"Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head." ~Arthur Schopenhauer
"I don't want to. Tell Twilight to shove her request straight up her royal ass." I crossed my arms defiantly and frowned at this Quick Script mare. Because of Shining Armor's little shout-out to his all-powerful alicorn sister, Twilight knew about me. And if she knew about me, she would want to speak with me.
So she sent a request. And I rejected it.
Eleven times.
Hot damn this girl was persistent. I had been sitting around the stallions, teaching them how to build a makeshift catapult, when Script had to interrupt me. To show the stallions how to deal with such interruptions, I used the catapult against her the first time.
She didn't come back for an hour after that, probably a bath for the rotten fruit I got from the compost bin. Yet Twilight insisted she return, and by now I was pitying this mare.
As Quick Script tiredly turned to report back to Twilight Sparkle, I grabbed her tail. Her mane and tail were a bright shade of gold, and her eyes were the most piercing yellow I'd ever seen. Her horn matched her coat, a deep scarlet. Turning to look back at me, she focused her irked glare at me.
"What?!" Her eye twitched a little.
"Take a break, get away from Twilight. Blame it on me if you want, I don't care. I don't like Twilight, and just because she's a princess doesn't mean you have to bow to her every whim and carry it out." I scowled at her pensive face. "Don't you dare go back to her, you hear me? I'll take care of Princess Twilight."
I let her tail go and she took a deep breath. She felt her horn with a hoof before trotting away briskly. I guess I had that affect on ponies.
Stretching my back, I returned to the stallions. A lot of the guards were illiterate, which enraged me to no end. Now is not the time to rant, I'm telling a story.
Several literate guards had taken to teaching those who couldn't read how to do so exactly. It was refreshing, if a bit empowering. With so many guards that could learn and think for themselves, I might just have some backup against the princesses.
Sadly though, it wouldn't be in enough time. So I sucked it up, straightened my shoulder bag, and began my walk back to the throne room.
I guess I should mention that I got my stuff back when the guards accepted my help. One of the guards to Luna's room was brave enough to snatch it while she was sleeping, and he got a whole lot of thanks from me.
I realized that I had approached the doors to the throne room, the unguarded throne room, much faster than I had anticipated, and pushed open the heavy doors. Walking inside, I saw a pacing Twilight dressed in royal garb and the two usuals on their thrones, looking bored.
They straightened when they saw me, and Twilight practically exploded in my face when she caught sight of me.
"OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH! YOU'RE AN ALIEN!"
I glared at her. "Back up, Mary Sue, I'm here to give you my twelfth rejection personally."
She looked like she had gotten punched in the ovaries, and Celestia and Luna looked on with interest.
"W- what… What do you mean you- You're rejecting my offer?" Twilight began to hyperventilate, breaking down in shakes and sweat. "I got rejected by an alien… The FIRST alien in Equestria! No… on Terran!"
I twirled my gloved hand around while my eyes rolled. "Geez, it's not like you asked me out on a date. Suck it up, ya frilly pony princess. Go learn more about the magic of friendship. Or better yet, get laid. I have more important matters to attend to, like getting home and teaching a bunch of grown men how to read."
I looked right at Celestia and Luna. "That's just embarrassing, guys."
Twilight popped an eyebrow. "Why do you refer to them so casually? They're the Princesses!"
I shrugged, saying, "So? I don't recognize them as my rulers. I'm from an entirely different world, why should I abide by their rules?" I spun around to face the heavy wooden doors again.
"Ta-ta now ladies, I have a coup to lead."
\\\\||||////
"A royal pain indeed," remarked Luna from her throne. Getting up from her seat, she went to Twilight. "Calm yourself, Sparkle. We assume he is not entirely used to our world just yet. After all, how could he know of us or our rule."
Celestia's brows were knit in thought while her mouth twisted into a confused 'O'. "Sister, Twilight…"
The two both looked at their elder. Celestia's face became stony and grim. "How does he know of Twilight's studies into the Magic of Friendship?"
Twilight's jaw dropped. "How does he know? Mono has only been here for what? A day? There's no way he could have found out. Did he speak with my brother about it?"
Luna shook her head. "Those two haven't been on speaking terms ever since Mono threatened you and Cadence." She snorted, "A likely thought!"
Celestia stood as well. "Sister, you forget that he resisted your magic. If he can resist magic, and is truly immune to it, then I don't see how we can harm him without weapons or physical combat."
Luna's mirthful expression drained, and she looked at her hooves. "I have heard reports from my Night Guard that he can cut off unicorns from using magic and render wings null from contact with him. Earth ponies also note that they feel physically weaker, and that lifting heavy items can be more of a chore than usual."
Twilight took note of this, literally writing everything the two had spouted about Mono.
"Do you think he could halt our immortality?" Twilight's question made Celestia and Luna's blood run cold. They all thought together, "Could he?"
He had never made any actual physical contact with any of them, so what adverse effects he could possibly enact on them were lost to them. But not to their imagination.
They thought of their flesh putrefying and their eyeballs shriveling up to nothing along with their wings. Their magical manes dying to embers and their horns crumbling to dust. And not a single thing would they be able to do as their tongues warped and dried into strips of jerky whilst their innards liquified.
Luna shook, Celestia's stare hardened further, and Twilight dropped her notebook. They all looked at each other and then at the page that Twilight's book had opened to in the fall.
A detailed sketch of Mono, grinning mischievously at them from the pages, as if daring them to challenge him.
\\\\||||////
I hadn't heard anything from any of the princesses after that, so I decided to do some talking with Script. It took me about an hour to find her at the canteen, but when I did I was glad.
She curled her hoof around a bottle, and was about to drink when it exploded in front of her in a cascade of shards and brownish booze. She stared back at me and my outstretched right arm that signified I had thrown something. Script set the fubar bottle down and turned to me calmly. "What?"
"I want to talk." I scrambled onto the high stool of the bar and rested my arms on the counter. "About what you do and how you can help me."
She sneered momentarily, about to laugh. "I want you to tell all of Canterlot about me."
She started chuckling, but then saw my serious as fuck expression and halted. "You're serious."
I narrowed my big brown eyes at her. "You're damn straight I am. The longer I stay a secret the bigger a deal it becomes. Let the cat, or rather the interplanetary alien, out of the bag sooner and we save ourselves a huge mess from the public."
She looked at me long and hard, her stare growing incredulous. "Why should I do this?"
My lips pulled into a smirk. "Because then you get to interview the first alien ever recorded to land in Equestria." I wiggled my eyebrows. "And to think it was something that he denied the princesses. Ooh, now that's controversial."
She tapped her hooves together nervously. "But that would be risky…"
I swiped my hand through the air dismissively. "Who cares?" My smirk turned into a manic grin. "It's provocative!"
Seeing the look on my face made her hesitate a moment longer, so I gave her the final push to get her on my side.
"And then you'll have all the attention of every single media outlet in Equestria. Being the princesses royal media consultant is great and all, but to be the envy of every single form of media in an entire nation?" I grabbed the edge of the stool and leaned back. "Shit~ I would be surprised if they didn't offer a fortune for even a bit of what I said! No pun intended."
Now she looked thoughtful. I looked positively confident. The bartender looked absolutely furious. "I suppose I could have just tapped her on the shoulder…"
Finally, she made her decision. "Fine then, how are we gonna do this?"
I hopped up on the stool and pulled my hat down tight over my head.
"Let's. Get. Dangerous."
\\\\||||////
A reporter stood in front of the castle, pulling his wide-brimmed hat down against a blowing wind. He looked right at a mirror, which was enchanted by the unicorn standing behind it to broadcast to anypony with a Sparkle Image Transistor.
The Transistor had been invented by Twilight Sparkle after she had found a way to easily transmit a mirror image across to other mirrors using a simple Amplification spell mixed with a Transition spell on the surface. The spell was easy to learn for many unicorns, and so became quickly adopted when a stallion named Penchant from Manehatten purchased the patent and decided to capitalize on this new tech.
He created the Sparkle Image Transistor, and encouraged several media companies to assist him. It struck big time, and pretty soon the price of one dropped to be available to all families. And right now every pony with one active could see this reporter speak.
"According to reports from a Quick Script inside Canterlot Castle, an alien being named Mono has made it his wish to be known! Whether or not this is truth cannot be confirmed yet, as-"
A sound that seemed like a murmur grew into an uproarious crowd appearing around the corner from the reporter. At its lead was a minuscule bipedal creature with a wide grin on its face, strutting down the street confidently.
"I- Is that…? Are you getting this?" The unicorn behind the mirror nodded briskly, keeping on the tiny thing down the street.
He walked right up to the reporter and the mirror, smiling widely. "What's good negro? I'd just like to say that zebras are better. Oh, and Twilight." He looked right at the mirror with a fierce glare in his eyes.
"Go eat a sausage, if you catch my drift. I am never going to answer your questions and I will never spend time with your friends. I don't like you and you are not best pony. I am hereby barring Princess Twilight Sparkle from interviewing me for my entire stay on this planet. Make like a peacock and jam your quills up your ass."
The reporter blushed deeply. "Um… oh wow, fillies and gentlecolts, we apologize for that. More on the alien after this break."
With a nod, the connection was cut off and half of Equestria stared slack-jawed at their screens.