The Host of Insanity

I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. I never had a good life. My dad tried to make things right. But things just never came through for him, let alone me. I never had a home for longer than five months, we were constantly on the move. My parents were unmarried and they constantly had fights. It wasn't until later that I learned, the fights were about me.

My father dropped out of college to pursue his dream, he wanted to be in a band. So, him being the hard worker I knew him to be, he was. He made a band and put his heart and soul into it. One night he met a very important person in my life, my mother. They hung out, took it steady, until one night, they were both drunk, they conceived me. It was an accident, I was an accident. My father realized what he had done and quit his dream to raise me right. It took awhile for that to happen.

I was a huge trouble maker, if it was bad, if you could go to jail for doing it, if people would scorn you for doing it, I had done it and worse, and he knew, he always knew. Every time he found out, he would punish me. They weren't beatings or spankings, it was simple, I got grounded. My mother, a person who almost never got in trouble, resented the idea of punishment.

The two of them would argue well into the night, thinking that I couldn't hear them, but I could, thinking that I had no idea what was going on, but I did. I knew it was because of me, and I felt guilty for it, I think that that actually made me feel worse than the grounding did.

It eventually got to the point where they nearly traded blows and they knew that something had to be done. My mom moved out, she ran away to Cleveland, Ohio of all places. But what my dad didn't know, is that she took me with her.

Three years passed, I lived with my mother in that godforsaken shithole. Only seeing my father for one week a year. Every time I would come over, tears of joy were shed. Every time I had to leave, my father would beg on his knees to try and persuade her to let me stay and I would paw at the back window of the car, begging and screaming so loud that my father said he could hear me from a mile away, and to tell you the truth, I could hear him too.

It eventually became too much for my mother and she moved back, a mere 15 minutes away from my father. Yet, I still only saw him a week a year. I still remember the time I stole my mother's phone and locked myself in a closet. Fumbling with it, calling wrong numbers until I finally got the voice I was looking for. I sat there, bawling my eyes out, asking, 'Why, why did I never get to see him? Why did he never call? Why couldn't I have a father in my life?'

And he would sit there and cry with me, answering my questions with riddles and puzzles, never giving me a straight answer, never telling me the truth. That is the best memory I have of years five through eleven.

At the age of twelve, I was the biggest kid in school. You would think that the other kids would be afraid of me, or be nicer to me because of my size, you would be wrong. My size made me easier to hit. It got to the point when, every day kids would line up to see who could make the giant fall first, they couldn’t. They would do things like call me names, make fun of my family, anything they could to make me mess up. It didn’t work, it made me better. Three, four, five guys at a time even, and they would all wind up, on the ground, blood pouring from various orifices, with little to no consciousness. You would think that after a couple days of that, they couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to try it again. You would be wrong, again.

They came again, on a Thursday this time, they brought an advantage. One kid had a gun with him, one kid had a knife, and yet another had an iron pipe. How they got these things to school, I have no idea. They cornered me, and the one with a gun started preaching to me about how he was better than me in every way, the gun’s barrel never leaving my chest. He was going on and on about random stuff, all the while I was thinking about how much better I was than him at everything he was saying, until he got the the part about making friends. I had none, and he had a gang that was ready to strike down another kid at a moments notice.

I let him talk, coming up with a plan to get out of this. Just as he got to the point when he was explaining how much smarter than me he was, I made my move. I grabbed the wrist currently holding the gun and twisted. He yelped out in pain and dropped the weapon. In one quick movement I turned him around and pushed him into the confused gang he had assembled. Without giving them a chance to retaliate, I charged the group, fists flailing about, each with their own destination. One I clocked in the jaw, another the temple, and yet another in the nose. It took them all of about ten seconds of this to realize that I was beating them. The one with the pipe, in a sneaky an unpredicted move, took a swing at the side of my leg, breaking it on impact.

I let loose a guttural roar of pure anguish and fell in a crumpled heap to the floor. The one with the gun had reclaimed his weapon of choice and aimed it this time for my head. He was looking at me with fury in his eyes as he cocked the hammer back. I was crying silently, the pain showed clearly, overpowering the fear that I felt. I knew I was too young to die, and I knew that this wasn’t my time, but I sure as hell was going to be a man about it. I didn’t even flinch when he pulled the trigger, only to be greeted by a hollow click. My eyes shot open and a grin spread across my face, I was blessed with a second chance that day. Fueled by adrenaline from the near-death experience, I forgot the incredible pain I felt as I stood back up, much to the dismay of my attackers.

I looked every single one of them in the eye, the dark grin plastered permanently across my face. Suddenly my view changed, I was forced to look on at a distance. It was only then that I realized that I had been dreaming the entire time. I had been dreaming about my upbringing and my life up till now. I looked on as my younger self fought the children that had attacked him mercilessly. He beat them to within an inch of their lives, and he seemed to be enjoying it. It wasn’t until he was done that I realized that he had been staring at me the whole time, his eyes never leaving me, even when his head seemed to turn at impossible angles, he kept on with his persistent scrutiny. Even now, as he stood admiring his work, he was staring at me over his shoulder, a slight orange glow emanating from behind his eyes, the grin ever present upon his darkened face.

The evidence of a presence permeated my dreamscape as the image in front of me disappeared in a black cloud of mist. I expected to find myself in the presence of Delirium and Allie, but instead I was greeted by none other than the Night Stalker herself, Princess Luna.

“Good night my little pony. Tell me what sort of night terrors intrude upon your dreams?” She asked, getting into a defensive stance as if the nightmares would attack her.

“It's none of your business m’am. Now if you don’t mind I do believe that this is my time to wake up.” I said, walking away from the goddess.

“There is venom in your words my citizen, have I done something to hurt or harm you in any way?” She asked, appearing in front of me.

Without flinching I responded, “No, now will you please excuse me? I really need to get going.”

A sudden realization was plain upon her face, “You still think of me as Nightmare Moon don’t you. Well have no fear my little pony, for that beast has long since tasted the wrath of the Elements.”

“No, I don’t think of you as Nightmare Moon, as a matter of fact, I hold her in better judgement than you, ‘Princess of the Night’. Now, I would appreciate it if you would please, GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” I yelled at her.

She backed away, a look of disgust upon her muzzle, “You hold that beast in better judgement than me?”

Suddenly her face fell and she seemed close to tears, “Am I that bad of a ruler? I have tried, by Celestia I have, but ponies just don’t see me like they used to. They are all terrified of me and their minds will never be changed.”

She turned to me and said, “Sorry to intrude upon your dreamscape my little pony, but I am leaving now, I have to go collect my thoughts...”

Without another word, she disappeared in a bright flash of light. My sight returned to me, I saw the morning light, once again, seeping into the tent, the birds, once again, chirping the same song, and the light breeze, once again, disturbing only the smallest branches on the smallest trees. Everything was the same. The world, completely oblivious as to the events that transpired the previous night. I eased my way off of the grass I had used as a bed, and shuffled outside. Yawning, I wiped the remnants of the night from my eyes. As I did so, I heard a crunching sound that I recognized as the flaking of dried blood.

I looked at myself and was slightly appalled at the sight. I was covered, head to hoof, in dried blood, even my jeans and my shirt, still on my leg as a temporary bandage, weren’t spared the new crimson coloration. I smelled like a bad butcher shop, and I looked like I had just taken a bath in ketchup. Needless to say, I was a mess and I needed to wash myself before I could even attempt any of the necessary plans I had for today.

Great, I thought with heavy sarcasm, now, where to find a shower in these here parts.

For some reason, my inner voice sounded like Clint Eastwood. I didn’t know why, but I went with it, crazier things have happened. Plus, it was kinda cool having Clint Eastwood be in your head. I shook other random thoughts out of my head and looked around, searching for any possible place where I could rid myself of my suit of blood. Having not found a suitable location, I decided to do a transmutation spell, rearranging atoms and molecules so they fit together and form a completely different compound, easy right? Not at all, as a matter of fact, it was one of the hardest things I had ever done, and I was an expert at sudoku puzzles.

As I formulated the spell in my head, I noticed something admittedly random, I needed a guitar. It was something I learned to do back home for my acting career and had fallen in love with, if I wasn’t writing or acting I was playing the guitar and that was really all I did. I had forgotten that I currently had a transmutation spell charged and that it was hard to think about a spell, a random thing and walk at the same time. I tripped over, something I’m sad to admit, a stick. The repercussions of this little mess up were tremendous. In my startled sense of having gravity suddenly be my enemy, I lost concentration and the spell went off, directly hitting the tent, which was currently falling onto the fire due to my attempting to use it to break my fall. The entire escaped ended in a big flash and a small bang and suddenly, I was falling through air, a guitar on my back, and nothing else, the camp was gone, every trace of it disappeared in the spell I was charging.

“DAMMIT!!” I yelled in frustration, I had no idea where it came from, or who sent it, but that stick was going to get a beating of a lifetime when I was done mourning all of my stuff.

That was when I realized, I might be more screwed than I originally thought, where were my weapons and armor? I searched frantically for them, hoping to whatever entity that was watching that they hadn’t gone down with the tent, and everything else with it. I searched for what seemed like hours, running around the immediate vicinity, searching for any trace of them that survived the blast, even though it was incredibly minor in comparison to others I had been in. Bad experiences, don’t ask. Even through all of my searching, I didn’t manage to find it. Giving up hope, I walked back to the epicenter of the blast sat against a lone tree, face in my hands, grumbling to myself. Suddenly, I had the common sense to take a look to my immediate left and, upon seeing the enchanted leather bag that was currently holding my weapons and armor as well as all of my money and other such things, I began to repeatedly slam my head into the tree and sigh in frustration.

After forming a reasonable dent in the tree and a reasonable sized bruise on my forehead, I began to think somewhat logically about my hygiene situation. Trees were plants, which were made up of mostly water already, so transmutation was made considerably easier. Upon realizing this, I transmuted the nearby trees into water and, using the extremely useful power of telekinesis, made a kind of pool in the ground with which I could wash up in. Since I was still using my logic, I magically insulated my ‘pool’ so the water wouldn’t mix with the dirt and make a mud bath. Then I jumped in, clothes and all, seeing as my clothes needed a washing too. Again I was impressed by my magic ability, looking down at my leg through the now red water, I noticed that the wound, that by all means should have been there, was gone. So were the cuts and scratches I had gotten from the previous night. Nodding to myself, I began the tedious task of washing blood stains from both my coat and my clothes.

(_I__..__I_)

By the time I had managed to successfully remove the stains from my clothes and my coat, the sun had begun to settle just above the horizon. I walked out of the now red water and back over to the original location of my camp. I upon arrival I face palmed at a late realization, I didn’t have another outfit to wear. Groaning at my own stupidity, I walked over to my Bag of Holding and got out my armor and weapons.

Well, I guess I’ll have to wear these for now. I’m going to have to go and get some clothes from in town. Hmm, I wonder if Rarity has any casual clothes.

After equipping the armor and adorning my weapons, I placed my Bag on my back and grabbed my guitar, which luckily had a strap on it, and headed towards town. Upon my arrival, I found it was deserted, but that wasn’t the only thing the was disturbing about the town, everywhere, in little patterns, were little black rods, like the one the bully had in the alley when I first came here. They were all stabbed into the ground, a strange red dot on the tops. I picked one out of the dirt and found that all of them were attached to a long black cord that led further into town. Suddenly I heard a loud click followed immediately by a hissing sound. I didn’t realize what they were until I saw the spark traveling along the black wire I could now identify as a fuse.

Fireworks! Shit! Run! I thought.

I realized that there was no place I could go that would be safe enough, I was going to be caught in the blast. I grabbed my sword and charged it with magic.

Judging from the amount of fireworks here, their size and the amount of destruction dynamite can cause, this shield will have to be really fucking strong. I thought, calculating how much magic I needed to drain into my sword.

Time slowed as the fuse got shorter, and I caught a blur of color from out of the corner of my eye. Suddenly I was on my back thirty feet away with a strangely familiar cyan pegasus sitting on my chest, her hair in complete disarray from the flight. She began yelling at me about being stupid and fireworks and danger but I was only paying attention to the small fillies playing around near the small black tubes, oblivious to their impending doom. I shoved the pegasus off and sprinted towards the three fillies, drawing my sword and once again charging it with magic. Time was still slowed, but even with it crawling along, I wasn’t sure I could make it in time.

I had to though, I had to or innocent lives would be taken in an accident that wasn’t supposed to happen. I had to, or else three fillies with their whole lives ahead of them would get all of their opportunities stripped away from them before they knew it. They would die and their destinies would remain unfulfilled, their fates would become unravelled, and not only them, but their children and their grandchildren and their entire lineage would die in one instance, in one mistake that I made. But I wasn’t going to let that happen, I couldn’t.