Equestrian Psycho

Chapter 3- New Friends and Old Enemies

Chris sat on a bench in the castle's locker room. He was hunched over, struggling to get on a shin guard. Sweetie had been helping him with the other one. In fact, she had helped him with a lot. She'd not only shown him the way to the locker room for the training ground, but she had also showed him to an empty locker he could use to store his jacket in, then found him a set of training armor he could use. It was while he was strapping the leather armor on that they had found out that his morpher phased through and settled on top of any armor or tight-fitting clothing he wore. She'd helped him through getting on all the armor pieces except the final shin guard when she suddenly shot up straight and took off saying she'd forgotten something. That had been a few minutes ago and Chris was starting to wonder if she was ever going to come back.

"Stupid strap," he muttered as said strap slipped out of his hand again. He let out a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. "I never had to deal with this with my velcro gear."

"Do you need some help?" A soft voice asked to his left with the hint of a chuckle.

Chris shot his head up to look at who was talking, only to startle an 'eep' out of Fluttershy as she darted behind Big Mac, who stood back with his hands in his pockets.

"Oh, sorry, Fluttershy," Chris apologized, standing up and giving an apologetic smile. "You just surprised me is all." He wasn't lying. While he could accept that Fluttershy had gone without him noticing her presence, it disturbed him that Mac had been able to do the same, no matter how quiet and stoic the big guy was.

"That's alright," She replied, poking her head out from behind Big Mac. "But the question still stands, if you're okay with that."

"Actually," Chris said slowly, eyeing the armor still in his hand, "yeah, I could...."

"Here," Big Mac said, his voice reverberating around the room, "let me."

"Er, okay?" Chris replied, slightly confused. Big Mac moved to the other side of the bench and signaled for Chris to rest his foot there. He did so and when Mac held out his hand, Chris handed over the shin guard. He made short work of it, wrapping the armor's straps expertly around Chris' leg until it held snuggly. "Wow," Chris said in awe, amazed at how fast the big pony had worked. "Thanks, Big Mac."

"Don't mention it," Big Mac replied kindly.

"So," Chris began awkwardly as Big Mac moved to stand next to Fluttershy once again. "You guys here to watch Nightmare Moon beat the snot out of me."

"Actually," Fluttershy replied meekly, "there's something else I'd like to talk to you about."

"Uh, sure," Chris said, resting his hands on his hips. "Whaddya got for me?"

"You mentioned a name earlier," Fluttershy started weakly. "Twilight Sparkle?"

Chris raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, Twilight. What about her?"

"W-who is she?"

The question shocked Chris. "What do you mean, 'who is she'?"

Fluttershy flinched slightly. Macintosh noticed and took the lead. "We've never met anyone named 'Twilight Sparkle'."

"Seriously?" Chris questioned, completely flabbergasted. "Man, this universe is more different than I thought." Chris straightened up and crossed his arms bringing a hand up to his chin. "Well, firstly, where I'm from, Twilight is the Element of Magic and the Princess of Friendship." Chris let out a sigh and shook his head. "I can't really explain anything else without going into specifics, and I'm pretty sure Nightmare Moon wants to kick my butt in five minutes. Why do you ask?"

Fluttershy shared a look with Big Mac before answering. "I heard one of our friends mention her name once before," she explained, looking back at Chris, "but he spoke in whispers like he didn't want anyone to overhear him."