“I thought you said we'd be out of the Everfree by now.”
“We are.”
“Then what do you call all this?”
“It's not the Everfree. Didn't you see the transition?”
“What?”
Twilight decided she should act as a tour guide to visitors from parallel realities more often. It gave her lots of opportunities to explain things, and she loved explaining things like her friend Pinkie Pie loved pastries. “There's no definite border, but if you pay attention to the plants, trees, and terrain, you can see that we've left the Everfree Forest. Now we're in the Evenworse Forest.”
Kyle scowled. “I'm sorry I asked.”
“Just look at it as more chances to kill things.”
“Yeah.” His face lit up as that sank in. “Yeah!”
“Are all humans this violent?”
“Not all of us. I guess I'm sort of a special case.”
“Why do you suppose that is?”
“Well, it's like this...” He told her how his parents had been well-off, and had given him everything but love; they also made him mow the lawn. He talked about how most people didn't understand his obsession with a certain genre of music and dismissed it as garbage; in his opinion, the world would be a better place if everyone listened to klezmer-zydeco fusion, especially the work of his hero, Jean-Louis Silverstein. (He digressed for a moment to say that he also liked electronic music, and he really enjoyed Computer Farts, the new album by Skillet.) He described the trauma of having his prized collection of fedoras piled in front of him and set on fire when he was a teenager; he was certain they looked good on him, no matter what society, fashion, and common sense said. He explained that he never really felt like he belonged until he joined the military, and now he held (somewhat improbably) multiple ranks in each of the services; for example, in the Army he was a Lieutenant-Sergeant, and in the Navy he was a Seaman-Commander.
Most ponies would have written him off as a whiny little bitch by this point, but Twilight Sparkle wasn't most ponies. Inexplicably, she was more fond of him than ever. And she knew just how to show it, too. She waited until they were sitting down to take a break. “Wanna make out?”
“Um... no? Hey, wait a second – did you learn that approach from Tapdance?”
“Cadance. Yeah, sort of. Well, if you would prefer, we can skip straight to having sex. I've read a lot about it, so I think I'd be good at it.”
“I'll pass.”
She hadn't expected that answer. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“But just think about how much we could learn about each other's species!”
“I'm not into ponies, sorry.” Kyle looked thoughtful. “Now if I heard that offer in your voice coming from a busty blonde, on the other hand...”
The journey continued, Kyle continued to spurn Twilight's advances, and the body count continued to climb. The monsters of the Evenworse Forest seemed only a little more fierce than the monsters of the Everfree on average, but they tended to have unpleasant smells; the beasts gave off odors similar to kimchi, vegemite and other horrors. The stench sometimes made it difficult for them to have their meals, and also prompted Kyle to kill completely different things; there was no way he was going to eat something that smelled like wet dog. Twilight had found his eating habits slightly surprising at first, but since she had hung out with omnivores before, she didn't act like a candy-ass about it.
In fact, she really didn't lose her cool until they approached a particular clearing. Twilight caught a glimpse through the trees ahead and froze for a moment. Once she snapped out of it, she rapidly whirled around back the way they came, raised herself on her back legs, and pressed her back to a tree. Kyle could only wonder what she had seen, as well as what obscenity she had just mouthed silently. He wasn't even good at lip-reading a human; ponies were out of the question.
Kyle maneuvered until he could get a clear view. The things up ahead shared the same general body plan as the ponies, but had a distinctly insectoid (and therefore freaky) appearance. He drew close to Twilight and made sure he would be unseen by what he mentally labeled “horse-buggies”. Keeping his volume low, he asked, “What am I looking at?”
“Changelings!” Her voice was equally quiet, but strained.
“Not what you were expecting?”
“They must be a scouting party!”
He thought of his own impressions of them, as well as Twilight's reaction. “Evil?”
Her eyes flicked over to him. She hesitated. “Well, they're certainly slaves to their instincts, and I believe it could be argued that they're misguided, but a thorough analysis--”
“Let's try this again. Evil?”
She gave a single, stiff nod. “Evil.”
“Deep breaths.”
She closed her eyes. “Deep breaths,” she agreed.
“Pardon me.”
She opened her eyes again almost immediately, but he was gone. She peeked around the tree, expecting to see him sneaking up on the changelings; nothing. She twitched an ear to try to catch the sound of him moving through the vegetation; nothing. Moments later, he became very, very hard to miss.
Kyle popped up out of a hollow stump in a manner not unlike her friend Pinkie. The silver cylinder in his hands wavered and became a BlackPlowman 80-S Predator chaingun. He cut loose with the weapon; yet despite all the noise, she could still somehow hear him dementedly bellowing some sort of incomprehensible battle chant.
“Peek-a-boo! Ha, ha, ha, HAW! Ha, ha, ha, HAW! Peek-a-boo!”
If Twilight had been more savvy to trans-dimensional pop culture, she might have recognized the work of Devo. She wasn't, so she didn't.
“I know what you do! 'Cause I do it, too!”
Okay, now he was using actual words. It still didn't make much sense to Twilight, though. This prompted an extremely rare thought: It's probably best if I don't think about it too much.
The gunfire was becoming more sporadic. Soon the human ended his bizarre chanting, or singing, or whatever. Twilight decided it was a good opportunity to study the map again while he finished up with the skirmish. They would be done with forests in general soon, and it looked like they would reach their destination shortly after that. She wondered what they would do once they got there, then once again froze in shock. She didn't have a plan! She had been thrown off-balance by the summoning, and her first encounter with humanity, and being “volunteered” to go on this journey... but that was no excuse! She didn't even have so much as a preliminary checklist! Twilight began hyperventilating.
She had barely begun her OCD emotional spiral when her thoughts were cut off by a high-pitched noise. It sounded like an expression of enthusiasm, sort of.
“Woooooooooooooooo!”
Kyle jogged back to her with some sort of strange headgear on. She couldn't really tell what it was at first, since it was black, but it did seem to fit his head rather well. Her stomach began a slow gymnastics routine as she realized it was chitin.
Kyle was, of course, oblivious. “Not much meat on 'em, but are they any good to eat?”