A couple of days passed and Nightmare Night was upon them. Joseph helped out with the decorations where possible and also helped to set up the games. There was spider-tossing, apple dunking, even a stage was set up for speeches and music. Wiping some sweat from his forehead, Joseph looked around from assembling the last of the games and found Pinkie putting up a big banner saying ‘Nightmare Night’ with orange letters and a purple background.
Giving her a thumbs up, he checked ‘decorations’ off the list, as well as ‘games’. All that was left to check were the ‘costumes’ but seeing how most every single pony dressed up in costume on the night, according to Rainbow Dash, he checked it off anyway.
Twilight was handling the rest of the checklist, ticking off things as they had finished. Having split it between both Joseph and herself, the work went by a lot faster. With only half a day to go, the town was ready to celebrate Nightmare Night later on.
Later on that night, everyone got dressed up in their costumes. Joseph had on a lab coat with a white dress shirt underneath along with some formal black pants. Rarity did have a few questions while measuring them but Crikey was kind enough to answer them for him. The back of the lab coat had an Aperture logo in black to contrast against the right. He also wore fake ‘professor’ glasses to complete the lab technician look.
Twilight had on a starry blue cloak outfitted with bells along with a very big wizard’s hat that had single, large bell on top so every time she moved, her whole costume jingled. Her face was a different story. When Joseph and Spike saw it they both burst into laughter and fell down the stairs backwards. Rolling down, they stopped and smacked their heads into the wall at the bottom.
“That … costume is ridiculous Twilight!” Spike couldn’t stop laughing at her. Joseph continued to laugh silently with Crikey cackling along. Seeing Twilight’s glare, Crikey shut up and decided to tell her.
“You grew a beard, sheila! It makes you look ridonculous!” Crikey said, bursting out into laughter once again.
“Hmph! I’ll have you know that this is what Starswirl the Bearded wore and this is beard is a fake.” Twilight harrumphed, lifting her beard off her face before flinging it back, her face smarting in pain from where it struck. Spike’s costume was …. a dragon. It was purple, it had green spikes on the spine and also horns on the head part.
“You’re a dragon! Why do you need a dragon costume!?” Crikey said in disbelief, echoing what Joseph thought in his head.
“No reason. Thought it would be fun to dress up as a different dragon.” Spike replied, shrugging.
“It’s not even that! You look like you only made out of rubber!” Crikey directly translated Joseph’s thoughts.
“Huh?” Spike asked and went to the bathroom to check out his costume. Hearing nothing, Twilight went to check up on him and found him silently looking over it.
“Something the matter?” Twilight asked.
“Nope. I like it. It may look like me but it is not me!” Spike emphasised by pointing to his costume, then himself in turn. He turned around and smiling, barged past Twilight and rushed out the door. “DON’T WAIT UP FOR ME!” Spike yelled back as the door shut behind him.
Joseph blinked at how fast the dragon ran out the door and shook his head. He watched Twilight walked down and headed towards the door as the bell rang. Opening it, he found a group of foals at the door. Not knowing how to deal with them, he backed away from the door and looked to Twilight.
Twilight sighed and moved to the door. Seeing it was a group of fillies, she levitated some pieces of candy over to them and placed it in their bags. Seeing them smile, she smiled back and watched them leave. Turning back to Joseph, she saw him sigh in relief and raised an eyebrow.
“What are you so relieved about?” Twilight wondered, tilting her head to the side which caused her hat to jingle.
“He can’t handle children for some reason. He won’t tell me the reason so no use in prying it out of me Twilipony.” Crikey answered for him.
Twilight hummed and left it to answer later. Leading the human out of the library, they both walked to the town square seeing everypony there was having a lot of fun.
“Hey you guys! Over here!” Rainbow called out, waving them over. Her costume was a blackish-purplish latex suit with a yellow thunderbolt on the belly. The back of it had holes for her wings. She was also wearing a headpiece that had the same colours as the suit but had yellow goggles covering her eyes. Pinkie and Applejack were there with her, competing in an apple-bobbing contest.
Walking over, Joseph waved and watched the ponies talk for a bit before looking around and spotting something coming in the distance from the sky. ‘What the heck is that?’ Joseph thought and shaded his eyes, even though it was useless so instead, he cupped his hands around his eyes and rotated them around, acting like binoculars. To his surprise though, his vision actually zoomed in and he could see the dot more clearly. ‘Oh no.’ Joseph thought in a panic, taking his hands off his eyes and blinking, returning his vision to normal. He turned to the others and flapped his mouth open and closed a few times before facepalming, remembering he was mute.
Writing on a note, he threw it to Rainbow who caught it and read it. “Princess Luna is coming here?” Rainbow asked confusedly, then looked to Joseph who was all in a panic. “Ohhh. Right.” Rainbow said, her confusion clearing up. Then she looked to the sky and turned to her friends. “Uh girls? Guess who’s coming for the party.” Rainbow said and pointed up to Luna, who was descending to a stop.
Out of the corner of her eye, Pinkie found Joseph sneak around the side of a building, portal gun in tow. She left the others to go and greet the princess and following him, she sneaked up just as slowly behind him but was a lot more quieter at it. Seeing he stopped and hadn’t turned around yet, Pinkie sneaked up and yelled “BOO!”. He nearly jumped a foot in the air, clamping his hands to his ears. She then saw a blue beam hit the back of his throat at the peak of his jump, causing him to cry out and cough loudly.
“Jesus, sheila! Give me a warning next time. You nearly gave me a flipping heart attack there!” Joseph complained, rubbing his ears and throat. Coughing some more, he looked at her confusedly. “What?” He asked croakily, his throat getting used to making vibrations again.
“Your voice. Your voice. YOUR VOICE IS BACK!” Pinkie screamed happily, rushing to him and giving him a nearly bone-crushing hug.
“Pinkie … can’t …. breathe …” Joseph tried to croak but passed out, causing Pinkie to drop him. “Augh! Not so hard.” Joseph whined and smiled as he processed what she said. “Wait. I got my voice back? WOOHEE! Hornswaggle my Kietersatch!” Joseph shouted happily in a hillbilly accent. He coughed again, his eyes darting from right to left. “Sorry. From something I used to watch back home. Now. Let’s tell the others. Woo it feels good to speak again.” Joseph said in glee.
“Welcome back mate.” Crikey said simply.
Looking up at the moon, he sighed and fired a portal up there, seeing a flash after a few minutes of waiting, signalling it landed. He looked at Pinkie who looked back curiously.
“Just some insurance. That is a fantastic costume by the way sheila.” Joseph commented, noticing Pinkie in a chicken costume.
“This isn’t a costume. I’m an actual chicken BAWK!” Pinkie cried out suddenly, causing Joseph to chuckle in response. He placed his gun under an arm and his hands in his pockets as he walked up to Luna who was talking with Twilight. Her friends were nowhere to be seen, however. It looked like the whole square had cleared out.
“Where is everyone?” Joseph croaked out loud.
“They all scattered when Princess Luna showed up.” Twilight said automatically, not registering that Joseph got his voice back. She looked over to him after a little bit though and her mouth fell open. “You’re voice! It’s back! How?” Twilight said excitedly.
“Hang on. Throat still warming up.” Joseph said softly.
“A blue beam hit him after I shouted boo at him!” Pinkie answered quickly.
“That would be my doing.” Luna answered as well, looking directly at Joseph. He just simply glared. “Remember how we talked in your dream? I was trying to say that Celestia convinced me and had seen the error of my ways.”
“And what error would that be?” Joseph asked, crossing his arms.
Luna took a deep breath and looked at him pleadingly. “That you are not a child, clearly.”
“That is a bit of an understatement.” Joseph interjected.
“You didn’t let me finish. You may not be a child. You endangered my sister’s subjects - my - subjects through use of the turrets. But I see you handled that quite well.” Luna continued, seeing if Joseph would argue her point.
At the mention of endangering, he began to pace in a circle around Luna. “I didn’t endanger your ponies. I don’t even care if they’re your sister’s ponies, I did NOT endanger them. I fell out of a portal into your world by a complete accident. Whatever happened after that until now is NOT my fault. It probably would have happened anyway. How am I meant to know this was predetermined or not?” Joseph asked in cold, quiet voice, throwing his arms up in the air at the question.
“If it was, then some bloody wanker is going to get his. If not, then it’s by complete randomness that all THIS,” He waved his arms around in a circular motion to demonstrate his point, “even happened. You know what else pissed me off during the three months my voice went on vacation? You didn’t even give a hoot about giving my voice back until Celestia convinced you, even Twilight in a small way had to convince you! If you weren’t convinced, what were you going to do? Keep it sealed away in a vault and throw the key away? Make it disappear in some poof of dust, never to be heard again?” Joseph asked, pointing his gun at the wall closest to the princess.
“I would have probably given it back, once I deemed you safe enough to do so.”
“Which would have been when, exactly?” Joseph wondered with a slight crazy look to his eyes as well as a twitchy smile.
Luna gulped, worrying what he was going to do with the gun. It may have only shot portals so Luna figured he would make go through that weird loop thing a few hundred times before he was satisfied. “Five … months … time?” Luna said uncertainly. He looked like he was going to blow up but did a breathing exercise and calmed himself, however, he still pointed the gun at the wall.
“Five months? Is that all?” Joseph asked, deciding on something.
Luna nodded, bringing her fear back under control as he calmed. “Yes, certainly five months. More than enough time to-” She was cut short as he fired the other portal at the wall. When it opened, Luna felt a strange force pulling her in. Flapping her wings to try and get away from it, she took a quick glance and found the featureless landscape of the moon. Feeling something drop in her stomach, she screamed and was sucked out as the moon’s gravity was too much for her. Flapping her wings again to try and reach the portal, she saw it fizzle out just as she touched the ground. Looking up at her planet, she was filled with rage and shouted angrily into space.
Hearing a far off scream, Joseph wiggled his finger in his ear a bit before pulling a bit of wax out and flinging it off the end of his finger. He turned around to find Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie staring at him with shocked and slightly angry faces. He then realised what he just did and facepalmed himself. “I’m going to either get sent to the moon or one million years dungeon aren’t I?” He muttered sarcastically.
"Welp, you've gone and buggered things up." Crikey commented.