> A shooting nightmare > by The Psychopath > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > I wish upon my singed brows > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mathews Fore was sitting on a chair in his yard, contemplating the magnificent blue sky above him. A little cloud passed by every now and then, giving more variety to the tapestry he was looking at. His yard was very wide, but not very long, although the grass was still greener than the word. Around the yard were firmly placed fences that reached at least two meters in height, and which were covered by green sheets. Behind the rest of the house was a small amalgamation of trees that opened up to an agricultural area. Mathews slurped on his home-made fruit-juice. He was on vacation for only a week. Apparently, it was forced on him seeing as he didn't want to stop his job. What was it exactly? He was a graphics designer. He loved to create things and see the results afterwards. It was his passion. Therefore, his forced vacation was ill-received. Another slurp, and the man sneezed, splashing everything all over his clean, white shirt. "Aw, goddamnit. I just washed it. Ugh." he moaned as his head dropped. Mathews was actually a man in very good shape despite his job. He would go to the gym every Sunday to maximize his shape. He liked to prove others wrong. One of the things to prove wrong? Geeks aren't muscular. Yup. He proved his point after he wore a tight sweater and some pricks passed-by and started to wail on him thinking he was wearing several sweaters. The best way to describe the outcome is by saying "crack". That's all that is needed to be said. This man had no hair. In fact, he was bald. He did have a brown goatee, and many would call him the "Mighty Kane of Nod" in mockery. His nearly black eyes further proved the similarities, but he didn't care. His house was entirely white, and only had one floor, so there were no stairs...besides those leading to the basement where Mathews had his collection of wine bottles that had been in his family for generations. Some decorative objects here, a large wooden table for the dining room, and many, many carpets. Fore didn't pay attention to something that he had been seeing for a long time, and left for his room. It was near the entrance of the house. His room was almost entirely made of wood. The walls were wood. The ceiling was wood. Heck, even his closet and bed were made of wood. The only window in the room was quite big and allowed much light to come through. It were covered by white cloths that prevented anyone from seeing him through it. As a precaution for his fear of security, Mathews had something installed on his windows and doors that were usually used in Europe. These were blinds. Things that roll down and rumble as they block off any means of entry or exit. Fore reached into his closet and threw his shirt into a basket that was meant to take dirty clothes and put on another white shirt. "Heh. I've got a big salary. I could buy several brands of shirts of various colors, but I only buy white shirts...I need to choose something else...Oh well. Let's see what's on the news..." With a flick of the remote, Mathews flipped through the channels until he found his desired frequency. "Pop stars...epileptic dance idols...epileptic dance idols...more epileptic dance idol pop stars...here we go." "-And that's how an entire school collapsed on the children. Haha. That'll teach those little bastards. In other news, there will be a meteor shower tonight at eleven thirteen p.m. Many astronomers will be able to appreciate the wonders of the universe without using meditation." "...This guy is...very direct...But that's why we like him. *yawn* Let's see what else is on while we wait. Five hours shouldn't take too long." Mathews said as he plopped onto his bed and started to flip through the channels. Mathews had a deep secret. It wasn't dark. No. It was a lonely secret. He had always felt alone since he left his parents' house. Sure. He had a sister who came to visit every now and then, but the visits were far and few in-between. He felt so 'ronery'. He didn't know why. He didn't want a woman, because what's the point of such a boring relationship? He's seen enough to know the "downs" that weigh more than the 'ups'. He also doesn't want to adopt a child. He's alone. That, and he doesn't want to deal with the annoyingness of children. He didn't hate them. He just found them annoying. Then, there was the "adopt an animal" possibility. What was the point? He was going to become the male version of the crazy cat lady. He just wanted something to hug and raise 'till it becomes grown-up. He didn't understand what he felt, because all his other feelings contradicted with logic. No kids, no animals, no nothing. He just didn't understand it. What did he need, truly? "Why the hell do all the women on T.V. bob their heads when they talk? Are the safety lines broken or something? You have the men who stay in place and only move when gesturing a brief emotion, but the women...bobblebobblebobble." Mathews complained out loud. He liked to complain. It was helpful for him to take his mind off things he found too confusing to think about. He hated confusing things. When Fore would get frustrated, he'd stop for a moment and do something else while he waited. Then he'd come back and discover that there was only one button to press to get through the problem. "Why must they constantly put those jukebox laughter things in the background? Do they think we're too stupid to get that the joke isn't funny? Moving on." Most of his time watching T.V. pretty much amounted to this. Complaining. Moving on. Aaaaaaand complaining some more. Finally, after so many hours of complaining, it was eleven ten. Mathews walked out of his house with a big stretch, as well as grabbing his electric fly swatter. Nobody likes mosquitoes. He had taken another glass of fruit juice and sat in his typical chair so that he could comfortably observe the shooting stars. It had been almost five minutes, and there was nothing. He sighed, cursed under his breath, and was about to go back home when he heard loud awwing everywhere in the neighborhood. He looked up to see a sky full of a radiant beauty. Lots of white streaks came and went in the sky, giving a sense of inner joy. As Mathews watched this, he remembered something. "Shoot! The wish thing. Hmmm. I only get one wish. Better make it count." He loosened his limbs a bit before joining his hands together whilst still holding the cup. "How did the lyrics go? Let's see...Starlight, starbright, I wish the wish I wish tonight. I wish to have something of my very own. Something to raise that is adorable. Something that isn't human. Something entirely new. Something that only I have ever seen. Something to take care of and hug." Nothing happened, but Ka-Mathews continued to wish with his eyes firmly closed. Then, it happened. He heard flaming, and looked upwards. Apparently, nobody noticed despite the fact that the ball of fire was coming down from the sky. Fore just looked at the flaming ball blandly and took a sip from his drink with a hand in his pocket. "*slurp* That's some good fruit juice.*slurrrp*" He took a step back as the ball crashed right where he would have been had he not moved. The meteor threw dirt and mud all over Mathews and singed his eyebrows. He was now a mudman, but he could still see, so he lifted his glass and saw that it was pretty much nothing but mud now. "...Great. When I made that wish, I wasn't thinking about a pet rock." He suddenly heard crying, and dropped his glass immediately before shaking the dirt off of him...as much as he could. He reached into the smoking crater to see that there was a dark figure in the hole. He couldn't believe his eyes. There was something wrong here. As he turned tail and ran to his house to get a towel, he was consecutively hit in the head by azure-colored armor. "What the hell? These things are pretty huge. Hmmm...I'll take them inside as I go get that towel. Hrngh. Hrmph. Why can't I hold all these metal pieces?" After a few moments of struggling, Mathews heard the crying again and rushed outside with a large blue blanket in his arms. "Almost there. Here we go. Now I just have to gently lower myself in the hole and pick whatever the hell that thing is. If it's dangerous, I'll step on it." Averting his gaze, Mathews wrapped the tiny being with the towel and lift it up. He held the creature firmly in one arm as he used the other to climb out of the hole. Fore gasped for air a bit. He was used to running, but not climbing. "Now...Let's see what...what you look like." He unwrapped the present to see a tiny little horse-like thing covered in dirt and who seemed to have been burned and singed everywhere. It was a mess, and it was crying like mad. Mathews became confused as he looked at it. It was completely black, sure, but it had a horn? It continued to cry, letting watery tears seep down its cheeks. It seemed to also be lonely. Mathews could feel the vibes coming from it. It just needed some love, and it was tiny and adorable to boot. "Calm down, tiny. I'm holding you now. No need to drown my yard." It sniffled a bit as it opened its eyes to look at Mathews. It had reptilian turquoise eyes, but they still looked adorable, being all puffy because of the crying. It didn't seem to have anything close to a mane, so it looked bald, just like Mathews. "Wow. I must have put something really strong in my drink. Hmmm...I'll be keeping a close eye on you. You need a bath though. I'll clean you right up and put some disinfectant on those wounds." he said with a smile, but it did nothing as the little thing started to cry again."*moan* I'll figure something out eventually. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, but you seem to only be a baby, so it'd be best to watch you. I'll give you a bath first, though. You need it." He said as he continued towards his house. > The water of doooom > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mathews calmly walked towards the bathroom and closed the door behind him. The walls were ornate with yellow tiles while the white floor was covered with white ones, and some small, blue carpets. The little black bundle kept crying. It made the man wonder if the thing felt separated from something, but he mentally slapped himself after thinking that. "It's a baby. O' course it feels separated from something. A-durrrrRRRR." While still holding the airplane engine, Mathews twisted the knobs of his white bathtub to let the water flow through. He had to adjust the temperature, and some burning was followed as he tried to perfect everything. Finally, he unwrapped the little bundle and held it in his hands. It was small and soft, but it had several specks that were red and crusty on its fur. Those were the burnt marks, but Mathews wondered how it was that it only had traces at those particular spots when it literally flew in as a ball of fire and smashed into his yard. "Hm. You're so tiny and adorable. Are you a boy or a girl?" He lift the little thing up to check, and as he figured it out, he was met with an angry bop on the head. Of course, the thing was too tiny to actually hurt him, but he saw that the little equidae had a trembling, puckered lower lip and an angry look on its face, although the tears trickling down it's puffed up, pinkish cheeks made it more of an adorable face with big, watery eyes than anything else. "Heh. I already saw, but being so modest at such a young age are the signs of a true lady." The little thing gave out a tiny gasp that seemed more like a squeak, but Mathews didn't pay attention to it, and dropped her in the very shallow water. The tub was high enough to keep her from jumping out, and the water was shallow enough to only let her ankles get wet. She seemed to look at it in semi-disgust, semi-intrigue. "Now let's see. I should have some light shampoo and soap here...need to mix it in with water to keep your wittle baby skin from getting irritated. Hmhmhm...here we go...BUBBLE BATH! MAKE ALLLLLL THE BUBBLES!" Mathews yelled as he held a bottle of soap in his arm high in the air, then opened the cap and let a wee bit of the soap splash into the water, before he put his hands in and spun them around to create bubbles everywhere. The little equidae looked at the foam and lift her foreleg up to observe at the substance on it. She tried to sniff it, but it itched her nose, causing her to make an adorable, high-pitched sneeze, making her fell on her rear and look dazed for a moment. Mathews thought his heart was about to melt as his eyes demonstrated an immensity of the 'piou' syndrome. "Awww. Wittle thing sneezed. How cute." The little foal looked up at the giant in embarrassment and anger. "No point in looking at me like that. Time to wash you up." Mathews hands crept closer to the foal, but, from her angle, they were freakin' huge hands! She started to panic and began to splosh around clumsily in the tub while trying to escape the clutches of the giant, making the water splash about uncontrollably all over the place. "Noooo! Get back here. DR! Stop doing-GAH! SOAP IN MY EYES! AHHH!" Mathews yelled as he stood up and fell backwards, narrowly avoiding the sink. "Ngh. You'll pay for this." The foal looked pleased at what she did and closed her eyes so she could look smug for a moment. Grave mistake. She was caught by Fore, who held her down by the back with one hand. "Muahaha! I have caught you. You shall now have to undergo a soapy doom." The foal's eyes widened in horror as she stared at him holding a cloth dipped in the soapy water to clean her. She kept squeaking and struggling as the man washed her, turning the white water into a brown swamp. "Wow. You're really dirty." The little thing started to make cute coughs and weird sounds as she was washed and wiped all over. Eventually, her horn glowed slightly, but Mathews didn't notice. He was tugged into the bathtub. Luckily, the water wasn't too high, but he was still slightly wet. "Haha. Very fu-What? Weird little starry things that serve as your hair and tail? How the he...How in the world did I not notice that before? Maybe I should see an optometrist. Hm. I'm not done washing you. Hah! Under the little legs. Behind the ears. Under your wings. Now on your-Wings?" Indeed. This little foal not only had weird "hair" and turquoise, reptilian eyes, but she also had a horn AND wings. Mathews was stumped. "The fu...No matter. Now that you're all nice and soapy, it's time to wash you out...WITH THE SHOWER HEAD OF DOOOOOM!" The foal seemed to show her agony by gesturing towards the sky and letting out a silent no as she was drowned in the water of DOOOOOOOOOM. There were no survivors. Eventually, she was plucked out and dried with a fresh towel, in which she was kept. She was placed on a table in the living room while Mathews went to a cupboard to fetch some ointment and a cloth with special band-aids that wouldn't tear her coat off. He had a good view of that strange being staring at him in suspicion from across the few steps of distance. She didn't move from her blanket fort the entire time. Mathews soon came back with a pack of the necessary treatment and placed it on the table. He quickly grabbed the foal and spread the towel out while he applied the ointment to the burns. She grunted quite alot, but, in the end, the little foal just kept her head on the towel and stared into the distance. Mathews was disturbed and worried at the same time. "There we go. Just like new." The foal smirked and the band-aids turned from their vanilla color to the same tone of black as the equidae's coat. "Fancy. You must be starving. Maybe I should get you something to eat. Hm?" She said nothing and started to look very drowsy. Being a baby, it was normal, although she did seem a bit more mature than a baby should be. Yet, she never spoke, at least, not for the half-hour that Mathews had her. Trust would have to be forged between them, but how? Fore wrapped her back around the towel and his heart almost toppled as he saw her yawn. "Damn you and your adorableness. You cause my heart to skip several beats. At least you aren't human. You wouldn't be adorable at all. Yeck. Ugly little constipated looking things. Humans are not cute, YOU'RE cute." he thought to himself as he remembered something else."Hmmm...If you're going to stay with me, you'll need a name. Hmmm..." The man noticed, as he unwrapped the filly once again, that, on her flanks, were weird patches of purple. "You have weird purple patches, you're black, and that weird metal that hit me on the head has the moon etched on it. How about I call you Crescent? The moon on that chest plate thing is a crescent moon." The little filly gave out another adorable yawn and smacked her lips. "You're right. I'm also tired. Time for bed. You'll sleep with me, Crescent." he smiled as he held the little thing in his two hands. Mathews held the filly close to his chest as he activated the code for his house's security system and lowered the blinds for every door and window. He eventually returned to his bedroom and slowly closed the door behind him. The filly was sound asleep, so he gently lowered her onto his bed and changed into his sleeping clothes. Fore unwrapped the present, threw the towel into the basket, and placed the filly next to him under his bed sheets, slowly letting them fall upon the tiny, black fur ball. She soon rolled into a ball next to the man, and he wanted to hug her tightly. No. He couldn't. Instead, he just turned off the light and dozed off with his hand around the black ball of fuzz. He'd have to work hard and learn more about this thing that was so similar to horses but fairy tails and mythology as well. Several thoughts on what Crescent could be flowed through his mind as, he too, fell asleep. About time too. It was twelve thirty a.m., as he saw before his long awaited slumber. > Constant moving > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sun was now up and shining brightly, almost too brightly. It managed to "burn" through the blinds and shine in Mathews face, making him wriggle and moan as his pupils shrunk to the point of disappearing. "Gah! I hate the sun! Ugh. What time is it? Seven a.m.? Hm. That was an adorable dream I had last night. Too bad it couldn't be a reality. Heh. An alien horse thing that might be able to talk. Ridiculou-"he stopped cold as he heard some yawning and saw a tiny form stretch from underneath the blankets. He showed nothing on his face, but deep down, he knew it was something terrifying. Something sinister. It was: "A giant mutant cockroach? In MY bed? DIE beast of nightmares!" he yelled as he threw his sheets onto the floor. He almost blacked out from seeing what was really underneath. It was that same, little thing from last night. He hadn't dreamt at all. It was all real! Crescent looked up at him with her big watery eyes, and rumbling echoed through the room. She looked at her stomach in confusion. "Hungry? I'm already surprised enough that you were real, but that means I'll have to feed you properly and teach you good manners." Crescent snuffed at 'good manners', making Mathews flinch for a moment and look revolted, but, it didn't last. He immediately grabbed the little bundle and rubbed her against his face and started to speak in a stupid manner: "I'm going to take good care of you. Yes I will. I will hug you and pet you and squeeze you and call you George...NO." he said after realizing how stupid he was acting. As Fore tried to assess what just passed through his mind, he was met with a swift punch in the nose, making him yell in pain and drop Crescent on the bed. "GYAH! Why would you do that?!" Mathews started to rub his nose. Crescent ignored this and tried to hop off the bed. Although, given her small stature, she ended up flopping hard onto the ground and started to cry. Mathews walked up to the little crying filly and looked sterned. "Not as fun when you're on the receiving side, is it? C'mere yu. Ah'm gun take yu tae da lunch rrrrroom." The man held her tightly and placed her over his shoulder. She didn't start to calm down, as he had hoped. On the contrary. She started to scream and kick. Fore was lucky to train at a gym because every hit to his head made said part of his body lash to one side and fling back, like a paddle ball. This was getting irritating to him. He knew that she wouldn't and couldn't run away, so Mathews dropped Crescent onto one of his couches and left for his small kitchen. Stretching a bit before opening the fridge. Mathews cracked a few bones and finally went into the white box of full emptiness. "Let's see." he said as he started to rummage through everything."Hummm. Not much salad here. At least it's still fresh." Mathews grabbed the bag of freshly freshed fresh greens and dumped a bit on a plate. He took a bowl and let some water slip in, then he rubbed his smooth head as he tried to figure something out. "Wait. You're a baby, so, shouldn't you drink milk? Hmeh. I'll see." Mathews picked up the plate and bowl and started to try and "converse" with Crescent."I've never been much of a herbivore, although, seeing as you're equine in shape and structure, I think, you must eat plants. I've always been more of a carnivore myself. Mmmm. Sweet 'n juicy meat. Well, here you g-Where'd you go?" The little black bundle disappeared from her spot on the couch. She hadn't said a word or made a sound and she just vanished! Mathews placed the bowl and plate on the floor and started to look around. The blinds were still down and the security system was still on for the rest of the house, so she couldn't have gotten out of the house. Fore had installed two separate security systems in his "demeure". One for the house, and one for his room. As Fore stroked his goatee, he heard some sort of mixture between giggling and an evil, maniacal laughter, although it was quite high pitched. "Where are you? You aren't in the living room, and you aren't in the kitchen. Maybe you're-oh shit." Mathews somehow tripped on a wire that appeared out of nowhere, allowing him to give a good morning's greeting to the floor. Fore pushed himself back up and looked at his feet. There was a glowing strand of whatever that was that quickly vanished as he started to squint at it. "The hell was that?" he wondered as he stood up to brush the dust off of his shirt. "Maybe she went back into my room? Ugh. I shouldn't have gotten up that fast. I can't think straight and my head is spinning." Mathews pressed onwards towards his room, and, as he opened the door, was met by some sort of evil being that seemed to be made up of stars. It was blocking his way into the room. There was a face-off, and the construct laughed in Mathews face, although the human didn't care. He just puckered a lip and crocked an eyebrow before punching the thing into a smog. "Huh. You really know how to make weird things. Perhaps I'll start panicking at that thought later on. However, my blood-sugar is too low, so I can't think straight. I need some morning bacon and eggs with my special fruit juice, while YOU need to eat and drink." The little thing was lying down on Mathews bed and had placed herself into a sort of "attack mode" similar to when a cat is about to pounce. She even started to growl, making the man laugh his heart out at the site. "That's hilarious and adorable at the same time. Pahahahaha...ha...why are you gnawing on my head?" Indeed. Fore had bent over a bit too much near the bed, allowing Crescent to properly jump onto his head and try to bite him. Instead of screaming, pain and bleeding, Mathews just stood in place with an absurd expression on his face that said "Seriously?". The only downside to this was the "filet" of drool sliding slowly down the side of the man's face. "*sigh*It's a good thing I don't have hair anymore. C'mon. Time to eat." Crescent, after realizing that her attempts at attacking this giant were futile, resigned to letting the giant pick her up and hold her as she crossed her forelegs in frustration and looked at the ground with the same amount of feeling. She was "tossed" very gently onto the soft ground where her plate of salad and bowl of water laid while Mathews left to cook his food, leaving the little filly to stare at this absurd dish. "SUPER COOKING TIME! EXPLOSIONS! FLAMES! And most importantly, BACOOOOOOOON!" A few minutes had already passed, and Mathews had come back with a plate full of food in his hands. He gently laid it on the table before going to the security console near the door to deactivate the security. This allowed him to open the blinds of his backyard 'windoors', the same doors that he slammed into at least once every month. As the fresh, pure sunlight invaded the room, the man took his glass of fruit juice and took in a nice sip before grabbing the T.V. remote and shifting his view to Crescent. She looked horrified, like she was eating something undignified for her "stature". "What's wrong? The salad not fresh enough? You need it chopped up? Don't you have teeth? I felt them when you chomped my head. I'm sorry, but that's all I have right now. I usually just eat my fair share of broccoli and spinach and take vitamins afterwards. I'll go to the store tomorrow. Today is Sunday, so they're closed. Look, that's all you're having. Plus, you can't eat this stuff. I know it hurts, but I think you'll be extremely sick if you ate meat. Besides, I'm not irresponsible to the point of giving a...mini...horse from outer space...who is also a baby...meat...Wow. My blood sugar is REALLY low. Let's see what's on T.V." The first channel held nothing, but the second had a comedy show on, so Mathews kept it on there while he ate. He didn't pay attention to the little filly who continued to stare at her food, then push it slightly with a hoof. In the end, she sighed and gave in when her belly grumbled something fierce. The first chomp was horrid, but it suddenly started to taste good. A simple dish tasting so good felt impossible to her, so she tried again. The same flavor. The filly literally threw herself on the plate and gobbled everything up, scaring the crap out of Mathews. "Mother of God. You were really famished. If you had no restraint, I would've lost my plate AND a portion of the floor. Heh. You look like you filled your belly up all the way. You even drank all the water. Yeesh. I hope you don't have that kind of appetite all the time." he mocked. The foal looked at Mathews 'wit' an angry face, then picked up the plate with her mouth and threw it at the man's face. "Ow. That's not very nice. Hmmm...Say, can you talk? I know you're a baby, but you don't seem to be the exact definition of 'normal'." Crescent smirked, put a hoof to her chest and opened her mouth. However, instead of words coming out, there was only an adorable grunt mixed with a squeak. Her eyes widened in shock as the man hung over his spot. The filly tried time and time again to speak, but it didn't work. Every effort made resulted in such a high pitched squeal that, despite not showing any emotions, made Fore's heart melt to a dramatic degree. "CAP'N! THE HEART! SHE'LL NEVER HOLD!" "Silence, red blood cell number twenty two million two hundred and...I forgot the rest." "She's gooin' intah a meltdoon. We've gotta get oot of 'ere! I also cannae believe ya fergot me name." "Abandon HEART!" After the sudden realization that she would never be able to speak, Crescent's eyes watered up, her lips started to tremble, and then it happened. She broke out into a mass volley of crying that was pounding against Mathews' ears. "Hnnngh! Calm down! It's normal that you can't talk. You're still tiny. You just have to work on it. I'll help you with it. C'mere." Mathews picked up the crying filly and hugged her tightly against his chest."There we go. No more crying. You don't need to cry. I'm here for ya. I'll help ya grow up." Crescent continued to cry, but she sniffled a bit as she looked at this giant smiling while it hugged her. She tried to push herself away, but it didn't work. Finally, after a few minutes of struggle, she decided to cope with the situation and let her little head rest on Mathews' chest, allowing her 'hiccups' to settle while the tears slowly disappeared into her fur as they dried. It was calm and soothing for her. > Working out the kinks > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Okay then." Mathews said as he sat down on his couch while contemplating a list of things in his hand which was now trembling a bit. "I've got a list of things to do. First things first. I'm going to the store for food, then I'm going to get books to help you talk, as, obviously, you seem a bit too smart to be a normal, earthly creature. That, and your freaky yet intriguing astral tricks." he smiled nervously. Crescent rolled her eyes and stared blankly at the now dressed-up giant. He was a bit too flashy for her tastes. "I know it's irresponsible to leave a baby alone, but I've hidden all the sharp objects, so you can't reach them. I also hid that giant turquoise armor, so you won't find that either." Fore stopped as he saw Crescent lower her head and grind her teeth in a fit of fury. He cocked his eyebrow and smiled, then lowered himself and pat the tiny thing on the head. "It's too big for you anyways. Now be nice and don't do anything stupid. I've left the remote on the table for you, in-case you want to watch some shows while you wait. See you later." the man said as he shut the door behind him. Crescent was all alone now. She had the house all to herself. With a look around this space that was now quite empty. She rubbed her front hooves together maniacally and set off to cause destruction. She was going to do something so sinister, so vile. She was going to steal the CANDIES! With the sounds of tiny hooves hitting the ground, the little furry ball finally reached the kitchen and looked around. She didn't recall things being this huge before, and her wings weren't big enough to let her fly properly. The small pony frowned and looked around a bit. There! Mathews had left a flour bag out in the open. If she could get it to fall down, then she could use it as a platform to get atop the counters and steal from that ugly giant. It was not much, but you always have to start small when you've reduced to the size of a baby foal. The black ball tried her best to reach the bag, but every jump fell just short of it. Then she remembered. If she could use her magic to levitate the bag as a platform, then she could certainly levitate it down to her regal hooves. Crescent cleared her throat and stood "tall" as she concentrated magic through her horn. It was working! The bag was moving, slowly, but it was still moving. The little filly's head was starting to hurt, and her body was urging her to stop, yet, she refused. She wasn't an alicorn for nothing. One more tug, and she would be able to gently lower it to her hooves. Unfortunately, as the bag left the counter, Crescent looked up with a smile, only for it to disappear as she saw the sack plummeting towards her. The filly's ears flopped down as she hunched herself. *flop* The bag somehow exploded over Crescent, causing her to topple backwards in a majestic explosion of white. As she finally came to a stop, she opened her eyes a bit to see the disaster. Everything had not gone as planned. She was sitting on her flank, covered in white flour, and the bag had exploded everywhere. For some reason, the filly's eyes watered up, and she gave out a loud 'snirf'. Was she really reduced to such a state? A tiny filly, without any of her previous powers, stuck as an adopted child of some weird pink monkey thing, and covered in flour as she lay upon the cold ground? Apparently so. As she got up to wipe her eyes, she noticed, within the reflection of the dish-washer's door, that she was now completely white, save for the ethereal mane and tail. The little furball observed her new, dusty appearance and thought that she started to look like a wretched pony that she hated with the utmost fervor. Perhaps she could make fun of said character here? She'd need the proper colors. Come to think of it, that giant had only a few clothes in his closet, but there were enough for a pastel mane and tail. She was sure her actions would make him furious, so the filly went forth with her plan. Crescent didn't pay attention to it, but she had covered a bit more of the kitchen in white than she thought, and the flour on her coat was falling on the floor and leaving little specks of the baking ingredient on the floor. She was finally in the bedroom, and more specifically, in front of the closet. A grin on her face was followed by her being able to easily slide the door open. It wasn't too difficult, seeing as it wasn't too heavy or anything, but the little filly still struggled a bit. With a final creak, the closet was open. As she remembered, there weren't many shirts, but there were three that were perfect for what she wanted to do. The foal climbed into the closet and, with a jump, grabbed the shirts one by one and pulled them down, breaking their hangers in the process. They were perfect for what she had in mind, so she grabbed them and held them down with her forelegs, and ripped the shirts to pieces with strong bites. All the shreds were gathered, and only the good ones were taken. The "mane" was attached to Crescent's horn, while the tail was wrapped around her rear with magic. Thanks to the mirror on one of the closet doors, the little filly got to see that she looked a lot like that irritating mare, and started to prance about like an idiot while looking cross-eyed and so forth. Anything that passed her mind to mock that character in the mirror was used as openly as possible. From sticking her tongue out while she tossed everything to the floor, to dancing on the shelf full of books, everything was done, and more flour was flying everywhere. Crescent started to hop about the house, destroying everything she could get her hooves on, all while mocking her hated enemy. At one moment, however, Crescent found herself inside of the living room couch. She had torn the leather and found herself in the fluffy interior. She had poked her head out, showing nothing but her muzzle, and her big watery eyes underneath the foam, only to dive again and start "swimming" in the yellow sea. This "swimming" looked like a tiny, moving lump that burst out of the leather again, just to land on the floor shortly after. As the yellow foam slowly fell on the ground, Crescent gestured the look of raising something as she spread out her tiny wings that looked more like feathery stubs than anything else. She was having quite a lot of fun, something she never seemed to know before. Then, she became truly pale as most of the flour had fallen off, revealing her black-furred face and horrified expression. There were voices coming from outside. Suddenly, they became louder as the door unlocked and was opened. Mathews looked very angry and was looking at someone outside. Their conversation oozed with intelligence and thought: "All hail the messiah! NOD will follow him everywhere!" "I'll rip off your legs and beat you to the sound of Irish river-dancing!" "Whahahat. Whatever, Kane." "STOP CALLING ME KANE!" The door was slammed violently, and Mathews stayed in front of it, breathing in and out as he tried to calm himself. "Well, it's good to be back in the safety of my home, where no one mocks me. I'll have to go back outside and get the food and toys. Ugh." Fore face-palmed and dragged his hand across his face. "Well, at least I still have you, Crescent. The cutest, tiniest, most adorable-" Mathews stopped as he turned around to see the carnage. Tables were flipped, shelves had fallen down, spreading their contents a bit everywhere, and there was some white powder everywhere for some reason, especially in the kitchen. Mathews' eye began to twitch as there was nothing but a blank expression on his face as he slowly levitated his stare downwards to see the little filly huddled into a ball and looking at him with a frightened and very sad face. Her ears had literally glued themselves to her head. They wouldn't move, and neither could she. Fore seemed to have had another tick as it was his entire head and mouth that twitched with a 'click'. The giant calmly walked towards Crescent, and picked her up, gently. He then said, with the most calm and 'zen' of expressions: "I'm sorry Crescent, but I'm going to have to spank you." The filly realized what he said and gasped at the word. She started to try and wriggle out of her grasp as she was taken to Mathews' bedroom. "No. I have to teach you that what you did was wrong. And after this, you're going to help me clean things up." Crescent started to cry wildly and began to try and hit her captor on the arm with her hooves. It even sounded like she was screaming "No!", despite her inability to do speak properly. She was going to be punished again, and she knew it. There was no way to escape. "Are those shreds my shirts?!" Mathews yelled before entering his room. Indeed. Crescent was going to have a very bad time. > Toy paradise > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 502 and 504 errors alllllll over the place! After that, ahem, "painful" incident, Mathews went to work on fixing his house. He hated physical work despite going to the gym every Sunday. His excuse for this was "Workin' out is helping the bodeh, not doin' phys' work." It was very bad and everyone mocked him for it. For now, however, he was forced to fix everything, and Crescent was going to help. The poor little filly looked frustrated and had little orbs forming on the corner of her eyes as she rubbed her pained rear. As Mathews called to her, she looked up angrily, staying on her spot in the middle of the living room. Mathews, on the other hand, was cleaning up the flour mess in the kitchen. "Hey. This is your mess. You help me clean. I know you're smart enough." Crescent snuffed and crossed her forelegs as she began to pout. "You deserved it, and you know that full well." She didn't change her position. "Fine." Mathews gave a smirk and bent over as he fumbled through one of his grocery bags in the kitchen. This caught Crescent's attention, and her eyes grew wide while a speck of drool dripped from her mouth."I guess you won't be getting this delicious, cinnamon covered, crispy golden crust covered apple pie. It's fresh from the baker, so it's still warm." Despite what she really wanted to do, the filly's mind was set on getting a piece of that apple pie, and her eyes sparkled as she saw the delicious golden treat. "I knew that'd get your attention. Start cleaning the living room, and we'll see about your compensation." he said firmly. Crescent rubbed her rear again, but at least she was going to get something tasty if she cleaned up her messes. What if she- "Oh, and next time you make another mess like this, well, you'll see what happens." The filly clenched her teeth in horror. She better start cleaning right away and make sure she doesn't suffer the affront from before. Meanwhile, Mathews was getting some flour off of the washing machine with a wet towel, and he was getting fed-up already. "Oh, come on. How did she even get some in here? Hrngh! Gotcha!" the man heard some tiny clip-clopping and looked down. It was Crescent, and she had a big smile. It was almost like she was wagging her tail like a dog."Cleaned the mess already, eh? Let's see that." Fore passed the filly and went to look at the living room. Everything was fixed. There wasn't even a hole in the couch. It was like the tornado that came, partied hard, and left, had never come at all. The man scratched his head in confusion. "How did you even do that?" Mathews walked back to the kitchen, only to see that it was cleaned, and that Crescent was showing her biggest smile yet. The human just stared at her and observed the surroundings very slowly. The floor was cleaned, the trash that was made was already in the trash can, and even the dishes had been cleaned. Fore's eyes were as wide as could be as he stared back down at the filly who had now put her forelegs against his leg in order to get closer to his face with her big smile. It was like she was saying: "Can I have my pie now? Huh? Huh?" Could she use magic? After all, she did have a horn, and she was equidae in appearance. Perhaps she was a type of winged unicorn. "Okay. Hold on. I don't know how you did it, but you fixed up everything. I'll get you your pie." Crescent began to drool as she looked at the man open the box where the pastry was. The enamoring odor filled her nostrils with a punch, and she started to bounce around nervously and with much excitement. Finally, she had her pie, on a simple plate that was set down on the floor. Mathews had his own piece and started to eat his piece with a fork. He had to be a gentleman, after all. The little filly sniffed the pie one more time, and took a bite, just to be sure that the flavor matched the smell. It didn't. It surpassed it. She gave out a loud "Mmmmm" and started to eat her prize. "Heheh. I knew you'd like it. It's from Chantelle. Her bakery is the best in town. She even won the regional baker contest ten times in a row!" As Mathews continued to rant, he saw that the little equidae was smiling with each bite, and this gave him a smile of his own. She was cute and cuddly when she ate as she smiled. Her "wittle" cheeks were full of food and her drooling was also cu-scratch that. The drooling was gross. Fore stuck out his tongue. Even if she looked like a mini horse, or rather, a pony, she still had obvious intelligence, so he'd need to teach her table manners. Her face was covered in crumbs and pieces of the apple jelly. "Lookit you. Yer all nasty. We'll have to clean that up." Crescent looked at Mathews with a wide face of confusion, although she seemed satisfied enough with her treat. Fore was wetting a small towel, which he then used to wash the little filly's face. She protested with spitting sounds and waving her forelegs around wildly, but it was too late. Her face was cleaned, and her fur was spruced up as a result. She looked up at the giant with an angry face. "What? Your face was all dirty. You don't want to become all sticky, do you? Hmm. Your toys and stuff are still in the bag. Tell you what. You go play outside for a bit, and you can come in when I call you." The filly nodded. She was inside for too long, and she needed to find a way to escape when she could sustain herself. She followed the giant back to the living room and left through the windoors into the grassy yard. The hole was still there, and so was the debris. The windoors were left open, so the filly could return inside the house at any given time. The grassy greens were a delight beneath her hooves, and the fresh air was much better to breathe in than the stale and stuffy oxygen of the house. Each step was a welcome comfort. However, the only problem the little filly was having here was with the sun. Why wasn't it still night? She wanted night eternal, not an alternating day and night cycle. Just to be able to feel the power of moonlight once more upon her skin would be the epitome of pleasure. However, for now, she would have to deal with the sun's searing heat. It was, somewhat, slightly better than the artificial light created throughout the building, and there were many a thing that brought the young filly's attention. One of which was a simple butterfly. Crescent walked up to it and started to make gestures that could be suggesting: "I am the ruler of the night! Submit to me at once, and you might just live as a slave for me." she said as she grinned and pointed a foreleg towards the insect that fluttered on the lone flower. Clearly, her mind was a mess with what had been going on, but she didn't pay any attention to it. Instead of the insect 'bowing down' to its supreme ruler, it flew up in the air, then landed gently on Crescent's nose. The pollen it had on it started to tickle the filly's nose, and finally, she sneezed, making an adorable little squeaking sound as she fell down and looked dazed for a bit. She sniffed, then got up and started to angrily chase the colorful bug, occasionally face-planting and almost catching the insect. After a few hours, Mathews came back and called Crescent, but he was stuck in place as he watched the tiny filly constantly jump up and try to catch the butterfly that hadn't flown away already for some reason. "Riiiiight. I'm just going to go pick her up while I'm talking to myself now." he said as he walked towards the filly that was about to pounce on the butterfly that had gently placed itself on a blade of grass. As Crescent jumped at it, she was caught by Mathews, who lifted her up to his shoulder. "There we go. Now to show you your room. It's a work in progress." The windoors were closed, and the angry filly shook her hoof at the butterfly that was flying against them. Finally, after a short moment of walking, Crescent heard a door open, and was turned around to face the room. It wasn't pretty, but it had a small portion of the walls painted in a bright pink. There were giant teddy bears and stuffed animals placed into a large pile in one corner, and there was a small bed all ready for the filly. It just lacked sheets, pillows, and the necessary. There were a few more toys placed here and there on unpainted shelves, but only the stuffed animals interested her. As she was placed gently on the floor; her eyes widened as she galloped and jumped into the pile. She quickly disappeared into it, only to pop up at different angles while revealing her muzzle and eyes and stared at Mathews before "teleporting" again. "Ha! I KNEW you'd like those. They're made for playing, but, seeing your size, I guess you could make yourself a small fort. When I'm done with this room, you'll be able to sleep in it. Until then, you'll still sleep on my bed. Have fun. I'll be in the living room if you need me." Mathews turned around for a second, before spinning back around."Oh yeah! I'll start teaching you how to talk first thing tomorrow." he said before leaving the room. Crescent had the front of her body on a golden teddy bear, letting her little legs leak over the artificial fur as she watched the giant walk away. Then, she squinted with suspicion, looked from side to side, and slowly sunk back into the sea of stuffed animals with her suspicious look. > The weird teacher > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It had been a week, and the filly that Mathews had found was still rather...violent. She seemed to have calmed down since last time, and there was this butterfly that seemed to constantly taunt her in the yard, somewhat playfully, which seemed impossible to Mathews due to the usually life-span of a butterfly being at least a few days, whereas this one had stayed for a week. It might have been one of the species that could live for a few months, but why, then, did it stay at the house and constantly taunt Crescent? During the week, Fore had finished up Crescent's room, and tried to teach her to speak. She loved her room, and would stay in it for a long time. There was even a moment where she somehow made a hammock above the room and hid with her stuffed animals before jumping down onto the giant with a stuffed spider in hoof. Needless to say, a heart transplant was quite necessary. Besides her fluffed up room and various other important things added to said room, the lessons in speaking that Mathews was trying to give to Crescent were bearing rotten fruits. She could only mutter a few words, and still, she had trouble forming them. He had no choice. He needed to call a specialized teacher, so, he did just that. Looking through the newspaper, the man found something of intrigue. There were a large amount of people selling their services to those who were willing to pay, and those who had the money. The problem with this is that he wouldn't be there, seeing as his vacation had been over for quite some time. The two days where he left the filly ended in a food disaster that would leave anyone in a state of insanity...if Mathews was entirely sane. Somehow, Crescent was toilet trained, so that was probably the only good aspect of this outcome. The rest remained uncertain. What WAS certain, however, was that a day teacher be called upon while Fore worked. This teacher could serve as both a Teacher and a baby-sitter of sorts, but was anyone going to be crazy enough to teach a miniature pega...uni...pegacorn thing? The man could imagine it now. Every person that would pass by would laugh in his face or just walk away with an estranged look. If that didn't happen, Crescent was likely to pull something off with her "magic", and cause the teacher to run away screaming. To Mathews, the little filly was just a child with some issues, but to others, she was plain evil despite her tiny, fluffy, huggable appearance. She even taught herself how to do the "sad face", a most devastating technique that could break anyone if used appropriately. Despite this, he searched and searched, until he found one interesting individual. He was called Phillip Opathy. This teacher seemed to have all the necessary qualities, including taking care of animals and so on. If that wasn't just a bunch of bull. Mathews would have to take the chance, so, as much as he hated it, he needed to do it. He already had a speech planned, and today wasn't very bright. In fact, it was raining, so there was no way that letting Crescent out would be problematic. It was almost time for him to leave, and Fore was getting nervous as he waited near the rainy door. It was almost nine o'clock, and he started to become fidgety. Finally, he saw a rather shiny car coming towards his house, but it was strange in coloring. Green and pink weaved and hopped over each other on its surface, although the driver seemed to be very aware of his surroundings and was driving very carefully. The windows were tinted in blue, so Mathews couldn't see inside. The vehicle slowly came to a halt in front of the house, and, with the engine announcing its well needed rest, the car door swung open, revealing a smiling character who was far from what Mathews expected. This was wearing a uniform of pink and blue stripes, as well as equally pink and blue boots. The pink was the leather while the blue was on the lining of footwear. The entire outfit reminded Mathews of the Renaissance, or, at least, the Victorian era. The worst part was the black top hat and the hair. The hat seemed a bit sawed off from the top, and this man's hair was a mess. It was green, blue, and pink, and reached a little further down his shoulders. His eyes were what entranced Mathews. They looked like pink swirls. Phillip locked his car door and took a look at a confused man. "Oh. I'm sorry. I'm going through a bit of a fashion crisis. These are contacts by the way." he said as he put a finger to his right eye and pulled away a contact lens, revealing normal, brown eyes. "Oh. OH! I'm sorry. You must be Phillip Opathy." "Yes I am." he said as he shook Mathews hand. "So what's with the getup?" Fore asked while the two walked inside to the living room. "I learned that shiny colors and funny appearances help students concentrate. Even my eyes work. Ha! So, what do you need? Animal obedience classes, teaching your kid about mathemativs?" " 'Mathemativs?' " Mathews replied i confusion. "Pardon. I meant mathematics. A little slip there." "Oh. Well...actually...promise me you won't tell anyone what you see here." "The Opathy family never lies." the creepy teacher promised with a hand on his chest and one in the air. "Alrighty then. C'mere, Crescent!" Almost on cue, a little equidae wearing an adorable little white skirt came in. She looked absolutely furious as she stomped towards the living room. It seems that she couldn't get rid of it, as she looked very tired as well. Phillip just stared at her with wide eyes and a scrounged up face. However, the second she looked up, she screamed and jumped back a few centimeters. "Awww. She's all tiny and is wearing a wittle skirt. Imma PICK YOU UP!" Before the filly could run away, she was already in the hands of the second, creepy giant and was being pressed against his face. Mathews tried to keep himself from laughing as he saw her shake a hoof of fury at him. "She's the one?" "Wait...how do you know it's a female?" "The skirt, for one. Then there's the fact that I've dealt with many, MANY creatures in my life, and horses are one of the fine examples. You wouldn't BELIEVE the amount of farmers who have trouble with their horses." the teacher said as he lowered the filly. "I guess that could make some sense." Mathews scratched the back of his head. "So what do you want me to do?" "Teach her how to speak." "Hm. Why not how to fly? She has wings." Crescent began to bounce up in joy after hearing that part of his sentence. "I think that would be a bad idea." Crescent used the sad face attack. It's super-effective!"Hnnngh. No. She can't fly yet. She's too young." "Obviously. Her wings aren't big enough to carry around her weight. Well then, do you have books?" "Yes I d-Why aren't you phased by how she is and what she is?" "I've seen weirder. In fact, I had a rather hard job before this. It made some things illogical. It was a bit, mmm, swirly when you tried your best. Some would become psychotic in the end because it was hard and impossible to understandable." "What did you do?" "I was a bank accountant." "Rrrriiiiight. I'm going to my own job. Don't. Steal. Anything. I know who you are." "Yadda yadda, sir. Yadda yadda." Once the man had left, and closed the door, the teacher grabbed one of the books on the small living room table and opened it up. He hummed a bit, then, looking from the corner of his eye, he grinned and grabbed the little filly trying to discreetly escape. She waggled her legs everywhere and made little noises that sounded like grunts of desperation. Crescent certainly thought he wasn't what he made himself to be, although this all changed once she was placed on Phillip's legs and had that skirt taken off of her. The thing she hated was then thrown on the floor, and the new giant wiped his hands of the piece of clothing. "Pink. Blegh. That doesn't go on you." Crescent looked up at Phillip with big, bulging eyes of confusion, causing the man to start to whimper as he saw her face. "NOOOO! Not the sad face! It's my one weakness!" Crescent continued, but found a hand on her face, which made her lower her head. "There. Now we're going to start with basic words and sound pronunciation. We'll start with Oval. You got to put your lips into a circular shape and expel air, like soooooooooo." > Werning to talk > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was six in the evening, and Mathews was extremely nervous. It wasn't often that he left someone at his home, and he was worried about his things and, more importantly, about Crescent. With a cautious rush, he reached his house, turned off his car, and ran to the door, paying no attention to the stupid looking car in front. Before entering, he wanted to be sure everything was alright, so he leaned against the house door and listened. There was nothing but talking about teaching. Nothing special, so Fore decided that he could come in without seeing something terrible. He happily opened the door to see Crescent staring at him directly in front. She had a massive smile and looked all joyous. The man crocked an eyebrow and lowered his case of personal objects. "What're you so happy about?" Suddenly, a very long black hand posed itself upon Mathews' right shoulder. As he hesitatingly turned his head to face an atrocity, his pupils shrunk. It was a tall being with a very colorful mask that leaned slowly towards the man's face before barely separating the surface of the ornament from Fore's nose. It then said, in a creepy, shriekish tone: "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" "AAAAH!" Mathews screamed as he fell on the floor right next to Crescent. The creepy being started to laugh his heart out while Crescent jumped on Fore's stomach and started to hop about as she tried to stomp his stomach. Instead, it felt more like "happy hops" that forced Mathews to grab Crescent by surprise and hug her. "Let go." she forced out. "YOU CAN TALK!" Fore yelled happily as he pushed her away. "Of course. Not perfectly. She keeps confusing some words for others or forgets. She's surprisingly adept at learning. Welp, I'll be taking my leaving now. Haha! I hope you appreciated our little game." Phillip smiled as he held the mask while he made way for the door. "Wait. Don't I need to pay you?" "At the end of the week, unless you were only hiring me for a day, in which case, fifteen bucks." "No. I'm hiring you as a baby-sitter too." "Then I'll see you tomorrow, Crescent." "Bye." the little filly said with a wave of her hoof. Unfortunately, despite the appearance of the perfectly clean house, Mathews caught glimpse of Crescent starting to become pale and beginning to sweat profusively (Her coat was getting wet). Mathews frowned and straightened his stare at the filly, who began to shrink away. Phillip laughed one last time and slammed the door shut, making everything fall and explode in a variety of appearances, allowing Mathews' jaw to drop and making him yell in fury. A few hours after, once again, repairing everything, Mathews grabbed Crescent and wanted to see how well she could speak by asking her a question. "So, what happened? Did Phillip do this?" "Yes. He thoughted it was be funny." " 'Would'. You're using past tense." "Oh. He thought it would be funny." "By destroying everything?! I'll have a word with him tomorrow. In the mean time, you want to talk to me about when you landed in my yard?" The high-pitched filly averted her gaze, preferring to bite her lower lip and look angry while she did so. "Oh. Okay. Well, when you're ready, we can always talk about it later on. Right now, I just want to have a conversation. "About what?" "Do you like me? Are you glad that I'm taking care of you?" "A wittle bit." she said as she kicked air with her little hoof and looked up at Mathews, who was clearly having another stroke. "Why 'a wittle bit'?" "I doesn't like you." Fore was shocked at why she said that. Hadn't he been taking good care of her? He needed to get to the bottom of this mystery. "And why not? What did I do?" "Not you just. Everypony." "Every'pony'? I think you mean every'body'." "No. That is how I says it." "Okayyyyy. Why do you hate everybody." "Nopony likes my shinies." "Your what?" Mathews said in semi-laughter. Crescent just pointed to the sky. "I made the shinies, and nopony liked them. They shine during night." "What? You couldn't have made so many, let alone, actually MAKE a star! They're humongous masses, most certainly surpassing the Earth's size a hundred fold. They're amalgamations of burning gasses and other chemical reactions. How could you 'make' one?" "I use...ummm. I need to ask Colorful guy." "Phillip?" "Yeah." "Then you can do that. I still don't understand what you mean, but, oh well. She must be using her imagination. It's just impossible. Well, I know what can cheer you up." "What?" she asked looking sideways at Mathews and with a puckered lip. "A tickle attack." "N-No!" "Too late!" Despite what she really wanted to do, Crescent found herself under the mercy of Mathews' incessant tickling. It even went so far as to make her start crying tears of laughter. After a little moment of tickling, Mathews stopped, allowing the little black ball of fuzz to regain her breath. "I'm not sure if you know, but I was watching a meteor shower the night you landed in my front yard...and covered me with mud." Mathews finished with a detestable frown. "Really? But...nopony wikes our shinies. You're lying!" "Nope. I don't lie...very well...Anyways, it's still a ways before your bed. You want to watch something?" "Phillip made us watch weird, ugly shows. I didn't wike them." Everytime she spoke like that and accidentally mistook a "L" for a "W", his heart cringe. She was absolutely adorable and had those wittle feet...hooves that he wanted to hold and tickle a bit longer. "You know what, before we watch anything, how about a hug?" "A what?" Crescent looked at Mathews with an utter lack of seriousness. Her face was completely sincere when she asked the question. "This." The giant grabbed the little filly and hugged her tightly, all while keeping a huge smile on his face. At first, the foal tried to assess the situation and release herself from the man's grip, but, it suddenly got very comfortable. It was a comfort that she had not felt. One that she NEVER felt, in fact. Was this what some would call "parental love"? Certainly not. She had no need for such petty things. She was the rightful ruler of the stars, and royalty does not need these things. Still, she would play along. The filly hugged the giant in return, and looked up at his smiling face with her own, adding her big ol' eyes into the bunch. "Hold on. I know something you'll love, seeing your destructive tendencies. I won't punish you here, because Phillip has a say in this as well, but if it happens again..." "I know." the filly answered as she rubbed her rear. "Where is it?" Mathews was searching through the wooden cabinet the tv was on. Finally, after awhile, he took out a blue case with what looked like a blue robot with a red car for a head. "I'm sure you'll love this. I'll just pop the disk into the player, and we'll see how you like the humor and action that are perfectly inter-twined here." Crescent wasn't sure, but she felt that she would love this "show" if it had destruction in it. > That accursed butterfly > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It had already been two days, and Phillip was teaching Crescent surprisingly well. The little filly wasn't following the antics of the weird teacher anymore and had learned to speak rather well. Although she still had a tendency to use a "w" instead of a "l", but this wasn't a bad thing. Mathews still found it adorable that a tiny little thing with little hooves like her talked like that. However, when she would get older...either way, Crescent was starting to tire of the house. She wanted out, and she showed it more with gestures than with words. It took a bit of ingenious thinking, but Mathews had found a little patch of forest where nobody went. So called "haunted" or something stupid like that. Mathews took an extra two days off seeing that he had done a full four days worth of work, and still had some vacation left to take. The man would have to teach Crescent what was what as she hadn't left the house in the entirety of the time that she had been there. While outside, Mathews locked up the house and began counting everything he had done. The security was activated, the food and clothes were packed. The bug spray was also there. Tooth brush, tooth paste, everything was there. "Great! Now then." Mathews looked around in caution, then ran into the house and grabbed a big gray blanket, locked the door once more, then ran back to the car. He put the blanket onto the front seat next to the driver's, and got into his spot, quickly making the car wake up with its well known uproar of explosions. With a final check, Fore drove off towards the forest. The bumping on the road was pretty much the only real noise heard through the entire trip...until Crescent poked her head out of her hiding spot. "Why'd you lock the door then open it again just to get me?" she asked, showing only her glowing eyes through the mount. "Uhhh...I forgot?" Mathews gave a nervous smile, but, obviously, Crescent didn't buy that lie. She was smarter than usual children at her age, and this is what intrigued the man about her more than her appearance and abilities. The filly tightened her gaze before letting her eyes disappear underneath the lowering cloth. It only took thirty minutes, and Mathews' car was already rolling on a path of dirt. The trees around the vehicle were very thick, but the forest itself wasn't. It was barely even blocking anything. One could look at one side, and see the end of the other. Dead leaves and tree branches littered the floor, and their incessant crackling filled the forest as Mathews drove around, trying to find the perfect spot. He was looking for a place to put the tent, as well as a location near the lake. Finally, after a long search, he found the perfect spot. The car came to a well deserved halt, and Crescent was let out of the car. She used he wings to slow her descent to the floor. The tiny black ball of fuzz felt insignificant compared to the rest of the world in the presence of this huge landscape. As she started to look upwards, and try to see the top of the trees, she fall backwards onto her back, then tilted onto her side, her face showing that she was still processing what had just occurred. Mathews broke out in laughter as he looked at her dazed expression. "Listen, Crescent. While I set up the tent, how about you walk around for awhile? Don't go too far. I don't want to lose you." "Hmph." she walked in the opposite direction of the giant, her face snuffed upwards. As Mathews watched that little furball hop difficultly over some logs, sometimes hanging onto a big one and waddling her little legs in the air, he found a yellowish butterfly on his nose. It looked like the same species that Crescent kept playing with when she was in the yard. It was annoying, so the man tried to shoo it away, but every time it flew away, it landed back on his nose. "Get. Off!" he yelled as he slapped it away this time. Apparently, it got the message, and left dazily into the forest, levitating and moving bizarrely in every direction. "Stupid bug." Crescent hadn't gone too far yet, and was still pretty close to the camp site. However, she found, after walking a bit closer to a moss covered cliff, that there was a slight slope hidden by the dead leaves. The little filly tumbled down said slope and ended her little trip by slamming hard against the cliff. She repressed her cries, but her eyes still watered up as she adjusted her position. Some leaves and branches were stuck onto her coat. "*sniff* Owww. Meanie cliff. You hurt me!" The cliff, surprisingly, actually reacted, scaring Crescent tremendously. The moss on it all gathered into two dots which became a fluorescent yellow and were looking at her. Were these eyes? "What the?" The butterfly came towards the scared filly and landed on her muzzle. The ball of fuzz noticed it and quickly recognized the bug. "You? Stop following me!" she yelled as she swiped at the horrifying beast. It flew off the filly's muzzle and started to taunt her like it always did, and, of course, Crescent followed it, trying to smash it. What she didn't notice was that the moss returned to its normal position on the cliff as soon as the two were gone. Every amount of moss that was passed briefly had the same reaction as the one on the cliff. The ball of fuzz constantly hopped over rock and bush to find that accursed butterfly. She even had to use ruse, like going under the layer of dead leaves and walking around under it, making it look like there was a large mole underneath the leaves. Eventually, when she would find the insect, she would shake her tail like a cat and pounce at it, only to fall short of its spot or, unfortunately, smack herself against a hidden obstacle. The frenzy went on and on until the little filly found herself falling from the edge of yet another cliff, into the lake. The butterfly was currently just flying above the black fuzz ball's drop point, and a distinctive, high-pitched giggle could be heard. Unfortunately for Crescent, she didn't know how to swim, so, once she hit the water like a cannonball, she started to splash about everywhere, gasping for air and screaming for help while semi-crying. It was a good thing that Mathews had made the camping site next to the lake. The greenish tent was almost up, and most of the supplies were out of the car, but still packed. As the man finished pounding in some of the nails, he heard the screaming and splashing, and walked away from the greenery to the rocky shore of the body of water. Near the cliff, he saw Crescent drowning, and screamed her name before diving into the water himself. The butterfly watched the whole scene from its rocky perch and giggled again. It flew back towards the camp site and placed itself on a high tree branch overlooking the two newcomers. Crescent was all wet and shaking, her coat literally flopped down, showing how skinny she was. Her big, traumatized eyes also added to the effect. Mathews was holding her tightly against his chest. As the situation calmed down, the man made a joke about how bad the little filly could swim. He told her that he would take this opportunity to try and teach her, although he didn't know how to teach an equidae how to swim. As some would guess, the wet filly didn't take too kindly to this humor, and punched Fore straight in the nose, making him cringe in pain. With one final look, the butterfly suddenly flew off again. It'd certainly come back and try agai-ah. Nope. It just got eaten by a passing bird. Such are the functions of nature. However, was it really the only one? > The fairies, maaan. They're everywhere, MAAAAAN! > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Haimerej, you mad, bro? Having a bit of trouble after the incident at first, Crescent refused to return into the lake to be taught how to swim. However, even if Mathews had some security issues, and rarely liked to stay outside, he was doing this for her, So, to make sure that she would know how to swim, he grabbed her and body slammed into the water, making her look like a cat that just got wet and was desperately trying to get out of its new prison. The little filly still made adorable little coughing sounds as she was held in one arm by the giant. "I'm going to get you used to be being in water. We're in the shallow part of the lake, so you should still be able to walk a bit." Crescent, despite being able to talk, never really said much since at the forest. Seeing as horses usually didn't know how to swim, but they still had a similar structure to a dog, Mathews believed that he could teach the fuzz ball how to swim. It took half an hour just to get her to float, and that wasn't getting the amount of stones Mathews hit his feet against. Eventually, as he showed her himself, the filly eventually started to "dog-paddle". While this was all fine and dandy, Mathews still had to watch her and accompany her wherever she swam. The foal was actually getting the hang of swimming, but she didn't want to go back into the forest without Mathews. Since she told the giant about what she went through, he just laughed it off, and told her that she just imagined thing while chasing the butterfly. After all, she WAS just a filly. A strange filly, no doubt, but a filly nonetheless. Instead, he decided to hold her on his back and let the filly act like she was a tank commander. Obviously, Crescent took well to this and ordered her metal monstrosity of pure destruction to ravage through the forest. While they played like this, a few uncommon sights were ha, such as the appearance of some deer, as well as a few blue jays and cardinals. Even stopping to sniff a few flowers yielded some unfortunate results. It seemed that Crescent was allergic to lavender, as shown by her adowable wittle faces before she sneezed and when she sneezed. The man had to bring her back to the camping site and force her to blow her nose to get the particles out. As the night began to fall, Mathews had prepared a small fire in front of his tent and took a back of marshmallows as well as some sticks and a box of graham crackers. He stuck one of the fluffy sweets onto a stick and held on of them in the air, just above the fire, in order to allow a perfect golden coloring to his s'more. "Like this, Crescent." he said as he tried to get the filly to put the stick in her mouth. "No. It's nasty. I don't wike it like that. I'm gonna use my magic." "Magic? Magic doesn't exist! It...What?" Apparently, Crescent was looking at the giant with an equally big smirk on her face as the little horn on her head glowed with a faint astral coloring that also surrounding the stick. The man rubbed his goatee and left his mouth open, trying to assess the situation. "Huh. Telekinesis." "What? No! It's magic." "Don't be ridiculous. You must have telekinesis." "No. It's magic!" "Telekinesis!" "Magic!" "Telekinesis!" "MAGIC!" (I shall now play unfitting music vore you) As the two started to become aggressive with their yelling, they were taken away from it by the sound of something giggling. They looked up to see a yellow bird with glowing eyes sitting atop a branch. "You!" Crescent yelled. "That's a weird bird. I've never seen it before." "It's a meanie. It made me fall from the cliff!" "You must have-Wait. I thought you said you were chasing a butterfly." "It's the butterfly. I can feel it." As Mathews looked at an angry Crescent who was looking up at the bird with her teeth clenched, he noticed that the trees all began to form yellow "eyes" on their bark. What was worse was the sight of something flaming coming by. "Crescent, it's time to go!" he yelled as he grabbed the filly and ran for the car. Whatever that thing was, it was slicing through the trees despite the forest still giggling. The trees didn't care. So, without even thinking about packing, Mathews tossed himself and Crescent into the car and, opposed to the stupidity and predictability of scary movies, his car immediately turned on, and he bolted out of the camping site and through the forest. The entire time, the yellow, giggling bird was seen above the car, and everywhere it went, the trees literally grew yellow eyes. Even THEY started to move on their own, literally bearing down upon the ground with their branches to try and stop the vehicle. For some reason, they kept striking down at the location of Crescent, and Fore noticed this. "Oh no you don't! I'm not letting you hurt her, stupid plants!" However, despite his 'super Nascar ultra moves', the flaming thing from earlier came from the left side of the path and chopped through everything. It looked like a mixture between the Grim Reaper and the Headless Horseman, as demonstrated by its flaming skull head, the leathery clothes it wore, and the skeletal horse wearing a thick armor and burning the ground below each hoof step. It was even holding a gigantic scythe in one hand. "What is that?" Crescent yelled. "Something that we weren't supposed to meet. So much for the s'mores I wanted to get you to taste." The thing slammed into the car, making it tilt a bit. Mathews started to panic, but Crescent got angry. "You want to ram this thing?! How about we give you the weight of your dumbness!" the little fuzzy filly yelled. "What are you-" Crescent head butted Mathews, making him slip and veer to the left suddenly, surprising the creature and making it slam into a tree. It was stuck there. "Haha!" "Next time, don't do that." the man said with a panic. "I still saved us didn't I?" "Yes. Yes you did. Thank you." Crescent looked smug as she turned her head upwards, only to see that the thing was still coming, and this time, it was swing its scythe. The trees still watched the two pass by while the bird continued to giggle from above. Mathews took the distance between his vehicle and the creature to roll down his window, stick his head, shake his fist, an yell: "Stupid bird! You made Crescent look bad! And you're chasing us with this weird flaming brochette!" On the porch of a wooden cabin stood a wooden rocking chair. On it sat an elderly man relaxing near the entrance of the forest. He was holding an old American M1918 BAR. He seemed to be at peace. It was something that he definitely earned after all his years of service, as he thought to himself. Unfortunately, he was awoken from his peaceful slumber by his elderly wife getting out of the cabin. "Them fairies is at it again?" the man asked, his face showing an obvious irritation. "Yup. Ah can feel it in me bones. And mah plants 're quivering too." "Ugh. Must be some young'uns who dunnae know 'bout this stupid forest. Damn fairires." "Fairies." the elderly woman pointed out. "Whatever. *crack* Ow! My spine. Oh. How I miss my younger days...where my bones didn't break at the slightest movement. Now, where they is?" "They's comin' through the forest. Look!" As surely as told, a car was coming by at full speed with something glowing behind them. The old man rolled his eyes and walked down from the balcony to reach the the dirt road. He stretched a bit, and aimed forward. Mathews ducked while Crescent was too small to see anything above the car counter. Either way, the old man did not flinch when the car missed him by a few hairs, and continued aiming down the sights towards the weird creature coming closer. "Stupid fairiries! GO DIE IN A DITCH!" *BANG* The first shot was fired, followed by many others. The creature's steed disappeared into a puff of flame, while the humanoid one just struggled to get up as it skid, face first, all the way to the old man's feet. It looked upwards after hearing a clicking sound, and found that it was looking down the barrel of a gun. "I hate fairires." "Fairies, sweetie." the elderly woman yelled from the balcony. "Ugh. Whatever. Easy headshot, just like in the day." Mathews and Crescent looked calmly forward as they took the path back home. Not a word was spoken. Even the bird was gone, but that was because it hit a branch earlier, fell down, and got run over by the car. These things happen. They are rarely coincidences. "Nothing happened today." the man spoke calmly. "No." "We just needed some fresh air." "Yup." Whatever was going on, it was targeting Crescent, and Mathews couldn't help but worry internally about her safety, or better yet, WHY she was targeted. > Phillip's fairy hunt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mathews' car drove up to his house like a bullet and parked it on his lawn. Not long after that, he grabbed Crescent and ran for the door. Strangely, he noticed someone crouched on the sidewalk and punching something on the floor. It was Phillip. Mathews turned around, with a tiny filly in his arms, and both looked at him in pure confusion. "Weird teacher?" Crescent uttered. "Huh? Oh crap!" he yelled before spinning around and sitting on whatever it was he was punching."Hi." he added nervously. "What are you doing here? I thought I told you that I'd be on vacation for two days." "Uhhh." "Whatever. As long as you're here, you can teach Crescent proper speaking." "Okay. See you in a few seconds. Just let me finish trying to get my...keys, out of this crack." "Your car keys?" "Yeah." "Need help?" Mathews knew that Phillip was lying, but he also knew that Phillip, with the time he's seen him, that the creepy teacher abhorred theft. "Uhhh. No. I'll be fine." "Well, we're going back inside. We need some time to recuperate on...what just happened." Mathews gave a bland face staring into the open. "Okay. Have fun with that." the teacher waved his hand and gave a smile. Finally, when the door closed, his smile gave way to a frown, and he turned around to stare at a tiny little thing with wings that seemed to be brutally beat up. "I told you not to come around here." "You'll pay for this. Fairies are powerful creatures. You don't know what you got yourself into." "Like I didn't know what I got myself into when I saw a creature that inspired me to dress up like this? Heh. " Phillip smirked, and lift the tiny fairy in the air by the wings. Then he "whisper-yelled": "Gut punch! Gut punch! Gut punch! Sewer throw!" As the evil little creature coughed, it found itself thrown through a hole in the road that tossed in the...ahem...FRESH waters underneath civilization. The teacher wiped his hands of this affair and headed straight towards his student's house with a wide smile of satisfaction on his face. Meanwhile, both Mathews and Crescent had actually decided to pass out on the couch, with Fore actually in some weird, painful position, while Crescent decided to roll herself up into a ball on his belly. It would've been more useful on his head, as he would've achieved some form of capillary success. Phillip, as he closed the door, had his head fill with ideas to try and wake them up. That is, until he saw another one of those annoying winged creatures approaching said ball of fur with the most simplistic weapon ever: a knife. The weird teacher had a bland, unamused expression on his face, and walked towards the creature. Before it struck, it turned its head to someone clearing their throat. The fairy's eyes widened as it saw that it had been caught, only to be slapped to the floor, then kicked out of a window that Phillip took his time to unlock. Yet, even as the guy wiped his hands clean of the incident, there were weird mole-like creatures on the floor "discreetly" crawling towards the couch. So, with equal discreetness, and with his arms behind his back, Phillip walked on the moles, dragged them while they were still under his feet, then, as he was outside and as they were still stuck to his shoes, flicked them off with a stick. He closed the door and thought to himself: "Great. Fairies everywhere. I thought they weren't real! Meh. Mathews must have an electric fly-swatter somewhere. Maybe I should wake them up." And that he did. Phillip simply walked up to the two sleeping logs to see that Crescent decided to lie down on Mathews' face, with her belly outstretched into the air. Opathy restrained himself from waking her up by blowing on her belly. Instead, he preferred to slap them both awake. "OW! Why?" Mathews yelled as he put a hand to his cheek, until he finally noticed Crescent on his face. "Why am I on your face?" Crescent wondered out loud. "You fell asleep." Phillip said with lowered eyelids, a bent over position, and a smile on his face. "What are you smiling at?" "Nothing." his smile widened, as if trying to mock someone even more. The little filly finally looked down and gasped in horror as she covered herself with her astral tail. "Bad person!" she screamed with an extremely high pitched voice. "Oh. Please. I think I'll have to stay with you today, though. You seem a bit...drowzy." "What, you're a maid now?" Mathews look shocked as he took Crescent off his face. "I do many things. After all, just being a wandering teacher isn't very paying." "So I suppose you want me to pay you more?" "The fee was already added in when you wanted me to be a baby-sitter as well." "Oh." In the corner of his contact lens eyes, Phillip noticed something weird and spidery starting to walk into Mathews' room. "Then we'll just stay here in the living room." "I prefer to go pway in my room." "You still have that mix-match, Crescent. We'll need to work on that...tomorrow. I can see that you two had a rough day. A good night's sleep would be good." "Then shouldn't you go home? I mean, it is six." "Not really. Consider me as an extra security measure." "Ooookaaaay." "Great! I'll start with your room. Rooms are always the worst." he finished with a frown, only to jet into the room like...well...a jet. There, he saw the giant spider busy trying to hide itself under the covers. It hadn't noticed Phillip, who quietly closed the door and crept up on the spider. He grabbed one of its legs and ripped it off, but placed a pillow on the less-than-spider-esque mouth to muffle the screams. He slowly closened towards the thing's eyes and made it actually sweat. "Hey, there." he said with a weird, creepy undertone."Ah couldn't help but see you was tryin' ta hurt mah freyends. I just wante' to-*gasp*."his voice changed to a deeper and more energetic tone."Good heavens! Just look at the time!" The creature screamed one last time. Meanwhile, the wittle fiwwy had arranged her smaller stuffed animals into a crowd while she stood proudly on the bigger ones, boasting about something. "I'm the queen of the world! You shall all bow down beneath my might. I am more powerful than all of you. You are my subjects. My pawns to use. I am the queen, and you must obey your queen. All hail-" "BLAH!" Phillip yelled with his tongue stuck out and with the door nearly embedded into the wall. The little filly squeaked and fell over her giant elephant, and into the tinier stuffed animals. One hind leg was sticking out from a bunch of tiny monkeys that looked like they were pulling on her leg, while a few smiling tigers, lions, and bears seemed to be nomming her face. A rebellion had already started, and it was successful in overthrowing their evil, yet adorable, ruler. "Look what I found: some bouncy balls." Phillip smiled as he held three black balls. "Bouncy balls? What's that?" "Just look." Phillip smashed a ball really hard onto the floor, causing it to bounce everywhere, making Crescent duck under her captors. It finally came to a stop after hitting a giant gorilla. The little filly climbed out from under her bunker with a face full of ecstasy. "Woah! Can I try one?" "Duh." Opathy tossed one to the ball of fuzz, who grabbed it with her magic, looked at it awhile, then randomly tossed it. The ball started bouncing everywhere, and that's when Phillip, without moving his head, saw that near a window, there was another fairy coming in for a kill while walking on the walls. Phillip looked at the ball, then moved into a position where it would bounce on him, then hit the fairy. It did indeed "bonk" him on the head, making him yipe in pain, but the deed was done. The fairy got hit and fell onto a further pile of stuffed animals. As it rubbed its armored head, it saw the giant walking towards it. The weird teacher continued smiling, but suddenly: "Oops. I tripped! Awaaaaah!" The fairy gave a silent scream as the giant closened to its crash point, sarcasm in said giant's yell. > The leader arrives > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- As surprising as it may seem, the fairies started to grow scared of Phillip. He was, somehow, capable of spotting and recognizing them no matter how they looked or appeared. They even tried to pass themselves off as ants, albeit, extremely dangerous ants, and got stepped on by the weird teacher. As inadvertent as it may seem, Phillip still managed to get them when he wasn't even paying attention, such as the unfortunate flushing accident that left many a fairy traumatized, or when he decided to cook a special dish for Crescent, and cooked the fairies who had hidden within the dish as well. All in all, that Phillip was a strange guy, and he adored torturing those little creatures as much as they loved torturing humans. The worst part is, he actually went to grab a loud-speaker, grabbed a bell, and played with Crescent under the guise of it being a game of sorts. Needless to say, the fairies broke in half. Every time they tried to attack the wittle filly, the one leading everything was watching. And every failure because of Phillip lead to a rise in fury. Eventually, the anger had reached its threshold, and it was time to intervene personally. They would have to do it at night, when Phillip wasn't there. However, even for tricksters like the Fae, it would be extremely hard to do such a thing, especially with the security on. The leader had that covered, though. It was the quiet night, and Mathews shiny head was resting on his bed while the fuzzy ball slept in her tiny bed while being surrounded by her giant stuffed animals, and hugging a somewhat familiar white horse doll. If she could, she would definitely be sucking her thumb. All was calm in Crescent's room...or was it? Along the walls crept some fairies dressed in black clothes, stealthily hopping around the room, until they finally reached their target. It took awhile, but they finally managed to completely wrap up the filly without waking her up. These are the abilities of a ninja, no matter what they belong to. Unfortunately, the little creatures didn't pay attention to the floor, and so, as eight of the nine infiltrators heaved the rope, they found that their prisoner woke up after hitting the floor extremely hard. The first thing they did was look in horror as the flly started to tear up because of the surprising pain, and then, to start screaming for Mathews after she realized what was going on. "..." "Mnah." "...p." "Grmbl." "Help!" "What?!" Mathews shouted as he fell off the side of his bed. "Ow. That hurt." The man tried to stand up, but had readjust his back. This was accompanied by a fine crackle sound."I really need to start doing some yoga instead of the gym.*sigh* Let's go see little missy who's havin' a nightmare." His room door screeched open as Fore tried to keep himself from staying drowzy. Reaching the fuzzy filly's room door, Mathews already saw that something was wrong. Her door was open, and she left her white doll on the bed. She always walked around with it at night, but he never knew why. Sometimes, when Fore would listen in on his little filly, he could hear her saying something about a "sister" or some such. This made him think quite a lot. However, now was not the time to start thinking. He turned his head to see that Crescent was using some of her "magic" to give herself astral-colored claws, which she promptly used to drag herself away from her captors. Judging by the difficulty she had in doing so, it was obvious that her captors were still pulling on the rope. Instead of being horrified by the scene, Mathews had absolutely no expression on his face. He just walked towards the silent filly, grabbed her with one hand, and lift her up with utter ease. This also came as a surprise to her. The man slightly lowered his head to see that the ninja fairies were swinging around like crazy, trying to pull their victim down. They soon stopped moving once they saw that there was a hand near them. "Uh-oh." one of them said almost inaudibly, followed by the loudest flicking noises ever heard in the history of mankind. Each of the fairies found themselves flying without the help of their wings, and slamming into the faraway wall, only to flop down onto the floor without a sound. With the same expressionless face, Mathews ripped off the rope tied around his little pony, who promptly hugged him by placing her forelegs around his throat. "Calm down. It's okay. Now that I know what those things are, I'll go get some iron bells tomorrow. I'm pretty lost as to what's happening anyways. First I find you, coming from the sky like a meteor, then you actually to be an adorable wittle pony thing with wings AND a horn, you end up with some sort of telekinesis powers-" "Magic." "...Telekinesis, then we go to the forest, and you end up getting chased by the headless horseman." "Yes. And that is not the final bit, you cretin." "Who said tha-What's with this light?" Mathews turned around to see that there appeared to be a humongous ball of light illuminating his entire house as if it were roofless. Around it flew some fairies who went to help their comrades, while others simply landed on the furniture. This leader didn't even seem to have its own body. It was just a ball of light that blinded Mathews and Crescent as they looked at it. "Oh. I'm so sorry." it said with a furious tone of voice."Perhaps a more 'limited' body that your feeble minds can comprehend would be more appropriate." The ball began to morph and twist into what looked like a human woman wearing a very long white robe tucked into a golden armor on her body, but not on her arms and legs, nor her head. She was blonde, but her eyes were white with yellow contours. She looked absolutely furious...about something. Mathews was also quite angry. "What's the meaning of this? Are you the one who has been trying to kill Crescent?" "You mean that thing that should never have existed? That thing that shouldn't even exist?! YES! It is my job!" "Oh yeah? And what job consists in killing young children?" "I have no time to play with you." The woman lift one of her arms, and the little filly began to float towards her. Fortunately, the fuzzy filly's grip around Fore's neck was enough to keep her in place. That, and Mathews simply pushed her rear down and against his chest. Surprisingly, the woman lost all her strength in the pulling, and "let go", panting and gasping in the end. "What? Impossible." "What is impossible? My love for this adorable creature, or your lack of strength?" at "love", Crescent looked up at Mathews who paid no attention to her face. A rare treat that he could have gotten would've been a little smile forming on the left side of her mouth. "Nonsense! He couldn't have allowed you to do such a thing?" By now, Mathews anger was reaching the boiling point. "Who are you talking about?" "I'm the angel that takes care of the rebirth processes. Ever heard of it?" "Rebirth? Angel? You're just pulling my leg." "No. I am not. I take care of sending the souls that want to live another life towards various worlds and universes of their choosing. Your...your horror there shouldn't even exist. She is part of another being. Somehow, the two were separated. What you are holding is an incompletion. A reject. An error. Give it to me so I may dispose of it and return things to normal." The fairies began to flutter their wings, but didn't move from their spots, and the "woman" had her arm extended once more, allowing Fore to stare at it for a few moments. Crescent started to stress, thinking that she WOULD be abandoned once more, so she clung powerfully to Mathews' neck. A few minutes later, she felt a pat on her back. "Like hell I'm giving her to you." "You dare defy the angel of rebirth?" "Yeah. I do. I suppose you took control of these fairies to try and kill her, but somehow, suspiciously coincidental events kept them from doing so. Then, you tried sneaking in here to kill her, but, if I judge from Phillip's even more bizarre actions as of late, he was somehow capable of spotting them no matter where you came from." "...Yes. Something like that." "Perhaps this is a sign from the big man up there that you shouldn't be trying to hurt her?" "But she's still an evil being at heart." "So? Have you seen her doing evil things with me lately? She's just a bit ill-tempered. And speaking of evil creatures-" "Don't go there. Hmph. Fine. As much as I would have preferred to prolong this conversation and convince you to hand it over-" "Her." "Her over to me, I can see that you are of the stubborn sort. Fine. I will leave her in your care, but, when she turns seventeen, you will reveal her to the world. My fairies will be watching. Do we have a deal?" Mathews hesitated at first. He knew how mischievous fairies were, and he was certain that this o called 'angel' wasn't one. "Hey. It's either the deal or my fairies try and kill Crescent." "Yes. Perhaps I could let Phillip live here, hm?" Mathews said as he stuck out his lips and crocked an eyebrow in a "gentlemen" fashion. The fairies all gave out a collective yipe. "So?" "We have a deal." "Good. My fairies will be watching. If she does anything out of order, they'll deal with her." "Yes. Because they were so effective before." Fore gave a smug grin. "Hmph. Let's go." The fairies and the "angel" soon left the house through some strange opening made from light. Once everyone was through, it slammed shut, plunging the house in darkness once more. Because of this light, the man couldn't see anymore, that is, until the fuzzy filly used her horn to create an ambient light source. She was looking at the bald man with a huge smile and watered up eyes that were literally leaking tears. "What's wrong with you? Meh. We're going to have a long life ahead of us. Best get started." You can thank Jphyper for pointing out the inconsistencies that made me cringe when I saw them. Crescent was sitting in her room, still surrounded by her stuffed animals despite her age. She was nervous, as tomorrow was the day she would have to go into the world. In front of her sat Mathews, pretty much trying to figure out how to sit on the stuffed animals. The mare had something important to tell to her "father". Several things, actually. She was fumbling with the white horse doll, all while looking at the floor. "Did you, ugh, have something you needed to tell me?" Mathews asked as he tried to adjust himself. "Yes. It's about time I told you how I got here." "What? I thought you were just a filly who couldn't remember anything?" "No. It's more specific than that." Mathews took a short amount of time to think, then came out with an answer that would put Einstein and Plato to shame: "A CREEPY filly with strange abilities who couldn't remember anything." A loud wave of silence swept through the room as Crescent just stared at the man, dumbfounded. One of the stuffed lions even fell down on its 'paw', providing a comical 'facepalm' scene. "I'm being serious!" Crescent yelled with a height in anger. "Okay, okay! Tell me then." "Well, like you obviously know, I don't come from Earth. I come from another world: Equestria." "Where there are several creatures like you?" "Yes. Actually, I'm the only one of, now, three alicorns. The rest are either earth ponies, unicorns, or pegasus." "And?" "Well, that fairy 'angel' was right. I shouldn't exist." "What do you mean? I can hold you, hug you, I've been sneaking you out for trips around the country." "I'm actually part of another being. She was called Luna. I won't go into details, but I was actually born from her jealousy and anger." Mathews still retained his indifferent look. "And what did you do that was such that you would be considered 'evil'." "I tried to bring eternal night." the mare looked downwards in shame while still stroking the white doll's mane, expecting Mathews to be outraged. She was met with something entirely unexpected. "Bahahaha! THAT'S your evil? Pfff. There was certainly something that would have stopped something so lame." "And what would YOU have done, oh maliciously fiendish one?" Crescent snapped back, baring her teeth. "Hmm. Allow me to tap my chin for two seconds...I would've used my super powers to create shadow clones of the creatures around me, have them infiltrate every nook and cranny of my coveted territory, then, when the time is right, have them use their corrupted pawns to start a full-scale revolution. Then, when the capital is at its weakest, strike the leaders down and proclaim myself as the new king of the land, and soon, the world." "That is...disturbing." "THAT is evil. So, who stopped you?" "The elements of harmony." "That sounds very, unintimidating. So, what happened?" "They trapped me, and somehow rebuilt the elements after I destroyed them. Then, they struck me with their powers. I found myself being burned, then feeling absolute coldness afterwards. There was nothing. No feeling, no scent, no images, no colors. I found myself in the prescence of the Nothing. However, I wasn't erased. It seemed that the elements turned me into a powerless filly, and sent me somewhere else, while still protecting me. That's how I ended up coming down in a ball of fire." "Ouch. I can't begin to imagine the ordeal that you suffered. Does anyone in Equidaestra-" "Equestria." "Equestria know?" "No." "So they don't care?" "Why would they?" Here, Mathews stayed silent. He had nothing left to say. This wasn't something he could answer to, so, instead, he looked to the floor for a few moments before huffing. "Well, I don't care about your past, because the one you had with me was a great one. You managed to fill a hole that I couldn't find myself, and you've given me great moments. I don't think that you're evil. We had great moments, didn't we?" "Heheh. I guess so." "C'mon. Gimme a hug."Mathews spread his arms out wide. "No." "C'mon. You know you want to." "Well." "Not your choice anymore. HUG!" Crescent was still slightly shocked by the man's insistence on giving her a hug. She was suprised at first, but, after having finally rid herself of that negativity, she was able to open herself up to a more, new, positive world. This was parental love. Something she had never felt, even when she was Luna. She wrapped her gigantic wings around Mathews as a tear swept across her cheek. Fore noticed this and pushed himself away. "Are you crying?" he teased with a smile. "N-no.*sniff*" "Bah. C'mon, let's go get your favorite chocolate and blueberry ice cream." "Mmmm." The alicorn left her doll comfortably on her bed, and looked at it one last time before following her "adoptive father". One question still skimmed across the surface of her mind, however. "What happened to Phillip? I haven't seen him in a long time." "I dunno. He said that your teaching was complete, and went to teach others." MEANWHILE, the weird teacher was in the forest holding some iron bars and screaming psychotically while wearing a costume made from bells. Several fairies were screaming and running away at this crazy man swatting them with a stick while sticking his tongue out and yelling "WAAAAAAGH!". His incessant roaring managed to wake up the old man living in his cabin near the forest. He came out with his gun and saw the colorful guy screaming like a maniac after the equally frightened fairies. "Haha! Ya'll get'em thar dere fariries!" "Fairies, dear." "I don't freakin' care. Look at him smash them consarn fariries. Ah've been tryin' ta do that in mah haydays. Smash 'em with a bottle!" *schplink* "YEAH!" Seventeen years later, Crescent had grown into a full grown equidae that looked more like a horse, although she insisted that she was a pony, despite her size. She was a bit taller than Mathews, excluding the horn, of course. A horn which the two had trouble with. The giant pony took several deep breaths as she neared the door. She gave a weak smile at the man next to her as he put his hand on her back, near her wings, that had grown tremendously since the first time Fore saw the fuzzy filly. It was a good thing that she could bend them against her body like a bird. "Don't worry. This was part of the deal, remember?" "I know. I'm just...worried about how the others will react when they see me." "Probably'll think that you're some kind of automaton, then think that you're a horse that I disguised, and so forth." "Hm." "Well, the door awaits. Shall we?" Crescent gave one last exhale, and stood firmly on the ground. "Yes. Let's do it." "After you." Mathews opened the door like a butler. He used one arm to slide it open and stayed on the side. The outside world was now open to the still fuzzy, but not-so-filly-anymore pony. "Here we go." > Fine. You win.(this isn't a chapter) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll make one more bonus chapter. ONE MORE. This'll explain some inconsistencies through Crescent's eyes. Mathews will have no play in this. He'll be in there, but he won't participate "participate". Now it's in the last chapter.