//------------------------------// // Denunciations // Story: My Little Human // by Some Dickhead //------------------------------// It ripped into his thigh like a shovel through sod, tearing past skin and muscle and nerve until it all but shattered against the bone, shooting hundreds and hundreds of little glass splinters into his shredded flesh. That Anon had been stabbed—speared, more like—didn't exactly register at first, at least beyond some idle, barely conscious observation that yes, indeed, a foot long shard of some poor soul's window apparently decided to pay his femur a visit. He wasn't surprised, really, given all the planks and nails and shingles tossed pell-mell in his general direction—momentarily jolted, perhaps, maybe even a little resigned, but truth be told, any real remnants of his ability to feel shock that initially survived the trip to Equestria had been left bleeding in a ditch back when he first saw yaoi fanart of himself. Only when a doorknob whizzed an inch past his ear, streaking off into the distance and punching a fist-sized hole through the side of Carousel Boutique, did the wound finally register in the cloudy slip that was his mind. His foot fell short, ankle screaming as his body twisted, and he plunged to the bloodstained dirt with grit teeth and clenched fists. For a moment, as he stared up at the stars in a breathless daze, he was sorely tempted to melt right there into a pile of mush, to lie down and give up and just think of England. It was an attractive prospect, that much he'd admit, but the spite that burned in the depths of his chest shone that much the brighter, and gave him just enough strength to raise his head and face his pursuer. Twilight's eyes were vacant, her smile manic, too much teeth and too little lip, and her mane, tips scorched and roots bleached, danced around her head as if the air was water. Shadowed by the billowing cloud of debris held aloft in her magic, she stalked towards him on trembling legs, muttering and giggling under her breath, while windows blazed to life and doors slammed open as ponies poured out onto the streets to see for themselves just what ungodly thing was happening this time. "Sweet Celestia! Rose, our roof's gone!" "Is that the librarian? It's always her, I swear ... " "Somepony help that minotaur thing!" An officer of the local guard, armor clinging to her body from half-fastened straps and helmet forgotten at home, forced her way to the front of the crowd. The rest of her troop followed close behind, spreading out in a loose cordon between the townsponies and the maddened unicorn. Though they had trained for this sort of thing—Canterlot was nice enough to send them a veritable tome of incident reports and contingency plans when Twilight Sparkle first moved to town—the thought that she'd finally gone off the deep end left the guards only a stubbed hoof short of a rout. You see, the thing about magic is that it's amplified by extreme emotion, exponentially so. Ponies with a surfeit of the stuff, those anomalies with more mana than blood sitting pretty in the 99.9th percentile, therefore have a nasty tendency to flatten villages and such when their minds run away from them. An earth pony who deadlifts train cars for a living might cause an earthquake with their every step after learning that their spouse was cheating on them. A record-setting pegasus whose family just died might turn the sky into a roiling field of storm clouds without even noticing it. And a rambling, frothing, batshit insane unicorn with strong enough magic—say, strong enough to be the Princess' prized student—only needs a stray thought to vaporize themselves, their neighbors, and everything else for about a mile around them. It gave her no pleasure to abandon that weird shaved ape to whatever atrocities Twilight Sparkle had planned for him, but the officer knew that getting between them would only result in a shiny new smoking crater where once stood Ponyville—as far as she was concerned, the the situation was unstable enough without trying to cobble together a hostage rescue. If the opportunity presented itself to save him without setting his captor off, sure, she'd happily go along with it, but for now, her main priority was simply keeping casualties to an acceptable minimum. Turning back towards the crowd, the shuddering guardsmare squared her shoulders and narrowed her eyes, and shouted out in a bullish voice than only just managed to pierce the panicked din. "Disperse! All of you, disperse!" She nervously swallowed, her anger barely masking her terror. "Dammit, get out of here, now! It isn't safe!" Some took the hint and ran, while others, somewhat desensitized to this sort of thing after years of living in this death trap of a town, or perhaps overtaken by a sort of suicidal curiosity, couldn't help but stand there and gape. "ANON!" It was just as the guards were about to start pushing that Summer burst from the crowd, ears flat against her scalp and heart beating out of her chest. A guard moved to restrain her, but she launched into the air, dodging a stray brick that veered off from the swarm. The officer, terrified that the lid on this entire situation was about to fly off into the aether, barely managed to refrain from drawing her sword. "Get the buck back!" Summer looked down at her in bafflement before thrusting a hoof in her husband's general direction. "What are you just standing there for! Help him!" "Ma'am, respectfully, we don't have the bucking time for this." The officer motioned to the guard nearest the pegasus. "Grab her." The guard managed to wrap his forelegs around Summer's tail, but she twisted around and kicked him in the head. His helmet dented inwards with a clang as he flopped onto the ground, and Summer shot towards Anon. She only made it a yard or so before crashing against a glowing purple dome. Twilight gave a look that was far too smug to be healthy before pinning Anon with her eyes. "There we go, no more interruptions. Don't worry, Nonny, I'm gonna fix you. It's not your fault you're not thinking right. Just a little magic, and we'll be happy, you'll see. Now, this won't hurt a bit." She angled her head downward, and the cloud of debris erupted in flame. Powdery ash fell like snow while a fiery halo snaked around her head, and Twilight looked every bit an ancient, malevolent thing from the depths of Tartarus. "You." The hiss that passed from her lips strangled him. "Will." Her horn ignited. "Love." A sickly warmth caressed his brain, spreading and growing and digging into all the little cracks and folds. "Me." He had no choice but to stare blankly into her eyes, to become lost in them, to give in to the oily tendrils in his mind telling him that everything was going to be alright. Thump. Twilight's focus wavered, only for a second, and her grip loosened just enough that Anon caught sight of something moving over her shoulder. Thump. Summer was desperately punching the shield, ripples radiating out from where her hooves landed. Her eyes were cherry red, tears clawing down her cheeks, and the bruises blooming across her body spoke to how hard she collided with the barrier. Thump. She was beautiful. "No, I won't." As if struck, Twilight recoiled and scrambled backwards, her expression the picture of fear, of loss, of the one thing in the world that would ever make her happy decisively, conclusively rejecting her. "No ... no, no that's ... you're supposed to love me. That's how it's supposed to go. I ... I love you, so you should love me back. Why isn't it working? Why ... " She trailed off into a sob. "Why don't you love me?" The last frayed string of toleration that wrapped around his brain like a overstressed bungie cable finally snapped. "Because you're fucking psychotic." Anon took a deep breath, steadying himself before his grievances devolved into mindless rage. "You ... you don't love me, you don't even fucking know me. I mean, sure, you know about me, but what good is that when it's all filtered through a goddamn kid's show? That version of me is a fantasy, it doesn't exist, and it never has." He forced himself to stand, wounded leg limp as he took a wobbly step forwards. "That's your problem, you can't accept reality. You have one bad thing happen to you, one bad day, and you retreat into your little cocoon with all your escapist bullshit for the rest of your life. Yeah, reality is terrible. It fucking sucks. But growing up is accepting that and finding ways to make it suck less. You know what happens when you don't? When you refuse to grow up?" By now, he was laughing. Letting it out like this was actually pretty fun, and the dead-eyed look on Sparkle's face was just as sweet as the catharsis. "Look around you! Half the town's on fire. And why? Because I didn't want to be kidnapped? Because your idea of wooing someone is locking them in your basement? The consequences of your horrible fucking behavior punched you right in the face, and instead of stepping back and saying 'now why did that happen,' you threw a tantrum and started breaking things." He bent down and poked her in the chest. "Do you think this is just gonna go away? They know that you did this, and they're not gonna go easy on you. I ... " He ran his fingers through his hair. "I'd pity you, but it's your own fault. You did this to yourself." Anon stood back up and crossed his arms. "I don't want to see you again. I don't even want to think about you again. But you know what? Rainbow's friends with you, for some reason that obviously eludes me. Now, I don't know why she is, but I'd like to think she knows what she's doing, so I'm going to give you a chance. Get your head out of your ass and join us functioning adults in the real world, and I might even tolerate being in the same room as you. Understand?" There was no response. "Look, do you get what I'm saying here?" Twilight forced herself to breathe. He was right. She knew he was right, from the very center of her being, but to acknowledge it, to look that fact in the eye would be to tell herself that she's wasted her life, that for all her accomplishments, she was still just a little filly playing with toys in her room. But maybe, if she risked opening herself up to all the ugliness out there in the world, she might just find one little nugget of happiness, and finally, truly, be fulfilled. The shield evaporated, and her horn extinguished. "I ... I think ... " Summer hit Twilight over the head with 2x4, and she collapsed to the ground like a pile of wet spaghetti. Catching her breath, she eyed her husband with a weary smile. He looked down at the unconscious unicorn. "That's the second time she's been knocked out today, you know." "Really?" "Yeah, got her good in the library. Didn't really stick, though." "Huh." Summer hit Twilight again, and then kicked her in the jaw for good measure. "That'll do it." "Yeah." They stood there for a minute or so, reality struggling to catch up with their respective trains of thought, before Summer sped towards him and clung to his chest like an oversized limpet. "Non, I ... " "It's all good, Summer, I'm safe." She nuzzled into his chest. "B-but ... " "Doesn't matter." Rainbow, who'd followed Summer from Sugarcube Corner, decided to make herself known. "Hey, uh, you guys alright?" "Hmm." She gave them a moment. "Is that a yes, or ... " Anon reached out and grabbed Rainbow by the scruff of her neck, pulling her into the hug. Squawking and fussing, she tried to escape, but Summer and Anon just held her tighter. Eventually, she settled down, resting her chin on the human's shoulder. "You guys wanna go out sometime? Like, on a date or something?" Anon chuckled. "Yeah, that sounds pretty good."