//------------------------------// // Chapter 18: Awakening. // Story: The Crazy Adventures Of Two Siblings Who Hate Each Other In Equestria. // by deadpansnarker //------------------------------// “W-What is it, Big Brother? I-I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.” “It’s a Cyclops of course, Daisy. Haven’t you ever heard of the Greek myths? Percy Jackson?” “The ‘green mints’? And of course I have! In fact, Florian was gonna lend me the entire series until we kinda fell out…” “Figures. So you're telling me, this monster has never appeared in the show at all? Not even a little cameo in the background?” “Positive. I’m sure I’d remember something so huge, so ugly, so horrible…” “It’s a good job he’s so much taller than you, or you might’ve hurt his feelings. Anyway, the time for unnecessary banter is over. I think we need to get moving, until he decides to make pancakes out of us with that oversized rolling pin of a club.” “ ‘Mints’? ‘Pancakes’? Do you ever stop thinking about your stomach, Big Brother?” “Daisy Jones!! Stop kidding around! Our lives are in clear and present danger, and we need to get out of here right now. Come on, follow me… oh no…” The next few seconds: well, let’s just say they were kind of… frenetic. Which is kind of the understatement of the millennium, but I seem to have forgotten to pack my thesaurus on this one-way vacation to Horsieland, so it’ll have to do. Whether it was me trying too hard to pull Daisy forwards in my desperate attempt at retreating, or she simply stumbled over a loose root and lost her footing I guess we’ll never know… …Because at the crucial moment we both should’ve been making some serious tracks in the distance, she fell head-over-tail to the ground… …Just as Mr Massive Mono-Eye decided to bear down upon us, making enough noise through his inane grunting and tree-felling antics to waken the dead… …Which I very much feared me and my sister were about to be, if we didn’t get the heck out of the way of his set route in the next few seconds. How can he see such two tiny figures so far down with just one eye, anyway? We must be like ants to him. Microscopic, pathetic ants… I can remember thinking whilst panicking, as I quickly grabbed Daisy by the claws to unsuccessfully drag her up. Leave us alone, you… humongous freaky giant blueberry man, you! Heh; clearly not my best work, but I am sorta under a bit of pressure right now.  It was at this point, as I noticed with growing horror that every one step of his was the same as fifty of ours, we weren’t going to make it. I didn’t tell Daisy this depressingly uncomfortable truth, instinctively cowering as she was now amongst the crabgrass in a ball like a hedgehog resigned to getting run over in the middle of the freeway.  There was also nothing to be gained by proportioning blame for this unfortunate situation, as both of us had been equally too engaged in our usual ‘hilarious’ repartee to escape, even as Tall, Blue and Gruesome descended on us through the forest like an unstoppable juggernaut from hell. Could this really be it…? But there’s so much more I wanted to do with my life… I mean, I can’t think of anything right now, but there’s gotta be something, right? I tightened my grip around Daisy’s understandably terrified draconic persona, unwilling to leave her behind even if it meant the two of us being marmalised together.  Besides, if I somehow got back home without her, Mum would’ve killed me anyway. The monster was now just a matter of metres away… I could almost hear the delight in his growl as he weighed up his options regarding our ultimate fate: death by stomping, or whomping on that improvised tree-trunk of a baseball bat he carried everywhere around with him? Perhaps he’d take us back to his dingy cave for a delightful meal. And we’d be the appetiser. That would be the ‘chomping’ option. See? I’m a poet, and I know it. Something tells me neither choice would be particularly pleasant, though. Nor did it look like we were going to get much of a say in the matter, either.  But just as it seemed like our final moments together were approaching… Just as it looked as though we’d be going to wherever haplessly displaced ponies and dragons end up after death… A sudden fire of rebellion came out of nowhere and lit up my subconscious like nothing before. (Well, there was that one time… but we’ll get to that later). No! I refuse to die in a weird place like this! I’ve not even got to go to college! I haven’t done anything dodgy with members of the opposite sex! The new Final Fantasy game is still waiting by my PS4, just itching to be played! And D-Daisy, she hasn’t even properly started her life yet! I mean, she never shuts up, always puts us in mortal peril and has terrible taste in cartoons, but she’s my sister. My baby sister! “And… you’re… not… touching… HER!!” For whatever reason (I’m still trying to figure it out to this day) it was that last thought which did it more than any other. What’s ‘it’, you might ask? Well… My horn, which had lay still, dormant and more-or-less useless for so long like an enlarged appendix upon the top of my brow, suddenly lit up like a thousand fireflies had crawled into it… Simultaneously, I jumped up to defiantly stand over the trembling figure of my scaled sister, staring up unphased at the grotesque visage of our gargantuan aggressor and ready to tango with him, using seven simple words. “WE… ARE… NOT… GOING… TO… DIE… TODAY!!”   Before I even really knew what I was doing (although it felt like the most natural thing in the world) a blast of unbelievably powerful lavender energy rocketed from my horn, like a Special Attack I’d been saving up deep down inside since arriving here.  It wasn’t particularly well-aimed, considering the size of the target I had to shoot at, but it did succeed in turning the guy’s fearsome club into nothing but kindle. It also, um, might have severed the part of his loincloth which kept said miniscule item of clothing up in the first place. And as the obviously very shy and much-more-sensitive-than-he-first-appeared Cyclops stampeded back into the depths of the forest from whence he came, hiding his shame and screeching with embarrassment all the way, a few random thoughts sprung to mind. First off: Hurray, we’re still alive! Naturally. Then, the slightly more nuanced: Huh, pretty small for such a big fellow. I’ll never feel an inferiority complex in the changing room ever again. Of course, just having one of those once more, whatever the size, would be good enough for me… Finally, a feeling of absolute jubilation, exhilaration and stupefaction. Holy sh*t. Did I just do that? Darren the seven-stone weakling, who can’t even remove a spider from the bathtub without cracking up? HOLY SH*T. “B-Big B-Brother. Y-Your horn. I-It’s still glowing.” What? Oh, so it is. In all the excitement of the last few minutes, I hadn’t even noticed the fact that my pointed head appendage still lit up the early evening mist around us, and having no more need of it for now I swiftly extinguished the power. “There, that better?” “Y-You can control it now?” Wait… now that she mentions it… this is kinda new, ain’t it? I decided to try a few experiments with my apparent newly governable horn based on what little I’d seen of Twilight’s powers on the show. I zapped a leaf… flared it with light once more… levitated my uncomplaining sister a few feet in the air… teleported myself atop a sapling… tore a hole in the space/time continuum to get back home in an instant… Sadly, only kidding with that last one. Still, four outta five ain’t bad. I’ll take it! “Darren, I’ve never been more proud of you than I am right now!” A grinning Daisy jumped up to hug my withers affectionately, and for once her praise felt genuine like she didn’t want anything in return. “You stood up for yourself, saved our lives again, mastered your powers… I just wish I hadn’t had to see that thingie…” “Thingie…?” Still reeling from the feeling of having seemingly unlimited magic at my fingertips (or hooves), it took me a minute or two to figure out what she meant. “Oh, I was hoping you'd missed that. But, I thought kids at your school started getting basic Sex Ed at age six? At least, that’s the way I remember it.” “Yes, but we didn’t cover the body parts of giant blue one-eyed monsters! It's something I’ll have to live with, I guess. Still, look at you! You’re really starting to get used to life in the horseshoes of the most powerful unicorn in Equestria, aren’t you? Fancy staying on here for a while after all(!)” “NO!!” The reply was so sharp, I scared away a nearby flock of buzzards. Sorry, birdies. “Geez, I was just kidding. After what those ponies said about me back at the cafe, I’m as eager to get out of here as you are. We still have to find some way of staying one step ahead of those chasing after us, contact Celestia as soon as we get the chance and possibly defeat Nightmare Moon at some point. After all, if there’s an eternal night, we won’t be able to do anything anyway.” “What? Her again? Can’t you just give it a rest with the whole ‘Nightmare Moon’ thing already? Besides, haven’t you noticed? I’m packing now, babes. This evil baddie doesn’t stand a chance against my new awesome abilities. If anything, they should be frightened of me. I’ll be their worst ‘Nightmare’!” “Hmm. I appreciate the courage, Big Brother, but let me explain a few things to you as we walk along. The fact is, as strong as you might be now, you still don’t stand a chance against her in your current form without ‘The Elements Of Harmony’, for the simple reason that…” As Daisy explained more and more of the dire situation we were in now, and how Friendship was indeed such an invaluable commodity in this wacked-out universe… My initial enthusiasm for possessing this newfound power quickly left me as I realised just what now we were up against… And so distracted were both of us in our heated discussion about how to avoid potential disaster… We didn’t hear the awestruck two voices trailing us, equally locked in debate as to what their next move should be. “D-Did ya see that, sugarcube? A-And she told me she couldn't use magic...” “I-I did, and even I’m starting to get a bit nervous. To just blast a mighty Cyclops from here to Cloudsdale like that… I’ve never seen anything…” “I fear we may have gotten ourselves into more than we bargained for here, Dashie. We might need extra reinforcements. I’m gonna go back and tell Pinkie, Mac and the others to keep their distance for now. Are you happy to keep followin’ them to see where they’re headed?” “You can count on me, Applejack! Even if she does try zapping me, I’ll fly so fast she won’t even singe my tail!” “That’s the stuff. Well, off I go…” ‘Reinforcements’? I wish. What a waste of time. I can think of only one alicorn able to handle an out-of-control mare with this much power, and she’s gonna be really busy today. But I gotta try and see her. The very future of the world could be at stake…