Crippled, Beaten and Broken.

Chapters

In the Cold and the Quiet.
The Fall of the Rat King.
Mud, Blood and Shame
Out From the Darkness...
...And Into The Flames.
Shivers.
Old Wounds And Distant Screams.
Gray Senses.
Conversations And Remembrances.
Disdain And Dislike.
Punishment ?
Servant.
Horror.
A Long, Weary Night.
To Atone.
In the Weak and the Wounded.
A Chance For Forgiveness.

In the Cold and the Quiet.

Crippled, Broken and Beaten.

The rat scurried across the tundra of garbage, it’s beady black eyes searching for any scrap of food amidst the rotten, fetid debris.

The air was cold and thick with small, stinging drops of rain that flooded the holes and pits of the heap, and made the dirt thick and tar-like; already the rat had lost several of its stinking, squealing brethren to the drowning water.

Though, the rain wasn’t the only thing that the rat was worried about.

There was also….Him.

The rat didn’t remember when He had first slithered his way into the twisted heap of metal that served as his palace, coming from the general direction of the dragon territory, but his screams in the night, his endless babble and his taste for rat meat made him a legend amongst the vermin of the junk yard.

The rat nosed its way through the detritus a few minutes longer until it found a half-eaten pear. The grubby morsel was so utterly transfixing to the rat’s animal brain that it wasn’t even aware of the shadow that had fallen over it.

Quick as lightening the greasy hand with its sharp nails shot down like a missile, catching the rodent and pulling it up.

“There you are, Mr. Ratty.” said a thin, reedy voice, a voice that had been young, but was now ancient.

The rat squeaked in fright as the thin, pallid face of its captor came into view.

“Naughty, naughty, Mr. Ratty.” chided the creature, ‘You’re late for the tea party and you didn’t even bring the cake. I guess I’ll have to make due with something a little bit more… raw.”

There was a flash of pointed teeth, a gush of blood, and then darkness.

Ryan Doe, age 19, sat perched upon his mound of filth, his clawed toes digging into the surface, his bloody mouth still chewing the rat whilst an old song with lyrics half-remembered bubbled up from his throat.

And all around him the shadows took on equine forms and danced around him, mocking him for his bad manners and his poor singing; Ryan didn’t even realize that his garbled singing had become a tearful banshee wail until he felt his throat start to burn.

The shadows went silent, allowing the icy darkness to bring the tormented human a small portion of solace.

He didn’t remember too much about what had come before the Master had taken him in and shown him the true meaning of pain. All he could remember were a few scattered images with distorted sound that flickered in and out of clarity in his hazy, twisted mind.

“Holy shit, I swear if you keep up with that pony bullshit I’m gonna whoop your faggy ass!”

His fist connecting with a terrified face.

His mother scolding him harshly and the sting of his father’s belt.

His thin fingers typing out hateful things on a glowing computer.

Ryan gagged and pulled out a clump of bloody rat hair from the back of his throat with his grubby talons, flicking it away after after a thorough examination yielded no more meat.

“No more meat, no more meat, now there’s nothing left to eat.” he sang, letting out a girlish giggle that felt like acid on his tongue.

I’m the king of all rats! he thought suddenly, The ruler of vermin in a palace of filth on an island of shit in an ocean of blood. I am the leader of roaches, the sovereign of racoons and timberwolves and the master of-

NO! Not him, not the Master! Ryan’s claws lashed out and scored his dirty skin, leaving four red divots; the newest in a constantly growing number of scars.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” he wailed, clenching his wrist until the bones shifted. How could he have been so stupid? The Master would come back if he thought about him too much. He’d come back and take Ryan in his horrible embrace and-

“NO!” roared Ryan, covering his eyes and bursting into hot tears that left tracks on his begrimed face.

He didn’t know how long he cowered there in the cold and the quiet, listening for any sound that might indicate his master’s return. But he heard nothing, nothing at all save for his breathing and his soft, childlike mewling.

Finally the first rays of the sun broke through the cracks in his filthy palace and he made his way, slowly out into the cool morning to find more food.

I hope the rats come back. he thought, growing giddy again, They’re soooo juicy!

They were close now, she could feel it.

After all this time I’m going to find that monster and make him pay for what he did. thought Twilight Sparkle as she walked through the lower slums of Manehattan, the remaining Element Bearers following alongside her.

The heat from Celestia’s sun was shrouded by thick, oily smog that caused the temperature to drop significantly and the smell of unwashed ponies was nauseating. Twilight felt her heart break when she saw several homeless foals looking at the six with hopeful eyes.

The purple Alicorn stopped and opened her saddlebags, levitating two sandwiches that she had brought along out and placing them near the foals, who took them and eagerly devoured them.

“Woah now.” said Applejack with a smile, “Don’t eat too fast, you’ll make yerselves sick.”

“Sorry.” muttered one of the foals bashfully, her chewing markedly slowing.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” said Fluttershy kindly, smiling down on the foals; Twilight could practically taste the compassion that she gave off.

“Thanks, Princess Twilight.” said another foal-she thought it might have been a filly under all that grime-with a smile that showed off some rather yellow teeth. Twilight smiled back and said “You’re very welcome.”, then she and her friends turned and continued on their way.

“I really hate this part of town.” said Twilight sadly. The other five vocalized their agreements.

“It’s so sad, seeing so many foals without a home.” said Fluttershy.

“And I didn’t see a single smile until you gave them your food.” said Pinkie morosely.

“And they're so close to that...thing from the Gala.” said Rainbow Dash with a shudder.

A grave silence fell over the company. They all remembered that day at the gala, when the strange and terrifying monster appeared in the garden in a flash of light. Fluttershy in particular still had vivid nightmares that were dominated by the sneering, thin-lipped mouth and the hateful, vile words that issued from between them.

The creature had wasted almost no time in hurling a bolt of lighting at the meek mare’s head. Fluttershy had ducked and the killing blow had instead struck the peacock, who was dead before she had known what hit her.

The creature, who had called himself “Zap”, then proceeded to wreak chaos in the Gala: throwing out bolts of lighting, kicking the guardsponies across the room and yelling the most unspeakable profanities in a voice laden with malice.

Twilight and Rarity had tried to subdue him, but he easily bested them, leaving both with painful burns that took quite a bit of time to heal. Rainbow Dash had dive-bombed him and managed to make him stumble, but she too found herself on the receiving end of the creature’s powers, and Applejack only got one good buck in, which earned her a broken leg.

All of the Bearers were eager for a fight, and now they had the means to win.

The Elements glowed against their chests, pulsing with their prismatic light and filling their bearers with pure magical power.

They were going to win and, judging by the sudden wave of stinking air that washed over them, they were almost there.

There had been reports in the Manehattan Gazette, tales of a ghoulish creature who crawled through the darkened alleyways at night, striking fear into the hearts of the homeless and waking ponies up with its screams and babbling.

They had investigated and triangulated his position until they found the best location: the sprawling junkyard that lay at the city’s borders.

They were ready, and the hunt was almost over.

Ryan was awoken from his short, nightmare-filled slumber by the smell.

It was a new smell, but also a familiar one; a thick mix of apple juice, fresh grass, rainwater, perfume, cupcakes and magic.

Oh no….they’re HERE.

Ryan sprang up like he was on springs, his bloodshot eyes already searching for the source of that horrible scent from his position atop the garbage mound.

“Where are they?” he queried aloud, “Where are they? Those living shadows, they won’t get me!”

He crouched down and began pawing through the refuse, his sharpened nails separating the slimy food scraps from the old and rusted metal to reveal a sharpened piece of silver that he had found.

“Ahhh...my burning brand.” he said with a smile, “This will make the shadows leave-make the sparks go cold and dead and dusty…. like me!” he giggled and clutched the makeshift dagger until his fingers bled.

The shadows were coming, and he would face them and drive them off before they could bring the Master. Ryan whimpered in pain as a sudden flash made his head burn and filled his closed eyes with the image of the Master descending upon him like a great, shadowy bat with saber-teeth and eyes like Death.

The shadows are coming, the shadows are coming, the shadows are coming and they’re going to bring him with them. he thought as he began to crawl through the trash, slithering ever closer towards the shadows, who were now in his domain.

They don’t even have a ticket! How rude!

He got closer and the smell got stronger.

He gagged.

Oh how he hated the smell of friendship.

Author's Note

Here's my first attempt at a dark HiE fic, I was inspired to write this after reading the ever-awesome No More Nightmares

I hope you enjoy what's to come....if anything comes of it.

The Fall of the Rat King.

“Ah don’t like this place, Twilight, Ah don’t like it one bit.” said Applejack, looking around at the towering mountains of garbage with a flicker of nervousness dancing in her eyes.

“This would be the kind of place something like Zap would live in.” said Rarity, disgust etched into her features.

Twilight narrowed her eyes as a gust of cool air caught a small dune’s worth of grit and tossed it into the smoggy air. “It sure is foul.” she agreed, lighting her horn and using a long-practiced spell to amplify her voice.

“Zap! We’ve found you and we brought the Elements of Harmony, and I know that you know what those are and what they can do! So come out with your paws up and surrender so no-one has to get hurt!”

Silence was the only answer she received.

“Were you actually expecting that to work?” asked Rainbow Dash, raising a brow.

“Well….maybe?” said the Alicorn weakly.

Dash snorted, “As if that creep would ever listen to what any of us say. Right , Fluttershy?”

The prismatic pegasus turned and saw her friend staring with wide eyes up at a nearby mound. Dash followed her eyes and gasped when she saw the thin, shadowy figure looking at them from the very top; she could see the sunlight reflecting off of the dagger that he had clutched in his hand.

“He’s here, Twilight!” shouted Dash, drawing her friend’s eyes to Zap.

There was a short silence, and then the creature let out a low wail and charged down the mound at them with his dagger raised.

They shouldn’t be here, they shouldn’t be here, they shouldn't be here! thought Ryan as he hurled himself at the shadows, their glowing ember eyes reminding him so much of his Master’s. Would they take him back to her? If they did, then his suffering would be legendary even amongst the accursed monsters of Tartarus.

“You can’t be here!” he roared, “You didn’t get your tickets checked and this is a private party!”

He saw one of the shadow’s ghostly faces fill with purple light and the next thing that he knew his dagger was being tugged out of his hand.

He tried to hold it, to keep his sword, but the cold metal was yanked from his hand, opening up a deep gash on his grimy palm that he barely felt above the searing agony of the magic.

He yowled like a drenched cat and lashed out, his claws slicing across the shadow’s cheek. The wicked phantom hissed in pain and dropped him. Ryan’s hand was smoking, the skin bubbling and leaking acid-hot fluids.

“I won’t let you pull me back into her belly.” he hissed leaping back and landing atop an old TV, “I am the King of the Rats! You shapes cannot touch me here!”

“Oh yeah?!” asked a shadow with wings and eyes that glowed blue,”We’ll see about that!”

He met her as she dived at him with a roar and the two tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

He grasped her by the neck, but she bucked him in the stomach and flipped him over onto his back, straddling him in a way that was sickeningly familiar, even with his hazy memories.

“I’m gonna pound you for scaring Fluttershy!” bellowed the shadow, her voice ringing like Zeus’s from the heights of Olympus.

“I don’t care if you are a god, Zeus!” Ryan hissed through his sharp teeth, “I will not be taken back, not by you.”

He clawed at her face, but she simply lifted him up and threw him into a nearby cabinet.

As he lay there he fancied he heard the rats, his subjects, mocking him for his failure to down the flying shade; their betrayal made him weep softly.

“I’m trying!” he whimpered, losing focus of his opponents and rolling into his deflated belly, “Please don’t leave me! I swear I won’t eat any more of you, you’re all I have.”

He turned back and saw the Purple Shadow advancing on him. Fear gripped his heart and he turned back to the scurrying shapes.

“Knights!” he cried, “Knights! Defend me! Slay them and I-I’ll not raise the taxes anymore, just s-stop them, please?”

The only thing that he heard from his loyal subjects was the sound of their tiny, melodic laughter.

Then they were gone, leaving him to face the shadows alone.

Twilight stopped her furious advance when she heard Zap cry out for his knights.

She and the others looked around, trying to pinpoint where the incoming attack was to take place, but no-one came to his aid.

The six exchanged confused glances before turning back to Zap, who was still tearfully pleading for the assistance of the unseen rats.

Something’s wrong. thought Twilight, her muscles still tense in preparation for battle, But what is it? He looks dirtier and he’s lost a lot of weight, but maybe his species’ metabolism is different from ours. But why is he talking to the rats? Why isn’t he acting all cocky and sadistic like he did when we first met him?

Then Zap whirled around to face them and Twilight saw his eyes.

They held a mixture of desperation, rage and pure animalistic fear; they were the eyes of someone who had been swallowed by madness.

“Uhhh...guys?” said Twilight.

“He’s gone crazy, hasn’t he?” asked Pinkie, sounding sad.

Twilight nodded mutely and then turned back to Zap, who was looking around wildly, probably trying to find a suitable weapon. Then she turned back to her friends and said, “Ready the Elements.”

The instant that the word “Elements” left her mouth Zap stood up and pointed at her with a grubby talon, hissing through his fangs like an angry viper.

“No!” he shouted, “I won’t let you take me back to the Master…. I won’t be thrown back into her eyes again, I am not her whore!”

The Mane 6 stopped mid-charge and looked at him with shocked expressions.

That gave the crazed creature enough time to start running.

Ryan fled from the shadows, the voices of the rats following him, commanding him to take up arms and fight the monsters like a true king.

But Ryan was now very much certain that he wasn’t a king, he wasn’t even a pauper or a duke, but what was he if not anything resembling royalty?

Who was he?

NO! That thought was poisonous, it opened big door that led to dark places that he didn’t want to see. Not after….not after he had seen Tartarus’ burning, cold depths. He could still remember how long he had screamed and how the intensity of his wailing was so great his throat bled and he broke his teeth into shards that drew blood for days when he talked.

Of course, the Master only poured salt in his wounds and used him like she did every other day. His pain seemed to only make her abuses even more sadistic.

Leave my head, leave, leave leaveleaveleaveleaveleave!

He was so focused on clearing those vile, repulsive memories away that he didn’t see the old, dirty beartrap until it was too late.

SNAP!!!

The sound of his bone breaking pushed all thoughts of his torment from his mind and down into a blazing inferno of pain.

Ryan fell, and his painful descent seemed to take an eternity, but when his emaciated body made contact with the cold, hard earth, his consciousness darkened and a nightmare-filled sleep overtook him.

“What do we do with ‘im, Twilight?” asked Applejack, gazing at the downed Zap with curiosity, disgust and more than a little pity.

“Well, we can’t leave him here.” said Twilight, prompting a “No duh!” from Rainbow Dash.

“He looks so….frail.” said Fluttershy, her blue eyes travelling the length of Zap’s twisted form.

“Looks can be deceiving, darling.” said Rarity, contempt for the creature burning in her eyes, “Why I bet he’s just waiting to strike right now.”

Fluttershy shook her head, “No, I don’t think so. He’s gone into shock, we should get him to a hospital.”

“Are you kidding me?!” shouted Dash, “After what he did? I say we just teleport him back to the palace and throw him in the deepest, darkest cell in the dungeons!”

“But he’ll die if we don’t help him!” cried Fluttershy, turning to Twilight, “I don’t think I could live with myself if I let anyone, even a monster, die when I could have helped them. Can we please take him to a hospital?”

“I agree With ‘Shy.” said Pinkie, her mane noticeably straighter, “Even if he IS a big meanie-pants, he still doesn’t deserve to die, no-one does.”

Twilight looked at all of her friends, then back at Zap, who had begun to whimper and twitch. Finally she turned back to Fluttershy and nodded, “We’ll take him to a hospital, but I’m going to put as many entrapment spells around his room as I can AND I intend to notify the princesses of his condition every hour on the hour.”

Fluttershy nodded and went to him with Twilight and Rarity by her side. They lifted him up, being careful not to jostle his wounded leg, and teleported him out of the desolate junkyard.

After they were gone a single rat, fat and greasy, trundled out of the darkness provided by a broken chariot and sniffed at the small pool of blood where Ryan had lain.

The rat bent over the pool and lapped a tiny bit up, then it spat the tainted stuff out and crept away, leaving the blood to dry.

Mud, Blood and Shame

He lay in the darkness, letting the pain in his guts and nether regions settle.

All around him he could hear the anguished groans of the other prisoners echoing through the cavernous darkness. The sheer amount of pain and suffering in their voices made him wish that he had something in his stomach to throw up.

The mud was cold under his bare flesh, it oozed into the flayed portions of his skin and numbed some of the pain.

Ryan just wished that the mud could do the same for the shame.

The Master had used him again, painfully, sadistically, in a way that would make sleep impossible.

He had cried until his eyes were raw every night since the shrouded ponies had captured him. It had taken all of three hours of the Master’s “Fun Time” for him to break, begging and pleading to his tormentor, trying to make her let him go and trying to cut a deal with her.

He found out very quickly that the Master only tortured him with more ferocity when he begged.

And so the days and nights became a blur of pain and misery, with the sound of his sobbing and screaming filling his ears and the foul taste of his blood and filth filling his mouth, choking him, drowning him.

He wished for death and then, when his wish wasn’t granted, he took the only other option available to him.

Madness.

Ryan awoke with a piercing scream that sent the earth pony nurse that had been by his bedside running in terror.

Through the haze of tears the human was able to recognize his surroundings as a hospital room, with its sharp antiseptic smell and pure white coloration.

The first thing he thought was: What happened? But that question was soon answered, along with the questions of where he had been living and what he had been doing ever since his escape from the Master, when his memory, intact and seemingly in High Definition, returned.

Oh no. he thought, realizing the cause behind his sudden mental clarity.

He was having a lucid period.

Oh how he hated those. When the swirling hurricane of his madness cleared up just long enough to allow the shame and horror of what had happened to him and what he’d done came back to him, leaving him a sobbing wreck.

The time that he was sane varied, but it was never, ever short, and it left him craving his madness.

With a moan of sadness he closed his eyes and allowed his cleared senses to fully envelop him.

He was, for the first time in a long time, acutely aware of how utterly frail he felt. He could feel the tautness of his scarred skin across his brittle bones, most of which had been violently twisted and snapped, then rehealed.

He could feel the pain in his gums from the many gum infections that were a result of his lack of dental hygiene, and the dull throb of several cavities. His feet ached dreadfully and, when he looked at them under the covers, he saw that they were bound by stained bandages.

It was like this with every limb and every organ: stinging pains, dull pain, throbbing pain, burning pain-this was especially true of his eyes and stomach- and acidic pain.

He moaned and tried desperately to dive back into his ebbing madness, but the swirling, black tide was too far gone, and he was stranded on the muddy, slimy isle of his sanity; alone with his thoughts and the memories of his torment.

He shuddered and clenched every atrophied muscle, sending pain shooting through his body. Why couldn’t his madness be permanent? He knew that he had done wrong, he knew that he had hurt the ponies, who were innocent and kind, but why did his torment have to continue as it did? He had already been beaten, abused and….and…

Tears welled up in his eyes once more.

It was so shameful, what the Master had done to him. So perverse and sadistic that it made him want to vomit every time he remembered those vile sessions.

Why couldn’t it all end?

Then the sound of a door opening, slowly and cautiously, pierced his revere and he turned to see a very familiar pony enter.

Fluttershy.

She looked so much better without her shroud of shadows, though he could still faintly see her shadow twitch and grow larger behind her; he shuddered and placed his aching hands over his face.

“Uhmmm...hello?” came the soft voice, “Zap?”

Zap? Was that the name I chose for myself? What was wrong with me?

“Isn’t my name.” he said, his voice creaking and whistling through his jagged teeth.

“Oh. Then...what is it?” asked the yellow pegasus.

“R-Ryan.” answered the human, “But that won’t matter.”

“Why is that?” asked Fluttershy.

“Because I’ll be insane again, soon. I can feel it coming back.” said Ryan with a small smile, “I’m so glad it’s coming back.”

Fluttershy hid behind her pink hair and backed out the door silently.

She’s afraid of me. he thought with a rasping snicker, But, in a few minutes, I’m going to be terrified of her.

And around him the shadows began to slither forwards, harkening him back into madness’s comforting embrace.

Out From the Darkness...

It was a Thursday when it happened.

He had come home from school to find his father dozing on the couch, a veritable carpet of crushed beer cans littered around him.

Ryan crept up the stairs that led to his room, not wanting to wake his father.

He got to his room, shed his school apparel, and flopped onto the bed, pulling his laptop open and letting its blue glow calm him down as it always did.

It helped him feel like a person again.

He had been feeling depressed ever since the night at the party, the look in his father’s eyes, the shame, the fact that he was weak; it all made him sick to his soul. He soon found that the blue and beautiful days filled him with annoyance and the peaceful and still nights made him want to sleep into twilight.

Then those feelings gave way to...nothing, nothing at all.

It had unnerved him, this new lack of caring, but it hadn’t motivated him to do anything about it, so he just sat in the darkness of his room, typing out hate-filled rants against Bronies that lacked their acid tips.

It made him feel worse, realizing how the brony community had become the linchpin to his entire existence: nothing else mattered, as long as he could strike back at them.

So, after starting yet another flame war and getting no satisfaction from it, Ryan found himself in the bathroom, the harsh fluorescent light making him wince as he opened the medicine cabinet...and pulled out a packet of razor blades.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring at those razors, watching the light glint off of their sharp edges, wondering if it would hurt when he made the cuts, wondering if he even cared.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

He had watched them until his vision was overwhelmed by them, and it amazed him how such a small thing could have the potential to end his life.

He hadn’t realized that he was weeping until his vision went blurry.

Ryan whimpered in his drug-induced slumber.

The Black Monsoon was coming, and it would destroy his little island of sanity.

Around him the Bearers looked at each other with worry on their faces.

“D’you really think that it will work?” asked Fluttershy, “What if something goes wrong? What if we kill him?”

“The Elements would never kill another being.” said Twilight confidently.

“But-but he’s not from our world.” persisted Fluttershy.

“Ah agree with ‘Shy.” said Applejack, “Maybe it’d be best for the Princesses to try somethin’ else.”

“We can’t have him going back to his evil ways.” insisted Twilight, “Who knows what kinds of horrible things he could do if left unchecked? He’s a villain, remember?”

“I think he’s sad.” said Fluttershy, pity showing clear as day behind her blue eyes.

“Mad is more like it.” said Rarity, “I am in agreement with Twilight: we must use the Elements on him.”

Pinkie nodded, “And then, when he’s all better, I’ll throw him the biggest party he’s ever seen!”

“If he even wants one.” said Rainbow Dash cryptically.

Twilight looked at the prismatic pegasus with a raised brow, “What do you mean ‘if he wants one’?”

“I mean” said Rainbow, “he might not be in the best of moods if the Elements purge him of his powers or his evil or whatever it’ll do to him.”

“He might be really, really sad afterwards.” said Pinkie, understanding the implications in her friend’s words.

“If he is, then we’ll help him through it.” said Twilight with a small smile, “He helped Discord and Trixie, and we can help him!”

That seemed to do the trick and, after her five friends exclaimed their agreement, the Elements began to glow.

Ryan was being pulled in by the Black Tsunami, its slimy waters swirling around him, buffeting him, choking him, and pressing him into a solid ground that he couldn’t see.

He had never been more relieved.

The water roiled and then threw him high into the sky, allowing him to see the millions of drowned junkyard rats that had begun floating to the surface. He smiled as he began to fall back towards the bubbling waters, which were rapidly being obscured by the rat carcasses.

He hit the water and was immediately set upon by a swarm of red flies that had obviously been attracted to all the dead flesh.

One of the flies landed on his open eyes and he could plainly see its face: which resembled that of a fetus with closed eyes.

Ryan smiled and allowed the other flies to land on him.

He felt the island of his sanity crack and erode under the putrid waters of his madness. Feeling relieved as the last of his mental stability slowly gave way to-

The cracks stopped widening.

Ryan opened his eyes.

The erosion halted, then every crack and pit filled in.

NO! he roared, trying to get to the island as the damage that was done was quickly undone. Even worse, the island was actually growing!

He fought against the tide, but found that it was reseeding so fast that the pressure was too much for him to circumvent. Meanwhile the island was growing even faster, forming mountains and ravines, forming sanity.

Then he saw the rainbow-hued light seeping out from the island’s wounds, the light that was also flowing into the water, beating it back and making it clear and unpolluted.

He screamed, he knew he did, but the sound was lost amidst the sounds of the red flies burning into nothing in the wake of the purifying light.

Then the rats faded into nothingness and the darkness was pushed far, far away to some obscure vista, and Ryan Doe was pulled screaming and howling out of oblivion by the multi-colored powers of the Elements of Harmony.

The lights faded from the Elements and the rushing wind that had entered the room faded away, leaving a calm silence in its wake.

“We….we did it!” cheered Pinkie between panting breaths.

“Yeah…*huff*...we did.” said Rainbow, landing and falling gracelessly onto her rump.

“Was it…*wheeze*....supposed to be so….*wheeze*...tiring?” asked Fluttershy, looking at Twilight, who shrugged wordlessly, her fur already matted with sweat.

“Look, he’s waking up!” exclaimed Rarity, her voice distorted by the light breeze given off by the handheld fan that she held in her magic aura.

The Bearers watched as Zap slowly began to stir in his bed, his sunken eyes fluttering open and his fingers and toes twitching.

Suddenly he sat up with a loud gasp, sweat broke out on his pale skin and his eyes bulged out and began to wildly rove around the room. When they landed on the six colorful ponies his breath audibly caught in his throat.

They stared at each other for a long moment before his shoulders slumped and he hung his head, letting his long, red hair hide his face.

The Bearers exchanged worried glances with each other before Twilight cleared her throat and stepped closer.

“Hello, Zap.” she said calmly, “Do you remember me?”

The human looked up and nodded quickly, then he returned to his hunched position.

“Well?” prodded Applejack, “Aren’t ya gonna say somethin’?”

Zap looked up and turned his gaze towards her, and the farmpony’s eyes widened when she saw the tears that blurred and distorted his pupils.

“It’s gone.” he said in a low, watery voice.

“What is?” asked Twilight.

“The Black Water….it’s gone. It’s gone and now I’m alone again”, Zap gave an audible sob and pressed his hands to his eyes.

Twilight looked utterly taken aback. She turned and saw similar stunned and worried expressions on her friend’s faces.

“I don’t understand.” she said, looking back to Zap, “What’s the Black Water?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, then he said, “My insanity.”

The human raised his tear-filled eyes to her, then he untangled the thin covers from around his person and slid to the floor, arranging himself in what Twilight could only assume to be a pose of supplication, with his head down, back bend and spidery hands splayed palms down on the floor.

“Please.” he whimpered, “please give it back. I can’t live without it, I-I can’t.”

Twilight felt a cold stab of dread in her gut. This isn’t right. she thought, The Elements were supposed to reform him, not do...this! What happened?

Those questions continued to hurtle through her mind, even as she sank to the floor and wrapped a wing around Zap’s bony shoulders as the strange creature abandoned himself to silent weeping.

...And Into The Flames.

The train compartment was silent, save for the sounds of the wheels on the tracks and the muffled chatter of the other riders.

Fluttershy watched Zap from across the compartment, noting his hunched posture and statue-like stillness with sadness and interest. Occasionally one of her friends would try to strike up a conversation with the odd creature, but he never responded.

Fluttershy could tell that he was both frightened and exhausted; the dreary look in his gray eyes unnerved her greatly.

What happened to him in those two years? she thought, looking deeper into his eyes It’s like he has a raincloud behind his eyes. What could’ve made him look so...so defeated? Why is he so thin? What in Celestia’s name happened to his teeth?

As each question joined the ever-growing mound Fluttershy felt the need for relief grow inside her like tinder being placed atop a fire; she had to know what had happened.

She opened her mouth to ask, but Zap beat her to the punch.

“Where is the bathroom?”

Twilight perked up and said, in a cool tone, “Down the hall and to the left, just after the last compartment, you can’t miss it.”

Zap nodded and left the compartment, one of the two guards stationed outside their door following him.

Once the sound of his footsteps faded, Fluttershy turned to Twilight and said, “Something’s wrong with him.”

“I’ll say.” said Rainbow Dash, “Didja hear how his voice sounded? It’s like he got his soul sucked out or somethin’” She shuddered to drive her point home. Although she made it seem like an exaggeration, Fluttershy saw the hairs on the back of her friend’s neck stand up and she knew that she was masking a real shiver of unease.

“Maybe the Elements turned him into a zombie?” suggested Pinkie, the perceived ridiculousness of her theory making Twilight, Rarity and Rainbow snort.

“I really don’t care what happened to him to make him like that.” said Rarity with a shrug, “As long as he isn’t trying to electrocute us to death, or blowing things up, then I’m fine with him as he is now, thank you very much.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Rarity.” pleaded Fluttershy.

“And why not?” asked Rarity in a huff, “We cannot forget how cruel he was when we first met him. He almost killed you for Celestia’s sake!”

“Yes he did.” admitted Fluttershy, “But have you really looked at him now? He looks so….I don’t really know any word except defeated.”

“He does look sad.” interject Pinkie, a concerned look on her face, “I wanna throw him a party or something like that, but I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t like that.”

“Excuse me? Did I just hear the world’s most persistent party pony say that she doesn’t want to throw someone a party?” asked Rarity in mock horror, “Good heavens, Pinkie, what has Zap done to you?”

Pinky shrugged, “I dunno: it just seems like he has a kind of sad that I’ve never seen before, so I’m not sure if being all ‘in-his -face’ about it would be a good thing.”

“Maybe he needs a good prank to cheer him up?” asked Rainbow.

Pinkie shook her head, “Don’t be silly, Dashie, I mean, if you pranked him now, he’d probably get even more sad!”

Dash furrowed her brow, then nodded, “Okay, no pranking Zap….for now.” she added slyly, making Pinkie smile and giggle.

Their conversation was cut off when Zap re-entered the room, his hands and face damp. He seemed to notice the sudden, awkward silence, because he waved a hand, “Don’t mind me, you can go back to your conversation, I’m not that interesting and I can be quiet, so you won’t even know that I’m here.”

He gave them a smile that showed no teeth and sat down, returning almost immediately to his hunched posture, even though Rainbow Dash and Pinkie had given him some extra space, and allowed his long hair to shroud his face once again.

That’s it. thought Fluttershy, determination steeling her nerves, I’m going to ask him what happened. I can’t stand to see him like this, even if he WAS mean and evil.

Just then the door opened and a scrawny griffon brought in their food. The Bearers dug in eagerly, having been deprived of an actual meal in the wake of Twilight’s sandwich sacrifice. Out of all of them, the only ones who actually chewed their food were Fluttershy, Rarity and Zap, who chewed at such a slow rate that it was almost obscene.

Fluttershy noticed his face go through several startling transitions as he chewed: he started chewing sedately, then his eyes widened slightly and he paused, moving the food from one cheek to the other with a look of confusion on his face, then the confusion became a look of horror, before his face went slack and his eyes filled up with a sudden and profound sadness.

All of this happened in less than two minutes, and it disturbed Fluttershy greatly.

“What’s wrong?” asked Pinkie, suddenly, causing Zap and Fluttershy to both start.

“Excuse me?” asked Zap, looking worried.

“I saw you get all shocked, then all sad when you ate.” explained Pinkie, “Is something wrong with the food?”

Zap shook his head, “No, I just… bit my cheek. A bit painful, considering how sharp my teeth are.”

Fluttershy saw Applejack’s eyes narrow.

“Oh...okay.” said Pinkie, looking a bit disappointed, something which Zap noticed, because he said, “You don’t have to worry about me, I’m fine, really I am.”

Fluttershy saw Applejack cock her head and pin her ears back.

“Alright.” said Pinkie, reverting back to her usual peppy self, something which brought a full smile to Zap’s lips, though he hid his jagged teeth behind his hand.

Applejack raised a brow.

Then the train stopped and the conductor called out, “Alright, Everypony, we’ve arrived in Canterlot!”

They exited the train and were immediately set upon by a horde of reporters and angry ponies, all shouting with red faces and tears in their eyes.

“You destroyed my house!” snarled an old unicorn.

“Me and my foal had to live on the streets for a year after you came!” shouted a pegasus mare, who was holding her crying foal close to her person.

“My business is gone because of you!” bellowed a burly earth pony, hurling a chunk or masonry, that caught Zap in the temple.

Fluttershy gasped at the sight of the red blood trickling out of the newly-made gash at a steady pace. The earth pony was tacked by a guard and dragged away from the crowd, howling in anger until he faded from sight.

The barrage of hateful words and debris continued as they made their slow trek to the palace of the Princesses and, although Twilight put up a shield that blocked the flying stones and the harsh words, the damage was done, and Zap’s eyes were filled with tears.

But he didn’t cry, didn’t make a sound; he just stared ahead with a look that made it clear that his guilt was deep.

Fluttershy had to fight to keep herself from weeping too.

But they kept walking anyway, making their way to the palace as the sun began to set and the moon took its place high in the darkening sky.

Shivers.

Massive, sprawling, majestic, beautiful, awe-inspiring.

These were the perfect words to describe the Palace of the Princesses, with its grand architecture and shining splendour. It had stood for thousands of years as the symbol of harmony itself.

But none of the group felt any of the awe present at their previous visits, and Pinkie Pie could see the slight tremor in Zap’s steps as he moved slowly onwards with the rest of them; she also noticed that his movements were stiff, like he was wading through a bog.

Pinkie felt her mane deflate a bit at the sight. She had been inside of the palace when Zap had first arrived and had seen the destruction that he had caused: he had destroyed the entire outer wall of the ballroom, created massive fissures in the ground and had even electrocuted a few of the royal guards who tried to stand in his way.

That was terrifying in and of itself, but the look of sheer, cruel joy that radiated off of him had given Pinkie nightmares.

But, looking at him now, it was hard to see any of that monster in him-well, technically he WAS a monster, but he wasn’t a MEAN monster now.

Pinkie shook her head and looked back at Zap, stifling a gasp when she found her eyes meeting his.

“Sorry, I didnt mean to stare.” said Pinkie, rubbing that back of her head and smiling disarmingly.

“It’s alright.” said Zap, “I guess I’m kinda interesting to look at.”

“You sure are!” said Pinkie with a beaming smile.

Zap blushed lightly and looked down, causing Pinkie to giggle. Her giggle faded into oblivion when she allowed her eyes to travel to the scar on his head, which was raw and angry-looking despite Twilight’s healing spell.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” asked the pink earth pony.

Zap shook his head, “No, not really.”

Pinkie saw a flash of sadness steal across his face when he said that, but it was a very….strange type of sadness: Pinkie knew as many types of sadness as she knew happy or angry, and this type of sadness was very vague, but didn’t seem to be directed towards the scar.

I guess it’s guilt. she reasoned, but that was on his face as clear as a summer day and that other sadness was underneath that.

And there was something else, something that was buried even deeper.

Something bad.

Pinkie had shuddered when she had felt it: a cold flash of nausea that had shot straight into her heart like an arrow. It was black, hideous, a kind of sadness that was almost alien to her.

The party planner felt her mane deflate even more when she realized that Zap was suffering from a type of sadness that was utterly foreign to her.

And that scared her far more than she cared to let on.

I’m sure he’ll tell us what’s bothering him. She thought, trying to force some of the rapidly dissipating cheer back into herself. But, even as that thought entered her mind, Zap shuddered violently and rubbed his stick-thin arms vigorously; Pinkie could practically smell the fear on him.

Poor guy, I hope the princesses aren’t too hard on him. she thought, shaking her head softly.

Ryan felt the hopelessness increase with every step he took.

One step closer to my grave, one step closer to the pony princesses, my judges and-probably- my executioners. he thought sadly, But then again, why should I expect any leniency from them? I probably killed a few of their subjects and the destruction that I caused has probably earned me a one-way ticket to the gallows.

He felt the guilt of his previous actions return in full force. He was honestly surprised that he still cared about what had happened when he had first entered Equestria after all that he had endured in the last two years.

Maybe they won’t kill you. said the calmer part of his mind, which had only recently resurfaced in the wake of his sanity being returned. I mean, do the ponies look like they’re under the control of a pair of tyrants to you?

This thought gave Ryan pause.

What if he was right? Would they actually show mercy to him?

Why not ask one of their most loyal subjects?

So Ryan turned to the pink, poofy-maned earth pony who was walking spryly beside him, the one who had talked to him, and asked-

“Will they kill me?”

The question hung in the air like a shroud. Freezing Pinkie Pie and the others who had heard it in their tracks.

“Wh-what?!” shrieked Pinkie, looking appalled.

“Why would you think something like that?” asked Fluttershy.

“How dare you insinuate that the princesses would even consider doing something so….so vile!” said Rarity, her voice full of righteous indignation.

Zap blinked owlishly, feeling a slight warmth spread across his hollow cheeks. He shivered under their intense gazes-or was it the sudden gust of cold air that blew through the area?

“I just-” he started, but he was cut off by Rainbow Dash, who flew up to face him.

“Listen here, Zap” she said, poking him in the chest, “just because you were a jerk before doesn’t mean that Princess Celestia or Princess Luna will be that harsh; the most they’ll do is put you in the dungeons.”

Zap blinked again, then looked away, not wanting to incur any more of his captor’s anger.

He shivered again and drew his thin arms tight around his midsection, feeling it roll through his body in a cold wave.

It was interesting: Princess Luna and Princess Celestia both stood apart, rather fittingly, like Night and Day, with Celestia radiating a calm, collected kindness that Ryan imagined most of the kings in fairy tales to possess; whilst her sister sat perched upon her throne, seeming to stew in her own thoughts whilst looking attentive.

But, though they shared their differences, they also shared one very discomforting aspect: they were both looking at him with curiosity, distrust and faint anger.

The human knelt before them with his palms laid flat on the cold stone floor, shuddering again as the chill rolled through his body.

“You may rise, Zap.” said Celestia, her voice warm, but stern.

He rose, albeit with an amount of difficulty that worried both him and some of the ponies watching.

“Art thou feeling well?” inquired Luna, tilting her head.

Zap nodded, “Y-yes, y-your majesty. I’m fine.”

Celestia and Luna both shared inscrutable looks when the human shuddered again, this time quaking longer and with more ferocity. Having reached some unspoken agreement, Luna stepped down and trotted up to Zap, who whimpered involuntarily when she reached out to touch him.

“Do not be afraid, Zap.” she said, laying a reassuring hoof on his shoulder, “I am going to perform a sort of magical scan on you. I must see how thou art faring physically before we discuss the mental aspect.”

Zap nodded and bowed his head, looking the absolute picture of submissive. Luna’s horn lit up and a beam of dark blue magic wrapped itself around his body, illuminating various spots on his torso and limbs before dissipating.

“Hmmm… That is…. disconcerting.” said Luna, placing a shod hoof to her chin.

“What is it, sister?” asked Celestia.

“You appear to be suffering from a combination of illnesses.” said Luna, addressing Zap whilst speaking up to allow her sister to hear.

“Well we did find him living in a junkyard.” interjected Rarity, “And goodness knows how long he was living there.”

“I was there for two years….I think.” said Zap, still keeping his eyes on the ground.

“Sweet Maker! You were living in that filth for two whole years? Without any proper food? Or….or a bath?!” exclaimed Rarity, her skin going green.

Rarity’s obvious disgust made Ryan’s gaunt face redden and he hung his head even farther, looking like he wished the ground would just swallow him up.

“Rarity!” scolded Pinkie Pie, “Did you really need to make such a fuss?”

The prim and proper unicorn blushed and rubbed the back of her head with a hoof, “Eh heh heh….Uhm…..sorry.”

Luna had kept her eyes fixed on Zap as the two talked, noticing how his gaze never once strayed to anything other than his feet.

“Dost-I mean do you accept her apology, Zap?” prodded Luna, hoping to get a response from the human.

“She’s forgiven, your majesty.” said Zap, briefly glancing up at Rarity and nodding.

Luna turned back to her sister and mouthed “Alone Time with Him.”

Celestia nodded and said, “Thank you for staying with him, my little ponies, but I think Luna and I will need to ask him a few things in private.”

“Of course, Celestia.” said Twilight, ushering her friends out and slowly closing the door behind her.

Once the sounds of retreating hoofsteps had faded, Celestia turned her full attention on Zap, who was looking considerably paler than he had been a few minutes previously; the solar diarch also noted the sweat breaking out on his brow.

“So” she began, “how are you?”

“I-I’m fine, your majesty.” said Zap, his head still bowed.

“Thou can look at us.” said Luna with a soft smile, “Looking upon our glorious visages will not burn thine eyes out.”

Zap swallowed thickly, then looked up. Both princesses were shocked to see the tears rapidly filling them up.

“What’s the matter?” asked Celestia, rising from her throne and moving down to comfort him.

“P-please don’t-” he whimpered, scooting back and falling flat on the floor before Celestia could get within a foot of him.

“Don’t what?” asked Celestia, trying her best to calm her charge down.

“Stop...s-stop trying to b-be nice to me.” he said as the tears began to flow in earnest and a low, pitiful sob welled up in his throat.

Celestia stopped advancing.

“I know y-you’re going to kill me,” he continued, “so please, please don’t try to m-make me feel better. Just….just do it already!”

With those words spoken through a choked voice, he collapsed onto his back and gave himself up to silent sobbing while Celestia looked on feeling helpless and miserable at the sight of the former villain’s sorrow.

After what seemed like an hour had passed Zap’s sobbing subsided into quiet whimpers and plaintive mewling. Celestia drew closer and laid a wing over his trembling body, wincing internally when she felt the warmth from a raging fever heat her pinfeathers.

“It’s alright, Zap.” she said, holding the trembling human closer, “I won’t hurt you, not ever. Just go to sleep and we’ll get you to the infirmary, alright?”

She got no answer, Zap was fast asleep and breathing heavily.

Celestia gently wrapped his frail body in her golden aura and levitated him onto her back.

“Shall I alert the doctors?” asked Luna.

Celestia nodded, “Please do. Thank you, Luna.”

The Princess of the Night nodded and then left the room.

Celestia looked back to Zap as she began following her sister, feeling him shiver in his sickness-and-fear-induced sleep. I’ll have to have Luna keep his dreams calm. she thought, With all that stress and that nasty fever, he’s bound for some very unpleasant nightmares.

Celestia sighed and turned her attention back to navigating her palace, all the while knowing that Zap’s troubles extended far beyond illness and fear of punishment.

Something happened to him in those three years. Something very, very bad. I saw it in his eyes and the way he carried himself, but what could have made him so...beaten? What happened to him?

Celestia sighed again as the door to the infirmary came into view, thinking, with forced optimism, Well, at least he’ll get a good night’s rest.

Had she seen the shadow-swarmed horror that was her charge’s dreamscape, she would have taken those words back in a millisecond. But she didn’t know and, in the darkness of Zap’s fevered mind, a few drops of blacker-than-black madness had started to fall like the first drops before a thunderstorm.

Zap whimpered and hoped for oblivion.

Old Wounds And Distant Screams.

There was power flowing through his veins.

The Orb pulsing with blue light, the golden chain from which it dangled growing hot against his skin, searing the shape of their links into his flesh.

The Vendor smiling crookedly, showing off more teeth than any human being should ever have.

The convention hall spinning around him, blurring into oblivion, then the Void rising up to meet him, that black abyss staring at him.

He smiled and let himself fall.

Then he was in Equestria, with its vomit-inducing technicolored landscape and prissy, pathetic equine inhabitants. He felt the Orb’s dark power coursing through his veins, and he released pure hell upon the Gala.

He relished the screams of terror which were inevitably followed by screams of pain when the lighting from his fingers struck them.

He rained destruction down on their furry little heads and he was loving every solitary second of it.

But then those two princesses had to ruin it: they showed up and he fought them, but then, just as he was starting to get the upper hand, they cheated and used their combined magic to throw him through a wall.

That certainly out a serious damper on his day and he had to crawl into the nearest sewer entrance to get his strength back. There in the darkness he had plotted his next attack, practically giggling over all of the carnage that he was going to inflict, how he was going to make them suffer for ruining his life.

But that had all fallen away from him when They had arrived.

They had been following him, as he learned from the taunts of their Master, tracking him using the Orb. They had peeled themselves from the shadows around him and swarmed across him, their cold, vaporous bodies smothering him, restraining him, choking him.

Then they were dragging him down, down, down into the depths. Down into an eternity of torment.

He didn’t know how long it took for the living shadows to take him to their master, but it had felt like hours and minutes and no time at all at the same time.

They threw him to the ground and retreated a ways.

The ground that he lay upon was cold and as smooth as marble, but it wasn’t marble, it was a dark material that seemed to radiate burning cold.

The Orb started to glow again and he felt the energy gathering at his fingertips. He’d make the fucker who had the balls to kidnap him pay.

With a roar he lurched to his feet and summoned a ball of cracking lightning in his hand.

“All right, you motherfuckers!” he bellowed with a sneer, “Come on and try me, I dare you!”

The shadows didn’t respond, but the creature behind him did.

“My, my, my, what an impressive display.” it said in a voice that was neither male nor female, “I must say, you interest me, boy.”

He turned to hurl the lighting, but stopped when he saw it.

“Like what you see?” it asked, smiling knives at him.

He backed away, “Wh-what the fuck ARE you?!” he asked, his bravado rapidly fading.

The being chuckled, “I guess that little cartoon didn’t show you everything. But, if you must know, I am what you might call a true, pure-blooded denizen of Tartarus.”

He had blinked stupidly and, in a flash, it had crossed the room and was face-to-face with him, its shifting body shrank to match his size and the myriad tendrils and twisted appendages retracted into its gaunt trunk.

“And you, my little human, are my latest toy.”

He had lifted his hand and thrown the ball of lightning, but the being had just caught it and inserted it into a slit on what he supposed was its stomach.

It laughed, and the sound made him remember his father’s belt slapping his skin.

Then the Orb was violently ripped from around his neck and the shadows had fallen upon him, giggling like little children playing ball at recess.

He awoke to a stabbing pain in his right hand which was quickly followed by one in his right. He yelled in pain and he was met by cruel, mirthful laughter that made his gorge rise.

Then his sight returned and he saw himself facing a massive mirror with a gilded frame that depicted an orgy of creatures too horrible to describe, but the shock of that faded when he managed to fully process what had happened to him.

He was suspended five feet in the air, his limbs stretched across a rectangular metal frame that hung from thick chains. His hands and feet had been nailed to each point of the frame.

That alone was horrific enough, but the trauma that had been inflicted to his torso was far, far worse: the skin of his stomach had been peeled back to expose the muscle, the wound was held open by several barbed hooks that were attached to wires which had been wound around his body until they sliced into his flesh.

And there were maggots squirming in the wound, the sight of their gleaming white bodies writhing across his exposed dermis made him howl in pure, unfettered terror.

And that was just the first day.

The being, who had forced him to call it Master would mutilate him to the point of mortally wounding him before using its magic to heal his body, leaving raw, red scars as it did to “keep score” as it had said.

And so the days passed on into months. He had screamed until his vocal chords had snapped, been healed, and had done it all over again, being thrown into the mud after it had finished with him.

All of these passed before his eyes and he opened his mouth to scream.

But then, as if someone had hit the PAUSE button on his nightmares, the parade of horrors stopped, then dissipated as a blue light shone into the darkness, piercing it, driving it back and then engulfing him.

He whimpered and curled up as the sad, horrified face of Princess Luna swam into view, and he didn’t move from his position for many, many hours, not until the screams faded into the distance.

Gray Senses.

Chains and hooks embedded in marred flesh.

Maggots squirming in a wet, raw wound.

Zap, howling in abject agony as a shadowed set of talons tore him open from groin to gullet.

Raw muscles scorched by hot iron.

Chitinous pinchers probing within a wailing mouth to uproot teeth

Zap screaming and pleading as he was pulled into the lustful embrace of a twisted creature.

Vomit spilling from a mutilated mouth.

Tears.

Shame.

Howling laughter from a gaping maw.

Princess Luna tore herself free of the dream, hurling herself backwards as she did. She landed hard, too stunned to process the jarring pain.

What had she seen? What kind of vile thing commit such atrocities against another living, breathing being? The lunar diarch shuddered violently as the phantom screams of their guest echoed in her ears.

Luna looked down at Zap, who was still whimpering softly in his sleep, the sweat from his fever glistening on his pale face.

I haven’t cleansed him. she thought sadly, and I don’t know if my mind can withstand any deeper exploration into his without his permission.

So, with a small, miserable sigh, Luna did the only thing she could think of to do.

Ryan found himself roughly pulled from the agonizing grasp of his nightmares by a silver-shod hoof belonging to Celestia’s nocturnal sister.

“Wake up, Zap. Thou must wake up!” she said urgently.

The second that he got his bearings and recognized his guest, the sickly human pulled away slightly, his weakened muscles tensing in preparation of some new torture.

However none came, as Luna smiled relievedly when she saw him look around, “Oh, thank heavens. I am deeply sorry, but I had to wake thee.”

“Wh-why?” asked Zap, looking around the white room, wondering what he’d see in the thin shadows that lurked in the corners; To his immense relief there was nothing but duly-painted wall.

Luna’s smile disappeared and she hung her head, “I am so sorry, Zap, but I was unable to cleanse you of your nightmare.”

Zap’s attention-and gaze- snapped back to his visitor, “What do you mean, y-your highness?”

“As the Princess of the Night, my job is to monitor and ease the nightly suffering of my subjects with my powers, but I am afraid that I was unable to affect thine dreams.”

Zap bowed his head and allowed the room to go silent.

“What did you see?” he asked at length, his voice carrying a sorrowful tremor.

“I….I am not sure” said Luna, suppressing a shudder, “but it was horrific; a menagerie of torture the likes of which I have not witnessed in thousands of years.”

Zap whimpered and Luna drew closer to him, laying a comforting hoof on his shoulder, thinking that a few fragments of the nightmare remained, but what he said next filled her blood with ice.

“Those weren’t dreams.”

Luna balked, then asked him what he meant, hoping that he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.

“They were memories.”

Oh no. thought Luna, holding a wing to her mouth, feeling the blood drain from her face. She looked at her charge and all at once understood the reason for his disturbing change in attitude.

Zap looked down at his lap, and at his gnarled hands, and started to cry.

Luna saw his distress and did the only thing that she could think to do: she wrapped both forelimbs and wings around him, and held him tightly as he wept into her coat, feeling tears of her own leaking out of her eyes.

“I don’t know what to do.” he sobbed, “I want to go crazy again, I don’t want to remember what the master did to me. I don’t want to sleep-please don’t let me sleep!”

“Shhh” soothed Luna, “I will help thee stay awake for now, but thou shallt need to sleep again, otherwise….otherwise thou wilt lose thine life.”

“C-can’t you cast a spell to keep me awake?” he asked, his eyes wet and pleading, his sharp teeth worrying his pale lip.

Luna sighed, then said, “I can, but I will only do this once. I should be able to figure out another way to aid thine sleep during that time.”

Zap smiled at her and Luna saw the sincere happiness through those fangs.

“Thank you.” he said.

Luna nodded and gently released him, “Thou art most welcome.”

Whatever moment the two had was ruined when Zap’s stomach growled like an angry lion, the suddenness of the sound making the human and the alicorn flinch.

“It appears as though someone is hungry.” said Luna with a smile.

Zap nodded, “Yes, very.”

“I shall get thee something myself, art thou alright to be alone?”

Zap nodded.

The Lunar Diarch got to her hooves and left the room, leaving Zap alone to savor the brief amount of peace that he’d had.

His peace abruptly vanished when he remembered something.

He looked down at his hands and slowly raised a finger to his eyes.

Back on the train…..it had to be the aftereffects of those Elements, right?

He put his finger in his mouth and bit down, only stopping when he felt the blood start to coat the back of his throat.

He couldn’t taste the blood.

He couldn’t feel the pain.

Something had happened to his senses.

He was numb.

Conversations And Remembrances.

Ryan…..Zap…..what will my name be? Does it even matter? Zap is the only name they will ever know me by, but Ryan is my real name…...but.... No. Ryan was a bastard, a worthless piece of shit who hurt other people for liking a cartoon.

But…..am I still like that? I DID hurt them, but I’m sorry for what I did….so what am I?

The wretched human groaned and held his head in his hands; The dilemma that he was facing was giving him a headache.

What does it even matter what they call me? I can’t even rightly call myself Zap or Ryan without feeling sick. The ponies can call me whatever I want, but I’ll never have a name, not now.

Ryan sighed sadly.

I can’t taste anything, I can’t feel anything, I’m sick, wasting away, I’m far away from my home, where I barely had a life, and now I’m in a world where everyone hates me-and rightly so.

Tears began to prick at his eyes, stinging like hair-then needles.

Now my I don’t even know if I really have a name. I….I can’t believe that I’ve become even more of a nobody. Heh….maybe I should just call myself Ano-

There was a noise from just outside his door.

Was it Luna?

No.

The door opened and a familiar butter-yellow head poked in, the teal eyes searching, stopping on him, widening with brief shock and then softening.

“Um...Hello?” asked Fluttershy, her voice low and cautious.

Ryan’s mouth went dry and he had to whet his throat and cough before he could respond with a simple, “Hello.”

“Oh….did I wake you?” asked the kind pegasus.

Zap shook his head and Fluttershy asked, “May I come in?”.

The human nodded, feeling himself growing more uncomfortable the closer she got to him. Why is she here? Did one of the princesses tell her to come in and ask me questions like some kind of…. cute interrogator?

Fluttershy stopped when she was a few inches from his bed and sat down, her eyes studying him, growing more and more intense as she did, finally she asked, “How do you feel?”

Zap gulped audibly before replying, “I- I feel….tired.”

Fluttershy cocked her head, “Then why don’t you go to sleep?”

The human hung his head, glad that they hadn’t cut his hair, and said “I have nightmares.”

“Oh dear.” said Fluttershy, the genuine concern in her voice almost making him look up, “What are they about?”

He had been dreading that question, and the memory of what had happened to him down there in the deep darkness made the bile rise to his throat, constricting his lungs and filling his guts with burning shame.

“Zap-I mean, Ryan? Are you alright?” asked Fluttershy, getting closer.

The human took a deep, shuddering breath before saying, in a low voice, “‘M fine.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mean to be nosey, but whenever I have a really bad nightmare, I find that it really helps to talk about it.”

Zap shook his head.

“Are you sure?”

A weak nod.

“Alright….but if you need to talk….I’m here, okay?”

Zap turned to look at her and said, “Did you see Luna around? She was going to stay up with me until she can find a way to make the nightmares stop.”

Fluttershy shook her head, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen her. But I can stay with you... i-if you’re okay with that, I mean.”

“Oh...okay….though I don’t want to impose on you or anything.” said Zap.

“It’s fine.” said Fluttershy, looking around for a chair and finding none, “C-can I sit with you?”

Zap regarded her cautiously for a moment before moving over slightly. Smiling, Fluttershy climbed up next to him and sat down; Zap shied away slightly as the yellow pegasus stretched her wings and moved to lay down.

“So…” said Fluttershy after a moment of awkward silence, “You said your name is Ryan, right?”

He nodded.

“That’s a nice name.” she said with a smile, “I’ve never heard anything like it before, is it a common name where you come from?”

“I….I suppose it is.” said Ryan, managing to glance into her teal eyes, hoping that he wouldn’t see the disgust and fear that he had seen reflected in the eyes of the nurses who came by to check up on him and every pony who had seen him as he was being led to see the princesses; but her eyes showed only kindness and curiosity.

“What’s your last name?” asked the mare in question.

“Doe.” said Ryan.

“Like a female deer? Aww, that’s a wonderful last name! I love that name.” she said with an easy smile.

Ryan blushed slightly, but managed to thank her.

“Oh, you’re very welcome. Can I ask you a few more questions?”

“I suppose that you can….just…..just don’t ask about what happened to me, please?”

“I PInkie Pie Promise: cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Ryan watched, amused, as Fluttershy made a series of motions to along with her odd promise. He knew who Pinkie Pie was, of course. He had seen some of the episodes of the show and had met her in person; After seeing her semi-madness up close, it didn’t surprise him that she’d be the namesake of what was probably an unbreakable promise.

After finishing the motions, Fluttershy asked, “Okay, so what is the name of the place where you come from?”

“I come from Earth. It’s far….very, very far away.”

Fluttershy nodded, “That’s pretty interesting. What is Earth like?”

Zap sighed, “I don’t know too much about all the fine details….and telling you would take me a very long time. I guess the most basic thing that I can say is that Earth is full of people like me, we’re called Humans and we’re…..well….I guess some of us are alright, though I didn’t meet too many people that I could call all that nice.”

He noticed the traces of grimness spring up on Fluttershy’s face and hastily added, “But that’s just me personally. I mean, I didn’t really talk with very many people back….back home.”

Fluttershy’s ears perked up, “Oh? Why not?”

Zap could feel the memories of his childhood return and he lowered his head again as he spoke.

“I was….kind of a loner, I never really had many friends because….well….because my father was kind of infamous in my town.”

“Why was he infamous?”

“He….he was the town drunk. He got into a lot of fights, he stole from most of his friends and their friends to keep drinking. He was just a mean guy is all.”

Fluttershy nodded in understanding.

Ryan sighed and, for the first time in a long time, he smiled fully as the thought of his old town came back to him, rising up out of the depths of his mind like a buoy.

“My town was called Elm Haven. It was small, but then again, what town isn’t? It was beautiful, though. It always had the brightest colors in Fall and there was always plenty of snow in Winter. I remember…..swimming at the local pool during December: it was cold out, so I’d have to take care to dry myself off and bring an extra layer for after I was done, but I just loved-”

His words caught in his throat and he felt the tears prick his eyes anew; When he spoke again it was with some difficulty, but now he felt like he needed to speak, to be heard and to hear in turn.

“-I just loved swimming so much. Down there, it was like I was in another world. Away from all my issues, all my regrets. Of course, Dad didn’t know that I went swimming. He was the kind of guy that didn’t like the men doing ‘Girly’ things.”

He sighed as his father’s beet-red, brutish face returned to him.

“But all good things come to an end and, after a few months of this, he found out and gave me the whooping of the year for not telling him. Turns out one of my friends had ratted him out.”

“What did you do?” asked Fluttershy.

“I tracked him down after school one day and…..and I beat him up. He had to go to the hospital and get stitches; He and I didn’t talk after that.”

He could feel Fluttershy’s gaze on his back as he turned away.

“Why didn’t you just tell him how you felt?” she asked accusingly. He started to feel anger welling up inside, but it dissolved when he remembered how she and her friends had treated such things on the show.

“My world’s not like yours, Fluttershy. We have more wars, more death. I bet you guys don’t even fight wars, or have to punish rapists, or-”

“That isn’t true.” said Fluttershy, sounding sad. Ryan turned to look at her, seeing the raw pain in her eyes as he did.

“We do have wars, we do have rape and we’re all too familiar with death. Why would you think we didn’t? Does it have to do with those things that you said when you first came here the night of the gala?”

Zap’s eyes widened as the remembered words came to him:

“I’m gonna kick your prissy asses, ya little fairies! I don’t care if kids are watching!”

He shuddered and said, “I’m sorry I said those things, I really am.”

Fluttershy smiled softly and said, “It’s okay, I forgive you and so do my friends. But I need to know what you meant when you talked about ‘kids watching’.”

Zap gulped. Should I tell her? he wondered, What will happen if I spill? Will they keep me here forever to study? Will they try to wage war on us or something?

These thoughts quickly crowded his mind, making his head ache, until one question pushed its way to the front of his mind: What if they can help me get back?

“Well?” came Fluttershy’s now-impatient voice.

Without really thinking Zap said, “I can’t tell you! It’s bad and I don’t wanna get hurt.”

“No one will hurt you.” said Fluttershy, “I just need to know why you said that.”

“I don’t know, I was crazy from the power, I wasn’t thinking about what I said, please don’t make me tell you, please!”

The intense, teary fear in his tone made Fluttershy back down, and she held up her front hooves.

“It’s alright, I won’t make you tell me anything you don’t want to.” she said calmingly.

It took Zap a few seconds to calm himself, when he could speak again he apologized profusely, forcing Fluttershy to reaffirm that it was, in fact, “Okay.”

They sat in silence after that for a while, Fluttershy gazing at the human with a mixture of sadness and confusion, and the human trying desperately to ward off the darkness of his memories.

Then, in a hushed voice, Fluttershy asked the only other question, besides that which pertained to his lost years, that got a start from him.

“Why did you attack us?”

Zap knew that he at least owed her an explanation, even if he didn’t know if he had it in him to tell her his full reasons, so he took a breath and said, “Because you ruined my life.”

There was silence, and then he felt a weight shift as Fluttershy got off his bed and left.

Zap sniffled as tears came to his eyes and wished, not for the last time, that he could just sleep and not wake up; Anything would be better than living with the knowledge of his own pettiness.

And, entrapped in a silence that seemed to echo off the sterile walls, Zap-or was he Ryan? Wondered just how much of what had happened to him was his fault.

He let out a sob as the memories began to weigh him down.

And was it my fault? It had to have been, I had to have known that trying to hurt innocents would come back to hurt me. What if the…..what if that Thing was sent to punish me? What if it was sent by the princesses? What if-

“Zap, I have returned!” came the happy voice of Luna. The joy and innocence in her tone provided a wonderful distraction and the human felt more gratitude towards her in that moment than he had ever had for his father.

And so he smiled at the lunar princess and thanked her for her help, hoping that her company would keep the darkness at bay.

But his doubts quickly overwhelmed that hope and snuffed it out like a candle in the wind.

Author's Note

This chapter was partially written whilst listening to this:

I hope you liked my attempt at a slightly higher level of Feels.

Until next time, my friends.

Disdain And Dislike.

He was nailed to a chair.

The burning agony of the steel spikes warred with the biting cold that enshrouded his naked body. He had a fever, his stomach had been cut open and there were fire ants in his innards, biting, chewing, breeding.

A shadow stood over him, all darkness and eyes and teeth framed by a body that seemed neither liquid nor solid, like mercury in water.

“Would you like to be released?” she/he it asked.

He sobbed and wailed that he did.

“Alright,” the Master moved closer and grabbed hold of his hands, its slimy fingers entwining around his own like serpents, “I’ll let you go if you can keep quiet for ten seconds.”

Ryan nodded and was about to mewl an agreement when the Master suddenly bent his pinkie finger backwards, snapping it with enough force to crush the knuckle.

“That’s one.”

Ryan bit his tongue to keep from screaming, his broken teeth immediately drawing blood.

SNAP!!

“That’s two.” giggled the abomination.

CRACK!

“And there’s three...hmmmm….let’s speed this up.”

Ryan’s mind screamed at him to howl, to let his pain be known as if the screaming would make the agony go away.

CRUNCH!! SNAPT!!!

“Four, five aaannnnd-”

CRAK!!!!

“Six”

The Master broke the seventh finger, Ryan’s upper and lower teeth met through his tongue and he screamed, the severed tip of his tongue falling from his bleeding mouth.

“Oh….and you were so close, too. I guess I’ll leave you here for a while longer….but not after I finish what I started.”

The Master laughed and broke another finger.

Ryan’s screamed and placed his hands to his temples, the phantom pain boiling in the marrow of his poor fingers.

Luna, who had been lazily reading a comic book, shot up looked at her charge as he moaned and whimpered.

“What’s wrong?!” she asked, her voice filled with shock and deep worry.

“I don’t know.” sobbed the human, “I just closed my eyes and….and….” he clenched his hands into tight fists and curled up into a ball.

Luna’s eyes widened and her breath hitched at those words.

Oh, sweet Faust no. No, it can’t be, this isn’t happening.

She looked around the room, her eyes alighting on the window: the first rays of her sister’s sun were creeping in, transforming the motes of dust that swirled through the air into miniscule fireflies.

15 hours. she thought, He’s had 15 hours of peace. she turned her head and stared at the door, mentally commanding the doctors to have found a cure. But the door remained shut and the hallway beyond was a silent as a graveyard.

The princess of the night heaved an exasperated sigh and turned back to the human, her jaw set with determination.

“I am not going to watch another minute of your suffering!” she stood up and went to the door, turning back and looking at the shocked human, “Follow me.”

“Where?” asked Zap.

“We’re going to go see my sister.” said Luna as she left the room, the human following at her tail, casting wary looks at every corner.

“I don’t care about what kinds of things have happened to him!” bellowed Minister Gold Bell, his gaunt face livid, “He hurt our ponies, he killed some of them, Celestia. He must be punished!”

There was a chorus of assent at those words.

Princess Celestia looked out at the table of angry faces with a centuries’ worth of practiced impassiveness. Minister Bell’s words rang true, of course. Zap had hurt and killed her ponies and he did need to be punished.

He had been a villain, a monster. But, at the same time, she couldn’t stop herself from pitying the human: she had looked into his eyes and seen a truly disturbing mixture of hopelessness, shame and self-loathing on a level that she hadn’t seen in mortal eyes in decades.

He has the same look in his eyes that those griffon prisoners had after we freed them from the diamond dogs; Seven long years of torture’s worth of misery.

But he isn’t one of us. said the more cynical part of her, Doesn’t that mean that he isn’t bound to the same laws as my little ponies? If so, then will the cabinet demand his head? Should I give it to them if they should ask?

She held back a sigh, No, that’s wrong and you know it. He certainly seems to have payed his dues. You can’t fake a look like that, not ever.

“Princess Celestia, what will your decision be?” asked Minister Bell, snapping her out of her thoughts.

The solar diarch allowed her eyes to roam the table, seeing anger, frustration and sadness in the eyes of her loyal ministers.

Please forgive me for this…

“I say that Zap should be taken to Ponyville to serve his punishment, which will be roughly two-years worth of community service with constant supervision by the Bearers and, should he return to his evil ways, he will be imprisoned in stone.”

There were, as expected, several loud outcries of anger and disappointment, but she silenced them with stern stare and a raised wing.

When the angry muttering died down Celestia said, “I know that you’re all angry, and you have every right to be. But I’ve seen him in person and I can see that he has suffered. The Bearers found him, starved and insane, in a junkyard.”

“And why was he like that?” asked Minister Swift Justice, arching a well-trimmed brow at her.

Celestia sighed out loud, “I don’t know, but I intend to find out. I will report back with my findings when I am able to, does that sound acceptable to you all?”

There were murmurs of assent and Celestia nodded her head, hoping against hope that she had made the right decision.

“-a-and then he s-said that w-we had….ruined his life!”

The crystalline halls of the Palace of Friendship were silent in the wake of the words spoken by a distraught Fluttershy.

She had spent the last hour in tears at what the human had said; Her friends were, understandably, upset on her behalf.

“I can’t believe it!” growled Rainbow Dash, “We helped him and this is the thanks we get?! I oughta fly over their and give him a piece of my mind!”

“Ah agree with Dash.” said Applejack, her mouth set in a grim line, “We need ta teach that ungrateful varmint a lesson!”

“I agree as well.” said Rarity, “What kind of brute would say such a thing, and to poor Fluttershy, at that?”

Twilight noticed the anger in her friends’ faces and moved to stop them before they acted rashly.

“Listen” she said, “I know that what Zap said was mean, but there has to be a logical reason that he said it. He’s scared and sick, maybe he just got frustrated, I mean, Fluttershy did bring up his past crimes, which I’m sure didn’t help him and-”

“So you’re taking his side now?!” asked Rainbow Dash angrily, crossing her hooved over her chest.

“No, no, no. That’s not it at all, I swear!” backpedaled Twilight, “I was just trying to see it from his point of view, that’s what I’ve been taught and it still applies.”

“Yeah, but he’s a bad guy!” argued Dash, “He hurt so many of us and-”

“And he’s trying to make up for it.” said Twilight sternly, “Is that what this is about? Are you going to deny Zap a chance to make up for what he did?”

“He’s a monster, Twilight!” bellowed Dash, getting in her friend’s face, “He came from some other world, blew up half of Canterlot, hurting all of us in the process and killing a couple of ponies while he did it! So yeah, I don’t want him to be redeemed, I want him to get turned to stone and put as far away from everypony as possible!”

A stunned silence fell over the group. Twilight fell on her rump with her jaw hanging slackly, Fluttershy and Rarity looked horrified at the blue speedster’s words, Applejack had turned away and Pinkie Pie-

“Something bad happened to him.”

All gazes fell upon the pink party pony, whose gaze was turned to the floor.

“Yeah, I keep hearing that.” growled Dash.

“I know you have, Dashie.” said Pinkie, her voice soft, “But I think that whatever happened to him wasn’t normal bad, it was-”

“Advanced bad?” cut in Dash with a roll of her eyes.

“No!” barked Pinkie, startling the pegasus, “It’s way, way worse than advanced bad, it’s...it’s horrific. It’s sad and awful and….and I don’t know what it is, but I know what I saw when I looked him in the eye. You know that I’m good with reading emotions, that’s what makes me such a good cheerer-upper, but whatever happened to poor Zap is….it’s…”

“Beyond you?” offered Rarity.

Pinkie nodded.

Dash huffed, “Well good, he probably deserved it!”

All five girls gasped at her words.

“You can’t mean that.” said Fluttershy, “If Pinkie says that it’s beyond her then it must have been terrible!”

“Like I care.” snarled Dash, “Whatever happened to him was probably his fault anyway. He probably got in over his head or something like that.”

“How can you say such things?!” asked Rarity, aghast, “I know that he’s a ruffian, but he can’t have deserved whatever it was that happened to him.”

“I can’t believe you’re taking his side!” bellowed Dash, “I thought you were with me on this.”

“I’m not on his side,” said Rarity, coldly, “I’m on Pinkie’s side.”

Dash grumbled in annoyance and turned to Applejack, “You’re with me on this, right, AJ?”

The farmpony heaved a sigh, “Ah’m not so sure now, sugarcube. Pinkie’s right about bein’ good with emotions. So if’n she says that Zap’s been through Tartarus, then Ah believe her.”

Rainbow Dash threw up her hooves, let out an angry “You’re all too nice to this creep!”, and flew out the nearby window.

Rarity heaved an exasperated sigh, “Well, that could have gone better.”

Fluttershy got to her hooves and dried her eyes, “I need to go after her.” she said, starting for the window.

Applejack held out a hoof, “Give her a bit, sugarcube. She needs some time ta cool off, believe me.”

Fluttershy looked at her friend as he eyes darted between the window and Applejack’s eyes. Finally she sniffled and sat down, drawing her wings tight to her sides; Applejack laid a hoof on her back and began to rub.

“I’m going to contact Celestia and ask her advice about this issue.” announced Twilight.

And so the Princess of Friendship left the room to go find Spike, leaving the remaining Bearers sitting in the silence, contemplating Pinkie’s words and Dash’s actions.

As they drew nearer to Celestia’s chambers, Zap could feel the gazes of the royal guards growing more and more heated; It was obvious to him that, if he were to wander this particular part of the palace without Luna or her sister, he’d be beaten mercilessly by vengeful ponies whose families he had hurt.

I almost wished that they would. he thought sadly, I’m gonna get hurt eventually; The tension is making me sick.

He was abruptly pulled from his thoughts by the warmth of Celestia’s room that flooded in from the opening door, making him realize how cold it was in the hallway.

The Princess of the Sun poked her head out, her face lined with the toils of a hard day, line which disappeared the instant she saw her sister.

“Hello, Lulu!” she said, her smile making Zap feel even warmer.

“Greetings, Tia.” replied Luna with a slightly smaller smile that faded as quickly as it had come.

Celestia looked at the human, then at her sister and her face became grim, “The haven’t figured anything out, have they?”

Luna shook her head and Celestia heaved an exasperated sigh before moving aside and motioning them in.

They entered, and Zap felt his tensed muscles relax slightly, not fully, but enough to be noticed by him. Celestia padded to a massive wall of books on bare hooves, her eyes bright with concentration as she scanned the bindings.

“What are you looking for?” asked Luna.

“I am looking for a very old tome, one of Starswirl’s, it’s called the-”

“The Rytes of Healing the Sicke and Wretchede?” asked Luna, holding the book in question in her blue aura.

“Thank you, sister.” said Celestia with a smarmy smile that earned her a stuck out tongue from her younger sister.

The solar diarch opened the book and began flipping through its yellowed pages. Zap, realizing that he’d have to wait, began to look around the room, taking in the ornate rugs, the myriad portraits that hung on the walls, depicting smiling ponies, griffons, minotaurs, zebras, seaponies and dragons; the massive, crackling fireplace that gave the room its warmth, and….and a very large bed.

A bed with satin sheets as red as blood, a bed just like-

A wave of nausea hit him as the vile memories struck from the darkness of his mind, faster than a serpent and with a bite that burned and then spread, encompassing his frail body like fire.

The world spun as he sank to his knees, the memories of the beatings, the flashing knives peeling his flesh back, the needles in his eyes, the nails in his joints, and that big, red bed that smelled like sex and blood and-

NO!Nonononononodon’tthinkaboutitohlordohlorddon’thinkaboutthepainshamepainPainPAinPAInPAIN!

He didn’t even realize that he had blacked out until he was being shaken awake, until he opened his eyes to see the worried faces of the two princesses looking down at him.

“Are you alright?” asked Celestia, her tone so utterly sincere that it killed any doubts as to how much she cared that the human might have had.

Ryan nodded, although the tears that were rapidly welling up in his eyes told otherwise.

Exchanging saddened looks, the two princesses helped him to his feet and guided him over to a nearby chair; Zap’s gratitude towards the two alicorns for not putting him on that bed was boundless.

After sitting him back and placing a thin blanket over his body Celestia set the book down and lit her horn before looking back up at her charge.

“I was-and still am- wary of using magic on you, considering your….unique anatomy. But I think that it’s time for me to make a gamble, one that will hopefully end up in your favor. This won’t hurt a bit and….if something goes wrong….forgive me?”

That last part was so soft and pleading, and said with so much worry, that Ryan knew that he would forgive Celestia if it came to it, but he hoped that it wouldn’t.

Celestia’s brow furrowed in concentration and the light of her horn grew until it blanketed Ryan’s vision.

The last thing that he thought, before he drifted peacefully off to sleep, was: Oh please, God, please let me sleep well.

And then darkness overtook him and he slept.

Author's Note

I hope that I didn't get too over-the-top with this one in terms of writing, you'll all let me know if I did, right?

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and I'll try to get the next one out in due time.

See ya :twilightsmile:

Punishment ?

Silence.

Peace.

Warmth.

Ryan awoke, his thin body still nestled in the blanket that Celestia had given him, He yawned and stretched slightly, wincing as his still-aching joints shifted, but the pain was quickly drowned out by a realization that brought tears to his eyes.

There weren’t any dreams.

He smiled as the tears escaped his eyes and bit his lip to keep from weeping openly.

“I can see that the spell worked, thank Faust.” said a familiar voice from his side.

Ryan turned his head and saw Celestia looking at him with a smile on her face. The human staggered to his feet, came towards her, and then fell to his knees in front of her, bowing his head in supplication.

“Thank you, your highness.” he said in a choked voice, “Thank you so….so much.”

Celestia draped a wing over his back, feeling a surge of relief when he did not tense up or shrink back. She wordlessly bade him rise and he did, still looking at the ground.

“I’m glad that you’re feeling well,” she said, “and I think that it’s best that you rest a while longer, we have some matters to discuss, but I think that they can wait.”

“What matters?” asked the human, a note of fear creeping into his voice.

“It’s nothing that you need to concern yourself with at the moment.” she said kindly, helping Ryan to his feet and gesturing to her sister, who bore a relieved grin of her own.

“Rest now, Ryan Doe. You really do need it.”

Ryan nodded and allowed Luna to lead him out of the room; Celestia smiled when the human let out a low yawn and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes like a foal.

Once they had departed Celestia went to work writing a note:

Dear Captain Armor.

I request your presence in Canterlot as soon as possible. I have just managed to cure, or at least block off, the nightmares which have been plaguing the being known as Zap and now I turn to you to help me with his punishment.

Zap-or Ryan as his real name seems to be- is to be taken to Ponyville to perform his community service. I need your and some of your men to escort him there.

I fear that the guards at my palace will be none-too-gentle with my guest due to their anger towards him and, while their anger is certainly justified, I think that Ryan needs to be treated cordially in light how he has acted around others; I’m not sure what it is, but something very, very bad happened to him in the time that he was away.

I will also inform your sister and the other Elements of Harmony about his arrival. I need you to keep an eye on your sister. You and I both know how Twilight gets when she finds something new, and I don’t think that Ryan would appreciate getting poked and prodded in some experiment.

I hope that you can accept this request and I look forward to seeing you.

Sincerely, Princess Celestia.

P.S: I got those petit fours that Cadance sent me, please tell her that I would knight her if I thought it possible.

Celestia sent the letter, then began working on the one which would go to her faithful student.

A day passed, and Ryan awoke after a fitful sleep that had been unmarred by nightmares.

He yawned and stretched, noticing that his joints felt better, then got to his feet, feeling the cold nightly draft from the open window ruffle his red hair.

Ryan smiled, he felt better than he had in a long time: the pain in his joints had been eased, his gums didn’t ache, his fever was all but gone and he could actually feel things physically; He felt like weeping anew as he dug his toes into the carpet.

The human looked behind him at the sprawling, blue-sheeted bed that he had fallen asleep on. He had, at first, been wary of that bed due to the memories that came with its like, but the different color of the sheets, the gentle prodding from Luna and the deep exhaustion that had weighed him down overcame any fear that he might have had.

Ryan took his eyes off the bed and looked to the open window. The silvery moonlight streamed through the window onto the carpeted floor and made fireflies of the dust motes.

The human walked closer and peered out: Luna sat on the balcony, her ethereal mane billowing out behind her was the only movement that she made. Ryan crept closer, wincing as his bare soles made contact with the cold stone, and found that the lunar princess had closer her eyes and seemed to be in deep thought.

Maybe I shouldn’t disturb her. he thought, starting to back away.

“Is something wrong?” asked Luna, suddenly, eliciting a gasp from Ryan.

Luna turned and smiled brightly at the human, holding a hoof to her mouth to hide her giggles when she saw the blush that lit his hollow cheeks.

Ryan appeared to struggle with what he wanted to say before finally settling on, “Thank you. Thank you so, so much for helping me. I-I don’t know why you did, but you did and-”

“None of that.” said Luna flippantly, “I can see the blame in your eyes and I promise you that you Do deserve a good night’s sleep, everyone does.”

Ryan hung his head, “But I hurt your subjects, I….I’m a murderer.”

Luna nodded, her face going grim, “Yes, there is no denying that you have taken lives. But I have, too.”

The human’s head shot up, “You did?”

Luna nodded sadly, “Yes. When I was much younger I used to look out at my beautiful night and see….no-one. Then I would look at my sister’s day and see our little ponies playing, making merry. I grew jealous of her, and frustrated with my subjects.”

Ryan felt a surge of sympathy for the lunar princess as her blue eyes began to grow wet.

“As time wore on my jealousy grew into….into hatred, I hated my sister and-” she choked back a sob, “-and I became a monster, a nightmare. I tried to take Canterlot by force so that I could wrest control of the sun from Tia’s grip and, in so doing, I killed some of my subjects, th-the ponies who looked up to me, who loved me.”

She hung her head as the ghosts of the past caught up to her.

Ryan bit his lip, almost drawing blood as he debated going to comfort the alicorn.

On one hand she’s obviously suffering and I bet she’s like someone to be there for her….but is it really my place? I’m an outsider here, no matter what they say, I can see it in their eyes.

Luna began to wipe a trembling hoof across her still-leaking eyes.

Damn it. I don’t care if I get punished, I need to repay her kindness somehow.

Ryan padded up and gently wrapped his arms around Luna, pulling close to her and resting his head against her neck. He felt Luna tense under him, but then relax just as quickly.

“Thank you.” she whispered.

They stayed like that for a while, listening to each other’s breathing. For Luna it was a soothing sign of understanding from someone who felt the same as she did and for Ryan it was a merely the deep enjoyment of the first physical contact that he had had in a very long time.

Their hug was ended when the guard entered and requested both their presences.

Celestia sat at the center of a long table that was packed with officious, well-dressed ponies whose collective looks of disgust made Ryan’s heart ache.

“Hello, Ryan.” said Celestia, her tone as stern as her voice was grim, “Do you know why we have summoned you?”

Ryan nodded, “I-I think so, is it because I need to…..need to be…”

The words caught in his throat.

“You’ve been very naughty, little human, now you need to be-”

“Punished!” snarled one of the ministers, his eyes contemptuous, “You must be held accountable for what you’ve done, boy! Can you even comprehend the severity of your actions?”

“Minister Gold Bell.” warned Celestia.

Minister Bell payed her no mind as he began his tirade, “You blew up half of the palace, killed 12 of the animals in the garden-which were worth more than you’ll ever be-and threatened the princesses with death, which, in case you’re as stupid as you look, is treason!”

Ryan flinched as the minister’s tirade grew in volume, but he dared not interrupt.

“You also severely injured the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, you destroyed-what was it- over ten different buildings?”

Minister Bell paused and leaned closer, his long neck bringing his venomous eyes closer to Ryan’s own.

“Do you know how many ponies were in those buildings, boy? Over seventy. And do you know how many died out of that seventy? Five. Five stallions, mares, colts and fillies, dead via electrocution, crushing and mortal breaks and fractures, there was even one- a mare of twenty, I believe- who was impaled by a piece of rebar.”

Ryan hung his head as the full extent of his cruelty hit him like a freight train. His leg grew weak and he sank to the floor, feeling the sobs come fast and powerful.

But Minister Bell wasn’t quite finished.

“Ah, so you finally weep. But do you weep because of your actions? Or because you’re simply afraid of your punishment? It doesn’t matter, you’re a vile little rodent, Zap. You’re a killer, a monster and you should be broken on the wheel or placed upon Tirek’s cradle for what you’ve done, but their majesties seem to think that you’ve suffered before being caught, which is something that I would most definitely like to hear.”

“He will not be giving that account today.” said Celestia, her tone one of calm fury, “Minister Bell I’ll remind you that, although you are angry at Ryan, you are still one of my ministers and are expected to act your age.”

Minister Bell huffed and sat down, his eyes still on the quivering human.

Celestia turned her attention back to Ryan and said, “Your punishment is to be two years worth of community service in Ponyville. You will be placed under constant supervision by the Bearers and every bit that you earn will go towards the families of those you harmed, are we clear?”

Ryan nodded, but remained silent.

Celestia gestured to the two guards at the door and they opened them to allow Luna to carry the human out and away.

Once the door had closed Celestia turned on her minister, “You and I are due for a little chat.”

Minister Bell said nothing, just narrowed his eyes.

Ryan said nothing as Luna led him along the corridors back to her room, his legs were still weak, but he didn’t allow them the privilege of buckling.

Five…..five…..I killed five ponies….I have no one to blame for this, not my dad, not the Bronies, not the ponies, just me.

He shuddered slightly.

And I got off easy, too. Two years helping ponies, no prison time, no death. It’s more than I deserve by a long shot.

Luna sat him down on her bed and then said “I need to go talk with my sister, will you stay here?”

Ryan nodded, still not speaking, and Luna left, looking both sad and sympathetic.

The human sat and stared at the wall, feeling his stomach writhe like a snake as the number of his victims floated about his head. It was a long while before he moved, and it was only to finally vomit up all the self loathing and burning bile in his gut.

After washing his face and wiping his lips, Ryan went to the door, opened it and looked at the two guards, both were unicorns and both of whom affixed him with the same cold glares that everyone else did.

“I know that you hate me.” he whispered, “So punish me.”

He stepped out and knelt in front of them.

“Please. I deserve it.”

The only response that they gave him was a curt, “Please return to your room, Mr. Zap.”

Ryan stared at them in shock, then yelped then the aura of their magic lifted him up and deposited him back in the room.

The door closed and the silence fell upon his with all its strength.

Ryan’s legs trembled and, at last, he fell, curling into a ball and howling with pure, unfettered misery as the guilt and misery of what he’d done clawed at his insides with worse pain than all the knives, needles and shameful perversions that the dark thing that had called itself his Master had used.

Ryan sobbed and wailed until he finally passed out, letting the silence fall once more.

Servant.

It’s coming up fast….too fast…..please let this be my last stop.

Ryan stared out of the window at Ponyville, which was drawing ever closer, its sugary colors and strange architecture becoming clearer and clearer in the blue day.

It’s beautiful. he thought as the train station came into view, I’m so glad that I didn’t make my way here when I had the Orb.

Ryan shuddered as he imagined the carnage that would’ve occurred in Ponyville if he had been there during his rampage; He had seen the quaint little town enough times back in his world to know where the Bearers lived, and he could have targeted them or, even worse, their family.

Maybe it’s a good thing that what happened to me happened. he thought darkly, That monster probably saved more lives doing what it did to me.

No sooner had that thought entered his mind than he felt the tide of sick horror flood his heart.

Do I really mean that? I couldn’t have really just thought that….could I?

Yes, yes I did. I deserved what happened to me...all of it.

The human shuddered and held a skeletal hand to his mouth as the realization of his own thoughts set in.

I did deserve it, didn’t I? All the trouble I caused here and on Earth, all the people and ponies I hurt, and for what? Because I felt emasculated by a cartoon? Because I wanted my daddy to love me? Pfft, as if he could ever love me.

“Excuse me, Zap. Are you alright?” said a voice from the doorway to his compartment.

Ryan turned and saw a white unicorn with a blue mane looking at him curiously, though he could tell that it was merely a clinical type of concern, the kind of concern one would have for a character in a book that they had grown attached to.

“I-I’m fine.” said Ryan, noting how quickly the worry vanished from the stallion’s face.

“That’s good.” said the stallion, “We wouldn’t want you to get sick during your first day now would we?”

Ryan shook his head, “N-no sir….uhm….if you don’t mind me saying, y-you look familiar.”

The stallion narrowed his eyes and held himself up higher, “I’m Captain Shining Armor, your chaperone and watcher….and I’m also Twilight’s brother.”

Ryan felt his hands start to tremble. He had seen pieces of the show, but he never knew that Twilight Sparkle had had a brother, a brother who was now letting some of the anger in his eyes show through his professional facade, even as he was turning away.

I have to say something.

“Wait.” said Ryan in a voice whose timidity matched that of Fluttershy.

Shining Armor turned back, his anger gone from his eyes, “Yes?”

“I-I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry for what I did.” said Ryan, forcing himself to maintain eye contact, “I was a monster, I know, and I know that I deserve worse than what I got. So if someone wants to hurt me then I understand if you look the other way, but please believe me when I say that I’m sorry for what I did.”

Having said his piece, he looked away, not noticing Shining Armor’s shocked expression. The stallion moved to say something, anything, but he found that words wouldn’t come. Zap’s words had thoroughly taken him off guard: He had expected his charge to be either to sullen and sad to even talk, or to deep in denial, as many criminals were, to accept the blame.

But Zap had surprised him, and that made his job just a tiny bit harder, knowing that there was a strong possibility that he might get emotionally attached to his charge.

Why can’t a simple job ever stay simple? he thought as he went to fetch his bags.

The whispering started the instant he set foot in Ponyville.

Not that that came as a surprise to Ryan, but it still hurt. The ponies didn’t charge him or yell at him like the ones in Canterlot had, but they radiated distrust and subtle anger, they whispered amongst themselves, pointing at him and giving him a wide berth wherever he went.

Oh well, he thought tiredly, there’s no use changing their views on me. I’m just gonna keep my head down and do what they ask.

He looked at Shining Armor and felt a twinge of envy at the happy look on his face, shoving that feeling aside, he moved towards his warden and asked him what his first task was to be.

“It’s been decided that you’ll be staying in Twilight’s castle, in one of the extra rooms. From there I’ll escort you to Applejack’s farm, you’re to start digging trenches for the upcoming Sisterhooves Social, after that you’re going to go see Carrot Top and help her garden, and finally, you’re going to help Spike in reorganizing the library.”

Ryan nodded and followed behind Shining Armor, the whispers of the townsponies following them like an invisible stalker.

Neither of them noticed the blue figure sneaking after them, her wings beating noiselessly as she propelled a cloud after them.

Rainbow Dash looked down at Zap as she sneaked above them, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on her target.

Don’t worry, Shining Armor, she thought, You aren’t the only one who's keeping an eye on that jerk.

Ever since the previous day at the castle, Rainbow has been preparing for the arrival of the jerk who had, without even saying a word, turned her friends against her. She would make him pay for that, but not yet.

It hadn’t taken long for her to properly spread the tales of his misdeeds amongst her fellow townsponies, and seeing their horrified reactions and anger at him had made her happy; it was a definite guarantee that he wouldn’t get a chance to do anything bad.

But, even so, there was something niggling at the back of her mind, a tickle that wouldn’t go away.

She knew what it was, of course, it was the saddened tone in Pinkie’s words as she told them that something was wrong with him.

Rainbow had tried to talk with Pinkie after that, trying to explain her viewpoint, but Pinkie had scolded her for saying such nasty things and had told her that, until she apologized for it, they weren’t talking. Period.

So they had stopped talking.

Why am I the only one who sees what’s wrong with him? I mean, so what if he had a rough time of it, it can’t possibly be worse than what he did when he first came here….right?

Growling silently to herself, Rainbow brushed that errant bit of doubt away, knowing that it wouldn’t help her concentration on the task at hand.

She moved the cloud behind one of the towers of the castle and left its comfort to go peer in at Twilight as she greeted her new guest.

After getting set up in his small room, Ryan was led to Twilight Sparkle, who was in her library, awaiting the pair of them.

The library was massive, at least eight times the size of his room down below. Each wall was bristling with thousands of books, books littered the ground near several empty shelves that had been placed on either side of a large window and there were literal pillars of old tomes that filled each corner.

At least I’ll be occupied. thought Ryan, allowing himself a small smile which he immediately dropped when he saw the small, purple and green dragon setting out sandwiches and cups of tea.

Twilight sat on a ridiculously plushy chair, her eyes were firmly locked onto the pages of a thick book that rested on her legs.

Shining Armor cleared his throat loudly and she jerked her head upwards.

The instant that her eyes alighted on her brother her mouth turned up in a beaming smile.

“Shiny!” she cried, leaping up, tossing the book aside and galloping to wrap her brother in a powerful hug.

Ryan, feeling out of place, turned away to avoid ruining their moment and found himself staring into the eyes of the little dragon.

Both regarded each other silently for a moment before the dragon said, “So….you’re Zap, huh?”

Ryan nodded, not bothering to correct him.

“I’m Spike.” said the dragon, sticking his tiny, clawed hand out.

Ryan shook it wordlessly, smiling slightly through shut lips.

“Uhm….can you understand me?” asked Spike, retracting his hand, “Can’t you talk?”

“I-I can.” said Ryan, unsure of what to do.

“Twilight’s been talking about you a lot,” said Spike, gesturing behind him with a thumb, “She says she’s been waiting to ask you lots of stuff, just thought I’d warn ya.”

Ryan nodded, looking down at his feet.

“You okay?” asked Spike, sounding genuinely concerned.

Ryan nodded again.

“Are you sure?”

Another nod.

“Oddly enough, I don’t believe you.” said Spike, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Spike, stop interrogating him.” scolded Twilight, the suddenness of her words startling both human and drake.

The Princess of Friendship cantered over to Ryan and smiled at him, “Hello, Ryan, how’re you doing?”

Ryan looked up, albeit with some hesitation, and said, “I’m fine, your majesty.”

“Oh you don’t need to call me ‘Majesty’” said Twilight with a faint blush, “You can just call me by my first name, oaky?”

Ryan nodded, “O-okay, Your Hi- I mean, Twilight.”

Spike snickered and Twilight shot him a stern look that silenced him before turning her attention back to the human, “I’m sorry for Spike’s behavior, he’s just a baby.”

“It’s fine, T-Twilight.” said Ryan, “It was kind of funny, after all. Um...though he did tell me that you wanted to ask me some questions?”

Twilight nodded with a smile, “I would indeed, would you like to take a seat?”

Ryan sat and waited until Twilight, Shining and Spike had taken their places and started eating before dining himself.

As he ate he allowed his newly-returned sense of taste to carry his worries and anxieties away.

When they had finished with their meals Twilight began her questioning.

Wiping her mouth, she asked, “So, Ryan, do you have magic in your world?”

Ryan shook his head, “N-no. At least, I don’t think so. There are some people who believe in it, but the rest of us sort of….dismiss them, o-or...well….or we persecute them.”

“Hmmm, interesting.” said Twilight, “Did you get that down, Spike?”

Ryan turned and saw the drake diligently copying their words onto a piece of parchment, “Every word, Twilight.”

The purple unicorn smiled, “Thanks, Spike.” She turned back to Ryan, “When you say ‘persecute’, what exactly do you mean?”

Ryan looked down, not wanting to see the look on Twilight’s face when he said it, “Back in the 1600’s there was a town in Massachusetts called Salem, it was a time when people were really, really superstitious and, if they thought that someone was doing witchcraft, they’d….they’d do bad things to them.”

“Like fining them or imprisoning them?” asked Twilight, jotting down some notes of her own, completely oblivious to the uneasy look in her interviewee’s eyes. Thankfully, Shining Armor was being more attentive and he poked her shoulder and gestured upwards.

When she saw the look on his face she blanched and said, “Oh.”

Sensing that the topic would yield more unpleasantness, Shining asked a question of his own.

“What about your leaders? What do they do?”

Ryan gave Shining a thankful smile before saying, “Earth has a lot of different leaders, some f them are fair and just, and some of them are just tyrants.”

“Who raises the sun and moon?” asked Spike.

“No-one does.” said Ryan simply.

This sparked a barrage of questions that took him nearly an hour to answer, it was only because Shining noticed the time and insisted that they go to Sweet Apple Acres that Ryan was allowed to go, and even then he could tell by Twilight’s look of annoyance and determination that he’d be answering more questions before he could go to bed.

Back they came along Ponyville’s main street, Ryan averted his eyes and tried his best to appear as small as possible, but the whispers and hushed anger still got to him. He was glad when they reached their destination.

Sweet Apple Acres was as lush and fertile and brimming with life as the rest of Ponyville, if not in a more rustic way. The sloping hills, gnarled apple trees and emerald green grass reminded him of his grandmother’s farm in New Hampshire, a place which was, on further rumination, the only place he really felt at home.

They had not gone ten feet down the dirt road that led to the main house when a barking, brown and white blur came rocketing down the path. It was only when it had leaped up onto him that Ryan realized that it was a collie.

The collie placed both front paws on Ryan’s chest, lifted itself up and proceeded to lavish his face with kisses even as its weight knocked him down.

Ryan was too stunned to stop the onslaught of doggie love. Shining Armor regarded him with an amused smile as the sounds of galloping hooves drew nearer.

“Winona!” called a high-pitched voice that held the same drawl as Applejack, “Winona, where are ya?”

A small, yellow filly galloped into view, her red bow bouncing in her equally red hair. When she saw Shining Armor and Ryan she stopped short.

“Hello, Applebloom.” said Shining Armor with a soft smile.

“Howdy, Mr. Armor!” said Applebloom with a smile of her own, her smile dropped when she saw Ryan, looking at Winona with a strange mixture of trepidation and happiness.

“Is that that freaky super villain who blew up Canterlot?” she asked.

Ryan’s attention went from the collie to the filly, “I guess I am.” he said, slowly getting to his feet. He bowed, although it hurt his back, and then straightened up, his eyes flicked to Winona, who was bounding around his legs, yapping excitedly.

“Applebloom, that’s not very nice.” said Shining Armor sternly.

Applebloom pawed at the ground before saying, “Ah’m sorry, Mr. Zap.”

Ryan shook his head, “It’s...it’s okay.”

He moved onwards, ignoring Applebloom’s shocked expression and Shining’s exasperated one.

Winona continued her bouncing and yapping as Ryan walked on. Despite his sadness, the antics of the collie made him smile and he took a minute to bend down and pat her. Winona pushed her furry head into his palm.

Ryan had only started walking again when Shining Armor caught up to him.

“Do you have to keep doing that?” he asked.

“What did I do?” asked Ryan, genuinely uncomprehending.

“That thing….that….that….what’s the word? Oh, Lugubrious, that lugubrious thing that you keep doing.”

“What’s lugubrious mean?” asked Ryan.

“It means really, really morose and sad.” said Shining with a sigh, “Listen, I know that things have been hard for you, but you can’t go around acting like that. You’ll make Pinkie Pie cry...actually, now that I think about it, why hasn’t Pinkie Pie come to you yet? By the way you act it’s stunning that she hasn’t popped up yet.”

“Maybe she has better things to do?” suggested Ryan.

Shining Armor shot him a look, “Making people happy is her life, Ryan. She knows whenever someone’s sad and when someone’s new in town and when it’s someone’s birthday- y’know, mostly everything. So why isn’t she here?”

Ryan noticed the beginnings of a zone-out and he gently tapped Shining Armor’s shoulder.

“Hmm, what? Oh yeah, community service, sorry about that.” said the white unicorn, “Let’s get a move on, it’s nearly 12:00.”

He marched forwards and Ryan joined him, smiling slightly as Winona yapped at his ankles.

Shining Armor went up the steps to the front door and knocked. A moment later Applejack answered.

“Well howdy, Shinin’ Armor,” she nodded at Ryan, “And Zap.”

“Hello Applejack.” said Ryan, giving her a small smile.

“We’re here for his community service.” said Shining Armor.

Applejack nodded and gestured towards the fields that lay to the far left, “Big Mac’s over there, we got a plow and Ah’ll be over later with some refreshments. Any questions?”

Her tone held a subtle challenge and Ryan decided to meet it in his own way, “ Will Mr. Mac teach me how to use the plow?”

Applejack nodded, “Eeyup, though it ain’t hard to learn, so you should get used to it pretty quick.”

Ryan thanked her and then began walking out towards the fields. The sun was high in the sky and the heat was starting to rise from the dirt. As he walked closer to his first assignment, he thought, for the first time, about what he would do when his two years were up.

Maybe Celestia will let me stay here. he thought, Maybe I could find a nice, shady place to settle down in, somewhere away from the other ponies, someplace quiet and small, with a nice view and- and maybe some books to read. Just….just as along as I don’t have to go back.

He shivered as he remembered his father and it didn’t take much to imagine the painful heights to which his wrath would soar if he came back after two years on the missing person’s databank.

No, he couldn’t go back there, not now, not ever.

Ryan forced these thoughts out of his mind as a large, red blur that sat near a nother silvery blur resolved itself into a massive red earth pony with orange hair and a shining plow that looked newly bought.

The human stopped in front of Big Macintosh, their eyes locked.

“Are you going to teach me how to use the plow?” Ryan asked.

“Eeyup.” said Big Mac, nodding once.

“Okay.” said Ryan.

Big Mac stood up and began his lesson, Ryan listened intently, taking in all of the information eagerly, happily letting it drive out the dark thoughts.

Deep inside of his mind, the flow of black ebbed as a small scar healed.

Author's Note

Okay, just in case I need to clarify this, I am NOT one of those assholes who thinks the excuse "They were asking for it/deserved it/had it coming." holds ANY validity AT ALL. This is just one character's opinion and it WILL change.

With that said, stay tuned for some seriously sad stuff next chapter.

Horror.

It wasn’t until Luna’s night had fallen that Ryan was able to return to Twilight’s castle.

He entered as quietly as he could, trying his best to block out the pain in his joints. Applejack had been right, digging the trenches had been easy to learn, but it had been pure agony when it came to actually putting what he’d learned into practice.

He had been sore and dizzy after his job was completed, but the last thing that he’d wanted to do was test his watcher’s patience, so he’d kept quiet and accepted his lemonade with a smile that didn’t show any teeth and a quick, whispery “Thank you.”

After he had finished at Sweet Apple Acres he had gone over to Carrot Top’s house to do her gardening, which he found himself to be surprisingly good at. Carrot Top herself had acted cold towards him, but had admitted that he had done his job as well as could be expected, so she paid him, Shining Armor took the bits without a word, and they left for the castle.

Now he was quietly reshelving books, taking directions from Spike with a simple nod and nothing more. He could tell that his silence was bothering the little dragon, but every time he tried to speak, the words died on his tongue.

As he reshelved and reorganized the books his joints screamed at him and the dust from some of the older books irritated his eyes. But he didn’t want to ask for help, he couldn’t bare the thought of annoying his host.

He could still remember the pain of his father’s belt and fists every time he had spoken out of term and the Master had hurt him even worse for not remembering his place, and, though he knew that Twilight was not even remotely like his Father or the Master, he knew that his very presence was undoubtedly making Twilight anxious, and when people got anxious they got irritable, and from there it would only spell bad things for him.

So Ryan worked against the pain and creeping exhaustion until his job was done, then he retired to his room and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The next day he awoke and went up to start his work, having been told by Shining Armor that he was supposed to watch over the Sisterhooves Social and make sure that no fights broke out.

Ryan partially found it funny that he was being used as a tool to threaten foals into playing nice, but mostly he was hurt that at the implication that he was scary, even if it was true.

His hand was on the door handle when he heard Twilight call his name.

So he turned and dashed into the kitchen, the sudden reemergence of the pain in his limbs nearly making him stumble, yet he kept from crying out.

“Hello, Ryan.” said Twilight cheerfully, motioning him over.

“Yes, Ms. Twilight?” he asked, taking a seat.

“I told you to call me ‘Twilight’.” said his host. She was being playful, but Ryan didn’t hear the joviality and quickly recoiled, whimpering an “‘M sorry.” to her before averting his gaze; He didn’t want to anger her by looking into her eyes when she had reprimanded him.

“Ryan?” she asked, cocking her head back, “Ryan, are you okay?”

He nodded silently and Twilight felt pity as she watched how hard he was trying to seem submissive. She felt the strong impulse to hug him as she had in the hospital wing, but something told her that he wouldn’t like the physical contact.

“Okay, but you will tell me if something’s wrong, right?”

Another nod.

Twilight offered him some eggs, but he politely declined and asked her if he could do his work, citing the near-lateness of the hour. Twilight let him go and immediately went to see Fluttershy, having decided that she needed to help her guest.

Ryan watched the sisters of Ponyville compete against one another and felt a hot, miserable sickness rise in his stomach as he remembered how he used to watch the parents play with their sons and daughters, and how much envy he had felt towards them for having what he didn’t.

He had started his long and worthless career as a bully during one of those days:

A father had left his son unattended after a game of frisbee, young Ryan had wanted that frisbee, convincing himself that it was a nice frisbee and that it might get him a few bucks at the pawn shop when what he actually wanted was for his father to play a game with him.

He had gone over to the toddler and shoved him over. Sneering when he had began to cry and redden. The boy’s father had come running and Ryan had taken off, but not after breaking the frisbee in half.

If he couldn’t have it, then the little runt couldn’t either.

Ryan shuddered as the memory flowed through him like a burning poison. The self-loathing that he had been feeling reared its head and bit at his innards, making him have to put all of his effort into not crying.

The games finished without a single issue and Ryan made his way back to the castle to await more instructions, still unaware that Rainbow Dash was following him from the sky.

Or the three little shadows that were creeping along after him.

Rainbow Dash felt another twinge of doubt as she followed her quarry.

Maybe this is a bad idea.

No! Zap was a villain regardless of how shy and timid he acted, she had seen enough fakers in her life to know that he was one.

You didn’t see Gilda for what she really was.

Dash gritted her teeth at the thought, trying her best to banish it and failing. The more attention she gave it, the more powerful it became.

So what if I didn’t know that one of my oldest friends was a jerk? I learned from that mistake and now I’m better at spotting phonies than ever!

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders sneaking after Zap.

Oh no. she thought, flaring her wings and tensing her muscles in preparation for a fight.

Ryan had made it halfway to his destination when he heard it: the sound of someone clearing their throat in an obvious attempt to get his attention.

Slowly, warily, Ryan turned and found himself looking down at three fillies: The first was a unicorn with a white coat and pink hair, the second was a pegasus with an orange coat and spiky, purple hair, and the last one was Applebloom.

“Howdy, Mr. Zap!” she said cheerfully.

Ryan looked around, seeing that there were already several sets of distrusting eyes on him, before turning back and saying, “Uhm….h-hello, Ms. Applebloom.”

The yellow filly giggled and so did her two friends, “Ya’ll don’t hafta call me ‘Ms’, that makes me sound all old and stuff. You can just call me Applebloom, okay?”

Ryan apologized and made the necessary amendments to his speech. Afterwards he was introduced to the other two fillies accompanying Applebloom: the white unicorn was named Sweetie Belle and the orange pegasus was Scootaloo.

Sweetie Belle was cordial and more welcoming than most of the other ponies, shaking his hand and saying, “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Zap. my sister’s been talking an awful lot about you.”

“Who’s your sister?” asked Ryan.

“Rarity.” said Sweetie.

She was about to say something else, but Scootaloo butted in with, “So is it true that you can use lightning to blow stuff up?”

“Scootaloo, you can’t ask stuff like that!” hissed Applebloom.

“Sorry.” said Scootaloo, pawing at the ground, “Is it true, though?”

Ryan bit his lip, then said, “I...uh….I used to, but only because I had something that let me do it.”

“Cool!” said Scootaloo excitedly, her tiny wings buzzing like a bee’s; Applebloom and Sweetie Belle both heaved exasperated sighs.

“It was cool-” said Ryan. “at first.”

Scootaloo’s wings stopped their high-speed buzzing, “What do you mean?”

“I mean” said Ryan, “that it made me feel powerful, but it was also something that had...uh….dark magic.”

The three fillies gasped.

“R-really?” asked Applebloom.

Ryan nodded, “Yes, it was like-”

“Like the Alicorn Amulet?” asked Applebloom.

“What’s that?” asked the human.

“The Alicorn Amulet was this really evil gemstone that made ya mean if ya wore it long enough.” explained Applebloom, “It made Trixie’s magic really, really strong, but it drove her crazier than Pinkie Pie on a sugar binge!”

“Who is Trixie?” asked Ryan.

“She was a really mean unicorn.” said Sweetie Belle, taking the lecturing reins from her friend, “She came to town a few years back and started bragging and bullying everyone, she even turned Rarity’s hair green! it was awful.”

Ryan felt a pang of some unknown emotion and he asked, in a low voice, “What happened to Trixie?”

“Oh, she got run out of Ponyville after some dumb colts brought an Ursa Minor into town for her to beat. Everypony thought that they wouldn’t see her again, but then she came back with the Alicorn Amulet and made us all her slaves.” said Sweetie Belle darkly.

“Yeah!” piped Scootaloo, “Me and Rumble had to wash her hooves, man did they reek!”

“Did she get defeated?” asked Ryan, paying Scootaloo no attention.

“Eeyup.” said Applebloom, “Twilight outfoxed her good, then she left and she hasn’t been back since.”

“Twilight let her leave?” asked the human, feeling the emotion slowly rising.

“Yeah, she said she learned her lesson.” said Applebloom.

“But she hurt you all!” hissed Ryan, “She used her magic to enslave you all and she humiliated you and she-she just got to leave, just like that? Twilight didn’t keep her locked up for the Princesses to deal with? Did she-did she beat her up?”

Applebloom, her face a mask of alarm, shook her head, “N-no...Twilight just let her go.”

Ryan’s legs gave way and he fell, heavily, to his knees. The trio of fillies backed up slightly and several of the towns ponies were coming closer, anticipating trouble.

When a full minute had passed and Ryan still hadn’t moved, Applebloom slowly cantered up to him and placed a small hoof on his gnarled hand, “Are ya okay there, Zap?”

Silence, then, “Y-y-yes. I’m sorry f-for acting out I just….I just lost my head….sorry.”

“‘S okay.” said Applebloom, her smile returning, “We all have moments like that, like when we get banned from a store ‘cause our crusadin’ gets us into trouble.”

“Or when Rarity messes up a design.” added Sweetie Belle, joining Applebloom’s side.

“Or when Mare Do Well tried to beat up Rainbow Dash.” said Scootaloo.

Ryan nodded and gently stood up, wincing at the pain of his joints. When he had finished dusting himself off Sweetie Belle asked, “Are those your only clothes?”

The human blinked and looked down at his clothing. He hadn’t really noticed what he had been wearing in the haze of worry and sadness that had fogged his mind in the intermediary between his jobs.

His shirt had been replaced after they had found him in the junkyard, but that had been long enough ago for the seams to start unraveling. His pants were thin, but he had taken care of them as well as he had been able and they hadn’t shown any more damage than a few small rips near the knees, and he lacked proper shoes, so he had bound his feet with bandages, bandages which were now worn thin and were somewhat bloodstained.

Sweetie Belle seemed to read his expression, because she nodded and said, “I’ll see if I can get Rarity to make some new clothes for you, but you’ll have to come in to get measurements.”

Ryan was speechless, but his shocked expression spoke volumes.

Sweetie Belle smiled and turned to leave, followed by Applebloom and Scootaloo. Ryan watched them leave, feeling a comfortable warmth spread in his chest.

He turned and began his trek back to the library.

From her perch Rainbow Dash watched as Ryan left with the feeling of doubt growing in her mind.

He didn’t try to hurt them. she thought, almost disbelieving, And they didn’t freak out either! Well, except for whatever the hay that whole wishing-a-spanking-on-Trixie thing was. Maybe...maybe I misjudged him?

The prismatic pegasus scratched her head and heaved a sigh, wishing that she could just think of a way to make absolutely sure that he wasn’t the monster that she thought he was.

Wait!

The talk of Trixie had stirred up a particular memory about a particular griffon.

I didn’t know for sure that Gilda was a jerk until I saw how she took a joke. If Zap can actually take a joke and not go crazy, then….then I guess that I was wrong. But what if he snaps because he had a bad day? No, no he’s too darn polite, and I’ll only do one prank,, not a bunch.

Nodding to herself, Rainbow Dash flew away to go plot her one prank, hoping that it would finally give her some closure.

“-nd, There he is!” whispered one pony.

“I heard that Twilight found him in a junkyard. Might account for his smell.” tittered another.

“Did you see his teeth?! They’re freakin’ daggers!” hissed yet another.

Ryan’s hands trembled as he desperately struggled to keep them away from his ears. He knew that, if he did that, he might also fall far into himself and never recover. It had been a few hours since he had met the fillies and the job that he was currently doing was the worst one yet.

He was to accompany Spike to the market and pick up various items for Twilight’s supper, which was to include all of her friends and the Mayor. Shining Armor had looked worried when he told him, and for good reason, because now he was vulnerable and exposed in a sea of ponies who hated him with only a baby dragon acting as a buoy.

He could feel them, their stares, trying to torment him without the use of violence. They hated him, and for good reason, though that knowledge didn’t give any comfort.

“I heard he tried to kill the Princesses!” said another pony, a little bit louder.

Ryan saw Spike stiffen and narrow his eyes.

“Yeah? Well I heard he was found talking to a bunch of rats, what a freak!”

There was a chorus of snickers and Spike gritted his teeth, looking like he was about to burst at any minute.

“I heard that he killed a foal...and ate it!”

With a low, yet surprisingly deep snarl, Spike turned on the pony who had spoken, a blond unicorn with an arrow for a cutie mark, and shouted, “Will you all just stop?!”

A silence fell over the crowd.

Then the stallion stepped forwards, a sneer plastered on his face, “Are you defending that monster, little lizard?”

“Yes.” said Spike, puffing out his chest, “Because he’s my friend and that’s what friends do.”

The stallion scoffed, “Are you really so stupid, boy? Can’t you see-”

He was stopped by another pony tapping him on the shoulder, still keeping his smug sneer firmly affixed, he leaned in and allowed the pony to whisper into his ear. All at once the sneer faded and was replaced by a look of pale horror.

“O-oh…..M-mi-mister Spike, I….I didn’t know that it was y-you, eh-heh-heh.” stammered the stallion, looking ready to flee.

Spike rolled his eyes and said, in a commanding tone, “Get the hay outta here, and if I ever catch you badmouthing anyone again you’ll have Princess Twilight to deal with, that is, if I don’t have a go at you first! Now scoot!”

The stallion turned tail and ran as fast as he could.

The murmuring faded into a dull roar and Ryan could only stare at Spike in open-mouthed awe.

The baby dragon turned and cocked his head, “What’s wrong?”

A powerful hug was all the answer he needed.

They returned to the castle half an hour later with the food, Spike went to get the meal prepared while Ryan was tasked with setting up the table. Once that was done Twilight told Ryan that he only had one other thing to do before he could turn in, that task being actually serving the food to her guests.

She send Ryan into the massive kitchen- a good portion of which looked unused-and had him retrieve the first plates of salads just as he heard the door open.

Twilight must be very good with telling time. thought the human as he entered the dining hall.

The Mayor hadn’t arrived, but the other Bearers had: Applejack was chatting amiably with Rarity about the results of the Sisterhooves Social, Fluttershy was listening to Twilight recount all of the misadventures that she’d had while exploring her new home and Pinkie Pie was taking at a bored Rainbow Dash.

The moment he entered fully all conversation stopped and the six watched him intently as he set out their plates; Had he been paying attention, Ryan might have noticed the subtle mischievous gleam in Rainbow’s eyes.

Please don’t let them keep me from my bed any longer. Ryan prayed as the fatigue of the day began to weigh down his limbs.

“Thank you, Ryan.” said Twilight sincerely, “You can eat with us if you like.”

Smiling through his lips, Ryan said, “Thank you, but I’m tired and I’d like to sleep, so if you don’t mind-”

He was interrupted when Rainbow leaped from her spot and flashed by him in a prismatic blur, pantsing him as she did.

Time stopped.

Ryan’s heart stopped with it.

He wasn’t wearing any underwear.

Rainbow’s cry of triumph died before it could be spoken when she saw them.

They all saw them, their faces paling in disgust and horror and...was it pity?

They could see the scars,

They traced a vulgar latticework across his bottocks, thighs and genitals. Ugly, raw-looking scars that looked like they had never really healed, they were the products of whips, blades of every length, needles, claws and teeth, a vile reminder of what had happened to him.

What had happened….

Sick, cruel laughter.

Tearing, unbearable pain.

The horrific realization that he had been- his mind revolted at that fucking horrific word, that word that held more nightmares in its syllables than the darkest curse. That one, simple word.

“Rape.” he felt himself saying.

Rape.

That’s what it had been, a brutal series of violations that had left him hollow, cold and sick, shamed in the mud, the one thing that had been more painful, more unspeakable agonizingly vicious than any of the other tortures.

Ryan felt the shame well up within him until it flowed out from his eyes and mouth, a long, torture wail that didn’t help him escape the Shame.

He fell to his knees and screamed.

There were voices, horrified, sad, worrying.

He didn’t care.

His mind was already retreating into the darker parts of unconsciousness, hoping to protect itself from the grasping talons of those memories.

But it was too late, the word had been spoken aloud, now the tide of memories was loosed and he was falling, falling deep and far and long, falling into darkness.

Falling…..

Fall...

A Long, Weary Night.

It had been 12 hours and Ryan was still asleep, although his screams and wild sobbing said otherwise.

After he had passed out, Twilight lifted him with her magic and took him to her own bed with tears dripping from her eyes.

The other girls had sat at their seats, giving each other stunned and miserable looks as their food grew cold. There had been tears shed, but Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were the only ones to weep openly.

Fluttershy was now cradling the still-sobbing speedster as she vented her guilt.

“Oh, Celestia, how could I have been so stupid?” she whimpered, “I just wanted to test out if he was- I mean I just wanted to see if….if he was tricking us, I never thought-”

Her voice broke and she resumed her weeping. Fluttershy held her tighter and kept silent, knowing that her friend wouldn’t accept any condolences or whispers of “It’s not your fault.”

Because Dash was in the wrong.

It hurt for her to admit to herself, but she knew that it was true: Rainbow Dash has done something wrong and she would need to atone for it.

Poor Ryan. she thought, looking towards the darkened stairwell, I hope we can help him, I’d hate to see him fall deeper into his shell. But isn’t that inevitable? Dash must have brought out some really bad memories judging by the way he looked.

In her hooves, Rainbow let out another wail and the kind pegasus stroked her mane as she prayed to anyone who would listen for an answer to her worries and a way to help the suffering being who lay sleeping not a story above her head.

Rainbow was just starting to wind down when Twilight came down the steps, looking more tired than she’d been in a long time.

“How is he?” asked Fluttershy.

Twilight sighed, “He’s sleeping, but I can tell that he’s having nightmares. All I can do is hope that Luna can intervene before they get to bad.”

She walked over and sat near Dash, a stern look on her face, “Dash, look at me.”

The prismatic pegasus whimpered, but obliged, showing Twilight her teary eyes and running nose. “I’m sorry.” she said, her voice raspier than normal, “Twilight, I’m so, so, so sorry, I didn’t know, I-”

“I’m not the one who deserves an apology.” said Twilight, her hard stare making Dash look away, “Do you know the full extent of what you did?”

“I….I humiliated him and…..and made him remember his r-his r-”

“His rape, Rainbow.” said Twilight, “He was raped, that’s a word that you’ll have to get used to. He was violated and, from the look of those scars, tortured pretty extensively.”

There was a chorus of gasps from the girls, then Pinkie said, in a soft voice, “I knew something was wrong with him.”

“And we believed you, darling.” said Rarity, laying a comforting hoof on her shoulder.

“Except me.” sniffled Rainbow Dash, “I didn’t believe him, but I do now.”

“I’m sure you do, Dash.” said Twilight, “And you’d better get ready for some shouting and hate from that poor human.”

Dash nodded miserably.

“What are we gonna do once he wakes up?” asked Applejack, “Ah mean, we’re not really qualified to...y’know, talk to him about it.”

Twilight sighed, “No we’re not. I’m going to send Princess Celestia a letter and see what she thinks of all this. Though I’m pretty sure that she’ll just recommend a therapist for him, though it might be hard finding one who specializes in this sort of thing, considering rape is a really unpleasant subject for most ponies.”

“Yer tellin’ me.” said Applejack.

Twilight shot her a look and the farm pony held up her hooves placatingly, “Ah didn’t mean it like that, Twi. It’s just that it’s hard to wrap my mind ‘round it, y’know? Ah mean, he’s so tall and he has those ‘finger’ things….it just ain’t right.”

“It wouldn’t be as hard as you might believe.” said Twilight grimly, “Rape is about violence and power, if someone were to catch him unawares and overpower him, then Ryan would have a had a hard time getting away, especially if magic was involved.”

‘Those scars,” whispered Rarity, “there were so many of them, and he’s been gone for two years….does that mean that this has happened to him more than once?”

Twilight nodded, “I’d think so, yes.”

Rarity shuddered and Rainbow started sobbing again.

Heaving a sigh, Twilight got to her hooves and made her way back to her room to write her letter.

She entered and walked to her desk, being careful not to wake Ryan, who lay like a corpse entombed in soft sheets. In the pale light his skin seemed almost translucent and his breathing was interrupted by whimpers and murmured words that were gone before she could catch them.

Pulling up a chair, she sat down and began her letter:

Dear Princess Celestia.

It’s hard to write this, but I have to make this report.

I’ve found out what happened to Ryan. It’s a story that may not seem long, but feels reciting an epic when written and spoken, so I’ll tell you later; I don’t have the mind to write everything, so I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.

Ryan appears to have been the victim of rape. I’ve seen the scars that cover his privates and it validates his odd and servile way of acting.

This is, without a doubt in my mind, the sickest thing that I’ve seen and I just need your-

Twilight blinked a tear away and forced herself to finish her letter.

-I just need your help, I don’t know what to do in this situation. Please help.

Your faithful student.
Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight finished writing and took the letter down to Spike. Thanking Celestia and every other deity that she could think of for sparing the young dragon the horror that they’d seen. She just hoped that he wouldn’t ask any questions until the morning, she was too exhausted to formulate any child-friendly answers.

She had reached her door when Ryan sat bolt upright and, with eyes wide and unseeing, shouted, “Please don’t hurt me!!! I’ll do anything…..please….”

Then he fell back and lay still.

Twilight shuddered and left with a burst of extra speed in her steps.

The sooner I can get this to Celestia, the better. she thought.

Rainbow finished a particularly loud, shuddering sob and drew away from Fluttershy’s embrace.

The prismatic pegasus wiped her aching eyes with a shaking hoof and got up, wincing as her wing joints popped uncomfortably.

“Are you feeling any better?” asked Fluttershy.

Dash shook her head and pushed past her friend. She headed up the stairs at a slow trot that got slower and more hesitant as she approached the door to Twilight’s room.

The prismatic pegasus held her breath and listened for any sounds on the other side of the door, but the only sound that she could hear was the steady beating of her heart. Knowing that she couldn’t wait outside forever, she steeled herself and went in.

The lights were off, but the curtains had not been shut, so the moon’s soft glow fell upon the floor and illuminated the still form on the large bed that had been pushed against the far wall.

The moonlight revealed every harsh detail of Ryan’s face: The hollow cheeks, the thin, colorless lips that were half-parted, allowing the tips of his sharp teeth to show; the many small scars that marred his pale flesh, scars which were almost invisible in normal light; the lank, red hair that fell upon the pillow like a scarlet halo and the deep, dark circles under his large, heavy-lidded eyes.

She felt like it was the first time truly seeing him.

Rainbow Dash exhaled slowly and drew nearer to the prone figure, her eyes drinking in the details. When she was a foot away from him she stopped and sat down, and started to think of ways to apologize.

I could get Pinkie to-no, no that’s stupid. Maybe I could take him out somewhere, find out what he likes and pay with my own money….no that won’t work either….what about-

“You doing some thinking?” said a soft voice behind her.

Rainbow whirled around and came face-to-face with Pinkie Pie. The normally bouncy and upbeat mare was still and grim faced, Dash noticed that her mane was straight, the sight sent a new pang of guilt through her heart.

Dash nodded and hung her head, “I need to make it right, Pinkie. I really, really screwed up.”

“Yep.” said Pinkie, “But I’m sure that he’ll forgive you.”

“I doubt that.” said Dash, chancing a glance at Ryan, “I was a real mule to him.”

Pinkie sidled up next to her and laid a hoof on her shoulder, “It’ll all turn out okay, I’m sure of it.”

“No it won’t!” hissed Dash as quietly as she could, “I just revealed something about him that was his to reveal when I should have just tried to talk to him instead of trying that stupid prank. I-I’m a horrible pony. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if he decked me when he woke up….and I’d deserve it, too.”

She held a hoof to her mouth to stifle her sobs. Pinkie drew her in and let her friend vent her guilt.

After a while, Dash had calmed down. She shrugged out of Pinkie’s embrace and got even closer to Ryan. Then, placing a hoof on the bed, she made a promise.

“I promise that I’ll never hurt you again as long as you stay here. I swear I’ll do anything to be forgiven, anything. I’m so, so sorry for what I put you through, for being such a bully, for spreading those rumors. I just hope that you can forgive me.”

She placed her forehead to the sheets and drew in a shuddering whimper before saying, “I’m sorry, Ryan.”

Then she turned and left.

Pinkie stayed behind a minute and offered her own oath to the sleeping human.

“I me-promise that I’ll get you to smile again. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Then, having made the motions, she too left, and Ryan slept on, his dreams vague, but menacing.

To Atone.

Luna arrived in the morning.

The sudden appearance of the Princess of the Night caught the townsponies off guard and they hastened to bow and show her the proper respect, but Luna walked by them and said not a word.

She had a human to visit.

When her sister had received the letter, she had been understandably horrified and had hoofed it to Luna with eyes welling up with tears.

Luna had left immediately after she had finished reading, not even bothering to take the chariot. She had flown down the mountain that housed Canterlot and had landed in Ponyville a few minutes after her sister’s sun had arisen; Staring at the bright solar body, Luna felt the emotions that her sister had poured into her sunrise and was glad that the townsponies could not feel what she felt.

It would be a terrible, sorrowful day for all if such bonds existed as they did between the two sisters.

It never ceases to amaze me, just how much she loves our subjects. Luna thought sadly as she alighted in the market and headed for Twilight Sparkle’s palace.

She knew that Ryan would still be asleep, a quick spell told her that, and it also told her that his nightmares had returned in full force.

Rainbow Dash was awoken from a restless sleep by the sound of a high-pitched keen that wavered and then fell into low sobbing.

She got to her hooves and peered at Ryan, who was now writhing on the bed, moaning and whimpering like a wounded animal. Shame once again filled her up and she rubbed her sore eyes to clear the sleep away before moving in closer, having decided that she would wake the human up.

She reached out, intending to shake him awake, but stopped.

What if my touching him makes him even worse?

Her hoof wavered, then dropped.

“I can’t….” she whispered, looking at the nightmare-lashed human on the bed. She turned and rushed out to tell Twilight, having had enough of watching him suffer.

She flew down the stairs, bounded around the corner to the kitchen, spotted Twilight, and opened her mouth to call out to her, when there came a loud knock at the door. Twilight groaned, got to her hooves and cantered off, leaving her bowl of cereal unattended.

Dash moved into the kitchen just as Luna came through the door.

“Where is he?” she asked, her voice slightly on-edge.

“In my room.” said Twilight, turning around at the foot of the stairs, “My bed’s big enough to accommodate him and allow him some movement without falling out. Now that I think about it, I should probably get him a bigger bed for his room.”

Luna didn’t hear that last part, she was already moving up the stairs, Twilight hastened after her and Rainbow followed suit, wondering if they had even seen her.

Then again, maybe it’s better that Luna doesn’t see me yet,. I bet Twilight wrote a letter telling them everything. I hope Luna doesn’t hurl me into the sun or something.

But, despite this fear, she kept at her ascent, hoping that she could get a chance to explain herself.

The lashes, the whips, the fire.

The mud, the blood, the shame..

enough….

The cold, the agony, the misery and the echoing laughter…

The binds digging into his wrists, his ankles, his chest….

enough

Naked, violated, tortured…..

His tears flowing, flowing, carrying himself away on them like a castaway in a storm……

Enough!

Ryan awoke with a scream that faded as his surroundings, and the ponies who were standing at his bedside, came into view. He saw their worried, sympathetic expressions and wondered, for the briefest of moments, why they were looking at him like that and his face tightened in confusion.

Then he remembered the events of the previous night and his face fell as tears welled up in his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” he whispered, fearing their wrath for a ruined evening.

Twilight shook her head and stepped closer, “There’s no need to apologize, Ryan. Really, there isn’t.”

“But I r-ruined your p-party.” stammered the human, “I-I didn’t m-m-mean to, but-”

He was interrupted by the sounds of soft sniffling that was not his own. He turned and saw Rainbow Dash standing in the doorway, her expression one of utter devastation and shame. He opened his mouth to ask her what he had done to make her cry, but, before he could, she had crossed the room and laid her head on his bed, her ears drooping as tears fell to stain the sheets.

“I….I...I’m so, so sorry, Ryan.” she cried, “I hurt you, I bullied you and now….now this….I’m sorry, I’ll do anything you want, anything to make it up to you, I swear!”

Ryan regarded her cautiously. He knew that she had wronged him, that she had hurt him, and he was wary of her.

What if she’s lying? he thought, She tried to- no, no she didn’t. But she could be lying, they could all be lying to me, trying to break me down. But why? Maybe….maybe I never left the Mistress, maybe this is all a dream.

Ryan felt a cold sweat break out on his skin as he began to look around, trying desperately to see any signs of the world around him breaking down; He imagined the walls weeping liquid reality as they fell apart, the ponies around him sprouting talons and fangs and ripping their skins off to reveal the twisted, unholy beasts underneath.

Have to do something… he thought as his breaths began to come out as hoarse wheezes, I have to know, I have to know if this is real.

‘Ryan? Are you okay?” asked Dash, forgetting her previous concerns as she watched Ryan grow more and more agitated, she reached out and grasped his hand.

Ryan started and glanced down. When he saw the blue hoof resting on his palm he instinctively closed his hand, feeling the slightly-calloused bottom, the soft fur and the kind of warmth that the things that had tormented him could never fully duplicate.

The human sighed, his tensed muscles relaxing as he slumped back, his frail hand still wrapped around Dash’s hoof.

The ponies exchanged curious glances, but all wordlessly agreed to not ask him until he was ready to tell. Dash looked at the hand that held her hoof, then at Ryan's face, which was looking a bit less frightened. Putting two and two together, she kept her hoof where it was.

Ryan blinked and turned his head towards the prismatic pegasus, he looked down and, when he saw that he was still gripping her hoof, he blushed furiously and quickly released her, his mouth already open as he apologized.

“It’s okay.” said Dash, “I don’t mind a little hoof-holding.”

Ryan averted his eyes and allowed a silence to fall over the company. He knew that the ponies wanted answers, and he knew that one of them would ask, even if they didn’t want to. So, clearing his throat, he stammered, “I…..I…..can I-”

“You don’t need to tell us if you don’t want to.” said Twilight, holding up a hoof before he could get too worked up.

“I….thank you.” he said, looking at his hands, “I’m sorry, it’s just that I don’t want to talk about it….wh-what happened to me, that is. I just want to rest a little while, i-is that okay?”

Twilight nodded, “Of course, I’ll tell Shining Armor and the others that you’ll be resting today.”

Ryan closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering sigh, “Sorry…..I’m sorry…..I don’t want to be a burden.”

“You’re not a burden.” said Luna, her eyes wet with compassion, “You need rest, and I’m sure Rainbow Dash will give you any aid you need, correct?”

She turned to Dash, who nodded, “Yeah, you can count on me! I’ll get you whatever you need, just ask.”

Ryan blinked, then said, “Um...I don’t think I need anything right n-now, but thank you.”

Dash’s face fell, but she didn’t say anything.

Luna heard Twilight sigh, a sound that was so small as to be imperceptible to the others in the room. The lunar princess turned and saw the deep circles that had formed under her eyes as well as the tangled mess that her mane had devolved into.

Luna placed a compassionate wing on Twilight’s back and gave her a soft smile, “Come, Twilight, you need some rest as well, methinks.”

Twilight yawned, then blushed, “I guess so. I’ll use one of the spare rooms tonight.”

“I’ll go get you set up.” said Spike, running off as quickly as his stubby legs could carry him. Twilight yawned again and then followed her assistant without a word, leaving Ryan with Rainbow Dash and Luna, the former looking unsure and the latter looking as weary as the mare that she had sent away.

Ryan squirmed in his sheets and tried to prop himself up, Dash saw this and moved to help, but the way that his eyes widened and his breath hitched made her stop, and she watched as the human sat fully upright, drawing himself up tightly as if trying to make himself smaller.

“Are you alright?” asked Luna, “Do you need something?”

“N-no,” said Ryan, “I just wanted to get out from the sheets…..actually….is it okay if I take a walk outside? It’s just so….stuffy in here.”

Luna nodded, “Yes, but I, unfortunately, cannot accompany you, I have to speak with Twilight.”

Ryan nodded and closed his eyes as he slowly maneuvered himself out of bed, missing the significant look that Luna shot Rainbow Dash.

When he was standing properly he turned and gestured towards the door, “Lead the way, Rainbow Dash….I mean….if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Naw, it’s no problem at all.” said Dash, some of her bravado returning, “Just tell me where you wanna go and I’ll take ya!”

Ryan looked out the window, his face scrunching as he thought. After a minute he said, in a wavering voice, “I….I think that I’d like to go somewhere that’s grassy, someplace quiet, I really need to think.”

Dash nodded, “I know a place like that. Applejack’s orchard’s pretty quiet this time of night.”

“Would she be okay with me being there?” asked Ryan shyly, clutching his arm, “I mean….after what happened-”

“Don’t worry, Ryan,” said Dash, “Applejack’s pretty understanding, I’m sure she’ll be okay with you getting some thinking time in at the orchard.”

Ryan smiled softly and said, “Thanks, Rainbow Dash.”

Dash smiled back and said, “No problem. C’mon, let’s go, I bet the moon looks really nice tonight.”

She led Ryan out the door, mouthing a ‘Thank you’ to the lunar princess, who nodded and smiled, obviously happy to hear her night complimented; Luna waited until she couldn’t hear Dash or Ryan’s steps, then she exhaled and left the room to go speak with Twilight.

Ryan was right, she thought as the cool air that lay outside the room met her, it was stuffy in there.

Author's Note

Happy New Year Everyone!!!! Yayyyyyyy.

Now let's see how long until we fuck this one up.....whose bettin' on a week, do I have a week? Two weeks? Two weeks? I got two weeks, yessiree indeedy!

Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter, even if it was short, and please comment if you spotted a mistake.

Until next time.

In the Weak and the Wounded.

The party was the best that he’d attended in a long time. The lights were low, the music was perfect, the drinks were cold and the women looked almost too hot to be real.

It was the perfect night, one of the very few that Ryan had been able to recall having all year.

At least, that’s what he had thought until he had seen THEM.

Two people, a guy and a girl, talking adamantly about something, both wearing shirts with those damned ponies on them!

Ryan felt his mood sour instantly. Those pony-loving dweebs were contaminating the party with their stupid, prissy bullshit!

His father had, from Year Zero, taught him that boys were to keep to things boys liked: Transformers, G.I Joe, guns, swords, secret agents, space ships, tits and ass, explosions and women who didn’t talk too much.

And My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, went against everything that is father had taught him, and the men who liked it with such reverence as they did seemed to be heretics against the Gospel of Testosterone.

“I mean, what the hell is wrong with them!” he’d often yell to himself, “There aren’t even any guns or blood or-or Humans in it for fuck sake! How could anyone like that stupid, prissy, too-safe bullshit?”

It was only much later, and in another world, that Ryan realized how utterly un-safe Equestria was, and how unbelievably tough the ponies who inhabited it really were.

He had, of course, gone over to the two bronies and started hassling them.

“Hey, sweetie. Why don’t you ditch this pussy and get out of those stupid clothes?” he had said to the girl, smirking at her disgusted reaction and her partner’s clenching fists.

He had fully expected the guy to try and act all polite and friendly before he swung. But he didn’t, he just lashed out and caught Ryan full in the nose.

The sound of his nose breaking and the warm blood that flowed into his mouth made him expel the vile concoction of beer and chips that had been resting in his gut. There had been a scuffle, then he had blacked out and awoken in a hospital to the angry face of his father.

“You let yourself get beat up by one of those freaks.” he had hissed with no trace of a question in his tone. To this day he still didn’t know how his father had known that, but the shame had been enough to make him wish he were dead, or at least comatose.

The realization that he wasn’t nearly as tough as he thought he was haunted him, and he retreated into the anonymity of the internet, attacking bronies and the show with the kind of hatred usually reserved for murderers and lawyers.

He even started a Youtube channel devoted to insulting bronies in a disguised voice and masked face.

It wasn’t until a month into his torment that he realized just how much of a coward he was.

Fluttershy stared at the strange creature that lay before her with awed and frightened eyes. It had taken her a few minutes to regain her composure enough to return to the room, the memories of that night at the gala and the terror that followed in its wake was enough to make her bones feel leaden.

But then she had actually looked at him and had been floored by what she had seen.

Zap-or Ryan as he asserted his true name was-looked like a shell of his former self. His skin, now scrubbed clean, was pale and covered with so many scars it was hard to tell if there was any inch of his skin that was unmarred.

His hands were gnarled claws with nails filed to the quick. his eyes were sunken in and surrounded by darkened flesh that bore the signs of unnatural stress and, perhaps, suffering.

“What happened to you?” she whispered aloud, getting a bit closer.

“I fell…” he said suddenly, startling the yellow mare into silence, “I fell so far, I’m still falling, but there’s no bottom.”

He turned to look at her and his eyes were wet, "It's so, so far to fall, don't you think?"

Tears welled up and tricked from his eyes to roll down his hollow cheeks as he bent double, a high, keening sob tearing from between his lips.

Fluttershy ran from the room with Ryan’s hysterical sobbing following her like a bloodhound, not hearing when the tears turned to screams.

Plummeting….falling….plunging into darkness again.

Where do I live?

In the Weak and the Wounded.

Weak: the punch at the party, his screams of pain when his father’s belt met his flesh, his low weeping in the shower after this happened, his inability to fight off the shrouded ponies, even with his powers, and his whining and begging in the face of more abuse and torment.

Wounded: beaten, used, repeat, a never-ending cycle. Just a toy, just a toy, but now he was the Pony’s toy. They’d use him and beat him and then do it all over again.

Did his deserve this?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Did it matter?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Would the madness really heal him?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Would he ever get better?

HAH! Now you’re kidding yourself.

The black tide is a-comin’, but will it finally pull him all the way under, to its inky depths? Could it numb his pain and make him forget? Wasn’t the World already one big madhouse?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

A Chance For Forgiveness.

“C’mon, slowpoke. We’re almost there!” called Rainbow Dash from over the hill.

Ryan let out a wheeze, then continued upwards, forcing his aching legs and feet to obey his commands.

After what felt like a small eternity he arrived at the top of the hill, where Rainbow Dash was sitting, having not broken a sweat despite the fact that she hadn’t used her wings at all. Ryan wanted to rebuke her for leaving him in the dust, but the soft smile on her face stopped him.

I guess that I’ll just have to get more exercise. he thought, taking a seat beside the prismatic pegasus, God only knows how badly my muscles have atrophied, I bet it’ll take a long time for me to recover….if I make it that long.

He heaved a sigh and tore his thoughts away from his condition, vowing to let some light into the darkness of his mind and ignore his sadness, if only for a little while.

And when he saw the sky above him, he realized that his vow wouldn’t be as hard to put in motion as he had thought.

“Pretty, ain’t it?” said Dash, lying back and placing her hooves behind her head; Ryan could only nod.

Luna’s night sprawled before him, the bright tapestry of stars glittered in the dark, cloudless sky, looking like they could give off heat. The moon hung, fat and healthy-looking, at the center of it all, framed perfectly by her smaller companions.

Why haven’t I looked up more? Ryan wondered, feeling tears well up in his eyes.

“Somethin’ wrong?” asked Rainbow Dash, the worry in her tone pulling the human away from the beauty that lay before him.

He shook his head, “No….it’s just so….so beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a night sky that was that perfect before. I guess I just didn’t look enough.”

“Well you can look as much as ya want here.” asid Dash, the smile clear in her voice.

“Yeah.” said Ryan, watching the stars twinkle and imagining that the way that they did so held some kind of meaning, like Morse Code. He smiled as the thought of Luna setting the stars to wink out some kind of saying, like “Drink your ovaltine” or “Kiss her, you fool!”, came to his mind.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a while. But, as the minutes stretched on, Ryan got the feeling that his pony chaperone was growing nervous. He turned and saw her fidgeting with her hooves and looking down at the grass.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, startling the prismatic pegasus.

“Well…” started Dash, still refusing to look at him, “I was just wondering….will you ever forgive me?”

Ryan started, having not expected the question to be asked at this time.

“I mean, I’d understand if you didn’t want to forgive me ever, I really hurt you….didn’t I?”

Ryan sighed and nodded, “Yeah….you hurt me. But you’re trying to make up for it, which is….kind of surprising. As for forgiving you, I think that I’m pretty close, I just…..need a little time, okay?”

There was a pause, then Dash let out a relieved sigh and said, “Okay, thanks, Ryan.”

Overhead a comet streaked across the sky, leaving a glowing contrail behind it that stayed alight for far longer than the human thought possible.

“Wow, Luna’s really outdone herself this time.” said Dash, the awe in her voice matching the awe in her companion’s eyes.

Ryan was silent for a moment, then he turned, looked Dash in the eyes and said, with utmost sincerity, “I want to look at the night as much as I can...before-”

He realized his mistake too late. The contented peace that had wrapped itself over the two disappeared as quickly as a flame snuffed out in a storm. He heard Dash shift in her spot, felt her gaze on the back of his neck.

“Before?” asked Rainbow Dash, “Before what?”

He looked down, clenching his fists in anger as the happiness suddenly faded away at his slip-up.

“Before what, Ryan?” repeated Dash.

He couldn’t see her, but he heard the worry and the intensity in her voice, and he was ashamed of how weak his response sounded.

“I don’t know...i-it’s just so hard…..and I’m sick, Dash, I know I am. And….and I can’t leave, or I don’t want to, and I just don’t know what I’ll do once my community service is up. Maybe Celestia will imprison me. ‘S not like I don’t deserve it.”

“But you don’t.” exclaimed Dash, “You did some bad things, but you aren’t a bad person.”

“Aren’t I?!” he snarled, turning to face her and causing her to flinch. “I killed some ponies, Rainbow Dash. I hurt people and, even though I got what I deserved, I think that the other ponies still want-”

“What do you mean ‘got what I deserved’?” asked Dash, cutting him off, “Are you telling me that you think that you deserved what….what happened to you?”

The horror and shock on her face made Ryan’s cheeks burn with shame, and he looked away again.

“Yes.” he whispered, suddenly feeling like his skin had been overtaken by a thick frost that worked its way past his muscles and tainted his blood. He shivered and hugged himself with his thin, miserably frail arms and wished that he could disappear, that his confession could have lightened his burden.

But neither of those things happened, and Ryan wished that he had never opened his mouth in the first place.

He heard Dash get to her hooves and move towards him, a moment later her hoof fell upon his shoulder.

“Hey, look at me.” she said calmly.

Ryan kept his gaze trained on the ground, but Dash was persistent. She placed a hoof under his chin and gently turned his face towards her own.

Ryan found himself gazing into her large, magenta eyes, eyes which held their usual confidence, but had traded brash energy for soft kindness and more patience than he had thought possible for someone like her.

“Listen, please,” she said, and he found himself complying.

“You didn’t deserve what happened to you. No one deserves that: Not Discord, not King Sombra, not even Queen Chrysalis. What happened to you was wrong, it was nasty and horrible, but it was not your fault, okay?”

“But-” began Ryan, feeling his eyes begin to sting, “but I...I’m a monster….I h-hu-hurt-”

“It doesn’t matter.” said Dash with a shake of her head, “You….you made some mistakes, but we all do. I had a friend named Gilda, we had known each other since flight academy and we were so….so alike, we were both daredevils, we were both pretty tough and we both liked teasing ponies.”

She sighed and looked away for a second, trying to keep her cool, before turning back and continuing.

“But I’m not the same mare that I was at flight school, I was….pretty mean back then, I guess I just cared more about going faster and doing awesome stunts than making friends and I just sort of fell in with Gilda. But she was way meaner than I was, but I didn’t care, I just thought that we were so alike.”

She snorted and heaved a sigh, “Turns out that I couldn’t have been more wrong. Gilda was just a bully in the end. She made Fluttershy cry, threatened Pinkie Pie and nearly gave poor Granny Smith a heart attack!”

She looked down and Ryan got the sense that, if she had possessed fingers, she would be clenching the into fists of anger.

“I was so….so angry. One of my best friends was nothing but a big jerk and I was too stupid to notice!”

She brushed a hoof across her eyes and gave a trembling laugh, “I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I told you that, I know that it isn’t nearly as horrible as what happened to you, but-”

“Actually, something like that happened to me.” said Ryan, allowing himself to keep looking into Dash’s eyes as he continued.

“When I was about 12 or so, I ran with a group of so-called ‘Cool Kids’. They drank a lot of beer, smoked, called teachers ‘bitches’ and stole stuff from the shops. I thought that they were the best people in the world. Then, one day, I came home and my dad told me that I wasn’t allowed to see my friends any more.”

Dash cocked her head, “Why?”

“That’s what I asked him.” said Ryan, “I asked him over and over and threw a fit. He got angry and told me that those kids had robbed a pharmacy and….and they killed a little girl by accident.”

Dash gasped and Ryan felt tears well up in his eyes.

“And you know what the funny thing was? They were the first and…..and last freinds that I had in my world. They killed a toddler and they weren’t even out of their teens!”

His lungs produced a chuckle, which got mangled into a high, keening sob by the lump in his throat.

He clutched his eyes and tried his best to rub the tears away. He felt Dash’s hooves wrap themselves around him a minute later.

He shuddered slightly at the contact, but stayed still and let her hug him until the wave of discomfort faded, and when that happened he returned her hug as best he could.

They stayed like that for a few seconds before breaking apart. After that they spent a good portion of Luna’s gorgeous night talking about past mistakes, present desires and fond memories, of which Dash had far more.

Ryan listened to her stories and felt his mind calm, felt a bit of the weight disappear from his limbs; It was almost pleasant.

Then, just as the sky began to brighten as Celestia’s sun rose, Dash asked a question which had been plaguing his mind.

“Are you gonna be okay until we can get you a therapist?”

Ryan looked at his feet, sighed, then looked back up and nodded, “I think so.”

“You’re not gonna try and...y’know…”

“No.” said the human, watching the first of the sun’s golden rays brighten the mountain tops, “I won’t try to...to kill myself.”

“You Pinkie Pie Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Cross your heart and hope to gly, stick a cupcake in your eye?”

“Uh….I suppose.”

“Ryan.”

“Yes, cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. I won’t hurt myself.”

“Thank you.”

Dash rose to her hooves and stretched, “I think we should be getting back. Twilight’s probably havin’ a fit.”

Ryan smiled and got his his feet, “Yeah….I think that I can sleep now.”

Dash smiled at him and fluttered into the air, “Good, let’s go then.”

The two made their way down the hill as the sun overtook the night. All around them the comforting melodies of birdsong reached their ears as the sounds of night life dwindled into nothing.

As he stepped into the orchards, feeling the soft earth give beneath his toes, Ryan thought, I wonder if I can get better. I know that I have a long way to go, but maybe it’ll be worth it. Maybe I can earn forgiveness, heck, maybe I can forgive myself. Maybe I can even get past what….what happened to me.

Maybe the nightmares will even stop.

The sun rose, the animals went about their waking activities, and the human and the pony made their way into town as the first ponies were setting out for their jobs. Ryan knew that they were looking at him, but his gaze remained on Rainbow Dash the whole trip.

As he watched her scowl at a glaring unicorn, a strange thought occurred to him.

Maybe she’s saving me.

The thought brought a closed-lipped smile to his skeletal face, and he felt his spirits rise a little bit higher.

Maybe it’s not too late for me. he thought as he stepped into Twilight’s castle.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

Author's Note

And so ends Crippled, Beaten and Broken.

I hoped you guys liked it. It's been a blast writing this tale of woe and, who knows, maybe it'll get a sequel in the future. Probably. Most definitely probably.

I hope that you enjoyed this story and that it can be remembered as "Pretty Good".

And the soundtrack for this story is below: