Reaper's Story

Reaper

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