Well, that's unexpected...

Leon opens his eyes. The bright purple flash had forced him to close them, and what he sees now is... Odd. A large, shimmering mass similar to a liquid window stood before him. "Oh my gosh." he mutters. He gets out of the small office chair and takes off his glasses. He really didn't need them anymore, since he got LASIK, but what the hell. Besides, these college girls thought he looked cute with glasses. He walks to the large mass and touches it. It reacts like gelatin, shaking all over. He looks through, and he sees... A library?

"Well, that's an unexpected result." a feminine voice says from his right. He takes a short step back, scared as to what may happen.

"Twilight, what exactly WERE you trying to do?" another voice, the voice of a young boy, says from more to the left. The sounds of movement reinforce the idea that someone is on the other side of this.

"Twilight?" Leon thinks aloud. All noise completely stops when he speaks.

"What was that?" the feminine voice, Twilight, asks her companion, who has remained nameless. Leon hears steps.

"Hooves?" he thinks, waiting for a figure to step into his vision. One does, but not one he would have expected. A pony with a lavender coat and a deep purple mane walks into his vision, and they both take a step back.

"What in Equestria is that thing?" the pony asks.

"What, what is it?" the other voice asks. More steps, then a reptilian, more humanoid animal steps into frame. He also takes a step back. "Whoa."

"Spike, did you get the notepad?"

"Wait, wait, wait." Leon says. The two animals take another step back. "I think we got off on the wrong foot."

"Don't you mean wrong hoof?" the pony asks. She finally gets a good look at the figure. Slightly taller than her, shaped similarly to a teenage dragon with less muscle, no scales, light colored skin, and a short, blood-red mane.

"No. I mean foot. I don't have hooves." Leon says with an annoyed tone. He holds his leg up, and takes off his shoe. Indeed, he doesn't have hooves. Instead, Twilight sees something similar to what a dragon's foot looks like, with five toes of varying lengths and no claws.

"What are you?" Spike asks. He can't stop staring at Leon's eyes, a piercing cobalt.

"I'm a man."

"A what?" Twilight asks.

Leon sighs. "A man. Homo sapiens? Sentient ape? Bipedal monkey? Human being?" With every suggestion, the two shake their heads no. "Wow, so I'm entirely new to you guys. So what are you?"

"A pony and a dragon." Spike bluntly replies.

Leon hits himself with the palm of his hand. "I can see that. How are you talking?" he asks.

Twilight raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" she asks.

Leon shrugs. "In my world, ponies and giant lizards-"

"Hey, I resent that." Spike interrupts.

"Fine. Ponies and dragons don't talk. In fact, we don't even have dragons, let alone talking ones. We don't have unicorns either."

"Wow, that world sounds like it sucks." Spike says. Twilight glares at him.

"I don't argue about that," Leon says, getting a chair and sitting down, "Not at all. This world is seven different kinds of fucked up." Leon checks his pocket and pulls out a cigarette. He doesn't smoke it, he just holds it between his fingers.

Twilight covers Spike's ears. "Please don't curse." she says in an agitated tone.

"Are you his mother?" Leon asks, spinning the cigarette on his fingers.

"Of course not... I'm what you may call his keeper and protector. I'm also his best friend." Twilight says.

"You're obviously the right choice for that, seeing as how much you care for him." Leon sighs. "Wish I had someone like that."

Twilight's eyes go from the agitation that was once there to a look of sympathy. "What do you mean?"

"I'm an orphan, for one thing." Leon shrugs. "Doesn't really matter, though."

"Of course it does!" Spike yells. Twilight removes her hooves from his ears.

"You could still hear us?" Twilight asks.

"Yeah."

"Wait, why would it matter? I don't dwell on it, why should you?" Leon asks.

"Because everybody deserves parents. I have the next best thing." Spike looks up at Twilight with happiness and admiration in his eyes. "She's been taking care of me for about thirteen years."

"It's been that long, huh?" Twilight asks. Spike nods. "Well, I was about nine when you hatched... And I'm twenty-two now, so your math is spot-on."

Leon coughs, causing the two to turn back to him. "Sorry to interrupt this beautiful family moment, but can someone explain the giant shimmering liquid glass... Thing in front of me?"

"That's a failed portal. It's supposed to allow me to enter wherever it's opened to. But as you can see..." Twilight taps it with her hoof, causing it to shake like gelatin again.

"Yeah, that would impede travel. So, science or magic?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Did you make this with a machine using science or with magic?" Leon explains.

"Oh, magic. An old spell I found... I think I used Toadstools instead of mushrooms." Twilight thinks for a moment.

Spike pokes the shimmering mass. He giggles in delight. "It's like a giant thing of gelatin!"

"That's what I was thinking!" Leon says, his mouth becoming a smile.

Spike smiles back. "Hey Twilight, can we try that spell again when we find out the problem?"

"I don't know..." Twilight says, looking at Leon like she was scrutinizing his every feature. "Wouldn't everypony else be a little shocked about... What's your name?" she asks the man, finally realizing that they've been talking for about ten minutes and neither side had introduced themselves.

"Leon. Leon C. Thompson." he says, smiling.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle and this is Spike."

"What's his last name?" Leon asks, although he knows he might regret it.

"I don't have a last name and I don't need a last name." Spike replies with an I don't care, don't judge me attitude.

"Fair enough. And I could just stay with you guys, so no one get's freaked out."

Twilight smiles, but then immediately frowns. "This mirror is going to stay open for days. You don't have any housemates, do you?"u

Leon smiles. "My roommate Nick's going to be back in a week. He'd probably like to meet you."

"Well, we'll try to keep this 'bridge' open and get the portal working after that." Twilight says. She smiles at Leon.

Leon smiles back. "I hope it works." he says, pulling out a match and lighting his cigarette. He looks around. "Work something out, I'm going to smoke outside."

Twilight and Spike nod. Leon opens the door, walks out, and slams it shut.

Mushrooms

An hour after he had left the small dorm room, Leon walks back in. "Romeo and Juliet... Are together in eternity, come on baby, don't fear the reaper..." he sings to himself, going over to the chair in front of the so-called 'bridge'. Twilight was also sitting down in her own chair, one of those Bean Bag things. "So, what's the verdict?" he asks, getting a small bag of pretzels off of the counter.

"We used Toadstools instead of mushrooms. Also, I pronounced one of the words wrong." Twilight answers.

A scene from Leon's favorite horror movie came to mind. "Well, at least we know what the problem was and we have a solution." he says, Bruce Campbell's fuck-up in the horror classic Army of Darkness flowing through his mind.

Twlight nods. "My only options are to find some mushrooms around here or teleport some from your world."

Leon stops all motion. "You can do that? Then why don't you teleport me?"

"It has to be smaller than a breadbox for transport between worlds."

"Wow, 20 Questions. Well, I know Nick had some around here... Hold on." Leon gets up and walks over to the fridge. He opens it and pushes two cases of Budwieser out of the way, getting a small bag of mushrooms. Not the 'Eat these and see crazy shit' kind, the kind you put on pizza. He returns to the chair and holds up the bag.

"Perfect!" Twilight shouts. "Just hold it steady, okay?"

Leon does as he's told. Twilight seems to concentrate solely on the bag of mushrooms. A purple aura appears around her horn and the bag. Leon's hand starts to tingle. After about five seconds of waiting, the bag disappears and reappears on the ground in front of Twilight.

"Holy shit! That's fucking sweet!" Leon shouts. Twilight smiles and picks up the bag with her teeth.

"G'ad oo th'nk so!" Twilight says, her voice muffled by the plastic. She turns around and walks off screen.

Leon waits and pulls a small coin from his pocket. He fiddles with it and then throws it at the wall. It bounces off and he catches it. He puts it back in his pocket and walks over to the fridge. He checks it for some white wine. He finds some and grabs the bottle. Grabbing a corkscrew, he walks back to his chair and sits down. He takes a long sip. Twilight finally walks back into frame. She sees the bottle. She raises an eyebrow.

"You want some?" Leon asks. Twilight chuckles.

"Why not?" She concentrates and the bottle goes to her side of the portal. She takes a drink of it, shivering after she removes it from her lips. "Wow, that's some good wine!"

Leon smiles. "Yep. So what's the situation?" The bottle of wine reappears in his hand. He takes a swig.

Twilight smiles. "Well, my magic's too weak to try to open a portal, but I'll try in a couple of days. It's kind of like when I fell into the lake that one summer... Glad that HE was there..." Twilight murmurs the last part of that sentence.

"Pardon?" Leon asks.

Twilight shakes her head. "Nothing. Just a stallion I used to know. He's... Missing."

"Oh. I hope you can find him." Leon says.

Twilight smiles. "Thanks." She teleports the wine back to her side. They spend the next hour drinking the wine together. Leon notices after several drinks that the wine is starting to taste a little different. Like... Lavender and berries... Is that what she tastes like? Leon shrugs it off and leans back in his chair. Better not focus on what she tastes like... That's a bit odd.

Twilight smiles. "The wine's starting to taste like smoke." she says, her face somewhat flush.

Leon chuckles. "Sorry about that."

"Don't be. I like it." she says. She giggles cutely and Leon blushes.

"Well, Uh... For me it's starting to taste like berries." he says, somewhat embarrassed.

"That'd be me! My mom said that I was born on the first day of summer, when all of the berries were blooming!" Twilight says, a slight slur in her voice. She wasn't used to alcohol.

Leon nods and finishes off the wine. "You know, you have really pretty eyes." he says. Indeed she did, a purple that you couldn't help but stare into.

"Yours are like... Like I'm staring into an ocean filled with marbles!" Twilight says.

Leon chuckles. "I'll take that as a compliment. We should go to bed."

Twilight smiles and gets up. She walks forward and bounces off of the bridge. "Aw, I wanted to sleep with you!" she complains.

Leon blushes. "M-maybe another time? Maybe when we get the actual portal open?" he asks. He takes off his shirt. Twilight stares at his chest.

"But I wanna cuddle with you!" she whines.

Leon smiles. "Trust me, the feeling is mutual there. But maybe we can open the portal and THEN worry about that?"

Twilight groans. "Okay." she says in the middle of her groan and walks off frame. She returns with a blanket and lies on the bean bag. Leon looks at her with confusion.

"What're you doing?" he asks.

"Well, the very least we can do is sleep near each other..." she says, flipping onto her belly and spinning around to face him.

"Okay, but just know I snore."

"That's fine. Spike snores all the time, but he never sleeps with me anymore."

"Why?"

"I've been having a LOT of wet dreams lately." Twilight giggles.

Leona blushes. She was definitely drunk. "Go to sleep, Twi."

"Okay, Leon! I'll try not to think about you..." Twilight says. Leon could tell she was lying. He didn't care. He sat on the bed and takes off his jeans. He pulls back the covers and gets into bed. It was very comfy. He was almost instantly asleep.

Breakfast

Leon awoke to the sounds of shouting. "BUCK! I LITERALLY JUST BUCKING WASHED THIS BLANKET YESTERDAY!" Twilight's voice emanated from through the portal.

Leon sits up and rubs his eyes, jarred awake by the sudden noise. "What's going on?"

"I... Uh..." Twilight stops talking, embarrassed.

"You... What?"

"I had a, um... I had one of those dreams where you dream of something sensual and I uh..."

"You came because of that dream onto a clean blanket?"

Twilight doesn't reply for a moment. "I dreamt I got the portal working and you got over here."

It was Leon's turn to blush. "So you dreamt that you and I-"

"Screwed, yes." Twilight finishes his sentence. Leon gets adjusted to the light and sees Twilght dragging a blanket with a large wet spot on it off frame. She wasn't kidding about the wet dream thing she said.

"Why'd I let you get drunk?" Leon thinks aloud, getting out of bed and putting on his jeans. He leaves his shirt off. It was Saturday. His friends would invite him to a shitty party in some shitty suburb and he'd refuse. He only went to parties with Nick or Janice. Saturdays were mostly him lounging around his dorm room and watching movies on Encore and Cinemax, although he barely watched Cinemax.

"You weren't thinking straight, maybe?" Twilight suggests, walking back into frame.

"I was sober when I made that call, Missy." Leon replies with a short laugh. He gets up and walks up to the fridge. He opens it and pulls out two eggs. He approaches the counter, pulls a bowl from one of the shelves and places it on the counter. "Scrambled eggs sound good?" he asks.

Twilight perks up. "Yes, please!"

He chuckles and cracks the eggs, emptying the insides of them into the bowl. He grabs a fork from the drying rack Nick bought, ("Cheaper than a bunch of paper towels!" he had said.) and beats the eggs vigorously. When he's finished, he grabs a pan from the rack above and puts it onto the expensive and very fancy stove. He turns the stove on and grabs a stick of butter from the fridge. He cuts a small piece of it off and puts it into the pan. He moves it around with the fork, letting it melt and cover the bottom of the pan. He pours the eggs onto the pan and walks back to the portal.

"In a couple of minutes, I'll flip the eggs over so they'll evenly cook." he says quickly. He sits down. He looks at Twilight. She looks at him. They both smile.

After the eggs were done, Leon grabs an apple from on top of the fridge and cuts it in half. He then removes the core. He puts equal portions of eggs onto two plates and puts an apple slice on each plate. He walks back with a plate in each hand and sets one down on the small tray he had placed in front of the bridge, as they had decided to call it. His chair was facing the TV, which happened to be opposite the bridge so Twilight could watch too. He sets Twilight's plate down in front of the portal and watches it get engulfed in that purple aura, then disappear. He sits down and turns on the TV, which was currently on Cartoon Network. Samurai Jack was on, which filled Leon with joy. He loved Samurai Jack and tried his damnedest to watch it whenever he could. He and Twilight eat and watch the show, sometimes having quick discussions about the show and how the portal's progress, which happened to be very good. Leon was happy to spend this time with Twilight, and Twilight was happy to spend this time with Leon. When they finish, Leon gets up. "You can keep that plate, Twi." he says with a tone of relaxedness in his voice. She smiles and walks off to wash the plate, Leon doing so too.

Bloodied Up (Contains First Aid/Surgery)

Twilight stares at the door. Leon said he was going to the store and would be back in a couple of minutes. It had been an hour and a half. "Oh, where is he?" she asks. Since Spike was off with the CMC trying to help them get their cutie marks in another asinine scheme for them to become normal, she was alone. She actually liked the little fillies, loved them to death in fact, but she was sick of them trying to be what they weren't. What they were was intelligent, fun, and energetic fillies. Instead, they were working themselves day and night to get a status symbol that they only needed because of some jerk-offs in their school who called them names such as Blank Flank or No-Ass. Mostly the former, although she had overheard one teenager calling them the latter. It pissed her off to no e-
The door burst open. Leon rushed in and slammed it shut. He turned around and slid down the door in a very forlorn fashion. His face was bloodied and he was obviously injured. He puts his face in his hands and sobs once before looking up at Twilight. "I was mugged. Some bastards jumped me and tried to take my goddamn wallet. I fought one of them off, but the others..." Leon stops, choking on what he was going to say. He sobs again. "They beat the tar out of me. One pulled a knife, but I got it away and stabbed him in the arm. The others were spending enough time trying to help him that I was able to get the fuck out of there." He gets up, locks the door, and walks up to the bridge. He sits down in front of it on the chair. He coughs. "Do you have any-"
"Yeah, I have a first aid kit! I'll be right back." Twilight runs off after saying the words in a very concerned fashion. Leon smiles painfully and takes off his shirt. He had many bruises and cuts all over his torso, and his face was a mess of cuts, bruises, and a lot of blood. He got up and moved to in front of the bridge. Twilight came back. A first aid kit was being carried by a purple aura beside her. She opens it and teleports it to beside Leon. She lifts a small cotton ball and a bottle of rubbing alcohol to his head and runs it across some of the cuts on his face. He winces in pain, and she removes the cotton ball. She throws it into a trashcan across the room and lifts a needle that's already threaded. She sews two of the cuts closed, one above his eye and another that's across his nose. She puts the needle in the alcohol to sterilize it and sews the other two cuts closed. Leon grits his teeth. "Thanks." he says.
"Thank me when we get the portal open. Preferably with either a hug or sex." Twilight jokes.
Leon laughs once. "I think I'll go with the first option."
"Your loss." Twilight gets a cotton swab and puts it in the rubbing alcohol. She rubs it on the wounds on his torso, one of which was a deep gash. "Did they cut you, Leo?" she asks.
"Yeah. The cunt had some luck with that knife. I got him good, though. They didn't even see my face, thankfully."
"How do you know?"
"They didn't exactly target my face." Leon smiles. Twilight smiles back and sews the gash and other cuts closed. He winces again. Twilight sighs and sets the needle down. She picks up a large roll of gauze and wraps it around his arm. She also covers his torso, at least the parts with cuts and bruises. She then picks up a bandage and puts it on the cut across his nose. "That's about it. I'm glad you didn't break anything."
"So am I. Get the portal up and running soon, okay?"
"Okay."