Reaper's Storyby System BreakerChaptersSaviorRise And Fall, Rage And GraceReaperWaking The FallenSaviorAs a small recap of what happened last time, let me fill you in. We fought Nightmare, Fluttershy saved me from certain death, Nightmare died, and now me and Fluttershy are seeing each other a lot. One day we heard a pony-like scream come from the Everfree Forest so we went to investigate, and to my surprise it was my cousin Steven… in pony form. He was a lime-green unicorn with an angel-wing-and-halo cutie mark. He was practically unrecognizable, but I knew it was him because he was muttering to himself like a crazy pony, so I could recognize his voice. He was freaking out, obviously, so I approached him slowly in hopes that he might not freak out more. He looked up at me and instantly got frightened. “Who are you?” he retreated. “You know me, Steven” I replied. He calmed down a bit as he recognized me. “Peter? Is that you?” “Damn straight!” I said proudly. “Welcome to Equestria, cousin!” “What the hell happened to you?” “I’m a Pegasus” “Then, am I…” he stopped and looked at me worriedly, “am I also a pony?” “Yeah, you’re a unicorn” I told him. His eyes widened as he looked hat his hands which were now hooves. He yelled in shock, and then reached up to feel his horn which he yelled in shock at, too. “Oh, and now that you’re here you need a new name” I said, interrupting his moment of insane terror. “Why?” “Ponies won’t recognize human names as normal… or… when given to other ponies, anyway. I changed mine to Reaper.” I answered. “Considering it seems to fit you, how ‘bout we call you “Savior”?” “Sure” he said. I asked him how he died, because I remembered Bo saying something about somepony coming here. “I hung myself out of depression. I felt like I was responsible for your death, so I decided to just off myself in hopes that I could apologize to you in heaven or hell or limbo or wherever.” “Oh, you weren’t responsible for my death” I assured him. “You saved me once. I chose to go back to try and save you. It was my fault. I’m sorry if I… you know… killed you.” “That’s fine” he replied, much more calm now. “By the way, uh… what’s so special about unicorns?” “You can use magic” I said, unaware of what I had just set myself up for. He started snickering after a moment. “What is it?” I asked. “Hey Reaper” he snickered. “I’m The Unicorn Wizard.” (If you get the reference, have a cookie :D) “Fuck” I sighed. “Seriously, Savior? Only you, man; only you.” “I guess that makes you Ninja Brian” he laughed. (And another one) “You call me Ninja Brian, and I will kick you so hard you’ll cough up a testical” I threatened. “How about Princess Handjob?” he asked, giggling uncontrollably. (And one more) “How about shut the fuck up and let’s get going” I growled. He squeaked in fear and jumped up. We walked back towards Ponyville as I told him about the ponies who lived there. “Now, I’ve got some stuff to do, so for the whole tour, I’ll leave you with Twilight Sparkle. She’s also the one you’ll want to talk to about shelter and whatnot considering you can’t walk on clouds like Pegesai.” “Okay. What does this “Twilight” pony do?” he asked “She’s the intellectual type. She lives in a library, so I’ll assume you’re gonna get along fine” I answered him, remembering how much he used to read in his spare time. We walked in silence for the rest of the way. I knocked on the door as loudly as I could, and when somepony opened up, it wasn’t Twilight. It was… a dragon? A baby dragon, but still a dragon. “Hello, Mr. Dragon.” I greeted him awkwardly. “Is Twilight here?” He nodded and waved her over. She trotted over to the door and the second she came into Savior’s view, I saw his eyes light up like lanterns in the middle of the night. I could tell that he had practically fallen head over heels… or head over hooves in this case, for Twilight already. What he saw in her from that very first moment was a mystery to me, but I guessed it would just allow him to get along with her even better. Although it may seem a little strange, I thought it was kind of funny. Savior was (and is) the most introverted person/pony I’ve ever known. Then again, Twilight was never the most outgoing pony in Ponyville herself, so I guess that made them even more alike. Regardless, I already knew that it was a matter of opinion, so I couldn’t do anything about it… Not the point. “Hi there, Reaper” she said. “Who’s you’re friend?” “This is my cousin Savior” I told her. “I have some stuff to do, so I was hoping you could give him the whole “tour and introduction so Ponyville” thing.” “Sure thing!” she chirped. “Thanks Twilight. Bye Savior.” I turned around and walked off as I heard Savior and Twilight start talking. It just made me wonder how they would get along… meh, who knows? Fluttershy trotted up beside me. She had been silent that whole time, so it felt as if she wasn’t there. “So… that was your cousin?” she asked quietly. “Yeah” I replied. “Not a bad pony, but he can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.” “Oh, well… I’m sorry I brought it up” “You apologize too much, ‘shy” I laughed. “Anyway, I’m just not too sure how well he’ll get along with Twilight. I mean, they both read a lot and they’re both pretty smart, but I’m still not sure how it’ll go.” “If you don’t mind me saying, I think he’ll be fine. Twilight is really nice” she assured me. We went back to her little woodland house. It was getting pretty late when I heard a whisper at the back of my head. “GO… TO… THE… MIRROR…” In confusion, I walked into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. “Reaper, I think something big is going to come up soon.” It was Bo. “What makes you say that, Bo?” “Us down here in the Equestria department… we’ve got a really bad feeling ever since Nightmare died.” He gulped and continued. “We’re afraid it might be something worse than Nightmare. Trust us on this, too! When we have a bad feeling about something, it’s usually true.” “We’ll blow up that bridge when we get to it” I retaliated. “Savior just got here and we just killed Nightmare a little while ago, so let me rest while I can, and we’ll deal with shit as it comes, ok?” “Okiedokie” Bo agreed. I walked out of the bathroom to be greeted by Angel bouncing happily up to me. I smiled and hopped over him. Fluttershy was curled up on her sofa. I walked over and sat down beside her. She looked up at me with deep eyes and then curled back up, putting her wing around me. I decided to curl up next to her. “Reaper?” she said quietly. “Yeah?” I responded. “Are you still worried about Savior?” “A little” I told her. “Why do you ask?” “I was just wondering” she answered. “Thank you” I uttered. “For what?” “For your concern about me, silly” I chuckled quietly. “Oh, well… Ok” “’Shy?” I called her gently. “Yes?” she muttered. “I’m sorry I never properly thanked you for saving me from Nightmare” I apologized. “No, it’s okay” she said. “No it isn’t” I continued. “You saved my life and… I… I never really thanked you for it…” “It’s okay” she repeated. I still felt as if I didn’t give the thanks necessary for her saving my life. I wanted keep talking about it, but I just decided that it would probably be better if I kept my mouth shut. I knew it was important… but priorities can change… They can change so fast it can make your fuckin’ head spin. KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! I woke up to the sound of somepony hitting the door impatiently. I opened it and drowsily said “What is so goddamn important that you had to wake me up this early in the morning.” My eyesight came into focus revealing Savior with a fairly worried expression. “We gotta talk, Reaper” he demanded. “It’s pretty serious.” “Okay, what’s up?” “I was reading through one of Twilight’s books. One of them had a poem that… had something that may be a bit… problematic” he hesitated. “What?” “It was an old legend” he explained. “It came out of the same book as “The Mare in the Moon.” It went like this” To the land of lost souls a nightmare flies To maintain a good balance, the guardians try To even the flow, some lost souls must go And the outcome will cause all to die. A sacrifice of blood is needed for it to cease Until then, dark forms will increase The heart of a cave. A cup and a blade. The forms of flesh and blood, but the spirits still release Unless the sacrifice you do send The hole in in the land will not mend Lost souls will escape then murder, steal and rape And all things will end. “There’s a lot more to it than that, another 2 pages to be exact, but that is by far the most important part of it.” “Yeah… I don’t get it” I told him. He sighed angrily. “Twilight told me how you killed Nightmare. Lost souls might be released, and we may need a blood sacrifice! It says we can kill the dark forms, which are apparently clones of ponies except darker in color and commanded by lost souls, but the spirits themselves won’t die, just the forms.” “That makes sense, but I’ll believe this shit when I see it” I said. Fluttershy lifted her sleepy little head to see what we were talking about. “I’m just telling you to look out for anything suspicious. You see anything, you let both me and Twilight know, okay?” he continued. “Okay” I agreed. “Thanks for stopping by to talk to me about this.” “No problem” he replied. He then got up and turned to leave. As he was halfway through the door, he stopped as if he was going to say something else, but passed it off and continued out the door. Fluttershy got up and walked over to me. “What was that about?” “It wasn’t anything too important” I told her. It wasn’t important yet, anyway. Me and ‘Shy did our average daily routine of taking care of her animal friends. When we were done with what we needed to do, I decided to go talk to Savior about getting the book that had this legend in it. I trotted gently over to Twilight’s tree, assuming he’d be there with his nose stuck in a book. I rapped gently on the door with one of my hooves and waited for somepony to open the door. The door swung open to reveal Savior. “What’s up, Reaper?” he asked. “I just came to see if I could get that book with that legend in it. I want to read it to see if I can make anything more out of it.” “Okay, sure” he smiled. “Hey, Twilight! You think you can grab that book of legends I was reading the other day?” “Of course” she chirped, grabbing a book off of a random shelf with her magic and transferring it to Savior who had apparently figured out how to use a little bit of his magic. “Thanks” I said. I turned and went back to Fluttershy’s house and sat down on the sofa. A layer of dust flew from the pages as I flipped through them to find the legend Savior had told me about. Sure enough, I found it and Savior was right. I wasn’t all that surprised that he was right, though. He’s pretty much never wrong when it comes to this shit…… pisses me off… I began reading the legend. Savior was right when he said it was 2 more pages after that one part he recited for me. I kept on reading, trying to find anything Savior had missed. I couldn’t find anything useful though. Hell, a lot of the stuff was written in a strange way, making me have to decode it before moving on. I read it at least 3 or 4 times before Fluttershy came in. Fluttershy walked through the front door of the cottage and saw me lying on the sofa reading a book. “If you want to tell me, I’d be interested in knowing… um… What are you reading?” “Just a legend Savior told me about. It might come in handy later.” “Oh, okay” she uttered softly. I kept reading the legend over and over trying to see if I was missing something, but nothing seemed to come up. Eventually, I just fell asleep, my head landing on the book. I woke up the next morning, remembering that I was reading the legend until everything went black. I laughed at the fact that I must have fallen asleep while I was reading the legend over and over again. I decided to get up and just give the book back to Twilight now. I walked slowly down the path that lead to Twilight’s book-filled highly-flammable dwelling. As I walked, I noticed that the streets were empty and baron as if everypony was hiding from something. I knocked on the door to Twilight’s tree awkwardly as I continued to look around for some kind of a sign or something. It scared the shit out of me when the door swung open and a bright green hoof emerged to grab me by the neck and throw me inside. I landed with a thud, then I turned to look at the pony who did this… Savior… why am I not surprised… “What the fuck was that for?” I yelled at him. He stuffed his hoof in my mouth and hissed quietly at me “Shut up and listen, cousin!” “I just came to return this book” I said. Twilight suddenly snatched the book out of my hooves with levitation and put it neatly onto a shelf. “Look, we have a problem” Twilight told me, also being fairly quiet. She walked towards me but tripped on her way. She had a large splinter sticking out of her hoof, causing crimson red blood to emerge from the sides of the splinter. “Shit” Savior heaved rushing over to her. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine” she chucked, pulling out the splinter. “It’s just a splinter.” “That’s my little Sparkle” he smiled. I raised an eyebrow at him as he turned back to me… “eheheheh… We’ve gotten along really well, so we’ve kind of-” “I think I know what you’re talking about” I interrupted. “I know you two have plenty of fun together, but just don’t have TOO much fun. I don’t need a nephew to get in the way of all the shit that’s been happening lately.” “Woah!” Savior withdrew. “We’re not goin’ that far any time soon. I’m just letting you know!” “Yeah, whatever” I growled at him. “What the fuck did you want to tell me?” “There’s a strange pony out there” he said. “What’s so bad about ‘em?” I asked. “Didn’t you learn not to judge when this happened with Zechora?” “No, no. We know” he explained. “We saw this pony beat the shit out of some random stallion on the street… ended up killing him. Poor bastard didn’t have a chance.” “What does this pony look like?” “He looks like a darkened version of Big McIntosh” Savior told me. I think we had the same epiphany at the same time, because his eyes grew right when mine did. “Fuck me” I squealed weakly. “What?” Twilight asked frantically. “What is he?” “A…” I struggled to say it. ”A… Shadow Form…” “This might be a problem” Savior said, looking at me with a very worried expression. “Define “might be?”” I asked sarcastically. “Well it won’t be too big of a problem for a while” he continued. “Remember what the legend said. “Start off slow, it most certainly will; then much more will gather and towns they will fill; until it comes to a halt, Equestria will face fault; for the blood of the innocent shall spill.”” “So we’ve got time to prepare” I said, letting out a sigh of relief. “We’ve gotta warn everypony! ASAP!” “No shit, Sherlock!” Savior yelled at me. “Anyway, we’ll take over alerting everypony as well as the ruler of Equestria. In the meantime, you should make sure you have any gear you need or anything of the sort, and see if you can get me a ranged weapon of some kind because I can help. Even if you can’t find me a ranged weapon, I can still kick ass! After all, I am The Unicorn Wizard!” “Oh, fuck you!” I snapped. Leaping out the door and taking off to fly to Fluttershy’s small cabin, I felt like Bo was going to say “I told you so” or something like that. I rushed through the front door and checked to find all my gear. I found all of it, but I still needed a weapon for Savior… RIFLE! I remembered my rifle. I rushed over to my equipment and grabbed out the scoped rifle. I checked the magazine to make sure there were bullets in it… 3… 3 bullets… fuck… I decided to pay a visit to that old blacksmith to see if he could find out how to make more bullets. I doubted it, but it never hurts to ask, right? “Hey, I was wondering if you could find out how to make more projectiles for this” I said, swinging my gun up on the counter. He examined the gun, and activated the mag-release somehow. He looked inside the magazine and popped out one of the bullets. “These?” “Yes” I spoke firmly. “I don’t know what the hell this thing is” he laughed. “It looks like a little casing with a pointy piece of metal stuck to the top of it.” “That’s kind of what it is” I told him. “The only thing you forgot is inside the little casing, there’s a grainy substance called gunpowder and a little piece on the bottom that ignites that gunpowder and launches that little piece of metal at the top at an insane speed.” “Gunpowder… gunpowder…” the old blacksmith stood there thinking for a little while. “OH! You mean the stuff in fireworks!” “Yes!” I nodded. “Okay, I think I might be able to work with it. This’ll be on the house, since I may screw up your… doohickey” he said, pointing at my gun. I thanked him and flew off back to Fluttershy’s house. “Oh, hi there Reaper” she greeted me as I walked inside. “Where were you?” “I was just asking the blacksmith for something” I answered. She was grooming Angel, who looked to be quite unhappy that I had interrupted his grooming. I shrugged off the look he gave me, knowing that he was always just irritable. Since I had found out about the Shadow Forms, I decided to inform Bo, regardless of it being fairly late at night. I walked into the bathroom and gently tapped on the mirror after closing the door behind me. Bo appeared and certainly didn’t look happy that I had woken him up. “We found out what that bad feeling was.” “Oh, good” he sighed. “I thought you woke me up for nothing.” “It’s lost souls that have escaped from Limbo!” I explained to him. “They’re gonna kill everything in this world if we don’t give a blood sacrifice at the heart of some mountain.” “Okay, well…” Bo thought for a minute. “I’ll look into this, because it sounds like this is one of the more “slow-moving” kinds of things.” “Oh, and Bo?” “Yeah?” he responded. “Is it just me, or does this seem a little bit… familiar to you?” “…The fuck are you talking about?” he asked “I dunno” I shrugged. “Just a feeling.” I walked out of the bathroom to see Angel in front of me. “Howdy, Angel.” He raised an eyebrow. “What?” I asked. He facepalmed and hopped away. I laughed to myself, knowing he heard me talking in there but he himself couldn’t properly speak to ask me anything. Such a perfect combination: curiosity and inability to communicate. Fluttershy was sleeping off in her bed tonight. I felt dizzy and a little lightheaded, probably from so much happening that day, so I began to walk over to the sofa to sleep, but then… My muscles all locked and I fell to the ground. Right before I hit the ground I passed out. I couldn’t feel anything… I suddenly woke up in surroundings that were… strangely familiar, but at the same time, very new… it was my old house. The Rev walked straight to me out of nowhere. “Hey Peter, remember me?” “How could I not?” I chuckled. “You are, were and probably always will be the best drummer ever!” “Well, that’s nice to hear” he nodded, smiling. “Anyway, I felt like it might be necessary to remind you a little bit about your past.” “Why?” I asked. “People who receive a special case often try to be someone else, but we want them to live THEIR life” he explained. “That and I thought it might help you get thinking about this entire “Lost Souls” mission thing.” “Oh, okay” I agreed. “But what part of my past are we viewing?” The Rev disappeared and I saw a young human me sitting on the sofa in our small house. My big brother came walking over past the sofa, holding a piece of paper, and sat down in one of the chairs to the side of the sofa. “What’s wrong, big bro?” “Peter, we need to talk” he sighed. I knew what was coming and I didn’t want to relive this. “It’s about your grades. You’ve failed your math, history and science classes. You’re gonna have to go into a special class to help you with it.” “I tried my best” the young me sniffled. “Your best isn’t good enough, Peter” my brother yelled, scowling at the young Peter. “I don’t want to have a dumbass as a brother. You’re in the seventh grade, Peter! You should be able to handle all your shit on your own!” Young Peter started to cry. “Dad always told me to try my best! To just do what I could and I would be fine!” he sobbed. “But you don’t care! You’re not Dad! You’re just a dick!” My brother reached across and smacked my young self across the face with the back of his hand. “Don’t you DARE call me that, dumbass!” he screamed. “You need to suck it up! You’re not a fucking 3-year-old! Stop crying, go to your room and do whatever the fuck you want to! As long as what you do makes you smarter than you are right now!” I was starting to cry myself. The memory stopped and The Rev reappeared beside me. “I’m sorry I had to show you that, but it’s for the best” he said. “I’ll be back to show you another one soon, but until then, take care and good luck with your mission!” Fluttershy was standing over me crying uncontrollably. I felt lacerations and hemorrhaging on my tongue and I had bruises all over my body. I also had a headache that could make you think you had a brain tumor. “What the fuck just happened” I moaned weakly, propping myself up against the sofa I had fallen down beside. “Reaper!” Fluttershy squealed happily, rushing to hug me. “Oh! I was so scared! I didn’t know what had happened and I was afraid you were going to die and-“ “I’m fine” I assured her. “I just had another seizure. Damn things give me warnings only a quarter of the times they happen.” “I woke up and you were just on the ground” she continued. “I didn’t know what had happened!” “Well, then I guess the Tonic phase has failed me once again” I thought out loud, stretching all my aching legs to loosen them up after they had convulsed. “Your mouth!” she gasped, seeing the blood dripping from the cuts on my tongue. “It’s fine” I repeated. “That’s very common in seizures. I’m normally just lucky when it comes to that.” “But… you’re bleeding a lot” “It’s okay” I assured her once again, standing up. “It’s only a couple of small cuts. I’ve had to deal with much worse before.” I thought of those wolves tearing my chest apart. Now THAT was painful. “Thank you for worrying about me, though.” “I was so scared” she winced. “I thought you might die.” “Hey! I’ve had a lot of seizures in my lifetime” I reminded her. “They never get any easier to deal with, but they don’t get any harder either!” Savior opened the door and waltzed right on in. He was about to say something, but then he spotted all the blood on the floor and around my muzzle. “Holy shit on a stick, what in the hell happened here?” “You should probably know the answer” I growled, angry at him for just walking in like that. “Seizure?” he raised an eyebrow in his questioning. “Congratulations! You know something that’s totally obvious!” I hissed sarcastically. “I just came by to tell you something, but I can come back later” he said. “You know, when you aren’t an asshole!” “No, no, just tell me now.” “You know Rarity?” he asked. “Does Twilight live in a library?” “Okay, well…” he paused. “Her sister Sweetie Belle is missing.” “WHAT?!” I yelled. “She’s missing! Gone! Poof!” “Okay, but do you think this is linked to the you-know-what?” I hinted. “Wha- oh! Yeah, it probably is linked” he agreed. “I’ve got a guy that’s gonna help on finding out about these Lost Souls, so we need to wait for him right now, then we can go and put a stop to this shit” I told him. “Lost souls?” Fluttershy interrupted. “I’ll explain it to you later ‘Shy” I said back to her, smiling. “Alright, we’ll wait for your little friend to gather some info” he agreed, “but if the shit hits the fan, it’s your fault!” He turned and dashed out the door. “What’s this about Lost Souls?” ‘Shy asked again. “You know how Nightmare died?” I said, looking in her eyes. She nodded slightly. “Well, there’s a legend that foretold of Lost Souls escaping from Limbo when Nightmare tried to get in there. Those Lost Souls can take the shape of anypony they want to, and they will commit as many evils as possible. The only way to tell them apart from the originals is that the Shadow Form will be darker than the original. It seems that the legend was true, and now some of the Lost Souls are on the loose, meaning we have to prepare for the worst. The only way to put an end to these Lost Souls’ reign of terror is to give a blood sacrifice at the center of a mountain. We need to find out which one though, which is why I have somepony working on finding info for us. We think that Sweetie Belle’s disappearance is linked with the Shadow Form of Big McIntosh that me, Savior and Twilight saw earlier.” Fluttershy stood there petrified in terror, just looking at me with those innocent, adorable eyes. I walked her over to the sofa and sat her down. “It’s a lot to take in. I understand” I said sitting down beside her. She scooted closer to me and pulled me into a tight hug. I smiled at the warmness of her embrace and returned her hug. She began to quietly cry as she buried her face in me, making my fur wet. We sat there and she continued to cry until she finally lifted her head out and sobbed, “I don’t want you to go!” She buried her face back into me. “I don’t want you to die!” “I know, I know” I sighed, almost starting to cry myself. “I have to though. If I die, I want you to live on. I don’t want you to die with me.” “You can’t go, Reaper!” she sobbed. “I have too” said, tears beginning to form around my eyes. “I don’t wanna die, but I want you to live even more. I might not even have to die.” “It’s gonna happen! You’ll be the sacrifice!” she cried. “I know it!” “It’ll all be fine” I wept quietly. “Nothing bad is gonna happen to you, Fluttershy, I promise.” “I don’t care what happens to me!” she yelled. “I don’t care what happens to me!” I echoed. We sat there and cried while holding each other for a long time, until we both just curled up right there and started drifting off to sleep, my wing put over her to hold her close. I was just about to fall asleep when Fluttershy quietly said “I love you, Reaper.” “I love you too, Fluttershy” I replied. “I always will.” I woke up next to Fluttershy’s warm body, my wing still draped over her in comfort. I slowly retracted the wing and put it back at my side as I got up to go see how early it was. I looked outside the window to see that it was still pretty dark. Damn, though! Luna had done a hell of a job that night. She must take some real pride in such good craftsmanship. Not the point. I slowly and quietly opened the door, grabbed my obsidian scythe, put it on my back and flew out so I could patrol the area in search of any of those Shadow Forms roving around. It must have been 10 minutes before I heard a scream from Sugarcube Corner. I did a nosedive straight to the front door of the large building, coming to a quick halt in front of it. I kicked down the door to see a shadow version of Mr. Cake making an advance on Mrs. Cake with a knife held in his mouth. The real Mr. Cake was petrified in fear, standing in the corner with the inability to do anything except for watch his wife get cut up by the Shadow Form of himself… “NOT WHILE I’M AROUND!” I dove in-between the two and whipped out my obsidian scythe, smacking the Lost Soul in the jaw with the iron rod. The Shadow Form of Mr. Cake hit the wall, almost going through it, and then started trying to get up. I quickly swiped the blade at his torso, but he jumped out of the way and sliced a cut into my left back leg. I gritted my teeth at the pain and swung my blade in a full circle, slicing the fake Cake in two. The Shadow Form’s body hit the ground and simply dissipated into thin air. Mrs. Cake let out a sigh of relief, but Mr. Cake was still scared stiff in the corner of the room. Mrs. Cake spoke up while I slowly panted. “Thank you so much! You saved my life!” “It’s nothing” I panted. “Just be careful.” I flew out the door as fast as I possibly could to get back to my patrolling. I flew gently around the town as the sun rose out from under the horizon. I was a little busy looking at the sunrise to notice a call of help from below me. After a minute, I finally heard it. It was Derpy and her little sister Dinky being cornered by two Shadow Forms of… themselves. I flew down at a 90 degree angle until I quickly changed directions and whipped out my scythe to assault the Shadow Forms from behind. I made a huge baseball swing and lopped off the Dinky Form’s back legs and one of the Derpy Form’s forelegs. I came to a halt and casually walked up to the fallen and helpless Derpy Form. “Oh, I’m sorry! Did I hurt you?” I asked sarcastically. SHING! Its head came off without resistance. “There! That ought to take care of the pain!” I flew off again, looking back to see Derpy and Dinky waving happily. I smiled back at the two, then proceeded on my patrol. At around midday, I decided to see how the blacksmith was doing with that gun. I walked in to see a bunch of freshly made bullets strung around the place… they didn’t look right though. “I’m trying! I just can’t seem to get them right! I’m sorry!” he yelled out, somehow knowing it was me. I walked over to the table to see a bunch of ammo that looked like it was pretty close to usable. “You’re getting close” I said. “Close don’t mean jack shit!” he huffed. He pulled something out and said “There! I’ve finally found out how to make these fuckin’ things!” He turned to me. “Wait until tomorrow and I’ll have more of these turned out for you.” “Okay, thanks!” I replied. I turned and flew out the door to go back and see how Fluttershy was doing. I walked in to see that she was done with all the stuff she had to do for that day. Now she was just kind of sitting there. “Hey ‘Shy!” I greeted her. “Sorry I was gone this morning. How’s your day been?” “Fine, thanks!” she responded, delighted to see me. “How is your day so far?” “Fine” I said. “I saved some people from Shadow Forms early this morning, but that’s about all that was interesting. “You’re so brave” Fluttershy told me, blushing slightly. “I could never do anything like that.” “Have you forgotten?” I chuckled. “You saved my sorry, helpless ass from Nightmare!” “Well, that was-“ “Hey, there’s no excuse for that!” I smiled. “You’re brave, you just can’t control when you are.” “I… I guess…” she muttered. We continued talking until the sun started to gently float behind the trees of the Everfree Forest. It was getting to be about 6:30 or 7:00 (from a raw estimate) when Savior knocked on the door, having learned from last time that I don’t like him barging into Fluttershy’s home. We called him to come in and he complied. He stood right in front of the doorway as the door closed behind him. “I heard you saved some ponies from Shadow Forms this morning.” “Damn Straight!” I proudly announced. “Why?” “I was just coming to make sure it wasn’t some stupid rumor you started to make yourself look good” he sighed, almost rolling his eyes at the thought. “Hello, I resent that” I said, annoyed. “Dick,” he muttered. “Anyway, I think you should do a patrol like that every morning from now on. It may help save ponies’ lives like it did today.” “Sure” I agreed. “Okay, I’m gonna go now” he stated, turning and walking out. Suddenly, a feeling started tugging at the back of my head, telling me to go to the bathroom mirror. “I’ll be right back” I told ‘Shy. “I gotta go to the bathroom.” I walked in, closed the door behind me and quietly rapped on the mirror. “Bo, what do you want?!” “Calm down, Reaper” he sighed. “I got the info you wanted.” “Thank you!” I said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Although, this won’t make you very happy” he mumbled. “Look, here. The mountain you need to go into is located in the Everfree Forest. It should be at the center of it. Now, I know they took Sweetie Belle, and they took her, and now Scootaloo as well, to the heart of that mountain. They need three children to power these… orb thingies in order to summon more Lost Souls. That’s the mountain where the blood sacrifice will be. The Lost Souls will kidnap Applebloom tomorrow, and there’s nothing anypony can do about it, even if you wanted too. That means all we can do is prepare ourselves, then invade that temple and rescue the three fillies. Also, that blood sacrifice has to be from somepony “closely associated with the Nightmare himself.” Last, but certainly not least, you’ve still got plenty of time to prepare yourselves, but Lost Souls will start stacking up in a week or two, so I advise you get ready pretty soon.” “Okay, thanks for finding all that out for us Bo” I thanked him once again. “I really appreciate it.” “Whatever saves your ass” he laughed. I walked back out of the bathroom and sat back down next to ‘Shy. She looked tired, which was how I felt too. She looked at me and asked me “why is all this stuff happening?” “I wish I knew ‘Shy” I answered. “I really wish I knew.” The next morning was about the same as the one that came before it. A few Shadow Forms on the loose here and there, but nothing too serious. Rainbow Dash had a Shadow Form of Spitfire chasing after her (oh the painful amounts of irony) and Bon Bon was being tortured by a Shadow Form of Lyra (hey look! More irony!). Other than that, there wasn’t much that happened. I also handled it easily and quickly, and like the day before, I headed to the blacksmith at about midday. He was finally done with the ammo he had made. He apparently was able to buy gunpowder off of a pyrotechnics expert (and I thought my purpose was pretty weird) and that was how he had gotten the gunpowder. He gave me all the ammo for free, since he didn’t know if the ammo would fuck up the gun or not. It helped, especially since we now had a weapon to give to Savior. I flew to Twilight’s tree with the rifle slung onto my back. I came to a gentle stop at the front door of the house. I grabbed the rifle off my back and tapped on the door using the butt of the gun. He opened it to see me holding a big ol’ rifle, which in the case of us both being ponies, must have been pretty damn weird. Regardless, he accepted the rifle with open arms, as well as the info that Bo had given me. We just needed a little bit more of a game plan. Other than that, we would be good. That night passed like the one before as well. Me and Fluttershy passed a lot of the time talking, but she also wanted to know exactly what was going to happen with this whole situation. “I ain’t no fortune teller” I laughed. “I don’t know how it’s gonna go, but it’ll hopefully end pretty well. We just need to go in there with at least a slight idea of what we’re gonna do.” “Oh, okay” she withdrew. “I’m sorry I brought it up.” “You’re adorable when you apologize, you know that?” I said, laughing a little. She blushed and hid behind her mane. “Well… uh…” “I’m sorry” I apologized (god, so much irony). “Let’s change the subject to something a little less touchy.” We kept talking until we both got tired. She wanted to sleep in her bed that night, so I just curled up on the sofa and fell asleep quietly after we said our goodnights. The next morning came all too quickly with the beginning of it being Savior knocking at the door. I opened it, rubbing my eyes at the sight of the familiar bright-green colt. “We have a problem” he said straight out. “Applebloom is missing.” I stood there for a moment… I only responded with one thing… “I know.” “Good god Reaper, what the fuck is wrong with your goddamn head?!” “What?!” I asked “YOU COULDN’T HAVE TOLD ME?!” “I didn’t bother because there would’ve been no way to prevent it!” I explained. “It’s not my fuckin’ fault that Applebloom’s capture was inevitable. All we can do now is get a plan, go out and kick some Shadow ass!” “Okay, but what is this plan?” Savior asked. “I don’t know!” I sighed. “We need to make one!” “We’ll work on it later” he said. “For now, I gotta go.” “I’ll get this plan done on my own! I don’t need any help from him. I’m fine!” I walked back inside and sat back down on the sofa. Angel hopped up bearing a piece of parchment and a quill. “You read my mind, Angel” I laughed. “Now all I need is some” he handed me a small bottle of ink. “Dammit, Angel! Stop reading my mind!” He smiled and hopped away as I began devising a plan on how to go about this. It started off simple enough, but it began getting much more complicated than I was used to when I had to start factoring in all the Shadow Forms and shit. I wrote for what seemed like forever, when I looked up and it was only about midday. Damn! Either I was writing fast or somepony slowed down time! Fluttershy walked into the room from her bedroom, finally awake after last night. She greeted me and sat down next to me to see what I was writing. I kept on writing as fast as I could. Through all that writing, I figured out that writing with your mouth is a lot easier than it looks, it would just help if they were to make something less… feathery. Trust me when I say a feather does not feel good in your mouth and it sure as shit doesn’t taste good either! As I continued writing out the plan, I noticed a pattern in my writing. Whenever someone got surrounded by Shadow Forms, I would always leave it up to me to save them, even if I got surrounded myself! I also gave Twilight almost nothing to do in the fine print, because I didn’t know how she could help out. I was guessing I’d just have to find out later. I kept on writing and writing until I had used up 4 pieces of parchment paper, front and back. My jaw was cramping up like hell from all the writing. I also needed to take a break to see what everypony was doing, but I decided against that and decided to just get the plan done first. It took about half the day but I had finally worked out a plan on what to do. I also worked out what to do if too much went wrong (always expect SOMETHING to go wrong, but not necessarily everything). The only thing that last part didn’t have was to run away. We wouldn’t run from shit… well we would if we HAD to, but if we just got overwhelmed, then we’d just deal with it… Okay, so it doesn’t exactly sound like a good idea, but it seemed fine at the time, okay? “Is that the plan?” Fluttershy asked. “Sharp as always, ‘Shy” I smiled at her. “If you think about it, if we go in without a plan, we would be totally fucked. Now that we have this here plan, we’re at least 25% less likely to die.” “What was the original chance of dying?” she questioned. “I’d say about 75%” I responded. “And a 50/50 chance is about as good as it’ll get for this kind of a mission, so we’ve gotta take it or leave it.” “Okay, but I want to go with you” she muttered. “I mean… if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of anything.” “It’s totally fine!” I continued. “I was actually hoping you’d come. That way, you could save my sorry ass again if I needed it, ‘cuz I sure as shit can’t count on Savior to help me!” I started laughing a little. “Are you always such a dick to me?” The voice came out of nowhere… but it sounded like… I looked over to the door, and standing in the doorway was Savior himself, who had apparently heard the entire conversation. “Anyway, we have a plan, we’re armed, we’re ready… when do we leave?” “Slow down there, speedy McSpeedertons!” I halted him. “We need to get Twilight and Fluttershy some armor, too! They can’t just walk in totally unprotected! They’ll get ripped to shreds!” “Taken care of” he said monotonously. “Since when?” “Since I bought armor for them.” “Alright…” I continued. “In that case, we should leave early tomorrow. We need to be well rested and ready to kick ass!” “Gotcha!” he nodded. “We’ll meet you here tomorrow morning, since this is the closest place to our destination in the heart of the Everfree Forest. Fluttershy,” he put some bright yellow armor out on one of her tables. “This here armor is for you.” Without another word, Savior turned and left. A silence fell over the room as I tried to think of something to say to end the silence. Fluttershy looked a little sad and I felt a little sad too, but I didn’t want to say anything that might make it worse, so I tried to think of something that was relevant to the subject but couldn’t make anything worse… “Well, this is moving pretty fast!” I thought out loud. The air in the room suddenly got really cold, as if it were trying to intentionally fit the mood. It didn’t feel very natural to me, but I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t want to know if I would or wouldn’t make it out, but chances are that I wouldn’t make it out, and I knew that. I was afraid of Fluttershy’s reaction though. I knew she’d be broken up about it if I died, and I don’t want her to just give up on life or something of that nature. I want her to go on without me. But did this mean that this was our last day together? Did this mean that we would never see each other again after tomorrow? It was almost as if she had read my mind or something, because she spoke up suddenly with what I was thinking about. “Will… this be our last day… together?” Fluttershy asked quietly “Possibly” I told her. “I… I might have to be the sacrifice. It has to be somepony directly associated with the Nightmare himself, so I might have to do it.” “Then… we should make today…” she tried to hold back a waterfall of her own tears. “We should make today count then.” “We should… we really should” I agreed. And so we spent the entire day just with each other… nopony else. We talked and we played with her animals; we spent some of the best time together that we ever had (except for the whole Nightmare fiasco). It felt great… I didn’t want the night to come but, as it always does, it did. I was about to curl up on the sofa and fall asleep like usual when Fluttershy gently tapped on one of my wings. “Since tonight might be our last night together and I’ve never… uh… would you want to try…” she turned bright red. “Well… I’ve never… I mean, the bed is warmer than here, and if you want to…” It didn’t actually take very long before I got what she was trying to hint at. “I get it” I said, interrupting her stumbling. I stood up and looked her into her eyes. “I love you, Fluttershy… I always will.” I REFUSE to go into detail of what happened after that, but if you haven’t caught on already, then 1. You’re kinda slow on this stuff and 2. Let’s just say we both got out of the same bed the next morning. Night passed all too quickly, but it wasn’t like we could do anything about that. It was way too early in the morning for me when we got up, but I knew it was all necessary. In layman’s terms we got up really early and got ourselves ready to go… It was time to go kill some Shadows and rescue those three fillies… It was time to go save Equestria… again! We set off as early as we possibly could that morning. Before sunrise, Savior woke me and Fluttershy and told us to hurry up and get ready. We weren’t too happy about it but ‘Shy and I both knew how important this mission was, so we complied with Savior, regardless of how much we both wanted to slam the door in his face. When me and ‘Shy went out the door, we saw Savior loading up his rifle. He lifted his head to look at us, but I just smiled and nodded. We were out on the road earlier than I would’ve liked to be, but again, importance of the mission made it so I didn’t really have much of a choice. We all walked side-by-side talking for what seemed like an hour or two, until we reached a clearing. It was still not too bright outside, just bright enough to see that the clearing was only about the size of a football field. I felt like something was off, though… Like… something was going to go wrong… was this another Aura, or was this instinct? Or maybe both? We all proceeded into the clearing normally, me having decided to keep my mouth shut. Halfway across the clearing, a Manticore jumped out in front of all 4 of us. Fluttershy began approaching him, about to tame the Manticore with her caring compassion, but the bastard decided that he didn’t want to live anymore. He lifted a massive paw and swiped, flinging Fluttershy far off to the side… yeah… I wasn’t gonna let him live. I whipped out my Iron scythe and raced towards the huge beast. I was too obvious though, because he retaliated as if he knew I was coming (which he did). He smacked me away with its scorpion tail & jumped over to where I landed. I managed to swing my scythe up into his side. He screamed in ridiculous amounts of pain before simply ripping the blade out of his scythe as if it were nothing but a splinter. It then flicked me off to the side like a housefly. I wasn’t going down that easily, though. I jumped up over his pointy tail to get a clean shot at his spine. The scythe went from shining gray to deep red as the blade plunged into the Manticore’s back. The beast cried again in the agony, but managed to flick his tail up and return the favor of what I just did. Using the hold he had on the inside of my flesh, he flung me across the field where I landed face-first, still with the feeling of impending doom. The Manticore jumped to be right over me… His mouth was wide open, revealing very sharp teeth (and fucking awful breath). I really thought he was gonna just bite my head off right then and there, but then his brain was blown out of the left side of his head. I’m not even kidding when I say that his head blew up; the poor bastard’s grey matter was everywhere! It was Savior, who had used his rifle well. I got up and dusted myself off. “Thanks, Savior” I said… Then I remembered. Fluttershy was hurt. I rushed over to Fluttershy’s side, where I could now see that she was bleeding from the left side of her abdominal region. Not much; it didn’t look like anything was fractured and there wasn’t much bleeding. It was more or less just an oversized scratch. I found a couple of soft leaves to put pressure on the wound while the bleeding stopped. “Thank you Reaper” she whispered to me. “Anything for you ‘Shy” I smiled. I still had this raw and undeniably noticeable feeling of impending doom and now extreme mental discomfort. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something that was bothering me. It hit me just a little too late, though. “Oh shit!” I spouted. “Savior! I’m about to-” I couldn’t even finish my sentence before all my muscles locked and I fell to the ground in nothing but darkness. I was suddenly back in my old house again. I knew what was going to happen, and so now I just had to wait for The Rev. It took about 5 minutes for him to get there. “Sorry I’m late” he apologized. “It’s time to show you one more thing from your past. You sure as hell aren’t going to enjoy it… but it’s necessary.” He disappeared and I saw a not-so-much-younger me sitting at our old piece-of-shit computer watching MLP online. My brother walked in the room and his jaw dropped open. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WATCHING?” “I’m watching My Little Pony” I said, not realizing he was so shocked. “Oh god, no” he sighed. “Please don’t tell me you’re one of those homosexual jerk-offs that watch that kiddy shit.” “What th-” I stopped myself. “Are you asking if I’m gay?!” “Yes” “Would there be something wrong with that?” “Yes” “I’m not, first off” I growled. “And second, when you say there’s something wrong with being gay, you have some serious homophobia goin’ for ya!” “But you watch that show” he responded. “HOW ARE HOMOSEXUALITY AND A TV SHOW RELATED IN THE SLIGHTEST!??!” I screamed at him. “You treat it as if it’s a sin to have my own fucking opinion! Well, guess what? I’m sick of your shit, bro! I’ve put up with your judgment all my life, and now… I’m done!” “What are you gonna do?” he taunted me. “What’s a little homo like you gonna do?” I snapped right there and rushed straight at him. Jumping off of our table, I jumped on top of him, knocking him over. I began to punch him mercilessly over and over. After only 30 seconds or so I realized what I was doing. I got up off of my brother, who was now out cold, and ran to the phone we had. As soon as the ambulance arrived, the medic and I got my brother into the ambulance and drove away. I stood there watching my past events. The Rev popped up beside me again and said “There’s a second part to that” he said. He disappeared again and the memory went on, except now it was a few hours later. We arrived at our house in a cab. I paid the cab driver with the little money that I had and walked back inside. “I’m sorry, bro” I sniffled weakly. “Stay away from me” he snapped, storming off to his room. I then just walked over to the nearest chair, and then collapsed and started to cry like the younger me had. The memory stopped and The Rev appeared beside me one more time. “That’s all I’ll need to show you” he uttered, looking down. “Just be sure to remember that this was for the best.” It wasn’t a pleasant feeling when I woke up. “Well… that was depressing” I croaked, waking up. “You got that right” Savior groaned, walking over to me. “You’ve been out cold for half an hour. I think we should get moving.” “Yeah” I agreed while getting up off the ground, “as long as there’s nothing along the way that might break my seizure threshold again.” And so we set off again. It was another 3 or 4 hours before we reached a source of clean water where we decided to take a break. Twilight and Fluttershy were off talking with each other so me and Savior could talk alone for a little bit. “Savior, did you and Twilight do anything special last night?” “We spent pretty much the whole night together, if that’s what you’re asking” he answered. “Spike can be a pain in the ass when you’re trying to spend some time alone with your “very special somepony.”” “Well, there’s that” I continued, “but I’m talking about something that you were only doing because it may have been your last night together.” “That’s all that we did” he said. “I mean did you do something special… you know… with each other…” He still didn’t get the message, so I went into sarcasm mode. “When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much they-” “Oh, that kind of something special” he interrupted. “You finally get it” I sighed angrily. “Why? Did you?” “Well, yeah” I admitted under my breath. “I can understand if you didn’t ‘cuz I’ve known ‘Shy for a much longer time than you’ve known Twilight. “To tell you the truth…” he was hesitant to tell me, making me a little nervous about the answer. “We did. Spike almost walked in on us and-” “You could’ve just said you did” I sighed looking over at him. “The details are yours to keep, man. I couldn’t give a shit n’ a half about ‘em.” “Yeah, well I had always wondered what my life would be like if I turned that shit up to 11 out of a possible 5?” he snickered. “What’s with you and that song?” I asked. “You’re just jealous that I’m The Unicorn Wizard!” he said, giggling through his teeth. “We should probably go now” I suggested. “Okay Ninja Brian” he laughed. “Or we could just stay here and Twilight could watch me beat the living shit out of you and then back into you” I threatened him. “I like your first idea better” he winced. I suddenly heard a loud horn-like sound… as if something was calling… it was the mountains. “Can you hear… The Holy Mountains?” At that we continued on. It took a long time, but we finally reached the entrance of the temple… “That’s a lot of Lost Souls” I said. “What are these mountains called again?” Twilight added. “The Holy Mountains” I responded quickly. “Well these guys will sure be holy when I shoot them full of holes!” Savior interrupted. “I got an idea that won’t get us killed” I butted in, looking over at Savior. “I’ll go in and start slicing at them and Savior, you provide sniper support from over here. Twilight, do you think you could throw rocks at them or something?” Twilight gave a nod, so I ran out there in a mad dash. I knew Fluttershy would be freaking out about it right then, but there were no other ways in that we knew of and we had to get this done now, or it would be impossible. I yanked out my trusty scythe once again and gave a big baseball swing, cutting through 4 or 5 of them like a knife through warm butter. Then they started to surround me. This was the part where bullets and rocks started pelting them. Savior had enough ammo to take down an entire army and Twilight had plenty of rocks to throw, so I had enough backup to last me the entire fight. Lucky for me, these things were dipshits and are distracted way too easily, making it a piece of cake to off them each one by one. They kept on coming though, and soon I began to get a little tired. It was becoming a little bit overwhelming of how many Shadow Forms there were. Eventually, I just collapsed and all the Shadow Forms began to pile onto me. On the outside of the pile, I could hear the other 3 freaking out, but then I thought of The Matrix… But instead of just throwing them off of me, I had a scythe! I started swinging it as wildly as I could, cutting through what seemed like thousands of the darkened pricks, but after enough time, I finally reached the surface of the enormous pile of Shadow Forms. We all began to walk casually into the temple. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Fluttershy asked me. “The hell if I know” I replied. Savior knew though… I felt something… I felt the Lost Souls’ presence. “Can you feel their haunting presence?” “I can, cousin” Savior said. “I can.” It was dark and wet inside the Temple. There was moss emerging out of every possible crack in the wall and fungus was growing out of the ground, making the Temple seem like it was the oldest thing ever created. It obviously wasn’t the OLDEST thing ever created, but it was certainly old as all hell. We wandered around for several hours, drinking water we had collected in glass bottles that Twilight had brought along in her saddlebags. It was about 5 hours of nothingness before we finally decided to just give up and take a break. “Why are there so many empty rooms?” Twilight asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.” “They would make useless rooms in tombs like these so that grave robbers would get hopelessly lost” I explained. “Tomb? I thought this was a temple” Savior said. “Well, it’s also a tomb” I told him. “I’m pretty sure the room we’re looking for is connected to a few others… but I’m pretty sure we’re lost.” “So we’re fucked?” Savior added. “No, we’re just off track” I corrected him. “As long as we keep moving and don’t go in circles, we’ll find it eventually. We just have to keep on looking.” We kept on looking and another 4 or 5 hours passed before we finally accepted that we were totally lost. “Okay” I said. “Now we’re fucked.” “We can’t give up just yet” Fluttershy spoke up. “We can do it, we’ve just gotta keep going! If we don’t keep going, then Equestria will be destroyed! We’ve also come this far, so there’s no point in going back now!” “Fluttershy is right” I said, surprised at Fluttershy’s random inspirational speech regardless of us all being tired from walking for countless hours. “I’m assuming Canterlot wasn’t built in a day, so it’s gonna take us some time to find these rooms.” We walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and… you get the idea. We walked so far, I swear I could feel my legs about to snap in 2. It was a total of 12 hours of walking after that conversation before I finally collapsed… in front of a doorway to one of the rooms we needed to get to. We rested for a few hours to regain our strength and then we got back up to examine the name of the room. I read the writing, which was written in English but it was written is such a strange way that it made it kind of hard to read. “The chamber of-” “Passion?” Savior erupted randomly. “Is it the chamber of passion?” He walked over to me and whispered. “Will we bathe in a pool of strawberries and cream?” He got even closer to me and whispered even softer “Will the cream travels places you can’t even dream?” “Uhh… oh god…” I cringed. “I think you just made me dream it.” “How was it?” he snickered. “Amazing?” “No… just… uhh” I gagged. I was literally about to start throwing up. “You mean uhh-stounding? Yeah you do!” “If I was going to survive this mission, I would fucking murder you” I growled. “Still worth it” he laughed. Him and that fucking song. “Only you, Savior” I continued, trying to ignore the impulse to strangle my idiot cousin to death. “Anyway, it’s The Chamber of All’s End. This is the first room we needed to get to. We should be fine finding all the other rooms after this; they all happen to be linked together.” “That’s convenient” Twilight added. “The only problem is that we have no idea what’s in there.” I alerted them. “It could be something perfectly harmless, or it could be the most dangerous possible thing we could run into… I’ll bet on the ladder.” “Well, I guess we’ll just have to find out the hard way” Savior said. We all snuck quietly into the room, just in case there was something dangerous in there… It was infested. In every tiny nook and cranny was a Shadow Form, pissed off and ready to kill. I silently took out my scythe and proceeded to one that was sitting in a corner sleeping. I slowly put the blade behind its neck and quickly tugged it towards me. Making little noise, the Shadow Form’s head came right off. I moved on to the next one and the next one and the next one and I just kept going until I had cleared about half the room, at which point I was fed up with playing games and I quickly decided just to take them all head on. I took a big swing at a bunch of them, taking out 4 or 5 of them in one quick hit. 3 of them came at me from behind, which I simply did a quick buck and all 3 were out of my way; not dead, but out of my way. I gave another huge swing at another group of them, but I only hit about a quarter of them. Those Shadow Forms didn’t get away for long. I caught up to them and sliced their legs off! I got a few more of them after that, but I was quickly outnumbered, outmatched and worst of all, I was surrounded by a sea of the Shadow Forms. Fluttershy appeared behind a few of the Shadow Forms and she took out… my obsidian scythe?! She must have swiped it when I wasn’t looking, but how in the holy high hairy hanging hedges of hell did she conceal it so well for so long?! Anyway, she quickly chopped at all of the ones in front of her, allowing me to get the jump on the ones behind me which were now focused on her. I landed behind all of them and began to take them down one by one with quick slices. Each one had their head hit the floor shortly… it had worked perfectly. We all made it out of The Chamber Of All’s End safely and into The Tomb Of Lost Souls. It was old, dusty and very dark inside The Tomb. Luckily, there were no Shadow Forms inside it, so we were safe from those for a little while. This was also the last room before The Final Chamber, which is where the blood sacrifice would be made. I slowly made my way over and sat down in the corner of the room so I could rest. My back was in intense pain and I could feel a few cuts along my sides, legs and face. Fluttershy followed me back there and sat down beside me. I hated to make the decision I just had, but Savior knew it would’ve happened. I didn’t care. It was for the best and I was gonna do it! “I’m gonna do the blood sacrifice myself” I panted. “I think it would just be better that way.” “So this is the last time we get to be together?” she asked “I guess so” I moaned, trying not to cry. “I’m not happy about it either, but it’s gotta be done. Otherwise everypony will die, and I can’t let that happen.” “We’ll make sure everypony remembers you” Savior assured me. “I just… I don’t want you to get broken up about my death, ‘Shy” I sighed. “I know that’ll be hard, but you have to be strong about this. I can do this, so you can be strong about it, can’t you?” she nodded weakly, starting to cry. I pulled her close. “I know it’s not going to be fun for you ‘Shy, but I’ve gotta do this… It’s the best for Equestria… It’s the best for you… I know I won’t come back… so I want to say this one last time, just in case: I love you, Fluttershy. I always will.” “I hate to break up such a cute moment, but we’re on the brink of Equestria’s destruction here!” Savior interrupted. “Okay” I said, getting up off of the ground. “I guess this is it…” “I guess it is” Savior sniffled. “I’m gonna miss you, Reaper.” “Come here, you bastard!” I laughed. We gave each other a final friendly hug and I got ready to end this. I walked casually into The Final Chamber, Scythe drawn and ready to rumble. There were easily over a hundred and 50 Shadow forms packed into one room. I saw the three innocent little fillies stacked on top of pillars stuck in what looked like glass balls. Their faces lit up when they saw me. My attention was still on the Lost Souls… I gave a devilish little smile. “Gentlemen, today is the first day of the end of your lives!” All the Shadow Forms in the room suddenly and quickly turned their full attention to me. All of them began running at me all at once. I readied my scythe, and just before they could do anything I jumped straight over their heads and landed behind them. It was less than a few seconds before I had plowed my way through what had seemed like hundreds of them and I had made my way back to the front door of the place. I turned back around to face my enemies, instantly realizing that I had barely made a dent in their forces’ numbers. They began to easily swarm me as I felt cuts emerge on my legs and face around my eyes. I lifted my scythe in front of my face, which got a few of them killed or mortally wounded from trying to attack my face. I managed to make it out of the huge crowd of Shadow Forms and I flew up then proceeded to do several diving swipes which made several kills fairly quickly. The Lost Souls wouldn’t stop forming Shadow Forms, making it near impossible to tell if I was thinning the forces that crowded the room. Obviously not, but I kept going, ruthlessly chopping through what felt like thousands and thousands of the darkened bodies. It never came to an end, and eventually I began to get fatigued from my repetitive chopping. Apparently, the Lost Souls got irritated too, because they all just seemed to give up. Well, they didn’t exactly “give up…” They began to merge together into one pony and his familiar looking weapon of choice… me and my scythe. After about a minute and a half of standing there, wide-eyed, watching the souls “combine,” a shadow version of me became manifest. It was like the Legend of Zelda II’s ending, except I was even more fucked. We both drew our scythes at the same time and in the same way. “Two great minds think alike, huh, me?” I asked, chuckling a little. He nodded. We ran at each other at the same time, as I had anticipated. We began to brawl a little. It became very repetitive between us, as we kept preforming the same attacks and tricks, making all our combat efforts end with nopony hurt in the slightest. I kept trying regardless, but it didn’t turn out so well. I was a physically living thing as opposed to him, who was technically only a physical representation of my appearance made up of a bunch of different beings. In Lyman’s terms: I had physical limits, but he didn’t. This was a very, VERY big problem for me. I eventually hit my physical limit and became too fatigued to continue. He began to advance on me as I tried to catch my breath. His advance was a little bit slow, giving me time to catch my breath. As soon as he was a matter of feet from where I stood, I decided to suck it up and beat him out. I stood up, trying not to wince from the pain I had in all of my legs. We began to trade blows once again, but this time I had to think like somepony else. That way I could catch him off guard with an attack and he would actually get injured. I thought of the worst possible move, but I gave it a shot anyway. I threw my scythe straight at him. I could hear Savior yelling at me from the other room, but I just tuned him out and focused on my adversary, who had finally stopped copying me in the fact that he still held his scythe. He began to charge me as I would have. I anticipated it, so I jumped over him and tried to stomp on one of his back hind legs. I missed and slipped, hitting the floor with a small crack coming from my chest. I also felt a very sharp and abrupt pain in the area where I had fallen on. It must have been one of my ribs, and considering I still had 11 of them left to spare, I got back up and continued. He did an aerial dive, which I managed to dodge. I ran over to the side of the room, where (as I had hoped) he did another aerial dive. When I dove out of the way, he slammed into the wall allowing me to get on top of him and proceed to beat the shit out of him with my own two forelegs. The Shadow Form’s face began to distort as I continued punching it over and over and over and over. No matter how many times I punched the bastard’s face and no matter how fucked up-looking it got, he didn’t seem to get hurt at all. Eventually he decided “I’m done with this bullshit” and threw me off of him and into a wall. My head slammed into the wall hard enough to crack its surface. Blood came out of the back of my head as I fell to the floor. The fucker was ready to kill me right then and there. My vision was blurry and I could feel blood all over the back of my head. That wall hit me hard enough so that my ears were ringing and I felt the pain at the front of my head… There… standing over me… was Shadow Reaper. His scythe was at the ready. I was ready to get a giant blade plunged into my head, but I didn’t. I opened my eyes to see him just standing over me with his scythe raised like he was about to strike. In the background, I could easily see Savior with his rifle at the ready about to shoot the Shadow Form in the head. I nodded weakly and I could almost sense the trigger being pulled. The Shadow Form’s head almost seemed to disappear with the sound of the gunshot. It fell to the ground without another action… “Thanks!” I called over to him. “It’s not over yet!” he yelled pointing at the Lost Souls forming something huge and very… Deja vu… Forming into huge beast with wounds all over its body, the Lost Souls continued to swarm. It began to have armor form around it and a huge blade right next to it… It was a Shadow Form of Nightmare. It turned around and gave me a death glare before picking up his weapon and rushing at me. I turned around and started running as fast as I could so I could reach my scythe before I got ran over. I managed to grab my scythe but by the time I had picked it up, Nightmare’s big metallic shadowy boot struck me in the side of the head, sending me flying until I hit the wall, once again with enough impact to crack the stone walls. I managed to push myself off of the ground and into the best fighting position I could manage. He began to rush me again. This time, I was able to anticipate it better, allowing me to dive out of the way and come back for an attempt at hitting him in the back. Key word there is ATTEMPT. The giant pile of Lost Souls swung around and hit me square in the face with the blunt end of his blade. I flew clear across the room until I hit the ground, mere feet away from hitting the wall again. I got up and made my own charge. At the last second, I swooped upward and straight over to the back of Shadow Nightmare. I landed on my hind legs and took a big swing at his legs. The blade got a good solid cut at the joints of his legs, making him fall backwards… on top of me. I tried my best to wedge my way out from the 400 pounds of Shadow Nightmare plus his armor and his big-ass weapon. I managed to wiggle free after a minute and I flipped over to get on top of him. Standing on top of him, I didn’t notice him lifting his leg to get it under me. I suddenly got flung across the room once again. Shadow Nightmare slowly rose to his feet and grabbed his weapon again. He began to rush at me once again, but with enough distance between us so that I could see it coming. I was able to dive under his legs (just barely) before he hit the wall with a solid crack. A massive set of cracks formed in the wall making look like an earthquake had hit that wall and that wall only. I rose up to make another aerial dive at Shadow Nightmare, but this time it was him anticipating my movements. He simply stuck up a boot and since I wasn’t able to change directions fast enough, I ran straight into it. I got clothes lined and did a full skid across the floor until my head grazed the stone of the cracked wall. Shadow Nightmare stood over me and suddenly, two bullets impacted the side of his head. They didn’t penetrate the armor, allowing the Nightmare clone to look over to Savior with a death glare. He turned back to me and gave me the same death glare. His eyes weren’t green now; instead of green, they were pure black. Not just the pupils, but the iris and the white of his eyes were also pitch black. I thought I was about to die… but I remembered something: “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WATCHING?” “I’m watching My Little Pony” “Oh god, no. Please don’t tell me you’re one of those homosexual jerk-offs that watch that kiddy shit.” “What th-… Are you asking if I’m gay?!” “Yes” “Would there be something wrong with that?” “Yes” “I’m not, first off, and second, when you say there’s something wrong with being gay, you have some serious homophobia goin’ for ya!” “But you watch that show” “HOW ARE HOMOSEXUALITY AND A TV SHOW RELATED IN THE SLIGHTEST!??! You treat it as if it’s a sin to have my own fucking opinion! Well, guess what? I’m sick of your shit, bro! I’ve put up with your judgment all my life, and now… I’m done!” “What are you gonna do? What’s a little homo like you gonna do?” I began to remember even more: “What’s wrong, big bro?” “Peter, we need to talk. It’s about your grades. You’ve failed your math, history and science classes. You’re gonna have to go into a special class to help you with it.” “I tried my best” “Your best isn’t good enough, Peter! I don’t want to have a dumbass as a brother. You’re in the seventh grade, Peter! You should be able to handle all your shit on your own!” “Dad always told me to try my best! To just do what I could and I would be fine! But you don’t care! You’re not Dad! You’re just a dick!” SMACK! “Don’t you DARE call me that, dumbass! You need to suck it up! You’re not a fucking 3-year-old! Stop crying, go to your room and do whatever the fuck you want to! As long as what you do makes you smarter than you are right now!” I swallowed and muttered “I’m not a dumbass.” I swung the scythe harder than I ever thought I could. I swung it directly up into the Shadow Nightmare’s stomach, piercing his armor. I tipped him over and jumped on top of the Shadow Nightmare, yanking my scythe out of him. “You think you’re a fuckin’ Nightmare?” I growled. “Well, guess what? I’m YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE!” I swiped my scythe down and sliced straight through his neck. His head detached from his body and the shadow form disintegrated. I let out a sigh of relief, knowing that I was done with the fighting. The only thing that I had to do now… was die… I approached the altar that had the chalice on it. I noticed that there was a button on the underside of the stone altar it was on. That must have been the button that would activate whatever the sacrifice was. I was in front of the altar, thinking of what would happen when I died this time. I heard from behind me “REAPER!” It was Fluttershy crying. “Fluttershy, don’t look!” I yelled. My hoof hit the button and three long, sharp blades came shooting out of the floor and straight through my mouth, causing my blood to flow into the chalice and causing me to die on the spot without feeling any pain. It was less than an instant before I was sitting above everything looking down on the Cutie Mark Crusaders racing to the other 3. I saw Fluttershy fall down and just let go what seemed like an endless stream of tears. I felt Bo’s presence behind me. “Well, Reaper” he said. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Bad news is, they’re gonna forget all about you, except for one pony of your choosing. The good news is that it’s only temporary. We’re putting you in conservation because Equestria will need you again in the future. When you’re sent back we’ll give back everypony’s memory of you.” “How long will this be?” I asked “Hell if I know” he replied. “I know that you won’t be able to see what’s going on down in Equestria, and you won’t have to eat or drink anything. There might be another being put into conservation with you. We’re not too sure yet, but just be patient.” “Alright” I sighed. “I guess I’ll want Savior to be the one to remember. Fluttershy would probably give up on life if she kept the memories, and I don’t want that to happen, so it’s best to give ‘em to Savior.” “Smart guy as always” Bo added. “Savior it is! See ya later!” I sat down in the blank white that I was suddenly surrounded by. It wasn’t “above Equestria” white it was literally blank as in there was nothing there… but me… I waited for ages… but nopony came. After what seemed like years, I felt someone pop up only a yard and a half away from me. I was sleeping, so I lifted my head to see who it was… It was a human… “Who in the Sam hell are you?” he asked “I might ask you the same question” I answered. “I’m John Jack” he told me skeptically. “I’m Reaper” I returned “So…” he started awkwardly. “where in the Sam hell are we?” “Welcome to a little piece of heaven” I quoted. “You listen to Avenged Sevenfold?” he asked. “Yeah, why?” “Me too!” he laughed. “Why are we here anyway?” “Equestria’s gonna need us again pretty soon, so both of us and all memories of us are being preserved here for the time being” I explained. “Brightside is you don’t have to eat or drink. Downside is that there’s not a goddamn thing to do around here except sleep and you can only do so much of that.” “So I guess we wait then” he suggested. “I guess so” So we waited, and while we waited, we began to become friends. It was much easier to pass the time with someone there with me. His stories of what happened to him in Equestria were so… odd. I didn’t think it would ever happen; Earth and Equestria combining, I mean. We had both faced a death that was for a good cause though. We became great friends after a while, knowing pretty much everything about each other, knowing all of each other’s secrets. It felt like I had a brother that wasn’t an asshole! Occasionally, one of us would disagree on something, but we would resolve it through means of words, considering the fact that of we hit each other, the attacker would feel pain instead of the victim (I learned that the hard way). We had a lot of curiosity about this entire “conservation” thing. What did we need to be conserved for? Why did they take the memories of us away? When would we be summoned back to Equestria and out of this fuckin’ blank dimension filled with nothing? Why am I asking questions I won’t get the answer to again? Didn’t I learn not to ask these questions last time I asked these questions? The point was that we had to keep on waiting… And so we continued waiting… Waiting for something to happen… Rise And Fall, Rage And GracePOV: John Jack I had lost track of the days eventually. Reaper and I were forced to live with each other for what seemed like forever. This guy’s life story was a lot more complex than mine, but neither of us cared about who was better than the other in any way. We both knew that if we had any of those kinds of conflicts, there would be a problem when we had to work together. Regardless, we still had differences as well as similarities. We were the best of friends eventually, which felt good because we were locked in… what was it called? Conservation, I think. Whatever… we were isolated and it was good to have someone to talk too; end of story! Eventually we both knew just about everything about each other. I knew his real name and he knew about the entire “Mr. Jack” thing. It was still a mystery of why I was put in conservation. Reaper obviously knew that there was something that Equestria still needed us for, but both of us couldn’t guess what. Also, the entire “memories will return when we get back thing” confused me. This Savior guy was apparently very close to Twilight, so how come I never heard about him… I guess I wasn’t that close to Twilight myself. Meh; whoever this Savior guy is, he wasn’t an impact on my life in Equestria, so I guess it doesn’t matter that much to me. I wish I could have known how long it had been when that guy came to us. Not Savior, but some other guy. He was a blonde angel in a long white robe and his name was apparently Bo. Bo appeared to us one day… evening… fuck it… Bo appeared to us after a while, let’s leave it at that! His eyes were lit up with excitement as he told us what was happening. “We’ve finally found out why you need to go back!” he yelled, directing his words at Reaper. “There’s going to be a death soon. It won’t be an accident, and it won’t be regarded as murder unless you guys figure out what happened!” “That’s all you can tell us?” Reaper snorted angrily. “Well, I can tell you who will die, and I could tell you that there’s an entire party responsible for the murder, but other than that, I can’t help you.” He was standing there with a puzzled look on his face as he tried to think of anything else. “That’s enough to go on” I butted in. “We don’t need to know who dies right now, we’ll obviously figure it out later.” “This would almost be like Minority Report if we didn’t have to investigate” Reaper added in an indifferent tone. “True, true” I agreed. “Well, you guys’ll be put back onto Equestrian ground as soon as the death happens” Bo continued. “It’ll take a day or two for the word to spread around to Ponyville but at least that gives you guys some time to settle in, catch up on past events and just generally get used to your old lives again.” “Well, at least we get to leave” Reaper shrugged. It’s been too long since I’ve seen Fluttershy and Savior, and I’m assuming you’re itching to see Luna, right John?” “You betcha” I nodded. It took another time of sleeping (can’t really call it night since we couldn’t tell) before we were woken up by Bo again. Without any words he teleported us into two different places. He teleported me to Canterlot and Reaper to Ponyville. We were both where we wanted to be. I didn’t really need to be in Ponyville, because I knew that Connor, Discord and Afanasai could handle things themselves. What I really wanted was to see Luna, and what Reaper really wanted was to see Fluttershy. I was plopped onto the front steps of the castle without hardly any warning. I got up, dusted off and proceeded inside the large castle. I wondered what was going on with both Luna and Fluttershy at this moment. All of their memories of me and Reaper had returned at the moment we were re-incarnated in Equestria (Reaper for the second time). I’m assuming that both of them instantly began to cry oceans. I guess I would find out about Luna’s reaction in a moment. I had reached the throne room after I was done contemplating the possibilities. There was a faint crying sound coming from the other end of the room. I looked over to see Luna sobbing uncontrollably next to her sister who was attempting to comfort her, but was apparently doing a pretty shitty job. It was hard to keep myself from laughing when Princess Celestia looked up to see me because her jaw dropped so wide open that I swear I could see into her stomach. Luna could tell that something was up because she could hear nothing coming from her sister, so she looked up at her, and then looked over the way that her sister was looking; she looked over at me. Instantly, her eyes perked up and her crying stopped as she leaped over to me… well, she more of tackled me. I laughed uncontrollably as she practically constricted me in a tight hug. She pushed up a little to look at my face and said “what art thou laughing about?” “My apologies, Princess” I chuckled. “I just didn’t expect to be attacked by something as cute as thou.” Luna giggled and blushed a little as she stepped off of me. “Thy words are too kind.” “Ah, but they are true!” I retaliated, making her laugh more. I noticed Princess Celesta was raising an eyebrow while laughing a little herself. “Oh, I’m sorry, Celestia. Anything happen while I was gone?” “No, no, but there was a very strange rush of memory that happened just a little less than an hour ago” Celestia told me. “I remembered everything about you as well as somepony you may not know named Reaper.” “Don’t worry, I’m very well acquainted with Reaper” I interrupted. “I wonder where he is” she thought out loud. POV: Reaper I was in Ponyville, obviously! Where else would I be, Ontario? Anyway, I was spat onto Fluttershy’s front doorstep, where I got up, dusted off (like I would assume John did) and quietly rapped on her front door. Instead of Fluttershy herself answering the door, the door swung open to reveal… nothing… I looked down. It was Angel. The little white fur ball was starting to freak out at the sight of who he thought was dead and probably also thought was now a zombie. I laughed and walked past him to see where Fluttershy was. Sure enough, Fluttershy was sitting on the sofa, crying her adorable little eyes out. I decided to try and lighten the mood. “Your problem has been solved!” She sniffed and looked up at me before jumping over to me and practically breaking my spine with a practically Pinkie Pie Pony-power hug. “Reaper! I don’t know how you’re still alive, but I’m so glad you are!” “I won’t be for very long if you keep hugging me like this” I choked. “Sorry” ‘Shy withdrew quickly. “What’s happened since I…” I hesitated to spit out the last few words, “died.” “Nothing really” she said really happily. She suddenly frowned as she continued, “all except for me remembering you dying. I just remembered it a little while ago. It’s strange, because I suddenly remembered hearing about this pony named John Jack, too.” “Well, it doesn’t seem like I missed much, then” I interrupted sitting down next to her. “At least we get to be together again.” Angel hopped up onto the sofa and sat down beside me. “Hiya, Angel!” I greeted him. “How’s my favorite little white fluff ball with anger issues doing?” He scowled at me. “I’ll take that as “I’m fine. Shut the fuck up.”” He seemed to laugh a little as he hopped straight over my head and landed on Fluttershy, who pulled him into a hug. For the next several days, both me and John remained where we were. John had a good time in Canterlot (I know because he told me a little later), him, Luna and… the last one surprised me a little, but you’ll figure that out later. As for me, I spent pretty much all my time with Fluttershy (duh), but I also spent a little time helping out at Sweet Apple Acres considering it was harvesting season and I used to live next to an apple orchard. Applejack and her brother insisted that I get paid for it, but I attempted to decline. Obviously they wouldn’t take no for an answer so after about 5 minutes, I gave in and took the 20 bits. Apparently in American money, that’s jack shit. After a day or two I decided to go give that poor bastard Savior a visit, so I headed over to Twilights tree. It was quite a surprise to me when nopony opened the door. I just got impatient after a little while, so I let myself inside to find… no-one… WHAT?! I raced back to Fluttershy’s cottage and asked her what happened to Savior and Twilight. She began to tell me about something that happened while I was gone… So, apparently Twilight was going to be in Canterlot for quite a while along with Savior, Spike and Owlowiscious. The reason why was because for some random, fuck-all logic reason Twilight became an Alicorn Princess. Regardless of how stupid it seemed to me, I guessed it didn’t matter too much. As a matter of fact, I felt kind of happy for Savior, since Twilight was now a Princess. It was about two or three days later when I was just walking around the town and I found the CMC crying… but Scootaloo was missing… I went to get John… I had a bad feeling about this. POV: John I was in Canterlot for a while, not too long. I was able to catch up on everything that I missed with Luna. Really the only thing that was new was that Twilight was now an Alicorn as well as a Princess, which I found pretty strange, but I guess that’s good for Reaper’s cousin Savior. Apparently, Twilight was at the Canterlot Castle, so I thought over going to see her to say hi and meet Savior, but I decided against it, because I knew I wouldn’t be staying long, and when Reaper got back to me I would probably meet his cousin anyway. I was right when I said I wasn’t staying long ‘cuz after only a day or two, Reaper came sprinting into the castle yelling for me. I raced towards the noise with all the speed I could muster. Reaper was practically suffocating himself from yelling and panting so hard. I ran my hand through my long, now sweaty, black hair as I took a deep breath. “What’s wrong, Reaper?” “Applebloom! Sweetie Belle!” he panted. “Crying! Need you! Explanation! Possibly murder!” “That’s enough of an explanation for me!” I nodded “Let’s go!” We took the train which only took an hour or so like it normally does, and then we raced into the streets to find Applebloom and Sweetie Belle. It didn’t take us too long since Sweetie Belle was going off like a fucking police siren. The fantastically flustered fillies explained what they could as soon as we managed to get Sweetie Belle to stop over-watering the grass. They started off talking about how Scootaloo was going to Cloudsdale to live as a resident for a while to see if anything there would help her get her Cutie Mark, but apparently, in order to be a Cloudsdale resident you have to pass a basic flight test. She enrolled in the Cloudsdale Public Flight Academy as well as asked Rainbow Dash to help her with learning to fly. She eventually learned how to fly fairly well, well enough to pass the flight exam that determines whether you become a Cloudsdale resident or not. Her and two of her friends that she made in the CPFA died during the test for reasons unknown. They then explained that the pony who told them couldn’t tell them any more or they would send him “there.” Me and Reaper looked at each other with wide, wide eyes. We both knew that this was the murder we were looking for. “Reaper?” I asked. “I think we should pay a visit to Afanasai. He might be able to see something we can’t.” Swiftness overcame both of us as we flipped around and made for my old house in a hurry. Only a few minutes had passed before we made it to the front doorstep of the house. It seemed oddly quiet, though. I knocked on the door. “It’s unlocked” I hear Afanasai say in his deep, deep Russian voice. I opened the door and let both of us inside. He looked up from his book and over at us. He gave a near microscopic smile and turned back to his book. I looked around the room to see a fully-loaded bar that wasn’t there before. I ignored it and went back to the matter at hand. “Afanasai, I was wondering if you knew anything about Scootaloo’s death” I asked, sitting down in a chair across the room from his. He gave out a long sigh and looked up at me with his single, dark green eye. “I know very little” he said. “But one thing that I do know, I am certain you will not like.” I nodded in acknowledgement and continued listening to him. “It has to be some pretty serious shit, because Connor tried to investigate and…” His hesitation made me nervous. “They killed him.” “WHAT!?!?!” I screamed. “Who told you he died?!” Afanasai sighed and I swear I could almost see a tear drop from his eye. “John, you mind fixing me a drink?” he asked. “At a time like this?” Reaper butted in. “It’ll take the stress off” Afanasai explained. “Plus, I remember Connor telling me how good John is at drink mixing.” Reaper looked up at me. I laughed nervously as I tried to explain, “I used to have to work 2 jobs, so I to work at a local bar. I made an ass-load of tips.” I looked over to the tall Russian again, “Whaddaya want?” “I was going to ask for something mixed, but now I’m just thinking I’ll take a bottle of Vodka and a shot glass.” “One of THOSE Russians, are we?” Reaper joked. “If by that” I added, “you mean one of the Russians that could tear you apart in less than a few seconds, then yes.” I gave Afanasai his bottle and glass and went back to the bar. “You want anything, Reaper?” “I’m fuckin’ 15!” “So? This is a different Jurisdiction” I argued. “Alright, just give me what you’re having.” I just grabbed myself something and sat down with two glasses. I looked at what I had… it was some of the hardest stuff that I could’ve grabbed, harder than what Afanasai was drinking. I shrugged and poured it into the glasses I grabbed, which were shot glasses as well. Afanasai looked over at me. “Are you sure you want him to drink that? That is some strong shit.” I watched quietly as he gulped it down and gave a huge shudder and regained his senses from the intense taste. “Anyway, you were saying?” I continued, looking back to Afanasai. “It was nurse Redheart. She requested me at the hospital” He explained. We all drank a little before he continued. “I asked for the autopsy reports so I could see how he died, but she denied my request immediately, saying that she couldn’t give out that classified of information.” “So?” I retorted. “I saw her give out the autopsy reports for several other ponies” he said, giving me a look like he wanted me to do something about it. “It must be highly classified. They’re keeping something from us, John. They’re keeping things from the ones who saved this sorry-ass nation.” “We’ll see what we can do” I nodded. Me and Reaper pushed up out of our chairs and walked out after saying a short goodbye to our friend. Outside were Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, who were apparently listening in on our conversation. “What in the Sam hell were you girls doing listening to that?” I asked. “We were curious” Applebloom squeaked, withdrawing. “Don’t sweat it girls” I chuckled lightly. “Look, we’re going over to Ponyville Hospital to see if we can get an autopsy report on our friend Connor O’Drake. They probably won’t give it to us because it’s related to Scootaloo’s death, which may go a lot deeper than we thought. If they deny our request, we’ll take it from them by sneaking in… more specifically, you’ll take it from them by sneaking in.” “Whaddaya mean?” Applebloom questioned. “You’re gonna go in and get the report if they don’t give it to us” I explained. “Security in Hospitals is low, and we’re too big to sneak in undetected. You gals can get in, no problem, so you’ll be in charge of that.” “Yay!” Sweetie Belle Celebrated. “We get to help!” And so we were set. The atmosphere was very… dark as we entered through the double doors of the hospital. It smelled like your typical doctor’s office waiting room; it smelled like a bunch of sterile tools and non-latex gloves. I hated that smell; it nauseated me to no end, but I held down the drink from earlier and continued up to Nurse Redheart at the desk. Her eyes were pointed down towards the book she was holding. She was about to turn the page when she sensed the presence of somepony standing in front of her. Her eyes traveled up until they reached the tall human with a long black mane that was standing before her… It was me… you know, just in case you didn’t know. Anyway, I gave her a warm smile and said “good afternoon, Nurse Redheart.” “Good afternoon, John” she replied. “I know who you are because after that whole “Canterlot” fiasco I had to take care of so many patients that it was total chaos around here. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Jack.” I was turned towards the small Nurse Pony, but I could still just feel Reaper roll his eyes. “Nurse, I’ve been told that my friend Connor O’Drake was killed, and since this is the only hospital in town, I would assume he was taken here.” “Yes, I remember him” Nurse Redheart responded. “What about him?” “I was wondering if I could access some kind of autopsy report or medical file that might tell me something about what happened” I continued. “We’re afraid that his death may not have been an accident.” “I’m really sorry, John” she sighed, “but I’ve been given direct orders not to let anypony access any files on Connor. I wasn’t even allowed to look at the files and I was the one who was there during the autopsy. I can’t discuss it, give any information on it, anything like that. If I do, I’ll lose my job.” “I understand” I nodded. Sighing, I turned around and we all left. “Well, I saw that coming” Reaper murmured sarcastically. “So did I, Reaper” I agreed, “but we need those autopsy files one way or another. Girls, this is where you come in. You need to sneak into the hospital, steal the autopsy report on a man named Connor O’Drake. That’s O, apostrophe, D, R, A, K, E. I can try to go in too, if you want me too. Otherwise, you’ll be on your own.” “I don’t think it’s smart to go in alone” Sweetie Belle thought out loud. She turned to Applebloom. “I think he should come with us.” “Ah agree” Applebloom said. “We can’t jus go in alone an’ expect to do this without getting’ caught in one way er another!” “Alright, then!” I interrupted them. “I’ll go with you. Reaper, I think it would help if you could keep watch on the outside.” I handed him one of the old communication devices that Afanasai gave us for the Canterlot thing. I snagged two of them off of the bar counter while Afanasai was reading. “Use this and alert us if any guards, police, morons, Pinkie Pie or anypony at all enters the building. We waited around the entrance of the hospital in a small crevasse where nopony would see us. We just sat there and talked for 3 or 4 hours while we waited for Luna to go to work. Sure enough, the moon rose with a beautiful white glow to it, signaling us that it was time to go to work. Reaper went around to the power box on the other side of the building and cut all the power lines with his scythe. We then opened the glass doors as slowly and quietly as we could. We could see Nurse Redheart stumbling around in the dark. I snuck up behind the unsuspecting mare and gave her a swift kick to the head, knocking her unconscious. “Sorry, Nurse” I said to the unconscious body. “Can’t let you know that we’re here. I could tell she was still breathing, so we hadn’t killed her which meant we could move on after I had mover her back to sitting in her chair. I had to set her up so she was sitting like Lyra, but she was in her chair and dammit, she was sitting in it, so we moved on. Silence remained among the three of us as we proceeded into the back of the area behind the desk. There were hundreds of thousands of files, more than the population of Ponyville, by far! I ignored the quantity and continued on the search for my friend’s autopsy report. I searched through the files for what seemed like a fucking eternity. After long enough, I found the file marked “O’Drake.” Sure enough, inside the file folder was Connor’s autopsy report, marked with a stamp that read “HIGLY CLASSIFIED.” I guess Nurse Redheart wasn’t kidding when shy said it was highly classified. I quickly scanned the page to make sure it was Connor’s, and as soon as I was sure it was his, I crept slowly towards the other end of the file racks, where the girls were. I beckoned the girls over to me and they heeded my signal. “Ya got tha file?” Applebloom whispered. I nodded. “Good. Ya think we should get outta here soon?” “Probably a good idea to get out of here before Nurse Redheart wakes up” I agreed. “She may not be up for a few hours, but we shouldn’t take any chances. We got what we needed and I don’t want the chance of having it taken away.” As we quietly crept away from the file area… place, Reaper chimed in. “Uhh… John? We’ve got a problem.” “What?” “I think that electricity box was connected to another building” he said. “There are repair Ponies coming this way… and I think they’re going to check the inside of the building first.” “Shit” I huffed. “Well, we’ll just have to knock ‘em out.” “I’m on it!” Sweetie Belle chirped quietly. Before I could stop her, Sweetie Belle dashed towards the door. Me and Applebloom just stayed hidden and watched as the two repair Ponies entered the dark and quiet hospital building unsuspecting of anything on the inside. One of them dropped to the floor with a loud THUD. The other one turned around to see Sweetie Belle’s hoof hitting his jaw. He spun around a full 180 degrees before hitting the ground with an impact equally as noisy as his colleague’s. I quickly crept over to the little unicorn. “Hot damn, Sweetie Belle!” I laughed quietly. “Where in the Sam hell did you learn to do that?” She blushed a little. “Applebloom has a thing for martial arts” she said. I gave a small laugh under my breath and then proceeded out the door to go to reaper and tell him it was all clear. “Reaper!” I called, “you can come out now! We got it!” He popped out and gave a little gallop over to us. “Nice! Let’s analyze this bitch!” “Let’s go to a place less suspecting” I suggested. “Anypony got any ideas on where we might be able to go?” We all started thinking… “Carousel Boutique?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Nah” I rejected. “Rarity is likely to question what we’re doing, then figure out about shit, get pissed as shit, and I’ll beat the shit out of her.” “That and she’s an asshole” Reaper added. We continued thinking. “Sweet Apple Acres?” Applebloom added. “Nah” I repeated. “Big Mac may be a nice guy, but this is something he would NOT approve of, so things would not end well.” “We could go to Sugarcube Corner!” Reaper spouted, as if it was some sort of epiphany. “Pinkie Pie is about as observant as a deaf bat when it comes to this kind of thing! She’ll never suspect a thing!” “That is…” I stopped as soon as I started because I realized that I had no valid arguments to make on this one. “A brilliant idea, Reaper! Let’s all haul ass to Sugarcube corner!” About 5 or 6 minutes later, we were all sitting around a table at Sugarcube corner with a cupcake in front of each of us. Reaper seemed to be checking his cupcake for something. “What’s the matter Reaper? Don’t like cupcakes or something?” “No, I love cupcakes,” he said, “I’m just checking to see if there are any chunks of Rainbow Dash in here.” I laughed before I realized what he had just said. “What in the holy Sam hell are you talkin’ about?!” “It’s nothing important” Reaper assured me as he finished checking his cupcake. “Anyway, let’s get down to business.” “Alright” I nodded, swallowing a bite of my cupcake. I pulled out the autopsy report. “So, according to this, Connor was shot a total of 3 times. Once in the leg, then twice in the chest.” “Do we know what kind of gun they used?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Good question” I praised her. “It says here that it was from an M1911. He was hit with .45 caliber rounds, so he was probably killed with one shot to the leg and one shot to the chest, but whoever shot him probably wanted to make absolutely sure that he wasn’t gonna get up. There’s also a letter to the hospital from Cloudsdale’s City Hall. It says that they should let nopony see this autopsy report due to the victim being killed for being close to knowing very, very highly classified information on the death of Scootaloo…. Cloudsdale is trying to cover this up. “Why?” Applebloom asked. “Connor helped save Equestria! Shouldn’t he be able ta know a little classified info?” “They don’t want anypony to know about this” Reaper sighed. “It’s something bad. They wouldn’t be this desperate to cover it up if it wasn’t something so serious that they can’t afford anypony to know.” “I think we should go talk to Afanasai again” I interrupted. “He may know some more details.” We all returned to my house where Afanasai was sitting in the same chair reading the same book of Equestrian history. “Hey there” he greeted us. “Did you all know that King Sombra wasn’t originally from the Crystal Empire? He was originally from Equestria, but since he had so much free power, he decided to take over the Crystal Empire.” “Afanasai, that’s interesting, but we have bigger problems to deal with at the moment” I said. “We need to know if you would happen to know any more details on Connor’s death.” “Well, I do know that he was killed at City Hall” he answered. We all looked at one another. “Thanks Afanasai!” I spouted, giving a small appreciative nod. All 4 of us that were standing in the room flipped around and made a mad dash for City Hall. It was time for an interrogation… POV: John The road fell behind us as Reaper and I ran to City Hall as fast as we could. We reached the center of the town after about ten minutes, because the total distance was one mile, and we practically broke down the front door we were in such a rush. I’m not even kidding when I say that I could hear the hinges on the door pop out of place. The secretary looked up at us like we were the fucking craziest two guys she had ever seen, and I don’t blame her for that. “We need to see the Mayor ASAP” I told her straight out. “She’s got a lot of work to do right now” the secretary replied skeptically. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later.” I bent down next to Reaper and whispered to him “you mind if I yank out my gun?” He put a hoof to his face and stepped forward. “Look, lady” he snapped. “You need to let us through here. We’ve both saved Equestria, meaning your sorry ass! We’ve got business with the Mayor of Ponyville and she never has work to do!” The secretary certainly looked intimidated. She simply pointed to the door on the other side of the room from the entrance and we walked over there without another word. You could tell that there was something going on here just by the cold, unusually guilty atmosphere hanging around Mayor Mare. “Mayor?” I said, interrupting her gloomy stare that was directed at the empty desk in front of her. She looked up to see both of us. “Reaper! John! Good to see both of you!” she spouted happily. “What can I do for both of you?” “Mayor, we know something’s going on” Reaper stepped up. “John’s friend Connor is dead and so is a young Pegasus filly named Scootaloo. We were told that Connor was found dead at City Hall, so obviously, you’d know something!” “What are you talking about?” the Mayor asked in confusion. “Don’t pretend you don’t know” Reaper continued. “There’s something you know that we don’t. Connor’s death was linked to Scootaloo’s death wasn’t it?” “I don’t know who Connor is!” “Bullshit!” Reaper yelled. “You can’t hide this forever, Mayor! You know more about this, so you’re gonna tell us!” “I’m gonna call security” the Mayor said reaching for the intercom. Reaper leapt over and tackled her. I helped him tie the Mayor to her chair. “LET ME GO! LET ME GO!” she yelled. “Not until you tell us what you know!” Reaper repeated. “I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS CONNOR GUY GETTING SHOT!” I gave a devilish little smile as the Mayor realized her mistake. “Damn” she mumbled. I pulled out my M1911 and pointed it at her head. “You know shit, now spill it!” I shouted in her face. “FUCK YOU!” she screamed the secretary burst in the door. It caught me of guard so I pulled the hammer back. I swung around and blew a shot through the secretary’s head. “JOHN! OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!” Reaper gasped in astonishment at the random discharge of my firearm into somepony’s face. “Sorry, it was instinct!” I apologized. “I’ll be back in a second” Reaper told me, bouncing over to the file cabinets. He started digging through files until he pulled one out… one labeled “Scootaloo Death” with a giant HIGHLY CLASSIFIED stamped over the file’s front. “I got the file!” “Bring it here and let’s find out” I said, cracking another devilish smile, this time directed at Mayor Mare. He hopped over and handed me the file folder. I flipped it open and the first and only thing in there was a report from Cloudsdale. It said that Scootaloo was reported to have been killed after failing her flight test. I gulped because it sounded familiar to a story that reaper had told me about. I ignored the feeling and just continued with our investigation. “Is this all you know?” “It’s all they would give me” the Mayor sniffled, now crying because she knew that I was actually able to kill her in the blink of an eye. “I know for a fact that it is REALLY highly classified information. That’s why they killed your friend.” Reaper leapt back over and untied the Mayor. “I’m so sorry about your secretary, Mayor Mare. She caught me off guard.” I apologized. She took a breath and nodded. “I understand” she said. “She scared you and you acted on instinct. It happens to everypony.” “Thank you Mayor Mare” I laughed. “Not like you had a choice, but…” “Please, just leave” she frowned. Reaper and I left as the Mayor asked us. “So, Reaper” I spoke up. “What should we do now?” “Maybe the Princesses know something we don’t” he suggested. “That’s not a bad idea.” “I mean, they rule the entire place” he continued. “Don’t you think they should know what happens here?” “I guess you’re right” I agreed. It was getting late, so we both went back home for the night so we could sleep as well as get prepared. I decided to arm myself to the fucking teeth, because I was guessing that we would be going straight to our destination after Canterlot. I only got 1 or 2 hours of sleep the entire night. I was up from 6 to 6 making my own weapons. It was the fastest I’ve ever worked with the exception of when Connor and I were repeating the making of the M4A1s for the Equestrian military. By the end of it I had 2 new toys… they weren’t tested though. It was a chance I had to take though. They were both guns I weren’t used to making. First was the Italian close-range classic combat killer, the SPAS-12. It sucks that only 5% of all of the ones officially manufactured were imported to the U.S. Second and probably my favorite modern weapon, The Belgian Personal Swiss Cheese Factory: The P90. I also managed to find my grandfather’s old .44 caliber Magnum. Sure it brought back some fucking terrible memories (Jason), but I thought it would help to have something as powerful as a .44 caliber revolver. Like always, the train ride to Canterlot was boring as hell without fire. As soon as the 3 or 4 hour train ride ended, we got off the train as soon as we had the chance, as we both felt like we were about to kill ourselves out of boredom, and we had the weapons to do so, too! Canterlot looked a lot better since I had last been here. It was really busy with Ponies and several Humans who you could tell were tourists by the merchandise that they apparently started selling. I didn’t see all of this before because I was always in such a hurry to get somewhere that I never stopped and looked around. The air smelled like the Equine cuisine that I was forced to live with for a while. To my surprise, people were actually enjoying the herbivore diet. Normally, Humans wouldn’t eat a flower if they were starving to death! I ignored it, and continued on my way towards the castle. Reaper trotted up to walk beside me. “Certainly looks a lot different from last time I was here” he spoke up, looking around. “Same here” I agreed. “The only difference is that the last time I was here, everypony was staying inside as much as possible and there were armed guards EVERYWHERE!” I looked around to see that Canterlot had established their own little police force. Nothing like a Human police force, as these ponies were still wearing guard armor, so it was more like the police force in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It looked pretty weird with the guards in medieval-looking armor while carrying around M1911s. We approached the castle at a decent pace, as we still were looking around and noticing a lot of things that were totally new to us. It was amazing how much everything had changed. We didn’t know how long we were in conservation, so at the same time it wasn’t surprising… I’m confusing you, aren’t I? Whatever. We walked up to the front gate of the castle where there were two royal guards, both with M4A1s that were suddenly pointed at us before the guards realized who we were. “Mr. Jack! Reaper!” One of them gasped as if he were starstruck or something. “Oh shit!” the other guard spouted lowering his gun. “I’m SO sorry! I didn’t mean to threaten either of you.” “It’s okay, boys” I laughed. “Why so jumpy?” Reaper asked. “We’re just to guys.” “JUST TWO GUYS?!” the first guard burst out. “You two are the heroes of Equestria! Then again, not many people know about Reaper. He’s more of a story that’s slowly been passed around.” After the whole conversation between us and the guards ended, Reaper and I rushed inside so we could talk to the princesses. I walked into the throne room to see both princesses looking out through the window. “Princess Celestia” Reaper called. “We need to know if you’d happen to know anything about the death of a filly named Scootaloo.” “No, I don’t” Celestia replied with a glare, as if she was suspicious of us. “Why?” “We need to find out what happened to her” I answered. “Apparently she died after taking the Cloudsdale flight test. From what we’ve found out, she failed the test before she died.” Luna turned around and spoke. “Maybe thy search would end faster if it began at the location of the incident.” I gave a small nod and smiled saying “Thank you, Princess Luna.” She smiled and looked down, thinking about… I don’t know and chances are that I don’t want to know. Reaper and I left the castle and started to walk towards our destination of Cloudsdale. We agreed that when we were directly under the city, Reaper would give me a lift up there. After that we started talking like old times. It was oddly quiet along the way there. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, Reaper tried to make conversation. Reaper asked me what my favorite sports video game was, because I had talked a lot about how Jason and I would play a lot of video games together in my spare time and I had also mentioned how Jason loved sports games to no end. My response was. “Atari 2600 sports games were my favorite because that was when sports games were fucking sports games! Look at the titles! "Baseball", "Basketball", "Football;" not that "Madden" shit. Just plain-ass, normal, everyday, no question about it, no NFL, no year; not named after a player, not named after a coach, not named after the referee's pet goldfish; no quarterback, dime-back, Nickelback, simple, ordinary unembellished, unmistakable, crystal clear, as frank as Frankenstein, as blunt as an atom bomb, one compound word: it's mother fucking, God damned, sons-of-bitchin', fuck-fuck-fucking FOOTBALL!... And it's one of the worst games I've ever played in my life.” (If you get this reference, go haves yourself a muffin!) Right after that I heard the angry voice of Spitfire up above us. “PIPE DOWN!” Me and Reaper looked at each other. We nodded in unison and I hopped on his back as he tried his best to get to the fluffy floating city above us. It was only moments before we had reached the gentle and soft surface of the clouds. “Oh, hi there Mr. Jack!” Spitfire smiled. “It’s good to see you’re alive! Who’s your friend?” “This is Reaper” I introduced. “He’s saved Equestria twice.” “I doubt it” she chuckled. “Anyway, why are you two in Cloudsdale?” “We’re here to investigate a murder that was recently committed” Reaper explained. “Surely the leader of a team as great as the Wonderbolts would have an idea on where to start.” Spitfire blushed “why not try the hospital.” “Thanks Spitfire” I said, turning around and heading towards the hospital. I looked down at Reaper who was once again walking beside me and asked, “was that really necessary?” “Who knows?” he responded. “It never hurts to make sure, right?” He had a point. And so, we continued on to the hospital to continue to unravel the truth… The truth that I was at this point, a little afraid to find out. POV: John The large cloud-made building was very… interesting. It didn’t look much like a hospital to be honest. It looked more like a pediatricians. By that, I mean its waiting room was very child-oriented. It had a bunch of little toys in the corner, where there were several little foals playing. There was also a white board where several older foals were drawing cute little pictures. I realized that Cloudsdale was probably a very dangerous city due to the fact that almost everything is airborne. The children’s stuff was most likely to calm them down, as I noticed that when we approached the secretary’s desk, a gloomy atmosphere hit me like the ground if I were to fall through the clouds. “Can I help you?” the secretary asked us with an obviously fake smile. “Hi, my name is John Jack and this is my friend Reaper” I introduced us. “We need to know if a young amber-orange colored filly under the name of Scootaloo was here any time recently. “As a matter of fact, she was” the secretary said quietly. She leaned in closer to us. “You guys know about her murder?” “We’re investigating it” Reaper answered. “You guys are getting into something that may get you killed” she continued. “I’m not allowed to say anything, and even if I was allowed, I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you that the reason she was killed AFTER she failed the test, is because she was killed BECAUSE she failed the test.” Me and Reaper looked at each other with extra wide eyes. “Thank you, miss” I nodded. “Who performed the autopsy on Scootaloo’s body?” The secretary quickly held down the button on the intercom microphone and called for a certain doctor. After a few minutes, a very old looking stallion with cloud-white mane and glasses stepped out. “You called?” “Doctor?” I started. “We understand that a filly named Scootaloo was transported here for her autopsy. We are investigating her death and we were wondering if we could get the autopsy report.” The doctor gave a quick nervous gulp. “Sure…” he agreed nervously. “I’ll get them right now. Just wait here for a second…” He turned and walked the other way with a little bit of a fearful shake. I could almost feel the nervousness radiating off of him. It took the doctor about 3 or 4 minutes to get the file… or… well… he didn’t actually get the file. The doctor came back out holding a file folder. Taking it and looking inside, I realized that it wasn’t actually what we wanted; instead it was a blank manila folder. My face contorted in confusion as I looked up to the doctor, who had the barrel of a gun right between my eyes. I quickly kicked the gun out of the doctor’s hooves, yanked out my .44 caliber and blew half of his head off. The secretary screamed as she saw the doctor’s brain matter splatter across the floor. Reaper’s mouth fell wide open at what he just saw. “How did you do that?” “If shoot someone in the frontal lobe, they only die with a hole in their head. If you shoot someone in the bottom lobe of their brain, the temporal lobe…” I hesitated, “their brain blows right outta their head.” “Where did you learn this?” Reaper asked, looking disgusted and intrigued at the same time. “Battle Damage” I spouted quickly, looking down. “What?” “I’ll explain later!” I yelled. “For now, let’s figure out how to get these files!” “They aren’t actually here!” the secretary shouted. “The Wonderbolts took possession of them. They forced us to give them all copies of the files!” “Well, now we know where to start!” Reaper said calmly, as if nothing had just happened to the doctor whose brains had become the new wallpaper for the hospital. We ignored the fact that there were still people in shock from the gunshot sound inside the hospital and we left heading towards the Wonderbolts’ training facility. I was wondering what was going to happen when we got there. We headed into the facility as if it weren’t filled with highly-trained professionals and preceded to Spitfire’s office. The door gave a small creak as I grabbed the doorknob and twisted it to the side. Inside the office was a small desk with Spitfire sitting behind it, writing something out on what seemed to be a piece of plain notebook paper. Despite the sound the door made, she seemed to not have noticed us, so I decided to have a little fun with it. I very quietly closed the door, successfully making sure she didn’t notice, and continued over to her desk and crouched down so she couldn’t see me over the desk. I gave Reaper a small nod and he got the idea. He got Spitfire’s attention by giving a loud whistle, where she looked up frantically at the startling sound. “Reaper?!” What the hell are you doing here?” I popped out from in front of her desk, scaring the shit out of her, and said “does the name Scootaloo ring a bell?” She nearly fell backwards out of her chair. Spitfire gave a nervous look then looked down as she said “no… that doesn’t sound familiar…” “I’m not stupid” I growled. “What do you mean?” she asked trying to look confused. “You’re a shit liar, Spitfire” I told her. “You know the name and you know how she died. So please; enlighten us.” “I can’t tell you anything” she sighed. “They’ll kill me.” “And if you don’t tell us anything” I added while Reaper jumped behind her and tied her hooves together rendering her incapable of doing anything other than sitting there. I pulled out my SPAS-12 and chambered a shot as I continued my sentence, “We’ll kill you.” “Take that thing” Spitfire started, “and shove it up your ass!” Reaper looked at me and I pointed over to the filing cabinet on the other end of the room. He then hopped over to the filing cabinet and began to root through the files as Spitfire sat there helplessly. It took what felt like forever until Reaper finally held up a file that was labeled “Scootaloo.” I grabbed it and flipped it open. We didn’t have the time to do a thorough read-through of the whole document, so I just quickly scanned the page. I spotted something very interesting. It said that Scootaloo was killed in Factory 16D. “Spitfire, would you happen to know what Factory 16D is?” I asked. “No” she spouted. “I’ve asked them hundreds and hundreds of times but they’ve never told me. I know that it’s a factory section inside the Cloudsdale Weather Factory, but that’s all I know, I swear!” I felt as if we had tortured her enough, so we walked out. We had gotten what we had come for, so it was time to go home. We tried hard and we had gotten far, and in the end we got what we came for! We would have walked, but Twilight was waiting on the ground below the city. Savior was with her because he was curious as to what we were doing. Twilight teleported us all back to Ponyville in a flash of light and we all sat down with the file. I realized right before we were about to open the file that there was a thing that I needed to quickly discuss with Twilight. “Twilight, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked her, interrupting the silence. “Woah!” Savior jumped in, “Back off, motherfucker! She’s mine!” “No, you idiot!” I scowled. “I just need to discuss something with her quickly.” We got up and walked back into the bedroom where I sat down on the side of the tiny bed and let out a long sigh. “Twilight, there’s something I don’t understand.” “What is it?” she asked in her typical cheerfully intelligent voice. “First” I stopped myself before I confused the shit out of her. “I need to explain a few things about what happened with me and Reaper.” I explained everything to her in detail as fast as I could: that we were put into conservation, that all memory of us was erased until we were sent back to Equestria; I even explained that when everything was happening with me, she was unaware of what had happened with Reaper. As soon as I finished, I looked up at her to see a face that I didn’t expect. She looked like she had just been mind-fucked to the most brutal degree. I held back my laughter as she spoke up. “I understand what happened now, but what is it that you wanted to know?” I sighed once again before starting up again. “If Reaper came before me and you didn’t know about Reaper while I was here originally, doesn’t that not make any sense?” “You’re right” she nodded. “That doesn’t make any sense.” “How is it possible that nobody noticed?” I finished. We sat in the room awkwardly for what seemed like forever before she finally spoke up with a hypothesis. “Well, if ponies remember something naturally, then they would just feel as if they forgot it.” “Say what now?” I interrupted her thought. “Maybe they made everypony forget it naturally” she explained. “They wouldn’t feel as if anything was unnatural.” “I still don’t get it” I sighed, feeling as if I would simply remain confused. “Think of it like this” she continued. “You have one kind of food for dinner one night, but you don’t finish it, so you save the rest of it for later. The next day, you completely forget about it, making you unaware of its existence. That night, you have something else for dinner and you do the same thing. The next day, the same thing happens and you’re unaware of both foods’ existence. That night, you suddenly remember both foods, and regardless of eating one food before the other, you just take it as something you forgot. You never actually lost the full memory of it then regained it, it was just put off to the side somewhere.” “I’m starting to get what you’re saying now” I told her. “So basically, they took the memory in everypony’s brain and put it somewhere where they wouldn’t remember it. That way it was still technically there, as in they never actually lost their memories of us. Then, when we were reborned, they moved the memories to the place where they would be remembered almost instantly; that way, when the memory came back, it felt natural, making the brain suspect nothing out of the ordinary.” “Now you’ve got it!” She said. We went back out to the table where Reaper and his cousin were sitting talking about everything that had been happening lately. Me and Twilight sat back down and Savior looked over at me skeptically. “What are you lookin’ at me like that for?” I asked “That took you quite a while” he hinted. “You stupid fu-” I stopped myself. “It was just something regarding everypony remembering me and Reaper.” “Okay” Savior said as if he didn’t believe me. Twilight laughed and told him that what I said was true. Now that that had been cleared up, we could continue. I flipped the file open and began to read the autopsy report word for word, not skipping a single letter. My eyes traveled down the page until I reached the point where it described how Scootaloo was found and what the cause of death was… I began to feel nauseous. I knew what was going on. I ran my hand through my long, black hair again, feeling that it was unusually sweaty. “What? What is it?” Reaper asked frantically. I gave a loud, cliché gulp and then took in a deep breath in a feeble attempt to calm myself… Then, I began to explain the horrible truth… POV: Reaper So, as you all remember, John had just talked to Twilight and now he was ready to tell us the truth of what happened to Scootaloo, which was apparently an ugly truth. It was time to face the facts, though, because there was something going on, and I had a bad feeling that I knew what it was. “You guys are NOT going to like this” John gulped nervously as he struggled to continue talking. “So, once upon a time, Scootaloo was taken to this “Factory 16D” place. I think I have an idea on what that place may be considering how they found her when she was dead. She had all color sucked out of her body except for her blood which was coming out of a bunch of places on her body. She was dead after all of this, but they had to go the extra mile to make sure she was dead… They found an excessive amount of Cyanide poison inside her body. They also found several other poisons including Arsenic, Botulinum toxin and Mercury, which are all highly lethal. She was guaranteed to die even if she had survived the torture they put her through in the first place.” All of our mouths hung wide open, except for John’s because he was the one who was telling us all the info. I felt like I had just been mind-fucked. “So this is what lies behind closed doors?” I asked. “What?” Twilight blurted confusedly. “This is what they hide behind closed doors? The torture and raw destruction of innocent ponies that just couldn’t fly? Why? Why would they do this?” “That’s what we’re all wondering” Savior butted in. “I won’t take it!” I yelled. “I won’t just sit here and let them do this kind of shit! I WON’T be left here! I WON’T be left here behind closed doors! It’s about damn time we found out what this “Factory 16D” is!” There was a long silence after I had finished talking. John suddenly leapt out of his chair and stampeded towards the door, yelling back “STAY HERE REAPER!” I rolled my eyes and got up to go home to Fluttershy, like I hadn’t for some time now. I walked in the cottage door and took a deep breath so I could let out a long sigh. Fluttershy bounced up and pulled me into a tight hug, crying about how much she had worried about me, because the mayor announced a price on both me and john, dead or alive. Luckily it was only in Ponyville, so if we went anywhere else, we’d be fine. I assured her I was perfectly fine. Everything would get cleared up soon. I wasn’t able to talk to her for 5 minutes before Rainbow Dash nearly broke down the door from knocking on it so hard. It turned out that she knew what we were investigating. “You can’t get any farther into this! Cloudsdale’s government will get you a definite spot on death row.” “How do you know this?” I asked, giving a little smirk, knowing she had just shown me that she knew more than what she was presenting. She gulped and gave off a sigh. “Alright, what do you want to know?” ”I want to know what Factory 16D is!” I yelled. “I can tell you anything but that” Rainbow Dash glared at me angrily. I grabbed her by the neck and threw her across the room, smashing her into the stone fireplace. She cried out on impact as blood seeped from a small cut on the back of her head. I gently walked up and bent down to her side to whisper “Are you ready to tell me, or do you want to feel that again, but with more force?” “Fuck… Yo-” she couldn’t finish her words before I grabbed her again. I slammed her full-force into the bricks of the fire place, causing her to scream again. “I would talk now if I were you” I snapped at the semi limp body, which was now bleeding from the mouth too. She spit some blood off to the side and mumbled “I’ll tell you” “Good, because I don’t want to hurt you any more.” “It’s the Rainbow Factory” she whispered. Before I could blink, she flew out the door at top speed. I looked over at Fluttershy who was crying. I looked down and said loudly “I’m sorry you had to see that, Fluttershy.” I flew out the door in the direction of Canterlot so I could tell John what we were dealing with… a problem bigger than we could handle… but we were on our own. We would have to take the risks, regardless of failure meaning death and failure being at about 80% chance. “JOHN!” I yelled out to the human figure standing in the palace room next to two large Alicorns, whose identities were completely obvious. “John, we have a much bigger problem than I thought we did!” “It’s the Rainbow Factory” he gulped. “I know” I told him. “I beat the information out of Rainbow Dash. We need to find this shit out ASAP!” “What art thy companion blathering about?” Luna butted in. “It is a serious matter” John responded. “We must go. There are many lives that need to be saved.” “Luck be on your side, John” Luna called out as we walked away. “Please tell me you have your weapons ready” I spoke up as we walked out of the castle. “Fuckin yeah!” he replied excitedly. “Let’s go kill some fools!” “HEYHEYHEY!” I yelled to him. “We need to sneak into the factory, not punch it full of holes!” He nodded in acknowledgement. We continued until we reached Cloudsdale, where I dragged John’s heavy ass up to the surface of the clouds. We were about halfway to the weather factory when two of the Wonderbolts, Soarin and Fleetfoot, stopped us. “Well, look who’s showing their ugly mugs around here after attacking Spitfire” Soarin said with an evil smile on his face. I instantly used something I had just thought of that I could use to piss them off. “Well, well, well… If it isn’t Freakfoot and his lazy partner Snorin’.” “Are you trying to piss them off?” John whispered. “Yes.” “Can I shoot them if they attack?” he asked. “Of course” I smiled. They took out their pistols and made an advance on us, where John pulled out his shotgun and blew off Fleetfoot’s right foreleg. Soarin freaked out, grabbed Fleetfoot and flew as fast as he could to the hospital. “Nice one” I praised John. We continued on, hoping that everypony had just ignored the gunshot. It wasn’t long before we had reached the entrance of the Cloudsdale Weather Factory: Factory 16. We poked open the doors and slowly crept inside. It wasn’t as dark as I had expected. We could still clearly see where we were going, but then again, we had gotten used to pitch black darkness by this time, so it was probably darker than it looked to us. We were in the A section of Factory 16 and we needed to get to section D. It was going to be a long night. We poked out our heads and began to scan the area… there was no security personnel what-so-ever. I would have laughed if we didn’t have to stay silent. We found the boss of Factory 16 section A’s desk. It wasn‘t hard to get into the moron’s filing cabinet. It took longer to find the file that told us where the security actually was, and it turned out that section D was unlocked by 4 security boxes; 2 in section B and 2 in section C… this was gonna be a hell of a fiasco We walked around in the labyrinth-like section A until we found the way to section B. We snuck through the doorway into section B the best we could. We did a scan of section B really quickly and… of course… there were guards in nearly every hiding place, but nowhere else. That did mean, however, that we had to kill ‘em off to find the security boxes… or… we’d have to kill some of ‘em anyways… I approached a guard who was standing right next to a security box. I gave a quiet gulp and continued approaching him… He flashed his light at me, but he didn’t notice me until his head had hit the floor. None of the other guards seemed to notice the noise, which was only partially muffled by the clouds that the room was made out of. I opened the alarm box and began to look at the instructions from the Section A files. It gave instructions on how to override each box in the case of an emergency. The first one had a button combination in it. The button combo was easy, though; the button combo was 6-6-6-6. I prayed that punching the code in wouldn’t summon Lucifer or some shit. Lucky for me, I heard a simple little… turning off tone… I guess that’s what you’d call it. That was one down in Section B, only one more to go and then we could move on to section C. There were three guards around the second alarm box. I knew I couldn’t handle all three of them by myself without getting spotted because they were spaced to far apart to kill with one swing of my scythe. I looked over at John and asked “you got a silencer?” He nodded and pulled out his P90. He then fixed a silencer over the barrel and aimed at one of the three guards. What happened next happened so fast that it was amazing. In what seemed like less than 2 or 3 seconds, each guard had exactly one bullet in his head. Not a sound was heard. I approached the last alarm box of the section. Finding the directions for this alarm box, I flipped open the front of it and took a look inside. It was a color combination this time. The combination was not that hard to figure out. It was the colors of the rainbow. I put them in one by one by pushing the colored buttons on the panel. As soon as I heard the little sound implying that the code had worked, I went back to John. “Alright, we’re done with this section” I told him. “What about the other guards?” he reminded me. “Leave ‘em” I commanded. “We should only kill if we have to. We don’t want to leave too many bodies behind or they might find out it was us.” “Good point.” We were done with this section… Now, we had to get done with section C… so we could move on to the Rainbow Factory. POV: Reaper Section C was hell for us. There were guards everywhere. I guess nopony wanted us in the Rainbow Factory. That fucker Rainbow Dash must have squealed on us. If I remembered the Rainbow Factory story correctly, she was an employee in the factory, so she probably had the power to put all these guards on duty. Section C was much, much, MUCH bigger than sections A or B. It had long hallways that led into many, many different rooms. I decided to take the right side first, whereas John stayed behind to make sure no other guards came by. I walked down the hallway a few feet to the first door. All the doors were neatly spaced apart and… locked open? Probably to give intruders nowhere to run. The first room was an office with 1 guard in it. I came up behind him and swiftly twisted his neck until he could see behind him… if he wasn’t dead that is. I looked around the room, rooting through it to find the alarm box, but it wasn’t there. I went on to the next room, an identical office with 2 guards in it. Both of the guards spotted me before I could do anything, so I cut off one’s left foreleg and bucked the other one in the face. The one without a leg on the ground was in massive pain, so I quickly stabbed him directly in the front of the head to kill him quickly. 5 identical office rooms later, I found a janitor’s closet with a guard that was going in to look around. I took my scythe to his head quickly and watched it hit the cloudy, fluffy ground. In that janitor’s closet was the alarm box. I flipped it open to find a miniature keyboard. I had no fucking clue how I was supposed to type with hooves, so I typed with my nose. The password was vividrainbows. I quickly rounded the corner and dashed back to John who was asleep with boredom. “Wake up, dipshit” I hissed, kicking him in the side. He jolted up. “What in the Sam hell was that for?!” “For dozing off when we’re dealing with a serious fucking situation!” I scowled. He sighed as he got back up. “Alright, Capitan asshat, what do we do now?” he asked sarcastically. “We get into the janitor’s closet in that hallway and disable the alarm box” I told him as if he hadn’t been sarcastic. “Onward and upward, then” he agreed as we moved over to the next hallway. We scooted on over to the janitor’s closet on the other side of the left-side hallway and moved in. John turned to watch the door as I flipped open the alarm box. Inside the last one was the classic three wires; yellow, blue and red. I had to cut them all in the right order within 7 seconds or the alarm would go off. I took the tip of my scythe and put it behind the blue wire. Before cutting it I took in a deep breath then let it out. I quickly but gently pulled back and snapped the blue wire, then quickly moved the tip of my scythe over to the yellow wire and cut that one. It had easily been 4 seconds so I didn’t use the tip for the red one; I just swiped it quickly across the inside of the alarm box. I was about 2 seconds away from having all hell break loose. I let out a sigh of relief and turned around to let John know the good news. “Wires are cut and the alarm is off” I told him. “Now to get into that damned Rainbow Factory.” “Let’s do this!” he nodded. We walked over to the now open 6-inch solid steel doors where we stopped. “I gotta check my ammo real quick.” “Hey John?” I asked as he checked the ammo in his .44 cal revolver. “How do you think they get such thick steel doors fastened into clouds?” “Hell if I know” he shrugged as he finished up checking his ammo. We both rounded the corner and began to creep towards what looked like a giant tram car. We made sure that no-pony was following us as we got on, and when we were sure, we got the tram moving a short distance between the cloudy buildings. There was a piercing squeak as it came to a stop at the terminal inside Factory 16D. We looked around, spotting several signs that indicated that anypony here besides “recruits” and authorized guards would be immediately executed. Lucky for us, it was 3 A.M. so there was no-pony guarding the front entrance. They probably figured that intruders wouldn’t be able to pass Factory 16C. Our advance inside was rushed and nervous, because we both knew what would happen if we were caught. It was a very tall building on the inside. There were large silos with what we assumed to be rainbow coloring inside it because the silos were connected to machines that had several syringes designed to inject the victim with poison before the color was sucked out of them. Slowly, we made our way towards the center of the factory. It was exactly when we felt the presence of other ponies… our feelings were correct, as we noticed dozens of guards in suits and snow white masks jump down from the top scaffolding that lead to the tops of the rainbow machines or whatever you call ‘em. “I think this battle might be a little unfair” I thought out loud. “Why?” John asked, “Is it because it’s 40 or 50 to 2?” “Hell no!” I laughed. “I don’t have a firearm! You do!” “Here!” John tossed me his P90 without the silencer on it. I smiled at the excellent piece of work I held in my hooves. I noticed him switch his shotgun from pump action to semi-auto. “Now it’s fair” I uttered with a devilish little smile. The one problem with the suited guards was their weapons. They didn’t have nightsticks or firearms or anything of the sort. Instead, they had stun guns, but not stun guns that shoot… cattle prods… they had cattle prods… That was the one problem. I disregarded the feeling and opened fire in synchronization with John. Since they had no protection whatsoever, they all went down very quickly. We stopped to reload. I threw away the mag that was empty as John passed me a full one. I would have slipped it in, but I heard a loud feminine scream from beside me. It was multiple thousand volts of electricity being pumped through John’s unsuspecting body. I braced for impact because I thought I might have been next and I was right, but these cattle prods were much, much more powerful than I saw coming. I was used to 100 million volts at a time, so I was expecting not even a millionth of that, I got about a tenth of that… THAT IS 10 MILLION VOLTS… FROM A CATTLE PROD. A normal cattle prod uses about 5,000 volts… let’s just say I was caught off guard compared to what I was expecting. Okay, so I may be being a bid melodramatic about it. It could have been worse. I mean I could have been tazed in the testicals. I was still conscious afterwards, though. I saw them grab John by the arms as they grabbed my forehooves and dragged us both up stairs onto the scaffolding that they jumped down from. I could already tell that this wasn’t going to end well for either of us. Instead of being dragged straight to a machine, we were dragged towards a pony in the center ally of the scaffolding that connected the two sides of the room. They were just standing there. The mysterious pony was wearing a suit identical to those of the other guards, as well as a blank white mask. In a familiar voice the pony said “drop ‘em here.” I knew who the masked pony was but I just couldn’t think of it… I remembered. We were dropped onto the cold metal, as well as John’s guns which he weakly attempted to reach for but easily failed. “You really thought you could get in here without us knowing, huh?” the mysterious masked pony asked before laughing. “That’s rich. We killed that moron Connor expecting you’d get the message that we wouldn’t hesitate to do the same, but I guess we get to do this the fun way, now.” “It’s kind of easy to see us coming when you knew I was looking for this place” I croaked, still slightly weakened from the electric shock that they had administered no more than 5 minutes before. “What are you talking about?” the masked pony faked. “Don’t lie to me, Rainbow Dash” I smirked, looking at her. “It won’t do you much good.” The pony took of her mask to reveal that I was correct. It was Rainbow Dash. “I’m that obvious, huh?” “Like a chocolate bar in a swimming pool” I chuckled. She gave me a clean smack across the face with her right forehoof. “Let’s make some rainbows” she snickered giving me a look that implied that she had totally lost it. “JOHN!” I yelled to my friend who was beginning to wake up. We were being dragged to opposite machines. “JOHN! FORGIVE ME FOR ALL OF THIS!” “It’s okay!” he called back to me. “It wasn’t your fault! It’s Dash’s” “True” I responded. Dash traveled back over to me as I was latched into the metal braces that were bolted into the cloud walls. “Any last requests before you die?” she asked. “Just something simple” I started. I had to come up with something quick. I looked around the room and after a second I zeroed in on John. It all came rushing at me. Everything he told me about how his parents died… “I just want to sing my favorite song one last time… that’s all.” “Alright, as long as it’s shorter than Stairway to Heaven” she joked without a joking expression. I inhaled deeply and sung out all I knew of the song. Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the mouthwash in your eyes Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the cause of your surprise Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car In the car, On the side of the freeway in the…. I could see John beginning to lose control as they strapped him in. Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the trick of your disguise Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the cause of your demise Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car In the car, On the side of the freeway in the car In the car On the side of the freeway in the.... It was that moment where he broke straight out of the walls. The metal restraints were still attached to his arms and legs. He swung them at one of the guards who was yanking out his cattle prod. Instead of succeeding, he got a fatal blow to the head then fell over ten feet off the scaffolding to the floor. I could tell Dash was panicking because she flew down off the scaffolding and simply nervously watched John beat the shit out of all the guards who were being beaten over the head with the metal braces around John’s wrists and ankles. He grabbed the guns that they had dropped at the hooves of Rainbow Dash at the center of the scaffolding. He flipped the SPAS-12 up into his hands and blew down 3 guards in less than a few seconds. The bloody carcasses of the three dead guards seemed to drop to the metal floor of the scaffolding slowly. You could tell that all of the other guards weren’t going to be sticking around much longer. The only one left was Rainbow Dash. John snapped back to reality and came over to quickly unlatch me from the restraints. He threw down the SPAS and yanked out his .44 cal. As soon as I was loose, we ran after Dash. He fired at her, one bullet hitting a wall and one hitting the floor right next to her. She tried speeding up, so John fired again, one missing and one grazing her back left hoof just enough to make her feel the pain. She swung off course and smashed into a wall. She tried to get up but John shot a hole straight through her wing. Her scream echoed through the long hallway we raced through to get to her. We got to where she lay; the wall that was a mere few inches away from the tram to leave to Factory 16C. We stood over her. John looked at me and I got the hint that he wanted me to back off a little, so I stepped back to let him do his thing. He aimed directly between Dash’s eyes with his revolver and gave a devilish smile. It was time for him to finish it! “I know” he began. “I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "did he fire six shots or only five?" Now to tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this is a .44 Magnum, one of the most powerful handguns in the world and will blow you head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself a question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?” BANG! POV: Reaper You’d think that would be the end of it, right? The goal was just to stop the rainbow factory from murdering innocent ponies, right? Well, that’d be too easy. We (John and I) knew that without the rainbow factory, Equestria would be deprived of rainbows. That may not seem like a big problem, but everypony would start to lose it if there was a lack of rainbows. That was where we had no plan. Rainbow dash had a hole blown through her head, we were in deep shit with the law and we had no idea what to do. John took a moment to analyze the situation thoroughly. He thought out loud going through everything as I remembered something that I had mentioned when we were still in conservation… Minority Report. “John, I have our solution!” I blurted confidently. “Good, what is it?” John asked. “Minority Report.” “No seriously” he grumbled. “I am serious” I continued. “We need to go back in time to get rid of the guy who thought of this method of making rainbow colors!” “How?” he retaliated, sounding like he knew that the plan wouldn’t work. “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna” I countered. “What in the Sam hell do they have to do with this?” “They know how to go back in time” I explained. “They have spells for that somewhere in the castle. I can remember it from the show.” “Oh, okay” he said, surprisingly without sarcasm. “But we’ll need to explain everything first.” “Duh.” “I’ve still got a lot of the evidence in my pocket” he told me. “What the hell is it doing in your pocket?” “I kept it just in case” he smiled. John remembered dropping his SPAS so he went over and grabbed it. I could understand why. We didn’t say another thing; instead we both rushed to Canterlot as fast as we could. We made it to the front gate of the castle where two castle guards confronted us. One of them pointed his gun at us. “Hey! What in the Sam hell are you guys doing?!” John yelled. “Stop right there, criminal scum!” The other one said. I facehoofed at that. John laughed and said “We’re here to report something that happened at Cloudsdale.” “We already know that you were the ones who caused it!” The first guard said, switching his aim between me and John. John yanked out his SPAS, switched it to pump action and pumped it to freak them out. The both backed off and let us in. I was assuming that they knew who we were. We raced into the throne room. “PRINCESS CELESTIA! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!” “And what would that be?” she asked, hinting that she knew that we caused the whole mess up there. “The rainbow factory doesn’t make rainbows how you think they do!” I yelled. “Then how are they made?” “Innocent ponies, namely ones who fail their Cloudsdale flight test, are killed and the colors of their bodies are used to make the individual colors of the rainbow” John explained. “We had to get pure evidence and we did because they tried to do the same to us.” “I wouldn’t believe that” she scowled. “Would you happen to have any real proof?” John cursed her name under his breath as he took out the proof he had in his pocket. She yanked it out of his hands with her magic and started looking over the evidence. I was expecting her to call them off as forged then ask us if we liked bananas (y’all know why), but as she looked over them her eyes widened and her jaw slowly dropped open. When she was done with looking over the documents, she gave them back to John and quietly asked “what do we do now?” “We go back in time and get rid of the bastard who came up with the idea of making rainbows with ponies” John responded. “We could do that” she repeated, looking down in thought. “I guess it’s the only real solution. That way we don’t have to explain anything to the public and us three will be the only ones who know.” “So, we’re doin’ it then?” I asked. “I guess we are” the Princess answered me. “Before thy departure!” a voice called out. Luna ran into the room and tackled John in a hug. I stood there over them. “P.E.T.A. would have a shit fit about all of this” I laughed. “What?” Celestia interrupted my thoughts confusedly. I told her it was nothing as John got up and Luna wished him luck. We followed Princess Celestia to a place in the Royal Library labeled “Star Swirl The Bearded.” It sounded to me like it was a character from World Of Warcraft or something like that. She rummaged through shelves of old scrolls and other ancient-looking pieces of writing. She finally found the one she was looking for because she picked it up and said “Ah! Here it is!” which made it kind of obvious that she had found it. “We ready?” I asked, ready to do this. “Indeed we are” Celestia responded, turning around and setting her large horn aglow. It was a single flash of bright light and we were in that rainbow factory again, but this time it seemed less eerie. There wasn’t as much metal reinforcement everywhere and there was a large table in the middle where four executive ponies sat, probably discussing the idea of murdering ponies for their color. “Come on!” one of them spoke up, more than likely the one who had the idea. “The Princess won’t find out.” “She just did” I blurted, interrupting the conversation and scaring the shit out of the guys at the table. “You!” John yelled, pointing at the one with the idea. “You’re under arrest for future accounts of murder.” “FUTURE?!” he screamed in terror of his imminent death. “Say, do you like bananas?” I asked, smiling. He nodded in terror. “So you’re a mmmmmmm-bitch that likes mmmmmm-bananas?” John asked with a devilish smile that Celestia had as well. He nodded, now just confused. We both looked up at the Princess. “Well, you’re about to go bananas…” her horn began to glow once again as she gave a little laugh and then shouted excitedly, “ON THE MOON!” And POOF! The pony was gone, never to be seen again. We turned around to leave but before we teleported back to our own time, John stopped and said “When you come in contact with The United States Of America, buy color dyes. They’ll color your rainbows far better than any pony’s dead body will.” And with that, we left. We were spat back into the Princess’s throne room with a disorienting flash of light. We looked around the room and luckily, nothing was different in the room. There was one thing that still remained that we needed to know… did it work? We were all thinking the same thing because we simply looked at Celestia and her horn lit up again as we were teleported to the front of the weather factory. It was mid-day so there were tourists about. As we walked by everypony, they bowed down to the Princess… Typical. As we continued onwards, we noticed that all the doors to every factory section were open with no guards about. In Factory 16C, the Tram was still operational, but instead of being the rusted cheap metal that it was originally, it now looked very appealing with the colors of the rainbow covering it. Tourist Pegesai from all over Equestria were boarding it as a tour guide led them up into the rainbow factory. We hopped aboard just as it left. After a few minutes riding in the tram, we all raced into the factory to see regular ponies working away happily using colored dyes from the U.S. and other places. The rainbow colors were so vibrant I felt like I was getting irradiated by just standing near them. Everything looked so much more normal… John was looking around with wide-open eyes while Princess Celestia was walking around with a large smile. I was just standing there thinking about what we had gone through just recently. I looked up at the sky through one of the windows that were now in the soft cloud walls and smiled, wondering what Bo was thinking about all of this. Several days later, I was home with Fluttershy and John was in Canterlot with Luna. Afanasai and Connor were living in John’s old house. Connor was apparently no different than he was before according to John who would come around every several days or so. Discord was also around with Connor, and Savior and Twilight were back in Twilight’s tree library. Scootaloo was still alive and so was Rainbow Dash. I visited Savior with John one day to tell him what really happened here. He and Twilight both believed me easily, but I showed them John’s documents just to be sure. They were dumbfounded. It was all peaceful as far as we cared. Bo also contacted me with thanks coming from not only himself, but also the ponies that were against the original rainbow factory plan. From then on, everypony in Equestria was safe. There were no more incidents and everypony was able to live peacefully. Me and Fluttershy went on to get married alongside Savior and Twilight, which made Savior a prince. Connor and Discord kept the royal guard well armed as John and Connor had once before. Afanasai went on to become a famous professor of Equestrian History back in his home country of Russia. Princess Celestia and Luna both kept a closer eye on all the events that happened in Equestria from then on. John also got married to Luna, marking him as a Prince as well. One last time while I slept, The Rev came out of nowhere and woke me up. "Hey, Peter," he whispered, trying not to wake the sleeping Fluttershy beside me. "What's up, Jimmy?" I asked quietly. "I just wanted to let you know that the big man himself has officially stated that you and John will both go to Heaven," he explained. "But we've killed people," I rebutted. "God said that you will have the title of the Angel Of Death and John will be the Angel Of War." "Odd things to be called in Heaven, don't you think?" I chuckled. "I know, I know," he brushed it off. "Just remember to Hail To The King when you get to Heaven," "I see what you did there," I told him. "Oh, and tell Fluttershy you love her every day," he commanded. "You'll never know which day is your last." "That won't be for a long time, though," I replied. "How do you know?" "Because" I started, looking back and smiling down at the sleeping Fluttershy beside me. "Death may be inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's not preventable." THE END ReaperReaper My name is Peter and I'm 15. I have grey hair (dyed) and grey eyes (apparently a birth defect, but it looks badass). I live in Washington (or at least, I did). I lived near an apple orchard, to be exact. That's obviously where I worked (it may have had shit pay, but it's better than having to walk 2 hours to get to my workplace). It was also my families. My brother and I were the only ones left to do the actual work, whereas my father had a spinal condition so he couldn't do anything relatively strenuous. There's one thing I never liked about my brother, and that is that he is too judgmental. I failed one grade and he had given me the nickname "dumbass" for about 3 years. He labeled me as gay when I told him I was a brony. Due to the stress all his judgment caused me, I developed a case of generalized epilepsy. After a while the epilepsy died down though. Regardless, I never did much in my life. I there were only 2 things that could relieve me of some of my pain: MLP, and hunting in Alaska. Though, one year, the hunting wasn't so good. We do it every year because our cousin is a hunter, but this was the last year I was ever able to do it. It's about 48 hours to Alaska by car from where we were, so it was a decent length trip to make with my brother (the only one of us who had a car and a license). We would always have a good time hunting with my cousin Steven. The only major problem we ever had was we had to bring our own guns. I managed to raise enough money to buy a .338 cal hunting rifle so I used that, but the one weird thing was, my brother and Steven would carry knives, but I would carry a scythe. Don't ask me why, I just liked having something heavier than a tiny knife for close combat. Made me feel safer, I guess. As you should know, there are wolves in Alaska. It was late winter and we were at my cousin's favorite hunting spot. We saw a pack of wolves emerge from the bushes. There were at least 10 of them. My cousin told us to keep low. Right as he said that, the biggest buck he had ever seen came out of bushes on the opposite side from the wolves. "Shit!" Steve mumbled. "I can't let those wolves get to that buck! It'll have enough meat for months!" "Can't we kill the wolves?" I asked, hoping not to be asking a stupid question. "One does not simply kill a pack of wolves," (if you get that reference, have a cookie) he sighed. "If you can do so at super speed then maybe." "I have this scythe. Would it help at all?" I suggested. "I guess you can try, but be careful. Those wolves look damn hungry." "Since when am I never careful?" I chuckled as I looked through the scope. I had my shot perfectly aligned to take out 2 of them, but when I fired, they both hit the deck and the bullet whizzed right over them. I fired again, hitting one in the hip, but only injuring it. "Well, it looks like I'm not going to get anywhere by just shooting at them." I whipped out my scythe and charged the wolves while Steve got a clean shot on the buck which had been paralyzed in fear. I was able to get my scythe into 2 or 3 of them before I started to get completely mauled. After about a minute, I blacked out, waking up hours later in my cousins cabin. "Finally awake," he sighed. "I was able to get the wolves off of you long enough to pick you up and sprint here." "Okay," I wheezed, out of breath. I looked down at my chest. Sure enough, it was completely cut up and was bleeding an unusual amount. "By the way, Pete, that scar looks totally badass." Steve said. I was confused. Apparently, he could see my confusion because he held up a mirror to reveal to me a scar across my right eye. It was something you would find out of a movie. It had a perfect lightning bolt shape somehow. "Looks like The Reaper ain't goin' down without a fight, huh?" he laughed. "Wait, you called me The Reaper?" I said, confused. "Your scythe, Pete; It makes you look like the Grim fucking Reaper!" he pointed out. "Now I got to go get that dead buck and carry him back here." I thought for a moment. He only beat off the wolves. They probably went after the dead buck now and they definitely know my brother as an enemy now so… I got up, ignoring the slight light-headed feeling I had from blood loss. As soon as I found the hunting area, I saw Steve getting attacked by the wolves. I grabbed the scythe slung over my shoulder and slid the gun back there. I charged as fat as I could. As soon as the wolves saw me, they turned their attention straight to me. I was able to kill of another 2 of them before one of them tore open my chest enough to see the muscle. I was bleeding out on the ground when Steve somehow killed the remaining 5 of them with his dinky combat knife. "You didn't have to do that you know," he said, ready to cry. "You deserve to live more than I do," I croaked, my vision slightly blurry. "You're too young to die" "It doesn't matter anymore… I'm just asking one thing," I said quietly. "Remember me as The Reaper." "You want me to put you out," he sighed. I nodded slowly. He held up his gun, taking aim at my head. "Any last words?" he said, now crying. "In the words of Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan, I need another chance to live." As the final word faded off into the cold air, the bullet was fired. I didn't feel a thing. I opened my eyes and I was in a white room. I slowly stood up as I noticed that there was a man in glasses approaching me. I suddenly realized it was The Rev. "You quoted me?" he asked, smiling. "How did you know?!" I said. "I heard you… and so did the big man." My eyes widened. "He says that it would be fair if you had another chance to live. After all, really all you did in life was watch YouTube, go to school and pick apples." I nodded, acknowledging what he had said. "So where am I being reborned?" I asked curiously. "You're a brony right?" I nodded. "Well, then you should know where you're going." "WHAT?!" I yelled. "What the fuck are you talking about?!" "It's good though, isn't it?" He asked. I raised an eyebrow. "Think about it. At least you're being put in a place that you know." "Not physically" "Well at least you're not getting a final judgment right now." He said "I protected my cousin's life with mine," I sighed. "I'm pretty sure I would go to heaven regardless." "Look, you really don't have a choice in this." He said. "He wanted me to let you know a few things before I let you go. First, when you die again, if you did more bad then good you'll be sent to hell, if vise-versa then you'll be sent to heaven. Second you'll have someone to explain anything to you if you need it." Before I could open my mouth I felt something about the equivalent to being struck by lightning. I closed my eyes at the pain, but when I opened them, I was in a small, enclosed area surrounded by large bushes, not allowing me to see anything beyond my current point of view. I thought I heard someone whisper "look down a little" so I did, and in a puddle, replacing my reflection, I saw what looked like a blonde-haired teenager in a white robe. "Hey!" He said. "My name's Bo. I'm going to be here to explain anything you need explained." "Okay" I murmured. "Let's start with… oh, I dunno… WHERE IN THE HOLY HELL AM I?!" "You should know." He sighed. "Fine, fine… has anything changed about me: My age, my gender, my ethnicity, my-" "It's better you see for yourself," He said, looking nervous. He began to pull over a mirror. "Is it that FUCK MY FUCK!" I nearly had a heart attack at the sight. "I'm a horse!" "I had the feeling you'd react negatively," he mumbled, shoving the mirror away. "Look, we had to!" "Fuckin' no you didn't!" "You don't understand!" He exclaimed. "If you aren't, everyone here will flip their shit!" "Oh god…" I whispered. "Jimmy was right." "Of course!" He yelled. "It was an order from God, and when the big man gives an order, there's nothing you can do about it." I sighed weakly and asked "can I see that mirror again?" "Okay," He accepted, yanking the mirror back in front of himself. I wanted a good look at myself to make sure I didn't look like a moron. Grey fur and a black and grey mane. My eyes were the same shade of grey as usual. The one thing that caught me off guard was I had wings, but more bat-like then what they seemed like they should have been. I reached up one of my (now) legs to feel the wings; partially soft, but still kind of fleshy. The last thing that caught my eye was the marking on my hip. A scythe and a hunting rifle crossed behind a skull. "Sorry about the wings," he nervously said. "They were meant to be extra aerodynamic." "Meh, I don't care." I paused and realized I still had my rifle and scythe on my back, only they were smaller. After a long silence I just gave up and said "so… what now?" "Probably the best idea to find some civilization first," He said. "Oh, and just to be sure, don't call yourself a horse." "Why?" "Because the residents here have no idea what a horse is," He explained. "So what do I call myself, a lollipop?" I said sarcastically. "No, you moron; you call yourself a pony." He growled. "Okay." I said, thinking of it as kind of awkward compared to what I'm normally called. I pushed my way through the bushes in a random direction. I began thinking as I walked on a small dirt path almost blindly. I thought about all the knowledge I had on this show. I remember that everyone has a name that at least gets close to fitting them. It hit me: I wanted to be remembered as The Reaper, so just take off the "the" and I've got my name here: Reaper! "Where do I go, though? I'm not even sure if this is the right way. Hell, I don't even know which way is the wrong way!" My thoughts kept on like this until I was almost dehydrated from walking. As soon as I was close to passing out I saw a puddle. Regardless of how unsanitary it was, I'd prefer not to die so early on in my afterlife, so I drank it. What little water was in there was enough to keep me going for a while; it was when I saw a light gleaming outside the dense vegetation of the forest when I began to run regardless of how thirsty I was. I ran into the light revealing a civilization somewhere in between a village and a town. It was at this point where I started wheezing terribly. I felt as if I could fall over dead at any moment, but I kept going until I could feel my consciousness slipping away from my grasp. It was then when I walked to the nearest door (I couldn't tell whose house it was, because at this point my vision was a giant multi-colored blur) and collapsed, hitting my already unconscious head on the door. I remember I dreamed that I had died from dehydration and was sent to hell to burn, and I actually felt like I was burning. It was horrifying because I could actually feel my flesh melting off and my bones being thrown into magma which devoured every last micron of bone there was. Luckily, I woke up from the nightmare… I felt dizzy as I came to. I couldn't see; everything was too blurry at the moment. I jumped when I heard a voice say "oh good, you're awake." I calmed down after I heard that it was a very soft and friendly voice. I made my assumption of where I was and as my eyesight came back, I noticed I was right: it was Fluttershy's house. "How do you feel?" she asked. "Christ…" I moaned. "I got one hell of a migraine. Other than that, I feel fine, thank you." "If you don't mind me asking… who are you?" "Me?" I pondered for a second and remembered: my name here is Reaper. "I'm Reaper." She looked confused. "That's an interesting name." she said nervously. "I'm Fluttershy." Pretending I didn't already know, I nodded and said "nice to meet you!" A huge silence fell over the small room. As the silence went on longer, I felt more and more uncomfortable. Finally, she broke the silence and said "you passed out at my door. You were dehydrated and barely breathing." I thought for a moment: shit, Bo is gonna be pissed. I looked up at her and said "thank you for saving me." "It's nothing. I hope you don't mind, but… why are your wings…" she struggled to finish her sentence as if she was scared I'd get mad. "I dunno, actually." I replied. "They're just like that for some reason." We sat there in another awkward silence before she finally said "would you like some water?" "Yes please." I said as politely as possible. One cup of water later, she asked where I was from… "Before I tell you, would you mind if I used your restroom?" She simply nodded and pointed in the direction it was in. I walked over as calmly as possible and closed the door. I thought it might work, considering it did with the puddle, so I called Bo while looking in the mirror. "Yes, Pet- err, I mean Reaper?" he said appearing in the place of my reflection. "Yeah… Bo… she asked me where I'm from, so what do I say that won't confuse and/or scare the shit out of her?" "Well… Let's see…" Bo stood there pondering for a moment. "You could just say that you were raised in the middle of nowhere." I sighed. "I guess that's actually kinda true." When I told Fluttershy, she just said "oh" quietly. "You can leave if you want to," she said in her soft, quiet tone. I nodded, got up and as I was about to thank her once more, I realized my stuff was gone. "Hey, uhh… where's my stuff?" "By the door," she said. I looked over, and sure enough my stuff was there. I walked over and grabbed my stuff and as I opened the door, I thanked her one last time. She looked kind of sad that I was leaving, but I figured that I'd end up living around here anyway, so it didn't matter too much right now. I walked out the door as I realized "I have no idea what to do now! I guess my first priority would be to find somewhere I could live." It was at that point when I remembered: the clouds here are completely solid! I could just use one of them! There was one issue… I didn't know how to fly. "Well, can't be too hard, can it" I thought as I began to flap my bat-like wings. It wasn't long before I had gained about 10 or 20 feet of altitude. The clouds were up at least a hundred feet though, so I knew I'd need some practice with this stuff. After about 10 minutes, I had finally made it to cloud level. I sat down on a cloud that looked comfortable and sure enough, it worked. "Well, that's one problem solved." I thought. I suddenly felt the cloud pop out from under me. I obviously began to fall, but my head caught on to what was about to happen and before I could comprehend, I was back at that same altitude. "Oh! Sorry," I heard from near the now gone cloud. I turned to see a blue Pegasus with mane in the colors of the rainbow. I already knew it was Rainbow Dash, but I had to pretend I didn't know anyone (or as they would say, anypony) there, or they would know something was up. "It's fine. I'm just lucky I wasn't asleep." I said. "I don't think I've seen you here before." Dash said. "What's your name?" "I'm Reaper" I declared proudly. Her eyes jumped to my scythe. "That would explain that," she mumbled. "I'm Rainbow Dash." Once again, I had to act as if I didn't know, so I said "nice to meet you!" (Deja vu, huh?) "Are you new here?" She asked curiously. "Yes, actually; I have no idea where to go." She raised an eyebrow in confusion. I realized what she didn't get it and said "I literally just wandered here before I passed out from dehydration." "In that case, shouldn't you be dead?" These questions were getting easier and easier to answer. "Well, a pony named Fluttershy found me knocked out at her door and took me in." "Oh," she nodded. "Fluttershy took you in. One more thing, what's up with your wings?" "I don't know." I said. I know they looked weird but is it THAT necessary to ask? "That's just how they are." "Okay. I gotta get back to work." She sighed. I nodded and flew off in the opposite direction to find a cloud that was out of the way of everything. If I had known that my epilepsy was going to kick in for the first time in a long time… I would have stayed near Fluttershy's house. I've had seizures in the past, and let me tell you: THEY ARE NOT FUN. I have what's called Tonic-Clonic Seizures, the most common form. It normally starts out with what they called an "aura" which is actually a Simple Partial Seizure, and then it goes into the main problem. The only issue is: some people NEVER outgrow their epilepsy! We thought I had grown out of mine, but we were so wrong; so very, very wrong. I had found a white, fluffy cloud that was a little ways away from the edge of the town, and I sat down on it. Just as I began to doze off, I felt something inside me say "this has happened before!" I passed it off as nothing when I thought I saw a plane fly by… I passed that off as a hallucination. Then I began to feel a little dizzy. It hit me: déjà vu, hallucination and dizziness… It was an aura. I sprang up and jumped off the cloud then proceeded to fly as fast as I could towards the town. I had almost made it to the edge of the town when all my muscles locked and I passed out, definitely plummeting straight to the ground. I woke up on a sofa with no idea what had happened and I felt like I had gotten hit by a car. The first thing my eyes saw were 3 mares standing over me looking worried. It was Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and… I couldn't remember the third one's name because of my confusion. "He's waking up!" said Dash. I attempted to say "what happened" but it came out as more of a long, quiet moan. "Are you okay?" Fluttershy asked. I couldn't say anything so I just nodded. "What happened?" asked the third mare, who by my returning eyesight was revealed to be a purple unicorn. My confusion began to fade away a little as I realized what had happened. I was able to say quietly "a seizure." They looked confused. As my vision became normal, I realized I was inside some kind of a tree. The purple mare raced over to a large bookshelf and pulled out what I would've guessed to be a book including something on what the hell had just happened. "A seizure is when I lose consciousness and control of my body." "What do you think caused it?" asked the purple mare, peeking out from the book. "My epilepsy" I mumbled. They, once again, looked confused. "Epilepsy is a disease that causes random seizures." "So, this has happened before?" asked Fluttershy. "Yea, but not for a long time," I said as I thought for a second. "Wait, how did you know something was happening?" "We heard a scream," said Dash. I remembered at that moment, that after your muscles lock and you pass out, air is forced out of your lungs, causing anything from a moan to a bloodcurdling shriek. I nodded as I kept thinking about who that purple mare could be. Damn amnesia happens almost every time you have a seizure. I looked at her and asked "what's your name?" "I'm Twilight." My memory was jogged, remembering she was Twilight also made me remember that she lived in a house made out of a tree. That explained where I was. I began to slowly get up off the couch as Fluttershy raced over to me and began to try and sit me down. "I'm sorry… but I don't think you're ready to get up quite yet." "I'm fine," I assured her. "I'm just a little weak because of the convulsions." "We don't wanna take any chances, though," Dash said, racing over to push me back onto the sofa. "Alright, I give up." I sighed. "I'll stay here." "Good," said Twilight, stepping forward. "'Cuz I've still got some questions that need answering." After about an hour and a half of Q & A, well after Fluttershy and Dash had left, Twilight finally let me sleep. As soon as I closed my eyes I opened them almost instantly, yet it was hours later and I felt completely rested (don't you love it when that happens?). I got up as I heard Twilight's voice. "Finally up, huh?" "Thanks for letting me rest here," I said gratefully. I started towards the door (they kept my stuff on me for some reason) and as soon as I was out, I just began walking, practically not knowing where I was going. I was just thinking… why did my epilepsy suddenly kick in? I hadn't done anything to break my seizure threshold. Did it have to do with me being turned into a pony? Was I doing good to this world? Why was I asking so many questions I wouldn't get an answer too? That's when I got a good question… a question only Bo could answer. I flew around the town trying to find some kind of a puddle or well or something, but I didn't find anything. Instead, I saw in the distance a fairly large lake. Considering it was water, I flew to it and after landing I called Bo. He appeared replacing my reflection like he always had and said "you called?" "Bo, I know you're hiding something," I said sternly. "Why is it that on earth, hundreds of thousands of people die at the age of fifteen and don't get a second chance when I did?" "Damn!" Bo gasped, his eyes widening. "You're good with your head! Look…" He sighed loudly and continued. "You have what we call a Special Case." "What is a Special Case?" I asked, determined to get my answer. "Well, when we go over someone's life records after they die, we look for reasons that they deserve a second chance." I interrupted him. "Wait… life records?" "What? You think we look up your life on the internet? We know EVERYTHING you ever do and we keep record of it." He said, looking annoyed. "Anyway, God is a very sympathetic and kind-hearted guy, so we easily have over a thousand special cases every month. You had probably one of the most justified cases this year, bro." "What justified me for a special case?" I asked, now just curious. "Well… Let me get your records out here," He said as he snapped his fingers. What looked like a medical file popped out of nowhere and fell into his hands. He opened it up to about ¾ of the way and began to read. "Firstly, you were born in the middle of nowhere, so you never had a chance to make any friends. Secondly, you never got the chance to get to know your mother since she died when you were so young. You never had a single girlfriend throughout your life. You were put through strenuous work at an unusually young age and your brother judged you very, very negatively. The combination of the work's fatigue and the stress coming from the judgment caused you to develop epilepsy, which is not fun to live with. The only two things that you liked to do were hunt with Steven and watch MLP. The issue there is that you only got to hunt with Steven once a year and your constant work made it nearly impossible to find time to watch MLP. Lastly, you did one thing that millions of people wouldn't have done." "And that is?" "You gave your life to save someone else's," he said. He then looked up and asked "you see how we made a special case out of that now?" "Yeah, but what about that seizure?" I added. "I thought my epilepsy was gone!" "Hmmm…" Bo began looking through my records once again until he came to one of the last pages. "Ah! The seizure was caused by "a random occurrence due to epilepsy."" "Again! I thought my epilepsy was gone!" I growled. Bo flipped to one of the middle pages and said "actually, you're scheduled to have epilepsy for your entire life… both of them to be exact." "Well, fuck" I mumbled. "One last thing, Bo: why was I made to look like this?" "What do you mean?" He seemed slightly confused. "You can't look at me and say I don't look like a complete badass!" I said. "Why was I made to look like this?" "Well…" Bo paused for a moment. "I don't think you're gonna like this answer… You were originally meant to be born as a pony." "Uhehehe… uh… what?" I was pretty shocked at what I had just heard. "You were actually meant to be born into a family of Pegesai," he stated as he poofed up a second set of much smaller records in place of the first ones. He flipped open the small file to one of the first pages. "You were meant to be named… Flaming Star?" "The fuck are you saying?" my entire life now felt like something completely fake. "I did all I needed to in the creation, but I missed the most important detail… species. I accidentally put you under Homo Sapien. You were meant to be made an Equus Ferus Caballus. It was my fault, Reaper." "You're saying I was meant to be a pony," I said in an attempt to work my brain around what the hell was going on. "I'm afraid so" Bo sighed sadly. "I tried to make you die as climactically as possible, if that makes you feel any better." "It actually makes me feel worse." "Sorry" Bo looked down. "I lost most of the original creation request records, but I remember you were needed for some…" he seemed like he was racking his brain to find the right words to say. "I don't remember exactly, but it was something unusual." "Well, that goes for everypony here, doesn't it?" I sniffed, about to cry. "Hey, hey, hey! Don't cry! At least you died painlessly. I died in a Roman Gladiator Battle by getting both of my arms chopped off before bleeding to death" Bo chuckled, apparently looking back on it as a good memory. "I lived fifteen years with an asshole as a brother, no mother, no friends, no love, no help, and almost no fun. Your sympathy definitely helps the living shit outta me" I said sarcastically with my face in my hoofs. "I thought making you look like a badass would have made you feel better about this. You have a chance to do things you never got to do before!" Bo was still attempting to comfort me, and I was now mentally breaking down at the side of the lake crying. "I chose to specifically help your special case." "Well, at least you had the courtesy to do that" I sobbed. "Now I need to find a way to make this life worth it." "That's the spirit… kind of…" Bo smiled. I dried the confused tears off of my muzzle and stood up. "That actually felt good… To cry like that, I mean" I said, feeling much more calmed. "Good, good" Bo nodded in agreement. "Now, I want you to go out and find out what that one thing you are here for is, got it?" He was now officially more determined than I thought he would have been. "I don't give a shit n' a half if you haft to go to Princess Mothafuckin' Celestia to find out! I want to know as bad as you do, so let's find out together, dammit!" "Yeah!" I yelled, doing a quick hoof pump. "By the way, why are angels allowed to curse so much?" "Did you ever read the ten commandments?" Bo chuckled, "because I'm pretty sure one of 'em doesn't say "Thou shalt not say fuck"!" "So true" I chuckled. "I guess I should get going." "Good luck!" shouted Bo, giving me a thumbs-up as I flew back towards Ponyville. As I flew towards the town, a familiar smell came to me… I couldn't quite think of what it was, so I flew towards it. When I had gotten close to the source of the smell, I saw hundreds of fully grown apple trees in neat rows. I just floated in the air for a bit remembering how much hard work I had to do at such a young age back at home. As I reminisced on my not-necessarily-good memories, I heard a voice snap me back to reality. "Hey, you up there!" it was in a southern accent. "What're ya doin' just floatin' there?" I looked down and saw an orange mare in a cowboy-style hat. I gently drifted down until I had reached the ground and said "I'm sorry. I used to work in an apple orchard, so seeing those trees brought back some memories." She looked slightly surprised as she said "well, ain't it just a small world! I don't believe I've seen you 'round here, stranger. What's yer name?" "My name's Reaper," I said proudly. "What's your name?" (Once again, I was pretending I didn't know. I already knew she was Applejack.) "Ma name's Applejack," she smiled. "Mighty strange name ya got. Where ya from?" "I was raised in the middle of nowhere" I sighed. "A very long ways away from here." As if a flash of light whizzed right by me, I felt somepony go straight by me at an unbelievable speed. I looked to see who it was, and… god… She spoke way too fast to be able to understand what she was saying, and she was hopping up and down as if she had just chugged gallons of Red Bull. Yep, it's who I call the psychotic pink moron and who you call Pinkie Pie. Considering I needed to act like I had never seen this pony in my life, I acted as if I was being freaked out by how hyper she was. "Pinkie, Stop!" Said Applejack. "You're scarin' Reaper!" She stopped and turned my way, and then she went off again. "Oooh, Hi there! My name's Pinkie Pie! Ohmygosh, Dashy told me about you and so did Twilight and…" I tuned her out at that moment. The one thing I heard out of here super-speedy rambling was "I can't wait to throw you a party-" "Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!" I stopped her. "You literally just met me, and you're gonna throw me a party?" "Well, duh!" she said happily. "That's what I always do! I've done it for everypony!" I thought for a moment… "Ah, what the hell, I'll give it a go!" She squealed in delight then turned around and ran at the same super-speed she came at. When she had gone, I muttered "Strange, strange pony." I then said goodbye to Applejack and began to fly back towards town. "Hey, Reaper!" I heard Dash shout. "What are you doin'?" "Nothin'" I shouted back. "Just getting acquainted with more of the ponies around town." "Oh! Well Twilight's looking for you!" "Okay, thanks!" I turned and flew towards the tree that Twilight resided in, wondering what this could possibly be about. As I walked in the door, she said "Ah! You're here!" She smiled. "I don't believe you've met Rarity, have you?" She gestured towards a white unicorn. "Shitballs" I thought. "This is that unicorn with OCD, isn't it?" "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," she said in a stereotypically regal accent as she gave a small smile. "BE NICE" I thought. "Pleasure to meet you as well, miss Rarity," I replied. "Dammit! Now I sound like a moron!" I thought. She giggled and said "such a gentlecolt. Now, I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I must go." Rarity sauntered out the door. As we watched Rarity leave, Twilight looked at me and said "You still don't have a place to live do you?" "Are you a psychic?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "Well, you could just make a house yourself." She suggested. "That is…" I paused as I thought about the suggestion presented and uttered "not a bad idea." I bounded out the door, saying goodbye so I could go build as simple yet stable a house as I could. After about 2 or 3 days, I had a small hut made from sticks and held together by some clay I managed to find at the bottom of the lake. I also had a bed made from a nice, soft cloud. The night I first slept on that bed was the best sleep I had had in days; all except for one small thing… the nightmare. It was a replay of an old reoccurring nightmare I used to have. The demon in those dreams… scarred me for life. He was about 5 and a half feet tall, wearing dark blue knight armor. He wielded a wide, heavy sword that was about as tall as him. I saw under his helmet once or twice… it appears that he has no skin; just a muscular structure to be shown on the outside along with eyes that were the most vibrant yet satanic neon-green. The very first words he ever said to me in his slow, deep bass voice were "Я ваш худший кошмар!" That happens to be Russian for "I am your worst nightmare!" That is why I have always called him Nightmare. Nightmare tortured me every night with brutal depictions of people's deaths in ways that I would prefer not to remember. He had left my dreams since I was around 10 or 11 years old. It was for the first time in over 4 years when I saw him again. All he said was "you will never be free!" After that… he split me in half with that enormous sword right before my very eyes. I watched as my upper body fell backwards and my lower half fell forwards. He then began to laugh… maniacally. He then proceeded to stomp on my head with his metal boot. As the boot connected with my skull, I heard a loud crack and woke up with a small, short yelp. It turned out that it happened to be a thunderstorm outside. "I guess they were planning some kind of storm or something" I mumbled, rolling over to attempt to get back to sleep. As soon as I managed to fall back asleep… that damn dream kept repeating itself… over and over and over. I woke up to the thunderstorm still raging on. I couldn't tell what time it was, but I'm pretty sure that it was past noon. I sat around for a while until I felt like I couldn't stand it anymore. This was probably going to be like a typical Washington all-day type of rainstorm… just with thunder and lightning. "In that case" I thought, "I probably shouldn't just waste my time sitting inside. I'm used to rain, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue." I opened the door and flew out, hoping that the rain wouldn't mess up my speed or control. Puddles dotted the street while only a few ponies were out and about. Eventually during my flight, I heard thunder and a bolt of lightning was directed to the one of the spikes on my wings. Electricity coursed through my little pony skeleton before I felt my muscles lock and I passed out into another seizure. I woke up to find myself stuck in between the branches of a tree, almost completely immobilized. I managed to reach a forehoof up to that spike to feel if my new hypothesis was correct… it was. Those spikes were made of metal. My blurred vision was only able to make out one not-so-close object… a cabin… There was only one pony in town I knew that had a cabin. I called out for Fluttershy's help to get me out of the tree. After about 4 or 5 minutes of shouting, the door to the cabin opened and Fluttershy's head popped out to look around. I tried to wave to her as best I could while still shouting. She looked around for what seemed like an eternity before she found the tree I was stuck in. As soon as Fluttershy noticed I was trapped in the tree, she rushed over to try and get me out. She eventually did and she invited me inside her cabin. I didn't want to risk getting hit by lightning again, so I gratefully accepted her invitation. We sat in silence for what felt like hours. Eventually, she spoke up. "If you are okay with talking about it, how did you get stuck in that tree?" "I got struck by lightning" I chuckled, almost thinking of it as funny. She gasped and asked "Are you okay?" "10 million volts of electricity doesn't hurt as much as it sounds" I stated, smiling. "It may have hurt a lot, but I think I'm okay." "Are you sure?" "I'm sure, thank you" I answered. I looked down to see a tiny white rabbit, only about as tall as a soda can, giving me a cold, angry look as if I had offended him. I bent down to get a better look at the small rabbit and asked "why are you staring at me like that?" "Oh!" Fluttershy got up and rushed over to pick up the bunny. "This is Angel." "He certainly doesn't look too happy I'm here" I said. "He doesn't like strangers, does he?" I could see Fluttershy give off a tiny shrug. Suddenly, Angel jumped out of her arms and jumped up next to me, giving me the same cold stare. I held back a laugh as he rolled his eyes. Angel apparently didn't like me being anywhere near Fluttershy, so he pointed towards the door. "Are you asking me to leave?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and lowering the other. He nodded, hopped over to the door and opened it, gesturing for me to leave. "What if I get struck by lightning again?" I questioned him with a worried face. He just facepalmed at my question and continued to gesture to the door. I looked over to Fluttershy. "You can go if you want to. I really don't think you should though" she said, hiding behind her thick, pink mane. I looked back at Angel. "You really don't like me, do you?" I said with an annoyed expression. Angel simply nodded and once again gestured out the door. I huffed out through my nose and told him "I'm sorry Angel, but I'm afraid I'd prefer to stay." He gave me one final death glare before promptly turning around and hopping out the door. "What the- Wait!" I tried to call him, but he ignored me and just continued through the pouring rain. "I'll be back" I sighed as I started for the door. "Where are you going?" asked Fluttershy, who seemed to be scared. "I'm going to go get Angel, of course" I uttered. I took off out the door, closing the door behind me. The night sky was still black and covered in a total overcast with rain clouds. I flew only a few feet above the ground, just enough to see the ground below me, as I scanned the street ahead of me. Sure enough, Angel was hopping down the road, now entirely soaked and undeniably cold. He soon spotted me and began to run- err… hop faster. "Вернись" I yelled (my brother always used it, saying it was Russian for "get back here"). As soon as I had approached him, I scooped him into my hoofs and carried him off while he squirmed to get out of my grasp. I tried to fly up high enough to the point where he wouldn't want to let go, but nevertheless, he continued to struggle about. As I approached Fluttershy's cabin once again, I felt another bolt of lightning flow through my bone structure. I once again began to plummet downwards as Angel attempted to scream (but he was always silent, so he didn't). I looked to see we were going to crash right through the cabin door, so I flipped over and put myself between Angel and the impact point. All I heard was a crash and a scream of shock. I proceeded to open my eyes to Angel standing directly over my face with Fluttershy in the background. "Are you hurt?!" she said looking up and down my body to spot any injuries. "Not really" I croaked weakly. "Angel, are you okay?" He nodded and… smiled. "What happened?" Fluttershy asked quietly, grabbing and hugging her bunny companion. "More lightning" I said getting up and dusting off. "So much worse than seizures." I noticed that the door was still in (mostly) one piece so I picked it up and put it back into place. Fluttershy gently set down Angel and rushed over to hug me. "Thank you so much! I'm so sorry I got you hurt!" I laughed and said "You didn't get me hurt. Those clouds got me hurt." "But if I-" I stopped her. "No… You didn't hurt me in any way. If there's anypony who got me hurt, it's me" I said looking into her cyan-colored eyes. (Social Link established! [If you get that reference, have a cookie :D]) We continued to talk for a while, until we were both pretty tired. It was still raining, so she insisted I stayed overnight and slept on the sofa. I decided it would be better than having another 10 million volts of electricity ravage my body, so I drifted off to sleep. That night, more dreams came. Nightmare would grab me in a chokehold and lift up the front of his helmet to reveal that burnt, bloody, skinless, fleshless face with his demonic neon-green eyes. He would say "lightning will not even compare to this" then proceed to smash my head against the ground, shattering it like glass. I would then fade to black and the dream would repeat… I didn't think I could take it anymore. He had never tortured me like this before I got to Ponyville! I needed to find a way to get him out of my head. I didn't know how, though. Destroying something as powerful as Nightmare would be like magic… Magic… that's it! I woke up trembling from the horrific visions that I had witnessed the night before. The door opened slowly and Fluttershy poked her head in. As soon as she realized I was awake, she came in and said "good morning." "Good morning, Fluttershy" I winced, still shaking uncontrollably. "Are you okay?" "Well… no" I let out a small whimper and continued. "I need help." "With what?" she asked, sitting down next to me. "Nightmare" I mumbled. "I've been having the most disturbing nightmares, and I can't get them to stop. There's one thing they all have in common, though: Nightmare." "What do you mean, Reaper?" Fluttershy questioned, curious and concerned. "He's… I don't know what he is, but he won't leave me alone" I said, beginning to feel a little calmer. "He's always tortured me with depictions of… mutilation. He's just now started to actually begin to physically torture me in my dreams, forcing me to watch myself fall apart. I need somepony with magic to help get rid of him." "Gosh… Maybe Twilight can help" she suggested looking down. "It's worth a try." I got up to leave, and Fluttershy insisted that she got the others gathered there in case something went wrong. I agreed (obviously) and continued on to the big library that Twilight resided in. I knocked on the door, forgetting that it was a public library. After I told Twilight about my issue, she agreed to help and began to look through a bunch of her books for a spell that could help. By the time everypony had gathered up in the tree house, she had found the spell she was looking for. "I'm ready" she said as I laid down on the sofa and braced for what could possibly happen. Her horn began to glow a deep violet as I felt something starting to be tugged out of my head. At first, it felt fairly normal. I felt nothing really. Twilight continued to concentrate on her spell. It slowly began to sting while Twilight began to struggle. It eventually began to hurt quite a bit and Twilight began to look as if it was hurting her as well. The pain kept growing and growing until it felt as if the inside of my head was on fire. I began to writhe in pain, as did Twilight. It finally began to hurt unbearably; it hurt enough to believe that Nightmare, regardless of being nothing more than a thought, was putting up a fight. Me and Twilight both began to scream in pain as the others ran over to try and get us to stop. Finally, it ended… but not in the way I wanted it to. There was a blinding flash of light. As soon as the light faded, we all realized that standing in front of the doorway, was Nightmare himself. He turned to face us and greeted me by saying "happy to see me?" We were all in complete awe, at least half of us with our jaws hanging wide open in complete and utter shock. Twilight began to step forward and as she was about to say something, Nightmare blasted her back with his soul charge shouting "закрой свой рот" (that means "shut your mouth" in Russian). He then used his soul charge again, but this time he used it to teleport to God knows where. "What was that thing?" shouted Rarity, completely mortified by the sight she had just seen. "That" I said casually, "was Nightmare." "How'd he shoot Twilight back like that?" Applejack asked, about as shocked as Rarity. "He uses what I call "soul charge"" I told them. "In my dreams, he's taken in numerous souls through ponies' hearts. He spends those souls to allow him to do things like teleport and use telekinetic powers one time. He can also become an exact copy of the pony whose soul he last absorbed." "So he steals ponies' souls?!" shouted Dash. I nodded weakly. "What can we do?" asked Fluttershy, looking my way. "Wait" I muttered. Everypony began to question my answer. "I mean, we wait until we get some kind of a signal that might lead us to Nightmare." "What if we don't get a signal?" Twilight added. "If we haven't received a signal in…" I stopped to think for a moment. "Let's say a fortnight, and then we tell Princess Celestia. So if we don't get a signal in 2 weeks." Everyone agreed and we proceeded to talk about how to prepare. "If Nightmare is as strong as you say, won't you need armor too?" Twilight suggested. "Maybe" I replied. "But I think it would be better just to get my scythe sharpened." "I don't think there's any kind of armory or anything around here" Dash said. "Well, I happen to know of one that's just outside of town" Twilight stated happily. "Great! I guess I could also get some armor there" I thought out loud. "But wait" Dash interrupted. "Do we even know how to kill this thing?" "Not a clue" I said confidently. "Then how do we know we CAN kill him?" Dash added. "Well, we don't know" I replied. "But I think going down without a fight is a pretty stupid idea." "Right now, I think we should jus' focus on gettin' tha basics" Applejack spoke up. We all agreed with AJ and decided to just get the essentials at the ready for now and talk about battle plans and such later. Also if you were wondering, yes Pinkie Pie was not there for the whole Nightmare fiasco, but I'm pretty sure AJ told her. I told Bo about everything, and he obviously wasn't too happy about it, but he knew there was already nothing he could do to change my (or anypony else's) mind. I couldn't sleep that night. It wasn't too shocking that I couldn't, but regardless, I felt like I needed to rest after going through all that "Nightmare" shit. I wondered if Fluttershy was having the same issue sleeping as me. Curiosity and concern got to me and I flew over to the small cabin she resided in. It felt awkward being there so late at night. What if she WAS sleeping? She wouldn't like me to wake her up! I sucked it up and knocked on the door gently. She opened the door a few seconds later, revealing red, swollen eyes from her crying. "H- Hi Reaper" she whispered, looking down. "Hey. What's wrong 'Shy?" I asked. "Nothing" she said, struggling to hold back tears. "I'm serious, Fluttershy" I tipped her head up and looked into her eyes. "What's wrong?" "I- I-"she was fighting to force the words out of her mouth. I walked her inside and sat her down on the sofa, sitting down next to her. "I'm scared of what might happen!" She buried her face in her hoofs. "I know; I am too" I sighed, shuttering at the thought of having my soul sucked out through my heart. "But if I don't put up a fight, Equestria will be obliterated then rebuilt to be a secondary hell." "I don't want anything to happen to my friends!" she sobbed, burying her face into me as I hugged her comfortingly. "I don't want anything to happen to you" "Even if something bad happens, I won't die" I said, looking up and hoping that Bo (or anypony for that matter) had heard me. "You don't know that!" She cried. "Hey, death may be inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's not preventable!" "What does that mean?" she said, looking up at me with teary eyes. "That means I will die eventually" I whispered. "But I won't die now." I could tell she felt better because she stopped crying. She slowly drifted off to sleep, and I followed soon after. Nightmare may have become real… but I knew that it was possible to kill him; I just needed a little help. I awoke to a divine aroma. It was coming from behind me, most likely the kitchen. My guess was right; Fluttershy had decided to make breakfast. I was about to get up to say good morning when I heard a knock at the door. I assumed it was somepony related to the whole "Nightmare" situation, so I decided to answer the door myself. Once again, I was right. Twilight had come to see if she could get a slightly more detailed view of what I had in mind as far as preparations. Fluttershy had apparently heard the door too and had come bounding towards the door shortly after I had opened it. We all decided to talk about it over breakfast. "Twilight" I said, interrupting her mid-bite. "I hate to ask, but would it be okay if we get some extra back-up on this?" "What do you mean" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "Your brother used to be Capitan of the Canterlot Royal Guards, correct?" She nodded and I continued. "I was wondering if he could possibly come and help us fight Nightmare." "What if Nightmare is already in Canterlot?" She questioned. "If he was, we would've heard about it by now" I said. "He has tons of battle experience, so it might help if he were to come along." Twilight let out a small sigh and agreed. After breakfast, Twilight led me to the blacksmith she had mentioned the day before. It was a small wooden cabin that looked as if it was falling apart. A smell of smelting steel hit me as the wooden door opened. Behind a small counter stood a fairly old stallion with an old blacksmith's apron on. "Buy somethin' or get tha hell out!" he shouted. "Whoa, buddy" I said slowly. "I just want to get some armor and get my weapon sharpened." "Finally!" he yelled. "Somepony who wants ta do business! What weapon do ya need sharpened? Sword? Axe? Spear?" "Scythe" I said, yanking the scythe off of my back and putting on the counter. "Well, that's a new one" he mumbled, surprised. "I'll give it to ya at a discount since I've never sharpened a scythe before. Now, ya said ya wanted ta buy armor, too?" "Yes, sir" I replied enthusiastically. "What's your best armor?" "I got boots, a helmet and a chestplate; all of 'em are made of pure steel." "Not bad" I said. "I'll take it! Oh, and can you make room so my wings can fit through the back of the chestplate." "Sure thing! That'll be-"I threw a bag of bits on the counter. Everypony had pitched in a little to make sure we went in completely prepared. "That looks like it'll cover it" he told us. I took the armor back to my pathetic stick-made shack and tried it all on. It fit perfectly, almost as if it was made for me. It only took about another hour for the scythe to get sharpened, too. I was prepared… Now all we needed was Shining Armor and we would be ready any time. It took about 3 or 4 days for Shining Armor to arrive, but he arrived just in time. It was another one of those nights. I couldn't sleep because I was anxious to just find and kill that giant bastard, Nightmare. I looked over at my armor and scythe leaning up against the wall next to the poorly-crafted wooden door. Just as I began to look away from the door, a small knocking sound emitted from the other side of it. I opened it to see (such a shocker!) Fluttershy standing there in the rain. "Still scared?" I asked her. She simply nodded as I led her inside. We used my cloudy white bed as a sofa while she told me that she wasn't scared so much of Nightmare killing anypony as she was scared of Nightmare killing just me. "Listen, Fluttershy. I've said it before and I'll say it again. You have nothing to worry about. I'm gonna be fine." "You don't know that" she said, looking up at me. "If you want to make sure nothing happens to me, then why don't you just come along?" I suggested. "We already have Twilight and Shining Armor coming, and we need all the help we can get!" "I don't want to bother anypony, though" she sighed, looking away and putting a thick wall of pink mane between us. "You won't bother anypony" I assured her. "You've been nicer to me than anypony I've ever met. You couldn't bother me if you tried" "What about your family? Surely they're nicer than me" she said sadly. "I grew up with no mother, a father that almost never talked and a brother that wouldn't stop judging me negatively. You're twice as kind and caring as all of them combined." "No I'm not" she said. "This isn't the point" I chuckled. "I'm saying that you'd be an amazing help." She shook her head and looked back my way. "That and… I'm scared stiff, dammit!" "What?" "I'm scared and stressed and you calm me down so much and- dammit! I want you to come with us… please" I said. "Okay" she muttered. "I'll go" We sat in silence for a few minutes before we heard a frantic knock at the door, followed by Twilight yelling for us to open the door. I rushed over to open the door and there, in the rain, stood Twilight and her brother Shining Armor. "We got an urgent alert message from Canterlot. Royal Guards have been dying mysteriously. We need to go as soon as possible!" Armor told us seriously. "We'll be ready tomorrow" I stated. "We should all get some sleep!" We all agreed and broke out of our little meeting like a football huddle. Me and Fluttershy went back to sitting on my little cloud in silence for a few minutes. "We should get some sleep" I said. "Okay. Goodbye then" she said, slowly getting up. It was time. The time to rise up to that bastard Nightmare. The time to show him that you can't fuck with Equestria and live to tell the tale. The time to show him what real pain felt like. The time… to kill him! The four of us gathered 'round, all ready to go. Twilight and Fluttershy weren't wearing any armor obviously, but me and Shining Armor were armed to the teeth. Shining Armor was in his entire set of Royal Guard Captain's armor, all perfectly shiny with no dents, scratches or even tiny smudges. It was like the armor he was wearing was new and untouched. He was also equipped with a spear, which was the weapon that most Canterlot Royal Guards used. He clearly had his magic at his disposal as well, so I'm pretty sure he was completely prepared. I was wearing my steel armor. My armor covered most of my head, my chest, my back (my wings were unobstructed, though, due to some awesome custom cutting I got that blacksmith to do) and all 4 of my hoofs. I also brought along my newly-sharpened scythe. I decided against bringing my hunting rifle considering that the bullets would most likely cause minimal damage to Nightmare, if any. I also figured I wouldn't have time to load it anyway. Regardless, I was as prepared as I needed to be, and I was ready to go kick Nightmare's satanically-stupid ass! We all stood facing each other in the cold air, waiting for one of us to say something. Armor finally spoke up, "We ready to do this?" "I'm as ready as I can be" I said, nodding. "Ready!" Twilight stated. "I'm… I'm… ready" muttered Fluttershy. "Then, let's do this" Armor said, cracking a half-smile. Twilight teleported us all to the front gates of the castle. The night air was cold and the ground was covered in white snow that had just fallen no more than 2 hours before as we stood in front of the large metal gate that led into the castle. "When we go in" I said as they turned their heads to listen. "Our first priority is to make sure that Princess Celestia is OK. Then we go after Nightmare." "Got it" they all replied in unison. We walked into the huge building to find no light whatsoever in the opening hallway. "I'm gonna assume that Nightmare is already in the throne room" I thought out loud. "What if Princess Celestia is too?" Armor added. "Then… that's gonna be problem." I swallowed nervously. We moved through the darkened hallway up to the stairs, which we began to go up. I whispered to them "We just want to see who's in there. If it's only Nightmare, we leave and search elsewhere. And for the love of God, be as quiet as possible. We can't alert Nightmare if he's in there." I popped my head around the corner at the top of the stairs so I could get a good look into the throne room. Sure enough, Nightmare was sitting on the throne, but Celestia was nowhere in sight. "She's not there! Go back!" I mouthed back at them. They turned around and began to walk back down the stairs, but I stayed at the top of the stairs for a little bit longer. "Aren't you coming?" Twilight whispered up at me. I let out a quiet sigh and turned around. "I guess we split up into pairs of 2" I said softly. "Twilight and Armor, you two take that side of the castle. Me and Fluttershy will take the other side. If anypony finds the Princess, bring her back here ASAP." The teams of 2 split up and went off in their separate directions. It was awfully quiet while me and Fluttershy searched all the different rooms. The only dialogue between us for what seemed like a few hours were occasional "she's not in here" or "is she in there?" We finally gave up and went back to the front hallway to wait for Twilight and Shining Armor. When we got back to the front hallway, Twilight and Armor were already waiting there for us. "No luck?" I asked them. "Nope, none" Twilight answered sadly. "Where could she be?" Fluttershy asked, probably thinking out loud. "We can only hope that Nightmare didn't… you know" I hinted. "If he did" Armor said with a diabolically angry face. "There's got to be someplace we're missing" I sighed, pacing. From up the stairs, we heard a voice… but it wasn't the slow, demonic, bass-tone voice that Nightmare had. Instead, it was the voice of… Princess Celestia… "You'll never get away with this!" shouted Princess Celestia. "Could you have said anything more cliché than that?" Nightmare said, annoyed. "I could think of a few things!" I yelled, racing into the throne room. "It's about time you showed up" Nightmare roared. "I've had just about enough of this bitch." "Dude…" I said, shaking my head in disapproval. "No… Just no… You have just signed multiple death warrants." "Do NOT call me "dude"" growled Nightmare angrily. "Fine" I shouted, stepping forward. How 'bout I call you демонических мудак" "Невежественные влагалище!" He screamed. "What did you say?" Armor asked me. "I called him "demonic asshole"" I told him. "What did he say just now?" Twilight asked. "He called me an ignorant cunt." I turned my attention back to Nightmare. "It's about time you faced consequences for what you've done!" "Oh really" he said sarcastically. "And how do you plan on doing that?" "By kicking your sorry ass" I uttered, stepping forward once more. "I believe you are in over your head" Nightmare stated, beginning to slowly rise from the throne. "I could crush you in an instant if I wanted to. You don't realize that I am still as powerful out here as I was in your dreams." "And you don't realize that I don't fucking care" I hissed back. "If I cared about how powerful you were or what would happen to ME ONLY I wouldn't be here right now." I yanked out my scythe and held it in my two hooves as I began to hover above the ground using my wings. "I've got to give credit where credit is due: you were very fast with your work, no doubt, but you aren't allowed to kill anypony you want to." "HA! You couldn't hurt me if you tried your hardest!" "Try me, motherfucker" I said, gritting my teeth and giving him a cold stare. He ripped this ginormous sword out from the ground beside the throne and began to start towards me. I flew directly up and attempted to slash him in a dive, but he just punched me out of the way as if I weighed nothing. I got up and attempted to dive-slash him again, but he simply stuck out his arm, clotheslining me and only causing a light scratch to the surface of his armor. I hit the ground, chest-first, sliding on my chestplate across the polished marble floor. I hopped back up on to all 4 of my hooves and prepared to try and just go straight in (regardless of that being a completely stupid idea). I rushed in as fast as I could. Nightmare simply reacted by moving out of the way, but I swung around in a U-turn, putting a decent sized scratch into the side of his chestplate. Nightmare began to charge towards me, so I vaulted over him, but fell on my back sending my scythe across the floor. Twilight used her magic to throw the scythe back to me as I got up. Nightmare was getting closer to me, so he swung his huge sword at full force. It didn't hit me directly, but it put a pretty big cut through my armor and into my chest. Nightmare used a soul charge to blast me back and I was launched back into the wall behind the throne. He began to charge again as I got up just in time to get out of the way of the impact. The impact he had on the wall shook the ground beneath me as I turned around and flew up to attempt another diving slash. I dove downward, straight towards him with my scythe ready to cut straight through that blue armor of his. He caught on fast enough, so he simply swung his sword in my direction, cutting deep into one of my wings causing me to crash into a wall. Shining Armor came over to help me up and he used magic to close the wound that had been opened up on my wing. Nightmare attempted another charge as Shining Armor dove out of the way. I tried to swing for the slit in his helmet where his eyes hid, but instead of going into his face, it only got stuck in the small opening. He then began to struggle to rip the scythe out of his helmet. He finally just ripped off his helmet, revealing that god-awful skinless, fleshless, burnt, bloody face and those demonic, neon-green eyes. He used my scythe (which he was holding and I was hanging on to) to throw me across the room. I impacted the throne with a huge crash and a mass amount of pain. I got up and waited to see if I could get him to make a move. After standing there, facing each other for what seemed like an eternity, he simply began to walk towards me, dragging his sword behind him. I charged at full speed. As soon as I was close enough, I jumped up and carved a big cut into his forehead. What I saw come out of that cut was not blood, but lava… melted rock… it gave me an idea. Rock melts at high temperatures, which means he has to have a way to keep his insides to that high of a temperature… some kind of heat core. If I could cool down this heat core, than his blood would turn to stone! Nightmare could practically see what I was thinking, as he embedded his sword in the middle of the marble floor and began to slowly approach me. I got up to attack but he used a soul charge to push me over to a wall, where he had me cornered. "I think it's time to take this battle to a place a little more… personal" he said as one of his large, claw-like, armored fingers reached over to touch my forehead. I felt reality fade as I passed out and woke up standing in the middle of a baron plane that looked like hell. The ground was charred and cracked, revealing a layer of boiling magma under it. There was a black smoky gas in the air that smelled strong enough to make you want to cough up your own guts. In the distance, I saw a figure approaching me. "Nightmare?" I asked. "What was your first clue?" Nightmare said sarcastically. "What's going on?" I yelled to him, who was still approaching me slowly. "Look at yourself, Peter" Nightmare ordered. I looked down to see… I was human again. "Where the fuck are we?" I shouted. "We are in the place where we first met" he said. "We are inside your mind." "I hate to burst your bubble, Nightmare, but you realize that if it's MY mind I CAN'T die." "That may be" Nightmare said quite confidently. "But that doesn't mean I can't still weaken you." "Come at me, bro" I yelled. He prepared to charge me again, but this time he used a soul charge to propel himself forward, allowing him to hit me before I had the chance to react. I flew back on the impact of Nightmare's hard, metal armor. I was able to get back up and I summoned my scythe to my own will (considering this was my mind, I can do shit like that) and I proceeded to charge him myself. He swung out his sword, chopping me in 2 perfect halves at the waistline. I reformed myself and got up, feeling as if I had just gotten hit by a car. Nightmare simply laughed as he began to charge again. This time, I saw it coming so I managed to dive out of the way, leaving him open at the back. Diving down from a jump, I embedded my scythe into his back. It seemed as if he didn't feel any pain as he simply tore the scythe out of his back, letting the wound very slowly leak his molten blood. He turned to me, obviously not pleased with the fact that I had just opened up a huge wound in his back, and threw my scythe at me. I dodged it quickly before realizing that he was once again hurdling towards me, but this time had intentions on grabbing me. Nightmare quickly grabbed me by the neck and slowly lifted me up as he said "I'm not even trying, Peter. How do you expect to beat me if you keep fighting like this?" He then threw me what seemed like miles, causing the ground to crack beneath me when I hit the ground. I got up and dusted off while he began to head towards the landing site. I summoned up my scythe again and decided to use a little "soul charge" of my own. I imagined myself behind the giant demon. It managed to work and I found myself then standing behind Nightmare, him completely unaware of my presence. I swung my scythe's blade deep into the back of his leg, but he just turned around as if the blade was made of cotton. With an amazing speed, he punched me just hard enough to knock my feet out from under me. "I think I need to take a break" Nightmare said, smiling diabolically. "What?" I yelled, looking at him like he was psycho. "I'll let some… old acquaintances take over for now." Nightmare used a soul charge to… strike the ground with green lightning? That was it? No… up from the cracked ground rose 10 wolves. There was a catch though… these weren't normal wolves… these were Hellhounds. They began to slowly circle me. I swung my scythe to hit the nearest one, and it decapitated the poor pooch… but it was still moving. It was HEADLESS, FUCKING HEADLESS, and it was STILL MOVING AS IF IT WERE ALIVE. I knew that this was going to be a problem. "All I can do is… wait… what the hell is wrong with me?!" I thought, remembering that these things were in MY mind. Using my mind I obliterated the Hellhounds. "Finally" Nightmare said, appearing several feet away behind me. "I thought you really were stupid enough to forget that you could use your mind to kill those things." "I hate you… SO MUCH" I yelled. I began to hear voices from what sounded like outside my head. "Oh no! He's fighting Nightmare!" "Princess Celestia?" I said, looking up in complete shock. "Are you reading my mind?" "Yes, Reaper. I am" her voice echoed. "You seem like you are faring well against him. Would this be right?" "uh… kind of" I answered. "Shut your mouth and fight me, Peter!" Nightmare roared, shaking the ground beneath us. "All right" I said, slowly turning around to face my ferocious foe's face. "How about this then." I rocketed towards him as fast as my mind would propel me, managing to sink my scythe's blade deep into his chest. He let out a short grunt of what sounded like a mixture of pain and blinding furiousness. He ripped the scythe out of his chest and grabbed me by the leg, then slammed me into the ground, shattering my torso. I naturally used my mind to re-construct my completely demolished body, but this time, I didn't summon up my scythe. I simply stood there… hoping to get him to charge once more. "What are you waiting for, Peter?" he yelled. "Come and kill me!" "…No" I said blankly. "What do you mean no?!" Nightmare screamed, once again shaking the ground. "I don't want to" I told him, trying to hold back a laugh. "Come kill me, dammit!" he demanded. "You can't make me" I said, now smiling from holding back my laughter. "Oh, but I WILL" he growled. "I WILL make you!" "How?" I asked, now just intentionally trying to piss him off. "Забей на это дерьмо!" He shrieked. He then prepared for another charge, completely ignoring his soul charge's power at this point. The speed he gained was magnificent compared to his other charges. It seemed like he could've outran a car, but that was only what it looked like. I was ready for his charge… I quickly summoned up my scythe again and swung as hard as I could at the oncoming train of a monster and… SLICE! I felt a huge impact into the blade of my scythe and I opened my eyes to see that it had worked… Nightmare had been decapitated. I knew it wasn't over yet; he knew it wasn't over yet. All I heard was reality rushing back to me as I heard Nightmare go flying across the room and land in the throne. "What just happened?!" Twilight asked me, looking as if she had just seen what I had. "Nightmare happened" I whispered. "I-Is it over?" Fluttershy asked softly, kneeling beside me. "I wish, 'shy… I wish…" I heard the giant metal-covered demon slowly drug himself off of the throne and up onto his feet. I got back up too… It was time to finish this fight… I was ready to end the fight. Nightmare rose up to his feet and let out a massive roar in anger. He began to walk over to where I was, just as I was getting up. I turned and quickly attempted to rush at him, but he simply used a soul charge to knock me back down, as well as knocking my scythe towards the others who were completely awestruck now. Nightmare proceeded to walk over to where I was and he slammed one fist down as he used the other to grip my neck, pinning me against the ground and barely allowing me to breathe. "ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT" he yelled directly into my face. "I'VE GIVEN YOU THE FINAL BATTLE YOU WANTED, NOW YOU DIE!" "Fuck… you…" I choked out. "Невежественные влагалище!" he screamed. "I could have killed you as you stepped into this throne room!" I attempted to shake my head. "YOU CAN'T KILL ME! I AM NIGHTMARE! YOU CAN'T NOT BE SCARED!" "Blow… me…" I whispered, beginning to feel the effects of the major lack of oxygen. "YOU COULDN'T HAVE HURT ME IF I HADN'T LET YOU! IF I WAS FIGHTING TO MY FULL POTENTIAL, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE ANY TRACE OF YOU LEFT IN THIS WORLD!" he continued screaming. I was 30 seconds away from losing consciousness at this point. "I BET YOU'D CAUSE LESS DAMAGE TO ME THAN THAT YELLOW BITCH WITH THE WORTHLESS ANIMALS!" I felt a spring of opportunity here. I was around 15 seconds from passing out when I said "what did you call her animals?" I felt him slightly loosen his grip to look over at Fluttershy, allowing me to breathe a little. "THEY ARE WORTHLESS! A WASTE OF SPACE; A WASTE OF TIME; A WASTE OF LIFE! NOW, ANY LAST WORDS?" He looked back at me. I nodded and croaked out "you're fucked." He looked confused as he lifted his head and turned around to look behind him. Without a chance to react, the giant steel blade of my scythe went directly into both of his eyes. I gasped and my vision focused to see… Fluttershy had done it. Nightmare was screaming in pain, stumbling around the room completely blind. Also, because of his "heat core", the steel of the blade melted into his face, restricting him from pulling out. He continued to slam around the room until he stumbled backwards and fell through a window, causing him to fall multiple stories to the snowy ground below. You could hear his cries of pain fading as he got farther and farther away. He hit the ground lying on his back, still struggling in a futile attempt to get the scythe out of his head. I remembered something and asked if Twilight could teleport down to the ground beside Nightmare with me, as well as asking if I could borrow Armor's spear. When we were down there, next to the struggling Nightmare (who had stopped screaming at this point) I used the spear to wedge the front of his body armor off of him. When I finished with that, I went on to slicing at his muscularly-exposed chest until I could see inside of him. Where his heart should have been, there was what looked like his heat core. It was a ball of… I don't even know what it was, but it was a scarlet-red liquid encased in some transparent shield. I used the spear to get under the heat core and I tore it from Nightmare's chest, causing him to scream out in pain once again. The heat core hit the ground with a sizzle, along with the spear which was now connected to the core via the tip melting. I politely asked Twilight to lift up some snow and pour it inside him after I had wedged out the heat core. Her horn grew a deep violet purple as she picked up a huge scoop of snow from the ground and threw it into the beast's chest. As soon as the snow was inside of him, he began to scream and flail around once again. We stood back as we saw Nightmare struggling on the ground. After around 3 or 4 minutes, the lava in his "blood vessels" began to quickly turn gray… they were turning to stone. He turned over onto his front, his head up and looking at me as he began to crawl towards me. When he was close enough, he choked out his final words, while holding up a hand, as if he wanted me to shake it. "Peter, you have proven to be a worthy competitor… congratulations." He was completely immobile after he had finished his sentence. Everypony else joined me and Twilight down by the immobilized corpse. "What did he say?" asked Shining Armor. "He… said I had proven to be a worthy competitor then congratulated me" I said, still kind of confused by why he had said that. "What do you think he meant by it?" Princess Celestia also asked. "I don't know" I sighed. "He may have been a completely undeniable cocksucker, but at least he wasn't a sore loser!" I was about to say something else, but I felt something, or more specifically somepony, tackle me… yeah… I think it's obvious who it was. Fluttershy was hugging me hard enough that it actually kind of hurt, but I didn't care too much. I still had one thing to ask her though. "Fluttershy, how did you swing that scythe into him like that?" I asked, still pinned by her hugging me. She got off, stood up and said "oh… well… he was going to kill you and he said my animals were…" I didn't want her to blow up (literally) so I interrupted her. "Yeah… but honestly, you swung that scythe harder than I thought you could. I swear I saw it poke at the back of head." "Shouldn't he have died on the blades impact with his brain?" Twilight jumped in. "He's… well… Nightmare, so common medical explanations don't really work" I answered, almost snickering. "In all the years I've ever lived, I've never seen anything quite like this creature" Princess Celestia thought out loud. "He's not from this world" I said. "I thought so" she stated. I looked up at her. "Reaper, I'm going to make you in charge of any dangers we have that may be related to worlds other than this one. I want you to protect Equestria from any other unknown dangers." "I would be honored, Princess" I smiled, bowing lightly. We all teleported back to Ponyville in a flash of blinding light as I said "It looks like I've found my purpose here." As soon as I got home, I was greeted by Bo in that same water bucket I had placed in the corner of my house. "Did you seriously kill that thing?" "Yes" I chuckled. "So, you not only kicked Nightmare's ass, but you are now Equestria's only protection from otherworldly dangers?" he questioned. Laughter came from him as he said "I knew it was something crazy specific!" "You know, maybe I was meant to be a human in the beginning" I thought out loud, looking off into space. Bo laughed as if I had told a joke and then seriously said "no." "Well, whatever" I said. "Still, I know that most of my work is done, but if you ever need any more help or just someone- err… I mean somepony to talk to, I'll still be here!" "I'll keep that in mind, Bo." "Oh! And one more thing!" he called to me. I turned to face that bucket of water. "You may have a… friend joining you soon." "What do you mean?" I asked suspiciously. "You'll figure it out later" he said. I guessed I'd just have to find out… Ponyville was much, much quieter after that (even though it was already pretty quiet to begin with). Me and Fluttershy began to regularly see each other and her animals also began to take a liking to me. Of course, word about what had happened eventually got out, and regardless of it being quite late Pinkie felt the need to celebrate Nightmare's death. Regardless of how morbid it sounded, everyone went along with it. I had gotten two new scythes given to me for my new duty. One was exactly like my other one, steel with a wooden handling… area… thing. The other one was an iron rod with an obsidian blade, for things that are less armored. I was also given special guard's armor that was different from other guards. It didn't look too different from my other armor except for the fact that it was close to the color of my fur and it was made out of bronze instead of steel. My wings continued to cause me to be struck by lightning, as well as I continued to have seizures every now and then, but other than that, no serious health problems had arisen. I did, however, get struck by un-natural lightning… A Pegasus with eyes that were slightly out of synch was jumping on a cloud. Anyway, that lightning caused me a pretty bad seizure, so I can't exactly say I'd had no health issues. There's more to the story though… I was helping Fluttershy with her animals one day and we heard a huge scream of terror coming from the everfree forest. It sounded like a pony, so naturally I went in. Fluttershy, regardless of her major fear, insisted on coming along too. We eventually came to the same large hollowed-out bush that I had first appeared in. I walked in to see somepony on the ground, rocking back and forth as if he was going insane… …Why … Why did you have to die, Steven… THE END Waking The FallenMy job was fueled by the second amendment. I was in a family of gunsmiths with our craft dating back to the early 1600’s. We had moved the location of our small family-owned business at least 6 or 7 times in total. The one that was most likely last ended up putting us in Ocean Shores, Washington. It was the end of another workday… my last workday. I had just sold the building I worked in. Over 400 years of work on a company and I ended up selling it. I had nobody else in my family that could help me with the business; I was the last one left. I only had one friend to return to and he also happened to be my roommate. Jason was the last person I could count on to pay our rent. It may have been small considering the fact that the apartment building we lived in was small and shitty, but he certainly didn’t make much money. I had also just bought myself a used van a few weeks ago, not expecting to get the business shut down later, so I was almost broke too. I didn’t know what to do at this point, so I just walked the short distance between my former work building and my tiny apartment. I entered opened the door to my musty apartment to be greeted by that old fading blue paint. Like the rest of the building, it smelled like shit. I slowly walked in as I noticed all the lights were off. “Jason?” I called out. There was no answer. I slowly crept around the small apartment until I heard a faint mumbling in the room next to me. “It’s impossible. This can’t be happening. It- it’s not real…” “Jason?” I called out again. “Is that you?” “I must be going insane… It can’t be real; it’s just not possible… I gotta stop myself before I hurt someone!” “Jason, what the Sam hell are you talking about?” I asked. “Time to end my insanity!” he shouted as I heard the click of a revolver’s hammer. “WAIT! JASON!” I screamed. BOOM! The gun went off and I heard something fall against the wall and slide to the floor. I entered the room and looked to the side to see Jason… dead. He was limp on the floor with his grey matter splattered all over the wall behind him. I looked down to see the gun… my grandfather’s. He made it for me before he died… I slowly fell to my knees and began to sob quietly at the sight of my dead friend. 2 hours passed and I was still crying. I heard the door smash open and someone yell “POLICE!” I slowly lifted my hands into the air, still crying quietly. I felt the presence of two officers standing in the doorway to the room. “You’re under arrest!” one of them shouted, pointing his gun at me. His partner tapped his shoulder and said “Kyle, I don’t think someone HERE would murder someone then cry over the body.” The other officer, Kyle, lowered his gun and sighed “You’re probably right. What’s your name, buddy?” “John Jack…” I croaked. “My name is John Jack.” “We’re gonna ask you a few questions, ok John?” They questioned me for around an hour, asking about everything. What I did, my friend’s mental health, if I was legally able to own the guns I had (which I made so duh, I could own them). They didn’t stop for an hour. When they were done, it was my turn to ask a question: “I have no money… where do I go now?” “Hell, I dunno” Kyle said. “You could always sleep in your car.” “I guess it’s better than nothing” I sighed. I packed all my clothes, my equipment and my really old drum kit into the back of my van and got inside. As soon as I turned on the engine, I instantly put in my Avenged Sevenfold CD and turned it to the song “Chapter Four”, a song me and Jason would always listen to together, and I could play on drums fairly well. Give me your hand, blood is split and man will follow Infernal man, punishment too great to bear Raise your head and taste the courage Fall from grace, unholy night I've come here to kill you, won't leave until you've died Murder born of vengeance, I closed my brothers eyes tonight Give me your hand, blood is split and man will follow Infernal man, punishment too great to bear Raise your head and taste the courage Fall from grace, unholy night I've come here to kill you, won't leave until you've died Murder born of vengeance, I closed my brothers eyes tonight I had come to the very edge of the coast, where the ocean meets the sand. There was only one thing… there was some kind of a… train station. There were two strange looking, large, white armored horses standing at the entrance instead of guards. I also could see a big land mass in the distance… as if there was a new continent on the earth or something. Many things began to travel through my head. Things like “Who the hell puts a train station at the edge of an ocean” and “where the fuck did that land come from?!” I wasn’t sure what to do… Maybe this was what Jason was talking about. I had made a single 5 minute stop at the bank to get out all my remaining money (a measly 400$), so I decided to slowly approach the station. As I got closer, I got more and more nervous. I didn’t know where this thing went! Would I really want to find out this way? It was too late then. I was already in front of the entryway. I stopped and thought for a moment. I decided on risking it and I began to walk inside when the horses stepped in front of me and yelled, in perfect unison “HALT!” “FUCK!” I yelled, falling backwards and trying to crawl away from the white guard horses. I slowly got up as I thought to myself “this must have been what Jason was blabbering about. I don’t blame him for thinking he was crazy.” I approached the guards once again and asked as politely as I could “Could I please enter the station?” The guards simply stepped to the side without a word and I walked inside. It was empty of any people or horses except for a horse standing behind a glass pane. He looked like the ticket seller, so I walked on over to him. “Hey, uh…” I hesitated at my question as I thought it might have been a little offensive. I finally sucked it up and asked “since when can horses talk?” “I’m not a horse” he replied. “What?” “I’m not a horse” he repeated. “I’m a pony.” “Okay…” I said awkwardly. “Since when can PONIES talk?” “Uh…” he stuttered, looking at me as if I were crazy. “Always?” “Okay, okay” I nodded. “Anyway, where does this train go?” “Canterlot Station” he replied. “Okay, where is that?” “Equestria” “Equestria, huh? Clever; very clever” I mumbled. “How much is a ticket?” “50 Bits” he said. I figured that Bits were the currency in Equestria so I asked what the exchange rate was… 10 Bits to a Dollar! I had 4,000 bits! “Alright! I’ll get a ticket then” I said, handing the pony 5$. I grabbed the ticket and got on the train. As soon as I arrived in this “Canterlot” I noticed that I was LITERALY the only human there. Everyone was whispering and pointing as I walked towards what looked like a castle. In my mind, I was hoping that Equestria’s ruler lived in that castle and I also hoped that they weren’t an asshole. I kept walking, people (or ponies, in this case) still whispering and pointing the entire time. I finally found the front gate of the castle and the guards let me inside. I climbed my way up to the entrance to the throne room, where their leader most likely was. As I attempted to open the door, a guard stopped me and said “Princess Celestia is in a conference. You may not enter until it has been adjourned and everypony has left. Feel free to wait if you like.” I sat down in a corner and sat there silently thinking about all the shit that has been going down. Firstly, ponies can talk here. Second, it appeared randomly in the middle of the fucking ocean. Third, it’s a monarchy, which is not good. And fourth, this “Princess Celestia” might not take too kindly to me, and that would cause a lot of problems. I continued to think about everything until I heard the huge door open and I saw several ponies that looked like they all came from different cultures walk out. Finally, a tall white pony with a heavily-tinted, multi-colored mane and tail stepped out and waved goodbye to the ponies that were leaving. As she waved, she noticed me sitting in the corner and asked “can I help you?” “Are you Princess Celestia?” I asked. She nodded. “I have some questions to ask.” “Okay, come in.” I followed her into the throne room, which was huge. It had a large table on one side of the room, which I assumed was for meetings. She, however, walked over to a window and simply looked out. “I would like to know a few things about Equestria.” I said very nervously. “Namely, how it got in the middle of the ocean.” “What do you mean?” she asked, looking back my way. “Never mind” I sighed. “Also, why am I the only human here?” “Well, your country, this “United States of America” isn’t exactly happy about Equestria connecting our borders without their government’s consent.” “Then how was I let on the train?” I asked. “I never said we shut down the train station” she said. “Your government has made announcements all over to make sure nopony came here.” There was a fairly long silence between us until she decided to ask a question of her own. “What brings you here in the first place?” “My friend kinda…” I was hesitant to remember the events that had happened only a few hours ago. “Killed himself. I decided to just pack up and leave and now I’m here.” “You have a home though?” “Actually, no” I said sadly, looking down. “I don’t have the money to keep living there anymore, so I had to leave.” “Well, what’s your cutie mark?” She asked. “What the Sam hell’s a cutie mark?” I asked confusedly. “It’s the mark you get on your flank that indicates what your good at” she stated, as if she had awnsered that question millions of times. “Humans don’t get cutie marks.” “Interesting” she said. “Anyway, what are good at?” “I’m a gunsmith” I said. “A what?” “I make ranged weaponry. It’s a job that requires a lot of skill and precision. If I mess up one tiny thing, I could accidentally kill someb- er… I mean… somepony” I explained. “It’s been in my family since the 1600s. My family’s business just got shut down, so now I have no way to get any money.” “Equestria’s never had a gunsmith before” said Celestia, deep in thought. “We might be able to use some of these weapons for our guards.” “Sure, but these things cost money.” “But of course” she said. “If I could get you a workspace set up somewhere, maybe you could make us some of these weapons in exchange for money for food and a place to live.” “That’s how it normally works” I said. “But where? Canterlot is too populated for anything that could be that dangerous” she thought out loud. “It needs to be somewhere where there is plenty of open space… Aha!” “Oh!” I shouted. I just remembered something important. “I could get my old co-worker Connor O’Drake to come in and help! He can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’s really a nice guy.” “Fantastic” she said in a not-so-excited tone, as if she didn’t give a shit. “I’ll get him a house in Ponyville as well.” “Okay, and one last thing” I said. “What about my stuff? I left all my tools, clothes, other stuff in my car back on U.S. land.” “I’ll just have somepony send it to you. You should get it within a couple of days.” “Works for me” I sighed. “Alright! So it’s settled!” She nodded, smiling. “Oh, and by the way,” I turned to face the Princess. “My name is John; John Jack.” She gave a slight not to indicate she understood. Now, I just had to get Connor. I guessed that he was where he almost always was: his old apartment playing Team Fortress 2 and watching Tosh.0 while drinking tons of Coca-Cola. Hell, you could almost always find him there if he wasn’t at the old work building. I was betting he wouldn’t be too happy to hear he had to work again, but at least he would have some new peop- I mean ponies to fuck with. Connor was Scottish, and he absolutely loved causing mischief. He was the kinda guy that would mess with people just for a laugh. In fact, one time he had pissed off a hair-dresser so much, that she permanently dyed his hair blue. He didn’t care, though. He thought it looked cool. I got to him over the phone and told him about what was gonna happen, and to my surprise, he sounded happy about it. I met him at the train station and we talked a little bit before we got on the train to Ponyville. We were told we were going to be shown around by somepony who knew the town very well. As soon as the train left, Connor fell asleep. I decided to doze off myself… Maybe things weren’t gonna turn out so badly after all! “We’re here, dumbass.” I head the Scottish accent and I instantly knew it was Conner. I lifted my head from the train seat too see the dimly-light early morning sky as I rubbed my eyes a little before standing up to get off. As soon as me and Conner were off the train, we heard a friendly “Hello there!” We looked in the direction of the voice to see a small, light-violet unicorn with a baby dragon by her side and a warm smile on her face. “You must be John and Connor, right?” Conner and I nodded. “Okay, well, my name is Twilight Sparkle. I’ll be showing you both to your houses after I show you around a little.” After a short tour of the town, Twilight led us to our… single house? I thought we were living in different houses, but I guessed I was wrong. Whatever; as long as Connor didn’t fuck up my workspace, I’d be fine with it. We thanked Miss Sparkle and headed into our house to get settled in… and hopefully set up some rules so Connor didn’t go bat-shit crazy all over the place. It turned out that we did have separate rooms, which was a relief for me, but I would still have to learn how to sleep with one eye open or something to make sure that Connor doesn’t booby trap my entire room. About two hours after we had first gotten to the house, I heard a knock at the door. I didn’t know who in the hell wanted to see me considering not a single pony here knew me… well, besides Twilight, but she seemed to have been rushing the tour, so she must’ve had something to attend to. I decided to just open up the door and see who it was. I opened the door to see nobod- I mean nopony was there. Instead, there was a huge set of boxes and in the distance, I saw a grey Pegasus in a mailm- er… mailpony’s hat. She must have just brought them there one by one. I grabbed one of the boxes that looked like it had my basic gunsmithing tools in it. When the top of the box was open I saw that it was some of my tools. It was my set of checkering tools, my hand gravers for engraving, and some other tools. I unpacked all of the boxes that had tools in them, and the only box left after that was huge. I didn’t know what it could’ve been… My car? “Hardy-har-har Celestia” I thought, opening the box. It turned out that it wasn’t my car (thank god); instead it was my drum kit. I set up my drums in the corner of the large living room that me and Connor would now share. As soon as everything was set up, I started playing Almost Easy by Avenged Sevenfold. It felt really good to play the drums again. I hadn’t had the chance to for a really long time. At the end of the song, another knock came from the door. I opened it up to see Twilight and her small dragon companion again. “Let me guess” I started sarcastically. “You’re here to complain about the noise.” “No” She said. “I come with a message from the Princess. She wants to know what the most effective and easy-to-use weapon you can make is.” “I’d say a M4A1” I suggested. “I’ve produced civilian legal versions of the M4, but I think I can make an M4A1.” “What’s the difference?” the little dragon butted in. “M4A1 is normally used by U.S. Special Forces because it’s small and powerful, as well as fully automatic unlike the M4” I answered. “It’s also compatible with a HUGE amount of different attachments like grenade launchers, sights, etc.” “But would it work for ponies?” Twilight added. “Probably” I thought out loud. “I’m not sure. Oh, and everypony will need a sidearm just in case!” “Sidearm?” “A small gun that you can use as a backup for tight spaces when things happen like reloading would take too much time or you’re out of ammo” I explained. “That’s where Connor comes in. He’s a better pistolsmith than me.” “Is there any one in particular that you would recommend?” “I’d say an M1911” I said. “It may have a small magazine, but it’s pretty good in power and you can tell it’s good because its model is over 100 years old.” “Okay! I’ll tell the Princess” she chirped happily. “WAIT” I spouted, stopping her in the middle of the doorway. “You’ve also gotta tell her that she can’t expect a lot of these too soon. Me and Connor hand-craft these things from fresh materials, so it can take longer than you’d think.” “Okay, that’s good to know” She said. She then turned around and went into a slow trot towards her tree/house. I decided to tell Conner about our new assignment. I would be making the M4A1s and he would make the M1911s. The only issue was, the U.S. already didn’t like Equestria connecting to its borders without permission (not like they could get it anyway), and now we would be making guns for the Equestrian military that were already frequently used by the U.S. military. Would that piss them off even more? I couldn’t tell, obviously, so I just hoped for the best and went to go tell Connor. “Yo, Connor” I greeted, entering his room. “What’s up, brother?” he responded in his thick Scottish accent. “We got an assignment straight from the Princess” I told him. “We gotta get her military some good weapons!” “Then what are we gonna give them?” he asked “I’m gonna be making M4A1s and you’ll be in charge of M1911s.” “Those are both U.S. military weapons” he said, unamused by my weapon choices. “Yeah, but they’re good weapons and they’ll provide a great defense for Equestria” I countered. “Don’t you think that the U.S. already hates Equestria enough as it is?” “I would care, but I’m all out of fucks to give! Equestria is unprotected against any other human-inhabited nation” I snapped. “Equestria goes to war, and every single pony here will die! We need to give this place good defenses, and dammit, that’s what I intend on doing!” “Okay, okay” he said quietly. “Plus, in exchange for our services, we get food and shelter.” “Alright then, let’s work” he said, suddenly eager, probably at the thought of being homeless and hungry. “Wait, dumbass” I stopped him. “We don’t have any materials to work with.” “Okay, then tell me when we do get some materials to work with, so I can make some masterpieces!” In the meantime, I remembered that I had brought along some materials I bought on my own to make a gun for myself. I decided to get started on that, considering I would probably not have any time to work on it later. After 2 hours, I was in the middle of making one of my all-time favorite guns: The M1 Garand Semi-Automatic Carbine, the first rifle to be a standard-issue weapon to ALL infantry of a nation. It was even called “the greatest battle implement ever devised!” It was a very interesting rifle indeed! It had an eight-round internal clip that was inserted into the top of the rifle and ejected automatically. It was also made to be gas-operated and air-cooled. I think it is by far the coolest WWII weapon out there. I hadn’t made it too far in the construction when I stopped, but I did know what I was making and I knew that gun almost inside and out. About 10 minutes after I had stopped, I got another knock at the door. I got up and opened the door to see another package at the doorstep. I opened it to find tons of fresh ingredients for making firearms… It was time to get to work! Me and Connor were ready to roll. It only took a few hours for Conner to complete one or two M1911s. We still needed to test them to make sure they weren’t malfunctioning, but he was done with what was absolutely required. It took me a long time to get a perfectly crafted M4A1 rifle fully made and ready for testing. It may seem like we were going really fast, and we were, but we were trying to make as many parts at a time as we possibly could. A lot of the guns were turning out very well, and by 10 P.M. we had made some good progress… kind of… Obviously, we didn’t get super far, but I got about 4 M4A1s done, whereas Connor had twice as many guns made. We decided that this was good enough for one day, considering we had been working almost all day now, and we felt like we deserved to get a break. We decided that the next day, we would test them, tweak them and then I would get them ready to ship to Canterlot (with ammo and personally written instructions with hopes that it would help prevent any accidental casualties). I was completely wiped out from that day. I was up at around 4:00 A.M. when the train got there, and we had worked for hours and hours and hours. I was just glad we were making some pretty good progress. Something had just hit me: we were so far away from our old homes. It felt very, very strange in such a new place, but I shrugged off the feeling considering that it was my new home and I would have to get used to it sooner or later. I fell asleep as soon as my eyes closed after that… I just didn’t know what was going to happen later… “FUCKIN’ LAZY!” I jerked upwards, startled by the random yelling I heard from the door. It sounded like Connor, and he didn’t sound happy about something. I got up the best I could, my spinal column in deep pain from sleeping on a bed that was supposed to be for a pony, and I limped to the door. “Connor, what the hell are you yelling about?” “That “Princess” is the laziest ruler I’ve ever heard of!” “What in the Sam hell are you taking about?” I nearly shouted, angry from having been woken up so early. “She sent a letter to us saying none of her best men could figure out the instructions you gave them!” “So?” “SHE DIDN’T READ THE FUCKING THING HERSELF!” he hollered angrily. “She probably has much more important things to do” I responded. “It’s the defense of her ENTIRE KINGDOM!” he snapped. “And she still won’t take a shot at reading a little instruction sheet that would take less than 5 minutes to read! She’s also asking us to go there and teach them while she also expects us to make more weapons at the same damn time!” “God, dude. Don’t get so pissed off!” I said. “Fuck you!” “Look!” I yelled at him. “I’ll go there myself and teach the highest ranked Captains how to work with the guns. Then they can pass on the knowledge to other soldiers! You just stay here, keep working and don’t have a fucking aneurism over this entire situation” “Alright” he sighed, his Scottish accent making it sound more like “arrite”. I walked out the door and began to walk angrily towards the train station. Twilight trotted up to fall into a steady rhythm beside me. “What’s wrong with him?” she said, breaking the silence I wanted to keep. “He’s just an asshole sometimes” I answered. “Does he have a hobby that makes him happy, or something to keep him from blowing up like that?” Twilight continued. “I think he woke up half of Ponyville with that outburst.” “He fucks with ponies” I said monotonously. I looked down to see Twilight with a repulsed expression plastered across her face. “Not like that” I sighed. “I mean he messes with ponies… Like, causes mischief. Whenever he succeeds, he dies laughing.” “So he’s like Discord?” she asked, now back to her standard, happy expression. “Who the fuck is Discord?” I said in a voice a little louder than a mumble. “He’s the god of chaos” she answered, as if she loved giving lectures on whatever the hell she knew. “He basically does the same thing except when he does it, ponies tend to get hurt. Fluttershy made him good, though.” “Fluttershy?” I said, confused. “She’s somepony you don’t know yet. You’ll like her. Everypony does!” “Anyway, so Discord doesn’t do anything mischievous anymore?” I asked, continuing the conversation as we got closer to the train station. “Nope!” she chirped happily. “Well, fuck” I said. “Connor could have made friends with Discord.” “They might still get along” she suggested. At this point, we were just standing at the train station, now in silence. We waited for what seemed like forever until the train came to a screeching halt in front of us. Twilight and I stepped onto the train, each paying the pony manning the door the cost of a ticket (considering we were both too goddamn lazy to buy them ourselves). The train quickly gave off a loud whistling noise as it began to slowly gain speed. I can’t believe I was going BACK to Canterlot. I decided to just try and ignore the whole situation and drift off to sleep. Almost as soon as I dozed off, I was woken up by Twilight saying we were there. “Did I fall asleep?” I asked, groggy from what probably was slumber. “Yep” she nodded. “Snoring pretty loudly, too!” “Meh” I spouted quietly. We got up from the train and made our way off. Considering I was there the day before, I already knew the way to the castle, and Twilight obviously knew I was there before, so she didn’t decide to give me “instructions” on where to go. As soon as we had reached the castle gates, three royal guards rushed in to meet us. They turned out to be the three biggest leaders of the Equestrian Military. They explained how they couldn’t figure out the instructions and that we needed to show them how to do pretty much everything with the guns. To start, I walked over and grabbed an M4A1 to use, as well as a mag that I put into the gun. After several hours of instruction, they finally found out how to shoot both the M4A1 and the M1911 accurately. They assured me that they could teach all the lower ranks how to use the guns, so I decided to go back and alert Princess Celestia about my success. I walked through the door of the throne room to find a pony in front of Celestia. I stood in the back as I heard their conversation. “So you murdered him publically?” Celestia asked. “No!” the pony said. “It was my brother, I swear!” “I’m afraid I don’t believe you” Celestia told the pony, scowling. “Alright” “Say…” Celestia looked like she had just put on a happy face out of nowhere. “Do you like bananas?” The pony, who was now crying, nodded silently. “Well, you’re about to go bananas!” The crying pony looked up at the Princess as if she was a psycho. Celestia’s horn began to glow a tinted sky blue and she shouted almost happily as if she enjoyed doing this “ON THE MOON!” The pony disappeared with a flash of light and a brief, muffled scream. “Princess” I interrupted the near-maniacal laughter that followed. “I have a question… umm… WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK WAS THAT??!!?!” “Please lower your vo-“ “NO! YOU JUST SENT A PONY WHO MAY HAVE BEEN INNOCENT TO THE FUCKING MOON!” I roared. “If you do that on a regular basis then you aren’t just a murderer you’re a complete PSYCHO!” “That’s the punishment for murder in Equestria” she said casually. “Ponies who murder get sent to the moon to die.” “That is the fucking STUPIDEST way to execute somepony!” I growled. “You wanna experience how stupid it is?” Celestia hissed back. “This isn’t why I came here! I came to tell you that your three leading captains now know how to use both the rifles and pistols, and they can teach the lower ranks how to use them.” “Okay, now go!” she said as her horn grew a tinted sky blue again. In a flash of light, I was back in me and Connor’s new house. He was sitting at the table in our little “kitchen” area with a displeased expression on his face. “There you are” he said angrily as he pushed himself back onto his feet. “Why in the hell do we have to eat this floral shit?!” “Ponies are herbivores!” I replied, annoyed. “You didn’t know that?” “Do I look like a fuckin’ farmer to you, brother?” “No” “Exactly!” he said in a smart-ass tone. “Well I have to live with it, too so don’t you be complaining!” We got back to work after we got done arguing. It was late, so I only got started on 2 rifles, 1 that I was already more than halfway done with. That night, I couldn’t sleep at all. I kept thinking about why Celestia would kill a pony by sending them to the moon. Didn’t she do that to her younger sister? Well, they are pretty much gods, so I guess they can live without breathing… or heat… or water… Eventually, I just got sick of sitting there in bed, so I got up and went to my workspace and pulled out my M1 Garand. I continued to work on in through the rest of the night. I finished it after a few hours and then I started customizing it. I put a scope on it, made a bayonet (I knew I wouldn’t use it but what the hell!) I even decided to paint “Born to Kill” on it, because Full Metal Jacket is my all-time favorite war-based movie. Right as I was completely finished and the sun was just beginning to rise over the rolling green hills, I heard a frantic knock at the door. I raced over to open it, since the knock sounded urgent. It was an out-of-breath Twilight. She tried to speak but only managed to squawk out a few words that were impossible to make out and wheeze a lot. She finally gave up and used her magic to toss me a piece of parchment-like paper. I picked it up and began to read it. As I read on and on my facial expression grew more nervous. Connor came in to see what was going on… I told him straight out: “Equestria is at war” “Hehehe… uh… what?” Connor stuttered nervously. “It’s the U.S… I don’t know why they did but… just…Here, read for yourself” I said, handing him the letter. His eyes traveled down the page and he got more and more nervous as he read. “Fuck this shit” he yelled running to his desk. “Let’s make some fuckin’ weapons NOW!” “Thanks for alerting us, Twilight” I spouted then I turned and ran over to get down to business. Several days passed and Connor and I had kicked into high-gear with our weapon production. We had enough M4A1s for about half the Equestrian military by the end of the month, as well as having more than enough M1911s. Our sleep time was reduced to only about 6 or 5 hours every other night. After about a month and a half, we had supplied weapons for the entire Equestrian military. Sadly, the same day we finished, Twilight came back to inform us of something else that had happened… “The city of Manehattan is now under U.S. control.” “Fuuuuu…..” my voice trailed off as I fell into my own thoughts. “I still don’t get it… I know that the U.S. and Equestria were on bad terms, but normally the U.S. doesn’t just start something for no apparent reason… This war must have been some kind of a set-up or something…” And Ponyville was one of the more valuable cities in Equestria. They’d probably come here pretty soon, so how could I prevent the U.S. gaining control HERE too? The answer was so obvious, I’m surprised I even had to think to get it. Arm the town. “Connor!” I yelled to the other room. Connor came running out to see why I had called him. “Let’s get to work! We’re gonna arm Ponyville to the teeth!” “Hell yeah, brother!” he shouted. In about 2 or 3 weeks we had some pretty good weapons issued to every single pony in town, as well as teaching everypony how to use them. As soon as thoughts of being finished entered our minds, a knock at the door came around midnight. We opened the door to see a white stallion with an Alicorn beside him. In front of the two of them were Twilight and a blue Pegasus with a colorfully bright mane. We had learned that this was Rainbow Dash. I thought she was a little bit annoying, because when we gave her a weapon, she requested that we make it about “20% cooler”. “John” Twilight spoke up. “This is my brother Shining Armor and his wife Princess Cadence.” “Oh!” I squeaked at the word Princess and attempted a small bow. “What brings you two here?” Shining Armor was the first to speak. “Our kingdom, the Crystal Empire, is now under control of the United States.” My jaw dropped. “I know. That was my reaction” Rainbow Dash giggled while looking at my reaction. “Shit, we gotta do more” I thought out loud. “What?” Cadence interrupted, confused. “We’ve been arming Ponyville as much as possible, but if they can take over the Crystal Empire, we obviously haven’t done enough. We need patrols, guard towers…” “We’ll do our best to help” Shining Armor said, probably trying to calm me down. Me and Connor managed to gather around 7 ponies that were willing to work as guards for the time being. We made some fairly unstable guard towers out of any scrap we could get, and we set up patrols and guard times and such for our seven pony army. In the last while, Connor put the finishing touches on a Light Machine Gun that he had been working on while I made sure I had enough ammo for my M1 Garand. We were completely prepared… I was scared of what was going to happen. We may have been ready, but I knew that the U.S. Military was powerful, especially compared to Equestria. Not only that, but we still had the question of why the war started on our mind. So many problems and questions… But we’d just have to find out later… Now we wait… Past midnight… couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t feeling very good ether. I sat up in bed and immediately grabbed my head which was throbbing really heavily. With a good force, I pushed myself off the bed and began to slowly walk towards the bathroom in order to wash my face, hoping that the cold water would do something about the splitting headache ravaging through my skull. As soon as I had reached the bathroom, I turned on the water and began to splash really, really cold water on my face. The faucet turned off but instantly afterwards, a sound echoed from where I kept my computer (it was pretty much a rock with wiring in it, so it was only used for recording orders, keeping records of what parts are needed to make which gun, etc.), so I went to investigate. I drew the loaded M1911 that Connor had made me as I moved slowly into the room. The monitor of the computer was light up and there was some random guy in a U.S. army uniform sitting there typing away. I gulped, because I knew this wasn’t going to end well. I snuck up behind him as quietly as I could, and I grabbed the computer’s plug out of the wall. He simply turned around to see me holding the cable up right in front of his face. I lifted the gun so the barrel was pointed directly between his eyes. I squeezed the trigger and a gunshot went off, sending a bullet directly through the soldier’s head and into the computer. I didn’t care about the computer, I just had to be sure that there weren’t any more of these soldiers around here. I went over to my workspace that only had my M1, and I grabbed the M1 and loaded a magazine into it. I fixed my bayonet on the end as well. Connor came running into the room with his giant LMG. We both gathered at the sides of the door. I whispered over to him “They’ll die by the gun,” and I opened up the door slowly to peek out. I saw a few soldiers gather around the buildings, probably drawn by the sound of my gun. I instructed Connor to go first and use his LMG. He kicked out the door and opened fire. The soldiers fired back while the tried to get into cover. He managed to get most of them, but 2 got away. One was almost instantly taken down by a guard in one of the towers, and the second one was just hiding behind cover. As soon as we thought the coast was clear, he popped out with his rifle and opened fire, but I was close enough to lunge my gun forward, stabbing my bayonet straight into his neck. We thought it was over, but a few others opened fire from another side of the town. We heard some of the ponies firing back using the firearms we had given them. Me and Connor rushed over to help out. I quickly saw 2 soldiers and managed to kill both of them using my M1. Connor went around to assist from the ponies’ side. I continued to creep closer and closer to the soldiers’ position, taking them out one by one as I went. When there were only a few left, one saw me and turned his fire to me. One bullet grazed my leg, while another hit me in the arm. I still managed to take him out, regardless of how much pain I was in. Finally the gunfire stopped and I yelled out for somepony to help me. Shining Armor and Cadence came over to help. Shining Armor ripped the bullet out of my arm (which sure as hell didn’t feel good) as Cadence closed the wound. I got up and thanked both ponies for helping me. “We gotta tell Princess Celestia what just happened” I said, turning to face Connor. “Oh hell no, brother” he retreated hastily. “I wouldn’t talk to that lazy bitch if you paid me.” “What if I were to tell you there was a certain being there who likes to fuck with people as much as you do?” “Okay, when do we leave?” Connor asked in a completely normal tone. I rolled my eyes. “As soon as we can!” I said. “We gotta let the Princess know what just happened.” “Well okay” he agreed. “Let’s go; onward and upward; tally ho!” “Typical Connor” I mumbled, letting out a sigh. Another train ride that took what seemed like forever passed and we were at Canterlot. It was closing in on midnight, meaning everypony had abandoned the streets and went home, leaving the entire city quitter than what I thought was comfortable. Connor and I walked at a faster pace than normal, as I was anxious to let the Princess know that we were in bigger danger than we thought, and Connor was anxious to meet Discord. It wasn’t long before we had reached the castle’s very large front door. Standing on each side of the entrance were two stallion guards with their M4A1’s on their backs. They didn’t even bother to ask who we were because they already knew (we were the only humans that lived in Equestria, after all). Connor and I raced up the stairs into the throne room where Princess Celestia and another Alicorn, who looked similar but shorter and dark blue, stood side-by-side. “Princess, we have a bit of an issue” I said in a slightly hesitant voice. “What is it?” Celestia asked turning around. The dark blue mare still stood facing the window looking out as if she was mesmerized. “The Crystal Empire is under United States Control” I said. Celestia’s eyes seemed to grow to the size of dinner plates. “And Ponyville would’ve been next if we hadn’t armed every single pony and got some ponies to act as guards.” “This is a problem” Celestia whispered, turning her head towards the ground. “Also, we’ve been informed that there was an explosive set off in the United States. It was traced back to Equestria somehow.” “I KNEW it was a set up!” I mumbled angrily. “Someone’s gonna get a bullet to the brain for this!” “What is the next town they are most likely to invade?” asked the other Alicorn in a strict tone. “Perhaps Cloudsdale” the Princess replied. “But how?” the blue one responded, turning around to reveal an unusual amount of resemblance between the two Alicorns. “Only the Pegesai can walk on clouds” “Perhaps they have some way to put Pegasai’s DNA into humans” Celestia suggested. “That’s it!” I interrupted! “The U.S. could do that using Pegesai from Manehattan or the Crystal Empire, and then use air transportation to get them there!” “That would make sense” the blue one said. “I don’t believe I have made thy acquaintance before. I am Princess Luna.” “My name is John Jack. It’s an honor to meet you Princess.” I replied while politely taking a small bow. “I think I should go to Cloudsdale for the time being. Connor should stay here at Canterlot until I return… I don’t trust him.” “Very well, but how would thou go about walking among the Pegesai of Cloudsdale?” Luna asked. “I will need some kind of Pegasus DNA” I answered. “Okay, John. We’ll see what we can do” Princess Celestia nodded. “You can stay in the castle until we find the solution to our little “Cloudsdale” problem.” “Thank you Princess” I smiled, giving another polite bow. I turned and began to walk back towards the door to tell Connor about what was gonna happen, but I heard him talking… I went into the hallway and hid in one of the shadows to the side of the room. “I’m talking about doing things just as jokes!” Connor said. “You don’t have to hurt anypony.” “I still think it’s a bad idea” replied a serious male voice. It came from a tall, snake-like dragon with long arms and legs as well as wings. “Here, pick up some of the dirt in that flower pot” Connor commanded. “Okay” I saw the mysterious figure pick up some dirt from a flower pot using magic. “Now what?” “Throw it at one of the guards at the front door.” “What? No… I can’t” the voice withdrew. “Come on” Connor urged him. “I promise the reaction will be hilarious. Just aim for the side of his head and watch what happens.” The figure did as he was asked and the guard that got hit began looking around in confusion. Connor and the shadow began to snicker as he continued looking around until he zeroed in on the guard at the opposite end of the door. He accused the guard of throwing the dirt and they began to argue as Connor and his new friend burst into hysterical laughter. Connor got up off of the ground and said through his laughter “You see? It’s not destructive, but it IS fucking hilarious!” I popped out of the shadows and interrupted. “I’ll assume you’re Discord.” “Your assumption is correct” Discord answered, turning around to reveal his big yellow eyes. “Anyway, Connor, it looks like you’ll have to stay at the castle for a while, while I go to Cloudsdale to make sure the U.S. doesn’t take control of it.” “Alright” he agreed. “As long as I don’t have to stay in a room too close to Princess Ce-lazy-a.” “I would care about that, but I’m afraid I’m all out of fucks to give.” I told him. “Oh, and another thing” he continued. “I contacted an old friend of mine Afanasai Aleksander Chechnoi, because shit has definitely gotten real.” “Okay, but who exactly is this guy?” “He’s was a Russian Spetsnaz soldier for a while. He was discharged after a boarder clash between Russia and China.” “What happened?” I butted in. “A few grenade fragments got lodged deep in his eye, which made him lose all sight in it. He decided he just wanted it out of there, so he got it removed. He also got shot a few times here and there. Anyway, he’s been deep in history and the like since then and he was always pretty quiet, but he’s still got his instinct. I know he’ll be really helpful to us, but he may not get here for a while.” “Okay. Well I’m gonna leave you two to… whatever the hell you were doing.” “Hey!” he called as I was walking away. “They’ll die by the gun, right?” I nodded, smiling. “This potion should work” Princess Celestia said, taking a test tube filled with a bubbly purple liquid from Luna who stood beside her and handing it to me.. “This has several things in it that should allow you to walk on clouds just as well as any Pegasus.” “Okeydokey” I said. I grabbed the test tube, popped off the cork and chugged it all instantly, almost like it was the best thing I had ever tasted, where in reality it tasted like a garden weed. I cringed at the horrible taste, but I knew it would be worth it in the end. My vision was slightly distorted for a few minutes as my body registered the changes. My physical state was altered, making me feel very, very light. It also altered my mental state so that I thought more like a pony would. That was an obvious effect, because when my vision came back into focus, I looked at Luna… differently. It was strange, but it made sense at the same time, because I had just drank something that added Pegasus DNA to my body, meaning it WOULD alter my mental state in addition to my physical state, and that meant also altering my physical attractions… uh… well… shit happens. “I should probably get going” I suggested. “Very well, tell me when you’re ready to go.” I grabbed my rifle, pistol and a bunch of ammo then said “ready!” the Princess’s horn began glowing a light blue once again and in a flash of blinding light (and some slight burning) I was standing on a sea of clouds in front of a bunch of Pegesai in flying gear as well as tight blue flying suits that had bright yellow lightning bolts on them. A very military-official-looking Pegasus pushed through to the front. She had yellow and red mane, making it look like fire. She was also wearing sunglasses. Her eyes travelled up and down as she inspected me carefully, which made me quite nervous, honestly.. Finally, breaking a long silence, she spoke up with the question she should’ve asked before she started sizing me up, “who in the hay are you?” “My name is John Jack. I’m here to help protect Cloudsdale from the U.S. army’s incoming attack.” “How do you know they’re coming here” shouted one of the ponies behind the fiery one. “Shut your trap back there!” the fiery one (who I assumed was the head of operations here) yelled back. “We don’t know, but it’s highly likely” I explained, answering the question anyway because I knew they would be curious about it. “Whatever” she replied. “How can someone as… flightless as you protect Cloudsdale?” “Give me a moving target” I demanded. “A cloud, a coin, a leaf, anything. Just give me a moving target.” “Alright… SOARIN!” she roared. Another one of the suited Pegesai popped up out of the front and flew to the nearest cloud that wasn’t a part of Cloudsdale’s architecture. He quickly tore it into a disk as I loaded my M1 Garand carbine. The cloud disc flew at a pretty steady speed allowing me to get a good idea of where it was gonna go and when. I got my sight positioned as I heard a few of the ponies in the background betting on if I hit it or not. I breathed out and gently squeezed the trigger at the exact right time and the rifle blew back and let a bullet casing fly out as the actual bullet flew from the barrel straight through the cloud disk. The cloud disk poofed into thin air (which it kind of was anyway) making the small gathering of ponies erupt in small cheers and clapping. I looked over and saw the fiery leader’s mouth hanging open. “Does that answer your question?” I said smiling as I tried to hold back laughter from her reaction. She closed her mouth, and shook herself awake, then proceeded to introduce herself. “The name’s Spitfire. These are my elite squad of flyers: The Wonderbolts.” “Nice to meet you miss Spitfire” I said awkwardly. “It looks like everypony here is good on the whole weapons thing?” I looked over to one of the Wonderbolts, who had one of the M4s I made on his back. “As a matter of fact, we do” she answered. She looked back and saw the same Pegasus I had and barked “Fleetfoot, that rifle better have its safety on!” The rest of the day was a tour of the Wonderbolts’ training facility, then being dumped into one of the Wonderbolts’ barracks (or as Soarin called them, the “Wonderbarracks”). For the next several days, I just practiced my sharpshooting and preformed some maintenance on some of the rifles that had any defects. After a few days, I heard a helicopter outside, so I got up and grabbed my loaded rifle. As I slowly opened the door to the barracks, I saw a bunch of U.S. soldiers getting out. It was almost morning time, so I didn’t think Spitfire would’ve cared if I woke everyone up. I walked over and shook Soarin awake. “The U.S. army is here.” He nodded and grabbed his M4 from under his bunk. I raised an eyebrow, because I was pretty sure that wasn’t where that was supposed to be, but I ignored it and proceeded to gently open the door more so I could creep out while Soarin woke up the others. My hands got sweaty as I grew nervous. I remembered the system of a down song Welcome to the soldier’s side Where there’s no-one here but me “So this is what they meant” I thought. I saw them advance on the barracks, and I knew Soarin was still probably in the process of getting everyone up and alerted of the situation. I couldn’t let them get inside. I lifted my M1 once again and I aimed for the guy who was going for the door. A bullet flew from the gun and went clear through the soldiers head and into the one next to him. The other soldiers started looking around as I heard scrambling inside the barracks. I managed to get another soldier, then the barracks’ door burst open and three Pegesai burst out shooting down the rest of the soldiers. I hopped onto my feet and went over to talk to Spitfire who had come running out after hearing the gunshots. “Don’t worry! We took care of it.” “Not quite, Mr. Jack!” she spouted frantically. Spitfire and I (followed by the Wonderbolts) ran to the other side of the Wonderbolts’ facility to see dozens more soldiers approaching. “Damn!” I mumbled. “Me and a few guys will hold ‘em off from this side. You take the rest and go around to hit ‘em from behind.” “Got it” Spitfire agreed. She took several of the Wonderbolts and flew of the edge to go under the clouds. Me and Soarin got our guns ready as they closed in, and as soon as they were at a good range, we opened fire. We managed to hit several of them very quickly, but the rest got behind cover. However, their cover quickly died along with them as soon as a bullet hit it, so we kept firing. After 2 or 3 minutes, fire came from behind the soldiers as well. A few more of them dropped through the clouds dead as a doornail. A bullet suddenly whizzed straight past me and another one tore some skin from my shoulder. Soarin got hit directly in the shoulder and he fell back onto the cloud quietly moaning in pain. The last of the soldiers dropped, so I rushed over to aid Soarin. “Is the bullet still in there?” I asked frantically. “I’m pretty sure” Soarin croaked quietly. “Okay, I’m gonna see if I can get it out as soon as I find something to ease the pain.” I got up and ran to Spitfire. “Spitfire! Tell me you have some kind of first aid nearby.” “Of course. Why?” “Soarin got shot” I said. We got back to Soarin with some painkillers and he happily accepted them. “Now, those will take effect in a little while, but for now, brace yourself. This will hurt an ass-load.” I looked into the bullet hole and saw the blood-covered bullet. It was almost out the back of his shoulder, so I knew the easiest way to get it out would be to push it out the back of his shoulder. “Strike that” I said. “this will hurt more than an ass-load” I gave him a countdown from 3 and then I jammed my finger into the bullet hole. Soarin screamed in pain as the skin and fur at the back of his shoulder ripped open and let the bullet fall through the clouds to the ground below. I yanked my finger out of the hole and tried to calm Soarin down. Finally, his screaming came to an end. I instructed two of the Wonderbolts to pick Soarin up and get him to the Hospital ASAP. “You‘re good in these kinds of situations, huh?” Spitfire said, looking over at me “Not really” I sighed. “I guess it’s just instinct.” “Well, it seems your instinct is pretty good, then” “I guess” I muttered. “Now… how in the Sam hell do I get back to Canterlot?” “A message should get to the princess before morning” she answered. “She’ll have you outta here then.” For the rest of the night, I sat on the edge of the clouds just thinking. Who had set up Equestria and why would they want to? It still didn’t seem right to me. I guessed I’d figure it out later. For now, I’d just remain on the soldier’s side. Welcome to the soldier’s side Where there’s no-one here but me “It’s time to go” I jerked up at the random voice coming from outside of my sleep. My vision came into focus and I saw who was standing over me. It was Princess Celestia with Spitfire by her side. I sat up and gently rubbed my eyes. “Hi Princess. Hi Spitfire. What’s going on?” “I heard about last night” Celestia explained to me. “It seemed like quite the experience.” “It was” I chuckled, knowing she didn’t even know the half of it. “You’ve done Cloudsdale a huge service” Spitfire added. “Without you, not only would Soarin have died, but probably everypony else, too.” “Well, I don’t know about that” I said, blushing slightly. “Never mind all this” the Princess interrupted. “We can get to this kind of thing once the war is over. For now, we should go back to Canterlot. You’ll probably want to get back to work, as our number of soldiers has started rising.” Before I could respond, the blinding light came up again and we were standing in the middle of the throne room of Princess Celestia’s castle. Connor turned around to greet me. “Welcome back, brother! How was this “Cloudsdale” place?” “It was fine, I guess” I said. “We should get back to Ponyville soon. We’ve got some work to do.” “Sure thing. Oh and by the way, Discord’s coming along to help us.” “I guess I can get you three back there right now” Princess Celestia interrupted. Once again, I had no time to respond before she teleported all of us to Ponyville in a flash of light. We were right in front of our house, but we could hear a loud and somewhat familiar banging sound coming from inside… my drums. I ran through the door to see three small fillies messing with my drum kit. “WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!” I yelled. “Who are you and what in the Sam hell do you think you’re doing to my drum kit?!” A light yellow Earth Pony with a vibrant red mane and a bright pink bow stepped up first. “I’m Applebloom!” Next was a white Unicorn with a gigantic smile and a very happy aura coming off of her. “I’m Sweetie Belle!” And last was an amber orange Pegasus with stubby little wings and a appearance like she was the daredevil of the group. “And I’m Scootaloo!” All three then yelled loudly in unison “AND WE’RE THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!” I quickly checked my ears for blood, and then asked the second question again. Applebloom stepped chimed in with an answer. “We wanted to know what they were, an’ then we found out they made sound, so we started seein’ if we could make music with ‘em.” “Okay, I’ll show you a quick demonstration, but then me and Connor gotta see if anything major has changed in town.” “YAY!” they squealed in delight. I sat down and began to think of a song that had a good drum track to it. I decided to do Forest by System of a Down. Come with me my little child Through the forest of denial Speak with me my only man Walk with me until the time Make the forest turn to wine We take the legend for a fall You saw the product Now why can’t you see that you are My child Why don’t you know that you are My mind Tell everyone in the world that I’m you Take this promise to the end Of you As soon as I was about a third of the way into the song they were bouncing along with the beat. When I finished they squealed in joy again and then asked me if they could join me while me and Connor got info on what we missed in town while we were gone. I sighed and gave in, because I knew that they would whine their goddamn heads off if I said no. The second I stepped outside I noticed that several of the buildings had collapsed. “This is not good… We gotta end this war soon” I sighed. “For now, we’ll just have to wait until we know what in the hell happened” Connor said. “But there’s gotta be a way” I said back. “We both know there’s gotta be a way to end this war. I mean, who was the heartless prick that set up Equestria? Why would anyone in their right fucking mind start a war with a place as downright innocent as Equestria?!” By this point, I was yelling. I realized that I was probably scaring the girls, so I took a deep breath and said “We just need to find a way to end this. For now, let’s just keep to our original plan, then we move on to that.” “Alright, then let’s go!” Connor replied. We began to walk down the street towards the town hall to talk to the mayor. The three small fillies were bouncing happily around us as we walked. We all pushed open the door to the town hall and waltzed on inside, ducking because the doors were only pony-sized. The secretary didn’t even bother asking us who we were there for, since it was fairly obvious to her who we were and that we had come to see Mayor Mare. Inside the Mayor’s office was really only a desk with two chairs, one for the Mayor and the other for a visitor. I didn’t bother sitting down and nopony else did either. “Mayor Mare, what in the Sam hell happened while we were gone?” I asked almost angrily. “A few buildings caught on fire and collapsed, but that’s about it” she returned calmly. “Is that it?” I asked skeptically. “Just about” she said. “We’re pretty sure it wasn’t an accident, but we aren’t too sure. Oh! And we fended off another attack while you were away.” “WHAT?!” I yelled. “It was a small one” she assured us. “We did lose quite a few ponies, including all 4 of our tower guards, though. They probably learned from last time.” “Okay… I think we should go talk to Twilight next” I suggested, taking a deep breath to calm myself down and turning to face Connor and Discord (who had decided to come along as well). “Whatever floats your boat” Connor said sarcastically. The front door of Twilight’s tree made a blunt sound as if the tree wasn’t hollow. It turned out that Twilight was trying to open it. “Oh, hi there John! Hi Conner! What’s going on?” she asked cheerfully. “Not much” I said. “Would you happen to know somepony that’s wise? Like, extremely wise?” “Do I qualify?” Twilight asked jokingly. “Shut up and answer his fucking question, Twi” Connor barked impatiently. “Alright, alright!” she withdrew. “I would say Zechora might be able to help you.” “Zechora?” I said, very puzzled by the strange name. “She’s a Zebra” Twilight explained, “a very smart one, too. She tends to speak in a lot of metaphors, and she always rhymes her words.” “Sounds like kinda wise I’m lookin’ for! Where would I find Zechora?” “She has a little hut out in the Everfree Forest” Twilight said. “Okay! Does it need any special directions or anything?” I asked. “Nope. Just follow the path and you’ll get there pretty fast.” “Okeydokey! Thanks for the help Twilight.” I turned to go to the Everfree Forest. Connor and Discord decided to go home, but the Cutie Mark Crusaders wanted to come with so I allowed them as long as they sat outside the house while I talked to Zechora. They weren’t exactly happy about it, but I didn’t want a hurricane inside the hut while I tried to get advice on how to end the war. I walked down the small dirt path until’ I reached the forest. Like usual, my brain made the connection back to the S.O.A.D song I had played earlier for the “Cutie Mark Crusaders.” I started singing it to myself quietly. Come with me my little child Through the forest of denial Speak with me my only man Walk with me until the time Make the forest turn to wine We take the legend for a fall You saw the product Now why can’t you see that you are My child Why don’t you know that you are My mind Tell everyone in the world that I’m you Take this promise to the end Of you I was not even into the second verse before I almost walked straight into a pole… pole? What the hell is a pole doing out in the middle of a forest? I realized it was one of the supports for a hut… Zechora’s hut. I opened the door slowly and walked inside to see a very… African looking Zebra (I realize how racist that sounds, but I don’t really know how else to describe it.) She simply looked up and smiled at me. “My forest home I see you have reached and what you need, perhaps I can teach. I looked around the small, gloomy-looking hut. It looked like the stereotypical African tribal hut. I decided to ignore the way it looked and focus on the matter at hand. “I will make the assumption that you’re Zechora?” I said raising eyebrow. She simply nodded and sipped from the small cup (that looked like it was half of a coconut) she was holding. I decided to get to the point as soon as possible, so I just asked “you know about the war that is going on, right?” “Many soldiers from each side flock. I live in a hut, not under a rock” she chuckled. “Indeed. Well, I need to find a way to end this war soon, or it’s gonna end up destroying Equestria.” “If they are blowing down all walls then, perhaps it is time to begin waking the fallen.” Her words echoed in my head as I silently tried to make sense of them. What could she mean by waking the fallen? Raise the dead? How would I do that? Or… she could mean… bring back… It hit me. “Thank you Zechora!” I spouted. Before she could open her mouth to respond I was already out the door. The Cutie Mark Crusaders trotted up beside me to find out what went on in there. “I found out how to finish this all!” I said with a smirk. I ran back to the house to tell Connor and Discord about my solution. I nearly broke down the door while trying to scramble in. “Connor! Discord! Get your dumb asses out here! We’ve got a HUGE change of plans!” “What?! What is it?!” Connor yelled, nearly tripping on his slide around the corner of the hallway. “We’ve got the way to end the war!” I shouted. “It’s simple, but it’ll still require a shit-load of work!” “Then what are you waiting for! Tell me so we can get started!” “We’ve gotta make WWII weapons!”………. There was a massive silence in the room until Connor finally spoke up. “What are you smoking, John, and can I have some, ‘cuz it seem pretty effective if you’re tripping balls THAT much.” “I’m serious!” I told him. “We have to “wake the fallen.” We’ve gotta use what hasn’t been used in a long time! The weapons from WWII. Anything farther back and we might as well be throwing rocks at ‘em.” “Waking the fallen?” he questioned. “Couldn’t that just mean to raise the dead?” “Well yeah, but how in the Sam hell would we do that?” “Good point” he agreed. “Alright, but you better be right about this!” “Trust me Connor, It’ll work.” “Time to get back to the old O’Drake family trade” he said walking over to his desk. “You gotta guide me through some of these, though, ‘cuz I haven’t got the slightest idea how to make these.” “Okay. You three!” I said pointing over at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “I need you three to go get Twilight as soon as you possibly can.” “On it!” they all yelled before dashing out the door at an amazing speed. Good that they were on that, because now I could get to work. After 2 hours or so, Connor and Discord both knew what to do and were making their first guns. I made sure to check Discords work for his first ones, because he had never made guns before. After the first 4 hours, Connor and Discord were close to done with their first ones, where as I was done with a Thompson and I was in the middle of working on a Trench Gun (or a shotgun for those of you that have no knowledge of WWII). It was then when Twilight knocked on the door and I rushed from my work to open it. “Twilight!” I greeted her. “No time for small talk. You need to send a message to the Princess ASAP. We’re re-arming the entire Equestrian military! It may take a while, but I swear to god, I won’t sleep until we’re done!” “Okay, but before you get working on that, we figured out that those burning buildings weren’t an accident” Twilight explained. “We found this in the ashes.” She gave me a partially burnt piece of paper. It said this: If you’ve found this letter, that means I haven’t done a good enough job burning down those buildings. I know that I wasn’t supposed to burn down any buildings on my mission, but I think you bastards deserve to die. One sentient species on this planet has already fucked up everything beyond all possible repair. Regardless of how FUBAR our planet has gotten, my point is that we don’t need another sentient race contributing to the shitstorm that we’ve created for ourselves. Plus, we also already have horses AS WELL as ponies on this planet. The good part about those ones, though, is that they do what we tell them to. Feel free to try and find me, but even with my signature, you never will. Shit will keep going your way as long as I’m here, too! Signed Ltc. McMarland P.S.: I managed to spark the war! I’ll give you a hint: Legs without feet on a creature with four and faking the ignorance of extreme destruction. “What… in the Sam… hell…” “What do you think that riddle means?” Twilight thought out loud, interrupting my shock. “Well, for legs without feet, I think he’s talking about hooves, and on a creature that had four meaning he used a pony to do it, must be how they traced it back to Equestria. Faking the ignorance of extreme destruction…” I trailed off into deep thought for about 10 minutes until I put it together… “I GOT IT!” I yelled. “Ignorance of extreme destruction! The first letters of all those words (excluding “of”) spells IED! Faking it meaning he used a fake IED!” “But how would they know about it if it was fake?” Twilight stepped in once again. “He set one off, then had a fake one set up. That’s why the U.S. sees us as enemies. That’s why they think we set off explosives inside their territory!” I had just had one of the greatest realizations of my life, but there was still something we hadn’t figured out. “How do we find this Ltc. McMarland?” “Well at least we know his name and rank” Connor butted in. “He could be leading one of the teams that will attack Canterlot” “What if he isn’t” Twilight asked. “If wishes were fishes the world would be an ocean, but that’s just not the goddamn case now, is it?” I retaliated sarcastically. “Come on, brother” Connor said, patting me on the shoulder. “We got a lot of work to do.” I turned around and got back to my work. I knew that if we were gonna kill this “Ltc. McMarland” guy, we were gonna need a lot of guns. It was a good thing that making WWII weapons was a specialty of mine (sort of). So that’s what we did for over 2 weeks straight… with only about 6 hours of sleep every other night… we just kept on working. We kept on waking the fallen. Weak from my work, I sat down on my drum stool. Lucky for me, my work was over. We had finished ass-loads of weapons in a mere 2 months. Both me and Connor were completely wiped out from our excessive amounts of work, so I decided to force myself to push off the stool and limp slowly to the pony-sized bed where I decided to lay down and sleep. When I woke up, it was already the next morning. I pushed myself out of the small bed, feeling a LOT better now that I had slept from about noon to 8 O’clock the next day. It took a little while to get out of the house and on my way to Twilight’s, but I did need to know what had happened recently. I did this every fortnight to make sure neither me nor Connor missed out on something very important. I knocked on the door, and the usual Twilight shouted “It’s a public library! You don’t need to knock!” I shrugged and busted through the door. “So what’s happened in the past weeks?” “Well, nothing really. I haven’t heard anything from the Princess lately” she said calmly. “Well, that works for me” I shrugged. Those three small ponies came back to mind and instantly struck my curiosity. I hadn’t the slightest clue where the hell they were though. I decided it would be the quickest solution if I were to just ask Twilight. “Hey, Twilight? Do you know where those three little fillies that are always together are?” She looked slightly puzzled at first, which I don’t blame her for considering I was so vague. Suddenly, a lightbulb seemed to go off. “Oh! You mean Applebloom and her friends! They’re normally up at Sweet Apple Acres. That’s where Applebloom’s sister Applejack lives.” I remembered where Sweet Apple Acres was from when I was going around arming everypony in town. I walked up to where the front of the barn was and my nostrils were instantly filled with that fragrance of apples. I saw a big red pony pulling a cart alongside a much smaller orange pony. I approached the two and gave my introduction. “Well, howdy there!” the orange one spouted enthusiastically. “Ma name’s Applejack! This here’s ma big brother Big Mac. What brings you ta these parts, Mr. Jack?” “I haven’t got much to do today, so I was just trying to find something interesting to do” I answered. Applejack burst out with hysterical laughter and her brother simply started giving off very low-pitched giggles. She got up and through her laughter said “well, ya sure didn’t pick the most interesting place to be for a city colt!” “Oh, well it’s not the whole “apple orchard” part of it” I explained, “it’s just that I remembered that your little sister and her friends seemed to be the kind to get into a lot of trouble and I haven’t been out of my house except to get updates on anything important for over 2 months, so what they’ve gotten themselves into has peeked my curiosity.” “Okeydokey then Mr. Jack! They’re almost always back there in that lil’ ol’ wooden clubhouse.” “Thank you, Applejack. Nice meetin’ you both!” I said walking off. I knocked on the tiny front door and one of them bounced over and opened it. “Hi there, young ones!” I greeted them. “Hey, Mr. Jack!” Applebloom said cheerfully. At those words my head started pounding and my inner process of rational thought turned off as music started playing in my head. I fell to my knees and bent forwards on all fours. I swung my head up fast and hit my head on the frame of the tiny door. My body regained control and everything went back to normal with the exception of my head throbbing really hard. “What was that?” Applebloom asked curiously. “It’s hard to explain” I said. “Whenever somepony says “Mr. Jack” after saying hey, I kind of lose control. It’s something that just happens. It gets worse if you say a few other things after that.” “Okay” the three said together while trying to put a blanket over something behind them. “What are you hiding from me?” I asked. “Nothing” Sweetie Belle yelled quickly. I brushed the three of them out of the way because I noticed that the things under the blanket looked strangely shaped. I swung off the blanket and saw under it… “WHAT THE FU-“ I stopped myself mid-sentence. Under it was a bunch of weapons. There was a Thompson, a Trench Gun, a BAR and 3 Colt M1911s. All of which had plenty of ammo neatly packed in magazines placed around them. “Why in the Sam hell do you girls have these guns?!” The three of them started awkwardly laughing. “We wanted to see if we could be-“ Scootaloo was in the middle of a sentence, but I interrupted her. “Dead? Because that’s what you’d be if you messed up on one tiny thing while using any one of these!” “We’re sorry” Applebloom said giving me a puppy-dog face. “I’m not so much of mad as I am surprised that you three managed to get your han- er… I mean hooves on these!” I said. “So you’re not mad?” Scootaloo asked looking up at me with sparkling little eyes. “No” I laughed. “I did this same thing when I was around your age. You just need to know that this is not a good thing unless you are 100% properly trained to use guns. If you aren’t, you will be in a lot more danger than you’d think. People and ponies in the military are trained how to use guns and accidents still happen all the time!” “Yay!” Sweetie Belle squealed in rejoice. “We thought you would kill us!” “Oh, don’t worry” I assured them. “I did my share of stupid shit when I was your age. Just make sure you don’t do anything that’ll kill you.” “I think that’s kind of self-explanatory” Scootaloo added sarcastically. “Alright, Ms. Sarcastic, I think it’s best I take these back with me.” The three made a cute little “aaaaawwwwwwww” in unison. I sighed and said “okay, okay, I’ll tell ya what. I’ll teach you how to use the guns as long as you 3 keep your miniature-sized traps shut to your sisters, parents and whoever else about this, alright?” “It’s a deal!” Applebloom spouted, hopping as she said it. “Okay then, I’ll start off by showing you the most important part of the gun: the safety. You don’t keep this on and you can have a random bullet go off and hit Applejack or some other innocent pony. It may be an accident, but the law won’t care.” I continued on my lecture on how the guns worked while the Cutie Mark Crusaders watched and listened intently. After what was about an hour or so, I took the girls out and set up some old rotting apples Applebloom found as targets. At the first shot, Big Mac and Applejack came running faster than I thought they could run. “What the hay is going on here!” Applejack yelled. “Don’t flip your shit woman” I returned, annoyed. “They’d need to learn how to shoot sooner or later. You never know when they might need to defend themselves.” “Eeyup” Big Mac agreed. “Alright, but if they get even a scratch on-“ “Applejack, I know what I’m doing. The first thing I taught them about was the safety. If I didn’t know what I was doing then why in the Sam hell would I be teaching them?” She backed off hesitantly and angrily, whereas Big Mac just sauntered away casually. I watched the three fillies as they got more and more accurate. “You keep it up and you’re gonna go far, kid!” I said. The three of them put their safeties on and turned to me. “You really think so?” Applebloom squealed excitedly. “Of course!” I replied. “I might actually use you girls for any kind of recon or information gathering we might need to do later.” They all let out a loud happy “YAY!” and went back to shooting at the rotten apples. After a long day of target practice instruction, lectures on how to properly use guns, and Applejack repeatedly coming back because of her extreme concern, I went home to Connor and Discord sitting and talking about who they had pranked and what happened. “What’s up, John?” he greeted me. “Not much” I replied. “I just spent the day instructing Applebloom and her friends on how to use guns. I think it went pretty well, to be honest.” “Fantastic” he said before turning back to Discord and continuing to laugh their heads off and then back onto their bodies. I dragged myself back to my room where I laid down and… just laid there. For about 20 or 30 minutes, I just laid there. I couldn’t tell what was going to happen next. This war was unusually unpredictable, as if it was some kind of a written story or something. It was only the question of what would happen next… There was a knock at the door, and since Discord and Connor were still dying of laughter, I got up to answer it myself. I opened the door and it was… Princess Celestia and Luna… “Canterlot has been taken over.” “… Well, we’re fucked.” I turned around and walked back inside. “Come inside if you want. I’ll be sitting here thinking of an idea that won’t get us killed.” “Thou art not out of all options” Luna said, interrupting my self-directed anger. “If we keep calm and develop a plan, perhaps we can overcome these hardships as Equestria has overcome problems before.” “Thank you for your suggestion, Princess” I replied, “but I’m afraid this is something too big for anypony here to handle.” “I wouldn’t say that just yet” Connor yelled, while behind him, a man stepped out in an old military uniform, but it wasn’t U.S. He was holding an assault rifle that looked similar to an AK47… But it was noticeably different. He also had a holstered pistol that looked (from what I could tell) as if it was a P226. My eyes traveled up and I saw his face. Short black hair with several large scars along his nose and left eye. His right eye was missing, though… It hit me… this was Afanasai Aleksander Chechnoi. “Our salvation has arrived!” “You must be Afanasai” I greeted him. He nodded, remaining silent. “You were a Spetsnaz soldier, right?” He nodded again. “What’s that weapon you’re holding?” “AK103” He answered in a very deep voice with a Russian accent that was as thick as a bank’s safe door. “Well, it’s great to have you aboard, Afanasai” I said, sticking my hand out as he shook it. “As you heard, we have a problem at hand. I assume you’re staying in the empty room right there, so you should be fine for accommodations. We also need someone to help me and Connor come up with a plan that won’t kill everypony here.” “I’ve also got other news” Connor interrupted once again. “I’ve managed to remember an old WWII pistol that is VERY quiet.” “Well what in the Sam hell are you waiting for, Connor. Spit it out!” “It’s called the Welrod. It’s an old British weapon” he explained. “Only about 2800 were made officially. There is a catch though… It’s bolt action.” “Bolt action… Are you fucking kidding me?” I growled at him, quite annoyed with his statement. “It works! Trust me, I’ve made and tested one of these before! They work like a charm!” He seemed intent on this so I told him to turn out 4 or 5 of them ASAP. I turned back to Afanasai. “Our target is Lieutenant Colonel McMarland. We’re not sure if he’s actually in Canterlot, so if we just barge in and mow people down, it may be a wasted effort.” He looked at me with a skeptical look, as If I should know what our first move should be. “Recon” he finally said. “Ah” I sighed. “But who is small and agile enough to be able to sneak around Canterlot unseen…” I had an idea… but Applejack wouldn’t be too happy about it. “NO!” Applejack was so angry her coat looked as if it would go from bright orange to red. “If ya’ll think I’m gonna risk ma little sister like that, yer outta yer pony picken’ mind!” “She’s small, she’s agile and goddammit, she’s well trained!” I argued. “There’s no way that she could get hurt. Hell, she could pass off as a Canterlot citizen.” “I don’t give a flyin’ feather!” she yelled. “I’m not lettin’ ‘er go, and that’s final!” From behind me came a deep and robust voice. “He’s got a point. And plus, she’s obviously not gonna be on ‘er own. Doin’ that’d be like tellin’ a fish to run a race!” It was her brother, Big Mac. “Ya’ll stay outta this, Big McIntosh.” “I have just as much of a sayin’ in this as you!” he shouted back. “She’s not gonna go alone. I’ll be there with her and we’ll have her two friends there, too!” I added. “Have fun tryin’ ta get Rarity to let HER sister go!” Applejack responded in a smart-ass tone. “Look, little sis” Big Mac continued. “I’ve made ma decision, and there ain’t a thing you can do ‘bout it! She’ll be perfectly safe, and so will all her little friends!” Applejack let out an angered snort and stormed off back to her house. “No need ta thank me. I know that the fate of Equestria rides on yer shoulders, so you should get all the help you can” Big Mac said, smiling at me. “I also trust ya ta take good care of Applebloom, seein’ how well you an’ her seem ta get along.” I nodded and took my leave. There was only one more angrily over protective big sister I had to deal with… Rarity. “Not a chance!” she spouted, turning away from me. “Applebloom, Scootaloo and I are all already going! I guarantee that Sweetie Belle will NOT get hurt AT ALL! “It doesn’t matter to me” she retaliated. “Look here! This is the fate of your fucking existence we’re dealing with!” I roared, having just snapped. “I don’t give a fuck if you want to be “super safe” about her safety. I know she won’t get hurt! She’s coming along. I don’t care what your decision is, because I think that a one in a million chance of her getting hurt is better than a one in one chance of everypony in town dying! She better be over at my house tomorrow night, completely ready, or I won’t be responsible for the shit that I’ll do!” Her eyes were the size of dinner plates. She gulped and squeaked out “she’ll be there.” “Thank you” I sighed. I went back home and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t manage (like usual). I got up and went to see if Connor was still at work. Sure enough, he was working away. “You can’t sleep either?” I asked him, walking into the room and probably scaring the living Christ out of him. “Not at all” he replied. “What do you think is gonna happen?” “Well, we have a home field advantage, so if we get a good plan then we may be able to find and kill this McMuffin guy.” “McMuffin” I laughed to myself. “Well, we still need to know if he’s there. That’s why I’m going on some recon with the CMC tomorrow night.” “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” “What do you mean?” I asked as a response to his question. “I mean, this is the U.S. Military we’re talking about. Super advanced shit, right? Don’t you think you’ll get… you know… obliterated?” “I would care, but I’m all out of fucks to give” I told him. It was silent for a little bit after that. “Look” I started up again. “This is the only way to figure out if he’s ACTUALLY there. We don’t want to barge in and figure out he’s not there, and we sure as hell can’t just walk up and ask them.” “I suppose you have a point” Connor agreed. He picked up all 5 Welrods in his arms and carried them over to a little target he had set up for this. “Let’s make sure these work, though.” He tried to fire one, but it jammed instantly. He started mumbling what was probably endless cursing as he struggled to release the jam. Once he had released the jammed bullet, he tried to fire again… it jammed. “What the fuck?” he muttered angrily. He turned to me. “I don’t get it! These should work!” He picked up a M1911.”I mean, these work perfectly! Not a single problem!” He turned to fire, but when he did, it backfired. He stumbled back in pain, but tripped over the 4 other Welrods on the ground beside him. One of them fired off into his leg. “AAAARRGH!” he yelled in agony. “Oh my god, are you Okay?” I asked frantically, racing over to his side. “Oh I’m just fine” he said sarcastically, “except for the fact that I have a FUCKING BULLET INSIDE MY LEG!” “Shit, uh… we gotta get you to one of the princesses. They can help.” “Sure, just get this bullet out of my flesh!” he begged. I ran to Twilight’s and got Princess Celestia (who was staying there along with Luna for the time being). She teleported us over and took a look at Connor. “I can handle this” she assured me. It was so fast I couldn’t tell what she did, but she sure fixed him up pretty well. “I can’t walk, though!” “That tends to happen when you get shot in the leg” I replied. The rest of that day, I was stuck working on those Welrods all on my own. I had never made them before so it was complete trial and error on the troubleshooting. It took me all day to get all 5 of them to work properly and by then I had probably wasted a good 100$ or so in ammunition (considering 9mm ammunition is a cheap handgun bullet [thank god]). Night was closing in and it was almost time to go on recon with the CMC. I had all the Welrods ready and loaded. It was tonight when we found out if McMuffin was there or not. It was late… almost time to leave. I was pacing, wondering where in the Sam hell Applebloom and her friends were. I noticed there was some chatter from outside the door. After a little bit, I heard the voices yell “CUTIE MARK CRUSADER RECON FORCES!” It was obvious who was outside the door. I opened the door and sure enough, Applebloom, Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo were all standing there, eager to get going. “You girls ready for this?” I asked. “YEAH!!!!” “Remember, though! This is a stealth-based mission. We want to remain as hidden as possible” I reminded them. “Oh yeah, sorry” Sweetie Bell apologized. “It doesn’t matter right now” I laughed. “Come on girls, we got some work to do!” Applebloom walked up to me and nervously said “Is it true that Manehattan was taken over?” “Yeah” “I hope Babs is all right” she sighed, looking down. “It’s ok” I assured, kneeling down next to her. “This war was a set-up. It wasn’t meant to happen. That’s why we’re going on recon. We know the guy who set us up, but we need to know if he’s at Canterlot right now. If we go in without info and it turns out he ISN’T there, we’ll have just wasted ammo, effort and most of all, lives. That’s why we’re gonna do this.” “Let’s go!” Applebloom shouted enthusiastically. “That’s the spirit!” We walked off down the road to get our transportation to the castle… Twilight’s magic. We were in front of the castle gates. I thanked Twilight for her help and she promised she’d wait hidden in the bushes. All 4 of us were wearing the most naturally-dark clothes possible so we could blend in with shadows. Me and the girls approached the locked gate and tried to look for a way in… nothing. But then Sweetie Bell spotted a piece of the wall was missing and it was covered on each side by bushes. It happened to be just big enough for me to squeeze through. I managed to get through, and so did the CMC, so we were in. There was a slight lack of patrols and such. Two soldiers were standing near the drawbridge which was closed and there weren’t too many more that weren’t stationed in specific areas that allow quite a clear view of most of the courtyard of the castle. We traveled, carefully using the shadows as our cover until we had reached the side of the castle. I spotted a suitable area to climb up to a high window that would look directly into the throne room. “Alright, girls” I said turning my head to them. “I’m gonna climb up there and see if I can’t spot the target. I need you gals to cover me the best you can. If any soldiers come close enough to see me, knock them out unless they see you. In that case, just shoot them and drag the body into the bushes.” They nodded and I quickly ran over to the side of the castle with the climbable area. Lucky for me, Luna had done a kindness of making tonight a little darker than usual, so I blended in with the side of the castle much more. I made sure my footing was stable, and then started climbing as fast as I could. It was a really long way up to the window I was trying to get to. After a while, I looked down and saw the three fillies sitting there watching out for any soldiers while watching me intently at the same time. It was about 10 minutes of hopping around like I was in Assassin’s Creed before I had reached the window I was trying to get to, but it was worth it. Inside the window, two officers were conversing about the war. One of them mentioned that the other one was the Lieutenant Colonel we were after: Ltc. McMarland. I knew his face now, but before I went, I realized that the other officer had found out about McMuffin’s betrayal. A soldier (supposedly working with McMuffin on this) came up behind him and used a silenced pistol to put a bullet into the back of his head, spewing blood onto McMuffin’s face. I shook off my shock and began my descent. As soon as I made it down, the girls were looking at me with hyper expect faces… I sighed “he’s there.” We began making our way back towards the hole in the wall that we had come through. Once we reached it, the girls started to pile through. Before I went through, one of the soldiers out and about managed to spot me. He got a little skeptical, so he walked over to check if anything was there. In the time it took for him to walk, I slipped through the hole in the wall and moved out of the line of sight he would have if he looked through the hole. After about 5 minutes, I assumed he was gone and I got up to go rendezvous with the girls and Twilight. Once we were all there, we teleported back to the front of my house. “Great work girls. We got what we needed and didn’t have to kill anyone!” I stated happily. “Mission accomplished!” They let out a loud “YAY!” The next morning, I walked out into our main room to see Connor sitting next to Afanasai on the sofa. They weren’t talking… in fact, Connor was sleeping. I greeted Afanasai and sat down on the opposite side of the room. “We need a plan” he said almost monotonously. “Tell me about it” I replied. “We know he’s there, though. We found him there. Now we just need a plan and an army.” Afanasai and I started plotting on how to get to McMuffin. It was the most Afanasai had ever talked since I met him. Our plan was complex, but it was very doable and it was absolutely foolproof. “I think we’re ready” I chimed in after a while. “Now we just need to gather enough ponies and weapons, split them into teams and give them a rundown on how we’re gonna do this.” It took several hours to get all the weapons rounded up (especially because Connor was a complete slowpoke with the limp he had from the gunshot in his leg), but we were able to tell ponies to wait at the front of my house while we worked. “Alright everypony!” I shouted to address the crowd. We had also gotten Princess Celestia to contact any of the ponies from Cloudsdale that wanted to help, and obviously the Wonderbolts responded immediately. “As you should know (if you haven’t been living under a rock), we are at war with the United States of America. What you probably don’t know is that this war was a set up!” Quiet chatter began to resonate from the crowd of now surprised ponies. “I know it’s hard to believe, but we have proof. We received notice that an Improvised Explosive Device was set off inside of the United States, and it was traced back to Equestria, leading them to believe it was us. Then, after those buildings burned down and collapsed, we found a letter from a military officer named McMarland. He got somepony to set up one live IED and one fake one. He believes that a second sentient species should not exist on Earth, so regardless of what may happen to him, he decided to take matters into his own hands. We have confirmation that he is at Canterlot, and that’s why you’re all here.” The crowd began to erupt with chatter once again. Afanasai fired a few shots from his AK103 up into the air, shutting the crowd up almost instantly. “Look, we’ve come up with a plan, but we need all the help we can get. First, we’ve gotta divide everypony into teams. Team leaders will be me, Afanasai, Spitfire, Connor (if his leg doesn’t get in the way), Shining Armor, Rainbow Dash and Big McIntosh. As soon as we break everypony into individual teams, I’ll give you all your instructions separately. For now, stay with your assigned teams and just talk, sing, do whatever you want to do. Just stay in your groups.” The groups got assigned. I went around to every group and gave specific instructions on how the operation would work. I also asked Princess Celestia to do something else to help out. Eventually Connor limped over to me and asked “why are you doin’ this all today?” “Because we leave tonight” I answered. I armed all the groups according to their assigned tasks, and Afanasai managed to get his hands on some… special grenades that we gave to The Wonderbolts for their task. Me and Connor each got one as well. My team was “Equipe Um.” Connor’s team was “Equipe Dois.” Afanasai’s team was “Equipe três.” Spitfire’s team was “Equipe Céu.” Shining Armor’s team was “Equipe Magia.” Rainbow Dash’s team was “Equipe Asas.” Big Mac’s team was “Equipe Escavadeira.” All team names were in Portuguese just to be safe. We were all ready… we just had to wait for the right time now. Me, Connor, Afanasai and Discord all sat talking. “So what is this operation entitled?” Discord questioned curiously. “Operation Ground and Pound!” I stated proudly. “It’s foolproof, trust me!” “How doth thou know?” a voice interrupted. It was Princess Luna. She walked from the hallway over to me. “Thou art risking thy life for a single man.” “Truth resonates of thy words like light from a mirror” I replied, trying to speak as Shakespearian as possible. “Care has been taken in analyzing every detail of this plan and I assure any and all that it will not fail. That said, what is thy question’s purpose? Doth worry for me gather to you?” “Thou art a brave young soul” she said nervously, looking down. “I have appreciation of that. There is also many other things. One of many is thy comprehension of the forgotten speech of the ancients.” “From my home and birthplace, we call the speech thou speak of “Shakespearian”.” “So it is a commonality from thy place of birth?” “Not quite” I replied. I noticed that everyone around me was gawking in awe at how well I was communicating with Luna. “Mr. William Shakespeare was a playwright. Perhaps the world’s most famous at that. His speech was always constructed in this way. My spare time was often spent reading the works of Shakespeare. His mind was irreplaceable as well as incomparable to others.” Something slipped out after that. “His knowledge almost matches thy beauty.” Luna’s face went from dark blue to bright red. “Wha…?” I heard Connor mutter “What the fuck have you done, brother.” Afanasai was simply shaking his head in disapproval. I noticed that my eyes had just widened, so at least I was shocked, too. “Did I just that out loud?” Everyone in the room nodded awkwardly in unison. “Well… this is… awkward.” I expected Luna to erupt in anger but she just stood there. She said nothing; her face remained as red as a rose covered in blood and Connor and Afanasai continued to disapprove while Discord just sat there uncomfortably. After what seemed like forever, Luna finally spoke up. “Doth thou speak those words truthfully?” I nodded. “Thy bravery has been proven once again, John, and has also shown thy kindness. I admire you on the same level.” It was my turn to turn red now. “Yo-… thy words are truthful?” I stumbled to keep speaking in Shakespearian. She nodded. “I’m… I’m honored.” “I believe ending this war should be what we worry about first” Afanasai interrupted with his tainted-glass-dark voice. “This one…” Luna started. “He speaks the truth.” “As thy wishes command me” I said, smiling. “But I may not come back with breath in my lungs nor blood in my veins.” “When doth the end begin?” she asked. I looked over at Connor. “We need to get going in less than an hour. Not any magic can teleport groups of ponies this big, especially all the way to Canterlot” Connor told Luna. “We also can’t use the train system, so it looks like we have to walk, and that’s a damn long distance.” “Then I shall give a farewell now and hope you remain alive later” she replied almost sounding sad regardless of her smiling. Before I could get anywhere close to saying anything she rushed over and kissed me… It went on for what seemed like forever, but it eventually ended. Afterwards, she looked at me with her face once again a deep yet bright red. She then simply ran out of the room. “Well, that certainly was interesting” Discord spouted randomly. “Yeah… Interesting… Let’s go with that” Afanasai added sarcastically. “Alright, let’s get ready to take this shit head on!” I chimed in. “Get your groups ready and let’s all start moving to our designated locations around the castle. Let’s bag ourselves Lieutenant Colonel McMuffin, boys!” “I’ll go gather the groups. You wa-” I cut off Connor remembering something that would help… possibly. “I think I should listen to… that song” I hinted. “Nonononononono. You can’t do that” Connor pleaded. “You’ll go crazy.” “I don’t care” I said. “I’m gonna do it” I walked into my room and got out of one of the boxes that had my stuff… an IPod and speakers. I turned up the volume to maximum and put on the song “Mr. Jack.” As it started, my head began to hurt and my eyes started to water… It was coming back Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the mouthwash in your eyes Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the cause of your surprise Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car I began to uncontrollably throw up as I remembered what had happened. Outside, I could hear Connor telling Afanasai and Discord what happened. “He went into the back room of the shop to grab something, and this song was playing. He came back to see both of his parents dead. There was a guy standing over his mother’s corpse and the guy was… let’s just describe it with the word “necrophilia.” He picked up an old revolver that his grandfather made him and blew the bastard’s brains all over the wall… then he emptied 11 more bullets into his corpse. He was proven innocent and the killing that guy was considered justified, but now whenever John hears that song, he has a relapse of everything that happened.” Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the trick of your disguise Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the cause of your demise Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car I started to regain my conscious thoughts, regardless that all of them consisted of unbelievable amounts of anger . Your prospect of living is gone You ran the light at dawn Protectors on your back Lights are on their track You must now face authority You’re nothing like me You must now face authority You’re nothing like me Put your hands up, get out of the car Put your hands up, get out of the car Put your hands up, get out of the car Fuck you pig Fuck you pig Fuck you pig Fuck you pig Put your hands up, get out of the car The song finally came to an end after four minutes. I burst out of the room, almost breaking the door down. Connor was about to ask if I was okay, but I reacted before him. “Before you say something fucking absolutely pointless, let me remind you dipshits that we need to gather our weapons and leave, because the sooner we make it to Canterlot, the better chance we have of ending up alive after this, so don’t say a fucking thing, grab whatever shit you need and move.” All three of them were staring at me with wide eyes. I ignored them and stormed out the door with my equipment. I only had one thing on my mind: KILL LIUTENANT COLONAL MCMARLAND It took hours and hours, but we were finally in position. “Equipe Dois and Três, are you in position?” I called the teams angrily over our earpieces that Afanasai had generously let all the team leaders borrow. “Waitin’ for your call, John” Connor replied. “Ready” Afanasai uttered. “Good” I said, still blinded by my own anger. “Equipe Céu, are you ready for your task?” “Anytime” Spitfire responded. “Equipe Magia and Asas?” “Waiting for your mark!” Shining Armor chimed in. “Me too!” Rainbow Dash added. “Okay” I thought, remembering the last team. “Equipe Escavadeira?” “Eeyup.” I think you can guess who that is. “Alright, Operation Ground and Pound is all set up” I told everypony, cracking a viciously evil smile. “Let’s get this bitch rollin’!” Connor and I moved (along with our teams) through the crack in the wall me and the CMC found and we all moved onto our separate sides of the building, readying ourselves for whatever might happen. Connor beeped in on my earpiece. “Hey, do you have your FB?” “You think I’m that fucking stupid?” “No, I’m just making sure” he withdrew hastily. “Get your FB ready” I commanded. “Céu! How many soldiers are guarding the entrance?” “Uh… a lot” Spitfire hesitated. “Okay…” I pulled the pin on my FB. “THROW IT NOW!” I barked into the earpiece. Me and Connor let both of our FBs fly to the front of the castle and we covered our ears, closed our eyes and turned away from the blast. BANG! “SHIT!” we heard come from the soldiers. “The Flashbangs worked!” I informed everypony. “Plan is in motion. Connor, get your lazy ass up and open fire! Três, you come in in about 3 to 5 minutes.” Me and Connor got up and opened fire on the soldiers as well as our team joining us with their rifles. At least 4 or 5 dropped down, but the rest of them remained standing, but still a little disoriented from the unexpected Flashbang. It wasn’t long before they had regained their full orientation and we all had to reload. Connor and I managed to reload quickly, but about half of each of our teams got shot, most of them dying. “FUCK! We’ve got multiple dead already! Três, where the fuck are you?!” “Right here” Afanasai interrupted, opening fire with his AK103 from in one of the bushes, while the rest of his team fired from other bushes around the courtyard. They took out another 2 or 3, but most of them were behind good cover now. All gunfire ceased for a moment, but before long another 2 soldiers popped out and managed to shoot down a few of Afanasai’s team before both got wounded. The drawbridge lowered to let out more soldiers. All was going right as I had hoped. “Céu! Solar rain! Now!” I yelled. The Wonderbolts flew overhead, dropping numerous Flashbangs onto the bridge the soldiers were on while everyone else changed to a full magazine along with dodging the effects of the Flashbangs the best we could. 4 of the Wonderbolts got wounded and began falling out of the air. Lucky for us, they made it over to the other side of the wall. We all came out of cover and opened fire on the stumbling and blinded soldiers. The majority of them went down, but 2 managed to get behind cover. Once again, we had luck on our side, as Afanasai was a dead-eye shot and took out both of them quickly. “Let’s move” I demanded. “The longer we wait, the better chance that fucker’s gonna get away!” We all rushed into the castle, which is when Equipes Magia, Asas and Escavadeira were all supposed to come into the castle courtyard. I heard an explosion from the back wall, which was a little IED of our own, only being used by Equipe Magia to breach the thick wall. Asas could fly over and Escavadeira would just go through where Magia did. Inside the castle, dozens of soldiers were waiting for us, all behind cover and waiting for the time to catch us of guard. We waltzed right in, making us all a little skeptical and right when we thought the coast was clear, one of the royal guards on Connor’s team’s head exploded, spraying grey matter all over his other team members. We all dove into the best cover we could find, but when Connor dove, he hurt his leg and wasn’t able to get back up. I knew it was going to be a problem. “Escavadeira! Come in!” I growled. “Get your stupid asses in here and mow these fuckers down!” There was a short silence and then from the door came a deep and familiar “Eeyup.” Big Mac and the rest of Equipe Escavadeira popped out, all armed with their LMGs. They let out a huge stream of bullets as if they were all carrying garden hoses that spewed bullets instead of water. The majority of the soldiers dropped dead, but several of them were still standing and managed to shoot down one of the ponies on Big Mac’s team. I dove over and got the dropped pony’s LMG and went and gave it to Connor for his M4A1 and its ammo which I kept just in case. We moved up again, but this time, the throne room doors were locked. It looked like we would have to go through the vents or something… I kept thinking. We had no explosives, no lock-picking equipment, nothing that could help us with this. “Fuck it” I snorted. “I’m goin through the vents.” “Are you sure?” Connor asked doubtingly. “Shut the fuck up and wait for me to open the doors.” I found no ventilation (not a surprise if you think about it) but I did remember my Assassin’s Creed-style climbing. “Wait here” I demanded. I ran out the door and dashed over to the side of the building, proceeding to climb upwards towards the window I was at before. This time, it only took me about 3 or 4 minutes to get to the window, considering I was kind of in a hurry. As soon as I reached the right window, I held on the best I could and grabbed out my M1911 and then blew the glass out of the window frame. Dropping to the floor, I noticed that no one had noticed my entry. They probably thought it was a window on another floor or a stray bullet hit the window or something. As quietly as possible, I unlocked the door from the outside and let everypony in. We all marched inside as we raised our weapons at the unsuspecting soldiers along with a few officers, one of which was McMarland. “Do not shoot any of the officers” I whispered. “Get ready to fire…… now!” Sound waves resonated across the room as bullets flew from all of our guns. Some of the soldiers had already taken cover behind 2 wooden tables that they tipped over and so had all the officers. The only soldiers that went down were the ones standing up. We all stopped not to reload, but to trick the soldiers into standing up. A few of us DID reload though, like me because I was using my M1, so I had to reload every 8 shots. Sure enough, the soldiers stood up and those of us who weren’t reloading shot the standing soldiers. All of them were down. I looked around us, only seeing a few ponies wounded and 1 or 2 dead. We all approached the covered officers with caution, knowing that these guys didn’t get to be officers because they paid for it. We got only close enough so that we were about a foot or 2 away from the legs of the two wooden tables they were using as cover. I had just come down from my fantastic rage, so I said in a much calmer tone “get up with your hands up and empty and we won’t shoot you.” They all stayed where they were. I spoke up again, “we only want Ltc. McMarland. He’s a traitor.” They then stood up with empty hands in the air as asked. “Thank you, gentlemen. Now if you would kindly tell me which one of you is Ltc. McMarland so I can blow his brains out, this would end much faster. They all started quietly talking among each other. I thought I could hear them doubting if McMarland was really a traitor. Twilight suddenly burst racing into the room holding a rolled up piece of parchment. “STOP! John! The war is over! They verified the evidence!” All of the officers looked a little confused. “We sent the handwritten letter that McMarland wrote to the United States’ government telling them of the situation. They’ve verified the evidence and declared that the war is over.” “Is it still okay if I shoot him?” I asked. “Yeah, probably” Spike said, who had been riding on Twilight’s back when she ran inside. “Good, ‘cuz I would’ve done it anyway!” I turned back to the officers. I spotted one who had something in his hand… oh shit… He began casually walking forward until he was only a few inches away from me. “EAT MY CORNBREAD! ALLAH!” the officer screamed as he clicked a C4 detonator. The huge explosion blew off the back of the castle and sent everyone in the room flying. The smoke cleared out slowly as I opened my eyes to a blurry view of the cracked and partially charred ceiling. My ears were still ringing from McMarland’s C4 explosion, but I still managed to get to my feet and start trying to look around. My vision slowly came into view as I saw that all the other officers were nowhere to be seen. They must have been blown up by the explosion. I stumbled over to Connor who was lying against the wall on the left of the throne room, still breathing but unconscious. McMarland raised his head to look around from where he was on the right side of the throne room, and he almost instantly spotted me. He slowly, carefully and quietly got out his pistol and checked that it was loaded and the safety was off. He apparently wanted my attention when he killed me because he shouted the one thing he shouldn’t have… “Hey, Mr. Jack!” My ears started ringing again, but not from the explosion. I knew the bastard was wishing for his own death on this one. He yelled again “hey, Mr. Jack!” I back onto my feet and turned to face him. My anger was so strong it felt as if it were giving off some kind of heat. I slowly started to walk towards McMarland. He aimed the best he could and shot. The bullet hit me in the shoulder, but I was too enraged to feel pain, I just kept walking. “What? Why aren’t you dying?! You’re supposed to die when I shoot you!” he yelled, shooting me over and over in the chest. Nothing worked, because I just kept walking casually towards him. A barely conscious Twilight and Connor started calling me to snap out of it, but I didn’t care. I finally reached him, and I proceeded to crush his ribs with a quick stomp. He screamed loudly in the pain as I bent down and picked up his gun, which he had dropped. I checked the magazine. One bullet left… that’s all I needed. “I believe you need to die now, McMarland.” I took direct aim at his forehead… “I can’t believe I’m gonna be killed by some guy who’s friends with a bunch of talking horses!” he coughed. I laughed, regaining my train of rational thought. I kept my aim at his head and looked at him with a devilish smile. “What are you, some kind of a cowboy or something?” He asked. “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!” With a gentle pull of the trigger, a bullet was blown straight through his head and into the floor… McMarland was dead. I stepped off of him and turned back to my friends. “A dose of lead can be fatal, especially when it’s issued from the barrel of a gun!” Then the lead that hit me kicked in and I fell to my knees in blinding pain. Connor and Twilight raced over to my side. “Don’t you dare fucking die on me brother” Connor ordered frantically. “Me and my big mouth, huh?” I joked. “Connor, I want to make sure you know that you were my best friend. I trust you to take care of Equestria while I’m gone. Twilight, make sure everypony knows to never fear the unknown like McMarland did.” “Okay” she squeaked, tearing up. “And Connor” I said, turning back to him. “Tell Luna I said goodbye, okay?” “I will, brother” he sobbed. His tears began to drip onto my bullet wounds, making them burn. “I think it’s time for me to take my leave” I sighed. As my last breath of life escaped quietly from my lungs and my vision began to fade out, I saw a peculiar sight… two scythes… one was steel with a wooden handle and the other was… Obsidian? With an iron handle… I wondered what they were for… but then my thoughts faded for the final time. I jerked up gasping for breath… then I looked around. I was… nowhere… Well, I mean, obviously I was somewhere, but everything around me was blank white. I kept looking around until I looked behind me. I saw a grey and black pony with wings as though he had been crossed with a bat. He probably sensed me looking at him because he lifted his head and looked over at me. I spoke first, “who in the Sam hell are you?” “I might ask you the same question” he answered. “I’m John Jack” I told him skeptically. “I’m Reaper.” “So…” I started awkwardly. “where in the Sam hell are we?” “Welcome to a little piece of heaven” He quoted. “You listen to Avenged Sevenfold?” I asked. “Yeah, why?” “Me too!” I laughed. “Why are we here anyway?” “Equestria’s gonna need us again pretty soon, so both of us and all memories of us are being preserved here for the time being” he explained. “Brightside is you don’t have to eat or drink. Downside is that there’s not a goddamn thing to do around here except sleep and you can only do so much of that.” “So I guess we wait then” I suggested. “I guess so” So we waited We waited for something to happen. THE END
SaviorAs a small recap of what happened last time, let me fill you in. We fought Nightmare, Fluttershy saved me from certain death, Nightmare died, and now me and Fluttershy are seeing each other a lot. One day we heard a pony-like scream come from the Everfree Forest so we went to investigate, and to my surprise it was my cousin Steven… in pony form. He was a lime-green unicorn with an angel-wing-and-halo cutie mark. He was practically unrecognizable, but I knew it was him because he was muttering to himself like a crazy pony, so I could recognize his voice. He was freaking out, obviously, so I approached him slowly in hopes that he might not freak out more. He looked up at me and instantly got frightened. “Who are you?” he retreated. “You know me, Steven” I replied. He calmed down a bit as he recognized me. “Peter? Is that you?” “Damn straight!” I said proudly. “Welcome to Equestria, cousin!” “What the hell happened to you?” “I’m a Pegasus” “Then, am I…” he stopped and looked at me worriedly, “am I also a pony?” “Yeah, you’re a unicorn” I told him. His eyes widened as he looked hat his hands which were now hooves. He yelled in shock, and then reached up to feel his horn which he yelled in shock at, too. “Oh, and now that you’re here you need a new name” I said, interrupting his moment of insane terror. “Why?” “Ponies won’t recognize human names as normal… or… when given to other ponies, anyway. I changed mine to Reaper.” I answered. “Considering it seems to fit you, how ‘bout we call you “Savior”?” “Sure” he said. I asked him how he died, because I remembered Bo saying something about somepony coming here. “I hung myself out of depression. I felt like I was responsible for your death, so I decided to just off myself in hopes that I could apologize to you in heaven or hell or limbo or wherever.” “Oh, you weren’t responsible for my death” I assured him. “You saved me once. I chose to go back to try and save you. It was my fault. I’m sorry if I… you know… killed you.” “That’s fine” he replied, much more calm now. “By the way, uh… what’s so special about unicorns?” “You can use magic” I said, unaware of what I had just set myself up for. He started snickering after a moment. “What is it?” I asked. “Hey Reaper” he snickered. “I’m The Unicorn Wizard.” (If you get the reference, have a cookie :D) “Fuck” I sighed. “Seriously, Savior? Only you, man; only you.” “I guess that makes you Ninja Brian” he laughed. (And another one) “You call me Ninja Brian, and I will kick you so hard you’ll cough up a testical” I threatened. “How about Princess Handjob?” he asked, giggling uncontrollably. (And one more) “How about shut the fuck up and let’s get going” I growled. He squeaked in fear and jumped up. We walked back towards Ponyville as I told him about the ponies who lived there. “Now, I’ve got some stuff to do, so for the whole tour, I’ll leave you with Twilight Sparkle. She’s also the one you’ll want to talk to about shelter and whatnot considering you can’t walk on clouds like Pegesai.” “Okay. What does this “Twilight” pony do?” he asked “She’s the intellectual type. She lives in a library, so I’ll assume you’re gonna get along fine” I answered him, remembering how much he used to read in his spare time. We walked in silence for the rest of the way. I knocked on the door as loudly as I could, and when somepony opened up, it wasn’t Twilight. It was… a dragon? A baby dragon, but still a dragon. “Hello, Mr. Dragon.” I greeted him awkwardly. “Is Twilight here?” He nodded and waved her over. She trotted over to the door and the second she came into Savior’s view, I saw his eyes light up like lanterns in the middle of the night. I could tell that he had practically fallen head over heels… or head over hooves in this case, for Twilight already. What he saw in her from that very first moment was a mystery to me, but I guessed it would just allow him to get along with her even better. Although it may seem a little strange, I thought it was kind of funny. Savior was (and is) the most introverted person/pony I’ve ever known. Then again, Twilight was never the most outgoing pony in Ponyville herself, so I guess that made them even more alike. Regardless, I already knew that it was a matter of opinion, so I couldn’t do anything about it… Not the point. “Hi there, Reaper” she said. “Who’s you’re friend?” “This is my cousin Savior” I told her. “I have some stuff to do, so I was hoping you could give him the whole “tour and introduction so Ponyville” thing.” “Sure thing!” she chirped. “Thanks Twilight. Bye Savior.” I turned around and walked off as I heard Savior and Twilight start talking. It just made me wonder how they would get along… meh, who knows? Fluttershy trotted up beside me. She had been silent that whole time, so it felt as if she wasn’t there. “So… that was your cousin?” she asked quietly. “Yeah” I replied. “Not a bad pony, but he can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.” “Oh, well… I’m sorry I brought it up” “You apologize too much, ‘shy” I laughed. “Anyway, I’m just not too sure how well he’ll get along with Twilight. I mean, they both read a lot and they’re both pretty smart, but I’m still not sure how it’ll go.” “If you don’t mind me saying, I think he’ll be fine. Twilight is really nice” she assured me. We went back to her little woodland house. It was getting pretty late when I heard a whisper at the back of my head. “GO… TO… THE… MIRROR…” In confusion, I walked into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. “Reaper, I think something big is going to come up soon.” It was Bo. “What makes you say that, Bo?” “Us down here in the Equestria department… we’ve got a really bad feeling ever since Nightmare died.” He gulped and continued. “We’re afraid it might be something worse than Nightmare. Trust us on this, too! When we have a bad feeling about something, it’s usually true.” “We’ll blow up that bridge when we get to it” I retaliated. “Savior just got here and we just killed Nightmare a little while ago, so let me rest while I can, and we’ll deal with shit as it comes, ok?” “Okiedokie” Bo agreed. I walked out of the bathroom to be greeted by Angel bouncing happily up to me. I smiled and hopped over him. Fluttershy was curled up on her sofa. I walked over and sat down beside her. She looked up at me with deep eyes and then curled back up, putting her wing around me. I decided to curl up next to her. “Reaper?” she said quietly. “Yeah?” I responded. “Are you still worried about Savior?” “A little” I told her. “Why do you ask?” “I was just wondering” she answered. “Thank you” I uttered. “For what?” “For your concern about me, silly” I chuckled quietly. “Oh, well… Ok” “’Shy?” I called her gently. “Yes?” she muttered. “I’m sorry I never properly thanked you for saving me from Nightmare” I apologized. “No, it’s okay” she said. “No it isn’t” I continued. “You saved my life and… I… I never really thanked you for it…” “It’s okay” she repeated. I still felt as if I didn’t give the thanks necessary for her saving my life. I wanted keep talking about it, but I just decided that it would probably be better if I kept my mouth shut. I knew it was important… but priorities can change… They can change so fast it can make your fuckin’ head spin. KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! I woke up to the sound of somepony hitting the door impatiently. I opened it and drowsily said “What is so goddamn important that you had to wake me up this early in the morning.” My eyesight came into focus revealing Savior with a fairly worried expression. “We gotta talk, Reaper” he demanded. “It’s pretty serious.” “Okay, what’s up?” “I was reading through one of Twilight’s books. One of them had a poem that… had something that may be a bit… problematic” he hesitated. “What?” “It was an old legend” he explained. “It came out of the same book as “The Mare in the Moon.” It went like this” To the land of lost souls a nightmare flies To maintain a good balance, the guardians try To even the flow, some lost souls must go And the outcome will cause all to die. A sacrifice of blood is needed for it to cease Until then, dark forms will increase The heart of a cave. A cup and a blade. The forms of flesh and blood, but the spirits still release Unless the sacrifice you do send The hole in in the land will not mend Lost souls will escape then murder, steal and rape And all things will end. “There’s a lot more to it than that, another 2 pages to be exact, but that is by far the most important part of it.” “Yeah… I don’t get it” I told him. He sighed angrily. “Twilight told me how you killed Nightmare. Lost souls might be released, and we may need a blood sacrifice! It says we can kill the dark forms, which are apparently clones of ponies except darker in color and commanded by lost souls, but the spirits themselves won’t die, just the forms.” “That makes sense, but I’ll believe this shit when I see it” I said. Fluttershy lifted her sleepy little head to see what we were talking about. “I’m just telling you to look out for anything suspicious. You see anything, you let both me and Twilight know, okay?” he continued. “Okay” I agreed. “Thanks for stopping by to talk to me about this.” “No problem” he replied. He then got up and turned to leave. As he was halfway through the door, he stopped as if he was going to say something else, but passed it off and continued out the door. Fluttershy got up and walked over to me. “What was that about?” “It wasn’t anything too important” I told her. It wasn’t important yet, anyway. Me and ‘Shy did our average daily routine of taking care of her animal friends. When we were done with what we needed to do, I decided to go talk to Savior about getting the book that had this legend in it. I trotted gently over to Twilight’s tree, assuming he’d be there with his nose stuck in a book. I rapped gently on the door with one of my hooves and waited for somepony to open the door. The door swung open to reveal Savior. “What’s up, Reaper?” he asked. “I just came to see if I could get that book with that legend in it. I want to read it to see if I can make anything more out of it.” “Okay, sure” he smiled. “Hey, Twilight! You think you can grab that book of legends I was reading the other day?” “Of course” she chirped, grabbing a book off of a random shelf with her magic and transferring it to Savior who had apparently figured out how to use a little bit of his magic. “Thanks” I said. I turned and went back to Fluttershy’s house and sat down on the sofa. A layer of dust flew from the pages as I flipped through them to find the legend Savior had told me about. Sure enough, I found it and Savior was right. I wasn’t all that surprised that he was right, though. He’s pretty much never wrong when it comes to this shit…… pisses me off… I began reading the legend. Savior was right when he said it was 2 more pages after that one part he recited for me. I kept on reading, trying to find anything Savior had missed. I couldn’t find anything useful though. Hell, a lot of the stuff was written in a strange way, making me have to decode it before moving on. I read it at least 3 or 4 times before Fluttershy came in. Fluttershy walked through the front door of the cottage and saw me lying on the sofa reading a book. “If you want to tell me, I’d be interested in knowing… um… What are you reading?” “Just a legend Savior told me about. It might come in handy later.” “Oh, okay” she uttered softly. I kept reading the legend over and over trying to see if I was missing something, but nothing seemed to come up. Eventually, I just fell asleep, my head landing on the book. I woke up the next morning, remembering that I was reading the legend until everything went black. I laughed at the fact that I must have fallen asleep while I was reading the legend over and over again. I decided to get up and just give the book back to Twilight now. I walked slowly down the path that lead to Twilight’s book-filled highly-flammable dwelling. As I walked, I noticed that the streets were empty and baron as if everypony was hiding from something. I knocked on the door to Twilight’s tree awkwardly as I continued to look around for some kind of a sign or something. It scared the shit out of me when the door swung open and a bright green hoof emerged to grab me by the neck and throw me inside. I landed with a thud, then I turned to look at the pony who did this… Savior… why am I not surprised… “What the fuck was that for?” I yelled at him. He stuffed his hoof in my mouth and hissed quietly at me “Shut up and listen, cousin!” “I just came to return this book” I said. Twilight suddenly snatched the book out of my hooves with levitation and put it neatly onto a shelf. “Look, we have a problem” Twilight told me, also being fairly quiet. She walked towards me but tripped on her way. She had a large splinter sticking out of her hoof, causing crimson red blood to emerge from the sides of the splinter. “Shit” Savior heaved rushing over to her. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine” she chucked, pulling out the splinter. “It’s just a splinter.” “That’s my little Sparkle” he smiled. I raised an eyebrow at him as he turned back to me… “eheheheh… We’ve gotten along really well, so we’ve kind of-” “I think I know what you’re talking about” I interrupted. “I know you two have plenty of fun together, but just don’t have TOO much fun. I don’t need a nephew to get in the way of all the shit that’s been happening lately.” “Woah!” Savior withdrew. “We’re not goin’ that far any time soon. I’m just letting you know!” “Yeah, whatever” I growled at him. “What the fuck did you want to tell me?” “There’s a strange pony out there” he said. “What’s so bad about ‘em?” I asked. “Didn’t you learn not to judge when this happened with Zechora?” “No, no. We know” he explained. “We saw this pony beat the shit out of some random stallion on the street… ended up killing him. Poor bastard didn’t have a chance.” “What does this pony look like?” “He looks like a darkened version of Big McIntosh” Savior told me. I think we had the same epiphany at the same time, because his eyes grew right when mine did. “Fuck me” I squealed weakly. “What?” Twilight asked frantically. “What is he?” “A…” I struggled to say it. ”A… Shadow Form…” “This might be a problem” Savior said, looking at me with a very worried expression. “Define “might be?”” I asked sarcastically. “Well it won’t be too big of a problem for a while” he continued. “Remember what the legend said. “Start off slow, it most certainly will; then much more will gather and towns they will fill; until it comes to a halt, Equestria will face fault; for the blood of the innocent shall spill.”” “So we’ve got time to prepare” I said, letting out a sigh of relief. “We’ve gotta warn everypony! ASAP!” “No shit, Sherlock!” Savior yelled at me. “Anyway, we’ll take over alerting everypony as well as the ruler of Equestria. In the meantime, you should make sure you have any gear you need or anything of the sort, and see if you can get me a ranged weapon of some kind because I can help. Even if you can’t find me a ranged weapon, I can still kick ass! After all, I am The Unicorn Wizard!” “Oh, fuck you!” I snapped. Leaping out the door and taking off to fly to Fluttershy’s small cabin, I felt like Bo was going to say “I told you so” or something like that. I rushed through the front door and checked to find all my gear. I found all of it, but I still needed a weapon for Savior… RIFLE! I remembered my rifle. I rushed over to my equipment and grabbed out the scoped rifle. I checked the magazine to make sure there were bullets in it… 3… 3 bullets… fuck… I decided to pay a visit to that old blacksmith to see if he could find out how to make more bullets. I doubted it, but it never hurts to ask, right? “Hey, I was wondering if you could find out how to make more projectiles for this” I said, swinging my gun up on the counter. He examined the gun, and activated the mag-release somehow. He looked inside the magazine and popped out one of the bullets. “These?” “Yes” I spoke firmly. “I don’t know what the hell this thing is” he laughed. “It looks like a little casing with a pointy piece of metal stuck to the top of it.” “That’s kind of what it is” I told him. “The only thing you forgot is inside the little casing, there’s a grainy substance called gunpowder and a little piece on the bottom that ignites that gunpowder and launches that little piece of metal at the top at an insane speed.” “Gunpowder… gunpowder…” the old blacksmith stood there thinking for a little while. “OH! You mean the stuff in fireworks!” “Yes!” I nodded. “Okay, I think I might be able to work with it. This’ll be on the house, since I may screw up your… doohickey” he said, pointing at my gun. I thanked him and flew off back to Fluttershy’s house. “Oh, hi there Reaper” she greeted me as I walked inside. “Where were you?” “I was just asking the blacksmith for something” I answered. She was grooming Angel, who looked to be quite unhappy that I had interrupted his grooming. I shrugged off the look he gave me, knowing that he was always just irritable. Since I had found out about the Shadow Forms, I decided to inform Bo, regardless of it being fairly late at night. I walked into the bathroom and gently tapped on the mirror after closing the door behind me. Bo appeared and certainly didn’t look happy that I had woken him up. “We found out what that bad feeling was.” “Oh, good” he sighed. “I thought you woke me up for nothing.” “It’s lost souls that have escaped from Limbo!” I explained to him. “They’re gonna kill everything in this world if we don’t give a blood sacrifice at the heart of some mountain.” “Okay, well…” Bo thought for a minute. “I’ll look into this, because it sounds like this is one of the more “slow-moving” kinds of things.” “Oh, and Bo?” “Yeah?” he responded. “Is it just me, or does this seem a little bit… familiar to you?” “…The fuck are you talking about?” he asked “I dunno” I shrugged. “Just a feeling.” I walked out of the bathroom to see Angel in front of me. “Howdy, Angel.” He raised an eyebrow. “What?” I asked. He facepalmed and hopped away. I laughed to myself, knowing he heard me talking in there but he himself couldn’t properly speak to ask me anything. Such a perfect combination: curiosity and inability to communicate. Fluttershy was sleeping off in her bed tonight. I felt dizzy and a little lightheaded, probably from so much happening that day, so I began to walk over to the sofa to sleep, but then… My muscles all locked and I fell to the ground. Right before I hit the ground I passed out. I couldn’t feel anything… I suddenly woke up in surroundings that were… strangely familiar, but at the same time, very new… it was my old house. The Rev walked straight to me out of nowhere. “Hey Peter, remember me?” “How could I not?” I chuckled. “You are, were and probably always will be the best drummer ever!” “Well, that’s nice to hear” he nodded, smiling. “Anyway, I felt like it might be necessary to remind you a little bit about your past.” “Why?” I asked. “People who receive a special case often try to be someone else, but we want them to live THEIR life” he explained. “That and I thought it might help you get thinking about this entire “Lost Souls” mission thing.” “Oh, okay” I agreed. “But what part of my past are we viewing?” The Rev disappeared and I saw a young human me sitting on the sofa in our small house. My big brother came walking over past the sofa, holding a piece of paper, and sat down in one of the chairs to the side of the sofa. “What’s wrong, big bro?” “Peter, we need to talk” he sighed. I knew what was coming and I didn’t want to relive this. “It’s about your grades. You’ve failed your math, history and science classes. You’re gonna have to go into a special class to help you with it.” “I tried my best” the young me sniffled. “Your best isn’t good enough, Peter” my brother yelled, scowling at the young Peter. “I don’t want to have a dumbass as a brother. You’re in the seventh grade, Peter! You should be able to handle all your shit on your own!” Young Peter started to cry. “Dad always told me to try my best! To just do what I could and I would be fine!” he sobbed. “But you don’t care! You’re not Dad! You’re just a dick!” My brother reached across and smacked my young self across the face with the back of his hand. “Don’t you DARE call me that, dumbass!” he screamed. “You need to suck it up! You’re not a fucking 3-year-old! Stop crying, go to your room and do whatever the fuck you want to! As long as what you do makes you smarter than you are right now!” I was starting to cry myself. The memory stopped and The Rev reappeared beside me. “I’m sorry I had to show you that, but it’s for the best” he said. “I’ll be back to show you another one soon, but until then, take care and good luck with your mission!” Fluttershy was standing over me crying uncontrollably. I felt lacerations and hemorrhaging on my tongue and I had bruises all over my body. I also had a headache that could make you think you had a brain tumor. “What the fuck just happened” I moaned weakly, propping myself up against the sofa I had fallen down beside. “Reaper!” Fluttershy squealed happily, rushing to hug me. “Oh! I was so scared! I didn’t know what had happened and I was afraid you were going to die and-“ “I’m fine” I assured her. “I just had another seizure. Damn things give me warnings only a quarter of the times they happen.” “I woke up and you were just on the ground” she continued. “I didn’t know what had happened!” “Well, then I guess the Tonic phase has failed me once again” I thought out loud, stretching all my aching legs to loosen them up after they had convulsed. “Your mouth!” she gasped, seeing the blood dripping from the cuts on my tongue. “It’s fine” I repeated. “That’s very common in seizures. I’m normally just lucky when it comes to that.” “But… you’re bleeding a lot” “It’s okay” I assured her once again, standing up. “It’s only a couple of small cuts. I’ve had to deal with much worse before.” I thought of those wolves tearing my chest apart. Now THAT was painful. “Thank you for worrying about me, though.” “I was so scared” she winced. “I thought you might die.” “Hey! I’ve had a lot of seizures in my lifetime” I reminded her. “They never get any easier to deal with, but they don’t get any harder either!” Savior opened the door and waltzed right on in. He was about to say something, but then he spotted all the blood on the floor and around my muzzle. “Holy shit on a stick, what in the hell happened here?” “You should probably know the answer” I growled, angry at him for just walking in like that. “Seizure?” he raised an eyebrow in his questioning. “Congratulations! You know something that’s totally obvious!” I hissed sarcastically. “I just came by to tell you something, but I can come back later” he said. “You know, when you aren’t an asshole!” “No, no, just tell me now.” “You know Rarity?” he asked. “Does Twilight live in a library?” “Okay, well…” he paused. “Her sister Sweetie Belle is missing.” “WHAT?!” I yelled. “She’s missing! Gone! Poof!” “Okay, but do you think this is linked to the you-know-what?” I hinted. “Wha- oh! Yeah, it probably is linked” he agreed. “I’ve got a guy that’s gonna help on finding out about these Lost Souls, so we need to wait for him right now, then we can go and put a stop to this shit” I told him. “Lost souls?” Fluttershy interrupted. “I’ll explain it to you later ‘Shy” I said back to her, smiling. “Alright, we’ll wait for your little friend to gather some info” he agreed, “but if the shit hits the fan, it’s your fault!” He turned and dashed out the door. “What’s this about Lost Souls?” ‘Shy asked again. “You know how Nightmare died?” I said, looking in her eyes. She nodded slightly. “Well, there’s a legend that foretold of Lost Souls escaping from Limbo when Nightmare tried to get in there. Those Lost Souls can take the shape of anypony they want to, and they will commit as many evils as possible. The only way to tell them apart from the originals is that the Shadow Form will be darker than the original. It seems that the legend was true, and now some of the Lost Souls are on the loose, meaning we have to prepare for the worst. The only way to put an end to these Lost Souls’ reign of terror is to give a blood sacrifice at the center of a mountain. We need to find out which one though, which is why I have somepony working on finding info for us. We think that Sweetie Belle’s disappearance is linked with the Shadow Form of Big McIntosh that me, Savior and Twilight saw earlier.” Fluttershy stood there petrified in terror, just looking at me with those innocent, adorable eyes. I walked her over to the sofa and sat her down. “It’s a lot to take in. I understand” I said sitting down beside her. She scooted closer to me and pulled me into a tight hug. I smiled at the warmness of her embrace and returned her hug. She began to quietly cry as she buried her face in me, making my fur wet. We sat there and she continued to cry until she finally lifted her head out and sobbed, “I don’t want you to go!” She buried her face back into me. “I don’t want you to die!” “I know, I know” I sighed, almost starting to cry myself. “I have to though. If I die, I want you to live on. I don’t want you to die with me.” “You can’t go, Reaper!” she sobbed. “I have too” said, tears beginning to form around my eyes. “I don’t wanna die, but I want you to live even more. I might not even have to die.” “It’s gonna happen! You’ll be the sacrifice!” she cried. “I know it!” “It’ll all be fine” I wept quietly. “Nothing bad is gonna happen to you, Fluttershy, I promise.” “I don’t care what happens to me!” she yelled. “I don’t care what happens to me!” I echoed. We sat there and cried while holding each other for a long time, until we both just curled up right there and started drifting off to sleep, my wing put over her to hold her close. I was just about to fall asleep when Fluttershy quietly said “I love you, Reaper.” “I love you too, Fluttershy” I replied. “I always will.” I woke up next to Fluttershy’s warm body, my wing still draped over her in comfort. I slowly retracted the wing and put it back at my side as I got up to go see how early it was. I looked outside the window to see that it was still pretty dark. Damn, though! Luna had done a hell of a job that night. She must take some real pride in such good craftsmanship. Not the point. I slowly and quietly opened the door, grabbed my obsidian scythe, put it on my back and flew out so I could patrol the area in search of any of those Shadow Forms roving around. It must have been 10 minutes before I heard a scream from Sugarcube Corner. I did a nosedive straight to the front door of the large building, coming to a quick halt in front of it. I kicked down the door to see a shadow version of Mr. Cake making an advance on Mrs. Cake with a knife held in his mouth. The real Mr. Cake was petrified in fear, standing in the corner with the inability to do anything except for watch his wife get cut up by the Shadow Form of himself… “NOT WHILE I’M AROUND!” I dove in-between the two and whipped out my obsidian scythe, smacking the Lost Soul in the jaw with the iron rod. The Shadow Form of Mr. Cake hit the wall, almost going through it, and then started trying to get up. I quickly swiped the blade at his torso, but he jumped out of the way and sliced a cut into my left back leg. I gritted my teeth at the pain and swung my blade in a full circle, slicing the fake Cake in two. The Shadow Form’s body hit the ground and simply dissipated into thin air. Mrs. Cake let out a sigh of relief, but Mr. Cake was still scared stiff in the corner of the room. Mrs. Cake spoke up while I slowly panted. “Thank you so much! You saved my life!” “It’s nothing” I panted. “Just be careful.” I flew out the door as fast as I possibly could to get back to my patrolling. I flew gently around the town as the sun rose out from under the horizon. I was a little busy looking at the sunrise to notice a call of help from below me. After a minute, I finally heard it. It was Derpy and her little sister Dinky being cornered by two Shadow Forms of… themselves. I flew down at a 90 degree angle until I quickly changed directions and whipped out my scythe to assault the Shadow Forms from behind. I made a huge baseball swing and lopped off the Dinky Form’s back legs and one of the Derpy Form’s forelegs. I came to a halt and casually walked up to the fallen and helpless Derpy Form. “Oh, I’m sorry! Did I hurt you?” I asked sarcastically. SHING! Its head came off without resistance. “There! That ought to take care of the pain!” I flew off again, looking back to see Derpy and Dinky waving happily. I smiled back at the two, then proceeded on my patrol. At around midday, I decided to see how the blacksmith was doing with that gun. I walked in to see a bunch of freshly made bullets strung around the place… they didn’t look right though. “I’m trying! I just can’t seem to get them right! I’m sorry!” he yelled out, somehow knowing it was me. I walked over to the table to see a bunch of ammo that looked like it was pretty close to usable. “You’re getting close” I said. “Close don’t mean jack shit!” he huffed. He pulled something out and said “There! I’ve finally found out how to make these fuckin’ things!” He turned to me. “Wait until tomorrow and I’ll have more of these turned out for you.” “Okay, thanks!” I replied. I turned and flew out the door to go back and see how Fluttershy was doing. I walked in to see that she was done with all the stuff she had to do for that day. Now she was just kind of sitting there. “Hey ‘Shy!” I greeted her. “Sorry I was gone this morning. How’s your day been?” “Fine, thanks!” she responded, delighted to see me. “How is your day so far?” “Fine” I said. “I saved some people from Shadow Forms early this morning, but that’s about all that was interesting. “You’re so brave” Fluttershy told me, blushing slightly. “I could never do anything like that.” “Have you forgotten?” I chuckled. “You saved my sorry, helpless ass from Nightmare!” “Well, that was-“ “Hey, there’s no excuse for that!” I smiled. “You’re brave, you just can’t control when you are.” “I… I guess…” she muttered. We continued talking until the sun started to gently float behind the trees of the Everfree Forest. It was getting to be about 6:30 or 7:00 (from a raw estimate) when Savior knocked on the door, having learned from last time that I don’t like him barging into Fluttershy’s home. We called him to come in and he complied. He stood right in front of the doorway as the door closed behind him. “I heard you saved some ponies from Shadow Forms this morning.” “Damn Straight!” I proudly announced. “Why?” “I was just coming to make sure it wasn’t some stupid rumor you started to make yourself look good” he sighed, almost rolling his eyes at the thought. “Hello, I resent that” I said, annoyed. “Dick,” he muttered. “Anyway, I think you should do a patrol like that every morning from now on. It may help save ponies’ lives like it did today.” “Sure” I agreed. “Okay, I’m gonna go now” he stated, turning and walking out. Suddenly, a feeling started tugging at the back of my head, telling me to go to the bathroom mirror. “I’ll be right back” I told ‘Shy. “I gotta go to the bathroom.” I walked in, closed the door behind me and quietly rapped on the mirror. “Bo, what do you want?!” “Calm down, Reaper” he sighed. “I got the info you wanted.” “Thank you!” I said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Although, this won’t make you very happy” he mumbled. “Look, here. The mountain you need to go into is located in the Everfree Forest. It should be at the center of it. Now, I know they took Sweetie Belle, and they took her, and now Scootaloo as well, to the heart of that mountain. They need three children to power these… orb thingies in order to summon more Lost Souls. That’s the mountain where the blood sacrifice will be. The Lost Souls will kidnap Applebloom tomorrow, and there’s nothing anypony can do about it, even if you wanted too. That means all we can do is prepare ourselves, then invade that temple and rescue the three fillies. Also, that blood sacrifice has to be from somepony “closely associated with the Nightmare himself.” Last, but certainly not least, you’ve still got plenty of time to prepare yourselves, but Lost Souls will start stacking up in a week or two, so I advise you get ready pretty soon.” “Okay, thanks for finding all that out for us Bo” I thanked him once again. “I really appreciate it.” “Whatever saves your ass” he laughed. I walked back out of the bathroom and sat back down next to ‘Shy. She looked tired, which was how I felt too. She looked at me and asked me “why is all this stuff happening?” “I wish I knew ‘Shy” I answered. “I really wish I knew.” The next morning was about the same as the one that came before it. A few Shadow Forms on the loose here and there, but nothing too serious. Rainbow Dash had a Shadow Form of Spitfire chasing after her (oh the painful amounts of irony) and Bon Bon was being tortured by a Shadow Form of Lyra (hey look! More irony!). Other than that, there wasn’t much that happened. I also handled it easily and quickly, and like the day before, I headed to the blacksmith at about midday. He was finally done with the ammo he had made. He apparently was able to buy gunpowder off of a pyrotechnics expert (and I thought my purpose was pretty weird) and that was how he had gotten the gunpowder. He gave me all the ammo for free, since he didn’t know if the ammo would fuck up the gun or not. It helped, especially since we now had a weapon to give to Savior. I flew to Twilight’s tree with the rifle slung onto my back. I came to a gentle stop at the front door of the house. I grabbed the rifle off my back and tapped on the door using the butt of the gun. He opened it to see me holding a big ol’ rifle, which in the case of us both being ponies, must have been pretty damn weird. Regardless, he accepted the rifle with open arms, as well as the info that Bo had given me. We just needed a little bit more of a game plan. Other than that, we would be good. That night passed like the one before as well. Me and Fluttershy passed a lot of the time talking, but she also wanted to know exactly what was going to happen with this whole situation. “I ain’t no fortune teller” I laughed. “I don’t know how it’s gonna go, but it’ll hopefully end pretty well. We just need to go in there with at least a slight idea of what we’re gonna do.” “Oh, okay” she withdrew. “I’m sorry I brought it up.” “You’re adorable when you apologize, you know that?” I said, laughing a little. She blushed and hid behind her mane. “Well… uh…” “I’m sorry” I apologized (god, so much irony). “Let’s change the subject to something a little less touchy.” We kept talking until we both got tired. She wanted to sleep in her bed that night, so I just curled up on the sofa and fell asleep quietly after we said our goodnights. The next morning came all too quickly with the beginning of it being Savior knocking at the door. I opened it, rubbing my eyes at the sight of the familiar bright-green colt. “We have a problem” he said straight out. “Applebloom is missing.” I stood there for a moment… I only responded with one thing… “I know.” “Good god Reaper, what the fuck is wrong with your goddamn head?!” “What?!” I asked “YOU COULDN’T HAVE TOLD ME?!” “I didn’t bother because there would’ve been no way to prevent it!” I explained. “It’s not my fuckin’ fault that Applebloom’s capture was inevitable. All we can do now is get a plan, go out and kick some Shadow ass!” “Okay, but what is this plan?” Savior asked. “I don’t know!” I sighed. “We need to make one!” “We’ll work on it later” he said. “For now, I gotta go.” “I’ll get this plan done on my own! I don’t need any help from him. I’m fine!” I walked back inside and sat back down on the sofa. Angel hopped up bearing a piece of parchment and a quill. “You read my mind, Angel” I laughed. “Now all I need is some” he handed me a small bottle of ink. “Dammit, Angel! Stop reading my mind!” He smiled and hopped away as I began devising a plan on how to go about this. It started off simple enough, but it began getting much more complicated than I was used to when I had to start factoring in all the Shadow Forms and shit. I wrote for what seemed like forever, when I looked up and it was only about midday. Damn! Either I was writing fast or somepony slowed down time! Fluttershy walked into the room from her bedroom, finally awake after last night. She greeted me and sat down next to me to see what I was writing. I kept on writing as fast as I could. Through all that writing, I figured out that writing with your mouth is a lot easier than it looks, it would just help if they were to make something less… feathery. Trust me when I say a feather does not feel good in your mouth and it sure as shit doesn’t taste good either! As I continued writing out the plan, I noticed a pattern in my writing. Whenever someone got surrounded by Shadow Forms, I would always leave it up to me to save them, even if I got surrounded myself! I also gave Twilight almost nothing to do in the fine print, because I didn’t know how she could help out. I was guessing I’d just have to find out later. I kept on writing and writing until I had used up 4 pieces of parchment paper, front and back. My jaw was cramping up like hell from all the writing. I also needed to take a break to see what everypony was doing, but I decided against that and decided to just get the plan done first. It took about half the day but I had finally worked out a plan on what to do. I also worked out what to do if too much went wrong (always expect SOMETHING to go wrong, but not necessarily everything). The only thing that last part didn’t have was to run away. We wouldn’t run from shit… well we would if we HAD to, but if we just got overwhelmed, then we’d just deal with it… Okay, so it doesn’t exactly sound like a good idea, but it seemed fine at the time, okay? “Is that the plan?” Fluttershy asked. “Sharp as always, ‘Shy” I smiled at her. “If you think about it, if we go in without a plan, we would be totally fucked. Now that we have this here plan, we’re at least 25% less likely to die.” “What was the original chance of dying?” she questioned. “I’d say about 75%” I responded. “And a 50/50 chance is about as good as it’ll get for this kind of a mission, so we’ve gotta take it or leave it.” “Okay, but I want to go with you” she muttered. “I mean… if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of anything.” “It’s totally fine!” I continued. “I was actually hoping you’d come. That way, you could save my sorry ass again if I needed it, ‘cuz I sure as shit can’t count on Savior to help me!” I started laughing a little. “Are you always such a dick to me?” The voice came out of nowhere… but it sounded like… I looked over to the door, and standing in the doorway was Savior himself, who had apparently heard the entire conversation. “Anyway, we have a plan, we’re armed, we’re ready… when do we leave?” “Slow down there, speedy McSpeedertons!” I halted him. “We need to get Twilight and Fluttershy some armor, too! They can’t just walk in totally unprotected! They’ll get ripped to shreds!” “Taken care of” he said monotonously. “Since when?” “Since I bought armor for them.” “Alright…” I continued. “In that case, we should leave early tomorrow. We need to be well rested and ready to kick ass!” “Gotcha!” he nodded. “We’ll meet you here tomorrow morning, since this is the closest place to our destination in the heart of the Everfree Forest. Fluttershy,” he put some bright yellow armor out on one of her tables. “This here armor is for you.” Without another word, Savior turned and left. A silence fell over the room as I tried to think of something to say to end the silence. Fluttershy looked a little sad and I felt a little sad too, but I didn’t want to say anything that might make it worse, so I tried to think of something that was relevant to the subject but couldn’t make anything worse… “Well, this is moving pretty fast!” I thought out loud. The air in the room suddenly got really cold, as if it were trying to intentionally fit the mood. It didn’t feel very natural to me, but I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t want to know if I would or wouldn’t make it out, but chances are that I wouldn’t make it out, and I knew that. I was afraid of Fluttershy’s reaction though. I knew she’d be broken up about it if I died, and I don’t want her to just give up on life or something of that nature. I want her to go on without me. But did this mean that this was our last day together? Did this mean that we would never see each other again after tomorrow? It was almost as if she had read my mind or something, because she spoke up suddenly with what I was thinking about. “Will… this be our last day… together?” Fluttershy asked quietly “Possibly” I told her. “I… I might have to be the sacrifice. It has to be somepony directly associated with the Nightmare himself, so I might have to do it.” “Then… we should make today…” she tried to hold back a waterfall of her own tears. “We should make today count then.” “We should… we really should” I agreed. And so we spent the entire day just with each other… nopony else. We talked and we played with her animals; we spent some of the best time together that we ever had (except for the whole Nightmare fiasco). It felt great… I didn’t want the night to come but, as it always does, it did. I was about to curl up on the sofa and fall asleep like usual when Fluttershy gently tapped on one of my wings. “Since tonight might be our last night together and I’ve never… uh… would you want to try…” she turned bright red. “Well… I’ve never… I mean, the bed is warmer than here, and if you want to…” It didn’t actually take very long before I got what she was trying to hint at. “I get it” I said, interrupting her stumbling. I stood up and looked her into her eyes. “I love you, Fluttershy… I always will.” I REFUSE to go into detail of what happened after that, but if you haven’t caught on already, then 1. You’re kinda slow on this stuff and 2. Let’s just say we both got out of the same bed the next morning. Night passed all too quickly, but it wasn’t like we could do anything about that. It was way too early in the morning for me when we got up, but I knew it was all necessary. In layman’s terms we got up really early and got ourselves ready to go… It was time to go kill some Shadows and rescue those three fillies… It was time to go save Equestria… again! We set off as early as we possibly could that morning. Before sunrise, Savior woke me and Fluttershy and told us to hurry up and get ready. We weren’t too happy about it but ‘Shy and I both knew how important this mission was, so we complied with Savior, regardless of how much we both wanted to slam the door in his face. When me and ‘Shy went out the door, we saw Savior loading up his rifle. He lifted his head to look at us, but I just smiled and nodded. We were out on the road earlier than I would’ve liked to be, but again, importance of the mission made it so I didn’t really have much of a choice. We all walked side-by-side talking for what seemed like an hour or two, until we reached a clearing. It was still not too bright outside, just bright enough to see that the clearing was only about the size of a football field. I felt like something was off, though… Like… something was going to go wrong… was this another Aura, or was this instinct? Or maybe both? We all proceeded into the clearing normally, me having decided to keep my mouth shut. Halfway across the clearing, a Manticore jumped out in front of all 4 of us. Fluttershy began approaching him, about to tame the Manticore with her caring compassion, but the bastard decided that he didn’t want to live anymore. He lifted a massive paw and swiped, flinging Fluttershy far off to the side… yeah… I wasn’t gonna let him live. I whipped out my Iron scythe and raced towards the huge beast. I was too obvious though, because he retaliated as if he knew I was coming (which he did). He smacked me away with its scorpion tail & jumped over to where I landed. I managed to swing my scythe up into his side. He screamed in ridiculous amounts of pain before simply ripping the blade out of his scythe as if it were nothing but a splinter. It then flicked me off to the side like a housefly. I wasn’t going down that easily, though. I jumped up over his pointy tail to get a clean shot at his spine. The scythe went from shining gray to deep red as the blade plunged into the Manticore’s back. The beast cried again in the agony, but managed to flick his tail up and return the favor of what I just did. Using the hold he had on the inside of my flesh, he flung me across the field where I landed face-first, still with the feeling of impending doom. The Manticore jumped to be right over me… His mouth was wide open, revealing very sharp teeth (and fucking awful breath). I really thought he was gonna just bite my head off right then and there, but then his brain was blown out of the left side of his head. I’m not even kidding when I say that his head blew up; the poor bastard’s grey matter was everywhere! It was Savior, who had used his rifle well. I got up and dusted myself off. “Thanks, Savior” I said… Then I remembered. Fluttershy was hurt. I rushed over to Fluttershy’s side, where I could now see that she was bleeding from the left side of her abdominal region. Not much; it didn’t look like anything was fractured and there wasn’t much bleeding. It was more or less just an oversized scratch. I found a couple of soft leaves to put pressure on the wound while the bleeding stopped. “Thank you Reaper” she whispered to me. “Anything for you ‘Shy” I smiled. I still had this raw and undeniably noticeable feeling of impending doom and now extreme mental discomfort. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something that was bothering me. It hit me just a little too late, though. “Oh shit!” I spouted. “Savior! I’m about to-” I couldn’t even finish my sentence before all my muscles locked and I fell to the ground in nothing but darkness. I was suddenly back in my old house again. I knew what was going to happen, and so now I just had to wait for The Rev. It took about 5 minutes for him to get there. “Sorry I’m late” he apologized. “It’s time to show you one more thing from your past. You sure as hell aren’t going to enjoy it… but it’s necessary.” He disappeared and I saw a not-so-much-younger me sitting at our old piece-of-shit computer watching MLP online. My brother walked in the room and his jaw dropped open. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WATCHING?” “I’m watching My Little Pony” I said, not realizing he was so shocked. “Oh god, no” he sighed. “Please don’t tell me you’re one of those homosexual jerk-offs that watch that kiddy shit.” “What th-” I stopped myself. “Are you asking if I’m gay?!” “Yes” “Would there be something wrong with that?” “Yes” “I’m not, first off” I growled. “And second, when you say there’s something wrong with being gay, you have some serious homophobia goin’ for ya!” “But you watch that show” he responded. “HOW ARE HOMOSEXUALITY AND A TV SHOW RELATED IN THE SLIGHTEST!??!” I screamed at him. “You treat it as if it’s a sin to have my own fucking opinion! Well, guess what? I’m sick of your shit, bro! I’ve put up with your judgment all my life, and now… I’m done!” “What are you gonna do?” he taunted me. “What’s a little homo like you gonna do?” I snapped right there and rushed straight at him. Jumping off of our table, I jumped on top of him, knocking him over. I began to punch him mercilessly over and over. After only 30 seconds or so I realized what I was doing. I got up off of my brother, who was now out cold, and ran to the phone we had. As soon as the ambulance arrived, the medic and I got my brother into the ambulance and drove away. I stood there watching my past events. The Rev popped up beside me again and said “There’s a second part to that” he said. He disappeared again and the memory went on, except now it was a few hours later. We arrived at our house in a cab. I paid the cab driver with the little money that I had and walked back inside. “I’m sorry, bro” I sniffled weakly. “Stay away from me” he snapped, storming off to his room. I then just walked over to the nearest chair, and then collapsed and started to cry like the younger me had. The memory stopped and The Rev appeared beside me one more time. “That’s all I’ll need to show you” he uttered, looking down. “Just be sure to remember that this was for the best.” It wasn’t a pleasant feeling when I woke up. “Well… that was depressing” I croaked, waking up. “You got that right” Savior groaned, walking over to me. “You’ve been out cold for half an hour. I think we should get moving.” “Yeah” I agreed while getting up off the ground, “as long as there’s nothing along the way that might break my seizure threshold again.” And so we set off again. It was another 3 or 4 hours before we reached a source of clean water where we decided to take a break. Twilight and Fluttershy were off talking with each other so me and Savior could talk alone for a little bit. “Savior, did you and Twilight do anything special last night?” “We spent pretty much the whole night together, if that’s what you’re asking” he answered. “Spike can be a pain in the ass when you’re trying to spend some time alone with your “very special somepony.”” “Well, there’s that” I continued, “but I’m talking about something that you were only doing because it may have been your last night together.” “That’s all that we did” he said. “I mean did you do something special… you know… with each other…” He still didn’t get the message, so I went into sarcasm mode. “When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much they-” “Oh, that kind of something special” he interrupted. “You finally get it” I sighed angrily. “Why? Did you?” “Well, yeah” I admitted under my breath. “I can understand if you didn’t ‘cuz I’ve known ‘Shy for a much longer time than you’ve known Twilight. “To tell you the truth…” he was hesitant to tell me, making me a little nervous about the answer. “We did. Spike almost walked in on us and-” “You could’ve just said you did” I sighed looking over at him. “The details are yours to keep, man. I couldn’t give a shit n’ a half about ‘em.” “Yeah, well I had always wondered what my life would be like if I turned that shit up to 11 out of a possible 5?” he snickered. “What’s with you and that song?” I asked. “You’re just jealous that I’m The Unicorn Wizard!” he said, giggling through his teeth. “We should probably go now” I suggested. “Okay Ninja Brian” he laughed. “Or we could just stay here and Twilight could watch me beat the living shit out of you and then back into you” I threatened him. “I like your first idea better” he winced. I suddenly heard a loud horn-like sound… as if something was calling… it was the mountains. “Can you hear… The Holy Mountains?” At that we continued on. It took a long time, but we finally reached the entrance of the temple… “That’s a lot of Lost Souls” I said. “What are these mountains called again?” Twilight added. “The Holy Mountains” I responded quickly. “Well these guys will sure be holy when I shoot them full of holes!” Savior interrupted. “I got an idea that won’t get us killed” I butted in, looking over at Savior. “I’ll go in and start slicing at them and Savior, you provide sniper support from over here. Twilight, do you think you could throw rocks at them or something?” Twilight gave a nod, so I ran out there in a mad dash. I knew Fluttershy would be freaking out about it right then, but there were no other ways in that we knew of and we had to get this done now, or it would be impossible. I yanked out my trusty scythe once again and gave a big baseball swing, cutting through 4 or 5 of them like a knife through warm butter. Then they started to surround me. This was the part where bullets and rocks started pelting them. Savior had enough ammo to take down an entire army and Twilight had plenty of rocks to throw, so I had enough backup to last me the entire fight. Lucky for me, these things were dipshits and are distracted way too easily, making it a piece of cake to off them each one by one. They kept on coming though, and soon I began to get a little tired. It was becoming a little bit overwhelming of how many Shadow Forms there were. Eventually, I just collapsed and all the Shadow Forms began to pile onto me. On the outside of the pile, I could hear the other 3 freaking out, but then I thought of The Matrix… But instead of just throwing them off of me, I had a scythe! I started swinging it as wildly as I could, cutting through what seemed like thousands of the darkened pricks, but after enough time, I finally reached the surface of the enormous pile of Shadow Forms. We all began to walk casually into the temple. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Fluttershy asked me. “The hell if I know” I replied. Savior knew though… I felt something… I felt the Lost Souls’ presence. “Can you feel their haunting presence?” “I can, cousin” Savior said. “I can.” It was dark and wet inside the Temple. There was moss emerging out of every possible crack in the wall and fungus was growing out of the ground, making the Temple seem like it was the oldest thing ever created. It obviously wasn’t the OLDEST thing ever created, but it was certainly old as all hell. We wandered around for several hours, drinking water we had collected in glass bottles that Twilight had brought along in her saddlebags. It was about 5 hours of nothingness before we finally decided to just give up and take a break. “Why are there so many empty rooms?” Twilight asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.” “They would make useless rooms in tombs like these so that grave robbers would get hopelessly lost” I explained. “Tomb? I thought this was a temple” Savior said. “Well, it’s also a tomb” I told him. “I’m pretty sure the room we’re looking for is connected to a few others… but I’m pretty sure we’re lost.” “So we’re fucked?” Savior added. “No, we’re just off track” I corrected him. “As long as we keep moving and don’t go in circles, we’ll find it eventually. We just have to keep on looking.” We kept on looking and another 4 or 5 hours passed before we finally accepted that we were totally lost. “Okay” I said. “Now we’re fucked.” “We can’t give up just yet” Fluttershy spoke up. “We can do it, we’ve just gotta keep going! If we don’t keep going, then Equestria will be destroyed! We’ve also come this far, so there’s no point in going back now!” “Fluttershy is right” I said, surprised at Fluttershy’s random inspirational speech regardless of us all being tired from walking for countless hours. “I’m assuming Canterlot wasn’t built in a day, so it’s gonna take us some time to find these rooms.” We walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and… you get the idea. We walked so far, I swear I could feel my legs about to snap in 2. It was a total of 12 hours of walking after that conversation before I finally collapsed… in front of a doorway to one of the rooms we needed to get to. We rested for a few hours to regain our strength and then we got back up to examine the name of the room. I read the writing, which was written in English but it was written is such a strange way that it made it kind of hard to read. “The chamber of-” “Passion?” Savior erupted randomly. “Is it the chamber of passion?” He walked over to me and whispered. “Will we bathe in a pool of strawberries and cream?” He got even closer to me and whispered even softer “Will the cream travels places you can’t even dream?” “Uhh… oh god…” I cringed. “I think you just made me dream it.” “How was it?” he snickered. “Amazing?” “No… just… uhh” I gagged. I was literally about to start throwing up. “You mean uhh-stounding? Yeah you do!” “If I was going to survive this mission, I would fucking murder you” I growled. “Still worth it” he laughed. Him and that fucking song. “Only you, Savior” I continued, trying to ignore the impulse to strangle my idiot cousin to death. “Anyway, it’s The Chamber of All’s End. This is the first room we needed to get to. We should be fine finding all the other rooms after this; they all happen to be linked together.” “That’s convenient” Twilight added. “The only problem is that we have no idea what’s in there.” I alerted them. “It could be something perfectly harmless, or it could be the most dangerous possible thing we could run into… I’ll bet on the ladder.” “Well, I guess we’ll just have to find out the hard way” Savior said. We all snuck quietly into the room, just in case there was something dangerous in there… It was infested. In every tiny nook and cranny was a Shadow Form, pissed off and ready to kill. I silently took out my scythe and proceeded to one that was sitting in a corner sleeping. I slowly put the blade behind its neck and quickly tugged it towards me. Making little noise, the Shadow Form’s head came right off. I moved on to the next one and the next one and the next one and I just kept going until I had cleared about half the room, at which point I was fed up with playing games and I quickly decided just to take them all head on. I took a big swing at a bunch of them, taking out 4 or 5 of them in one quick hit. 3 of them came at me from behind, which I simply did a quick buck and all 3 were out of my way; not dead, but out of my way. I gave another huge swing at another group of them, but I only hit about a quarter of them. Those Shadow Forms didn’t get away for long. I caught up to them and sliced their legs off! I got a few more of them after that, but I was quickly outnumbered, outmatched and worst of all, I was surrounded by a sea of the Shadow Forms. Fluttershy appeared behind a few of the Shadow Forms and she took out… my obsidian scythe?! She must have swiped it when I wasn’t looking, but how in the holy high hairy hanging hedges of hell did she conceal it so well for so long?! Anyway, she quickly chopped at all of the ones in front of her, allowing me to get the jump on the ones behind me which were now focused on her. I landed behind all of them and began to take them down one by one with quick slices. Each one had their head hit the floor shortly… it had worked perfectly. We all made it out of The Chamber Of All’s End safely and into The Tomb Of Lost Souls. It was old, dusty and very dark inside The Tomb. Luckily, there were no Shadow Forms inside it, so we were safe from those for a little while. This was also the last room before The Final Chamber, which is where the blood sacrifice would be made. I slowly made my way over and sat down in the corner of the room so I could rest. My back was in intense pain and I could feel a few cuts along my sides, legs and face. Fluttershy followed me back there and sat down beside me. I hated to make the decision I just had, but Savior knew it would’ve happened. I didn’t care. It was for the best and I was gonna do it! “I’m gonna do the blood sacrifice myself” I panted. “I think it would just be better that way.” “So this is the last time we get to be together?” she asked “I guess so” I moaned, trying not to cry. “I’m not happy about it either, but it’s gotta be done. Otherwise everypony will die, and I can’t let that happen.” “We’ll make sure everypony remembers you” Savior assured me. “I just… I don’t want you to get broken up about my death, ‘Shy” I sighed. “I know that’ll be hard, but you have to be strong about this. I can do this, so you can be strong about it, can’t you?” she nodded weakly, starting to cry. I pulled her close. “I know it’s not going to be fun for you ‘Shy, but I’ve gotta do this… It’s the best for Equestria… It’s the best for you… I know I won’t come back… so I want to say this one last time, just in case: I love you, Fluttershy. I always will.” “I hate to break up such a cute moment, but we’re on the brink of Equestria’s destruction here!” Savior interrupted. “Okay” I said, getting up off of the ground. “I guess this is it…” “I guess it is” Savior sniffled. “I’m gonna miss you, Reaper.” “Come here, you bastard!” I laughed. We gave each other a final friendly hug and I got ready to end this. I walked casually into The Final Chamber, Scythe drawn and ready to rumble. There were easily over a hundred and 50 Shadow forms packed into one room. I saw the three innocent little fillies stacked on top of pillars stuck in what looked like glass balls. Their faces lit up when they saw me. My attention was still on the Lost Souls… I gave a devilish little smile. “Gentlemen, today is the first day of the end of your lives!” All the Shadow Forms in the room suddenly and quickly turned their full attention to me. All of them began running at me all at once. I readied my scythe, and just before they could do anything I jumped straight over their heads and landed behind them. It was less than a few seconds before I had plowed my way through what had seemed like hundreds of them and I had made my way back to the front door of the place. I turned back around to face my enemies, instantly realizing that I had barely made a dent in their forces’ numbers. They began to easily swarm me as I felt cuts emerge on my legs and face around my eyes. I lifted my scythe in front of my face, which got a few of them killed or mortally wounded from trying to attack my face. I managed to make it out of the huge crowd of Shadow Forms and I flew up then proceeded to do several diving swipes which made several kills fairly quickly. The Lost Souls wouldn’t stop forming Shadow Forms, making it near impossible to tell if I was thinning the forces that crowded the room. Obviously not, but I kept going, ruthlessly chopping through what felt like thousands and thousands of the darkened bodies. It never came to an end, and eventually I began to get fatigued from my repetitive chopping. Apparently, the Lost Souls got irritated too, because they all just seemed to give up. Well, they didn’t exactly “give up…” They began to merge together into one pony and his familiar looking weapon of choice… me and my scythe. After about a minute and a half of standing there, wide-eyed, watching the souls “combine,” a shadow version of me became manifest. It was like the Legend of Zelda II’s ending, except I was even more fucked. We both drew our scythes at the same time and in the same way. “Two great minds think alike, huh, me?” I asked, chuckling a little. He nodded. We ran at each other at the same time, as I had anticipated. We began to brawl a little. It became very repetitive between us, as we kept preforming the same attacks and tricks, making all our combat efforts end with nopony hurt in the slightest. I kept trying regardless, but it didn’t turn out so well. I was a physically living thing as opposed to him, who was technically only a physical representation of my appearance made up of a bunch of different beings. In Lyman’s terms: I had physical limits, but he didn’t. This was a very, VERY big problem for me. I eventually hit my physical limit and became too fatigued to continue. He began to advance on me as I tried to catch my breath. His advance was a little bit slow, giving me time to catch my breath. As soon as he was a matter of feet from where I stood, I decided to suck it up and beat him out. I stood up, trying not to wince from the pain I had in all of my legs. We began to trade blows once again, but this time I had to think like somepony else. That way I could catch him off guard with an attack and he would actually get injured. I thought of the worst possible move, but I gave it a shot anyway. I threw my scythe straight at him. I could hear Savior yelling at me from the other room, but I just tuned him out and focused on my adversary, who had finally stopped copying me in the fact that he still held his scythe. He began to charge me as I would have. I anticipated it, so I jumped over him and tried to stomp on one of his back hind legs. I missed and slipped, hitting the floor with a small crack coming from my chest. I also felt a very sharp and abrupt pain in the area where I had fallen on. It must have been one of my ribs, and considering I still had 11 of them left to spare, I got back up and continued. He did an aerial dive, which I managed to dodge. I ran over to the side of the room, where (as I had hoped) he did another aerial dive. When I dove out of the way, he slammed into the wall allowing me to get on top of him and proceed to beat the shit out of him with my own two forelegs. The Shadow Form’s face began to distort as I continued punching it over and over and over and over. No matter how many times I punched the bastard’s face and no matter how fucked up-looking it got, he didn’t seem to get hurt at all. Eventually he decided “I’m done with this bullshit” and threw me off of him and into a wall. My head slammed into the wall hard enough to crack its surface. Blood came out of the back of my head as I fell to the floor. The fucker was ready to kill me right then and there. My vision was blurry and I could feel blood all over the back of my head. That wall hit me hard enough so that my ears were ringing and I felt the pain at the front of my head… There… standing over me… was Shadow Reaper. His scythe was at the ready. I was ready to get a giant blade plunged into my head, but I didn’t. I opened my eyes to see him just standing over me with his scythe raised like he was about to strike. In the background, I could easily see Savior with his rifle at the ready about to shoot the Shadow Form in the head. I nodded weakly and I could almost sense the trigger being pulled. The Shadow Form’s head almost seemed to disappear with the sound of the gunshot. It fell to the ground without another action… “Thanks!” I called over to him. “It’s not over yet!” he yelled pointing at the Lost Souls forming something huge and very… Deja vu… Forming into huge beast with wounds all over its body, the Lost Souls continued to swarm. It began to have armor form around it and a huge blade right next to it… It was a Shadow Form of Nightmare. It turned around and gave me a death glare before picking up his weapon and rushing at me. I turned around and started running as fast as I could so I could reach my scythe before I got ran over. I managed to grab my scythe but by the time I had picked it up, Nightmare’s big metallic shadowy boot struck me in the side of the head, sending me flying until I hit the wall, once again with enough impact to crack the stone walls. I managed to push myself off of the ground and into the best fighting position I could manage. He began to rush me again. This time, I was able to anticipate it better, allowing me to dive out of the way and come back for an attempt at hitting him in the back. Key word there is ATTEMPT. The giant pile of Lost Souls swung around and hit me square in the face with the blunt end of his blade. I flew clear across the room until I hit the ground, mere feet away from hitting the wall again. I got up and made my own charge. At the last second, I swooped upward and straight over to the back of Shadow Nightmare. I landed on my hind legs and took a big swing at his legs. The blade got a good solid cut at the joints of his legs, making him fall backwards… on top of me. I tried my best to wedge my way out from the 400 pounds of Shadow Nightmare plus his armor and his big-ass weapon. I managed to wiggle free after a minute and I flipped over to get on top of him. Standing on top of him, I didn’t notice him lifting his leg to get it under me. I suddenly got flung across the room once again. Shadow Nightmare slowly rose to his feet and grabbed his weapon again. He began to rush at me once again, but with enough distance between us so that I could see it coming. I was able to dive under his legs (just barely) before he hit the wall with a solid crack. A massive set of cracks formed in the wall making look like an earthquake had hit that wall and that wall only. I rose up to make another aerial dive at Shadow Nightmare, but this time it was him anticipating my movements. He simply stuck up a boot and since I wasn’t able to change directions fast enough, I ran straight into it. I got clothes lined and did a full skid across the floor until my head grazed the stone of the cracked wall. Shadow Nightmare stood over me and suddenly, two bullets impacted the side of his head. They didn’t penetrate the armor, allowing the Nightmare clone to look over to Savior with a death glare. He turned back to me and gave me the same death glare. His eyes weren’t green now; instead of green, they were pure black. Not just the pupils, but the iris and the white of his eyes were also pitch black. I thought I was about to die… but I remembered something: “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WATCHING?” “I’m watching My Little Pony” “Oh god, no. Please don’t tell me you’re one of those homosexual jerk-offs that watch that kiddy shit.” “What th-… Are you asking if I’m gay?!” “Yes” “Would there be something wrong with that?” “Yes” “I’m not, first off, and second, when you say there’s something wrong with being gay, you have some serious homophobia goin’ for ya!” “But you watch that show” “HOW ARE HOMOSEXUALITY AND A TV SHOW RELATED IN THE SLIGHTEST!??! You treat it as if it’s a sin to have my own fucking opinion! Well, guess what? I’m sick of your shit, bro! I’ve put up with your judgment all my life, and now… I’m done!” “What are you gonna do? What’s a little homo like you gonna do?” I began to remember even more: “What’s wrong, big bro?” “Peter, we need to talk. It’s about your grades. You’ve failed your math, history and science classes. You’re gonna have to go into a special class to help you with it.” “I tried my best” “Your best isn’t good enough, Peter! I don’t want to have a dumbass as a brother. You’re in the seventh grade, Peter! You should be able to handle all your shit on your own!” “Dad always told me to try my best! To just do what I could and I would be fine! But you don’t care! You’re not Dad! You’re just a dick!” SMACK! “Don’t you DARE call me that, dumbass! You need to suck it up! You’re not a fucking 3-year-old! Stop crying, go to your room and do whatever the fuck you want to! As long as what you do makes you smarter than you are right now!” I swallowed and muttered “I’m not a dumbass.” I swung the scythe harder than I ever thought I could. I swung it directly up into the Shadow Nightmare’s stomach, piercing his armor. I tipped him over and jumped on top of the Shadow Nightmare, yanking my scythe out of him. “You think you’re a fuckin’ Nightmare?” I growled. “Well, guess what? I’m YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE!” I swiped my scythe down and sliced straight through his neck. His head detached from his body and the shadow form disintegrated. I let out a sigh of relief, knowing that I was done with the fighting. The only thing that I had to do now… was die… I approached the altar that had the chalice on it. I noticed that there was a button on the underside of the stone altar it was on. That must have been the button that would activate whatever the sacrifice was. I was in front of the altar, thinking of what would happen when I died this time. I heard from behind me “REAPER!” It was Fluttershy crying. “Fluttershy, don’t look!” I yelled. My hoof hit the button and three long, sharp blades came shooting out of the floor and straight through my mouth, causing my blood to flow into the chalice and causing me to die on the spot without feeling any pain. It was less than an instant before I was sitting above everything looking down on the Cutie Mark Crusaders racing to the other 3. I saw Fluttershy fall down and just let go what seemed like an endless stream of tears. I felt Bo’s presence behind me. “Well, Reaper” he said. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Bad news is, they’re gonna forget all about you, except for one pony of your choosing. The good news is that it’s only temporary. We’re putting you in conservation because Equestria will need you again in the future. When you’re sent back we’ll give back everypony’s memory of you.” “How long will this be?” I asked “Hell if I know” he replied. “I know that you won’t be able to see what’s going on down in Equestria, and you won’t have to eat or drink anything. There might be another being put into conservation with you. We’re not too sure yet, but just be patient.” “Alright” I sighed. “I guess I’ll want Savior to be the one to remember. Fluttershy would probably give up on life if she kept the memories, and I don’t want that to happen, so it’s best to give ‘em to Savior.” “Smart guy as always” Bo added. “Savior it is! See ya later!” I sat down in the blank white that I was suddenly surrounded by. It wasn’t “above Equestria” white it was literally blank as in there was nothing there… but me… I waited for ages… but nopony came. After what seemed like years, I felt someone pop up only a yard and a half away from me. I was sleeping, so I lifted my head to see who it was… It was a human… “Who in the Sam hell are you?” he asked “I might ask you the same question” I answered. “I’m John Jack” he told me skeptically. “I’m Reaper” I returned “So…” he started awkwardly. “where in the Sam hell are we?” “Welcome to a little piece of heaven” I quoted. “You listen to Avenged Sevenfold?” he asked. “Yeah, why?” “Me too!” he laughed. “Why are we here anyway?” “Equestria’s gonna need us again pretty soon, so both of us and all memories of us are being preserved here for the time being” I explained. “Brightside is you don’t have to eat or drink. Downside is that there’s not a goddamn thing to do around here except sleep and you can only do so much of that.” “So I guess we wait then” he suggested. “I guess so” So we waited, and while we waited, we began to become friends. It was much easier to pass the time with someone there with me. His stories of what happened to him in Equestria were so… odd. I didn’t think it would ever happen; Earth and Equestria combining, I mean. We had both faced a death that was for a good cause though. We became great friends after a while, knowing pretty much everything about each other, knowing all of each other’s secrets. It felt like I had a brother that wasn’t an asshole! Occasionally, one of us would disagree on something, but we would resolve it through means of words, considering the fact that of we hit each other, the attacker would feel pain instead of the victim (I learned that the hard way). We had a lot of curiosity about this entire “conservation” thing. What did we need to be conserved for? Why did they take the memories of us away? When would we be summoned back to Equestria and out of this fuckin’ blank dimension filled with nothing? Why am I asking questions I won’t get the answer to again? Didn’t I learn not to ask these questions last time I asked these questions? The point was that we had to keep on waiting… And so we continued waiting… Waiting for something to happen…
Rise And Fall, Rage And GracePOV: John Jack I had lost track of the days eventually. Reaper and I were forced to live with each other for what seemed like forever. This guy’s life story was a lot more complex than mine, but neither of us cared about who was better than the other in any way. We both knew that if we had any of those kinds of conflicts, there would be a problem when we had to work together. Regardless, we still had differences as well as similarities. We were the best of friends eventually, which felt good because we were locked in… what was it called? Conservation, I think. Whatever… we were isolated and it was good to have someone to talk too; end of story! Eventually we both knew just about everything about each other. I knew his real name and he knew about the entire “Mr. Jack” thing. It was still a mystery of why I was put in conservation. Reaper obviously knew that there was something that Equestria still needed us for, but both of us couldn’t guess what. Also, the entire “memories will return when we get back thing” confused me. This Savior guy was apparently very close to Twilight, so how come I never heard about him… I guess I wasn’t that close to Twilight myself. Meh; whoever this Savior guy is, he wasn’t an impact on my life in Equestria, so I guess it doesn’t matter that much to me. I wish I could have known how long it had been when that guy came to us. Not Savior, but some other guy. He was a blonde angel in a long white robe and his name was apparently Bo. Bo appeared to us one day… evening… fuck it… Bo appeared to us after a while, let’s leave it at that! His eyes were lit up with excitement as he told us what was happening. “We’ve finally found out why you need to go back!” he yelled, directing his words at Reaper. “There’s going to be a death soon. It won’t be an accident, and it won’t be regarded as murder unless you guys figure out what happened!” “That’s all you can tell us?” Reaper snorted angrily. “Well, I can tell you who will die, and I could tell you that there’s an entire party responsible for the murder, but other than that, I can’t help you.” He was standing there with a puzzled look on his face as he tried to think of anything else. “That’s enough to go on” I butted in. “We don’t need to know who dies right now, we’ll obviously figure it out later.” “This would almost be like Minority Report if we didn’t have to investigate” Reaper added in an indifferent tone. “True, true” I agreed. “Well, you guys’ll be put back onto Equestrian ground as soon as the death happens” Bo continued. “It’ll take a day or two for the word to spread around to Ponyville but at least that gives you guys some time to settle in, catch up on past events and just generally get used to your old lives again.” “Well, at least we get to leave” Reaper shrugged. It’s been too long since I’ve seen Fluttershy and Savior, and I’m assuming you’re itching to see Luna, right John?” “You betcha” I nodded. It took another time of sleeping (can’t really call it night since we couldn’t tell) before we were woken up by Bo again. Without any words he teleported us into two different places. He teleported me to Canterlot and Reaper to Ponyville. We were both where we wanted to be. I didn’t really need to be in Ponyville, because I knew that Connor, Discord and Afanasai could handle things themselves. What I really wanted was to see Luna, and what Reaper really wanted was to see Fluttershy. I was plopped onto the front steps of the castle without hardly any warning. I got up, dusted off and proceeded inside the large castle. I wondered what was going on with both Luna and Fluttershy at this moment. All of their memories of me and Reaper had returned at the moment we were re-incarnated in Equestria (Reaper for the second time). I’m assuming that both of them instantly began to cry oceans. I guess I would find out about Luna’s reaction in a moment. I had reached the throne room after I was done contemplating the possibilities. There was a faint crying sound coming from the other end of the room. I looked over to see Luna sobbing uncontrollably next to her sister who was attempting to comfort her, but was apparently doing a pretty shitty job. It was hard to keep myself from laughing when Princess Celestia looked up to see me because her jaw dropped so wide open that I swear I could see into her stomach. Luna could tell that something was up because she could hear nothing coming from her sister, so she looked up at her, and then looked over the way that her sister was looking; she looked over at me. Instantly, her eyes perked up and her crying stopped as she leaped over to me… well, she more of tackled me. I laughed uncontrollably as she practically constricted me in a tight hug. She pushed up a little to look at my face and said “what art thou laughing about?” “My apologies, Princess” I chuckled. “I just didn’t expect to be attacked by something as cute as thou.” Luna giggled and blushed a little as she stepped off of me. “Thy words are too kind.” “Ah, but they are true!” I retaliated, making her laugh more. I noticed Princess Celesta was raising an eyebrow while laughing a little herself. “Oh, I’m sorry, Celestia. Anything happen while I was gone?” “No, no, but there was a very strange rush of memory that happened just a little less than an hour ago” Celestia told me. “I remembered everything about you as well as somepony you may not know named Reaper.” “Don’t worry, I’m very well acquainted with Reaper” I interrupted. “I wonder where he is” she thought out loud. POV: Reaper I was in Ponyville, obviously! Where else would I be, Ontario? Anyway, I was spat onto Fluttershy’s front doorstep, where I got up, dusted off (like I would assume John did) and quietly rapped on her front door. Instead of Fluttershy herself answering the door, the door swung open to reveal… nothing… I looked down. It was Angel. The little white fur ball was starting to freak out at the sight of who he thought was dead and probably also thought was now a zombie. I laughed and walked past him to see where Fluttershy was. Sure enough, Fluttershy was sitting on the sofa, crying her adorable little eyes out. I decided to try and lighten the mood. “Your problem has been solved!” She sniffed and looked up at me before jumping over to me and practically breaking my spine with a practically Pinkie Pie Pony-power hug. “Reaper! I don’t know how you’re still alive, but I’m so glad you are!” “I won’t be for very long if you keep hugging me like this” I choked. “Sorry” ‘Shy withdrew quickly. “What’s happened since I…” I hesitated to spit out the last few words, “died.” “Nothing really” she said really happily. She suddenly frowned as she continued, “all except for me remembering you dying. I just remembered it a little while ago. It’s strange, because I suddenly remembered hearing about this pony named John Jack, too.” “Well, it doesn’t seem like I missed much, then” I interrupted sitting down next to her. “At least we get to be together again.” Angel hopped up onto the sofa and sat down beside me. “Hiya, Angel!” I greeted him. “How’s my favorite little white fluff ball with anger issues doing?” He scowled at me. “I’ll take that as “I’m fine. Shut the fuck up.”” He seemed to laugh a little as he hopped straight over my head and landed on Fluttershy, who pulled him into a hug. For the next several days, both me and John remained where we were. John had a good time in Canterlot (I know because he told me a little later), him, Luna and… the last one surprised me a little, but you’ll figure that out later. As for me, I spent pretty much all my time with Fluttershy (duh), but I also spent a little time helping out at Sweet Apple Acres considering it was harvesting season and I used to live next to an apple orchard. Applejack and her brother insisted that I get paid for it, but I attempted to decline. Obviously they wouldn’t take no for an answer so after about 5 minutes, I gave in and took the 20 bits. Apparently in American money, that’s jack shit. After a day or two I decided to go give that poor bastard Savior a visit, so I headed over to Twilights tree. It was quite a surprise to me when nopony opened the door. I just got impatient after a little while, so I let myself inside to find… no-one… WHAT?! I raced back to Fluttershy’s cottage and asked her what happened to Savior and Twilight. She began to tell me about something that happened while I was gone… So, apparently Twilight was going to be in Canterlot for quite a while along with Savior, Spike and Owlowiscious. The reason why was because for some random, fuck-all logic reason Twilight became an Alicorn Princess. Regardless of how stupid it seemed to me, I guessed it didn’t matter too much. As a matter of fact, I felt kind of happy for Savior, since Twilight was now a Princess. It was about two or three days later when I was just walking around the town and I found the CMC crying… but Scootaloo was missing… I went to get John… I had a bad feeling about this. POV: John I was in Canterlot for a while, not too long. I was able to catch up on everything that I missed with Luna. Really the only thing that was new was that Twilight was now an Alicorn as well as a Princess, which I found pretty strange, but I guess that’s good for Reaper’s cousin Savior. Apparently, Twilight was at the Canterlot Castle, so I thought over going to see her to say hi and meet Savior, but I decided against it, because I knew I wouldn’t be staying long, and when Reaper got back to me I would probably meet his cousin anyway. I was right when I said I wasn’t staying long ‘cuz after only a day or two, Reaper came sprinting into the castle yelling for me. I raced towards the noise with all the speed I could muster. Reaper was practically suffocating himself from yelling and panting so hard. I ran my hand through my long, now sweaty, black hair as I took a deep breath. “What’s wrong, Reaper?” “Applebloom! Sweetie Belle!” he panted. “Crying! Need you! Explanation! Possibly murder!” “That’s enough of an explanation for me!” I nodded “Let’s go!” We took the train which only took an hour or so like it normally does, and then we raced into the streets to find Applebloom and Sweetie Belle. It didn’t take us too long since Sweetie Belle was going off like a fucking police siren. The fantastically flustered fillies explained what they could as soon as we managed to get Sweetie Belle to stop over-watering the grass. They started off talking about how Scootaloo was going to Cloudsdale to live as a resident for a while to see if anything there would help her get her Cutie Mark, but apparently, in order to be a Cloudsdale resident you have to pass a basic flight test. She enrolled in the Cloudsdale Public Flight Academy as well as asked Rainbow Dash to help her with learning to fly. She eventually learned how to fly fairly well, well enough to pass the flight exam that determines whether you become a Cloudsdale resident or not. Her and two of her friends that she made in the CPFA died during the test for reasons unknown. They then explained that the pony who told them couldn’t tell them any more or they would send him “there.” Me and Reaper looked at each other with wide, wide eyes. We both knew that this was the murder we were looking for. “Reaper?” I asked. “I think we should pay a visit to Afanasai. He might be able to see something we can’t.” Swiftness overcame both of us as we flipped around and made for my old house in a hurry. Only a few minutes had passed before we made it to the front doorstep of the house. It seemed oddly quiet, though. I knocked on the door. “It’s unlocked” I hear Afanasai say in his deep, deep Russian voice. I opened the door and let both of us inside. He looked up from his book and over at us. He gave a near microscopic smile and turned back to his book. I looked around the room to see a fully-loaded bar that wasn’t there before. I ignored it and went back to the matter at hand. “Afanasai, I was wondering if you knew anything about Scootaloo’s death” I asked, sitting down in a chair across the room from his. He gave out a long sigh and looked up at me with his single, dark green eye. “I know very little” he said. “But one thing that I do know, I am certain you will not like.” I nodded in acknowledgement and continued listening to him. “It has to be some pretty serious shit, because Connor tried to investigate and…” His hesitation made me nervous. “They killed him.” “WHAT!?!?!” I screamed. “Who told you he died?!” Afanasai sighed and I swear I could almost see a tear drop from his eye. “John, you mind fixing me a drink?” he asked. “At a time like this?” Reaper butted in. “It’ll take the stress off” Afanasai explained. “Plus, I remember Connor telling me how good John is at drink mixing.” Reaper looked up at me. I laughed nervously as I tried to explain, “I used to have to work 2 jobs, so I to work at a local bar. I made an ass-load of tips.” I looked over to the tall Russian again, “Whaddaya want?” “I was going to ask for something mixed, but now I’m just thinking I’ll take a bottle of Vodka and a shot glass.” “One of THOSE Russians, are we?” Reaper joked. “If by that” I added, “you mean one of the Russians that could tear you apart in less than a few seconds, then yes.” I gave Afanasai his bottle and glass and went back to the bar. “You want anything, Reaper?” “I’m fuckin’ 15!” “So? This is a different Jurisdiction” I argued. “Alright, just give me what you’re having.” I just grabbed myself something and sat down with two glasses. I looked at what I had… it was some of the hardest stuff that I could’ve grabbed, harder than what Afanasai was drinking. I shrugged and poured it into the glasses I grabbed, which were shot glasses as well. Afanasai looked over at me. “Are you sure you want him to drink that? That is some strong shit.” I watched quietly as he gulped it down and gave a huge shudder and regained his senses from the intense taste. “Anyway, you were saying?” I continued, looking back to Afanasai. “It was nurse Redheart. She requested me at the hospital” He explained. We all drank a little before he continued. “I asked for the autopsy reports so I could see how he died, but she denied my request immediately, saying that she couldn’t give out that classified of information.” “So?” I retorted. “I saw her give out the autopsy reports for several other ponies” he said, giving me a look like he wanted me to do something about it. “It must be highly classified. They’re keeping something from us, John. They’re keeping things from the ones who saved this sorry-ass nation.” “We’ll see what we can do” I nodded. Me and Reaper pushed up out of our chairs and walked out after saying a short goodbye to our friend. Outside were Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, who were apparently listening in on our conversation. “What in the Sam hell were you girls doing listening to that?” I asked. “We were curious” Applebloom squeaked, withdrawing. “Don’t sweat it girls” I chuckled lightly. “Look, we’re going over to Ponyville Hospital to see if we can get an autopsy report on our friend Connor O’Drake. They probably won’t give it to us because it’s related to Scootaloo’s death, which may go a lot deeper than we thought. If they deny our request, we’ll take it from them by sneaking in… more specifically, you’ll take it from them by sneaking in.” “Whaddaya mean?” Applebloom questioned. “You’re gonna go in and get the report if they don’t give it to us” I explained. “Security in Hospitals is low, and we’re too big to sneak in undetected. You gals can get in, no problem, so you’ll be in charge of that.” “Yay!” Sweetie Belle Celebrated. “We get to help!” And so we were set. The atmosphere was very… dark as we entered through the double doors of the hospital. It smelled like your typical doctor’s office waiting room; it smelled like a bunch of sterile tools and non-latex gloves. I hated that smell; it nauseated me to no end, but I held down the drink from earlier and continued up to Nurse Redheart at the desk. Her eyes were pointed down towards the book she was holding. She was about to turn the page when she sensed the presence of somepony standing in front of her. Her eyes traveled up until they reached the tall human with a long black mane that was standing before her… It was me… you know, just in case you didn’t know. Anyway, I gave her a warm smile and said “good afternoon, Nurse Redheart.” “Good afternoon, John” she replied. “I know who you are because after that whole “Canterlot” fiasco I had to take care of so many patients that it was total chaos around here. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Jack.” I was turned towards the small Nurse Pony, but I could still just feel Reaper roll his eyes. “Nurse, I’ve been told that my friend Connor O’Drake was killed, and since this is the only hospital in town, I would assume he was taken here.” “Yes, I remember him” Nurse Redheart responded. “What about him?” “I was wondering if I could access some kind of autopsy report or medical file that might tell me something about what happened” I continued. “We’re afraid that his death may not have been an accident.” “I’m really sorry, John” she sighed, “but I’ve been given direct orders not to let anypony access any files on Connor. I wasn’t even allowed to look at the files and I was the one who was there during the autopsy. I can’t discuss it, give any information on it, anything like that. If I do, I’ll lose my job.” “I understand” I nodded. Sighing, I turned around and we all left. “Well, I saw that coming” Reaper murmured sarcastically. “So did I, Reaper” I agreed, “but we need those autopsy files one way or another. Girls, this is where you come in. You need to sneak into the hospital, steal the autopsy report on a man named Connor O’Drake. That’s O, apostrophe, D, R, A, K, E. I can try to go in too, if you want me too. Otherwise, you’ll be on your own.” “I don’t think it’s smart to go in alone” Sweetie Belle thought out loud. She turned to Applebloom. “I think he should come with us.” “Ah agree” Applebloom said. “We can’t jus go in alone an’ expect to do this without getting’ caught in one way er another!” “Alright, then!” I interrupted them. “I’ll go with you. Reaper, I think it would help if you could keep watch on the outside.” I handed him one of the old communication devices that Afanasai gave us for the Canterlot thing. I snagged two of them off of the bar counter while Afanasai was reading. “Use this and alert us if any guards, police, morons, Pinkie Pie or anypony at all enters the building. We waited around the entrance of the hospital in a small crevasse where nopony would see us. We just sat there and talked for 3 or 4 hours while we waited for Luna to go to work. Sure enough, the moon rose with a beautiful white glow to it, signaling us that it was time to go to work. Reaper went around to the power box on the other side of the building and cut all the power lines with his scythe. We then opened the glass doors as slowly and quietly as we could. We could see Nurse Redheart stumbling around in the dark. I snuck up behind the unsuspecting mare and gave her a swift kick to the head, knocking her unconscious. “Sorry, Nurse” I said to the unconscious body. “Can’t let you know that we’re here. I could tell she was still breathing, so we hadn’t killed her which meant we could move on after I had mover her back to sitting in her chair. I had to set her up so she was sitting like Lyra, but she was in her chair and dammit, she was sitting in it, so we moved on. Silence remained among the three of us as we proceeded into the back of the area behind the desk. There were hundreds of thousands of files, more than the population of Ponyville, by far! I ignored the quantity and continued on the search for my friend’s autopsy report. I searched through the files for what seemed like a fucking eternity. After long enough, I found the file marked “O’Drake.” Sure enough, inside the file folder was Connor’s autopsy report, marked with a stamp that read “HIGLY CLASSIFIED.” I guess Nurse Redheart wasn’t kidding when shy said it was highly classified. I quickly scanned the page to make sure it was Connor’s, and as soon as I was sure it was his, I crept slowly towards the other end of the file racks, where the girls were. I beckoned the girls over to me and they heeded my signal. “Ya got tha file?” Applebloom whispered. I nodded. “Good. Ya think we should get outta here soon?” “Probably a good idea to get out of here before Nurse Redheart wakes up” I agreed. “She may not be up for a few hours, but we shouldn’t take any chances. We got what we needed and I don’t want the chance of having it taken away.” As we quietly crept away from the file area… place, Reaper chimed in. “Uhh… John? We’ve got a problem.” “What?” “I think that electricity box was connected to another building” he said. “There are repair Ponies coming this way… and I think they’re going to check the inside of the building first.” “Shit” I huffed. “Well, we’ll just have to knock ‘em out.” “I’m on it!” Sweetie Belle chirped quietly. Before I could stop her, Sweetie Belle dashed towards the door. Me and Applebloom just stayed hidden and watched as the two repair Ponies entered the dark and quiet hospital building unsuspecting of anything on the inside. One of them dropped to the floor with a loud THUD. The other one turned around to see Sweetie Belle’s hoof hitting his jaw. He spun around a full 180 degrees before hitting the ground with an impact equally as noisy as his colleague’s. I quickly crept over to the little unicorn. “Hot damn, Sweetie Belle!” I laughed quietly. “Where in the Sam hell did you learn to do that?” She blushed a little. “Applebloom has a thing for martial arts” she said. I gave a small laugh under my breath and then proceeded out the door to go to reaper and tell him it was all clear. “Reaper!” I called, “you can come out now! We got it!” He popped out and gave a little gallop over to us. “Nice! Let’s analyze this bitch!” “Let’s go to a place less suspecting” I suggested. “Anypony got any ideas on where we might be able to go?” We all started thinking… “Carousel Boutique?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Nah” I rejected. “Rarity is likely to question what we’re doing, then figure out about shit, get pissed as shit, and I’ll beat the shit out of her.” “That and she’s an asshole” Reaper added. We continued thinking. “Sweet Apple Acres?” Applebloom added. “Nah” I repeated. “Big Mac may be a nice guy, but this is something he would NOT approve of, so things would not end well.” “We could go to Sugarcube Corner!” Reaper spouted, as if it was some sort of epiphany. “Pinkie Pie is about as observant as a deaf bat when it comes to this kind of thing! She’ll never suspect a thing!” “That is…” I stopped as soon as I started because I realized that I had no valid arguments to make on this one. “A brilliant idea, Reaper! Let’s all haul ass to Sugarcube corner!” About 5 or 6 minutes later, we were all sitting around a table at Sugarcube corner with a cupcake in front of each of us. Reaper seemed to be checking his cupcake for something. “What’s the matter Reaper? Don’t like cupcakes or something?” “No, I love cupcakes,” he said, “I’m just checking to see if there are any chunks of Rainbow Dash in here.” I laughed before I realized what he had just said. “What in the holy Sam hell are you talkin’ about?!” “It’s nothing important” Reaper assured me as he finished checking his cupcake. “Anyway, let’s get down to business.” “Alright” I nodded, swallowing a bite of my cupcake. I pulled out the autopsy report. “So, according to this, Connor was shot a total of 3 times. Once in the leg, then twice in the chest.” “Do we know what kind of gun they used?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Good question” I praised her. “It says here that it was from an M1911. He was hit with .45 caliber rounds, so he was probably killed with one shot to the leg and one shot to the chest, but whoever shot him probably wanted to make absolutely sure that he wasn’t gonna get up. There’s also a letter to the hospital from Cloudsdale’s City Hall. It says that they should let nopony see this autopsy report due to the victim being killed for being close to knowing very, very highly classified information on the death of Scootaloo…. Cloudsdale is trying to cover this up. “Why?” Applebloom asked. “Connor helped save Equestria! Shouldn’t he be able ta know a little classified info?” “They don’t want anypony to know about this” Reaper sighed. “It’s something bad. They wouldn’t be this desperate to cover it up if it wasn’t something so serious that they can’t afford anypony to know.” “I think we should go talk to Afanasai again” I interrupted. “He may know some more details.” We all returned to my house where Afanasai was sitting in the same chair reading the same book of Equestrian history. “Hey there” he greeted us. “Did you all know that King Sombra wasn’t originally from the Crystal Empire? He was originally from Equestria, but since he had so much free power, he decided to take over the Crystal Empire.” “Afanasai, that’s interesting, but we have bigger problems to deal with at the moment” I said. “We need to know if you would happen to know any more details on Connor’s death.” “Well, I do know that he was killed at City Hall” he answered. We all looked at one another. “Thanks Afanasai!” I spouted, giving a small appreciative nod. All 4 of us that were standing in the room flipped around and made a mad dash for City Hall. It was time for an interrogation… POV: John The road fell behind us as Reaper and I ran to City Hall as fast as we could. We reached the center of the town after about ten minutes, because the total distance was one mile, and we practically broke down the front door we were in such a rush. I’m not even kidding when I say that I could hear the hinges on the door pop out of place. The secretary looked up at us like we were the fucking craziest two guys she had ever seen, and I don’t blame her for that. “We need to see the Mayor ASAP” I told her straight out. “She’s got a lot of work to do right now” the secretary replied skeptically. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later.” I bent down next to Reaper and whispered to him “you mind if I yank out my gun?” He put a hoof to his face and stepped forward. “Look, lady” he snapped. “You need to let us through here. We’ve both saved Equestria, meaning your sorry ass! We’ve got business with the Mayor of Ponyville and she never has work to do!” The secretary certainly looked intimidated. She simply pointed to the door on the other side of the room from the entrance and we walked over there without another word. You could tell that there was something going on here just by the cold, unusually guilty atmosphere hanging around Mayor Mare. “Mayor?” I said, interrupting her gloomy stare that was directed at the empty desk in front of her. She looked up to see both of us. “Reaper! John! Good to see both of you!” she spouted happily. “What can I do for both of you?” “Mayor, we know something’s going on” Reaper stepped up. “John’s friend Connor is dead and so is a young Pegasus filly named Scootaloo. We were told that Connor was found dead at City Hall, so obviously, you’d know something!” “What are you talking about?” the Mayor asked in confusion. “Don’t pretend you don’t know” Reaper continued. “There’s something you know that we don’t. Connor’s death was linked to Scootaloo’s death wasn’t it?” “I don’t know who Connor is!” “Bullshit!” Reaper yelled. “You can’t hide this forever, Mayor! You know more about this, so you’re gonna tell us!” “I’m gonna call security” the Mayor said reaching for the intercom. Reaper leapt over and tackled her. I helped him tie the Mayor to her chair. “LET ME GO! LET ME GO!” she yelled. “Not until you tell us what you know!” Reaper repeated. “I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS CONNOR GUY GETTING SHOT!” I gave a devilish little smile as the Mayor realized her mistake. “Damn” she mumbled. I pulled out my M1911 and pointed it at her head. “You know shit, now spill it!” I shouted in her face. “FUCK YOU!” she screamed the secretary burst in the door. It caught me of guard so I pulled the hammer back. I swung around and blew a shot through the secretary’s head. “JOHN! OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!” Reaper gasped in astonishment at the random discharge of my firearm into somepony’s face. “Sorry, it was instinct!” I apologized. “I’ll be back in a second” Reaper told me, bouncing over to the file cabinets. He started digging through files until he pulled one out… one labeled “Scootaloo Death” with a giant HIGHLY CLASSIFIED stamped over the file’s front. “I got the file!” “Bring it here and let’s find out” I said, cracking another devilish smile, this time directed at Mayor Mare. He hopped over and handed me the file folder. I flipped it open and the first and only thing in there was a report from Cloudsdale. It said that Scootaloo was reported to have been killed after failing her flight test. I gulped because it sounded familiar to a story that reaper had told me about. I ignored the feeling and just continued with our investigation. “Is this all you know?” “It’s all they would give me” the Mayor sniffled, now crying because she knew that I was actually able to kill her in the blink of an eye. “I know for a fact that it is REALLY highly classified information. That’s why they killed your friend.” Reaper leapt back over and untied the Mayor. “I’m so sorry about your secretary, Mayor Mare. She caught me off guard.” I apologized. She took a breath and nodded. “I understand” she said. “She scared you and you acted on instinct. It happens to everypony.” “Thank you Mayor Mare” I laughed. “Not like you had a choice, but…” “Please, just leave” she frowned. Reaper and I left as the Mayor asked us. “So, Reaper” I spoke up. “What should we do now?” “Maybe the Princesses know something we don’t” he suggested. “That’s not a bad idea.” “I mean, they rule the entire place” he continued. “Don’t you think they should know what happens here?” “I guess you’re right” I agreed. It was getting late, so we both went back home for the night so we could sleep as well as get prepared. I decided to arm myself to the fucking teeth, because I was guessing that we would be going straight to our destination after Canterlot. I only got 1 or 2 hours of sleep the entire night. I was up from 6 to 6 making my own weapons. It was the fastest I’ve ever worked with the exception of when Connor and I were repeating the making of the M4A1s for the Equestrian military. By the end of it I had 2 new toys… they weren’t tested though. It was a chance I had to take though. They were both guns I weren’t used to making. First was the Italian close-range classic combat killer, the SPAS-12. It sucks that only 5% of all of the ones officially manufactured were imported to the U.S. Second and probably my favorite modern weapon, The Belgian Personal Swiss Cheese Factory: The P90. I also managed to find my grandfather’s old .44 caliber Magnum. Sure it brought back some fucking terrible memories (Jason), but I thought it would help to have something as powerful as a .44 caliber revolver. Like always, the train ride to Canterlot was boring as hell without fire. As soon as the 3 or 4 hour train ride ended, we got off the train as soon as we had the chance, as we both felt like we were about to kill ourselves out of boredom, and we had the weapons to do so, too! Canterlot looked a lot better since I had last been here. It was really busy with Ponies and several Humans who you could tell were tourists by the merchandise that they apparently started selling. I didn’t see all of this before because I was always in such a hurry to get somewhere that I never stopped and looked around. The air smelled like the Equine cuisine that I was forced to live with for a while. To my surprise, people were actually enjoying the herbivore diet. Normally, Humans wouldn’t eat a flower if they were starving to death! I ignored it, and continued on my way towards the castle. Reaper trotted up to walk beside me. “Certainly looks a lot different from last time I was here” he spoke up, looking around. “Same here” I agreed. “The only difference is that the last time I was here, everypony was staying inside as much as possible and there were armed guards EVERYWHERE!” I looked around to see that Canterlot had established their own little police force. Nothing like a Human police force, as these ponies were still wearing guard armor, so it was more like the police force in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It looked pretty weird with the guards in medieval-looking armor while carrying around M1911s. We approached the castle at a decent pace, as we still were looking around and noticing a lot of things that were totally new to us. It was amazing how much everything had changed. We didn’t know how long we were in conservation, so at the same time it wasn’t surprising… I’m confusing you, aren’t I? Whatever. We walked up to the front gate of the castle where there were two royal guards, both with M4A1s that were suddenly pointed at us before the guards realized who we were. “Mr. Jack! Reaper!” One of them gasped as if he were starstruck or something. “Oh shit!” the other guard spouted lowering his gun. “I’m SO sorry! I didn’t mean to threaten either of you.” “It’s okay, boys” I laughed. “Why so jumpy?” Reaper asked. “We’re just to guys.” “JUST TWO GUYS?!” the first guard burst out. “You two are the heroes of Equestria! Then again, not many people know about Reaper. He’s more of a story that’s slowly been passed around.” After the whole conversation between us and the guards ended, Reaper and I rushed inside so we could talk to the princesses. I walked into the throne room to see both princesses looking out through the window. “Princess Celestia” Reaper called. “We need to know if you’d happen to know anything about the death of a filly named Scootaloo.” “No, I don’t” Celestia replied with a glare, as if she was suspicious of us. “Why?” “We need to find out what happened to her” I answered. “Apparently she died after taking the Cloudsdale flight test. From what we’ve found out, she failed the test before she died.” Luna turned around and spoke. “Maybe thy search would end faster if it began at the location of the incident.” I gave a small nod and smiled saying “Thank you, Princess Luna.” She smiled and looked down, thinking about… I don’t know and chances are that I don’t want to know. Reaper and I left the castle and started to walk towards our destination of Cloudsdale. We agreed that when we were directly under the city, Reaper would give me a lift up there. After that we started talking like old times. It was oddly quiet along the way there. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, Reaper tried to make conversation. Reaper asked me what my favorite sports video game was, because I had talked a lot about how Jason and I would play a lot of video games together in my spare time and I had also mentioned how Jason loved sports games to no end. My response was. “Atari 2600 sports games were my favorite because that was when sports games were fucking sports games! Look at the titles! "Baseball", "Basketball", "Football;" not that "Madden" shit. Just plain-ass, normal, everyday, no question about it, no NFL, no year; not named after a player, not named after a coach, not named after the referee's pet goldfish; no quarterback, dime-back, Nickelback, simple, ordinary unembellished, unmistakable, crystal clear, as frank as Frankenstein, as blunt as an atom bomb, one compound word: it's mother fucking, God damned, sons-of-bitchin', fuck-fuck-fucking FOOTBALL!... And it's one of the worst games I've ever played in my life.” (If you get this reference, go haves yourself a muffin!) Right after that I heard the angry voice of Spitfire up above us. “PIPE DOWN!” Me and Reaper looked at each other. We nodded in unison and I hopped on his back as he tried his best to get to the fluffy floating city above us. It was only moments before we had reached the gentle and soft surface of the clouds. “Oh, hi there Mr. Jack!” Spitfire smiled. “It’s good to see you’re alive! Who’s your friend?” “This is Reaper” I introduced. “He’s saved Equestria twice.” “I doubt it” she chuckled. “Anyway, why are you two in Cloudsdale?” “We’re here to investigate a murder that was recently committed” Reaper explained. “Surely the leader of a team as great as the Wonderbolts would have an idea on where to start.” Spitfire blushed “why not try the hospital.” “Thanks Spitfire” I said, turning around and heading towards the hospital. I looked down at Reaper who was once again walking beside me and asked, “was that really necessary?” “Who knows?” he responded. “It never hurts to make sure, right?” He had a point. And so, we continued on to the hospital to continue to unravel the truth… The truth that I was at this point, a little afraid to find out. POV: John The large cloud-made building was very… interesting. It didn’t look much like a hospital to be honest. It looked more like a pediatricians. By that, I mean its waiting room was very child-oriented. It had a bunch of little toys in the corner, where there were several little foals playing. There was also a white board where several older foals were drawing cute little pictures. I realized that Cloudsdale was probably a very dangerous city due to the fact that almost everything is airborne. The children’s stuff was most likely to calm them down, as I noticed that when we approached the secretary’s desk, a gloomy atmosphere hit me like the ground if I were to fall through the clouds. “Can I help you?” the secretary asked us with an obviously fake smile. “Hi, my name is John Jack and this is my friend Reaper” I introduced us. “We need to know if a young amber-orange colored filly under the name of Scootaloo was here any time recently. “As a matter of fact, she was” the secretary said quietly. She leaned in closer to us. “You guys know about her murder?” “We’re investigating it” Reaper answered. “You guys are getting into something that may get you killed” she continued. “I’m not allowed to say anything, and even if I was allowed, I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you that the reason she was killed AFTER she failed the test, is because she was killed BECAUSE she failed the test.” Me and Reaper looked at each other with extra wide eyes. “Thank you, miss” I nodded. “Who performed the autopsy on Scootaloo’s body?” The secretary quickly held down the button on the intercom microphone and called for a certain doctor. After a few minutes, a very old looking stallion with cloud-white mane and glasses stepped out. “You called?” “Doctor?” I started. “We understand that a filly named Scootaloo was transported here for her autopsy. We are investigating her death and we were wondering if we could get the autopsy report.” The doctor gave a quick nervous gulp. “Sure…” he agreed nervously. “I’ll get them right now. Just wait here for a second…” He turned and walked the other way with a little bit of a fearful shake. I could almost feel the nervousness radiating off of him. It took the doctor about 3 or 4 minutes to get the file… or… well… he didn’t actually get the file. The doctor came back out holding a file folder. Taking it and looking inside, I realized that it wasn’t actually what we wanted; instead it was a blank manila folder. My face contorted in confusion as I looked up to the doctor, who had the barrel of a gun right between my eyes. I quickly kicked the gun out of the doctor’s hooves, yanked out my .44 caliber and blew half of his head off. The secretary screamed as she saw the doctor’s brain matter splatter across the floor. Reaper’s mouth fell wide open at what he just saw. “How did you do that?” “If shoot someone in the frontal lobe, they only die with a hole in their head. If you shoot someone in the bottom lobe of their brain, the temporal lobe…” I hesitated, “their brain blows right outta their head.” “Where did you learn this?” Reaper asked, looking disgusted and intrigued at the same time. “Battle Damage” I spouted quickly, looking down. “What?” “I’ll explain later!” I yelled. “For now, let’s figure out how to get these files!” “They aren’t actually here!” the secretary shouted. “The Wonderbolts took possession of them. They forced us to give them all copies of the files!” “Well, now we know where to start!” Reaper said calmly, as if nothing had just happened to the doctor whose brains had become the new wallpaper for the hospital. We ignored the fact that there were still people in shock from the gunshot sound inside the hospital and we left heading towards the Wonderbolts’ training facility. I was wondering what was going to happen when we got there. We headed into the facility as if it weren’t filled with highly-trained professionals and preceded to Spitfire’s office. The door gave a small creak as I grabbed the doorknob and twisted it to the side. Inside the office was a small desk with Spitfire sitting behind it, writing something out on what seemed to be a piece of plain notebook paper. Despite the sound the door made, she seemed to not have noticed us, so I decided to have a little fun with it. I very quietly closed the door, successfully making sure she didn’t notice, and continued over to her desk and crouched down so she couldn’t see me over the desk. I gave Reaper a small nod and he got the idea. He got Spitfire’s attention by giving a loud whistle, where she looked up frantically at the startling sound. “Reaper?!” What the hell are you doing here?” I popped out from in front of her desk, scaring the shit out of her, and said “does the name Scootaloo ring a bell?” She nearly fell backwards out of her chair. Spitfire gave a nervous look then looked down as she said “no… that doesn’t sound familiar…” “I’m not stupid” I growled. “What do you mean?” she asked trying to look confused. “You’re a shit liar, Spitfire” I told her. “You know the name and you know how she died. So please; enlighten us.” “I can’t tell you anything” she sighed. “They’ll kill me.” “And if you don’t tell us anything” I added while Reaper jumped behind her and tied her hooves together rendering her incapable of doing anything other than sitting there. I pulled out my SPAS-12 and chambered a shot as I continued my sentence, “We’ll kill you.” “Take that thing” Spitfire started, “and shove it up your ass!” Reaper looked at me and I pointed over to the filing cabinet on the other end of the room. He then hopped over to the filing cabinet and began to root through the files as Spitfire sat there helplessly. It took what felt like forever until Reaper finally held up a file that was labeled “Scootaloo.” I grabbed it and flipped it open. We didn’t have the time to do a thorough read-through of the whole document, so I just quickly scanned the page. I spotted something very interesting. It said that Scootaloo was killed in Factory 16D. “Spitfire, would you happen to know what Factory 16D is?” I asked. “No” she spouted. “I’ve asked them hundreds and hundreds of times but they’ve never told me. I know that it’s a factory section inside the Cloudsdale Weather Factory, but that’s all I know, I swear!” I felt as if we had tortured her enough, so we walked out. We had gotten what we had come for, so it was time to go home. We tried hard and we had gotten far, and in the end we got what we came for! We would have walked, but Twilight was waiting on the ground below the city. Savior was with her because he was curious as to what we were doing. Twilight teleported us all back to Ponyville in a flash of light and we all sat down with the file. I realized right before we were about to open the file that there was a thing that I needed to quickly discuss with Twilight. “Twilight, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked her, interrupting the silence. “Woah!” Savior jumped in, “Back off, motherfucker! She’s mine!” “No, you idiot!” I scowled. “I just need to discuss something with her quickly.” We got up and walked back into the bedroom where I sat down on the side of the tiny bed and let out a long sigh. “Twilight, there’s something I don’t understand.” “What is it?” she asked in her typical cheerfully intelligent voice. “First” I stopped myself before I confused the shit out of her. “I need to explain a few things about what happened with me and Reaper.” I explained everything to her in detail as fast as I could: that we were put into conservation, that all memory of us was erased until we were sent back to Equestria; I even explained that when everything was happening with me, she was unaware of what had happened with Reaper. As soon as I finished, I looked up at her to see a face that I didn’t expect. She looked like she had just been mind-fucked to the most brutal degree. I held back my laughter as she spoke up. “I understand what happened now, but what is it that you wanted to know?” I sighed once again before starting up again. “If Reaper came before me and you didn’t know about Reaper while I was here originally, doesn’t that not make any sense?” “You’re right” she nodded. “That doesn’t make any sense.” “How is it possible that nobody noticed?” I finished. We sat in the room awkwardly for what seemed like forever before she finally spoke up with a hypothesis. “Well, if ponies remember something naturally, then they would just feel as if they forgot it.” “Say what now?” I interrupted her thought. “Maybe they made everypony forget it naturally” she explained. “They wouldn’t feel as if anything was unnatural.” “I still don’t get it” I sighed, feeling as if I would simply remain confused. “Think of it like this” she continued. “You have one kind of food for dinner one night, but you don’t finish it, so you save the rest of it for later. The next day, you completely forget about it, making you unaware of its existence. That night, you have something else for dinner and you do the same thing. The next day, the same thing happens and you’re unaware of both foods’ existence. That night, you suddenly remember both foods, and regardless of eating one food before the other, you just take it as something you forgot. You never actually lost the full memory of it then regained it, it was just put off to the side somewhere.” “I’m starting to get what you’re saying now” I told her. “So basically, they took the memory in everypony’s brain and put it somewhere where they wouldn’t remember it. That way it was still technically there, as in they never actually lost their memories of us. Then, when we were reborned, they moved the memories to the place where they would be remembered almost instantly; that way, when the memory came back, it felt natural, making the brain suspect nothing out of the ordinary.” “Now you’ve got it!” She said. We went back out to the table where Reaper and his cousin were sitting talking about everything that had been happening lately. Me and Twilight sat back down and Savior looked over at me skeptically. “What are you lookin’ at me like that for?” I asked “That took you quite a while” he hinted. “You stupid fu-” I stopped myself. “It was just something regarding everypony remembering me and Reaper.” “Okay” Savior said as if he didn’t believe me. Twilight laughed and told him that what I said was true. Now that that had been cleared up, we could continue. I flipped the file open and began to read the autopsy report word for word, not skipping a single letter. My eyes traveled down the page until I reached the point where it described how Scootaloo was found and what the cause of death was… I began to feel nauseous. I knew what was going on. I ran my hand through my long, black hair again, feeling that it was unusually sweaty. “What? What is it?” Reaper asked frantically. I gave a loud, cliché gulp and then took in a deep breath in a feeble attempt to calm myself… Then, I began to explain the horrible truth… POV: Reaper So, as you all remember, John had just talked to Twilight and now he was ready to tell us the truth of what happened to Scootaloo, which was apparently an ugly truth. It was time to face the facts, though, because there was something going on, and I had a bad feeling that I knew what it was. “You guys are NOT going to like this” John gulped nervously as he struggled to continue talking. “So, once upon a time, Scootaloo was taken to this “Factory 16D” place. I think I have an idea on what that place may be considering how they found her when she was dead. She had all color sucked out of her body except for her blood which was coming out of a bunch of places on her body. She was dead after all of this, but they had to go the extra mile to make sure she was dead… They found an excessive amount of Cyanide poison inside her body. They also found several other poisons including Arsenic, Botulinum toxin and Mercury, which are all highly lethal. She was guaranteed to die even if she had survived the torture they put her through in the first place.” All of our mouths hung wide open, except for John’s because he was the one who was telling us all the info. I felt like I had just been mind-fucked. “So this is what lies behind closed doors?” I asked. “What?” Twilight blurted confusedly. “This is what they hide behind closed doors? The torture and raw destruction of innocent ponies that just couldn’t fly? Why? Why would they do this?” “That’s what we’re all wondering” Savior butted in. “I won’t take it!” I yelled. “I won’t just sit here and let them do this kind of shit! I WON’T be left here! I WON’T be left here behind closed doors! It’s about damn time we found out what this “Factory 16D” is!” There was a long silence after I had finished talking. John suddenly leapt out of his chair and stampeded towards the door, yelling back “STAY HERE REAPER!” I rolled my eyes and got up to go home to Fluttershy, like I hadn’t for some time now. I walked in the cottage door and took a deep breath so I could let out a long sigh. Fluttershy bounced up and pulled me into a tight hug, crying about how much she had worried about me, because the mayor announced a price on both me and john, dead or alive. Luckily it was only in Ponyville, so if we went anywhere else, we’d be fine. I assured her I was perfectly fine. Everything would get cleared up soon. I wasn’t able to talk to her for 5 minutes before Rainbow Dash nearly broke down the door from knocking on it so hard. It turned out that she knew what we were investigating. “You can’t get any farther into this! Cloudsdale’s government will get you a definite spot on death row.” “How do you know this?” I asked, giving a little smirk, knowing she had just shown me that she knew more than what she was presenting. She gulped and gave off a sigh. “Alright, what do you want to know?” ”I want to know what Factory 16D is!” I yelled. “I can tell you anything but that” Rainbow Dash glared at me angrily. I grabbed her by the neck and threw her across the room, smashing her into the stone fireplace. She cried out on impact as blood seeped from a small cut on the back of her head. I gently walked up and bent down to her side to whisper “Are you ready to tell me, or do you want to feel that again, but with more force?” “Fuck… Yo-” she couldn’t finish her words before I grabbed her again. I slammed her full-force into the bricks of the fire place, causing her to scream again. “I would talk now if I were you” I snapped at the semi limp body, which was now bleeding from the mouth too. She spit some blood off to the side and mumbled “I’ll tell you” “Good, because I don’t want to hurt you any more.” “It’s the Rainbow Factory” she whispered. Before I could blink, she flew out the door at top speed. I looked over at Fluttershy who was crying. I looked down and said loudly “I’m sorry you had to see that, Fluttershy.” I flew out the door in the direction of Canterlot so I could tell John what we were dealing with… a problem bigger than we could handle… but we were on our own. We would have to take the risks, regardless of failure meaning death and failure being at about 80% chance. “JOHN!” I yelled out to the human figure standing in the palace room next to two large Alicorns, whose identities were completely obvious. “John, we have a much bigger problem than I thought we did!” “It’s the Rainbow Factory” he gulped. “I know” I told him. “I beat the information out of Rainbow Dash. We need to find this shit out ASAP!” “What art thy companion blathering about?” Luna butted in. “It is a serious matter” John responded. “We must go. There are many lives that need to be saved.” “Luck be on your side, John” Luna called out as we walked away. “Please tell me you have your weapons ready” I spoke up as we walked out of the castle. “Fuckin yeah!” he replied excitedly. “Let’s go kill some fools!” “HEYHEYHEY!” I yelled to him. “We need to sneak into the factory, not punch it full of holes!” He nodded in acknowledgement. We continued until we reached Cloudsdale, where I dragged John’s heavy ass up to the surface of the clouds. We were about halfway to the weather factory when two of the Wonderbolts, Soarin and Fleetfoot, stopped us. “Well, look who’s showing their ugly mugs around here after attacking Spitfire” Soarin said with an evil smile on his face. I instantly used something I had just thought of that I could use to piss them off. “Well, well, well… If it isn’t Freakfoot and his lazy partner Snorin’.” “Are you trying to piss them off?” John whispered. “Yes.” “Can I shoot them if they attack?” he asked. “Of course” I smiled. They took out their pistols and made an advance on us, where John pulled out his shotgun and blew off Fleetfoot’s right foreleg. Soarin freaked out, grabbed Fleetfoot and flew as fast as he could to the hospital. “Nice one” I praised John. We continued on, hoping that everypony had just ignored the gunshot. It wasn’t long before we had reached the entrance of the Cloudsdale Weather Factory: Factory 16. We poked open the doors and slowly crept inside. It wasn’t as dark as I had expected. We could still clearly see where we were going, but then again, we had gotten used to pitch black darkness by this time, so it was probably darker than it looked to us. We were in the A section of Factory 16 and we needed to get to section D. It was going to be a long night. We poked out our heads and began to scan the area… there was no security personnel what-so-ever. I would have laughed if we didn’t have to stay silent. We found the boss of Factory 16 section A’s desk. It wasn‘t hard to get into the moron’s filing cabinet. It took longer to find the file that told us where the security actually was, and it turned out that section D was unlocked by 4 security boxes; 2 in section B and 2 in section C… this was gonna be a hell of a fiasco We walked around in the labyrinth-like section A until we found the way to section B. We snuck through the doorway into section B the best we could. We did a scan of section B really quickly and… of course… there were guards in nearly every hiding place, but nowhere else. That did mean, however, that we had to kill ‘em off to find the security boxes… or… we’d have to kill some of ‘em anyways… I approached a guard who was standing right next to a security box. I gave a quiet gulp and continued approaching him… He flashed his light at me, but he didn’t notice me until his head had hit the floor. None of the other guards seemed to notice the noise, which was only partially muffled by the clouds that the room was made out of. I opened the alarm box and began to look at the instructions from the Section A files. It gave instructions on how to override each box in the case of an emergency. The first one had a button combination in it. The button combo was easy, though; the button combo was 6-6-6-6. I prayed that punching the code in wouldn’t summon Lucifer or some shit. Lucky for me, I heard a simple little… turning off tone… I guess that’s what you’d call it. That was one down in Section B, only one more to go and then we could move on to section C. There were three guards around the second alarm box. I knew I couldn’t handle all three of them by myself without getting spotted because they were spaced to far apart to kill with one swing of my scythe. I looked over at John and asked “you got a silencer?” He nodded and pulled out his P90. He then fixed a silencer over the barrel and aimed at one of the three guards. What happened next happened so fast that it was amazing. In what seemed like less than 2 or 3 seconds, each guard had exactly one bullet in his head. Not a sound was heard. I approached the last alarm box of the section. Finding the directions for this alarm box, I flipped open the front of it and took a look inside. It was a color combination this time. The combination was not that hard to figure out. It was the colors of the rainbow. I put them in one by one by pushing the colored buttons on the panel. As soon as I heard the little sound implying that the code had worked, I went back to John. “Alright, we’re done with this section” I told him. “What about the other guards?” he reminded me. “Leave ‘em” I commanded. “We should only kill if we have to. We don’t want to leave too many bodies behind or they might find out it was us.” “Good point.” We were done with this section… Now, we had to get done with section C… so we could move on to the Rainbow Factory. POV: Reaper Section C was hell for us. There were guards everywhere. I guess nopony wanted us in the Rainbow Factory. That fucker Rainbow Dash must have squealed on us. If I remembered the Rainbow Factory story correctly, she was an employee in the factory, so she probably had the power to put all these guards on duty. Section C was much, much, MUCH bigger than sections A or B. It had long hallways that led into many, many different rooms. I decided to take the right side first, whereas John stayed behind to make sure no other guards came by. I walked down the hallway a few feet to the first door. All the doors were neatly spaced apart and… locked open? Probably to give intruders nowhere to run. The first room was an office with 1 guard in it. I came up behind him and swiftly twisted his neck until he could see behind him… if he wasn’t dead that is. I looked around the room, rooting through it to find the alarm box, but it wasn’t there. I went on to the next room, an identical office with 2 guards in it. Both of the guards spotted me before I could do anything, so I cut off one’s left foreleg and bucked the other one in the face. The one without a leg on the ground was in massive pain, so I quickly stabbed him directly in the front of the head to kill him quickly. 5 identical office rooms later, I found a janitor’s closet with a guard that was going in to look around. I took my scythe to his head quickly and watched it hit the cloudy, fluffy ground. In that janitor’s closet was the alarm box. I flipped it open to find a miniature keyboard. I had no fucking clue how I was supposed to type with hooves, so I typed with my nose. The password was vividrainbows. I quickly rounded the corner and dashed back to John who was asleep with boredom. “Wake up, dipshit” I hissed, kicking him in the side. He jolted up. “What in the Sam hell was that for?!” “For dozing off when we’re dealing with a serious fucking situation!” I scowled. He sighed as he got back up. “Alright, Capitan asshat, what do we do now?” he asked sarcastically. “We get into the janitor’s closet in that hallway and disable the alarm box” I told him as if he hadn’t been sarcastic. “Onward and upward, then” he agreed as we moved over to the next hallway. We scooted on over to the janitor’s closet on the other side of the left-side hallway and moved in. John turned to watch the door as I flipped open the alarm box. Inside the last one was the classic three wires; yellow, blue and red. I had to cut them all in the right order within 7 seconds or the alarm would go off. I took the tip of my scythe and put it behind the blue wire. Before cutting it I took in a deep breath then let it out. I quickly but gently pulled back and snapped the blue wire, then quickly moved the tip of my scythe over to the yellow wire and cut that one. It had easily been 4 seconds so I didn’t use the tip for the red one; I just swiped it quickly across the inside of the alarm box. I was about 2 seconds away from having all hell break loose. I let out a sigh of relief and turned around to let John know the good news. “Wires are cut and the alarm is off” I told him. “Now to get into that damned Rainbow Factory.” “Let’s do this!” he nodded. We walked over to the now open 6-inch solid steel doors where we stopped. “I gotta check my ammo real quick.” “Hey John?” I asked as he checked the ammo in his .44 cal revolver. “How do you think they get such thick steel doors fastened into clouds?” “Hell if I know” he shrugged as he finished up checking his ammo. We both rounded the corner and began to creep towards what looked like a giant tram car. We made sure that no-pony was following us as we got on, and when we were sure, we got the tram moving a short distance between the cloudy buildings. There was a piercing squeak as it came to a stop at the terminal inside Factory 16D. We looked around, spotting several signs that indicated that anypony here besides “recruits” and authorized guards would be immediately executed. Lucky for us, it was 3 A.M. so there was no-pony guarding the front entrance. They probably figured that intruders wouldn’t be able to pass Factory 16C. Our advance inside was rushed and nervous, because we both knew what would happen if we were caught. It was a very tall building on the inside. There were large silos with what we assumed to be rainbow coloring inside it because the silos were connected to machines that had several syringes designed to inject the victim with poison before the color was sucked out of them. Slowly, we made our way towards the center of the factory. It was exactly when we felt the presence of other ponies… our feelings were correct, as we noticed dozens of guards in suits and snow white masks jump down from the top scaffolding that lead to the tops of the rainbow machines or whatever you call ‘em. “I think this battle might be a little unfair” I thought out loud. “Why?” John asked, “Is it because it’s 40 or 50 to 2?” “Hell no!” I laughed. “I don’t have a firearm! You do!” “Here!” John tossed me his P90 without the silencer on it. I smiled at the excellent piece of work I held in my hooves. I noticed him switch his shotgun from pump action to semi-auto. “Now it’s fair” I uttered with a devilish little smile. The one problem with the suited guards was their weapons. They didn’t have nightsticks or firearms or anything of the sort. Instead, they had stun guns, but not stun guns that shoot… cattle prods… they had cattle prods… That was the one problem. I disregarded the feeling and opened fire in synchronization with John. Since they had no protection whatsoever, they all went down very quickly. We stopped to reload. I threw away the mag that was empty as John passed me a full one. I would have slipped it in, but I heard a loud feminine scream from beside me. It was multiple thousand volts of electricity being pumped through John’s unsuspecting body. I braced for impact because I thought I might have been next and I was right, but these cattle prods were much, much more powerful than I saw coming. I was used to 100 million volts at a time, so I was expecting not even a millionth of that, I got about a tenth of that… THAT IS 10 MILLION VOLTS… FROM A CATTLE PROD. A normal cattle prod uses about 5,000 volts… let’s just say I was caught off guard compared to what I was expecting. Okay, so I may be being a bid melodramatic about it. It could have been worse. I mean I could have been tazed in the testicals. I was still conscious afterwards, though. I saw them grab John by the arms as they grabbed my forehooves and dragged us both up stairs onto the scaffolding that they jumped down from. I could already tell that this wasn’t going to end well for either of us. Instead of being dragged straight to a machine, we were dragged towards a pony in the center ally of the scaffolding that connected the two sides of the room. They were just standing there. The mysterious pony was wearing a suit identical to those of the other guards, as well as a blank white mask. In a familiar voice the pony said “drop ‘em here.” I knew who the masked pony was but I just couldn’t think of it… I remembered. We were dropped onto the cold metal, as well as John’s guns which he weakly attempted to reach for but easily failed. “You really thought you could get in here without us knowing, huh?” the mysterious masked pony asked before laughing. “That’s rich. We killed that moron Connor expecting you’d get the message that we wouldn’t hesitate to do the same, but I guess we get to do this the fun way, now.” “It’s kind of easy to see us coming when you knew I was looking for this place” I croaked, still slightly weakened from the electric shock that they had administered no more than 5 minutes before. “What are you talking about?” the masked pony faked. “Don’t lie to me, Rainbow Dash” I smirked, looking at her. “It won’t do you much good.” The pony took of her mask to reveal that I was correct. It was Rainbow Dash. “I’m that obvious, huh?” “Like a chocolate bar in a swimming pool” I chuckled. She gave me a clean smack across the face with her right forehoof. “Let’s make some rainbows” she snickered giving me a look that implied that she had totally lost it. “JOHN!” I yelled to my friend who was beginning to wake up. We were being dragged to opposite machines. “JOHN! FORGIVE ME FOR ALL OF THIS!” “It’s okay!” he called back to me. “It wasn’t your fault! It’s Dash’s” “True” I responded. Dash traveled back over to me as I was latched into the metal braces that were bolted into the cloud walls. “Any last requests before you die?” she asked. “Just something simple” I started. I had to come up with something quick. I looked around the room and after a second I zeroed in on John. It all came rushing at me. Everything he told me about how his parents died… “I just want to sing my favorite song one last time… that’s all.” “Alright, as long as it’s shorter than Stairway to Heaven” she joked without a joking expression. I inhaled deeply and sung out all I knew of the song. Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the mouthwash in your eyes Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the cause of your surprise Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car In the car, On the side of the freeway in the…. I could see John beginning to lose control as they strapped him in. Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the trick of your disguise Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the cause of your demise Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car In the car, On the side of the freeway in the car In the car On the side of the freeway in the.... It was that moment where he broke straight out of the walls. The metal restraints were still attached to his arms and legs. He swung them at one of the guards who was yanking out his cattle prod. Instead of succeeding, he got a fatal blow to the head then fell over ten feet off the scaffolding to the floor. I could tell Dash was panicking because she flew down off the scaffolding and simply nervously watched John beat the shit out of all the guards who were being beaten over the head with the metal braces around John’s wrists and ankles. He grabbed the guns that they had dropped at the hooves of Rainbow Dash at the center of the scaffolding. He flipped the SPAS-12 up into his hands and blew down 3 guards in less than a few seconds. The bloody carcasses of the three dead guards seemed to drop to the metal floor of the scaffolding slowly. You could tell that all of the other guards weren’t going to be sticking around much longer. The only one left was Rainbow Dash. John snapped back to reality and came over to quickly unlatch me from the restraints. He threw down the SPAS and yanked out his .44 cal. As soon as I was loose, we ran after Dash. He fired at her, one bullet hitting a wall and one hitting the floor right next to her. She tried speeding up, so John fired again, one missing and one grazing her back left hoof just enough to make her feel the pain. She swung off course and smashed into a wall. She tried to get up but John shot a hole straight through her wing. Her scream echoed through the long hallway we raced through to get to her. We got to where she lay; the wall that was a mere few inches away from the tram to leave to Factory 16C. We stood over her. John looked at me and I got the hint that he wanted me to back off a little, so I stepped back to let him do his thing. He aimed directly between Dash’s eyes with his revolver and gave a devilish smile. It was time for him to finish it! “I know” he began. “I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "did he fire six shots or only five?" Now to tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this is a .44 Magnum, one of the most powerful handguns in the world and will blow you head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself a question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?” BANG! POV: Reaper You’d think that would be the end of it, right? The goal was just to stop the rainbow factory from murdering innocent ponies, right? Well, that’d be too easy. We (John and I) knew that without the rainbow factory, Equestria would be deprived of rainbows. That may not seem like a big problem, but everypony would start to lose it if there was a lack of rainbows. That was where we had no plan. Rainbow dash had a hole blown through her head, we were in deep shit with the law and we had no idea what to do. John took a moment to analyze the situation thoroughly. He thought out loud going through everything as I remembered something that I had mentioned when we were still in conservation… Minority Report. “John, I have our solution!” I blurted confidently. “Good, what is it?” John asked. “Minority Report.” “No seriously” he grumbled. “I am serious” I continued. “We need to go back in time to get rid of the guy who thought of this method of making rainbow colors!” “How?” he retaliated, sounding like he knew that the plan wouldn’t work. “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna” I countered. “What in the Sam hell do they have to do with this?” “They know how to go back in time” I explained. “They have spells for that somewhere in the castle. I can remember it from the show.” “Oh, okay” he said, surprisingly without sarcasm. “But we’ll need to explain everything first.” “Duh.” “I’ve still got a lot of the evidence in my pocket” he told me. “What the hell is it doing in your pocket?” “I kept it just in case” he smiled. John remembered dropping his SPAS so he went over and grabbed it. I could understand why. We didn’t say another thing; instead we both rushed to Canterlot as fast as we could. We made it to the front gate of the castle where two castle guards confronted us. One of them pointed his gun at us. “Hey! What in the Sam hell are you guys doing?!” John yelled. “Stop right there, criminal scum!” The other one said. I facehoofed at that. John laughed and said “We’re here to report something that happened at Cloudsdale.” “We already know that you were the ones who caused it!” The first guard said, switching his aim between me and John. John yanked out his SPAS, switched it to pump action and pumped it to freak them out. The both backed off and let us in. I was assuming that they knew who we were. We raced into the throne room. “PRINCESS CELESTIA! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!” “And what would that be?” she asked, hinting that she knew that we caused the whole mess up there. “The rainbow factory doesn’t make rainbows how you think they do!” I yelled. “Then how are they made?” “Innocent ponies, namely ones who fail their Cloudsdale flight test, are killed and the colors of their bodies are used to make the individual colors of the rainbow” John explained. “We had to get pure evidence and we did because they tried to do the same to us.” “I wouldn’t believe that” she scowled. “Would you happen to have any real proof?” John cursed her name under his breath as he took out the proof he had in his pocket. She yanked it out of his hands with her magic and started looking over the evidence. I was expecting her to call them off as forged then ask us if we liked bananas (y’all know why), but as she looked over them her eyes widened and her jaw slowly dropped open. When she was done with looking over the documents, she gave them back to John and quietly asked “what do we do now?” “We go back in time and get rid of the bastard who came up with the idea of making rainbows with ponies” John responded. “We could do that” she repeated, looking down in thought. “I guess it’s the only real solution. That way we don’t have to explain anything to the public and us three will be the only ones who know.” “So, we’re doin’ it then?” I asked. “I guess we are” the Princess answered me. “Before thy departure!” a voice called out. Luna ran into the room and tackled John in a hug. I stood there over them. “P.E.T.A. would have a shit fit about all of this” I laughed. “What?” Celestia interrupted my thoughts confusedly. I told her it was nothing as John got up and Luna wished him luck. We followed Princess Celestia to a place in the Royal Library labeled “Star Swirl The Bearded.” It sounded to me like it was a character from World Of Warcraft or something like that. She rummaged through shelves of old scrolls and other ancient-looking pieces of writing. She finally found the one she was looking for because she picked it up and said “Ah! Here it is!” which made it kind of obvious that she had found it. “We ready?” I asked, ready to do this. “Indeed we are” Celestia responded, turning around and setting her large horn aglow. It was a single flash of bright light and we were in that rainbow factory again, but this time it seemed less eerie. There wasn’t as much metal reinforcement everywhere and there was a large table in the middle where four executive ponies sat, probably discussing the idea of murdering ponies for their color. “Come on!” one of them spoke up, more than likely the one who had the idea. “The Princess won’t find out.” “She just did” I blurted, interrupting the conversation and scaring the shit out of the guys at the table. “You!” John yelled, pointing at the one with the idea. “You’re under arrest for future accounts of murder.” “FUTURE?!” he screamed in terror of his imminent death. “Say, do you like bananas?” I asked, smiling. He nodded in terror. “So you’re a mmmmmmm-bitch that likes mmmmmm-bananas?” John asked with a devilish smile that Celestia had as well. He nodded, now just confused. We both looked up at the Princess. “Well, you’re about to go bananas…” her horn began to glow once again as she gave a little laugh and then shouted excitedly, “ON THE MOON!” And POOF! The pony was gone, never to be seen again. We turned around to leave but before we teleported back to our own time, John stopped and said “When you come in contact with The United States Of America, buy color dyes. They’ll color your rainbows far better than any pony’s dead body will.” And with that, we left. We were spat back into the Princess’s throne room with a disorienting flash of light. We looked around the room and luckily, nothing was different in the room. There was one thing that still remained that we needed to know… did it work? We were all thinking the same thing because we simply looked at Celestia and her horn lit up again as we were teleported to the front of the weather factory. It was mid-day so there were tourists about. As we walked by everypony, they bowed down to the Princess… Typical. As we continued onwards, we noticed that all the doors to every factory section were open with no guards about. In Factory 16C, the Tram was still operational, but instead of being the rusted cheap metal that it was originally, it now looked very appealing with the colors of the rainbow covering it. Tourist Pegesai from all over Equestria were boarding it as a tour guide led them up into the rainbow factory. We hopped aboard just as it left. After a few minutes riding in the tram, we all raced into the factory to see regular ponies working away happily using colored dyes from the U.S. and other places. The rainbow colors were so vibrant I felt like I was getting irradiated by just standing near them. Everything looked so much more normal… John was looking around with wide-open eyes while Princess Celestia was walking around with a large smile. I was just standing there thinking about what we had gone through just recently. I looked up at the sky through one of the windows that were now in the soft cloud walls and smiled, wondering what Bo was thinking about all of this. Several days later, I was home with Fluttershy and John was in Canterlot with Luna. Afanasai and Connor were living in John’s old house. Connor was apparently no different than he was before according to John who would come around every several days or so. Discord was also around with Connor, and Savior and Twilight were back in Twilight’s tree library. Scootaloo was still alive and so was Rainbow Dash. I visited Savior with John one day to tell him what really happened here. He and Twilight both believed me easily, but I showed them John’s documents just to be sure. They were dumbfounded. It was all peaceful as far as we cared. Bo also contacted me with thanks coming from not only himself, but also the ponies that were against the original rainbow factory plan. From then on, everypony in Equestria was safe. There were no more incidents and everypony was able to live peacefully. Me and Fluttershy went on to get married alongside Savior and Twilight, which made Savior a prince. Connor and Discord kept the royal guard well armed as John and Connor had once before. Afanasai went on to become a famous professor of Equestrian History back in his home country of Russia. Princess Celestia and Luna both kept a closer eye on all the events that happened in Equestria from then on. John also got married to Luna, marking him as a Prince as well. One last time while I slept, The Rev came out of nowhere and woke me up. "Hey, Peter," he whispered, trying not to wake the sleeping Fluttershy beside me. "What's up, Jimmy?" I asked quietly. "I just wanted to let you know that the big man himself has officially stated that you and John will both go to Heaven," he explained. "But we've killed people," I rebutted. "God said that you will have the title of the Angel Of Death and John will be the Angel Of War." "Odd things to be called in Heaven, don't you think?" I chuckled. "I know, I know," he brushed it off. "Just remember to Hail To The King when you get to Heaven," "I see what you did there," I told him. "Oh, and tell Fluttershy you love her every day," he commanded. "You'll never know which day is your last." "That won't be for a long time, though," I replied. "How do you know?" "Because" I started, looking back and smiling down at the sleeping Fluttershy beside me. "Death may be inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's not preventable." THE END
ReaperReaper My name is Peter and I'm 15. I have grey hair (dyed) and grey eyes (apparently a birth defect, but it looks badass). I live in Washington (or at least, I did). I lived near an apple orchard, to be exact. That's obviously where I worked (it may have had shit pay, but it's better than having to walk 2 hours to get to my workplace). It was also my families. My brother and I were the only ones left to do the actual work, whereas my father had a spinal condition so he couldn't do anything relatively strenuous. There's one thing I never liked about my brother, and that is that he is too judgmental. I failed one grade and he had given me the nickname "dumbass" for about 3 years. He labeled me as gay when I told him I was a brony. Due to the stress all his judgment caused me, I developed a case of generalized epilepsy. After a while the epilepsy died down though. Regardless, I never did much in my life. I there were only 2 things that could relieve me of some of my pain: MLP, and hunting in Alaska. Though, one year, the hunting wasn't so good. We do it every year because our cousin is a hunter, but this was the last year I was ever able to do it. It's about 48 hours to Alaska by car from where we were, so it was a decent length trip to make with my brother (the only one of us who had a car and a license). We would always have a good time hunting with my cousin Steven. The only major problem we ever had was we had to bring our own guns. I managed to raise enough money to buy a .338 cal hunting rifle so I used that, but the one weird thing was, my brother and Steven would carry knives, but I would carry a scythe. Don't ask me why, I just liked having something heavier than a tiny knife for close combat. Made me feel safer, I guess. As you should know, there are wolves in Alaska. It was late winter and we were at my cousin's favorite hunting spot. We saw a pack of wolves emerge from the bushes. There were at least 10 of them. My cousin told us to keep low. Right as he said that, the biggest buck he had ever seen came out of bushes on the opposite side from the wolves. "Shit!" Steve mumbled. "I can't let those wolves get to that buck! It'll have enough meat for months!" "Can't we kill the wolves?" I asked, hoping not to be asking a stupid question. "One does not simply kill a pack of wolves," (if you get that reference, have a cookie) he sighed. "If you can do so at super speed then maybe." "I have this scythe. Would it help at all?" I suggested. "I guess you can try, but be careful. Those wolves look damn hungry." "Since when am I never careful?" I chuckled as I looked through the scope. I had my shot perfectly aligned to take out 2 of them, but when I fired, they both hit the deck and the bullet whizzed right over them. I fired again, hitting one in the hip, but only injuring it. "Well, it looks like I'm not going to get anywhere by just shooting at them." I whipped out my scythe and charged the wolves while Steve got a clean shot on the buck which had been paralyzed in fear. I was able to get my scythe into 2 or 3 of them before I started to get completely mauled. After about a minute, I blacked out, waking up hours later in my cousins cabin. "Finally awake," he sighed. "I was able to get the wolves off of you long enough to pick you up and sprint here." "Okay," I wheezed, out of breath. I looked down at my chest. Sure enough, it was completely cut up and was bleeding an unusual amount. "By the way, Pete, that scar looks totally badass." Steve said. I was confused. Apparently, he could see my confusion because he held up a mirror to reveal to me a scar across my right eye. It was something you would find out of a movie. It had a perfect lightning bolt shape somehow. "Looks like The Reaper ain't goin' down without a fight, huh?" he laughed. "Wait, you called me The Reaper?" I said, confused. "Your scythe, Pete; It makes you look like the Grim fucking Reaper!" he pointed out. "Now I got to go get that dead buck and carry him back here." I thought for a moment. He only beat off the wolves. They probably went after the dead buck now and they definitely know my brother as an enemy now so… I got up, ignoring the slight light-headed feeling I had from blood loss. As soon as I found the hunting area, I saw Steve getting attacked by the wolves. I grabbed the scythe slung over my shoulder and slid the gun back there. I charged as fat as I could. As soon as the wolves saw me, they turned their attention straight to me. I was able to kill of another 2 of them before one of them tore open my chest enough to see the muscle. I was bleeding out on the ground when Steve somehow killed the remaining 5 of them with his dinky combat knife. "You didn't have to do that you know," he said, ready to cry. "You deserve to live more than I do," I croaked, my vision slightly blurry. "You're too young to die" "It doesn't matter anymore… I'm just asking one thing," I said quietly. "Remember me as The Reaper." "You want me to put you out," he sighed. I nodded slowly. He held up his gun, taking aim at my head. "Any last words?" he said, now crying. "In the words of Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan, I need another chance to live." As the final word faded off into the cold air, the bullet was fired. I didn't feel a thing. I opened my eyes and I was in a white room. I slowly stood up as I noticed that there was a man in glasses approaching me. I suddenly realized it was The Rev. "You quoted me?" he asked, smiling. "How did you know?!" I said. "I heard you… and so did the big man." My eyes widened. "He says that it would be fair if you had another chance to live. After all, really all you did in life was watch YouTube, go to school and pick apples." I nodded, acknowledging what he had said. "So where am I being reborned?" I asked curiously. "You're a brony right?" I nodded. "Well, then you should know where you're going." "WHAT?!" I yelled. "What the fuck are you talking about?!" "It's good though, isn't it?" He asked. I raised an eyebrow. "Think about it. At least you're being put in a place that you know." "Not physically" "Well at least you're not getting a final judgment right now." He said "I protected my cousin's life with mine," I sighed. "I'm pretty sure I would go to heaven regardless." "Look, you really don't have a choice in this." He said. "He wanted me to let you know a few things before I let you go. First, when you die again, if you did more bad then good you'll be sent to hell, if vise-versa then you'll be sent to heaven. Second you'll have someone to explain anything to you if you need it." Before I could open my mouth I felt something about the equivalent to being struck by lightning. I closed my eyes at the pain, but when I opened them, I was in a small, enclosed area surrounded by large bushes, not allowing me to see anything beyond my current point of view. I thought I heard someone whisper "look down a little" so I did, and in a puddle, replacing my reflection, I saw what looked like a blonde-haired teenager in a white robe. "Hey!" He said. "My name's Bo. I'm going to be here to explain anything you need explained." "Okay" I murmured. "Let's start with… oh, I dunno… WHERE IN THE HOLY HELL AM I?!" "You should know." He sighed. "Fine, fine… has anything changed about me: My age, my gender, my ethnicity, my-" "It's better you see for yourself," He said, looking nervous. He began to pull over a mirror. "Is it that FUCK MY FUCK!" I nearly had a heart attack at the sight. "I'm a horse!" "I had the feeling you'd react negatively," he mumbled, shoving the mirror away. "Look, we had to!" "Fuckin' no you didn't!" "You don't understand!" He exclaimed. "If you aren't, everyone here will flip their shit!" "Oh god…" I whispered. "Jimmy was right." "Of course!" He yelled. "It was an order from God, and when the big man gives an order, there's nothing you can do about it." I sighed weakly and asked "can I see that mirror again?" "Okay," He accepted, yanking the mirror back in front of himself. I wanted a good look at myself to make sure I didn't look like a moron. Grey fur and a black and grey mane. My eyes were the same shade of grey as usual. The one thing that caught me off guard was I had wings, but more bat-like then what they seemed like they should have been. I reached up one of my (now) legs to feel the wings; partially soft, but still kind of fleshy. The last thing that caught my eye was the marking on my hip. A scythe and a hunting rifle crossed behind a skull. "Sorry about the wings," he nervously said. "They were meant to be extra aerodynamic." "Meh, I don't care." I paused and realized I still had my rifle and scythe on my back, only they were smaller. After a long silence I just gave up and said "so… what now?" "Probably the best idea to find some civilization first," He said. "Oh, and just to be sure, don't call yourself a horse." "Why?" "Because the residents here have no idea what a horse is," He explained. "So what do I call myself, a lollipop?" I said sarcastically. "No, you moron; you call yourself a pony." He growled. "Okay." I said, thinking of it as kind of awkward compared to what I'm normally called. I pushed my way through the bushes in a random direction. I began thinking as I walked on a small dirt path almost blindly. I thought about all the knowledge I had on this show. I remember that everyone has a name that at least gets close to fitting them. It hit me: I wanted to be remembered as The Reaper, so just take off the "the" and I've got my name here: Reaper! "Where do I go, though? I'm not even sure if this is the right way. Hell, I don't even know which way is the wrong way!" My thoughts kept on like this until I was almost dehydrated from walking. As soon as I was close to passing out I saw a puddle. Regardless of how unsanitary it was, I'd prefer not to die so early on in my afterlife, so I drank it. What little water was in there was enough to keep me going for a while; it was when I saw a light gleaming outside the dense vegetation of the forest when I began to run regardless of how thirsty I was. I ran into the light revealing a civilization somewhere in between a village and a town. It was at this point where I started wheezing terribly. I felt as if I could fall over dead at any moment, but I kept going until I could feel my consciousness slipping away from my grasp. It was then when I walked to the nearest door (I couldn't tell whose house it was, because at this point my vision was a giant multi-colored blur) and collapsed, hitting my already unconscious head on the door. I remember I dreamed that I had died from dehydration and was sent to hell to burn, and I actually felt like I was burning. It was horrifying because I could actually feel my flesh melting off and my bones being thrown into magma which devoured every last micron of bone there was. Luckily, I woke up from the nightmare… I felt dizzy as I came to. I couldn't see; everything was too blurry at the moment. I jumped when I heard a voice say "oh good, you're awake." I calmed down after I heard that it was a very soft and friendly voice. I made my assumption of where I was and as my eyesight came back, I noticed I was right: it was Fluttershy's house. "How do you feel?" she asked. "Christ…" I moaned. "I got one hell of a migraine. Other than that, I feel fine, thank you." "If you don't mind me asking… who are you?" "Me?" I pondered for a second and remembered: my name here is Reaper. "I'm Reaper." She looked confused. "That's an interesting name." she said nervously. "I'm Fluttershy." Pretending I didn't already know, I nodded and said "nice to meet you!" A huge silence fell over the small room. As the silence went on longer, I felt more and more uncomfortable. Finally, she broke the silence and said "you passed out at my door. You were dehydrated and barely breathing." I thought for a moment: shit, Bo is gonna be pissed. I looked up at her and said "thank you for saving me." "It's nothing. I hope you don't mind, but… why are your wings…" she struggled to finish her sentence as if she was scared I'd get mad. "I dunno, actually." I replied. "They're just like that for some reason." We sat there in another awkward silence before she finally said "would you like some water?" "Yes please." I said as politely as possible. One cup of water later, she asked where I was from… "Before I tell you, would you mind if I used your restroom?" She simply nodded and pointed in the direction it was in. I walked over as calmly as possible and closed the door. I thought it might work, considering it did with the puddle, so I called Bo while looking in the mirror. "Yes, Pet- err, I mean Reaper?" he said appearing in the place of my reflection. "Yeah… Bo… she asked me where I'm from, so what do I say that won't confuse and/or scare the shit out of her?" "Well… Let's see…" Bo stood there pondering for a moment. "You could just say that you were raised in the middle of nowhere." I sighed. "I guess that's actually kinda true." When I told Fluttershy, she just said "oh" quietly. "You can leave if you want to," she said in her soft, quiet tone. I nodded, got up and as I was about to thank her once more, I realized my stuff was gone. "Hey, uhh… where's my stuff?" "By the door," she said. I looked over, and sure enough my stuff was there. I walked over and grabbed my stuff and as I opened the door, I thanked her one last time. She looked kind of sad that I was leaving, but I figured that I'd end up living around here anyway, so it didn't matter too much right now. I walked out the door as I realized "I have no idea what to do now! I guess my first priority would be to find somewhere I could live." It was at that point when I remembered: the clouds here are completely solid! I could just use one of them! There was one issue… I didn't know how to fly. "Well, can't be too hard, can it" I thought as I began to flap my bat-like wings. It wasn't long before I had gained about 10 or 20 feet of altitude. The clouds were up at least a hundred feet though, so I knew I'd need some practice with this stuff. After about 10 minutes, I had finally made it to cloud level. I sat down on a cloud that looked comfortable and sure enough, it worked. "Well, that's one problem solved." I thought. I suddenly felt the cloud pop out from under me. I obviously began to fall, but my head caught on to what was about to happen and before I could comprehend, I was back at that same altitude. "Oh! Sorry," I heard from near the now gone cloud. I turned to see a blue Pegasus with mane in the colors of the rainbow. I already knew it was Rainbow Dash, but I had to pretend I didn't know anyone (or as they would say, anypony) there, or they would know something was up. "It's fine. I'm just lucky I wasn't asleep." I said. "I don't think I've seen you here before." Dash said. "What's your name?" "I'm Reaper" I declared proudly. Her eyes jumped to my scythe. "That would explain that," she mumbled. "I'm Rainbow Dash." Once again, I had to act as if I didn't know, so I said "nice to meet you!" (Deja vu, huh?) "Are you new here?" She asked curiously. "Yes, actually; I have no idea where to go." She raised an eyebrow in confusion. I realized what she didn't get it and said "I literally just wandered here before I passed out from dehydration." "In that case, shouldn't you be dead?" These questions were getting easier and easier to answer. "Well, a pony named Fluttershy found me knocked out at her door and took me in." "Oh," she nodded. "Fluttershy took you in. One more thing, what's up with your wings?" "I don't know." I said. I know they looked weird but is it THAT necessary to ask? "That's just how they are." "Okay. I gotta get back to work." She sighed. I nodded and flew off in the opposite direction to find a cloud that was out of the way of everything. If I had known that my epilepsy was going to kick in for the first time in a long time… I would have stayed near Fluttershy's house. I've had seizures in the past, and let me tell you: THEY ARE NOT FUN. I have what's called Tonic-Clonic Seizures, the most common form. It normally starts out with what they called an "aura" which is actually a Simple Partial Seizure, and then it goes into the main problem. The only issue is: some people NEVER outgrow their epilepsy! We thought I had grown out of mine, but we were so wrong; so very, very wrong. I had found a white, fluffy cloud that was a little ways away from the edge of the town, and I sat down on it. Just as I began to doze off, I felt something inside me say "this has happened before!" I passed it off as nothing when I thought I saw a plane fly by… I passed that off as a hallucination. Then I began to feel a little dizzy. It hit me: déjà vu, hallucination and dizziness… It was an aura. I sprang up and jumped off the cloud then proceeded to fly as fast as I could towards the town. I had almost made it to the edge of the town when all my muscles locked and I passed out, definitely plummeting straight to the ground. I woke up on a sofa with no idea what had happened and I felt like I had gotten hit by a car. The first thing my eyes saw were 3 mares standing over me looking worried. It was Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and… I couldn't remember the third one's name because of my confusion. "He's waking up!" said Dash. I attempted to say "what happened" but it came out as more of a long, quiet moan. "Are you okay?" Fluttershy asked. I couldn't say anything so I just nodded. "What happened?" asked the third mare, who by my returning eyesight was revealed to be a purple unicorn. My confusion began to fade away a little as I realized what had happened. I was able to say quietly "a seizure." They looked confused. As my vision became normal, I realized I was inside some kind of a tree. The purple mare raced over to a large bookshelf and pulled out what I would've guessed to be a book including something on what the hell had just happened. "A seizure is when I lose consciousness and control of my body." "What do you think caused it?" asked the purple mare, peeking out from the book. "My epilepsy" I mumbled. They, once again, looked confused. "Epilepsy is a disease that causes random seizures." "So, this has happened before?" asked Fluttershy. "Yea, but not for a long time," I said as I thought for a second. "Wait, how did you know something was happening?" "We heard a scream," said Dash. I remembered at that moment, that after your muscles lock and you pass out, air is forced out of your lungs, causing anything from a moan to a bloodcurdling shriek. I nodded as I kept thinking about who that purple mare could be. Damn amnesia happens almost every time you have a seizure. I looked at her and asked "what's your name?" "I'm Twilight." My memory was jogged, remembering she was Twilight also made me remember that she lived in a house made out of a tree. That explained where I was. I began to slowly get up off the couch as Fluttershy raced over to me and began to try and sit me down. "I'm sorry… but I don't think you're ready to get up quite yet." "I'm fine," I assured her. "I'm just a little weak because of the convulsions." "We don't wanna take any chances, though," Dash said, racing over to push me back onto the sofa. "Alright, I give up." I sighed. "I'll stay here." "Good," said Twilight, stepping forward. "'Cuz I've still got some questions that need answering." After about an hour and a half of Q & A, well after Fluttershy and Dash had left, Twilight finally let me sleep. As soon as I closed my eyes I opened them almost instantly, yet it was hours later and I felt completely rested (don't you love it when that happens?). I got up as I heard Twilight's voice. "Finally up, huh?" "Thanks for letting me rest here," I said gratefully. I started towards the door (they kept my stuff on me for some reason) and as soon as I was out, I just began walking, practically not knowing where I was going. I was just thinking… why did my epilepsy suddenly kick in? I hadn't done anything to break my seizure threshold. Did it have to do with me being turned into a pony? Was I doing good to this world? Why was I asking so many questions I wouldn't get an answer too? That's when I got a good question… a question only Bo could answer. I flew around the town trying to find some kind of a puddle or well or something, but I didn't find anything. Instead, I saw in the distance a fairly large lake. Considering it was water, I flew to it and after landing I called Bo. He appeared replacing my reflection like he always had and said "you called?" "Bo, I know you're hiding something," I said sternly. "Why is it that on earth, hundreds of thousands of people die at the age of fifteen and don't get a second chance when I did?" "Damn!" Bo gasped, his eyes widening. "You're good with your head! Look…" He sighed loudly and continued. "You have what we call a Special Case." "What is a Special Case?" I asked, determined to get my answer. "Well, when we go over someone's life records after they die, we look for reasons that they deserve a second chance." I interrupted him. "Wait… life records?" "What? You think we look up your life on the internet? We know EVERYTHING you ever do and we keep record of it." He said, looking annoyed. "Anyway, God is a very sympathetic and kind-hearted guy, so we easily have over a thousand special cases every month. You had probably one of the most justified cases this year, bro." "What justified me for a special case?" I asked, now just curious. "Well… Let me get your records out here," He said as he snapped his fingers. What looked like a medical file popped out of nowhere and fell into his hands. He opened it up to about ¾ of the way and began to read. "Firstly, you were born in the middle of nowhere, so you never had a chance to make any friends. Secondly, you never got the chance to get to know your mother since she died when you were so young. You never had a single girlfriend throughout your life. You were put through strenuous work at an unusually young age and your brother judged you very, very negatively. The combination of the work's fatigue and the stress coming from the judgment caused you to develop epilepsy, which is not fun to live with. The only two things that you liked to do were hunt with Steven and watch MLP. The issue there is that you only got to hunt with Steven once a year and your constant work made it nearly impossible to find time to watch MLP. Lastly, you did one thing that millions of people wouldn't have done." "And that is?" "You gave your life to save someone else's," he said. He then looked up and asked "you see how we made a special case out of that now?" "Yeah, but what about that seizure?" I added. "I thought my epilepsy was gone!" "Hmmm…" Bo began looking through my records once again until he came to one of the last pages. "Ah! The seizure was caused by "a random occurrence due to epilepsy."" "Again! I thought my epilepsy was gone!" I growled. Bo flipped to one of the middle pages and said "actually, you're scheduled to have epilepsy for your entire life… both of them to be exact." "Well, fuck" I mumbled. "One last thing, Bo: why was I made to look like this?" "What do you mean?" He seemed slightly confused. "You can't look at me and say I don't look like a complete badass!" I said. "Why was I made to look like this?" "Well…" Bo paused for a moment. "I don't think you're gonna like this answer… You were originally meant to be born as a pony." "Uhehehe… uh… what?" I was pretty shocked at what I had just heard. "You were actually meant to be born into a family of Pegesai," he stated as he poofed up a second set of much smaller records in place of the first ones. He flipped open the small file to one of the first pages. "You were meant to be named… Flaming Star?" "The fuck are you saying?" my entire life now felt like something completely fake. "I did all I needed to in the creation, but I missed the most important detail… species. I accidentally put you under Homo Sapien. You were meant to be made an Equus Ferus Caballus. It was my fault, Reaper." "You're saying I was meant to be a pony," I said in an attempt to work my brain around what the hell was going on. "I'm afraid so" Bo sighed sadly. "I tried to make you die as climactically as possible, if that makes you feel any better." "It actually makes me feel worse." "Sorry" Bo looked down. "I lost most of the original creation request records, but I remember you were needed for some…" he seemed like he was racking his brain to find the right words to say. "I don't remember exactly, but it was something unusual." "Well, that goes for everypony here, doesn't it?" I sniffed, about to cry. "Hey, hey, hey! Don't cry! At least you died painlessly. I died in a Roman Gladiator Battle by getting both of my arms chopped off before bleeding to death" Bo chuckled, apparently looking back on it as a good memory. "I lived fifteen years with an asshole as a brother, no mother, no friends, no love, no help, and almost no fun. Your sympathy definitely helps the living shit outta me" I said sarcastically with my face in my hoofs. "I thought making you look like a badass would have made you feel better about this. You have a chance to do things you never got to do before!" Bo was still attempting to comfort me, and I was now mentally breaking down at the side of the lake crying. "I chose to specifically help your special case." "Well, at least you had the courtesy to do that" I sobbed. "Now I need to find a way to make this life worth it." "That's the spirit… kind of…" Bo smiled. I dried the confused tears off of my muzzle and stood up. "That actually felt good… To cry like that, I mean" I said, feeling much more calmed. "Good, good" Bo nodded in agreement. "Now, I want you to go out and find out what that one thing you are here for is, got it?" He was now officially more determined than I thought he would have been. "I don't give a shit n' a half if you haft to go to Princess Mothafuckin' Celestia to find out! I want to know as bad as you do, so let's find out together, dammit!" "Yeah!" I yelled, doing a quick hoof pump. "By the way, why are angels allowed to curse so much?" "Did you ever read the ten commandments?" Bo chuckled, "because I'm pretty sure one of 'em doesn't say "Thou shalt not say fuck"!" "So true" I chuckled. "I guess I should get going." "Good luck!" shouted Bo, giving me a thumbs-up as I flew back towards Ponyville. As I flew towards the town, a familiar smell came to me… I couldn't quite think of what it was, so I flew towards it. When I had gotten close to the source of the smell, I saw hundreds of fully grown apple trees in neat rows. I just floated in the air for a bit remembering how much hard work I had to do at such a young age back at home. As I reminisced on my not-necessarily-good memories, I heard a voice snap me back to reality. "Hey, you up there!" it was in a southern accent. "What're ya doin' just floatin' there?" I looked down and saw an orange mare in a cowboy-style hat. I gently drifted down until I had reached the ground and said "I'm sorry. I used to work in an apple orchard, so seeing those trees brought back some memories." She looked slightly surprised as she said "well, ain't it just a small world! I don't believe I've seen you 'round here, stranger. What's yer name?" "My name's Reaper," I said proudly. "What's your name?" (Once again, I was pretending I didn't know. I already knew she was Applejack.) "Ma name's Applejack," she smiled. "Mighty strange name ya got. Where ya from?" "I was raised in the middle of nowhere" I sighed. "A very long ways away from here." As if a flash of light whizzed right by me, I felt somepony go straight by me at an unbelievable speed. I looked to see who it was, and… god… She spoke way too fast to be able to understand what she was saying, and she was hopping up and down as if she had just chugged gallons of Red Bull. Yep, it's who I call the psychotic pink moron and who you call Pinkie Pie. Considering I needed to act like I had never seen this pony in my life, I acted as if I was being freaked out by how hyper she was. "Pinkie, Stop!" Said Applejack. "You're scarin' Reaper!" She stopped and turned my way, and then she went off again. "Oooh, Hi there! My name's Pinkie Pie! Ohmygosh, Dashy told me about you and so did Twilight and…" I tuned her out at that moment. The one thing I heard out of here super-speedy rambling was "I can't wait to throw you a party-" "Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!" I stopped her. "You literally just met me, and you're gonna throw me a party?" "Well, duh!" she said happily. "That's what I always do! I've done it for everypony!" I thought for a moment… "Ah, what the hell, I'll give it a go!" She squealed in delight then turned around and ran at the same super-speed she came at. When she had gone, I muttered "Strange, strange pony." I then said goodbye to Applejack and began to fly back towards town. "Hey, Reaper!" I heard Dash shout. "What are you doin'?" "Nothin'" I shouted back. "Just getting acquainted with more of the ponies around town." "Oh! Well Twilight's looking for you!" "Okay, thanks!" I turned and flew towards the tree that Twilight resided in, wondering what this could possibly be about. As I walked in the door, she said "Ah! You're here!" She smiled. "I don't believe you've met Rarity, have you?" She gestured towards a white unicorn. "Shitballs" I thought. "This is that unicorn with OCD, isn't it?" "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," she said in a stereotypically regal accent as she gave a small smile. "BE NICE" I thought. "Pleasure to meet you as well, miss Rarity," I replied. "Dammit! Now I sound like a moron!" I thought. She giggled and said "such a gentlecolt. Now, I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I must go." Rarity sauntered out the door. As we watched Rarity leave, Twilight looked at me and said "You still don't have a place to live do you?" "Are you a psychic?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "Well, you could just make a house yourself." She suggested. "That is…" I paused as I thought about the suggestion presented and uttered "not a bad idea." I bounded out the door, saying goodbye so I could go build as simple yet stable a house as I could. After about 2 or 3 days, I had a small hut made from sticks and held together by some clay I managed to find at the bottom of the lake. I also had a bed made from a nice, soft cloud. The night I first slept on that bed was the best sleep I had had in days; all except for one small thing… the nightmare. It was a replay of an old reoccurring nightmare I used to have. The demon in those dreams… scarred me for life. He was about 5 and a half feet tall, wearing dark blue knight armor. He wielded a wide, heavy sword that was about as tall as him. I saw under his helmet once or twice… it appears that he has no skin; just a muscular structure to be shown on the outside along with eyes that were the most vibrant yet satanic neon-green. The very first words he ever said to me in his slow, deep bass voice were "Я ваш худший кошмар!" That happens to be Russian for "I am your worst nightmare!" That is why I have always called him Nightmare. Nightmare tortured me every night with brutal depictions of people's deaths in ways that I would prefer not to remember. He had left my dreams since I was around 10 or 11 years old. It was for the first time in over 4 years when I saw him again. All he said was "you will never be free!" After that… he split me in half with that enormous sword right before my very eyes. I watched as my upper body fell backwards and my lower half fell forwards. He then began to laugh… maniacally. He then proceeded to stomp on my head with his metal boot. As the boot connected with my skull, I heard a loud crack and woke up with a small, short yelp. It turned out that it happened to be a thunderstorm outside. "I guess they were planning some kind of storm or something" I mumbled, rolling over to attempt to get back to sleep. As soon as I managed to fall back asleep… that damn dream kept repeating itself… over and over and over. I woke up to the thunderstorm still raging on. I couldn't tell what time it was, but I'm pretty sure that it was past noon. I sat around for a while until I felt like I couldn't stand it anymore. This was probably going to be like a typical Washington all-day type of rainstorm… just with thunder and lightning. "In that case" I thought, "I probably shouldn't just waste my time sitting inside. I'm used to rain, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue." I opened the door and flew out, hoping that the rain wouldn't mess up my speed or control. Puddles dotted the street while only a few ponies were out and about. Eventually during my flight, I heard thunder and a bolt of lightning was directed to the one of the spikes on my wings. Electricity coursed through my little pony skeleton before I felt my muscles lock and I passed out into another seizure. I woke up to find myself stuck in between the branches of a tree, almost completely immobilized. I managed to reach a forehoof up to that spike to feel if my new hypothesis was correct… it was. Those spikes were made of metal. My blurred vision was only able to make out one not-so-close object… a cabin… There was only one pony in town I knew that had a cabin. I called out for Fluttershy's help to get me out of the tree. After about 4 or 5 minutes of shouting, the door to the cabin opened and Fluttershy's head popped out to look around. I tried to wave to her as best I could while still shouting. She looked around for what seemed like an eternity before she found the tree I was stuck in. As soon as Fluttershy noticed I was trapped in the tree, she rushed over to try and get me out. She eventually did and she invited me inside her cabin. I didn't want to risk getting hit by lightning again, so I gratefully accepted her invitation. We sat in silence for what felt like hours. Eventually, she spoke up. "If you are okay with talking about it, how did you get stuck in that tree?" "I got struck by lightning" I chuckled, almost thinking of it as funny. She gasped and asked "Are you okay?" "10 million volts of electricity doesn't hurt as much as it sounds" I stated, smiling. "It may have hurt a lot, but I think I'm okay." "Are you sure?" "I'm sure, thank you" I answered. I looked down to see a tiny white rabbit, only about as tall as a soda can, giving me a cold, angry look as if I had offended him. I bent down to get a better look at the small rabbit and asked "why are you staring at me like that?" "Oh!" Fluttershy got up and rushed over to pick up the bunny. "This is Angel." "He certainly doesn't look too happy I'm here" I said. "He doesn't like strangers, does he?" I could see Fluttershy give off a tiny shrug. Suddenly, Angel jumped out of her arms and jumped up next to me, giving me the same cold stare. I held back a laugh as he rolled his eyes. Angel apparently didn't like me being anywhere near Fluttershy, so he pointed towards the door. "Are you asking me to leave?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and lowering the other. He nodded, hopped over to the door and opened it, gesturing for me to leave. "What if I get struck by lightning again?" I questioned him with a worried face. He just facepalmed at my question and continued to gesture to the door. I looked over to Fluttershy. "You can go if you want to. I really don't think you should though" she said, hiding behind her thick, pink mane. I looked back at Angel. "You really don't like me, do you?" I said with an annoyed expression. Angel simply nodded and once again gestured out the door. I huffed out through my nose and told him "I'm sorry Angel, but I'm afraid I'd prefer to stay." He gave me one final death glare before promptly turning around and hopping out the door. "What the- Wait!" I tried to call him, but he ignored me and just continued through the pouring rain. "I'll be back" I sighed as I started for the door. "Where are you going?" asked Fluttershy, who seemed to be scared. "I'm going to go get Angel, of course" I uttered. I took off out the door, closing the door behind me. The night sky was still black and covered in a total overcast with rain clouds. I flew only a few feet above the ground, just enough to see the ground below me, as I scanned the street ahead of me. Sure enough, Angel was hopping down the road, now entirely soaked and undeniably cold. He soon spotted me and began to run- err… hop faster. "Вернись" I yelled (my brother always used it, saying it was Russian for "get back here"). As soon as I had approached him, I scooped him into my hoofs and carried him off while he squirmed to get out of my grasp. I tried to fly up high enough to the point where he wouldn't want to let go, but nevertheless, he continued to struggle about. As I approached Fluttershy's cabin once again, I felt another bolt of lightning flow through my bone structure. I once again began to plummet downwards as Angel attempted to scream (but he was always silent, so he didn't). I looked to see we were going to crash right through the cabin door, so I flipped over and put myself between Angel and the impact point. All I heard was a crash and a scream of shock. I proceeded to open my eyes to Angel standing directly over my face with Fluttershy in the background. "Are you hurt?!" she said looking up and down my body to spot any injuries. "Not really" I croaked weakly. "Angel, are you okay?" He nodded and… smiled. "What happened?" Fluttershy asked quietly, grabbing and hugging her bunny companion. "More lightning" I said getting up and dusting off. "So much worse than seizures." I noticed that the door was still in (mostly) one piece so I picked it up and put it back into place. Fluttershy gently set down Angel and rushed over to hug me. "Thank you so much! I'm so sorry I got you hurt!" I laughed and said "You didn't get me hurt. Those clouds got me hurt." "But if I-" I stopped her. "No… You didn't hurt me in any way. If there's anypony who got me hurt, it's me" I said looking into her cyan-colored eyes. (Social Link established! [If you get that reference, have a cookie :D]) We continued to talk for a while, until we were both pretty tired. It was still raining, so she insisted I stayed overnight and slept on the sofa. I decided it would be better than having another 10 million volts of electricity ravage my body, so I drifted off to sleep. That night, more dreams came. Nightmare would grab me in a chokehold and lift up the front of his helmet to reveal that burnt, bloody, skinless, fleshless face with his demonic neon-green eyes. He would say "lightning will not even compare to this" then proceed to smash my head against the ground, shattering it like glass. I would then fade to black and the dream would repeat… I didn't think I could take it anymore. He had never tortured me like this before I got to Ponyville! I needed to find a way to get him out of my head. I didn't know how, though. Destroying something as powerful as Nightmare would be like magic… Magic… that's it! I woke up trembling from the horrific visions that I had witnessed the night before. The door opened slowly and Fluttershy poked her head in. As soon as she realized I was awake, she came in and said "good morning." "Good morning, Fluttershy" I winced, still shaking uncontrollably. "Are you okay?" "Well… no" I let out a small whimper and continued. "I need help." "With what?" she asked, sitting down next to me. "Nightmare" I mumbled. "I've been having the most disturbing nightmares, and I can't get them to stop. There's one thing they all have in common, though: Nightmare." "What do you mean, Reaper?" Fluttershy questioned, curious and concerned. "He's… I don't know what he is, but he won't leave me alone" I said, beginning to feel a little calmer. "He's always tortured me with depictions of… mutilation. He's just now started to actually begin to physically torture me in my dreams, forcing me to watch myself fall apart. I need somepony with magic to help get rid of him." "Gosh… Maybe Twilight can help" she suggested looking down. "It's worth a try." I got up to leave, and Fluttershy insisted that she got the others gathered there in case something went wrong. I agreed (obviously) and continued on to the big library that Twilight resided in. I knocked on the door, forgetting that it was a public library. After I told Twilight about my issue, she agreed to help and began to look through a bunch of her books for a spell that could help. By the time everypony had gathered up in the tree house, she had found the spell she was looking for. "I'm ready" she said as I laid down on the sofa and braced for what could possibly happen. Her horn began to glow a deep violet as I felt something starting to be tugged out of my head. At first, it felt fairly normal. I felt nothing really. Twilight continued to concentrate on her spell. It slowly began to sting while Twilight began to struggle. It eventually began to hurt quite a bit and Twilight began to look as if it was hurting her as well. The pain kept growing and growing until it felt as if the inside of my head was on fire. I began to writhe in pain, as did Twilight. It finally began to hurt unbearably; it hurt enough to believe that Nightmare, regardless of being nothing more than a thought, was putting up a fight. Me and Twilight both began to scream in pain as the others ran over to try and get us to stop. Finally, it ended… but not in the way I wanted it to. There was a blinding flash of light. As soon as the light faded, we all realized that standing in front of the doorway, was Nightmare himself. He turned to face us and greeted me by saying "happy to see me?" We were all in complete awe, at least half of us with our jaws hanging wide open in complete and utter shock. Twilight began to step forward and as she was about to say something, Nightmare blasted her back with his soul charge shouting "закрой свой рот" (that means "shut your mouth" in Russian). He then used his soul charge again, but this time he used it to teleport to God knows where. "What was that thing?" shouted Rarity, completely mortified by the sight she had just seen. "That" I said casually, "was Nightmare." "How'd he shoot Twilight back like that?" Applejack asked, about as shocked as Rarity. "He uses what I call "soul charge"" I told them. "In my dreams, he's taken in numerous souls through ponies' hearts. He spends those souls to allow him to do things like teleport and use telekinetic powers one time. He can also become an exact copy of the pony whose soul he last absorbed." "So he steals ponies' souls?!" shouted Dash. I nodded weakly. "What can we do?" asked Fluttershy, looking my way. "Wait" I muttered. Everypony began to question my answer. "I mean, we wait until we get some kind of a signal that might lead us to Nightmare." "What if we don't get a signal?" Twilight added. "If we haven't received a signal in…" I stopped to think for a moment. "Let's say a fortnight, and then we tell Princess Celestia. So if we don't get a signal in 2 weeks." Everyone agreed and we proceeded to talk about how to prepare. "If Nightmare is as strong as you say, won't you need armor too?" Twilight suggested. "Maybe" I replied. "But I think it would be better just to get my scythe sharpened." "I don't think there's any kind of armory or anything around here" Dash said. "Well, I happen to know of one that's just outside of town" Twilight stated happily. "Great! I guess I could also get some armor there" I thought out loud. "But wait" Dash interrupted. "Do we even know how to kill this thing?" "Not a clue" I said confidently. "Then how do we know we CAN kill him?" Dash added. "Well, we don't know" I replied. "But I think going down without a fight is a pretty stupid idea." "Right now, I think we should jus' focus on gettin' tha basics" Applejack spoke up. We all agreed with AJ and decided to just get the essentials at the ready for now and talk about battle plans and such later. Also if you were wondering, yes Pinkie Pie was not there for the whole Nightmare fiasco, but I'm pretty sure AJ told her. I told Bo about everything, and he obviously wasn't too happy about it, but he knew there was already nothing he could do to change my (or anypony else's) mind. I couldn't sleep that night. It wasn't too shocking that I couldn't, but regardless, I felt like I needed to rest after going through all that "Nightmare" shit. I wondered if Fluttershy was having the same issue sleeping as me. Curiosity and concern got to me and I flew over to the small cabin she resided in. It felt awkward being there so late at night. What if she WAS sleeping? She wouldn't like me to wake her up! I sucked it up and knocked on the door gently. She opened the door a few seconds later, revealing red, swollen eyes from her crying. "H- Hi Reaper" she whispered, looking down. "Hey. What's wrong 'Shy?" I asked. "Nothing" she said, struggling to hold back tears. "I'm serious, Fluttershy" I tipped her head up and looked into her eyes. "What's wrong?" "I- I-"she was fighting to force the words out of her mouth. I walked her inside and sat her down on the sofa, sitting down next to her. "I'm scared of what might happen!" She buried her face in her hoofs. "I know; I am too" I sighed, shuttering at the thought of having my soul sucked out through my heart. "But if I don't put up a fight, Equestria will be obliterated then rebuilt to be a secondary hell." "I don't want anything to happen to my friends!" she sobbed, burying her face into me as I hugged her comfortingly. "I don't want anything to happen to you" "Even if something bad happens, I won't die" I said, looking up and hoping that Bo (or anypony for that matter) had heard me. "You don't know that!" She cried. "Hey, death may be inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's not preventable!" "What does that mean?" she said, looking up at me with teary eyes. "That means I will die eventually" I whispered. "But I won't die now." I could tell she felt better because she stopped crying. She slowly drifted off to sleep, and I followed soon after. Nightmare may have become real… but I knew that it was possible to kill him; I just needed a little help. I awoke to a divine aroma. It was coming from behind me, most likely the kitchen. My guess was right; Fluttershy had decided to make breakfast. I was about to get up to say good morning when I heard a knock at the door. I assumed it was somepony related to the whole "Nightmare" situation, so I decided to answer the door myself. Once again, I was right. Twilight had come to see if she could get a slightly more detailed view of what I had in mind as far as preparations. Fluttershy had apparently heard the door too and had come bounding towards the door shortly after I had opened it. We all decided to talk about it over breakfast. "Twilight" I said, interrupting her mid-bite. "I hate to ask, but would it be okay if we get some extra back-up on this?" "What do you mean" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "Your brother used to be Capitan of the Canterlot Royal Guards, correct?" She nodded and I continued. "I was wondering if he could possibly come and help us fight Nightmare." "What if Nightmare is already in Canterlot?" She questioned. "If he was, we would've heard about it by now" I said. "He has tons of battle experience, so it might help if he were to come along." Twilight let out a small sigh and agreed. After breakfast, Twilight led me to the blacksmith she had mentioned the day before. It was a small wooden cabin that looked as if it was falling apart. A smell of smelting steel hit me as the wooden door opened. Behind a small counter stood a fairly old stallion with an old blacksmith's apron on. "Buy somethin' or get tha hell out!" he shouted. "Whoa, buddy" I said slowly. "I just want to get some armor and get my weapon sharpened." "Finally!" he yelled. "Somepony who wants ta do business! What weapon do ya need sharpened? Sword? Axe? Spear?" "Scythe" I said, yanking the scythe off of my back and putting on the counter. "Well, that's a new one" he mumbled, surprised. "I'll give it to ya at a discount since I've never sharpened a scythe before. Now, ya said ya wanted ta buy armor, too?" "Yes, sir" I replied enthusiastically. "What's your best armor?" "I got boots, a helmet and a chestplate; all of 'em are made of pure steel." "Not bad" I said. "I'll take it! Oh, and can you make room so my wings can fit through the back of the chestplate." "Sure thing! That'll be-"I threw a bag of bits on the counter. Everypony had pitched in a little to make sure we went in completely prepared. "That looks like it'll cover it" he told us. I took the armor back to my pathetic stick-made shack and tried it all on. It fit perfectly, almost as if it was made for me. It only took about another hour for the scythe to get sharpened, too. I was prepared… Now all we needed was Shining Armor and we would be ready any time. It took about 3 or 4 days for Shining Armor to arrive, but he arrived just in time. It was another one of those nights. I couldn't sleep because I was anxious to just find and kill that giant bastard, Nightmare. I looked over at my armor and scythe leaning up against the wall next to the poorly-crafted wooden door. Just as I began to look away from the door, a small knocking sound emitted from the other side of it. I opened it to see (such a shocker!) Fluttershy standing there in the rain. "Still scared?" I asked her. She simply nodded as I led her inside. We used my cloudy white bed as a sofa while she told me that she wasn't scared so much of Nightmare killing anypony as she was scared of Nightmare killing just me. "Listen, Fluttershy. I've said it before and I'll say it again. You have nothing to worry about. I'm gonna be fine." "You don't know that" she said, looking up at me. "If you want to make sure nothing happens to me, then why don't you just come along?" I suggested. "We already have Twilight and Shining Armor coming, and we need all the help we can get!" "I don't want to bother anypony, though" she sighed, looking away and putting a thick wall of pink mane between us. "You won't bother anypony" I assured her. "You've been nicer to me than anypony I've ever met. You couldn't bother me if you tried" "What about your family? Surely they're nicer than me" she said sadly. "I grew up with no mother, a father that almost never talked and a brother that wouldn't stop judging me negatively. You're twice as kind and caring as all of them combined." "No I'm not" she said. "This isn't the point" I chuckled. "I'm saying that you'd be an amazing help." She shook her head and looked back my way. "That and… I'm scared stiff, dammit!" "What?" "I'm scared and stressed and you calm me down so much and- dammit! I want you to come with us… please" I said. "Okay" she muttered. "I'll go" We sat in silence for a few minutes before we heard a frantic knock at the door, followed by Twilight yelling for us to open the door. I rushed over to open the door and there, in the rain, stood Twilight and her brother Shining Armor. "We got an urgent alert message from Canterlot. Royal Guards have been dying mysteriously. We need to go as soon as possible!" Armor told us seriously. "We'll be ready tomorrow" I stated. "We should all get some sleep!" We all agreed and broke out of our little meeting like a football huddle. Me and Fluttershy went back to sitting on my little cloud in silence for a few minutes. "We should get some sleep" I said. "Okay. Goodbye then" she said, slowly getting up. It was time. The time to rise up to that bastard Nightmare. The time to show him that you can't fuck with Equestria and live to tell the tale. The time to show him what real pain felt like. The time… to kill him! The four of us gathered 'round, all ready to go. Twilight and Fluttershy weren't wearing any armor obviously, but me and Shining Armor were armed to the teeth. Shining Armor was in his entire set of Royal Guard Captain's armor, all perfectly shiny with no dents, scratches or even tiny smudges. It was like the armor he was wearing was new and untouched. He was also equipped with a spear, which was the weapon that most Canterlot Royal Guards used. He clearly had his magic at his disposal as well, so I'm pretty sure he was completely prepared. I was wearing my steel armor. My armor covered most of my head, my chest, my back (my wings were unobstructed, though, due to some awesome custom cutting I got that blacksmith to do) and all 4 of my hoofs. I also brought along my newly-sharpened scythe. I decided against bringing my hunting rifle considering that the bullets would most likely cause minimal damage to Nightmare, if any. I also figured I wouldn't have time to load it anyway. Regardless, I was as prepared as I needed to be, and I was ready to go kick Nightmare's satanically-stupid ass! We all stood facing each other in the cold air, waiting for one of us to say something. Armor finally spoke up, "We ready to do this?" "I'm as ready as I can be" I said, nodding. "Ready!" Twilight stated. "I'm… I'm… ready" muttered Fluttershy. "Then, let's do this" Armor said, cracking a half-smile. Twilight teleported us all to the front gates of the castle. The night air was cold and the ground was covered in white snow that had just fallen no more than 2 hours before as we stood in front of the large metal gate that led into the castle. "When we go in" I said as they turned their heads to listen. "Our first priority is to make sure that Princess Celestia is OK. Then we go after Nightmare." "Got it" they all replied in unison. We walked into the huge building to find no light whatsoever in the opening hallway. "I'm gonna assume that Nightmare is already in the throne room" I thought out loud. "What if Princess Celestia is too?" Armor added. "Then… that's gonna be problem." I swallowed nervously. We moved through the darkened hallway up to the stairs, which we began to go up. I whispered to them "We just want to see who's in there. If it's only Nightmare, we leave and search elsewhere. And for the love of God, be as quiet as possible. We can't alert Nightmare if he's in there." I popped my head around the corner at the top of the stairs so I could get a good look into the throne room. Sure enough, Nightmare was sitting on the throne, but Celestia was nowhere in sight. "She's not there! Go back!" I mouthed back at them. They turned around and began to walk back down the stairs, but I stayed at the top of the stairs for a little bit longer. "Aren't you coming?" Twilight whispered up at me. I let out a quiet sigh and turned around. "I guess we split up into pairs of 2" I said softly. "Twilight and Armor, you two take that side of the castle. Me and Fluttershy will take the other side. If anypony finds the Princess, bring her back here ASAP." The teams of 2 split up and went off in their separate directions. It was awfully quiet while me and Fluttershy searched all the different rooms. The only dialogue between us for what seemed like a few hours were occasional "she's not in here" or "is she in there?" We finally gave up and went back to the front hallway to wait for Twilight and Shining Armor. When we got back to the front hallway, Twilight and Armor were already waiting there for us. "No luck?" I asked them. "Nope, none" Twilight answered sadly. "Where could she be?" Fluttershy asked, probably thinking out loud. "We can only hope that Nightmare didn't… you know" I hinted. "If he did" Armor said with a diabolically angry face. "There's got to be someplace we're missing" I sighed, pacing. From up the stairs, we heard a voice… but it wasn't the slow, demonic, bass-tone voice that Nightmare had. Instead, it was the voice of… Princess Celestia… "You'll never get away with this!" shouted Princess Celestia. "Could you have said anything more cliché than that?" Nightmare said, annoyed. "I could think of a few things!" I yelled, racing into the throne room. "It's about time you showed up" Nightmare roared. "I've had just about enough of this bitch." "Dude…" I said, shaking my head in disapproval. "No… Just no… You have just signed multiple death warrants." "Do NOT call me "dude"" growled Nightmare angrily. "Fine" I shouted, stepping forward. How 'bout I call you демонических мудак" "Невежественные влагалище!" He screamed. "What did you say?" Armor asked me. "I called him "demonic asshole"" I told him. "What did he say just now?" Twilight asked. "He called me an ignorant cunt." I turned my attention back to Nightmare. "It's about time you faced consequences for what you've done!" "Oh really" he said sarcastically. "And how do you plan on doing that?" "By kicking your sorry ass" I uttered, stepping forward once more. "I believe you are in over your head" Nightmare stated, beginning to slowly rise from the throne. "I could crush you in an instant if I wanted to. You don't realize that I am still as powerful out here as I was in your dreams." "And you don't realize that I don't fucking care" I hissed back. "If I cared about how powerful you were or what would happen to ME ONLY I wouldn't be here right now." I yanked out my scythe and held it in my two hooves as I began to hover above the ground using my wings. "I've got to give credit where credit is due: you were very fast with your work, no doubt, but you aren't allowed to kill anypony you want to." "HA! You couldn't hurt me if you tried your hardest!" "Try me, motherfucker" I said, gritting my teeth and giving him a cold stare. He ripped this ginormous sword out from the ground beside the throne and began to start towards me. I flew directly up and attempted to slash him in a dive, but he just punched me out of the way as if I weighed nothing. I got up and attempted to dive-slash him again, but he simply stuck out his arm, clotheslining me and only causing a light scratch to the surface of his armor. I hit the ground, chest-first, sliding on my chestplate across the polished marble floor. I hopped back up on to all 4 of my hooves and prepared to try and just go straight in (regardless of that being a completely stupid idea). I rushed in as fast as I could. Nightmare simply reacted by moving out of the way, but I swung around in a U-turn, putting a decent sized scratch into the side of his chestplate. Nightmare began to charge towards me, so I vaulted over him, but fell on my back sending my scythe across the floor. Twilight used her magic to throw the scythe back to me as I got up. Nightmare was getting closer to me, so he swung his huge sword at full force. It didn't hit me directly, but it put a pretty big cut through my armor and into my chest. Nightmare used a soul charge to blast me back and I was launched back into the wall behind the throne. He began to charge again as I got up just in time to get out of the way of the impact. The impact he had on the wall shook the ground beneath me as I turned around and flew up to attempt another diving slash. I dove downward, straight towards him with my scythe ready to cut straight through that blue armor of his. He caught on fast enough, so he simply swung his sword in my direction, cutting deep into one of my wings causing me to crash into a wall. Shining Armor came over to help me up and he used magic to close the wound that had been opened up on my wing. Nightmare attempted another charge as Shining Armor dove out of the way. I tried to swing for the slit in his helmet where his eyes hid, but instead of going into his face, it only got stuck in the small opening. He then began to struggle to rip the scythe out of his helmet. He finally just ripped off his helmet, revealing that god-awful skinless, fleshless, burnt, bloody face and those demonic, neon-green eyes. He used my scythe (which he was holding and I was hanging on to) to throw me across the room. I impacted the throne with a huge crash and a mass amount of pain. I got up and waited to see if I could get him to make a move. After standing there, facing each other for what seemed like an eternity, he simply began to walk towards me, dragging his sword behind him. I charged at full speed. As soon as I was close enough, I jumped up and carved a big cut into his forehead. What I saw come out of that cut was not blood, but lava… melted rock… it gave me an idea. Rock melts at high temperatures, which means he has to have a way to keep his insides to that high of a temperature… some kind of heat core. If I could cool down this heat core, than his blood would turn to stone! Nightmare could practically see what I was thinking, as he embedded his sword in the middle of the marble floor and began to slowly approach me. I got up to attack but he used a soul charge to push me over to a wall, where he had me cornered. "I think it's time to take this battle to a place a little more… personal" he said as one of his large, claw-like, armored fingers reached over to touch my forehead. I felt reality fade as I passed out and woke up standing in the middle of a baron plane that looked like hell. The ground was charred and cracked, revealing a layer of boiling magma under it. There was a black smoky gas in the air that smelled strong enough to make you want to cough up your own guts. In the distance, I saw a figure approaching me. "Nightmare?" I asked. "What was your first clue?" Nightmare said sarcastically. "What's going on?" I yelled to him, who was still approaching me slowly. "Look at yourself, Peter" Nightmare ordered. I looked down to see… I was human again. "Where the fuck are we?" I shouted. "We are in the place where we first met" he said. "We are inside your mind." "I hate to burst your bubble, Nightmare, but you realize that if it's MY mind I CAN'T die." "That may be" Nightmare said quite confidently. "But that doesn't mean I can't still weaken you." "Come at me, bro" I yelled. He prepared to charge me again, but this time he used a soul charge to propel himself forward, allowing him to hit me before I had the chance to react. I flew back on the impact of Nightmare's hard, metal armor. I was able to get back up and I summoned my scythe to my own will (considering this was my mind, I can do shit like that) and I proceeded to charge him myself. He swung out his sword, chopping me in 2 perfect halves at the waistline. I reformed myself and got up, feeling as if I had just gotten hit by a car. Nightmare simply laughed as he began to charge again. This time, I saw it coming so I managed to dive out of the way, leaving him open at the back. Diving down from a jump, I embedded my scythe into his back. It seemed as if he didn't feel any pain as he simply tore the scythe out of his back, letting the wound very slowly leak his molten blood. He turned to me, obviously not pleased with the fact that I had just opened up a huge wound in his back, and threw my scythe at me. I dodged it quickly before realizing that he was once again hurdling towards me, but this time had intentions on grabbing me. Nightmare quickly grabbed me by the neck and slowly lifted me up as he said "I'm not even trying, Peter. How do you expect to beat me if you keep fighting like this?" He then threw me what seemed like miles, causing the ground to crack beneath me when I hit the ground. I got up and dusted off while he began to head towards the landing site. I summoned up my scythe again and decided to use a little "soul charge" of my own. I imagined myself behind the giant demon. It managed to work and I found myself then standing behind Nightmare, him completely unaware of my presence. I swung my scythe's blade deep into the back of his leg, but he just turned around as if the blade was made of cotton. With an amazing speed, he punched me just hard enough to knock my feet out from under me. "I think I need to take a break" Nightmare said, smiling diabolically. "What?" I yelled, looking at him like he was psycho. "I'll let some… old acquaintances take over for now." Nightmare used a soul charge to… strike the ground with green lightning? That was it? No… up from the cracked ground rose 10 wolves. There was a catch though… these weren't normal wolves… these were Hellhounds. They began to slowly circle me. I swung my scythe to hit the nearest one, and it decapitated the poor pooch… but it was still moving. It was HEADLESS, FUCKING HEADLESS, and it was STILL MOVING AS IF IT WERE ALIVE. I knew that this was going to be a problem. "All I can do is… wait… what the hell is wrong with me?!" I thought, remembering that these things were in MY mind. Using my mind I obliterated the Hellhounds. "Finally" Nightmare said, appearing several feet away behind me. "I thought you really were stupid enough to forget that you could use your mind to kill those things." "I hate you… SO MUCH" I yelled. I began to hear voices from what sounded like outside my head. "Oh no! He's fighting Nightmare!" "Princess Celestia?" I said, looking up in complete shock. "Are you reading my mind?" "Yes, Reaper. I am" her voice echoed. "You seem like you are faring well against him. Would this be right?" "uh… kind of" I answered. "Shut your mouth and fight me, Peter!" Nightmare roared, shaking the ground beneath us. "All right" I said, slowly turning around to face my ferocious foe's face. "How about this then." I rocketed towards him as fast as my mind would propel me, managing to sink my scythe's blade deep into his chest. He let out a short grunt of what sounded like a mixture of pain and blinding furiousness. He ripped the scythe out of his chest and grabbed me by the leg, then slammed me into the ground, shattering my torso. I naturally used my mind to re-construct my completely demolished body, but this time, I didn't summon up my scythe. I simply stood there… hoping to get him to charge once more. "What are you waiting for, Peter?" he yelled. "Come and kill me!" "…No" I said blankly. "What do you mean no?!" Nightmare screamed, once again shaking the ground. "I don't want to" I told him, trying to hold back a laugh. "Come kill me, dammit!" he demanded. "You can't make me" I said, now smiling from holding back my laughter. "Oh, but I WILL" he growled. "I WILL make you!" "How?" I asked, now just intentionally trying to piss him off. "Забей на это дерьмо!" He shrieked. He then prepared for another charge, completely ignoring his soul charge's power at this point. The speed he gained was magnificent compared to his other charges. It seemed like he could've outran a car, but that was only what it looked like. I was ready for his charge… I quickly summoned up my scythe again and swung as hard as I could at the oncoming train of a monster and… SLICE! I felt a huge impact into the blade of my scythe and I opened my eyes to see that it had worked… Nightmare had been decapitated. I knew it wasn't over yet; he knew it wasn't over yet. All I heard was reality rushing back to me as I heard Nightmare go flying across the room and land in the throne. "What just happened?!" Twilight asked me, looking as if she had just seen what I had. "Nightmare happened" I whispered. "I-Is it over?" Fluttershy asked softly, kneeling beside me. "I wish, 'shy… I wish…" I heard the giant metal-covered demon slowly drug himself off of the throne and up onto his feet. I got back up too… It was time to finish this fight… I was ready to end the fight. Nightmare rose up to his feet and let out a massive roar in anger. He began to walk over to where I was, just as I was getting up. I turned and quickly attempted to rush at him, but he simply used a soul charge to knock me back down, as well as knocking my scythe towards the others who were completely awestruck now. Nightmare proceeded to walk over to where I was and he slammed one fist down as he used the other to grip my neck, pinning me against the ground and barely allowing me to breathe. "ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT" he yelled directly into my face. "I'VE GIVEN YOU THE FINAL BATTLE YOU WANTED, NOW YOU DIE!" "Fuck… you…" I choked out. "Невежественные влагалище!" he screamed. "I could have killed you as you stepped into this throne room!" I attempted to shake my head. "YOU CAN'T KILL ME! I AM NIGHTMARE! YOU CAN'T NOT BE SCARED!" "Blow… me…" I whispered, beginning to feel the effects of the major lack of oxygen. "YOU COULDN'T HAVE HURT ME IF I HADN'T LET YOU! IF I WAS FIGHTING TO MY FULL POTENTIAL, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE ANY TRACE OF YOU LEFT IN THIS WORLD!" he continued screaming. I was 30 seconds away from losing consciousness at this point. "I BET YOU'D CAUSE LESS DAMAGE TO ME THAN THAT YELLOW BITCH WITH THE WORTHLESS ANIMALS!" I felt a spring of opportunity here. I was around 15 seconds from passing out when I said "what did you call her animals?" I felt him slightly loosen his grip to look over at Fluttershy, allowing me to breathe a little. "THEY ARE WORTHLESS! A WASTE OF SPACE; A WASTE OF TIME; A WASTE OF LIFE! NOW, ANY LAST WORDS?" He looked back at me. I nodded and croaked out "you're fucked." He looked confused as he lifted his head and turned around to look behind him. Without a chance to react, the giant steel blade of my scythe went directly into both of his eyes. I gasped and my vision focused to see… Fluttershy had done it. Nightmare was screaming in pain, stumbling around the room completely blind. Also, because of his "heat core", the steel of the blade melted into his face, restricting him from pulling out. He continued to slam around the room until he stumbled backwards and fell through a window, causing him to fall multiple stories to the snowy ground below. You could hear his cries of pain fading as he got farther and farther away. He hit the ground lying on his back, still struggling in a futile attempt to get the scythe out of his head. I remembered something and asked if Twilight could teleport down to the ground beside Nightmare with me, as well as asking if I could borrow Armor's spear. When we were down there, next to the struggling Nightmare (who had stopped screaming at this point) I used the spear to wedge the front of his body armor off of him. When I finished with that, I went on to slicing at his muscularly-exposed chest until I could see inside of him. Where his heart should have been, there was what looked like his heat core. It was a ball of… I don't even know what it was, but it was a scarlet-red liquid encased in some transparent shield. I used the spear to get under the heat core and I tore it from Nightmare's chest, causing him to scream out in pain once again. The heat core hit the ground with a sizzle, along with the spear which was now connected to the core via the tip melting. I politely asked Twilight to lift up some snow and pour it inside him after I had wedged out the heat core. Her horn grew a deep violet purple as she picked up a huge scoop of snow from the ground and threw it into the beast's chest. As soon as the snow was inside of him, he began to scream and flail around once again. We stood back as we saw Nightmare struggling on the ground. After around 3 or 4 minutes, the lava in his "blood vessels" began to quickly turn gray… they were turning to stone. He turned over onto his front, his head up and looking at me as he began to crawl towards me. When he was close enough, he choked out his final words, while holding up a hand, as if he wanted me to shake it. "Peter, you have proven to be a worthy competitor… congratulations." He was completely immobile after he had finished his sentence. Everypony else joined me and Twilight down by the immobilized corpse. "What did he say?" asked Shining Armor. "He… said I had proven to be a worthy competitor then congratulated me" I said, still kind of confused by why he had said that. "What do you think he meant by it?" Princess Celestia also asked. "I don't know" I sighed. "He may have been a completely undeniable cocksucker, but at least he wasn't a sore loser!" I was about to say something else, but I felt something, or more specifically somepony, tackle me… yeah… I think it's obvious who it was. Fluttershy was hugging me hard enough that it actually kind of hurt, but I didn't care too much. I still had one thing to ask her though. "Fluttershy, how did you swing that scythe into him like that?" I asked, still pinned by her hugging me. She got off, stood up and said "oh… well… he was going to kill you and he said my animals were…" I didn't want her to blow up (literally) so I interrupted her. "Yeah… but honestly, you swung that scythe harder than I thought you could. I swear I saw it poke at the back of head." "Shouldn't he have died on the blades impact with his brain?" Twilight jumped in. "He's… well… Nightmare, so common medical explanations don't really work" I answered, almost snickering. "In all the years I've ever lived, I've never seen anything quite like this creature" Princess Celestia thought out loud. "He's not from this world" I said. "I thought so" she stated. I looked up at her. "Reaper, I'm going to make you in charge of any dangers we have that may be related to worlds other than this one. I want you to protect Equestria from any other unknown dangers." "I would be honored, Princess" I smiled, bowing lightly. We all teleported back to Ponyville in a flash of blinding light as I said "It looks like I've found my purpose here." As soon as I got home, I was greeted by Bo in that same water bucket I had placed in the corner of my house. "Did you seriously kill that thing?" "Yes" I chuckled. "So, you not only kicked Nightmare's ass, but you are now Equestria's only protection from otherworldly dangers?" he questioned. Laughter came from him as he said "I knew it was something crazy specific!" "You know, maybe I was meant to be a human in the beginning" I thought out loud, looking off into space. Bo laughed as if I had told a joke and then seriously said "no." "Well, whatever" I said. "Still, I know that most of my work is done, but if you ever need any more help or just someone- err… I mean somepony to talk to, I'll still be here!" "I'll keep that in mind, Bo." "Oh! And one more thing!" he called to me. I turned to face that bucket of water. "You may have a… friend joining you soon." "What do you mean?" I asked suspiciously. "You'll figure it out later" he said. I guessed I'd just have to find out… Ponyville was much, much quieter after that (even though it was already pretty quiet to begin with). Me and Fluttershy began to regularly see each other and her animals also began to take a liking to me. Of course, word about what had happened eventually got out, and regardless of it being quite late Pinkie felt the need to celebrate Nightmare's death. Regardless of how morbid it sounded, everyone went along with it. I had gotten two new scythes given to me for my new duty. One was exactly like my other one, steel with a wooden handling… area… thing. The other one was an iron rod with an obsidian blade, for things that are less armored. I was also given special guard's armor that was different from other guards. It didn't look too different from my other armor except for the fact that it was close to the color of my fur and it was made out of bronze instead of steel. My wings continued to cause me to be struck by lightning, as well as I continued to have seizures every now and then, but other than that, no serious health problems had arisen. I did, however, get struck by un-natural lightning… A Pegasus with eyes that were slightly out of synch was jumping on a cloud. Anyway, that lightning caused me a pretty bad seizure, so I can't exactly say I'd had no health issues. There's more to the story though… I was helping Fluttershy with her animals one day and we heard a huge scream of terror coming from the everfree forest. It sounded like a pony, so naturally I went in. Fluttershy, regardless of her major fear, insisted on coming along too. We eventually came to the same large hollowed-out bush that I had first appeared in. I walked in to see somepony on the ground, rocking back and forth as if he was going insane… …Why … Why did you have to die, Steven… THE END
Waking The FallenMy job was fueled by the second amendment. I was in a family of gunsmiths with our craft dating back to the early 1600’s. We had moved the location of our small family-owned business at least 6 or 7 times in total. The one that was most likely last ended up putting us in Ocean Shores, Washington. It was the end of another workday… my last workday. I had just sold the building I worked in. Over 400 years of work on a company and I ended up selling it. I had nobody else in my family that could help me with the business; I was the last one left. I only had one friend to return to and he also happened to be my roommate. Jason was the last person I could count on to pay our rent. It may have been small considering the fact that the apartment building we lived in was small and shitty, but he certainly didn’t make much money. I had also just bought myself a used van a few weeks ago, not expecting to get the business shut down later, so I was almost broke too. I didn’t know what to do at this point, so I just walked the short distance between my former work building and my tiny apartment. I entered opened the door to my musty apartment to be greeted by that old fading blue paint. Like the rest of the building, it smelled like shit. I slowly walked in as I noticed all the lights were off. “Jason?” I called out. There was no answer. I slowly crept around the small apartment until I heard a faint mumbling in the room next to me. “It’s impossible. This can’t be happening. It- it’s not real…” “Jason?” I called out again. “Is that you?” “I must be going insane… It can’t be real; it’s just not possible… I gotta stop myself before I hurt someone!” “Jason, what the Sam hell are you talking about?” I asked. “Time to end my insanity!” he shouted as I heard the click of a revolver’s hammer. “WAIT! JASON!” I screamed. BOOM! The gun went off and I heard something fall against the wall and slide to the floor. I entered the room and looked to the side to see Jason… dead. He was limp on the floor with his grey matter splattered all over the wall behind him. I looked down to see the gun… my grandfather’s. He made it for me before he died… I slowly fell to my knees and began to sob quietly at the sight of my dead friend. 2 hours passed and I was still crying. I heard the door smash open and someone yell “POLICE!” I slowly lifted my hands into the air, still crying quietly. I felt the presence of two officers standing in the doorway to the room. “You’re under arrest!” one of them shouted, pointing his gun at me. His partner tapped his shoulder and said “Kyle, I don’t think someone HERE would murder someone then cry over the body.” The other officer, Kyle, lowered his gun and sighed “You’re probably right. What’s your name, buddy?” “John Jack…” I croaked. “My name is John Jack.” “We’re gonna ask you a few questions, ok John?” They questioned me for around an hour, asking about everything. What I did, my friend’s mental health, if I was legally able to own the guns I had (which I made so duh, I could own them). They didn’t stop for an hour. When they were done, it was my turn to ask a question: “I have no money… where do I go now?” “Hell, I dunno” Kyle said. “You could always sleep in your car.” “I guess it’s better than nothing” I sighed. I packed all my clothes, my equipment and my really old drum kit into the back of my van and got inside. As soon as I turned on the engine, I instantly put in my Avenged Sevenfold CD and turned it to the song “Chapter Four”, a song me and Jason would always listen to together, and I could play on drums fairly well. Give me your hand, blood is split and man will follow Infernal man, punishment too great to bear Raise your head and taste the courage Fall from grace, unholy night I've come here to kill you, won't leave until you've died Murder born of vengeance, I closed my brothers eyes tonight Give me your hand, blood is split and man will follow Infernal man, punishment too great to bear Raise your head and taste the courage Fall from grace, unholy night I've come here to kill you, won't leave until you've died Murder born of vengeance, I closed my brothers eyes tonight I had come to the very edge of the coast, where the ocean meets the sand. There was only one thing… there was some kind of a… train station. There were two strange looking, large, white armored horses standing at the entrance instead of guards. I also could see a big land mass in the distance… as if there was a new continent on the earth or something. Many things began to travel through my head. Things like “Who the hell puts a train station at the edge of an ocean” and “where the fuck did that land come from?!” I wasn’t sure what to do… Maybe this was what Jason was talking about. I had made a single 5 minute stop at the bank to get out all my remaining money (a measly 400$), so I decided to slowly approach the station. As I got closer, I got more and more nervous. I didn’t know where this thing went! Would I really want to find out this way? It was too late then. I was already in front of the entryway. I stopped and thought for a moment. I decided on risking it and I began to walk inside when the horses stepped in front of me and yelled, in perfect unison “HALT!” “FUCK!” I yelled, falling backwards and trying to crawl away from the white guard horses. I slowly got up as I thought to myself “this must have been what Jason was blabbering about. I don’t blame him for thinking he was crazy.” I approached the guards once again and asked as politely as I could “Could I please enter the station?” The guards simply stepped to the side without a word and I walked inside. It was empty of any people or horses except for a horse standing behind a glass pane. He looked like the ticket seller, so I walked on over to him. “Hey, uh…” I hesitated at my question as I thought it might have been a little offensive. I finally sucked it up and asked “since when can horses talk?” “I’m not a horse” he replied. “What?” “I’m not a horse” he repeated. “I’m a pony.” “Okay…” I said awkwardly. “Since when can PONIES talk?” “Uh…” he stuttered, looking at me as if I were crazy. “Always?” “Okay, okay” I nodded. “Anyway, where does this train go?” “Canterlot Station” he replied. “Okay, where is that?” “Equestria” “Equestria, huh? Clever; very clever” I mumbled. “How much is a ticket?” “50 Bits” he said. I figured that Bits were the currency in Equestria so I asked what the exchange rate was… 10 Bits to a Dollar! I had 4,000 bits! “Alright! I’ll get a ticket then” I said, handing the pony 5$. I grabbed the ticket and got on the train. As soon as I arrived in this “Canterlot” I noticed that I was LITERALY the only human there. Everyone was whispering and pointing as I walked towards what looked like a castle. In my mind, I was hoping that Equestria’s ruler lived in that castle and I also hoped that they weren’t an asshole. I kept walking, people (or ponies, in this case) still whispering and pointing the entire time. I finally found the front gate of the castle and the guards let me inside. I climbed my way up to the entrance to the throne room, where their leader most likely was. As I attempted to open the door, a guard stopped me and said “Princess Celestia is in a conference. You may not enter until it has been adjourned and everypony has left. Feel free to wait if you like.” I sat down in a corner and sat there silently thinking about all the shit that has been going down. Firstly, ponies can talk here. Second, it appeared randomly in the middle of the fucking ocean. Third, it’s a monarchy, which is not good. And fourth, this “Princess Celestia” might not take too kindly to me, and that would cause a lot of problems. I continued to think about everything until I heard the huge door open and I saw several ponies that looked like they all came from different cultures walk out. Finally, a tall white pony with a heavily-tinted, multi-colored mane and tail stepped out and waved goodbye to the ponies that were leaving. As she waved, she noticed me sitting in the corner and asked “can I help you?” “Are you Princess Celestia?” I asked. She nodded. “I have some questions to ask.” “Okay, come in.” I followed her into the throne room, which was huge. It had a large table on one side of the room, which I assumed was for meetings. She, however, walked over to a window and simply looked out. “I would like to know a few things about Equestria.” I said very nervously. “Namely, how it got in the middle of the ocean.” “What do you mean?” she asked, looking back my way. “Never mind” I sighed. “Also, why am I the only human here?” “Well, your country, this “United States of America” isn’t exactly happy about Equestria connecting our borders without their government’s consent.” “Then how was I let on the train?” I asked. “I never said we shut down the train station” she said. “Your government has made announcements all over to make sure nopony came here.” There was a fairly long silence between us until she decided to ask a question of her own. “What brings you here in the first place?” “My friend kinda…” I was hesitant to remember the events that had happened only a few hours ago. “Killed himself. I decided to just pack up and leave and now I’m here.” “You have a home though?” “Actually, no” I said sadly, looking down. “I don’t have the money to keep living there anymore, so I had to leave.” “Well, what’s your cutie mark?” She asked. “What the Sam hell’s a cutie mark?” I asked confusedly. “It’s the mark you get on your flank that indicates what your good at” she stated, as if she had awnsered that question millions of times. “Humans don’t get cutie marks.” “Interesting” she said. “Anyway, what are good at?” “I’m a gunsmith” I said. “A what?” “I make ranged weaponry. It’s a job that requires a lot of skill and precision. If I mess up one tiny thing, I could accidentally kill someb- er… I mean… somepony” I explained. “It’s been in my family since the 1600s. My family’s business just got shut down, so now I have no way to get any money.” “Equestria’s never had a gunsmith before” said Celestia, deep in thought. “We might be able to use some of these weapons for our guards.” “Sure, but these things cost money.” “But of course” she said. “If I could get you a workspace set up somewhere, maybe you could make us some of these weapons in exchange for money for food and a place to live.” “That’s how it normally works” I said. “But where? Canterlot is too populated for anything that could be that dangerous” she thought out loud. “It needs to be somewhere where there is plenty of open space… Aha!” “Oh!” I shouted. I just remembered something important. “I could get my old co-worker Connor O’Drake to come in and help! He can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’s really a nice guy.” “Fantastic” she said in a not-so-excited tone, as if she didn’t give a shit. “I’ll get him a house in Ponyville as well.” “Okay, and one last thing” I said. “What about my stuff? I left all my tools, clothes, other stuff in my car back on U.S. land.” “I’ll just have somepony send it to you. You should get it within a couple of days.” “Works for me” I sighed. “Alright! So it’s settled!” She nodded, smiling. “Oh, and by the way,” I turned to face the Princess. “My name is John; John Jack.” She gave a slight not to indicate she understood. Now, I just had to get Connor. I guessed that he was where he almost always was: his old apartment playing Team Fortress 2 and watching Tosh.0 while drinking tons of Coca-Cola. Hell, you could almost always find him there if he wasn’t at the old work building. I was betting he wouldn’t be too happy to hear he had to work again, but at least he would have some new peop- I mean ponies to fuck with. Connor was Scottish, and he absolutely loved causing mischief. He was the kinda guy that would mess with people just for a laugh. In fact, one time he had pissed off a hair-dresser so much, that she permanently dyed his hair blue. He didn’t care, though. He thought it looked cool. I got to him over the phone and told him about what was gonna happen, and to my surprise, he sounded happy about it. I met him at the train station and we talked a little bit before we got on the train to Ponyville. We were told we were going to be shown around by somepony who knew the town very well. As soon as the train left, Connor fell asleep. I decided to doze off myself… Maybe things weren’t gonna turn out so badly after all! “We’re here, dumbass.” I head the Scottish accent and I instantly knew it was Conner. I lifted my head from the train seat too see the dimly-light early morning sky as I rubbed my eyes a little before standing up to get off. As soon as me and Conner were off the train, we heard a friendly “Hello there!” We looked in the direction of the voice to see a small, light-violet unicorn with a baby dragon by her side and a warm smile on her face. “You must be John and Connor, right?” Conner and I nodded. “Okay, well, my name is Twilight Sparkle. I’ll be showing you both to your houses after I show you around a little.” After a short tour of the town, Twilight led us to our… single house? I thought we were living in different houses, but I guessed I was wrong. Whatever; as long as Connor didn’t fuck up my workspace, I’d be fine with it. We thanked Miss Sparkle and headed into our house to get settled in… and hopefully set up some rules so Connor didn’t go bat-shit crazy all over the place. It turned out that we did have separate rooms, which was a relief for me, but I would still have to learn how to sleep with one eye open or something to make sure that Connor doesn’t booby trap my entire room. About two hours after we had first gotten to the house, I heard a knock at the door. I didn’t know who in the hell wanted to see me considering not a single pony here knew me… well, besides Twilight, but she seemed to have been rushing the tour, so she must’ve had something to attend to. I decided to just open up the door and see who it was. I opened the door to see nobod- I mean nopony was there. Instead, there was a huge set of boxes and in the distance, I saw a grey Pegasus in a mailm- er… mailpony’s hat. She must have just brought them there one by one. I grabbed one of the boxes that looked like it had my basic gunsmithing tools in it. When the top of the box was open I saw that it was some of my tools. It was my set of checkering tools, my hand gravers for engraving, and some other tools. I unpacked all of the boxes that had tools in them, and the only box left after that was huge. I didn’t know what it could’ve been… My car? “Hardy-har-har Celestia” I thought, opening the box. It turned out that it wasn’t my car (thank god); instead it was my drum kit. I set up my drums in the corner of the large living room that me and Connor would now share. As soon as everything was set up, I started playing Almost Easy by Avenged Sevenfold. It felt really good to play the drums again. I hadn’t had the chance to for a really long time. At the end of the song, another knock came from the door. I opened it up to see Twilight and her small dragon companion again. “Let me guess” I started sarcastically. “You’re here to complain about the noise.” “No” She said. “I come with a message from the Princess. She wants to know what the most effective and easy-to-use weapon you can make is.” “I’d say a M4A1” I suggested. “I’ve produced civilian legal versions of the M4, but I think I can make an M4A1.” “What’s the difference?” the little dragon butted in. “M4A1 is normally used by U.S. Special Forces because it’s small and powerful, as well as fully automatic unlike the M4” I answered. “It’s also compatible with a HUGE amount of different attachments like grenade launchers, sights, etc.” “But would it work for ponies?” Twilight added. “Probably” I thought out loud. “I’m not sure. Oh, and everypony will need a sidearm just in case!” “Sidearm?” “A small gun that you can use as a backup for tight spaces when things happen like reloading would take too much time or you’re out of ammo” I explained. “That’s where Connor comes in. He’s a better pistolsmith than me.” “Is there any one in particular that you would recommend?” “I’d say an M1911” I said. “It may have a small magazine, but it’s pretty good in power and you can tell it’s good because its model is over 100 years old.” “Okay! I’ll tell the Princess” she chirped happily. “WAIT” I spouted, stopping her in the middle of the doorway. “You’ve also gotta tell her that she can’t expect a lot of these too soon. Me and Connor hand-craft these things from fresh materials, so it can take longer than you’d think.” “Okay, that’s good to know” She said. She then turned around and went into a slow trot towards her tree/house. I decided to tell Conner about our new assignment. I would be making the M4A1s and he would make the M1911s. The only issue was, the U.S. already didn’t like Equestria connecting to its borders without permission (not like they could get it anyway), and now we would be making guns for the Equestrian military that were already frequently used by the U.S. military. Would that piss them off even more? I couldn’t tell, obviously, so I just hoped for the best and went to go tell Connor. “Yo, Connor” I greeted, entering his room. “What’s up, brother?” he responded in his thick Scottish accent. “We got an assignment straight from the Princess” I told him. “We gotta get her military some good weapons!” “Then what are we gonna give them?” he asked “I’m gonna be making M4A1s and you’ll be in charge of M1911s.” “Those are both U.S. military weapons” he said, unamused by my weapon choices. “Yeah, but they’re good weapons and they’ll provide a great defense for Equestria” I countered. “Don’t you think that the U.S. already hates Equestria enough as it is?” “I would care, but I’m all out of fucks to give! Equestria is unprotected against any other human-inhabited nation” I snapped. “Equestria goes to war, and every single pony here will die! We need to give this place good defenses, and dammit, that’s what I intend on doing!” “Okay, okay” he said quietly. “Plus, in exchange for our services, we get food and shelter.” “Alright then, let’s work” he said, suddenly eager, probably at the thought of being homeless and hungry. “Wait, dumbass” I stopped him. “We don’t have any materials to work with.” “Okay, then tell me when we do get some materials to work with, so I can make some masterpieces!” In the meantime, I remembered that I had brought along some materials I bought on my own to make a gun for myself. I decided to get started on that, considering I would probably not have any time to work on it later. After 2 hours, I was in the middle of making one of my all-time favorite guns: The M1 Garand Semi-Automatic Carbine, the first rifle to be a standard-issue weapon to ALL infantry of a nation. It was even called “the greatest battle implement ever devised!” It was a very interesting rifle indeed! It had an eight-round internal clip that was inserted into the top of the rifle and ejected automatically. It was also made to be gas-operated and air-cooled. I think it is by far the coolest WWII weapon out there. I hadn’t made it too far in the construction when I stopped, but I did know what I was making and I knew that gun almost inside and out. About 10 minutes after I had stopped, I got another knock at the door. I got up and opened the door to see another package at the doorstep. I opened it to find tons of fresh ingredients for making firearms… It was time to get to work! Me and Connor were ready to roll. It only took a few hours for Conner to complete one or two M1911s. We still needed to test them to make sure they weren’t malfunctioning, but he was done with what was absolutely required. It took me a long time to get a perfectly crafted M4A1 rifle fully made and ready for testing. It may seem like we were going really fast, and we were, but we were trying to make as many parts at a time as we possibly could. A lot of the guns were turning out very well, and by 10 P.M. we had made some good progress… kind of… Obviously, we didn’t get super far, but I got about 4 M4A1s done, whereas Connor had twice as many guns made. We decided that this was good enough for one day, considering we had been working almost all day now, and we felt like we deserved to get a break. We decided that the next day, we would test them, tweak them and then I would get them ready to ship to Canterlot (with ammo and personally written instructions with hopes that it would help prevent any accidental casualties). I was completely wiped out from that day. I was up at around 4:00 A.M. when the train got there, and we had worked for hours and hours and hours. I was just glad we were making some pretty good progress. Something had just hit me: we were so far away from our old homes. It felt very, very strange in such a new place, but I shrugged off the feeling considering that it was my new home and I would have to get used to it sooner or later. I fell asleep as soon as my eyes closed after that… I just didn’t know what was going to happen later… “FUCKIN’ LAZY!” I jerked upwards, startled by the random yelling I heard from the door. It sounded like Connor, and he didn’t sound happy about something. I got up the best I could, my spinal column in deep pain from sleeping on a bed that was supposed to be for a pony, and I limped to the door. “Connor, what the hell are you yelling about?” “That “Princess” is the laziest ruler I’ve ever heard of!” “What in the Sam hell are you taking about?” I nearly shouted, angry from having been woken up so early. “She sent a letter to us saying none of her best men could figure out the instructions you gave them!” “So?” “SHE DIDN’T READ THE FUCKING THING HERSELF!” he hollered angrily. “She probably has much more important things to do” I responded. “It’s the defense of her ENTIRE KINGDOM!” he snapped. “And she still won’t take a shot at reading a little instruction sheet that would take less than 5 minutes to read! She’s also asking us to go there and teach them while she also expects us to make more weapons at the same damn time!” “God, dude. Don’t get so pissed off!” I said. “Fuck you!” “Look!” I yelled at him. “I’ll go there myself and teach the highest ranked Captains how to work with the guns. Then they can pass on the knowledge to other soldiers! You just stay here, keep working and don’t have a fucking aneurism over this entire situation” “Alright” he sighed, his Scottish accent making it sound more like “arrite”. I walked out the door and began to walk angrily towards the train station. Twilight trotted up to fall into a steady rhythm beside me. “What’s wrong with him?” she said, breaking the silence I wanted to keep. “He’s just an asshole sometimes” I answered. “Does he have a hobby that makes him happy, or something to keep him from blowing up like that?” Twilight continued. “I think he woke up half of Ponyville with that outburst.” “He fucks with ponies” I said monotonously. I looked down to see Twilight with a repulsed expression plastered across her face. “Not like that” I sighed. “I mean he messes with ponies… Like, causes mischief. Whenever he succeeds, he dies laughing.” “So he’s like Discord?” she asked, now back to her standard, happy expression. “Who the fuck is Discord?” I said in a voice a little louder than a mumble. “He’s the god of chaos” she answered, as if she loved giving lectures on whatever the hell she knew. “He basically does the same thing except when he does it, ponies tend to get hurt. Fluttershy made him good, though.” “Fluttershy?” I said, confused. “She’s somepony you don’t know yet. You’ll like her. Everypony does!” “Anyway, so Discord doesn’t do anything mischievous anymore?” I asked, continuing the conversation as we got closer to the train station. “Nope!” she chirped happily. “Well, fuck” I said. “Connor could have made friends with Discord.” “They might still get along” she suggested. At this point, we were just standing at the train station, now in silence. We waited for what seemed like forever until the train came to a screeching halt in front of us. Twilight and I stepped onto the train, each paying the pony manning the door the cost of a ticket (considering we were both too goddamn lazy to buy them ourselves). The train quickly gave off a loud whistling noise as it began to slowly gain speed. I can’t believe I was going BACK to Canterlot. I decided to just try and ignore the whole situation and drift off to sleep. Almost as soon as I dozed off, I was woken up by Twilight saying we were there. “Did I fall asleep?” I asked, groggy from what probably was slumber. “Yep” she nodded. “Snoring pretty loudly, too!” “Meh” I spouted quietly. We got up from the train and made our way off. Considering I was there the day before, I already knew the way to the castle, and Twilight obviously knew I was there before, so she didn’t decide to give me “instructions” on where to go. As soon as we had reached the castle gates, three royal guards rushed in to meet us. They turned out to be the three biggest leaders of the Equestrian Military. They explained how they couldn’t figure out the instructions and that we needed to show them how to do pretty much everything with the guns. To start, I walked over and grabbed an M4A1 to use, as well as a mag that I put into the gun. After several hours of instruction, they finally found out how to shoot both the M4A1 and the M1911 accurately. They assured me that they could teach all the lower ranks how to use the guns, so I decided to go back and alert Princess Celestia about my success. I walked through the door of the throne room to find a pony in front of Celestia. I stood in the back as I heard their conversation. “So you murdered him publically?” Celestia asked. “No!” the pony said. “It was my brother, I swear!” “I’m afraid I don’t believe you” Celestia told the pony, scowling. “Alright” “Say…” Celestia looked like she had just put on a happy face out of nowhere. “Do you like bananas?” The pony, who was now crying, nodded silently. “Well, you’re about to go bananas!” The crying pony looked up at the Princess as if she was a psycho. Celestia’s horn began to glow a tinted sky blue and she shouted almost happily as if she enjoyed doing this “ON THE MOON!” The pony disappeared with a flash of light and a brief, muffled scream. “Princess” I interrupted the near-maniacal laughter that followed. “I have a question… umm… WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK WAS THAT??!!?!” “Please lower your vo-“ “NO! YOU JUST SENT A PONY WHO MAY HAVE BEEN INNOCENT TO THE FUCKING MOON!” I roared. “If you do that on a regular basis then you aren’t just a murderer you’re a complete PSYCHO!” “That’s the punishment for murder in Equestria” she said casually. “Ponies who murder get sent to the moon to die.” “That is the fucking STUPIDEST way to execute somepony!” I growled. “You wanna experience how stupid it is?” Celestia hissed back. “This isn’t why I came here! I came to tell you that your three leading captains now know how to use both the rifles and pistols, and they can teach the lower ranks how to use them.” “Okay, now go!” she said as her horn grew a tinted sky blue again. In a flash of light, I was back in me and Connor’s new house. He was sitting at the table in our little “kitchen” area with a displeased expression on his face. “There you are” he said angrily as he pushed himself back onto his feet. “Why in the hell do we have to eat this floral shit?!” “Ponies are herbivores!” I replied, annoyed. “You didn’t know that?” “Do I look like a fuckin’ farmer to you, brother?” “No” “Exactly!” he said in a smart-ass tone. “Well I have to live with it, too so don’t you be complaining!” We got back to work after we got done arguing. It was late, so I only got started on 2 rifles, 1 that I was already more than halfway done with. That night, I couldn’t sleep at all. I kept thinking about why Celestia would kill a pony by sending them to the moon. Didn’t she do that to her younger sister? Well, they are pretty much gods, so I guess they can live without breathing… or heat… or water… Eventually, I just got sick of sitting there in bed, so I got up and went to my workspace and pulled out my M1 Garand. I continued to work on in through the rest of the night. I finished it after a few hours and then I started customizing it. I put a scope on it, made a bayonet (I knew I wouldn’t use it but what the hell!) I even decided to paint “Born to Kill” on it, because Full Metal Jacket is my all-time favorite war-based movie. Right as I was completely finished and the sun was just beginning to rise over the rolling green hills, I heard a frantic knock at the door. I raced over to open it, since the knock sounded urgent. It was an out-of-breath Twilight. She tried to speak but only managed to squawk out a few words that were impossible to make out and wheeze a lot. She finally gave up and used her magic to toss me a piece of parchment-like paper. I picked it up and began to read it. As I read on and on my facial expression grew more nervous. Connor came in to see what was going on… I told him straight out: “Equestria is at war” “Hehehe… uh… what?” Connor stuttered nervously. “It’s the U.S… I don’t know why they did but… just…Here, read for yourself” I said, handing him the letter. His eyes traveled down the page and he got more and more nervous as he read. “Fuck this shit” he yelled running to his desk. “Let’s make some fuckin’ weapons NOW!” “Thanks for alerting us, Twilight” I spouted then I turned and ran over to get down to business. Several days passed and Connor and I had kicked into high-gear with our weapon production. We had enough M4A1s for about half the Equestrian military by the end of the month, as well as having more than enough M1911s. Our sleep time was reduced to only about 6 or 5 hours every other night. After about a month and a half, we had supplied weapons for the entire Equestrian military. Sadly, the same day we finished, Twilight came back to inform us of something else that had happened… “The city of Manehattan is now under U.S. control.” “Fuuuuu…..” my voice trailed off as I fell into my own thoughts. “I still don’t get it… I know that the U.S. and Equestria were on bad terms, but normally the U.S. doesn’t just start something for no apparent reason… This war must have been some kind of a set-up or something…” And Ponyville was one of the more valuable cities in Equestria. They’d probably come here pretty soon, so how could I prevent the U.S. gaining control HERE too? The answer was so obvious, I’m surprised I even had to think to get it. Arm the town. “Connor!” I yelled to the other room. Connor came running out to see why I had called him. “Let’s get to work! We’re gonna arm Ponyville to the teeth!” “Hell yeah, brother!” he shouted. In about 2 or 3 weeks we had some pretty good weapons issued to every single pony in town, as well as teaching everypony how to use them. As soon as thoughts of being finished entered our minds, a knock at the door came around midnight. We opened the door to see a white stallion with an Alicorn beside him. In front of the two of them were Twilight and a blue Pegasus with a colorfully bright mane. We had learned that this was Rainbow Dash. I thought she was a little bit annoying, because when we gave her a weapon, she requested that we make it about “20% cooler”. “John” Twilight spoke up. “This is my brother Shining Armor and his wife Princess Cadence.” “Oh!” I squeaked at the word Princess and attempted a small bow. “What brings you two here?” Shining Armor was the first to speak. “Our kingdom, the Crystal Empire, is now under control of the United States.” My jaw dropped. “I know. That was my reaction” Rainbow Dash giggled while looking at my reaction. “Shit, we gotta do more” I thought out loud. “What?” Cadence interrupted, confused. “We’ve been arming Ponyville as much as possible, but if they can take over the Crystal Empire, we obviously haven’t done enough. We need patrols, guard towers…” “We’ll do our best to help” Shining Armor said, probably trying to calm me down. Me and Connor managed to gather around 7 ponies that were willing to work as guards for the time being. We made some fairly unstable guard towers out of any scrap we could get, and we set up patrols and guard times and such for our seven pony army. In the last while, Connor put the finishing touches on a Light Machine Gun that he had been working on while I made sure I had enough ammo for my M1 Garand. We were completely prepared… I was scared of what was going to happen. We may have been ready, but I knew that the U.S. Military was powerful, especially compared to Equestria. Not only that, but we still had the question of why the war started on our mind. So many problems and questions… But we’d just have to find out later… Now we wait… Past midnight… couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t feeling very good ether. I sat up in bed and immediately grabbed my head which was throbbing really heavily. With a good force, I pushed myself off the bed and began to slowly walk towards the bathroom in order to wash my face, hoping that the cold water would do something about the splitting headache ravaging through my skull. As soon as I had reached the bathroom, I turned on the water and began to splash really, really cold water on my face. The faucet turned off but instantly afterwards, a sound echoed from where I kept my computer (it was pretty much a rock with wiring in it, so it was only used for recording orders, keeping records of what parts are needed to make which gun, etc.), so I went to investigate. I drew the loaded M1911 that Connor had made me as I moved slowly into the room. The monitor of the computer was light up and there was some random guy in a U.S. army uniform sitting there typing away. I gulped, because I knew this wasn’t going to end well. I snuck up behind him as quietly as I could, and I grabbed the computer’s plug out of the wall. He simply turned around to see me holding the cable up right in front of his face. I lifted the gun so the barrel was pointed directly between his eyes. I squeezed the trigger and a gunshot went off, sending a bullet directly through the soldier’s head and into the computer. I didn’t care about the computer, I just had to be sure that there weren’t any more of these soldiers around here. I went over to my workspace that only had my M1, and I grabbed the M1 and loaded a magazine into it. I fixed my bayonet on the end as well. Connor came running into the room with his giant LMG. We both gathered at the sides of the door. I whispered over to him “They’ll die by the gun,” and I opened up the door slowly to peek out. I saw a few soldiers gather around the buildings, probably drawn by the sound of my gun. I instructed Connor to go first and use his LMG. He kicked out the door and opened fire. The soldiers fired back while the tried to get into cover. He managed to get most of them, but 2 got away. One was almost instantly taken down by a guard in one of the towers, and the second one was just hiding behind cover. As soon as we thought the coast was clear, he popped out with his rifle and opened fire, but I was close enough to lunge my gun forward, stabbing my bayonet straight into his neck. We thought it was over, but a few others opened fire from another side of the town. We heard some of the ponies firing back using the firearms we had given them. Me and Connor rushed over to help out. I quickly saw 2 soldiers and managed to kill both of them using my M1. Connor went around to assist from the ponies’ side. I continued to creep closer and closer to the soldiers’ position, taking them out one by one as I went. When there were only a few left, one saw me and turned his fire to me. One bullet grazed my leg, while another hit me in the arm. I still managed to take him out, regardless of how much pain I was in. Finally the gunfire stopped and I yelled out for somepony to help me. Shining Armor and Cadence came over to help. Shining Armor ripped the bullet out of my arm (which sure as hell didn’t feel good) as Cadence closed the wound. I got up and thanked both ponies for helping me. “We gotta tell Princess Celestia what just happened” I said, turning to face Connor. “Oh hell no, brother” he retreated hastily. “I wouldn’t talk to that lazy bitch if you paid me.” “What if I were to tell you there was a certain being there who likes to fuck with people as much as you do?” “Okay, when do we leave?” Connor asked in a completely normal tone. I rolled my eyes. “As soon as we can!” I said. “We gotta let the Princess know what just happened.” “Well okay” he agreed. “Let’s go; onward and upward; tally ho!” “Typical Connor” I mumbled, letting out a sigh. Another train ride that took what seemed like forever passed and we were at Canterlot. It was closing in on midnight, meaning everypony had abandoned the streets and went home, leaving the entire city quitter than what I thought was comfortable. Connor and I walked at a faster pace than normal, as I was anxious to let the Princess know that we were in bigger danger than we thought, and Connor was anxious to meet Discord. It wasn’t long before we had reached the castle’s very large front door. Standing on each side of the entrance were two stallion guards with their M4A1’s on their backs. They didn’t even bother to ask who we were because they already knew (we were the only humans that lived in Equestria, after all). Connor and I raced up the stairs into the throne room where Princess Celestia and another Alicorn, who looked similar but shorter and dark blue, stood side-by-side. “Princess, we have a bit of an issue” I said in a slightly hesitant voice. “What is it?” Celestia asked turning around. The dark blue mare still stood facing the window looking out as if she was mesmerized. “The Crystal Empire is under United States Control” I said. Celestia’s eyes seemed to grow to the size of dinner plates. “And Ponyville would’ve been next if we hadn’t armed every single pony and got some ponies to act as guards.” “This is a problem” Celestia whispered, turning her head towards the ground. “Also, we’ve been informed that there was an explosive set off in the United States. It was traced back to Equestria somehow.” “I KNEW it was a set up!” I mumbled angrily. “Someone’s gonna get a bullet to the brain for this!” “What is the next town they are most likely to invade?” asked the other Alicorn in a strict tone. “Perhaps Cloudsdale” the Princess replied. “But how?” the blue one responded, turning around to reveal an unusual amount of resemblance between the two Alicorns. “Only the Pegesai can walk on clouds” “Perhaps they have some way to put Pegasai’s DNA into humans” Celestia suggested. “That’s it!” I interrupted! “The U.S. could do that using Pegesai from Manehattan or the Crystal Empire, and then use air transportation to get them there!” “That would make sense” the blue one said. “I don’t believe I have made thy acquaintance before. I am Princess Luna.” “My name is John Jack. It’s an honor to meet you Princess.” I replied while politely taking a small bow. “I think I should go to Cloudsdale for the time being. Connor should stay here at Canterlot until I return… I don’t trust him.” “Very well, but how would thou go about walking among the Pegesai of Cloudsdale?” Luna asked. “I will need some kind of Pegasus DNA” I answered. “Okay, John. We’ll see what we can do” Princess Celestia nodded. “You can stay in the castle until we find the solution to our little “Cloudsdale” problem.” “Thank you Princess” I smiled, giving another polite bow. I turned and began to walk back towards the door to tell Connor about what was gonna happen, but I heard him talking… I went into the hallway and hid in one of the shadows to the side of the room. “I’m talking about doing things just as jokes!” Connor said. “You don’t have to hurt anypony.” “I still think it’s a bad idea” replied a serious male voice. It came from a tall, snake-like dragon with long arms and legs as well as wings. “Here, pick up some of the dirt in that flower pot” Connor commanded. “Okay” I saw the mysterious figure pick up some dirt from a flower pot using magic. “Now what?” “Throw it at one of the guards at the front door.” “What? No… I can’t” the voice withdrew. “Come on” Connor urged him. “I promise the reaction will be hilarious. Just aim for the side of his head and watch what happens.” The figure did as he was asked and the guard that got hit began looking around in confusion. Connor and the shadow began to snicker as he continued looking around until he zeroed in on the guard at the opposite end of the door. He accused the guard of throwing the dirt and they began to argue as Connor and his new friend burst into hysterical laughter. Connor got up off of the ground and said through his laughter “You see? It’s not destructive, but it IS fucking hilarious!” I popped out of the shadows and interrupted. “I’ll assume you’re Discord.” “Your assumption is correct” Discord answered, turning around to reveal his big yellow eyes. “Anyway, Connor, it looks like you’ll have to stay at the castle for a while, while I go to Cloudsdale to make sure the U.S. doesn’t take control of it.” “Alright” he agreed. “As long as I don’t have to stay in a room too close to Princess Ce-lazy-a.” “I would care about that, but I’m afraid I’m all out of fucks to give.” I told him. “Oh, and another thing” he continued. “I contacted an old friend of mine Afanasai Aleksander Chechnoi, because shit has definitely gotten real.” “Okay, but who exactly is this guy?” “He’s was a Russian Spetsnaz soldier for a while. He was discharged after a boarder clash between Russia and China.” “What happened?” I butted in. “A few grenade fragments got lodged deep in his eye, which made him lose all sight in it. He decided he just wanted it out of there, so he got it removed. He also got shot a few times here and there. Anyway, he’s been deep in history and the like since then and he was always pretty quiet, but he’s still got his instinct. I know he’ll be really helpful to us, but he may not get here for a while.” “Okay. Well I’m gonna leave you two to… whatever the hell you were doing.” “Hey!” he called as I was walking away. “They’ll die by the gun, right?” I nodded, smiling. “This potion should work” Princess Celestia said, taking a test tube filled with a bubbly purple liquid from Luna who stood beside her and handing it to me.. “This has several things in it that should allow you to walk on clouds just as well as any Pegasus.” “Okeydokey” I said. I grabbed the test tube, popped off the cork and chugged it all instantly, almost like it was the best thing I had ever tasted, where in reality it tasted like a garden weed. I cringed at the horrible taste, but I knew it would be worth it in the end. My vision was slightly distorted for a few minutes as my body registered the changes. My physical state was altered, making me feel very, very light. It also altered my mental state so that I thought more like a pony would. That was an obvious effect, because when my vision came back into focus, I looked at Luna… differently. It was strange, but it made sense at the same time, because I had just drank something that added Pegasus DNA to my body, meaning it WOULD alter my mental state in addition to my physical state, and that meant also altering my physical attractions… uh… well… shit happens. “I should probably get going” I suggested. “Very well, tell me when you’re ready to go.” I grabbed my rifle, pistol and a bunch of ammo then said “ready!” the Princess’s horn began glowing a light blue once again and in a flash of blinding light (and some slight burning) I was standing on a sea of clouds in front of a bunch of Pegesai in flying gear as well as tight blue flying suits that had bright yellow lightning bolts on them. A very military-official-looking Pegasus pushed through to the front. She had yellow and red mane, making it look like fire. She was also wearing sunglasses. Her eyes travelled up and down as she inspected me carefully, which made me quite nervous, honestly.. Finally, breaking a long silence, she spoke up with the question she should’ve asked before she started sizing me up, “who in the hay are you?” “My name is John Jack. I’m here to help protect Cloudsdale from the U.S. army’s incoming attack.” “How do you know they’re coming here” shouted one of the ponies behind the fiery one. “Shut your trap back there!” the fiery one (who I assumed was the head of operations here) yelled back. “We don’t know, but it’s highly likely” I explained, answering the question anyway because I knew they would be curious about it. “Whatever” she replied. “How can someone as… flightless as you protect Cloudsdale?” “Give me a moving target” I demanded. “A cloud, a coin, a leaf, anything. Just give me a moving target.” “Alright… SOARIN!” she roared. Another one of the suited Pegesai popped up out of the front and flew to the nearest cloud that wasn’t a part of Cloudsdale’s architecture. He quickly tore it into a disk as I loaded my M1 Garand carbine. The cloud disc flew at a pretty steady speed allowing me to get a good idea of where it was gonna go and when. I got my sight positioned as I heard a few of the ponies in the background betting on if I hit it or not. I breathed out and gently squeezed the trigger at the exact right time and the rifle blew back and let a bullet casing fly out as the actual bullet flew from the barrel straight through the cloud disk. The cloud disk poofed into thin air (which it kind of was anyway) making the small gathering of ponies erupt in small cheers and clapping. I looked over and saw the fiery leader’s mouth hanging open. “Does that answer your question?” I said smiling as I tried to hold back laughter from her reaction. She closed her mouth, and shook herself awake, then proceeded to introduce herself. “The name’s Spitfire. These are my elite squad of flyers: The Wonderbolts.” “Nice to meet you miss Spitfire” I said awkwardly. “It looks like everypony here is good on the whole weapons thing?” I looked over to one of the Wonderbolts, who had one of the M4s I made on his back. “As a matter of fact, we do” she answered. She looked back and saw the same Pegasus I had and barked “Fleetfoot, that rifle better have its safety on!” The rest of the day was a tour of the Wonderbolts’ training facility, then being dumped into one of the Wonderbolts’ barracks (or as Soarin called them, the “Wonderbarracks”). For the next several days, I just practiced my sharpshooting and preformed some maintenance on some of the rifles that had any defects. After a few days, I heard a helicopter outside, so I got up and grabbed my loaded rifle. As I slowly opened the door to the barracks, I saw a bunch of U.S. soldiers getting out. It was almost morning time, so I didn’t think Spitfire would’ve cared if I woke everyone up. I walked over and shook Soarin awake. “The U.S. army is here.” He nodded and grabbed his M4 from under his bunk. I raised an eyebrow, because I was pretty sure that wasn’t where that was supposed to be, but I ignored it and proceeded to gently open the door more so I could creep out while Soarin woke up the others. My hands got sweaty as I grew nervous. I remembered the system of a down song Welcome to the soldier’s side Where there’s no-one here but me “So this is what they meant” I thought. I saw them advance on the barracks, and I knew Soarin was still probably in the process of getting everyone up and alerted of the situation. I couldn’t let them get inside. I lifted my M1 once again and I aimed for the guy who was going for the door. A bullet flew from the gun and went clear through the soldiers head and into the one next to him. The other soldiers started looking around as I heard scrambling inside the barracks. I managed to get another soldier, then the barracks’ door burst open and three Pegesai burst out shooting down the rest of the soldiers. I hopped onto my feet and went over to talk to Spitfire who had come running out after hearing the gunshots. “Don’t worry! We took care of it.” “Not quite, Mr. Jack!” she spouted frantically. Spitfire and I (followed by the Wonderbolts) ran to the other side of the Wonderbolts’ facility to see dozens more soldiers approaching. “Damn!” I mumbled. “Me and a few guys will hold ‘em off from this side. You take the rest and go around to hit ‘em from behind.” “Got it” Spitfire agreed. She took several of the Wonderbolts and flew of the edge to go under the clouds. Me and Soarin got our guns ready as they closed in, and as soon as they were at a good range, we opened fire. We managed to hit several of them very quickly, but the rest got behind cover. However, their cover quickly died along with them as soon as a bullet hit it, so we kept firing. After 2 or 3 minutes, fire came from behind the soldiers as well. A few more of them dropped through the clouds dead as a doornail. A bullet suddenly whizzed straight past me and another one tore some skin from my shoulder. Soarin got hit directly in the shoulder and he fell back onto the cloud quietly moaning in pain. The last of the soldiers dropped, so I rushed over to aid Soarin. “Is the bullet still in there?” I asked frantically. “I’m pretty sure” Soarin croaked quietly. “Okay, I’m gonna see if I can get it out as soon as I find something to ease the pain.” I got up and ran to Spitfire. “Spitfire! Tell me you have some kind of first aid nearby.” “Of course. Why?” “Soarin got shot” I said. We got back to Soarin with some painkillers and he happily accepted them. “Now, those will take effect in a little while, but for now, brace yourself. This will hurt an ass-load.” I looked into the bullet hole and saw the blood-covered bullet. It was almost out the back of his shoulder, so I knew the easiest way to get it out would be to push it out the back of his shoulder. “Strike that” I said. “this will hurt more than an ass-load” I gave him a countdown from 3 and then I jammed my finger into the bullet hole. Soarin screamed in pain as the skin and fur at the back of his shoulder ripped open and let the bullet fall through the clouds to the ground below. I yanked my finger out of the hole and tried to calm Soarin down. Finally, his screaming came to an end. I instructed two of the Wonderbolts to pick Soarin up and get him to the Hospital ASAP. “You‘re good in these kinds of situations, huh?” Spitfire said, looking over at me “Not really” I sighed. “I guess it’s just instinct.” “Well, it seems your instinct is pretty good, then” “I guess” I muttered. “Now… how in the Sam hell do I get back to Canterlot?” “A message should get to the princess before morning” she answered. “She’ll have you outta here then.” For the rest of the night, I sat on the edge of the clouds just thinking. Who had set up Equestria and why would they want to? It still didn’t seem right to me. I guessed I’d figure it out later. For now, I’d just remain on the soldier’s side. Welcome to the soldier’s side Where there’s no-one here but me “It’s time to go” I jerked up at the random voice coming from outside of my sleep. My vision came into focus and I saw who was standing over me. It was Princess Celestia with Spitfire by her side. I sat up and gently rubbed my eyes. “Hi Princess. Hi Spitfire. What’s going on?” “I heard about last night” Celestia explained to me. “It seemed like quite the experience.” “It was” I chuckled, knowing she didn’t even know the half of it. “You’ve done Cloudsdale a huge service” Spitfire added. “Without you, not only would Soarin have died, but probably everypony else, too.” “Well, I don’t know about that” I said, blushing slightly. “Never mind all this” the Princess interrupted. “We can get to this kind of thing once the war is over. For now, we should go back to Canterlot. You’ll probably want to get back to work, as our number of soldiers has started rising.” Before I could respond, the blinding light came up again and we were standing in the middle of the throne room of Princess Celestia’s castle. Connor turned around to greet me. “Welcome back, brother! How was this “Cloudsdale” place?” “It was fine, I guess” I said. “We should get back to Ponyville soon. We’ve got some work to do.” “Sure thing. Oh and by the way, Discord’s coming along to help us.” “I guess I can get you three back there right now” Princess Celestia interrupted. Once again, I had no time to respond before she teleported all of us to Ponyville in a flash of light. We were right in front of our house, but we could hear a loud and somewhat familiar banging sound coming from inside… my drums. I ran through the door to see three small fillies messing with my drum kit. “WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!” I yelled. “Who are you and what in the Sam hell do you think you’re doing to my drum kit?!” A light yellow Earth Pony with a vibrant red mane and a bright pink bow stepped up first. “I’m Applebloom!” Next was a white Unicorn with a gigantic smile and a very happy aura coming off of her. “I’m Sweetie Belle!” And last was an amber orange Pegasus with stubby little wings and a appearance like she was the daredevil of the group. “And I’m Scootaloo!” All three then yelled loudly in unison “AND WE’RE THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!” I quickly checked my ears for blood, and then asked the second question again. Applebloom stepped chimed in with an answer. “We wanted to know what they were, an’ then we found out they made sound, so we started seein’ if we could make music with ‘em.” “Okay, I’ll show you a quick demonstration, but then me and Connor gotta see if anything major has changed in town.” “YAY!” they squealed in delight. I sat down and began to think of a song that had a good drum track to it. I decided to do Forest by System of a Down. Come with me my little child Through the forest of denial Speak with me my only man Walk with me until the time Make the forest turn to wine We take the legend for a fall You saw the product Now why can’t you see that you are My child Why don’t you know that you are My mind Tell everyone in the world that I’m you Take this promise to the end Of you As soon as I was about a third of the way into the song they were bouncing along with the beat. When I finished they squealed in joy again and then asked me if they could join me while me and Connor got info on what we missed in town while we were gone. I sighed and gave in, because I knew that they would whine their goddamn heads off if I said no. The second I stepped outside I noticed that several of the buildings had collapsed. “This is not good… We gotta end this war soon” I sighed. “For now, we’ll just have to wait until we know what in the hell happened” Connor said. “But there’s gotta be a way” I said back. “We both know there’s gotta be a way to end this war. I mean, who was the heartless prick that set up Equestria? Why would anyone in their right fucking mind start a war with a place as downright innocent as Equestria?!” By this point, I was yelling. I realized that I was probably scaring the girls, so I took a deep breath and said “We just need to find a way to end this. For now, let’s just keep to our original plan, then we move on to that.” “Alright, then let’s go!” Connor replied. We began to walk down the street towards the town hall to talk to the mayor. The three small fillies were bouncing happily around us as we walked. We all pushed open the door to the town hall and waltzed on inside, ducking because the doors were only pony-sized. The secretary didn’t even bother asking us who we were there for, since it was fairly obvious to her who we were and that we had come to see Mayor Mare. Inside the Mayor’s office was really only a desk with two chairs, one for the Mayor and the other for a visitor. I didn’t bother sitting down and nopony else did either. “Mayor Mare, what in the Sam hell happened while we were gone?” I asked almost angrily. “A few buildings caught on fire and collapsed, but that’s about it” she returned calmly. “Is that it?” I asked skeptically. “Just about” she said. “We’re pretty sure it wasn’t an accident, but we aren’t too sure. Oh! And we fended off another attack while you were away.” “WHAT?!” I yelled. “It was a small one” she assured us. “We did lose quite a few ponies, including all 4 of our tower guards, though. They probably learned from last time.” “Okay… I think we should go talk to Twilight next” I suggested, taking a deep breath to calm myself down and turning to face Connor and Discord (who had decided to come along as well). “Whatever floats your boat” Connor said sarcastically. The front door of Twilight’s tree made a blunt sound as if the tree wasn’t hollow. It turned out that Twilight was trying to open it. “Oh, hi there John! Hi Conner! What’s going on?” she asked cheerfully. “Not much” I said. “Would you happen to know somepony that’s wise? Like, extremely wise?” “Do I qualify?” Twilight asked jokingly. “Shut up and answer his fucking question, Twi” Connor barked impatiently. “Alright, alright!” she withdrew. “I would say Zechora might be able to help you.” “Zechora?” I said, very puzzled by the strange name. “She’s a Zebra” Twilight explained, “a very smart one, too. She tends to speak in a lot of metaphors, and she always rhymes her words.” “Sounds like kinda wise I’m lookin’ for! Where would I find Zechora?” “She has a little hut out in the Everfree Forest” Twilight said. “Okay! Does it need any special directions or anything?” I asked. “Nope. Just follow the path and you’ll get there pretty fast.” “Okeydokey! Thanks for the help Twilight.” I turned to go to the Everfree Forest. Connor and Discord decided to go home, but the Cutie Mark Crusaders wanted to come with so I allowed them as long as they sat outside the house while I talked to Zechora. They weren’t exactly happy about it, but I didn’t want a hurricane inside the hut while I tried to get advice on how to end the war. I walked down the small dirt path until’ I reached the forest. Like usual, my brain made the connection back to the S.O.A.D song I had played earlier for the “Cutie Mark Crusaders.” I started singing it to myself quietly. Come with me my little child Through the forest of denial Speak with me my only man Walk with me until the time Make the forest turn to wine We take the legend for a fall You saw the product Now why can’t you see that you are My child Why don’t you know that you are My mind Tell everyone in the world that I’m you Take this promise to the end Of you I was not even into the second verse before I almost walked straight into a pole… pole? What the hell is a pole doing out in the middle of a forest? I realized it was one of the supports for a hut… Zechora’s hut. I opened the door slowly and walked inside to see a very… African looking Zebra (I realize how racist that sounds, but I don’t really know how else to describe it.) She simply looked up and smiled at me. “My forest home I see you have reached and what you need, perhaps I can teach. I looked around the small, gloomy-looking hut. It looked like the stereotypical African tribal hut. I decided to ignore the way it looked and focus on the matter at hand. “I will make the assumption that you’re Zechora?” I said raising eyebrow. She simply nodded and sipped from the small cup (that looked like it was half of a coconut) she was holding. I decided to get to the point as soon as possible, so I just asked “you know about the war that is going on, right?” “Many soldiers from each side flock. I live in a hut, not under a rock” she chuckled. “Indeed. Well, I need to find a way to end this war soon, or it’s gonna end up destroying Equestria.” “If they are blowing down all walls then, perhaps it is time to begin waking the fallen.” Her words echoed in my head as I silently tried to make sense of them. What could she mean by waking the fallen? Raise the dead? How would I do that? Or… she could mean… bring back… It hit me. “Thank you Zechora!” I spouted. Before she could open her mouth to respond I was already out the door. The Cutie Mark Crusaders trotted up beside me to find out what went on in there. “I found out how to finish this all!” I said with a smirk. I ran back to the house to tell Connor and Discord about my solution. I nearly broke down the door while trying to scramble in. “Connor! Discord! Get your dumb asses out here! We’ve got a HUGE change of plans!” “What?! What is it?!” Connor yelled, nearly tripping on his slide around the corner of the hallway. “We’ve got the way to end the war!” I shouted. “It’s simple, but it’ll still require a shit-load of work!” “Then what are you waiting for! Tell me so we can get started!” “We’ve gotta make WWII weapons!”………. There was a massive silence in the room until Connor finally spoke up. “What are you smoking, John, and can I have some, ‘cuz it seem pretty effective if you’re tripping balls THAT much.” “I’m serious!” I told him. “We have to “wake the fallen.” We’ve gotta use what hasn’t been used in a long time! The weapons from WWII. Anything farther back and we might as well be throwing rocks at ‘em.” “Waking the fallen?” he questioned. “Couldn’t that just mean to raise the dead?” “Well yeah, but how in the Sam hell would we do that?” “Good point” he agreed. “Alright, but you better be right about this!” “Trust me Connor, It’ll work.” “Time to get back to the old O’Drake family trade” he said walking over to his desk. “You gotta guide me through some of these, though, ‘cuz I haven’t got the slightest idea how to make these.” “Okay. You three!” I said pointing over at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “I need you three to go get Twilight as soon as you possibly can.” “On it!” they all yelled before dashing out the door at an amazing speed. Good that they were on that, because now I could get to work. After 2 hours or so, Connor and Discord both knew what to do and were making their first guns. I made sure to check Discords work for his first ones, because he had never made guns before. After the first 4 hours, Connor and Discord were close to done with their first ones, where as I was done with a Thompson and I was in the middle of working on a Trench Gun (or a shotgun for those of you that have no knowledge of WWII). It was then when Twilight knocked on the door and I rushed from my work to open it. “Twilight!” I greeted her. “No time for small talk. You need to send a message to the Princess ASAP. We’re re-arming the entire Equestrian military! It may take a while, but I swear to god, I won’t sleep until we’re done!” “Okay, but before you get working on that, we figured out that those burning buildings weren’t an accident” Twilight explained. “We found this in the ashes.” She gave me a partially burnt piece of paper. It said this: If you’ve found this letter, that means I haven’t done a good enough job burning down those buildings. I know that I wasn’t supposed to burn down any buildings on my mission, but I think you bastards deserve to die. One sentient species on this planet has already fucked up everything beyond all possible repair. Regardless of how FUBAR our planet has gotten, my point is that we don’t need another sentient race contributing to the shitstorm that we’ve created for ourselves. Plus, we also already have horses AS WELL as ponies on this planet. The good part about those ones, though, is that they do what we tell them to. Feel free to try and find me, but even with my signature, you never will. Shit will keep going your way as long as I’m here, too! Signed Ltc. McMarland P.S.: I managed to spark the war! I’ll give you a hint: Legs without feet on a creature with four and faking the ignorance of extreme destruction. “What… in the Sam… hell…” “What do you think that riddle means?” Twilight thought out loud, interrupting my shock. “Well, for legs without feet, I think he’s talking about hooves, and on a creature that had four meaning he used a pony to do it, must be how they traced it back to Equestria. Faking the ignorance of extreme destruction…” I trailed off into deep thought for about 10 minutes until I put it together… “I GOT IT!” I yelled. “Ignorance of extreme destruction! The first letters of all those words (excluding “of”) spells IED! Faking it meaning he used a fake IED!” “But how would they know about it if it was fake?” Twilight stepped in once again. “He set one off, then had a fake one set up. That’s why the U.S. sees us as enemies. That’s why they think we set off explosives inside their territory!” I had just had one of the greatest realizations of my life, but there was still something we hadn’t figured out. “How do we find this Ltc. McMarland?” “Well at least we know his name and rank” Connor butted in. “He could be leading one of the teams that will attack Canterlot” “What if he isn’t” Twilight asked. “If wishes were fishes the world would be an ocean, but that’s just not the goddamn case now, is it?” I retaliated sarcastically. “Come on, brother” Connor said, patting me on the shoulder. “We got a lot of work to do.” I turned around and got back to my work. I knew that if we were gonna kill this “Ltc. McMarland” guy, we were gonna need a lot of guns. It was a good thing that making WWII weapons was a specialty of mine (sort of). So that’s what we did for over 2 weeks straight… with only about 6 hours of sleep every other night… we just kept on working. We kept on waking the fallen. Weak from my work, I sat down on my drum stool. Lucky for me, my work was over. We had finished ass-loads of weapons in a mere 2 months. Both me and Connor were completely wiped out from our excessive amounts of work, so I decided to force myself to push off the stool and limp slowly to the pony-sized bed where I decided to lay down and sleep. When I woke up, it was already the next morning. I pushed myself out of the small bed, feeling a LOT better now that I had slept from about noon to 8 O’clock the next day. It took a little while to get out of the house and on my way to Twilight’s, but I did need to know what had happened recently. I did this every fortnight to make sure neither me nor Connor missed out on something very important. I knocked on the door, and the usual Twilight shouted “It’s a public library! You don’t need to knock!” I shrugged and busted through the door. “So what’s happened in the past weeks?” “Well, nothing really. I haven’t heard anything from the Princess lately” she said calmly. “Well, that works for me” I shrugged. Those three small ponies came back to mind and instantly struck my curiosity. I hadn’t the slightest clue where the hell they were though. I decided it would be the quickest solution if I were to just ask Twilight. “Hey, Twilight? Do you know where those three little fillies that are always together are?” She looked slightly puzzled at first, which I don’t blame her for considering I was so vague. Suddenly, a lightbulb seemed to go off. “Oh! You mean Applebloom and her friends! They’re normally up at Sweet Apple Acres. That’s where Applebloom’s sister Applejack lives.” I remembered where Sweet Apple Acres was from when I was going around arming everypony in town. I walked up to where the front of the barn was and my nostrils were instantly filled with that fragrance of apples. I saw a big red pony pulling a cart alongside a much smaller orange pony. I approached the two and gave my introduction. “Well, howdy there!” the orange one spouted enthusiastically. “Ma name’s Applejack! This here’s ma big brother Big Mac. What brings you ta these parts, Mr. Jack?” “I haven’t got much to do today, so I was just trying to find something interesting to do” I answered. Applejack burst out with hysterical laughter and her brother simply started giving off very low-pitched giggles. She got up and through her laughter said “well, ya sure didn’t pick the most interesting place to be for a city colt!” “Oh, well it’s not the whole “apple orchard” part of it” I explained, “it’s just that I remembered that your little sister and her friends seemed to be the kind to get into a lot of trouble and I haven’t been out of my house except to get updates on anything important for over 2 months, so what they’ve gotten themselves into has peeked my curiosity.” “Okeydokey then Mr. Jack! They’re almost always back there in that lil’ ol’ wooden clubhouse.” “Thank you, Applejack. Nice meetin’ you both!” I said walking off. I knocked on the tiny front door and one of them bounced over and opened it. “Hi there, young ones!” I greeted them. “Hey, Mr. Jack!” Applebloom said cheerfully. At those words my head started pounding and my inner process of rational thought turned off as music started playing in my head. I fell to my knees and bent forwards on all fours. I swung my head up fast and hit my head on the frame of the tiny door. My body regained control and everything went back to normal with the exception of my head throbbing really hard. “What was that?” Applebloom asked curiously. “It’s hard to explain” I said. “Whenever somepony says “Mr. Jack” after saying hey, I kind of lose control. It’s something that just happens. It gets worse if you say a few other things after that.” “Okay” the three said together while trying to put a blanket over something behind them. “What are you hiding from me?” I asked. “Nothing” Sweetie Belle yelled quickly. I brushed the three of them out of the way because I noticed that the things under the blanket looked strangely shaped. I swung off the blanket and saw under it… “WHAT THE FU-“ I stopped myself mid-sentence. Under it was a bunch of weapons. There was a Thompson, a Trench Gun, a BAR and 3 Colt M1911s. All of which had plenty of ammo neatly packed in magazines placed around them. “Why in the Sam hell do you girls have these guns?!” The three of them started awkwardly laughing. “We wanted to see if we could be-“ Scootaloo was in the middle of a sentence, but I interrupted her. “Dead? Because that’s what you’d be if you messed up on one tiny thing while using any one of these!” “We’re sorry” Applebloom said giving me a puppy-dog face. “I’m not so much of mad as I am surprised that you three managed to get your han- er… I mean hooves on these!” I said. “So you’re not mad?” Scootaloo asked looking up at me with sparkling little eyes. “No” I laughed. “I did this same thing when I was around your age. You just need to know that this is not a good thing unless you are 100% properly trained to use guns. If you aren’t, you will be in a lot more danger than you’d think. People and ponies in the military are trained how to use guns and accidents still happen all the time!” “Yay!” Sweetie Belle squealed in rejoice. “We thought you would kill us!” “Oh, don’t worry” I assured them. “I did my share of stupid shit when I was your age. Just make sure you don’t do anything that’ll kill you.” “I think that’s kind of self-explanatory” Scootaloo added sarcastically. “Alright, Ms. Sarcastic, I think it’s best I take these back with me.” The three made a cute little “aaaaawwwwwwww” in unison. I sighed and said “okay, okay, I’ll tell ya what. I’ll teach you how to use the guns as long as you 3 keep your miniature-sized traps shut to your sisters, parents and whoever else about this, alright?” “It’s a deal!” Applebloom spouted, hopping as she said it. “Okay then, I’ll start off by showing you the most important part of the gun: the safety. You don’t keep this on and you can have a random bullet go off and hit Applejack or some other innocent pony. It may be an accident, but the law won’t care.” I continued on my lecture on how the guns worked while the Cutie Mark Crusaders watched and listened intently. After what was about an hour or so, I took the girls out and set up some old rotting apples Applebloom found as targets. At the first shot, Big Mac and Applejack came running faster than I thought they could run. “What the hay is going on here!” Applejack yelled. “Don’t flip your shit woman” I returned, annoyed. “They’d need to learn how to shoot sooner or later. You never know when they might need to defend themselves.” “Eeyup” Big Mac agreed. “Alright, but if they get even a scratch on-“ “Applejack, I know what I’m doing. The first thing I taught them about was the safety. If I didn’t know what I was doing then why in the Sam hell would I be teaching them?” She backed off hesitantly and angrily, whereas Big Mac just sauntered away casually. I watched the three fillies as they got more and more accurate. “You keep it up and you’re gonna go far, kid!” I said. The three of them put their safeties on and turned to me. “You really think so?” Applebloom squealed excitedly. “Of course!” I replied. “I might actually use you girls for any kind of recon or information gathering we might need to do later.” They all let out a loud happy “YAY!” and went back to shooting at the rotten apples. After a long day of target practice instruction, lectures on how to properly use guns, and Applejack repeatedly coming back because of her extreme concern, I went home to Connor and Discord sitting and talking about who they had pranked and what happened. “What’s up, John?” he greeted me. “Not much” I replied. “I just spent the day instructing Applebloom and her friends on how to use guns. I think it went pretty well, to be honest.” “Fantastic” he said before turning back to Discord and continuing to laugh their heads off and then back onto their bodies. I dragged myself back to my room where I laid down and… just laid there. For about 20 or 30 minutes, I just laid there. I couldn’t tell what was going to happen next. This war was unusually unpredictable, as if it was some kind of a written story or something. It was only the question of what would happen next… There was a knock at the door, and since Discord and Connor were still dying of laughter, I got up to answer it myself. I opened the door and it was… Princess Celestia and Luna… “Canterlot has been taken over.” “… Well, we’re fucked.” I turned around and walked back inside. “Come inside if you want. I’ll be sitting here thinking of an idea that won’t get us killed.” “Thou art not out of all options” Luna said, interrupting my self-directed anger. “If we keep calm and develop a plan, perhaps we can overcome these hardships as Equestria has overcome problems before.” “Thank you for your suggestion, Princess” I replied, “but I’m afraid this is something too big for anypony here to handle.” “I wouldn’t say that just yet” Connor yelled, while behind him, a man stepped out in an old military uniform, but it wasn’t U.S. He was holding an assault rifle that looked similar to an AK47… But it was noticeably different. He also had a holstered pistol that looked (from what I could tell) as if it was a P226. My eyes traveled up and I saw his face. Short black hair with several large scars along his nose and left eye. His right eye was missing, though… It hit me… this was Afanasai Aleksander Chechnoi. “Our salvation has arrived!” “You must be Afanasai” I greeted him. He nodded, remaining silent. “You were a Spetsnaz soldier, right?” He nodded again. “What’s that weapon you’re holding?” “AK103” He answered in a very deep voice with a Russian accent that was as thick as a bank’s safe door. “Well, it’s great to have you aboard, Afanasai” I said, sticking my hand out as he shook it. “As you heard, we have a problem at hand. I assume you’re staying in the empty room right there, so you should be fine for accommodations. We also need someone to help me and Connor come up with a plan that won’t kill everypony here.” “I’ve also got other news” Connor interrupted once again. “I’ve managed to remember an old WWII pistol that is VERY quiet.” “Well what in the Sam hell are you waiting for, Connor. Spit it out!” “It’s called the Welrod. It’s an old British weapon” he explained. “Only about 2800 were made officially. There is a catch though… It’s bolt action.” “Bolt action… Are you fucking kidding me?” I growled at him, quite annoyed with his statement. “It works! Trust me, I’ve made and tested one of these before! They work like a charm!” He seemed intent on this so I told him to turn out 4 or 5 of them ASAP. I turned back to Afanasai. “Our target is Lieutenant Colonel McMarland. We’re not sure if he’s actually in Canterlot, so if we just barge in and mow people down, it may be a wasted effort.” He looked at me with a skeptical look, as If I should know what our first move should be. “Recon” he finally said. “Ah” I sighed. “But who is small and agile enough to be able to sneak around Canterlot unseen…” I had an idea… but Applejack wouldn’t be too happy about it. “NO!” Applejack was so angry her coat looked as if it would go from bright orange to red. “If ya’ll think I’m gonna risk ma little sister like that, yer outta yer pony picken’ mind!” “She’s small, she’s agile and goddammit, she’s well trained!” I argued. “There’s no way that she could get hurt. Hell, she could pass off as a Canterlot citizen.” “I don’t give a flyin’ feather!” she yelled. “I’m not lettin’ ‘er go, and that’s final!” From behind me came a deep and robust voice. “He’s got a point. And plus, she’s obviously not gonna be on ‘er own. Doin’ that’d be like tellin’ a fish to run a race!” It was her brother, Big Mac. “Ya’ll stay outta this, Big McIntosh.” “I have just as much of a sayin’ in this as you!” he shouted back. “She’s not gonna go alone. I’ll be there with her and we’ll have her two friends there, too!” I added. “Have fun tryin’ ta get Rarity to let HER sister go!” Applejack responded in a smart-ass tone. “Look, little sis” Big Mac continued. “I’ve made ma decision, and there ain’t a thing you can do ‘bout it! She’ll be perfectly safe, and so will all her little friends!” Applejack let out an angered snort and stormed off back to her house. “No need ta thank me. I know that the fate of Equestria rides on yer shoulders, so you should get all the help you can” Big Mac said, smiling at me. “I also trust ya ta take good care of Applebloom, seein’ how well you an’ her seem ta get along.” I nodded and took my leave. There was only one more angrily over protective big sister I had to deal with… Rarity. “Not a chance!” she spouted, turning away from me. “Applebloom, Scootaloo and I are all already going! I guarantee that Sweetie Belle will NOT get hurt AT ALL! “It doesn’t matter to me” she retaliated. “Look here! This is the fate of your fucking existence we’re dealing with!” I roared, having just snapped. “I don’t give a fuck if you want to be “super safe” about her safety. I know she won’t get hurt! She’s coming along. I don’t care what your decision is, because I think that a one in a million chance of her getting hurt is better than a one in one chance of everypony in town dying! She better be over at my house tomorrow night, completely ready, or I won’t be responsible for the shit that I’ll do!” Her eyes were the size of dinner plates. She gulped and squeaked out “she’ll be there.” “Thank you” I sighed. I went back home and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t manage (like usual). I got up and went to see if Connor was still at work. Sure enough, he was working away. “You can’t sleep either?” I asked him, walking into the room and probably scaring the living Christ out of him. “Not at all” he replied. “What do you think is gonna happen?” “Well, we have a home field advantage, so if we get a good plan then we may be able to find and kill this McMuffin guy.” “McMuffin” I laughed to myself. “Well, we still need to know if he’s there. That’s why I’m going on some recon with the CMC tomorrow night.” “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” “What do you mean?” I asked as a response to his question. “I mean, this is the U.S. Military we’re talking about. Super advanced shit, right? Don’t you think you’ll get… you know… obliterated?” “I would care, but I’m all out of fucks to give” I told him. It was silent for a little bit after that. “Look” I started up again. “This is the only way to figure out if he’s ACTUALLY there. We don’t want to barge in and figure out he’s not there, and we sure as hell can’t just walk up and ask them.” “I suppose you have a point” Connor agreed. He picked up all 5 Welrods in his arms and carried them over to a little target he had set up for this. “Let’s make sure these work, though.” He tried to fire one, but it jammed instantly. He started mumbling what was probably endless cursing as he struggled to release the jam. Once he had released the jammed bullet, he tried to fire again… it jammed. “What the fuck?” he muttered angrily. He turned to me. “I don’t get it! These should work!” He picked up a M1911.”I mean, these work perfectly! Not a single problem!” He turned to fire, but when he did, it backfired. He stumbled back in pain, but tripped over the 4 other Welrods on the ground beside him. One of them fired off into his leg. “AAAARRGH!” he yelled in agony. “Oh my god, are you Okay?” I asked frantically, racing over to his side. “Oh I’m just fine” he said sarcastically, “except for the fact that I have a FUCKING BULLET INSIDE MY LEG!” “Shit, uh… we gotta get you to one of the princesses. They can help.” “Sure, just get this bullet out of my flesh!” he begged. I ran to Twilight’s and got Princess Celestia (who was staying there along with Luna for the time being). She teleported us over and took a look at Connor. “I can handle this” she assured me. It was so fast I couldn’t tell what she did, but she sure fixed him up pretty well. “I can’t walk, though!” “That tends to happen when you get shot in the leg” I replied. The rest of that day, I was stuck working on those Welrods all on my own. I had never made them before so it was complete trial and error on the troubleshooting. It took me all day to get all 5 of them to work properly and by then I had probably wasted a good 100$ or so in ammunition (considering 9mm ammunition is a cheap handgun bullet [thank god]). Night was closing in and it was almost time to go on recon with the CMC. I had all the Welrods ready and loaded. It was tonight when we found out if McMuffin was there or not. It was late… almost time to leave. I was pacing, wondering where in the Sam hell Applebloom and her friends were. I noticed there was some chatter from outside the door. After a little bit, I heard the voices yell “CUTIE MARK CRUSADER RECON FORCES!” It was obvious who was outside the door. I opened the door and sure enough, Applebloom, Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo were all standing there, eager to get going. “You girls ready for this?” I asked. “YEAH!!!!” “Remember, though! This is a stealth-based mission. We want to remain as hidden as possible” I reminded them. “Oh yeah, sorry” Sweetie Bell apologized. “It doesn’t matter right now” I laughed. “Come on girls, we got some work to do!” Applebloom walked up to me and nervously said “Is it true that Manehattan was taken over?” “Yeah” “I hope Babs is all right” she sighed, looking down. “It’s ok” I assured, kneeling down next to her. “This war was a set-up. It wasn’t meant to happen. That’s why we’re going on recon. We know the guy who set us up, but we need to know if he’s at Canterlot right now. If we go in without info and it turns out he ISN’T there, we’ll have just wasted ammo, effort and most of all, lives. That’s why we’re gonna do this.” “Let’s go!” Applebloom shouted enthusiastically. “That’s the spirit!” We walked off down the road to get our transportation to the castle… Twilight’s magic. We were in front of the castle gates. I thanked Twilight for her help and she promised she’d wait hidden in the bushes. All 4 of us were wearing the most naturally-dark clothes possible so we could blend in with shadows. Me and the girls approached the locked gate and tried to look for a way in… nothing. But then Sweetie Bell spotted a piece of the wall was missing and it was covered on each side by bushes. It happened to be just big enough for me to squeeze through. I managed to get through, and so did the CMC, so we were in. There was a slight lack of patrols and such. Two soldiers were standing near the drawbridge which was closed and there weren’t too many more that weren’t stationed in specific areas that allow quite a clear view of most of the courtyard of the castle. We traveled, carefully using the shadows as our cover until we had reached the side of the castle. I spotted a suitable area to climb up to a high window that would look directly into the throne room. “Alright, girls” I said turning my head to them. “I’m gonna climb up there and see if I can’t spot the target. I need you gals to cover me the best you can. If any soldiers come close enough to see me, knock them out unless they see you. In that case, just shoot them and drag the body into the bushes.” They nodded and I quickly ran over to the side of the castle with the climbable area. Lucky for me, Luna had done a kindness of making tonight a little darker than usual, so I blended in with the side of the castle much more. I made sure my footing was stable, and then started climbing as fast as I could. It was a really long way up to the window I was trying to get to. After a while, I looked down and saw the three fillies sitting there watching out for any soldiers while watching me intently at the same time. It was about 10 minutes of hopping around like I was in Assassin’s Creed before I had reached the window I was trying to get to, but it was worth it. Inside the window, two officers were conversing about the war. One of them mentioned that the other one was the Lieutenant Colonel we were after: Ltc. McMarland. I knew his face now, but before I went, I realized that the other officer had found out about McMuffin’s betrayal. A soldier (supposedly working with McMuffin on this) came up behind him and used a silenced pistol to put a bullet into the back of his head, spewing blood onto McMuffin’s face. I shook off my shock and began my descent. As soon as I made it down, the girls were looking at me with hyper expect faces… I sighed “he’s there.” We began making our way back towards the hole in the wall that we had come through. Once we reached it, the girls started to pile through. Before I went through, one of the soldiers out and about managed to spot me. He got a little skeptical, so he walked over to check if anything was there. In the time it took for him to walk, I slipped through the hole in the wall and moved out of the line of sight he would have if he looked through the hole. After about 5 minutes, I assumed he was gone and I got up to go rendezvous with the girls and Twilight. Once we were all there, we teleported back to the front of my house. “Great work girls. We got what we needed and didn’t have to kill anyone!” I stated happily. “Mission accomplished!” They let out a loud “YAY!” The next morning, I walked out into our main room to see Connor sitting next to Afanasai on the sofa. They weren’t talking… in fact, Connor was sleeping. I greeted Afanasai and sat down on the opposite side of the room. “We need a plan” he said almost monotonously. “Tell me about it” I replied. “We know he’s there, though. We found him there. Now we just need a plan and an army.” Afanasai and I started plotting on how to get to McMuffin. It was the most Afanasai had ever talked since I met him. Our plan was complex, but it was very doable and it was absolutely foolproof. “I think we’re ready” I chimed in after a while. “Now we just need to gather enough ponies and weapons, split them into teams and give them a rundown on how we’re gonna do this.” It took several hours to get all the weapons rounded up (especially because Connor was a complete slowpoke with the limp he had from the gunshot in his leg), but we were able to tell ponies to wait at the front of my house while we worked. “Alright everypony!” I shouted to address the crowd. We had also gotten Princess Celestia to contact any of the ponies from Cloudsdale that wanted to help, and obviously the Wonderbolts responded immediately. “As you should know (if you haven’t been living under a rock), we are at war with the United States of America. What you probably don’t know is that this war was a set up!” Quiet chatter began to resonate from the crowd of now surprised ponies. “I know it’s hard to believe, but we have proof. We received notice that an Improvised Explosive Device was set off inside of the United States, and it was traced back to Equestria, leading them to believe it was us. Then, after those buildings burned down and collapsed, we found a letter from a military officer named McMarland. He got somepony to set up one live IED and one fake one. He believes that a second sentient species should not exist on Earth, so regardless of what may happen to him, he decided to take matters into his own hands. We have confirmation that he is at Canterlot, and that’s why you’re all here.” The crowd began to erupt with chatter once again. Afanasai fired a few shots from his AK103 up into the air, shutting the crowd up almost instantly. “Look, we’ve come up with a plan, but we need all the help we can get. First, we’ve gotta divide everypony into teams. Team leaders will be me, Afanasai, Spitfire, Connor (if his leg doesn’t get in the way), Shining Armor, Rainbow Dash and Big McIntosh. As soon as we break everypony into individual teams, I’ll give you all your instructions separately. For now, stay with your assigned teams and just talk, sing, do whatever you want to do. Just stay in your groups.” The groups got assigned. I went around to every group and gave specific instructions on how the operation would work. I also asked Princess Celestia to do something else to help out. Eventually Connor limped over to me and asked “why are you doin’ this all today?” “Because we leave tonight” I answered. I armed all the groups according to their assigned tasks, and Afanasai managed to get his hands on some… special grenades that we gave to The Wonderbolts for their task. Me and Connor each got one as well. My team was “Equipe Um.” Connor’s team was “Equipe Dois.” Afanasai’s team was “Equipe três.” Spitfire’s team was “Equipe Céu.” Shining Armor’s team was “Equipe Magia.” Rainbow Dash’s team was “Equipe Asas.” Big Mac’s team was “Equipe Escavadeira.” All team names were in Portuguese just to be safe. We were all ready… we just had to wait for the right time now. Me, Connor, Afanasai and Discord all sat talking. “So what is this operation entitled?” Discord questioned curiously. “Operation Ground and Pound!” I stated proudly. “It’s foolproof, trust me!” “How doth thou know?” a voice interrupted. It was Princess Luna. She walked from the hallway over to me. “Thou art risking thy life for a single man.” “Truth resonates of thy words like light from a mirror” I replied, trying to speak as Shakespearian as possible. “Care has been taken in analyzing every detail of this plan and I assure any and all that it will not fail. That said, what is thy question’s purpose? Doth worry for me gather to you?” “Thou art a brave young soul” she said nervously, looking down. “I have appreciation of that. There is also many other things. One of many is thy comprehension of the forgotten speech of the ancients.” “From my home and birthplace, we call the speech thou speak of “Shakespearian”.” “So it is a commonality from thy place of birth?” “Not quite” I replied. I noticed that everyone around me was gawking in awe at how well I was communicating with Luna. “Mr. William Shakespeare was a playwright. Perhaps the world’s most famous at that. His speech was always constructed in this way. My spare time was often spent reading the works of Shakespeare. His mind was irreplaceable as well as incomparable to others.” Something slipped out after that. “His knowledge almost matches thy beauty.” Luna’s face went from dark blue to bright red. “Wha…?” I heard Connor mutter “What the fuck have you done, brother.” Afanasai was simply shaking his head in disapproval. I noticed that my eyes had just widened, so at least I was shocked, too. “Did I just that out loud?” Everyone in the room nodded awkwardly in unison. “Well… this is… awkward.” I expected Luna to erupt in anger but she just stood there. She said nothing; her face remained as red as a rose covered in blood and Connor and Afanasai continued to disapprove while Discord just sat there uncomfortably. After what seemed like forever, Luna finally spoke up. “Doth thou speak those words truthfully?” I nodded. “Thy bravery has been proven once again, John, and has also shown thy kindness. I admire you on the same level.” It was my turn to turn red now. “Yo-… thy words are truthful?” I stumbled to keep speaking in Shakespearian. She nodded. “I’m… I’m honored.” “I believe ending this war should be what we worry about first” Afanasai interrupted with his tainted-glass-dark voice. “This one…” Luna started. “He speaks the truth.” “As thy wishes command me” I said, smiling. “But I may not come back with breath in my lungs nor blood in my veins.” “When doth the end begin?” she asked. I looked over at Connor. “We need to get going in less than an hour. Not any magic can teleport groups of ponies this big, especially all the way to Canterlot” Connor told Luna. “We also can’t use the train system, so it looks like we have to walk, and that’s a damn long distance.” “Then I shall give a farewell now and hope you remain alive later” she replied almost sounding sad regardless of her smiling. Before I could get anywhere close to saying anything she rushed over and kissed me… It went on for what seemed like forever, but it eventually ended. Afterwards, she looked at me with her face once again a deep yet bright red. She then simply ran out of the room. “Well, that certainly was interesting” Discord spouted randomly. “Yeah… Interesting… Let’s go with that” Afanasai added sarcastically. “Alright, let’s get ready to take this shit head on!” I chimed in. “Get your groups ready and let’s all start moving to our designated locations around the castle. Let’s bag ourselves Lieutenant Colonel McMuffin, boys!” “I’ll go gather the groups. You wa-” I cut off Connor remembering something that would help… possibly. “I think I should listen to… that song” I hinted. “Nonononononono. You can’t do that” Connor pleaded. “You’ll go crazy.” “I don’t care” I said. “I’m gonna do it” I walked into my room and got out of one of the boxes that had my stuff… an IPod and speakers. I turned up the volume to maximum and put on the song “Mr. Jack.” As it started, my head began to hurt and my eyes started to water… It was coming back Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the mouthwash in your eyes Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the cause of your surprise Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car I began to uncontrollably throw up as I remembered what had happened. Outside, I could hear Connor telling Afanasai and Discord what happened. “He went into the back room of the shop to grab something, and this song was playing. He came back to see both of his parents dead. There was a guy standing over his mother’s corpse and the guy was… let’s just describe it with the word “necrophilia.” He picked up an old revolver that his grandfather made him and blew the bastard’s brains all over the wall… then he emptied 11 more bullets into his corpse. He was proven innocent and the killing that guy was considered justified, but now whenever John hears that song, he has a relapse of everything that happened.” Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the trick of your disguise Hey Mr. Jack, Is that the cause of your demise Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car Hey where you at On the side of the freeway in the car I started to regain my conscious thoughts, regardless that all of them consisted of unbelievable amounts of anger . Your prospect of living is gone You ran the light at dawn Protectors on your back Lights are on their track You must now face authority You’re nothing like me You must now face authority You’re nothing like me Put your hands up, get out of the car Put your hands up, get out of the car Put your hands up, get out of the car Fuck you pig Fuck you pig Fuck you pig Fuck you pig Put your hands up, get out of the car The song finally came to an end after four minutes. I burst out of the room, almost breaking the door down. Connor was about to ask if I was okay, but I reacted before him. “Before you say something fucking absolutely pointless, let me remind you dipshits that we need to gather our weapons and leave, because the sooner we make it to Canterlot, the better chance we have of ending up alive after this, so don’t say a fucking thing, grab whatever shit you need and move.” All three of them were staring at me with wide eyes. I ignored them and stormed out the door with my equipment. I only had one thing on my mind: KILL LIUTENANT COLONAL MCMARLAND It took hours and hours, but we were finally in position. “Equipe Dois and Três, are you in position?” I called the teams angrily over our earpieces that Afanasai had generously let all the team leaders borrow. “Waitin’ for your call, John” Connor replied. “Ready” Afanasai uttered. “Good” I said, still blinded by my own anger. “Equipe Céu, are you ready for your task?” “Anytime” Spitfire responded. “Equipe Magia and Asas?” “Waiting for your mark!” Shining Armor chimed in. “Me too!” Rainbow Dash added. “Okay” I thought, remembering the last team. “Equipe Escavadeira?” “Eeyup.” I think you can guess who that is. “Alright, Operation Ground and Pound is all set up” I told everypony, cracking a viciously evil smile. “Let’s get this bitch rollin’!” Connor and I moved (along with our teams) through the crack in the wall me and the CMC found and we all moved onto our separate sides of the building, readying ourselves for whatever might happen. Connor beeped in on my earpiece. “Hey, do you have your FB?” “You think I’m that fucking stupid?” “No, I’m just making sure” he withdrew hastily. “Get your FB ready” I commanded. “Céu! How many soldiers are guarding the entrance?” “Uh… a lot” Spitfire hesitated. “Okay…” I pulled the pin on my FB. “THROW IT NOW!” I barked into the earpiece. Me and Connor let both of our FBs fly to the front of the castle and we covered our ears, closed our eyes and turned away from the blast. BANG! “SHIT!” we heard come from the soldiers. “The Flashbangs worked!” I informed everypony. “Plan is in motion. Connor, get your lazy ass up and open fire! Três, you come in in about 3 to 5 minutes.” Me and Connor got up and opened fire on the soldiers as well as our team joining us with their rifles. At least 4 or 5 dropped down, but the rest of them remained standing, but still a little disoriented from the unexpected Flashbang. It wasn’t long before they had regained their full orientation and we all had to reload. Connor and I managed to reload quickly, but about half of each of our teams got shot, most of them dying. “FUCK! We’ve got multiple dead already! Três, where the fuck are you?!” “Right here” Afanasai interrupted, opening fire with his AK103 from in one of the bushes, while the rest of his team fired from other bushes around the courtyard. They took out another 2 or 3, but most of them were behind good cover now. All gunfire ceased for a moment, but before long another 2 soldiers popped out and managed to shoot down a few of Afanasai’s team before both got wounded. The drawbridge lowered to let out more soldiers. All was going right as I had hoped. “Céu! Solar rain! Now!” I yelled. The Wonderbolts flew overhead, dropping numerous Flashbangs onto the bridge the soldiers were on while everyone else changed to a full magazine along with dodging the effects of the Flashbangs the best we could. 4 of the Wonderbolts got wounded and began falling out of the air. Lucky for us, they made it over to the other side of the wall. We all came out of cover and opened fire on the stumbling and blinded soldiers. The majority of them went down, but 2 managed to get behind cover. Once again, we had luck on our side, as Afanasai was a dead-eye shot and took out both of them quickly. “Let’s move” I demanded. “The longer we wait, the better chance that fucker’s gonna get away!” We all rushed into the castle, which is when Equipes Magia, Asas and Escavadeira were all supposed to come into the castle courtyard. I heard an explosion from the back wall, which was a little IED of our own, only being used by Equipe Magia to breach the thick wall. Asas could fly over and Escavadeira would just go through where Magia did. Inside the castle, dozens of soldiers were waiting for us, all behind cover and waiting for the time to catch us of guard. We waltzed right in, making us all a little skeptical and right when we thought the coast was clear, one of the royal guards on Connor’s team’s head exploded, spraying grey matter all over his other team members. We all dove into the best cover we could find, but when Connor dove, he hurt his leg and wasn’t able to get back up. I knew it was going to be a problem. “Escavadeira! Come in!” I growled. “Get your stupid asses in here and mow these fuckers down!” There was a short silence and then from the door came a deep and familiar “Eeyup.” Big Mac and the rest of Equipe Escavadeira popped out, all armed with their LMGs. They let out a huge stream of bullets as if they were all carrying garden hoses that spewed bullets instead of water. The majority of the soldiers dropped dead, but several of them were still standing and managed to shoot down one of the ponies on Big Mac’s team. I dove over and got the dropped pony’s LMG and went and gave it to Connor for his M4A1 and its ammo which I kept just in case. We moved up again, but this time, the throne room doors were locked. It looked like we would have to go through the vents or something… I kept thinking. We had no explosives, no lock-picking equipment, nothing that could help us with this. “Fuck it” I snorted. “I’m goin through the vents.” “Are you sure?” Connor asked doubtingly. “Shut the fuck up and wait for me to open the doors.” I found no ventilation (not a surprise if you think about it) but I did remember my Assassin’s Creed-style climbing. “Wait here” I demanded. I ran out the door and dashed over to the side of the building, proceeding to climb upwards towards the window I was at before. This time, it only took me about 3 or 4 minutes to get to the window, considering I was kind of in a hurry. As soon as I reached the right window, I held on the best I could and grabbed out my M1911 and then blew the glass out of the window frame. Dropping to the floor, I noticed that no one had noticed my entry. They probably thought it was a window on another floor or a stray bullet hit the window or something. As quietly as possible, I unlocked the door from the outside and let everypony in. We all marched inside as we raised our weapons at the unsuspecting soldiers along with a few officers, one of which was McMarland. “Do not shoot any of the officers” I whispered. “Get ready to fire…… now!” Sound waves resonated across the room as bullets flew from all of our guns. Some of the soldiers had already taken cover behind 2 wooden tables that they tipped over and so had all the officers. The only soldiers that went down were the ones standing up. We all stopped not to reload, but to trick the soldiers into standing up. A few of us DID reload though, like me because I was using my M1, so I had to reload every 8 shots. Sure enough, the soldiers stood up and those of us who weren’t reloading shot the standing soldiers. All of them were down. I looked around us, only seeing a few ponies wounded and 1 or 2 dead. We all approached the covered officers with caution, knowing that these guys didn’t get to be officers because they paid for it. We got only close enough so that we were about a foot or 2 away from the legs of the two wooden tables they were using as cover. I had just come down from my fantastic rage, so I said in a much calmer tone “get up with your hands up and empty and we won’t shoot you.” They all stayed where they were. I spoke up again, “we only want Ltc. McMarland. He’s a traitor.” They then stood up with empty hands in the air as asked. “Thank you, gentlemen. Now if you would kindly tell me which one of you is Ltc. McMarland so I can blow his brains out, this would end much faster. They all started quietly talking among each other. I thought I could hear them doubting if McMarland was really a traitor. Twilight suddenly burst racing into the room holding a rolled up piece of parchment. “STOP! John! The war is over! They verified the evidence!” All of the officers looked a little confused. “We sent the handwritten letter that McMarland wrote to the United States’ government telling them of the situation. They’ve verified the evidence and declared that the war is over.” “Is it still okay if I shoot him?” I asked. “Yeah, probably” Spike said, who had been riding on Twilight’s back when she ran inside. “Good, ‘cuz I would’ve done it anyway!” I turned back to the officers. I spotted one who had something in his hand… oh shit… He began casually walking forward until he was only a few inches away from me. “EAT MY CORNBREAD! ALLAH!” the officer screamed as he clicked a C4 detonator. The huge explosion blew off the back of the castle and sent everyone in the room flying. The smoke cleared out slowly as I opened my eyes to a blurry view of the cracked and partially charred ceiling. My ears were still ringing from McMarland’s C4 explosion, but I still managed to get to my feet and start trying to look around. My vision slowly came into view as I saw that all the other officers were nowhere to be seen. They must have been blown up by the explosion. I stumbled over to Connor who was lying against the wall on the left of the throne room, still breathing but unconscious. McMarland raised his head to look around from where he was on the right side of the throne room, and he almost instantly spotted me. He slowly, carefully and quietly got out his pistol and checked that it was loaded and the safety was off. He apparently wanted my attention when he killed me because he shouted the one thing he shouldn’t have… “Hey, Mr. Jack!” My ears started ringing again, but not from the explosion. I knew the bastard was wishing for his own death on this one. He yelled again “hey, Mr. Jack!” I back onto my feet and turned to face him. My anger was so strong it felt as if it were giving off some kind of heat. I slowly started to walk towards McMarland. He aimed the best he could and shot. The bullet hit me in the shoulder, but I was too enraged to feel pain, I just kept walking. “What? Why aren’t you dying?! You’re supposed to die when I shoot you!” he yelled, shooting me over and over in the chest. Nothing worked, because I just kept walking casually towards him. A barely conscious Twilight and Connor started calling me to snap out of it, but I didn’t care. I finally reached him, and I proceeded to crush his ribs with a quick stomp. He screamed loudly in the pain as I bent down and picked up his gun, which he had dropped. I checked the magazine. One bullet left… that’s all I needed. “I believe you need to die now, McMarland.” I took direct aim at his forehead… “I can’t believe I’m gonna be killed by some guy who’s friends with a bunch of talking horses!” he coughed. I laughed, regaining my train of rational thought. I kept my aim at his head and looked at him with a devilish smile. “What are you, some kind of a cowboy or something?” He asked. “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!” With a gentle pull of the trigger, a bullet was blown straight through his head and into the floor… McMarland was dead. I stepped off of him and turned back to my friends. “A dose of lead can be fatal, especially when it’s issued from the barrel of a gun!” Then the lead that hit me kicked in and I fell to my knees in blinding pain. Connor and Twilight raced over to my side. “Don’t you dare fucking die on me brother” Connor ordered frantically. “Me and my big mouth, huh?” I joked. “Connor, I want to make sure you know that you were my best friend. I trust you to take care of Equestria while I’m gone. Twilight, make sure everypony knows to never fear the unknown like McMarland did.” “Okay” she squeaked, tearing up. “And Connor” I said, turning back to him. “Tell Luna I said goodbye, okay?” “I will, brother” he sobbed. His tears began to drip onto my bullet wounds, making them burn. “I think it’s time for me to take my leave” I sighed. As my last breath of life escaped quietly from my lungs and my vision began to fade out, I saw a peculiar sight… two scythes… one was steel with a wooden handle and the other was… Obsidian? With an iron handle… I wondered what they were for… but then my thoughts faded for the final time. I jerked up gasping for breath… then I looked around. I was… nowhere… Well, I mean, obviously I was somewhere, but everything around me was blank white. I kept looking around until I looked behind me. I saw a grey and black pony with wings as though he had been crossed with a bat. He probably sensed me looking at him because he lifted his head and looked over at me. I spoke first, “who in the Sam hell are you?” “I might ask you the same question” he answered. “I’m John Jack” I told him skeptically. “I’m Reaper.” “So…” I started awkwardly. “where in the Sam hell are we?” “Welcome to a little piece of heaven” He quoted. “You listen to Avenged Sevenfold?” I asked. “Yeah, why?” “Me too!” I laughed. “Why are we here anyway?” “Equestria’s gonna need us again pretty soon, so both of us and all memories of us are being preserved here for the time being” he explained. “Brightside is you don’t have to eat or drink. Downside is that there’s not a goddamn thing to do around here except sleep and you can only do so much of that.” “So I guess we wait then” I suggested. “I guess so” So we waited We waited for something to happen. THE END
