A Chessmaster and his Game

The pain, dear god the pain, at least the pain told him he was alive, but right now he felt like he was on fire.

The second Jackson woke up, he practically tore off his clothes, leaving nothing but his boxers, and began writhing on the ground and letting out quiet yelps of agony.

Sweating profusely, his head felt like it would explode, his hands felt like they were getting stabbed, his back felt like the flesh was being torn off of it.

As soon as the feelings came, they left.

*ding ding ding*

The timer has reached the quarter mark, and a quite describable (yet still incredible) pain has assaulted you, there is little hope to reverse this now, make sure you eat heartily tonight, or you might end up in the ER or something.

His upper body was full of warmth, his clothes magicked away due to not being worn, and he stood up, breathed out a large groaning sigh of relief, and stepped outside.

Twilight followed the tall man and found him rolling around in the snow for several seconds before standing up again, "That ought to clean off all that sweat, holy shit, that was intense,"

"Aye dawg y'alright?" Samuel called out in concern as he ran up to the man, Anjuel following shortly.

"Master, I shall help you," the butler said, casting out a spell to scan for damage, "Oh my, you're running a fever, your body is about one hundred and twenty five degrees. I shall help you," the unicorn cast out a conflagration of snow, which covered his master before melting in seconds, "That reduced the temperature by five degree- oh wait, it's back up again, I apologize master, I have failed you," the siurl lamented, hanging his head in shame.

"It's alright, I'm alive and mostly well, just give me a minute to catch my breath." immediately after saying that, Jackson began wheezing and huffing and puffing, trying to fill his starving lungs as he laid down onto the ground, the snow melting around him.

"At least your eyes aren't chartreuse anymore, hmm, they're now gray with slivers of gold mixed in, interesting," Twilight observed.

"Okay, nice, can I go home now?" Jackson choked out, still trying to regulate his breathing.

"Of course, but be careful, if you start hearing any ghostly whispers, ignore them," Twilight warned, her muzzle pressing into his nose.

Jackson casually licked her mouth, causing the lavender mare to recoil back and cover her mouth with her hooves, "Thank you for extricating yourself from on top of my being, now I may stand and leave," he formally thanked, giving a small bow and walking away with Samuel.

"I must say, t'was quite humorous when master did that, by the way, if the 'ghostly whispers' you were referring to were part of the myths about the effects of necromancy, I can say from experience that the 'ghostly whispers' part is false, I should know, I was once a very powerful necromancer myself, though now that power is busy keeping me alive, if you wish, I could educate you on this field of magic," the siurl offered.

"Did he really just?" Twilight was blushing at the thought.

"I am sure that master does not realize the pony's-tradition dictated purpose of what he did, despite living here for many months, he has learned very little about pony culture, come, I shall help you clean off and teach you the ways of necromancy," the butler offered a hoof, which Twilight took gratefully, and he lifted her up to her hooves.

The two entered the library, closing the door behind them.

~Meanwhile, at the McCard residence~

Scootaloo had looked everywhere for her Hearth's Warming gift, but found nothing of the sort, just some random assorted materials and a few weapons, she looked at her gift for her brother, held in her little hoof.

It was made of steel, but covered in copper to look nicer, with tiny amethysts for eyes and a little circle for a ring, it was hard to get her brother's finger measurements, but she had done it.

The ring had a thing that looked like the mockingjay pin from the Hunger Games, it even had custom-cut ruby for fire, though the flames reached inside the circle, and the spear also was confined inside the circle, she didn't want to give her awesome big brother a dangerous gift.

Sighing and returning upstairs, the filly tucked the pin onto her scarf and folded the scarf up to hide it, she decided that if her big brother was going to hide her gift, she was going to hide his gift.

The filly decided to look in the master bedroom for one last go at looking, "Maybe he hid it under his bed," her young mind reasoned, trotting over to the bed and looking under it, finding nothing, not even dust.

The little pony raised her head and stuck her tongue out at the wall, looking around for any sort of storage device.

Her eyes fell on his personal chest, and she jumped over the bed to get to it and opened up the lid.

Inside were many things, some quills, a flint and steel, a few pieces of paper with things written on them, and three books.

One was labeled 'Journal', which she ignored, the second book was the book of poetry that he wrote for Twilight, and the third had no title written on it, only magic symbols and a scary skull.

*too cool for a normal sound*

You got: The Necronomicon

A simple, easy, though tedious how-to step-by-step guide on how to be an awesome necromancer, this special edition also includes the second volume, how to be a lich

(WAR-

The message was cut off by Scootaloo speaking.

"Cool," she said, almost completely forgetting her goal before setting the book onto the bed.

The young, innocent filly was about to read the book made with liquefied insanity and power as ink, but was distracted when her eyes fell upon the wardrobe, "Of course, it's gotta be hidden in his closet," she concluded, vaulting over the bed and opening the door to the wardrobe.

She didn't see any presents, but what she did see was a strange screen with a lot of confusing labels and boxes, a title at the top read 'Inventory', so she guessed that this was a magical wardrobe.

Her hoof pointed to one of the articles of clothing on the side, "Ooh, I want to see that one," she said, and the duster blinked from the slot it was in to the appropriate slot on her body.

She felt a sudden weight on her back and found that she was now wearing a small duster, she grinned at how cool it looked, a little label on the inside of the collar read 'Dead Man's Law', she looked at the 'Inventory' wall again, putting the duster back in the slot where she found it.

The next thing she tried on was the cool hoodie.

It phased onto her body, and it looked cool, and powder blue contrasted her orange coat nicely, and the wing symbols on the back were right at a pair of holes for her wings, however a few additions had been made, a pair of dragon heads looked at though they were eating her hooves on either side, their necks trailing up for a little bit, then tapering into thick lines that traced her shoulders and ran down the front of the hoodie, a pair of tribal hearts on the side that were on fire, and the waist of the thing was covered in the same scales design. The awesome wing design had actually changed as well.

"Eh, no present here, too bad, oh well, I guess I can just read this book and wait for tomorrow.

The violet maned pegasus trotted back over to the book and looked at the cover.

"It certainly looks like a 'Necronomnom', I wonder what 'necromancy' means," she said cheerfully as her untainted eyes sparkled in excitement.

Once again, the innocent, lively, virgin-eyed filly was prepared to read the book that drove the very writer of the book insane with lust for power.

She could hear the immensely creaky front door opening downstairs, she quickly dropped the cover and put the book back in the chest, rushing out of the room and galloping downstairs.

She saw Jackson and Samuel walking in, the latter closing the door, "You're back!" she said cheerily, trying to hide the fact that she had been in his room, he squatted down and gave her a hoof-bump as she passed him, running outside to play in the snow.

That was another one of the rules, one person has to stay at home at all times, until a sentry or something is acquired.

Jackson smiled at Scootaloo's enthusiasm, watching her running across the small dirt path to reach the fields of snow.

"Don't play too long, Scoots, don't want you to get too cold now," he called out to her, watching her happily beginning to make a snowpony, "I will never understand how that works," he said in an I-have-no-idea tone.

Walking upstairs to reclaim his clothing, he put it all on one step at a time, socks, shoes, and pants, then his shirt, duster....

Where's the hoodie?

He looked out of the window to see Scootaloo playing in the snow, wearing his hoodie.

"Eh, I wanted to put it back on, but I think it looks better on her, oh well, I'm warm enough anyways," he thought aloud, looking at himself in the mirror.

A modern police officer shirt and an old-timey sheriff's longcoat, skinny jeans and twentieth century style shoes, he looked like the thing someone threw up after getting sick on anachronism stew.

"I love my family," he said dreamily, thinking about Assassin's Creed III and the homestead, about how it would be nice to have something like that, to have a homestead, and a bunch of families working in a little community.

This would never work, at least... not in his lifetime, Ponyville was about a quarter-mile away, it technically was once a homestead, if his brief research was any good, but the group of families with skills and trades eventually grew and developed into a full town.

He asked himself the ultimate self question, "What am I doing?" he put a hand to his head.

"I'm wishing to be in the past, which I don't want to do now that I think about it like that, I'm watching my little sister play in the snow, when I should be joining her, and I just now remembered that I should eat really heartily tonight, wait, what time is it?" he whipped out his cellphone, not questioning how it had adjusted to time in Equestria, or how it had a signal.

The time was half past five in the afternoon, he briefly wished for gloves, because his hands were so sweaty, but right as he finished wishing for gloves, he dropped his Droid Ultra on the overhang below, a bit more than seven feet was too far down to reach, and the structure of the overhang was too dangerous to try to lower himself onto, lest he slip on his feet, or slip when pulling himself back up.

"HEY SCOOTS, CAN YOU HELP ME OUT?" he called out to the orange pegasus playing out in the field of snow.

"YEAH? WHAT'S WRONG?" she called back, waving.

"I DROPPED MY CELLPHONE ON THE OVERHANG, CAN YOU FLY UP AND GRAB IT FOR ME?" he requested, pointing down to the small black rectangle.

Scootaloo didn't respond, she just looked at the ground in shame.

Jackson knew something was up, "Oh hell no I'm not letting you be sad after I got my phone stuck," he jumped out of the window, immediately regretting his decision, but was able to grab his cellphone at least.

*THUD* was the sound he made when he landed into the two feet of snow, quickly melting down to the ground as most of it was blown away from the impact.

"JACKSON!" Scootaloo shouted in concern as she galloped over to him.

"MASTER!" Anjuel yelped in surprise from down the road, speeding his casual walk up to a full-tilted sprint.

"I'm okay, I just maybe broke my nose, and dislocated my shoulders, please help," he said with a muffled voice, his nasal injury preventing him from speaking properly.

Scootaloo was crying, "Why did you do that?"

"I was going to rush over to you and ask why you were looking at the ground in shame, but my goal of getting to you as quickly as possible was made difficult by the twenty feet that I fell," the injured man groaned, letting out a shriek of pain as Anjuel used his bony hands to relocate his master's shoulders.

"I shall do my best to fix your nose, master," the siurl assured, casting out some altered necromantic magic.

By cutting out the 'raise from death' and lacking the ability for the 'control' part, the spell snapped itself into the nearest complying spell formation, which was a healing spell.

Jackson sighed in relief as his injured nose returned to normal, the leaked blood was being wiped away by a gentle handkerchief, before the man realized that Anjuel was seriously wiping his nose for him, and it wasn't a handkerchief, it was the siurl's tongue.

".... nigga GET OFF MAH NOSE!" he said, recoiling back away from his butler as the latter turned into a pony.

"I apologize, master, for I merely jest, returning the gesture you gave to Lady Twilight earlier, you should know that a lick to the face, in pony culture, is a sign of great affection," the pale faced stallion explained, before adding, "Though I merely did it because I felt it funny, please do not take any offense to it," he half-pleaded.

"Sorry bro, I can't get your phone thingy because... I can't fly, I thought you knew that?" she sniffled.

"I'm sorry, I forgot, I remember you telling me that a long time ago, now I understand why you wanted flying lessons, I thought you just needed practice, ugh, don't worry sis, I got my phone in the end, so this wasn't a total waste," he said, chuckling a bit and grabbing his sister for a heartfelt hug.

Scootaloo's tears halted, and she gave a small smile at the loving embrace.

Anjuel silently entered the house, leaving his master and mistress alone for their moment.

Almost a minute later, they broke apart, feeling better.

"Y'know, I was originally going to take my hoodie back," he paused to cough, and Scootaloo noticed that she still wore her brother's garment.

"Oh, I'm sorry Jackson, I didn't realize, here." she tried to pull the hoodie off, but failed.

"No, it's okay, you keep it, it looks better on you anyway, and I'm plenty okay without it," he assured, waving the notion off with his hand.

The two laughed just for the sake of laughing, and went inside.

~Some time later~

It was the middle of the night, almost midnight, and all through the house, nopony was stirring.

Jackson, being a human and not a pony, was stirring around in the basement, eating all sorts of food that was stored down there, apples, carrots, potatoes, pumpkin pie, even a lot of meat that was left behind, plenty of bread, and yet he was still hungry.

Eating an apple to its core, then the core itself, a whole fish, even the fins and face, he crunched up the bones into a grainy paste and drank that down with a whole gallon of milk, followed by several other drinks, he could shit his bowels out later, but right now he needed to feed.

Finally finding a single apple with gold on it, and ate it.

Nothing, still hungry, though after several seconds, he looked at his phone clock and saw that it was now midnight.

*ding ding*

The timer is at the halfway mark, come tomorrow noon, something big will happen, almost half an hour of ravenous hunger has left you, yet you don't feel anything except a lot heavier at the moment, not sick, just... heavy.

Jackson groaned, crawling his way up the stairs and climbing the wall to get to his feet, he lazily walked over to the door and opened it, the recently oiled hinges made only a whisper, letting him escape the house with ease.

Closing the heavy door slowly, he wished his family well while he went out for a walk.

The afflicted man turned his back to the door, tears of pain in his eyes as the overwhelming burning sensations returned.

Jackson walked into the field of snow.........