose and fell as magic was exchanged and tests were even burned despite the fact that such an action allowed the now paperless ponies to go on the offensive completely without having to worry about their questionnaire.

A few of the ponies even got it in their heads to try attacking me, thinking I had an answer key in my desk. The ten ‘proctors’ that I had brought in to nail cheaters before my whole plan was ruined by Twilight ended that idea.

Then there was the alicorn student’s reaction to some of the questions.

“Shiny quick, how is a raven like a writing desk?” she demanded of her brother.

“I have no idea!” the stallion replied as he beat off two more attackers since Twilight was distracted.

“How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

He looked back to his sister with a frown. “I thought you were friends with the animal expert!”

Then Twilight moved onto her next question. “When encountering illusion magic, what is the special phrase anypony can use for an attempted dispel?” she said, growing softer as she continued to read. “There’s no such thing!”

“Yes there is it’s…ohmygosh! I actually know that one!” he exclaimed before twirling around to scratch out the answer.

“I can’t believe-”

“Disbelieve,” Shining armor corrected her before turning back to empower the sibling’s shield and take out a pair of unicorns that were floating overhead thanks to the magic of their team in an attempt to copy off Twilight’s paper.

I just sat there slack jawed at the fact that Shining Armor managed a D&D reference. An old D&D reference. Like…from the 70s or something.

Then, I clapped my hooves together, signaling the end to the test time. “Okay everypony horns powered down.”

And when that didn’t work, I charged my horn and let loose with a blast that caused a deafening explosion that left everyone’s ears ringing, judging by how they all covered themselves and went ‘ow’. But, it worked. “Okay, for those of you without ruptured tympanic membranes! Every pony who doesn’t have a test is to leave the room!” I ordered. “Those with tests are to stay right where you are.”

I watched as the ponies started filing out of the room, some grumbling, other limping, and a few needing to be carried in the magic of their comrades. One pony who had no test at all actually whispered to the royal guards and slipped him a sack of bits, then took his test before the pony soldier up and left, leaving the noble behind. What I was left with was a group of twenty unicorns and one alicorn in various conditions that ranged from pristine like Twilight, or barely standing on their own.

Crap, now I need something else to thin the herd, I told myself as I looked around. Let’s see…twenty ponies…

“Now, I’ll discuss the scoring system for the test,” I told them while trying to buy myself time. “With ten questions, each question is worth ten points. However, for each question you were unable to answer at all, fifteen points will be detected from your score. So you can only have two blank answers and still hope to pass.”

“W-What?” Twilight shouted before looking down at her own test. Considering I had heard her and Shiny going back and forth, I knew she had skipped a few questions with the intention of coming back to them.

I cleared my throat and continued on. “However, bonus points will be awarded to students based on the order in which they turn in their papers, with one hundred points going to the first, ninety to the second and so on, with points being deducted for the final ten ponies who turn in their-”

A bright flash of pink filled my vision, and Twilight slammed her hooves on my desk. “Shiny’s came in second!” the alicorn declared a second before the rest of the classroom charged or began teleporting over.

Of course, without their bulwark of guards gone all the nerdy unicorns were left undefended, and the royal guards that managed to keep a test with a few answers on them had dropped their guard. So they were easy pickings when I began my final culling.

“Destroy those papers!” I ordered my changelings before the surprised class was taken unawares by the black unicorns standing around my desk; having been repositioned because of an earlier attempt on a non-existent answer key.

In the end, only five unicorns and one alicorn made it through the day.

“Twilight Sparkle,” I read to myself as I looked over her half-completed test with a surprising amount of correct answers. Although how she had figured out that a woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could…I had no idea. She ended up getting a score of 150. Kind of guaranteeing at least a grade 75, even if she sat on her plot for the rest of the semester.

The next pony, was of course… “Shining Armor,” I read while giving him a score of 140. I was still a little weirded out by his presence but…knowing Twilight, she might have actually talked him into it.

Then there was the pony who teleported in behind Twilight and past my changelings to turn her paper in third. She was a tall white unicorn with a pink mane named… “SUNNY SKIES?!” I asked the Fleur Di Lis wannabe as I looked up at her. “Really?”

The unicorn blinked in confusion as I looked up at her. “What?”

Okay, I wasn’t the biggest Celestia fan in the bronydom, but…I knew the common pseudonym we all had her go by whenever she was running around incognito with some kind of excuse of how she hid her height, cutie mark, and godlike power to do…whatever the hell she wanted. To be honest, the whole idea just made me roll my eyes.

I mean come on, Celestia going out and about in disguise to what? Have fun? Make friends? That’s not what god-queens did in their spare time!

On top of which, a magical spell that just lets Tia change species and hide herself among her little ponies is the most obnoxious plot device ever conceived in the chronicles of fan fiction!

Then it turns out the damn thing is real, and she uses it to turn me into a fake alicorn so…yeah.

And hell, we were apparently right about Derpy. I checked. In fact, I hugged her every day I slept over at Twilight’s place and offered the single mom free work replacement changelings because the poor mare has got more than one foal and all that jazz. She wouldn't take it though, had too much integrity.

So, there was no way in hell I was just letting this one go. I mean hell, I knew Sunbutt was only there to fuck with me, same as with the fake sad face from earlier and those damn dresses. But, I had no intention of acting like a loon in front of Twilight by just calling her out on it.

Plus, there was the tiny, impossible chance that Sunny was a real pony, and not Celestia, and I didn’t want to look like a total idiot. I learned from Canterlot Wedding, thank you very much!

I needed to catch her in the act or something and…well, that was about it really.

So, I needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t just losing it and seeing stuff that wasn’t really there based on a fandom of show that made so much shit up in one season, only to have it contradicted by the time season two rolled along.

Only…I wasn’t in a television show.

I was in an alternate dimension that the television show was based on!

…according to the previously fictional character I just had tea with…

…with a pretty contrived explanation of how the universe worked…now that I thought about it…

I mean, magical mirrors and crap? Reflections leading to other words? Wasn’t that just a rehash of the Equestria Girls and my ‘magical viewing mirror’ explanation that just expanded on the mythos that was already there?

Hell, when I really thought about it…so much I knew just didn’t add up. Twilight deciding to save me and crap from Chrysalis because…love told her to or something? How Saturday morning cartoon was that?

“Fae? Are you alright?” the talking cartoon pony asked as she looked at me with overly concerned eyes.

“I…I gotta go! Here!” I told the other three unicorns before throwing them their papers with the proper scores.

Blueblood let out a startled cry, ducking to avoid a…paper cut or something.

Trixie…

I blinked as I found myself looking at the confused mare while she stared at Twilight’s wings. Had she always been in the room? I couldn’t remember seeing her during the brawl, and afterwards when all the ponies held up a sheet to show they passed the preliminary round.

I mean, Blueblood had actually showed up and just bribed his way into the class for…some reason I couldn’t fathom, but…Trixie…

“Ugh Trixie! Yes I’m an alicorn! Deal with it!” Twilight said as the third pony I didn’t even bother to look at got his graded paper and I teleported away.

I slammed onto the ground of the throne room again and looked around at…the empty room. There were no guards, no petitions…no princess. The oddity had me confused.

Wasn’t Luna supposed to rule the night? Why didn’t she had come kind of court in the early hours after sundown? It wasn’t that late! She couldn’t have been off peeking at dreams so soon!

The oddity of the single throne also got to me. If Celestia and Luna shared power, then where the hell was she? Didn’t the night princess at least get to run the damn night? Or was she just the ultimate version of big brother? And how did that work if ponies worked all night and slept in the day?

I took a step forward, and looked at the ground, my hooves. Then, I reached up and slapped myself, hard.

It hurt.

I grabbed onto the pain. You couldn’t feel pain in a dream.

…unless you could. To be honest, I wasn’t quite clear on the subject at the moment.

Then I remembered why I had teleported away in the first place: Celestia! If Celestia was in the palace somewhere, that meant that Sunny Skies was in fact her own pony with…a… I frowned in thought.

Her cutie mark! I had forgotten to check out her fucking cutie mark! If I didn’t get a cutie mark when I changed into a pony, I doubted that Celestia could alter hers, even with the transformation.

And if they were the same…or different…it meant…what?

What the hell did it matter?

Because…Tia was fucking with me for some reason?

I sat back on my haunches, confused.

I tried to retrace my steps in logic of how I got here. I saw Sunny Skies, then Trixie…despite Trixie not being there before…or had she been and I simply hadn’t seen her? But if she had been in the classroom, how could I not have seen her?

Was her name on the original class roster?

Which was a moot point since I never bothered to read it.

No, Trixie, she made a ton of noise and a big entrances. If she had been there, I would have seen her! She would have gone ‘OH MY GOD TWILICORN!’ right at the beginning of the class. And…done…something else. Hell, she should have led the charge against Twilight in the few opening minutes!

So there was maybe-Celestia, and Trixie being there. Two ponies who shouldn’t have been there. Celestia was a fucking goddess, and Trixie…hell, nothing about Trixie said she would go to unicorn school! It was like she was a stupid bit character just thrown in to take up space!

Then…I teleported to the castle to try and find Celestia and…

Started having a mental breakdown, I told myself.

Or was I simply realizing the truth?

Was it that I simply had a mental breakdown months ago and was just now coming to realize it?

I mean hell, when I thought about it, really thought about it, there was tons of shit that just didn’t make sense. The singing, the coincidental crap that just piled and pile up, the…references, I mean hell, Shining Armor knew about D&D, what kind of fucking pony knows about D&D?

And there was the fact that I was having sex AS A GIRL! And liking it! Really liking it! Who does that?

I gulped at the last thought. My head swam and I felt like throwing up.

“There you are!”

I spun around, and looked over to the three-room’s open doors to see Celestia just standing there. Full spectrum mane, giant pony Celestia. I could only stare at her while my throat continued to produce too much saliva.

She walked over to me and sat down, and I could feel the concern coming off the giant alicorn as she looked me over. “Are you alright?”

I just looked up at the talking horse, with her freaky hair and impossible expression, too bright fur and frowned at the impossibility of it all. “Are you real?”