//------------------------------//
// Things Start Picking Up 
// Story: Pony Psycho 600 
// by Trenzalor 
//------------------------------//

[Equestria P.O.V.]

Twilight and her friends were blinded by the bright rainbow light but finally they're able to see again after a couple of second. What they saw confused them very much. Standing in the middle of the room was a strange bipedal creature wearing strange clothing and having no fur except for on what she could only assume was its head. The fur was black and in a shape that looks like somepony put a bowl on the creature's head. The exposed skin was a very pale tan. It's arms ended in strange wiggly things. The creature didn't match the description of any known beast in Equestria. However the strangest part to anypony who couldn't sense magic is that the creature is glowing a hot white. But to Twilight, Nightmare Moon, and to a lesser extent Rarity, they all saw the full picture. And it scared the ever living hell out of them. This creature, whatever it is, is filled to the brim with unheard of amounts of magic. It's so completely saturated that it looks like it could explode if they aren't careful. Twilight looks behind the creature to see that Nightmare Moon was completely intact.

"Oh no."

Nightmare Moon eye's widen and her jaw goes slack when she feels the energy brought to bear by the creature. But then she sees its face. It's eyes are wide and it's shaking. And then a thought hits her. This thing is scared. She smiles as she plans to take advantage of this.

"Is this the best that the Elements could come up with? Strange creature, who are you?"

[Shigeo P.O.V.]

Shigeo is really starting to freak out. This entire place is so absolutely foreign to him. He can't understand anything of what's going on here. When he feels the menacing energy of the large black horse he takes a step away from it. It looks like there's a lot of energy in there.

'What the? What is this place? Where am I? What are these creatures?! Why is that one so big?!'

Suddenly Shigeo hears Nightmare ask him his name. These things can talk? Wait, if he just suddenly appeared here, maybe the reason its energy feels so dark is because it's scared. Shigeo keeps trying to keep his energy under control as he answers the question, not sure what it means by elements.

"Shigeo, Shigeo Kageyama."

Nightmare glares at Shigeo with less than pure intentions in mind. Whatever this creature is, it was summoned by the Elements of Harmony, meaning it's a threat to her. She must proceed quickly but cautiously.

"Why are you here?"

Shigeo grits his teeth more as the energy inside of him slowly tries to make its way out of him. He keeps forcing it down as he answers the black horse's question.

"I don't know."

Nightmare Moon sneers at him. Is this creature kidding with her right now?! Why would the Elements summon something that doesn't know why's it's been summoned?! This has to be some kind of ploy.

"What?! How could you not know?! Whatever, it doesn't matter now."

In a burst of speed faster than most in the room could track Nightmare Moon appears to vanish and then reappear behind Shigeo. Shigeo can see her for the most part however and tries to create a barrier, but with his focus mostly on containing his energy the barrier fails and Nightmare Moon bucks Shigeo through a wall with a loud crash, destroying said wall. Shigeo pulls himself out of the hole in the wall and stands up, despite the fact that right now he's in some serious pain.

"Wait, please don't. You don't know what you're doing. I could explode if I don't keep this energy under control."

The elemental 7 evacuate the castle and Nightmare blasts Shigeo with a beam of magic not only hurting him, but also destroying a large section of the wall behind him. Shigeo is brought to his knees and he coughs up some blood. Adrenaline fills his veins anew as the realization of what this large black horse is trying to do hits him like a truck.

'This pony...'

Suddenly the ground begins to shake as the fear begins to mix the energy Shigeo was holding in with his own, merging the two of them together. Shigeo makes another barrier to try and protect himself. This one is supercharged with the two energies.

'...wants to kill me. She only just met me but she's trying to kill me.'

Nightmare attacks with a flurry of magically charged "punches". Shigeo starts panicking even more as he can feel her energy pressing against his barrier. As Nightmare Moon keeps punching the shield she notices that it's much stronger than the first one was. She can feel the energy building up inside of him so she doubles her output, trying to end Shigeo before he can end her. Suddenly a large out flux of power emanates from Shigeo as he dives into the deepest depths of terror. The wave of energy sends Nightmare Moon flying away from him and it breaks apart the castle and the pieces start floating in the air. The entire castle even starts to float into the sky. Nightmare Moon pushes back against the power but it hopelessly outclassed and can only soften her blow against the walls of the flying castle.

"How is this possible?! What are you?!"

Shigeo looks up at her with his fear evident in his eye.

"Please don't do this. I don't want to hurt you."

Nightmare glances at him curiously. What on Equestria is he talking about? He doesn't want to hurt her? That's what he was brought here to do. His lies won't fool her.

"You don't want to hurt me? I don't think I've ever heard such a bold faced lie in my life. I won't let you take away everything that I've earned!"

Nightmare makes an attempt to punch Shigeo again but Shigeo extends an arm forward in defense. When he does a powerful wave of energy washes throughout the floating ruins, creating a blinding light. When the light clears the castle is back to the way it was. The elementals enter the castle again when everything looks like it's not going to explode anymore. Twilight can also sense that the energy of the creature from before is a lot less than it was when it first arrived. When they get to the room that they started in they see Shigeo standing in the middle of the room, bleeding and barely standing. He's also no longer glowing white and grimacing in pain. He's just looking down, confused at the other thing in the room with him: a normal sized blue alicorn laying on the ground unconscious. Twilight looks around.

"What just happened?"

A voice emanates seemingly from the ether as the sun finally rises from beyond the horizon. Everyone has to shield their eyes at the sudden intrusion of the sunlight. Twilight and Spike recognize that voice and they both smile when they hear it. All Shigeo knows is that another source of a lot of power is moving towards them rapidly. He puts up a barrier just in case this one also wants to fight.

"I believe I can help you understand that."

A ball of light moves the a nearby window and out of it walks princess Celestia completely unharmed. Everypony bows except Twilight and Spike. Shigeo looks the creature over. It kind of looks like the black one, but white instead of black. It's energy is also a lot warmer than the black one's so hopefully it won't attack him. Twilight and Spike run over to Celestia and they both hug her tightly.

"Celestia, you're okay! We were so worried about you!"

Celestia looks at Twilight with an expression of motherly love and slight humor. She's glad that her star pupil is alright. However she can't help but notice the other creature in the room and that massive burst of power just before she felt the Nightmare disappear. Shigeo sees the large white horse giving him the stink eye but she doesn't do anything beyond that so Shigeo starts trying to relax a little bit. He lowers his barrier since it doesn't seem like there will be any more fighting. Celestia sees this but she doesn't relax in the slightest.

"Of course Twilight. And I new that you could achieve your goal. However, for right now, I need to figure out what happened and what that creature is."

Twilight immediately turns her attention to Shigeo as well while Spike backs away a little bit. She's also curious as to what this strange creature that's standing over the blue alicorn could be and how it could be so powerful.

"He's the one who defeated Nightmare Moon. The Elements of Harmony summoned him. At first it felt like he was brimming with energy but after we escaped from the ruins after Nightmare Moon tried to kill him there was a large explosion of power and suddenly not only was everything was back to normal, but we found him standing there over that blue alicorn."

Celestia looks at Shigeo and walks over to him. As she gets close Shigeo doesn't even flinch where as others would usually bow or try to flee from the goddess of the sun. She can't tell if he's just so powerful that he doesn't care for her own power, or if he just doesn't recognize her own power.

"Is it true what my student tells me? Did you defeat Nightmare Moon?"

Shigeo looks up at the large horse since she's a lot taller than him. He's glad that this one isn't attacking him as well. He thinks that the purple pony called her Celestia? He hopes that he doesn't mess that name up.

"U-um, I think so? She tried to kill me, so I defended myself. I just don't understand why she attacked me."

Celestia looks at him with a small bit of pity. Whoever this creature is, he clearly doesn't know what's going on and he's very far from wherever his home is.

"I have no intention of hurting you. I must thank you for defeating such a great evil."

Celestia's gaze turns to that of hatred and Shigeo can feel her aura flaring up at him in an attempted display of dominance. Shigeo takes a step back and gets ready just in case this turns into another fight.

"But if you step out of line I will not hesitate to end you."

Shigeo gasps and Twilight looks at Celestia confused. When Celestia is done threatening Shigeo her aura dies back down while Twilight walks over to her so that she can question what's going on.

"Celestia, he saved us. Why would he try to hurt us?"

Celestia regains her demeanor and turns to Twilight, but she never takes her eyes off of Shigeo. Shigeo would also like to know what's going on? Are all of the large horses in this place just really mean like, Nightmare Moon (?) was? Celestia gets really close to Twilight's ear to whisper her answer to her pupil.

"It's not wise to trust beings of great power. The moment they find a reason to betray you they will not hesitate to stab you in the back."

Twilight looks between Celestia and Shigeo, seemingly torn by her mentor's words. Celestia walks over to the blue alicorn. Shigeo starts moving in that direction as well. Every member of the elementals (and Shigeo) notice something flickering on the alicorn's back. Celestia kneels by the alicorn and she starts to stir.

"Luna, it has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this."

Luna gasps as she awakens, her eyes flicking around the room, seeing all of the ponies standing around her and trying to comprehend what she's seeing. When her eyes land on Shigeo and Celestia they hyper focus on those two. Celestia continues her little spiel as if she had rehearsed it beforehand.

"It's time for us to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together little sister."

Everyone gasps except for Twilight and Spike who already knew, and Shigeo who is currently inspecting the strange thing on Luna's back. It appears to be some kind of black flame, but it's covered in TV static. He remembers that Reigen had something like this once. Celestia continues still.

"Will you accept my friendship?"

Luna glares at Celestia with intense hatred in her eyes which become reptilian once again. Everyone takes a step back when they see that except for Shigeo, who isn't paying attention too much.

"No. I can never accept you after what you did to me!"

Celestia looks confused at that statement, like something went wrong. Shigeo comes back to reality when Luna shouts at Celestia and when he sees the reptilian eyes he hopes this won't become another fight. Celestia holds her ground and looks down at her sister with intensity.

"What do you mean?"

Luna gets up weakly, doing her best to use what little energy she has left at her disposal to power her limbs so that she can stand once again.

"You know exactly what I mean. All the hatred and malice your subjects had towards me. And you never listened to me, you just ignored me! I spent several years thinking the statue in the court yard was my real sister! And yet a thousand years later and you still can't see that. I tried to talk to you but you ignored me still. We are past the time for friendship!"

Celestia looks at Luna in disbelief. The rest present all look at Celestia with confusion. What is Luna talking about? Celestia would never do anything so mean, would she? Shigeo is a bit more suspicious of Celestia when he hears that.

"Luna, I would never do such a thing."

Everypony hears Luna start growling at her sister and it sounds like the growl of a creature much larger than her.

"They why did I do all this?! Ponies doesn't just turn evil on a whim! What reason do I have other than what I said?!"

Shigeo starts putting a couple of the pieces together. Suddenly more and more of this is starting to make sense as more context is added. He walks over to the two of them and raises his hand to try to interject.

"I think I might know why."

Luna looks at him in fear and anger, wondering what this strange creature is still doing here now that she's been stripped of her power and utterly humiliated.

"And what might that be?"

Shigeo states his point simply and he points his finger at the strange black flame flickering on Luna's back.

"You're cursed."

Twilight walks over with an indignant look. She can't believe that this creature thinks that such superstitious nonsense is actually true.

"That's impossible. Curses don't exist."

Shigeo stares at her blankly as she says that what he's talking about isn't true. These creatures have a lot of energy in them, can they not see the flame on Luna's back?

"Am I the only one who can see this?"

He points at the black flame. Twilight looks where he's pointing and exactly on Luna's back where his finger is pointing and right there is something she's never seen before. A flickering black flame. She tilts her head in confusion as she tries to process what she's seeing.

"Wait, that's a curse?"

Shigeo nods in response. Twilight starts inspecting the curse on Luna's back. Luna tries to keep herself away from Twilight but she doesn't have enough energy left in her legs so she begrudgingly submits to the strange inspection.

"But how is this possible?"

Shigeo shrugs. He doesn't really know how curses works so he can't really answer her question.

"Someone must have not liked Luna a lot."

Twilight then turns her attention to Shigeo with a questioning look in her eye. There's just so much information entering her head at such a rapid pace that she's having trouble processing it.

"Wait a second, how do you know what it is?"

Shigeo looks at her as his expression slowly starts to soften. However as the adrenaline starts to leave his body he finally starts to feel the effects of all of the fighting he's been involved in. He winces as he takes a knee and starts pants for breath.

"W-well I dispelled a curse that someone had put on my master and it looked like that."

Twilight see Shigeo drop to his knee and she gasps as she finally gets a good look at him. He's seriously injured. She really hopes that they'll be able to fix him, but she notices Celestia and Luna giving him a stink eye and tries to think of a way to deflate the tension.

"How are we supposed to get it off?"

Celestia interrupts them with the same angry tone whenever she addresses Shigeo or anything he's said. She doesn't want this creature doing anything to her sister.

"Hold on, what curse? I don't see anything. Twilight, this creature may be lying."

Twilight is confused by Celestia's statement. It's right there plain as day. What is she talking about

"Can't you see it? It looks like a black flame and it's on Luna's back."

Luna looks at he back curiously. To her it looks just as it did before she became Nightmare Moon. A shame in its own right, but there doesn't appear to be anything clinging to her back.

"I've been cursed? I see no flames."

While they're arguing about the curse, Shigeo tries to see if he can grab it. He succeeds and pulls the curse off of Luna's back. The others are too busy arguing to notice and the rest of the elementals are just completely dumbfounded by this sequence of events. The curse disappears as Celestia, Luna, and Twilight stop arguing. Luna regains some of her strength and steadies herself so that she can better stand up to her sister.

"Even if it were true, that doesn't mean I'm going to forgive you. Also, need I mention your most recent offence?"

Twilight wonders what that means, but now that the tension on Shigeo's has been a bit dispersed, Twilight walks over to Shigeo and she tries to get him to use her as a support. He can't really move on his own so he puts his weight on her a bit. He's a bit lighter than he looks like he should feel. Twilight lifts him up and tries to keep him steady.

"What offence?"

Luna looks at Twilight, intent to shed as much light on her sister's despicable actions as she can.

"Do you know how the elements of harmony normally work?"

Twilight shakes her head. She didn't even know that they existed until yesterday. If Luna has information on how they work, then this could help her figure out how Shigeo works.

"No."

Luna's voice becomes that of a scholar. She speaks with compose that her tiny body wouldn't show that she has.

"The elements of harmony are powered by will. Specifically, what the user believes is right and wrong. Celestia knew you were the new elements and purposely groomed you to make it so that everything Celestia saw as wrong in me would be destroyed when I was hit by that beam."

Twilight looks skeptical. Does Luna really expect her to believe something so outlandish? Not only would something like that be impossible, if Celestia knew that Twilight was an element bearer, she would tell her, wouldn't she?

"If that was true then why is Shigeo here?"

Shigeo also wants to know what he's doing here. But more importantly he wants to know how he can get back home. Luna looks into the upper right of her eyes to think of a reason that actually makes sense.

"My best guess is that your personality is in such stark contrast to the others in your group that the elements needed a sort of mediator to settle the moral dispute. Though the one they chose appears to be quite peculiar. Immensely powerful without the will to strike me down. Instead he simply humiliated me."

Celestia glares at Shigeo. It's obvious she trusts him even less now. Luna starts walking away the best she can. Celestia stands up.

"Where are you going?"

Shigeo sees her walking away and his heart starts to beat a little bit faster. He needs to stop her so that he can ask her how to get home.

"Wait! How do I get home?"

Luna looks back just to say one final thing to the two of them.

"Shigeo, I'm sorry but I don't know how to send you home. It was only a guess as to why the elements summoned you. As for you Celestia, I'm going away from you. This isn't the last you've heard of me."

Luna walks out of the castle and no one has the heart to stop her. Celestia doesn't shed a single tear. She doesn't even look sad. Shigeo just stands there with his eyes wide as he slowly starts to understand what this means. He can't go home. Shigeo is filled with a deep, unimaginable sorrow. He would cry, he would scream, he might even lash out, but all he can to is do his best to stop the world from spinning as her passes out. The last thing he hears before the world goes back is Twilight calling out to him as he hits the floor.


**********************


An unknown amount of time later, Shigeo slowly starts to come to consciousness. He has to force his eyes open, but when he does he sees that he's in a hospital room. For a moment he thinks that maybe he's back in his home world, but then he tilts his head and sees Twilight sitting in one of the waiting chairs near his bed. Seeing her fills Shigeo with a deep and powerful sadness, but he can't let it out. He doesn't want to loose control and hurt her. All he can do is let the tears flow as he realizes that he's stuck here, far away from Ritsu and Reigen and his parents. Twilight looks up from her book and sees that Shigeo is crying when he looks at her and she jumps up from her seat.

"Shigeo, you're awake!"

She rushes over to him and hugs him close. She squeezes him tightly. Shigeo is a bit shocked to see Twilight doing this. He barely knows her and yet she seems so worried about him. Why is she doing this. Twilight breaks the hug and stands next to Shigeo's bed.

"How are you feeling?"

Shigeo looks down to the floor when she asks that. He feels terrible. He feels sad and angry that he's trapped here, but he can't show any of it.

"Terrible."

Twilight nods in understanding. She has to admit that if she was summoned to an unknown world, she'd be feeling pretty melancholic as well.

"I can see why. You're so far from home. Don't worry, I'll try to help you get back home."

Shigeo's eyes widen slightly in shock when he hears that. Why would she say that? Why is she being so nice to him?

"You'd really do that? Why?"

Twilight puts a hoof on Shigeo's shoulder reassuringly with a smile on her face. She hopes that she'll be able to keep her words, but right now she's sure that even if she fails she's going to do her damnedest to try.

"You saved my life and the lives of my friends. It's the least I could do to repay you. Now get some rest. You were really badly hurt."

Shigeo gives the smallest of smiles when Twilight says that. He gives a small nod as he closes his eyes again. He may be sad that he's far away from his family, but at least he's stuck somewhere that has someone who's willing to help him get home. If nothing else, it's nice to know that he made a new friend today.

50%