With this shouting from a somewhat familiar voice behind the door, Twilight ran over to the door as fast as her four hooves would let her, using her magic to open a door that was locked with a key... that was for some reason still inside the lock.

Good job, whoever that was.

What was on the other side of the door was something you should only find in Equestria.

Bursting into the main hall was a slime-covered Rarity, whose attire was... not as elegant as before. Her hair and dress had slime on them, and her hair was slightly out of place.

But that was nothing compared to her actual reaction...

Rarity panted as she took literally ONLY THREE steps before collapsing onto the floor as if she'd been shot, some of the slime bursting as she did so. She then pointed behind her with an exasperated sigh and shouted. "That creature took my jewels!!"

If you haven't guessed by now, she's a bit of a drama queen.

And, sure enough, as I suspected, that Smooze thing was terrorising everyone, with it stealing any gems/jewels/other shiny items from the ponies outside, and growing in the process. Meanwhile, Thomas was out there as well, too busy stuffing his fat arse with cupcakes to notice that he had a massive blob of slime sliding down his back.

Observant as always.

Twilight looked back to Discord, and boy was she a happy bunny in that moment of time!

(That was sarcasm, if you couldn't tell)

"Discord!" she said in an angry tone of voice, walking over to him. "I thought I told you to keep your friend under control!"

"Oh, please," Discord replied in a tone of voice that was so condescending and so irritating that if I were Twilight, I would have throttled him right there and then, in front of everyone. "I have better things to do than to watch that thing all night."

He then turned away to look at the green pony and Fluttershy again, and although I couldn't see what their facial expressions were from where I was standing, I had a pretty good idea over what kind of looks they were giving him, judging from the nervous laughter a few seconds later.

"What I mean to say is, that thing is a dear, dear friend, and I'll make sure that the ooze, uh, that he can't help but secrete doesn't get on anypony else."

Discord then did this teleportation thing I've been told about, and stood right next to Rarity, who had since gotten herself up and was trying to brush off. Well, she was, until Discord started to fire up a hoover.

OK, then. VACUUM CLEANER. You happy now?

Rarity was now somewhat surprised, but even more so when Discord quite literally sucked all of her clothes off. This even pulled her into the air for a little bit. After this, Rarity was basically what she looked like the first time we had met her, but with some strands of her mane a bit out of place.

Which she was not best pleased about.

She then walked away, doing the whole 'cover up your privates' thing as she did so. Which was odd for some reason, as most ponies don't wear clothes all the time, even Rarity doesn't usually have a problem with it.

Was it the increased pressure of the whole 'most prestigious party' thing? I don't know.

What I do know is that Nathan and I got a barrel of laughs at seeing this.

"Thank you," Twilight said, glad that the problem had been dealt with. "It's alright, everypony. Let's just get back to enjoying this magical evening!"

And so, all the party goers returned to whatever they were doing before.

Well, all the ones that were actually distracted in the first place.

"Coupsie!"

Thomas turned around, still stuffing his face. "What?"

"Come on," I said, walking over to him. "Get away from the cupcakes."

"Naw, at's naw fair!"

"You've had enough to gie yourself every type of diabetes that exists," Nathan replied, assisting me in pulling Thomas away from those cupcakes... but not before he had one himself. "Come on, let other people at least have one."

"Aww."

And so we dragged him back in, shutting the door behind us so he couldn't just come back and get more. Nathan then rubbed all of the ooze off of Thomas' back, showing the chunk to a confused Thomas. "That's how awake you are mentally, not even noticing this blob of slime on your back!"

At the same time however, I saw Discord pulling the Smooze away from everybody else with some form of leash. He was giving him some form of reprimanding, but over what exactly, I couldn't tell. He yanked him into this small room and pushed him inside, saying something along the lines of "I'll be back when the Gala is over".

I felt another hoof tap me on the back, and so I turned around, expecting to find one of the Mane Six, but instead, found somepony else.

In front of me were three pegasi in blue and bright yellow Spandex-like flight suits: two of them were mares, the other one a stallion.

The one that really caught my attention was the one who had tapped me, standing in the middle of the group. She had a fiery like mane, more bright orange in the middle and having a darker orange more akin to the General Lee's body colour on the outside. (Before you ask, yes, I'm talking about the car.)

Out of the holes that were for her eyes, muzzle, ears and wings, you could see her coat was a slightly darker than the yellow on the flight suits, more akin to brilliant gold.

The other mare was similar in shape and build to the yellow one, albeit her coat was a bluish-green and her mane was a brilliant white instead. The stallion was different. He was certainly more muscular than the two mares, although personally I don't think he was stronger than Shining Armor. His mane and tail were of a dark blue, and his fur was like a grey-ish light blue, if that makes sense.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, we're alright. I'd just thought we'd introduce ourselves," the one in the middle replied, and pointed to each of them as she continued explaining. "I'm Spitfire, Captain of the Wonderbolts Aerobatics Team. This here's Soarin, second-in-command of the Wonderbolts, and this is Fleetfoot, third-in-command. I take it you're those three humans the whole of Equestria's been talking about?"

"Yep," Nathan replied. "I'm Nathan, he's Jack and he's Thomas. But you probably already know that, from the attention we've been getting from the media."

"Yeah, I've seen you three in every paper I could find," Soarin replied.

"Anyway, I just came over to see if you were attending the Wonderbolts' Gala Showcase tomorrow?" Spitfire asked. "It's part of the VIP All Areas Ticket, and I guessed you all had one as I saw you all in the VIP Area with Fancy Pants earlier."

"Oh... it is?" I replied.

"Yeah," she replied, looking concerned about us not realising that we were able to go. "Were you not told about that?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Ah, I see. I take it you won't be going then?"

"Probably not," Thomas replied. "I mean, we would like to, but accommodation-wise, I don't know whether that is going to be possible or not."

"Yeah, I like seeing aerobatic stuff," Nathan added. "My first time seeing the Red Arrows convinced me of that, but I don't think we could do that without spending the night somewhere. And I am NOT sleeping in the CAR."

"Yeah, 'cause then you'd have to go through a whole can of deodorant just to smell somewhat acceptable."

"I'm not that bad, Jack. Get real."

There was laughter heard from all six of us, Nathan not taking my comment too seriously (even though it's true), and the Wonderbolts weren't grossed out.

"I do have one question, though," Fleetfoot said once she'd stopped laughing.

"Then go ahead."

"What's the Red Arrows?"

"They're an aerobatic team, like yourselves. Specifically, they're the RAF - which is our air force - 's aerobatic team. But whereas you fly by yourself, humans don't have wings... as you can probably tell."

"So, how do they fly, then?" Spitfire asked, furrowing her eyebrows at this, obviously not knowing what planes are.

"Well, some people a while ago invented these machines that we can fly manually called aeroplanes. There's lots of different types, but the Red Arrows use a modified version of one of the most agile ones out there."

"Are they any good?"

"Oh, yes. Went to see them once at the Scottish Air Show, and I'll never forget it."

"Jack!"

We all turned to the source of the voice to see Cadence walking towards us. The Wonderbolts all bowed in respect to the princess, and we all did the same.

"Hello, Princess. What can I do for you?" I asked.

"I just thought to inform you that Princess Celestia has organised rooms for you to stay in for the night."

"Oh," Nathan said. "So that means we can go to the Wonderbolts' display tomorrow!"

"Yes, I had forgotten to mention the Wonderbolts' Showcase," Cadence replied sheepishly, with a matching smile to boot.

"Eh, that's alright, don't worry about it."

"Thank you. While it's been a pleasure to see you all again, I have other guests to see. Farewell for now," Cadence said before turning back and walking out of the room again.

"So, it looks like you can attend after all," Soarin continued.

"Certainly looks like it."

"So we can expect to see you there?" Spitfire asked. I dismissed this at the time, but Spitfire had her eyes on Nathan, almost as if she was checking him out in a discreet manner.

"You bet," Thomas replied.

"That's great, we'll let the other 'Bolts know as well," Fleetfoot responded.

"Well, as nice as it was to meet you, we better go back to the rest of the 'Bolts," Spitfire announced, a small yawn slightly noticeable. "We'll need to rest early to get some sleep before early morning practice."

Fleetfoot and Soarin groaned in displeasure.

"Come on, you two. You've been in the Wonderbolts long enough to know that this kind of thing happens all the time."

"I know that, I just wish we got breaks more often," Fleetfoot sighed.

"We do. They're called weekends."

"Since when is starting an hour later a 'break'?"

"Fleety!" Soarin interrupted, gaining Fleetfoot's attention. He took a couple of steps towards Fleetfoot, resting his head next to hers's and rubbed his cheek against hers. "It's not worth it. Let's just get back to the others."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Well, we're going to go back to the other Wonderbolts."

"Sure, see you tomorrow then," Nathan replied.

"See you later, handsome," Spitfire replied somewhat suggestively, smirking at Nathan as she did so. What she did after this really surprised me. As she turned round to walk with her fellow team members, she made the discreet effort to 'accidentally' brush her fiery mane against Nathan's leg.

After a few steps of walking away with Fleetfoot and Soarin, she tilted her head for a few seconds in a way that her left eye was looking directly looking at Nathan, smirking all the time. In addition to this, Spitfire was deliberately swishing her tail from side to side - with Nathan staring all the time, with a slight blush on his cheeks.

Something that wasn't lost on either Thomas or myself.

As soon as Spitfire was out of earshot... we laughed.

Like, a lot.

Nathan was too caught up in his staring trance to say anything.

"Oh, mate... we haven't even been here for a whole week!" Thomas laughed. "And you're already getting hit on by a pony!"

"Captain of an aerobatics team, no less," I commented with a laugh.

"I..." Nathan began to stutter. "I don't know what's worse actually... The fact that I've been hit on by a pony, or the fact that I couldn't get into a relationship on Earth, but I get hit on here, in a place where humans have never existed!"

"Well-"

At this point, the hall's lights cut out. At the time, we weren't sure as to why this was happening, and neither did the ponies around us, if the gasps were anything to go by.

"What the hell's going on NOW?" Thomas whispered.

His question was answered when the sound of a microphone was heard, making all the ponies (and humans) in the room look towards a stage that was very quickly set up.

"Check, check, check. Is this thing on?"

Thomas rolled his eyes. "Here we go again, another disaster waiting to happen."

I ignored him and looked back towards the stage.

"Good evening, fillies and germs!" Discord's voice rang out, as he began his... stand up comedy routine. "I just flew into Canterlot, and wow, are my interspecies parts tired!"

A rimshot rang out, but nobody made a noise. No laughing, no booing, no whispers of 'What's the joke?'... nothing.

Except for us, that was - well, Nathan and Thomas anyway.

"What the hell is he doing now?" Thomas whispered.

"I don't know," Nathan replied. "But if that's meant tae be a joke, it's not funny - ah don't even get it."

"But your children will."

"What?" Nathan asked confused as to what Thomas was getting at. It only took another second or so for the penny to drop, and for his attitude to change from that of confusion to that of grumpiness. "Shut up."

Thomas laughed to himself before turning back to the stage.

Discord looked around the room for a reaction to work on, but found that nobody laughed at his joke. Instead, he pulled his top hat off of his head... for about half a second, before putting it back on his head and pulling it over his entire body.

How can a hat just stretch like that?

...

Oh, right. Magic. As per usual.

Once it had reached the maximum amount that the hat would stretch, Discord jumped out of said hat, which made the top part of it snap apart. Discord, somehow (probably due to magic again), jumped out of said hat... wearing a more informal red jacket, like a sports jacket, in stark contrast to the orange suit jacked he was wearing earlier.

And the reason science hasn't really gone anywhere here is all beginning to make sense now.

Kicking away the now-wrecked top hat, Discord walked forward to the front of the stage and continued. "I've only got these tiny mismatched wings," he said as he showed them off to the crowd and continued his joke. "And even I can fly better than Twilight Sparkle! Am I right?"

A rimshot rung out again, with him even adding a "Pachoo!" to it.

Unlike the previous joke, this one was actually kind of funny, so all three of us snickered.

"Okay, that one was good," Thomas commented to himself.

Twilight, however, didn't agree.

"HEY!" she called out to Discord, with a slightly unhappy look upon her face clearly indicating that she didn't like the joke.

Her mentor acted completely differently to her about it, though. Instead of saying something, she actually giggle to herself as well... something that didn't escape the notice of Twilight herself.

Discord, however, started nervously laughing, as he was not getting the reaction he was hoping for. "Uh, well, perhaps you're into more observational humour."

Following this, he glowed white for a split second before teleporting away. We were all confused for a second as to where he went, but we got an answer when his head appeared poking out of a wall... and kept talking.

"Did you ever notice how you always materialise out of thin air?" he asked rhetorically.

Naw, Discord. I don't materialise, full stop.

"Why not thick air?" he asked again, as he pulled himself back out of the wall, wearing a shirt with the top button undone, along with a loose red tie... and a blue jacket.

Can you not just stick to the one costume instead of taking your entire wardrobe with you?

"What's the deal there?" he finished, along with another rimshot... which I came to realise should be impossible considering there was no drum in sight, but this guy could change his colour of suit at will so whatever.

Again, there was silence... except from some mare at the front coughing.

"Actually," Thomas began. "The reason is-"

"Stop it, Tom," I interrupted. "I know you want to become the next Albert Einstein, but you don't need to give us a lecture about air."

Surprisingly, this brought out a few laughs from within the crowd, but mostly everybody didn't laugh. Difference is, I wasn't attempting to make a joke.

"Tough crowd," Discord could be heard commenting as he pulled his tie.

From the other side of the room, I could hear conversations involving the Mane Six whilst Discord was performing.

"What is he doing?!" Twilight asked.

"I think they're... jokes?" Rainbow Dash replied, albeit unsure of her answer, since the jokes weren't all that funny in the first place.

Pinkie smiled like a Cheshire cat, before turning to a pony next to her, who I assumed was her sister. "Maud! Jokes!"

Maud just turned back to the front. "My favourite."

Is she being sarcastic, or does she lack enthusiasm?

Discord continued regardless. "You might be a Ponyville pony when an ordinary night on the town ends in a lesson about friendship!"

Once again, nobody laughed.

"Knock knock!" Discord said, knocking the table to add to his joke, having changed his outfit for the millionth seventh time.

Nothing.

Discord was shocked to say the least. "You're supposed to say 'Who's there?'! This is the most basic of jokes!"

Having his most basic joke failed, he pulled a mallet from literally nowhere and while seething with anger, he smashed the watermelon with said mallet. The remains were scattered everywhere, landing on everybody's suits/dresses. Nobody minded this, however.

Especially not Maud, who shot back with her own quip. "You're the most basic of jokes."

Ponies all around started laughing, especially her sister, Pinkie Pie. "Good one, Maud!"

Not exactly original though, I thought.

"Well, actually, Maud, you're wrong there," Nathan commented. "As far as I know, Discord's the second most basic of jokes... obviously behind Thomas, of course."

Some laughter could be heard, but Thomas ignored this. "Okay then, Nathan, tell me what makes me the most basic of jokes."

"Well for starters," Nathan began. "There's your choice in cars, your choice in music, your dead end career choice-"

"Okay, but my job isn't exactly dead end."

"Right, you just tell yourself that when you're made redundant in a few years."

"Whatever."

"Where was I? Oh, yes. Your choice in shoes, your haircut, your choice in drinks..." he continued. "Oh, ho ho! I haven't even started with your girlfriend yet!"

"THAT'S IT!" Thomas yelled at the top of his voice.

Nathan started slowly retreating towards the door, but this became a sprint as Thomas started running after him.

"YOU CAN SAY ANYTHING ABOUT ME ALL YOU WANT, BUT DON'T YOU DARE BRING MY FIANCÉE INTO THIS! COME HERE!"

"You two aren't married yet!" Nathan yelled back as he burst through the doors.

"SHUT UP!"

This gained some laughter from the ponies inside the hall... except for one small foal, who was looking scared.

Curious as to why he was scared, I followed his eye movements to see what he was looking at.

And got a little scared myself.

What the colt was actually looking at was the door that Discord had put the Smooze in earlier. The only major difference was that the door was now glowing from the other side.

It didn't take a genius to work out what was going on... or what was going to happen.

"Well, I better get after them," I lied. "To make sure they don't get too out of hand."

And without a further word spoken I made haste towards the door, closing it in time to hear Twilight on the other side asking what something was.

Leaving the ensuing chaos behind me, I walked down the stairs and over to the bar, passing one or two of Fancy Pants' associates on the way.

"Hello, sir," the stallion behind the bar asked, slightly uneasy at my appearance. "What can I get you?"

"Err..." I began, but faltered as I pondered over what to order. I wasn't a fan of wine, and I didn't feel like I wanted beer, either. Eventually I just settled on whiskey. "Can I get a glass of whiskey, please?"

"Certainly. What type would you like?"

"What have you got?"

"Rye, Bourbon and Corn amongst most others."

"Can I get some rye, please?"

"Of course. How old?"

"Six to eight years, preferably."

"Right away, Sir," he replied before turning away and getting me a small dram of said bourbon to drink. I wasn't waiting long before he returned. "Here you are. That'll be six bits please."

I handed over the sufficient amount of bits, and gave an extra four bits as a tip.

"Thank you, sir!"

"No problem," I replied, before turning on the spot and walking out of the reception area to one of the balconies overlooking Canterlot.

Several minutes later, I was still drinking, but deliberately taking a while as I looked over what had happened over the past week or so, still trying to take it all in.

I thought long and hard about how this could have happened in the first place, why it had come through Scotland specifically, rather than Canada or Russia, which would have been much more likely for this portal to open there instead, and wondered who could have brought us here.

I was brought out of my musing by a familiar voice.

"Jack!"

I turned round to see Princess Luna in an elegant black and blue dress. It was in a similar style to Celestia's, but there were white crescent moons that were present in the place of the sun images that Celestia had. It suited Luna well, when you take into account her fur and mane colours, and with being Princess of the Night.

"Princess Luna!" I commented, before bowing to show respect.

This bought out giggles from her as she walked over to where I was standing. "Please, there's no need to be so formal. I only wish to talk with you."

"Thank you. Anything in particular?"

"How have you been settling into Equestria?"

"It's a nice place. It's vastly different from Scotland, which I suppose can be a good and bad thing."

"I can see what you mean," she said as she quietly laughed to herself. "Where are your friends at the moment?"

"Probably fighting each other in some corridor in the castle."

Luna looked shocked, her eyes narrowing to pinpricks. "Why would they do that?"

"Well, long story short... insecurity and a lot of hot air."

"That's rather vague..."

"Having jokes at each other, and Nathan about to make a joke about his girlfriend to whom... he recently engaged to."

This seemed to calm her shock down, but she still looked somewhat confused. Regardless, she continued. "So what are you doing out here, by yourself?"

I sighed. "I suppose I'm just trying to think over this, and work out why this was happening to us in the first place... amongst other things."

"Like the dreams you have been having?"

I felt my eyes widen upon hearing this, and no longer felt the tiredness I was feeling only a minute ago, with most of that replaced with anger.

"What are you talking about?" I replied somewhat crossly as I felt my right hand tighten the grip around my glass, my knuckles becoming white in the process.

Nothing my white knuckles and my change in tone, she continued. "Jack, you must understand that I was merely doing my duties as Princess of the Night."

"Like what?"

"Part of my job as Princess of the Night involves me watching over ponies' dreams while they are sleeping, and if they are having nightmares, I can enter their dreams to banish them and help them to face their fears, if need be."

My vice-like grip on my dram of whiskey released to the point where it was the same as before. "So, that force I felt trying to get into my dreams... that was you?"

Luna nodded. "Until Twilight told my sister and I via letter that you were immune to magic, I kept trying to enter your dreams, but was unsuccessful. I could see them from the outside however."

"What do you make of them?"

"Am I correct in saying that most of these dreams were you reliving past memories?"

"Yeah, and not very pleasant ones at that," I replied. "But you probably already know that."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"Well, most of them revolved around things that happened in a previous relationship."

"What happened?"

"It was absolutely brilliant!" I lied. "Best thing that ever happened to me."

Luna raised her eyebrows at me, unconvinced with my answer.

"Jack..."

I sighed. "I met her in a pub back in February of 2009, nearly 9 years ago. She came over to where I was standing at the bar and she was making it very apparent she was interested in me. She seemed like a nice girl, so I drove her back to her parent's house and she game me her phone number."

"Oh... what happened next?"

"Well, sure enough, she phoned me later that week and we kept in touch with each other. To my relief, I found out she was a bit of a petrolhead too."

"Petrolhead?"

"Person who's into cars."

"I see... you were saying?"

"We went out for quite a few dates over the next few years, and we became really close, if you know what I mean. Just over two years after I first met her, she told me that she was moving out of her parent's house and asked if she could move in with me. Naturally, I accepted, even though I had only just bought the house at that point."

"So things WERE good?"

I hesitated. "Err... for a while. Things were going smoothly, we went on a couple of dates again. In the days leading up to what caused it all to go downhill, the signs were there, like getting nervous around me with her phone and her changing her phone password, but it still wasn't all that obvious."

"So what happened?"

"I remember the date as if it were yesterday... the 28th of January, 2013. I had gone out with my friends: Thomas, Nathan and my best friend, Brodie. I'd come back after Brodie had dropped me off at my house. My car was broken down, so I had to ask her to take me to work, and asked Brodie to take me back.

"The previous day, we stopped at the jewellers to get a ring to propose to her, as I really did think I had waited long enough and thought she was the one. After I'd bought it, I left it to Brodie for safekeeping. After he'd dropped me off, I went inside and I braced myself as I walked up to my door. But when I did reach the door, I heard noises inside the flat."

Luna grimaced, as I think she knew where this was going.

"I didn't believe what I was hearing, so I went inside to see what was happening. I left the bag that I had taken to work on the kitchen counter, and opened the bedroom door... to find her doing it with another guy."

There was silence between us for a few seconds. Eventually, Luna spoke. "I am sorry to hear that."

"You should have my reaction when I saw the other guy, though," I laughed, somewhat nervously. "The guy had long hair, so I literally yanked him by his ponytail and yanked him down every step and threw him out... while he was still naked. I was less pleased with my girlfriend, though. I showed her the ring that I was going to propose to her with, and more or less forced her out."

"So how has that caused the bad memories I saw in your nightmares?"

"There was more to it after that had happened," I explained, sighing as memory after memory kept flowing back to me. "But I'm not quite ready to talk about that just yet... the wounds haven't quite healed just yet."

"I understand."

"Well, I reckon I've done enough deep thinking for one night," I sighed, finishing the last of my whiskey. "I better get back inside. As much as the city is beautiful to look at, I can't stand here all night."

Luna giggled. "Alright, Jack. While it was nice to see you again, I must be ready to take night court soon."

"Alright, then. See you sometime soon."

"Good night, Jack" And with that, she walked away back inside, presumably to get changed out of her dress. A few seconds later, I followed suit, walking back in and heading back towards the bar, meeting the same stallion as before.

"Can I get a glass of bourbon, please?"

"Certainly, sir. Just a moment, please."

And so, he walked off again. While I was waiting, I saw Nathan walking along the corridor, along with Thomas, who were both laughing about something. Curious, I climbed up the stairs.

"Nathan!" I shouted over to him.

Both of them turned to look at me. "Jack, where have you been?"

"I left a little while after you did," I replied. "Just went outside for a bit of fresh air. Have you two stopped trying to strangle each other?"

We all laughed, after all it was only a joke.

"Yep, but we ran across half the castle in the process. Wouldn't be surprised if some members of the guard started chasing us."

"I don't know how you managed to keep up with me, to be honest," Nathan commented.

"Shut up."

"Anyway, are you all heading back into the main hall? I'll be there in a second but I've ordered a drink at the bar."

"Sure, see you there."

With that they both walked off back to the main hall, and I pivoted on the spot to walk back down to the bar. On the way there, guess who I met?

"Here comes the ape!" shouted an all so familiar voice.

Yep, you guessed it.

"What exactly is your problem, anyway?" I snapped, becoming more irritated by his attitude towards us by the second.

"Do not speak to me like that!"

I decided he wasn't worth the effort to argue with. After all, they say it's hard to argue with a smart person, but impossible to argue with an idiot. "Whatever."

I continued walking down the stairs, ignoring the 'who do you think you are' comments that Blueblood was making. When I got back to the bar, the stallion from before looked up towards me.

"Oh, there you are. Your glass is sitting there," he said, pointing his hoof towards a dram of whiskey that was put off to the side for safekeeping.

"Oh, thank you. How much?"

"Six bits, please."

I forked over the necessary bits, and took my drink. I thanked the bartender again before walking back up the stairs, drink in hand. Opening the doors, I had a look around... to find the Smooze at the size it was at the start of the night, Thomas, Nathan and most of the Mane Six standing near Discord, and Discord talking. I saw Twilight and Celestia talking to each other, so I decided to walk over to them and ask what had happened after I left.

"Princesses," I said to them, gaining their attention.

"Hello there, Jack," Celestia replied with a smile. "How are you this evening?"

"Fine thank you, Princess. What happened after I left?"

"Well," Twilight began, rubbing her hoof against the floor, almost in shame. "The Smooze got out of the storage room that had a lot of the crown's valued items, that were all... heh, heh... shiny. The slime got everywhere, and even both of us couldn't control it with our magic..."

"So how'd you get it under control?"

"A mare by the name of Tree Hugger used some soft vocal techniques to calm him down and release all of the ponies trapped in ooze out of it and stopped it from crating much more chaos."

"Tree Hugger... is she...?"

"The green mare that Fluttershy took as her plus one?"

"That's the one. What happened after that?"

"Discord wasn't happy in the slightest. He opened a portal and threatened to send Tree Hugger to another dimension. Apparently he had this desire for vengeance against Tree Hugger for her being invited by Fluttershy to the Gala instead of him.... Thankfully, Fluttershy knocked some sense into him, and they made up. Discord closed the portal and removed the items from the Smooze."

We all looked on to Discord and the others, and noticed that Pinkie and the Smooze had started dancing on the dance floor, and Nathan was teasing Thomas to go on as well. I didn't say a word to this. My mind skipped over the rest of what Twilight said to focus on one part.

"...threatened to send Tree Hugger to another dimension..."

"I'm sorry, Princess Celestia," Twilight said, turning to her mentor.

"I thought I could give you a break tonight..." she continued, looking ashamed as she turned back to the floor. "...but it turns out I was in over my head."

"You have nothing to apologise for," Celestia said, bringing Twilight out of her sad thoughts. "This has been the most fun Gala in years!"

Although the night was a bit mental, I had to agree with Celestia. It was much better than the parties or events that I got invited to, which usually involved getting several people steaming by the end, and one of the following: someone getting extremely high on drugs, a fist fight outside, or someone getting beaten up. I know who to avoid now, so I suppose it's all good.

"I know," Twilight replied. "It was a—what?!" exclaiming this last part in surprise, not expecting this response from her mentor.

"But there was ooze all over the place!" Twilight continued, not seeing what made Celestia enjoy the night so much. "And one of the guests threatened to send somepony to another dimension! And another two guests kept making snarky comments towards each other, and chased each other throughout the castle!"

"I know!" Celestia replied happily. "Can you imagine how dull it would have been if I hadn't invited Discord and you three along?" directing this last comment towards me.

"Yeah, from the way some of the nobles I met go about it, it really did seem like a dull social climber's event," I replied, seeing the point she was making, ignoring the incredulous look Twilight was giving me.

"At least somebody else sees how boring the Gala is apart from me!" Celestia announced, pushing Twilight to the others with her wing. "Come on! Aho!"

"The night is still young!" she explained to Twilight.

"Just a second, though," I said before walking off to Thomas and Nathan, both of whom having milkshakes in their hands.

"Alright, Jack," Thomas called over to me.

"Yep. Where'd you get the milkshakes from?"

"Pinkie."

"Pinkie being Pinkie?"

"Yeah."

"So there you are," Discord finally said. "The others and I were just talking about you."

Discord then stuck out his paw. "I'm Discord, the reformed Spirit of Chaos, although I think you already know that."

I didn't immediately shake his paw, but eventually did so unenthusiastically. "Pleased to meet you, Discord."

Discord seemed unhappy with my response. "Oh, come on. I told you I'm reformed."

"I know. I'm also told you threatened to send somepony to another dimension."

Discord didn't seem to know what I was getting at, but after several seconds of silence, the penny dropped. Discord jumped up defensively. "I can tell you with one hundred percent honesty that I did not bring you here."

"Really," I replied in a sarcastic tone that I made imply mistrust.

"I'm telling you the truth!"

I stared at him, giving him a hard glare, knowing his answer was probably be full of rubbish. Eventually I looked away from him, but instead to look at Applejack.

"Applejack?" I asked. "Is he telling the truth?"

"If lies could make snow fall, he'd have made Canterlot the Frozen North right now."

"Discord!" I said, raising my voice and showing him how irritated I was by his deceptiveness.

Discord said nothing for a few seconds, his eyes darting back and forth. Eventually, he let out a big sigh. "Fine! I may have accidentally brought you here with an experimental spell that was intended to do something else."

Ponies around could be heard gasping at this.

"I'm not that concerned about what you were doing," I told him harshly. "Can you recreate what happened?"

"Well, for the moment, I'm afraid not," he sighed, before sitting on the stage. "There was far too many variables for me to keep a track of, so trying to recreate could take several months to do."

"Can you give us the base spell," Twilight began. "So we can work with it to try to recreate it?"

"I suppose I could, but it would take weeks, if not months to do so."

"Okay," I replied, controlling my anger at this to the best of my abilities. "It's alright. If it wasn't intentional, then I forgive you."

"Thank you."

With that, Nathan, Thomas and I did a little toast for ourselves - with their milkshakes and my whiskey. To what exactly?

"To possibly returning back home within a few weeks, and enjoying Equestria in the mean time!" Thomas said, not all that confident with what he said.

"How about settling on to going home?"

Thomas laughed. "Yeah, that other one's a bit of a mouthful."

"To going home!" I called out.

"To going home," they both replied in unison, all of us taking our drinks... and me noticing something odd about the whiskey's taste.

Now, I'm not sure if you've been able to work this out so far, but if you haven't, I was a bit of a whiskey connoisseur. I've had almost all types of whiskey you can find; Scotch, Bourbon, Rye, Tennessee, Irish, Japanese, whatever. If you can name it, I've probably had at least one dram of it.

Except English whiskey. My dad made me avoid it at all costs.

Anyway, as I was familiar with the taste of whiskey, I could probably tell what type it is, just from the taste of it... even blindfolded.

This dram didn't taste right.

It was certainly bourbon, there was the distinct taste, but there was something else there... something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"What's the matter, Jack?" Thomas said, smirking. "You look like you've just taken sparkling water when you thought it was still!"

I laughed. "Yeah, whatever. This whiskey doesn't taste quite right."

"What is it?"

"Bourbon, aged six to eight years. It's definitely bourbon, but it tastes like something else is there."

"Probably because you've naw had it in ages," Nathan commented.

"Maybe, I dunno."

We all took another sip of our drinks again, my fears strengthening that something wasn't right in the bourbon. I dismissed it at the time as me probably not having had it in at least a decade.

"So, what exactly did y'all two do?" Applejack asked Nathan and Thomas. "After ya both ran out of the hall, ah mean."

Nathan answered. "Well, I basically ran away from Nathan, running in practically every place imaginable - from the main lobby..."

I zoned out of what Nathan was saying, as out of the corner of my eye, something caught my attention. I turned over to see what it was... and was somewhat surprised.

What I was looking at was Prince Blueblood sitting at a table in near the back of the room, smirking for some reason. This said smirk became a feral grin as he noticed I was looking at him. I narrowed my eyes, confused at first.

Why the hell is he smirking like a bloody psychopath?

My eyes widened slightly as I realised something.

Unless...

I raised my glass again to get a good hard look at the whiskey... and was horrified to see that a secondary liquid, that blended in very well to the whiskey, began moving about within the whiskey.

"I should have known," I commented aloud, as my brain connected all of the dots.

"Jack?"

I turned my head to see Thomas, Nathan, the Mane Six, Discord and Celestia looking at me confused.

"Erm... uhh... I was just talking to myself?" I replied unconvincingly.

"Jack?" Thomas repeated.

I ignored him and turned to Celestia. "Where are the toilets here?"

Surprised by my question, Celestia raised her hoof. "They're downstairs, past the main lobby. Take the nearest stairs to the door, and take a left and then a right."

"Okay," I replied, before putting my glass onto the stage away from the others and hurriedly walking towards the door, ignoring Celestia calling my name in the process. On the way there, I saw Lyra sitting at a table with Bon-Bon, or Sweetie Drops or whatever her name was. I can't exactly remember: it's been a long time since this happened. On the table was an empty glass, a salt and a pepper grain.

Perfect, I thought.

As I walked over, Lyra noticed me. "Jack! I-"

"I'm SO sorry about this," I interrupted, before taking the empty glass and the salt grain.

"Jack? What's happening?" I heard Lyra call out in concern as I left the hall. As I did so, the effects of the poison began to kick in. I felt a little hurt in my chest, and I felt so tired... keeping my eyes open was difficult, but staggering down the stairs was a fucking nightmare!

I felt the eyes of several ponies staring at me in either disbelief, horror, or if your name happened to be Jet Set, disgust. I ignored all of these looks and kept stumbling in the directions that Celestia had given me.

Pushing the door aside, I immediately ran for the tap, turning it on. I fumbled with the glass as I put it in the sink, while adding salt to it. Looking back on it, it was probably foolish to try and throw the poison up, but at the time I felt like I had no other choice.

After the glass had overflowed with warm water, I turned the tap in the direction to turn it off, with each twist getting progressively more careless. I raised the glass to my lips and tried to drink as much of it as I could, with a substantial amount getting on my suit instead.

But it was enough. I felt the water trickle down my throat, and soon enough, I felt sick. My stomach lurched as I dropped the glass, turning to the sink to throw up whatever it was that was in my drink... and anything else that was stuck in there.

I heard the door burst open behind me, and several footsteps behind me.

"Jack?"

I turned to see Nathan and Thomas standing at the door, both looking extremely concerned over my behaviour.

"I think that glass of whiskey was poisoned," I managed to slur.

I went to walk over to them, but I slipped on a piece of glass and found myself falling forward, feeling the floor impacting my nose... and the rest of my face. The shouting and the talking that was happening not even three feet away from me was fading away as I felt myself lose consciousness.

...

Is this what it's like to die?

Is this what Brodie went through all those years ago?

Did Emily experience this in the crash?