Chapter 1

9-09-13, 9:07 P.M.

Jeremy got in his black, clunky car and headed home from his school. It had been a long week, and he was insanely glad it was all over. No more fighting, no more looking around a corridor and wondering if a bullet was going to greet his face, just some rest and quiet time. Pausing a moment to wipe the blood and gunpowder off of his face, he surveyed his reflection in the car mirror. His faded, milky blue eyes contrasted heavily with the dried blood that was splattered on his clothes and rectangular glasses, not to mention his coppery hair and pale complexion, and his clothes were severely torn. Worse, it looked like some of his bullet wounds were re-opening. Fun.

He didn't look forward to what awaited him at his house. He hadn't yet seen anything, and the police would have presumably removed the bodies, but there was bound to be blood everywhere - or, at the very least, memories. Well, at least he got the job done in the end - although he wasn't in the safe zone yet: Blood was still dripping down his face, obscuring his vision until he angrily brushed it off, swerving a little as a result. As he drove down the road, he noticed that the military had disappeared, presumably out of shame. In addition, yet more spectators were watching him drive away, presumably to victory. Some were taking pictures, and yet more were pointing and staring – Jeremy would simply have to learn to live with it. He was going to be some sort of celebrity now, whether he wanted to be or not. He waited for the light of the underpass to turn green, and sped off into the night.

As he was driving, Jeremy noticed how dark it was – typical for a September night, but still annoying because he had only recently graduated from driving school. He turned up the hill to his house, and sped off into the even darker, forested confines of his neighborhood. Damn Seattle-area suburbs - so many trees even the headlights weren't doing much. Still, he always enjoyed the look of a streetlight surrounded by trees and pavement - maybe it was just because this was home for him. Unfortunately, it made it hard to see where he was going. Every time he turned the corner, the pile of guns in the backseat would clink against each other annoyingly, so that wasn't helping his concentration either. At least he was almost home - as soon as he opened the door, he planned to flop onto the floor and sleep off the pain. The morphine in his veins was still present, causing them to stand out against his skin like he was an anatomy drawing - the nurse had said this was a normal effect, but it was still extremely creepy to Jeremy.

Suddenly, there was a bright blue light in front of him, and a THUMP! Swearing profusely, Jeremy quickly got out of his car, and went to see what he had hit. What had caused the light, anyway? Maybe his headlights had reflected off of something odd? Wait, could he have hit a person? With a flashlight, maybe? Searching in the dark, he finally came across a quadruped mammal – much more than that, he couldn't tell in the low light. While part of Jeremy was deeply relieved he hadn't hit a human, he was still shocked and curious. He felt its body, trying to determine what it was - it was so dark, he could barely see his hand in front of his face. It felt like a sort of dog, maybe? The fur was a barely noticeable covering, maybe a few millimeters long. As he passed his hand over the side of the thing, his fingers hit soft, fluffy appendages - wings?. Shocked, Jeremy jerked his hand away, brushing against the neck of the creature and causing it to moan with pain. Grimacing, Jeremy decided to take it back to his house and see what he could do there - he did have some leftover morphine, after all, and he might be able to call a vet or something. He picked it up, and slowly carried it over to his car, placing a towel on top of the seat so it didn't get blood over the upholstery – not that there wasn't enough blood on that already from when he entered. As he did, the inside light of the car flicked on, and he could finally see what it was.

Jeremy stared.

This was not what he had expected.

To start with, Jeremy had recently come into the My Little Pony fandom, watching most of the episodes and discussing them with the friend that had gotten him interested. He did enjoy the show, but he certainly wasn't enjoying what he saw here. Was he dreaming? Had he passed out in the car for some reason, and was now hallucinating or even asleep? Jeremy shook such thoughts from his head – if he were asleep, he wouldn't be in such pain. So he was almost definitely hallucinating.

Just a few minutes later, he arrived at his house, and pressed the button for the garage door. The sound caused both him and the pony to groan with pain – it was like a hangover, but so much worse. Not that Jeremy knew how a true hangover felt, but he'd been dehydrated plenty of times, even to the point of blacking out for a few seconds. This was that plus lacerations in several places, plus an all-over ache and fatigue that could have only come from strenuous exertion and lack of sleep. Worst of all was the ache in his shoulder - firing a gun for days on end tended to do that. Jeremy dragged the pony into the kitchen, and rubbed his eyes one more time to make sure he wasn't just dreaming.

It was most definitely Princess Luna.

She was bleeding dark red from a gash in her side, and it looked like she had several bruised ribs. Noticeably, her flank was pockmarked with spots of blood that gently dripped down her side, landing on the floor and beginning to pool. Thankfully, due to his recent actions, Jeremy had plenty of morphine sulfate on hand – he'd meant to turn it in to some police station or other, but had ended up using it out of necessity. He took out one of the pre-measured hypodermic needles carefully, and briefly considered how much she should need. He needed about one and a half the last time he had to overcome injuries like this, which was about three days ago. However, she was lighter than he was, so he decided to just use one. Positioning the needle tip over the nearest vein he could find, he gently inserted it and pressed the plunger. The drug, as usual, quickly took effect, and Princess Luna sighed and stilled, giving over to a deep sleep.

Jeremy then took out the other medical supplies he had raided from the medic and bandaged her multiple wounds, only pausing when he came across what appeared to be a bullet wound. Unless there had been hair-trigger shotguns attached to his front bumper, he had definitely not shot her. So where the hell did the bullet wounds come from? He found a pair of tweezers from upstairs and cleaned them off, and attempted to poke around gently for any sort of bullet. To his half-surprise, he found one – but definitely not any bullet he had ever seen, and he had seen far too many over the past week or so. It was spherical, for a start, and about the size of a BB pellet – but made of lead, like a standard bullet. Though this didn't resemble any bullet he'd ever seen... He went and found a vial in his garage lab – one perk of hobby chemistry was that you always had plenty of scientific apparatus on hand, even if some desperately needed cleaning.

Every time he found a bullet hole, he would dig out the strange bullets and place them in the vial. Soon, it was full – it was only a 10mL vial, but the amount of bullets was concerning to him. Maybe when she woke up, he'd ask her. After he was satisfied that he couldn't make her condition any better, he gently restrained her to an ottoman with some rope from a drawer before going back to the kitchen table and sitting down heavily. Jeremy considered his options, head in his hands. Calling the police, hospital, or veterinarian would be a huge no-no, as they would most likely get the media… more involved than they were going to be. Calling his friends would do nothing to help his situation, as being an Eagle Scout he had more medical knowledge than any of them. So, he was on his own then. That was okay. He was used to that. Sighing, Jeremy looked over once more at Princess Luna, who was still sleeping, a frown on her face. She had had weight and substance, not to mention plenty of blood - so either this was the most realistic hallucination ever, or he had just witnessed First Contact from Equestria and it had gone horribly, horribly wrong. Jeremy continued to muse over this as he patched and bandaged his own wounds, eventually running out of medical gauze and resorting to paper towels. Thankfully, he hadn't gotten shot anywhere vital, and the school nurse had been invaluable in treating the worse injuries.

Jeremy completely failed to notice as Luna broke free of her bonds. Unsteadily, she got to her feet, and began using magic to patch herself up. The effort caused her to fall back into unconsciousness, shocking Jeremy out of his trance as she hit the floor again. Looking up, he noted with some surprise that she had gotten four feet away from her makeshift bed before collapsing again. Examining her further, he found to his surprise that she had managed to heal all of her injuries. Shrugging, he tied her to the ottoman again, more securely so she wouldn't break free and hurt herself again so easily. He then went up to his own bed, and attempted to sleep.

His dreams were filled with images of Luna, some real, some fake in the way only dream logic could distinguish them as such. Jeremy tried to ask her what had happened in the dream, but it seemed she was in just as much of a haze as he was, as she couldn't answer. After a while, she simply disappeared, leaving his dreaming mind to its own artifices.

9-10-13, 2:34 P.M.

When Jeremy woke up, sunlight was streaming through the windows and it was clearly late afternoon. He was sore all over, but feeling well enough to get up in his opinion. This thought was neatly shattered when he attempted to stand and a tidal wave of pain crashed over him. Curling into a sitting position and breathing shakily, he examined his arm: the morphine must have run its course, as his veins were once again nearly invisible. So, he was sober now, then? Jeremy had no idea - he didn't have much experience with morphine, not until last week at least. His stomach chose that exact moment to remind him how little he had eaten recently, so he decided that he needed to get downstairs to the kitchen, whether he liked it or not. Carefully hugging the wall so as not to pass out, he made his way to the stairs. He literally slid down – he had done this sometimes as a little kid, and while it was jarringly bumpy, it was not so painful as attempting to put his weight fully on either one of his feet. It was also kind of fun. Once at the bottom, he slowly picked himself up and grabbed the wall again, only to be distracted by the sight of Luna standing in the hallway to the kitchen. So, it wasn't a hallucination, he thought. He would have been relieved, but she looked furious, and was threateningly levitating a chair as though to bludgeon him to death with it.

"THOU." She spoke. It wasn't her usual shouting voice, most likely due to her own recent injuries, but it was loud enough to cause instant headache all the same. Jeremy groaned and turned his head away in response, not feeling nearly well enough to speak.

"Thou art a carnivore – I looked in thy cooling device! Were thou to tie me up and eat me?!" Jeremy violently shook his head. "Speak, knave! Or face – art thou bleeding?"

Confused by the sudden change of subject, Jeremy looked up to see her examining his many bandaged injuries. She was still saying something, but all he heard was a vague buzzing. At this time, his legs finally gave out and he slumped to the floor, passing out.

When he woke up, Jeremy felt a whole lot better – he wasn't hungry, or tired, or even in any pain. What the hell? Was he on morphine again? He looked around – he was back in his bed, and there was an empty tray that looked like it had contained food and drink. He decided not to get up just yet – the pain before had made him forget how nice it was to be in a comfy bed, and forget about the world. Luna came in, glaring at him as soon as he looked at her. He looked away guiltily. Was she the one who had put him back into bed? And... fed him? Judging from her expression, he didn't think she would have bothered for a second, but there was no other explanation.

"Can thou speak? T'would seem so, yet thou art silent." Luna queried.

"Yes," Jeremy whispered. He cleared his throat and tried again, almost too nervous to continue. "Yes, I can speak."

Luna stared for a bit before answering with a stern and threatening tone. "Then explain at once. We have woken up twice now restrained and sedated, and there was the flesh of other animals in thy steel cooling chamber."

Jeremy grimaced – how best to explain? "I tied you up and gave you painkillers because I didn't want you to hurt yourself more," he finally managed to reply. "And... Humans eat meat... sorry."

This caused Luna to stare at him with even more intensity than before, enough to make Jeremy look away awkwardly once more. "Truly, thou art human? We have never seen one of thy kind before… thou art presumed to be mythical." To that piece of irony, Jeremy could only chuckle. "Have we said something amusing?" Luna asked, clearly somewhat offended.

"Well, yes. In this world, pretty much every sentient species of your world is mythical. So, it's ironic…" Jeremy trailed off. It had just now occurred to him that he was talking to a fictitious member of a mythical species from an alien planet. Well, this was an interesting turn in his life – and certainly a much better one than the previous week of hell he'd been through. Meanwhile, Luna was looking perplexed, almost as though she could read his mind.

"Fictitious…?" She whispered, confused and dismayed. "Are we… not real?" She finally asked, finding no other way to state her question. Jeremy thought about his answer, and also tried to hide his thoughts from her, not to mention his fear - this mare could move the moon if she so desired, he didn't think she'd have a problem with decapitating him on the spot if he misspoke.

"Well, you're here... and physical.. But..." he pondered out loud. How was he going to get out of this? He couldn't possibly tell a character of a fictional universe that they were fictional, that might break the universe. But he couldn't lie to her, either - she'd know! He began shaking in fear, and Luna stared at him, concerned. Finally, she put a gentle hoof on his shoulder, and Jeremy froze. "Thou can trust us. We promise not to harm thee for thy answer," she assured calmly, gazing down at him with such warm sincerity that Jeremy actually felt better. "I..." he began, trying to formulate enough actual thought to come up with a coherent and logical answer. Luna waited expectantly, and after some more thinking he suddenly had an idea. "You know Daring Do?" he asked, making sure Luna knew he was referring to the pony. Luna slowly nodded, suspiciously.

"Of course we do… but how do thou?" Jeremy rolled over to face her completely.

"You and a few ponies you know are basically Daring Do here - fictional characters that teach life lessons while going on adventures." Blushing, Jeremy wished that he didn't sound so maddeningly smug - everyone always said his tone sounded a bit disdainful when explaining things, no matter how much he tried to prevent this. Also, he just revealed the existence of the Fourth Wall - was some extradimensional police force going to kill him for that, or something? That sounded stupid, but Princess Luna of Equestria was currently on Earth, in his house, having a conversation with him - possibility had clearly taken a right turn at reality and disappeared entirely. Luna was clearly shocked from being told that she was essentially a children's storybook character, but it didn't look like she was about to shout at him again. "We... believe thou think this is true. But what proof dost thou have of such an... extraordinary claim?" she asked carefully. Jeremy looked away - he had already told her the biggest part of it, might as well go all the way.

He got up, noticing how easy it was to do so, and slowly walked over to his desktop computer in the next room, noticing that all his wounds were now just pink scars. "Did you heal me, by the way?" he asked Luna, who was following him curiously and a little bit impatiently. She nodded. He booted up his desktop, which was a somewhat old model and thus a little slow to start.

Luna appraised the technology. "Such complexity... Equestrian technology has not advanced nearly this far, even in the time we have been absent," she commented as she examined the computer with what appeared to be X-ray vision, her horn lighting up blue. Jeremy fascinatedly stared at the innards of his computer – not that he hadn't seen them plenty of times when his Dad took the PC apart to upgrade or repair it, but it was still interesting, and he still didn't want to think about his dad.

Once he had finally signed in to his account, he waited the required 30 seconds for the desktop icons to load, and opened Google Chrome. He searched for the first episode of the first season of My Little Pony : Friendship is Magic, and was rewarded after some searching with the full episode, in moderate quality. Luna watched as the opening scene unfolded and the music started. Jeremy couldn't keep a straight face, but was unsure whether to laugh or blush with embarrassment. They watched in silence for the full 20-ish minutes, and when it was done Jeremy looked at Luna for her reaction. Her mouth was open in astonishment, and her eyes were as wide as they could go. "That was exactly how it happened, down to the most minute detail… Then thou art speaking truthfully? We are already known here?" she exclaimed. Jeremy simply nodded, unsure of what else to say.

"If you want to keep watching, this goes on for a while - four seasons, about twenty-six episodes per season. Looks like this site hosts all of them, too," he commented, quickly finding the next one and clicking on it. Standing up, he left to eat, and Luna cautiously sat down, manipulating the mouse clumsily to play the next video.

It was late at night when he finished, and he came back upstairs to find Luna still perusing episodes. "Don't forget to sleep, or something," he commented in her direction, some of his old sarcastic humor beginning to resurface. She vaguely nodded and continued watching. Jeremy rolled his eyes, but thought better of his unspoken criticism - he'd been doing the same thing for years on end. Plus, he had reacted the same way when he had first gotten into the show. Jeremy went to bed, and slept normally for the first time in a long while.

Author's Note:

The first chapter's longer than any of the others, but what can I say - it's an introduction chapter.