Anthology of Graybles

by str8aura

First published 20th of December, 2019

Or: Stories from the Suggestion Bin

A collection of stories inspired by picture prompts on Reddit. To be updated (hopefully) ~~every Thursday.~~ whenever I feel like it apparently.

Two Sides Of A Coin (Pinkie; Sad/Hopeful)

"Good morning, grumpy-pants. Haven't seen you in a while! What's the occasion?"

Pinkamena miserably looked up to stare at herself in the mirror. The real version of herself, not the monotone copy of her on the real side of the mirror.

She had been lightly surprised to find herself in control when she woke up, and that naturally meant the real Pinkie would be finding some ways to express herself without the use of a physical form; in most cases, it was pseudo-hallucinations that made Pinkamena question her already questionable mental health.

"Same as always. It's only ever one reason. Maybe you're up late last night thinking about futility, or you felt like you've disappointed a friend. Whatever it is that day, it's the only reason I ever come out of my birdcage."

"Aw, don't be like that. Admittance is the first step to recovery. So, let's play 'Whaaaaat's Eatiiiiing Pinkie Pie!!'"

She pantomimed a trumpet, and leaned against her side of the glass. Pinkamena sighed, and Pinkie seemed to calm down, sitting up straight and politely waiting for her to explain. She gathered her thoughts together and picked up a comb, wondering if she could restore the natural pompf of her hair. She knew it was fruitless; her hair seemed to have a mind of it's own. Just another mystery of herself.

"It's a lot of things. Mostly me."

"Sing out, sister."

"I mean me-me. Pinkamena. I don't know what I am."

"Don't be silly. You're me!"

"No, I'm not you. I don't know if I'm a split personality, or a hallucination, or a mental disorder that'll disappear after you take those pills Redheart gave you; but I'm not Pinkie, and I don't know which side of the mirror I'm on."

She looked up again, and saw Pinkie smiling and listening attentively. After a moment of silence, she leaned in and took Pinkamena's hoof. She didn't question how this happened; it was just nice to be able to touch her.

"That day, when you saw the Rainboom, I saw the happiest filly I've ever seen, and it almost made me break down, because that was me, and I could never be that filly again. After that, I just... Became this. A disorder. A problem that scared your friends and only existed at the worst times."

"Is that what you think of yourself? Just a sad shadow of me?"

"What else am I?"

She leaned in more, and touched her forehead to Pinkamena's softly.

"You're me. You're us. There doesn't have to be a 'Real' me or a 'Fake' me, and we don't have to be two halves of the same coin. I can be bummed out without you taking over, and I know with all of my heart that you can be happy."

She guided Pinkamena's hoof to the drawer, and gently opened it. A bottle of pills was inside. She stared down at it as Pinkie smiled.

"I want to fix you. I want to fix us. And we can recover! We can be Pinkie."

She picked up the bottle, and poured a couple of pills into her hoof, gently shaking them around as she looked up at the mirror expectantly. That happy filly smiled back, and the room warmed up. And she popped them into her mouth.

Final Pay (Trixie; Slice Of Life/Comedy)

Limestone read the message again. And re-read it.

Nope. Still didn't make sense.

She looked up from the letter, one eyebrow raised. Trixie was still smiling excitedly, twitching as she sat in the dirt and gauged Limestone's reaction, as she had been doing for the past forty seconds now.

Forty seconds ago, she had walked up to Trixie with a small sack of her daily pay, and had been surprised to be greeted with a letter and the same smile she still wore now. Her obvious hesitation had not swayed Trixie's resolve in the slightest.

When she opened it, she had pulled out a front-and-back hoof-written page of scribbled out text, with only the last line on the back readable, squeezed into a corner under the black lines under which the faint remains of extravagantly written words could be made out;

'Would you like to go on a date? :)'

After the fifth re-read, Trixie's smile finally began to waver.

"You... You do know how to read, right?"

"What's this?"

"It's... It's an invitation! To spend more time with Trixie!"

"Why?"

Trixie sputtered, confusedly.

"To- be- because I like you! And I was wondering if we could go somewhere, whatever's nearby!"

Limestone cocked a head. Trixie had been working under her for about two months now, and this was her final day, according to Limestone's calculations. She had needed enough food, water, and accomodations for a multi-day long cross-country trip, and she had practically begged to help on the farm initially. Limestone had been hesitant, but one of her more level-headed sisters had pointed out that they were certainly understaffed without Pinkie.

So, they had let her on, and despite several days of griping and moaning and insistences on wearing her dum cape and hat, she had eventually fallen into a routine and learned not to complain.

Limestone had noticed her advances; as far as she knew, it was medically impossible for her to be subtle, and more than once she had pulled idiotic moves such as 'tripping' into her, and falling on top of her. She learned quickly that this was a bad idea, but still stayed undeterred her entire career.

And now, as she received her last paycheck courtesy of the Pie Family Farm, she was pulling a love letter.

Limestone considered her options, weighed the pros and the cons, and made her decision.

She pulled Trixie in, pulled off her hat, and planted a kiss on her lips, lasting a good minute before pulling back and reading the look of surprise on Trixie's face.

"No thank you. I'm not into girls."

And she walked back inside.

Rally Racing (Rainbow, Twilight; Adventure/Comedy)

"Forty, left two minus over crest-"

"I still don't know what that means, Twilight!"

"Doesn't matter anymore, Dash, you hit it."

"None of this would be a problem if they had just let me enter without a car! I could've finished this race ages ago."

"That would defeat the point of rally racing completely! It's not fair to the other racers to compete against a winged creature that can fly ten times the speed of sound!"

Twilight shook her pace notes and scrutinized them again, despite having analyzed them to the point of memorized recitation in the weeks leading up to the race. Rainbow shook her head and tried to push harder on the gas pedal.

The past year or so had been hectic, with two different governments from two different dimensions attempting to collaborate on the first ever power stage in a different world. Heads had been put to the test to try and throw together a last minute Equstria-stage for the final leg of the 2019 World Rally Championship, baffling nearly ever racer- save for the Equestrian entries themselves, of course.

After learning of the event from Twilights constant ramblings of Earth culture, Rainbow had been ecstatic at the thought of joining, picturing herself lapping cars twenty times over as they struggled to keep up in cars running through a rocky canyon. She later learned that this was by no means the case, for while she was certainly bull-headed enough to secure herself a spot in the otherwise entirely human roster, she quickly realized that she would not be let in without a car. After weeks of moaning and whining, she finally succumbed to the abiding of the most basic definition of a Motorsport and was let in as the first non-human racer. A lot of firsts were scored this year.

She also found out, peculiar enough, that cars were not measured by speedness and coolness, as she initially presumed, but by a term Twilight had almost seemed embarrassed to name, Horsepower. The bookworm had considered car models for a good day before settling on a cyan model pf Lancia Stratos that would not be released to the public until 2020, correctly assuming Dash would enjoy it after a quick paint job of rainbow stripes running along the sides and hood. Several aggravating papers and meetings later, they had secured a spot in the race and learned that the Equestrian power stage was to be held in the streets of Canterlot come November 14, after the previous location was cancelled due to brush fires. This left a handy open slot for the race Celestia was more than happy to accept, and with Twilight as her co-pilot, Dash felt she was more than ready to take on the race.

She was not.

"Ok, in 400 yards you'll have to hang a tight-"

"When will that be?"

"Now."

Dash used both forelegs and wings to turn the wheel, nearly wrenching it off in the process. Without looking up from her notes, Twilight levitated a screwdriver into position and screwed the wheel in tighter.

"I told you you were going to have to study the pace notes I made, which I did months in advance!"

"I had a lot to do! I had to learn what the pace notes meant, I had to learn to drive this car-!"

"You still haven't, far as I can tell."

"I had to learn their weird human script! What's up with that? We share a spoken language but not a written one?"

"I think that's a Rarity For You we just sped by."

"Oh, really? Mark the map, we'll come back later."

"This isn't a map Dash, it's a line of code I had to learn."

"That's stupid. Just mark a line on a map, it'll save you a lot of trouble."

"That's not everything on here! These notes tell you what the terrains like, the exact location of every bump and turn, every little thing that may pose a challenge! For example, in 20 yards there's a smooth- *RAINBOW WATCH THE ROAD NOT ME-!"*

The car turned at the last second, failing to save itself from a rough barrel roll into a barricade, miraculously landing back on the wheels. They sat in their seats, stunned for a second before Twilight flared her wings out and started yelling again.

"WE'RE GOOD! THERES NO PROBLEM! DRIVE! GET YOUR REAR IN GEAR!"

Dash slammed on the gas and managed to clip three more buildings as they sped past.

Bag of Tricks (Trixie; Slice Of Life/Comedy)

"Hope you second rate star-chasers were betting on me being the most intelligent woman in the room yet again, because I figured it out. In one of my incredibly rare mistakes, I accidentally used the wrong matrix and combined a Mimic spell with an Amygdala Fusion spell."

"How do we know any of those words mean anything?"

"Because I said them. Are you seriously trying to tell me that a whorse who sells cocaine and illegal fireworks on her spare time knows more than a scientist who happens to be Celestia's star pupil?"

Twilight sneered at Trixie, who was already beginning to realize this was going to be a long three minutes. Fuming, she sat back on the couch next to Starlight and Sunset.

Who both happened to look a lot like her at the moment.

"For those who are too ignorant to understand, the spell made us all look like the dictionary definition of washed up and gave us part of her personality as well. In case it wasn't obvious, I got the best part."

The blue-furred, silver-maned Twilight stuck her muzzle up high before turning back to the spell matrix blueprints on the table. Trixie stuck out her tongue as soon as she turned around, and looked at the other two Trixie's. Sunset nervously smiled and waved at her, and Starlight leaned her head on Trixie's shoulder and smiled at her. She was quickly shaken off.

"I can't believe that stuck up, anthropomorphized Dollar Tree sparkler would put Trixie down like this. Has she been this rude to you two?"

"Yeah, but, I mean, it's not like what she said was wrong. She's always right." Sunset cautiously replied, keeping her head down.

"Oh, she's always been like that. Just ignore her, you're so much more than her anyway." Starlight purred at her, awkwardly trying to lie across her lap.

"Trixie is confused by you three. Twilight Snarkle over there says you each have my personality, but she's just rude, you're shy, an you're... I don't want to know what personality trait you inherited, Starlight. None of those sound like me."

"Yeah, believe me Princess Homeless, having our entire personality traits reduced to one word isn't fun for us either. I don't have time to psychoanalyse Seafood Dinner and Pancake Flipper like a Tumblr user starved of physical affection. Let me kill part of my brain in peace."

"She's right, Lula. You don't need to worry about everything so much, just relax."

Trixie sighed as Starlight nuzzled her head into her lap some more.

"I think I'm bad juju," Sunset piped up quietly, "Everytime I come to this dimension, something goes wrong. Maybe I should just-"

"*You're going to stay here and get us all back to normal!*"

The room fell quiet after Trixie's outburst. She covered her mouth and looked over at Twilight, who just smiled and turned back to her work. Sunset slowly slid back onto the couch she had been getting up from.

"im sorry."

"No, Sunset, that's my bad. I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"Don't be like that, Trixie-gal. You did nothing wrong. You just wanted her to be back to normal." Starlight reached up to stroke Trixie's mane, and she held her head in her hooves.

"Am I the only one of you psychological palette swaps who has any sense about them? That trick pony may hold herself on the same pedestal as Faust, but she hasn't done anything."

Before she could get out a word, Starlight immediately leapt to her defense, snapping at Twilight.

"She's trying to reform, why can't you recognize that?"

"It's hard to when she's still too oblivious to pull off a simple teleportation spell! Oh yeah, don't think I don't know about that, dear sweet Toothpaste mane!"

"You're nothing special either, Twilight. You're just a bitter old mare who can't let anyone be happy!"

"Is that what you think? I am a genius. What does the emo teenager think? Well, Sunnybuns?

"QUIET!"

Not a minute after her first one, Trixie burst out again, tipping over the coffee table with the force of getting up. Sunset and Starlight shank back, and Twilight smirked again.

"I AM SICK OF YOU! ALL OF YOU! IT'S BAD ENOUGH TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH MYSELF EVERYDAY, I DON'T WANT TO SPEND ANYMORE TIME WITH THE VARIOUS LAYERS OF MY SUBCONSCIOUS! I DON'T WANT TO ANALYZE HOW I FEEL ABOUT MYSELF, I DON'T WANT TO COME TO TERMS WITH MYSELF, I JUST WANT YOU TO GO BACK TO NORMAL! TWILIGHT, FINISH THE SPELL!"

Twilight nodded in approval and began charging her horn.

"SUNSET, WHAT MATTERS IS YOUR DEVELOPMENT AS A CHARACTER! YOU SHOULDN'T STOP TRYING TO MAKE UP FOR YOUR PAST, BUT YOU ALSO NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU'RE A BETTER PERSON NOW! TERRIBLE PEOPLE DON'T ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THEY'RE TERRIBLE!"

Sunset shrunk back and whimpered, but nodded nonetheless.

"STARLIGHT! I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'RE THE EMBODIMENT OF MY LOVE FOR MYSELF, OR MY LOVE FOR YOU, OR WHATEVER, BUT I... I... I APPRECIATE THAT YOU RECOGNIZE MY FLAWS AND LOVE ME NONETHELESS!"

Starlight nervously made a thumbs up out of magic in the air and let it dissipate.

Trixie took one more deep breath, and collapsed to the ground, holding her head and trying to shake out the knots forming inside it. She barely even noticed when the spell activated and her friends began to transform around her. She had decided that she was too sick of herself to care anymore.

Thing (OC; Slice Of Life)

"I just don't think there's any reason for someone in this day and age to learn fire magic."

"You live in one of the most frequently attacked and invaded towns in Equestria, it just feels like free insurance at this point."

Cran Cherry rolled her eyes and stirred her tea absentmindedly. Ocean Spray sipped his own and patiently waited for Cherry to retort sarcastically for lack of an actual argument.

It was every bit as lovely a day as the weather schedule had promised, and seeing as these were becoming a rarity the closer December drew, Ocean had gladly taken up his friends offer to come over, have some tea, and enjoy themselves before the holiday season became too hectic. It had been a pleasant visit so far, although Ocean was beginning to wonder if Cherry had a dog of some sort she had never mentioned, as the heavily chewed pillows on the couches seemed to imply.

As he pondered how to politely bring it up, he thought he noticed a reflection of light from inside a vent under the ceiling, and was about to dismiss it as a trick of the light until he adjusted his glasses and realized what was hidden in it. A pair of large, amber eyes were peering out through the metal bars, with what looked like a third farther back in the shadows.

"Um... Cherry, dear, may I ask what-?"

The vent cover fell to the ground with a clatter, and a mass of fur was flying out before Ocean could scream. Just as soon as he was beginning to register the shifting shape, it quickly fell into the solid form of a beaver colored pony a few inches shorter than him with a darker shade of hair, smiling up. It's ears rotated around and it perked up when Cherry called him,

"Thing! There you are, I haven't seen you all day!"

Thing whipped around and gasped happily upon seeing her. Ocean's brain's gears were finally starting to become ungummed when the pony-shaped creature suddenly opened it's mouth unnaturally wide, to the lengths that it's lower jaw seemed to be hanging by two strings of flesh, and uncurled a long, roughly textured tongue, holding out a single daisy to Cherry, thoroughly soaked but otherwise unharmed. She covered her mouth in excited surprise.

"Did you get that for me? Thing, that's so sweet of you!"

Thing happily gave up the daisy, and Cherry took a long sniff before putting it behind her ear. Ocean could smell the foul liquid coating it from the other side of the table, but figured he had bigger concerns at the moment.

"Cherry, dear friend, with all due respect, what the hell is that?"

"Have I never told you about Thing?"

"I think I would remember."

"I'm so sorry! I would've introduced you sooner!"

"Believe me, it's not a problem."

The aptly named creature happily trotted over to Ocean and nuzzled it's head into his leg. He noticed an impressive set of fangs visible through a few small holes along her muzzle and throat, strangely enough.

" I found her scavenging for food on an abandoned train platform after I mistook it for the platform I take to work. He seemed so friendly, I figured I'd offer her a place to stay! I'm still not entirely sure whether it's more ethical to treat him as a very intelligent dog or a simpler minded adult Mare."

"And the... body horror?"

"I'm not too sure what's up with that, honestly. But he's never tried to hurt me, although she enjoys trying to give me a scare every once in a while, so I've never questioned it!"

"Wait, what gender is Thing?"

"Who knows, honestly. I'm certainly not going to check."

Ocean Spray hesitantly looked down at Thing again, only to find the creature had somehow disappeared in the five seconds Ocean hadn't been watching it. He sat straight up and turned around to a gaping maw, filled with asymmetrically placed fangs. Before he could react, it had snapped shut, and the inside rapidly tightened, shoving Ocean downwards to fall in an enclosed, foul-smelling sac. He heard faint shouting outside, and began frantically shoving against the fleshy rings surrounding him before being unceremoniously pushed up again and falling back onto his chair in a heap. As he began coughing, he looked up to see Thing's sheepish grin, which would've resembled cuteness had it not still been overflowing with teeth. Cherry ran to her guest's side and helped him up.

"Sorry about that! Thing does that sometimes, it just means he likes you!"

He glared at the creature, and it grabbed his glasses of the table and offered them to him, seemingly trying to apologize.

Airport Security (OC; Comedy)

Panam rubbed his nose and sighed as the alarm on the baggage check began blaring. It was going to be a long day.

Airport Security wasn't a very hard job normally; Terror attacks were incredibly rare, and even the occasional wacko or aggressive lady who insisted on bringing her every earthly possession with her and saw demanding to see the manager as a formal greeting often weren't more than a minor annoyance. As such, he admitted that he occasionally slacked off or zoned out. He never thought him to be too bad, but seeing as he apparently missed the cyborg pony, he was beginning to re-think this.

The pony in question was currently sitting on his rump, cocking his head at Panam with a chipper but curious smile. He didn't appear to have a mane of any kind, and instead wore a visored pilot helmet with ears sticking straight up through holes on the sides. Upon closer inspection, the helmet appeared to be the top half of his head, rather than sitting on top of it, with a small dip behind the visor for his eyes to sit. The pair of wings suggested he was a Pegasus, but they were made entirely of metal, with several plates folded over each other against his furred barrel to give the appearance of individual feathers. A smaller, similarly folded set of wings sat in the place of cutie marks on his haunches, and a metallic fin adorned his rump. If it weren't for the metal and flesh blending into each other at midpoints along the bases of his wings, Panam would've assumed he had come cosplaying an aeroplane.

The plane-thing had certainly noticed Panam's hesitation, and began nervously shifting his metal feathers.

"Sir? Is everything alright? I didn't mean to trip the sensor, but I don't think I can take these off-"

"Let's start one thing at a time. What's your name?

"Aileron. Like these feathers!"

"How old are you?"

"Three."

"So you're a teenager who came to the airport on his own?"

"Well, yes, but I had a good reason!"

"What's that?"

"I've never flown in an official airspace before, and I wanted to try!"

Panam sighed again. He really had nothing to go off for this kid. On one hand, it was an unattended minor in a building where nonsense was strictly prohibited, but on the other hand it was a plane in the airport. One thing at a time.

"With all due respect, son, What are you exactly?"

His leg began nervously twitching and he averted his eyes to the ground, stammering.

"well, um, that's not a bad question. I'm preeetty sure I'm a Pegasus Pony, just with metal parts, but... I also miiiight be an AI built for flying of some sort? I honestly don't know. I always kind of have some nagging instincts when I'm in the air, and I'm like, yeah, I CAN store cargo in me, but I don't think I really SHOULD? Is that weird?"

"Were you made in a factory or something?"

"Actually, my mom kinda built me. Not really sure why, maybe she just thought plane-ponies were cool. She isn't my biological mother, obviously, but she lets me call her mom. She's pretty cool. B-but she also used brain patterns from actual pegasi, so I could still be a Pegasus..?"

"Where is she?"

"She doesn't really care what I do too much, she can always fix what get's broken. So she tends to let me go wherever I want, and I decided to come here!"

Panam curiously ran his hoof along the Aileron's wings, feeling the cold metal shift into warm fur as he ran down it. Aileron shifted uncomfortably, and he quickly realized what he was doing and retracted.

"Hey, like, we could talk about philosophical questions and whether I'm a real boy and whatnot all day, but I really just came for one thing. I've been kind of down lately, and I thought, maybe if I could make an actual delivery or something I could feel better! You work here, right? Can't you just give me a package or something and-"

"It's not illegal for pegasi to fly with packages. Just don't go into plane traffic."

"But to fly in an official airspace, using the radio frequencies to schedule takeoffs, that's everything I've ever dreamed of! Pleeease?"

He gave Panam his best puppy eyes, vaguely obscured by the wavy lights reflected off the visor. Panam was never weak to cuteness, but he had began to formulate a kind of plan.

"Look, kid, I work security here. I can't just let you fly in government regulated airspaces, that's far too dangerous."

"I've been destroyed before!"

"But! I have a Christmas present I was going to mail later today, so if you want this this badly, I'll give it to you, and then when I get off work we can schedule a mock takeoff over walkie-talkies or something-"

"I've got my own, built in! I can tell you my radio frequency!"

"That'd be great. I'll give you the address, and you can-"

"Thank you! Thank you so much, that'd be perfect!"

Aileron jumped on him, wrapping his wings around him gratefully. Panam awkwardly pet him on the head, and then realized he wasn't letting go.

"Cold metal is driving into my chest. Please get off."

"Sorry sir."

Snow Day (Flurry Heart, Changeling; Sad/Slice Of Life

"Hi."

Flurry curiously poked her head up from behind the wall of snow she had been happily building for the past couple of minutes. It was her birthday, and her parents had graciously allowed her to waste away the morning playing in the newly fallen snow. Apparently she had been more invested in building her snow castle than she thought, because she hadn't even noticed the filly come up to her.

"Hi! I'm Flurry Heart! What's your name?"

"I'm... Coxa."

Flurry trotted up to her as she tried to hide behind her mane, and she noticed a few off details about her. She had a horn and wings, suggesting an Alicorn, but they both seemed warped; The horn was crooked, sharp, and missing a large chunk, while the wings were insectoid in appearance, while also bearing large holes in them. She wore a large pink scarf around her neck, slightly matted with dried mud, and tied around her neck with a plastic heart clip.

"Are you an Alicorn?"

"No, I'm... a changeling..."

"What's that?"

Coxa curiously looked up at Flurry, cocking her head questioningly.

"You... Don't know?"

"Why would I?"

"It's... um, like a bug-pony.. I guess?"

"Oh. That sounds pretty cool!"

Coxa smiled, seeming to brighten up a little at the compliment. As she opened her mouth to say something (showing off a single fang Flurry had initially failed to notice), a pink firework went off in the distance, startling them both. When Flurry looked back, a black, hairy spider was in Coxa's place, cowering in the snow. The spider looked up, revealing bright blue eyes, and she shifted back, still shaken up.

"What was that?

"What was that?"

"People are celebrating my birthday, I think. I'm kinda popular here. I'm a princess! But why did you turn into a spider?

"That's just something I can do. I can't hold it for very long, but I can turn into other creatures. I think that's why we're called Changelings?"

"That's cool! Can you turn into me?"

Coxa circled Flurry, trying to take in every detail, before concentrating as hard as she could. Blue flames washed over her slowly, and in her place was a pony resembling a childish drawing of Flurry. Several details helped push it into uncanny valley, like the large eyes sticking out, the wings that seemed painted on, and the horn that still bore the telltale hole. As her lips moved, they constantly waved back to black chitin like her face had a bad television signal.

"I know it's not very good, but you kinda put me on the spot-"

"It's really good! I like it!"

"You.. you think so?"

"It looks like a watercolor portrait!"

As she talked, Coxa's form became more shaky, until she finally dropped it, sighing in relief as if a large weight had been taken off her back. Flurry giggled and leaned in to boop her snout, further perplexing her.

"Wha-What did you do that for?"

"You're kind of cute for a little bug monster! You wanna play in the snow?

Coxa seemed pleased at the offer, but then shrunk back suddenly, looking down at the snow. After a moment of silent thought, she cleared her throat and pulled out something tucked between her neck and scarf, handing it to Flurry. Upon taking it, she was surprised to see a picture of her dad, sleeping and smiling with the hints of early morning light shining on his bed.

"I came here for a reason, sort of... I was told, that, um, I might be able to find the guy in the photo here?"

"That's my dad! What do you want him for?"

"That's your dad?"

"Yeah? Why?"

"Because... my mom told me... that that's my Dad."

Flurry stared at her, trying to comprehend. Coxa suddenly felt like crying again; it had been going so well, and now she was going to hate her again- oh god, she should've just left, and-

"Does that mean we're sisters?

"I... Guess so?"

"That means you're a princess!"

"Y... Yeah?"

FLurry leaped on her, collapsing them both to the ground, and wrapped Coxa in the biggest hug she could give.

"Oh, Celestia! I've never had a sister! I need to tell Dad-"

"Wait! We can't tell him!"

"Why not? Isn't that why you came here? to find him?"

"I suppose so, but... can we play a little more before we go inside? I've actually never seen snow before."

"Of course! Oh, I'll need to tell you everything we can do in the snow! We'll make snow Alicorns, and have snowball fights- Oh! Do you think you can turn into a dragon? We can play Knights! Hey, let's see if you can hold a snowball in that hole on your horn? Does it feel weird when something's in there?"

Flurry jumped off her while continuing to babble. Coxa sheepishly rubbed her wings together, before deciding to enjoy the time they had and following after her.

Prison Break (Starlight,Trixie;Comedy

"Stick your hoof out, you're pulling me in."

"If I lean out any further, they'll pull me down when they come in- the chain needs to be taut!"

If there was any proof in Equestria that Starlight Glimmer and Trixie Lulamoon would bicker and fight through Ragnarok's apex it was the scene currently unfolding in a remote prison cell near the Zebrica-Equestria boundary. Never has the relationship between mom friend and feral gremlin been better captured than the relationship between the two pseudo-national heroes, and never had said relationship waned more forcefully than on the day they failed to successfully hide a body while on a cross-country friendship mission going exactly how you'd expect a quest to solve a dysfunctional friendship hosted by two ponies with a dysfunctional friendship to go.

Which is why, after a series of further screw ups regarding a foreign legal system and several impressive feats of moronics, our two heroines currently find themselves in a high security prison, having learned nothing and achieved no personal growth one tends to find in such a situation. And so, without this important revelation of character present, the only logical solution for Horse Harold and Kumar was to escape and await inevitable forgiveness, after a lengthy discussion about why murder is wrong Trixie had already heard a great many times.

"Can you reach the bed? I still can't use telekinesis with this magic suppressor." Starlight nodded at the metal bedframe at the corner of their room, precariously propped against the wall in such a way carefully calculated to make a metric fuckton of noise.

"Don't worry; Trixie will gladly pick up the slack." Trixie smugly replied, taking aim and bucking as hard as she could. The frame fell like a redwood with a fourth of the grace, tossing soundwaves like the Molotovs held by their current neighbor in a strategically useless location on his own body.

Sure enough, the sound of rapid clopping and hastily shaking keys were soon heard, and a presumably tattooed Zebra guard pulled the door open to the hallways and immediately tripped over the chain spread across the doorway, chin hitting the bedframe with an audible crack.

The newly elected fugitives broke into an awkward seven-legged race out the door, shocking a nearby guard long enough for Trixie to snag his outfit on her horn and toss him over the rails to the cells below with a "Heilige fokken kak!" fading out as they ran.

Starlight made a sharp turn towards a metal staircase, yanking Trixie along as she turned to stick her tongue out at other cellmates, bursting onto the catwalk with the style and grace of Lanky Kong. Trixie's struggle to keep up was suddenly kicked down a notch on her list of priorities as she tripped, falling off the poorly built catwalk and slamming Starlight into the guardrails as she struggled to keep running from the guards slowly gaining behind her, aided by the lack of Unicorn Butt serving as a ball and chain. Finally reaching an open door, Starlight reached over the rails, pulling Trixie up by her tail and dropping her chest-up in front of the closest guard, prompting her to instinctually buck out and catch him in the jaw before being dragged off along the ground.

A metal desk was shoved in front of the door, and Trixie took her precious moment of peace to catch her breath before once again being yoinked towards Starlight as she rifled through several lockers.

"Trixie, help me find our stuff. Do you still have those lockpicks?"

"This lock on this is too small for those ascended paperclips, and besides, Trixie is kind of digging it."

"Well, Starlight is not digging her magic suppressor, so we still need it." Starlight suddenly ceased conversation until she found her goal; a literal purple paperclip, bent into a fashionably prisonpunk lockpick. She yanked Trixie towards her again, and quickly undid her suppressor before tossing it to her. The door was burst open just as one last piece of metal hit the ground for that day. Before a baton could be drawn, the room was filled with smoke, several blasts of light filled the room, and by the time the room was clear again, two guards were unconscious, one was a teacup, one had suddenly appeared in between the ribcage and lungs of an unpleasantly surprised Manticore several miles away, and one had unexpectedly switched brains with a Minotaur wheat farmer working in a foreign field.

As Starlight and Trixie continued their speedrun shortcut through prison, Trixie began to notice her partner's horn flickering multiple times, producing sparks.

"Something wrong you'd like to tell Trixie, dearest friend?"

"Something's stopping me from teleporting myself, even though I had no problem teleporting that guard. I didn't know they even used magic."

"Just teleport me, and I'll teleport you."

"I do not trust your teleportation at that range. If I was under a little less stress I could probably think up a loophole, but we're almost at the door anyway, so I've got a better idea. Trixie?"

"Yes?"

"Spread your legs out."

"Is this really the time-"

She was cut off by her sudden introduction to the back of a tower guard's head, suddenly becoming his face as it whipped away from his gun and towards her with wide eyes. She obediently spread her legs, successfully knocking him over and into the soft snow below before space was folded yet again to drop her back into her previous position, tripping from the sudden setting change and being dragged through the snow as Starlight kept running without breaking a sweat, leaving the gates behind as several alarms sluggishly went off.

Octavo (Twilight; Dark)

Twilight Acorna Sparkle, age 27 in most forms of human years, seen currently with her muzzle buried in a book, as per the norm. Student of one of the glorious diarchs of Equestria and well-known resident of the small village of Ponyville, already the site of multiple dangerous, unsettling, or vaguely odd happenings since the day it was founded. For the residents, these have become everyday life, and yet still are these happenings natural; part of an easily understandable and recognizable food chain ponies have managed to escape with their easy access to raw magic.

It is that which can't be understood that Ms. Sparkle is currently studying, and being only equine, she must understand this by the end of the night in order to rest easy. Rain pours outside, the Moon lovingly wraps the land in it's lullaby, and the light of Twilight's torch continues to burn as our subject today reads on.

She first became consciously aware of the oddities she studied several weeks ago, shortly after the unexplained destruction of Devil's Reef, a coral reef located deep in the ocean bordering Manehattan, and the subsequent body washed up on it's docks several days later. Said body receiving widespread media attention due to it's unnatural texture and the odd lack of lungs, or a head for that matter. Although omitted by the news, the obvious connection was immediately made by the public, and whispers of a secret war-thirsty society of Sea Ponies were passed for a short time later before being largely forgotten. Nonetheless, it was enough to pique Twilight's interest.

While absentmindedly researching the various conflicting myths of Sea Ponies, she became sucked into the realm of cryptids and strange encounters, struggling to find a reasonable explanation, and only finding more questions; stories of attempted scryings into the space between spheres that only yielded brief glimpses of strange flying carcinous creatures, whispers of a fate watching being dubbed "Mother Horse Eyes", and the repeated sightings of abominations in and around various towns such as Innsmuzzle, Arkham, and Dunwich.

These findings baffled and infuriated her more, until she finally came to the book she now reads; a book of collected scribblings, texts, and papers collected by a Mr. Angell and originally created by believers in a being who will bring about the end times to all but his most trusted followers. As her mind silently ruminates on names and figures, she begins to piece together the understandings of said believers, and their chant uttered in rituals akin to those of Nightmare Moon's followers.

"Ph'nglui mglw'naf-", she silently whispers to herself, before stiffening and abruptly stopping. She takes a moment to make sure nothing has changed before continuing on with her study.

As she turns a page, a cube of text instantly draws her eyes, overshadowing everything else on the page and locking her mind onto them. Although the line is short, she finds herself re-reading it again and again, becoming more feverish until she becomes wholly unable to pull her eyes away. As she looks over them, becoming acutely aware of her loss of functions. seven words are branded into her subconscious, and the thaumic nerves leading into her horn are pushed to their limits. Without realizing it, she is uttering each word; carefully and one by one, the syllables force themselves out of her throat and from out between her teeth, greeting the world with a cold aura that fills the room like the light from her torch.

"Ashonai, Ebiris, Urshoring, Kvanti, Pythan, N'gurad, Feringomalee!"

At the last word, her horn glowed brightly, and her iris sunk back into a milky white light flowing out of her eyes. At once, her mind was filled with a vision beyond that which she had ever witnessed; a limitless scry beyond any plane of sight, as she sees for the first time the universe as it was; images of doorways of flesh, a pulsating form of malevolence, sound twisted into something beyond form, and billions of galaxies winking in and out of existence flash before her in an instant. At the end of that instant, she beholds a great explosion, brighter than anything she has ever seen, far out into the void, creating form ex nihilo and destroying that which isn't, and just as her eyes open and she musters the energy to scream-

It's over. She sits alone in her living room, with a torch lighting up the book before her, and the room is quiet for a long minute.

Observe Twilight Acorna Sparkle, resident of a world far from ours jerk her head up to a faint yet powerful thump. Ruminate on her natural, equine quest for knowledge as she raises her head to a window, peering through the rain. And learn, try to learn from the story of a girl you will never meet, whose mistakes will never affect you, and whose knowledge will never be yours as she sees the distant shape of a figure raising his head to the heavens and crying out to all who may hear him.

Dark Knight (OC; Comedy)

Lightning flashed outside Brute's peripheral vision, illuminating the musty room and mildly startling him into flicking an ear. Next to him, he saw Mook briefly lose grip on the metal bat he held and tilting his head to recover before it slipped out of his jaws.

Thunder followed soon after, pulling him fully back into the waking world and coyly reminding him that, at the end of the day, no matter how important he was in his fantasies, at the end of the day he was guarding a hostage in an abandoned warehouse. Super.

As he mentally back tracked through his life, trying to find the source of his current problems and willfully ignoring his mothers naming of him, Brute caught a glimpse outside and a grey wing passing by one of the barred holes providing moonlight. Despite assuming it at first to just be another common mutated pigeon, his attention was further spiked by a silhouette suddenly illuminated by more lightning. Brute's eyes widened, and he frantically began comparing the mental snapshot to as many dramatic entrances he had seen from various vigilantes.

Before he could run down half of his list, the figure had burst through the hole, casting them into the light for a moment long enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most mild sinners in a mile radius before crashing to the ground, hitting several outcropping bricks before crumpling in a heap on the ground. For a hot second Brute genuinely began to wonder if the masked figure had died immediately after perfecting their entrance, before they sprung back up triumphantly, giving the men the longest look at them Brute had gotten.

Brute personally believed superhero costumes as a genre to be rather tacky, so he supposed he had to give creativity points to what may have been the worst costume he had seen in his days; A green Xbox container with holes for the mask, a black shirt with '+1 armour' shoddily scrawled in silver sharpie, and a plunger wielded with all the courage of someone holding Excalibur.

For a second they stared each other down, the new face still keeping its mouth shut. Finally Brute raised an eyebrow at Mook he didn't even dignify with an acknowledgement, instead electing to charge down the figure with an actual weapon while she seemed to zone out, oblivious to the threat. As Mook swang his head back, Masky came to her senses and leapt back, crookedly spreading a set of wings that only served to collide her into the wall a second time.

Mook swung the metal bat full force at a brick wall, sending vibrations through his teeth upon impact and disorienting him enough to be easily toppled when Masky fell on top of him. She recovered faster than him, electing to run full speed at the remaining goon. Brute's horn lit up briefly as he mentally reached out for his holstered gun, only to be suppressed with the *crack* of the plunger, shattering on the pointy surface. Despite this, it worked for long enough to warrant a cardboard coated headbutt, knocking him to the ground.
Mook shakily got up, hearing another group of alerted henchmen running in as he tried to still his angry teeth. Stealthy black and screaming neon green flashed back and forth as one, and several more blows were heard coupled with grunts and thuds. Finally, after some disorientation, Mook grabbed his bat, lifted his head, prepared to throw himself into the fray, and immediately had the same cardboard box previously being used as a makeshift mask thrust onto him.

Carrot Top watched this with a slowly growing sense of awe, ignoring the costume and choosing instead to watch her savior spar with a style that seemed to combine Fallen Caesar with falling over. Despite this, eventually reason won over as a sneaking suspicion crawled up on her, finally confirmed when her heroine took off the mask.

"Oh. Hi Derpy. I thought it might've been you."

She stared for a second before registering that she was being talked to, and happily smiled. "Hi Carrot! How are you?"

"Better now."

"That's good! I don't know why you were hanging out with these people, they seem mean!"

"I'll be sure to take that into consideration next time."

"Anyway, they all seem a little sleepy now, but I'm glad you're awake, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to do what I came for!"

She picked the Xbox container off Mook's head, rifling through it until she found what she was looking for; a plain envelope she proudly handed to Carrot. She glanced at the letter skeptically.

"This is for Bon-Bon"

"Oh! So it is. My mistake! Enjoy your day!"

She tossed it back into its box, slapped it on her head, and flew out the window again. Carrot watched her leave, sighing and wiggling around to try and break the ropes binding her to the chair.

Crusader (Flurry Heart; Slice Of Life)

One of the benefits of living in a city made entirely out of crystals was the absolutely stunning light show every sunset; when the sky began to close its eye and sink into a deep sleep, the light reflected through each and every building, street, and pony, bathing the city in rays of blue, green, and octarine. To the everyday citizen, it became rather mundane eventually, but to someone raised in a farm town her whole life, it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Scootaloo smiled, taking another lick of her blue popsicle and waving her legs back and forth under the ledge she sat on. Flurry Heart followed suit, a little miffed overall by the light in her eyes but still taking time to enjoy it.

"This is delicious. What flavour is it?"

"Sea salt. Me and my friends used to have these every summer and just lounge around the clubhouse, too pooped to do anything." She chuckled at the reminiscing.

"The Crusaders?"

"Yep, that was us. The best days of my life, but I would not relive that stress if I was being paid. But I suppose you'd know a few things about stress, huh?"

Flurry sighed, looking down to the streets hundreds of feet below them. Under them, ponies wrapped up their day, coming home from work to their families. A few watched the sunset with them.

"My Princess duties don't start until I'm of age. Mom wouldn't give me control of a country where I am now."

"Still, everyone's stressed about something. Growing up is hard to do, but one of the good parts is looking back and realising that your childhood vexes weren't actually that bad. Speaking of which, if you've got a cutie mark problem, believe me I'm your mare."

"I don't. I know it's going to be a crown, or the crystal heart, or something like that."

"With that attitude it will be. Ponies are going to beat you senseless with how important that little mark is, but it really doesn't define you at all. If it did, Celestia would probably have a Tailia mask on her rump." She laughed at the mental image.

"I suppose you're right. I guess my only real concern is the future; a whole kingdom is nothing to scoff at, and from someone as forgetful and absent-minded as me? I'm going to end up leading us into war."

"Maybe so. But you know what? That's then. You're gonna have many more moons before you take the throne, and if you can be the only one in the room not sweating it, that's a pretty cool accomplishment. For now, though?"

Scootaloo pondered her thoughts, flipping her popsicle upside down as she did and watching a single drop poke it's way down, cling to the end for a second before falling to the ground far below. Finally, she began gesticulating, trying to help her words.

"Another part of growing up, and this is one a lot of ponies don't understand, is asking yourself, 'What do I wish I had as a kid?' And then making sure nobody else has to grow up without that, instead of bragging about how you had it worse in your day like some old boomer in a generational pain contest. You know what I wish I had as a kid?"

Flurry looked up at her. "What?"

Scootaloo smiled back, touseling her hair.

I wish I had someone to tell me to take it easy. Youll have a lot to worry about when your grow up, but now? You can be aimless, and make mistakes, and learn, and be free. You can be a kid, and nobody will judge you for it. So focus on the now, and enjoy yourself, because soon enough you won't be able to do that anymore. If you don't mess around now, you're going to regret it on the future, and wind up old and cranky, like that guy."

She pointed down at an elderly crystal pony sitting on a chair in his lawn. Flurry laughed a little, licking her ice cream again, and looked back up at the sunset.

It really was beautiful.

Twilich (Twilight; Slice Of Life)

It had been a good morning, at least.

"I can't believe you sometimes, Twilight."

Twilight continued to mutter to herself as she rifled through bedside drawers, running a hoof through her hair and failing to notice the clumps falling onto the wood floors. After vigorously checking each potential hiding spot a second time, she finally slumped to the ground, clutching her ratty tail and trying to calm herself down.

"It's ok, it's ok. We are NOT GOING TO PANIC. WE WON'T! It was probably just... stolen! By some mean beast. We are going to go out into town, and FIND IT, and put it back, and never let it go. Let's go!"

Twilight dashed down the steps, grabbing her saddlebags from their stand. When she reached the door, she pulled herself back and turned back inside.

"Spiiiiike! I'm going out, I'll be back by tonight."

No answer. Little guy was off sleeping again, probably. Rolling her eyes, she levitated a quill and sticky note over to her, writing a note and leaving it on the wall under the 70 others before finally dashing out the door.

It was a beautiful day as always. Nobody else was awake yet, allowing her to enjoy the early morning atmosphere herself; the lazy clouds, the orange-purple sky, the sun staying in the same place it was always in, distantly peeking over the horizon; And to top it all off, a radio was faintly playing a song to cut through the otherwise deathly silence.

Let's go in the garden, you'll find something waiting, just the way you left it lying upside down...
Twilight hummed to herself, still trying to calm herself down from the stress of this morning. Through the crumbling hole in a nearby houses wall, she could see the faint outline of Lyra slumped over next to her cup of tea, the steam faded. Twilight cheerfully waved before continuing on the weed-covered path. Several times she had tried in vain to fight them back, but by the time she had realised them to be a problem they had already grown far too out of control, completely squelching her hopes of killing them with anything less than a flamethrower.

As she kept trotting, her initial goal slowly fading from memory and allowing her to adopt a much more carefree way of carrying herself, she heard the first natural sound she had heard all morning- a low whimper, seeming to belong to a dog of some sort. This was quickly disproved when she turned around, seeing a familiar face trying to limp into a corner with her head down.

"Carrot Top! I haven't seen you in ages! I thought you had just left the town, honestly! Where have you been?"

Twilight happily came up to her, prompting her to shrink back even more. Her mouth moved, seemingly trying to say something, but only low whimpers came out.

"Oh, don't worry about it, we weren't mad, just a little scared is all! C'mon, we can get some tea... um, what was your name again?"

She bared her teeth and growled, but her pose still betrayed her fear. Finally, seeing an opening, she dashed under Twilight and out of sight, leaving a present behind; the leg she had previously been holding delicately. Twilight frowned and picked it up, reminding herself to return it when she saw Carrot again, and kept on with her walk.

She wasn't entirely sure how long she had been walking, or what she had come out for in the first place, but she eventually found herself in the sunny field located deep in the Everfree Forest; one of the only places touched by natural sunlight. Taking care to step over the shredded stumps and fallen logs lining the path to it, she calmly trotted into the center of the field, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath of the forest air.

When she opened them, she noticed a glint of reflected light from an unnoticed burrow, tracing it to a blue gemstone, filled with a swirling light- her phylactery! Her memories came rushing back, and she scrambled over to it, nearly tripping over the massive, bleached bone sticking out in front of it and reaching into the decades old ribcage. The magical gem had apparently been hoarded by a family of rats who scurried deeper into the earth that had grown around the skeleton as she waved them off.

Making sure the gem was secured in her saddlebags, she took one last look at what was left of the fallen dragon in the center of the clearing, noticing how life had thrived around it. Despite its age, she could still see a few purple scales on the ground around it, too heavy to move and powerful enough to decompose much slower than the rest of it.

Her job complete, she turned and trotted back, humming the song she had heard that morning happily.

Karma (OC; Comedy/Slice Of Life)

"Twelve bits, please." "Thank you! You look great today, by the way." "Aww! Thanks!"

Karma absentmindedly fished into her coin pouch for a hooful of golden bits, passing them over the counter and happily taking the fruit cup from the pink-furred girl running the register. Heading for the nearest booth, she took a seat and began chowing down.

Is that fruit?

Karma smiled, hearing her sister's voice in the back of her head as she finally woke up.

"It's healthier." She silently thought back.

We are at a bakery and you're getting a cup of fruit. I've never been so disappointed in you, Kar. Give me the controls, we're getting a Breakfast Muffin.

"I am not putting you in the driver's seat if you're just going to go complain to the nice lady up front."

You should have thought of that before taking advantage of my nap to get us rabbit food. It's my body too, you know.

"What does Apathia want?"

She's not up yet. Or maybe she is, and she's just so free-natured that she's literally evolved beyond thinking. Who knows.

There had been no rest in the family since the day they had moved into Ponyville the previous day to research recent magical anomalies for the newspaper Karma worked for. The town and surrounding wood was no stranger to headline stories, but of course she had only been assigned to a report of increasing Timberwolf populations in a wood already filled with Timberwolves. Despite incessant complaining on this from Dissentia, she had happily taken the job.

The train ride had sufficiently exhausted her enthusiasm however, and she had decided to graciously let Dissentia take over the body while she slept in the back of their head. One day later, she was yet again clamoring like a sibling who wanted a turn on the NES.

Please. Just for a few hours, then I'll be out of your hair for the entire week.

"This isn't just some dumb feud about the fruit, is it? What's going on, Dis?"

Just give- Oh, Celestia.

Karma's hooves suddenly grabbed the underside of the table and pulled the rest of her under. Before she could voice a complaint, she felt herself being yanked backwards into her head. At once, her mane and tail shifted color and the fur on her flank shifted to flip the mark adorning it upside down and change it's hue. Dissentia awkwardly crawled out from under the table, dusted herself off and dashed to the front door.

"Hey! Minty!"

Karma watcher through eyes no longer her own as an Earth Pony with namesake green fur and pink hair turned to Dissentia, having just walked in. Her face lit up and she trotted over.

"Hey! I was worried you wouldn't make it this early."

"Oh, it's fine. I woke up hours ago."

Karma's anger subsided as she curiously watched them chat. As far as she could remember, Dissentia enthusiasm to control had largely resulted in her ticking someone off, which had led to their mutual agreement that they would pretend to be different people to all but their closest friends. How she was carrying on a conversation this enthusiastically was lost on her, but she was happy.

Eventually, Dissentia guided Minty to the booth they had been at before excusing herself to the restroom. Ducking into a stall, she gave Karma control midway through a sheepish smile.

"Sorry."

Dis! You got a girlfriend!

"It's not that big of a de-"

It's a huge deal! Did you meet yesterday? What's she like? Ca-

Both minds were silenced by the sudden ringing of a cell phone from deep in the Saddlebags lying on the tile floor. Karma scrambled for it, briefly panicking over whether she should mimic one of her sister's voices as she answered.

"Um..."

"Are you there? What are you doing?" The voice of Karma's employer blew back into her sensitive ears. "You're supposed to already be over at Sweet Apple Acres for the Timberwolf report!"

"I..."

"You have five minutes! We are not making a fool of ourselves here!"

He hung up, and Karma gulped as her hair shifted back to blue.

---*---

"Ah'm so glad y'all reporter folk are here. This infestation is only getting worse! Just the other day mah sister was-"

"I'm sorry, will you excuse me for a second?"

Karma quickly took advantage of her boss inspecting a nearby pigpen to stop the orange farmpony and duck behind a barrel, teleporting and simultaneously throwing the mental baton back to Dissentia. They arrived directly behind the bathroom doors, throwing them open and teleporting again into their booth.

"You took a while. Are you okay?" Minty cocked her head in worry.

"I'm fine." She quickly assured, out of breath.

"Alright then. Hey, why did you come to the bakery and then just get a fruit-"

"You're right! I need to go change my order! Be right back!"

Dissentia teleported back onto the farmland, tossing the baton to Karma and flipping their mark directly under her bosses nose. She avoided eye contact as she ran back to the farm's bewildered owner, huffing and puffing and looking over the notes she had stealthily used Dissentia's hoof to write under their table.

This is going perfectly. Dissentia piped up in the back of Karma's mind as she looked over the chickenscratch on her paper.

"Sorry, could you repeat that, miss?"

Get Happy (Sombra; Tragedy)

Sombra was conscious, and for the moment that was all that mattered. This thought was the first thing to greet him upon waking, and he felt a comfort in blindly accepting it as true. He didn't know where it came from, why he couldn't recognize his own thoughts in the first place, or why none of his senses brought him any information, but he wanted to curl up in a corner and believe it. He wanted to believe that everything was okay, and that realization was what brought him out of his haze; everything was not okay, and he had to figure out what was happening to him.

He settled for the simplest task, moving to open his eyes, and instantly felt a wave of dysphoria wash over him- the feeling that he was an intruder, and anything he experienced wasn't for him. He suddenly felt very cold, and the eyes shut again from whatever definition of open they had previously been under. His own senses continued to try and soothe him back to rest, and he very nearly gave in, letting himself relax from whatever waited outside.

A single, shrill sound cut through the fog, and he forced himself to open his eyes again. For the first time since he woke up, his senses returned to him, and he awoke in time to see a Robin's eggs blue Crystal Pony standing before him, looking up at him. Her rhinestone eyes enthralled and captivated him, and he found himself wishing he could admire her beauty for eternity.

She collapsed to the ground, a faint death rattle leaving with her last breath as her life winked out and the knife she had unsuccessfully tried to conceal clattered to the ground. The Crystal King of the Umbrum carelessly stepped over her and continued his march to the silver spire-shaped castle, reaching up to the flaming sky above.

Sombra's illusion of security was shattered instantly, and what was left lay in ruin around him as he struggled to pick up more clues, his own body still failing to respond. As he silently screamed, his view broadened out to fully take in the hellish landscape. Translucent soldiers marched besides him, all decked in the same cold metal helmet. The few hints of the wearers eyes were emotionless, betraying the death their bodies otherwise failed to communicate as they steadfastly marched alongside their leader.

The longer Sombra took in the view around them, the more control he slowly felt trickling back into him, and he allowed himself a moment of hope. He could still fix this! All he needed was to move, and he could fix all of this!

As he strained harder and harder, a sudden shadow passed over his consciousness like a moth wing obscuring the moon, and he felt himself being pulled back into darkness. But his soul refused, pushing forward, and after a moment of struggle, he was thrust back into the seat.

A different view greeted him this time; a crystal statue of a powerful, imposing pony- an alicorn, he remembered. As soon as it occurred to him how realistic it was, his own hooves leapt forward, shattering the head. Blow after blow rained upon it, and as Sombra struggled to regain control, darkness swallowed him again.

Yet again a different scene greeted him upon his return, and already he could feel the presence pushing him back grow weaker. He didn't know how long he could keep his hold for, but the second his eyes opened his will came flooding back. Another Alicorn stood before him, wings outstretched and horn lowered, maintaining the grace of a swan while adopting the fury of a bull. The magic field around her horn throbbed ominously as a spear rose besides her, and her eyes narrowed.

The spear flew towards him, and he unthinkingly parried, mind racing as he realized he was in control. Another thrust, another block, and he began to panic, unsure what to do anymore. Thrust, block, thrust, block, and with every move he made he could feel himself slipping away. His lack of skill was betraying him, and he realized what he had to do a second too late. A sharp gasp slipped from his lips as the spear planted itself deep in his chest, and her rage turned to triumph as she sneeringly bared her teeth at him. He suddenly found breathing to be much harder than he instinctively remembered it being.

The last thing he felt and saw before losing control was his horn lighting up one final time, and the shock of the Alicorn's face as the crystal walls around them began to crumble into dust, with each particle disappearing into thin air.

---*---

But something refused. He was alive, and as soon as he realized this he felt like crying, but nothing came out. Instead, whatever remained of his consciousness screamed into the silent void until it responded.

Hush now. You must rest. It will be safer, quieter, more peaceful. Just rest, and all will be okay.

The voice whispered directly into his stream of thoughts, becoming indistinguishable from his own. The more they whispered, the more he wanted to believe them, and the easier it became to settle on an option; relaxing, and letting the void tuck him into sleep.

Forget your troubles, come on, get happy.

As Sombra began to peacefully fade away, a fragment of horn buried deep under a wasteland of snow lit up, lightly illuminating the miles of ruined land surrounding it.

Apple Time (AJ, Derpy; Slice Of Life/Comedy)

"El final del juego de los Vengadores fue sobrevalorado. Você sabe o que não é superestimado? Criar a una niña."

"Ah'm impressed. You flawlessly switched from Spanish to Portuguese halfway through."

With the advent of technology having not reached the small farming town of Ponyville, Cider Season was the closest one could get to the battle royale of Black Friday. People from all over would flock to a village too small for them, and the rare moments of tranquility were greatly appreciated by the overworked Apple family. Storms brought strange loyalties, and the one it had currently decided to drop into Applejack's lap was one of the few ponies who stayed sober this time of year, Derpy Hooves. The two had taken advantage of the break to share quick small talk and spill tea as if they had been friends their whole lives.

"Betcha don't know Mandarin."

"Of course I know him! He's constantly receiving newsletters. Hey, is that a knife?"

"I'm glad you can recognize basic cooking utensils."

"But why are you using it to make cider?"

"Oh, that's easy. Look, pick it up. Grab that apple. No, Derpy, that's a pickle. Apple. Look at the symbol on my fla- okay, good. Hold it over the jar. Now, just stick the knife in the apple. Derpy, you're facing it the wrong way. THAT'S THE WRONG WA-"

Applejack's eyes widened as the blade sunk into her barrel, yielding a stream of liquid. Inhaling sharply, she staggered back from the table, staring at the knife implanted handle deep in her side.

"I... I think I'll go back home. See you tomorrow, Derpy."

"No! Hold on, I can-"

The blade was yanked at an angle. Chance, Luck, and probably some gremlins shook hands simultaneously, and AJ was perfectly bisected. Both halves collapsed, and the insides were exposed to the bright sun. Derpy may not have been very well educated in medicine, but she was fairly certain the insides of ponies were tinted a recognizable shade of red, and lacked seeds. AJ's head half paled as she looked down on her cleanly divided body lying in the dirt.

"Ah, hell. Derpy, can you grab that half of me?"

"I'd really rather not..."

"This ain't the time to be squeamish! You have completely cut me in half, and I need to get back inside before the line's back!"

AJ's forelegs began pulled their half along the ground like a PG rated Lance Bishop, and Derpy scrambled to lift the unconsciously squirming tail and plot.

---*---

Several uncomfortable minutes later, the front door of the Sweet Apple Acres toolshed was headbutted open, and AJ's two halves were awkwardly placed on top of a wooden table covered in screwdrivers and hammers. Derpy dropped the dripping weight from her shoulders and took a moment to lean against the wall, taking a breath.

"Ok, I really appreciate ya doing that, Sugarcube. So ask away."

"Do you have a spine?"

"Nope."

"Do you have a core?"

AJ started to mouth another denial before realizing that she didn't actually know. She elected to explain what she did know, and just kind of hope she forgot the question.

"Our oldest ancestor was one of Discord's little jokes. Threw some seeds in an apple tree, one sprouted an entire pony. She was one of the few remaining traces of his reign after the royal sisters beat him back. Apples spread all across Equestria, and several generations later, this town was founded by one."

"What about a stem? Wait, how are you growing hair and fur?"

"I don't know, Derpy! Not many ponies know about this, and I'm not one to experiment on my own already fragile body! Do you know what it's like to have paper skin and no bones? Dash collided with me one time and her hooves carved a circle in my flank! I had to stay inside for a week!"

"So why do you make apples?" Derpy pushed herself off the wall and absentmindedly tried to push AJ's two halves together.

"It's what we know, Derpy. And we're really good at it, too."

"Isn't-"

"IT'S NOT CANNIBALISM! I GET THAT CRACK EVERY DAY FROM MY FRIENDS!"

Derpy leaned away, shocked. After a moment of silence in the shed, AJ sighed and sat up best she could, trying to reach her hindlegs.

"Can I ask one more favor, Derpy?"

"Grab one of those seeds and give it to Big Mac. I guess I'll finally have to tell Applebloom about this, if she hasn't figured it out already. I'm surprised she hasn't come back in two pieces already from one of her friends stunts."

Derpy swallowed deeply, glancing at the pulp of the farmer's barrel the closest seed was deeply lodged in. Applejack raised an eyebrow.

Sweet (Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie; Tragedy, Slice Of Life)

A faint, bitter smell and the sound of soft humming filled the room as hard lumps of cacao butter slid into a stainless steel vat, relaxing into a gentle mush at the coaxing of a large silver spoon trudging through the murk. A warm shade of brown powder joined shortly after, briefly creating a thin cloud of dust that was quickly suppressed by streams of salt, powdered milk and confectioners sugar. Conflicting colors blended together artfully under skilled hooves as the humming gradually grew into a vaguely French chanting that anyone familiar with the language could easily identify as complete and utter gibberish. When the stir was complete, a bathtubs worth of fine milk chocolate melt sat with a surface smoother than a freshly opened jar of peanut butter, only to be calculatedly disturbed with streams of caramel dancing across the top like a figure skater leaving artistically asymmetrical trails in her midst. A faint giggle escaped the confectioners lips as one final ingredient crawled out of a glass bottle, falling through the air gracefully and landing in the center of the pool, creating a barely noticeable smudge in an otherwise flawlessly executed culinary art.

"The chaotic consumption, the diabetic gumption!"

Pinkie crescendoed her song in a comprehensible language as she struggled to push the large container over. Finally, a tipping point was compromised and the toll lifted off of her shoulders as the grateful Atlas's work poured into an intricately carved mold below- equine sized, shaped into a sleeping pegasus with wings folded against it's sides, and outcropping details forming the facial features of a sleeping mare and her three butterfly cutie mark.

---*---

Fluttershy awoke with a start. Something was wrong, she could feel it. All around her, in fact. The fact that she was rather slow to the uptake came to her before the fact that she was currently encased in metal compacted around her so tightly that she could feel the cold steel against her freshly opened eyes.

Claustrophobia had just begun to settle down when a subconscious wiggle shifted the lid of her skintight coffin, and she realized she could easily push it open.

Doing so only raised more questions; a large vat had apparently been resting against it, and rolled off at its opening. Shy had apparently been resting in a large, dimly lit basement, surrounded by furnaces and tables full of baking supplies. She nearly tripped coming out over a bag of flour lying on the ground next to her, and a quick inspection of the offending object cast gaze on a handwritten post-it attached.

go back home! i'll see you in a bit (:

---*---

It was well past night and had been for some time by the time Shy stumbled back to her cottage. She tread softly on the stone trail leading to her front door, carefully stepping around a few sleeping woodland creatures lining the path. As she reached the door, the hints of a conversation carried through the door;

"He believed that you can't achieve enlightenment by reading texts, but rather that by doing good actions. He didn't even want his practice to be considered a religion!"

"That's very interesting. But, is the person we're waiting on going to show up soon?" Shy stiffened at the sound of this voice.

"Oh, she'll be here very soon. Right now, in fact. I see you out there! You can come innn!"

Shy's breath quickened, but she nevertheless nudged the door open. Sitting on the living room couches were her friend Pinkie, currently blowing steam off her tea and waving at Shy to come in, and...

"Fluttershy! Come on in, meet my good friend Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy's eyes widened, nearly dropping her teacup. Shy stepped back, lifting a hoof to her mouth, and finally got a look at herself in the light. The offending hoof was a deep shade of brown, smooth enough to reflect her own face looking into it- a similarly textured face, with scared eyes jutting out of her face. She watched her molded pupils dart around in the reflection, entranced and horrified.

"Come on, take a seat? Can you drink tea? Do you think that's too hot?"

---*---

A quick breakdown later, Shy was slowly sipping tea out of her cup, paying close attention to the taste. Her mouth didn't seem to be melting, but if she focused she could distantly taste cacao in the Earl Grey. She had been acutely aware of her own body's working since she had come in, wondering what her heart was pumping and how her chest was rising and falling with the air she inhaled. Fluttershy coughed next to her, and she looked up, trying to compare the details of her doppelganger to the details she could see in the mirror behind her.

"Um. Could you. Could you explain what happened?"

Pinkie's ears perked up. "Of course! See, I wanted to spend some time with you today, but you were off with the Crusaders, remember? So, I thought to myself, 'Well, I can't use the mirror pool, not that that would help me much anyway', so I decided to grab a brew from Zecora and see if I could make my own Fluttershy! But then you came back, and I realized I kind of jumped the gun there, so I left her a note for when she woke up and came over! Happy Birthday by the way, Shy!"

Shy's eyes were drawn to her tea. "I'm... I'm not real? I'm just something you made to spend time with while the real me was gone?"

Pinkie cocked her head. "Well, you're real! You live and breathe and think and stuff! But-"

"What were you planning on doing with me after real Fluttershy came back?"

"I. Well, I hadn't thought that far ahead. I was really lonely, and everyone else was busy, so I thought-"

"What's going to happen to me? Are you just going to lock me back in that mold until the next time you need me?"

Real Fluttershy was beginning to look very uncomfortable. Pinkie noticed this, and her hair began to dull shades and depress. "I... I could-"

"I have all of her memories, don't I? I can remember the names of every animal in this cottage, and I remember fighting Cozy Glow, and going to the Gala, and falling off of Cloudsdale, and everything. Why aren't I real? What happened to my soul? Is it just an extension of the real Fluttershy's? What dictated that I would wake up one day and no longer be myself?" Shy was beginning to feel like crying, but nothing came out. Everyone was silent.

"Um. Your leg." Fluttershy piped up.

Shy looked down at the leg dangling off of the couch. One of her larger snakes had wrapped around it and was attempting to swallow it, coming up to her waist. It occurred to her that she had lost her sense of touch as well. A loud crunch sounded out, and the surprised boa dropped to the ground with her broken leg barely sticking out of his jaws. Shy didn't feel a thing.

Fluttershy softly whistled, prompting the boa to slither over to her, laying its head on her lap and seemingly asking for help dislodging the blockage in his throat. She began talking, occasionally pausing to wrestle with the leg or collect her thoughts.

"I'm so, so sorry. I can't imagine what it would be like to... to just..."

"Become a spare?"

"You're not a spare. You're me. Nothing is separating us, and I'm going to continue treating you as I would treat myself. You deserve nothing less."

Shy laughed quietly, swinging her remaining hindlimb. "I'd say the fact that one of us is a baked good would separate us."

"Sure, physically. But you have my memories, and you have my morals, and you share my beliefs. If I put my soul in a toaster oven, that would still be me. So what's the difference, then?"

Shy remained silent. Across from her, her doppelganger finally got some leverage, pulling the drenched and partly melted leg away from her boa and handing it over to Shy, before dropping it again as she climbed over the couch and wrapped her in a hug. She patted Shy on the back.

"I could use an extra hand taking care of all these animals. You want to stay here?"

Shy didn't respond, resting in the embrace and briefly worrying if she was staining Fluttershy's fur. When she finally looked up, she realized Pinkie had joined in the embrace too. They stayed in that embrace as the sun was slowly lifted outside.

DIY Amusement (OC, Slice Of Life)

Meinu sighed. While the idea of a bunch of horses strapping planks to their hoofsies and jumping off cliffsides screaming is an absolutely spectacular one on paper, when you put it into play you quickly realize that only a select few sapient creatures in Equestria are fast enough to get the full experience of watching idiots doing flips past a stunned Death of Ponies like Bender dreams of. If you're not one of those lucky few you're the skittlebug freezing chitinous plates, waiting for the split second blur you paid good money to see and wondering if you should lie down and hibernate until you evolve some better protection from a caring goddess who has otherwise spit on you, called you a bitch, and made you question what species got religion right.

And then there was her friend Twig, who gave off the air of a stoner who's never actually touched a drug (or even a faygo) in their life and still might actually be living better than you. He hadn't cared when their species's entire biology was rearranged by a gay horse intruder who believed her aesthetic to be superior to theirs, he hadn't cared about giving himself an actual, respectable name when it sunk in that he didn't have to be Drone 8005882300 for the rest of his life, and he apparently didn't care about sitting on a mountain for an hour to literally no end. Lucky.

And so, boredom didn't even have to sneak in this time, and was instead greeted as a friend and given free residence to all of Meinu's head the moment he stepped in. Regardless, they were begrudgingly acknowledged as a freeloader, and Meinu began looking around for something to entertain her, settling on a large digital sign overlooking the crowd. Obnoxiously happy words scrolled over it as she watched.

"Hey Twig. Get your head out of this sorry excuse for a game. What's that?"

"Hmm? O yeah. It's a new thing they added. Basically, they put a hashtag on Twitter for the competition. Any tweets with that hashtag get put up there."

"They didn't have enough funds to think up a decent horse pun- wait. Any tweet?"

"Yeah?"

Meinu scratched her chin best she could. An idea was beginning to form.

"Fetch me my computer, will you Twig?"

---*---

"You're very soft."

"Thank you."

A few minutes later, Meinu sat next to the sign, no longer caring all that much if she saw the racers while Twig sat draped over her like a blanket. As she took a sip from the coffee he had fetched her, she smiled and began wrapping up. She was the last of her Discord server to log out, scooting back from the sign a little and shifting Twig around on her back.

"What'chu do?"

"I just asked a couple of favors from some online friends. Go back to sleep."

Within moments, they began rolling in on the sign, and the rate of new tweets went from one every five minutes to a good 2 every 30 seconds.

@unbeatablesg- my horn is MASSIVE and could benchpress you and your entire family #ジェネリックレース

@dril- If we put aside appearance and focus entirely on character, Chris Pratt could play Jack Sparrow any day of the week but Johnny Depp could never play Andy Dwyer #ジェネリックレース

@Fyre_fly- I accidentally bought a Soulja board instead of a Ouija board and it only responds to my questions with YOUUUUUU #ジェネリックレース

@JennyENicholson- the eventual heat death of the universe will render all your sins obsolete #ジェネリックレース

@DolanDark- hey babe wanna see these creezys (croc yeezies) come off? #ジェネリックレース

Meinu smiled and leaned back into Twig's half-dead hug. Her work here was done.

Here On The Moon (Luna, OC; Slice Of Life)

Not many people can say they've seen their home planet from outside. Those who truly do get the opportunity to truly begin reaching their hooves around just how small they truly are train their entire lives for the moment, eyes vigilantly trained on the stars since birth, and probably have a dumb space related name like Apogee. Fine Tune fit none of that criteria. He had dropped out of high school after a year, made the absolutely flawless choice of joining the Canterlot Royal Guard, and had one of the best names he could think of.

And yet, at the end of the day, here he was watching the planet he had spent his whole life on turn hundreds of thousands of miles above him. He wasn't very impressed, if he was being honest.

A soft swear drew his attention once again to the hideous creature he currently bunked the rock with, a two-legged blue thing resembling a minotaur with wings, a horn, and the head of a respectable pony instead of a mindless, oppressed cow. So far she had been the only creature he had run into up here, only adding to his sneaking suspicion that space was nowhere near as cool as it was cracked up to be. He blamed sun propaganda.

As he ruminated on the bias of those who possibly came from space if the conspiracy was to be believed, the featherless biped unceremoniously dropped a hitherto unnoticed large navy green duffel bag on the ground, kicking up a cloud of grey dust. Crouching over it, she rustled some jimmies around for a while before pulling out a small white ball and a blunt weapon, which was disappointingly revealed to be a golf club. Delicately placing the ball on a small green stick built for it, before backing up a good distance and looking over her angle.

Out of nowhere, she spoke up.

"How long's your sentence, 24601?"

Fine Tune recoiled a little in surprise, but quickly decided it would be rude to not reply. "Um, a month I think. If you don't mind me asking, how did you get up here?"

"Same way everyone gets up here, my guy. Celly sent me." She nonchalantly swung her club exaggeratedly around her as she swung, making Fine appreciative of the fact that she stood a good distance from him.

"She's gotten a lot lazier with it once she realized people weren't dying up here. Nowadays she'll just send people for any, heh, any reason under the sun. Doubt she even knows why people are surviving."

"It is one of my first questions."

"Simple. I don't let them." The blue minotaur delicately fell to her chest, peering at the ball as if it were my dick a really small thing, as if the luggage she had just dropped wasn't suddenly the most questionable thing up here.

"H... How..."

She got a little to close to the ball, knocking it off with her muzzle and snorting in a very annoyed tone of nose.

"I used to be Snowglobe Flank's sister. Did some pretty screwed up things. Got sent here. However, the spell was pretty experimental. I really doubt she had any clue what she was doing, much like most of the major decisions she makes in her life."

"I'm... Sorry?"

"Eh. I'm 800 years past it by now. Anyway, I don't really know what she expected, but I certainly wasn't just sitting around up here, twiddling thaums until she ungrounded me. Instead, some vital part of my being, my soul or something, was bound to the moon. For all I know my body is still rotting back on Equus, so by all legal technicalities, I am the moon."

Fine started trying to wrap her head around this, but decided it was a silly thing to try and do. Would probably give her a tumor or something. "So... Am I also the moon for a month?"

She snorted. "Ha! Nope. Only me. I guess the spell got ironed out or something, because I've never had to share this vessel with any minor annoyance to the throne."

"So... Who am I speaking to?"

"Still me buddy. I just created a magic vessel for me to talk to people with. Same with these little trinkets. My real body is still the moon. You're technically sitting on my face right now."

Fine quickly stood up. Her moonmate bit her lip with a face that thousands of impact font subtitles could be stapled to and reset the ball.

"So, this is life for me now. I do appreciate the random ponies she keeps sending up, insane guys on death row aren't much fun to talk to."

"This is all you do. Play fake golf on the moon?"

"Yeah. I don't know man. I've tried a bunch of things, mostly with form. I was even a guy for a few decades. Didn't really get the hype. I thought anthro might suit me a little better, but I'm not feeling it. I'll probably change when you leave." She picked her club up and turned to Fine Tune, smiling and waving it like John Hammond.

"Welcome to the moon! It's overrated. Hope you enjoy."

With this last bit of pessimism, she finally swung her club. It connected beautifully, sending the ball flying at speeds previously unknown to equinity.

It never came back down.

She shrugged. "Don't know what I expected."

Masked Cozy Glow (Cozy Glow, Spike; Action)

Spike wasn't sure what he expected when he was got his letter. It was simple enough- a location and advise to 'suit up'. Despite the term immediately bringing to mind the superhero comic books he had enjoyed reading most of his life, the words still didn't clear much up in the way of what exactly he was supposed to wear. The location didn't make much clearer, either- a large disc shaped plateau with a large crack running through it out in the middle of nowhere he vaguely remembered from an atlas he had perused on his very slow days.

Anonymity and Vagueness morphed mightily to form the great weapon of anxiety, but on the other hand, nothing much had happened that day. So, he decided to check it out, ignoring the advice to suit up for what he supposed was as good a reason as any; nothing fit him anymore.

---*---

Cozy Glow wasn't sure what to expect a month ago when she found herself awake, aware, and considerably more fleshy than her colleagues. But, she recognized an opportunity when she saw one, and saw to it that the best course of action was followed; hightailing it in a random direction, ending up at the largest city in the world, and deciding to lure away the weakest link of the chain that had imprisoned her in stone.

The baby had seemed like the obvious choice; lead him away under the pretense of a competitive sport, decimate him, and hold him hostage. It was the type of brilliant plan only an angry child whose brain hasn't functioned properly for some time could think up, and it was gonna work.

And it had, for the first few steps; she was already quite the fighter from skills learned in her younger days, she had acquired quite the fantastic outfit to hide her identity stylishly, and she had managed to drop the letter at the front door of her soon to be opponent's new castle playset. Where her plan fell apart, however, was the one thing she had overlooked in her delirium- it had been, in fact, quite some time since she had last seen the baby.

Spike was massive now.

---*---

Out of all the expectations amassed in his as previously mentioned vague pool, the sight of a small pink gremlin who was Very Obviously Cozy Glow dressed in a flowing, red velvet, Sombra-esque cape, cherry red boxing gloves, and a tri-horned mask made out of shiny metal in what he could only assume was an attempt to hide her identity (thwarted entirely by her unmistakable Darla Dimple cut) was not one of them.

It didn't fall out of his notice just how much he completely and utterly dwarfed her. Neither did her attempts to hide trembles as he touched down on the opposite end of the plateau, caving in a small hole with his four powerful legs and folding his wings. They proceeded to crescendo almost satisfyingly as he leaned his neck down, bringing his car-sized head to her level and snorting, annoyed.

Before he could strum a single vocal cord to inquire as to what her deal even was, she pulled a stunt he couldn't help but respect a little; socking him directly in the nose. Raising his head a little in surprise seemed to give her the needed confidence boost, and she raised her gloves, grimacing. She stared him down for an impressive amount of time as he thought over a response, before her ears dropped and she leaped away from a sudden stone-shattering blow to the ground beneath her.

I guess this is something I'm doing.

His very mysterious opponent seemed a lot less enthusiastic by this point, but saved face nonetheless and attempted to stick her tongue out before remembering that the mask covered her mouth. She was sure he got the idea.

Growling frustratedly, he reared his fist for a second blow, keeping his claws curled and throwing his punch again. It barely connected as she scrambled to dodge, but barely was evidently enough as she flew off course, spreading her wings to catch her mid-tumble and slip into an ungraceful roll down the plateau face. Upon reaching the bottom, she quickly jumped on her feet again, tripping on her cape and tearing it off in her mad squirm.

Leaping into the air, she took a glance back above her to confirm he was still giving chase, spreading her wings and trying to loop back around for another go. No longer forced to balance on a plateau like a deer on a penny, Spike shot into the air after her, opening his jaws to roar mightily and catching her perfectly. The sudden intrusion stopped him dead, and he treaded air as he frantically attempted to remove the blockage.

Cozy flailed around in the wet, humid darkness as she rolled further in, swinging at whatever soft parts she could hit, which was a lot. As she struggled to stand in the foul smelling cave, the floor rose up above her, tossing her back further and colliding her with a hanging piece of meat, which she promptly latched onto, lifted her mask, and bit into as hard as she could.

Spike finally wrapped his forked tongue around the intruder, quickly spitting her out and rearing on her as she struggled to her feet, coughing.

"This has gone on long enough. Take off the mask and-"

She cut him off with another jab at his clawed toe, and he finally gave up, electing to just grab the kid and return to the castle. Hissing like a cat, she leapt into the air as he reached for her, and much to his befuddlement, began flying off in the direction of Canterlot.

That makes it easier.

He took chase after her, making sure to keep a good distance between them while still giving the performance of someone whose life depended on catching the living Bratz doll.

Adrenaline is a powerful drug, and before too long she was zipping over the city in a panic, and Spike was beginning to let himself catch up to her. More and more dubiously likely plans hopscotched through her head as heads turned skyward below her. In her haze, she failed to notice the infamous castle coming up on her until she had nearly collided with it, aileron rolling away from one of the towers and dipping onto a balcony to hide behind the interior walls. She watched with bated breath as Spike turned the corner, looking around for her.

He eventually flew to another part of the castle, and she took a breath, removing her mask and looking around. The room seemed to belong to one of the students of Celestia's school below, filled with bookshelves and a large golden hourglass filled with sand as the centerpiece. Looking around the room, her eyes fell on the open curtains to the large window. An idea began to form in her head.

---*---

Spike dropped on the top of another tower, assuming a bipedal stance and gripping the pire to lean out and look for his target. The city was beautiful this time of day, but it didn't help much to locate Cozy. Just when he was beginning to contemplate giving up, he stiffened at the feeling of tiny hooves on his back. As he reared back and poised to strike like a snake, cloth was suddenly wrapped around his neck as Cozy quickly looped around it, tying a neat knot at the back and dropping on his head.

Cozy's adrenaline spiked again as she covered his eyes and screamed, feeling him thrash below her as he toppled off the tower. One of his claws began scrabbling at the cloth tightly constricting his neck while blindly swinging at the tiny pest with his other claw, roaring. She roared right back, untying a smaller parcel from her back and lifting it above her head; the largest book she could find, Austreaoh, and brought it down as hard as she could. It contacted just as he sliced the tie. His eyes widened for a second as he began to freely revolve in the air, hitting the ground with a groundbreaking crunch.

As crowds began to amass, Cozy Glow took a deep breath, pulling herself out from under Spike's head, climbing on top of him, looking over the faces of bystanders and taking pleasure in their shock. She barked a laugh, raising her still-gloved hooves in the air and happily hollering, eyes challenging those below her.

What (OC; Batshit)

The modern philosopher sticks a great many pins to the word 'absurd', because he is an eldritch creature with a terrifying number of hands and too much time on them. A great deal of these boil down to the views spouted by an edgy atheist on Facebook, and ultimately defeat the true meaning of the word, of which there is none. The world is stupid and that's pretty funny if you think about it, and there is really nothing more to it, not enough to warrant any more discussion of it than that of an offhanded joke in Fairly Oddparents, likely spoken by Cosmo, and certainly not enough to host entire college classes on the subject, which in itself is lovingly faithful to the concept.

So anyway, here's a human holding a smaller than average (which is already quite small) horse made of bread at knifepoint.

"Gonna hurt me? Better make it count. Better end me in one stab. I know you won't."

"How did you get into my house?"

"Someone stuffed me in the bag. Lazy sod just wanted his shift to be over. I appreciate you coughing me up, even if it would've been nicer if you just hadn't eaten me in the first place." Her CalArts grin could be torn off effortlessly by someone with easier access to a caffeine addiction. Damn rare plant in this horse land.

"I was tired, give me a break. Why were you hanging out at a bakery?"

"If you knew braindead humans were being mass distributed at a building two blocks away, wouldn't you inevitably run out of excuses to not check it out?"

The tiny ponies attitude matched her face perfectly with an air of someone who had lost more than a few job opportunities to it. Despite being confirmed several times beforehand, human eyes still scanned for any hint of a falsity in her dough composition, and indeed found none; the pony sitting on the counter before him was genuinely made out of bread, and there really wasn't any point in insisting otherwise.

"What's your name?"

"Whey. And don't say 'because I want to know'."

"I was actually going to ask why you weren't named Dough or something."

"Do you know how many members of my family are named Dough?" She very intimidatingly stamped her crumb-sized hoof on the marble countertop. "There's no law saying my name has to be a bread pun! Maybe I thought it was dumb! Maybe I'm enby! Ever thought of that?"

"Are you?"

"Nah. Being a girl's cool." As she made her declaration, she casually sat down on a nearby cutting board, tearing off part of the loaf beside her. "So what's your name?"

"...Crow."

"Is that a monkey pun?"

---*---

"There's no way you guys are that strong."

"Yeah, sis. This one human, named Kirby, once trained for like, a week, hundred sit ups, hundred pushups, the like, every day. Then, when he was done, he punched the floor so hard the planet broke in two."

"Wait, wait, so how did you fix it?"

"We got a bunch of guys to stand on both sides and punch it back together."

The two ten-minute protagonists had grown on each other rather quickly, as two relatively chill dudes tend to when they have an entire day of lovely unemployment to enjoy. Despite his initial aversion to eating after realizing a newfound phobia of his food turning out to be sapient, Crow had ended up lightening up, and had begun sharing anecdotes on humanity of the the mostly bullshit variety.

"So, tell me about yourself, Whey. You're a talking slice of bread, you should have some interesting stories."

"Not really. As absurd as it is, even to me, inanimate objects citizens are pretty much just standard procedure. Subspecies of ponies are endless, and still being discovered. Look hard enough, and you'll probably find a Glock pony."

"Any bad blood or discrimination or anything?"

"Nope."

"Cool. Just like Scatman would've wanted."

"Yep."

Dough took a bite out of her loaf, accidentally tearing off part of her arm in the process. She shrugged. It was fine.

"This sure has been a day, hasn't it."

"Kinda pointless, actually."

"Yeah. It's cool though."

He took another bite of his bread. It tasted good, and there really was nothing more to it. Certainly not enough to warrant any analysis or attempts to find a deep meaning. Pretty funny how that works.

The Fallout One (OC; Action)

"HIIIIIsssss..."

"I'm aware. Just a little further, and we can rest up. You know we can't stop here, dude."

Our minds do strange things to cope. Fifty year old women can convince themselves that they're young enough to have to employ Little Rascal tactics to get into pg-13 movies, entire species can be changed at psyche suggestion, and the general consensus by nervous systems is that sadness is a Bad Thing™. On the other hand, some people just aren't equipped with the tactics to comprehend that they should be feeling sadness at all.

Enter Silver Wind, and his good friend Delta, dirty brown pelted, and dead on his feet this particular morning, as well as every other morning, on account of being dead. Watch his philosophic and intelligent mannerisms as he moans and struggles against the rusty chain attached to a broken battle saddle on Silver's back, and admire his tactical mind as he communicates his lightning fast safety calculations to his buddy via gnawing at the air.

"Yeah, dude, we'll be fine, we just have to keep moving. Never thought you were a coward."

Silver wrenches the chain along forcefully, seemingly oblivious to his friends feralness as he trudges off the sandy beach onto a lier leading over the waves to an abandoned boat, rudely awakening the residents with the sudden insane beepings of their Geiger counters.

A sleepy head hangs out of boat windows, significantly more active than the other heads hanging off the boat, and a sawed off shotgun is casually pointed at the taller one of the intruding duo. A pair of teenagers, not even worth sounding an alarm. It'll be quick and easy, she says.

A loud crack echoes across the waves, breaking the peaceful silence and catching the attention of a different trespasser.

---*---

"It's really a matter of opinion, but I personally think that the Resident Evil movies were good because they were cheesy, just like the source material."

Delta softly grunted as a considerably large hole was busted into his head, punching part of his fragile skull inward. Silver glanced back at him, raising an eyebrow judgingly.

"Don't be like that. Come on, now." Silver grabbed part of the chain in his teeth and impatiently tugged it further before realizing its pointlessness as Delta began unexpectedly running towards the boats, pulling the chain with him.

"Hey, slow down a little bit-"

Silver was pulled onto his back and dragged after, wood exploding around him as he noticed for the first time the shooter, now frantically aiming at the corpse running full speed at her. Delta's luggage found himself suddenly airborne as he flew over water, slamming into the side of the boat and dangling as his friend wrestled with the raider through a broken window.

"Why do you always do this to me, dude? You used to be a lot nicer than this."

A low rumble woke him from his silent ponderings, and he looked up just in time to see a large metal helicopter passing over them. before being suddenly pulled through the window. The raider's shotgun lay next to her unconscious body, currently being rabidly torn into by Delta, and he swiped it before carefully unhooking the chain from his back, shrugging off the saddle and heading for the opposite window.

"Hey, Delta, check this out."

The sparks of a fight were quickly maturing into flames as grounded guns fired into the sky at the Vertibird, shrugging off every shot and ruthlessly gunning back from higher ground. Silver scoffed, mildly annoyed, before pulling the cabin's door open, grabbing an untouched limb from the meal besides him and tossing it outside. Delta lurched up immediately, throwing himself after it.

Silver let him finish before trotting out past him, exasperatedly whistling at the ghoul as he passed.

"C'monnnn, we're almost at the end. Let's get a move on." Delta lurched behind him, occasionally growling or snapping at him without much drive as they swiftly moved around the firefight on the larger yachts.

As they passed behind the pole of a large sail, a bullet ricocheted into it, shaking the entire craft. Without thinking, Silver fired a retaliation at the offender, crippling his leg and drawing attention to the two of them for the first time. They crossed onto another pier, and Delta briefly paused to sniff at a corpse before being unceremoniously lifted up from under by his friend, no small feat given how small Silver was, and army-carried at an impressive pace as he snapped at Delta's cheek, tearing off chunks of fur.

"C'mon, we can't lounge around! There's a tower up ahead. We'll wait inside for this argument to die down."

More and more bullets were caught by Delta's larger body as they made the final stretch towards a stopping point, hoping to catch their breaths. The tower was less of a building and more of a makeshift structure composed of several hollowed out boats and other debris, stretching up from the waves across what appeared to be a small cruise liner, connected to the pier by a small wooden plank that looked desperate for a chance to end it's own suffering and snap in half.

Not willing to take any chances, Silver bucked forward, tossing his cargo over the water and gliding over the gap as Delta struggled to pull himself over the lip of the ship. The shoddy cabin door was burst off its hinges, and the two ran past a pile of gagged prisoners up a wooden staircase leading further up.

The entire tower was empty, or at least full of good hiders, save for a captain's cabin at the very top; the walls were littered in all sorts of weapons, a small stickered terminal sat atop a metal filing cabinet in the corner, a large glass window faced the scene below them in a strategically stupid size, and a racecar shaped bed sat at the back. It's inhabitant who looked more like an Aquabat than a ruthless raider, decked in a white surf shop t-shirt (which he apparently wore to bed, like a barbarian), pink Mardi Gras beads wrapped around his foreleg, and neon green shutter shades sharply contrasting his white pelt. Delta jumped on him immediately, rudely awakening him one limb shorter than he fell asleep with, while SIlver moved for the largest weapon he could find; a Fat Man loaded with exactly one mini nuke.

Bashing the glass apart with the butt of the comically oversized gun, his ears were once again filled with the screams of a fight outside. Disoriented from the sudden audio stimuli, he forced himself to focus, aiming up at the battered Vertibird still wavering overhead and quietly muttering more useless thoughts out loud to try and distract himself. A split second moment of clarity cut through the haze of sound, and he greedily took it, thrown off his feet as he fired.

A raider screamed, pointing to a small black object racing through the sky seconds before it hit its mark. Fire burst out of the aircraft's hull, and half of the propeller bent sharply upwards, throwing the Vertibird into a spiral as it crashed to the mess of ruined docks below.

Silver hadn't seen the impact, nor was he sure of the affect it would have below, but neither seemed very important at the moment as he struggled to clear his head, shakily backing up into the childish bed and collapsing backwards into it, falling asleep as his larger partner chewed on a bone on the floor besides him. The faint sound of spells being cast was the last thing he heard as he peacefully drifted off, pulling the covers over him.

Fae (Trixie; Slice Of Life)

Equestria is magical. This much is very obvious to anyone who spends more than 30 minutes within it's borders, which is likely because they are very big. Even if the flying horses, Moreauian beasts, furries, tramp stamp identity crises and casual creation of life to ace school tests can be cast aside as standard procedure, there is bound to be something that makes the most stoic of men bite their lip, nod, and say 'ok, yeah, that's kinda weird'. Much like Lord English, you simply can't escape it. It's going to find you.

Luckily for you, we have other things to do besides make Homestuck references all day, so let us return to the second entry of our very specific list; Moreauian beasts, the like of which have probably lost a great number of State Alchemists their licenses and daughters. It's hard to walk for very far in the horse land without running into a chimeric fusion straight out of the Mystery Shack, and while occasionally they're chill dudes who you could call Steve and share a beer with, the majority want to kill you.

This is something they do not feel the need to share on the brochures.

It doesn't seem like something you'd often forget about, but sometimes people have more pressing matters on their minds, such as the preppy bookworm who totally embarrassed you a few hours earlier. What a sack of G-rated fertilizer, much like the manticore currently ripping into her flesh. She should probably get checked for ADHD, given how often her thoughts strayed off track.

Trixie Lulamoon supposed it didn't matter anymore. As she rapidly lost the ability to differentiate between external and internal bleeding, she certainly didn't want her last thoughts to be 'wow, I'm kinda stupid'. Even if she was.

A shrill noise cut through the haze, and she felt her body suddenly dropping, hitting the dirt hard. Whimpers faded as the manticore shrunk back into the wood, and her visions constantly fading in and out began to stabilize. Feeling in her leg returned, and her skull and ribcage began to painfully bend back into shape. Nerves began relighting and connecting, sending information to let her once again feel the snapped horn as it slid back into place.

As her strength returned, she paranoidily rolled onto her back, tail pointed straight at the new presence. A mask of gnarled wood greeted her, suspended in the air by a lime green thaumic aura, catching stray leaves as it rose into the air above her. A bright sphere of light lay behind the mask, shining out through holes carved into the mask. As she watched, more twigs and branches began to roll towards their clearing, coming together in midair to form powerful limbs pulling together like Bionicle pieces.

As she watched the transformation of the savior before her, her mind short circuited, and she blurted out the first thing to come to her mind;

"How dare you interrupt the Great and Powerful Trixie?"

---*---

"Then those idiots somehow found a real Ursa. Like, an actual Ursa Major. Don't ask me how! But they expected me to be able to fight it off, even though those stories were obviously fake! In fact, I told them they were fake beforehand."

"You seem to be changing up a lot of story aspects as you go."

"Yeah, well, I'm remembering things incorrectly. Give me a break, Sprigg, it's been a while."

Trixie grumpily crossed her forelegs, leaning forward to balance out the weight on the front end of her body, currently draped over on top of the Spriggan's head like a wet blanket. The bipedal tree had grown themselves considerably, head reaching just below the tree cover as they journeyed together through the forest, mutually agreeing to follow the same path. As they traversed, several woodland critters and Everfree beasts they had passed began lumbering alongside them, laying aside food chains in the presence of the titan faery.

"You ever have someone who you thought looked up to you just betray you without a second thought?"

"When the fae created the race of changelings, we built them to serve as our eyes and ears in the equish world, but when Queen Chrysalis rose to power, she betrayed our entire race by taking control of the changelings, and slaughtered her creator with an iron horseshoe, using a spindle to become immortal and immune from our reach, creating a civil war that has lasted thousands of years."

"Yeah, it's exactly like that." A lone wasp flew out from the swarm of insects that had begun amassing around them, landing on her shoulder. Trixie absentmindedly began lightly patting its tiny head.

Spriggan furrowed his wooden brow, glancing up to the form on his head quizzically. "You are very vain, mare. Such vices will be your death, or worse. I cannot interfere with mortals, but I dearly wish you salvation on your path. Too many have been lead astray by more wicked fae than me. Our kind often finds humor in toying with those below us."

"Yeah, alright man. Just drop me off at the next Super 8. And, uh, thanks for helping me out back there. I really appreciate it." She wiggled her legs behind her, pushing forward to better look into Spriggan's eyes, clumsily pushing down on the rest of his face.

"These forests are home to much more than meets the eye. I believe it should be our job to peacefully guide wayward travellers, rather than push them away or lure them into our traps."

He pushed away a tree in front of him, walking out onto a civilized road. As he reached the end of the wood, he stopped, reaching up to pluck Trixie off of his head and letting her sit up on his palm.

"A great battle will occur in these woods this coming winter, when Frau Holle begins to make her bed. I advise you to stay out when that happens."

"Didn't catch that last part, but I'll wait until next summer to come back here. See you."

Spriggan gently placed his palm on the grass, and she hopped into the road, waving a quick goodbye to him before trotting off, head held high and mightily as if she hadn't come within an inch of death thirty minutes earlier. The tree spirit furrowed his brow once again, lightly huffing, before turning and marching back into the Everfree, seeming to turn invisible as he blended in with the woods.

What: Circulation (Apple Tiara; Comedy)

I really, truly have no clue what I was on with this one.

"I hate you."

"Who?" Apple Bloom looked up from the ball she was bouncing at the sudden declaration.

"You." She replied.

"Me?" Diamond Tiara looked up from the Apple Bloom she was insulting at the sudden declaration.

"Of course." Apple Bloom responded.

"That's rich coming from the rich kid," I shot back.

"I don't have to take this from a dirty Blank Flank." Diamond Tiara replied, very confused as to how she said , out loud.

"I am not a Blank Flank!" Diamond Tiara practically yelled back, suddenly wanting this conversation to be over.

"I never said you were!" .- .--. .--. .-.. . - .. .- .-. .- screamed.

"Blaaank Flaaank!" She sang. She was somewhere between orange and purple, but she didn't think there was a word for it.

"I'm telling the teacher!" You cried, existentially terrified by the horrifying change in perspective.

"Tattle-tail" She called after I without any particularly strong feelings one way or another that might warrant punctuation.

Go die.

Celestial Reacharound (Discord, Celestia; Horror)

The sky was bending, spinning, twisting, creating a whirlpool of clashing day and night that spun dizzily above Discord as he stoically marched along crumbling paths. The sun and moon flew through the air in circles above him, eclipsing over and over again as the world revolved beneath the ancient temple. Dilapidated pillars holding up the ceiling fanned out before a blue stone staircase, covered in vines growing out through it. The temple had laid dormant for centuries, and the decrepit air seemed to distrust the presence of any living creature within it's walls.

Discord kept face, holding his head high as he climbed the steps, finally coming face to face slowly with the one who summoned him; a rainbow tufted reptilian tail swinging back and forth through the void, armoured claws on the heavy alabaster-furred barrel, a set of mismatched wings, a long prehensile neck, and finally the pleasantly smiling face of a draconequus, crowned in royal regalia, long since faded and rusted from the pristine gold it has once been.

Celestia lazily sat suspended in the air before a large hole in the temple, the direct center of the whirlpool of light and darkness climaxing behind her. Discord brought himself to his full height, flaring his wings out in a show of aggression and pride to the beast floating before him. The eternal rivals remained like this, facing down at the edge of reality for a long moment before either spoke.

"Good morning, Discord. Or is it night?" She giggled softly into her paw. "I can see why the other one found this so fun."

"Cut the games, Celestia. What is the meaning of this?"

"I can't simply invite you out here for a quick spot of tea? Catch up on old times?"

Discord growled, leaning down and baring his fangs. Celestia sighed, pinching the bridge of her muzzle and staring down at her rival pitifully.

"No, no, it's always fighting with you. You never hear me out, never ask how I'm doing, just fighting, fighting, fighting. This time really could've been different, but I suppose that parts on me. I did do the whole 'turn Equestria into my playground' thing, after all."

"Is that all this is to you? A game?" Discord spat. "The lives of billions are more than chesspieces. You've put them in danger time and time again."

Celestia bit her lip in a smile, casting her gaze to the endless abyss below her. "To be honest, it seems more like a game to you. YOU are the main character, after all. I'm the final boss at the end of the game, you beat me, feel good about it for a few centuries, aaand then we wait for the sequel and start all over again. That's how it all works, isn't it? You're going to win, not because you're particularly good or smart or strong or anything, but because you're the main character. You have to win."

Discord slowly raised his head, perplexed. "I... what are you talking about?"

"I'm saying I'm not doing this again. I got bored. I've been playing the bad guy since before you were born, to hundreds of thousands of characters just like you. To people who have ruled Equestria, who saw me as a threat to it, and fought me. And I've been playing along. I was defeated, I was reformed, I was a hero, then I waited for those feats to stop mattering and started all over again, making subtle changes each time, toying, playing, seeing what did what when I did what."

"Cease this nonsense. There has only ever been one ruler of Equestria, and it's me."

Celestia had to stifle a laugh. "I can say from experience you're wrong. Because I was ruler. I fought a draconequus who only cared about me because it was fun, and I defeated him, thinking it mattered, thinking I was saving my people."

Discord's anger had almost completely faded, replaced with confusion and wariness. "Nothing you're saying is making any sense. What are you trying to tell me?"

"I'm trying to tell you that it doesn't matter. Not a single thing we can comprehend matters. I brought you here to end this."

Discord took a cautionary step forward, hopes steadily rising as he approached his longtime nemesis. "You... you want to reform? You want to help Equestria? I... That would be wonderful! We can put all of this behind us right now, and start anew."

Discord lifted his hoof over the chasm out to Celestia. She stared at it for a few moments before stifling a polite giggle, looking back up to his eyes.

"I... believe you have misunderstood the purpose of this visit."

Discord was being lifted into the air. His eyes widened and he bagn kicking and flailing, throwing spells every which way in an attmept to break the grip put on him. Celestia jerked him over the drop into nothingness, the swirl of light and night spinning ever more ferociously behind her, like two clashing oceans in the sky.

"In all my years since I became this creature, I've played my role well. But I've long since gotten bored of that. This planet will crumble, this sun will explode, this universe will collapse under it's density, and I will live, floating through the void, waiting for another universe to be born, and another sun to form, and another planet with another Equestria with another you, who will defeat me time and time again until the entire process repeats, over and over again ad infinitum." Celestia's grip tightened as she maintained her pleasant smile. "So why don't we both do me a favor, and mix things up this time, just to see what happens?"

Discord could barely breathe, mass teleporting oxygen around him into his lungs as fast as he could. Without batting an eye, Celestia snapped a claw, and the oxygen completely disappeared from the Chaos Shrine.

"W... what are you.. what are you doing?"

"Spicing things up. See you next universe. I promise I'll let you win next time."

The Shrine was shaking now, chunks of rock and rubble coming off and falling endlessly below. Watching it from his perch in the air, Discord could see it had been ripped from the ground completely, orbiting around the center of the whirlpool like a planet revolving in a spiral towards a black hole. Up, down, and a sense of reality clashed as Celestia fell into a perpendicular orbit, dragging Discord through the air with her. Space was bending towards a single focal point, creating a spinning merry go round of earth and sky the two were trapped in. Celestia cackled merrily as they flew, light blurring and whipping around their eyes, gaining speed and bulleting through infinity.

"Chaos, chaos, let it rain!" Celestia joyfully sang as she gripped Discord tightly. "All these bugs are in my brain! I see now a world gone blind! That is how I found my mind!"

Irregular shapes Discord's mind could barely begin to render began flying around them the closer they drew to the center, and Discord could barely muster the energy to struggle against his captor's grip, slowly asphyxiat ing. For a second he swore he could seethe sun directly in front of his minds eye, burn ing into his soul, growing, aging, changing from yellow to orange to red befor e collapsing in on i tself, becoming the greate st shade of white Di scord had ever seen, p ulling itself inw ards al ong with e verything a round it, the pla net and the sta rs and the da rkness filling every c revice of rea lity until only the b linding whi te of light c ould sur vive. T he universe a n dg alaxy began anew, and h e f e l t h o p e f o r t h e v e r y l a s t t i m e

---*---

There was a long field, covered in tall green grass that stretched out for miles around, covering what seemed like every inch of the planet. The new sun was shining brightly, distant birds could be heard chirping, and in the center of it all, a single raised hill, covered in flowers with a gnarled old oak tree atop it.

Celestia sat underneath it, quiet, pristine, allowing herself a rare moment of peace. The view was lovely, and rays of light delicately danced across her barrel through gently shifting leaves as she lay in the shade, forgetting her troubles and patiently waiting for sapient life to form, creating a society so she could begin again.

She sat waiting for a very long time.

Draco and Maria (Rarity; Comedy)

"The battle between the West and the East was growing more fierce day by day. On the battleground during a furious skirmish, the soldier Draco of the Western castle Garou thinks of Maria, whom he left in his homeland..."

Safe in the darkness atop the unilluminated tower, Rarity allowed herself an eye roll. The Canterlot Theatre performed this play every year, and despite the circumstances surrounding this one, she had to keep herself from scoffing at the messenger's predictably hammy narration. The high society silver spoon playing Draco this year wasn't much better, if she allowed herself honesty in the security of her mind. His lines pining for the woman taken away by the opposing army were loud and bombastic, but she supposed she could cut him slack for that; after all, Draco had never struck her as a particularly graceful or romantic character to begin with. No, what really miffed her about this actor was his wardrobe; Draco traditionally wore red with green, likely an attempt to bring a christmas feel to a play that really had nothing to do with christmas other than the month it was performed in, and yet the charlatan decides to wear purple and yellow. She could practically taste the unpleasantness of that clash. Why was it allowed?

Her partly obscured eyebrows shifted as the spotlight shone on the shoddily constructed tower she stood on, changing her unmistakably ticked fumes into a lover's lamenting scowl.

"My beloved, are you going to a distant place? And we just pledged eternal love... Through sad times and hard times, I'll think of that shooting star as you. Do I have to exchange vows with one I don't love? What shall I do? I'm waiting for your words..."

Yech. What kind of emotional speech was that? She could've sworn her lines had changed from the moment she first looked at them. Probably Eyebrow down there's attempts at making his character seem more desirable for Maria. She could vomit.

She shoved the feeling down as she gracefully glided down the steps of her makeshift castle tower, going over the plan behind the play as she moved through the motions she had practiced for weeks;

Stealthily replace Cadence in the role of Maria without telling the public, using a dress and mask to hide my identity- check, wait for the airshi- Was Ralse wearing the red and green? That's such a trivial change, I hate it. Regardless! Perform until the end, when an airship will dock outside. I'll be invited on by Prince Blueblo- What is that poor girl doing? She's got the dance all wrong. Did the director forget to give her a choreographer? No no no, mustn't be distracted... Changeling! There will be a changeling on the airship, disguised as Blueblood, inviting me to the castle for an afterparty... Probably more courteous than the real one, to be frank... regardless, get picked up, get flown to the hi- What's that?

Something was moving in the rafters above. She squinted through her mask's narrow eyeholes, struggling to identify the dark, pointy silhouette carefully maneuvering over wooden planks above as a messenger behind her announced the arrival of Draco's army invading the castle. The figure above was dark, mysterious, carefully calculating every step it took as-

The figure was suddenly a lot less mysterious as it's last step gave out and he began tumbling down, just as Draco's character burst in through the door. Wood splinters crashed to the ground under it as it was ceremoniously thrown into the limelight, collapsing down on top of Draco and revealing what was very clearly a changeling drone. Rarity's brain went into overdrive as he lifted his head, apparently equally as stunned. The two stared at each other for what seemed like some time, occasionally casting quick glances to Draco's body, before the drone finally reached a conclusion, bathing itself in blue fire and taking on the face of the unconscious actor beneath him. Rarity pursed her lips, before dramatically lifting him out of the rubble, throwing her forelegs around him.

"Draco!" she recited, giving him a death out of the audiences view. "I had believed in this day!" Rarity silently gestured with a hindleg to Ralse's actor, and he shakily continued.

"M...Maria is meant to be my queen!"

Though it may cost me my life, I refuse to let her go! Rarity fiercely mouthed at the drone, struggling to follow, or at least seeming to- his eyes weren't giving away what he looked at.

"I... No!' The drone decided on.

"Then we duel! My love for her is greater than any man alive's!"

"I feel much the same!"

The two unsurely approached each other, Ralse drawing his prop sword with a wing. The drone scanned the stage for one of his own, growing more panicked by the minute. Neither made a move, instead yelling out lines and what the drone best thought the lines might be.

"The gloves are off, clash your sword!"

"Fight me or you're gay!"

"Have at thee, villain!"

"I did your mom last night!"

Still nobody moved, while the Impresario desperately tried to keep action moving from the choir booth.

"Neither retreated even a single step in their fierce battle, but the match came down to luck; the badly wounded Draco unleashed a final thrust that pierced Ralse's heart!"

The drone nervously poked out with his hoof, barely brushing against a spot on Ralse's chest. Ralse, to his credit, did an impressive job of toppling.

"Argh! I have lost, Draco! Don't let Maria go!'

"I... no, I won't!

Rarity threw herself onto the Drone, dramatically wrapping around his neck and serenading to the audience/

"And I thank you, the one I love, for my feelings may have swayed, but oh so gently, and so kindly, you answered me!"

"Neat!"

Scattered applause sounded from the audience, and a confused janitor was pushed onto stage, inspecting the crater and body sitting in it. Rarity and the drone took a quick bow before hurriedly rushing off to stage left, leaving a confused Ralse behind them. As soon as they were out of sight, Rarity sighed, rubbing her muzzle and leaning against a wall.

"Um... Princess Cadence-"

"Yes, yes, let's get to the airship."

"Of course ma'am."

Drinking Game (Changeling, Breezie; Tragedy, Comedy)

I cocked my head, looking up at the small insect fluttering in the air in front of me. I turned towards the open bar, weighing how much I cared, and finally turning back to the breezie.

"I feel like we're supposed to have some kind of natural resentment towards each other."

"Where's the time for that? We're both bugs. We're both going to die in a few days. Can you get drunk?"

"I can open my mouth and swallow alcohol."

"Close enough."

I took a seat, leaning my weight against the bar and laying my head on the counter. The breezie softly alighted stop my head, and I ordered a couple of alcohols without much interest in quality. The breezie on my head scooted further down to my forehead, gripping into my horn and leaning to look me in the eyes.

"Aren't we, like, fighting you?"

"Maybe? I have no idea. Statistics shouldn't question their places, they should follow orders and shoot whoever the bottle points to."

"Cheers to that, fellow bug."

---*---

I theatrically finished my first bottle, throwing the bottom to the air and closing my eyes as if soaking it in. The breezie kept his own laying in its side, using the freakishly long hummingbird tongue he apparently had to clean the last remaining drops.

"Hey, question."

"Shoot."

"Is it true that breezies are like, subgenres of fae? You've got like, secret societies and I should refuse any food you give me?"

"Oh, see, that's the thing, a lot of people see us as a race of boogeymen behind every bad thing, but the truth is exactly that, in fact. Just yesterday I stole children from no less than fourteen families and replaced them with your kind. Also punched a few kitties to top it off."

"Yeah? You think you're a dickbag bug? Yesterday I woke up, had a spot of tea with some souls of children I stayed up late sucking, filed my fangs, called myself vile in the mirror to prep myself up, and sacked the kingdom of Olenia all before lunch."

We started cracking up, as if our jokes were funny. I decided to order another round.

---*---

The breezie was doing loop de loops in the air around me, occasionally touching down to take a few more sips. He giggled a little as he flew, tracing figure eights through my legs. I laid my head on the table, laughing contagiously with my tongue out. He stumbled to a stop in midair, collapsing right on top of it.

"Do you think if we become respectable war heroes we'll get cool nicknames from our platoons?"

"Oh, of course. I'm thinking Worker and Parasite."

"Oh, come off it bug, these are ponies, they'll pick something more respectable. I'm thinking Buttercup and IHateZebras69."

"Oh, you're so edgy, making xenophobic jokes."

"Dude, they kicked the Diamond Dogs out of Hoofington after they broke their backs to build it. I can spare a few bad zingers."

He mockingly punched my tongue, and I withdrew it, sloshing him around in my mouth for a few seconds amidst his annoyed breezie noises, tickling my cheeks with his large wings. Finally I lifted my head, opening my mouth and sticking my tongue out. He balanced on the end daintily, lifting his head like a model on a catwalk and taking a bow to an invisible audience despite being sopping wet. I stifled a laugh, pulling him back in as he angrily squeaked, ordering another round through squirming cheeks. The barkeep rolled his eyes.

---*---

I began beating my head on the table, trying to fall into a beat, hindered by my complete lack of rthymn. The breezie was curled up inside a hole in my foreleg, perfectly fitting inside. His ears perked up as I began rambling between bangs.

"This is how we were going to end up, isn't it? Even if fate is some made-up stuff designed to sell Little Golden Books, we weren't going to live full lives."

"Speak for yourself buddy, I could've been a seamstress prophet in a hidden little whimsical village built in the liminal spaces beneath toadstools, getting that stomata on the daily."

"Must be nice. My options were fight some horses and get paid, slave in caves for my life, spy on horses and get paid, or become a traitor and live my whole life on paranoia of getting found out by those I consider friends."

"That's rough buddy."

---*---

I hugged the breezie tight against my cheek, and the two of us loudly and bombastically sang as a duet, in completely different tones and beats.

"Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein Und das heißt: Erika!"

"Heiß von hunderttausend kleinen Bienelein Wird umschwärmt: Erika!"

"Denn ihr Herz ist voller Süßigkeit, Zarter Duft entströmt dem Blütenkleid. Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein Und das heißt: Erika!"

---*---

"I didn't want to do this. I'm going to die tomorrow. I'm going to die unremembered. I'm just... Another body people jump over without a second glance. I'm not going to do anything worthwhile, the world is going to keep on turning, and then it's going to burn out and the entire lifespan of the universe is going to pass and the stars will die and I'll be less than a speck. Less than a dust mite. No mother but a tyrant who doesn't care about me as anything more than a drone, nobody I can convince myself will care or remember me after I go on, no life or personality different than the thousands of others like me, nothing. I'm just a cell, smaller than that, a cells cell, designed to do one job and die and never be thought about as anything more."

"I'll remember you."

I opened my eyes, seeing my breezie friend sitting on the end of my about, looking sincerely into my eyes. I sniffled a little, noting his sudden sobriety.

"Please. Please don't forget me. If you forget me I'll never have existed."

"I won't."

"You can't die out there, buddy. You're going to survive, and you're going to go home and be a seamstress and get whatever the hell a stomata is and you're going to not... Forget me..."

"I never will."

"I don't have anything in life but the space I take up in thoughts. If you keep those I can die out there, unfairly and young, and it will all be over and sort of okay. That's how life works, I think."

He didn't respond, and I hugged him again, best I could against my cheek. One of his feelers gently patted my snout, and he began peacefully hushing me, calming amidst everything.

"You know, buddy, I can't keep you in my thoughts without a name."

"I think... Just Bug will do."

"Alright then, Bug. I'll survive this, and I'll remember you."

"Thank you so, so much."

---*---

"Wishing that... Makes you cry, and I hate hoping... Someday I will go... Outside and see you okay..."

The breezie opened his eyes, listening to Bug murmur parts of a song. Making sure their eyes were closed, he quietly slid out of their grip, flittering around their head and balancing atop the tip of a fang sticking out from their lips. Their eyelids were fluttering, and the breezie sighed, wondering if he should point it out. He didn't have to; Bug slowly opened an eye, seeing their bar buddy still watching him.

"Alcohol doesn't have any effect on you either, huh?"

"Been sober as a priest this whole time."

"Me too."

"That makes things awkward."

They scratched their head, trying not to move too much with the breezie still perched on him.

"I should... go."

"I understand. Hey; maybe I'll have the honor of killing the great Bug tomorrow."

"Heh. Maybe."

Trick Or Treat (AJ, Dash; Comedy)

"There's a... There's a girl in that tree."

"Yes, I know."

"Is she... Is she with you?"

"Yes. Ignore her. I have no idea what she's doing."

Irma had several questions, and none of them looked like they would be answered soon. Moving into a new town took a lot out of her, and she hadn't exactly been looking forward to the hordes of kids that would be undoubtedly swarming her porch this Nightmare Night. For better or for worse, she didn't have to deal with them. Instead, she was met at her door with what she could only assume were two grown women; Assumed because one of them was hiding in her tree and one of them was larger than her house.

Irma nodded sagely as if she understood. Reverting to autopilot in her haze, she reached for the discount mixed bags of chocolate bars she had spent less than ten dollars on, pulling in a handful without care for rationing. A large head came down in front of her doorway, obscuring the view outside with a tiny jack-o-lantern basket gripped in its teeth. A gust of exhaled air swept over Irma as she kept her eyes closed, spilling name brand candy bars into the basket and closing the door.

Less than a second after it was closed it caved inwards, the doorknob popping out of its hole.

---*---

"What was your plan there, exactly?"

"You were going to lean down with your basket, she'd give you some candy, and I'd *swoop* down and shovel it out of her hooves before she could! Then, I'd fly out of sight before she could see who it was!"

"You did great. Really nailed the part where you miss completely."

Dash pouted, hugging her basket tight. She sat perched on the edge of AJ's muzzle as she carried her through the dirt paths, carefully sidestepping the kids screeching and scurrying around her legs.

Nightmare Night was in full swing, kids and adults alike taking enjoyment from the holiday, although the adults mostly for the fact that it was one of the least marketed holiday around, and the pressure to show generosity was non-existent. In the case of the kid currently sitting on AJ's nose however, just as the kids running beneath her, tonight was a night to dress up as something stupid and gorge with no societal repercussions. Not that she wouldn't try the same every other night.

In a stroke of charisma largely aided by Dash's unique ability to hold on to an argument with a ferocity not normally seen outside of rabid chihuahuas, she had somehow convince Applejack to dress up alongside her- Dash as a space pilot from a name brand non-imitable sci-fi series, and AJ as one of the giant walker robots they apparently fought, as she was enthusiastically filled in about the night before.

And so she tolerantly marched through the streets with painted cardboard boxes strapped to her, carrying the expression of a man with their head in a guillotine, if that man had been pressured into doing so by their guillotine loving daughter.

Citizens began noticing their walk from their porches, nudging and pointing with a range of emotions from fear to excitement. Dash made no move to quench their attention, leaping off her muzzle theatrically and flying loops over and under AJ as she pursed her lips and kept her eyes trained forward. As they passed by the crowds, Dash happily flew up to Applejack's ear, still looping head over heels.

"Alright, now this time I'll go knock on that door and hide, she'll come out, think she's been ding-dong ditched, and you lean down suddenly and screech in her face!"

"I will not."

"Please! For me!"

She didn't wait for an answer, zooming away and landing in a crouch at the front door. Army-crawling forward, she reached up and knocked twice, leaping up and flipping around to land on the edge of the house, striking her best gargoyle pose.

The door opened. The owner leaned out, raising a ticked eyebrow at the lamp-lit void before them. Before they could return inside, AJ leaned down with the most passive expression she could muster. She didn't have to try very hard.

"Howdy."

They screamed louder than anything AJ could make intentionally. A space pilot mysteriously fell out of the sky to the concrete between them. She screamed louder.

---*---

Crowds of people whooped and hollered loudly as the valiant spaceman barely evaded the mech of the evil Vietnam metaphors. She zipped back and forth between searing hot lasers being fired by enraged, faceless black cloaked men. Sound became a suggestion as she broke barriers, looping around the mech's legs bajillions of times in a row, tying them together in a split second before streaking back into the sky.

Applejack lamented her physical ability to bring her hoof to her face as Dash did stunts to the crowds. If she could actually fire lasers from the cardboard tubes on her head, the daredevil would've been dead seven times in a row.

"Avast. You have defeated me. You brave beautiful bastard."

"That's right! Take pictures everybody, you'll want records of this momentous event! Nothing can outrun me!"

Dash was blowing kisses to the ecstatic crowd, winking for photo flashes.... directly in front of Applejack. Biting her lip, she shifted her footing in the ropes quietly,locking onto her target. Rocking back and forth steadily, not enough to attract attention, gaining traction, losing footing, until....

The swarms suddenly parted, leaving Dash hovering in the air, confusedly turning around.

Her expression two inches away from AJ's face was worth the entire night and 364 more.

---*---

"Are we coming up on a house?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Who's to say?"

"Come on, listen, I've got another idea; put your head in front of the door, open your mouth, and I'll lean out to get the candy. Their face will be great!"

"Maybe I'll just take us home."

"Please! I'll give you all of my candy. All of it."

AJ rolled her eyes, begrudgingly walking up the lawn with her head hung low. Stamping her hoof on the concrete loudly enough to attract attention, she brought her head to the ground.

"Is someone coming?" Dash's muffled voice called out. "Don't say anything, just nod yes or-"

AJ swallowed as the door opened, expertly catching the jack-o-lantern basket on her tongue and bringing it to her teeth.

"Trick or Treat."

---*---

For a grand second time that night, Dash was pouting while AJ bit back laughs. Occasionally, Dash would stop and attempt to shake off her drenched fur before quickly giving up.

"That wasn't very funny, AJ."

"Now I'm not allowed to have fun?"

"Alright, listen, new plan; I'll sneak up through the back door while you distract them at the front door. I-"

"That's breaking and entering. Also you won't be able to sneak; they'll smell you from a mile away."

"Yeah, only because you stink inside!"

"You should've thought of that beforehand. Maybe we should just trick or treat normally?"

"No, No, here's a better one: You sit up on the roof, and I'll knock on the door, and then... hold on, I'm thinking..."

Applejack groaned as audibly as she could.

The Fluttershy Show (Fluttershy, Twilight; Comedy)

"Ladies and Gentlemen! It's the Fluttershy Show!"

The audience clapped. The band played. Lights turned on, needlessly come to think of it, to illuminate the woman herself in her best grey tailored suit, staring into the camera without a hint of emotion. Flames danced across the desk in front of her, eating though the fine wood. All was well.

"No, no, I said we weren't doing this bit!"

Twilight didn't even wait for her prompting, running on set and desperately trying to fan the flames with her wings. Fluttershy continued dead eyeing the audience, barely registering the roaring flame in front of her. Just before it reached the carpet, someone offstage telekinetically pushed it behind curtains, replacing it with an identical desk. Twilight sat down, exasperated, as her name card appeared below her. Fluttershy got up, moving for a microphone at the front of the stage.

"Hello everybody! We're back. Same time, different network, they want us to cut down on some of the more risque activities we get up to. I love my job. Go die."

---*---

"He's done things, apparently. It's Prince Blueblood."

The audience clapped politely as the aforementioned guest parted the curtains, blowing kisses to his adoring fans and heading for the guest chair. Twilight got up, awkwardly standing behind him.

"Tell me, Prince, what do you do?"

As the host spoke, she casually pulled out pair of scissors and began cutting some loose strands off of her hair. Blueblood ignored it.

"I'm a member of the Canterlot Royalty, I have the highest authority on decisions made..."

Fluttershy moved on to her fur, trimming a few choice hairs.

"I have been nominated by several magazines as the Woman's Choice for most eligible bachelor..."

Fluttershy inspected a hoof, raising her scissors to it carelessly.

"I am a proud owner of several airships, making up 15% of all legally flying airships in Equestria..."

Her scissors delicately trimmed the fur above her hoof, before gracefully sinking into the flesh.

"I... I have attended several galas in my lifetime, as I happen to be one of the nephews of..."

The blades rose, carrying a single strand of furry skin. She carelessly began pulling at it, running a cut down to blood vessels up her leg.

"Princess... Celestia...."

The line of flesh was ripped upward, traveling the length of her leg, chest, neck, and arriving at her face. Blueblood turned to Twilight for help, who appeared to be taking a bite out of a large, raw dragon egg and still standing next to him uncomfortably.

"I... I...."

Fluttershy slowed as it crossed by her mouth, finally coming to a stop with a square inch just below her eye. She ripped it off entirely, leaving a foot long length of skin and a trickle of blood beneath her eye. She smiled at her guest, tilting her head.

"Sorry, I wasn't listening. Could you start over?"

"Um... Of course... I'm Prince Blueblood-"

Fluttershy vomited over her desk.

---*---

Officer Fluttershy

Fluttershy stood shakily on a street corner, alchohol bottle resting on her back. An orange mare approached, passing by, and Shy reached out to stop her.

"Hey, I'm afraid you can't be doing that."

"What?"

"This is, um, a no walking zone..."

"Hey, are you supposed to be drinking?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. How about I pay you 100 bucks to piss off?"

"Okay, sure."

She moved a hoof into a saddlebag resting by her, before pausing. "Is it okay if I give you two 50s?"

"Sure."

She gave her a 50. "Wait, I just found a 25. give me back that 50 real quick."

"Here."

"Alright, three 25s."

"What about the fourth one?"

"You have it.

"I just gave you my 50."

"Ah. Here it is back."

"Right. Here's your three 25s."

"Of course. Pass me the 50."

"Here you go."

"Right! That should be it. See you."

Fluttershy walked off. The camera hovered on the orange mare for a few minutes, watching her face as she slowly realized.

---*---

"I want you to talk to the bird, uh, talk to the bird like I'm not here. Tell her your greatest nightmare,yeah."

Cheerilee turned away from the green screen suited woman who had approached her on the street, focusing her attention on the brilliantly violet plumed bird on her shoulder. It trilled lightly, and she began speaking without even thinking.

"I guess, what terrifies me, is the thought that, no matter what religion got it right, no matter what happens after I die, I'm always promised the same thing, um, an eternity of bliss. But, uh, if I become eternal, for doing good, and I never die, just doing the same blissful things over and over again, eventually, they won't mean anything to me. Life will be monotonous forever, and then, it makes me think, um, maybe, maybe this world is heaven, or elysium or nirvana or whatever, and if so, there's no good answer to anything, either I die and that's it, or I never die and that's it, and if this is heaven, well, heaven is terrifying."

Fluttershy barely registered her words, flipping through Cheerilee's wallet.

"Hey, I can't use this credit card. You can have it back. Thanks for playing."

---*---

The host was standing at the counter of Sugarcube Corner in police garb, staring through glass at the lines of pastries. A baker came out to greet her, curiously raising an ear at her uniform.

"Hi! Can I get you anything?"

"Hey." Fluttershy looked up.

"Yeah?"

"Hey."

"Yes?"

"Police to meet you."

The baker chuckled. Fluttershy brought her baton through the glass directly into a large chocolate cake.

---*---

Applejack smiled, looking through her lineup of baskets filled to the brim with quality, a-tier apples. The sun was shining brightly upon her orchard, and she couldn't help but begin whistling to herself as she picked up the first apple, delicately slicing through it with a knife. She overshot a little, sending the knife plunging down into the basket.

Fluttershy's head popped out, knife plunged directly into her forehead.

"Hello, would you like to change religions?"

Applejack screamed.

---*---

"Ladies and gentlemen, to end off this episode, one of my favorite musicians, Octavia melody, playing one of her most well known songs, To Build An Army. And also she's blindfolded and also Twilight is going to be beating her up as she performs because she hates her."

Octavia raised an eyebrow nervously as a ribbon was levitated around her head.

"Do you... really hate me?"

"It's easier to just go with what she says." Twilight shrugged.

Shedding Day (Autumn Blaze, Rarity; Slice Of Lice)

"Autumn, dear, are you home? I brought you a nice house warming gift!"

Rarity gently creaked the door open, taking care to announce her presence as much as possible. The lights were off, and without thinking she flipped on a desk lamp, as much of a subconscious mental choice as scratching someone else's itch.

In anyone else's house, a burnt couch, floor littered in belongings, and lack of rhyme or reason to everything within sight would be a cause for concern, but Rarity was well aware of her Kirin friend's infuriating cleanliness standards. Empty pizza and Chinese food boxes were stuffed into every possible location, the large wobbly stack of empty DVD cases seemed to imply a spree of modern media consumption after a lifelong starvation of such (The DVD player was open, revealing a Magnum P.I. disc upside down and displaying enough smudges to corrupt it several times over), and a Game Boy sat on the couch with the screen incomprehensible through the sea of cracks covering it. Rarity sighed, laying down her gift bag on top of a nearby table and turning to leave.

*Crunch*

Rarity stiffened, turning slowly to the source of the noise. Something was lying draped on the wood, previously unseen. A lifeless eye was the only part of it the dingy lamp reached, staring beyond her despite facing directly towards each other. The seamstress shakily moved the lamp telekinetically, illuminating the rest of the face; a cream Kirin with a shaggy, disheveled mane, a small smile, and a bare hornless forehead. A ladylike scream filled the apartment, likely waking up neighboring tenants.

"Sorry! I had to leave for a bit!"

A cream unicorn announced its presence in the room by colliding into Rarity as she backed up. She screamed louder.

"It's me! This is my house you're in! Please stop screaming!"

Rarity's panic throes petered out slowly as she took in the figure; upon closer inspection, it was more than just a unicorn. The horn still had the telltale crook of a Kirin, the mane was just as disheveled, with a flame shaped crest of scales adorning her head behind it. Her tail seemed more equine-like and fluffier, and the shell seemed to have spread it's texture along her entire barrel. Most jarring was the presence of a tri-leaf Cutie Mark on her hip, standing out against her pelt surrealy.

"What... Did you do?"

"You like it?" She blushed, casually tossing a poofy tuft of mane hair as she spoke. "I figured I'd try a more equine look. Try and blend in. Except the scales, I kept those, because they're cool! Don't you think they look good on me? A nice vest of protection for my belly?"

"They're... Lovely."

Autumn helpfully turned to the side, sticking out a hindleg and foreleg to show off. Rarity's stunned gaze seemed to translate to inquiry for her, and she tried out a few more poses, dropping to lie on her back, rolling onto her stomach and propping her head up with her hooves. Her friend finally came to as she began experimenting with sultriness, stuttering her first question.

"What's... That?"

Autumn winced at her friend's gesture towards the body lying on her table, lowering her tail and turning back to face her.

"Yeeaah... Sorry you had to see that. It creeps me out a little too, I try to get rid of the old skin as fast as possible normally. I just went out to get a quick shave, but all the nearby businesses are closed for some reason. Hey, is that for me?"

The newly minted Kirin happily bounced towards the gift bag, shoving her hollow body to the floor. The skin crunched horribly, splitting a seam at the face. Rarity quickly averted her eyes.

"Yes, actually. I just thought it might interest-"

"Wow! I have no idea what this is."

Autumn levitated out a small SanDisk MP3 player, turning it over and experimenting with the buttons.

"It's from a friend of mine. She heard you were trying to learn modern culture, and gave me a music player, packed with songs from the last eight decades."

The telltale synthesizing of Toxic played, and Autumn shrunk away, before regarding it with excited curiosity. Rarity eyed the limp suit of fur cautiously.

"Good to see you're doing well! If there's nothing else you need, I think I can-"

"Cut! A cut! I could really use a haircut, actually. If you wouldn't mind...?"

Autumn puppy-eyed flawlessly.

---*---

"It's been a while since I grabbed a new skin! Late Qing at least! I feel really great!"

Rarity hummed happily as her friend rambled, expertly shipping her mane to a more reasonable cut. The shock had long since faded, and at this point the Kirin could very well tell her anything about their natural biology. She silently thanked the stars above Twilight hadn't been sent in her place as Autumn began casually discussing the crawling under her skin as her own body was used as a cocoon.

"How do you think you look, Autumn dearie?"

She turned the chair back to the bathroom mirror, flicking off the shaving cream that had amassed in spades over it with her horn. The new haircut maintained the now famous poofiness at the ends, but straightened further up to a more reasonable yet still curly Quiff at the top.

"Looks great!"

"Glad I could help."

"You did! Now I can look my best next time I need to be an omen for ushering in the next age of a new ruler. I wasn't alive for the Yellow Emperor, see." Autumn casually exposited, blowing a stray lock out of her face and accidentally incinerating it in the process.

"Of course darling." Rarity replied, as if she understood what her friend was talking about in the slightest.

Sandbox (Apple Bloom, Dinky; Comedy)

"Of course they can pole vault to the next rock! They have big sticks, it's easy for them."

Dinky stubbornly shook her head best she could, ignored by Apple Bloom as she reached around in the grass surrounding their sand box, scooping up small rocks and dumping them into the sand. Angry, muffled hisses sounded from under the sand as Apple Bloom moved her action figures, making them vault across rocks with small sticks towards a toy Jeep. Dinky rolled her eyes before sticking her muzzle down deeper, retracting her three prehensile tongues into the sand and burrowing them towards the Jeep.

Just as the valiant heroes reached their escape vehicle, a trio of wurms burst out from the ground, wrapping around the Jeep and dragging it underground, along with the hopes of our heroes survi-

"Hey! You can't do that!"

Dinky smiled with a smugness years beyond her age, pulling her head up and retracting her tongues, catching the Jeep in her teeth and tauntingly waving it at her friend. Apple Bloom tackled Dinky, reaching to try and grab the Jeep held infuriatingly close to her reach. Finally, she grabbed one of the black tongues, attempting to reel it in, only for it to slide out of her grasp and retract into her friend's jaws. The three flaps of skin sealed shut, the pair of beady black eyes resting on the two lower flaps sunk back into her fur.

"Give it back! It's mine!"

They wrestled for a moment longer before Dinky finally relented, begrudgingly spitting out the toy Jeep into the sand. Apple Bloom swooped it up again, placing it next to the rock her action figures stood on and moving them on top of it, oblivious to the unidentifiable fluids it was doused in.

"Alright, they're in the houses now. The tatzlworms can't reach then inside."

Dinky's horn lit up, blinking on and off in a pattern. As usual, her magic constantly flickered out prematurely, creating an effective non-verbal stutter.

"Fine! They're on the roofs then."

"..-. ..-. --- ..- -. -.. .- .- - .. --- -. -. ... ..--.." Dinky blinked.

"No! That's not how houses work- wait, is it?"

"-.-- -.-- . .--. .-.-.-" Dinky unsuccessfully tried to burrow into the sand. It wasn't deep enough, leaving her head adorably poking out above the muzzle.

The man screamed, feeling a slimy tongue wrap around his leg. His hand went for the gun on his hip, unsuccessfully shooting at it. His last thoughts were of despair and terror as his legs sunk into the sand, feeling a horrible sucking slowly dissolve him from the bottom up...

Dinky slurped up the cowboy figurine, gulping it down.

"Could you stop doing that? I paid for those"

She blew a triple raspberry. Apple Bloom grumbled, shuffling around her toys and pulling out a small track-loader and the original Jeep, parallel parking them next to each other.

"Okay! They found this CAT, and they're going to use it to-"

"- - .... . -.-- / -.-. .- .- -. - / -.. --- --- / - .... .- - - -.-.--"

"Yes- fine, I'll roll. Nat 10 or above and they make it to this mountain range."

"-. . .-. -.. .-.-.-"

Apple Bloom cobbled together some rocks to make a mountain, then pulled out a 20 sided die, tossing it into the sand. It rolled a grand total of one time, landing an exact Nat 20.

"Not only do they make it, they also picked up some bombs. Yes! Before you retort in that tone of blink, they can do that! They have a.... a survivalist neighbor, and he's got bombs!"

Dinky rolled her eyes, unfolding her mouth and sticking her head back under. The three tongues stuck out again, striking at the action figures as they leaped precariously across the vehicles, barely dodging each attack, getting more and more ferocious as they continued on. Our hero turned back to them just ass they reached the end, readying a pipe bomb; he swung it back and forth, gauging the perfect shot, and launched; it flew beautifully, arcing through the air gracefully and-

Dinky's tongues caught it mid-air, throwing it back at the action figures before going absolutely apeshit, swinging every which way to knock the vehicles over while making childish explosion noises.

"Hey! You can't- they're all dead!"

The taztl burst out of the ground, showering her friend with sand and happily pulling in all three action figures to her jaws and swallowing. Apple Bloom threw her forelegs in the air.

"Fine! They're all dead and the planet is doomed. We're starting over next week, I'm being the monster next time."

She began gathering up what toys were left. Dinky's lower sets of eyes slid out from their sockets under her jaw, and she performed the powerful, rare, and coveted triple wink with the right side of her face. Apple Bloom pursed her lips curiously.

"Hey, how'd you get all those tongues and stuff anyway?"

"-- -- -.-- / -.. .- -.. -.. / -.. .. -.. / ... --- -- -- . / .-- . .. .-. -.. / ... - ..- ..-. ..-. ..-. / .-- .. - .... / ... .--. .. -.-. . ... / -... . ..-. --- .-. . / .. .. / .-- .- ... / -... --- --- .-. -. .-.-.-"

Finally An Update (Zecora, OC; Adventure/Something)

"I was walking down the street when out' the corner of my eye... She said I never seen a man who looks so all alone..."

Dent took a swig from his metallic canteen, looking out on the vast desert stretching out around them for miles. It somehow managed to strike a perfect blend of barren and rich, with colorful plants of every imaginable shape and size managing to thrive on hot sands all other life had long died on. Hues of green, yellow, purple, red, and everything in between painted on a canvas of dull tans, reaching out around them with the only taintings being the distant pillars of stones, stretching skyward, identical to the one he currently sat atop, and a smaller circle of stone imprinted into the desert between them.

"If you pay the right price, your evening will be nice... I said you're such a sweet young thing, why would you do this to yourself..."

And the ever-present singing of the mare beside him. That was also a taint on natural beauty. He glanced over at her grumpily.

"Can you cut the singing? You haven't stopped since we found this place."

"I... I..." Disrupted from her singing, she seemed hesitant to talk, but slowly returned to a normal pace.

"I... Apologize. I'm trying to keep a clear head."

Her eyes flickered behind her goggles, and she pulled her facemask down just enough to mouth a few syllables to herself while still keeping sand out alongside her long cloak.

"You okay? You've been acting like this is your first time speaking practically since we met."

"It... May as well be." She clarified, pulling her facewear back on. "But let's stay focused. Our ride is almost over, friendo."

She stood up from the rock she had been sitting on and began pacing around, coming dangerously close to the edges of the monolith in a perfect circle around them. One of her saddlebags fell to the stone, and she began rifling through it, speaking as she did.

"I believe this is the one."

"Mind telling me what we're doing now?" He inquired, annoyed.

She stood up, knocking over her saddlebags and spilling the contents; her own canteen, a small paperback book (Childhood's End), a white hand-painted long-barreled gun with Hyperion emblazoned on the side, and a map she picked up and carefully inspected. After a moment of agonizing silence, she spoke up.

"These deserts have been empty for a long time. But something most certainly lived here. They built these pillars, ancient monuments, and much more."

As she spoke, the stone they sat on high above the thankless sands below began to rumble.

"The pillars mark a path towards something they called a Garden. I take it you like treasure?"

"Not many other reasons to come out here."

"You'll get what you want. And I'll get what I need. And we'll part ways."

"Well, what do you need?"

The stone pillar lurched suddenly, carving a path across the desert, slowly rising up. The circle of outcropping stone and identical pillar came with it, coming higher and higher, until the circle rounded into a sphere, and then revealed a set of eyes, carved into a hoof-made face. More and more came into view, becoming an entire body, with pillars sitting on it's shoulders like a terrifying suit of armour. Arms, a chest, and legs rose up, creating a terrifying golem hundreds of miles tall, with a terrified Dent sitting atop it, a speck of sand among millions others staying on the golem.

"I'm looking for someone." The mare pulled off her facemask and goggles, revealing a sleek black head with narrowed eyes.

---*---

"Are you here with me... There's a plastic tree..."

Dent took a swig from his wooden mug, looking out on the dark forest stretching out around them for miles. It somehow managed to strike a perfect blend of alive and dead, with towering trees in a perfect circle around the clearing they hid in. Life came to a stop here, becoming the taint of a bizarre campground surrounding a stone entrance into a long tunnel bending and twisting out of view.

"Just looking out on the day...Of another dream..."

As well as the other natural tainting. He glared at her,

"Could you cut the singing? You're going to give our position away!"

She blinked, losing her voice for a second. "Didn't.... Meant... I Apologize. Just trying to calm my dread."

Her eyes flickered behind her obstructive face paint, and she tugged at her cloak's strings.

"Are you okay- Nevermind. It doesn't matter. We need to get inside there, correct?"

"I'm glad we can finally agree. I'm glad you're focused. We're almost at the last leg, friendo."

The two broke into an army crawl, pulling themselves across grass and dirt towards the winding entrance, baiting breath with each inch. Finally, they dived inside, peering down the corridors and waiting to see if they had been heard.

"This temple may appear old and filled with grime, but there are certainly others living in here. They claim this monument was built for them by their gods, by account of their own lore."

"So... what's in here?"

"Something referred to as The Arden. Doors, gateways, and of course, treasure. You may take what you want, but I came here to leave."

"Leave?" He turned to her, curious in spite of his fear.

"Leave, this place where I have been trapped for many days, so I can return home and find someone."

"You're not really making it any clearer."

The mare began treading down the steps, pulling off her cloak to reveal a sleek white furred head as she did so.

"Unfortunately, my helpful explanations come with some... restrictions."

---*---

"I apologize deeply for my inability in exposition." The black furred woman explained. "But I cannot speak as eloquently as I once could."

The two traversed the catacombs of the monument best they could, avoiding skeletons and fighting off horrible parodies of nature along the way. Dent quickly learned of her apparent impediment as they traveled.

"Zebras are binary creatures in nature; some claim we are naturally born with two souls. At a young age, we have to find our own ways of overcoming our natures and learning to exist... Bisected in our own bodies.

"I have.... recently become split. A single soul in a single body, each existing on planes far from home, but still somehow existing simultaneously in worlds existing on top of our old ones. I can feel her now, standing right here, on a different material plane; Singing and speaking keep me tied to her, keep us entwined across barriers we cannot understand."

She stood firmly in place, spreading her legs wide in a power stance to demonstrate.

---*---

She stood firmly in place, spreading her legs wide in a power stance to demonstrate.

"Which is why I need to get back to her. The Arden should be up ahead, alongside the door I need most; the door to the Green Room"

"Which is...?"

"A room existing between planes, storing monsters, spells, pure unfiltered magic.... and eventually us. But that is for later; we must tread quietly now."

She slowed down, and Dent silently fell behind her. An octagonal room sat through the archway, with a veiled pony at each side, chanting.

"*Panis et butyrum, dicere incantationibus suis, marination, naeniam...*"

The mare waved him to the other side of the arch. Gulping, he obeyed, dashing across. One hooded member looked up, but quickly returned to his concentration. The mare made several confusing gestures, before reaching into their saddlebags.

---*---

The Hyperion was pulled out, reflecting light from ominously glowing crystals hanging from the walls off of it's white painted surface. Cocking it once, probably uselessly, the mare deftly moved it into place, aiming directly for the furthest masked cult member in the room.

---*---

Fire flooded out of the potion, lighting the room and instantly disrupting the ritual. Dent leaped in, drawing a bow and firing true through the chest of the nearest cult member in the room.

---*---

Crystals around the room began lighting up as the first shot was fired, spilling red over the marked floors. Dent was immediately face to face with the emblazoned mask of a Garden cultist, and bucked out without thought. His partner leaped into the center of the room, taking out as many as she could in a second as the ritual began to work it's magic, with a new dark furred target in the center. A smile began spreading across her face as the gun she held clattered to the floor.

---*---

Torches flared blue, and the room lit up. Neon green lightning crackled, ensnaring the two new entries, and reality peeled apart around them, revealing a white void. Colors ran like a painting as Dent's vision began fading.

---*---

When Dent awoke, he initially thought he had never left; cultists sat around them, lying on the cold stone floor. His partner stood up beside him, looking around the room, seemingly more informed than he was.

"It worked." She seemed incredulous, showing the most emotion he had ever seen from her. "It... worked. All I need to do is find her, and... I can go home." She laughed out loud, standing up on her milky white hooves and picking up the Hyperion, helping him stand.

"She has to be here somewhere. All we need to do is start looking."

He had almost thought his partner incapable of lapses in judgement. It humbled him to find she was still only equine after all.

Potion Seller (OC; Comedy)

"Potion Seller! I am going into battle and require your strongest potions."

"You realize I barely have any potions right? I'm more of a Needful Things than any kind of one-trick salesman."

Mancha ignored the potion seller, travelling through the store with a delicate hand brushing along the shelves, the contents of each entirely different from the last time he had visited. The bored clerk, whose name he could never remember sat at his desk, barely paying attention to his customer and choosing instead to fiddle with his nametag.

The store was filled to the brim with bits and bobs; Books from House of Leaves to The Enchiridion, monuments and statues that diligently stood in place and resisted the urge to scratch their itches, a wall of masks that turned the wearers into vampires and monsters and dudes wearing really cool masks, weapons, a cute rat snoozing on a display table, a Health Department shutdown slip, and what appeared to be a large rabbit fursuit slumped over in the corner.

"Some employees of such a store would be delighted to have anyone step foot in them."

"Come sit on this side of the counter for incomprehensible hours and listen to me berating you."

Mancha sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "Do you have any potions? At all?"

"Oh, sure. Just remember not to expect much from spooky shopkeepers."

The employee reached down behind his desk, fishing around and placing a few useless totems on the table, before pulling out a small glass bottle. Inside sat an idyllic scene one could mistake for a snowglobe, albeit missing half of the name; a green field of flowers, with a tiny yellow equinish creature peacefully snoozing inside, occasionally kicking a leg in their slumber.

"What is it?" Mancha's eyes lit up, taking in the sunny hill lit by something far powerful than the dim torch lights of the shop just out of the globe's sight.

"It's a pony."

"How is that useful?"

"You expect too much from us. I just work here."

"Health? Mana? Literally anything?"

"Pony."

He took the pony.

---*---

Mancha dived behind an overturned branch, catching his breath as a barrage of arrows turned the fallen tree into an elongated hedgehog that also happened to look a lot like a tree. Rifling through his bags, he threw aside broken weapons before finally coming to his saving grace; the last potion, surviving hours of jostling around in his bags, come to save his life and pull him out of the And it's the damn pony again.
Sighing as loudly as he could to.... show the big monsters he was annoyed, he guessed, Mancha slammed the bottle against the log, spilling grass, flowers, glass shards, and a buttercup yellow pony out, all suddenly growing in size.

Shaking his head, the new creature looked up at his summoner, speaking his eloquent first word, "What?"

It was no I Art Thou, that was for sure.

"I don't suppose you spit lasers?" Mancha disdainfully asked.

"No? Should I?"

"You really should."

"Where am I?" A furious feline head poked over the log, snarling through overgrown yellow fangs that seemed more useful for attracting mates than anything teeth should actually do.

The creature's powerful human arms reached for the tiny horse, lifting it high into the air. Thinking quickly, Mancha picked up the unbroken handle of the potion, and drove it as far as he could into the creature's chest. It roared, dropping the walking sunflower and beating its chest like a gorilla, in an intimidatingly stupid show of bravado that immediately pushed the handle deeper. The roaring quickly became a whimper, and it leapt over the log, bounding into the woods.

Mancha stopped for a second, breathing heavily, before glaring back at the dazed pony, lifting another spent bottle.

"Get back in."

Batu (OC; Slice Of Life)

In an isolated part of a town running along the length of a river, a wooden sign advertised the services of the adjacent tavern; occasionally magically flickering to 'pub' or 'bar' for the purpose of sewing utter despair in a mildly annoying way. To make matters even more despicable, the arrow on the sign pointed in the completely wrong direction from the large building it stuck out from.

Inside that building, a large ungulate awkwardly pushed through the crowd of regulars, blissfully ignoring the glares pointed in her direction as she bustled through them, occasionally toppling or stepping on smaller patrons before finally coming up to the pleasantly lit table and plopping down on the floor, crushing a barstool under her mass. Her head flopped down onto the table, and she smiled at the pony behind it.

"What do you drink here?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Alcohol."

"I'll have some of that."

He moved the cup he had been cleaning under a spigot and filled it with apple cider, not taking his eyes off her. When he was done, he delicately placed it in front of her, rubbing off a small stain on the side and retracting. She sniffed the cup experimentally.

"Would you like to pay for that?" The barkeep commented in a tone dryer than most of the liquids he sold.

"Oh.... With that?"

"Bits."

She thought his addition over, churning mental gears that hadn't moved in a good while.

"Can I have some of those?" She brilliantly deducted her solution. The barkeep's eyes narrowed.

"I- I'll pay." The two turned to a tired looking unicorn patron sitting at the end with a baseball bat strapped to her back, scooting next to the new girl and generously passing over some bits. The barkeep took them, and the new girl happily picked up the entire glass in her jaws, crunching down on it and swallowing. The patron winced, shakily extending a hoof.

"Finch."

"Hmm?"

"Finch! Finch Chirm. That's my name."

"Oh!" She took his hoof, shaking it vigorously. "I'm Batu! Pleasure to meet you!" She turned back to the wooden table, licking off stray drops, and Finch got her best profile view.

Batu's head closely resembled that of certain chimera heads, adorned with two corkscrew horns and long flowing silver hair that made her seem a lot wiser than she clearly was. Two intricately woven pillows sat resting on her back, holding up a wooden piece that appeared to be a fancy six-pack beer holder. groups of potions sat stuffed into each wooden pouch, many of which were leaking trails out the door, and quite a few had been dropped off and lay depressingly on the floor behind them. Some were even expelling purple gases, contaminating the air in yet to be seen ways.

"You're... certainly interesting. What brings you here?"

"Ponies!"

"None of those here, sorry." Batu didn't seem to notice his deadpan, happily continuing on.

"I've constantly heard stories of you guys! And you're everywhere here! I don't get up to much back home, but things are always happening here! Just look around! So many interesting faces!"

Every face in the building was either lying on the table, lying on the floor, or far bypassing their interestingness with their intimidatingness. Quite a few had masks.

"When things happen too often, they sort of lose their charm."

"Don't worry, I won't be here long! But still, if you've been here longer, maybe you could.... Guide me around? Give me some pointers and whatnot?" Her eyes lit up as she turned to him, gushing nearly an inch away from his muzzle. He gave his best expression of disinterestedness, but it appeared her range of consciousness was a very short one.

"Urgh.... Alright. I'll show you around, for...?"

"Three days!"

"Thr- Three days? Yeah, alright. Of course."

She squealed happily, pulling Finch into a tight and hairy hug. Several more bottles toppled out, a few shattering on the floor. The barkeep grumbled.

One bottle lasted, continuing to roll far across the table, dodging bodies and hooves with all the skill of a mindless potion bottle, finally coming to a stop at the leg of a wooden table in the corner. For a peaceful, hot second it sat there, undisturbed by the movement in waves around it, until being unceremoniously shattered by a collapsing patron, face drenched in various forms of alcohol.

"I hear you guys can do magic!" Batu gleefully pointed out, eyes wandering to the bat atop Finch's back. "Is that your wand?"

"It is. It's not a very good one, unfortunately. Its only spell is Break Rib." Finch sipped from her drink, already tired of the ungulate next to her.

"That sounds good! I can't do anything magical, I just have-"

"Oh, not again." The barkeep and Finch spoke at once, both simultaneously noticing the commotion at the back of the tavern. Patrons began quickly getting up, and fire spread rapidly from its source of a drunken, flailing face.

"Potions! She's the girl with the-" A nosy patron's accusation was subtly suppressed as her head connected with the wooden table in Finch's magic, and he calmly levitated his bat out, nudging Batu.

"We should probably leave."

Her eyes were wide with amazement as carnage began bustling around them, already violent drinkers taking their opportunity to help their hapless buddies find a more literal definition of smashed. Batu and Finch quietly moved around them, stepping over fallen comrades and dodging stray spell shots in their lazily general direction. Batu's wooden pack jiggled, more potions falling out of their stacks and shattering onto the floor, turning the liquor on the stone floor fascinating shades of colors yet unknown to equinity, and terrorizing poor future janitors and doctors arriving at the site.

Outside, the pair turned to the flaming pub, watching it quickly light in beautiful colors and spread to the wooden buildings besides it, stunned into silence as escaping ponies shoved past them. Batu seemed no less put off at the spreading flames and destruction than she had eating glass shards.

"I told you things were already happening! Oh, I'm so excited! Do you think we'll see a dragon? Do those exist? I don't know which of the creatures I've heard of are fairy tails and which ones are real! Do you have orcs? Humans? Mongeese?"

Finch rubbed his eyes as fire began lighting the alcohol puddles on the street around them, groaning.

"Celestia..."

Scorched (Celestia, Twilight; Sad/Hopeful)

A soft hiss filled the room, and billowing steam made vision near-impossible even after finding she could open her eyes. Eventually, the gas faded, dissipating into the rest of the room, and she found herself face to face with a grinning white muzzle.

"So you CAN wake up! C'mon, sleepy head!"

Twilight moaned in pain, stretching her limbs out far, feeling very much as if she had been sleeping on her side awkwardly for the last thousand years. Upon stretching, she came face to hoof with herself for the first time, and nearly screamed; her leg was twisted, bent at unnatural angles, and riddled with holes- matted hair barely clung to it, completing the cancerous look of her own body. Looking up at her waker wasn't much better; the exact same twisted bastardization of a face looked back at her, gaunt and shrunken, but still smiling widely.

"C'mon, let a friend in- What's going on?"

"I..."

Twilight caught a look at the rest of the room for the first time, noting the long metal corridor stretching on before slanting upwards. She had been sleeping in a green pod, an odd fusion of biological and metallic, with wires and metal plates snaking inside and covering the organism, seemingly breathing in and out slowly, as if on the edge of death. Similar pods sat against the walls down the hallway, all of which either open and cobweb covered or closed, the insides fogged up and impenetrable by the naked eye.

"...I don't know. Where are we?"

"I don't know! Kind of exciting! Come on, we can't stay in here forever!"
Celestia- Yes, that was her name, of course... How had she forgotten?- took her hoof, pulling her out of the steam and sludge onto the cold metal floor, happily bouncing between legs and smiling down at her. Twilight stumbled to her feet, steadying herself against the larger mare and looking down the long hallway.

---*---

The double doors may have been locked at some point, but the bolts had long since rusted apart, and sat on the inside at that. Twilight gently levitated the doors apart and was instantly hit with a wave of heat, nearly suffocating in its intensity. Waves of light danced over her eyes, and she awkwardly stumbled onto the blistering hot surface, colliding with something metallic as she did.

Her vision finally cleared, and she saw a small computer on a pedestal in front of her- which quickly became forgotten as she saw what lay beyond it. An endless plain of yellow sand, shimmering in her vision the further out she looked. In the distance, small houses and buildings could be spotted. Turning around, she saw the tip of a large mountain hanging over everything, and the city below they stood in; streets covered in sand, buildings and houses sunken down, and broken remains trailing down the cliffsides of the mountain, as if the entire city had slid down from its peak.
Celestia trotted up next to her, smiling in awe as they looked around. After a moment of silence, she headed over to the computer, curiously tapping at the screen with her muzzle. The screen flickered, screen permanently wavy in the heat, and the vague outline of a face appeared. For several tantalizing moments, a voice rang out clearly, but never lasted long, and eventually died in the heat.

"You- Backu- Celes- Sun- In case of-"

The computer depressingly sagged, as if beginning to melt, and the two turned to each other.

"Something's wrong." Twilight gravely stated the obvious.

"Do YOU remember what this place used to look like?"

"N-No?"

"Then what's the problem? We're just in the desert. I'm sure we're fine." Celestia casually blew off the obvious.

"Well..." Twilight looked around, searching for any clue that could validate her suspicions. "We... We should get up high. Are you sure you don't remember anything?"

Celestia looked thoughtful, staring blankly into space and biting her lip.

"I... Hmm... There will come..."

"You remember something?"

"Not anything about my life, but... I remember a poem! Or maybe it's a song? I'm not sure."

She cleared her throat and began to recite, straining to remember each individual line.

"There will come soft rains, and the smell of the ground... And swallows calling with their shimmering sound... Robins will wear their feathery fire... Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire... And not one... Um...duhduhduh.... And Spring herself... Ah, darn."

"Well... Alright, let's try and get higher up, okay?" Twilight awkwardly smiled, trying to make herself feel better.

---*---

Twilight pulled herself onto an outcropping of stone, letting her wings rest from the long fly up. What remained of a house sat strewn around her, colliding with the outcropping on the way down and staying there. Celestia fluttered down next to her, taking a minute to enjoy the view. Twilight couldn't help but sigh, looking out on the day.

"Aww, you alright there?" Celestia warmly smiled down at her.

"We both know something happened."

"Yeah, but come on! We can't stay sad about it forever! We lasted, didn't we? We've still got each other. All we have to do is keep moving forward, and we'll be alright. Tomorrow is another day. Forget your troubles, come on get happy, get ready for... Pfft. Why can't I remember any of these?"

She goofily shook her head, quickly forgetting about it, and chose instead to nuzzle against Twilight. She bristled in the taller mare's embrace, but eventually found herself sinking in, worried briefly ebbing. Everything was not okay, but Tia was right. She couldn't worry. All she had to do was pretend everything was okay, and maybe it would be.

The heat beat down on them, growing less powerful as it fell beneath the horizon, seeming to swallow everything under it with its sheer mass, looming over distant villages and slowly loosening the its hold over the land as the gargantuan blood-red sun sunk softly.

Milkmaid (Limestone, Luna; Comedy)

"Milk today!"

Limestone raised an eyebrow at the tall mare on her door, happily smiling down at her under her woolen bonnet. Two saddlebags of milk bottles sat at her side, lightly jostling as their deliverer practically vibrated in glee.

"You're not the usual milkmare."

"I told her I'd cover for this week! Gave her a very hefty wage to not tell anyone."

"But... Why?"

"Because I wanted to!"

Something about the blue wavy haired mane with the metal crescent moon bib and name tag attached to her collar that clearly read 'Hello, my name is Princess Luna' seemed familiar, almost reminding her of someone, but she couldn't place a hoof on it. Limestone sighed.

"Yeah, alright. Just pass it here."

The milkmare obliged, before bounding past her into the farmhouse. Limestone's brow expertly furrowed.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"I gotta milk the cows! That's what milkmares do!"

"No, you're thinking of... Um... Milkmares... Wait, no there's a difference... One delivers milk, and one actually milks milk... Argh..."

Limestone beat her head against the wooden doorframe, carving an indent. The milkmare continued to bound on, stopping to give Marble a quick pat on the head as she got up from breakfast before continuing out the back door and onto their land.

---*---

"I think I would really prefer if I did that."

"Don't worry, I know how to do this. I've been watching your dreams. Kinda weird how you dream of doing your day work, by the way."

The milkmare whistled offkey as she worked, only serving to irritate Limestone further.

"You can see my dreams?"

"What good milkmare can't? Hey, want to know something else I can do?"
Limestone mentally prepared for a pun, or something similar.

"What?"

"I've never told anyone this, but I have the power to see reality as well, not just dreams. Little known fact, tell your friends."

Limestone pursed her lips angrily as the milkmare continued, occasionally muttering jubilantly under her breath 'the greatest' or 'Omukuma'.

---*---

"Well, I'll see myself out. Thank you for having me!"

"Thank you for dutifully working and not once trying to hit on me. You're already better than the last blue girl we had working here." Limestone grumbled.

The milkmare trotted off, and Limestone picked up the saddlebags she had left. One seemed much heavier than the other, and upon inspecting inside, she found a small pouch with a single silver bar inside marked with the lunar crest and a smiley face drawn on the outside of the pouch with marker.

Limestone groaned, picking up the gift and biting into it as she watched the milkmare leave.

Lyra Watches MLP (Lyra, Human; Slice Of Life)

Lyra Heartstrings sat on a brown leather couch with a small caking of dust, staring in silence as credits rolled over the flatscreen tv in front of her to the tune of an easily marketable jingle. Her muzzle wrinkled, and one of her ears adorably flicked on occasion as she thought, no hint of an emotion besides mild interest reflected across her face.

"This is entertainment?"

"Meant to make a profit for capitalistic toy companies." I affirmed, crossing my noticeably human arms and leaning against the back of my guest's couch.

"And it... came entirely from the brain of a human."

"Several brains. If you wanted to conspiracy theorize you could pin it on the collective unconscious, I suppose."

"Hmm." The normally talkative and excitable pone sat in contemplation, mulling thoughts over. I humored the idea of taking the opportunity to get some work done, but remained planted.

"Existential crisis?"

"Not really. I still have every bit as much evidence I'm real as I did before. Don't worry, I'm not going to break down crying on your floor. It's just interesting."

Interest rarely remains in one mind. I could exploit this.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Sure."

We sat there in silence for a minute, until I finally groaned in realization and fished some spare change out of my pocket.

"How deep do you think this goes? In either way. Back home, it came out a few years ago that the author of a relatively famous book series had actually lived out the adventures she wrote about. It's not the same as this, but can you imagine if your life was a TV Show? What would that say about you?"

"I think it would say we should re-think some early South park episodes."

"I'm not gonna get human references. Anyway, we're both obviously real people in a real world, but somewhere that might not be true."

"And people die when they are killed."

Lyra threw her hooves in the air, snorting frustratedly. "Listen buddy, YOU paid me, YOU want me to get philosophical about something I described as 'interesting'. Maybe you're still in a tizzy because no human predicted their visitors to be cute and fluffy-"

"Harry Turtledove did, but we kind of assumed he was joking." I pointed out.

"I'm not going to get human references, dude! All I'm saying is it makes me think, and if you expect me to be able to accurately summarize my thoughts into neat columns, maybe humans are more different from us than I expected."

I nodded. "I guess that sums it up more finally than any philosophical discourse. No matter the dimension, minds are dumb and reality is a little bit fake."

The credits wrapped up, and autoplay started ticking down for the next episode. Wind gently blew outside, the sun trickled its rays down as it had for billions of years, and time continually marched on, indifferent to the concerns of its inhabitants.

"Hey, want to read some fanfiction about you romancing humans?"

"Whoa, they have those here?"

Actually, I'm Dash (Rainbow Dash, Twilight; Comedy)

Dash awoke with a start, and immediately realized the oxymoronical nature of that sentence. Right off the bat she could tell she had no skin, muscle, heart, lungs, and somehow even less brain then she had before; such a skewed ratio of body to mind that Mary Shelley would weep and René Descartes would fist pump. Thankfully, her worries were quickly dismissed, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she finally realized where her body was. On the table, two feet away from her.

Twilight stood hunched over her, gripping Dash's disembodied leg tightly and measuring pulse. Confident that there was none, she dropped it, and quietly swore in a tone not at all proportional to the circumstances of her friend dying; it was more akin to the tone of voice I take when my cat looks me directly in the eyes and places a paw deliberately in my microwave mac and cheese.

Machines surrounded her, beeping and whirring and displaying a menagerie of egghead appliances, such as vitals, heartbeat, Robotron 2084, and a recording of the Rocky Horror Picture Show for inspiration on spitting in Faust's face with forbidden magic.

Dash decided to take a chance, taking note of her detachment from gravity as she pulled herself over to Twilight like an astronaut with a broken tether.

"Twi! Twiiiii! Hello!"

She didn't respond, wrenching open the mouth of Corporeal Dash and peering inside curiously.

"Hey, hold the autopsy, You don't get to mess with my body while I'm still-"

She reached out for her friend, only to be wrenched out of the air the second she made contact. Her limbs flew to match Twilight's like an Iron Man suit, and as much as she tried holding back her head, eventually the two merged. Light flashed in her eyes, and before she could register She was back to the physical plane.

Dash!

"Twilight?"

Dash spun, practically toppling her body off the table, and quickly took note of the new appendage on her head and the 10 pounds she had suddenly gained. Among some other, less important things probably.

Dash! Is that you? I can't move!

"Yeah, it's me. This is... new. Sorry about your body, I kind of needed it. See, I kinda got yanked out of flight practice, and-"

You got yanked out of flight practice because you died. You collided with a stone wall. Your skull fractured and shards were forced into your brain and throat, if not further.

"Nice. Cool. Hey, you've got wings, right?"

I- Dash! That's MY body! Give it back, and let me get back to work resurrecting you!

"Just- Hold on, I've got an idea."

DASH

Dash ignored her, grabbing pens and a pad of paper.

"Alright, give me the formulas or whatever. Whatever will bring me back when we're done."

I don't know! Because you evicted my soul!

"Well, give me what you've got so far. We'll leave it for Starlight. I'm going to be careful, and when I'm done you'll get this back, but JUST IN CASE, I'm putting this here."

DASH

---*---

Twilight stumbled back, hours later, every part of her sore and alternating between screaming and stubbornly ignoring her, as if her body had the same properties of a small child; which, a few minutes ago, it might as well have had.

Dash's soul loop-de-looped around her, occasionally snapping her head back into Twilight's to gush or cheer at decibels painful to the recovering alicorn.

"Thanks for that dude! Hell of a work-out" She happily remarked, backflipping into the air through Twilight and speaking her thoughts as she passed through before landing to possess her machines, hopping around the room through them.

"You rea.... You realize.... That won't affect you? Your body's been here the whole time. All you got was adrenaline."

"And that's all I need!" Her computer boasted, before the lights went out and a generator beside it simultaneously lit up. "You think I need a work out? My normal body's so toned, I'll probably drop dead by 30!"

Twilight glared at the generator, inhabitant oblivious to her own irony.

Love you (Spike, Twilight; Horror)

Twilight frowned in boredom, lighting her horn yet again to flip to the next world, looking out over a perfect replica of her own with a sigh. The mirror portal she gazed upon gave her the power to cast an eye over trillions of nearby dimensions, seeing nearly every possible future and reality conceivable from any point in time from the present moment to the big bang. Endless possibilities lay beyond it, and with a simple modification she had turned the mirror into a looking glass, flipping through views of each world like channels on the world's most powerful TV.

And naturally, the thousand or so closest were all worlds where the defining difference was what side of the bed she rolled out of, how long she sharpened her quills, and the color of her assistant's egg.

She began getting frustrated, flipping her horn into overdrive, speeding through the same picture of the same ponyville street over and over again, searching for any noticeable difference.

She almost missed it in her furious flipping, quickly speeding to a stop and backtracking through the identical worlds, until she came across one significantly different. The sun was a little higher, the horizon was a little purpler, the tree by Lyra's house was tilted slightly, and Lyra's house was completely gone along with all other trace of civilization. A barren wasteland of soil stretched out for miles, only dotted with dying trees and small hills.

She stared at it, uneasiness creeping up her back slightly, before deciding to blot it out. She flipped the channel, feeling a weight lift off her lungs as she was greeted with yet another identical street in the early morning. Sighing, she returned to her monotony, letting her concern slip from her mind...

Another wasteland flashed. She ignored it, shutting her eyes for a second. Another one flashed. And another. And another. Pristine sleepiness faded into a final drawn out string of flashing images like a single yarn extending from the rest of the ball before disappearing completely, replaced with nothing but brown and grey, filling her vision in a cascading streamline of flashing images burning into her brain. No matter how far she scrolled with her horn, the mirror showed one thing and one thing only. The line between life and destruction was one barrier of dimensions long, and beyond that, every world she saw was dead.

She finally forced herself to stop, despite her keenness to march forward stubbornly until she came across a living world she could close it on. The wasteland stretched before her, looking like the ashen earth could come cascading through the portal onto her carpet. She softly turned the lock to the room she sat in with a horn, before struggling to her hooves, limping over to the portal in a trance.

The portal enveloped her, letting her pass through the barrier like a wall of water, stepping into the dust and smelling the ashes for the first time. Oddly, the ashes smelt like petrichor.

Not a trace of her home remained, and it seemed like everything else followed her suit. A standing, but remarkably bare Canterlot Mountain loomed in the distance, the one beacon of the past remaining turned into nothing but a sad reminder, striving for a hope it could never reach. All else was gone, razed off the map completely.

She rotated in place for a minute, head swimming and sky stretching endlessly above her, seeming ready to pluck her off the ground with its own gravitational field at any second. Thoughts swam through her head clockwise as she turned counterclockwise, seeking to maliciously disorient as she stared up to the heavens in shock.

When she returned, she left the room in a haze. A quick, empty grocery run blurring around her later, she was back in the room, doors locked and ready to search until she collapsed. Worlds and realities sped past her as she leaped in and out of portals, spending no more than a few minutes in each one to gauge her surroundings. Any more and her heart began to float, her eyes unfocusing, her breath catching, and her entire body violently rejecting the new world she found herself in.

Over and over the motions went, absorbing every difference in wastelands she could. Some were bathed in hellish fire coursing over the land, ravenously devouring all it could touch. Some were frozen over, bodies around her maintained in a constant state of phantom life, forever encapsulated in the one moment before frigid cold swept over all. Some were burnt out husks of the town she knew, keeping her rooted in her spot as she stared at the ashen outlines of playing children and relaxing adults burnt into the side of a standing wall. Some were forests, growing invasively, in which clicks and giggles filled the void with noise just out of sight. Every world was a painting, a photograph rooted in one place eternally with none left to turn the planet forward.

And one was a desert. She gazed upon the familiar emptiness, covered in sand, and began to leave again. Turning back to the mirror, something caught her eye- Something buried in the sand, only an inch of bleached white sticking out in the sea of yellow. Scrambling to dig, her breath grew ragged, beyond stressed and tired by this point, desperate for any sign of equine life. Luckily, she found one.

Twilight stared into Twilight, her agape mouth nearly wrenched off as she was dragged out of the sand. Her empty sockets bore holes into Twilight's skull as it lay in Twilight's grasp, and she barely noticed the spots in her eyes. The alicorn from out of the mirror stared at the skeletal alicorn from out of the sand, and she suddenly saw a flashing clipshow in her mind, identical to the flashes of the mirror portal cycling through worlds.

Her mind showed Twilight, eyes widening as Nightmare Moon's horn slid through her like butter, rupturing arteries and shattering bones instantly. Her mind showed Twilight, spine breaking as Tirek brought his fist upon her at full strength, landing a perfect blow as she tried to speed past him. Her mind showed Twilight, body and soul withering in a green cocoon as the hazy image of Chrysalis smiled at her outside. Her mind showed Twilight, flesh blistering and fur burning as she boiled in the stomach of a hydra.

Every death removed a piece from harmony's puzzle, every death bringing another world fallen to the cascade of monsters and madmen she was destined to battle. Every world hinged on her and her friends, and even a single slip up could kill not only her, but innocents as well.

Every fight she had resulted in a world where she lost, where everyone lost. Every battle tossed a dice where every side won, in different universes. She was the most important piece, and her rogues gallery was infinite.

Twilight dropped the skeleton, stumbling back into the portal and shutting it as fast as possible, trying desperately to quell the screams bubbling out of her throat. For a minute she stood there, in front of the dead portal, struggling to catch her breath and push stray hairs out of her eyes.

A knock sounded from the door, and she unlocked it unthinkingly.

"Twi?" Spike's voice sounded out from the doorway quietly.

"Yes?" She replied breathlessly.

"You okay? I heard whimpering."

"I'm fine. Just playing with the portal."

He nodded, satisfied. "Alright. The girls are getting ready to go to lunch. You going?"

"I'll catch up. I just need a minute."

He flashed her a thumbs up, starting to head out the door. Twi turned to him, watching him as he passed back through the doorway. She had never noticed how tall he was getting.

"Spike?"

"Yeah, Twi?"

"I love you."

He smiled. "Love you too. See you around."

New Kid (OC; Slice of Life)

"I'm sure you'll come to like it here. It's not bad, for a school."

Schlangenfutter listened intently, keeping a neutral expression that was easily overlooked when such other things as his ditzy fluttering in wide circles around his guide, like he was caught on an endlessly powerful breeze, could be observed instead. He blew some yellow hair out of his face, considering taking a break by landing on top of his guide's head and resting his wings, but figured that wouldn't be the best first impression.

Dixie watched him as he careened wildly through the air around her, biting her lip and trying to remain half as stoic as the breezie was with hooves off the ground. Hooves? Feet? Hands? She wasn't sure, and at this point she was afraid to ask. Breezies were still relatively new to her, as was observing them as more than a simple yearly phenomenon.

"Six periods, a lunch, and some physical education. Each period is about 45 minutes long, Lunch is about thirty, and you have about five minutes to cross classes. I'd... Recommend getting a friend's help with that."

"Acknowledged."

Dixie stifled a laugh, turning away to hide her amusement at the tinny accent with twice the squeak of a rusty Belle and three hundred times the seriousness. If a stereotypical yes man inhaled helium before screaming at a colleague a building away, they might sound similar to Schlangenfutter's serious voice. To another breezie, he would probably sound like a reverse Invader Zim impressionist at his current octave.

"Don't ask about the 19th story, bring your own lunch, ignore any mooing you might hear when you're alone, and.... I think that's pretty much it. I'm excited to get to meet y-"

Dixie stopped herself as they reached a T Junction, turning right to see the hallway they faced ending in a portal to an endless void slowly entropying the lockers around it. Floating in the void, a massive multi armed being of metal and flesh, faceless and hairless, using four of its arms to grapple onto the school and the entrance into our reality, desperately fighting to keep from being trapped in the hell that it resided in.
With its other arms, it waled and walloped six students forming a barrier in front of it, lashing out to push it off the school. A glowing purple thaumic shield, maintained by a translucent archalicorn in the form of Princess Twilight herself, protected the six students from the beast's blows while they took any window of opportunity they could to land their own, biting, clawing, igniting, smashing, and bucking every opening they could get their limbs on.

"Ooh, almost forgot, that happens too sometimes." Dixie kicked herself for forgetting, suddenly jetting out her forehooves to catch Schlangenfutter as he finally dropped out of the air.

"...Okay. Do they... Need any help?" He contemplated, before drawing out the question from his lips slowly and carefully. He had spend barely a week out of his home village, and he wasn't about to make a fool of himself by not knowing about the... Annual hostile dimensional takeover, or whatnot.

"Nah, they're fine, just stay away from the Tear. The void back there isn't pretty deeper in."

Dixie graciously deposited Schlangenfutter on her back, trotting on the same hallway and racking her brain for what she missed.

"Ooh, that reminds me, we are situated rather close to a magical forest filled with monsters and stuff, so we occasionally do get stray beasts coming in. We normally just call one of the new element bearers, or teachers, or headmare, or Louis the Yard Teacher."

He nodded. "I'm cool with that. My old village was always being attacked by birds or frogs or... Well, snakes obviously." He added the last part, pointing to himself

She didn't bother to ask why that was obvious. "Cool, that should prepare you for the school sized space bears. Speaking of which, what was your village like? Aren't they like, in liminal spaces and stuff? Ooh, have you ever met a Fae? Or an Alp Luchara? Kitsune?"

"Yes, no, no, and no. They're like... Only accessible through tiny doorways and stuff. Err, are there any school events I should know about?" He quickly added upon confronting the fact that even he had no idea how it worked.

"Besides our standard holidays, not really. We used to have an annual event called the 'Friendship Games' with our rival schools, Blackwell and Hope's Peak, but when they realized the next generation of element bearers chosen by a magical tree that kept the school alive and fought back the Everfree Forest went to school here, they decided to stop being rivals."

"Right. Hate it when that happens." He didn't bother to ask how one fights a forest.

"Speaking of holidays, I assume you have different ones?"

"Just one, actually. A holiday around October that celebrates surviving another year being the weakest sapient species on the planet. We call it the futility festival."

"Shouldn't that be around the end of the year?"

"It is. We've never had to rearrange our calendar because none of us lived in Roam." He replied matter-of-factly, sticking out his tongue sarcastically.

Dixie nearly had a heart attack as he did, "SWEET CEL- Sorry! I didn't expect you to have such a long tongue! That kinda freaked me out!"

"No offense taken." He took a second to roll it back into his jaw.

Dixie stared at him curiously, before releasing a small chuckle.

"You're an odd duck. I think you'll fit in well here."

Isekai Quartet (OC, Pinkie Pie; Comedy)

"You! Maiden! I-"

"Get in line."

Kato paused, already surprised by the change of events, and only three words in. Pinkie had hit a record.

"I..."

"Dead, I assume?"

"I... Believed so, once. But as I floated through the void, a Goddess of time and water approached me, offering to pull me back from oblivion and give me a second chance, in a world where-"

"Right, got it. That explains the getup."

Kato awkwardly looked down at himself, scratching his arm with a finger in embarrassment. He thought the belt, high collared waist-length green cape, pirate/vampire-esque white cut shirt, and even higher boots looked good. Clearly the tiny, tired, pink horse begged to differ, and despite the fact that she was naked herself, he felt oddly inclined to trust her fashion advice.

"Join the others. I'll be with you in a second, after your internal description ends." Pinkie said, sighing and rubbing her forehead.

Kato turned to the other three in the group, sitting around on tree stumps in the middle of the wooded clearing he had stumbled across- A muddy brown feathered gryphon with a large black sword strung onto his back, a Vantablack winged unicorn with blood red eyes, and an orange furred horse of about the same build as the pink one who had greeted him, wearing a stetson on a golden blonde ponytail. They awkwardly waved as he looked for a seat, finding none and electing to stand stoically with his cape flowing breezelessly instead.

Pinkie trotted in front of them, stamping a hoof frustratedly. Despite being smaller than all of them, she commanded attention they nervously gave, wary of the tiny angry woman who had collected the four in this wood.

"Okay, let's get a few things straight first of all. You can call me Pinkie, When I point to you, give me your name and a clear description of how you got here, and if any one of you says you walked, I'm going to scream. I'm the one telling jokes here, busters."

All complied, driven forward by the threat of high pitched screams.

"My name is Raven... I was-"

"You were bullied on earth for being a brony, you met a mysterious man who offered to give you a better life, you were booted here. The trash bin of the multiverse." Ponk echoed monotonously, in the tone of someone who had heard the story a million times before. The gryphon nodded, befuddled.

"my nam is Balck Blackness Amnesia Gryphon Bryar..." The ailcrn drawed misterusly. "i woke with Amnesia... thats hoe i got my nam..."

(AN: OMGF here she iss!!!!
Black: shhhhhhhhh!!!!
Me: 0_o)

"Please stop talking. Please stop talking. Please stop talking." Pinkie begged. "Guys, I am really trying not to be a grumpypants here, but I've been through a lot these past few weeks. Please be patient with me." She took a second to take a deep breath, before her flattening hair suddenly sprung back up, and she smiled widely at Applejack.

"Brain swapped, I presume?"

"Eeyup, Ah'd say so." She confirmed, looking away nervously. "Ah don't ever recall talking like this back on Earth."

"We'll get you back to normal, I promise. We'll get you all sorted out, but there is something important I need to discuss first."

Kato hadn't even been asked for his name. He considered assuming a more simplistic art style and turn his arms into flailing lines to yell at her, but elected instead to sulk in the corner and grow mushrooms on his back.

"I have herded every visitor I could find in here, the nexus point of all recent appearances of those who were not here before, human and otherwise. Some of you have been booted here as avatars for otherwordly gods, some have been brainswapped to make way for the plans of evil entities, and some were never here an hour ago, but always were now."

Although her quartet was unaware, she was being unusually serious, even in the third person exposition she transported to the pages of earthly fanfiction writers for the purpose of helping deliver the call for help AJ's inhabitant was fruitlessly trying to mentally broadcast in a body he hadn't yet realized possessed no fourth wall breaking powers. It burnt her up to act this way, bur serious matters were serious matters a- Darn it, she misspelled but. Balck's own unfiltered, un-spellchecked monologue was also being broadcast alongside her own, next to the comic panels Kato was unsuccessfully trying to broadcast. It hurt jher head.

"Past visitors have helped us, they have hindered us, they have saved us from total oblivion, they have slaughtered millions. But all have had one thing in common- They have all come to me, and asked me to throw them a welcome party. And not one has donated a cent to pay for it! I can't afford all of you! I just cannot! I am setting up a toll road! All visitors need to pay me ten bits before they can set off on this world!" Pinkie overloaded, spewing out all of her frustration and hurt, slathering it all over the quartet like butter on a piece of toast, a bagel, a piece of toast that had a bagel's brain, and a burnt piece of toast.

"Donut b e a prep!" Teh burnt piece of toast ejaculuted, eyes golwing with unfamothable unfmtahoble enrgy thswt could nbot be fatthomed. "I've ben around fir years, bidiing and primmed, aftr my creatro abnsaoned me!"

"No! You have not! You inserted your self into existence twenty minutes ago, and retconned the timeline as a result!" Pinkie strained to say, biting her lip from the numbing force of his internal exposition.

"None of you existed a minute ago! I don't mind, I promise, I love making new friends, but I need to be compensated for all the parties I've thrown! From now on, if you enter this dimension, you pay the toll! You can repay me later if you come here broke, but you will pay before you leave! Do you understand?"

Raven nodded. AJ Eeyuped. Kato turned away and said 'tch'. Balck twatched her ears.

Pinkie nodded happily. "Good! Is there anything else we need? No? Alright, go find your gods and demons and sorcerers, and defeat them for the good of the land, and collect ten bits along the way."

The quartet nodded, and all four headed off on their own way.

Raven would go on to become a pirate antihero, fighting dragons and diamond dogs for justice in the distant badlands alongside his waifu Gilda. They would spawn three sequels, but only the first would become any well known.

Applejack's inhabitant would go on to befriend a kitsune and anticlimactically drop a book on the head of the wizard who swapped his brain with the real AJ to break up the elements, wisecracking all the way. He died instantly. The inhabitant returned to earth and had a crisis when he realized he reached his peak at age 21.

Kato met the goddess who sent him to Equestria, who had now taken the form of a large breasted maid and vowed to serve him on his quest. The two traveled for five more seasons, but never became very popular in the western world.

Black got to meet Marty McFly and Buffy Summers on his quest, but just before he had his final battle for the fate of the world, his author left for a trip to england, where she red a bad review and subequently slit huh rists. Balck vanished from existance and was never seen again.

Two Sides Of A Coin (Pinkie; Sad/Hopeful)

Author's Notes:

Final Pay (Trixie; Slice Of Life/Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Rally Racing (Rainbow, Twilight; Adventure/Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Bag of Tricks (Trixie; Slice Of Life/Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Thing (OC; Slice Of Life)

Author's Notes:

Airport Security (OC; Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Snow Day (Flurry Heart, Changeling; Sad/Slice Of Life

Author's Notes:

Prison Break (Starlight,Trixie;Comedy

Author's Notes:

Octavo (Twilight; Dark)

Author's Notes:

Dark Knight (OC; Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Crusader (Flurry Heart; Slice Of Life)

Author's Notes:

Twilich (Twilight; Slice Of Life)

Author's Notes:

Karma (OC; Comedy/Slice Of Life)

Author's Notes:

Get Happy (Sombra; Tragedy)

Author's Notes:

Apple Time (AJ, Derpy; Slice Of Life/Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Sweet (Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie; Tragedy, Slice Of Life)

Author's Notes:

DIY Amusement (OC, Slice Of Life)

Author's Notes:

Here On The Moon (Luna, OC; Slice Of Life)

Author's Notes:

Masked Cozy Glow (Cozy Glow, Spike; Action)

Author's Notes:

What (OC; Batshit)

Author's Notes:

The Fallout One (OC; Action)

Author's Notes:

Fae (Trixie; Slice Of Life)

Author's Notes:

What: Circulation (Apple Tiara; Comedy)

Celestial Reacharound (Discord, Celestia; Horror)

Draco and Maria (Rarity; Comedy)

Drinking Game (Changeling, Breezie; Tragedy, Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Trick Or Treat (AJ, Dash; Comedy)

Author's Notes:

The Fluttershy Show (Fluttershy, Twilight; Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Shedding Day (Autumn Blaze, Rarity; Slice Of Lice)

Author's Notes:

Sandbox (Apple Bloom, Dinky; Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Finally An Update (Zecora, OC; Adventure/Something)

Potion Seller (OC; Comedy)

Batu (OC; Slice Of Life)

Scorched (Celestia, Twilight; Sad/Hopeful)

Milkmaid (Limestone, Luna; Comedy)

Lyra Watches MLP (Lyra, Human; Slice Of Life)

Actually, I'm Dash (Rainbow Dash, Twilight; Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Love you (Spike, Twilight; Horror)

Author's Notes:

New Kid (OC; Slice of Life)

Author's Notes:

Isekai Quartet (OC, Pinkie Pie; Comedy)

Author's Notes:

Login