“We're horned!”

“Pound, you have a potty mouth!” Pumpkin shouted. “But I love you!”

“How touching,” Angel Not Bunny said in a voice dripping with evil sarcasm.

All around the foals, who were huddled together, the creeping legions of corrupted toys edged ever closer. They were surrounded. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to go. There were no adults to help them. Harper’s horn glowed, and Pumpkin’s horn was powering up. Peekaboo and Pound stood ready to kick anything that got too close.

“I don’t know how you got here, but we've been waiting for a meal like you for a long time,” Angel Not Bunny said and then cackled evilly. His bunny buck teeth were gone, replaced by long fangs.

“What is this place?” Pumpkin asked… she hoped that the evil villain would monologue and give them just a little bit more time, just like what happened in the Daring Do stories. All Daring Do had to do was get them talking and then it was impossible to get them to shut up.

“This is the Other Other…” Angel Not Bunny said, looking at Pumpkin curiously.

“What is the Other Other?” Pumpkin asked, she gulped when she was done speaking and tried to look as terrified as possible, which was surprisingly easy given the circumstances.

“This is the realm in between where the monsters who exist in the corner of your eye live. The monsters under the bed and in your closet. Usually, we can only reach out a part of our will while you are sleeping or very very scared, but we can’t usually reach you. But here you are, somehow, you came to us,” Angel Not Bunny explained. “And for those of us who manage to get into your world, the monster murderer Princess Luna and her horrible lunar pegasi destroy us. But she can’t save you here!”

“Maybe if you didn’t eat foals, Princess Luna wouldn’t have to destroy you,” Pumpkin suggested, glancing around. The corrupted toys were too close now. Some of them were only a few feet away, but they had stopped their advance while their leader spoke.

“But foals are delicious! And we have a right to live!” Angel Not Bunny shouted.

“So do we!” Pumpkin retorted.

“No you don’t, you’re food!” Angel Not Bunny argued, offering up his impervious logic to the foals, sneering at them imperiously as he spoke.

“Well, this is why Princess Luna kills you. And you’d better be careful. Princess Luna is Harper’s Godmother,” Pumpkin warned.

“Good… I’m going to enjoy eating her then, it will allow me to hurt Princess Luna in return for all of the harm she has done to us!” Angel Not Bunny yelled.

Peekaboo, terrified of whatever was going to happen next, came close to Pumpkin, leaned in, and put her lips to Pumpkin’s ear. “When they try to gobble us up, shoot out as much fire as you can and shout the words ‘Uncle Scorch’ when you burn them,” Peekaboo whispered. Peekaboo was terrified of scary Uncle Scorch, but he was better than being gobbled alive by whatever these things were. Being gobbled alive was very high on Peekaboo’s list of things she wanted to avoid, right up there with brushing her teeth and bath time.

“If something moves… set the rabbit on fire first Pumpkin,” Pound commanded.

“Oh you snotty little pegasus!” Angel Not Bunny cursed, glaring at Pound, his large hind foot thumping on the ground in anger.

“Zap,” Harper announced, not needing more than one word to express her intent, her action, and her solution. She narrowed her eyes and her ears folded back against her skull. Her poofy orange mane crackled with static electricity and her tail swished from side to side as she waited for just the right moment.

“Get them!” Angel Not Bunny Shouted and he suddenly hopped away.

The toys lurched forward as a group, groaning, hissing, and growling. Little stuffy animals moved oddly, probably filled with unimaginable horrors. One little stuffed pig split open along the seam that ran down its back and a long blackish green tentacle came poking curiously out, waving around as the stuffed pig lurched its way forward with the rest of the toy army.

Feeling a sinking feeling of despair, Pumpkin realised she had no chance of hitting Angel Not Bunny as he hopped away. He was too far away for her to hit with her fire magic. She took a deep breath, sucked in even a little bit more air, and then she let go of her magic, something she was never supposed to do. Remembering what Peekaboo had said, as the toys around her began to burst into flames, she shouted at the top of her lungs…

“UNCLE SCORCH!”

The world suddenly became a very warm place…

“Hey, what’s going on here?” a very tall bipedal figure asked as it poofed into existence. It was made entirely out of fire. It looked around at the toys, then at the foals, and then back at the toys. “Hey… Harper? Peekaboo? Are you okay? Who’s your friends?”

The fire elemental waved his hand in a wide dismissive gesture and set the toys on fire. They blazed, burning, and the air was filled with the sounds of keening agony. Scorch, seeing a fleeing figure, took off after it, running on two legs. Scorch shifted shape as he ran, becoming a pony, a big orange earth pony with a mane and tail the colour of runny magma.

Angel Not Bunny froze in place, caught up in a magic field that radiated from the big orange not earth pony named Scorch. It kicked it wiggled, squirming, and then it glared at Scorch defiantly.

“I have bad news for you… you’re coming home with me...” Scorch hissed at the not rabbit. The not quite an earth pony turned around headed back towards the foals. “You kids okay? Gosh, you’re adorable when you are all scared and huddled together like that… no… oh bother, please, don’t cry, I know you’re scared, probably all of these little mephits and implings and shadowlings all around you that I set on fire, isn’t it? Gosh I’m sorry…” Scorch said, looking quite worried and unsure of what to do. He chewed on his not quite earth pony lip, his eyes wide with fearful concern.

“I want my mama!” Pumpkin cried, overcome with a fear she couldn’t understand. Even though Scorch had saved them, something about him was terrifying. He was even scarier than all of the toys. She held on to her brother for dear life, a long dribble of snot leaking from one nostril as she wailed

“Look, just give me a minute… I’m gonna vanish for just a minute, I won’t be gone long I promise, I’m just going to take this little troublemaker back to Tartar-er, back to Happy Bunny Land and then I will be right back in a jiffy with help. I can’t actually get you out of here but I know somebody who can… just hold on,” Scorch said as soothingly as possible, completely unaware that it was his demonic infernal nature that was scaring the foals senseless.

The foals took a deep breath of relief in unison when Scorch popped out of existence. Pound wiped the snot from his sister’s nose and Harper wiped her face upon Pound’s back. Peekaboo held on to her three companions, shivering with fear and keeping a wary eye upon the still burning toys.

Peekaboo found that she wanted to like Uncle Scorch, but there was something about him that just scared her silly. She felt bad for being so afraid after he had always been so nice to her, toasting marshmallows to perfection and giving them to her, and her guilty conflicted feelings that she could not understand only made her cry harder.

There was a loud “pop!” and two figures appeared. One was Uncle Scorch, still in earth pony form, and the other was a tall draconequus.

“Uncle Discord!” Peekaboo sobbed with relief.

“Cheeky Peeky! What are you doing here?” Discord asked. He hurried forwards and snatched up all four foals in his forelegs and squeezed them. “Are you okay? How on earth did you wind up in the Other Other?”

“I tried to make myself disappear in front of a mirror,” Peekaboo said, still crying as she buried her face into Discord’s long neck.

“Hmm,” Discord replied. “I knew that you went half in and half out of a dimension when you go hidden, but I didn’t know that you could slip completely through the dimensional walls entirely.”

“What is this place?” Pound asked, wiping his still dripping nose and looking up at Discord.

“This is an in between place. You know how a wall is hollow inside? Well, there might be a few pipes or some electrical wiring, but a wall is mostly empty,” Discord replied.

Nodding, Pound wiped his eyes and then wiped his sister’s eyes.

“Well, this place, the Other Other, is the hollow place between the walls of two worlds. The things that find their way here feed on the fear of both worlds on either side,” Discord explained as he bounced the foals around in his embrace. “It is like a wall standing between two rooms, but in this case, the rooms are two realities and this place is the wall between them.”

“I don’t understand,” Pound whimpered.

“I’ll explain it when you are all older. Maybe even show you around,” Discord said, squeezing the foals gently. “Thanks Scorch. I’m going to take these little ones home.”

“See that they get some cookies and some milk or something. They look a little freaked out. And they probably need a nap,” Scorch suggested. “Anyway, I gotta back back to Happy Bunny Land. I gotta little bunny that needs to learn not to mess with foals. See ya,” the fire elemental said as he blinked out of existence.

“I’ll have you home in just a moment,” Discord promised. There was a snap from his tail tuft and a bright flash of light.

Suddenly, the foals found themselves in a different place. Still in Discord’s embrace, they looked around and saw grown ups all around them. Other foals. Ponyville was full of ponies again. The sun was back in the sky. There were clouds with napping pegasi overhead.

Several ponies stopped to look with some concern at Discord, who had four crying foals in his embrace. Discord grinned sheepishly, looking around, worried that some ponies might get the wrong idea.

“Poor dears… they look frightened… are they okay? You just appeared. You must have rescued them… I’ll make sure to tell Fluttershy that you’ve been a good draconequus,” an earth pony mare said.

“Thank you,” Discord replied, moving off in a hurry for Carousel Boutique, heaving a sigh in relief. “Don’t worry foals, Rarity will get you sorted out and I’ll fetch Cup and Carrot once I have you safe inside with a pony you can trust,” he promised.

“Thank you,” Pound said, still sniffling.

“Yes, thank you,” Pumpkin added, wiggling around and wrapping her forelegs around Discord’s serpentine neck to squeeze him.

“Auntie Disco,” Harper murmured, still shivering, still refusing to use masculine pronouns.

“You’re the best,” Peekaboo whispered, taking a deep breath and realising it was finally over. As Discord carried her back to Auntie Rarity’s, she promised herself that she would never try to hide herself from her own reflection ever again.

Author's Notes:

Just a short silly little story that I trimmed off of The Chase. I hope a couple of people enjoyed it, but I wrote this mostly for myself.

Thanks for reading.

And if you see a typo, let me know!