“What the hay is that?” Twilight demanded as she ran outside, followed closely by the others, and they beheld the sight. Night had already fallen and an enormous blue bear with fur seemingly made of starlight was stomping through town. Ponies were fleeing in terror in every direction as the bear let out another terrifying roar.

“Smarty!” Talon barked commandingly.

“Sir!” Moonlight reflexively straightened to attention.

Talon’s beak curled into a snarl. “We need to clear this area of civilians. You and chimp work on leading them to the other end of town, away from the Everfree. And try to get some unicorns to help in containment.”

“Understood,” the guard nodded.

“What about you?” Twilight asked.

The griffon grinned and turned to face the beast. “Pegasi to me!” she roared and took off in the direction of the ursa.

Moonlight grabbed Thomas by the arm and ran in the opposite direction towards a group of civilians frozen in fear. “Private Moonlight Shield, Luna’s House Guard,” she informed. “I need everypony who can run to evacuate this side of town. Head for the train station. You pegasi!” she pointed then motioned back towards the ursa where Talon was flying circles around its head to keep it distracted. “She needs all strong flyers with her to keep that thing busy. Weak flyers aid in the evacuation.”

Did she just come up with all that on the spot? Thomas thought as he marveled at the orange unicorn. The moonlight had caught her armor in such a way that made her seem to shine beautifully. If Talon were present, she might remark on how Thomas had only ever looked at one other mare like that.

The varying colors of pegasi, no longer frozen in fear, still refused to budge as they looked upon the great beast.

“Come on, ladies!” called a familiar voice as a rainbow streak of light came to a halt above them. “This big brute wants a fight. Let’s do our warrior ancestors of old proud and give ‘em a show he won’t soon forget.”

Rainbow’s words seemed enough to invigorate the pegasi and they all took to the skies.

Moonlight nodded and turned back to the crowd, her hand still gripped around Thomas’ wrist like a vice. “All unicorns to me. I don’t expect many of you to know much of combat, but we need to keep this thing contained. Focus your magic on me and I’ll try to work up a barrier.”

Apparently all these ponies needed was for someone to take charge, probably something to do with the herd mentality. The unicorns stepped forward, lighting their horns and sending streams of magic into Moonlight. The orange mare strained under the pressure of the new magic, but quickly directed it in the direction of the ursa and created the largest version of her light shield yet between it and a house it was ready to smash. The crowd cheered when the ursa’s claw bounced off the construct, but Moonlight again reminded them they needed to keep clear. They stumbled away, exhausted from the sudden loss of magic.

Amidst all the commotion, the screaming, the cheers, the bone shaking rumble of the ursa’s paws slamming into the ground, Thomas finally collected himself and settled on a course of action. He’d managed to slip free of Moonlight’s grip as the mare seemed to be putting too much focus into the shield spell to notice right away. He felt guilty for taking advantage of his guard and friend while in this state, but it had to be done. This is my fault. I should have stopped those idiots the moment I realized what they were doing. How could I just assume things would end up well in the end just because I saw it on a freaking cartoon? This is my fault and I need to fix it.

Abandoning all sense of self preservation, he focused on a familiar group of ponies standing idle near the ursa. There he spotted the lavender unicorn and her drake assistant. However, just as he was building a decent stride towards his destination, a filly stumbled into his path. And of course the minor just had to be butt naked. She had yellow fur, semi-poofy red mane and tail, and the oversized red bow on her head completed the look. God damn it, Apple Bloom! What the hell are you doing heeeeee…

Thomas’ mental chastisement of the filly was brought to a sudden halt as he caught a very large movement out of the corner of his eye. The ursa, increasingly annoyed by the pegasi flying overhead, had become disinterested in the light shield and was meandering in the human’s direction, apparently with the intent on taking its frustrations out on a target it could actually hit. To that end, it raised its paw up high.

Thomas’ mind blurred as adrenaline flooded his body. He vaguely remembered hearing someone, maybe a female, call out his name. He saw the filly in front of him, frozen in fear. Despite the fact that she wasn’t moving, she was growing closer by the second. She looked up at him just in time for Thomas to notice a sudden weight in his arms. This was followed by the filly reaching out and grabbing around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. She was heavier than he’d expected, but for some reason that didn’t seem to matter and he found the strength to press on anyway. She also had a pleasant warmth in addition to her soft fur, leaving a distant part of the human’s brain to wonder if ponies in general just felt really nice and that this was why their communication was so physical.

His head turned on its own in the direction of the ursa. Time seemed to slow as the mammoth creature brought its equally mammoth paw down towards the human. Thomas knew his legs could not carry him fast enough, even without the extra weight. Maybe his body could manage to duck down at the last minute, but that seemed unlikely. Starry blue death seemed imminent until a tiny gold thread shot out and wrapped around one of the mighty beast’s toes. The word ‘lasso’ came to mind as Thomas could vaguely make out someone, an orange mare, yelling at him to keep running. Thomas looked away just as some red blur launched itself off the ground and into the ursa’s cheek. Not liking that one bit, the beast turned its attention towards the newly designated annoyances.

Thomas blinked and Apple Bloom was gone, though he was still running. Coming down a bit from his adrenaline high, his eyes darted worriedly around him until he saw the blank flank’s blank flank disappear behind a building. He didn’t remember putting her down, although picking her up was a blur at best. A new anxiety started building as his mind wandered to exactly where his hands had gone to while he held her and what consequences that might lead to later, but another roar from the ursa reminded him of his priorities.

“Seriously, Twilight,” Spike scolded. “You’ve got to get ahold of yourself.”

“I… I can’t,” Twilight stuttered. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Yes you do! We just got done practicing more than a hundred tricks earlier this morning. You know magic. You can handle this,” he motioned towards the ursa.

“B-but… those are just little party tricks, and I’m only one unicorn,” Twilight pleaded. “I barely know anything about ursas. How can I possibly vanquish one?”

“Because you’re Twilight Sparkle, damn it!”

Both Twilight and Spike turned in shock, not only at the human’s sudden outburst, but his choice of words. They would have said something, but the human had a look about him that said propriety could go fuck a toaster after the day he’d had.

“Your talent is literally magic,” Thomas lectured. “You learned that when you hatched a dragon’s egg, something even your teachers thought impossible. Princess Celestia chose you as her personal protégé because she saw something special in you. And you proved her right when you and you alone saw the signs of Nightmare Moon’s return and then you freed Luna from her curse. Are you really going to let the Princess down when it counts the most?”

“The Princess…” Twilight trailed off. “But… my friends…”

The ursa roared in annoyance as it swiped angrily at the swarming pegasi. While most were fast enough to avoid its clumsy paws, the thing did manage to graze one unlucky flyer’s wings and she fell. Thomas felt his stomach jump into his chest as he watched Fluttershy plummet to the ground, only to be saved at the last minute by the combined efforts of Talon and Rainbow Dash.

“Your friends need you Twilight,” Thomas huffed. “They won’t hate you just because you’re talented. You’re magic’s part of who you are and they like you for who you are. They’re proud to have such a talented unicorn for a friend.”

“He’s right,” Spike added. “You can do this, Twi. I know you can.”

“You’re nothing like Trixie.”

“Hey!” a voice complained from behind a building.

“But…”

“Sir Thomas!” Moonlight called as she ran up to them, her eyes projecting a mix of panic and anger.

“Aw, screw it,” Thomas snapped before snatching the unicorn’s shoulders and pulling her down for his lips to meet hers. Her lips were soft and at this range her fur really did smell like lavender. It was nice.

“Uhhhhhh,” Spike gawked.

“Is this really the time for that?” Moonlight asked, fighting against her blush as her anger left her.

Thomas felt a strange tingling sensation in his wrists, followed by a sudden jolt of static between their lips. This caused him to push Twilight back, breaking the kiss. Her cheeks were bright red as he stared into her surprised eyes. “You can do this, Twilight. Have faith in yourself.” He stepped back to give the unicorn a clear line of sight with the ursa, all the while trying to ignore the strange spark. “Now put this baby to sleep.”

“Alright,” Twilight gulped. “Here goes nothing.” She summoned a gentle wind to blow through nearby reeds, creating a soft melody. Upon seeing the ursa calm down, Talon ordered all pegasi to fall back. The glow of her horn growing brighter, Twilight then emptied the water tower and sent the empty canister through a nearby barn where cows mooed in surprise. Horn growing even brighter still, Twilight lifted the docile ursa into the air, rocking it back and forth as she gave it the milk filled canister like a makeshift bottle. At seeing her stagger, Moonlight stepped forward and sent a stream of her own magic to bolster Twilight’s as she gently sent the ursa back into the cave from whence it came. Thomas and Spike caught her before she collapsed, only for the human’s adrenaline to die and his face became acquainted with the ground.

**********

Consciousness returned slowly and Thomas felt himself being cradled against a mix of soft fur and uncomfortably pointy sheets of metal.

“Thomas,” a familiar voice called. “Sir Thomas. Are you alright?”

“Hang on there, chimp. Is there a doctor in the house?”

“I-I’m fine,” he gasped, looking up at the relieved faces of Talon and Moonlight. “What happened?”

Moonlight scowled. “You ran off is what happened, you reckless idiot! Stupid colt. How am I supposed to guard you if you run towards danger? How do you think Luna would react if she found out you were hurt? Did it not occur to you what would happen to us if…” she whimpered, holding back angered tears.

Thomas shrunk in her grasp, unable to meet her eyes. He really hadn’t been thinking of any of that, only of how to make amends for his mistake. It never occurred to him that this would lead to a new, potentially worse mistake.

“Seriously chimp. That was just stupid,” Talon’s gently scolded as she patted Moonlight on the shoulder. But then her disapproving glare faded into a smile. “But boy that was amazing,” she cheered. “You gave Sparklebutt exactly the pep talk she needed to vanquish that ursa major and send it back to where it belongs. And the way you saved that filly… Sweet Faust that was awesome.”

“That wasn’t an ursa major,” Twilight informed from over near the crowd. “That was an ursa minor, a baby.”

“That was just a baby?” Trixie gasped, revealing her presence to the crowd.

“Then, what’s an ursa major like?” Spike asked hesitantly.

Twilight smiled coyly. “You don’t want to know,” she said as she turned to Thomas. “But it’s all thanks to you that I was able to do anything at all.”

Thomas shrunk in Moonlight’s arms. “I didn’t…” He was cut off by a long claw being shoved in his face.

“By Luna’s flank,” Talon sneered. “If you dare say you ‘didn’t do that much’, or some other lame thing, I swear I’ll throw you to Blueblood and lock the door on my way out.” She paused, letting the weight of her words sink in. “You saved a filly’s life and you helped Twilight.”

Thomas gulped, easily suppressing his reflex to argue further as he stared into Talon’s predator eyes. The griffon’s abandoning of nicknames gave him a hint at just how serious she was. He then looked to Moonlight who no longer looked to be on the verge of tears, but was still very angry as she stared back at him.

“I really hate the idea of encouraging this sort of behavior, but she’s right,” Moonlight admitted as her anger began to resurface. “It was still stupid of you to run off like that and I have half a mind to tan your hide to teach you a lesson,” she pulled back from the now terrified human, her expression softening. “But… you did good back there. I… I’m proud of you.”

Based on the way the orange unicorn started to blush, Thomas figured the warmth now surging through him was causing him to do the same.

“You really did help me, though,” Twilight insisted. “Not only did you snap me out of my self-doubt, it was your words that inspired my spells. I hadn’t realized it was only an ursa minor until you said to ‘put the baby to sleep’. If it weren’t for you, I might have tried some sort of offensive magic that would have just made it angrier. Also,” she said in a more hushed tone as a blush took her face, “that kiss kinda… sorta… zapped my brain a little… I think. Everything just sorta seemed to fall into place, like it was meant to be. It was… I guess ‘inspiring’ would be the word.”

“That’s, um, I think you might be exaggerating a bit,” Thomas hesitated. He was certain that his kiss couldn’t have possibly been ‘inspiring’. Luna had certainly never said as much. However, the tingle in his wrists he’d felt right before the spark did leave him uneasy. He scratched at the areas on the back of both hands, but couldn’t find anything of note.

Moonlight stared in awe between Thomas and Twilight as the hamster wheel of her brain raced to comprehend what Twilight just described. Naturally, her thoughts drifted to places they probably shouldn’t, especially at a time like this. However, it wasn’t enough to make her forget her anger for long and she resumed scowling down at the human in her arms. She’d wanted to argue against Talon’s encouragement of his reckless behavior, but there was simply no arguing with how amazing he looked saving the filly and even kissing the mare. She’d tell him later though, after she was done being mad.

“I… appreciate the thought and all, but I only did a small part,” Thomas countered as he carefully pulled himself onto his feet while Moonlight kept her arms protectively encircled around him in case he fell. “This was a team effort.”

“Aw yeah,” Rainbow cheered as she circled overhead, flying from pegasus to pegasus. “Did you see us back there? We were all awesome. I’m so proud of all of you.”

“Same to you unicorns and earth ponies,” Moonlight nodded towards the crowd.

“You should be,” Talon nodded. “All of you. When this hits the papers tomorrow, all of Equestria is going to know that Ponyville is the village of heroes.”

The crowd was in an uproar as ponies cheered congratulating each other for their accomplishment. All except for three very guilty looking unicorns.

An orange earth pony with a cowboy hat, long blonde mane and tail, and three apples for a cutie mark stepped out of the crowd, carrying two young colts and a blue unicorn mare tied in her lasso. “And what should we do with these three?” Applejack asked in a deep southern accent.

The naked colts bowed their heads solemnly. “We’re sorry.”

“We just wanted to see some awesome magic.”

“We deserve whatever punishment you give us.”

“The great and powerful Trixie apologizes for nothing,” the unicorn mare struggled against the ropes. “All she did was put on a show to bedazzle and entertain the masses. It’s not her fault these idiots went and reminded everypony why the Everfree Forest is one of the most feared places in Equestria. Trixie should have known better than to come to this backwater bunk town to begin with,” she mumbled to the displeasure of everyone in earshot, which was roughly half of Ponyville.

Talon stepped forward, cracking her knuckles and making the unicorns quiver in fear. “Ya know. Back in the Griffon Kingdom, if anyone pulled a stunt like this, we’d have them shaved bare and publicly flogged before spending the next decade in jail.” She sneered down at them before pulling back. “Lucky for you, we ain’t there.”

“That’s right,” an earth mare with grey amber fur and a white mane spoke up. Her cutie mark was a scroll wrapped in ribbon. “As mayor of Ponyville, I’ll be in charge of handling their punishment. For starters, they can clean up the mess they made.”

“But Trixie did nothing wrong!”

“She really didn’t,” Thomas stepped forward, looking at Applejack pleadingly. “Like she said, all she did was put on a show. She might have been a little mean about it, but you can’t punish her just for showing off.”

The stern earth mare looked up at him and her face slowly relaxed with recognition. “You… You’re the colt who saved mah little sister, ain’t chya?”

“It’s fine AJ,” Twilight added. “You can let her go.”

“If ya say so, Twi,” Applejack nodded and released the knots around Trixie. Then she leaned in close to the blue mare’s ear. “You’d best be thankin both these two fer bein so neighborly.”

Trixie rubbed the spots on her arms where the ropes had dug in before looking up at the first person to speak up on her behalf. She stared at him for an excruciating couple of seconds as her eyes crawled across his body as if she somehow planned to pierce his skin with her gaze. “Thank you,” she grumbled before stomping over to Twilight. “And you… You may have vanquished an ursa minor, but you will never have the amazing show stopping ability of the great and powerful Trixie!” She shook her fist in righteous indignation before a smoke bomb exploded at her feet. When it cleared, the mare could be seen running out of town.

“Why that little,” Rainbow snarled as she prepared to take off, only for Applejack to grab her tail.

“That’ll be enough of that, sugar cube. We best be getten ta fixen the town,” Applejack grinned. “Wouldn’t want our picture as the village of heroes to be one ah broken down houses. What’d the neighbors think?”

The crowd took the cue and slowly disbanded with ponies being organized into clean-up teams, including Twilight. As they did, Talon slipped off to have a few private words with Fluttershy while Rainbow, Thomas, and Moonlight watched. They couldn’t make out the words, but both were smiling and seemed much more relaxed with one another.

“Fergive me, but I didn’t catch yer name,” Applejack inquired, reminding the others that she was still there.

“Oh, uh, it’s Thomas.”

“Sir Thomas, Senior Concubine of Princess Luna’s Harem,” Moonlight corrected proudly. “And the bravest idiot of a colt I’ve ever met.”

Applejack removed her hat and set it over her chest while offering her free hand. Thomas accepted, though immediately regretted it as the earth pony reminded him why it was a bad idea to challenge an earth pony to an arm wrestling contest. “Ah can’t thank ya enough fer what you did fer little Apple Bloom.” Her eyes began to water as she shook Thomas’ hand vigorously.

Thankfully, Moonlight noticed Thomas’ discomfort and pulled him free before the other orange mare turned his bones to powder.

“Heh, sorry bout that,” Applejack blushed. “Don’t know mah own strength sometimes. But like ah was sayin, you done right by the Apple clan. If ya ever need anythin, don’t you never hesitate to ask an Apple and we’ll do right by you. Ya hear?”

“S-sure thing,” Thomas nodded, smiling he cradled his hand.

AJ set her hat back in its proper place as she gave a soft nod. “Ah gotta get to helpin with the cleanup, but don’t you think twice about stopping at Sweet Apple Acres next time yer around.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

AJ nodded once more and headed off to a group of ponies having some issue the farm pony took offense with.

“Hey guys!” greeted the perpetually high spirited pink pony with cotton candy hair.

“Hey, Pinkie,” Rainbow nodded. “Where you been?”

“Sleeping.”

“Sleeping?” Rainbow deadpanned. “You slept through all that?”

“What can I say,” Pinkie shrugged. “I’m a heavy sleeper.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Anyway, you should really meet some of the heroes of the hour,” she motioned to Thomas and Moonlight.

“We’ve met,” Moonlight answered coldly.

Pinkie’s ears splayed as she pouted remorsefully. “I was actually hoping to catch you guys before you left. I wanted to say how sorry I am for reacting the way I did.”

“Sorry?” Rainbow asked. “Sorry for what?”

“She called Sir Thomas a monster,” Moonlight snorted.

“I admit I overreacted back there,” Pinkie traced her hoof against the dirt. “But it wasn’t entirely my fault. I thought you were the other you.”

“The… what?” Thomas tilted his head.

Even Moonlight couldn’t come up with an angered remark for that one.

“See, when I saw you, I didn’t recognize you at first. So the first thing I thought was ‘oh my gosh I need to throw them a welcome party’. But then I remembered that I did recognize you,” Pinkie pointed at Thomas. “Not you you, but another you, and that was when I kinda panicked.”

“Another…” Thomas struggled. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Oh, sorry. Well, it all happened a long time ago, or maybe it hasn’t happened at all yet,” Pinkie wondered. “It’s hard to keep track of things like this. Anyway, you had come to Ponyville. Not you you, but the other you. Only you weren’t you, you were a pony. Only you weren’t a pony like us because you walked on all fours and were a lot shorter. You were really angry about that,” she giggled. “Anyway, you came up to me, not me me but the other me, the one that walked on all fours, and asked the other me for a thing. I don’t really remember what it was, but you, the other you, said it was responsible for my Pinkieness, or something like that. Your white unicorn friend didn’t seem to like me very much, though,” she frowned. “Anyway, you, the other you, took the thing and then things got a little fuzzy after that. I think some bad stuff happened. So when I saw you, the you you, I forgot that you weren’t the other you and I was afraid bad stuff was going to happen here too just like they did in Ponyville, the other Ponyville. Thank goodness that didn’t happen.” She finished cheerfully, only for her tail to twitch just before a roof collapsed on a house the ursa had bitten. Pinkie just continued to smile as though she hadn’t noticed.

The two mares and human were rendered dumbstruck by the pink pony’s explanation. Moonlight craned her head to look Thomas, but he had no answers. She then looked up at Rainbow, but the cyan mare only shrugged and shook her head. “That’s just Pinkie being Pinkie… I think.”

“Yaparoony,” Pinkie agreed, oblivious of her audience’s confusion, before bouncing off toward the recently collapsed roof where she joined a group of ponies in the cleanup.

“Hey guys,” Talon waved as she walked up, giving one last wave goodbye to the yellow mare. “Looks like me and Flutters are on for next week. What’s the matter? Trying to catch flies or something?” she half laughed at their still gawking expression. “But seriously, what just happened?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas confessed.

They must never know.

Suddenly realization donned on him and he ran off after Twilight, accompanied by his companions.

“Wo there, chimp. What’s the rush?”

Thomas ignored her as he caught up with his target. “Spike. I need you to send a letter to Princess Celestia right now.”

“Whatever for?” Twilight asked.

“I just…” Thomas hesitated, trying to think of an explanation that wouldn’t reveal his secret foresight. “I just need to tell Celestia something really important. I’m sorry I can’t say more, but… I’m under her orders not tell.”

“Alright, I guess,” Twilight frowned before nodding to Spike.

“What’s the message?” he asked after pulling a quill and paper from seemingly nowhere.

Thomas breathed to calm himself until he came up with a satisfying answer. “This is Thomas. We’ve gone off script in a big way and we need to talk about it.”

That was a hell of a thing. Talon and Moonlight rally Ponyville against the ursa. Thomas rescues little Apple Bloom, only to give Twilight exactly what she needed to save the day. A bit of self-insertion, but isn’t that the point of HiE?

Pinkie Pie explains why she freaked out earlier, which I promise makes sense. She’s referring to events that, at this time, have yet to happen in my other story. If I might go off on a tangent for a bit, I know it’s not popular, but I’m hoping I can finish that damn thing eventually and just get it out of my system. Please check it out http://www.fimfiction.net/story/300388/stranded-beyond-the-equestrian-veil

Anyway, back to the story people actually like reading, I also alluded to a thing. Won’t specify, but it’s a thing that’ll be important later.