Sour Sweet noticed the Knight motionlessly studying her from under the single streetlamp bathing the park bench on which the stoic warrior sat. His unnatural stillness a contrast to the girl's frantic fidgeting as she flinched, looked hurriedly around, and finally threw herself into the brush flanking the tiled path. Pushing an impromptu shortcut through the overgrowth that she remembered would lead her to the main road, and a five-minute walk to her dormitory just next to the movie theatre.
Cursing at each scratch drawn across her bare legs, and her arms, as she powered through the branches and leaves. Sour Sweet finally pawed her way free into a clearing that was, thankfully, devoid of people. She had heard the stories about this place, and it had taken a week before the steamier images stopped messing with her sleep schedule.
That was when the claws came scything out of the darkness, and the resulting impact drove tracks of pain across her arm before throwing the surprised girl onto the ground.
Sour Sweet yelled in shock as she scrambled backward on her butt, heels, and palms.
The thing howled for blood and lust as it brought its claws to bear above its prize.
"STAY YOUR HAND HEATHEN SPAWN!"
There was then a silvery flash which half-blinded Sour Sweet. It was then followed by a sickening crack as the knight stomped the thing's knee so hard that the next person who could put it back together shall be rightwise king born of all Equestria. The brute then staggered the creature by ramming a buckler into the creature's upraised elbow and throwing the weight of its misshapen arm over a face twisted apart by fearsome, drool-slicked fangs.
"RADIANCE TAKES YOU!"
Something snapped again as another silver flash bit into the squealing, maimed creature. And as the beast stumbled away in an attempt to escape, the Knight fell upon it. There followed a furious sequence of slashing sliver and bone-pale claw as a massive, metal weight danced around the armored giant. Splitting flesh and powdering bone before snaring the creature's arm and whipping it aside, clearing a path for the edge of the Knight's buckler to slip in and shatter the fiend's exposed kidney.
The creature responded with an agonized yelp before retaliating with a frenzied series of claw swipes, which ended when the Knight outmaneuvered the beast and slipped past the monster, before delicately planting the knobbed weight of a heavy flail onto the creature's warped head from the rear, crying.
"TE AFFLIGAM, ANTIOCH DISCHARGE!"
Despite herself, Sour Sweet flinched aside and squeezed her eyes shut.
"Ma'am?" A low, metallic growl rolled across the darkness in guarded concern some seconds later, "Are you alright?"
Again, despite herself, Sour Sweet opened her eyes and subsequently slapped the offer of help aside as she clambered up to her feet.
"Please!" Sour Sweet spat, "I'm not some damsel in distress waiting for some ... knight to save me. I can take care of myself, thank you very much!"
"Cool," the Knight casually rumbled, "cause the fiend is still alive."
Sour Sweet attempted an impromptu impression of a surprised sloth climbing up a tree.
"KILL IT! KILL IT, KILL IT, KILL IT!"
The barrel-chested brute stared impassively for a moment at Sour Sweet's ineffectual attempts to climb the nearest tree, before a series of rhythmic, rasping breaths came whistling through the holes punched into the visor of his pot helm.
"So cute."
"Excuse me?!" Sour Sweet screeched at the Knight's back, "Cute?! And get back here you tin-canned cunt! you can't leave me alone in the dark!"
"Fuck. Maybe you can."
Sunset Shimmer's had her interest piqued long before Sour Sweet concluded her story.
"That's what she said."
"Come on, Sour Sweet!" Shimmer replied with an exasperated huff, in response to her friend cackling at the joke.
"I'm so sorry Sunset," Sour Sweet said as her hands flew to her chest, "just trying to alleviate my trauma with a bit of humor. It's not as if I was nearly killed or anything!"
"Right, sorry."
"I mean honestly! A knight, killing a monster, right down Canterlot Park, in the middle of a moonless night. It sounds like some raving fantasy, straight out of a fairytale doesn't it?"
"First of, Sour," Sunset said as she leveled a pale, sea-blue gaze at the freckled joker sitting across the Formica cafe table. "stop that. Secondly, I once transformed into a monster, beat a trio of power-crazed sirens from another dimension, and stopped the fabric of reality tearing apart and dooming two worlds. A knight slaying monsters in a park is just Tuesday for me, so far."
Sour Sweet conceded the point with a shrug of thin shoulders as she re-did her rose-colored hair into a ponytail.
"So, is there anything you could do?"
Sunset took a moment to consider Sour Sweet's response, twirling a strand of blazing, orange hair as she compiled a list of leads she could pursue.
"Don't worry, Sour Sweet. I have some ideas and a friend who is an expert in these things. I'll send her a note, and we'll soon figure out this little mystery."
Twilight Sparkle sighed in happy contentment as she closed the cover of an old, pristine journal after reading Sunset Shimmer's note regarding her friend's adventure in the human world. Sent between two worlds by the magic connecting the journal in Twilight's possession, with a similar book kept by Sunset. Patting the cover gently with a purple hoof, Twilight levitated the journal with a casual thought onto an empty bookstand. And with a flick of her wings, the Alicorn turned around and trotted out of her library.
Through winding corridors of gems and intertwined branches, Twilight's walk ended as she reached her throne room. A soaring room decorated with even bigger gemstones, surrounding the centerpiece, a vast round table set beneath a chandelier made from what remained of the Alicorn's old library, and surrounded by five thrones of a degree of craftsmanship beyond even the greatest of Equestria's Crafts-ponies.
Settling down on her throne, Twilight took some time to preen her wings and clear her throat. She then threw her head back and yelled.
"DISCORD!"
The god of chaos was in the middle of his evening toilet when he faintly heard Twilight calling his name.
"All the way from Equestria, even" the Draconequus muttered to himself as he stood before a plank of pinewood. His lion's paw resumed waxing his goat's horn with buttercream, while the claws of an eagle's left foot ran a rolling pin down the snow-white beard extending down the lower jaw of a dragon. "Wonder what's got her wings twisted around her horn this time?"
Wordlessly, Discord unrolled a scroll out of thin air. Perusing its contents as the Discord tweaked his ear, and filled his usual cup of morning coffee.
"Whatever it is," Discord grumbled as he squeezed lime juice into the cup and stuck a cocktail umbrella into his drink, "I should find a way to stop being on the top ten list of probable causes."