> The Eggs of Dementia > by 05rune > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > On the Subject of Myself > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- My name was Wally, but call me “Dark Warrior”. I was just an ‘average’ scrawny 14-year-vampyric ----- living a very un-average nightmare in a hellhole of an Ohio town. Why did I live there? Well, that’s a very good question; it’s a question I could’ve very well posed to my parents each and every godforsaken day that I returned from freshman studies at my local high school, where I was tormented and bullied. You see, we had moved here about a year ago from another small-ish town in Nebraska. It wasn’t ‘Hollywood’, but I had a niche – a place where I felt comfortable. Anyhow, per the norm with a situation like this, it was a case of my dad getting a job here in Ohio (a miracle in itself, I guess) and without a fifth, of course, just loading up our jalopy of a Jeep Grand Cherokee with meager possessions (leaving behind our old and smelly furniture) and hightailing it down (is it really that far down from Nebraska to Ohio?) to this town which I reluctantly won’t name, for the safety of the idiots that inhabit(ed) it (yeah, just call me a pacifist...). I was just an average kid who enjoyed playing Runescape, surfing the World Wide Web and.. oh yeah, watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The notion to begin watching the show came to me in a dream during our first night in the new house in which I was committing tortures and drinking blood, which wasn’t actually that far off from my normal thoughts. This naturally devolved into my typical dream in which I was in a dominion of hate and sacrifice known to me as the “Plane of Torment”, where I, the Dark Warrior aka the Gate Keeper, would thrust his double flaming daggers into the hearts of the robot overlord Excelsior’s minions. I was having a great time (always in contrast to my lonely apathetic life) but on that night, I was.. should I say, rudely interrupted by a jive talkin’ white unicorn who, in short, attempted (and, spoiler, succeeded) to turn me onto a path of righteousness.. or at least having less violent and ridiculous dreams. “Darling, you really must give up that whole ‘hatred’ nonsense WHAT WHAT,” the unicorn said in a laughable stock English accent. I wanted to boot this fucking little minx across the Qliphoth and into the waiting arms of the Dark Father to sacrifice, but I was held back by her apparent cronies who teleported in; mystical beings which identified themselves as the “ELEMENTS OF HARMONY”. “Bah, harmony!” I thought, as I was about to unleash my double daggers into their hearts and kick them out of my dark dream so I could continue to kick ass, but alas, their concentrated power was too much. One of these beings, which I ascertained to be another unicorn, this one purple, weakened me with raw mystic energy that emanated from its horn. Such energy I had not experienced since I defeated Wolf Lord Zanderclaw in the Champion Chamber Tournament about a fortnight ago. Anyway, the unicorn’s fearsome mystic assault, coupled with a soul-shattering glare of a yellow flying type depleted my mana and weakened me to the point of collapsing. “Ugh,” I ejaculated, lying on the ground. I was surrounded by these beings but their faces were obscured by the yellow haze of a day’s end sun on the plane. “We don’t have much time, he’s almost awake,” the purple unicorn said. “WELL GAWSH TWAHLAWGHT.” the orange horse began to say in a southern accent as the purple unicorn began to cut open my chest with its magical force. It didn’t hurt; it actually tickled a bit... “Here… goes… nothing.” she said, pulling my heart, black as lead and death, out of my chest. It rotated in the air for several minutes as the beings began some sort of incantation in regards to the “ELEMENTS OF HARMONY” gimmick. I figured this was some kind of ploy by my rival Lord Hawkvomit, but this… this was real; as real as a dream can get, that is. My heart, rotating in the air, looked goofy, so I began to laugh. The beings were trying to finish their spell to… cleanse it, I guess, and they seemed to finish in the nick of time. The last thing I remember from that dream is the shimmering radiance of the white unicorn. A deep organ chord struck as thunder blasted and I woke up, sweating like the dickens. I had also wet myself. The very following day, after dinner, I was browsing the internet when I ‘stumbledupon’ a page… a page which contained information pertaining to “MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC”. I did a double-take, as the images on screen were consistent with my interrupted dream. Six beings – one blue (well, an assortment of colors, really), one pink, one purple, one orange, one yellow and one… white. Ah, yes! The “white witch” as I referred to her as, rather loud, to the chagrin of my dad, who scolded me and how. Then, I collapsed… from what I guess they call a ‘cuteness overload’. These little ponies were the cutest things I had ever seen. They were adorable, innocent creatures that lovingly contradicted my REAL thirst for blood and death, but I did not pay any matter to this. I didn’t even seem to have a grudge against them anymore in regards to them ruining my dream, (though an explanation would’ve, or still would be nice) so I took to the internet website Wikipedia to research this further. As it turned out, these ponies were the virtual centerfold of an evolving cult of those known as the “Bronies”. They even had their own primetime television show, which was the origin of the hullabaloo anyhow. We didn’t have cable, so the show’s central hub, a channel literally called “The Hub” was unavailable to me at that time. So I took to yet another site, YouTube.com, and land-a-goshen! Would you believe that there were literally oodles of episodes for me to watch? In high definition… in different languages… I watched them. I laughed; I cried… well, the crying was mostly because school was scheduled to begin the very next day. At that point it hit me far harder than any of Excelsior’s minions could have. I was about to begin high school as a freshman in a town that I just moved to. I knew no-one, but then again, no-one knew me either. Armed with my apparently cleansed soul and new inspiration from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I told myself that it was going to be OK… > September… And the Wolves Howl > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- For my first day as a high school freshman, my mom drove me to school. Without exchanging too many words besides the normal “good luck” and “don’t be scared” (yeah, right), I clenched my sack lunch hard as I got out of the Jeep Grand Cherokee. My bobos from the Salvation Army hit the curb outside of the building as a cool morning breeze suddenly enveloped me and instilled a slight confidence. “I can do this.” I thought as I walked toward the double doors of the intimidating two-story building. Naturally, no other kids were paying attention to me; this environment was just as new to me as it was to them, which was as much a bonus as any to me. Besides, I thought, I couldn’t have been the only new kid… As I walked through the halls I dug around in my pocket for my schedule with information pertaining to my locker, which was my first objective. I always liked to treat small tasks in real life like I was in a Runescape quest. It usually made me feel better about potential failure and making the best of shitty rewards thereafter. Speaking of failure… I found my locker rather quickly, but it was surrounded by mean looking thugs. “Excuse me.” I said, I suppose a bit more under my breath than I anticipated, because they didn’t hear me, or so I thought. “Well, this is a great start.” I thought, deciding to put my hand through the flesh barricade. One of the thugs who were wearing a Hollister shirt stopped me. “Aye bay bay nerd,” he said, laughing. “Are you wearing jean shorts?” he inquired. He could clearly see that I was, so why ask? “What, are you fucking gay?” he continued, gesturing toward his two friends. “What? No.” I said a bit more firm that I’m used to. I was proud of finally standing up for myself… What I would have liked to do was give them the old Iron Will treatment… maybe spin off a ‘darling’ little catchphrase and fucking pile drive them into the locker, making the fuckers bleed geysers of blood before torturing them but, alas, reality prevailed, which meant… The bullies didn’t move, so I just gave up and walked to my first hour English class, my eyes going up into my head. I walked into the room and immediately looked for a seat in the back and… nothing, all taken, mostly by sexy girls with very short shorts and guys who were most likely the sexual partners of the sexy girls. Good googly moogly! Some of them looked up at me from their cell phones, their lips fixated like those of a duck and their eyes rolled up into their head. I guess I lost track of my own mind and was staring at their sexiness, as they looked at me like I was creepy (which, to be fair, I suppose I was being). I grabbed a seat in the second row at the end (total of four), placing my backpack over the chair and my sack lunch at my feet as I scooted forward. It was a matter of about ten minutes as kids began filing into the room, taking their seats by their respective compadres. Eventually, a fellow took the seat to the left of mine. Nothing new there; he was a typical hooligan type with a hoodie that looked like it was randomly splattered with paint. Our teacher walked in; a young woman, Mrs. Crittenton. Before she even took a breath she scolded me for having my backpack and sack lunch in the classroom. I feebly attempted to explain that I was held up by some fuckers that conducted themselves like they just escaped Alcatraz but this was to no avail. As for the usual classroom protocol, it was very typical, up until she introduced me as the new student… > I Am the New Student > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She told everyone my name, which really pissed me off. I didn’t recall giving her permission to go that far, but when she began to theoretically interrogate me by asking “where I was from” and other bullshit like that, I felt like violently stabbing her. The final straw was when she inquired about what I liked to do… what my hobbies were and the like. Actually, this was not as bad a question; it might actually give me an opportunity to make acquaintances. “I… like to go on the computer,” I replied, nervously. “Oh, what do you like to do on the computer?” she fired back. “WATCH PORN!” some deep-voiced guy said from the back. Apparently, everyone thought the idea of pornography and exploitation in general was funny and thus began laughing. “Play Runescape and… watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.” I interjected triumphantly. I had no idea where the courage to say that came from, but it must’ve been somewhere from the bottom of my newly ‘cleansed’ heart or something. Everyone laughed as if the subject never changed. My face burned. HOT. In most bullying movies I’ve seen there was at least one person who would agree… The rest of the day was no different; same questions, same answers, same laughs. Except for P.E., now talk about a nightmare… but most can probably relate to that. By the end of the day when I crawled into my coffin (just a bed), I couldn’t be more excited to re-enter the plane of torment. > Jive Talkin’ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I didn’t dream that night. What a fucking joke. I was so pissed when I woke up to my alarm clock at 5:30 that I threw my pillow across the room, knocking down all the chotchkies on my dresser. I staggered to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. As I jiggled it some more, a chill enveloped the room and spectral winds blew open my windows. I was knocked to the floor and as I tried to re-coordinate myself, the white unicorn, or just Rarity, was before me, in all her majestic and graceful beauty. It dawned on me that I was dreaming, but this is where you could say the game had changed. “Darling,” she began to say. “Stop fucking saying that, you bitch,” I snapped. “…you really must learn to defend yourself,” she exclaimed. Well, this was absolutely true, but anyone could tell me that. But, of course, because it was me, it had to be a unicorn in a dream. “How?” I inquired firmly. “By pulling up your pants, ponyboy.” she said in a male voice as I fell into my seat in first hour English, or at least felt like I had. “RARITY!” I said out loud, bashing my head on the table and realized that I was actually dreaming in class. It dawned on me that this was the next day in English and I had fallen asleep listening to my iPod. Apparently, my plastic shorts had fallen down a bit and people were staring at my buttocks. It was only day two and the days were already morphing right into the next. I wanted to die. Later, in P.E., I was sitting alone in the bleachers when I was approached by a couple of bullies, two of which were from my English class. “Dude, this kid plays Runescape!” one of them said. I would later learn his name was Chet. “What level are you, dude?” another one of them, Steve, asked. Well, this had some potential, I thought. They seemed interested in Runescape, at least enough to approach me, but I would soon come to find out it was just a ploy; just as much of a ploy as something Lord Hawkvomit would conjure up. “138…” I said. “Dude, I’m like 150.” Chet said, laughing, flicking his wrist. “You can’t go higher than 138.” I exclaimed, as if it really mattered to these ruffians. I actually said the word ruffians in my head whenever I thought of them. I was proud, because I learned that word from my newfound goddess Rarity. “I can go higher than 138, like at Stephanie’s party last night…” another bully, Dave, said, bumping fists with his cohorts and obviously referring to substance abuse… I thought. I hoped… And so another night, another opportunity to enter the Plane of Torment. I snuck two of my dad’s sleeping pills and popped them with a gulp of bottled water before lying in my coffin, anticipating a dream to save me from myself… > Disease > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, indeed that night, I returned to the Plane of Torment, daggers and all. But something was very different about the Plane… it wasn’t the fucking Plane! It was Equestria, recognizable by the iconic Canterlot, seemingly hovering in the distance. I didn’t know what to think; in my short time as a “Brony”, I had grown to love Equestria and all that it stood for… all of its inhabitants… (except those hooligans that bully Apple Bloom) but I couldn’t possibly kick ass and feel good about myself in this world! I had a gift – to dream and escape reality… but this was... different. I was actually in Ponyville, and thought that I would explore a little. It was much like the show, but like in all dreams, there was an omnipresent fog about it, where not everything was as it seemed and, like a videogame on low settings, the draw distance so to speak was severely impaired. The first pony I wanted to visit was of course Rarity. What drew me to her, exactly? I had previously referred to her as a bitch… I think. She was the first voice that ever told me to “learn to defend myself”… I think. Goddamn it, I was losing such a grip on reality I didn’t even know what dreams were real and what dreams were dreams within dreams that had no grasp on my chain of dreams that held together. Was this dream within the universe of the Plane of Torment? Did I still hold my tier-10 circuit championship? Well, I had the daggers… the armor… so, I guess my repute sustained, but it was worthless all the same without bad guys to kill. Carousel Boutique was in sight, but as I approached it, a badass dragon swept out from the heavens and attempted to lay down an atomic-breath-smackdown on me. I dodged it with my evasion ability I won in tier-8 and twirl-kicked into Carousel Boutique where Rarity was doing a little sewing. As she turned around in her signature style, I felt my knees buckle and I swooned at her elegance, grace and beautiful face. Just then, the building began to shake and GOD FUCKING DAMN IT! I WOKE UP… and I wet my pants again. This time, I was pissed as fuck; pissed on an otherworldly level. I got out of bed, went to my dresser, pulled out my secret knife and stuck it in the wall about 3 inches deep. It was Wednesday, my dream ended, and I had to go to school… I wanted to die. > The Eggs of Dementia DCLXVI > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- My typical routine in the morning was to have some toast, brush my teeth, get dressed and go wait for the bus. But on this morning I decided I was sick and not physically viable to attend school. In short, it didn’t work. My parents scolded me and knew I was bullshitting, so, reluctantly, for only the third day of what I estimated to be, at the most 720, I took my business to the place I hated the most. Well, what more can I say? Everyone hated me, I hated everyone. Days were now counted by individual hours, and then minutes and then seconds. I had no friends; I had nothing but my dreams and my little ponies. Even the dreams, which were mostly about Rarity, would end with the beeping of the dreaded alarm clock. I had to find a way to bridge the gap; to make my dreams a reality and return to darkness, evil and pure fucking armageddon. > Falling > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was October and there was an assembly for homecoming. I hated this type of thing and wanted to stay home, but my fucking bitch mom and my bastard dad didn’t let that shit go down, so I just “bit the bullet”. I would rather have eaten a box of bullets than experience what happened that day… The pep rally was held in the gymnasium; oh, how ironic, the same place the worst class ever, P.E., was held. Naturally, my fifth hour math teacher, Miss Shanks, was a fucking whore bitch and released us über-late so we were literally the last group of kids into the gymnasium. Even though we had designated sections, finding a seat was not the easiest task in the world. As I climbed the steps, annoying music continued to play and it pissed me off, so I began to get a little aggressive; I sung the My Little Pony theme song, among other rather dark and evil metal songs in my head as I imagined torturing and murdering people or even showing off my full d-helm in Runescape. As I got to the top of the steps, I was (inadvertently?) tripped up and went tumbling down. Even if everyone wasn’t looking at me, I could feel the heat; more heat than Excelsior’s heat-seeking laser-beam in the champion chamber of tier-11 beta. I could feel myself falling in slow motion, with the laughs and microphone feedback echoing inside my head. “Hey, it’s Wally the Freak,” Chance Franklin said. “HE’S A CREEPY RAPIST,” Bolinda Deeks added. “GO TO HELL PONYBOY!” Chet Peters continued. There are so many more insults that were added to my injury. Much like Adolf Hitler wanted, or rather anticipated Valkyries to emerge from the heavens to the aid of German forces at the apex of the final Allied push into Berlin, I wanted Princess Luna or Rainbow Dash or even Gilda to come and save me from this inferno. > Vespre (Twilight) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I woke up later that night with a washcloth on my forehead, lying in my bed at home. Per my mom, I had passed out. Well, no shit, you worthless sack of balls. I ripped the cloth off my head and threw it at my dresser, knocking down some chotchkies again. Funny how I hadn’t dreamed during that time; I guess the good shit only happened in the depths of night and not in the depths of my total embarrassment and meltdown. I decided to cut loose for the remainder of the day, propping my MacBook on my chest and watching My Little Pony. My chest was burning but I still managed to fall asleep and enter the Plane of Torment. > This is Serious > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- For the first time in a long time, I was back to being Dark Warrior; that is, kicking ass and kicking more ass and flexing my pecs. The dream had returned and I was in sheer nirvana until I abruptly fell out of the dream, back into my bed and fell from my bed back into Ponyville, in the exact spot I had left off from the previous cutoff. The appropriately epic music that played during my dream battles was replaced with a saxophone ditty and resembled an old crusty supermarket tune. This was appropriate to me, however, because Rarity was in the flesh and looked sexier than ever. The fog was so dense there was only a path from myself to her and SON OF A BITCH! I woke up. In English class. Again, I had lost track of time, place and reality, and apparently, my bowels, as I had shat myself. Remember the part about wanted to eat a box of bullets more than falling down some steps at an assembly? Well, I take that back times omnifinity, for sure. Some memories had returned, such as how the previous night had seen us feast on a meal of Mexican fare that had adverse effects in… certain areas. I told my parents that I couldn’t eat Mexican, but they wouldn’t listen, as usual. So guess who had to pay? Wally. Wally the Freak. “Look everyone, Wally the Freak pooped his pants!” exclaimed Chad, a handsome football player. “Get away from my Gucci sweater, you creep.” said Silvia, a very attractive dame I sat next to per a seating chart recently enacted. I stood up, took off my pants and punched that whore right in the face. Nice! Next Chad tackled me but I smoked the fucker out by kicking him in the testes. Pretty much everyone in the class surrounded me and was closing in for a beat-down, but I did a triple kick through the air and smashed through the whiteboard into the next class where I shoved King Kong up my ass and ate a sandwich. Wait, what? What the…? Oh no… this was what I was afraid of… > Revelation Part I > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It turns out that was part of the dream. What was once my own subconscious smorgasbord to pick and choose from was now in the hands of a greater being, or beings. I got out of bed, approached my dresser and looked right to the mist of a fullmoon night. Thirsting for blood, I got out my knife and cut a little smidgen on my palm, but held it in the general direction of the window. That’s when the dark queen herself, the possessed and immortal goddess of hate, Princess Luna, appeared. There she was, standing tall and proud in cosmic winds. The look on her face was that of regality, self-awareness and certain doom. Oh yeah! The gap was being bridged! Revenge on humanity was as good as mine, right? I appeared in a lounge-like room with many figures sitting about. To my left was George W. Bush and to my right was Ron Paul and William Jefferson Clinton (a confirmed Brony). “I understand you have some troubles in your world,” said Luna to me, in that signature voice. It was great to hear it, in all its loud, disgusting aural hellfire. It made me think of episode four of season two… Death to Fluttershy! These were serious matters and whispering like we were picking flowers wasn’t gonna cut it. I was surprisingly not nervous and willing to completely be frank with Luna. “Yeah, I fucking hate humanity,” I said. She turned around and slowly raised her head. “Your misanthropy is not the issue at hand, Dark Warrior,” Luna exclaimed. “Your world is becoming a viable threat to our world.” “Your society’s technological advancements and greed are a direct threat to our universe,” she finished. This was quite the revelation to me, if I was to take this seriously and not think it to be but a dream. Luna then used her magic to project onto a wall the film Avatar and that’s when I lost it. I couldn’t help but laugh, perhaps more at myself than the situation she was attempting to present, but, as Rarity would say, this was just too rich. “They know what they want to do, and this propaganda is only the beginning.” “Avatar was a gnarly movie, though,” “So… you believe human beings want to occupy Equestria?” I continued, dumbfounded and chucking. “You know better than I that the ‘industrial complex’ breeds humans to place into schools to bully people like you, as a means of sending a message to those who they know are watching,” “What does this have to do with me?” I asked. “You are the chosen one, the child of the night who has to rise up and lead the informed to glory.” “This man, this Ron Paul has seen the danger and he, with the Clinton and the Bush are hard at work to stop this madness,” she continued, gesturing towards the gentlemen. “But we need your allegiance! We refuse to become the human’s carrion…” “I want you to kill people,” Luna finally finished. Now, Luna was my goddess and I thought she was raw but this was crazy. Even if I was truly mentally ill and this was all in my head, I could still determine that the ability to carry out such actions weren’t in my repertoire, now or probably ever. It wasn’t my style. > Revelation Part II: Musings from a Sick Brain > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had turned a blind eye to society’s real flaws and hadn’t seen deeper than the small scars that were inflicted by circumstance; school, parental disputes, etc. But as I gained strength through knowledge, I began to take my studies to a new dimension, a taboo place where even the most intellectual and well-informed of legions had not dared to delve into. I had ascertained that ‘bronies’, males (and select females, most of which have not been proven to actually exist) who adhered to the commands/teachings of the show, "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” were gaining considerable power – ominous power, if you will, clandestinely infiltrating the various elements that hold together the foundation of modern society; slowly but surely gaining the allegiance of students, young children, old children and the most ominous of all – politicians. I had coupled this with the fact that fanatical groups gaining large amounts of power in cultures’ governing bodies had seen results that changed the very course of history. Of course, the most well-known being the National Socialist Party’s rise to power in Germany circa 1920 to 1933, with the infamous man himself Adolf Hitler at the reins. The bleak irony of my realization was even suggested in the show itself, with Princess Celestia’s thousand-year empire being directly at the expense of Princess Luna and perhaps, just perhaps, a subliminal genocide of Princess Luna’s followers (perhaps legions of vampyres, eternal children of the night, but that’s my guess) who chose to adhere to her ideals, none of which have been disclosed as of yet… These thoughts of mine began to drive me mad. I, at this juncture, was disconnected from reality and did not know if ponies, as depicted in the show and in my visits and dreams, were physical beings that dwelled, or very well could dwell, in a plane not known to humankind (or at least acknowledged). When I said that visits in Equestria were not dreams, I could’ve been wrong, but the ambiance was not consistent with a dream, it was too vivid, too real and made too much sense, particularly Luna’s warnings. My ‘mental illness’ did not actually drive me to kill people. I continued with my same routine, continued to be bullied, continued to watch My Little Pony and continued to contemplate my own suicide rather than the death of another person by my own hand. I didn’t know the math but I knew that there was some credence to what Luna said, even if it was just a dream. But I had myself again, because how could there be credence to it if I wasn’t sure that Equestria, let alone the entire goddamn universe surrounding My Little Pony existed? > Alone > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hip Hip Hooray, Christmas vacation was finally here, which meant it was December and the nights were cold as my heart. Now, as far as I was concerned, the Plane of Torment was gone. I stopped dreaming about that kind of stuff all together. I began having sexy dreams of supermodels and hot bitches making out and rubbing my private parts. I would wake up and the sheets would be wet and then I really wanted to fucking die, especially when my mom would walk in and see them. Then I began dreaming about My Little Pony again, never going more than a dream at a time without Rarity having some kind of involvement. What was it about her? Was it a message? Was she trying to tell me something, but forces of Satan’s storms were holding her back? That would actually be kind of cool, as it was in my opinion that the Dark Father was the rawest dude ever and an ironic future savior of humankind. Maybe she was just trying to tell me that I needed a tan. I mean in reality, I was as white as she was and kids in school made fun of me for it. However, I felt the only appropriate place to get a tan was in an exotic land on a beach, but our family was poor as shit and as a result I couldn’t even wear designer shirts, which of course led to even more bullying. Yeah, I bought all my threads at the Salvation Army. Same place I bought my bobos and we bought our used furniture. This is a little off topic, but I have to give a special mention to a brown leather divan we recently bought that you can actually stick to if you sit on it long enough. I affectionately called it the “devil couch”. Christmas vacation was, like any other time of the year, lonely and pathetic, but at least I wasn’t in school. We had dinner at Grandpa Hal’s on the 24th and I got some cash money, but that was not what I desired. I desired the apocalypse, but I knew upon opening the envelope marked “Wally” I wasn’t going to find it there. Just like that, it was January 3rd and I was back at it again. Then it was March 3rd… and April 3rd… and April 20th, when our mailbox got run over by some high and drunk pieces of shit. On the eve of the first of May, I was visited again by Princess Luna, who didn’t mince words: she was pissed that I wasn’t murdering people. This was getting on my nerves, so I laid down the law the best I could. “Luna, thinning out the herd is gonna take a few cluster bombs, not one oppressed teenager…” I said. “I suppose you’re right.” she yelled, knocking me back from the sheer force of decibel carnage. “Wally, what’s going on in there?” my dad inquired from behind the door. “Nothing, dad,” I replied. “Who’s in there? Are you on drugs, Wally?” “This isn’t over…” Luna said softly. “No, dad, I’m just talking to myself…” I said, as I put all of my 120 pounds against the door in an attempt to stop him. My dad hardly represented the charge of the heavy brigade, so I was confident Luna could make a quick getaway, but when I turned around Luna was gone, with only a vinter-like breeze eerily caressing the drapes to my window. My dad finally made it in, with my mom staggering in pursuit behind him. My parents very rarely entered my room, especially during the sensitive period that was nighttime. My dad was pissed as hell and my mom reminded me of an episode of I Love Lucy where Ricky Ricardo warned some bald ass dude about how women have two faces… one pretty and one covered with cold cream. “Wallace, you’re in big trouble,” my dad exclaimed. He barely ever called me Wallace; I think because he was ashamed he gave me such a stupid birth name. But why was I in trouble? Because he suspected I was on drugs? Fat chance! I couldn’t even say I was on the ‘drug of life’ because my life was miserable but you already know that, reader. Let’s just say the strife didn’t last long. After my dad realized that his son was still a pussy mark that didn’t take drugs beyond sleeping pills he stole (he still didn’t know that little detail, nor did I figure he cared), he and my mom returned to their sleeping quarters. I sat on the edge of my bed stroking my Rarity plush which I recently bought used from the Salvation Army (perhaps the only good thing that store has ever been good for). I choked three more of my dad’s sleeping pills and let my head hit the pillow… > At One with the Dead Rats > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- As my head hit the pillow and I was suddenly in the grasp of Princess Luna, who was had apparently made good on her proclamation that it wasn’t over. We fell right through the ceiling of first hour English in slow motion. Now, I may have lost track of time again, but who cared, this was some badass shit. We were in a heated grapple to the death while a badass metal song was playing. The room inexplicably caught on fire and people were screaming and their flesh was burning off, but I guess… Satan’s minions… had seemingly barricaded the door and windows, making escape impossible until the entire foundation burned down. I thought it was pretty cool. I delivered a weak southpaw to Luna’s face and she impaled my forehead with her horn. It hurt, but I drank some of the blood and gathered myself to perform a chokeslam. “FUCKERS!” echoed a voice, which I recognized. It was Super Mecha Death Christ B.C. 4.0 Beta, pretty much a sailor-mouthed robot version of Jesus who fired lasers, nothing more, nothing less. He blasted down the barricade and I figured he was aiming to fire a laser right at me, but he shot it at the barricaded window, which revealed Satan, closing in for a kill. Satan puked green slime all over the place and did battle with Super Mecha Death Christ while I battled Luna. “We’re the same…” Luna said. “We… both… want… the… world… to… end.” “We’re not the same, you fucking Nazi whore.” I exclaimed, as I did a cool reach-around, ripping one of Mrs. Crittenton’s big breasts off and crushing Luna’s head with it. I eventually regained my bearings and went for a whirling dervish, but Luna countered and threw me at a ceiling light. Flesh was burning and sirens were approaching from outside, but the battle raged on. I picked up a burned and severed leg and tried to ram Luna but she dodged it and I hit Satan instead, knocking him right over a desk. The foundation was crumbling, meaning we only had a few minutes before the towering inferno collapsed and there would be no victors. What exactly we were fighting for I had no idea, but I was having fun. Perhaps a bit too much fun at the expense of others, but this was preferable to being called names for wearing jean shorts and charging my lunch every day. The entire window wall had burned to a cinder and I had Luna in position to throw her off. “The genocide of my people shall not conclude here!” she exclaimed, the aural hellfire not quite enough to knock me back. Wherever I garnered this newfound strength from I did not know. At this point, Luna was somewhere between being Freddy Krueger and an angry Native American. If she died on Earth, she was gone for good. If she died period, then Celestia’s thousand year empire cleansing was complete and all hope was lost for the Lunar Republic. I could see three sniper lasers pointing directly at me from an adjacent building. I had Luna in a chokehold and the choice was mine. Everything leading up to this point, the purported mental illness, the conspiracies, the reality gap… “Why was I chosen?” I asked, suddenly desperate for an explanation for this entire situation, from very beginning to end, which seemed to be coming up soon. “What did I do to deserve this?” I continued, but Luna had no interest in answering. “FUCKERS!” I heard from behind as Super Mecha Death Christ shot a rocket directly at us. We dodged it, but just then the building collapsed. “HA!” Luna exclaimed, as she broke free and began to fly away. But without a fifth, a police helicopter rose from out of nowhere and a commando with a wise-guy smile fucking pumped her full of lead with a mounted machine gun. I didn’t even notice what was happening beyond that because the damn building had collapsed and I was in a state of freefalling. It was funny how this event of all events seemed to last the longest, and how that old cliché of seeing your entire life transpire before you die was actually occurring… to a point. It’s not exactly everything that happens in your life – in fact, large portions of my vision consisted of water boiling in a steel pot on a stovetop, a vision which I had actually had since my youth but never attempted to interpret… It was a shame that my life was going to end, but man, what a way to go out. I wasn’t even sure that this was real, but I was actually on fire for most of the plunge and could feel it – really feel it. As my very last liberating breath transpired – as the Dark Warrior plunged into the inferno below – I looked down and realized that I was not human. I was a flower.