My Little Shinobi: Friendship is Eternal Season 1

by GespenstKAF

First published 20th of December, 2012

Naruto finds himself in Equestria, and must make a place for himself as dark forces loom on the horizon.

NOTICE OF CANCELLATION
My desire to continue this story has left me. I might eventually post one final "chapter" where I describe the various events that were planned to occur, but I simply don't have the motivation to proceed anymore.

I do, however, have a new series that I've been musing about for some time, which I hope to start up once my will to write has been renewed.

(An FiM/Naruto crossover, set near an alternate end of the 4th Shinobi World War)

Having successfully defeated the Ten-Tails and foiling the plans of the rogue Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki finds himself in a land populated by brightly colored talking miniature horses. As he steadily adapts to this new land, he learns that not all is sunshine and rainbows in the seemingly peaceful world, and that his battle is not over just yet.

With new friends to make and a mysterious and ancient enemy looming ahead, Naruto plunges headfirst into his newest adventure.

Part 1 of ???.

The Fated Encounter

(Elemental Nations: the Battlefield)

All the backup in the world wouldn’t make a difference in this particular battle. An endless surge of human combatants stood no chance in a fight whose participants’ power rivaled those of the gods.

The very earth felt as though it had shifted as a large nine-tailed fox, burning brightly orange with archaic black markings spanning its body, leapt into the air to narrowly avoid the pitch-black sphere of foul chakra that had been launched at it. Any form of life that was touched by the sphere was quickly consumed and left as nothing more than an empty husk, as evidenced by the multiple patches of dead trees that had shattered like twigs under their own weight shortly after.

Upon landing, the fox leveled a glare of sheer fury at its opponent: a massive humanoid-shaped being of darkness that gazed back with a single red eye, consisting of three circles that expanded outwards from the pupil, each one featuring three tomoe. But what truly defined the monstrosity were the ten tails, black as its body, which lashed about frenziedly.

Atop the fox’s head was a teen, wreathed in the same glow as the fox. The usually thin lines upon his cheeks were now thick bars of black, while the orange chakra formed a tattered long coat around the young man, whose slit pupils were focused with a deadly intensity on the beast before them.

Beneath him, the fox rumbled, “Naruto, do you feel them?”

Naruto nodded, “Yeah: a large number of the Allied Shinobi Army is headed straight for us. But there’s nothing they could do to help; if anything, they’ll just be getting in the way and making this more difficult for us, Kurama.”

“We need to end this as quickly as we can, no matter the consequences: the Jubi must be destroyed once and for all.”

The teen nodded solemnly, before schooling his features, “Kurama, we need to focus all of our chakra into one massive attack. Hopefully, it’ll be enough.”

The fox, Kurama, nodded in agreement as he and his Jinchuriki…no, his partner, began to merge their respective chakra in front of his gaping maw. Within moments, a Charka Sphere, the size of which easily dwarfed any other that they had used before, had formed before them, its very existence pulsating with great power.

The Jubi, roaring in defiance, began to form yet another sphere of its demonic energy. It seemed that the primordial entity would not be going quietly into death, if not at all.

Kurama smirked, “Hey, kid? I regret nothing.”

Naruto smiled softly, “Me neither, fox. Me neither.”

Three roars echoed through the air, accompanied by a massive explosion. Apparently, the Jubi had gotten slow in the reflex department while it was gone, seeing as Kurama and Naruto were able to fire their combined sphere a full second before it could, and that second made all the difference in the world.

Had the Jubi been able to launch its sphere first, Naruto and Kurama would’ve been vaporized, leaving the world to the beast’s eternal wrath.

Because the Jubi’s sphere wasn’t able to fully stabilize, it had been easily punctured by its opponent’s attack, causing its own attack to erupt in its face.

Of course, seeing as it was the Jubi’s foul chakra, the resulting explosion’s expansion proved to have a truly unexpected effect on the victors.

When the Allied Force arrived, they would be greeted by a stunned Killer Bee, who could not take his eyes off of the scarred landscape that earlier played the stage to the key battle of the War. When questioned by a distraught Hinata Hyuga as to the location of Naruto, he could only slump his shoulders and state that he lost sight of him in the explosion. Immediately, every tracker began to search for the missing shinobi, who was no longer in their world, but in another…

(Equestria: Ponyville – Sweet Apple Acres)

Amidst the countless apple trees of Sweet Apple Acres, there was a pony. Not just any pony, mind you: this mare had an orange hue, a blonde mane tied in a ponytail while her tail was done in the same fashion, with an old western-style hat upon her head.

Turning to where the front of her body was facing away from the nearest tree, she raised her hind legs and delivered a mighty buck to the tree trunk. The violent strike jostled dozens of apples from their branches, causing them to plummet down into several barrels that were placed with precision around the trunk.

Lifting up a foreleg to wipe some sweat from her brow, she glanced over at her older brother, Big Macintosh, and her little sister, Apple Bloom, before hollering, “Pick up the pace, ya’ll! The Summer Sun Celebration is in a coupla’ days and we’re in charge of caterin’!”

Big Macintosh, a large red stallion with a horse collar, replied with a simple “Eeyup”, while Apple Bloom, the young ribbon-wearing pale-yellow filly, called back, “No problem, Applejack! Just keep buckin’ those apples!”

Applejack grinned, “Don’t you worry about that, Apple Bloom; I-”

Her voice left her as her eyes looked skyward, with her siblings following: in the sky above was a shooting star, but it was the middle of the day. That shouldn’t be possible, right?

Three pairs of eyes watched the blazing shape as it plummeted from the heavens to the ground below: judging from how it was moving, it was going to land right…

“MOVE!”

The three ponies were able to retreat to a safe distance just seconds before the star came crashing down right where she was standing. Luckily, nopony was hurt, apart from a few apple trees and the ground that broke the object’s fall.

After several tense seconds of waiting, it seemed like that was the end of it. Applejack cautiously approached the smoking crater that now decorated their orchard to find out just what the hay was going on.

What she found was certainly not what she was expecting…which wasn’t hard, because she wasn’t sure what she should be expecting.

Within that crater was some sort of critter that she had never seen before in her life: it had four appendages just like her, but instead of hooves, these ended with five stub-things. While it had a blonde mane, it only covered the top of its head, and it had no visible tail. What really set it apart from any other critter was that judging from its body shape, it spent most of its life walking on only its hind legs.

What caught her attention was its clothing: dark orange that was currently stained red with its-

“It’s hurt! Look at all that blood…”

“Eeyup.”

Applejack looked at her siblings, “Big Macintosh, help me get it back to the house. Apple Bloom, go on ahead and let Granny Smith know what’s goin’ on.”

“Eeyup/You got it, sis!”

Apple Bloom shot off like a squirrel toward the family house while Applejack and Macintosh descended into the shallow crater to retrieve the wounded creature.

Little did they know that, with the actions they had taken, the future of Equestria would be altered forever…

A Peaceful Respite

(Naruto’s Subconscious)

Ever since Naruto and Kurama had become true partners, the area where the latter had formerly been contained had changed drastically. What had once been a sewer with a massive cage had soon transformed into a seemingly endless meadow surrounding a massive forest. It was within this forest that the nine-tailed fox dwelled when his partner did not require his immediate aid.

At the moment, the large fox was sprawled out in the meadow, with Naruto propped against his side, deep in a slumber facilitated by the gentle rumble of Kurama’s breathing. While in the past it would’ve been annoying, Naruto sleeping within his mindscape would allow Kurama to accelerate Naruto’s healing to an unimaginable level… had they still been in an environment rich with chakra. However, this world that they have wound up in after their battle with the Jubi did not seem to possess anything that naturally produced chakra, or even artificial chakra for that matter.

Not a scrap of chakra anywhere in this world… how could anything possibly survive, or even exist?

Yet, for some reason, something about this world felt… familiar.

At the moment however, Kurama’s main concern was healing his partner, not wondering about some vague sense of nostalgia. Without shifting the rest of his body, Kurama turned his head to look upon Naruto’s sleeping form. His face twisted in a grimace: while Naruto’s metaphysical body seemed perfectly fine, his real body was healing at a worryingly slow rate.

Believing it to be connected to the lack of ambient chakra, the vulpine giant could only theorize as to how long it would take before Naruto was back at full strength.

An impressively loud yawn roused Kurama from his musings: the young sage Jinchuriki had finally awoke.

Wiping sleepy tears from his eyes, Naruto looked up into the slit pupils of Kurama’s eyes and grinned, “Morning, you big carpet.”

Kurama snorted and retaliated immediately, “Hairless monkey.”

The two of them quickly broke down into snickering. Instead of the venom that used to accompany such exchanges, this was simply playful banter among friends and comrades: Naruto’s mysterious ability to eventually befriend just about any being he encountered was truly a powerful and magnificent thing to behold.

With that out of the way, Kurama steeled himself for what he knew was coming, “Brat, I’ve got a bit of good news and some bad news.”

Naruto blinked: that was quite a change in mood, even for the fox, “Alright? What’s up?”

“The good news is that we defeated the Jubi and freed the seven whole Biju that were trapped within it. I felt their presence after that damn beast was consumed by the explosion.”

Naruto nodded, “That is good news… Well, for them, anyway: not any nearby wildlife that they appeared on top of... And the bad news?”

Kurama’s ears folded back against his scalp in an attempt to further protect his hearing, “We got caught in that same explosion. We’re not dead, but we’re not in our world anymore.”

Silence… which was broken instantaneously by Naruto’s indignant screech of “WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!?”

Kurama tilted his head: should he be worried that the sight of Naruto going into incoherent panicked rambling was rather amusing? Eh, whatever.

Tapping the top of the boy’s head with the tip of one of his tails to momentarily silence him, Kurama continued, “Not only that, it seems that whatever world we’ve wound up in has a seriously low amount of chakra.”

Eye twitching, Naruto managed to scrape out, “Exactly how much is ‘seriously low’?”

Kurama grinned weakly, “Uh… None whatsoever?”

He tried, he truly did. But the sight of Naruto burying his face into the fox’s fur in a vain attempt to muffle his scream of anguish was too much to remain silent. Kurama’s bark of laughter rang throughout the mindscape, echoing beyond the eternal horizon. Getting it out of his system, Kurama proceeded to gently nudge the near-hysterical Uzumaki into paying further attention, “We are not the sole beings of sentience in this world, Naruto.”

Taking a moment to compose himself after his little episode, Naruto looked into the eyes of the great beast, “What do you mean by that?”

Alright, Kurama’s patience was now officially used up.

“Just wake up, dammit!”

As one of Kurama’s nine tails swung down to send him back to consciousness, Naruto would always deny producing a high-pitched shriek of terror that would’ve made a pre-Chunin Exam Sakura both proud and irritated beyond belief.

(Ponyville: Sweet Apple Acres – Big Macintosh’s room)

A pair of eyelids were nearly ripped in twine as the sapphire orbs beneath them sought to view the world… only to immediately shut again as their owner winced and let out a hiss of pain. Taking a moment to readjust, Naruto looked down to see that everything below his neck was covered by a thick red comforter. Steeling himself for the worst, he sat up and allowed gravity to pull the warm sheet from his body.

His eyes widened: a good amount of his torso, as well as his arms, had been cleaned and well-wrapped in medical bandages, though they had a slight tint of red from leftover blood. Peeking out from beneath the bandages, Naruto could see the telltale signs of chakra-induced burn scars: a sort of morbid trophy of their victory over the Jubi. He let out a soft sigh: at least he didn’t lose any limbs or was horribly disfigured from the explosion. Or was he? He could very well have suffered nasty burns to his face that he couldn’t see.

He attempted to leap to his feet to search for any sort of reflective surface, only to come crashing down to the floor on his front. The pain was, well, painful, so nobody could blame him for letting out a shout that easily got the point across. Naruto pressed his face into the floor in a vain attempt to soothe the now-throbbing pain, his ears failing to register the sound of… hooves?

Lifting his head as little as he did, it was easy to mistake the equine-like creature in front of him to be larger than it truly was.

A yelp of surprise later, Naruto was crawling backwards as fast as he could… before he realized that the creature that startled him was actually rather small. He let out a sigh of relief.

“Well, ain’t you a sight ta’ see?”

Okay, that was a voice he didn’t know. And what was that strange accent?

A closer inspection revealed that the only living things in the room at the time were him and the horse-thing. It was small and obviously young, and the mane, decorated with a big bright bow, reminded him of brightly colored raspberries. The coat was pale, with a light grayish olive hue to it. And the eyes, those big bright gamboge eyes. All in all, this thing was adorable. If he knew whether or not it was dangerous, he would probably be cuddling it right now (followed by having Kurama swear not to tell anybody).

A rather cool breeze from the window caused Naruto to realize that, while he still had his pants intact, his jacket and mesh shirt were nowhere in sight. He opened his mouth to ask where the other half of his outfit was, only to produce dry coughs that brought him to his knees.

The small horse, a filly judging from appearance alone, gasped, “Poor thing! Yer’ throat must be drier than a well in the desert! Ya’ll wait right here, and Ah’ll get a glass a’ water.”

As the filly disappeared through the doorway, Naruto couldn’t help huffing in indignation: ‘poor thing’? He was a ninja, a sage! He (and Kurama) beat down the Jubi, the primordial demon, for crying out loud! He was anything but a ‘poor thing’.

Though, when he thought about it more clearly, he was in an unknown world that seemed to have nothing that naturally produced chakra: that meant that he would have to limit his usage of chakra until he could develop some form of alternative accumulation of the life energy. With this realization, he blanched: no Nature chakra meant no Sage Mode, one of his best ways of fighting apart from using any variation of the Chakra Shroud. His attempt to yell in frustration only led to another coughing fit.

As if indirectly summoning her, it was at that moment that the filly returned to the room, balancing a tray with several glasses of water on her back. Carefully making her way across the room, she made a motion with her head towards the tray on her back. Interpreting it easily, Naruto reached out and gently relieved the filly of her cargo and setting it on the floor in front of him. Forgoing any sense of decency for the moment, he grabbed one of the glasses and swiftly downed the much-needed cool liquid.

So absorbed with the need to soothe his dry throat, Naruto was unaware of the look of sheer fascination on the filly’s face as he downed another glass. She seemed quite interested in his hands, particularly his fingers that were able to grasp objects with ease. The filly lifted one of her front legs and brought her hoof to her face, appearing to contemplate the difference between her and the thirsty lad. She was brought from her musings by a loud sigh of relief from the creature that currently held her interest, and had to stifle a giggle at the look of pure satisfaction on his face. She spared a glance at the exposed torso before elaborating, “Some a’ yer clothes were pretty messed up, what with the blood and all, so my big sister Applejack took them into town to see if anypony could clean and fix em’ up for ya’.”

She got concerned and a little defensive when a look of absolute shock and awe made its way onto the thing’s face, “What’s the matter: don’t ya’ll know how ta’ talk?”

“Yes, and I can understand you perfectly. But that itself is the matter.”

The look of surprise on the filly’s face pretty much forced Naruto to explain, “I’m not from around here: that means that not only should I not understand you, but you shouldn’t understand me.”

The filly looked puzzled, “But Ah do understand ya: yer speakin’ exactly the way Ah am.”

Naruto chuckled, “Not exactly like you are. Anyway, do you have a name?”

The filly grinned, “Apple Bloom! Nice ta’ meet’cha, Mister…?”

“Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki. Now, Apple Bloom, could you please tell me where I am?”

“Yer at Sweet Apple Acres, located in good ol’ Ponyville!”

“…Pony…ville?”

(Ponyville: Carousal Boutique)

Applejack stood outside the (in her opinion) ridiculous-looking building, tattered clothing safely secured within her saddle-pack. Time and again, whenever she was required to travel past this particular structure, she constantly told herself that she would never set hoof in that frou-frou fortress. Today, however, she would have to make an exception: it wasn’t like she could just send that critter away with the injuries it had without some sturdy clothing to protect it from the elements. After all, the only hair it had was on its head and one other spot down by its legs: with such an undeveloped coat, it was no wonder that he (after what she saw, there was no doubt that whatever he was, he is male) wore so many clothes!

With a deep breath, Applejack swallowed her pride and entered the building.

Sweet Celestia, it was even tackier inside than outside! She just wanted to find the owner, get these clothes fixed, maybe get something tougher made for the critter, and be on her way. With this mindset in place, she let out a holler, “HELLLOOOOOO?! ANYPONY HOOOOOOOME!?”

A yelp of surprise, accompanied by multiple crashes, rang out from deep within the boutique. Applejack, being the Samaritan she is, did not hesitate to rush toward the origin of the disturbance in order to help a pony in need.

Arriving in what she assumed to be the primary work area, Applejack was greeted with the sight of a squirming pile of mumbling fabric. Now even AJ knew that fabric didn’t mumble, so she quickly began to unravel the cloth to free the pony contained within. After about half a minute, the resident seamstress was freed from her designer dungeon.

The Unicorn took a deep gulp of the air she had been temporarily deprived of, before taking an analytical look at the farming Earth pony, “And what can I do for you today, besides give you a complete makeover?”

Applejack, taking the high road by ignoring Rarity’s barb, rummaged through her saddle-pack before withdrawing the clothing that was previously worn by the mysterious visitor from the sky. A screech of outrage was the mare’s only warning before the clothes were yanked from her possession by the fashionable Unicorn’s magic, “What in the name of Celestia happened to these?” As she laid them out to survey the damage, she noticed their unusual shape, “And just what in Equestria wears them?”

Applejack tapped sheepishly at the tiled floor with a hoof, “To answer your first question, their owner kinda… fell from the sky.”

Rarity’s jaw dropped, “The sky?!”

Applejack smiled weakly, “And as fer the second, Ah don’t know jus' what he is. All Ah really know is that he’s male and looks like he moves around on jus' his hind legs.”

Shaking herself from her stunned stupor, Rarity levitated the foreign clothing in front of her, “Hmm, it may take me a bit since I’ve never worked on something like this, but I should be able to finish before tonight.” She gave the orchard mare a smile, “Any other requests?”

Applejack mused for the better part of a minute before a giant grin threatened to split her head in half, “Well, he needs something tough for daily use…”

As Applejack gave the details for her idea, Rarity’s smile slowly morphed into a determined grin: if she could pull this off, she would be immortalized in the annals of fashion!

(Ponyville: Sweet Apple Acres – Outside the Apple home)

Apple Bloom was ecstatic at what she had just seen, “How did you do that, Naruto? Huh? Huh? Huh?” She kept repeating “Huh?” as she bounced in a circle around the individual in question until he physically halted her intent of endless orbit.

For you see, after Apple Bloom had described Ponyville and the ponies that lived there, Naruto decided that he wanted to see it for himself. However, he knew that going out looking like he did would cause either a panic or a ruckus, or at least a fracas. So what did he do?

He asked Kurama to use a special Transformation Jutsu on him, since he was trying to preserve his own chakra for any emergencies that might occur.

A concealing cloud of dark smoke later, and Apple Bloom found herself staring at an Earth pony, falling just short of her big brother in height, with a rust-orange coat. His mane was blond, and it spiked out all the way down to the tip. His tail, the same rust-orange as his coat, resembled more of a fox tail than that of a pony, though it was almost as long as he was and, considering how he halted her, prehensile as well. His ears were rather long for a pony, and had black markings that stretched from the inside of his ears to surrounding his sapphire-blue eyes.

Naruto blinked as he thought of something to say, “Uh, magic?”

Apple Bloom gave him a stern look (which failed spectacularly because of how cute it made her look), “But Earth ponies can’t use magic like Unicorns can.”

Naruto gave the filly a grin that caused him to look far more vulpine than equine, “Then I guess I’m special, huh?”

Apple Bloom turned her head to call out to old Granny Smith, sleeping in her rocker on the porch, “Granny, is it alright that I take my new friend on a tour of Ponyville?”

The near-ancient mare simply continued to snooze away, muttering unintelligibly in her sleep.

The filly turned back to Naruto with a cute-yet-sly grin, “She didn’t say no.”

“She didn’t say anything.”

“Still counts!”

With that, the filly took off giggling as the shinobi-turned-stallion raced after her, laughing just as joyously.

Neither of them knew, that by going into Ponyville that day, they would begin a series of events that would forge new bonds of friendship that would last for eternity.

Forging Bonds, Near and Far

(Ponyville)

At noon, with the sun shining lazily upon them, Naruto and Apple Bloom made their way around the town that Naruto would eventually be calling home. Ponyville was bustling with activity: shops and stalls were selling their wares, restaurants catered to the lunch rush, while colts and fillies ran about and played without a care in the world. The buildings themselves gave off a cozy feeling and were surprisingly well constructed, considering that they must have been built by the ponies that inhabited them. Naruto sighed to himself: he was reminded of Konoha… at least, before constant attacks by S-ranked powerhouses and various wackjobs reduced it to a crater.

Apple Bloom heard his sigh and turned her neck back slightly so she could see him, “You alright, Naruto?”

The Shinobi-stallion gave the young filly a smile, “Yeah, I’m fine: just feeling a little--”

His voice came to a halt as a small group of young ponies rushed past him, some of them possessing either a horn upon their head or a pair of wings on their back. Apple Bloom saw the look of shock on his face and laughed, “You act like you’ve never seen a Unicorn or a Pegasus before.”

Naruto shook his head, “I haven’t. Sure, horses exist where I’m from, but something special like those would probably be a Summon or something.” He blinked: maybe there was an equine summoning contract back in his world. If that were the case, he wondered if they would be anything like the ones in this world. At that moment, the mental image of various members of the Akatsuki, as well as enemies and rivals from a time long ago, being buried under a writhing mass of brightly colored ponies came to mind, and Naruto couldn’t contain his laughter.

Since only he knew the reason he was laughing, Naruto assumed that he would be the only one laughing, thereby producing an embarrassing scene that he would have to deal with. Well, as the old saying goes… which is why he was genuinely surprised to hear female laughter alongside his own. Even more interesting was that it was not Apple Bloom.

Naruto found himself staring at a bright pink Earth Pony, whose mane and tail were merely a darker shade of pink. On her flank was some sort of mark that clearly resembled a trio of balloons. Every few seconds or so, her eyes would open slightly, revealing blue sapphire irises that rivaled his own. Her laughter was ridiculously chipper, even for him. Without any warning, she cut off in mid-laugh and asked,

“Hiya! What’s your name?”

Naruto couldn’t help but blink at the pony’s sudden shift in activity, “Uh, I’m Naruto Uzumaki. And you would be…?”

“I’m Pinkie Pie, and you must be new here.”

“Uh, yeah, but how--”

“You see, I’ve never seen you before, and if I’ve never seen you before that means you're new, 'cause I know everypony, and I mean everypony in Ponyville!”

Naruto gapped, “That… is amazing. You actually know everyone in town?”

Pinkie tilted her head in a particularly cute manner before giggling, “You have a funny accent, Nah-rue-toe. Come to think of it, your name sounds pretty funny, too. Where did you say you’re from?”

Naruto gave an inward start: he didn’t think of a cover story! Fortunately, Apple Bloom came to his rescue,
“He didn’t. Naruto’s from Neighpon: he’s a close friend of the Apple family, so our great uncle Fuji brought him along to help out for the festival.”

As Pinkie Pie appeared to accept the explanation, Naruto was amazed that Apple Bloom came up with that on the spot. She must have some prankster blood flowing through her.

He was proven right when he saw that prankster’s sparkle in the filly’s eye, “Earlier, he told me that Ponyville was such a nice town that he’s planning on staying after the festival.”

Before the poor blond could open his mouth to protest, Pinkie turned back to him with the biggest smile on her face, “Really?! I’m going to have to throw you a Pinkie Pie-style “Welcome to Ponyville” Party! Oh, it’ll be so much fun! There’ll be sweets, games, housewarming gifts… Wait: do you have a place of your own, or will you be staying at Sweet Apple Acres? You should think about getting your own place because then you can have as much fun as you want without anypony telling you to keep it down, since it’ll be your home and all. What were we talking about? Oh, right: the party! I’ll need to send out invitations and--”

By the Sage, just how long can this pony go before she requires another lungful of air?! Naruto wanted to see more of Ponyville, so at this point he was mentally beseeching any and every deity in this world to provide some sort of intervention.

And as the saying goes in another world: “Ask and ye shall receive.”

At that moment, Pinkie’s tail seemed to be experiencing some sort of spasm, causing her to immediately divert all of her attention to it, “Uh oh: twitchy tail.”

Naruto blinked, “What’s the matter, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie looked at him like he had spoken in another language, “My tail! It’s a’ twitchin’! That means that something is about to fall from the sky!”

He quirked an eyebrow, “Say what, now? I’ve heard of unusual predictions, but--”

“LOOK OUT BELOW! INCOMING!”

Naruto had only a single second to look skyward before he was struck by a plummeting object, colliding hard enough to kick up a fairly large cloud of dust that engulfed him completely. As the two Earth Ponies coughed and tried in vain to disperse the cloud by waving their hooves like fans, a blue Pegasus with a multicolored mane swooped down nearby.

Purple eyes examined Apple Bloom and Pinkie, “Is everypony alright?”

Apple Bloom smiled sheepishly, “We’re fine, but I’m pretty sure that Naruto isn’t.”

The blue mare blinked in confusion, “Who?”

Pinkie pointed a hoof at the dust cloud, “Him: the one that doubted the power of my Pinkie Sense.”

The winged pony put a little extra oomph in her beats, scattering the concealing dust. The sight that was revealed was a rather amusing one: Naruto was on his back with his forelegs curled reflexively over his ribcage and his hind legs splayed out, with a grey Pegasus sporting a mane with a lighter shade of blonde draped across his belly. Just like with Pinkie Pie, these ponies also bore marks upon their flanks: the blue Pegasus had a white cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt, while the grey mare had an assortment of two large bubbles accompanied by five smaller bubbles.

Naruto groaned as he opened his eyes, “Ugh, what hit me?”

An amused tomboyish voice answered him, “That would be Derpy.”

Once he finally regained his bearings, Naruto found himself literally face-to-face with a pair of crossed eyes possessing a gradient from yellow-lime to amber. Currently, those eyes were shimmering with worry, “I’m so sorry! I was flying with Rainbow Dash and I suddenly fell; I just don’t know what went wrong! Are you okay, mister?”

He couldn’t help but smile: concerned about someone that she hadn’t even properly met? This little pony, Derpy, must be one of the purest souls he had ever encountered.

The exaggerated gagging noises of Kurama certainly ruined the moment, though.

Carefully keeping the mounting annoyance out of his voice, he replied as kindly as possible, “Don’t worry about me: I’ve been through worse.”

Derpy clamored to get off of him as the other Pegasus present offered a hoof, “Name’s Rainbow Dash: the fastest flyer around.”

Naruto gratefully accepted her help, “Naruto Uzumaki: the new guy in town.”

Rainbow let out a chuckle at the unexpected rhyme, “So what brings you to Ponyville, Naruto: the Summer Sun Celebration?”

“Yeah,” Naruto replied, beginning the process of weaving himself into the tapestry that was his cover, “And I heard from many visitors to Neighpon that Ponyville is such a nice place to live, I’m thinking of settling down here.”

The sky-blue Pegasus buffed the hoof of her right foreleg against her puffed-out chest, “Yeah, Ponyville’s an awesome place. Ya know, I’ve been asked to keep the sky clear for the celebration.” She looked at the orange stallion and smirked, “And I can do it in ten seconds flat.”

Naruto blinked: even though it sounded outlandish, he’d heard, seen and done stranger. He developed a Jutsu that turned him into a woman, for crying out loud! He smiled, “I’ll take your word for it, Rainbow Dash. It was nice meeting you, but we should be going: Apple Bloom was showing me around Ponyville, and I’m sure you three have better things to do.”

“I got nothing going on/Carrot Top is watching the girls today/Nope,” were the responses of Rainbow Dash, Derpy and Pinkie, respectively.

Naruto couldn’t help but sweatdrop (he was genuinely surprised that he could do it here): they seemed to respond a little too quickly.

Displaying physical strength that greatly betrayed her appearance, Pinkie somehow got a decent hold on Naruto and began leading him off in a seemingly random direction, “First thing’s first: head to Sugarcube Corner for some yummy treats!”

With Derpy’s cry of “Muffins!”, the group of five started their trek to their apparently next destination.

(Canterlot: Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns)

“Twilight! Spike! What took you so long to get back?”

In the city of Canterlot is an academy known as Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. As the name suggests, the student body is composed entirely of Unicorns: amongst them, two in particular would become vital links in the chain of destiny that was in the process of being forged.

“Lyra, how do you keep getting in here?”

One of which present, however, could hardly stand the other and her theories.

“It wasn’t that hard, Twilight: my personal studies have taught me how to successfully and effectively pick locks. It would’ve been easier if I had fingers though. You should be grateful for what you have, Spike!”

“Uhhh…”

“Ugh. Lyra: first, breaking and entering is wrong. Second, I’m tired of hearing what you think about “humans”: they’re just an old pony’s tale.”

“Is that right? Then would you like to explain just why I was able to find THIS?”

The mighty clap of a thick book meeting the floor got both the personal apprentice of Celestia and her young dragon ward (“assistant!”) to yelp in surprise. Dispersing the shock, Twilight Sparkle looked carefully at the title of the book:

Equestria: Founding and History

She frowned immediately, “This is just another history book, Lyra.”

The minty-green Unicorn shook her head, never losing her grin, “This isn’t “just another history book”: this one specifically mentions humans, saying that humans were capable of fully bipedal locomotion, leaving their arms available for manipulating objects using their hands, aided especially by opposable thumbs. And get this: I’ve read pretty much the entire book, and it sounds like a member of the royal family had a hoof in writing this!”

Twilight didn’t want to admit it, but her curiosity was peaked. Doing her best to sound disinterested, she pressed in a bored tone, “Really? And just who was it?”

Here, Lyra frowned, “It must’ve been somepony who passed on: have you heard of anypony named Solstice?”

Twilight shook her head, “No, I’ve never heard that name before until just now.” An impressed look appeared on her face, “I must admit: you’ve put an extraordinary amount of time and effort into learning about something so obscure and discredited. Where did you find this thing, anyway?”

“Princess Celestia’s personal library.”

“WHAAAAAAAT?!”

“H…how did you…?”

“I told you two I can pick locks.”

(Ponyville: Within the Everfree Forest)

“Oh, dear: where could he have gone off to?”

On the outskirts of the southeastern side of Ponyville, there lay a seemingly endless sea of trees. This mysterious and unnatural place was known to all of Equestria as the Everfree Forest. Within the forest, both flora and fauna grew without restraint and the weather would alter of its own accord, completely unmanaged by Ponies.

Had it been any other day, a certain timid Pegasus by the name of Fluttershy would never even imagine setting hoof within the environment. However, her pet rabbit Angel Bunny had ran off into its depths, leaving the pale yellow mare no other choice than to go in after him.

That had been hours ago, and she still hadn’t seen a single sign of him. She was starting to get really worried.

“Once I find him and we get home, I’m going to give him a stern talking to.”

As the Pegasus continued trekking deeper into the forest in search of her wayward rabbit, she was completely unaware that she herself was being tailed. And, unfortunately for Fluttershy, her tracker had far from benevolent intentions. The thick trees hid her follower from view, yet allowing them to keep a constant sight on her. Sharp fangs glinted in the light as a thick tongue swept over them, their owner practically salivating at the vision of its next meal.

With stealth that betrayed its appearance, it quickly disappeared into a freshly-dug burrow and began to tunnel after the unsuspecting mare.

(Ponyville: outside Sugarcube Corner)

“Guh: too… many… sweets…”

Naruto’s female companions giggled (except Rainbow Dash, who insists she chuckled) at his pitiful moan as he gently rubbed his comically-round belly with a hoof. He stared at Pinkie, “How? How are you able to eat so many sweets and not feel bloated?”

Pinkie blinked, “I dunno: how come you can’t? Didn’t you have sweets back in Neighpon?”

Naruto moaned again before responding, “I was a vagabond, remember? I didn’t exactly possess the funds to buy anything: everything I had, I found with my own ha- uh, hooves.”

This got their undivided attention, with Rainbow asking, “What? Don’t you have relatives that could’ve helped you out?”

The humorous air was replaced by an aura of sadness as Naruto answered, “No: my parents died the day I was born, and I had no living relatives or family friends to take me in. I’ve been on my own since the very beginning.” ‘But, even if I didn’t know at the time, I had you watching out for me, Kurama.’

“We weren’t exactly as close then as we are now, brat. And besides: if you die, I die, and I have no intention of dying anytime soon.”

The reactions to this revelation were mixed:

Apple Bloom didn’t know what she was feeling as she stared at the disguised human. It was true that Mom and Dad were gone, but she still had Applejack, Big Macintosh and Granny Smith. Naruto, though: he never got to spend time with his parents, and he didn’t have family to raise him. Her eyes shone with sadness as tears began to fall from her chin to the ground.

Rainbow Dash felt a stabbing guilt at having brought up something painful to her new friend, even if it was unintentional. However, she couldn’t help but be amazed at the stallion before her: on his own from day one, and he still managed to get to where he is now, and so warm and friendly. Had she been faced with the same hardships, she wasn’t one-hundred percent certain that she would’ve been as good as Naruto: he made it through and turned out the way he did, and Rainbow Dash was proud to call him her friend.

Derpy had both eyes focused on the rust-orange stallion. She herself had faced troubling times growing up, but she persevered and now had two daughters that she was raising with the help of close friends. Well, okay: she was primarily raising the younger filly, Dinky, whose adopted big sister Sparkler helped out when the others were too busy. She understood the importance and wonder of being a family, and Naruto had never been part of one? A few rogue tears found themselves traveling down the Pegasus’ face.

Pinkie had the most pronounced reaction: she threw her forelegs around Naruto’s neck and bawled loudly, ocular gushers of tears and all. She was attempting to say something, probably words of apology and encouragement, but Naruto for the life of him could not understand the pink mare’s words.

It was then that a loud female cry pierced the air.

Snapping out of her temporary funk, Rainbow Dash seemed to recognize the origin of the scream, “That was Fluttershy!”

Derpy’s hoof shot up like there was a spring attached to it, pointing towards the large forest to the southeast, “It sounds like it came from the Everfree Forest!”

Pinkie found herself trying to hold air as Naruto easily slipped from her grasp and, displaying something that no ordinary Earth Pony should be capable of, leapt from the street onto the rooftops and bolted toward the forest.

“NARUTO!” Apple Bloom cried out at his abrupt departure.

Rainbow became airborne, “Hang on, Fluttershy! I’m coming!”

Derpy was momentarily startled when Apple Bloom hopped onto her back, “Miss Hooves, we gotta go after him: I’m responsible for Naruto while he gets settled in!”

Pinkie bounced up and down with a grin, “OOH, OOH! I wanna go, too: this sounds exciting!”

Seconds later, Derpy was taking to the air as well, with her two passengers on board, ready to follow Naruto and Rainbow Dash…

…the latter of whom had stopped, staring to the southeast with a look of absolute shock on her face.

“Rainbow Dash,” the farm filly asked, “what’s the matter?”

The blue Pegasus pointed, and when she looked, Apple Bloom’s jaw dropped:
Naruto wasn’t in his disguise anymore! He was tearing across the roofs on the two legs of his human form in broad daylight!

Apparently the older mares saw her face, because all three of theirs bore expectant looks.

Apple Bloom felt rather ashamed at having been caught lying, “I’ll explain on the way, alright? Right now, Naruto’s getting ahead of us.”

(Ponyville: Carousel Boutique)

Applejack and Rarity stood outside the latter’s boutique, Applejack’s saddle-bag bulging with Rarity’s completed project within.

“Thank ya kindly, Miss Rarity:AhI’m sure he’ll love what you’ve done.”

“I’m quite certain he will, dearie. However, I plan on presenting them myself, so I can see just how much he appreciates my hard work.”

“…You just want to see what he looks like, don’tcha?”

“Why, I never! I just… I…”

Rarity’s words perished on her tongue as her eyes widened in amazement. Applejack turned to look in the same direction, and felt her jaw attempt to unhinge as the mysterious creature of interest was running on his two legs in the direction of the nearby Everfree Forest.

Rarity, finally recomposing herself, asked, “Dearie: why is that thing you told me about going into that wretched place?”

Seconds after the bipedal creature disappeared amongst the trees, did a quartet of Ponies appear in hot pursuit. Noticing a very familiar bow, Applejack blurted, “Just what in tarnation does Apple Bloom think she’s doing?! She knows that forest is dangerous!”

Quick as a whip, Applejack bolted off after the group: a few seconds into her gallop, she became aware of another set of hooves just behind her. Craning her head slightly, she saw that Rarity -- Rarity – had joined in the chase. Beside herself, she called out, “Now, what in the hay do you think you’re doing?!”

Increasing her speed, Rarity was now galloping beside the farm mare, “I told you, didn’t I? I want to see this creature up close for myself!”

Applejack groaned in frustration as they shortly found themselves swallowed up by the dark forest.

(With Naruto)

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Naruto?!”

Naruto’s eyes glinted like steel in the sparse patches of sunlight that fought through the forest canopy, “There’s someone in trouble, Kurama. I can’t just stand idle when there’s something I can do to help.”

“Your chakra level is still dangerously low! You won’t even be able to make a single Shadow Clone without passing out!”

“Then loan me a decent chunk of yours!”

“My chakra is dangerous: too much of it at once could kill you, and because of our connection, I’ll die as well!”

Another scream, this one sounding very close.

“Well, you’re going to have to think of something, you jumbo-sized shag carpet! I’m helping, whether you like it or not!”

With that, Naruto leapt through the last set of trees with all his might.

(Everfree Forest: Suspiciously Convenient Open Field)

Fluttershy was on the verge of hyperventilating, her legs and wings locked up in fear. Just when she had finally found Angel Bunny, she herself had been found when part of the ground nearby exploded upwards, which she had screamed at the first time.

The beast looming over her sported a hungry grin: a massive, bipedal, dinosaur-like creature with a gray underside and covered in red, segmented plates of thick skin which appeared to resemble armor. There were also spikes that ran along the sides of its head, body, and tail. It had four claws on each hand, three claws on each foot, and four claw-like blades on the end of its large tail. Its eyes, which possessed a yellow sclera, black iris and a white pupil, were focused solely on her and Angel.

Fluttershy had a crippling fear that stood out above the rest, and that fear now stood before her: a dragon. But this wasn’t any run-of-the-mill dragon: this was an Earth Dragon, a species of dragon known for stalking their prey from underground before bursting up to devour them. This one, however, seemed to be rather cruel: instead of ending it quickly, the dragon wanted her to see just what would be cutting her life short.

It spoke in a booming and clearly male voice, “LITTLE PONY! YOU AND PUNY BUNNY ARE TERRAIN’S NEXT MEAL! ME HUNGRY, SO TIME TO EAT NOW!”

Fluttershy screamed once more (and possibly for the last time) as the Earth Dragon, Terrain, brought one of his clawed hands down upon the terrified Pegasus: too afraid to move, all she could do was close her eyes and hope that she would feel no pain.

Because her eyes were clenched tightly shut, she didn’t understand why, instead of feeling the dragon’s solid hand crushing her body, she felt a burst of air that sent her mane whipping violently with the harsh breeze. Puzzled by a strangled cry of anger from Terrain, Fluttershy slowly forced her eyes open…

…to discover that a strange creature, the likes of which she had never seen before, had stopped the dragon’s downward strike with its bare… hands? What was more, Fluttershy noticed that the biped’s torso and parts of its arms were wrapped in bandages: an injured creature had swooped in from nowhere to save her life!

“GRR, STUPID UGLY MONKEY-THING! GET OUT OF WAY AND LET TERRAIN EAT!”

“Well, that was rude,” the creature, apparently also male, retorted, “I’ve been told that I’m rather handsome.”

With that, the strange newcomer pushed the dragon’s hand away with enough force to put the beast off balance. Holding out his right arm, a spiraling blue sphere suddenly came into existence within the creature’s hand. Lunging forward with a cry of “RASENGAN!”, the sphere was driven into Terrain’s exposed grey underside.

Fluttershy watched with a horrified fascination as the blue sphere dug into the dragon’s flesh. Terrain roared in surprise and pain as he found himself being dislodged from the ground and sent into a backward spiral, traveling across pretty much the entire field before coming to a crashing halt in the unforgiving dirt.

Having put distance between himself and the dragon, the creature turned to face her, revealing a face unlike any other in this world made even more unique by the whisker-like marks upon it. Brilliantly bright blue eyes, shining like sapphires, flitted across her body in a search for any visible injuries. She gasped when she saw the telltale signs of fresh blood appearing across the bandages around his torso. If he was aware of it, he didn’t seem to care in the least as he knelt down close to her, “Are you alright?”

“Wh-who are you? What are you?”

“Name’s Naruto Uzumaki: human, and your designated savior for today.” He extended a hand toward her, palm up, “Let’s get you out of here, Fluttershy.”

A little startled that this… “human” knew her name, Fluttershy placed a hoof in his hand, gratefully accepting his helping her to her hooves.

On the other side of the field, Terrain groaned as he rose to his feet: that hairless monkey hurt him with some kind of archaic magic! He roared in anger, “PUNY MONKEY NO BEAT TERRAIN! TERRAIN MIGHTIEST EARTH DRAGON!”

Growling, Naruto extended both of his index and middle fingers, crossing them in front of himself and called, “Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!”

Countless clouds of white smoke erupted across the field. When they dissipated, both Fluttershy and Terrain stared in absolute shock: each cloud revealed an exact copy of Naruto, their combined total taking up almost a quarter of the field. Terrain understood some combat tactics, and he was well aware of the one about how even the strongest warrior can be toppled by a large enough army: it was painfully clear just who played which role in this scenario.

The Earth Dragon barely had time to yell before the Naruto horde descended upon him: deceptively powerful punches, kicks, and more of those blasted spheres tearing into his flesh. Never before had Terrain been overpowered in such a manner!

One of the clones struck him at an angle, sending him into the air. As he tried to right himself, he saw that two Narutos were holding a single sphere that was practically the size of Terrain’s head. Knowing that this would be the fight-ending blow, all Terrain could do was roar, “WHAT ARE YOU?!”

The Narutos responded in unison, “SHINOBI!”

Terrain roared in agony as the Giant Rasengan slammed into him, inflicting grievous wounds and sending him through the air, far from the their battlefield. A long, pain-filled roar was all that remained of Terrain in this particular region of Equestria: Naruto had put enough chakra into it to send the dragon into the next country.

Fluttershy watched, awestruck, as every Naruto but the one near her disappeared in a manner similar to how they’d arrived. She stared at the single remaining human with eyes that nearly glowed: she was ready to accept death without a fight, and Naruto came out of nowhere and, like some kind of superhero, saved her life without taking a single hit. Something stirred deep within her soul: this creature, this “human”, was her hero.

This is why she understandably panicked when he suddenly dropped to his knees, breathing heavily. Even though she could hear hooves on the ground and wings in the air, her attention was solely on the suddenly ailing human who protected her, “Naruto?! What’s wrong?!”

“Cha…kra… exh…austion... oough...”

The gathered Ponies could only watch in horror as he fell forward into the dirt, unconscious.

“NARUTO!” Apple Bloom cried out, running to be near her downed friend.

Rarity shifted on her hooves in a panic, “Oh my, what do we do? Vhat do we do?!”

Pinkie spoke up, “We gotta get him to the hospital!”

Derpy interjected, “But it’s too far, and we might hurt him if we’re not careful!”

Rainbow Dash growled in annoyance, “Then what are we supposed to do?”

Surprisingly, Fluttershy spoke up with strength in her voice, “My cottage! It’s not that far from where we are: just at the edge between Ponyville and the forest.”

Applejack nodded, “Alright, we’ve got a plan. Ladies, help me carry him!”

Surprising Revelation

(Ponyville: Fluttershy’s Cottage)

It had been about an hour since they arrived at the timid Pegasus’ home and had immediately set to tending the unconscious Naruto. After washing the dirt from his face and hair, replacing his stained bandages with a fresh roll and placing him into the mare’s bed with a moist towel on his forehead, the seven ponies were now gathered in the living room of the cottage. At the moment the room was silent, the only noises heard being the various animals in Fluttershy’s care.

Each pony’s attention was on something; Fluttershy watched the stairs for any sign of Naruto waking, Rarity was scanning the room and silently judging the décor, Derpy looked at the table (and part of a wall), Rainbow Dash would glance between Fluttershy and Applejack, the latter of whom had leveled a hard stare at her younger sister, who was currently staring at the floor, and Pinkie Pie was grinning at a parakeet that she could see outside the window.

“Apple Bloom,” the hat-wearing mare began, her stern tone causing the filly to flinch and garnering the attention of the other mares present, “Would you care to explain just what happened earlier?”

Apple Bloom lifted her head to properly answer her big sister, “About half an hour after you left, the thing from the crater woke up. He had a dry throat, so Ah went and fetched him a couple glasses a' water. After he drank a few, he started talking to me, saying that he shouldn’t have been able to. Ah asked why and he said he wasn’t from around here. Apparently by “here”, he didn’t mean he was from another town or something: he came from another world.”

“What?” Rainbow exclaimed, but was shushed by Rarity, who was curious of the newcomer’s origins.

“He told me his name was Naruto Uzumaki, and asked me where he was. Ah told him he was on our apple farm in Ponyville, and he got real curious about it, so Ah offered to show him around. Ah guess he realized that he’d stand out like a rotten apple, so he made some weird shapes with his hands and the next thing Ah know, Ah’m staring at a pony with long ears and a bushy tail!”

“He used magic?” Rarity asked, “But only Unicorns and Princess Celestia can use magic.”

Pinkie hopped in place, “Maybe he can use some kind of spiritual energy to do what he does!”

Rainbow scoffed, “I doubt it: he must be some kind of spy!”

Fluttershy looked at her fillyhood friend, “But if he was a spy, why would he save me?”

“To get on our good sides and keep his cover!” The brash Pegasus retorted.

Apple Bloom grunted in annoyance, “Can Ah continue, or do ya’ll wanna keep going?”

After the others quieted down, she continued, “Ah took him into part of the market, where he looked surprised at seeing Unicorns and Pegasi. Ah asked him about it and he told me that they were considered mythical in his world. He mentioned something about a contract and got all silent for a moment, before he just burst into laughter. That was when Pinkie Pie showed up (*hearing her name, the mare waved at... something*) and started laughing along with him. He talked to her for a little while and she asked where he was from. Now, we couldn’t just go ahead and say that he came from another world, so Ah had to think of something fast. Ah realized that the way his name’s pronounced was similar to Neighpon, so Ah said that he was from there and was a friend of the family who came to help out for the celebration in a few days. Then Pinkie Pie’s tail twitched and Miss Hooves fell from the sky right on top of Naruto (*Derpy grinned sheepishly*). Rainbow Dash came along and they started talking to him, and Naruto seemed to be in a hurry and tried to end the conversation, but then Pinkie dragged us all to Sugarcube Corner where Naruto ate too much. After that, he told us that,” Apple Bloom hesitated for a moment, “that he grew up alone: his parents died the day he was born and he didn’t have anypony to take him in.” Tears escaped her eyes once again, “He didn’t tell me that earlier, and it made me realize just how bad someponies have it: Ma and Pa are gone, but Ah still have you, Big Mac and Granny, but there are ponies out there that have nopony, like Naruto. It made me (*sniff*)...”

Big Sister instinct kicking in, Applejack swiftly pulled Apple Bloom into a warm hug and held her as she cried again. Seeing as Apple Bloom was in no shape to continue, Rainbow Dash picked up where the filly left off, “We heard Fluttershy scream and were scrambling to get moving, but Naruto jumped from the street to the roofs and started heading for the Everfree Forest. I got ready to start flying after him, but then he... Well, I saw a pony when the smoke appeared, but not when it disappeared. I don’t think you can hold it against me for being surprised to the point where I came to a halt. When I saw the look of surprised recognition on her face, I knew that she knew something. While we were chasing after him into the forest, she gave us a basic summary of what had happened up to that point.” She frowned, “You’d think I would’ve noticed something like a flaming object falling from the sky.”

Derpy, who until then had been silent, asked, “So, what do we do now? I mean, it’s not like Naruto, something nopony has ever seen before, can just walk around in the open.”

Applejack closed her eyes, “Alright, let’s list some of his good points. From what we saw today, he’s strong.”

“He’s funny,” Pinkie piped.

“Pretty fast for something with only two legs,” Rainbow Dash admitted.

“He’s friendly,” Derpy added.

“And nice!” Apple Bloom, recomposed, continued.

“He protects somepony in danger,” Fluttershy contributed.

“He’s positively handsome!” Rarity practically squealed. When six (or five-and-a-half) pairs of eyes looked at her with varying degrees of surprise, she blinked, “What?”

Applejack nodded, “All good points. Well, most of them, anyway.” She then sighed, “Now we really need to think: what are some of his bad points?”

Pinkie’s eyes narrowed, “He might not like parties.”

“Pinkie, be serious.”

Rainbow Dash stamped a hoof, “We don’t know where his loyalties lie. For all we know, he could be a scout for some kind of interdimensional invasion force!”

“Rainbow, be realistic. But it is true that we don’t know who he works for.”

Rarity gasped in horror, “He might end up being more attractive than me!”

“Rarity... no, just no.”

Apple Bloom stood up, “That’s enough! Naruto is not bad!”

Fluttershy looked genuinely curious, “Why do you think that, sweetie?”

“Because he’s mah friend!”

Rainbow Dash brought a hoof to her face, “What kind of logic is that?”

“GOOD LOGIC!”

Derpy appeared to be getting a little uncomfortable, “Don’t you think we’re getting a little loud?”

As the argument steadily escalated, none of the ponies took notice that Pinkie Pie had disappeared from the room, or the sound of hooves traveling up the stairs.

(Fluttershy’s room)

Naruto groaned as he slowly opened his eyes. Fortunately, the curtains were drawn close and the room was comfortably darkened, though not at the point to rob one’s sight. As he sat up, the mostly dry towel falling from his forehead onto his lap, he realized that not only was this not where he collapsed (kind of easy to figure out) but this was also not the room he had awoken in before.

Before he could get a good chance to examine his surroundings, the bedroom door opened, revealing a familiar pink pony.

Pinkie Pie slowly approached the bed, allowing Naruto to notice something off about the mare: she wasn’t smiling. In fact, she had on a poker face that told less than an ANBU mask.

Moving past the bed, she slowly and gently brushed aside the curtain, allowing some of the afternoon sunlight into the room. She turned her head to look directly at him and said,

“So, you’re the one he told me about.”

Naruto blinked: her voice was completely serious. There wasn’t a hint of humor anywhere to be heard.

“What are you talking about, Pinkie? Who’s “he”?”

Pinkie’s face showed no surprise, “I see: he didn’t actually appear to you. Must've just plucked you from your world and expect you to do what he wants.”

“Who, Pinkie?!”

“The Observer.”

Naruto sat in silence: he had a feeling that things were about to get complicated.

Taking the silence as her cue, she began, while the air seemed to get kind of wavy, “Back before I got my Cutie Mark (the shape on my flank), I met a strange Unicorn: pretty much his entire body was covered by thick robes with the hood drawn, so I couldn’t identify him by physical appearance if we met again. The aura of his magic constantly changed, even as he used it, another addition to his camouflage. Really, the only way to recognize him is his voice: it’s always the same.

“Anyway, the first few times I noticed him, he would just watch me and say nothing, before eventually disappearing without a trace. After having this happen for about a week, I finally confronted him about it. His response was a question: “Do you want to know the truth?” I agreed, expecting him to tell me why he kept following me. What I got was something I could never have possibly imagined.” The wavy sensation subsided.

Pinkie looked Naruto square in the eye, “I now know things that nopony else knows. I can do things that nopony else can.”

She then glanced out the window, revealing the almost-euphoric peaceful environment, “And I know what will eventually happen.”

Her gaze was hard when it returned to him, “Your appearing in this world marks the continuation of the greatest conflict to ever occur in this universe.”

Naruto’s breath hitched. What?

Pinkie continued, “After receiving his gift, the Observer told me that one day, a being from another world would appear: a being that would be able to put an end to the darkest threat to our world: Bestias Calamitas. ”

Finding enough of his voice, Naruto weakly asked, “What?”

“The Beast of Calamity.”

Aw, dammit! Naruto hated being right when he didn’t want to be.

“Long ago, the Beast of Calamity appeared from beyond the stars and sought to devastate this world. A sole member of the Royal Family faced the Beast in seemingly endless battle: however, when the chance to turn the tide presented itself, the royal warrior did not hesitate. Using ancient magic from the time of founding, the Beast was imprisoned within the sun and held in place by a powerful seal, but the victor mysteriously vanished from this plane, leaving behind what would eventually be known as the Elements of Harmony.”

“Hold on, Pinkie,” Naruto held up his hand, palm facing the pony, “What makes you and this “Observer” think that I can end something that someone using ancient power couldn’t?”

Pinkie looked away, “That’s something he would know. I may know a lot of things, but I don’t know everything.” She looked back, “What I do know, however, is that there are too many things I love in and about this world to let it be taken away. I don’t know how you’ll manage to defeat the Beast of Calamity,” she approached the bed and placed a hoof on Naruto’s leg, “But I know that I’ll help you, no matter what.”

Naruto gave a soft smile, “Thank you, Pinkie.” He reached out and ran his fingers through her mane.

Pinkie sighed with... something in her voice, “Oh that feels so good!” Without asking or even warning, Pinkie climbed onto the bed and lay gently across Naruto’s legs. She stared at him, her shimmering eyes begging, 'Pet me more!'

Okay: Serious Time over, apparently.

Naruto ran his hand along her back, curling his fingers so that his nails would make contact with the skin beneath her coat, before repeating. With each pass, Pinkie would shudder and giggle with delight, which in turn would spur Naruto into continuing, enjoying the reactions the pony was giving. Eventually, one stroke caused her to roll over slightly: it was at this point that Naruto’s since-dormant prankster mind became quite active. Subtly positioning each stroke, he managed to coax Pinkie onto her back without her even realizing it.

Then he stopped.

Opening her eyes to try and give him a mock-glare, she was quite surprised to find herself in her current position. She then became quite aware of Naruto’s eyes shifting between her own eyes... and her exposed belly. She became even more aware that the more she shook her head “no”, the bigger Naruto’s grin became.

Down came his fingers and out came her laughter.

His digits danced across her tummy, and Pinkie didn’t need the Observer’s gift to know that everypony downstairs could hear her laughing, regardless of whether or not they were still arguing.

Her laughter became doubled when he leaned down, pressed his mouth to her belly and began to blow. Her legs flailed wildly as she laughed, yet never once did they touch his head.

“Sweet Celestia of Equestria!”

Two pairs of blue eyes flew to look at the doorway of the room: Applejack looked shocked as she used a foreleg to cover Apple Bloom’s eyes, Rainbow’s eye was twitching, both of Derpy’s eyes were focused on them, Fluttershy had a blush that rivaled Hinata, and Rarity was using her magic to fan hers and Fluttershy’s faces with a portable fan, a delightfully scandalized look on hers.

Naruto whipped to an upright position so fast, he winced when he felt something (or several somethings) pop. The moment his head was away, Pinkie’s legs curled over her belly, akin to a flipped-over potato bug. Both of them were sporting impressive blushes, though nowhere near as impressive as Fluttershy’s.

The sound of something sliding across the floor got Naruto’s attention: he looked down to see some kind of bag, designed to fit comfortably on a pony’s back. Noticing that the buckle was in the shape of an apple, he looked up to see that, while most of the ponies had already disappeared from view, Applejack remained. Naruto could tell that she was trying to keep her voice leveled, “Pinkie Pie, we’re heading downstairs so that Naruto can get fully dressed. Now.” With that, the orange mare left the doorway.

Pinkie rolled back onto her hooves, looking a little blue about the accidental scene they caused. She brightened up instantly with a giggle when Naruto patted her head. Smiling, she hopped off the bed and made her way to the door.

“Pinkie?”

She stopped, looked back, and was surprised to see the look of determination on his face.

“I’m not sure how I’ll do it, but I’ll end the conflict.”

Pinkie’s smile shifted into a confident smirk, and she disappeared behind the doorframe.

Waiting a few moments before getting up, Naruto was surprised that he felt so good: almost exactly like he did back in his world, yet different somehow. More... alive. He knelt down and opened the bag Applejack had left, before peering inside.

Within the bag was a box with fancy designs, labeled “Carousal Boutique”. He took the box from the bag and carefully opened it... before his head was nearly split in two by the smile on his face.

(Downstairs)

The moment Pinkie Pie entered view, Rarity began giggling like a schoolfilly. So much so, not even a glare from Applejack could make her stop. Choosing to ignore the Unicorn for now, she turned to stare at her fellow Earth Pony, “And just what were you two doing?”

Stifling her giggles, Rarity commented, “Getting to know our mystery visitor just a bit better?”

Pinkie smiled, “Yep, and we were having a nice conversation before we decided everypony’s yelling was getting too loud and staged what you just saw.”

Derpy tilted her head to the side, “What were you two talking about?”

Pinkie waved a hoof dismissively, “Ah, nothing really.”

Rainbow Dash approached her, “Well, I think it was something. So what was it?”

“Nothing.”

“Something!”

“Nothing!”

“Something!”

At this point, the two of them were literally head-to-head, staring each other down.

“NOTHING!”

“SOMETHING!”

“SOMETHING!”

“NOTHING!”

“IT WAS SOMETHING AND I CAN PROVE IT!”

“IT WAS NOTHING AND I DON’T CARE!”

Pinkie immediately backed off with a giant grin, “Okey dokey lokey!”

The look on Rainbow’s face, a mixture of anger and shock, was just priceless.

Pinkie looked at Applejack, “I don’t see why you’re so worked up, Applejack: Naruto’s a nice guy.”

Applejack sighed, “I know that, Pinkie: he saved Fluttershy from that brute earlier. But he... well... he-”

“I don’t belong here, right?”

Seven heads turned to the stairs, and six jaws proceeded to drop, while Rarity’s eyes sparkled at her work. At first she couldn’t stand the combination of black and orange, but after working on them she came to marvel at the stark contrast. She was even considering a new line based off of it. Regarding her special addition to the ensemble, she thought she did quite nicely considering that, other than a damaged jacket and a fascinating shirt, she was pretty much working blind.

The Unicorn smiled with pride, “It’s magnificent, is it not? Since Applejack said you’d be on the farm for the time being, I got creative and decided to go for a sort of Mild West addition. How is it?”

Naruto descended the steps in the clothes he wore when he fell from the sky, carefully repaired by Rarity. Her contribution, however, was a long black coat with a pouch on the right side.

He smiled, “I really appreciate it, Ma’am.” He approached the Unicorn, knelt down and gently embraced her.

Startled and visibly flustered, she awkwardly patted him on the back, “It’s no trouble at all, dear. Do, however, call me Rarity: I’m much too young to be a Ma’am.”

“Thank you, Rarity.”

She tittered as she felt him just barely hug her closer, “Quite the touchy-feely fellow, aren’t you?”

He released his embrace of her and stood to look at Applejack, “That’s what you were going to say, right Applejack? I don’t belong here?”

Applejack felt as though somepony had just thrust the family pitchfork through her heart, “Naruto, I-”

“You’re right, you know? I don’t belong here.”

Apple Bloom started to tear up again: her new friend was going to leave because he was different and wouldn’t fit in?

“However...”

The ponies noticed the confident smile on his face, “Whether I belong or not doesn’t change the fact that I’m here in the first place.”

He glanced at Pinkie from the corner of his eye, “I may not know what brought me here or why, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

He looked back at the group and grinned, “Besides, I promised to help out with the festival, didn’t I?”

Applejack looked apprehensive, “Naruto, Apple Bloom told me what happened: you don’t have to help us.”

Naruto knelt and stared her in the eyes, “Applejack, there’s something you need to remember when you’re a friend of Naruto Uzumaki: I never break a promise.”

Celebration or Catastrophe?

“Wait: The Elements of Harmony? Didn’t Pinkie Pie mention something about them the other day?”

“Wow, harsh.”

An important building in Ponyville was the Ponyville library, even though it technically wasn’t a building: how many buildings were made from a hollowed-out tree? Anyway, the secret human of Ponyville sat at the table in the center of the main room, an ornate storybook in his hands. At the moment, he was reading what he figured to be either some kind of legend or a fairytale.

The blonde’s eyes found themselves drawn to the window, where he could see the sun beginning to peek over the rooftops, “A pony raises the sun and moon in this world? After everything that’s happened in my life, I shouldn’t really be surprised...”

He rose to his feet and scanned the bookshelves, searching for anything about the Elements, “If they’re related to whatever was used to seal the Beast of Calamity before, I’m willing to bet that they’ll be useful for when the going gets rough.” He paused in his stroll when he spotted a book titled The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide and grinned, “Looks like we have a winner.”

He reached out to take hold of the tome, only to tense completely as the front door of the library swung open...

(Ponyville: Ponyville Library)

Naruto whirled to face the doorway, ready to bolt...

...only to breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of a familiar hat, “Applejack, it’s you: I thought I was in deep trouble.”

The mare with a coat the shade of his favorite color leveled a stern look at him, “Just what makes you think you ain’t?”

Naruto blinked, “Uh, I don’t follow.”

“You said you’d be helping out with the festival, but Ah find those doubles of yours doing all the work and you’re here reading?”

“My clones are how I am helping, Applejack: helping Rainbow Dash keep the sky clear with Wind jutsu, putting up decorations with Rarity using wall walking, being in tune with nature is really helping with Fluttershy’s rehearsals with her birds, and I’ve given you a labor force that requires no payment! ...By the way, is Fluttershy feeling alright? Whenever I can see her face through her bangs, it’s usually kinda red.”

Applejack blinked, quite bewildered, “Now, how in the hay could you know what they’ve been doing if you’ve been cooped up in this here library?”

“Some of the clones dispelled. When a Shadow Clone is extinguished, everything it experienced is transferred back to the original.”

Applejack’s eyes seemed to possess some kind of twinkle in them, “Ah ain’t ever heard of any magic like that before. It sure sounds mighty useful.”

Naruto couldn’t help but chuckle a little: to anyone that had never seen a ninja perform jutsu before, it would certainly seem like magic. “It’s not magic, Applejack: it’s a Jutsu. I use a special energy produced by my body, and for some I use the energy produced by nature, to perform many different techniques. Most of them are meant for combat, but some can be used for daily tasks.”

Seeing the look on the mare’s face, Naruto realized that this would require a demonstration. A handsign later, Applejack was staring at Naruto and an exact duplicate. Naruto grabbed the reference guide and handed it to his clone, before plugging his ears and closing his eyes as the clone read silently to itself.

(Skies of Equestria)

A golden chariot was being pulled across the skies by a pair of armored Pegasi. The riders were an annoyed Twilight, an exuberant Spike, and a third occupant: Lyra, both excited and worried. Why was she worried? Well...

“Does she suspect it was me? Does she know it was me? She knows it was me, doesn’t she? Oh, what was I thinking taking a-”

“Lyra, the Princess doesn’t know it was you who took the book. She asked if I knew what happened to it, since I was given access to areas of her personal library, and I told her that I borrowed it because I was curious about Equestria’s founding.”

“I see,” the white-coated Alicorn, known throughout all of Equestria as Princess Celestia, spoke, “Just be sure to return the book to my library when you are finished with it, Twilight.”

Before the princess could leave the room, the question that had been burning in the back of her mind finally burst forth from her lips, “Solstice!”

Celestia froze in mid-step, her body visibly tense, “What was that, my protégé?”

Twilight gulped loudly, “The book... one of the contributors was somepony named Solstice. Did you know them?”

Celestia turned to look at her star pupil, a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes upon her face, “Yes, I did: Solstice was my elder brother, the King.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped, “A King?! We had a King?”

Celestia’s smile appeared to become more genuine, her eyes now glimmering, “Yes, and he was a great king: Equestria flourished under his rule, and we knew a golden age of peace.”

Twilight smiled, “He sounds like quite the stallion. But, what happened to him to leave you as ruler?”

“A monster.”

Twilight gasped: she had never seen such a look of anger on her mentor’s face. She remained silent as the princess continued, “I was just a filly myself when the foul beast appeared: all I could do was cower in fear as it ravaged Equestria. When Solstice told me that he was going to fight the monster, I implored him not to leave me: he told me that, as king, it was his duty to defend our home from all that threaten it.”

She lowered her head, eyes closed, “He left to face it alone. After the battle, the creature had been sealed into the sun, but my brother was nowhere to be found. All that remained were the physical manifestations of the power he used: the Elements of Harmony.”

Celestia lifted her head and returned her gaze to the purple Unicorn, “I must say, I feel as though a weight has been lifted after talking about my brother. Thank you, Twilight, for being willing to listen to my story.”

Twilight blushed and laughed nervously, “Ah well, you know me: always willing to learn something new. Well, I’d better get back to my studies.”

She turned to leave, when Celestia’s knowing tone rang out, “And be sure to tell your little friend Lyra that I said hello.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” Lyra breathed a sigh of relief. Recomposing herself, she asked, “So, I gathered from Spike that the Princess reacted to your suspicions in a manner you weren’t... expecting?”

“I just don’t get it! I did the research, and I’m positive that Nightmare Moon will be returning tonight! But the Princess won’t listen to me!”

Lyra looked at Spike, who shrugged, “Princess Celestia is having Twilight oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration and insists that she make some friends while she’s here.”

Twilight growled, “What good will any of that do when Nightmare Moon shows up? I need to do more research on the Elements of Harmony, so that I can stop her before she brings about eternal night!”

Her audience stared at her, before Lyra craned her head toward Spike, “Was I like this every time I talked about humans?”

“Yep,” Spike answered quite bluntly.

Lyra blinked, “Wow. Sorry about that.”

Ignoring Twilight’s angry muttering, Spike asked, “Why did you come with us anyway, Lyra?”

Lyra grinned, “My fillyhood friend, BonBon, invited me to stay at her place for the Celebration. I haven’t seen her for years, so how could I refuse? Also,” she leaned in conspiratorially, “I heard a rumor that a creature that matches that book’s description was spotted somewhere close by Ponyville! This could be my only chance to find a real live human!”

Spike stared at her, then at Twilight, before slapping his hand into his face.

(Ponyville: Ponyville Library)

Having finished the task given to it, the clone returned the book to its proper place on the shelf before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. As the last wisps faded, Naruto opened his eyes and uncovered his ears, grinning, “Well, looks like I’ll be exploring the Everfree Forest later.”

“WHAT!? Why in tarnation would you willingly go back in there?”

Naruto rolled his shoulders, having kept them in place for so long, “Apparently, there’s an old castle deep in the forest. Inside that castle are a set of items that could prove useful to me in the future.”

“You got that from the book?” A nod. “From the book your clone read, but you didn’t.” Another nod. “And I saw that he didn’t talk to you one bit, and you didn’t look at the book at all. You really remember everything they learn?” That final nod had Applejack drop onto her backside, “Wow. That’s just amazing, Naruto.”

Naruto’s grin grew, “Don’t think I’m a one-trick pony. Oh geez, no offense!” At Applejack’s ‘none taken’, he continued a bit sheepish, “Trust me: you haven’t even seen a fraction of what I’m capable of.”

Applejack watched as Naruto was engulfed by a similar cloud of smoke, emerging from it as the unique Earth pony that her little sister had described. He grinned that grin that only he possessed, “Why don’t you head back to the farm, Applejack? I’m going to go try and find Pinkie Pie: who knows what kind of antics she’ll try and pull?”

Applejack smiled, “Alright. Ah’ll see ya back at the farm later, then?”

“Yeah. Later, Applejack.”

As she departed, she called back, “We’re friends, ain’t we? Just call me AJ!”

Naruto’s grin never left his face, even long after Applejack had disappeared from view.

(Ponyville: streets)

Naruto watched as a small group of young ponies ran past him, laughing in the way that only an innocent youth can. He smiled: this world was so much more peaceful than his own... and it was being threatened by some ancient beast from the past. His eyes hardened as he silently vowed that he would take out the Beast of Calamity, even if it cost him his life: this world had done nothing wrong.

It was at that moment that he recalled something unusual, ‘Hey, Kurama?’

“What is it, kid?”

‘The other day, when I woke up after exhausting myself, I felt more energized than ever before. Any idea why?’

“Let’s put it this way: when you used up a great deal of Chakra, you left an empty void. The ambient energy of this world, magic, rushed in to fill that void. Enough magic has filled your body to be able to replenish itself, as well as your Chakra.”

‘Are you saying that...?’

“As much as it frightens me to admit this, yes: with the proper training, you should be able to use magic.”

“AWESOME!”

Seconds later, Naruto realized that last bit was verbalized, and he now had a number of ponies staring at him. Chuckling nervously, he quickly vacated the scene.

Minutes later, he noticed a shiny chariot with armored Pegasi hooked to it, and Pinkie Pie was near a trio that he hadn’t seen around Ponyville: a purple Unicorn mare with a star pattern for a Cutie Mark (he remembered that term from Pinkie Pie), a mint-green Unicorn mare with a lyre Cutie Mark, and a purple bipedal lizard with green spine spikes. Smiling at having found his pink friend, he began to trot toward them... as well as wonder just why the hell he was trotting.

As he neared the group, he stopped in his tracks when Pinkie became momentarily airborne with a loud gasp and took off in a blur... right past him, sending him into a spin. Regaining his bearings, he approached the obviously confused newcomers, “You’ll have to excuse Pinkie Pie: she’s a bit... eccentric.”

The purple Unicorn opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the other mare, “Don’t worry about it: we just weren’t expecting such a reaction.”

Naruto smiled, “Yeah, she apparently does it to every newcomer to Ponyville.”

The Unicorn gestured to herself with a hoof, “I’m Lyra Heartstrings, and these are my friends: Twilight Sparkle and Spike.” She gestured to her companions.

Naruto bowed his head in greeting, “I am Naruto Uzumaki. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Twilight spoke up, clearly annoyed with the situation, “Excuse me, Mr. Uzumaki, was it? Could you direct me to the local library? I have research I need to do.”

Naruto couldn’t help but frown slightly: had he just met the Pony equivalent of Sasuke? His ears perked up when her heard the lizard, Spike, talk, “But, Twilight: the Princess asked you to make sure everything is ready for the Celebration, and to make some friends.”

“I know that, Spike: I just want to know where the library is so that after I’m done with my duties, I can get back to what I was doing before back in Canterlot.”

Naruto blinked, “You’re here to check up on the preparations? Aren’t you lucky: I happen to know each Pony tasked to help out with the Celebration.” He pointed toward the south west, “I’d recommend heading over to Sweet Apple Acres, first: the Apple family should be just about finished by now with the food.”

Twilight had an apprehensive look, “Um, thanks. Come on, Spike.” With that, she simply started walking away, though Spike gave the two of them a parting wave before picking up the pace.

Lyra must have noticed something about his face, because she started apologizing, “I’m sorry if Twilight seemed rude. Outside of her family, Spike, Princess Celestia and her Smartypants doll, I’m probably the only friend she has, and I’m not really the easiest Pony to get along with.”

Naruto waved a hoof dismissively, “Don’t worry about it: she just reminded me of a guy I used to know. He had about as much personality as a frozen fish.”

Lyra giggled, before asking, “Hey, do you want to keep me company while I look for my friend? It’d be nice to have somepony to talk to.”

Naruto turned his head to stare off in the direction of the Apple farm, “I don’t know: I’m supposed to be helping with the Cele-”

When he turned back, his voice caught in his throat: Lyra’s eyes seemed to have increased in size and were shimmering with ready-to-shed tears, accompanied with a trembling lower lip. The only thought in his head was ‘Holy crap, that’s a potent look’. He relented almost immediately, “Alright, alright, I’ll go. Just please stop with the look!”

The sad Pony face was instantaneously replaced by an overjoyed look, “Hooray! Let’s get going!”

As the mare led them off in a seemingly random direction deeper into Ponyville, Naruto could only hope that his clones would be crafty enough to keep his... uniqueness under wraps from the scholarly Unicorn.

(Ponyville: Sweet Apple Acres)

“Item number one: banquet preparations,” Spike announced with a scroll in claw, “Sweet Apple Acres.”

As the two Canterlot-raised youths passed under the archway that led onto the farm and connecting apple orchard, they were greeted by the sounds of hooves slamming against bark. Scanning the bases of the nearby apple trees, they spotted, to their surprise, the same rust-orange stallion from mere moments ago.

“How did he get here before us: didn’t we leave him with Lyra?”

Hearing a voice, the stallion that was clearly Naruto turned his head from the tree he was bucking to look at the new arrivals to the farm. Grinning, he approached and spoke, “Well, hello there. You don’t look like you’re from around here, so let me be the first to welcome you to Sweet Apple Acres. My name is Naruto Uzumaki and-”

“We know who you are: you told us just a little while ago,” Twilight interrupted him.

Naruto tilted his head, confused, “I’m pretty sure I’d remember introducing myself to someone, little lady.”

Twilight grew more agitated, “Are you doing this on purpose? Never mind: are you in charge, here?”

The stallion’s eyes widened, “Oh, I’m not even close to being that: you’re looking for Applejack. Here, let me get her for you.”
He turned away from them and hollered at the top of his lungs, “AAAAAJAAAAYYY! VISITORS FOR YAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“IN A MINUTE! YEEHAW!”

Startled, Twilight and Spike turned to see an orange mare charge at an apple tree, before bucking it and sending many apples tumbling into the baskets surrounding the trunk.

Twilight sighed, “Let’s get this over with.” She approached the mare and spoke formally, “Good afternoon. My name is Twilight Sparkle.”

That was as far as she got before the other mare got a hold of her foreleg and proceeded to give her a hardy, rapid shake, “Well howdy do, Miss Twilight: a pleasure making yer acquaintance. I’m Applejack. We here at Sweet Apple Acres sure do like makin’ new friends.

“Friends?” Twilight managed to get out, her voice slightly warbled from the rigorous movements her body was being subjected to, “Actually, I uh...”

Applejack released her hold on the poor Unicorn, “So, what can I do ya for?” She asked with a wink.

Humorously enough, Twilight’s foreleg was still going through the motions of being shaken, until Spike put a stop to it and snickered. Ignoring him, Twilight cleared her throat, “Well, I am in fact here to supervise preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. And you are in charge of the food?”

Applejack beamed, “We sure as sugar are. Would you care to sample some?”

Twilight relented, “Well, as long as it doesn’t take too long.”

Before she had even finished her sentence, Applejack had moved away from them and proceeded to start ringing the old triangle and hollered, “SOUP’S ON, EVERYPONY!”

From nearby, Naruto’s Shadow Clone watched in amusement as Twilight and Spike were corralled to a table and provided an assortment of apple confectionaries by the extended Apple Family. When the Unicorn attempted to flee from the uncomfortable situation, the clone couldn’t help but laugh when she found herself subjected to the big-eyed sad face of Apple Bloom, along with the disappointed sounds of the Apples. This immediately changed to joy when she agreed to stick around for a bit.

After watching the pair leave the farm (with Twilight sporting a rounded belly), the clone dispelled.

(Nonspecific area of Ponyville)

“I’m not sure if you’ve met my friend, BonBon. We’ve been best friends since we were just little fillies!”

Naruto listened quietly as Lyra kept going on about whatever popped into her head. The only sign that he had received the memories of his dispelled clone was the sight of one of his eyes twitching... of course that may have been because of Lyra, but Naruto wasn’t judging.

(A different nonspecific area of Ponyville)

“Ohhh, I ate too much pie.” Twilight moaned pitifully.

Spike looked upward, “There’s supposed to be a Pegasus pony named Rainbow Dash clearing the clouds.”

Twilight looked up and saw that the sky was littered with the white tufts, “Well, she’s not doing a very good job, is she?”

Calling upon the wrath of the dealer of karma, Twilight suddenly found herself the victim of a high-speed multicolored blur plowing into her, sending them both into a large mud puddle.

At that moment, an increasingly familiar rust-orange stallion came galloping up, “Sorry about that: we were having a race, and I guess she got distracted or something. Name’s Naruto Uzumaki.”

From beneath the Pegasus, Twilight groaned, “We know.”

Spike eyed him suspiciously, “How do you keep getting around Ponyville so quickly?”

Naruto looked at him, “What’re you talking about, little guy? I’ve been with Rainbow Dash all day.”

At her name, the Pegasus rose to her hooves, before chuckling at the mud-covered Twilight, “Uh, excuse me?” Seemingly ignoring the annoyed groan, she offered to help clean her up: by drenching her with a downpour from a nearby raincloud that she grabbed. She snickered, “Guess I overdid it. Um, how about this?”

Twilight found herself in the center of a small rainbow tornado, which was apparently called the “Rain-Blow Dry”. No double meanings there, right?

Unfortunately, it had the unpleasant side effect of making the Unicorn’s mane and tail... horrifically tussled: enough to send the Pegasus and Spike into uproarious peals of laughter. Twilight was quite irritated by this point, but kept her temper, “Let me guess: you’re Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow Dash puffed out her chest, “The one and only. Why: you heard of me?”

“I heard you’re supposed to be keeping the sky clear.” She sighed and introduced herself to the Pegasus.

By this point, the Shadow Clone had tuned them out and decided to talk to Spike, “So what’re you: some kind of dragon?”

Spike nodded, “Of course: what else would I be?”

The clone shrugged, “I’ve just never seen a dragon quite like you before: no wings, and your speech is impressive.”

Spike smiled, “Well, I am a baby dragon, so it’ll be a while before I get my wings. As for the way I talk, I’ve been living at a pretty high-class place, so I picked up quite a bit.”

The clone nodded in understanding, “I see, I see.”

“Hey, I could clear the sky in ten seconds flat.”

“Really? Prove it.”

Spike and the clone looked up in time to watch Rainbow Dash begin her assault on the clouds overhead, taking them out in “What’d I say? Ten. Seconds. Flat. Heh, I’d never leave Ponyville hanging!”

The clone took great care to burn the image of absolute awe on Twilight’s face into his memory for the real Naruto to get later.

“You should see the look on your face! You’re a laugh, Twilight Sparkle: I can’t wait to hang out some more.” With that, Rainbow Dash took off, while the clone snuck away to dispel.

(With the Real Naruto)

Lyra had literally jumped a good three feet in the air when Naruto suddenly burst out laughing.

(Town Hall)

“Decorations... beautiful...”

“Yes: the décor is coming along nicely. This should be quick. I’ll be at the library in no time. Beautiful indeed.”

Spike shook his head, “Not the décor: her!” He pointed at a white coated Unicorn with a curled purple mane and tail, currently focused on choosing a color of ribbon.

At this point, a now-too-familiar face dropped out of nowhere, “Hey, Rarity: ceiling’s done!”

Not looking away from her work, she responded, “Thank you so very much, Naruto: my magic doesn’t quite reach that high up.”

Smiling, he noticed the new arrivals, “Hi, there: I’m-”

“Naruto Uzumaki,” Twilight grounded out, “We know!”

Startled by the new voice, Rarity turned around and nearly had a heart attack at the sight of Twilight’s mane. A rather brief and forceful proclamation later, Rarity led the mare and the dragon out of the building. Not seeing any reason to follow, the clone dispelled.

(Naruto (seeing a pattern, yet?))

Naruto snickered: he wondered how much longer until Twilight finally snapped.

He was brought from his musings by Lyra’s happy cry of “BONBON!” He looked to see the Unicorn nuzzling a cream-coated Earth pony with a mane of dark-blue and pink, with a Cutie Mark of three wrapped candies.

Naruto trotted up to them with a smile, “So you’re BonBon: Lyra has been going on and on about how the two of you are the best of friends.”

The new mare smiled and spoke with a youthful (*shiver*) voice, “Yeah: we’ve kept in touch the entire time she’s been in Canterlot by writing letters to each other.” She blinked, realizing something, “Hey: weren’t you wandering around Ponyville the other day with a sizable group of ponies?”

Naruto smiled, “What can I say? I’m naturally friendly and likable.”

Her eyes narrowed, “And all of them were mares? And one of them a filly?”

At that, Naruto’s smile dropped, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but they’re my friends. I’d never do anything to hurt them.”

Lyra looked between them nervously, when BonBon relented, “Weird: we just met, but I feel like I can trust you.”

Naruto laughed, “If I had a Bit for every time I’ve been told that, I’d be a rich stallion.”

The two mares giggled. BonBon smiled, “We were planning on catching up. If you don’t have any plans, would you like to join us, mister...?”

Naruto glanced away, “Naruto Uzumaki. Actually, I’m sup...” Upon returning his gaze, he could actually feel his mind attempting to shut itself down for protection: Lyra’s sad look from earlier was making an encore appearance, with BonBon providing back-up. ‘That needs to be registered as an official interrogation method!’ He slapped a hoof over his eyes, “Yes, yes! Just please stop with the faces!” As the mares cheered in triumph, Naruto sighed to himself: he really hoped that when, and he was certain when, this mysterious weakness became known, that the ponies wouldn’t abuse it too much...

(Outskirts of Ponyville)

“What’s next on the list?”

Spike cleared his throat, “Music: it’s the last one.”

At that moment, they heard birds. But not just random chirps, no: these were not only singing in unison, they were also singing some sort of fanfare. Intrigued, they took a shortcut through some bushes to save time. What they saw was both amazing and, to Twilight, partially infuriating. What was amazing was that a yellow Pegasus with a pink mane was the one coordinating the choir of birds. What was infuriating was that, once again, Naruto had somehow gotten there before them.

The clone noticed them and opened his mouth to extend a greeting, but quickly closed it when he saw Twilight’s barely-restrained irritation (that, and she was audibly growling at him). Deciding that discretion was the better part of not getting dispelled in a gruesome manner, the clone opted to gently tap the Pegasus on the hooves with his tail. A bit red in the face, she peeked at him through her bangs, “W-what is it, Naruto?”

“Hello!”

The loud and sudden greeting startled the yellow mare, and scared off every one of the gathered birds.

Twilight felt a bit guilty: her annoyance at seeing the exact same stallion a sixth time in such a short period was getting on her nerves, and she had accidentally transferred it into her call, “Oh, my. I’m so sorry: I didn’t mean to frighten your birds: I’m just here to check on the music, and it’s sounding beautiful.”

The Pegasus shyly dragged a hoof along the ground, seemingly determined to keep from making eye contact with the Unicorn.

A bit unnerved, Twilight grinned uncomfortably, “I’m Twilight Sparkle.” The clone opened his mouth again, only to receive a grated response of, “Naruto Uzumaki. We know.” Ignoring the affronted look on the stallion’s face, she returned her focus to the Pegasus, “What’s your name?”

“Um, I’m Flutt..hy...”

Twilight took a step forward, “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“My...ame is ...ershy...”

Another step, “Didn’t quite catch that.”

The responsive squeak from the Pegasus reminded the clone of Hinata from when she was younger. By this point, some of the birds had returned, which Twilight easily noticed, “Well, it looks like your birds are back, so I guess everything’s in order. Keep up the good work!”

Another adorable squeak had the clone’s admittedly-nonexistent heart melting from the sheer adorableness of it.

Twilight backed off and regrouped with Spike, who had just emerged from the bushes into open view. Apparently, young creatures acted as some sort of mental switch for the Pegasus, who cried out “A baby dragon!” in amazement, and proceeded to send Twilight airborne with a veritable body slam and begin gushing over the purple dragon.

The sudden change in personality of Fluttershy caused the clone to facefault hard enough to dispel itself.

(BonBon’s house)

“Naruto, are you alright? Your eye is twitching.”

Naruto smiled weakly, “I’m okay: it’s just a little headache. I guess that’s what happens when you work for several days straight.”

BonBon got up from her place at the table, “Why don’t you wait right here, and I’ll go see if I have anything to help you out?” At Naruto’s thankful nod, the cream-coat pony left the den in search of alleviation.

Naruto noticed that Lyra was giving him curious glances every few seconds, “Is there something wrong, Lyra?”

The Unicorn looked hesitant, “I want to ask you something, but you’ll think I’m weird.”

He blinked, “Lyra, you’re my friend, aren’t you? Why would I think something like that over a simple question? Besides, I have a lot of weird friends.”

Appearing to overcome whatever was holding her back, she practically blurted her question, “Do you think humans exist?”

Naruto’s heart skipped a beat: how could she possibly know about humans? Taking extreme care in concealing his surprise, he asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Not this again.” They looked at the doorway to see BonBon, balancing a serving plate with a glass of water and a white disc-like pill, with a look of exasperation on her face, “Honestly, Lyra: I was hoping that being at that school in Canterlot would break you of this obsession with that myth.”

Lyra slammed a hoof on the table, startling Naruto, “Humans are not a myth! I found a history book that talked about them, and I heard that something greatly resembling one was seen around here a few days ago!”

BonBon gave her a look, “Not everything you find in a book is factual, Lyra. And somepony probably just shaved a tailless monkey and let it loose as a joke.”

Lyra pouted, “I’m positive that humans exist!”

BonBon placed the plate on the table and watched as Naruto dropped the pill into the glass, causing the water to fizz, “Lyra, I humored you when we were fillies because I figured you would grow out of it, but now I’m just going to say it: Humans. Don’t. Exist.”

Naruto couldn’t sit idly by and watch the Unicorn’s beliefs be torn to shreds. He stood up, “Hold on, BonBon. Aren’t you being a bit mean to Lyra?”

BonBon took a deep, calming breath, “I’m not trying to be mean, Naruto: believe me, I care a lot about Lyra. I want her to have a successful life, and to do that, she needs to let this foalish fantasy go.”

Deciding to let the fox out of the box, Naruto exclaimed, “It’s not a fantasy, BonBon: humans are real!”

Lyra gasped in surprise, “REALLY?!”

BonBon’s eyes narrowed, “And just how do you know?”

Moment of truth, “Because... I-”

THUNK!

All three of them jumped in alarm at the loud noise and the sight of the table lifting slightly.

“Owie...”

Naruto blinked: he knew that voice. He looked under the table to discover, “Pinkie Pie?!”

Indeed, the pink pony popped out from under the table, rubbing a small lump on her head, “Hi, everypony!” She immediately wrapped her forelegs around Naruto’s neck, “Naruto! Just the pony I was looking for! I need your help setting up a surprise party!”

“Now hold on a minute,” BonBon grunted, “just what in Equestria were you doing under my table? And how did you even get under there, anyway?”

“Naruto,” Lyra whined, “what were you about to saaaaay?”

Naruto made an effort to stay put, but it was all for naught as Pinkie was still able to drag him out of the room and toward the front door, “How in the world are you so strong?!”

Opening the door with ease, she replied, “I eat my vegetables!”

(Ponyville Library)

“What in Epona’s name were you thinking, Naruto?”

Naruto blinked: ever since she had forcibly removed him from BonBon’s house, Pinkie hadn’t said a word. Even as he and his Shadow Clones assisted in decorating the library and preparing refreshments, the pink Earth pony remained silent.

Surprised by her sudden question, he asked, “What are you talking about, Pinkie?”

She looked at him: the real him, as she was somehow able to differentiate him from his clones, “I thought you were a ninja: supposed to keep secrets. Why were you about to tell not one, but two random ponies what you really are?”

Naruto stared at his fingers, “Lyra... she believes in the existence of humans with all her heart, but BonBon was trying to extinguish that belief.” He clenched his hand into a fist, “She reminded me so much of myself when I was younger: I was determined to become Hokage, the leader of my village. Aside from a very small number, no one believed that I would ever achieve my goal, no matter how hard I struggled.”

Pinkie looked at him, “Why did you want to become the leader of your home?”

“I wanted to be acknowledged as someone important, and not what they saw me as. When I got older... I got what I wanted.”

“You became Hokage?”

He shook his head, “No: acknowledgement. The village came under attack from a very powerful opponent, but I managed to overcome him. I became a hero to them. I got what I really wanted the entire time.”

Pinkie smiled, “I’d love to hear more, Naruto, but right now, we gotta get this party set up for that new pony in town.”

“You mean Twilight Sparkle?”

She looked at him, “So that’s her name?”

Naruto grinned, “Yeah, and I’m pretty sure I’ve driven her a little nutty: she thinks my clones are me, and that I’m probably stalking her or something. Although, I’ve probably taken it a little too far, so I’m going to apologize to her at the party.”

“What’re you going to say?”

“I’ll think of something believable.”

(Ponyville Library: Evening)

The inside of the library was pitch black. Within the darkness was the quiet shuffling of ponies getting into position to surprise the pony of the hour. Speaking of which, she had just walked in, speaking with Spike.

“Huh: rude, much?” The young dragon quipped.

“Sorry, Spike,” the Unicorn responded, “but I have to convince the Princess that Nightmare Moon is coming (*Naruto’s eyes narrowed at that*) and we’re running out of time. I just need to be alone so I can study without a bunch of crazy ponies trying to make friends all the time. Now, where’s the light?”

*Click*

“SURPRISE!”

Well, Twilight certainly seemed surprised... and exhausted from the day’s events.

Chuckling, Naruto approached the sighing Unicorn, who became rather tense as he drew nearer. He smiled, “Twilight, I’d like to apologize about what I did to you earlier.”

She blinked, “And that would be what: showing up everywhere we went?”

Laughing, he rubbed the back of his head with a hoof, “Well, you see: when you first arrived, I noticed that you seemed to be in something of a sour mood, so I rounded up a couple of friends I know to disguise themselves as me and help out with the preparations for the Celebration. I actually don’t know what I was planning to accomplish, but they told me that all it did was irritate you, so I decided to apologize to you personally. Think you can forgive me for what I did?”

She stared at him intensively, studying his face, “I have to admit, I was actually suspecting that you were somehow teleporting all around town just to bug me. But, seeing as you had good intentions... I think... I’m willing to forgive you.”

He smiled and was about to respond when a familiar voice called out to him, “Naruto!” He turned to see Derpy, accompanied by a light magenta-coated Unicorn mare with purple eyes and a tomboyish violet mane with light purple highlights and a trio of gems for a Cutie Mark, and a Unicorn filly with gamboge eyes and a pale violet coat and a pale gold mane. Naruto grinned at the sight of the gray Pegasus and waved her over. When she got close enough, she spoke, “Naruto, I’d like you to meet my daughters: Sparkler,” the purple-schemed mare nodded her head, “and Dinky,” the filly waved with a big grin on her face.

Naruto lowered himself to the filly’s height, “It’s nice to meet you, you adorable little thing.” Satisfied with the cute giggle, he rose up to look at the older daughter, “And it’s nice to meet you, miss.” Sparkler smiled. He returned his gaze to Derpy, “So, what’ve you been up to? We haven’t had any time to hang out in the past few days.”

“I’ve been putting in extra hours at my job, so I could have tomorrow off to spend it with Sparkler and Dinky. If you don’t have any plans, do you want to come along with us?”

“I would, but it sounds more like a family thing, and I’m... not...”

It was official: somepony decided to spread the secret of how to manipulate him without having to lift a hoof. If one face was potent and two faces were dangerous, then three faces were downright lethal. Naruto could not feel a single inch of his body as he stared into the eyes of three pouting ponies, their eyes shimmering and enlarged enough that he could see his reflection staring back at him. He gave up instantly, “Very well.” Despite having fallen victim to the same trick three times, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling as the filly danced happily around her big sister. He noticed that Derpy was looking apologetic, but his amused grin quickly made her smile.

It was at that moment that he heard something akin to a train whistle, and looked across the room to see Twilight, surrounded by the other five ponies he befriended that day, kicking her feet as she hovered in the air, her mane and tail having taken the visage of being aflame and steam bellowing from her ears. She quickly disappeared up the steps into a higher section of the library. He would’ve gone to see if she was alright, had Derpy not taken a hold of his hoof and pulling him onto the makeshift dance floor as rave-like music began to play.

Never before had Naruto partied so hard.

(Town Hall: nearing Dawn)

Naruto hadn’t realized just how many ponies could fit into the seemingly compact building all at once: it seemed like everypony in Ponyville was there and there was still open space. Granted, fair amounts of the town’s Pegasi were flying in the air above them, and some ponies occupied the various balconies along the walls. He was standing next to Twilight, who had Spike sitting on her back, and Derpy with her daughters to his other side.

Pinkie ran up to Twilight’s open side and began jabbering again, “Isn’t this exciting? Are you excited, because I’m excited. I’ve never been so excited; well, except for the time that I saw you walk into town and I went *gasp*, but I mean really, who can top that?”

Fluttershy’s birds began their fanfare as a tan mare with a graying mane and phthalo blue eyes, wearing a pair of glasses and a white shirt collar with a poofy tie, with a Cutie Mark of a scroll tied with a blue ribbon, began to speak, “Fillies and Gentlecolts: as Mayor of Ponyville, it is my great pleasure to announce the beginning of the Summer Sun Celebration.”

Not wanting to stand out, Naruto joined in the cheering that accompanied the Mayor’s proclamation. She continued, “In just a few moments, our town will witness the magic of the sunrise and celebrate this, the longest day of the year. Now, it is my great honor to introduce to you,” Naruto noticed Twilight look out one of the upper windows and followed her gaze, and was shocked to see a group of stars collide with the moon, causing the distinctly horned-horsehead pattern to disappear from its surface,

“the ruler of our land,”

Naruto could see the visible worry on Twilight’s face, and recalled a particular name from the book he read earlier: Nightmare Moon. His eyes widened, ‘Oh, shit.’

“the very pony who gives us the sun and the moon each and every day: the good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria, Princess Celestia!”

Many things happened in the span of a few moments: curtains were drawn, the avian choir sang, and a spotlight shined...

...on an empty space.

Naruto heard Twilight speak to herself, “This can’t be good.” He found himself silently agreeing.

As the crowd of ponies began to whisper in worry, the Mayor attempted to regain control of the situation, “Remain calm, everypony: there must be a reasonable explanation!”

Pinkie spoke up as usual, “Oh, I love guessing games! Is she hiding?”

Rarity emerged from the room behind the opened curtain, “She’s gone!”

Horrified gasps from every pony in the room.

Except Pinkie Pie: “Ohh, she’s good!”

Naruto’s eyes narrowed at the ethereal mist gathering upon the balcony that the princess was supposed to be on. After becoming extremely dense, it scattered, revealing a pitch-black horse: taller and more slender than every pony Naruto had met so far, wearing a smooth lavender helmet from which a black Unicorn horn protruded from. On either side of the creature’s torso were dark wings, reminiscent to those of a Pegasus. On its flank was a splotch of purple, a crescent moon upon it. The horse’s mane and tail resembled a field of stars, flowing in a nonexistent wind. Around its neck was some sort of regal breastplate, bearing the same mark as on the flank. A cyan eye with a slit pupil gazed out upon the collection of ponies.

At that moment, Twilight confirmed his suspicions, “Oh, no: Nightmare Moon.” Spike fainted.

The dark equine, Nightmare Moon, spoke with a regal tone, “Oh, my beloved subjects: it’s been so long since I’ve seen your precious little sun-loving faces.”

Rainbow Dash, always ready for action, demanded, “What did you do with our princess?” She attempted to confront the new arrival head-on, had it not been for Applejack clenching down on her tail with her teeth to hold her back.

Nightmare Moon chuckled malevolently, “Why: am I not royal enough for you? Don’t you know who I am?”

Inappropriately cheerful Pinkie, “Oh, oh: more guessing games! Um, Hokey Smokes? How ‘bout Queen Meanie? No, Black Snooty! Black Snoot-” She was cut off when Applejack shoved a cupcake in her mouth.

“Does my crown no longer count now that I have been imprisoned for a thousand years?” Naruto did not take kindly that Nightmare Moon was terrifying poor Fluttershy. “Did you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs?” Or that she was flicking Rarity’s chin with her star-field mane, apparently more prehensile than his tail.

“I did!” Twilight called out, “and I know who you are: you’re the Mare in the Moon, Nightmare Moon!”

More gasps from the other ponies. Really, was that all they could do?

Naruto could hear something, although it was as faint as a whisper on the wind: the sound of a female voice...

Nightmare Moon seemed impressed, “Well, well, well (Big brother... Big sister...): somepony who remembers me (Where are you...?). Then you also know why I’m here (It’s so dark and cold... I’m scared...).”

Twilight began to falter, “You’re here to... to...!”

Nightmare Moon began to chuckle, “Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last (Somepony...). From this moment forth (Anypony...),

Her mane extended and spiraled throughout the room, producing both darkness and bolts of lightning as she laughed evilly.

Naruto’s eyes hardened: there was more to Nightmare Moon than met the eye.

Bonds Illuminating the Darkness

“Well, looks like I’ll be exploring the Everfree Forest later.”

“Why in tarnation would you willingly go back in there?”

“Apparently, there’s an old castle deep in the forest. Inside that castle are a set of items that could prove useful to me in the future.”

“As much as it frightens me to admit this, yes: with the proper training, you should be able to use magic.”

"I'm not trying to be mean, Naruto: believe me, I care a lot about Lyra. I want her to have a successful life, and to do that, she needs to let this foalish fantasy go."

"It's not a fantasy, BonBon: humans are real!"

"She reminded me so much of myself when I was younger: I was determined to become Hokage, the leader of my village. Aside from a very small number, no one believed that I would ever achieve my goal, no matter how hard I struggled."

"Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last (Somepony...). From this moment forth (Anypony...), the night will last FOREVER! (Help Me...!)"

(Ponyville: Town Hall)

Nightmare Moon laughed evilly as her dark magic spiraled menacingly about in the air above the gathered ponies. As simple as it would’ve been to just discard his ponysona and engage the lunatic equine, he knew that it was too risky: there were too many innocent bystanders that could get caught in the crossfire, and he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if any of them got hurt, or even killed. It pained him, but until Nightmare Moon was away from the ponies, he could do nothing except stand by and watch as they took action.

“Seize her!” The Mayor barked out the command to the armored Pegasi, “only she knows where the Princess is!”

A trio of the royal guards immediately took to the air and rushed the evil pony. But it was for naught.

“Stand back, you foals!” Eyes glowing with dark power and her evil laughter ringing out once more, Nightmare Moon called down bolts of lightning from her storming mane to repel the Pegasi as though they were nothing more than gnats.

The magic encircled the mare, seemingly absorbing her, before tearing across the room and bursting out the main doors. Rainbow Dash, freeing herself from Applejack’s restraint, followed the dark mist outside, only to catch a glimpse of it disappearing over the horizon.

Back inside the building, Naruto watched as Twilight levitated the unconscious Spike onto her back before taking off, unaware that she was being tailed by his friends. Realizing that the trip he had planned into the Everfree Forest in search of the ancient castle had decided to move up in his schedule, he made use of the panic caused by Nightmare Moon to slip out of the hall undetected.

Or so he thought.

Derpy, having caught sight of Naruto’s departure out of her peripheral vision, faced her daughters, “Girls, listen to me: I want you to find Carrot Top, go back to the house and stay there until I get back. Understand?”

Gently holding the frightened Dinky close to her, Sparkler nodded, “I understand, Mom. But what about you: what are you planning on doing?”

Derpy smiled determinedly, “I don’t have a plan, but it looks like Naruto does, and chances are that he’s going to need some help!”

“Mommy,” Dinky sniffled, “what you and Mr. Naruto gonna do?”

Nuzzling her youngest daughter, she replied, “We’re going to go and give that mean old mare a well-deserved spanking for being a bully! Now you listen to your big sister and Carrot Top, alright?”

Dinky nodded, “Yes, Mommy. Go put that big meanie in Time Out!”

Laughing, Derpy gave both her daughters another nuzzle, before taking off after Naruto.

But it wouldn’t be just the two of them...

“Lyra, where do you think you’re going?”

Mere moments after seeing the gray Pegasus leave just after Naruto, Lyra decided that she wanted to know just what they were doing and started to follow. At least until BonBon questioned her.

“Well you see, BonBon, Naruto never did tell me what he...” Seeing her friend’s stern look, she relented, “Oh alright: those two look like they’ve got something planned and I want in on it. They might require the use of a Unicorn in their scheme.”

BonBon’s stern look slowly changed into a worried one, “Lyra, whatever they’re doing could be really dangerous. You could get hurt or worse, and I don’t know if I could take it. Why don’t we just find someplace safe to hide and let somepony more qualified solve it?”

Lyra looked her fillyhood friend square in the eyes, “BonBon, I didn’t spend all my time at the school trying to find out more about humans. I studied more practical things, and my magic is much stronger now. I don’t know if Naruto will actually need me there, but I at least want to try.”

After staring into her friend’s eyes for several more seconds, she stared sadly at the ground, “But what about me? I’m not a Unicorn or a Pegasus: I’ve got nothing to contribute, so where does that leave me?”

Smiling gently, Lyra placed a hoof on one of BonBon’s, “Are you kidding: why do you think I’m feeling so confident? It’s because I know that if I have you believing in me, there won’t be anything I can’t do: you’re where I get my strength, BonBon.”

BonBon snorted, a few happy tears falling from her eyes, “That was so corny, Lyra.”

Lyra giggled, “I know. Now let’s get a move on: Naruto and that Pegasus are probably halfway to Nightmare Moon’s hideout by now.”

A nod of determination from BonBon, and the two friends were off in search of the stallion they had befriended.

(Everfree Forest’s edge)

Naruto stood on the dirt path leading into the Everfree Forest, still in his ponysona: he planned to travel partway into the forest as a pony, before returning to his human form when he was sure he wouldn’t be spotted. He sighed as an irritable realization took form: even if the Elements of Harmony were used to defeat Nightmare Moon in the past and if he somehow managed to find them, it meant jack squat if he didn’t know how to actually use them. His eyes narrowed: there was a strong probability that he was going to have to deal with Nightmare Moon the old fashioned way, and that was a severe ass-whooping. Steeling himself, he took a step...

“NARUTO!”

...only to halt immediately as Derpy flew up next to him.

“What are you doing here?” He scowled: the entire reason for him sneaking out was to deal with the problem alone.

Derpy was truly shocked at the anger of his tone, “I-I came to help you.”

Naruto looked away from her, “Go home, Derpy: what I’m going to do is far too dangerous for you to be here.”

“But I can help!”

“Are you prepared for a fight? Are you even capable of fighting?”

Derpy gasped, “What? I-”

“Chances are that is what’s going to happen, Derpy: if worse comes to worse, I’m going to face Nightmare Moon and attempt to kill her.”

Derpy was silent as he continued, “I don’t know just what she’s capable of, but I know what I can do. You could get seriously injured, killed even. I don’t want your daughters to become orphans in a manner similar to how I did. You’re my friend, Derpy, and as a friend I’m telling you to go back to Ponyville where it’s safe... well, safer.”

“...my parents died when I was young.”

Naruto stopped: it was his turn to listen, now.

“Everypony thought that I needed to be coddled, because I had no other family members.” She clenched her eyes tightly shut, “I hated it: I hated being treated like I wasn’t capable of doing anything without somepony guiding me. That’s part of the reason why I kept running from every foster home and orphanage they would put me in. Eventually, they just gave up and let me live my life the way I decided, and look where I am now: I’ve got two beautiful daughters, lots of friends, and a job so that I can support my family.”

“And the rest of the reason?”

Her eyes opened, confused, “Huh?”

“You said that was part of the reason. What was the rest?”

She looked down, “I know better now, but back then... I felt like they were trying to replace my parents. I didn’t want that: my parents are the ones who gave me life, love, my nickname-”

“Nickname?”

She looked at him and smirked, “You didn’t think that somepony would actually name their foal Derpy, did you? That was a nickname my parents gave me, silly: I’ve chosen to go by it ever since they passed on.”

Naruto rested a hoof on his face, “Okay, I know the situation is dire and all that, but I have to know just what you did to have your parents give you the nickname “Derpy”.”

She grinned, “As a foal, I was great at making silly faces.”

Lowering his hoof, he stared at her, “Alright then, Derpy: what is your decision?”

She gave him a look of confidence, “I’m going with you to face Nightmare Moon.”

He nodded, “Alright: since I’m sure you’re quick with your wings and walking on four hooves would only slow us down...”

A cloud of smoke later, and Naruto was human once more.

“By... Celestia’s... Mane...!”

Human and Pegasus froze: that was not something they wanted to hear. Necks making creaking noises, their heads turned ever so slowly to behold a certain Unicorn/Earth pony pair. Both Lyra and BonBon were staring at them with gigantic eyes and hanging jaws.

His mind numb at being discovered like this, all Naruto could do was barely raise a hand in greeting and weakly ask, “What’s up?”

Both ponies fainted clean away with matching thuds.

Derpy didn’t admonish Naruto for the very loud and vulgar word that left his lips: frankly, she was thinking the same thing.

(Everfree Forest: inner depths)

Warmth: it surrounded her and filled her very being. She could feel her body swaying gently, as though she were being rocked by her mother as a foal. All that was missing was a warm bottle of milk and her mother’s lullaby.

Come to think of it, she could hear a voice. Two of them actually: a mare and a stallion having a conversation.

“So... if Derpy isn’t your real name, then what is it?”

A giggle, “You’ll find out when I feel like telling you, Naruto.”

“Aw, maaaan.” He whined.

BonBon’s eyes snapped open, and quickly took in her surroundings: they were deep inside the Everfree Forest, it was still night (eternal night, duh), and she was being carried by the thing that made her pass out! But if he was carrying her, then how come there was another him carrying the still-unconscious Lyra and another one talking to Derpy?

Feeling the pony held against its back shifting, the Shadow Clone looked back at her and gave her a soothing smile, “Are you alright, BonBon? You had a bit of a fall not too long ago.”

Seeing her shakily lift a hoof to point at the orange-clad being with Derpy, then at the one holding Lyra and then himself, he replied, “The easiest way to explain would be a duplication spell: I’m a duplicate, and so is the one that has Lyra. The real Naruto is with Derpy.” Slowing his gait, he softly asked, “Do you think you’ll be able to walk?” At her nod, he gently set her down onto her hooves before startling her when he dispelled in a cloud of smoke.

Seconds after the duplicate vanished, Naruto turned to look at the Earth pony, “Care to explain why you decided to follow us, BonBon? I was originally going to do this alone, since it’ll more than likely become dangerous.”

BonBon pointed a hoof at her Unicorn friend, “It was her idea, you know: she wanted to help you in whatever way she could. I’d say it was because you defended her belief in humans, and now-”

“OhmygoshOhmygosh! A HUMAN!”

POOF! THUD!

“Ouchies!”

The three of them watched as Lyra climbed back onto her hooves, rubbing her rump where she fell on it.

Naruto blinked, “You hugged my clone hard enough to pop him... Holy crap, Lyra.”

A mint-green missile launched itself at him with a squee, requiring him to catch her lest she fall again. That wouldn’t be the case, however, as Lyra wrapped all four legs around his torso and clung to him like an adorable leech, “See, BonBon! Humans do exist! They’re real! They’re really real!”

BonBon watched with half-lidded eyes, “...and now I know why: you are one.” Clearing her throat, she continued, “Lyra? I’d like to apologize to you: I shouldn’t have treated you so rudely about this.”

Still rubbing her head against Naruto’s chest, Lyra replied, “Apology accepted! Can you believe it, BonBon? I finally found a real live human!”

Soft eyes accompanied the Earth mare’s proud look, “Yes... yes you did, Lyra.”

Naruto winced as the mare hugged him tighter: for such a cute thing, she was threatening to crush his ribcage. He slowly knelt down, “Someone get her off, please: she’s starting to hurt me.”

Giggling, Derpy and BonBon wrapped their forelegs around the Unicorn and attempted to pull her off of the blonde’s torso. Unfortunately, Lyra had a pretty damn good hold on him, because she wasn’t budging: in fact, with each tug the ponies gave, they were also jerking Naruto forward. Naruto placed a hand on her head, “Lyra, you have to let go if we want to stop Nightmare Moon.”

That did the trick: the next mighty pull sent all three ponies tumbling. Naruto inhaled sharply: as he got up to check on them, he was sure that Lyra had left hoof imprints on his back that would last for several days. Helping them up, he had to ask one more time for absolute finality, “I’m only going to ask once more: this will probably be extremely dangerous, and likely end in a battle with Nightmare Moon. If any of you want to go back to Ponyville, tell me now.”

Derpy looked at him with both eyes, completely serious, “I made my decision, Naruto: I’m with you until the end.”

BonBon motioned to the Unicorn, “I’ll follow Lyra, whatever her decision.”

Lyra grinned determinedly, once again reminding Naruto of himself when he was young, “And I’m with you, Naruto! I refuse to stand by and do nothing when I know I can help!”

Naruto blinked: apparently he found the pony equivalent of himself. He chuckled, “Alright: looks like we’re a team from here on out. Let’s GO!”

“ALRIGHT!” The ponies cheered.

As they marched off deeper into the forest, they were unaware that their conversation had been eavesdropped on...

“A human? How can it be so? The Beast did away with them all those years ago.”

A pair of turquoise eyes watched as the truly odd bunch of friends disappeared amongst the trees of the Everfree Forest.

(Everfree Forest: just how deep is this thing?)

BonBon was confused: after Naruto had defended Lyra’s beliefs yesterday, BonBon had asked Lyra (out of curiosity, mind you) what she had learned about humans from that book. While Naruto certainly met a lot of the qualities that Lyra had mentioned, he displayed a lot more than the book said that humans did. Did that mean that Naruto was some kind of superhuman?

Far be it from her to know, but BonBon was pretty sure that “normal” humans weren’t able to leap from great heights and across raging rivers while holding two full grown ponies.

Lyra was still ecstatic, but agreed with her: Naruto must be a special human.

The four of them now stood at the edge of a cliff, overlooking a deep chasm shrouded in fog. Across the chasm was another cliff and beyond that, they could make out the outline of a large structure peeking above the dense mist. What separated them from getting from here to there was a collapsed rope bridge. Had it been just Lyra and BonBon, their journey would’ve ended there, unable to cross the chasm. Fortunately, they had friends to help them across.

Naruto glanced at Derpy, “Derpy, can you fly over to the other side and give me an estimate of how wide the gap is?”

She grinned, “Not a problem!” Flapping her wings, she disappeared into the fog. A few seconds later, her voice called back, “I’d say it’s about... let’s see...” The sound of her muttering something to herself, then, “About fourty of your feet!”

Naruto grinned: he’d jumped much farther than that before. He motioned to the earthbound mares to get close to him. When they got within range, he scooped them up and leapt into the air. He didn’t vocalize it, but he was laughing as the ponies in his arms screamed in alarm. Landing on the other side in a skid, he gently placed them onto their hooves, chuckling weakly as they stumbled about in an attempt to regain their balance, “You’ll get used to it.” Seeing their disoriented glares, he attempted to calm them, “Hey: first few times I tried it, I panicked and ended up smacking into a pole, a wall, the side of a mountain and the inside of a dumpster.”

As Derpy helped the two of them, Naruto slowly approached their destination: the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. Besides thinking that the name was too long and needed to be shortened, Naruto had been expecting that the castle would’ve been small and almost entirely collapsed: it was supposed to be ancient after all. Nope, this sucker was enormous and, apart from being slightly overtaken by the surrounding foliage, was almost completely intact. On each side of the main doors was a large stain glass window: the one on the right depicting a white winged-Unicorn with a pink mane and a bright sun above its head, and the left depicting a dark blue winged-Unicorn with a light-azure mane and a crescent moon above it.

He turned to look at his companions, who were standing together about four feet behind him and looking as determined as ever. Nodding his head, he turned back and placed a hand on one of the doors. Taking a deep breath and preparing himself, he brought his other hand onto the doors and pushed.

(ACotRPS: Main Hall)

Even with the strength he put into it, Naruto was barely able to force the large doors open: he figured that they were constructed of dense and sturdy material to prevent unwanted entry, and were primarily opened with Unicorn magic. He glanced about the room they entered: apart from half-inch-thick layer of dust coating everything, thick vines growing out of the walls, the occasional missing section of said-walls and the gaudy décor, he had to admit that this thing withstood the test of time. Maybe, after dealing with Nightmare Moon, he’d claim it as his own? It wasn’t like anyone was using it nowadays, anyway.

Shrugging, he faced the ponies, “Alright, here’s the plan so far: get the Elements of Harmony, find Nightmare Moon, beat Nightmare Moon, then head back to Ponyville, have a drink and celebrate our victory. Any questions?”

BonBon raised a hoof, “That sounds like a shoddily crafted plan.”

His response was immediate, “And that was a statement, not a question. Any actual questions?”

Lyra followed up, “What do the Elements look like?”

“Not a clue.”

Now it was Derpy who asked, “Do you have any idea where we’re supposed to look?”

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest, “No, but I have a plan. We split up: you three search the rooms adjacent to this one, while I head further in and look for the Elements. If I come across Nightmare Moon in my search, I’ll be able to go all out against her since I know you three will be safe.”

BonBon looked around the room, “And what if we find Nightmare Moon, instead? What’ll happen then?”

“I’m glad you asked. Here.” He reached into one of his pockets and withdrew what appeared to be a scroll. Pricking his thumb, he smeared some blood over one of the markings. In a puff of smoke, a strange looking knife appeared: it had one blade longer than the two jutting off of its edges on one end, a ring at the other end, which were connected by a thin rod wrapped in a cloth covered with unreadable markings.

He held it out to BonBon, who carefully held it sideways with her mouth, “Wha iz ths?”

Naruto grinned, “A very special weapon my father used before I was born. If you encounter Nightmare Moon, throw this at her, and I’ll be there in no time to protect you.” Patting each mare on the head, he stood up and made his way across the hall, toward another set of doors that appeared to lead deeper into the castle. Stopping in front of them, he looked back over his shoulder and gave them a thumb’s up, “Don’t worry, girls: we’ll bring Nightmare Moon down, then head home and celebrate with all our friends.”

He pushed the doors open and walked through into the inner sanctum of the ancient castle.

(Naruto)

If Nightmare Moon was after the Elements herself, then he needed to find them fast. Of course, in order to catch her off guard, stealth was a necessity: that meant no Shadow Clones tromping about the castle in search of the items that he didn’t even know the appearance of. In the meantime, as he searched, he was coming up with various strategies for the inevitable fight with the fallen royalty: one of the more important ones taking into account what they had heard interlaced with the mare’s voice earlier.

‘I get the feeling that this is going to end up being one of the most complicated fights of my life.’

“You mean because you can’t just go “Rawr: Naruto Smash”?”

‘Very funny, fur ball. But seriously: do you think it’ll work? I’ve never fought like that before.’

“If our suspicions are true, and we can manipulate it to our advantage, we should be able to pull off a win.”

Passing by an open door, Naruto caught sight of a reflection of light coming from within the room. Upon entering, he saw quite possibly the strangest sword he had ever seen: the blade had been stylized to resemble the horn of a Unicorn, while the cross-guard looked like a pair of Pegasus wings, the grip gave the illusion of having countless thin vines coiled around it, and the pommel was a rainbow-colored sphere. Just staring at it, he could feel something... mystical about it. He wanted to take it to examine later, but he was in a hurry. Then again, it was unlikely that he’d remember which room it was in or, depending on how fierce a fight erupted, if it would still even exist later.

He grabbed his head and growled in irritation, eyes shut: why couldn’t the sword just come to him and save him some time?

“Huh: didn’t think you’d manage part of it so easily, brat.”

Naruto’s eyes snapped open: floating weakly in front of him was the sword. His eyes glowed in pride and joy: not only had he levitated the sword to himself with magic, but...

“OH, HELL YEAH! My magic aura’s freaking ORANGE! WOOHOO!”

He snatched the sword from the air and quickly sealed it within a scroll, feeling all tingly: whether from the magic or holding the sword, he wasn’t sure.

His eyes widened when he felt the tug of the Hiraishin kunai he had given to the ponies, and disappeared in a flash of yellow.

(Derpy, Lyra and BonBon: minutes earlier)

Derpy was no fool. She knew exactly why Naruto insisted that they stay near the entrance: he was certain that he would find Nightmare Moon, and wanted to be sure that they wouldn’t be anywhere near the battle. He must’ve been banking on, upon hearing the sounds of fighting, they would flee immediately and leave him on his own. She frowned: how many times would she have to say she can help before it’d get through his thick skull? Maybe a hard buck to the head would change his tune.

“Hey, look at this thing.”

Derpy was brought out of her blonde-harming musings by Lyra’s call. In the center of the room they were in was a large pedestal, topped with a large stone sphere that was covered by a thick layer of moss. What really stood out about the structure was that there were six flat stones extending from it, five of them each holding a stone orb while the sixth lay unoccupied.

BonBon gently placed the three-bladed knife Naruto had entrusted her with on the stone floor before asking, “Didn’t Naruto tell us about the Elements on the way here?”

Derpy approached the pedestal, “Six Elements, five of which are known as Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity and Loyalty. Could these be them?”

BonBon blinked, “Leaving them out in one of the first rooms of a castle? Whose bright idea was that?”

“...two, three, four... five. Wait a minute,” Lyra exclaimed, “where’s the sixth Element?”

“That would be a useful answer to have, you little sun-lovers.”

The ponies whirled around in surprise and, to their horror, found themselves face-to-face with...

“N-Nightmare MOON!”

The lunar mare smirked malevolently, “I feel as though I should reward you for leading me to the Elements: the very items used to defeat me a thousand years ago. But what kind of reward would be most suitable for such an accomplishment?”

Lyra quickly levitated Naruto’s knife before them, with the trio of blades facing the dark pony, “I already had something in mind, Nightmare Moon.”

Nightmare Moon was puzzled and, though she refused to admit it, slightly unnerved by the Unicorn’s statement. Coupled with that was the mare’s lack of fear: no, on that pony’s face was a look of smug cockiness. She glared, “And just what would that be, you little foal: a quick, painless death?”

“No, just this... Don’t go down too fast: I wanna see what he can do!”

At that, Lyra launched the knife directly at Nightmare Moon. With a cruel laugh, Nightmare Moon prepared to easily sidestep it...

...had not something appeared in a bright flash of yellow and proceeded to strike her square in the snout.

Being completely unprepared for such a sudden attack, the force behind the punch sent Nightmare Moon hurtling across the room until she slammed into a wall and fell to the floor in a heap. Rising to her hooves, she exclaimed with a great deal of shock, “A human?! Impossible! They were wiped out over a millennium ago: long before I was defeated!”

Naruto shook his aching fist: he didn’t realize that slender helmet Nightmare Moon wore wasn’t just for intimidation. That punch did more than just distract Nightmare Moon, however: it confirmed his and Kurama’s suspicions from earlier. When his fist made contact with Nightmare Moon, he saw and heard someone: a winged-Unicorn mare, with a light phthalo blue coat and a light azure mane, her cyan eyes brimming with tears as she cried out for salvation. Briefly recalling the legend, Naruto summarized that who he had just seen was the younger royal pony sister, trapped within the dark grip of Nightmare Moon, and vowed to save her.

To all eyes present, Naruto seemed to flicker from existence, only to reappear before Nightmare Moon with a spiraling sphere in his right hand. Lunging forward, he drove the glowing blue ball into Nightmare Moon’s armored collar, the force carrying both of them through the wall that had been significantly weakened from the mare’s impact.

The ponies galloped toward the newly-formed gap, hoping to somehow assist Naruto in combat against Nightmare Moon, only to see their human friend climb back through into the room. Derpy was the first to reach him, “Naruto, are you alright?”

The blond looked at her, “I’m a clone: Boss is luring Nightmare Moon deeper into the castle, so he can use his stronger Jutsu against her. I was created to help you find the Elements and move them, as well as construct a new battle plan considering what was just learned about the situation.”

BonBon pointed to the stone orbs, “We weren’t certain at first, but with how Nightmare Moon reacted, those must be the Elements of Harmony.”

Clone-Naruto took notice of the pedestal, “But there’s only five: where’s the sixth Element?”

Lyra shook her head, “We don’t know. Lucky for us, she doesn’t seem to know its location either.”

He nodded, “That’s good. Let’s move these back to the main hall. While we’re moving them, let’s come up with a strategy to use against Nightmare Moon.”

Derpy gave him a look, “Does that mean you’re finally going to let us help?”

The clone gave a thumb’s up, “With this new development, your help will be essential, as will Twilight and the others when they get here.”

Lyra’s ears perked up, “Huh? How do you know they’ll be coming?”

He lifted a hand, “Ever since I woke up after exhausting my Chakra fighting that dragon the other day, I’ve been feeling more alive than I used to. A few days after that, I discovered that, by leaving such a void in my energy level, the ambient magic of this land rushed inside me to fill it up: now I can use magic alongside my Jutsu, although I’ll need some training in using it efficiently.”

BonBon flicked her tail, “That’s nice, Naruto, but it didn’t answer the question.”

The clone blushed, “Sorry. Anyway, one of the constantly active Jutsu I have allows me to sense the presence of others. Even before we got to the castle, I could feel the presence of Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity within the forest. I figured that, since Twilight was looking for a way to stop Nightmare Moon on her own, she’d find the reference guide at the library back in town, which said that the last known location of the Elements of Harmony was in this castle.” He folded his arms in front of his chest, “I’m pretty sure that it’s no coincidence that there are six Elements, and six ponies searching for them. They’ll need the Elements more than we will, and that’s why we’re going to make it easier for the others to get them.”

As the ponies followed him toward the pedestal, the clone asked, “Lyra, what kind of combat-capable magic do you know?”

“Huh?”

(Throne Room of the Sisters)

Naruto swiftly dodged another storm of Nightmare Moon’s lightning bolts from her place on the upraised section of the room, where two contrasting thrones sat, having withstood time like most of the castle: one bright like the day, and the other dark as the night. As much as he wanted to take a look at the room, Naruto was far more preoccupied with the mare hurling powerful magic at him.

During their traveling battle this far into the castle, Naruto learned to stay wary of that mane of hers, which wasn’t just for show: as several of his clones found out, Nightmare Moon’s mane could yank them into outer space, where they dispelled most uncomfortably. Unfortunately for Naruto, it worked both ways: the mare had hurled more than a large number of small asteroids at him, many of which were currently jutting out of the walls of the room.

Naruto shuddered as the cool night wind blew against his exposed torso: during a brief period where he had distracted Nightmare Moon with a Shadow Clone rush (the very same one where he learned of her ability), Naruto proceeded to seal his duster, jacket and shirt into a scroll. He would need no such obstructions in order for his intended plan to work, if he could find an opening to implement it. But damn this pony: she simply would not hold still, and it wasn’t like he could just ask her to stop moving.

“I’ll crush you, human!”

Naruto leapt into the air to avoid the bright throne that Nightmare Moon had just chucked at him. He couldn’t help but let out a chuckle: even in the midst of battle, she wouldn’t use the throne dedicated to the night as a weapon. He yelped when that very throne came down on him like a vengeful flyswatter, viciously driving him into the unforgivingly hard floor. It was times like these that being a Jinchuriki was very useful: that probably would’ve seriously injured a regular human, if not outright killed them.

Ignoring Nightmare Moon’s condescending laughter, he slowly rose to his feet: he needed to buy enough time for the Twilight and the others to meet up with his team and get ready to set his plan into motion. Crossing his fingers before him, he summoned another plethora of Shadow Clones into existence. Like an army of ants, they all surged forward at the mare: at least one of them had to make physical contact in order for this fight to become much easier, as well as throw Nightmare Moon off considerably.

Laughing at the seemingly-suicidal rush, Nightmare Moon’s mane rose above her and expanded into a spherical form with multiple spike-like protrusions. As it swung downward toward the mass of clones, Naruto wondered if it would be considered an evening star, rather than a morning star. While a good chunk of clones were crushed beneath the transformed mane, a fair number managed to evade it and continued their charge. The starry mane flattened and widened considerably, now resembling a crescent spade, before hurtling back toward Nightmare Moon at a frightening speed. A significantly smaller number of clones survived this follow-up attack, the majority having been viciously bisected.

The last few Narutos leapt straight at the lunar mare, going for a full frontal attack. They paid dearly for their foolishness: the mane swooped upward, snatching them up in a starry orb. Nightmare Moon released a truly wicked laugh as the orb suddenly collapsed in on itself, crushing everything within it into particles.

Seeing no other Narutos, she laughed victoriously, “While I commend your bravery and tenacity, I must also admonish and pity you for your idiocy. It was foolish of you to believe that a single human could defeat Nightma-”

SMACK!

Nightmare Moon yelped in surprise and pain at the sudden strike to her hindquarters. Lashing out with her hind legs in a ferocious kick, she felt her hooves connect with flesh and heard the air rushing out of a pair of lungs. Her mane launched backwards and snared the offender. Turning to face her assailant with a blush of both embarrassment and rage, she growled at the human now trapped within her coiling mane. “You indignant cur!” She growled at his smug look, “I am going to take my sweet time crushing you before I hurl you into deep space!”

Naruto smirked, with a hint of amused perversion (a psychological tactic picked up from his godfather), “You can try, little miss Tight Flank.”

All rationality thrown to the wind, her mane spontaneously constricted the human with great force: oh, how she wanted to hear each and every bone in his body snap in unison. What she got was the sound of wood splintering beneath great pressure. She stared in absolute shock as a partially crushed log fell from her limp mane. She felt great rage welling up inside her as she heard Naruto’s boisterous call from the shadows, “Nothing has saved the lives of countless Shinobi more than the great and powerful Log!”

Howling in fury, Nightmare Moon launched herself at the voice, unaware of the foreign markings now adorning her aching flank.

(Main Hall)

“We finally made it: the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters.”

“What a dump: everything is so filthy and covered in mold and dust!”

“What’d you expect? This castle hasn’t been occupied for almost a thousand years. Now, let’s start looking for the...”

Twilight and her five new friends, having faced trial after trial orchestrated by Nightmare Moon, had finally arrived at the last known location of the Elements of Harmony. They entered the old castle expecting many scenarios, the most probable being that Nightmare Moon was lying in wait to strike the moment they found the Elements: what they found was three ponies and (to those in the know) a certain biped sitting in a small square conversing lowly, with five stone orbs gathered together within reach of them.

“Derpy/Lyra?” Rainbow and Twilight exclaimed incredulously and respectively.

The strategizing group peered up from their conversation, now aware of the six’s presence. Derpy waved happily, “Hi, everypony! What took you so long?”

Twilight’s attention was drawn to the biped: something about it seemed familiar. When it clicked in her mind, she lifted a trembling hoof, “L-Lyra? Is that a... a...?”

Lyra’s grin was so wide, BonBon was worried that the upper portion of her head would pop off, “Yep: it’s a human! And guess who it is? It’s Naruto!”

Had it been any other time, Twilight probably would’ve fainted at seeing an allegedly mythical creature right before her eyes. Right now, though, she was simply too overwhelmed to even speak.

The blond rose to his feet, “Now that they’ve arrived, I’ll be dispelling: gotta let the Boss know what the plan is.” His eyes turned to the three ponies near him, “And remember: to keep the element of surprise, they have to be kept in the dark. Can you do that?”

A look of hesitance took hold of Lyra’s face as she spoke softly, “I don’t know, Naruto: Twilight’s one of my only close friends besides BonBon, and I just don’t feel right about what we’re going to be putting her through.”

He placed a hand on top of her head and gently stroked her mane, “I’m certain the Boss won’t like it either, Lyra: he hates putting his friends in danger, but in order for us to save every living thing in this world, we have to push through.”

After receiving a nod from the Unicorn, the clone vanished in that familiar cloud of smoke.

Twilight’s still-upraised hoof was practically vibrating now, “Did he just... How did he...?”

Lyra moved toward her stunned schoolmate, “Twilight, I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but now is not the best time. We found most of the Elements, but don’t know what to do next: that’s where you come in.”

Snapping out of her trance, she looked at Lyra in shock, “You girls found the Elements?”

Lyra smiled weakly, dreading what she knew would soon occur, “All but one. We need you to work your magic, Twi.”

(Naruto and Nightmare Moon)

Naruto leapt back in order to avoid another wide sweep of Nightmare Moon’s mane: ever since he slapped her on the ass and taunted her, she seemed more inclined to just send him into the vacuum of space and be done with him. Quite a bit of the castle had already been victimized by her unleashed brutality: more than a dozen or so statues, pillars, and even entire rooms had been swallowed up by her mane.

He was really hoping that Twilight and the others showed up soon: it was getting harder and harder not to go all out against Nightmare Moon. As easy as it would be to just say “Oh well” and toss a Rasenshuriken her way, Naruto kind of needed her body to be in one piece in order to rescue the younger sister. He groaned: why did so many of his fights have to be so complicated? Everyone else had straightforward objectives: just beat the living daylights out of the other guy. Him? Something damn near always came up. He had a ridiculous level of luck in many things: simple fights were not on that particular list.

At that moment, the memories of the clone he had left with Derpy and the others flooded his mind. The clone was right: this was one kind of gamble that he truly resented. Sadly, he had no other choice: time to set the bait...

Nightmare Moon halted her next assault when she heard the human begin to chuckle: had he finally gone insane from the pressure, from her very presence? “What is so humorous, you hairless ape? Have you finally realized the futility of your struggles?”

“You’ve lost, Nightmare Moon: my friends have found the Elements, and Twilight is about to activate them. You’re finished!”

Genuine shock appeared on her face, “Impossible: only five had been located!”

He smirked, “Why do you think I led you so far away from them with our fight? I was buying them time to find the sixth Element, and for the other six to show up: the ones who are able to wield the Elements of Harmony!”

With a roar of outrageous anger, Nightmare Moon quickly transformed into the same dense smoke she had become earlier and quickly fled the ruined room. If everything went according to the plan, she would head straight for Twilight, and then the trap would be sprung.

Naruto lifted his right arm: familiar runes appeared along his forearm, seven triangles pointing away from the circular seal on his palm, and the tip of each digit possessed an ethereal flame. He glanced down at his bare stomach: the seal, the very stigma from his youth, stared back at him. He smirked, “You ready for this, Kurama?”

“Do you even need to ask, kid?”

(Main Hall)

Lyra had been well aware of what would happen, and was certain that she had steeled her conscience so that she wouldn’t flip out over it. But no matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t as experienced as Naruto was when it came to turmoil, and what she had seen transpire in the span of mere moments would haunt her until her final days:

After Naruto’s clone dispelled, Twilight quickly gathered the Elements close to her and concentrated, trying to figure out the mystery of some kind of spark. Just as her five friends prepared to leave the hall so she could concentrate in peace, a fiendishly familiar star-clad mist burst into the room and immediately engulfed Twilight and the Elements. As fast as they moved, the ponies were unable to reach her before the mist whirled about like a dark tornado, teleporting itself and its captive to somewhere within the castle: Lyra could still feel the dark magic that Nightmare Moon exuded.

The look of pure surprise and horror on Twilight’s face as the darkness swallowed her up filled the hearts and minds of the three ponies with immeasurable guilt: for their plan to work, Twilight and the others couldn’t know about it. When all was said and done, they would certainly plead for forgiveness from them.

The Unicorn shivered, a chill seeming to pass through her very soul: Nightmare Moon’s aura had just returned in tremendous force. Focusing her magic to act as a sensor, Lyra was able to pinpoint the area in which Nightmare Moon had retreated to with Twilight and the Elements in tow: they were in a building entirely separate from the main castle, the original user of which had long since been lost in the flow of time.

The others were startled when Lyra suddenly broke into a gallop, heading for one of the doors that would eventually lead one outside of the castle. Derpy and BonBon, seeming to be aware of whatever was happening, immediately raced off after her, appearing quite determined. Not knowing what exactly was going on, Applejack and the others did the only thing they could do: follow after the ones who apparently had some sort of role in all of this.

(Ancient Throne Room)

Twilight coughed against the purple smoke as she reappeared in a room that only she occupied. At first. At the other end of the room, upon a raised section of floor where a broken throne resided, stood Nightmare Moon, the five Elements circling around her in lazy orbit. The dark royal herself laughed in victory: she had acquired that which had defeated her long ago! Now nothing could stop her! Noticing only five had been found, she chuckled cruelly: the human had been bluffing.

Twilight’s look of shock quickly morphed into one of determination as she scrapped a hoof against the stone floor. Nightmare Moon didn’t know what to make of it as she lowered the Elements to the cold stone, “You’re kidding. You’re kidding, right?”

Twilight’s horn shone with magic as she broke into a charge toward Nightmare Moon. Fed up with being challenged by fools, she leapt onto the level floor and began her own charge at the Unicorn. They neared closer and closer, Twilight’s horn becoming brighter all the while. Just as they were about to collide, the younger mare vanished in a bright flash.

Nightmare Moon gaped in temporary bewilderment as her opponent suddenly reappeared amongst the gathered Elements. The elder mare growled: she had been bluffed again! Oh, the Unicorn would pay dearly for this, as would that damnable human.

Twilight’s horn began to shine once again as she attempted to activate the gathered Elements, “Just one spark: come on, come on!”

Seeing the Elements beginning to glow, Nightmare Moon shrouded herself in her mane and quickly swooped back to the Elements: she would not be defeated again! Seconds after returning to her equine visage, a bolt of raw magic from the Elements struck Twilight, sending her flying halfway across the room into a sprawling heap. The Elements continued to transfer the magic between them as Nightmare Moon fell into a panic.

Moments later, the Elements returned to their inert stone spheres, the magic leaving them.

Nightmare Moon’s panic quickly turned to elation as she rose up and brought her empowered hooves down upon the Elements, laughing wickedly the entire time. Twilight felt her hope, as well as her heart, shatter along with the Elements. Nightmare Moon glared at the mare, “You little foal: thinking you could defeat me! Now you will never see your princess or your sun,” her mane extended high above her, ready to bring it down upon the broken Unicorn and send her into oblivion, “The night will last forever!”

Her evil laughter rang out once more...

...before she found herself becoming slowly encased in a yellow magical aura from her hooves to the base of her neck, as well as her mane being restrained.

Both of them staring in surprise at the sudden aura, both of them turned to the sound of voices echoing from the nearby stairwell. At the top of the stairs was a certain bright aquamarine Unicorn, her horn emitting a fantastic bright glow, flanked by a walleyed Pegasus and a creamy Earth pony. Seeing and hearing her friends coming to her aid, Twilight felt something within her: a spark.

Twilight turned to face Nightmare Moon, who was struggling to break free of Lyra’s golden prison: she would have succeeded, had the aura not been powered by the camaraderie the Unicorn had forged with Derpy, BonBon and Naruto. Despite being freshly forged, the bonds that had come about from their friendship were strong enough to hold even the Mare in the Moon firmly in place.

Twilight was filled with renewed determination, “You think you can destroy the Elements of Harmony just like that? Well you’re wrong, because the spirits of the Elements of Harmony are right HERE!” She was quickly joined by the five friends she had made throughout their trials.

Nightmare Moon could only watch in shock as the fragments of the Elements rose up, bathed in light.

“Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of Honesty,” Applejack watched as some of the fragments began to orbit about her at a frenzied pace.

“Fluttershy, who tamed the Manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of Kindness,” Fluttershy stared in awe as fragments swirled in the air around her.

“Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of Laughter,” Pinkie hopped with a grin as fragments joined her.

“Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift, represents the spirit of Generosity,” Rarity smiled at her ring of fragments.

“And Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own heart’s desire, represents the spirit of Loyalty,” Rainbow Dash watched her friend, rather than her fragments.

“The spirits of these five ponies got us through every challenge you threw at us!”

Nightmare Moon was beside herself, “You still don’t have the sixth Element! The spark didn’t work!”

“But it did,” Twilight continued, “a different kind of spark.” She turned to face her friends, “I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you... The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all...”

She turned to face the vainly-thrashing Nightmare Moon, “...are my friends!”

A magnificent bright light drew all eyes to the ceiling above, to behold the sight of a sixth orb: the sixth Element of Harmony. They watched as the sphere descended down from the air to float above Twilight’s head. Held in place, Nightmare Moon could only clench her eyes tightly shut in an attempt to block out the light.

“You see, Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the... the spark that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth Element: the Element of Magic.”

The room was engulfed by an unmatched light, as the fragments gained color and forged themselves into necklaces around the five ponies, each one with a gem resembling their Cutie Mark. The orb, however, became a grandiose tiara with Twilight’s Cutie Mark, before settling itself upon her head.

Without warning, a flash of yellow light flared up behind Nightmare Moon, heralding the arrival of a certain someone.

“Good work, everyone: the trap worked even better than I had expected it to.”

“Naruto?”

The ponies were quite surprised to see the human appear, his torso bared for all to see: a strange pattern of markings was clearly visible on his belly and running along his right arm, the digits of which were now blazing within an ethereal flame.

He turned to face toward Nightmare Moon, “I get the feeling that whatever darkness has you ensnared is too powerful to be defeated by the freshly activated Elements, so...” He raised his right arm over his head, “I’m going to weaken it face-to-face!” He slammed his palm directly over the seal, gripped the flesh and twisted.

The crash of a titanic tumbler shifting echoed throughout the near-silent room.

Naruto removed his hand, revealing the circular marking at the center of his belly appeared to be twisting itself about as it opened, emitting a myriad of unsettlingly organic noises. Once it had become nothing but an open hole in the human’s flesh, what happened next was something that nopony ever saw coming...

Engulfed by a dark orange aura, a massive arm with clawed digits surged forth from the opening and clamped down on Nightmare Moon, trapping her within the construct’s otherworldly grasp.

A deep voice boomed out, seemingly from the Naruto’s gut, “Naruto: I’ve connected her mindscape to ours. The time to act is now!”

Naruto turned his head to look at the gathered ponies and proceeded to give that familiar grin, “Everyone, just relax for a bit: I’ll handle this part.”

Both Naruto and Nightmare Moon were engulfed in a massive pillar of light that extended high into the sky above.

(Conjoined Mindscape)

Naruto stood at the border that separated his mindscape from that of their pony guest: his side was the familiar grassy locale, whereas the other mindscape shifted starkly into a seemingly lifeless terrain. Above him, it appeared as though someone had painted the sky in half: day on his half, while the other was black and littered with stars and other celestial bodies. What really disoriented him was a certain object in the darkness: Earth, or some variant of it.

Very interesting: the pony’s mindscape had somehow managed to mimic the Moon. Fortunately, as it was not the real Moon, there was no worry about lack of breathable air or gravity: such things were controlled by the mind, not the environment.

He turned to look at Kurama, who had appeared next to him. At the moment, Kurama’s right arm was very hazy: it was what was connecting them to Nightmare Moon in the real world. He motioned toward the lunar highlands before them, “So the plan is that I head out there, find the royal sister and take out whatever it is that corrupted her. Sound good?”

“Simple is more like it, but it works. Go for it, Naruto.”

He grinned, “Why be complicated when you can be simple?” With that, he took off into the lunar landscape in search of a damsel in distress.

(Unknown Region)

Naruto wasn’t sure how long he had been running: it felt like it had been hours, days even. Of course, time was pretty much nonexistent within a mindscape: it was unlikely that even a single second had passed by. He rubbed his head: trying to figure that out was making his head hurt.

Something he noticed was that, not unlike the real Moon, this mindscape version had quite a number of tall mountains. It didn’t have anything to do with his mission, but it was noticeable.

As he ran along the rim of one of the many lunar craters he had already passed, he noticed something down at the bottom of this one: something distinctly dark blue. Realizing that he had found the pony he had seen during his earlier fight with Nightmare Moon, he leapt over the edge and slid down the side of the crater until he was much closer to the light phthalo blue mare. Slowly approaching the mare, he noticed that while she seemed slightly bigger than every other mare he had previously met, she still seemed rather small compared to Nightmare Moon. Did that mean that Nightmare Moon was some sort of external parasite, absorbing the pony’s magic and creating a more powerful form as armor?

Now that he was practically standing next to her, he noticed that she was preoccupied with something that seemed rather childish at the time: using her hooves, the pony had crudely drawn a quintet of other ponies in the bright dust, three of them with wings and a horn, the other two with just horns. He listened to her speaking softly to herself, like a small child, “Big brother was the first to leave. Then Harle and Starswirl disappeared. It was just me and big sister. Then everything got dark: I’m used to the dark, but this dark was darker than dark and mean and scary.” Tears began to fall from her eyes, “Big sister... Big brother... where did you go?”

She gasped quietly when an arm appeared in her vision, using a finger to trace something alongside her drawings. Looking over to the new arrival, she was stunned to see a human: a creature that she and her big sister thought to have gone extinct when the Beast of Calamity attacked. Noticing that she was staring at him, the human smiled at her and continued drawing in the dust, using his other arm to softly nudge her into joining him. Smiling back, she did just that.

They must have spent hours sitting next to each other, not speaking a word: simply doodling on the Moon’s surface. They drew all kinds of things, most of them just plain silly. Eventually, the human spoke softly to her, “My name’s Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki. What’s yours?”

She blinked, “I’m Luna.”

He smiled, “The perfect name for such a cute little pony.”

She huffed cutely, “I’ll have you know that I’m a princess, and I’m over a thousand years old!”

He grinned stupidly, “In that case, you’re such a cute old hag, aren’t you?”

Even though her hoof smacking the back of his head stung like hell, he just laughed. Soon enough, Luna was giggling as well.

After laughing themselves silly, Naruto held a hand toward Luna, “Come on, we should get going.”

Luna stared curiously at his hand, then back at him, “What are you talking about, Naruto? Go where?”

“Back to Equestria, Luna. Back to reality.”

Luna looked down, “I can’t. I’ve tried to leave, but it won’t let me.”

Naruto put his hand on her foreleg, “What won’t let you leave?”

“Grrrrroooonnnaaaa...”

Naruto instinctively placed himself between the pony and whatever new threat had made itself known. His eyes widened at what he saw.

It was like a more horrific variation of Nightmare Moon. This monstrosity stood on its hind legs, which possessed multiple joints to provide more than one form of quick movement, and thick claws curved out from the hooves. The arms were almost human-like, though rather than slender hands with nails, these hands were thicker and sported talons in place of nails. Its ears ended in a sharp point, and its horn was gnarled like an ancient tree. Black flames, far too similar to the flames of Amaterasu to be comfortable, replaced its mane and tail, both of which licked the air hungrily. Its wings were larger and dragon-like in appearance. The sclera of its eyes were pitch black, while the irises were blood red and the pupils were single pricks of white, like stars in the night sky. Its mouth was full of viciously-sharp teeth. But what truly disturbed Naruto was what was on its chest:

A single eye with four concentric circles, the three closest to the pupil possessing three tomoe each.

This thing easily eclipsed Nightmare Moon: it was far more dark, like a night terror.

Night Terror Eclipse... Nah; that sounded stupid.

“Luuuuuunnaaaaaa...” The beast growled, “You were abandoned by everyone you cared about. They didn’t care about you: they cared only for themselves and their selfish desires. The only one you can trust is me...”

Naruto clenched his fist: he could hear Nightmare Moon’s voice, but it was hidden beneath another female voice, one of regality. And beneath those was yet another voice: this one male, old, and dark.

He didn’t give two shits about what it sounded like, though: he didn’t appreciate the shit it was spewing, and he decided to let it know in a proper manner.

A duel Rasengan to the face and gut tended to get across the message that you’re not well liked.

The second the creature was launched away from them, Naruto quickly scooped up the surprised Luna into his arms and ran partway up the crater. Reaching about halfway up the slope, he leapt up onto the rim, quickly located the footprints he had left on the surface and ran back the direction he had originally come: back toward Kurama.

Barely fifteen seconds into his mad dash, he heard the monster roar in rage. Luna peeked over his shoulder and cried, “Naruto, it’s catching up to us!”

Naruto growled, “Not if I have anything to say about it! Luna, hold onto me as tight as you can!”

Feeling the mare’s legs wrap closely around his torso, Naruto brought his hands together into his tried-and-true technique, which he cried out in an attempt to give Luna confidence that they would surely escape the beast and its wrath, “Shadow Clone Jutsu!”

Luna gasped in awe as a tsunami of identical humans surged toward their pursuer, crashing into it like a mighty wave. She then heard the human she was clinging to scowl to himself, “I really should’ve left a Hiraishin seal back where I started: then this wouldn’t be as much of a problem.”

He ran at top speed for about half a minute, hoping to put as much distance between them and it as he could.

She was about to ask him what he was talking about before he swore, “Are you serious?! It took them out already!” Indeed, Naruto had just received the memories of his dispelled clones: that thing tore into them like a rabid beast, using talons, fangs, hooves, and the black fire that formed its mane and tail. Limbs had been severed, throats torn out, heads crushed under heavy stamps, and immediate incinerations. The last clone had actually been impaled by the monster’s horn.

Seconds later, they heard that horrific roar not very far behind them.

Luna whimpered in fear as she clung tighter to Naruto’s body. For her sake, Naruto was about to attempt something he had just come up with that second: he was going to pump both chakra and magic into his legs. With a deep breath and a prayer, he forced the two energies into his legs.

As his speed steadily increased, Naruto had to position himself to fully utilize it. The air around him began to twist and his legs felt like they were burning, but to protect Luna, he persevered.

In what now seemed like seconds, Naruto could see the arc of blue sky that represented his own mindscape rapidly approaching. He grinned wearily and lessened the flow to his legs, “We’re almost there, Luna. Just a few more-”

The ground near them exploded upward as the beast tore up through the mantle. Naruto swore very loudly and bolted toward the mindscape border, the monster in close pursuit.

Several heart-racing seconds later, Naruto could see Kurama clearly, and the look on his face told him that their pursuer was too close for comfort. There was only one thing Naruto could do to make sure that at least Luna got away safely.

Dislodging her fierce hold on him, he leapt forward and hurled Luna through the air toward Kurama, who gently caught her with his left arm on his side of the border.

The moment she had left his grasp, the beast slammed down on Naruto in an absolute fury. Naruto was on his back, arms pinned to the sides by the monstrosity’s superior strength as it roared in his face. Glaring, Naruto brought his knees to his chest and, channeling his two energies again, kicked the terror with all his might.

Its talons tore deep gashes into his arms as it was launched up and away from him. Naruto leapt to his feet as the beast recovered and was upon him immediately. Swinging talons, swiping wings, whipping mane and tail, lunging horn thrusts; Naruto was barely able to avoid each attack of its brutal assault, let alone get in enough of his own attacks: the thing’s fury allowed it to overcome the force of Naruto’s Rasengan, and it wasn’t giving him any time to prepare any variants.

Over on the grassy mindscape, held closely and protectively by Kurama, Luna practically screeched, “Naruto! Mr. Fox, can’t you do anything to help him?”

For some reason, this little pony calling him “Mr. Fox” caused another pang of familiarity. Even more so that she wasn’t calling him it because she didn’t know his name: she used it as some form of endearment. Kurama growled bitterly, “As long as he’s on your side of the conjoined mindscape, there is nothing I can do to help him other than heal his wounds from a distance. However, because of the distance and the rapid acquirement of injuries, I might as well be doing nothing for all the good it does.”

She began to tear up, “Then what can we do?”

“I can’t do anything, but you can.” At her confused look, he elaborated, “You can control your mindscape, brat. If you want to help Naruto win, then you have to give him the power yourself!”

Luna’s gaze turned back to her new friend, currently risking his life to save her from the darkness that had overwhelmed her a thousand years ago. Clenching her eyes shut, she concentrated with all her heart.

Back with the fight, the horror swung an outstretched hand wreathed in black flames that Naruto barely leapt back in time to evade. He quickly followed up his dodge was a strategically aimed Rasengan, causing the creature to lose its balance. While it was fighting to right itself, Naruto lunged forth with Rasenrengan, driving both spheres directly into the exposed eye on its torso. The resulting cry of pain was something reserved for victims of Makai.

The terror spread its wings and took to the air, well out of the exhausted Naruto’s reach. It growled darkly, “I’m through wasting my time with you, human: time to join the rest of your kind in death.”

Naruto dropped to a knee: he was spent, and this thing seemed to have just gotten its second wind. All he could do was stare in defiance as its flaming mane extended behind it like a massive curtain, “Be swallowed up by a towering wave of infinite darkness!” The flames swept out toward him, heralding his certain demise...

Had it not been for a bright light enveloping him, protecting him with a moon-like shield. Naruto could feel it restoring his strength, as well as empowering him even further.

The monster turned its furious eyes to Luna as the flames slowly burned out, “Your defiance ends here, Luna: I will absorb the rest of your power and leave your body an empty husk. After that, I’ll do the same thing to your precious sister, Celestia!”

“Funny: you make it sound like you’ve won.”

Three heads turned to look upon Naruto, with Luna smirking weakly from all the power she had placed in him: sleek white armor covered his arms, legs and torso, the breastplate possessing a sphere in the center that greatly resembled the Moon. Beneath the armor was a tight gray bodysuit. His head was uncovered, though his hair now reached the back of his knees and shone like the Moon as seen from the planet beyond the void of space. From the back of the armor, two large wings that looked as though they had been plucked from the night sky were spread out, the stars flittering across their length.

Naruto stared at the beast with contempt, “Your time has come, foul beast. As Tsuki no gādian Naruto, I declare this night to be your last!”

Kurama tried to facepalm, but his right hand simply passed through his head. At Luna’s questioning look, he spoke, “He just called himself Lunar Guardian Naruto.” Luna’s blush starkly contrasted her dark coat.

With a mighty push, Naruto launched himself toward the airborne monster. Before it could even get its arms up to defend itself, Naruto slugged it square in the face. As it grabbed at its face, Naruto straightened the fingers of his right hand and thrust it into the eye on its chest. Crying out in pain and rage, it lashed out in an attempt to get a hold of him, but he simply maneuvered to its side before introducing his foot to its back by way of a roundhouse kick that sent the beast hurtling to the surface, crashing violently.

The terror slowly rose to its clawed hooves as Naruto swooped down at it in an arc, his hand bathed in a white glow. The beast turned with an outstretched claw, intending to grab him when he got too close. Naruto, however, stopped well out of its range and thrust his fist forward, unleashing a storm of lunar energy beams that lanced over the landscape and tore a plethora of holes into the beast’s body and wings. As the holes attempted to seal themselves shut, Naruto rushed forward with his hair lengthening and spreading out in forms reminiscent of harpoons.

The monster roared in outrage as it found itself skewered in multiple extremities and lifted up from the ground. Those roars quickly turned to cries of pain as Naruto rapidly punched at it, sending fist-shaped bolts of energy up into its torso, primarily slamming viciously into the eye upon its chest.

Not giving it a chance to recover, Naruto willed his hair to retract, bringing his opponent to him like a hooked fish. He crouched slightly and, when the beast came within arm’s reach, delivered a brutal uppercut into its gut, using enough strength to send it spiraling into the air above him. Of course, that particular blow also planted a Hiraishin seal onto its body.

Instead of the previous flash of yellow, Naruto appeared above it in a burst of white before bringing both fists down upon the beast’s back, passing through and actually smothering the flaming mane. His opponent hanging in midair from the sudden and violent halt, Naruto spun in place to bring a white Rasengan into its back, sending it plummeting back to the surface with a mighty crash.

Seeing it struggling to rise to fight him once again, Naruto lifted his hand above him, focusing his chakra and the gifted power into another white sphere, though this one was considerably larger.

Then he added his wind element into the mix.

The familiar screech of his Rasenshuriken ringing out, he glanced up to see what kind of visual changes had occurred this time: the Rasengan itself had taken a striking resemblance to the moon, while the swirling chakra around it was now black and filled with stars.

Waiting until the beast was looking up at him, Naruto roared, “This is where it ends! Tsuki Rasenshuriken!”

He hurled it straight down at the roaring monster, though it was quickly drowned out by the screeching of the Jutsu.

Then it stopped completely when the lunar sphere of doom collided with the beast and worked its magic.

Not even a scream of agony escaped from the brutal Rasen variant.

Naruto drifted slowly down to the lunar surface, his armor breaking apart in a manner not unlike leaves falling from a tree in the autumn. As he neared the ground, Kurama gently placed Luna onto the grass and chuckled when she broke into a gallop toward his partner.

Naruto rested on his knees, panting from using so much power at once. Despite feeling like someone had dropped a boulder on him and proceeded to pull him out from under that boulder without moving it first, he knew that he would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant protecting someone precious to him.

Hearing Luna call his name in happiness, he looked up in time to see her leap at him, a huge smile on her face. He yelped as she knocked him backwards, smacking his head against the ground. Even as he winced, he laughed along with the mare.

He sat up and looked at the pony on his lap, “Alright, Luna: even though we took out the mental taint, we still need Twilight and the others to use the Elements of Harmony to remove the physical taint to your body. For them to do that, Kurama and I need to sever our mindscape from yours.”

The mare looked heartbroken, “What? But I thought-”

He smiled softly, “When they get rid of the taint, you’ll be in complete control of your body again. We’ll see each other again very soon, alright?”

Sniffling a little, she agreed with tears in her eyes. Naruto gently brushed them from her face and smiled again.

(Ancient Throne Room)

“Everyone, just relax for a bit: I’ll handle this part.”

As Naruto and Nightmare Moon were engulfed by the pillar of light, BonBon blinked, “How long-”

The pillar dissolved immediately and Naruto leapt back from Nightmare Moon, his torso completely normal now. Whatever he did to Nightmare Moon really affected her: it looked like her coat and skin were sagging, almost like her skeletal frame seemed to shrink.

Upon touching the stone floor, Naruto shouted, “Use the Elements!”

Naruto and the three non-bearers watched as Twilight and the others unleashed a massive double rainbow, which swirled around Nightmare Moon like a tornado, before engulfing the entire room in a bright light.

When the light faded, the six Element ponies were sprawled out upon the floor while Naruto and the others unshielded their eyes. As they began conversing with one another, Naruto approached the raised throne where a certain pony lay. He knelt down and nudged he softly. When she slowly opened her eyes to look at him, he smiled, “Welcome back, Luna.” Tears in her eyes, she quickly embraced him as best as she could.

Stroking her mane, Naruto noticed a small pitch black crystal that rested on the floor. Staring at it, he was silently shocked when it suddenly shattered into a fine powder that was blown away by the early morning breeze.

“Indeed, you do.”

Naruto’s head snapped to look in the direction the voice came from: that was the female voice that the beast was using in Luna’s mindscape!

His jaw dropped at the sight of the tall slender white winged-Unicorn that, with a brightly multicolored mane and a sun Cutie Mark, appeared with the rising sun. He watched as the eight other ponies bowed in reverence of the new arrival, while Twilight ran up to her and nuzzled her happily as the taller mare gave some sort of hug with her neck.

As they conversed, he heard Luna gasp softly, “Big sister Celestia!”

Naruto looked at the pony now hiding behind him, “That’s your big sister? What is she?”

“You didn’t know? She and I are Alicorns.”

“Huh: I was just referring to you as a winged-Unicorn, but Alicorn takes less effort to say. I’ll be sticking with that from now on.”

“Princess Luna.”

Both of them were startled, now under the gaze of the elder Alicorn. Seeing that this would be a family moment, Naruto gently moved away from Luna.

“It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this.” Celestia knelt down to be closer to Luna’s level, “Time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister. Will you accept my friendship?”

Luna glanced over at Naruto, now joined by his three companions: he simply smiled to her. Her mind was made up, “I’m so sorry!” She ran to nuzzle Celestia, more happy tears running down her face, “I missed you so much, big sister!”

Celestia teared up as well, “I’ve missed you, too.”

“As much as I hate to break up such a happy reunion...”

Everypony present looked at the sheepishly-grinning human as he continued, “But during my little running battle with Nightmare Moon, I’m pretty sure we did enough damage to compromise the structural integrity of the castle.”

Seeing blank and confused looks all around, he decided to put it more simply: “There is a pretty good chance that this castle will collapse any second now, whether or not we’re still inside.”

Silence...

(Outside the ACotRPS)

Eleven ponies and one human stood in the cool morning air, staring at what used to be the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Having been partly responsible for reducing it to the large mound of stones it had become, Naruto rubbed the back of his head, “Yeah, sorry about that. I mean, it was your old home and all...”

Celestia smiled mischievously, “Don’t worry about it, young human: we’d prefer the comfier, modern one back in Canterlot.”

Hearing the casual mention, Lyra had to ask, “Princess, did you know...?”

Celestia looked at the Unicorn, “That humans existed? Yes, actually: they were quite abundant over a thousand years ago. I also knew that it was you who snuck into my personal library and took that particular book, Lyra.”

The elder princess giggled at the mare’s strangled yelp.

She then took notice of how close Luna was standing near Naruto and smiled at the human, “I believe I have you to thank the most for saving my sister. What is your name?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but nine overly-eager ponies answered for him in unison, “Naruto Uzumaki!”

The pout on his face sent the ponies into hysterical giggles.

(Ponyville)

The Celebration was in full swing, now that not only had princess Celestia returned, but the younger princess Luna had joined her. The entire town was in merriment.

Elsewhere, a re-disguised Naruto was taking occasional glances at the sun: the prison of the Beast of Calamity... but for how long?

“Naruto!”

He turned to look at the group that found him: Lyra, BonBon, Dinky, Sparkler and Derpy. He smiled, “What’s up, everypony?” He figured that if he wanted to fit in, he needed to start using the local dialect.

Derpy huffed cutely, “You promised to spend the day with me and the girls!”

Lyra grinned, “And you’re not getting rid of us so easily: not after all we went through last night!”

He grinned at these ponies: he could get used to such a peaceful life. “Sure, let’s get going.”

Two Tickets to Fantasy

Naruto glared determinedly at his opponent. Out of everyone and everything he had ever faced in his career as a Shinobi, this sole adversary possessed a will unlike any other. Neither combatant refused to yield.

Naruto rose up on his back hooves, “You are indeed strong, my worthy adversary; but I’m stronger!”

Planting his front hooves firmly onto the ground, he twisted his body and brought his hind legs up for a vicious buck.

Hooves slammed into the target, and Naruto smirked as shining red plummeted to the earth.

“You’re doing pretty well, Naruto,” Naruto turned his head to see Big Macintosh walk up to him, “I’ve never seen a newcomer to applebucking manage to knock almost every apple off a tree with just one buck.”

Naruto glanced at the tree he had just relieved of the fresh red fruit before grinning at the taller stallion, “I’m just happy to be helping out my friends.”

The red pony shifted the stalk of straw in his mouth to smile, “Well feel free to stay with us as long as you like, Naruto: we could use the help.”

The ninja blinked, “About that: why did you ask me to not help AJ with storing most of the apples?”

Big Mac smirked goodheartedly, “I have a bet going on with her regarding those apples: if she can’t get them all into the barn by noon, she’ll have to walk Stirrup Street in one of Granny’s old girdles.”

Naruto cringed, to the stallion’s amusement, “Geez, what happens if she succeeds?”

“Then I’ll be the one marching down the street. Why?”

Naruto pointed a hoof at the orange mare, presently accompanied by two familiar purple figures, “Because she has Twilight and Spike helping her.”

Big Mac’s grin dropped faster than a falling flower pot. Naruto smiled weakly, “Wishing you’d said that she had to do it by herself, right?” He chuckled at the stallion’s silent nod, “If you’re lucky, something will come up and distract them.”

A faint belch and distant muttering quickly evolved into high-pitched shrieks of joy.

Naruto looked at Big Mac and grinned, “See? A convenient distraction.”

(Ponyville: Sweet Apple Acres)

Naruto watched Spike as the young dragon distanced himself from the delighted ponies and made his way toward them. Naruto gestured toward the mares with his snout and asked, “What was that all about?”

Spike glanced back at the girls, trying his best to look uninterested, “Twilight just got two tickets for the Grand Galloping Gala. Nothing special.”

Naruto blinked, “Uh... the what?”

Spike looked at him like he had just split in two (which, technically, he could), “You’ve never heard of the Grand Galloping Gala?”

Naruto gave him a half-lidded look of annoyance, before he was consumed in a cloud of smoke. Upon the smoke’s dissipation, he was once again in his true form. He raised his palms and lifted an eyebrow as if to say ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ to the kid.

Spike rubbed his forearm sheepishly, “Right, I forgot. I still find it hard to believe that Lyra was actually right about humans.”

Big Mac cleared his throat, “Uh, Spike? The explanation?”

“Oh, right. Anyway, the Gala is a big formal party, a ball that takes place in Canterlot once a year. Twilight’s never been to it, and I don’t want to go: it sounds too girly frilly frou-frou for me.”

Naruto nodded in understanding, “Don’t expect me to go: I don’t do formal. I’ve been to a formal party, and everyone there was too uptight, there was no way to have fun, and the whole thing was boring.” He folded his arms, “There is no way I’ll be going to something like that again.”

To Naruto’s surprise, Spike belched up a flicker of green flames that produced a rolled-up parchment sealed with a blue ribbon. As it floated over to the blond human, Spike noticed something unusual about it, “That’s odd: when Princess Celestia sends a letter, it’s usually bound with a red ribbon.”

Naruto carefully undid the ribbon that held the scroll closed and rolled it open to examine the contents. What he found was certainly not what he could’ve expected:

Dear Naruto Uzumaki,

It’s me, Luna! How have you been since the Summer Sun Celebration?

I’ve been feeling so much better since you saved me from the darkness. I know your friends helped and I am grateful to them, but I think that you helped me the most, and I can never thank you enough.

It’s not much, but I asked my sister to include two tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala that is coming up: one for you, and one for a friend of your choosing.

I really hope to see you there: I’d try and come to Ponyville to visit you, but I’m still recovering from the ordeal, and I want to give the citizens some time to recover from it as well.

Hope to see you soon,

Luna

Feeling something under his left thumb, Naruto looked to see two gold tickets trapped beneath it. He gently took hold of the tickets and lifted them from the scroll, watching in silent awe as they glinted in the sunlight. Spike took the letter and read it so that Big Mac could hear what was on it. Upon finishing, both of them looked at the human that continued to stare at the tickets, as if in a trance.

A single blink to break the stare, and he looked at them quizzically, “Do you think Rarity makes orange tuxedos?”

(Ponyville: Carousal Boutique)

“Stop fidgeting, Naruto! Honestly, do you have problems with staying still for extended periods?”

“Yes!”

“Well, if you want your tuxedo to fit properly, you’re going to have to hold still so I can get the measurements correct.”

Naruto groaned as a role of measuring tape, encased in a gentle blue aura, floated past his face: it was one of the many that wound around various sections of his pony body. Rarity circled him, accompanied by a clipboard and quill: she would inspect one of the tapes and the quill would write on the clipboard. The blond couldn’t help but be impressed: would he eventually be able to do something like that? Despite having two Unicorns spend the past few days trying to teach him how to manipulate the magic he had somehow gained, one of them even being the Element of Magic, the best Naruto could do so far was... sub-par levitation.

His eyes drifted about the room until he spotted something: a pincushion on a table on the other side of the room. Shortly after sighting it, he noticed a strip of blue ribbon next to it. Knowing that attempting to levitate the former would more than likely end poorly, he decided to practice with the latter.

Unaware of what her client was going to attempt, Rarity asked, “So tell me, Naruto: just what caused you to come to my boutique and request a tuxedo?”

Naruto, trying to remember what the girls had told him to do when it came to levitation, responded, “I got an invitation to some fancy party, so I figured: I’m going to need a tuxedo.” Finally recalling their words, Naruto focused his vision on the ribbon and concentrated.

Not noticing the faint orange aura currently enveloping one of her spare ribbons, she pressed, “And what party would that be, Naruto?”

Seeing the ribbon rising ever so slowly from the table, Naruto replied, “The Grand Galloping Gala, or something.”

“THE GRAND GALLOPING GALA?!”

Startled by the Unicorn’s shout of surprise and alarm, Naruto’s magic not only shifted from the ribbon to the pincushion, but also spiked in power. The poor guy barely had time to yelp in fear as the pincushion launched off the table and rocketed across the room at him, heading right for his face.

Everything that Rarity had been levitating fell to the floor with a loud clatter as she shifted her magic to the pincushion in order to intercept its intended flight of pain-causing. Once the object had come to a complete halt, the mare breathed a sigh of relief. She turned to look at Naruto and ask what had happened, only to gaze upon a sheepishly apologetic face.

Seeing her questioning look, Naruto returned his gaze to the pincushion and focused once more.

Rarity gasped as the blue aura of her magic was joined by a warm orange aura. She stared at him in astonishment, “But... how?”

“I expended almost all of the energy my body naturally produces during my fight with the dragon that attacked Fluttershy. While I was unconscious, the energy that is produced by this world flooded the opening left by my overuse of my energy: enough magic filled me to where I can actually use magic, as well as Chakra. Twilight and Lyra have been coaching me, but this is the best I can do at the moment.”

Rarity listened in amazement, “I think that Ponyville is going to be far more interesting with you around, Naruto.”

He grinned, “Probably. Now, about the tux-”

The mare snapped to attention, “Not good enough.”

“Huh?”

“It’s for the Grand Galloping Gala, correct? The one I originally had planned was for a simpler occasion, but if you plan on attending something as important as the Gala, you’ll need something better.”

Naruto opened his mouth to dissuade the fashionista, but what she said next changed his train of thought immediately, “No orange: it’s too bright and-”

She yelped when he brought his hoof down onto the floor. Hard. She looked at him and gasped sharply at how hard his eyes had become. His voice was heavy, “There has to be orange, Rarity.”

Rarity, her worry and smidgen of fear slowly growing, asked, “Why? Why are you so fixated on orange?”

“Because I’m their legacy.”

Rarity could only respond with a weak, “Huh?”

He lowered his head to where she couldn’t see his eyes, “Do you have a family, Rarity?”

Confused by the question, she answered, “Yes, I do: Father, Mother, and my little sister, Sweetie Belle. Why?”

Naruto looked at her, his hard eyes now soft and moist with unshed tears, “I’m sure the others told you that I’m an orphan, correct? While I wasn’t raised by my parents, I did find out who they were and what they were like.”

“W-who were they?”

“My father was Minato Namikaze, the fourth leader of my village and called the Yellow Flash. My mother was Kushina Uzumaki, wielder of a special Chakra and the Red Hot Blooded Habanero. I’m sure you can figure out the connection, Rarity.”

It took her a few moments to decipher what he had told her, and the revelation made it all so clear, “Red and yellow... make... orange...” Her eyes began to water, before they flowed freely as she cried out in loud sorrow, “How could I be so cold-hearted? To forsake the color that truly defines you! Please forgi-hi-hive me, Naruto!”

Blinking at what he had unintentionally done, he gently brushed the tears from the clearly overreacting mare's face with his tail, “It’s alright, Rarity: you didn’t know. I could never hold a grudge against someone... somepony as generous as you.”

As she began to recompose herself, he smiled like her little freak-out had never happened, "So, the tuxedo?"

Smiling at the warm-hearted blond, she spoke, “Orange it is, then.”

(Ponyville: Stirrup Street)

Rarity had needed to go acquire more fabric and materials, so she had sent Naruto on his way with the promise that his tuxedo would be her main priority upon her return.

Naruto’s hooves clopped almost soundlessly as he made his way along the road, responding to the various greetings from ponies young and old. He smiled to himself: it had barely been a week since he had arrived in this world, and it almost felt like he had always been there. The near perpetual peace that existed here was a truly welcome change from the constant conflict that thrived endlessly in his world.

He was pulled from his thoughts as his ears swiveled upon hearing a familiar voice. Looking along the street and spotting the owner of the voice, Naruto had opened his mouth to call out in greeting...

...only to have his jaw drop at the sight of Big Macintosh. Walking down Stirrup Street. In one of Granny Smith’s old girdles.

He wasn’t the only one to notice: everypony that was on that street watched in an eerie silence as the red stallion trudged onward. It was so quiet, Naruto was pretty sure he could hear Pinkie Pie screaming something about having bats on her face.

Knowing that having a companion makes such a punishment more bearable, Naruto broke away from the flower-loving trio of mares he had greeted and strode toward the farm pony. When he was close enough to see Big Mac’s eyes focused on him, he smiled sympathetically, “I take it you lost the bet, huh?”

“Eeyup.”

“Want some company for your walk?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

Without another word, Naruto fell into step with the stallion, and both of them continued their silent walk down Stirrup Street.

(Ponyville: elsewhere)

Having completed his walk of defeat, Big Macintosh was quick to free himself from the girdle and return to the farm. Naruto sighed as he contemplated what had happened back at the boutique: getting spooked almost got him hit with a pincushion. If that could happen in a peaceful setting, just how bad could it turn out in a combat situation?

Magic was so similar to Chakra, yet vastly different.

“Sparkler, look: it’s Mister Naruto!”

Naruto was pulled from his thoughts by the call of a familiar young voice. Turning his head, he smiled at the approaching forms of little Dinky and her big sister Sparkler. He grinned as the little filly ran up to him, babbling about what she and her sister had done earlier as Sparkler closed in at a more controlled pace.

The mare smiled, “Good day to you, Mister Naruto. How have you been?”

Naruto tilted his head with an embarrassed smile on his face, “If it’s no problem, could you girls please stop calling me Mister Naruto? I’m not that old, ya know?”

Sparkler blinked, confused about the request, “Um, sure. Sorry if you were offended.”

Naruto waved it off, “I wasn’t offended, it’s just that I’m not used to being called Mister.”

Sparkler looked at the ground, “Even so...” Suddenly, her head snapped up with a smile that seemed to glow, “I know! Why don’t you come over to our house, and I’ll make you something to eat as an apology?”

The stallion-nin paused: it had been a while since he’d eaten something other than apples. Maybe she knew how to make ramen? Then again, he should probably see if any of his friends needed any help today.

He opened his mouth to decline the offer, only to be interrupted by a surprisingly loud and angry growl from his stomach. Naruto blushed at the amused look on Sparkler’s face and Dinky’s giggling.

As Naruto began to follow the chattering sisters, he noticed a familiar blue Pegasus gathering a large number of dark clouds over a single area of Ponyville.

(Ponyville: Hooves residence)

Naruto was quite surprised at how... spartan Derpy’s home was. For a mare that was near-perpetually happy, she didn’t seem to have much in the way of material possessions other than the necessities. If Lyra was him in personality, it appeared that Derpy was similar to him in terms of lifestyle.

For what seemed to be becoming a routine, a female voice shattered his train of thought, “Sorry if we don’t have much to offer right now, Naruto: Mom gets paid after work today, so she’ll be picking up groceries on her way home.”

Naruto shrugged, “I don’t mind at all: you don’t have to do this.”

“I want to. In the meantime, make yourself at home: take a seat on the couch, drop the disguise, put your feet up and relax.”

“Well, thanks, I-”

Naruto’s voice hitched, his blood turning to ice, “What was that, Sparkler?”

“Relax?” She replied, sounding both confused and yet, knowing.

His eye twitched, “Before that.”

“Take a seat?” Now he could hear a smidge of amusement.

He turned to look at the sisters, Sparkler with her smirk, and Dinky watching the exchange with growing amusement, “Now I know you’re doing it on purpose.” He sighed heavily, “How did you...?”

Seeing that she had taken it a little too far, Sparkler relented, “Mom told us after you all came back from going after Nightmare Moon. I won’t deny that I am interested in seeing what you really look like, and I’m very certain that Dinky wants to see you, too.”

Dinky started hopping up and down, “I wanna see, I wanna see!”

Looking between Dinky’s ecstatically expectant grin and Sparkler’s controlled look of interest, Naruto made his decision.

Seconds later, the smoke cleared, and the two ponies found themselves before a creature that seemed to tower over them. Had their mother not told them beforehoof of his inherent kindness, Sparkler was certain that she would’ve been screaming at the thing before her. Even with the knowledge she had received from somepony that had spent time with him, Sparkler couldn’t help but feel wary of the supposedly extinct being before her.

Dinky, young as she was, had no such reservations.

Naruto was honestly surprised that the filly, without any hesitation, moved right up to him and initiated direct physical contact with him: that is to say, she began poking him in the shin with a hoof until he decided to kneel closer to the floor. Not giving him a chance to react, Naruto found himself becoming Dinky’s personal playground as she scaled his torso before positioning herself behind his head, her hind legs on either side of his neck while her forelegs sought a hold on the top of his head.

Not quite sure how to handle this, Naruto slowly rose to his full height with as much care as he could. He smiled at the marveled sounds Dinky made as she found herself so close, yet so far from the floor. He felt her small hooves press through his mess of yellow hair as she exhaled, “You’re so tall!”

He grinned, “Where I’m from, there are people even taller than me.”

“Really?” was the filly’s surprised response.

“Yeah: I’ve seen people twice my size.”

Naruto’s stomach reminded those present of its plight with another loud growl.

Sparkler finally broke free of her frozen state at the sound, “Oh, that’s right. I was going to make you something to eat, Naruto. Did you have anything in mind?”

Naruto grinned, “Some ramen would be perfect right about now.”

The mare blinked in confusion, “I’ve never heard of ramen. What is it?”

Not even a second after she asked, Naruto started in, “Ramen is the most delicious food to ever be conceived by mortals. It’s made of noodles, vegetables, mea...”

Hearing his voice trail off, Sparkler turned to look at him. She was shocked at the sight of his steadily paling face, “Naruto, are you alright? What’s the matter?”

Hands shaking, he gently plucked Dinky from his head before setting her on the couch. Once his fingers left her frame, he slowly backed away from the worried girls until he hit the wall, which he audibly slid down until he was sitting on the floor.

Dinky hopped down from the couch and approached the oddly-acting human, followed closely by her sister. Close enough, she looked up into the strangely haunted face of her mom’s friend, “Naruto? What’s wrong?”

A faint voice emerged from the boy’s throat, “How could I have overlooked something so serious?”

Sparkler moved closer to him, placing a hoof on his shoulder, “Overlooked what?”

“If they find out, they’ll only see me as a monster.”

Mustering up all the strength she had in her lungs, Dinky shouted, “NARUTO!”

Naruto’s head jolted in shock, and his eyes focused on the filly before him.

Sparkler gently pressed her hoof against his shoulder, “Why would anypony see you as a monster?”

“Ponies are herbivores, right? You eat plants?”

The mare blinked, but nodded, “That’s right. What does that-?”

“Humans eat plants, too, but mostly fruits and vegetables...”

Dinky was confused, “That doesn’t seem monster-like.”

Sparkler pushed a little more firmly, “Naruto, what are you getting at?”

“...humans eat meat, too.”

Had Sparkler been holding anything with her magic, she certainly would’ve dropped it at the revelation, “Wh...What?”

Naruto looked like he was will himself to someplace far away from there, “Cows, pigs, fish, certain kinds of birds. A main source of nutrition for humans comes from meat.”

The mare asked the question that Naruto had feared, “Would that include... ponies?”

Naruto allowed his head to dip, his voice almost gone, “I don't know about ponies specifically, but humans aren't above eating horses.”

The following silence seemed deafening. Naruto could barely hear anything over the sound of his heart beating.

Sparkler was trying to wrap her head around what she had just learned. Mom had said that Princess Celestia knew that humans existed a long time ago: did that mean that the Princess also knew about what humans ate? From what she had heard, the Princess not only had no fear of Naruto, she did not force him to leave Equestria to protect her subjects. Did the Princess trust Naruto? Should she trust Naruto? Could she trust him around her friends? Her mother?

Dinky?

The filly stared silently at the sorrowful human. Naruto was her friend, and she didn’t like it when her friends were sad.

Naruto tensed at the feeling of a small snout poking him gently on the back of his hand. Trying to return to a peaceful state of mind, he found himself staring into the seemingly emotionless eyes of the previously overjoyed filly.

“Would you?”

Sparkler lost her train of thought at the voice of her little sister. She looked at the human, who seemed rather confused at the question.

Naruto slowly lifted himself back into a sitting position, “Would I what?”

“Would you ever eat a pony?”

Sparkler’s jaw dropped at the ridiculously blunt question. Her eyes widened at Naruto’s answer.

“Never.”

That was all it took to satisfy the filly, who immediately climbed into Naruto’s lap and proceeded to snuggle against his chest. Sparkler’s hind legs tensed when his arms moved, but relaxed when all they did was bring the filly closer to him, seemingly in fear of her disappearing.

The mare put a hoof on his leg to get his attention, “Would you like a salad?”

Naruto grinned wearily, “I’d love one.”

(Several hours later...)

His belly full, Naruto sat in the under-decorated living room with Sparkler. Dinky, tired from playing with Naruto after he had finished eating, was upstairs asleep. Naruto was taking in just how sparse the room was: apart from the old couch they were sitting on, the worn table in front of the couch, and some family photos on the mantel above an empty and scarcely-used fireplace, the room was doing too good a job of reminding him of how he was before.

Noticing his shifting gaze, Sparkler apologized, “I’m sorry if it seems a bit barren, but we never have enough Bits for more furniture. I’m thinking of getting a second job to help out Mom.”

Naruto looked at her, wordlessly asking for some elaboration. She continued, “Mom has a job with the post office delivering mail and packages, and I foalsit, but my income isn’t exactly steady. Factoring in groceries for three, essential maintenance and paying for Dinky’s schooling, we don’t have many Bits left over.”

“What about getting help from friends?”

Sparkler sighed, “Mom can be really stubborn when she wants to be. If a friend wants to share food with us, it’s alright, but Mom doesn’t want to consider herself a burden to anypony by asking for money.” She rested her head on her forelegs, “It’s admirable, yes, but I wish she would just accept help when she needs it.”

After a few seconds of silence, Naruto seemed to have an idea. He reached into one of the pockets of his duster and pulled out two glimmering tickets, “How much do you think I could get for one of these?”

Sparkler’s jaw dropped, “Gala tickets? How did you get two Gala tickets?”

Setting the tickets on the table, he explained, “Earlier today, I got a letter from Luna. You know, Celestia’s little sister? Anyway, she was grateful for me saving her from whatever that thing I fought was, so she gave me these tickets for me and a friend to go to this shindig. I just realized that I don’t have to bring someone with me: I could sell one of them and give your mom whatever I get from it. In fact, if I weren’t expected to be there by someone I actually know, I’d be willing to sell both of them to help out.”

The absolutely flabbergasted look on the mare’s face almost made Naruto laugh, “You... you would give up two tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala just to help out some ponies in need?”

Naruto grinned, “I’d help out even if we had just met! Besides, if there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that I’d never abandon my friends.”

Before any more could be said, they heard faint rumbling. As the seconds went by, the rumbling seemed to increase in both volume and force. As soon as it sounded like the source was almost on top of them, Naruto looked out the window, taking care to prevent anypony from seeing him. What he saw was almost comical: Twilight Sparkle and Spike were being pursued by a large group of ponies. However, what drained the comedy from the situation was the panicked look on the faces of the runners.

Within seconds, Naruto was a pony once more and bolting for the front door, “Sorry, Sparkler: I’ve gotta run!”

Hearing the front door swing shut, she sighed...

...before gasping at the sight of Naruto’s Gala tickets, left forgotten on the table.

(Ponyville: streets)

Twilight wasn’t sure how much longer she could run from the mob of Gala ticket-obsessed ponies behind her. The sun was starting to go down, and it had still been pretty bright out when she started running to begin with. Her legs felt like they were on fire, and she was short of breath.

Those ponies were relentless! Maybe she should just drop the tickets and run while they all fight each other over them? Crude and cruel, but Twilight didn’t particularly care about that at this point.

Just as she was about to throw her fate to the winds, she herself was carried off by the winds as the ground disappeared from beneath her hooves. The natural response to losing previously sustained contact with solid ground is to scream in terror.

Which she did.

Right into the ear of her unacknowledged rescuer.

Which caused him to scream in pain, rather than fear.

At the shout of pain, Twilight snapped back to her senses and quickly took in the change of the situation: she was currently in the air above Ponyville, with Spike and herself being held closely to the body of their rescuer by a familiar, rust-orange foxlike tail.

“NARUTO?!” Twilight shouted over the rushing air around them, “WHAT’RE YOU DOING?!”

“PRETTY SURE I’M SAVING YOUR TAILS RIGHT NOW!”

Reaching the zenith of his jump, Naruto began the inevitable descent back to the hard ground below. He had jumped at an angle when snatching them from the pursuing crowd of ponies, so they were not going to land close to where he had jumped from. Rather, they were going to end up in an alley with only one exit. Knowing that landing right on the ground would probably hurt his passengers, Naruto opted for an alternative landing maneuver.

Reinforcing his legs with Chakra, he angled his body so that, upon making contact with the buildings that formed the alley, he could kick off the first wall, land halfway down the second wall, rebound from near the bottom of the third wall and onto the ground.

It wouldn’t be until moments later that he would regret not informing Twilight just what he was about to do.

From start to finish, Twilight screeched in alarm each time they looked like they were about to become one with the wall.

Naruto was quick to release them from his tail, so that he could massage his aching ears.

The moment she regained her bearings, Twilight rounded on him, “Are you insane?”

Naruto growled, “If I had known you were going to yell at me for saving you...”

Twilight was taken aback, completely realizing just what he had done for her, “I’m sorry. I’m really grateful that you helped me, Naruto.”

Shaking his head not unlike a dog, he looked at her, “No problem. Why were you being chased, anyway?”

Twilight suddenly blurted, “Money! Wonderbolts! Party! Prince! Animals!”

Naruto blinked, unsure of what pretty much any of that meant.

Spike elaborated, “Everypony wants Twilight’s second ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala. Applejack wants to sell apples there and make enough money to fix up Sweet Apple Acres, Rainbow Dash wants to impress the Wonderbolts, Pinkie Pie thinks it’ll be a gigantic version of one of her parties, Rarity wants to get together with some high-class Unicorn who is supposed to be Princess Celestia's distant nephew or something, and Fluttershy wants to see the animals in the royal garden.”

Naruto gave Twilight a flat look, “Is the Gala really that big a deal?”

“To a lot of ponies, it is.”

At the new voice, they turned to see an agitated Bonbon and an amused Lyra.

Spike hid behind Twilight, who hid behind Naruto, who looked at the new arrivals for an explanation.

Bonbon gave her fillyhood friend an annoyed look, “Even though Lyra already has tickets to the Gala, and invited me as her guest, she insisted on joining the chase after Twilight.”

Naruto looked at the bright Unicorn, who grinned, “It looked like fun.”

Naruto sighed and looked at the weary Unicorn behind him, “Come on, Twilight. Let’s get you home.”

“THERE SHE IS!”

His head snapped toward the only ground-level way out of the alley, which was now blocked by the returning mob of ponies. Naruto positioned himself between Twilight and the advancing horde, hearing shouted offerings of favors in exchange for the ticket.

Just as he was about to grab Twilight and make a break for it, he heard the familiar crackle of magic. Turning his head, he was able to catch sight of her magnificently shining horn before the three of them were swallowed up in a blinding flash of light.

The ponies clamored at the events that had just occurred, while Lyra and Bonbon quietly snuck out of the alley: no way in Tartarus were they going to go through the same ordeal!

(Ponyville: Library)

Far from the disbanding mob, another flash of light appeared at the town library, the current residence of one Twilight Sparkle. The light vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving the confused trio trying to make sense of what happened. But first...

Spike, sections of his scales darkened from the sudden transfer, wavered, “Warn me when you’re about to do that next time.”

Twilight looked up at her horn, “I didn’t even know I could do that!” She then turned her gaze to the library, “Never mind that for now: we need to get inside. Are you coming, Naruto?”

There was no response from the orange stallion.

“Naruto?”

Heads turned to see the stallion standing unnaturally straight and unmoving. Patches of his orange coat were singed, and thin pillars of smoke rose from several of the spiky tips of his mane. Without warning, Naruto broke free from his trancelike state, barely keeping himself from hitting the ground.

Shaking his head rapidly, he announced, “That was very different from my dad’s Hiraishin. I’m still a little disoriented: where are we?”

Spike pointed at the tree, “We’re at the library, Naruto. Twilight teleported us here.”

Steadily rising, Naruto sighed with relief, “Good. Let’s get inside and barricade ourselves in until this whole thing blows over.”

Not even stopping to agree, they dove into the sanctuary of tomes and immediately set about locking doors and windows, as well as extinguishing every light source both inside the tree and out.

So certain in their securement, it was understandable that they were horrified when the lights switched on again within the tree, revealing Twilight’s most persistent pursuers: the other Element bearers. Interestingly enough, they each wore varying levels of a particular emotion: Regret. In her present state, however, Twilight didn’t seem to register it, so Naruto decided to do one of the things he does best: point out the obvious.

A familiar cloud of smoke, and Ponyville’s sole human was among them. His eyes, currently hard and intimidating, drifted across the room, making certain that he had the attention of everypony present. He was a man of bonds, and he was not going to let such good friends shatter theirs over something like this.

“Before anyone does something they might one day regret, may I offer some observations and alternative solutions?”

When no voices opposed him, he first looked at Applejack, “AJ, from what I've heard from Spike, your reason for wanting to go to the Gala is to help the farm. I’m more than willing to help fix up Sweet Apple Acres and you won’t have to pay me a single Bit. You shouldn’t risk your friendship with the others over something like money when you've got a friend who is willing to help you with your problems.

“Rarity, you want to get together with a member of royalty. From my own experience with high-class figures and the like, I’ve learned that while there are some that are pretty cool and nice, like Luna and Celestia, there are a lot more who think that they’re above everything because of their status. Some of them, after a bit of humbling, can turn out like the former. However, most of the time, they simply refuse to change. Who knows? The guy you have your eye on might be a good one, but there’s just as much a chance of him being a stuck-up snob. I’m not saying “just give up”, because then I’d be a hypocrite: I’m saying that if you end your friendship and this guy turns out to be a jerk, what would you do then?

“Fluttershy, what you’re interested in seems to have almost nothing to do with the Gala itself. You want to go to the Gala to not go to the Gala? You’re friends with Celestia’s personal student: she could probably pull some strings and let you see the animals whenever you want, not just for one night.”

Naruto rubbed his throat, “Spike, if it’s not too much trouble, could you please get me a glass of water?”

A little jarred at the sudden request, Spike nodded and wandered off into an adjacent room. Preoccupied with the dry feeling in his throat, Naruto was unaware of the shocked look he was getting from Twilight and the remaining two ponies. Meanwhile, the three that he had already addressed were currently going over what he had said in their minds: despite how simple it sounded, Naruto was making a sound argument.

Spike returned with the requested drink, which Naruto downed in one go. Thanking the young dragon, he continued on,

“Rainbow, Pinkie; from what I understand, the Gala is going to be a formal thing: fancy attire, boring music, yadda yadda yadda. The things Rainbow has in mind are better suited for an exhibition, while Pinkie would have a lot more fun at a festival than the Gala. If this thing is anything like the formal junk I’ve dealt with, doing anything disruptive like you plan to do will likely get you thrown out. I’m not exactly sure how much it would affect Pinkie, but something like that could ruin your chances of joining the Wonderbolts, Rainbow: if someone wanting to join your team had something like that in their background, would you even think of giving them a chance?

“I’m not saying that none of you deserve to go, or that your reason for going is wrong. What I am saying is that if you are willing to manipulate a friend to get your way, and you mess up, don’t be surprised when that friend refuses to have anything to do with you afterwards.”

Having said what he felt needed saying, the girls watched as Naruto propped himself against a wall and soundlessly observed.

The uncomfortable silence was broken by Applejack, “Naruto’s right, everypony. This whole time, we were only thinking about ourselves, and not about how we were making Twilight feel.” The farm mare wasted no time in getting close to the Unicorn, “Ah’m sorry, Sugarcube: think you can forgive me?”

After everything she had been put through, Twilight refused to keep the smile off her face, “I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

Up next was Fluttershy, “I want to apologize, too. I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble, Twilight: I was just so interested in the animals.” She quickly glanced at the silent human, “Um, if it doesn’t give you any trouble, do you think that... um...?”

Knowing what the timid Pegasus was trying to get at, Twilight nodded, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Joining the Wonderbolts is my dream, but I’m not going to give up any of my friends to get there!” Rainbow Dash proudly declared.

From his spot, Naruto felt a side of his mouth quirk upward: she was Loyalty, after all.

All eyes turned to Pinkie, who was now floating just off of the ground thanks to several balloons that she most certainly did not have a few minutes ago. Naruto had been staring at her, blinked, and she had the balloons. Rather than try to make sense of it, he just kept listening.

The party mare grinned, “Naruto made it sound so boring! It shouldn’t be too hard to throw a party that’s bigger and better!”

“Twice in one day...” Rarity’s choked voice garnered everypony’s attention, “I was inconsiderate twice in one day...” Then the inevitable waterworks, “I’M HORRIBLE!”

Startled by the extreme reaction, Twilight couldn’t understand why she found herself hugging Rarity, but she made good use of it, “I forgive you, Rarity! Just, please stop crying!”

Applejack blinked, “Twice? If you don’t mind me asking, when was the first?”

Rarity’s sobs lessened as she replied, “Earlier today, while I was making preparations for Naruto’s tuxedo for the Gala.”

The heads of five ponies snapped toward the visibly surprised human and four of them shouted, “YOU’RE GOING TO THE GALA?!”

Naruto blinked, “Uh, yeah? Didn’t Spike or Big Mac tell any of you? He was there when Spike coughed up the letter from Luna.”

“PRINCESS LUNA INVITED YOU TO THE GALA?!”

Naruto pulled his fingers out of his ears, “Geez, do you have no indoor voices? And yes: she was grateful for what I did during that little incident, and she gave me tickets to the Gala.”

Fluttershy looked at him from her peripheral vision, “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

He shrugged, “I didn’t think it was all that important. Having seen just what it can do to mild-mannered ponies, though...” He reached into his pocket to pull out the seemingly enchanted slips, “I’m not so sure I-”

His jaw clicked shut as he stopped in mid-sentence. Showing no outward emotion, he withdrew his hand from one pocket and began to search another. And another.

Everypony watched with varying levels of amusement as Naruto eventually resorted to frisking himself, patting every inch of his clothing without ever twisting his head to look.

He clapped his hands to signal his results, “Well, it seems that I have misplaced my tickets. Shouldn’t be too hard to find them: I’ll just retrace my steps to the last place I was certain that I had them annnnd that would be Derpy’s house, because I left them on the table in my rush to save Twilight.” Yes: about halfway into it, he remembered that he was telling Sparkler his intention to sell one of them.

Twilight turned to Spike and requested him to prepare a letter to Princess Celestia, making certain to ignore the sound of Naruto slapping himself in the face.

When Twilight announced in her letter to Celestia that she would be returning her tickets because she refused to go if all of her friends couldn’t go, Naruto couldn’t help but feel proud of the Unicorn: he could tell that, though the path she walked would be lined with trials and hardships, the friends that walked alongside her on that path would be worth it.

Celestia’s blatant response to Twilight’s heartfelt decision made him fall over laughing.

(Ponyville: Hooves residence)

Under the gentle light of the rising moon, Naruto silently approached the home of the single-most diligent mother in Ponyville. The entire way over from the library, he had run scenario after scenario of how to get back the tickets without Derpy being any the wiser. He really didn’t want to lie to her: she was such a sweet pony, but the money he could get from selling his extra ticket could provide her and her daughters with a good amount to fix up their home. Before he separated from the others, Twilight told him that a single ticket could sell for almost 5000 Bits, before asking why he would want to sell a ticket to the biggest event of the year.

She didn’t get an answer, because Naruto had disappeared after learning what he needed.

So here he was, about to infiltrate the home of one of his close friends in order to steal back his tickets (which he forgot, he chastised himself) and sell one to help her out while he eventually goes to some big fancy party because the princess he saved wants him to be there.

It seemed like something a bunch of little kids would laugh at while watching.

Noticing that one of the ground-floor windows was partially open to let in the cool night air, Naruto prepared to quietly open it further and enter...

...that is, until he heard a sound that, at any other time, he would’ve gladly enjoyed hearing: the joyous celebrating of a certain gray Pegasus.

Her enthusiastic voice, calling the word “tickets” repeatedly and happily, felt like a vice that was determined to crush Naruto’s heart to pulp.

Left with only one course of action, Naruto knocked on the front door, making certain he would be heard over the Pegasus.

After several seconds that seemed like countless eternities, the door opened to reveal Sparkler, a conflicted look on her face. Seeing just who it was, she voicelessly beckoned him over the threshold that he found himself quite hesitant to cross.

Shutting the door behind him, Naruto shed the form he found himself becoming gradually accustomed to. Sighing heavily after glancing at the now-emotionless face of the mare, he reluctantly followed the happy laughter into the living room.

Standing silently in the archway, he finally beheld the sight that filled him with both joy and pain. Derpy, despite her body structure, was dancing around in the open space of the living room on her hind legs, two shining slips held close to her chest by her forelegs. Her eyes were closed as she spun about, golden mane flowing like a gentle stream and laughing merrily. Naruto wasn’t sure if he had ever seen someone so happy.

He could find no words: he had no desire to shatter this image of joy.

“Mom,” Sparkler spoke lowly, “We have a visitor.”

Naruto barely suppressed a wince, as Derpy opened those unique eyes and focused them both directly on him.

In an instant, the grinning Pegasus fluttered in front of him, brandishing the pair of tickets that he now couldn’t consider any more revolting.

Her smile was almost blinding, “Look, Naruto! Look! Tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala! Isn’t it amazing? I’ve never gotten a gift as fantastic as this in my whole life!”

Naruto visibly winced, though Derpy was too preoccupied with the tickets to notice. He tried to regain his voice, “Derpy...”

Not hearing him, she continued, “Ever since I was a filly, I’ve wanted to go to the Gala in a beautiful dress. And now, so many years after I grew up, I can finally go!”

The more she spoke, the more painful it became for Naruto to follow through.

Could he really do it? Could he willingly crush her dream, just to give her aid that she likely didn’t want?

Could he become something close to what he once struggled to overcome?

Both his will and his voice wavered, “Derpy...”

“And there’re two of them, so I can take somepony with me! I could take Carrot Top, or maybe Rain Drops? Oh, I know! I could invite y-”

“DERPY!”

He found his voice and nearly deafened everypony present. In stark contrast, his next words were so quiet, he couldn’t hear them himself.

Startled at the drastic shifts of his mood, Derpy ventured hesitantly, “What was that?”

She didn’t expect the words that passed his lips:

“The tickets were given to me. I left them here by accident.”

The joy that had permeated the room just moments before was no more, snuffed out by the dream-ending truth. Sparkler, ears folded against her head, was more than willing to clench her eyes tightly shut and blind herself to the scene, having no desire to see what both her mother and her friend had become.

Derpy’s eyes now lacked any of their former luster: they had become dull and lifeless. Her mane looked paler, becoming a shade of white truly unfitting of her. The large smile was no more, and her voice seemed deader than her eyes, “Wh...”

Naruto made no effort to lift his head from where it hung, eyes hidden beneath his wild yellow hair. His hands were balled into tight fists, fingernails digging deep enough into his palms to draw blood. His voice lacked the vibrant spark that came with it, “Luna wanted to thank me for saving her, so she gave me tickets to the Gala. Lyra and Twilight got two tickets, too: Lyra invited Bonbon, but Twilight apparently had to go through a lot of trouble before just sending hers back... and then getting enough tickets for the other girls, and Spike.”

Derpy slowly lowered to the floor, trying to understand, “But... I was there, too. I helped, too. Why didn’t I get tickets, while everypony else did?”

“I honestly don’t know Derpy.”

How could something as harmless as a fancy piece of paper do so much damage?

Eyes closed and head hanging drearily, Derpy held out the accursed tickets toward the human, “Here. They’re yours, right? I kept them safe for you...”

Wanting to end this terrible moment as quick as possible, Naruto looked at the tickets.

He looked at the tickets.

Tickets.

Her eyes still closed, Derpy did not see Naruto taking the tickets from her hoof. She could, however, feel his fingers press against her outstretched limb, followed by taking a gentle hold of it and moving it back toward her, but not placing it where it should be. Curious, Derpy opened her eyes...

...

...and gasped at the sight of a single ticket still on her hoof.

“I’m such an idiot.”

Hearing his voice, which was regaining its natural qualities, Derpy looked up at him and saw the other ticket between his fingers. Her eyes widened at the smile on his face.

“I kept thinking about what I could do with these, instead of what I should.” His smile gradually returning to its former glory, he decided, “Luna said that the extra ticket was for a friend of my choosing, and since everyone... since everypony else is already going, I’ll be taking you, Derpy.”

Spontaneously regaining everything that was lost, the Pegasus leapt up and wrapped her front legs around him in an attempt to hug him. Naruto, not expecting the sudden glomp and therefore unprepared, found himself stumbling backwards, before finally losing what little remained of his balance and crashed onto the floor, bringing the rejuvenated pony down with him.

Sparkler, content with how everything turned out, made her way upstairs to check on Dinky: if she was able to sleep through all of that, Sparkler would take two extra jobs!

Back in the living room, the two tickets lay forgotten on the floor, one on top of the other.

Author's Notes:

Before anyone attempts to get on my case, I do understand what makes up broth. Let's just assume that Naruto doesn't know that, but does know that ramen can have animal meat in it.

Also, in regards to the lack of formality in Luna's letter, remember that she and Naruto pretty much bonded in the Mindscape.

Wool, Stripes and Apples

Far beyond Equestria’s borders lies the sea. Beyond that still, there lies a continent on which no pony has set hoof upon. Barely visible to even the aided eye, those that have gazed toward it have pondered relentlessly: what sort of mysterious creatures may inhabit the unknown land? Are they civilized, or savage? Do they even exist, the continent unpopulated? Or did it once provide for an ancient race long since extinct, wiped out by the Beast’s rampage over a millennium ago?

Unknown to those on the “mainland”, there are a number of villages, towns, ports and cities spread across the mysterious continent. Some of these, though long since abandoned by their original creators, have become home to creatures wielding power that even Princess Celestia would find intriguing.

Atop a plateau, within a dilapidated temple, a number of the most powerful of these beings had gathered to discuss a matter of great importance: a disturbance that could potentially mean the continuation of the battle that threatened their existence a thousand years prior.

“It feels... wrong to speak of something so important without the presence of any of the Lords or the Masters. For that matter, very few of us actually came here to discuss this.” The gentle voice of an unusual-sized bird of blue plumage drifted from her place in the rafters. The early-morning sunlight peeking through collapsed sections of the roof shone on her streamer-like cyan tail, producing a sparkling effect.

“Tch, of course they aren’t here: the Land Lord disappeared during construction of that underground path toward the nearby continent, the Sky Lord is obsessed with keeping an eye on the Sun Seal (that can’t be good for his eyes, by the way), and the Sea Lord is protecting the island castle that harbors the Beast Fragment we found. Apart from the Land Lord, they’re all kind of busy at the moment, wouldn’t you say?” A gruff male voice snapped at her. His grey-coated body gave him the appearance of a bear at first glance, though the wide horns protruding from the two long ridges running along his back said different. His legs possessed band-like forms over his clawed feet.

“Stay your temper, my friend. We are all unnerved at the thought of the Beast’s return. Fighting amongst ourselves will do nothing to help the situation.” A calm, femininely-male voice scolded his comrade. More slender in form than his compatriot, his green body resembled that of a swift antelope: dull-pointed horns protruded from either side of his head, while a pink-tipped leaf grew out on both sides of his slender neck. Unlike his brute of a partner, his legs resembled knee-high boots with pink highlights, from which his pointed hooves emerged.

“STATEMENT: DUE TO THE MYSTERIOUS POWER FLUCUATION, THE OTHERS ARE TRAVERSING THE LAND TO CALM THE MASSES. FOR THOSE THAT WERE ABLE, A REPRESENTATIVE WAS SENT TO ATTEND THIS CONFERENCE.” The emotionless and hollow voice of the oldest among the gathered proclaimed. A metal sphere made up the majority of its body, an opening from the top revealing a smooth black surface whose only feature was that of seven red dots, arranged into a hexagonal mockery of a single eye. From a half-sphere on either side of its body emerged a long black arm that ended with three metallic fingers, while its legs were metal cylinders.

The blue bird ruffled her feathers, “I suppose that makes sense. It certainly explains why, out of all three of them, not even Lando showed up.”

“HA!” A bark of laughter that sounded like crashing thunder, “Sucks to be him: having to babysit those two cloud-brains and keep them under control? Certainly makes me glad that my siblings are just annoyingly mature.” The speaker resembled a tiger, black stripes reminiscent of lightning bolts. His tail, thin and light-blue, lanced out like lightning and ended like a spark. Upon his back lay a thick purple cloud, emitting quiet rumbles of thunder. Piercing red eyes peered from behind a dark-gray crest on his forehead, from the bottom of which emerged a primal light-blue “X”. His tusk-like fangs glinted in the faint light as he smirked from the outcropping beneath the shattered window where he laid.

Blinking, the bird turned her own red eyes to look at the only one to have not spoken, “Had your apprentice been here, your group would’ve been the only one to show up in its entirety, he of the Iron Will.”

Standing at a notable height of nearly seven feet, the brow of the final member of the conference twitched in minor annoyance, “I would appreciate it if you did not call me that.” Primarily aqua-blue in coloration, the goat-like being opened his steeled yellow eyes to look at the bird. From his head sprouted two lightning bolt-like horns, while a beard-like white tuft emerged from his wide-collared neck. His legs possessed black bands that separated the aqua-blue from the lighter-blue of his feet, which resembled large boots. His shoulder blades were reminiscent of large yellow fins, whilst his tail appeared as a blue fin.

Stepping toward the center of the temple with purpose, he spoke, “Let us get right to the point: the mysterious power fluctuation came from the direction of the continent that the Land Lord’s underground path leads to. If what was predicted by the Crescent Dancer is true, then our worst fear may have come to pass: the arrival of the one who marks the return of the Beast of Calamity from a millennium ago, and the conflict shall resume anew.” He shook his head, “Unfortunately, we have no way of truly confirming this. To do so, we must be willing to send one of our own to the other continent to investigate and-”

“Already taken care of.”

All eyes turned to the tiger creature, “Is that so?”

The tiger grinned, his fangs glinting, “Yep: sent my best spy, too.”

The bird flapped her wings, sore from remaining still, “You mean... her? Out of all of the followers at your command, why her?”

“Nobody ever suspects the sheep.”

The horned bear-like creature raised a brow, “She may be your finest spy, but how long until she actually gets there? She’s slower than me, and I’ll admit that I’m not exactly quick.”

The tiger stretched out, “I got a little help from our space friend.”

“MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

That would be his best spy, screaming in terror at the moment, what with hurtling over the ocean at breakneck speed as a red/orange blur.

“Thanks for your help, Naruto. Ever since you came to town, things like this have become a breeze.”

Naruto, currently lying on his back, grinned, “No problem at all, Mr. Waggon: more than happy to help out.”

Whenever a wagon in Ponyville needed repair, Mr. Waggon was the go-to pony for the job. He and his team of workers could normally repair four or five wagons in a single day, depending on the damage. However, whenever Naruto strolled around to lend a hoof, the number would nearly double. Usually, Waggon would need the burlier stallions of his crew to lift the wagon off the ground by using a system of harnesses and pulleys. Naruto, however, could do something that those stallions were both grateful for and jealous of: he would get on his back right underneath the wagon and push. The stallions would still wear the harnesses to help keep the wagon steady, as well as reduce the chance of injury should any of Naruto’s limbs buckle under the strain.

Waggon grinned, “We’ll get this one’s new wheels on in a jiffy, then you can come on out and get some lunch: the missus makes a mean-”

Before he could finish speaking, the ground began to shake and a faint rumble filled the air. The harnessed stallions grunted in surprise as the ropes connecting them to the wagon suddenly went taut, forcing them to scramble to position themselves to be able to support the sudden weight.

Waggon stumbled slightly as he sought to maintain his balance against the disturbance, “An earthquake? Those aren’t very common in this part of Equestria.”

“I guess I’m off to find out, apparently.”

Blinking at the warbled voice of the blond stallion, the others could only watch as Naruto emerged from beneath the wagon... still on his back, the vibrations carrying him off at a moderate pace. Highly amused at the serious look on his face as he drifted toward the open garage door, Waggon called out, “You know, Naruto, it’d probably be faster if you just walked.”

“Probably, but you gotta admit: this is pretty fun!”

Waggon could only shake his head as Naruto disappeared around the side of the door.

The novelty having faded after being carried about several yards down the street, Naruto finally stood up and started walking. Passing by a number of ponies running about in a panic, he began wondering just what he was going to do about this. Demons and villains, he could handle because they were physical opponents: an earthquake wasn’t something he could just punch until it stopped.

“Hey, Naruto! Doesn’t this make my voice sound silly?”

Blinking, Naruto turned his head to find Pinkie Pie drifting alongside him, amusing herself with the vibrations of the earthquake. Staring at her for a few seconds, he responded, “Yeah, kinda. Anyway, shouldn’t you be a little more worried? Y’know, earthquake and all?”

“It’s not an earthquake, silly. It’s a stampede.”

Naruto froze in place momentarily: he’d been in a stampede before. Hell, he was the one that started the stampede. Stampedes were not something that should be taken lightly. He gave her a stern look, “What should we do about this?”

“Nothing.”

Naruto couldn’t stop himself from gaping, “Nothing? You want us to do NOTHING!?”

Pinkie grinned, “Right! Applejack will take care of the stampede, so why don’t we go watch her?”

With that, she bolted, leaving a flabbergasted Naruto to gallop after her. He quickly found her at one of the bridges leading away from Ponyville, accompanied by the other Element bearers sans Applejack, as well as the Mayor and several ponies he hadn’t personally met.

The rumbling becoming much louder and clearer, Naruto peered into the distance and was... actually underwhelmed at what he was seeing charging toward Ponyville. He had been expecting bulls, not... cows. He couldn’t help feeling a little cheated by the source of the panic as Applejack appeared with her trusty dog Winona at her side. As Applejack and Winona positioned themselves to deal with the stampede, Naruto was briefly distracted when Pinkie began to munch on a bag of popcorn that he was certain she hadn’t had before. Giving her a look, he muttered, “Planning on sharing that, Pinkie?” Seeing her offer it with a sheepish look, he thanked her and snagged a few pieces in his mouth, completely unaware of the strange smile on the pink mare’s face.

Using a series of techniques, Naruto found himself impressed as Applejack succeeded in altering the stampede’s course and bringing it to a halt. As the gathered ponies cheered at Applejack’s success, Naruto attempted to question Pinkie as to just where she had produced a flag with an apple emblazoned on it, but was promptly ignored.

After getting the cows on their way, Applejack and Winona stood on one of Ponyville’s many rolling hills, with the sun positioned behind them for added effect. Naruto couldn’t help but think that Celestia somehow knew what had just occurred and decided to add some dramatic flair. Sheesh.

As Applejack raced off in the direction of the farm, the disguised human was brought out of his musings by Pinkie Pie whooping and hollering. He turned his attention to the Mayor as she spoke, “We must do something to thank Applejack for single-hoofedly saving the town.”

Pinkie got a gleam in her eye, “I know! A party!”

Mayor Mare grinned, “A wonderful idea, Pinkie Pie. We should start preparing right away.” She immediately took the reins, “Rarity, take whoever you need and get started on decorations. Pinkie Pie, I need the Cakes to provide catering. Rainbow Dash, I’d like for you to make sure the sky is nice and clear for when we’re ready. Naruto, can you-?”

Naruto cut her off, shaking his head, “Sorry, Mayor M: I’m needed on the farm, since Big Mac hurt himself in that accident.”

Twilight’s ears rose, “Accident?”

Naruto glanced in her direction and, without skipping a beat, replied, “An unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance, but that’s not important right now.” Ignoring the hilariously irritated look on the Unicorn’s face (and the contorting faces of her friends trying not to laugh), Naruto returned his gaze to the Mayor and continued; “Anyway, with Mac down and the apples needing bucking, I’m sure Applejack will appreciate the help.” He turned his head to look in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres, “She’s good at what she does, but even she can’t take care of every tree by herself.”

Taken aback slightly at the blond pony’s words, the Mayor couldn’t help but smile, “Very well, then. Naruto: your assignment is to assist Applejack with the apple harvest. After all, we don’t want her to be tired for when she receives her award.”

Naruto gave the Mayor a salute in the form of thumping his foreleg against his chest, “Yes, Ma’am. I hereby accept this assignment and will not fail.”

With that, he broke away from the steadily bustling ponies and galloped toward Sweet Apple Acres, fully intent on helping Applejack.

After all, she would need it... right?

“What do you mean, ‘Ah don’t need yer help’?!”

Apparently, Applejack thought otherwise.

“Ah mean exactly that. Thank ya fer the offer, Naruto, but Ah intend to get this done all by mahself.”
Just minutes ago, Naruto returned to the farm to find Applejack hard at work, bucking apple trees like she had something to prove. Hearing her turn down help for such a daunting task, however, got on one or two of the human’s nerves.

Not having yet dropped his pony form, Naruto waved a front leg to gesture the countless apple-bearing trees of Sweet Apple Acres, “AJ, do you even know how many trees are on the property? You really expect me to believe that you’re going to harvest every last apple by season’s end on your own?”

Halting her bucking of the tree they were presently under, she smirked good-naturedly, “Yer darn tootin’. And if Ah work both day an’ night, Ah’ll be done even sooner!”

Naruto scowled, “Applejack, if anyone knows anything about overexertion, it’s me. What you’re thinking is going to seriously tax both your body and your mind! Stopping being as stubborn as me and let me help you! I promised the Mayor I would!”

The mare grunted in annoyance and turned away as Big Macintosh slowly strode toward the duo, “Ya might as well give up, Naruto: once Applejack makes up her mind, it takes a mighty force to get her to change it.”

Expecting her brother’s words to get through to her human friend, Applejack prepped for another round of bucking. However, the sudden chill in the air slowed her movements to a halt. Looking at the blond, she found herself mesmerized by the glint in his eyes as he spoke, “You two already know that I never abandon my friends, and that I never break a promise... but there’s another thing about me you need to realize: I never give up.”

Naruto reared up on his hind legs and jabbed a hoof defiantly toward the stubborn mare, “It doesn’t matter what needs to be done, or how long it takes! Applejack: before the season is over, you will accept my help!” A particular grin appeared on his face as a dramatic wind seemed to manifest solely to ruffle his mane. All in all, Naruto was certain that he looked undeniably awesome right now.

And that built image came crashing down as his stomach growled pitifully.

Naruto immediately dropped back down onto all four hooves and turned away from the smirking stallion and giggling mare, “However, I shouldn’t do it on an empty stomach. I’m heading inside to get something to eat, and then I’m coming back out to coerce you into letting me help, AJ.” Without waiting for a response, he quickly made his way back to the Apple homestead.

Had he stuck around for a few more moments, however, he would have received Applejack’s warning of there being somepony not in the know currently inside the house.

Opening the front door and strolling in, Naruto was mere seconds away from casually dropping his pony form, if not for the shocked gasp of a certain farm filly. Glancing over in Apple Bloom’s direction, his eyes involuntarily widened at the sight of a pony that he had seen every once in a while around town, but never actually spoken to:

About the same age as Apple Bloom, this filly had a predominantly gray color scheme, with part of her ceruleanish-gray mane braided. On her flank was the image of a fancy spoon, with what appeared to be a dark pink heart in the handle. For some reason, she wore what appeared to be a pearl necklace and sleek blue-framed glasses. Behind those glasses were a pair of grayish violet eyes, currently widened at the sight of him. Then again, he couldn’t blame her for staring: he did have a unique tail and ears, but apparently the filly was more surprised about something he didn’t have.

“Apple Bloom, he doesn’t have a Cutie Mark, either!”

Naruto blinked, sparing a quick glance to his blank flank. He held back a sigh: were Cutie Marks really that important? Maybe he should modify his transformation to where he has one of the stupid things. He shrugged, “Whatever. I’m gonna go make myself a sandwich or something.” With a dismissive flick of his fox-like tail, Naruto turned and left the fillies to seek out sustenance for his angry belly.

Entering the kitchen, he noticed the Apple matriarch sitting at the table. He smiled, “Afternoon, Granny Smith.”

The aged mare smiled back, “G’ afternoon ta you, too, young’un. I heard from Applejack that she wen’ and saved th’ town from a stampede of cows earlier.”

Opening the fridge and clumsily gathering ingredients for a sandwich, Naruto nodded, “Yep. The ponies decided that they want to have a party and give AJ some kind of award and everything.”

“Is that so?”

Naruto’s smile faltered slightly, “And I’m supposed to make sure that Applejack is in top condition to accept her award, but...”

“She’s bein’ stubborn about the harvest, right?”

Shutting the fridge, Naruto went to the table and set down what he had grabbed, “Yeah, and Big Mac isn’t going to be much help at the moment.”

Granny got that evil old folk’s smirk, “Serves him right for wearing one o’ my girdles.”

Naruto chuckled, “Well, a bet’s a bet: can’t go back on your word.”

He then fell silent, staring at the assortment of vegetables and such.

Granny looked concerned, “Is somethin’ the matter, young’un?”

He glanced at up at her, “Kind of.”

A knowing smile, “Havin’ trouble with yer hooves?”

The light ‘thud’ of Naruto letting the underside of his snout hit the table, “Yep.”

“Don’t let it get’cha down, sonny: you’ll get the hang of ‘em. In the meantime, why don’t you let me whip up that sanwich fer ya?”

Naruto raised his head, “I don’t want to cause you any problems.”

“Hogwash, sonny! I’m not gettin’ any younger, so there’s not much I can do around here, nowadays. If fixing you up some chow gives me somethin’ to do, I’ll take it!”

Watching as the old mare began putting his sandwich together, Naruto started to see just where Applejack got her stubbornness from.

Shortly after hearing the front door shut, Naruto looked at Apple Bloom as she entered the kitchen, “So, who was your little friend?”

The filly’s eyes didn’t leave his bare flank, “Just somepony I know from school: I asked her to help me with some of my homework.”

Getting kind of annoyed by the staring, Naruto was quick to drop the disguise now that the other filly had left, “What’s her name? I’m assuming she has one?”

“Silver Spoon. Now-”

Naruto blinked, then turned his gaze to Granny Smith, who was putting the finishing touches on his sandwich, “Is it just me, or are a decent number of ponies conveniently named to match their Cutie Mark?”

Satisfied with her work, the mare slid the sandwich in front of him, “You’ll learn to ignore it.”

He nodded, “Right.” He stood up, grabbing the sandwich, “Thanks, Granny. I’d better get ready to start bugging AJ until she agrees to let me help.”

“Not a problem!” Granny hollered after him as he disappeared outside.

Apple Bloom seemed to be developing an odd twitch in her eye, “Did he just ignore me?”

The matriarch grinned that elderly grin, “Indeed, he did. Didn’t even let’cha break out the Pony Pout.”

“Gah! What the crap?”

Before, during, and after munching his sandwich, Naruto struggled to break Applejack’s resolve. Unfortunately, that mare’s stubbornness damn near rivaled his own, meaning that he made absolutely no progress on the “Help Applejack” assignment. Sometime after that, Naruto decided to try modifying his pony transformation to include a Cutie Mark. But, for some unknown reason, no matter how hard he concentrated or how much Chakra he put into it, every transformation produced no Cutie Mark.

Grunting in frustration, Naruto flopped onto the couch that he had claimed would be his bed after he had first recovered since appearing in this world. Could it be that, since he was a human, he couldn’t provide himself a Cutie Mark, or was it something that couldn’t be faked?

Staring up at the ceiling, Naruto listened to the faint sound of Applejack, still bucking trees. He frowned: he couldn’t let her run herself ragged over something so trivial.

Deciding to attack the issue again tomorrow, Naruto rolled onto his side and slowly drifted off to sleep, aided by the faint noise of hooves striking bark.

Applejack shook the sweat from her brow and smirked: so far, she had bucked thirty-four trees, and was about to get started on number thirty-five. As long as she kept a good pace, she’d be finished in no time. That’d show Big Mac and Naruto!

Thinking about her fellow blond, her smirk faltered: she knew that he was just worried about her, and didn’t want her to overwork herself. But she was determined to prove that she was the most reliable pony around, and if that meant pushing herself to her limits, then so be it!

Turning to buck number thirty-five, a strange noise in the distance caught her attention.

“...eeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

As quickly as she heard it, the noise stopped. Close by, if she was correct. Moving silently between the many apple trees, she kept her eyes moving and her body ready to react if she found something that shouldn’t be in the orchard.

Passing under two interlocked apple trees – supposedly, the very first trees her parents planted after marrying – she found something, alright. What it was, however, was unlike anything she had ever seen:

Looking at it, she saw that whatever it was, it possessed a similar body structure to Naruto, though in appearance, they couldn’t be further apart. The creature’s sleek body was predominantly a reddish-orange, and its nearly featureless face, turned mostly away from her and looking at a nearby tree, was bluish-green with a purple stripe right down the middle. It had no mouth, and the white eyes within rounded black sockets lacked irises. On both sides of its head were trapezoid-like ears.

Its legs started out wide at the hips, separated from the pelvis by a thin rounded protrusion, and grew thinner until they ended at a point where its feet should’ve been. From the middle to the top were a single, segmented strip of blue. Its waist was a dark gray, and vertically lined.

The creature’s torso and arms, however, are what startled the mare the most. Dead center on the thing’s chest, nestled inside, was a shimmering purple sphere. The arms couldn’t even be called arms: two long, thin appendages extended from either side of its torso, the top orange and the bottom blue.

Applejack watched in both awe and a sense of fear as the appendages on the creature’s right side seemed to meld together into a single, Naruto-like arm: mainly blue, with an orange strip running along the top that ended before the five fingers on the hand. The arm extended and, to the mare’s surprise, gently plucked a single apple from the tree it had been staring at. It lifted the red fruit to its face, looking at it with such intensity that Applejack felt like it must’ve never seen an apple before.

Curiosity getting the better of her, the farm mare decided to attempt talking to it, “Howdy.”

The moment she opened her mouth, the creature’s gaze immediately shifted from the apple to her. As the first syllable left her mouth, the thing shifted into a different shape and was gone before she had even finished the word. The apple it had been examining succumbed to gravity and fell to the grass with a soft thud. Startled at how quickly the strange creature had vanished, she very slowly moved toward the apple that had been left behind. Scooping it up with her hoof, she examined it herself and was surprised to find that the skin of where the apple had been held was gone, perfectly removed without any additional marring.

Choosing to figure out just what the hay happened later, Applejack resumed bucking trees. This time, however, she kept her eyes and ears open, in case whatever she had just seen decided to come back.

Naruto could feel a pair of eyes on him and, to be honest, it was getting a little unsettling. Yawning and opening his own eyes, he turned his head to look at what he was assuming was Apple Bloom trying to bug him more.

It certainly wasn’t Apple Bloom.

It looked like a sheep, but it had a blue face and feet. It had a pair of nub-like horns with a yellow and black stripe pattern, also shared with its long tail, which had an orange sphere at the tip. At the moment, it was staring at him intently with focused eyes: round eyes that were almost completely black, with white pupils.

His mind taking several seconds to compute just what he was looking at, it plotted the best course of action to take regarding having an unknown within arm’s reach:

Yelp loudly and scramble to put distance between them, causing him to fall over the back of the couch.

“What’s with all the ruckus?” Granny Smith hollered from the top of the stairs as she slowly descended, accompanied by Big Mac and Apple Bloom. Naruto frowned at the absence of Applejack, the sound of trees being bucked echoing in the early morning.

Apple Bloom approached the sheep creature, eyeing it curiously, “Is that a sheep?”

Naruto rose up from behind the couch to give the thing a hard look, “It might be. I’ve never seen one that looks like that, though.”

Big Macintosh stared at the odd bundle of fluffy wool, “Granny, do ya think it might’ve come from..?”

Granny Smith was currently prodding it with her hooves, not acknowledging its annoyed bleats, “Th’ Everfree Forest? It’s possible, but I ain’t ever seen anything like this livin’ in there. ‘Course, I ain’t exactly seen all of th’ Forest, so I can’t be certain.”

Apple Bloom looked up at her human friend, “Fluttershy lives near the Everfree Forest, doesn’t she?”

Naruto blinked, “You’re right, Apple Bloom. Maybe she’ll know something about this thing.”

Every few steps or so, Naruto would glance down beside him to make sure that the weird sheep hadn’t decided to wander off or anything. And every time he did, he would find the sheep keeping pace with him and actually glance at him.

This little back-and-forth garnered the attention of many ponies, who watched the strangely amusing spectacle.

However, it also kept the participants from keeping aware of their surroundings; especially Naruto, as somepony was about to discover.

During one of his turns of studying his companion, Naruto grunted as the air escaped his lungs: the result of absently colliding with some unnoticed obstacle in his path.

Now much more aware of just where he was, Naruto discovered to his shock that he had just bowled over a white Unicorn mare with an awesome looking spiked mane with two contrasting shades of blue, and appeared to have some sort of musical note for a Cutie Mark. The mare moaned at the sudden collision that neither one of them had been expecting.

“Hey, are you al-?”

CRUNCH

Naruto winced at the noise that emanated from under his hoof. Lifting it as slowly and carefully as he could, he found that he had accidentally crushed a stylish-looking pair of shades.

“Shoot: those were my favorite shades.”

The sound of a lamenting female brought his eyes to rest on the mare he had unintentionally accosted, her cool magenta eyes gazing sadly at the sunglasses that had been mangled by his carelessness.

He grimaced, “Oh man, I’m real sorry, lady.”

His voice caused those eyes to lock onto his, sadness replaced by disbelief, “What did you just say?”

Having dealt with a number of volatile women throughout his life, Naruto had developed a special sense regarding them: namely, when they had heard something that they didn’t exactly agree with. Slightly backpedalling from the steadily rising and potentially dangerous mare, Naruto’s mind raced through what he had said, hoping to find out what had set her off.

She advanced on him, eyes trying to bore into his very soul, “Did you just call me “lady”?”

The sheep, having been silent throughout the entire thing, bleated in confusion.

Naruto blinked, “Um... Yes?”

The Unicorn pressed her hoof pointedly against his chest, “Let me tell you something right now, buddy: I. Ain’t. No. Lady.” She accentuated her statement by pushing that hoof with each word.

Naruto grunted at the exceptionally forceful one that accompanied “lady”, “I’m sorry! Geez!”

A grin took form upon the mare’s face. A grin that Naruto was far too used to seeing on Sakura’s and Tsunade’s face: one that promised punishment. “Oh, you will be. You will be.” She turned around and started walking off, an electric blue aura of magic gathering up the destroyed shades, “Come on, pal.”

Naruto blinked, “Huh?”

Naruto blinked as he allowed his eyes to wander about the room he now found himself in. Seemingly countless different machines occupied the room, only a few of them that he could recognize and even those he wasn’t entirely sure of.

The sound of hooves clopping against the floor brought his gaze toward the door, which then opened to reveal his “host”, wearing a smirk as well as...

“Hey, wait a minute! I thought I smashed those?”

A magical glow slid the perfectly identical shades away from the Unicorn’s face, revealing eyes that sparkled with mischief, “You smashed my favorite pair. I didn’t say it was my only one.” The eyewear returned to their rightful place as a thin disc drifted into view and towards one of the devices in the room, “But since you’re here, how about some tunes?”

Watching as part of the top of the device popped up to reveal a compartment that the disc settled into, Naruto attempted to talk his way to freedom, “Actually, um...?”

The Unicorn grinned, “Vinyl. Vinyl Scratch.”

He nodded, “Naruto Uzumaki. Listen, Vinyl, I’m actually supposed to-”

Naruto could not find his voice as his body was virtually assaulted with sound. Despite the lack of fingers, he wasn’t doing a half-bad job of trying to dig his hooves into the floor boards to keep from being moved across the room by the powerful thumping bass.

As it were, though, he was being jostled in place mercilessly by the beat.

Salvation came in the form of an irritated gray Earth mare practically stomping into the room, her cultured voice slicing through the music to reach their ears, “VINYL SCRATCH! TURN THAT MUSIC DOWN THIS INSTANT!” While the Unicorn obliged to the mare’s command, Naruto got a decent look at her Cutie Mark: a purple musical note, different from Vinyl’s in shape. The mare took in his appearance as well and, once the music was brought down to a near-nonexistent volume, asked, “And who might you be?”

Naruto grinned, though it was somewhat weaker than before, “I’m Naruto Uzumaki. Nice to meet you...?”

The mare smiled softly, “I am Octavia.” The smiled faded, “Mr. Uzumaki, I hate to sound rude, but it would be best if you were on your way, now: I need to have a discussion with my associate here about volume regulating.”

Pretty sure that he was hearing a faint growling coming from the mare’s throat, he nodded quickly, “Alright. It was nice meeting the two of you. See you around!”

He did not hesitate in getting the buck out of Dodge.

Mere seconds after exiting the domicile, Naruto found himself assaulted by a pink blur.

Naruto stumbled, trying to figure out just what the hay happened: one moment he was out in the street, the next he was in a kitchen with Pinkie Pie, with both of them wearing a cooking getup.

He stared at the grinning pink pony, “Pinkie, what just happened? Why am I here?”

She cantered over to a counter and bent down in front of it, facing away from him and giving him a good look at her poofy tail, “I want you to help put some buns in the oven.”

Now, the Naruto from several years ago wouldn’t have given a second thought to that statement. However, the Naruto of now had spent a long period of time around Jiraiya, an openly perverted individual: being around someone like that usually caused one to become able to discover potential hidden meanings in just about anything.

Which is why Naruto’s face was redder than Big Mac’s coat as he blurted, “WH-WHAT?!”

The mare stood up and turned to face him, the edge of a cooking tray clenched in her teeth. And on that tray was a fair number of...

“...Buns?”

Pinkie set the tray on the counter and grinned, “I said I wanted you to help put some buns in the oven, silly!” Then that cute grin turned particularly sly, “Although, if you were thinking about those kinds of “buns” in a certain other oven-.”

“STOP!”

Pinkie couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of Naruto attempting to touch the back of his head through his face.

“Say, Pinkie?”

“Hmm?”

“What you said the other day, about how you came to have these strange powers of yours... is that true?”

“Nope.”

“What?”

“A blatant representation of a near-omnipresent figure coming out of nowhere and just giving minor reality-warping powers to some random filly? How cliché and silly is that?”

“Well, now that you say it out-.”

“My powers are leftovers from my old days of crashing castles: I had to carry a lot of stuff on the road. And knowing about the Beast of Calamity? You just need to know what books to read.”

“...”

“I’m sorry, Naruto, but I’ve never seen anything like it, before.”

Naruto’s eye twitched: he walked through town with that sheep-thing, getting so many odd looks because of it, got blasted with admittedly-awesome music by Vinyl Scratch and subjected to more of Pinkie Pie’s idiosyncrasies, and all he got was this? He sighed, “Can you at least tell me if it’s a boy or a girl? I can’t keep calling it an it, you know?”

“Oh, um. I can try. Now let’s see,” Fluttershy, moving slowly so as not to frighten the poor thing, circled around so that she was standing behind it, “It looks like a sheep, so I should just be able to...” She looked up from the sheep at him, “Naruto, do you think you could stroke it on the head, please? I don’t want to make it any more uncomfortable than I need to.”

Deciding not to question the one with more experience, Naruto knelt down in front of the sheep and brought a hand onto the curled tuft of wool atop its head. Receiving a gentle bleat, Naruto continued rubbing it, much to its enjoyment as it began to wag its tail not unlike a dog, “Maaaa-”

Then Fluttershy lifted that tail to get a look.

“-REEEP?!”

The sphere on that lifted tail lit up and the next thing either of them knew, the room was engulfed with bright electricity, shocking both of them both metaphorically and literally.

“GYAAAAAAAAH!/EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!”

After a few seconds, the electricity faded, leaving the two of them twitching in place with superficial electrical burns. Fluttershy looked at her now spiky mane and tail, “I don’t think she liked that.”

Naruto glanced at the pony, electricity visibly sparking between the spikes of his hair, “Female?”

Fluttershy nodded.

“Figures.”

That was when the two of them toppled over, leaving only the sheep standing, “Maa?”

The noontime sun shone down on three figures standing at the entrance of the Everfree Forest near the cottage. Naruto stood with his arms crossed and a determined smirk on his face. To his left stood the electric sheep, and to his right was a nervous Fluttershy.

The Pegasus looked up at him, “Are you really going back in there, Naruto? What about Applejack: aren’t you supposed to be helping her? She’s going to be helping me with my bunny census.”

Naruto gave her a comforting smile, “Don’t worry, Fluttershy. Applejack is still my top priority, but she’s too wound up at the moment. From my own personal experience, when someone is worn out, they become more willing to accept help from others. While I’m waiting for AJ to wear herself down, I might as well try to find out more about this little lady if she’s going to be sticking around.”

Fluttershy blinked, “Sticking around? You mean... you plan on keeping her?”

Naruto grinned and, with a little effort, picked up the sheep and held her toward the pony, “Of course! How much more awesome can you get than a sheep that shoots lightning?”

“Maa!” The sheep in question bleated happily, a smile on her cute little face and her tail whipping back and forth.

Fluttershy giggled, “Well, she certainly is cute.” Her face then contorted to one of concern, “I wish you wouldn’t go in there. It’s so very different from the rest of Equestria: the plants, the animals, everything in the Forest thrives without anypony doing anything. Then there’s all the dangerous creatures that live in there, like timberwolves and manticores and-”

Setting the sheep down, Naruto placed a hand on Fluttershy’s head, causing her to stop mid-ramble. When he began to rub her gently, a faint blush took form on her cheeks as he spoke, “Don’t make that cute pink mane of yours turn gray on my account, Fluttershy. This is me we’re talking about, after all: Hikaru and I will be fine. A quick look around partway into the forest, and we’ll be back before you know it.”

Fighting back the blush threatening to turn her face red, she asked curiously, “Hikaru?”

Naruto grinned, “The sheep. She needs a name, and I thought Hikaru would be perfect. Depending on how you write it in the language where I’m from, it can mean either Light or Radiant. What do you think?”

Fluttershy smiled softly, “I think it’s the most perfect name ever.” She turned her eyes to the sheep, “What do you think?”

The sheep, Hikaru, bleated with happiness and a hint of pride.

The mare giggled again, “I think she likes it, too.”

Naruto removed his hand from atop Fluttershy’s head, not hearing the mare’s quiet whine at the lack of warm contact. He smiled warmly, “We should be back before nightfall. See you then, Flutters.” Turning away from her, he missed the truly luminescent blush that his little nickname for her produced. He looked down at his newest companion, “Come on, Hikaru: time for an adventure into the Everfree Forest!”

A confident bleat, and the odd duo were on their way. Fluttershy leaned forward as if to follow, foreleg hefted to her chest to take a step, but she could feel her body lock up at the thought of going into the forest without somepony right at her side. All she could do was watch as, waving with a grin, Naruto and Hikaru were slowly but surely swallowed up by the dark canopy of the Everfree Forest.

Once they had completely disappeared from her sight, the mare fell back onto her haunches, feeling overwhelmingly cold without the human’s presence. She barely heard her own whisper, “Come home safely.”

About an hour after entering the forest, Naruto came to the conclusion that Hikaru was quite possibly the most convenient pet/companion he had ever had so far. As the canopy above caused the path they were on to darken considerably, Hikaru had chosen to lift her tail as high as she could and, using her (Naruto-declared) badass lightning sheep powers, caused the sphere on her tail to emit a comforting bright glow that easily lit their path. Naruto made this opinion known, to which Hikaru bleated with pride as they continued their trek through the foliage.

After what felt like another hour of walking, the duo came across something peculiar: plants. A field of odd looking blue plants that decided to grow across the path they were currently on. As they neared the things, Naruto was surprised to hear Hikaru growling uncomfortably at the plants. Figuring that she didn’t want to get pollen in her wool, which Naruto admitted would probably be troublesome to deal with, he decided to pick up the sheep and carry her overhead across the sea of blue plants. After putting about a yard between the plants and them, he gently set Hikaru back onto the ground, earning a bleat of appreciation. Before continuing on, Naruto turned his head to get one more look at them to look up later at the library: large leaves with a multi-petaled bulb rising from the center sporting some stamen, with dark streaks running over them in a design.

Beyond the patch of blue plants, Naruto and Hikaru discovered the most interesting thing yet: a tree that had apparently been renovated into a small yet cozy-looking home. Above the door and resting against an above-ground tree root where a pair of large masks, with markings the likes of which Naruto had never seen before, yet they reminded him of the masks worn by the ANBU of Konoha.

As they neared the door on the tree, they heard a slightly-deep female voice come from behind, startling both of them, “Well, this has never happened before: visitors gathering at my door.”

They whirled about, Naruto with kunai in hand and Hikaru’s tail sparking with building electricity. What they saw was a figure in a dark brown cloak, coming from the direction they themselves had just come through. Though he couldn’t see her entire face, Naruto could see what was most certainly a snout: a pony. Seeing the human appear to tense up, the hood tilted slightly to the side, “There is no need to fret: I can assure you, I am no threat.”

Naruto cautiously slid the kunai back into its holster on his leg, taking note of both the figure’s sense of calm and tendency to speak in rhyme, “Why are you so calm about this? I’m different from you.”

“We are all different from one another. To dwell on such things...” A gray foreleg with dark-gray stripes emerged from the cloak and drew back the hood, revealing a pony the likes of which Naruto had never seen: her muzzle, dark gray in coloration, was different from that of the mares he knew. Her coat was striped and her mane stood up, alternating between dark gray and white. A large hoop-ring hung from each ear, and a series of rings adorned her neck. Turquoise angular eyes stared back at him, “...is such a bother.” She smiled, “I’ll give you my name, if you do the same.”

Naruto’s brow involuntarily twitched, but he kept his voice friendly, “Naruto Uzumaki. Do you always have to speak in rhyme, or do you just do it on purpose?”

“Zecora, and I do it for fun.” Her eyes drifted down to his feet, and she exclaimed something in a strange language before, “What have you done?”

“Huh?” Naruto looked down at his feet: he was wearing his Shinobi footwear, so sections of skin were exposed. Spackled on those exposed areas was a strange blue substance. He looked up, “Oh yeah: I walked across some blue plants, so-”

He was surprised when the strange pony began to push him towards the tree, “Into my home, quickly! I must prepare the remedy!”

“Remedy?! For what?!”

Refusing to drop the rhyming shtick, Zecora replied, “You have been exposed to Poison Joke, an unusual plant to normal folk.”

Naruto’s face went pale, “Poison Joke? Is it lethal?”

Zecora shook her head, “Not at all, just silly crack: for me, my stripes were turned to all but black.”

The color returning to his face, Naruto had to ask, “Speaking of stripes, you don’t look like any pony I’ve seen so far. If you don’t mind my asking, what are you?”

“I am a zebra, you see, and I’ve made my home in the Everfree.”

As Zecora busied herself, pouring various ingredients into a cauldron, Naruto took the opportunity to look around the zebra’s residence from where he sat: there seemed to be countless bottle and jars resting on the shelves that occupied the room, and what appeared to be gourds were wrapped with vines that hung from the ceiling. More masks similar to the two outside were kept on the walls and floor, and there were a large number of books that Zecora apparently owned.

Naruto turned his gaze to the zebra herself: having removed her cloak, he could see that she wore rings on her left foreleg similar to those around her neck, and her coat had more stripes than he thought there would be. Her tail was quite different from those of other ponies, as well: thin and hairless at the base, before becoming a cascade of black and white. However, like many ponies, she too had a Cutie Mark: a large gray spiral, surrounded by many triangles of a similar shade pointing outward.

Running his fingers through Hikaru’s wool, Naruto spoke up, “Hey, Zecora?” Hearing an inquisitive noise from the zebra as she continued putting together the remedy to Poison Joke exposure, he continued, “You didn’t seem too surprised at seeing something that, well, apparently hasn’t been seen for over a thousand years. Why is that?”

Pausing in her mixing, Zecora looked at him, “Tales of humans from long ago, every zebra in my land knows. With great strength of body and mind, as well as disposition so kind.” A playful smirk, “And weeks ago, you walked with a mare trio. Who would’ve thought you were such a Romeo?”

Coughing into his hand to hide his faint embarrassment, he asked, “So, what is this Poison Joke going to do to me?”

Zecora hummed quietly to herself before responding, “That remains a mystery, for you are the first human I have seen. There should be no need for alarm: I don’t think it will cause any physical harm.”

Naruto blinked, “You were kinda specific there when you mention ‘physical’.”

Zecora glanced at him, “Ailments of the flesh are simple to tend, but a troubled mind is difficult to mend. We will not know until it occurs, which could take many hours.” She turned her head to look at him directly, “Though this situation may seem bad, valuable information is sure to be had. Until we begin to see any blight, I must insist you stay the night.”

Naruto looked at his feet, “Is that really necessary? I mean, there wasn’t very much: maybe nothing will happen?”

Zecora’s eyes narrowed, “And if something does with your friends near: something that fills them with terrible fear?”

Naruto’s eyes widened at the zebra, before seeming to realize how interesting his feet were: he didn’t want to scare any of his pony friends, Fluttershy especially; such a fragile thing she was. He looked up at her, “Do you have a spare blanket I could use?”

They shared many things about themselves that night.
Naruto learned that Zecora was an herbalist, which was why she knew so much about the various plants of Equestria, as well as what could be used to remedy ailments brought about by various sources. She taught him much about her culture, as well as various words of her native language, including what she had said outside – and what she did surprised Naruto: such vulgarity!

Zecora learned that Naruto was what was best described as a warrior of the shadows, with the ability to perform amazing feats that even Unicorns could only dream of. He told her what he understood of Chakra and its properties. She found it amazing that this life energy could be utilized to not only fight, but also to mend and heal other living creatures, and that the humans of Naruto’s land could wield it as easily as Unicorns could their magic, or Pegasi with the weather. As she did with him, he taught her some of his own language.

They shared many laughs as they fumbled many words of the other’s language. Zecora got a pretty good laugh when she had asked about Hikaru and received this response:

“She’s a sheep that shoots lightning! How awesome is that?”

Eventually, the siren call of sleep became too much for them to fight, so Zecora retired to her bed and Naruto slept on the floor near the cauldron, Hikaru allowing herself to be used as a pillow for the Shinobi’s head. To the zebra’s silent amusement, Naruto had a peculiar snore: one that actually filled her with a sense of security and caused her to sleep more easily than usual.

“WHAT THE FUCK, KURAMA? NOT COOL!”

This was the outraged cry that tore Zecora from the land of dreams. She rose to her haunches and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, before turning to admonish Naruto for the rude awakening.

The words never left her mouth however, when she got a look at what he had become.

Clawed hands gripped the rim of the cauldron, tensed fingers leaving indents in the metal. At some point during the warm night, the shirt Naruto was wearing had been cast aside and his arms and torso were covered in crimson hair, save for his stomach which proudly bore markings that reminded the zebra of her Cutie Mark. The human’s blond hair had become a rust-orange, and a pair of long fox ears poked up out of the spiky mess. A long, lone fox tail lashed angrily behind his back.

“Naruto?”

He looked up at her and, despite herself, she gasped at the sight of his face. The lines on his cheeks had darkened to the point of being almost pitch-black. His mouth, open in shock, revealed that his canines had lengthened to become not unlike a carnivorous predator’s. And his eyes, previously as blue as the ocean, were now as red as blood, his pupils having become feral slits.

Had she not spent the better part of the previous night getting to know him, she was certain she would have screamed at the sight. What kept her from panicking, however, was the look of absolute fear that had overtaken his face.

Kurama, being lenient with Naruto over the accusation, had calmly informed him that he was not responsible for whatever had caused his transformation in the night.

This left a single culprit: the Poison Joke.

Naruto fell to his knees and pressed his face against the rough side of the cauldron: there was no way he could go back to Ponyville looking like this: friend or not, Fluttershy was certain to freak out over his new appearance, and the others would probably keep him at hooves’ length, now.

A gentle bleat from his right. Hikaru: loyal Hikaru was concerned for her friend.

Soft hoof falls came around to his left. Zecora’s voice, so filled with shock that she failed to rhyme, “I didn’t think such a... fierce reaction was possible.”

Naruto could barely bring himself to look at her, “Those plants have a sick sense of humor.”

Zecora nuzzled his arm, “I will most certainly agree with you there, Naruto.” She nudged him gently, “On your feet: let’s get you taken care of.”

Slowly, Naruto rose back to his full height and could once again see his reflection on the liquid’s surface, “So, do I drink it or what?”

Realizing just what had to be done now, Zecora could not keep the red off her face entirely, “Ingestion is not very safe. For it to work, you must...” The zebra gulped, “...bathe.”

Naruto’s cheeks became as red as his eyes, “What?” Seeing her open her mouth to answer, he cut her off, “I understand. It’s just... well...”

Understanding just what he was getting at, she moved away from the cauldron and turned completely away from him, for both of their sakes. A quick glance at Hikaru, and she quickly joined the zebra.

Feeling more embarrassed than he had ever felt before, Naruto began to disrobe.

On a planet where humans still thrive, there is a saying: “curiosity killed the cat”. A slightly altered variation of that phrase could be used in this situation: “curiosity made the zebra look at something that would remain in her mind for years to come”. Okay, a heavily altered variation, but it still counts.

Taking a risk, Zecora snuck a quick glance at the human as he lifted himself up and into the cauldron. Eyes widening at just what she witnessed, her head quickly snapped back to where it had been facing previously, her face now scorching red. With the customary state of undress regarding ponies and her own tribe, Zecora had seen her share of male equipment, and, while she had never seen a human, she was pretty sure that that size wasn’t very common among them. Attributing it as a side effect of the Poison Joke, she did her best to push the image from her mind for now.

Hearing a splash come from the cauldron, Zecora turned to see that Naruto had submerged himself completely. Approaching with caution, she jumped slightly when his head broke the surface. However, she breathed a sigh of relief: the remedy was successful, and Naruto looked as he did before.

Seeing that he was normal again, Naruto’s grin threatened to split his head in two, “Thank you so much, Zecora! You’re a lifesaver!”

Blushing at the praise, she looked at him, “Naruto, a question, if I may? That marking on your belly... what the hay?”

Naruto was about to make a crack at the poor rhyme, before he realized that Zecora was more interested in the seal. He sighed, “I get the feeling that it’s the reason why the Poison Joke did what it did. I told you about Chakra and what it can do, right? Well, my parents used all of their Chakra – their life force – to seal a powerful creature inside of me to save my village.” Seeing the look of shock on her face, he quickly continued, “But it’s alright, now! Me and Kurama are comrades, friends even!”

“Wimp.”

‘Shut up.’

Zecora’s gaze was unfaltering, “This “Kurama”... what is it?”

“A giant nine-tailed fox.”

Silence... until:

“Tell me everything.”

Naruto had no idea exactly how long he had spent talking to Zecora about his world, but now he could safely say that she was presently the most knowledgeable pony regarding his world.

What’s more, she now knew more about him than any of the ponies he had befriended: she knew the story of his birth, the stigma of living as the container for a powerful force that could flatten mountains and scatter seas, all of his trials and hardships. She had learned of the power he wielded to defeat the darkness that had created Nightmare Moon. She learned of the nine-tailed fox, Kurama – something currently known only by one other, Princess Luna.

They forged a special bond: a bond shared by those who are seen as different.

During the time he spent with the zebra, he gladly assisted her in gathering many herbs to use for her many remedies. He had surprised her when he found yet another unusual plant, by the name of Heart’s Desire. Having explained the flower’s properties – and assuring him that it was absolutely nothing like the Poison Joke – Naruto was quick to retrieve it for her.

But now, after promising to visit her as often as his schedule would allow, he and Hikaru were now walking back into Ponyville...

“Na-ru-to!”

...and right into an angry Twilight Sparkle.

Naruto tilted his head, “What’s up, Twilight?”

Pretty sure he was seeing smoke puffing out of the mare’s nostrils, Twilight growled, “You were supposed to be helping Applejack with the harvest! Where have you been?”

Glancing at Hikaru in confusion and receiving a similar look, he turned back to Twilight, “I went into the Everfree Forest with Hikaru for, what, a day? Fluttershy saw me last: didn’t she tell you?”

“Naruto, nopony has seen you in two days! Fluttershy has been so worried about you: she said you’d be back before the day was over, but you never came back out!”

Jaw dropping, Naruto looked down at Hikaru, “We were gone for that long?” He returned his gaze to the mare, “I’m really sorry, Twilight. How’s Applejack?”

Twilight shook her head back and forth, “She’s completely out of it. That applebucking hasn’t just been causing her problems: it’s over-propelled a Pegasus, practically poisoned plenty of ponies, and terrorized bushels of brand-new bouncing baby bunnies.”

Naruto looked surprised, “Applejack did all that in two days?”

“Applejack did all of that in four hours.”

Naruto stared at her, face completely devoid of emotion.

“APPLEJACK! You are going to stop right now and rest, or else I’ll have Hikaru fucking ZAP you until you’re unconscious!”

Twilight could feel the color draining from her face: maybe she should’ve worded it better?

Naruto had bolted shortly after being told what their friend had done, with that strange-looking sheep trailing behind. Twilight was quick to follow.

In a matter of minutes, Twilight found herself at Sweet Apple Acres, watching as Naruto attempted once more to get Applejack to stop, or else he was going to use force to make her stop. She would admonish him for that vulgarity later.

Looking positively dazed with pronounced bags under her eyes, Applejack wearily bucked at a tree, missing it by a wide margin, “Not now, Naruto: can’cha see Ah’m almost done?”

Naruto growled, “I mean it, Applejack: I will get her to shock you, and she can do it. Right, Hikaru?”

Hikaru raised her tail so that the sphere was pointed skyward, and Twilight gaped in surprise as it began to glow, while crackling sparks became visible against the sheep’s wooly coat.

Shaking off the odd sight, Twilight looked sternly at her friend, “Applejack, enough is enough. You. Need. Help.”

One final buck, and the last batch of apples fell into the baskets draped over Applejack’s back. She let out a single laugh of satisfaction, “No, Ah don’t. Look! Ah did it! Ah harvested the entire Sweet Apple Acres without yer help.”

Naruto allowed his eyes to roam: indeed, every tree in the immediate vicinity held not a single apple in their branches. About to congratulate her for proving him wrong, his eyes drifted to another sector of the orchard. Without a word, he slowly began to raise a finger with which to draw the mare’s attention as she continued to celebrate with a boastful “How do you like them apples?”

Big Mac, who had been watching the scene from close by, decided that as the eldest, it was his sacred duty to burst his sister’s bubble, “Um, how do you like them apples?” He jerked his head in the direction that Naruto pointed, revealing...

Even more apple trees, still bearing their delicious red fruit. Apparently, Applejack had only reached the halfway point.

The shock caused her mind to short circuit, reducing her to unintelligible mumbles before she fainted clean away.

“...lejack? ...plejack?”

“...ome on...wake...p!”

She could hear muffled voices. Two of them. They sounded so familiar.

Opening her eyes, her blurred slowly cleared to reveal the concerned faces of Twilight and Naruto, while that strange sheep sat next to the human. She tried to say something to let them know she was alright, but her voice failed her: she was just so tired.

Twilight sighed with relief, “Oh, good. You’re okay.”

Naruto released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and placed a hand on her foreleg and smiled gently, “You really had me worried, AJ.”

Applejack closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again, “Ah’m sorry, Naruto.”

Twilight spoke up, “Now Applejack; I completely respect the Apple family ways. You’re always there to help any pony in need. So maybe you can put a little of your stubborn pride aside and allow your friends to help you.”

During the Unicorn’s little speech, Applejack gazed off into the seemingly endless throng of apple trees. After what she had put herself through over the past week, she wasn’t willing to try it a second time, “Okay, Twilight.”

Having been expecting another refusal, Twilight continued, “I am not taking no for an answer.” Then what had been said clicked immediately, “What?”

Lying there on the ground pitifully, which Naruto knew not to give her, Applejack begged, “Yes, Twilight.” She brought her front hooves together as if in prayer, “Yes, please: Ah could really use your help.”

Naruto chuckled softly to himself as Twilight let out another sigh of relief.

In no time at all, the other Element bearers arrived at the farm. After an amusing show of Fluttershy nearly snapping Naruto’s spine when she hugged him in elation had gotten a good laugh out of the others, the five fresh mares and their human companion quickly got to work harvesting the remaining portion of Sweet Apple Acres while Applejack got some much-needed rest. Even Hikaru helped, bleating happily as she moved about, catching apples in the baskets that pressed against her soft wool.

Twilight and Naruto were making amazingly short work of large sections of trees. Twilight, using her incredible Unicorn abilities, levitated hundreds of apples at a time, while Naruto and his legion of Shadow Clones swept across the trees like an orange plague, snatching up every apple in sight.

Well into their harvesting, Applejack eventually came out with some refreshing apple juice. The group decided to take a break and partake in the no-doubt delicious drink.

As they gathered, Applejack spoke up, “Everypony, I can’t thank you enough for this help. Ah was acting... a bit stubborn.”
Naruto smirked when Twilight quipped, “A bit?”

“Okay,” Applejack conceded, “A might stubborn. And Ah’m awful sorry. Now, Ah know the town gave me the Prized Pony award, but the real award is having you all as my friends.”

Naruto thrust his bottle of apple juice into the air, “I’ll drink to that!” He then tossed his head back and drank, much to the amusement of his friends. Leaning forward again, he grinned, “You know what? All that work gave me a big appetite!”

Spike, who had just joined them, spoke up, “And I’ve got the perfect treat!”

Not looking at the baby dragon, Naruto’s grin didn’t fade as he reached out and grabbed the offered goody, “Thanks, Spike.”

Eyes closed, he lifted it up to his mouth to take a nice, big bite.

“NARUTO, DON’T!”

Startled by the combined shout of the six mares, Naruto opened his eyes to look at what he had grabbed: on the outside, it looked like an ordinary muffin. On the inside, however...

Pinkie Pie actually appeared to find the thing revolting, “EWW, Spike, I threw those away! Where did you get them?”

Without hesitating, he responded, “From the trash!”

The sound of the baked bad being crushed violently between human fingers quickly silenced the disgusted ponies. As a truly disturbing chill caused them to shiver, Naruto spoke in a low, dangerous tone, “Spike... I’m going to be the better man here...

“You have ten seconds.”

Spike blinked in confusion, “Huh?”

“Nine. Eight.”

As Naruto counted down, the sense of dread seemed to grow. His surprisingly mature brain deciding that he really should start running, Spike did just that.

The screaming, while not necessary, was a nice touch.

“Seven. Si-”

Naruto was on his feet and leapt into the air to chase after the young dragon.

Surprised by the sudden movement, Twilight shouted after him, “Naruto! That wasn’t ten seconds!”

“I’m a ninja! Deception is our thing!”

Naruto stifled a yawn as he sat on the couch: it had been an interesting week. Not many people could say that they befriended a lightning sheep and a zebra herbalist in one day, spent an extended period of time in a place that supposedly housed creatures that would make those in Training Ground 44 look tame, and harvest half an apple orchard with talking, brightly colored miniature horses.

Very briefly, Naruto wondered if this was what it was like to be high out of your mind.

“WHAT IN TARNATION?”

Applejack’s shout of surprise had Naruto on his feet and up the stairs in several seconds flat. Barreling down the hall to where three of the four members of the Apple family were gathered, Naruto weaved past them and prepared to defend them from whatever had startled Applejack.

What he saw startled him, as well.

Apple Bloom was sitting on the floor of her room, smiling at what appeared to be a humanoid orange monster. The creature was sitting – cross-legged, no less – in front of her, staring back with a strange intensity.

Unable to make sense of the situation, Naruto had to ask, “...What... is that?”

Applejack stared at the thing, as if she couldn’t believe it was actually there, “Ah saw it a couple of times at night, while Ah was bucking apples. But, how did...?”

Naruto looked at the filly that sat mere feet from it, “Apple Bloom?”

She grinned widely at him, “I found him in the barn! Can I keep him?”

The sound of Naruto slapping himself in the face echoed throughout the house.