> In Lumine Lunae
>  by ParaNomaly
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I. Weekend Headache
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alarms.



John fucking hated alarms.

Every day they plagued and tormented his existence in the early hours of the morning. He would have loved nothing more than to throw it out the window and resume his peaceful slumber.

Of course, that just meant he had to buy a new one. They always won in the end. Clever bastards.

He let out a groan of annoyance as his arm shot out from beneath the covers, searching for the dreaded contraption. He found his mark a few painfully long seconds later and slammed down on it, effectively shutting it up for the day.

“Bloody hell… What hour is it?” he grunted as he rolled onto his back and brought his hands up to his eyes, rubbing them in an attempt to get rid of the grogginess.

On instinct, his hand lingered away from his eyes and searched for his phone on the nightstand. Once he had it in his grasp, he brought it up above him and hit the power button, eyes still half open.

Everyone knows the pain of waking up at unholy hours and trying to use their phones. John was no different, as soon as he did so, his vision was assaulted by what anyone would describe as a military-grade spotlight.

He hissed and quickly closed his eyes, his head turning to the side and his free hand covering his vision. “Fuck’s sake...” he muttered as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness.

It didn't take as long as he had feared, as, within ten seconds or so, the discomfort had largely abandoned him.

Taking his hand away from his eyes, he glanced at the hour the phone was displaying. His eyes lingered over it a few times. Five thirty AM. He usually woke up at that time anyway. But if he remembered correctly, wasn't it…

“Saturday... goddamn it.” Just his luck, he had forgotten to turn the alarm off before going to bed.

'Starting off the day on a bad note, great.’ he thought bitterly as he dropped his phone beside him on the bed. Swinging his legs around, he moved to a sitting position on the edge of the bed and threw the covers off.

Any other sensible man would have gone right back to sleep, but not John. Once he woke up, the chances of him falling back asleep were comparable to that of winning the lottery.

Giving himself a few seconds to stare at the wall and contemplate why he even existed, he proceeded to slap his knees with his hands and lift himself up.

“Eh, I wonder if Bill’s available today...” he muttered to no one in particular as he absentmindedly scratched his rear. He was fairly sure he had no plans for today. He'd probably end up wasting his time away playing games until slumber came back knocking.

With that said, he yawned and turned to the bathroom, stretching as he walked the short distance between it and his bed. He opened the door and turned the light on, his eyes suffering less this time around after the molesting they had received earlier.

He went into autopilot mode as he began the routine he had imprinted into his brain for the last four years. With the brushing of his teeth, the emptying of his bladder, and the cleansing of his body with moderately hot water, he was ready to start the day.

After drying himself off, he exited the bathroom and walked butt-ass naked to his closet, from which he retrieved a nice, comfy set of robes. Relishing in the sheer comfort of the fabric for a few seconds, he quickly put it on and walked out of his door, not bothering to close it behind him.

He lived in a fairly decent two-story house, nothing too shabby. It's exactly what you'd expect from any other stereotypical British home with the slightest bit of an American style mixed in. Not that he gave a shit, mind you.

Switching on the lights as he strode down the stairs, he wasted little time in finding his way to the kitchen and opening the fridge.

His face developed a frown as he gazed into his fridge. He definitely needed to make a quick stop and buy some things today. Luckily, he had all he needed for a nice, fulfilling breakfast.

“Shh, I'm here, my love…” he whispered tenderly as he gently eased his hand into the fridge, pulling from within a box of pancake mix. With all the care in the world, he set it down on the counter and took out a half-empty bottle of milk before turning heel and closing the door with his foot.

“Today, I dine with the gods!” he crackled in his best evil voice as he went about preparing the holy site for the ritual.

He was a simple man, really. And any simple man had simple breakfasts. Some people liked to have eggs with ketchup, or eat frozen pizza for their morning meal. To John, those people were bloody insane. What kind of neanderthal would choose something like bacon and eggs over a pair of steamy pancakes with syrup?

John spent the next four minutes preparing his breakfast and pondering what to do for the day. He definitely needed to get some groceries, his fridge was already starting to look like a wasteland. But after that was set and done, he was left with an entire day of nothing.

He was pretty sure neither Brian or Jack were gonna be available for the day. Those two had been dragged down to London by their wives due to some family disputes or something, so that left either Bill, who was sick at the moment or his games.

He didn't consider himself a 'video game addict’ as some people liked to call it. His library of nearly five hundred games would dispute that, but he didn't really play half of them. They've laid uninstalled since the day he got them for cheap in the summer and winter sales.

Star Citizen, maybe? The game was fun, and pretty as hell too, but he'd already spent too much time dicking around in there. He didn't feel like playing it today.

His mind was divided between Elite Dangerous or Overwatch when he was forced to come back to reality and attend to his pancakes before they burnt to a crisp.

“They almost did get fuckin’ burnt…” he murmured as he quickly went about taking them off of the pans and depositing them on a nearby plate he had ready. Three in total, not too shabby.

You might be wondering how he made three pancakes so fast. When you have more than one burner on the stove, why not put them to good use? The multitasking aspect wasn't that hard.

With his pancakes freshly made and totally not burnt on the edges, he applied the necessary amount of syrup and went to town on the poor things.

Anyone looking in would have noticed a man savagely attacking a herd of defenseless disks of flour and syrup while taking short breaks to wash it down with milk directly from the carton.

John may have brought them into existence, but they only knew pain.

A few minutes later, he was sitting on the couch in his living room, leaning back with a hand on his stomach and a satisfied look on his face.

His hand lazily searched for the remote of his TV for a few seconds before firmly grasping the slippery bastard and turning on his TV. It wasn't anything fancy. 45 inches, 1080p resolution, fairly standard nowadays.

As he absentmindedly switched between the channels available, he noticed the flash of lightning through the window to the left of him. Glancing over in its direction, he spotted the pitter-patter of raindrops hitting the glass, eliciting an annoyed grunt from him.

“Raining again? Well, at least it's comfier now.” He knew a lot of people whose mood was affected in a not so positive way by rain. But it was really the opposite for him. Most of the time he loved it when it rained, especially when the time came to hit the hay. There was something soothing and relaxing about the droplets hitting the tiles of his porch and roof that helped him relax and drive him into a deep sleep.

It didn't help with his quickly growing boredom, however. With every press of a button to change the channel, he became increasingly bored and frustrated at the lack of anything worthwhile. At times like these, he wished Mythbusters hadn't ended. That show had a knack for keeping you entertained, even when rewatching older episodes.

With a flick of his wrist, he turned the TV off and stood up, stretching his arms and letting out a yawn.

“Well, I have nothing better to do anyway,” he reassured himself as he walked back up the stairs and into his room, shoving the almost closed door open.

Turning the lights on, the room was exactly as he had left it. Messy bed to the top right, drawer to the bottom right, closet beside the drawer, and his set up taking up most of the space to the next, next to his bathroom.

He always made sure to clean this place up every week or so, God knows how many times he had to punt something across the room at night to make him start cleaning it regularly.

Sparing a glance at the floor to make sure it was clear of debris, he lumbered over to his chair and plopped down, reaching under the desk and hitting the power button of his PC in the process.

The familiar sound of fans spinning up reached his ears as he saw the Windows 10 logo appear on the screen. It lasted for a total of three seconds before it successfully booted into his desktop. Ah, the wonders of an SSD.

“Now, let's see…” He squinted his eyes as Steam popped up, they lingered up and down his vast library of games, unable to spot one that piqued his interest.

A minute or two went by as he struggled to find something to entertain himself with. There was no shortage of options, but most were either uninteresting or he had already played them long enough to grow bored, save for a select few, which he wasn't in the mood for at the moment.

His suffering was put on temporary hold as he heard the all too familiar tone of a Discord call. His cursor quickly moved over to the icon and restored the minimized window.

“Bill? He's up at this hour?” He vaguely remembered that the poor bastard had gotten sick a few days ago, but he didn't expect him to be up at these hours.

Pushing those thoughts aside, he reached over to his headset and slid it over his head into position before answering the call.

He was the first to speak after a two second period of silence. “Bill? What are you doing up at this hour? Aren't you sick?” He minimized Discord once more and went about idly entertaining himself by rearranging his desktop icons.

He heard a heavy sniffing and coughing sound come through the headset before he got a proper answer. “Fuck me… I can't sleep, this bloody cold is not letting me. I might as well try and keep myself busy.” He heard another cough.

“Shit, you alright over there? Sounds like you're going to cough up a lung,” John asked, hands now finding their way to cover his mouth as he yawned. He definitely needed to stop waking up so early.

“Yeah, I'm fine. It's just a cold, I've had worse.” Bill dismissed his concern, which was followed closely by another cough.

“Whatever floats your boat. What do you want to do? I've been indecisive on what to play.” John moved on as he brought up Steam again.

“Eh… I dunno, Counter-Strike, maybe?” Bill suggested, to which John shook his head, aware that he obviously couldn't see him do so.

“I still have a seven-day ban because of you jackasses, remember?” he grunted in annoyance, unpleasant memories of the event leading up to the ban now lingering in his mind.

He heard Bill let out the beginnings of a chuckle, which were quickly shot down by a cough. “Oh, right. Well… Overwatch?” John paused for a second before answering.

“Fuck it, why not. I'm in the mood to break my desk today.” He shrugged as he closed steam and opened up Battle.net, ignoring everything else and proceeding to run the game.

“You're way too violent for your own good in these competitive games. Just… relax and have fun,” Bill lectured as he followed in John's footsteps and launched the aforementioned game.

“I don't play comp to lose, Einstein,” he replied sarcastically as he awaited an invite.

He heard a snort come through as he noticed the invite and lazily moused over it, clicking it a few more times than necessary. “Doesn't mean you have to get your panties in a bunch over it,” Bill retorted.

“Whatever, just start the game. I need to get myself something to drink first.” John barely registered his friend's acknowledgment of his request as he took his headset off and stood up.

Pushing the chair back, he let out another yawn as he soon found himself walking down the stairs and arriving at his kitchen again.

Upon opening the fridge once more, he was instantly reminded of the cold emptiness of it, eliciting another frown that easily rivaled his previous one.

“Right… at least there's still some Coke left,” he mumbled as he took a half-empty Coca-Cola bottle and turned around, closing the fridge with his foot.

With a twist, he took off the cap and smiled as the all too familiar hissing sound filled the room. “Sounds like he..-” He stopped himself as he heard the hissing intensify.

Lifting up the bottle to his face, he quickly inspected it. It didn't take a rocket scientist to find out that the hissing was no longer originating from the bottle but from somewhere else.

Now officially spooked, he tossed a few glances to the sides and over his shoulder, spotting no apparent source of the hissing noise.

His spook meter began to subside as his more rational mind looked over at the sink, finding it sealed shut. A quick check down under confirmed that theory. It definitely wasn't a leaky pipe. And he certainly didn't have any gas canisters in his house. He always thought those things were too much of a hazard to have.

“The fuck?” He scratched his head as he stopped in the middle of the kitchen, unable to find the source of the sound.

Strangely enough, it seemed to suddenly stop, leaving John in total silence. His spook meter, however, was spiking again. Deciding that dying wasn't worth finding out the origin of the hissing, he began a slow walk back to his room, which quickly deteriorated to a fast walk, and then an all-out sprint to his room.

He wasn't about to go investigate outside or spend another second downstairs until the sun came up. Call him a pussy all you want, anyone with half a brain could tell you that investigating too much into strange noises while it was dark outside never led to anything good.

Arriving at his room, he quickly pushed the door shut and locked it, letting out a sigh of relief as he leaned against it.

“What the fuck was that...?” he asked himself as he stayed quiet for a few seconds and listened for any further noises or even footsteps.

Thankfully, none came. The only sound that did was the yelling of Bill coming through his headset, which quickly alerted him to the now ongoing game.

“Oh shit.” With the previous situation now cast aside, he raced over to his desk and began to play, deciding to explain what had happened to Bill after the match.

Unbeknownst to him, however, was the being just outside of his kitchen window who held in a clawed hand a half-empty Coca-Cola bottle similar to John's, the cap hovering just above the opening.

If anyone would have been unlucky enough to get a glimpse of it, they'd notice the distinct lack of common sense it seemed to give off, along with the many mismatched forms under its possession.

A chuckle left its snout as it peered over the window and into the house, a smirk forming on its face.

“Time to head back home,” He smirked and tossed the bottle over his shoulder, which promptly exploded in a shower of smaller Pepsi cans. Said cans proceeded to grow legs and quickly ran off in all directions.
> II. Brain.exe has stopped
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“-et on the fucking point!” John yelled into his mic in frustration. His pleas went unanswered, as over time quickly ran out and resulted in a loss for his team.

“Fuck this game!” He threw his mouse forward and slammed a fist into his desk, shaking it in the process.

“It's only one game, stop being a crybaby.” He heard Bill calmly say through his headset, which only served to increase his frustration.

“I’m more ticked off at the fact that it was an easy fuckin’ win! But no! Let's all just wander away from the point like brainless twats!” John cursed as he leaned back and ran a hand down his face. He really hated and loved competitive games at the same time. Ninety percent of the time it only provided him with stress, frustration, and anger issues. But he kept coming back to them.

“Right. Because that totally doesn't include you, you-” Bill was abruptly cut off as his monitor and lights suddenly all went off, the idle hum of his PC following suit a split second later.

John was left to blankly stare at his monitor for the next five seconds, before sighing and reaching over to his phone. “A power outage? That's just fantastic. Haven't had one of those in a while…” He murmured as he grasped his phone and looked at the hour.

“Six-ten already?” He asked himself in surprise. Time sure did fly by quickly went you're entertained.

Shaking the surprise off, he navigated to the Discord app and looked for Bill. Once he had found him, he began to swiftly type what caused him to abruptly disconnect. It didn't take him long to finish the message and hit send. Hopefully, the bastard hadn't continued to play and actually won a game without him. They were always a bit competitive over who had the higher rank. Just a bit.

His thoughts came to a halt as he heard the doorbell ring. Normally, he wouldn't have heard it all the way from his room, but with the lack of noise, it was clear as day for him.

With a groan, he set the phone down on the desk as stood up and kicked his swivel chair away from under himself. “Better not be another guy trying to sell me some random crap.” If it was, it would have been the third time this week someone tried to sell him something. It was annoying, to say the least.

“Coming!” he shouted as he opened his bedroom door and quickly made his way down the stairs, finishing it off with a quick slide along the railing for added finesse.

He reached out for the doorknob and twisted it once he was within range, slowly pulling it open before stopping himself. “Hold on…” He muttered and got closer, peeking through the small little viewport most doors possessed.

Everything seemed normal enough. The guy behind the door was well dressed and carried a briefcase with him. A cheery expression adorned his face. He didn't seem like a robber. Although it was a bit suspicious that a salesman would come along this early, now that he thought about it.

Cautiously, he slowly pulled the door open and peeked his head out to look at the man. “Good morning?” John asked.

Unfortunately for him, it seemed fate had other plans in store, because as soon as he said those words, his entire vision began to distort and black out. He barely had time to let go of the door handle as he fell backward and faded into unconsciousness.








Pain.


As soon as he regained consciousness, that's all he felt. An excruciating pain shooting through his entire body. If he had to guess, it reached levels of being burnt alive.

He tried to scream, but couldn't find his voice no matter how hard he tried. After a few failed attempts, he resorted to flailing around in hopes that the pain would go away.

As if heard by the gods themselves, the pain began to subside rapidly until it completely left his body, leaving him breathing heavily with beads of sweat running down his forehead.

“Ugh… Bloo-” He stopped himself upon finally regaining and hearing his voice. There was something off about it. It sounded too… High and feminine to belong to him. He pondered it for a few seconds before shaking it off as him imagining things. He must have hit his head too hard on the floor, is all.

“Fuck me… What the hell was that?” Attempting to ignore his new, concussion-induced voice, he brought a hand to his face and attempted to rub his forehead to ease the coming headache.

That was what he had in mind if what touched his forehead was actually his hand. Instead, he felt something hard touch the intended target.

“What the…?” He lowered his 'hand’ down to his face to inspect it, unaware as to why it had suddenly turned into a solid block.








Somewhere deep within his mind, fire spread throughout a heavily staffed compound. Miniature versions of John ran around in all directions. Some were screaming, others carrying papers, and a few actually tried to put out the many fires that lit up desks and file cabinets alike.

“What the hell are we looking at?!” a John wearing a military uniform yelled as he slammed his fists on the table in front of him.

“W-well, we are led to believe that it's a… hoof. It commonly belongs to equin-” a more nerdy John with a scientist outfit began, but was cut off by Military John.

“I don’t fuckin’ care who or what it belongs to! I want to know how we get rid of it!” Military John snarled as he slammed his fist on the table once more.

Before anyone else could respond, another John wearing a worker’s uniform slammed the door open. “We’re having a meltdown! All Johns for themselves!” He ran out screaming right after, and many more followed suit.









As his brain imploded, John could do nothing but stare at the dark blue appendage that stood before him. A quick glance downwards revealed that his entire body resembled the cartoonish look of his not-hand. It took him a full thirty seconds as his brain tried to process this information.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, he moved his 'hand’ away from his face and stared forward at the front door, which had been mysteriously closed after had fallen unconscious.

He lifted his new appendage back up again and stared at it for a few more seconds. “Okay, this is… I think I hit my head way too hard. Yeah, that's it. I just need to call for help before I die or something…” He tried to reassure himself as he tried to stand up on two legs.

He did manage it, but due to his new anatomy, the result wasn't pretty.

Almost immediately, he stumbled to the side and into the living room, failing to maintain his balance and falling over the couch and onto the table on the other side, slamming his face directly into it.

To his eternal gratitude, it didn't seem to hurt very much. He fully expected to break his nose, but that thankfully didn't happen. It did hurt though.

“Son of a fucking cunt!” he cursed loudly as he tried to pick himself up and lifted his face away from the impact zone.

As he did so, he noticed another new thing about his body. The presence of two large, equally blue wings sprawled out on both his sides. On any other occasion, he'd comment on how pretty they looked. But it currently served to fuel the panic and confusion brewing inside of him.

“I… What the fuck?” His voice trembled slightly as he began to realize the scope of his current situation. It all felt and looked so real. The pain, movements, and his environment. He knew what lucid dreams and common dreams, in general, felt like, and this definitely wasn't it.

Panic began to overtake him as he attempted to distance himself from the new limbs, only to have them follow him. It only worsened his state as he began to hyperventilate.

“What the fuck… Fuck! What's going on?!” His breathing became erratic the more he heard his new voice. Normally, it would actually be kind of soothing, but in his current situation, it was anything but. His scramble to try and get away from 'his’ wings led him directly to the TV, which he turned to face once his head bumped into it.

He stared at the reflection for what felt like an hour, taking in every little detail of its cartoonish look. It was like a horse… no, a pony was staring back at him. His new teal eyes bore a hole into his soul as he looked into them, fear and panic evident in them.

The drastic change in species wasn't the only thing that looked unreal. The long, ethereal-like deep blue mane that seemed to wave in a non-existent wind and the near foot long horn resting above his forehead only served to distance his new body from his human one even more, if such a thing was even possible at that point.

Upon closer look, little stars twinkled in and out of existence within it, giving it a space-like look.

With a shake of his head, John managed to snap out of his shock at seeing his reflection and backpedaled away from it, his back hitting the table, eliciting a pathetic whimper from him.

What in the actual living hell of fucking shit is happening?! This is definitely not normal! He barely got out of bed an hour ago and already his entire weekend was not only possibly ruined, but he most likely suffered major head trauma. And even that was one of the more favorable outcomes. He shuddered to think if what was seeing was actually real life, and not some weird hallucination.

“Okay! Okay, I just need to… calm down.” He took numerous deep breaths and exhales as he tried to recompose himself. It was harder said than done.
With a shaky… er, hoof, he slowly tried to stand up again, now on all fours instead of upright. His previous misfortune served as a lesson not to try that again. After managing to stand up, he glanced around and tried taking a step forward towards the TV.

Walking proved to be a lot harder than he imagined it would be. He had originally guessed it would be similar to getting on your knees as a human and doing it that way, but that was completely thrown out the window as he miscalculated his first step, ending up almost falling again if it wasn’t for his wings subconsciously shooting out and balancing him, helping him regain his balance.

He blinked and looked back at them. That was odd. Were they supposed to do that?

Shaking his head, he focused back on trying to walk. It was helping take his mind out of the absurdity of it all. There he was, in his living room as a weird pegasus-unicorn hybrid learning how to walk. If that wasn’t one of the most ridiculous things that have happened to him, he had completely forgotten the others.

With shaky breaths, he managed to take his first few steps, albeit with the constant support of surrounding objects, but hey, progress was progress.

“God, what kind fucking drug am I on…” he muttered as he stared at his reflection in the TV once more, taking in 'his’ features for the second time. It did nothing to soothe his mind, which continued to debate with itself whether the situation he was in was even real or not.

“It sure fucking feels like it.” He shook his head and brought a hoof up to his face, making sure to move his other one closer to the center, stopping him from losing his balance again.

Bringing it closer to his face, he squinted his eyes and examined it. It certainly didn't look like any hoof he'd seen before, and he had worked with horses back when he was still living on a farm. It looked more… Sleek and cartoonish, with the fur seemingly covering it completely, and even the underside was colored the same shade of blue. It definitely looked a lot more appealing than normal horse hooves, but still somewhat unnatural looking.

Setting down his new appendage, he began to repeat the process of breathing in and out. It served to calm him down marginally, but he was still having a hard time wrapping his head around it.

“Okay, first things first…” He rubbed his throat and cleared it, not used to hearing that voice come out of his mouth. “Assuming this is real, and I'm not currently suffering from massive head trauma… What the hell do I do now?” He had zero clue on what to do next. Relearning how to walk would be a good option or…

Before he could come up with something else, a sharp pain penetrated his skull, where his new horn was. It faded almost as quickly as it came, but the pain caused was enough to leave him slightly dizzy.

“Fuck! My fuckin’ head…” He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead. Now would have been a good time for some aspirin, if he hadn't given his last ones to Bill a few days ago.

“Wait a second… Bill! Maybe he can help me!” It was unlikely, but he was willing to take any help no matter how small at that point. But… How the hell was he going to get up the stairs?

“I can barely walk as it is, but to hell with it, maybe if I fall again I'll hit my head hard enough to turn back into a human again.” He grumbled and looked down at his hooves. This was not gonna be easy.

Shakily, he began to take awkward steps out of his living room and to the stairs next to it. It took a lot of patience to pull off, and he almost fell more times than he could count, but after four painstakingly slow minutes, he had finally reached the base of the stairs.

Looking up at the top, he silently cursed and began his trek up what might as well have been Mount Everest. He gave up midway and used the railing to get to the top faster and avoid falling down like an idiot and hitting his head again. God knows what that would produce.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, he let out a sigh of relief, bringing his 'hoof’ up to his eyes and rubbing them. That turned out to be a not-so-great idea even with his eyes closed, as they seemed to be a lot bigger than his previous ones, eliciting a flinch from him. “Fuckin’ hell…” He shook his head and blinked a few times, trying to get rid of the discomfort.

Grunting in irritation, he turned his attention to his bedroom door at the end of the hall. His eyes narrowed at his target before glancing down at his hooves. ”Okay, I can do this.” He mentally reassured himself as he began to take careful steps towards his goal. With every step he took, he began to feel more comfortable as he built up a rhythm. Granted, it could have been easily broken, but that problem didn't surface within the small space he had to cross.

”Thank god I didn't close the door, that would have been a nightmare and a half,” he thought as he pushed the door open and slowly stepped into his room. The sun’s rays shined through the window and illuminated the interior of the room enough so he could safely navigate it without fear of tripping over something. He really should have gotten around to picking up all the clothes on the floor earlier.

He spotted his phone on the desk, right where he had left it. A quick glance to the side confirmed the presence of his chair as well. Adding two and two together, he quickly figured that he was going to have to use both of his 'hooves’ to try using the phone.

With that in mind, he carefully, and a bit awkwardly took a seat and pushed himself towards the desk until his chest met the edge. He didn't want to fall on his ass like an idiot, after all.

“Okay. Now, how the fuck…” He trailed off as he tried picking up the phone. It was definitely a good idea to not try it while standing up, as even with both of his new appendages, he couldn't pick the damn thing up.

After five minutes of failure, he cursed silently in frustration and decided to use the phone while it rested on the desk, instead of trying to hold it. Slowly, he turned it on and used the tip of his hoof to swipe upwards, hoping to unblock it.

Following a few failed attempts, he let out a sigh of relief as he managed to get it to work. Thank Christ he didn't have a password, otherwise, he'd be up shit creek without a paddle.

He looked down at the phone once more and tapped the screen numerous times until he was able to navigate to the contacts list. Bill appeared at the top of the list, thankfully. So he didn't have to try and scroll down to look for him.

Sparing a few more taps, he was rewarded with the sound of his phone ringing. As it did so, he stopped to think. How the hell was he supposed to convince Bill he had turned into a bloody fucking horse out of nowhere? If he was in his position, he'd either figure that Bill was kidnapped, or he was playing a prank on him. Neither of those worked in his favor.

His thoughts were interrupted as he heard Bill through the phone.

“Hello? John? You finally got power back yet or what?” he said, his voice carrying trace amounts of annoyance.

John bit his lip slightly as he thought of what to say. Seconds later, he finally answered, albeit hesitantly.

“Er… Bill. Look, this is John speaking. This is going to sound fucking nuts, but... I'm not a human anymore.”


Wow. He really knocked it out of the fuckin’ park with that one.


Silence followed his sentence as Bill most likely tried to comprehend what he had just heard. Eventually, John heard him laugh.

“Yeah, and I'm the Queen's concubine. Is this John's girlfriend or somethin’? Put him on, I want to talk to him.” Not a great start, but could have been worse.

John's mind tried to come up with a way to convince him that he was the one talking. Not one was worth even attempting, but…

“Fourth of April, twenty fourteen. We took a trip to America and went camping for a while. Me, you, Brian and Jack. It was almost night out as they set up the tent while we had gone off to get wood. You were so afraid to be alone out there, you ended up sh-” He was cut off by Bill once more, who shouted at him.

“Okay, okay! Don't remind me! But only me and John know about… did he tell you? I swear I'm gonna…” It was John's turned to cut him off.

“Listen you twat, I am fucking John! I'm not bullshitting you for God's sake! I'll yell out every fuck up you've done if I have to convince you!”

Bill stayed silent for a brief time before responding.

“Okay, right. I'll humor you. What do you want, 'John’.” He made sure to emphasize the sarcasm towards the end. Bastard.

Sighing, John calmed himself down and lowered his voice.

“Look, I don't know what happened. Once second I was answering the door after the power went out, the next I'm waking up on the floor in a completely different body. It sounds insane, but you have to believe me! I'm not lying!”

“Uh huh… What do you want me to do, then?”

Shit. What did John want him to do?

“Can you swing by my place? Preferably within the next hour. I'm telling you, I'm not lying. Come and see for yourself!”

He heard Bill sigh on the other end, the squeaking of his chair audible even through the call.

“Alright, I'll come by. It's stopped raining anyway. But if this is some sort of joke…” he warned.

“I swear on all that is holy that I'm not lying,” John reassured him.

“I'll be there within half an hour.” With that, he hung up, leaving John alone once more in his room.

John sighed as he leaned back in his chair and brought his hoof up to run it through his hair. It was an old habit that he commonly used in times of frustration or anger. He stopped as soon as he felt his new hair, however, now remembering what he had seen in the reflection.

“Oh, right…” he murmured as took hold of the wavy mane and moved it in front of him to get a better look.

It was definitely odd-looking. If he didn't know any better, he would have guessed it wasn't even real. The miniature stars within it gave off an enchanting glow that made it hard not to stare in awe at their beauty. It looked like he had a part of space as his hair.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something below him nearly identical to his mane. It had the same characteristics and everything. Reaching down, he gave it a quick tug and confirmed his suspicion.

“A tail. Why not. Can I have magic while we're at it?” he muttered as he turned his attention upwards at the ceiling, staring at it with an empty expression.

Everything seemed too surreal. He wasn't even sure why he wasn't freaking out still. Maybe it was the idea that he was still unconscious, and the entire thing was but a mere figment of his imagination. The reason his brain decided to turn him into a cartoon horse of all things was lost to him, but he could still hope.

Time seemed to stop at his mind swirled with conflicting thoughts and emotions. What now? Obviously, he would wait until Bill got here, but he didn't really think much farther ahead. If he managed to convince him that he was indeed John, what could he do to help? Going to the authorities didn't seem like an appealing idea. He didn't want to be taken off to some lab and experimented on.

He shuddered at the thought of what they might do to him if he turned himself in. Maybe nothing would happen, and he’d live the rest of his life as a celebrity or something. But then there's the possibility that he'd end up dissected for science. Maybe he should hold that thought off for later.

“Wait, speaking of…” He trailed off as he refocused his vision and glanced down between his legs. The sudden realization came crashing down on him as the added two and two together. His new voice, body shape, hair… it didn't belong to a guy. Or whatever passed as a guy in whatever species he was a part of now. That would mean…

His hoof slowly lingered down between his legs in search of the little guy. Maybe there was still a chance that the area wasn't as affected, maybe…

He definitely reached his destination, but his hoof quickly retreated back up upon making contact. Unbeknownst to him, a small blush formed on his cheeks as he held his hoof to his chest and looked away.

“Fucking hell, that confirms that…” Great, now he wasn't even a guy anymore. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn't even smack the old joystick like old times. Well, he has always wondered how it would feel if he was a girl instead. There's that, at least.

Before he could proceed to do anything else, he heard his doorbell ring. Was Bill here already? How much time had he been staring at the ceiling for?

“Coming!” he yelled, hopefully loud enough to be heard as he stood up from his chair and began to slowly walk back to his door and into the hallway.

Fuck, how was he supposed to get down the stairs? He hadn't even mastered how to walk properly, let alone get down a flight of stairs without serious injury. He didn't really have a choice though.

He stared down the stairs for a few seconds, figuring out the best strategy for getting down without tripping and giving himself a concussion.

“Ah, fuck it. Whatever doesn't kill me just makes me stronger.” True or not, he didn't see any other way to get down, unless…

“Bill! The door’s open! You can come in!” he shouted. Hopefully, Bill could help him get down without having to get himself hurt like an idiot.

He heard Bill try to jimmy the knob open a few times, but seemed to give up after a couple of tries.

“It's locked.” He replied in a somewhat monotone voice. John blinked a that, Bill wasn't the type to show such little reaction most of the time. Maybe it was just his cold.

Brushing it off, John cursed silently. It looked like he really didn't have any other choice. He took his first steps down without much difficulty surprisingly. The second set proved to be more challenging as he became more aware of his situation, causing unease to rise up in his chest.

Tragedy struck, however, as he stopped and brought his hoof up to grip the railing. He had miscalculated where he needed to but his other hoof to maintain balance and ended up losing it, resulting in him being sent tumbling down the remainder of the stairs.

“Fuck!” He cursed out loud numerous times as he fell down, trying to desperately grip onto something to stop his descent. He instead found himself at the bottom of the stairs, belly up with his wings sprawled to the sides.

He gazed up at the ceiling with an empty look for a few seconds before making an attempt to get up. Surprisingly, he didn't look or feel hurt at all from the fall. He was sure he'd at least get a bruise, but a quick glance at his body told a different story.

Standing up, he gave himself a final glance before turning his attention towards the door. Oddly, Bill hadn't commented on the sudden ruckus. Strange.

”He can tell me why later, now I just have to prove that I'm not lying." John thought as he shook his head and took a few careful steps towards the door, stopping when he was within arms reach.

Remembering his previous mistake, he made sure to properly balance himself before reaching over to the doorknob and gently twisting it open. Surprisingly, it seemed a lot easier to do than he had previously thought. Friction, maybe?

As soon as he could, he pulled the door open, expecting his friend to be on the other side.

“Bill? Look-” His breath got caught in his throat as he laid eyes on what was on the other side of the door.

Some sort of… chimera-type creature stood there with a wide smirk. It looked like it was wearing a strange looking aviator’s suit with a glowing blue device on its chest. It held in both paws a pair of vaguely familiar looking guns, that were currently pointing right at him.

“Cheers, luv!”

John barely had time to let out a manly scream before a cloud of smoke enveloped him. His consciousness started to leave him rapidly as he began to cough and backpedal away from the door.

It served him little, as his face soon met the ground and his vision turned dark for the second time that day. Before he was completely under, he heard what he assumed was the weird creature say something.

“The cavalry's here!”
> III. Kansas? Definetly not
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Voices.

As John regained consciousness, the first thing that he took notice of was the numerous voices that seemed to be gathered around him. He couldn't make any of them out, as they all sounded distorted to him.

He didn't pay much attention to them, however, as he tried to get his bearings back in check. This was the second time he had been knocked out and had woken up in pain. Hopefully, it didn't become commonplace.

”Ugh… Again? This is ridiculous.” He grimaced and laid still as he tried to focus on what the voices were saying. Could it be the cops? He doubted it. The last thing John remembered was opening the door, then… nothing.

Wait, maybe he's in a hospital! That would mean that everything that had gone down had all been a really fucked up dream caused by him hitting his head too hard. Bill must have come over to investigate and had found him out cold on the floor.

“-s wrong with her? Why is she unconscious!?” he heard a female voice shout from somewhere to his left. It didn't sound familiar, why was she…

“Look, I did my part and brought her back. I have no idea what Tirek did exactly, but that's none of my concern,” A second voice retorted, this one sounded deeper and had a nonchalant tone.

“Not your concern?! If you hadn't allied with Tirek, none of this would have happened!” A third female voice added. What the hell were these people talking about? Were they talking about him? And who the fuck's Tirek?

'Okay, this is even more ridiculous. Can't they let a guy rest in peace?” John thought as he decided to finally make a move. Thankfully, the pain had subsided to the point that it had mostly faded away, allowing him to get a better feel for his environment.

Upon opening his eyes, one thing stood out as clear as daylight.

This was not a hospital room.

In fact, whatever he was laying on didn't feel like a hospital bed either. It was too… comfortable and soft, it almost felt like he was laying on clouds.

His heart rate spiked as he came to a realization. It hadn't been a dream. He still felt the way his wings brushed against his sides, and how his fur hugged his form like a big winter jacket. Feelings he couldn't have imagined as a human put themselves forth, and yet deep down, they still felt… natural. As if he had known them for his entire life.

His eyes opened fully as they took in the scene unfolding in front of him. Three beings stood in what looked like the middle of a very luxurious room. Two of them shared a resemblance to whatever species he currently was. One of which was entirely pink with streaks of rose, violet, and gold running along her (he assumed) mane. She wore a tiara on her head and was currently giving one of the other two what he could best describe as a death glare.

The thing she was looking at really stood out the most. It looked like something a kid could make for art class. More than a dozen different animal parts seemed to make up a tall, serpent-like creature. He could spot lion, lizard, and even goat parts. Whatever it was, he wasn't sure how it could even be alive, biologically speaking.

The last one was a lot easier on the eyes than the previous one, albeit a bit too bright. She had a white coat covering her entire body and had a sparkling rainbow mane, similar to his current one, outside of the rainbow colouring. She was also a lot taller than the other horse, but barely reached the serpent’s midsection. What looked like a chest plate and a golden crown also made themselves present on her form after a second glance.

Panic began to set in as the three continued to argue, oblivious to the fact that John had just woken up. For him, the situation had gone from bad to worse. Now he had been kidnapped by fucking aliens of all things. What was he supposed to do now?

Of course, he did what any sane person would do in his situation. He began to breathe erratically and visibly panic.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out very well for John, as his erratic breathing caught the attention of his kidnappers. He half expected them to knock him out again and do all sorts of unspeakable things while he was out, but he certainly didn't expect the white one to come rushing to his side and embrace him.

John didn't take the seemingly affectionate action very well. He had just been transformed against his will into a completely different species, kidnapped from his home, and now he was being smothered by what could very well be one of the culprits behind it all. Naturally, he didn't receive the gesture with open arms.

“Gah! Get away from me! Fucking cunts, the lot of you!” he spat as he began to struggle in an attempt to get out of the white horse’s grasp. Surprisingly, she let go almost immediately after he began struggling and took a step back with what John assumed was a hurt look on her face.

He scrambled to the side of the bed farthest away from her as his head snapped from side to side, looking for a weapon to defend himself with. He found none, but like hell, he wasn't going to improvise. Another quick survey yielded a plentiful supply of wild, untamed pillows. He grabbed as many as he could and surrounded himself with them. From an outsider's perspective, it may have looked downright silly, but hey, it was the best he had. Give him a break.

“Oh, right. I forgot to tell you, she has total amnesia. The only memories she has right now are the ones from the world she was sent to, I think.” the chimaera affirmed as it tapped his chin for a second before crossing its arms. A semi-bored, yet insufferably smug, expression forming on its face.

The white horse opened her mouth to respond, but John was quick to the punch. “Who the hell are you people, and what do you want from me?!” he shouted in their general direction as he pressed his back harder against the wall.

“My my, she's gotten a bit more feisty since the last time I saw her. I'm liking the personality change!” it gave him two thumbs up, to which John replied with a snarl.

“Discord, shut up and let yourself out.” The ice-cold tone of the white mare was enough to make almost everyone in the room shudder as she cast a sideways glance at the one apparently named Discord, who proceeded to throw his arms into the air in defeat. Quite literally, actually. Both of his arms detached themselves from his body and flew into the air, phasing through the roof as if they weren’t even real.

“Alright, fine. But don't come crying to me when you need someone of my calibre to provide assistance,” Discord responded. John expected him to actually use the door, but what he did next baffled him even further.

He began to literally melt through the floor until he was completely out of sight, giving John a wink just before his head faded from view. What was even more confusing for him was the fact that the other two didn't seem phased by what had just happened at all. What kind of hell did he get sent to?

His attention was diverted away from the slightly unnerving scene by the white mare, who took a step towards him.

“Luna… what is the last thing you remember before waking up?” she began, her previous tone being abandoned and replaced with a warm and caring one.

John didn't respond for a few seconds as he processed the question. Why was she calling him Luna? The question was definitely directed at him, seeing as how she was looking directly at him. Maybe they have the wrong person?

“Uh… being knocked out by some gas? Look, I think you have the wrong person here. My name's never been Luna. It's John,” he tried to explain. Maybe if he played his cards right, he could get out of this place before someone found out he was missing back home.

Varying degrees of emotions passed across her face as she seemed to take in his response. Not that he could tell what any of them meant. Not that he was bad at reading people, but these were talking horses.

“Auntie, I think Discord’s right... She doesn't remember anything.” The pink one finally spoke up as she took a place next to the other one, who responded with a sigh.

“That's what I feared…” she mumbled before looking back at John. “I understand that you're confused as to what is going on. If you allow us, we can explain it to you.”

John had half a mind to tell her to fuck off, but he quickly realized that it wouldn't get him anywhere if he just cursed at them. There was time for that later, now he just wanted to find out what the fuck was going on.

Following a few more seconds of silence, John finally responded with a slow nod.

“Please do, because I'm on the verge of questioning my sanity at this point.” He wasn't lying either. He was about sixty-nine per cent sure he was still on the floor of his house, suffering from some major head trauma.

She let herself show a small smile as she nodded towards the pink one, who replied with a nod of her horn and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing John. The taller one remained standing.

They went on to explain a lot of things. Some that he couldn't quite wrap his head around. From being a Princess of a Nation to controlling the moon and the night sky. They went on about how a 'centaur’ named Tirek escaped from their version of hell and went about stealing 'magic’ from 'ponies’, and in order to keep their own magic away from him, they had given it to another princess, Twilight Sparkle. Apparently, when Tirek confronted the three of them, he sent Luna to a different location than the other two, Celestia and Cadance, who he had to ask the names of to prevent himself from calling them by their colours.

He had sent them to hell, apparently. And if it was anything like they described it back home, he was partially glad he was supposedly sent to Earth.

He found the whole thing a bit hard to believe, honestly.

“-e spent months searching for where you were sent off to, even going as far as questioning Tirek, who had been sent back to Tartarus.” Celestia sighed. She had a few tear marks on her cheeks she had gained as she told the story. Apparently, he was her sister. He doubted that, but he couldn't help but feel bad for her. Now that he was getting a better look at them, ponies actually looked kind of cute.

“Discord was the one who finally found you a day or two ago, we gathered as quickly as we could to receive you, but we didn't know you had amnesia.” Cadance sounded apologetic as she continued.

John couldn't begin to fully comprehend what he had just been told. It was all just… too much. Hell, half an hour ago he was playing Overwatch back in his home, now there was one pony telling him he's her sister, and the other telling him he's a bloody princess named Luna. He wasn't sure what to do by that point.

Sure, assuming this was all real, one one hand he could demand that they send him back to Earth. He couldn't just leave so much behind, but on the other… if what he had just been told was true, he held many more memories of Equestria, thousands of years worth of memories. He just couldn't remember any.

That part was especially hard to believe. Thousands of years? Was he supposed immortal or something?

He glanced down at the bed, thinking of what to say. The look on their faces spoke a lot of words on their own. They clearly looked upset, and it didn't look like they were faking it either.

”This is all just a big clusterfuck, isn't it?” He sighed inwardly as his gaze returned to the two ponies in front of him.

“Can I just… be alone for a bit? I need to think.” He spoke softly, too bothered with internal conflicts to raise his voice.

They both looked at each other for a moment before nodding slowly towards him, accepting his request. Cadance silently stood up and cast a last glance at the two of them before giving him his requested space and exiting the room.

“As you wish. There are guards outside of the door if you need anything. Feel free to ask them to fetch me, I'll be available whenever you need me.” She smiled lightly at him, as she took a few steps back and towards the door. John couldn't find the right words to say, thus he responded with a nod and returned the smile.

She kept her smile as she followed Cadance's hoof steps and made her way towards the door, stopping just shy of it and glancing back at John.

“For what it's worth, I'm… I'm glad you're back,” she near whispered before her horn glowed yellow and the door opened, allowing her to exit the room and close the door behind her.

John was finally alone in the room. Letting out a heavy sigh, he allowed his back to slide down the wall. His eyes wandered up until they were staring at the ceiling.

“...Isn't this one great big clusterfuck?” he asked himself. He had no idea what to do. He just hoped that everything was going well back on Earth. He didn't know for how long he had been out cold, but hopefully not too long.

Now, what the hell was he gonna do?
> IV. Well... What now?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A knock on the door echoed throughout the room, startling John.

He must have fallen asleep during his contemplation session. Truthfully, he had lost track of time as it ticked by. He barely remembered his thoughts during the period he was awake.

‘Must have dozed off early, I guess,’ he mused. It wasn’t unlike him to fall asleep when left to his own devices and nothing to occupy his time with. Then again, the existential crisis he remembered going through could be the leading cause.

Another knock came from the door. This time slightly more forceful. It seemed like whoever was knocking didn’t have much patience.

Then again, neither did he.

“What?” John spoke up in an annoyed tone. The least they could do is let him get in some damn sleep after beaming him into another dimension against his will.

There was a period of uncomfortable silence following his response, followed by what sounded like someone nervously shifting outside the door.

“Come on; you said you were going to be the one who was going to do the talking part!”

“I said I was going to knock on the bucking door, not do the talking! I remember the last time I-”

John had no idea who the hell was behind the door, and neither did he care very much. He was able to hear them, however. He wasn’t quite sure how he could pick up the voices. They were whispering, and the door was pretty far away from him. He gave it a few seconds of thought before blaming it on his new ears. They certainly looked the part, from what he remembered of his reflection.

The voices continued to argue on the other side, and it quickly began to annoy John further. After giving it a few more seconds, he decided to interrupt their conversation.

“Ya know I can hear you, right?” His voice shut the two of them up almost instantly. He guessed he had startled them quite a bit if the four-second pause that followed immediately after was of any indication.

“Erm… P-Princess Celestia requested your presence in her chambers, your highness.” A mare's voice came through the door.

Oh, right. He was supposed to be royalty or something here, wasn’t he? “Eh, not like I have anything better to do,” he muttered before scooting to the edge of the bed and standing up, making sure to maintain his balance and not fall flat on his face while doing so.

He didn’t directly answer them until he had reached and opened the door, which was easier said than done. Hooves made it particularly hard to get a proper grip on the doorknob. It took him a few seconds of minor frustration to turn the knob and open the door. Upon doing so, he was greeted with the sight of two mares. Seeing as they were both wearing maid outfits, It elicited a raised eyebrow from him. Weren’t the guards supposed the ones that did that sort of stuff? Maybe they did it differently here.

The one to his left was coloured a bright cyan, that was accompanied by a darker shade of navy blue on her mane and tail. Her eyes also seemed to be a tone of blue. Teal, if he remembered correctly.

The one to his right had an entirely different set of colours, with her coat being a soft pink, and both her mane and tail were a light shade of pink. Her eyes were also teal. Was this a favourite eye colour in this crazy world? Even he had teal eyes now if his memory served him right.

The two ponies seemed to shrink back ever so slightly as they looked up at him. They were nervous, if the facial expressions were anything to go by. The fact that he towered over the two by a fair margin may have been a contributing factor.

“I’ll follow,” he plainly said. He wasn’t in the mood for any conversation at that moment.

They seemed to pick up the hint, as they replied with a feeble, synchronised nod and began walking. John, true to his words, started to follow them, making sure to give the door enough of a push with one of his back legs to close it.

He stopped for a moment there and blinked, surprised at why he had done that. What was even more surprising was the fact that he hadn’t fallen on his ass at the attempt. He just did it subconsciously, like he had done that before.

He shrugged it off once he noticed the two mares had already covered a significant stretch of hallway, leaving him slightly behind. He shook his head and caught up with them quickly enough. It didn’t seem like they had noticed that he hadn’t been following, which he was thankful for. Pursuing any more dialogue with them would have resulted in an awkward exchange. God knows there’ll be a lot of those down the line.

They led him down a long spiral staircase and down to what he assumed was ground level. From there they travelled numerous corridors, taking more than a handful of turns as they did so. John had lost track of how to get back the room he had been left in within the minute. How they even knew the way around this labyrinth of marble and granite was a complete mystery to him.

“How big is this fuckin’ place?” he muttered as he continued to follow the maids. He hoped that they reached ‘Celestia’s’ room soon. The corridors had already begun to feel smaller as they went on. He had always been a bit claustrophobic, and the complete lack of windows was not helping. Either these ponies didn’t believe in windows, or they were still nowhere near the outside, and neither of those two was a good thing.

After what seemed like hours, the seemingly endless expanse of corridors finally opened up to a much larger room, this time featuring large, coloured windows to his right with numerous designs imprinted on them. There was still smooth marble to his left, however, with the occasional pillar to spice things up. Glancing down, he noticed he was walking on a thick, red carpet. Typically he would have felt the sudden change, but he supposed he had gotten too distracted at admiring the scenery to take full notice.

They left the large hallway and almost immediately came across another flight of stairs, where the maids stopped and turned to look at him.

“Follow these stairs up, the first and only door you’ll see is Princess Celestia’s room,” the pink one stated, now with a bit more confidence, but the nervousness was still there. He should have bothered to at least get their names, now that he thought about it.

Summoning his inner niceness, he put on his best smile and set his word vocabulary to match his supposed Royalness... Ess. “I thank you, miss…?”

She seemed to realise they had forgotten to introduce themselves and quickly responded.

“Oh, how rude of me! Pardon for not introducing ourselves, your highness. My name is Sweet Sorbet, and this,” she gestured to the maid on her left, “is Sapphire Breeze.”

The now identified Sapphire gave John a sheepish smile and bowed her head slightly, but otherwise remained silent.

“We’ll leave you to your own devices now, Princess,” Sorbet said as she gave him a bow, nudging Sapphire to do the same, who quickly followed.

True to their words, they stopped bowing and walked past him, off to do god knows what. Now all that was left for him to do was get up these stairs. If they were anywhere near the height of the ones he’d had to go down, he'd be in for a ride. He had almost fallen four times on the previous one. Maybe he can break that record.

He let out a loud sigh as he began his uphill battle. Luckily, there was no one around to judge him if he somehow fell. Sure, that would mean no help, but he doubted he could hurt himself if he only slipped. It was a spiral, after all. Moreover, the middle was covered up by a thick pillar. He’d have to be drunk or asleep for him not to prevent injury by merely grabbing onto the railing.







“Fuckin’ hell… This has to be higher than the last one.” He cursed out loud as he finally reached the top. He used the railing as support as he panted slightly. Did this place know nothing of lifts?! If he really was a ‘Princess’, he’ll make sure to introduce them before he went back to Earth. This was ridiculous.

After taking a few more seconds to catch his breath, he took the last step up and walked up to the large door. He lifted a hoof and knocked on it a few times.

"Come in!" he heard Celestia call out from within. John hesitated for a second or so before lifting his hoof up and slowly turning the doorknob, albeit with slight difficulty, and slowly pushing the door open.

Upon taking his first few steps into the room, John noticed Celestia laying on what looked like a weirdly shaped mattress laid out on the floor near a lit fireplace. A book rested on the aforementioned mattress in front of her; he couldn't make out any details, however. The rest of the room itself was decorated with a multitude of designs and with different variations of purple on both the floor and the walls.

"Erm..." Gears turned inside John's head as he tried to formulate a good conversation starter.  "So... you called?" Could have been worse.

Celestia lifted her head up from a book she was currently reading and looked up at him, a smile creeping up on her face.

"I'm glad you decided to come. Here, have a seat." John blinked as her horn began to glow a soft yellow. Suddenly, a circle-shaped purple pillow surrounded by an equally yellow aura came into view and set itself down in front of him.

‘What the fuck?’ John thought to himself as he stared confusedly at the pillow. He had somewhat of an idea that these people did some Harry Potter shit after all those claims earlier but seeing it up front was something else.

Celestia noticed his confused expression and followed his gaze, chuckling slightly as she figured out the cause of his confusion. "Right, I forgot you... Don't remember anything about our world. I'll explain if you allow me." She spoke softly, motioning for him to sit down.

John slowly nodded and carefully took a seat on the pillow, still not entirely used to the way his new body worked. Once he was seated, he shifted his gaze over to Celestia.

He opened his mouth to speak but closed it soon after. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, but he couldn't find out how to. Thankfully, Celestia seemed to have it covered.

She sighed and closed the book, now turning her full attention to the blue Alicorn in front of her. "I'm sorry... For all of this, I should have been more direct with Discord and told him not to bring you here immediately. I–" She was quickly cut off by John.

"Look, are you completely sure I'm the person you're looking for and this isn't just one big bloody mistake?" John questioned.

"Discord told me that you are indeed my sister, but due to the long amount of time spent on the other world, you've lost any recollection of who you once were. He said they would all return between now and a few weeks. I cast various spells, and they all told me that what he was saying was right. I understand that-"

"No, you don't fucking understand! That twat just ripped me from my home and dropped into a new body and a completely different world! God knows I should be having a goddamn mental breakdown right now at the mere thought of this whole situation!" John's previous calm tone suddenly turned to anger and frustration, causing Celestia to flinch slightly.

"Less than a day ago I had a normal fuckin' Saturday going, wasting my time playing video games and doing fuck-all, now I'm who the fuck knows where talking to someone that I don't supposedly remember who claims to be my 'sister', so I doubt you 'understand' anything, all right?!" John finished as he glared at her. The glare soon gave way as he sighed, and lifted both of his hooves up, rubbing his face with them.

Celestia frowned and closed her eyes for a second, shaking her head while doing so. "I'm sorry, Luna. I didn't..-"

"John. my name's John Carter," John interposed, his voice muffled slightly by his hooves.

"...John. I didn't mean it like that. All of this must be difficult for you. And while you don't remember me, and most likely don't trust me, I want to be there and help you in any way I can. I'm sorry for being so forward, but I..." She stopped, a few tears now running down her face.

"I was just so afraid of losing you again I didn't think properly, at the first chance of you returning home I immediately jumped on it, not stopping to think what sort of situation you could be in. I'm sorry, sister..." She sniffed, not caring to stop the tears from flowing anymore.

John peeled his hooves away from his face and set them down, his previous anger forgotten at the moment as he looked down at Celestia.

‘I know I shouldn't feel bad, but... Ah, fuck.’ He didn't know what it was but seeing one of these ponies cry tore out his heart, burnt it to ashes and then shit all over the remains. This was a universal trait they all possessed, as he would find out later down the line.

He sighed. He had every right to be angry, and every reason to demand that they send him back to Earth, yet... He couldn't help but feel bad for her. If what she'd told him was right, she had just gotten her sister back from her 'banishment' and losing her again must have been hard for her.

Slowly, he reached out with his right hoof and set it on her shoulder, causing Celestia to peel her eyes from the floor and look up at him.

"I won't pretend I'm not mad. Hell, I'm furious, but... For what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to go through this." John's hoof remained on her shoulder as their eyes locked. He was never good at reading others’ emotions, but one didn't have to be an expert to see the numerous mixed emotions that ran through her.

John held it for a few seconds before retracting his hoof and taking a step back, his eyes casting a glance towards the nearby balcony, the soft glow of the moon seeping through and illuminating the spot he stood in.

"Honestly? I'm still in shock at all this. I don't know how I haven't broken down yet. This feels so surreal. Every time I look down I expect to see my normal, human hands. Instead, I see a pair of hooves. Every time I talk, it's like someone else is talking instead of me." John mumbled as he began to slowly pace back and forth.

"I just want to close my eyes... " John closed his eyes and stopped,  staying still for a few seconds. "And once I open them, to see myself back in my house, going over the same shitty routine I've been doing for the past six years." He opened them again and directed his gaze back towards Celestia, an expression sadness clouded her features as she looked on, remaining silent.

John remained silent with her as they made eye contact. He broke it a second or so later, shifting his gaze over to the balcony and looking at the full moon. "What exactly do I do now? Sit in a room and wait for something to happen?" As much as John hated to admit it, he had no control. He was stuck in an alien world, and in an alien body where he just learned how to walk properly.

Celestia stood up and slowly made his way next to him. John didn't say anything, his eyes remaining locked onto the moon.

"I–, We can help you. There are many ponies that are more than willing to help you adjust as your memories return to you." She stopped as she chose her words carefully. "I'm here for you, and I'll do anything to help you... If you let me." John tensed up slightly as he felt a large appendage be draped over him, a quick glance to the side confirmed it to be Celestia's wing. He was about to ask her to remove it but stopped himself.

"Can I... at least see my home again?" John murmured. He tore his eyes from the celestial body and looked up at Celestia, who replied with a slow nod.

"Discord will be more than glad to help you in that regard, I'm sure," Celestia replied, her wing softly stroking his neck and lower back.

John sighed. At least that was a start. "You still haven't answered me," he added.

Celestia tilted her head slightly. "Hm?"

"What do I do now? I don't know anything about this place. I'm more or less an outsider here." He went on as he broke eye contact with her and looked over to the door.

Celestia followed his gaze before looking down at him. "Let me show you."









"This is... big," John blundered out as he took in the sight. Celestia had guided him to a decently big 'private' library, as she had called it. There were enough books to fill a normal library twice over, and that's counting the ones he could see.

Celestia stood some distance from him, looking over a few books that floated in her magic grasp. "I used to come here weekly, but after... what happened with Tirek, I found myself with much less free time." She separated a few books and put the rest back in their places.

"Is this your personal library? There's no one else around." John glanced around as he walked over to what looked like a fancy looking bean bag chair. As it turned out, it was extremely comfortable.

'Jesus, what do they make this stuff from?' John shifted on it as he sat down. If he didn't know better, he would have guessed the thing was made out of clouds.

Celestia trotted over to him and sat down on a similar bean bag next to him, laying down the books on a small wooden table in front of them. "These will help you familiarize yourself with Equestria and its history."

John looked down at the books and read the titles, 'Basic History of Equestria', 'The Formation of The Three Tribes', and 'Magic for Beginners'. The last one caught his eye. He'd seen Celestia use magic numerous times. If she could do it, didn't that mean he could do it too?

"What's this one?" He pointed to the magic related one on the far right.

"I thought if we tried some basic magic spells, that would help you remember a bit better." She clarified as the book was surrounded by a yellow aura. The book opened a few pages in, with numerous symbols and some weird hieroglyphics.

It took John a few seconds to process exactly what that meant, and a couple more to find the right words to vocalize what was in his mind.

"...What does this say?" John carefully pointed at a random sentence on what he guessed was the second page.

Celestia glanced down at him with a puzzled expression before redirecting her attention to the book. "It says, 'The levitation spell is one of the easiest ones that many unicorns master at a young age.' Why?"

"I don't know how to read this." He plainly stated.

'Great, now I don't even know how to read. Go me.' He had to suppress a sigh from escaping.

"That... complicates things. But don't worry! I can read them for you." She smiled at him as she set the book back down and closed it.

"Shouldn't I learn how to read? God, that's not something I'd thought I'd say anytime soon." John muttered the last part, but he was sure Celestia had heard him, either way, he scanned the books in front of him once more, going over each of their titles.

...

Wait.

How the fuck could he read the titles, but not the content itself? He was pretty sure most books didn't come with a title that was a completely different written language, even if it was a completely different world.

"Hold on... I can read the titles, but not the things inside the book." John reached forward, gently grabbed a book with his hooves and slowly opened it, making sure not to drop it in the process. He had gotten the hang of using his hooves to pick things up pretty quickly, all things considered. Thankfully it wasn't nearly as hard as he thought it would be.

He squinted his eyes at the symbols, and sure enough, they began changing into English letters right in front of his eyes, leaving him in awe.

"What the fuck?" he blurted out, a dumbfounded expression soon finding its way onto his face as he stared at another impossibility for what felt like the hundredth time in the span of less than a day.

"What's wrong?" Celestia blinked as she looked at John with a slight tilt to her head.

"This... I can read this now, in English. Less than a second ago this might as well been bloody Egyptian for all I knew, now I can read it perfectly!" John marvelled, his eyes scanning the contents of the page. He had picked up one of the books that touched on history, but he was still at a loss at what 'Windigos' were.

"That's... strange." She furrowed her brows and looked on ahead for a second or so, seemingly in thought. "Perhaps it could be what Discord said earlier regarding your memories. Although I can't say that I know why the letters would change for you, I can't see any changes," she guessed, sounding a bit unsure.

John continued to read over the page he was on, paying more attention to the fact that he could read it rather than the contents itself. His gaze lingered for a few seconds before he lowered the book back down and glanced at the mare next to him.

"I guess I don't really need you to read this for me anymore." He shook his head in disbelief. He had a feeling that things were only going to get more confusing from here on out.

Celestia looked back down at John, he swore he saw a faint frown form, but it was quickly replaced with a smile.

"That's good! I can imagine that it'll be easier for you if you read for yourself." She paused for a second before her smile widened and her horn shone, the 'Magic for Beginners' being covered in her yellow aura as it made its way in front of both of them.

"But you might still need help with learning some basic magic." The book opened on the second page, which now that John could read what it said, talked about the usage of magic and levitation.

'Oh, right. Magic,' John thought to himself as he watched the book float gently in the air. He could use magic. Fucking magic. And he didn't need wave a stick around to do it. As bad as things were going for him so far, he couldn't help but admit that the fact that he could do magic was pretty fucking cool.

"What kind of magic? Am I going to be learning how to summon Shenron or something?"

"Who?" asked a now very perplexed Celestia.

"Oh, it's nothing. I'm guessing levitation for the moment, right?" He had to hold in a chuckle when he looked at her face. At least he could get a kick of confusing ponies from time to time.

She shook off her confusion and nodded. "Yes. Most fillies learn levitation by the time they turn ten. It should be remarkably easy for you to accomplish."

John nodded and scooted closer to the book. "Okay. How do I start?"

Celestia's smile broadened as she cleared her throat. "Just listen closely, and you'll have this in no time."

"First, I want you to pick an item in this room, preferably one of the books on the table, and visualize it in your mind. Set it apart from the rest of the world and focus on it." She began. John nodded again and did as he was told.

"All right. What now?"

"Now, I want you to concentrate on channelling your magic. Visualize a force travelling through your body and into your horn." John closed his eyes and followed her steps. He imagined an unseen wave of energy traversing his body and gathering at his horn. A few seconds passed as he did this and Celestia had remained silent, he was about to open his eyes and ask how to proceed until he felt an unfamiliar sensation coming from what he presumed to be his horn, a tingling of sorts.

"Very good! Now, imagine an invisible line between your horn and the item of your choosing." Celestia beamed.

He opened his eyes and looked at the book he had chosen as he followed her instructions. He guessed what he was supposed to do next, but abstained from doing it in case he was wrong and fucked it up by accident.

"And finally, picture the book gently levitating into the air." She finished.

'I guessed right.' He smiled lightly as he imagined the book floating into the air and swirling on its axis.

The book itself was suddenly enveloped in a light blue aura and began to both levitate and swirl on its axis. John stared at it with wide eyes as he gave it a few more commands, to which it followed perfectly.

"Fuck me..." he muttered as he watched the book, still not quite believing that he was the one doing that.

He heard a clopping sound next to him, followed by a slight squeal. "You did it! The fact that you did it so quickly is quite impressive!" she praised, setting her hooves back down from was he guessed was a clapping motion.

"Yeah... It was pretty easy," he said distantly, still staring at the levitating book.

'This... is fucking cool,' John thought as he marvelled at what he had achieved. Granted, he had just been told that anyone past ten could do it, it still didn't stop him from feeling proud of himself. How many people from Earth could say that they used magic? Not a lot.

"What else can I do?" John asked as looked over at Celestia, who replied with a chuckle.

"Magic can be used in many ways, and there are thousands of spells that can easily be performed by either me or you. But for now, I think we should leave it off at that one and continue on with the other books." She nodded towards the book John was holding in his telekinetic grasp.

John was about to push her to try and teach him more magic but stopped himself before he could do so. He probably should get up to date with the place he had found himself stuck in, and if his fears did come through and he was stuck here forever, it wouldn't hurt to get an early head start.

"I guess." He sighed. He looked over at the book and commanded it to lower itself and stopped concentrating on it. The results were immediate, as he heard the soft jingle of what he assumed was his magic disappear and the tingling sensation on his horn vanish, along with the aura that had covered the book seconds prior.

Celestia chuckled as she picked up on his disappointed tone. "Don't worry, I can teach you more magic after we've covered the basics. Does that sound good?"

John leaned back and looked around the room, taking in the thousands of books that surrounded them. Hopefully, the basics were covered in the other two books on the table. Otherwise, this was going to be a long session.
> V. Expect the Unexpected
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As it turned out, it was a long session.

They went on for a minimum of three hours going over the various facets of Equestrian history and culture. Things such as the formation of the three tribes, the rise of the alicorn sisters, Starswirl the Bearded, and the establishment of Equestria as a whole were touched on the most, while the events that followed such as King Sombra and Nightmare Moon being on the less discussed side of things. It would take a while for John to absorb all of that and be able to recall it by memory but knowing the basics was a start nonetheless.

Both the alicorn sisters and Nightmare Moon were two of the things that had interested him the most. After all,  they directly involved him, so to speak. He still very much had his doubts that he was this... 'Princess Luna' they claimed he was, but outright denying it would get him nowhere. He tried bringing the subject back up with Celestia, but she seemed sure he was her sister, even if she didn't outright say it. Maybe these ponies could sense the soul of a person or something?

Either way, it didn't sit well with him. He still found his mind wandering to his life back on Earth and how everything was going. He may have been gone for less than a day, but it should have been enough for the police to have gotten involved and probably had were either in an investigation into his disappearance or preparing for one. Hopefully, he could get to the bottom of this clusterfuck within a week or so; otherwise, he feared what may happen with his job. His boss had always been a hardass; he wouldn't put it past her to outright replace him as soon as she could.

After Celestia had finished teaching John the basics, he had asked if he could go back to his room and rest for a bit. He had felt a bit tired before the whole lesson even with his previous nap, but after sitting on that beanbag for so long, he swore he had almost fallen asleep a few times while having to hear Celestia go on about specific topics for what had felt like hours. Her admittedly soothing voice and his general disinterest in reading would have put any man to sleep.

Celestia had a few actual, proper guards come in and escort him to his room. He had assumed he was going to be taken back to the one he had previously been in, but after taking a completely different route than before and having to climb another rather large spiral staircase, a rocket scientist wasn't necessary to come to the conclusion that they had assigned him a new room.

He had expected more or less for it to be the same, but boy was he wrong. He had to double take not only when he saw the door, which had been neatly decorated with designs of full and crescent moons, but when he entered the room itself.

Breathtaking would have been an understatement. The entire room was coloured in various shades of blue and lavender, with numerous designs similar to the ones found on the door dotting the bedroom. Adding to the already unique style were various oddly shaped lamps placed in different locations within, with two covered-up windows flanking a crescent-shaped moon themed bed. To his left, he had spotted a nice, decently long desk which also had fallen prey to the moon theme. Multiple items were organized on top, some of which he didn't quite recognize. There was also a door to what he guessed was a bathroom some distance away from the aforementioned desk. Said desk was the one he was currently in front of, sitting on a chair that was probably more comfortable than the beanbag he had sat in for the past several hours.

John wore a somewhat bored look on his face as he, per Celestia's instructions, practised his levitation. He had been at it for fifteen minutes or so, and he had already been able to control a few of the objects that laid in front of him at the same time, moving them around and even having mock dogfights with them.

"What I wouldn't give to have my phone right now..." he mumbled as he continued to observe and manipulate the dogfight, which consisted of several makeup products and two brushes. He had even given them roles, the small makeup bottles were the fighters, and the brushes were the carriers. He had to imagine the gunfire, unfortunately, as he couldn't find a way to actually make them shoot anything.

With a yawn, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his forelegs. Unluckily for him, he leaned back a bit too much, and the chair began tipping backwards.

"Fuck!" He cursed out loud as he quickly shot forward, his wings springing out to their full size and stabilizing the chair before he had the chance to fall on his ass and make himself look like an idiot.

John looked to his sides as the chair returned to its former position, observing the majestic looking blue wings that had helped prevent his fall. He hadn't paid much attention to them before, but now he wished he had. The implications of having wings hadn't dawned on him before, but now they most certainly did.

"I have wings... does that mean I can fly?!" He grinned as he used his hooves to move one of his wings in front of him, gently stroking the long feathers. It felt strangely good as he did, like one of those ASMR tingles he got on occasion but concentrated on his wing instead of his head or lower back.

"Magic and flight? Maybe this place isn't so bad after all." He yawned as he said so, reminding him that he was still fairly tired.

"Eh, I can give this a test before I get some shuteye." He shrugged and looked around, looking for a spot that was far away enough so that he didn't knock anything over during his first attempt at flight. Once he found it, he gave his wings a stretch before standing up and making his way over.

He glanced back at his wings and gave each of them a few experimental flaps, feeling the slight gust of wind they generated on his fur.

"Birds do it all the time, how hard could this be?" He adjusted himself to what he thought was the best position and spread his wings to their fullest extent, their height extending almost two meters from his back. With a deep breath, he thought back to all the times he'd seen birds fly, trying to pull forth even the most minuscule of details.

"Easy shite, come on." He exhaled and put whatever he could scrounge up from his limited knowledge of wings in action.



In hindsight, it probably wasn't a good idea.


Almost immediately after he had flapped both of them at once with reasonable force, he was airborne. He barely got time to enjoy the feeling, however, as the second time around he miscalculated the timing between the two wings and sent himself right into a date between his face and the hardwood door.

"Fuck! Fucking twat cunt sonofa-fuck!" He howled in pain as he fell back to the ground in front of the door, his wings now forgotten and sprawled out on the floor.

He groaned as he lifted a foreleg to massage his muzzle. The pain strangely faded quite rapidly, and nothing felt broken. If he had been human and that happened, he was sure he would have had a broken nose and numerous cuts, which he saw none of. Unfortunately for him, the guards must have heard the sudden bang on the floor, because one of them swung open the door with a spear in hoof, startling John.

"Princess? Is everything al... right?" The guard came in shouting, but his voice soon grew quiet as he noticed John laying on the floor with a hoof on his nose. The guard couldn't help but blink and stare at the... compromising position the Princess was in. Sprawled out on the floor, with legs dangling in the air...

The guard's blush was hidden pretty well behind his dark coat, but before he could apologize and make a hasty retreat, John spoke up.

"Jesus fuckin'... Has anyone told you to knock first?! I'm fine!" The princess waved her free hoof aggressively at the guard in a way that said 'Get the fuck out'. He didn't question it and immediately closed the door, uttering as many apologies as he could before his voice was cut off by the thick wood.

"Ugh... Not doing that again." John grumbled as he picked himself up onto a sitting position, giving his nose a few more rubs to assure himself that nothing was broken.

With a sigh, he slowly got up on all fours and dusted himself off. Maybe trying to replicate what birds do when you're a horse may not have been the best of ideas, but he did deserve some points for creativity, right?

John yawned again. "Fuck this, I'll just go to bed." He huffed and did just that, walking over to his bed and pulling the covers over himself once he had laid down. He had to give props to whoever made these things here, the bed surpassed both the power of the beanbag and his desk chair combined by a considerable margin.

Glancing upwards, he noticed something he had missed when he came into the room for the first time not too long ago. A lamp of sorts hanged from the very tip of the crescent moon shape the bed was built into. He squinted his eyes a bit as he stared directly at it for a second or so before reaching up with his hoof and giving the side a few taps.

Surprisingly, it seemed to work in his favour, as the light turned itself off after the second tap. He set his hoof back down, and a smile crept onto his face as he snuggled into the ridiculously comfortable bedding.

"Dreamworld, here I come," he mumbled as he drifted off into slumber.












John's eyes flickered open as he let out a drawn-out yawn, his hooves reaching out to pull the covers off of himself and get up from the bed.

Except there weren't any covers.

'Huh?' He opened his eyes fully and raised his head to look around for his sheets. He didn't find them, but he quickly found out why they weren't currently draped over his body.

"Wha- What the hell?!" he sputtered out as he quickly scrambled to his hooves. Spheres floated about all around him, with a seemingly never-ending background that stretched out as far as the eye could see. A quick glance downwards revealed no visible floor, but he could still feel something holding him from falling into the sparkling abyss.

In an attempt to get up on all fours, he ended up falling on his ass as he scrambled backwards, trying to get away from something that was all around him. He began to hyperventilate slightly as he swung his head rapidly in numerous directions.

"The fuck is this?!" he shouted out loud in panic as he continued to rapidly move away from the spot he woke up in.

It took him a minute or so to calm down enough to examine his surroundings in greater detail. His breathing slowly returned to normal as he looked around the vast expanse of spheres floating around him. When he focused on the one closest to him, he noticed movement inside. Shapes moving about and scenes changing every couple of seconds to something completely different.

"What..." His words stuck in his throat as his previous panicked look changed to one of wonder and curiosity. He slowly got up from his sitting position and looked down, his heart rate spiking for a brief second when he noticed there was a lack of a visible floor, but a few taps from his hoof confirmed that it was still there, somewhat. The orbs passed through the invisible floor as if it didn't exist and continued on, vanishing from view once they reached a certain point in the sky.

He looked on for a few more minutes, both observing and admiring his surroundings. Now that he wasn't panicking as hard as he was when he woke up, he couldn't help but admire the beauty of it all.

"From pony world to the fucking ether. Where to next?" John sighed in frustration as he rubbed his eyes to get rid of any remaining grogginess.

Going unnoticed by him, one of the spheres had managed to somehow sneak up on him and slowly floated up right in front of his face, startling him and causing him to take a step back. Once he realized what it was, he leaned forward and reached out with his hoof until it was almost making contact with the sphere itself.

Now that one was close enough to him, he could see the contents of it more clearly. A purple pony was running away from... something, the best he could describe it as was a mixture between a wolf and the night sky, similar to his mane but far darker in shade. It was also huge, dwarfing the pony by at least ten times. The chase was currently happening in what he guessed was a town, as the pony passed several buildings and shopping stands.

John blinked. What exactly was he looking at right now? He tried to remember what he and Celestia went over, but none of it came remotely close to mentioning anything like this, except...

"Is this a... dream?" he asked out loud to no one in particular. He remembered Celestia mentioning something about Luna being the 'Guardian of Dreams', and how she helped ponies with their nightmares and such. Back then he didn't think the title was literal, he thought that just for show. He was starting to doubt that assumption, though.

He went over the implications of his recent discovery in his mind. If Luna was the Guardian of Dreams, and he was... her, or at least in her body, didn't the title fall on him? How the hell was he supposed to pull that off with little to no knowledge on what to do?

"Okay, assuming usual dream logic, I can do anything I want, right?" He inched closer to the orb. The pony seemed to have hit a dead and was now cornered with the creature now slowly approaching it. Even if he did want to help, how could he? It couldn't be as simple as touching it and-













Twilight was not having a good day.

There was nopony around, and there was some sort of monster chasing her through the streets of Ponyville. In her panic, she had taken a wrong turn and had found herself face to face with a dead end. To make it worse, she had been given no chance to try and go back the way she came, as the monster was now blocking the road, snarling at her and moving ever so closer, taking its time to get to her as if it was purposely playing with her.

With her back pressed up against the door of a random building, the thought of opening the door and running in had utterly passed her mind as she hyperventilated, her pupils shrinking to the size of dots as all she could do was stare at her impending doom.

This was it, she was going to die here. She slammed her eyes shut and looked away, a few tears beginning to run down her face. She'd never get to see neither her family or her friends ever again. She would never get to see Spike grow up and fulfil his dreams. She'll never-

Her train of thought was interrupted when a sudden shout filled the area, followed shortly by the ground shaking and the monster screeching in pain. She reluctantly opened her eyes and turned her gaze over to where the beast should be.

Replacing the towering monstrosity was now a tall, muscular figure with a strange, orange outfit along with a blue belt that hugged its waist. Its mane stood upright and formed spikes, which swayed slightly in the wind as it stood between her and her pursuer.

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" the figure, which she quickly identified as male, spoke up. The monster growled in response as it began to backpedal away from him.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" he taunted. Twilight couldn't make out much of his appearance outside of the basic since he had his back turned away from her and it was night time, but she couldn't help but notice how he looked remarkably like one of those humans from the world behind the mirror.

The beast snarled in response as it began to reshape itself, abandoning its previous form and taking on more of a smoke-like appearance. It started to quickly flee the scene, to which he responded by shooting a yellow orb-like attack out of his hand at it as it attempted to escape. The attack hit, but the new body of the monster enabled it to reform from the attack with ease and quickly disappear into the sky.

"Good riddance," he said out loud before turning to face her. Now that she had a more unobstructed view, she confirmed that he was indeed a human. Before she could do anything, however, he approached her and knelt down to her eye level.

"Hi! I'm..." He trailed off, seemingly in thought, "Goku. You okay?" The now identified Goku smiled.

Twilight blinked as her breathing began to slow. She slowly nodded as she fell back onto all fours and looked up at him with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.

"Er... hi? I'm Twilight Sparkle. Thank you for saving me, If you hadn't come I-" She was cut off by Goku, who raised a finger to stop her.

"No need to thank me, just doin' my job!" He stood up, the smile never leaving his face as he did so.

"Now, I need you to do something for me," he began as he looked around, observing their surroundings.

"...What's that?" Twilight's confusion grew. What was going on? And what could he possibly want from her?

He suddenly leaned in, startling her. "Wake up, will ya?!" She didn't have time to respond, as the world around them suddenly faded away and she woke up back in her castle, both slightly panicked and confused.








"Well, that couldn't have gone much better." He stood upright and glanced around, now having returned to the weird ether-like place in his pony body.

He had freaked out slightly when he was suddenly thrust into a birds-eye view of the dream, but after a bit of experimenting, he managed to change forms and save the purple pony, now identified as Twilight Sparkle, from that wolf thing. He had half a mind to chase it down but didn't really matter, it was just a figment of Twilight's imagination.

Was he supposed to do this all night? He had no idea how to get out, and while going around dreams and beating the shit out of random creatures as Goku sounded appealing, he didn't want to be stuck here forever.

"Okay, maybe if I just concentrate enough..." he muttered to himself as he closed his eyes, doing just that. He remembered forcing himself to wake up from dreams before, maybe this wasn't any different?

A few seconds passed with nothing happened as John's disappointment grew. He didn't know any magic that could help him get out of this situation. Hell, he didn't even know how he got there in the first place, maybe if he just focused a bit more, he could-











John awoke with a small gasp, his eyes snapping open as he reached out to both sides of the bed. He visibly relaxed once he realized he was back in his room, although it still felt strange to wake up in a completely different room, it wasn't nearly as bad as waking up in an endless sparkling void.

"Well, that was... fucked." He rubbed his eyes and yawned, stretching both his hind and forelegs as much as possible. He'd definitely have to talk to Celestia about that one, he didn't want to be waking up there again every time he decided to go to sleep.

He certainly didn't want to go and sleep again, no matter how cool it would be to transform into as many things as he desired. He was tired and wanted real sleep, not to go about getting rid of nightmares. Maybe he should go talk to Celestia now instead of later to see if she was of any help.

His ears perked up at a sudden growling noise. He glanced around the room in confusion before he heard it once more, now quickly identifying it as the sound of his own stomach. With a roll of his eyes, he got up from the bed and sat on the edge.

"Man, I'm hungry. When was the last time I ate?" he mused, trying to recall the last time he had something to eat. He definitely hadn't had anything since he got his new body, which was... five hours ago? He couldn't quite tell how long he’d been 'asleep', time passes incredibly fast in dreams and considering he was in one, albeit not his own, it was safe to assume it had been more than just a few minutes.


Then again, who really knew in this fucked up pony world.


With a stretch of his wings, fell on all fours and yawned again. 'Maybe those guards know where the kitchen is,' he thought to himself as he made his way over to the door and opened it. To his surprise, the two guards that had guided him to his room were standing there, flanking the door and holding as still as a statue.

He looked between them for a few seconds before clearing his throat. This got an immediate response out of them, as they turned their heads to look at him in unison.

"What do you require, your highness?" the one to his left asked. Both of the guards looked precisely the same to John, that and combined with being talked to as royalty threw him off. How was he supposed to identify them if need be?

"Er... yes, could you escort me to the kitchen?" he replied with a question of his own as he turned his attention to the one who had spoken up.

"Of course. Follow me, your highness." He gave a short bow before he began to walk off. John did so as he closed the door behind him and started to follow the guard.

"Say, what's your name?" John questioned as he glanced back at the other guard, who was still standing as still as a statue beside his door. John almost missed him staring at him as he walked away, a tiny blush on his cheeks. John furrowed his eyebrows at this but quickly dismissed it. He had more significant problems to deal with first, and that was his lack of food.

"It's Emerald Striker, your grace," he replied as they neared the staircase down.

"Well, Emerald, do guys have pancakes here?"