My Little Pony: Versus Equestria

by PseudoFiction


Interval 1.3: Just a Nightmare

My Little Pony:

Versus Equestria

[The Road to Canterlot]

Interval 1.3: Just a Nightmare

... or...

Maybe those were just his eyelids.

Rabbit opened his eyes, slowly at first. They cracked open and he could feel the tears well up for a moment, blurring his vision. Smears of colour drifted this way and that as he shifted his gaze through his eyelashes to take in more of his surroundings. To no avail.

Eventually his eyelids peeled back the rest of the way and he blinked away tears of fatigue. With a deep breath he could feel the thick odour of incense burn his sinuses and coat his lungs. It felt like he was gagging up sandpaper.

Coughing it off into his hand (reflexive manners told him to cover his face when he sneezed or coughed. What? Some people are just like that), Rabbit sat up, blinking at the hazy air swirling around him. Ribbons of pungent smoke seemed to rise from the blackened ground, dissipating into a light greyish mist that seemed to highlight the inky blackness that had swallowed the teenager up. All around him was an endless void of space, starless and pitch black. All he could see was himself, clear as day as if he was well lit, but the very environment around him seemed to suck in light and give nothing back.

Rabbit rubbed his face. Where the hell was he? Or more importantly... was this actually hell and how the hell did he get there?

Just sitting there he tried to add one and one together. What did he know? He charged Nightmare Moon. He grabbed for that shiny, glowing thingy on her armour out of reflex. And... he’d been sucked through the delicate fabric of existence?

He added one and one just to get eleven. That didn’t make any god-damn sense.

But enough about making sense, because Rabbit’s mind was quickly blown when he looked down. Right there, sitting beside him on the black floor was a slug. A small little slimy black thing with a quad of stubby antennae at the head, tail ending in something of a point. He could hardly see the creature against the dark floor, but there it was, glistening in the non-light and leaving a little icky trail in its wake.

“Well, that’s...” Rabbit paused to come up with a good word to describe the situation. “Random.” He finished slowly.

“Ullo.” The slug suddenly said in a plain and very un-interesting voice.

Rabbit blinked for a moment wondering if he’d heard that right. “Uh... did-... did you say hello?” he asked for clarity, not quite believing that he had just heard a slug say hello to him.

“No, I said ullo, but close enough.” The slug replied in a matter-of-factly tone. There seemed to be nothing distinct about that voice. No accent, no hint of any kind of emotion. Just lukewarm, dead-panned disinterest.

“R-right...” Rabbit was frowning, wondering whether he was plain drunk or having some kind of hallucinogenic dream. Then again, he had spent the past couple of months in a land of talking technicolor ponies. Maybe everything he was experiencing in Equestria was some kind of hallucinogenic dream.

“So what’re you up to?” the slug asked.

Rabbit swallowed. “Nothing much.”

“Nothing much?” the slug asked in a tone Rabbit imagined he would wear a frown to.

“Nothing much.” The human repeated.

“Gonna squish me?”

That took Rabbit by surprise. “Squish you?”

“Are you gonna?”

“N-no.” the teenager stammered.

“Good. That would be bad.”

“How bad?”

“I’d have to fuck up your face.”

That also took Rabbit by surprise. “That is bad.”

“Indeed... Nightmare Moon imprisoned you too?”

“I think I was sucked into a gemstone.” Rabbit quickly realised, slowly making what little sense there was to make of his current predicament.

“That’s pretty much it.” The slug clarified for the teenager in just four words, before going on to explain: “Nightmare Moon has this magical gem that can imprison souls and entities. It’s what gives the bitch her power.”

“How many others are imprisoned in here?”

“Just the three of us.” The slug deadpanned.

Rabbit glanced around. He didn’t see any others other than the slug and himself. “Three?”

“Yeah. You, me and that pony over there.”

Rabbit looked up, and this time he saw it. Laid against the invisible horizon seemed to be an archway. It seemed extravagant and delicate at the same time. Slender bars of platinum were wound and knotted into a complicated weave forming something of a high doorway, beyond which Rabbit spotted a glimmer of starry night-sky.

The teenage rolled to his feet and gave the slug a wide berth – fearing for the safety of his face – and approached the archway. He gave one last glance to the little slug, then reached out and pressed his hand against the cold glass in the archway standing inexplicably before him.

On the other side of the shield preventing him entry to the star-spangled space beyond he saw a small heap. A pony to be exact. She was small, no bigger than a typical Equestria filly. Her head came up to Rabbit’s knee, had she been standing. She lay there in a tight ball, quivering in fear. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her stubby little wings were wrapped over her back. Her coat was a light night-sky blue, something reminiscent of the moonlit night-sky, and her short mane was a flat azure, her fringe falling over the side of her equine face with a slender curve.

Pulling his hand back, Rabbit gave the window between them a light tap with his knuckles. It must have been what the teenager considered a ‘fishbowl’ effect. The knock on the inside may have sounded louder than that on the outside, because the filly quite literally leapt to her hooves, eyes wide with the jolt of shock still reverberating through her tiny body.

Only then did Rabbit see the full extent of her features. Azure fetlocks like her mane with a wavy, combed tail. On her flanks were cutie-marks identical to that of Nightmare Moon, pale crescent moons, with another sprawled over the midnight patch on her chest. There was a stubby little horn protruding from the pony’s fringe, to go with the little wings on her shoulder-blades.

“Wow. This day just keeps on surprising me.” Rabbit muttered to himself. Eventually he hummed to himself, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Hmmm... well, we can’t stay in here forever.” Reaching back, Rabbit deftly un-holstered his climbing-axe and threw it up. The tool-slash-weapon performed two whole aerial rotations before Rabbit caught it by the hilt and waved to the winged unicorn to move back. “Stand back, little pony.” – The vicious looking makeshift weapon was raised as the human stood ready – “I’m about to break stuff.”

With some shock in her eyes, the young filly jumped back as a loud cry filled the air around them.

“Whoa-whoa-whoa!” the slug exclaimed somewhere behind Rabbit. “How the hell is that going to help?”

“No idea.” Rabbit admitted. “It’ll make me feel better though.”

Before there was any more complaint, Rabbit swung the climbing-axe in a deadly arc. The pick slammed into the centre of the glass with a pronounced TCHOCK! Slivers of quicksilver sprayed from the initial entry-wound and a spiderweb of pale cracks circled the tip of the axe, clawing outward in what looked like jagged lines of lightning, glistening as they hung there frozen in time – okay, the metaphor is becoming a little stretched.

Simply put, Rabbit broke the window with a quick flex of the climbing-axe and a powerful tug. The pane of glass separating him from the filly beyond fell apart into little jagged daggers and sharp crumbs.

And Rabbit was pulled away almost instantly.

For a moment he wasn’t sure what was happening. He just squinted his eyes and held on tight to his climbing-axe as an invisible hook impaled his belly-button and yanked him sharply backwards. His feet left the ground and his limbs trailed in his wake quite ridiculously. The wind picked up, and soon he felt the cold rain lash his face once more.

The ground was hard, but the low battlements surrounding the castle-ruin tower’s top were even harder. The back of Rabbit’s head cracked into the masonry, quite literally shaking the teenager’s poor throbbing brain and causing a sensation of his nasal cavity swelling to grotesque proportions within his skull.

“Ow... tits!” was the best swear he could muster before blinking away tears of pain. The world of darkness had been replaced and he was once more out in the fresh Equestria air.

Pulling himself to his feet, Rabbit found himself still on the top of the tower, Nightmare Moon still before him. She must have been standing there, cackling like a maniac the entire time Rabbit had engineered his escape from her magical ‘prison-gem.’

She actually looked pretty shocked, eyes bulging grotesquely... even more grotesquely than Trixie the last time she put on a cute stare. “How did you do that? How did you escape?”

“Simply put? Hell if I know!” Rabbit laughed with some surprise. He hadn’t actually expected for his plan of ‘breaking stuff’ to actually work. “It looks like this fleshy little human has some magic in him after all.” Rabbit cockily threw his head back and mimicked Nightmare Moon’s voice for his own rendition of a maniacal cackle. “Mwua-ha-hahahahaha!” his singing voice needed work, and his impressions of exotic accents sucked, but Rabbit’s maniacal-villain-laugh was actually surprisingly good.

Rabbit seemed to notice, and even Nightmare Moon gave a discreet nod of approval. “Wow... that was surprisingly good... right, stay on target. You’re going down now, bitch!”

Rabbit had made a very sudden one-eighty. He wasn’t afraid of Nightmare Moon anymore. She was just an ill spirit. Merely an amalgamation of hate and jealousy. Her tricks and tactics thus far may have fucked with the head of any pretty little pony. But Rabbit wasn’t a pony, was he?

Nightmare Moon was much less of a threat than anypony was giving her credit for. She wasn’t going to blast him with magic or impale him on her horn. After all, if she actually could, she would have easily dispatched the human five times over. Rabbit had nothing to fear, and a way to beat her now. With his plan in mind, he knew exactly what he had to do. And a good plan was more powerful than any weapon.

Turning his climbing-axe over, he holstered it back on his backpack and prepared himself with a cunning smirk on his face.

Just go right ahead and start calling Rabbit ‘Gary Stu.’

Pushing off his left foot, Rabbit launched himself forward, headlong at Nightmare Moon as he had done before as an act of desperation in the face of death. This time though, it was not he who had the desperate expression on his face. His eyes were not locked with hers, but fixated on the ominous glow centred on the bust of the shadowy mare’s armour.

Nightmare Moon’s eyes were wide with shock – and confusion – and her mouth was agape in a silent scream. She hardly had time to register what the hell was going on when Rabbit made contact, smashing headlong into her...

In a blaze of blinding light, Rabbit disappeared. The glow of the gem on Nightmare’s armour had vanished completely. As a matter of fact, the entire gem had vanished.

And in a split second, the glow had returned. Although, it was not emanating from Nightmare Moon’s chest-plate. It glowed brightly, closed in Rabbit’s left hand.

He re-materialised behind Nightmare Moon, dragging slivers of darkness from the mare’s midnight coat as he stumbled to a halt. The darkness that peeled from her skin seemed to puff out of existence and melt into the natural grim shadows. Closed in his left fist was a vibrantly glowing gem. Held under his right arm was the filly partially reminiscent of the mare of the night. He had dragged himself out of the gem once more, but this time he had taken possession of the gem that had sucked him in, and escaped with Nightmare Moon’s inner child.

Yes, I know that doesn’t make much sense, but check this out. Rabbit is carrying a cute little cartoon horse with wings and an alicorn under one arm and is fighting an evil winged unicorn atop a rickety stone tower in a land of ponies dyed in a kaleidoscope of vibrant colour! Your argument is invalid.

So, magic ‘n shit aside...

Rabbit turned on the spot, quite shocked his plan had actually worked. He gently settled the filly under one arm to the ground and looked at the gem in his hand. Something seemed to be happening, and Rabbit’s eyes bulged as he opened his fingers.

Ribbons of light spilled from the glowing oval resting in the palm of his hand. Two wrapped down and around his wrist, forming something of a wide strap to hold the gem tightly against his inner wrist. Another slimmer ribbon of white light sprouted up and across the palm of his hand, wormed its way between his pinkie and ring-finger, then wrapped across the back of his knuckles and connected with the main strap at the back of the wrist. A branching ribbon extended from the back of his hand and wrapped between his index-finger and his thumb, connecting with something of a T-shape in the palm of his hand.

The light suddenly faded and solidified the ribbons into what looked like delicate brass straps, now gauntleting the gem securely against Rabbit’s wrist. He gave his fingers, then his wrist a quick flex to check for flexibility. It felt like he wasn’t wearing anything on his hand at all. It was bizarre to say the least.

Meanwhile, Nightmare Moon span around in a circle, severely distressed. Looking at her, he saw the mare paw feebly at the empty slot on her armour where the gem bound to Rabbit’s wrist had once been. Her hoof struck the chest-plate a few times as she gaped at the human’s wrist in a furious panic.

“No!” she screamed. “No, no-nononono!”

Tufts of shadow and darkness seemed to peel from her body. Her armour faded, exploding into glittering pixels that were extinguished like the sparks of an open fire disappearing up the flue of a fireplace. She convulsed for a moment before melting away into tufts of blackened cloud.

Nightmare Moon was quite literally evaporating. ‘Well wha’ddaya know?’ Rabbit thought to himself.

Before long, Rabbit realised he was staring at a massive cloud of darkness just hanging there between states of solidity and vapour. Nightmare Moon swirled like an angry storm-cloud several metres tall, crackling white lightning shooting through her form as she attempted to form some kind of shape. She was screaming somewhere in the night sky, her voice echoing all around them as the wind seemed to pick up, whipping at Rabbit’s clothes and the filly’s short mane.

And then she seemed to take a shape. The shape of a head, imitating some kind of corrupted human skull. Leaning forward and darting closer, the jaw un-jointed to bare huge pointed, outward jutting teeth as the black cloud of death bore down on them, fire and lightning crackling within the empty eye-sockets.

“Ah, nuts.” The human mumbled.

The filly by Rabbit’s side screamed loudly. Naturally, Rabbit joined in. The teenager instinctively shrank to her side with fear too. Scratch Rabbit’s earlier badass moment. He was very much scared again! Not quite to the point of tears welling in his eyes, but pretty damn close. He was actually feeling the twitch in his tear-ducts.

A little selfishly, the first thought crossing Rabbit’s brain was self-preservation. He wanted to throw the filly at the incoming maw of darkness, offer up the pony in exchange for his own life. It seemed, at the time, a douchebag thing to do though. Besides, Nightmare Moon would just eat her up like a morsel and turn her attention back to the human.

Instead, Rabbit threw himself over the filly, forming something of a meat-shield between her and the impending danger, his left arm raised over his head for whatever good that would have done to protect himself. It was admittedly another selfish move. If he died first he’d at least die quickly and painlessly.

Rabbit’s eyes were tightly squeezed shut, and he could feel the pony squirm in fear beneath him. His heart hammered so furiously he swore it might burst out of his chest and let out a high pitched alien wail. If only he had something... anything to protect them both. A shield... anything!

And then there was a thud, to go with a jolt of something striking his forearm...

Rabbit slowly opened his eyes and blinked for a moment. Very slowly, he and the filly under him lifted their heads at the same time and stared at wonder into the light engulfing Rabbit’s left forearm. Flowing like melting dry ice, or white fire, pure light emanated from the gem secured in Rabbit’s gauntlet and gathered around his forearm. Mounted by a single needle-point on his wrist was what looked like a solid steel kite shield, banded and studded... and made entirely out of the same white light emanating from the glowing gem.

Rabbit just stared at Nightmare Moon feebly throwing herself against the insanely huge magical shield the human seemed to be carrying with little to no effort. He blinked a few times as hard as he could, just to make sure it wasn’t just his imagination... and then he suddenly realised it was his imagination. He had thought of a shield, a barrier to protect them from impending death. And there you have it.

A shield protecting them from impending death.

“Okay...” the human muttered slowly. “Now I’m thinking of a nice plate of bacon.”

Nothing...

Gritting his teeth, Rabbit steadied and steeled himself. “Fine. I guess this ‘ll have to do.”

Throwing his whole weight onto the shield, he pushed Nightmare Moon’s essence back. She screeched with surprise as the shield holding her back faded from existence. But the darkness was already thrown back into a heap where it struggled to take form again.

Rabbit focused for a moment on the first thing that came to mind. Initially he was to materialise a bazooka or something awesome like that. A shaft of light spilled from the gauntleted gem and formed between Rabbit’s hands. It solidified before forming a massive blunt appendage on one end of the narrow shaft. Soon, Rabbit realised he was holding a cartoonish over-sized mallet.

“Bazooka, over-sized mallet. Toh-may-toh, toh-mah-toh.” Rabbit weighed the spontaneous mallet in his hands, then looked to the remnants of Nightmare Moon swirling before him. “It’s time you saw the light, bitch!” he cried, raising the weapon high above his head.

His spine arched back dangerously, the human teetering on his toes for a moment before he suddenly coiled up, throwing the mighty hammer forward. The mallet truck home, smashing into the midst of the cloud that was Nightmare Moon. The mare of the night screamed. The mallet struck the ground and in an explosion of vibrant light that seemed to cause the clouds above to shift, Nightmare Moon was scattered to the six corners of Equestria.

One minute she was there. The next she was not... just an echo of her voice rumbling further and further away into voids of nothingness.

The mallet resting on the ground before Rabbit evaporated. Wisps and ribbons of light peeled from the surface of the weapon before the human straightened up, his grip leaving the heavy weapon that had spontaneously appeared when his imagination had demanded it. A moment later the hammer vanished, as if it had never actually been there; as if it had truly been a figment of his imagination.

With a wide grin on his face, Rabbit held the gauntleted gem for closer inspection, then rolled a kink out of his shoulder, clenching his fists by his side.

So that was it then. Nightmare Moon was gone. Equestria was safe again. Just like that.

Through the howling wind settling around the spire, Rabbit heard her voice, small, innocent, almost angelic. “It’s time you saw the light?” the voice also held a hint of mock towards Rabbit’s final words to the artist formerly known as Nightmare Moon.

With a frown, Rabbit turned to the pony he had rescued. She looked different. No longer a filly, she seemed to have grown into a young mare inexplicably, tall enough for her head to reach Rabbit’s chest now.

She was on her hooves and approached the human gingerly. “Too much?” Rabbit asked.

“No!” she said quickly – and awkwardly – though Rabbit presumed she was just sparing his feelings. “No, it was...” – she searched for the word – “Adequate.”

Rabbit hung his head a little realising his badass one-liners might need a little work. Though that was an exercise for another day. First things first: “You okay?” he asked the winged unicorn.

“I am fine.” Some formality was creeping into her voice as she seemed to be regaining some of her composure. “Art thou?”

Rabbit tapped his chin, pondering that for a moment. “Meh. A very stiff drink wouldn’t go amiss.” He added with a shrug before casting a glance over the edge of the tower. “But right now I suppose I’ll settle for some good old fashioned sanity.”

Rabbit’s third wind had passed. Now he really was tired.

***[]***

Their exit from the nightmare castle in the midst of the Everfree Forest wasn’t so bad. Mainly because Rabbit didn’t have to walk. His new filly companion had grown into a mare within moments, her head suddenly at head level to the teenager. Particularly, her wings had grown into grand, feathered appendages any falcon would be proud of. Seeing his discomfort for heights, the winged unicorn had hooked her forelegs under Rabbit’s arms and with a mighty flap of her newly grown wings she had carried the clueless and surprised human screaming like a little girl off the top of the tower with little effort. Even after everything he had been through, Rabbit nearly wet himself.

Okay, maybe it was actually about as nightmare-ish as facing down Nightmare Moon.

You had to hand it to them though; Equestria’s ponies were empathetic... at the worst possible moments.

When Rabbit had finally stopped cursing at the mare, she reverted to their previous conversation, pre-surprise flight. “So, how did you know to disarm Nightmare Moon of the gem to render her powerless?”

Rabbit gave the gem gauntleted to his wrist and exploratory tug. Yup, she was stuck on there good. “Dunno. It was centred, shiny and glowie.” Rabbit explained. “Decades of video games have trained me to focus on the shiny parts of end-of-level-bosses... and a slug gave me a tool-tip.”

The pony frowned at that other-worldly statement. “I... am confused.”

Rabbit shrugged. “I just fought human skeletons made of gold, pulled you out of a pocket dimension contained within a little gem and destroyed a pony made entirely out of shadow with a hammer that materialised out of my skewed and unstable imagination... we’re all confused.”  He tucked his arms across his chest. “Besides, she wasn’t exactly powerless without the gem. Honestly, she got closer to killing me without it rather than with it. I suppose I shouldn’t really complain though.”

A rustle from the edge of the woods up ahead caused the duo to pause in their step. The rain-drenched foliage shifted and sprayed water before parting to reveal and purple and azure mess on four hooves. Mounted across her back were a pair of saddle-bags with the flaps strapped shut tightly, and towed in her wake was a makeshift sled bound together by scraps of wood and canvas.

The remnants of her wagon now formed a makeshift trailer on which to drag the excess supplies and other useful gear the magician’s bulging saddle-bags could not hold. The moment her eyes sighted the human a squeal of joy escaped her throat.

“Rabbit!” Trixie cried as she galloped closer, ditching her sled and saddle-bags. “By Celestia, you’re alright! I thought for sure Nightmare Moon would... ahem.” Stopping just a few feet short of tackling the human boy and smothering him with ‘friendship,’ Trixie cleared her throat into a hoof and calmed herself. “You, uh-... you look like crap.” She gave a broad toothy grin.

With an eyebrow cocked, Rabbit held out his arms and looked down at himself. To say he looked like crap was an understatement. The rain falling from the steel-coloured sky did little to wash off the dirt. He could only just about make out the orange lining of his coat under the mud and filth that was caked to him. He was soaked through to the skin and was feeling the chill of the wind. A dry and brittle twig hung tangled in his hair, falling over his forehead and grains of mud were stuck to his face.

Though, in truth, Trixie was just as ragged as the human.

Granules of dirt were stuck in her mane, half a bush stuck in her hair. There were mud and grass stains right up her slim legs; her hat and cape were sodden and blackened with filth.

Rabbit coughed out a chuckle as he made his own observations on the pony’s appearance. “You’re one to talk.”

Trixie smirked. “Yeah, I am, actually. I make a dirty coat look good-...” her eye was drawn to some movement beside the human and Trixie's voice died with a little choke. “-Elp-” was sort of what it sounded like.

Trixie’s eyes widened at the sight of the winged unicorn with Rabbit, and her front legs suddenly gave out. The showmare’s face splattered audibly into the mud as she grovelled up to the taller pony’s hooves.

“Your highness!” Trixie squeaked.

Your highness?” Rabbit repeated with a wonky frown on his face.

He angled his gaze to one side and saw the winged unicorn had grown out her mane in the space it took to exchange a few aesthetics jibes with his pony-companion.  Her mane now flowed and billowed like clouds on the night sky, stars blinking and burning in the magical aura that Rabbit could have sworn was hair just a few moments ago.

“Princess Luna.” Trixie announced as the regal pony sister stood before them in her fully restored glory. “Please forgive her insolence; Trixie was just so relieved to see her friend was okay...” the magician paused with an innocent little glance upward at Princess Luna’s stern expression. “Has Trixie been a good pony?”

“Quite alright, Trixie!” Came Princess Luna’s mighty voice. “You may rise!”

In the middle of it all, Rabbit couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. “So you’re saying I just rescued the princess from the castle? Hah!” Rabbit slapped a hand across his forehead, nearly throwing himself off his feet and into the dirt. Something told him he should have been in awe thought. His first instinct should have been to bow to royalty... but hell to that! She wasn’t the princess of Rabbit’s world. “I’m totally crossing that off my bucket list!”

“What exactly happened?” Trixie asked as she gingerly rose from her bowed position.

Rabbit took a deep breath in preparation, then explained in quick-fire: “Nightmare Moon used an ancient magical gem to imprison Princess Luna and harness the princess’ power so she could smelt all the gold of Equestria into an army of skeletons that would spread and conquer. I rescued the princess by taking possession of the gem” – he pointed to his wrist – “and manifested a giant mallet out of my imagination which I used to pancake the demon formerly known as Nightmare Moon into oblivion.” He paused and took a breath. Wide eyed, Trixie just stared at him. “Does any of that make sense to you?” Rabbit quickly added.

“Nope.” The curiosity had suddenly been drained from the unicorn altogether.

“Oh, good.” The teenager chuckled. “I thought it was just me.”

Trixie joined in with his chuckle. She didn’t actually care what had happened, why or how. Rabbit was with her again, unharmed. She couldn’t have wished for anything more.

A deafening ahem cleared the air between them and the duo turned to face Princess Luna again. “I shall travel immediately to Canterlot and inform my sister all is well! No doubt she has already dispatched guards to search for me! We shall see to it this area is secured and the gold is returned to the rightful owners!” Princess Luna announced. “As soon as it is smelted back into bits, of course!”

“Yeah, about that. All our hard-earned bits were-...” Rabbit started, but the princess held up a hoof to command silence, her expression indicating she did not like being interrupted. Rabbit quickly pretended to lock his mouth shut and swallow the key.

“You have done much for Equestria already, Rabbit!” Princess Luna explained. “But I fear we must ask you for one last favour! I do not dare handle the gem myself, for fear of becoming entrapped within it once more! Act as a courier, and bring that gem attached to your wrist to the nearby town of Ponyville!”

“Ponyville? Ah.” Trixie visibly cringed. “Actually, the thing about that is-...”

“Take it to the librarian known as Twilight Sparkle! She is my sister’s most trusted pupil and a highly gifted mage!” – Trixie discreetly huffed to herself – “She will know how to dispose of it! Do this and I shall personally see to it the both of you are rewarded handsomely, and compensated threefold for your losses!”

“The gallant and heroic Rabbit doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter, does he princess?” Rabbit commented, giving the gem gauntleted to his left wrist a feeble tug. It was very much stuck to him.

Princess Luna just narrowed her eyes and gave another one of those ‘Don’t fuck with me, puny mortal’ looks. She was squared right up to the human, so close in fact he could feel her breath on his face. In response Rabbit gave a stocky salute with the best smile he could muster, failing miserably to hide his fear for her wrath.

“AND...” came the princess’ mighty volume... suddenly she changed. She wasn’t a merciless immortal anymore. She wasn’t some goddess about to strike down her subjects. Princess Luna’s eyes narrowed as her expression softened into a sudden sheepish little grin.

With her head tilted to one side, she darted closer. Rabbit was powerless. There was nothing he could do.

With his eyes wide open and hers shut in an expression of calm and collectiveness, Princess Luna kissed him full on the mouth. It wasn’t just a quick peck either. It was a complete and total French kiss... well, whatever the pony equivalent of ‘French’ was. And on that note, why the hell do they call it a French kiss anyway? What the hell is so French about sticking your tongue down someone’s throat? The same deal with French fries. Just because you fry up some potatoes doesn’t make them fucking French-...

Yeah, I kinda wandered off topic there. Sorry about that. So aside from the fact Equestria was a land of cluelessly innocent little girly ponies (that’s colts included), the princess was pretty much orally raping the shocked human.

After a few moments of tongue-tango, Luna pulled back, the warmth of her lips peeling away from the teenager’s at an agonizingly pace with a light ‘smack.’ They stared at each other and gulped instinctively at the same time.

Rabbit quickly turned green realising the pony’s tongue had been in his mouth before he swallowed... and then his cheeks burned bright red as he realised the winged unicorn had just straight up Frenched him in sight of his best pony-friend, Trixie. He was instinctively wondering what she was thinking.

In truth, the traveling magician’s mind was blank as she gaped, staring at the immortal goddess princess who’d just put the moves on Trixie's companion.

Rabbit blinked, oblivious to this.

“You’re not all I imagined a knight in shining armour might be but... thank you, Ser Rabbit.” Came Princess Luna’s voice, without the ear-numbing volume this time. And with that she turned around and flapped her wings, taking off into the steely sky.

Clouds shifted and the sun peeked through, soaking Rabbit and Trixie in its warm rays for a moment, before the teenage human looked down to his companion. She seemed shocked at what had transpired, one eye bulging wider that the other with a squiggly sort of gape taking over her mouth.

Just as flustered, Rabbit quickly gave his head a shake and dragged the duo out of their combined trance by exclaiming at the top of his lungs: “WHAT THE FUCK IS IT WITH YOU FUCKING PONIES!?”

Giving an aggravated moan while rubbing his face in an attempt to get rid of his fierce blush, Rabbit did his best to calm himself down. “Let’s just forget what transpired here.”

“Agreed.” Trixie commented dryly.

“We’ll just get to Ponyville, sort this mess out and get paid.”

Trixie silently donned her saddle-bags with a touch of levitation-magic and prepped to move. “Unless somepony finds out our ‘hard-earned’ bits were all stolen, and Princess Celestia sees fit to banish us to the moon.”

Rabbit just smiled. “Let’s try to burn one bridge down at a time, eh?” Trixie just rolled her eyes.

Rabbit moved to her makeshift sled and pulled open his pack, transferring what he could into his bag.

“So you saved all of Equestria from Nightmare Moon’s wrath.” Trixie joked after a short silence. “What will you do next?”

“I’m going to Disneyland!” Rabbit cheered childishly.

Trixie laughed as if she actually understood the reference... but after a moment she went quiet and shuffled closer to the human. “Y’know, Equestria isn’t technically your world. You didn’t have to save the day. You could’ve run away and left it to the proper authorities. I wouldn’t have thought less of you. Nopony would have.”

Rabbit paused as he packed, then lifted his gaze. “You’ve taken care of me since I arrived here. I saved your world. We’re square.”

The pony scoffed. “You’re kidding, right? I owe you now! Saving the world is a little more extreme than-...”

Rabbit cut across her by holding out his hand to her. “Trix!” he said sternly. “We’re even.”

Trixie looked at the human’s hand, then back to his face. Rabbit smiled as the pony sighed, giving in. they shook on it, hand to hoof. “Okay... we’re even... at least we will be!” Trixie suddenly snapped looking quite stern herself. “As soon as you get us back our hard-earned savings! I can’t believe you were able to fight off Nightmare Moon but failed to secure a simple bag of bits!”

The human laughed.

When Rabbit had stowed the excess of gear from Trixie’s sled into his backpack, the duo set off again in the direction of Canterlot.

“Hey, Trix?”

“Mmm?”

“Ah’ve got the ma-gic in me...”

***[]***

Somewhere between the thresholds of shadow and orange juice...

You’re back! Excellent. How did it go?

Exactly as we planned. Ponies are so predictable... and you were right, by the way. There is indeed a human in Equestria. He has the weave-gem.

Ho-ho, marvellous! A wide, evil grin spread through the murky insanity, bearing pointed and uneven teeth made of pure stroganoff. It seems, my little mistress of evil, that the fun has indeed been doubled!

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