Stick Figures

I, Phantom Lucifer Amon Savage III, was born in Canterlot as a small foal with a very unusual characteristic. This characteristic is only seen in my family every one thousand years… I was born with a Cutie Mark.

And that was all I could manage to write without having to stop for one of my endless thinking sessions. I slammed my midnight-blue head against the desk in front of me, just so my horn didn't hit the table, too. "FUCKING WRITER'S BLOCK!" I screamed at the ceiling in pure rage.

"Phantom?" Kanji Zero Xaldin (or KZX as I called him) yelled. "Would you please shut the fuck up? It's 4:00 AM and I want to sleep."

I sighed. Nopony knew how irritating it was to write an autobiography. It was times like these where I wished that I had a Cutie Mark that actually told me to do something specific with my life... That would be a good thing to talk about next. I picked up my quill with my magic again and swiftly dipped it in the ink before continuing to write.

This Cutie Mark doesn't tell me anything about who I am though. Instead, it is the same for all of those blessed with this characteristic. It's a fine blade of steel piercing through a skull with blood-red eyes and black wings as far as it can. A legend in my family says that I’m destined for greatness beyond all belief because of this. It also says that I should have a curse, a terrible character trait that will prove to make my life much more difficult. Being born under a roof in Canterlot was bad enough, but now I have to look forward to something that has gotten many a Savage executed.

I was at a dead end once again... "CELESTIA DAMNIT!" I roared.

"PHANTOM!" KZX shouted again. "PLEASE GO TO SLEEP!"

"I need to get this book done, KZX!" I sighed, "you don't know what it's like to be plagued by anxiety and writer's block at the same time!"

"If it's the beginning of the book, write about your family or something!" He suggested, probably just to shut me up. I shrugged and dipped my quill into the ink again, hoping that his suggestion would work.

I was born to my father, Phantom Lucifer Amon Savage II, and my mother, Justice Skylight Savage. My mother was only around for about the first four years of my life, but from those short years I could tell she loved me with all her heart. It’s amazing that my father loved me just as much considering the Savage-family men have a constant problem of being very cynical towards pony-kind.

Ever since I was able to walk on all four hooves, I’ve known that I am distantly (key word there) related to Princess Celestia. I also knew that my mother had a deep trust in her, deeper than most ponies. She was an Equestrian Court Justice (hence her first name) for almost all of her life. She had found her Cutie Mark when she was but six years of age by simply sitting in the Equestrian Supreme Court and observing a rape and murder case, the last murder that has happened as of the writing of these very words.

My mother would occasionally bring me to the court sometimes, mostly to keep me out of my father’s hair. She would only bring me to minor cases like disturbing the peace or theft. She would never bring me to any of the assault or rape cases, as rare as they were. From this, I could tell two things. First off, she cared for me very, very deeply. Secondly, she didn’t know that all Savage-family men grow into fucked up sons-of-bitches. If she knew the ladder, she probably would have brought me to the court a lot more.

I realized that some ponies reading it would wonder about my father and I put down my quill to think a moment on what to write. I looked at the clock. It was 5:45 in the morning. I hadn't slept at all since I talked to Printing Press, the world famous publisher from Canterlot that had published best sellers like "Of Critters And Colts" and The Harry Trotter series and even the Fallout: Equestria series. He had only had one bad book published, and by bad I mean you'd want to destroy it after reading the first several pages. The book was called "Nineteen Minutes." That's how long it would take until you wanted to throw it into your fireplace.

I laughed quietly at the joke I had thought of, then realized that I needed to get back to writing. As soon as the tip of my quill was about to hit the paper, a frantic knock at the door interrupted me. I let out an angered grumble as I arose from my small desk in the corner of the room. My apartment was small and not exactly very luxurious. We (KZX and I) lived in the poorer part of Ponyville , where drug dealers and whores tended to be at night and where thugs tended to be during the day... and it was also where stupid teenagers who think they're thugs get the crap beat out of them (and sometimes back into them).

The walls' paint was peeling slowly, converting it from a forest green to a wooden brown. It was better than the carpet, which couldn't peel, leaving the floor its same dark shit-brown. It was a soft carpet, though, so neither KZX nor I complained about it. I traversed the short distance to the front door of apartment number 4. To my surprise, standing outside my door was the local mail carrier, Derpy Hooves. Her real name was Ditzy Doo, but everypony called her Derpy Hooves because of how clumsy she was.

She rarely came by this part of town. Normally, not a single pony anywhere near here got any form of mail. "Mail for mister Phantom Savage!" she chirped, giving me a letter with hoofwriting on the front that could only belong to a Mr. Printing Press.

"Thank you, Ditzy," I said, giving her a smile. Her unsynchronized eyes didn't bother me like it did most other ponies. I'd seen worse before. I was always extra kind to Ditzy to make up for how much of a dick everypony else was to her and how much of a dick I was to everypony else. I walked back inside and sat back down at my desk, opening the letter at the same time. I slipped the letter out of its envelope and flipped it down from its tri-fold.

"Dear Mr. Savage," it began, "There has been a small mishap on our end. I seem to have once again failed to remember that it is a policy for us not to give our clients a deadline of less than a fortnight for any form of writing. You will have another ten days to write your first chapter or two. Don't worry about the quality of your work made prior to this deadline change in comparison to the work after the deadline change. We had the same mishap with the late John Steinbuck and his book "Of Critters And Colts," and that is one of the finest works of literature to date. We hope this is in no way an inconvenience. Sincerely, Printing Press."

"Well, ten more days will certainly help," I thought out loud.

"SO YOU KEPT ME UP ALL NIGHT FOR NOTHING?!?!?!" KZX exploded.

"I guess so," I replied, grabbing my large jacket from a hook on the wall and putting it on.

"Where the hell are you going?" he asked as if he weren't angry at all before.

"I'm going to talk to the one pony I know that understands me better than anyone else!"

"Isn't that me?" he asked.

I laughed, "Yeah right."

"And that's why I came to you." I finished telling my story and then promptly shut up as I waited for a response.

"And what the fuck do you want me to do about it?" Big McIntosh asked. "I don't know anything about literature or even how to write properly in the first place. How am I supposed to help you?"

"Good point" I sighed.

"I've helped you out with how to talk to mares and stuff like that, but if you think I can help you with things that require me to be as smart, if not smarter than you, you're fucked in the head, my friend."

"Well, then who do you suggest I ask?"

"Try Lyra Heartstrings," Mac suggested. "She may seem crazy, but she's read a lot of fictional stories regarding things that aren't humans. And whatever you do, don't talk to Twilight Sparkle about it. If you get her talking about something like that, she will never, and I mean never shut the fuck up."

"Thanks Macky," I smiled gratefully.

"Don't ever call me that again," he deadpanned.

"And that's why I came to you." After saying those seven words, I got the biggest feeling of déjà vu. I shook it off though, and awaited a response.

"Well, what exactly has happened in your life that's interesting," Lyra asked, flipping her grayish cyan mane out from in front of her eyes. "And I don't mean something about your family, I mean something that has specifically happened to you."

"Well... I have a strange power that has been in my family for the past thousand years or so." I told her. "I can see an inflicted injury through an X-Ray kind of perspective, but only as it's happening."

"That sounds disgusting to watch" Lyra gagged.

"When my father died a few years ago, it was when somepony bucked him in the jaw, sending the lower section piercing through the sides of his face. It was not fun to see that."

Lyra was about to throw up, so I just decided it would be better to seek help elsewhere for now and come back to her later. I thanked her, regardless of her not doing jack shit, and left. I was stuck with the shitty writer's block that I had and I still had gotten no help what so ever. I sighed, feeling defeated, and went back home. I only just thought that the day couldn't get worse... well, yeah, fuck what I think!

I walked in the door to see KZX sitting on the small loveseat with... Aloe Blossom, Lotus's sister. As soon as I saw this, one of my eyebrows shot up so far, I thought it would come right off of my face. KZX and I had promised each other to let one another know before we were gonna bring a mare over to the apartment.

Aloe gave me an awkward smile as if she were saying "please leave so we can do things to each other in private." I huffed, annoyed that not only had KZX brought an attractive female into the apartment without letting me know beforehand, but he was also going to kick me out so they could do it.

Sure enough, KZX spoke up, "Phantom, would you mind leaving for tonight so... we can be alone?" Trotting over to my desk, I grabbed all the parchment I could, along with several quills and a few unopened bottles of ink.

I was about to walk out the door when I realized... this would be the perfect time to say something to piss them off. "Don't forget to pull out," I told KZX with an evil smile. "You don't want to continue the stereotype of Mexequines having too many children, do you?" The last thing they heard was a demonic laugh resonating from me as I stepped out of the house and into the open. It was time to find a quiet place to get working on this damned book.