//------------------------------// // Prolouge // Story: Equinophobia // by Film Falm Brothers //------------------------------// "...As I've told you before, Mr. Harold, I can't help you if you won't take my suggestions seriously." Victor Harold wriggled on the couch he was laying on. Even if he did want to get over this whole "fear" of horses, Victor really didn't think going to a petting zoo was going to help. In fact, it'd probably have the opposite effect: petting zoo's only held bad memories for him. "No offense, but me in a petting zoo would be like a Jew in Germany in the 1940's: it won't end well." Victor adjusted himself; he could never get comfortable on this damned couch, but it was the only place to sit in the room. Victor's psychologist rolled his eyes. "Were you saying no offense to me, or the over six million Jews who died in the Holocaust?" Victor couldn't help but grin: even if it didn't sound like it, that was his shrinks attempt at a joke. Or at least, he hoped it was. It was hard to tell with Dr.Zhardtyut ( don't even ask for a pronunciation on that, even the doctor forgot time to time). Luckily, Dr. Zhar smiled back. Victor started to reply, but he was interrupted by a (very loud) police siren. Another grin appeared on both mens faces: this was about the pinnacle of the doctors humor. Victor sat up. "Well, it's been fun, it's been real..." "And it's been real fun." Dr.Zhar finished, standing up from his chair and walking towards the door, which he opened for his patient. Victor collected his things, put on his hat, and walked out the door into the lobby. "Victor," Victor turned back to Dr.Zhar, who had a grin the size of the moon on his face, "Pleasant dreams tonight." "You know that won't happen." Victor waved, and continued on his way out into the streets. Holding onto his hat, Victor stepped out onto the streets of Springfield just in time for a massive gust of wind to hit him and nearly blow his hat off.Damn wind. Why'd I move this far north anyway? Victor thought to himself as he walked back to his apartment. Victor hurried so that he wouldn't get stuck in the foot traffic that was coming any minute now. 4:53. I can make it, Victor always liked this challenge: could he get home without seeing five people on the street? Ten? Twenty? Could he beat his record of six minutes forty three seconds (set on a day where a full bladder and stop watch joined in perfect unity). All these useless bets and time trials were just set up to distract him from one thing: his dreams tonight. Every day he had a session with Dr.Zhar, he always dreamed about horses. Don't ask him why, but he did. Of course, the person he was paying to help with this very fear happened to find this extremely funny. So, it fell to Victor to make sure he didn't obsess over what was to come. Sighing, Victor picked up the pace: tonight felt like a record breaker. "Damn. Thirty seconds!" Victor lamented as he unlocked his door and stopped the timer. Victor braced himself for what was coming, and got a mouthful of it: dog kisses. "Alright, I missed you too, Spike." Victor ruffled the great danes' ears, trying to not fall over with the full 150 pounds of dog shoving into him, "Spike, couch!" Obedient as ever, the hulking dog padded over to the leather couch, and sighed as he slumped onto it, taking up all of the space. Victor chuckled as he hung up his jacket and hat. Walking into the living room, he switched on the tv. A cheesy soap opera filed the screen, right in the middle of a big ol' kissing scene. "You do love your soaps, don't ya?" Spike's eyes turned toward his master for a second, then went back to the screen, "You know, I think the tv is finally starting to rot your brains out." Spike just gave a humph and wagged his tail, slapping Victor's leg Victor went about his nightly routine, grading his students papers, which seemed to be getting worse and worse as the school year went on (Ah, the wonderful minds of remedial science, he thought as he slapped a big, red 42 on a test), cooking dinner for Spike and himself (a waste of money maybe, but Victor knew what was in dog food and didn't want his dog feasting on fake meat while he had a steak), and surfing the internet. This last action had taken on a dangerous edge to it recently, though: more and more often, Victor had tumbled upon pictures and videos about a little girls show, which, unfortunately for Victor, had horses, or more accurately ponies, as the main characters. Victor tried to ignore these, but the seemed to be popping up everywhere he went: YouTube, Reddit, even Memebase. Around eleven, Victor looked at the clock. "Alright, might as well get this over with. Spike, bed!" While the dane settled into his side of the bed (which more often than not included most of Victors), Victor showered, brushed, and prepared himself for the things he was about to see. Even going as slowlt as he could, Victor only ate up about half an hour. Turning to Spike as he settled into bed, Victor said, "Wish me luck." But all the luck in the world couldn't help what Victor was about to go through. * * * "HEYA TWILGHT!" "GAH!" The unicorn jumped straight up into the air, obviously from her pink friends sudden appearance behind her. Or maybe it was from the fact that she SCREAMED so suddenly, "SPIKE, INITIATE PLAN W! GET THE- oh, wait," Twilight turned around, and saw that it was just Pinkie Pie, being... well, Pinkie Pie, and not an assassin or something along those lines, "Hi Pinkie." "HI TWILIGHT!" Pinkie screamed, despite being about a foot away from Twilight. Oblivious to the I'm-seriously-considering-turning-you-into-a-frog look that Twilight was giving her, Pinkie had her usual smile on her face. Twilight furrowed her brow. "Pinkie, why are you yelling?" Twilight deadpanned. She had very important things to be doing for the Princess, and, while Pinkie was always fun to be around, she needed to concentrate. "WHAT?" Pinkie yelled, even louder, if that was possible. "I said- wait." Twilight took her front hoof and twisted her friends head to the side. Let's see... yep, just as I thought, Twilight levitated a spoon to dig the foodstuff that was stuck in Pinkies ear out. Once she was done digging, and Pinkie had stopped giggling, Twilight said, "Pinkie, did you fall asleep onto a cake again?" Pinkie's ears flattened at the mention of the time she had passed out onto a cake she was helping decorate. It had cost her a months ban from babysitting the Cake babies. "No, Rainbow Dash thought it would be funny to put cupcakes on my ears and see if I would notice while I was asleep." Twilight turned back to the book she had been looking over, "Are you sure she did it just as a joke, or did you make her mad again?" Pinkie blushed, "Well... hey, what're you doing?" Pinkie tried to get away from the question. Rainbow Dash hadn't been in the best mood exactly yesterday when Pinkie (quite accidentally) dropped her signed picture of Soarin out the window of Rainbow Dash's house. "I am trying to make the final preparations to a very important spell the Princess wants me to try." The unicorn said, putting emphasis on the word trying. "Oh, what's the spell do, what's the spell do?" Pinkie jumped up and down: whenever Twilight had a really big spell, something fun always happened. Like that time Twilight accidentally grew a beaver 100 times its size and it almost destroyed Ponyville, or that time it had rained ice cream for a week (that was almost as good as Discord's chocolate milk rain, but now that he was better Discord let Pinkie have her own rainstorm whenever she wanted one), or that time... "Well, Princess Celestia recently discovered that space time makes our universe a lentelognogramic polygon, capable of connecting with other multihexodynamic polygons and geosynchonate shapes of space time. So, with the proper bending of space time-" Twilight opened her eyes from her recitation of fancy science words to see smoke coming out of Pinkies ears, probably from trying to understand what she was saying. Sighing, Twilight simplified, "It's a spell that could let us go into other dimensions." At this Pinkie perked right back up. "Oh oh oh! Can I help, pretty please with sugar cubes on top?" Pinkie Pie begged, clutching at Twilight's hooves. "No." Pinkie's face crumpled in sadness, but perked right back up when Twilight said, "because I'm already done preparing. I just have to do the actual magic." "CanIwatchcanIwatchcanIwatchcanI-" A purple hoof in her mouth stopped Pinkie's flood of words. "Yes." Twilight stepped into a chalk circle she had drawn on the floor, and inhaled deeply. "Wish me luck." But all the luck in the world couldn't prepare Twilight for what was about to happen.