Silver Star Apple and the Search for More Money, Love, The Meaning of Life, and Magical Cards

by SilverStarApple

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Original Character, Rainbow Dash, Comedy, Pinkie Pie
Length: 56925

He arrived in Canterlot a few years ago with a sack of bits, good eyes, and a greater vision. Now he's the sixth-richest, third strongest, and most handsome. But when even gold loses its lustre, Silver must embrace friendship and- WOAH, MAGIC CARDS?

He arrived in Canterlot four years ago with a sack of bits, good eyes, and a greater vision. Now he's the sixth-richest CEO in Canterlot, the third strongest Grandmaster in the Pro Magical Duelling Circuit, and the most handsome, in his personal opinion. But behind the charming smile of this Gentlepony Adventurer lies a dark secret: When not selling enchanted armours or food imported from alternate worlds in his supermarket chains and fast food stores across Equestria, the well-connected, creative, unforgiving and absolutely brilliant Unicorn known as Silver Star has been running a rather profitable side business: Donning disguises and conning the richest, stupidest, and most corrupt monsters around the world and across the multiverse out of everything they own. Sometimes, the Canterlot Police Department, the secret multiverse-mapping "Map Club", and that law firm he bought will pass the cases they deem "Impossible" to him. Other times, he seeks out his own prey, or the wounded and helpless will come to him for aid. The risk, the rush, the thrill of a good plan executed perfectly, or better yet, salvaged despite unforseen complications... It's incredible.

But when even gold loses its lustre, Silver Star - formerly Star Apple - must make new bonds, reconnect with his family, and embrace friendship. But what does it mean when feelings start to appear in a heart he had believed to be beyond even the warmest touch? And when something is traded away... is it possible to get it back?

In the heart of Ponyville, oblivious to the machinations of Canterlot in his absence, as a disaster of his own making prepares to tear Equestria asunder, Silver Star Apple is going to find out.

But those pleasant slice-of-life adventures are put on hold when a new threat to the world rises. 21 magical cards have hidden themselves around Equestria, and the underground Diamond Dog Empire isn't the only group trying to collect them. Gather them all, and none can match your power. Can Silver and his new best friends find them in time?

Published 2014-10-27 16:00:04 UTC
Last updated 2018-08-13 18:36:44 UTC

1 - The Silver Spire

1 - The Silver Tower

Two nine-foot-tall steel doors decorated with constellations of cobalt lines, the kind of doors that would look more at home on a palace, swung open silently to reveal a large and stark room that reminded one of a hotel lobby, except for how it seemed to be made from one continuous piece of dark grey steel. There was a bar/desk on the right where a Griffon secretary waited, there was a room in the corner you could only get to if you were willing to hop over and enter her part of the building, and on the far wall, there were the bare steel doors of a magic-powered elevator. Though a small effort had been made to make the place more welcoming, as the two trees on either side of the long and narrow orange carpet lined with blue that stretched from the main doors to the lone large elevator on the far wall would attest to, the pony who had placed these objects didn't seem to completely understand the concept that was 'Welcoming'. For one thing, the trees-and-carpet thing was basic, but the choice of trees was not. The trees on either side of the carpet, near the door, were eight-foot-tall unusually-thick bonsai trees with a redwood trunk and perfectly-spherical leaf formation residing in metal pots made from alternating curved stripes of steel, cold iron, and titanium, and compared to the far smaller ponies and the room around them, the gesture that placed those trees there felt hollow, much like a lot of other things in this building.

A lone brown Unicorn in a black suit by the name of Coffee Grounds entered the Silver Spire, flanked by two strong dark-coloured Pegasi in matching sunglasses and black suits. The sunglasses those Pegasi wore were enchanted to do nothing, not even guard their eyes from the sun. They just looked cool, which was all the cheap security were good at, really. Fitting, considering how their Cutie Mark talent was in Acting.

The Silver Spire they had just walked into was a thick monolithic multi-room six-storey skyscraper in uptown Canterlot, built by one pony and dedicated to the acquisition of one thing: Money. The mysterious Unicorn known as Silver Star had suddenly showed up in Canterlot one day, a sack of bits floating behind him as he strolled right through the front doors of one of the Canterlot headquarters of one of Equestria's finest cabbage buyers, sellers and suppliers. They had holdings and deals going on all over Equestria, buying the finest of cabbages from Earth Pony farms and placing them into the kitchens of high-end restaurants across town. Though accounts of what happened vary and rumours about the event range from 'A mind-controlling bird monster with eyes as black and vast and dark as the blackness of space was summoned' to 'He threatened everypony present with things no pony should ever be threatened with'. Regardless of what actually happened, the facts stated that he left the building an hour later, several thousand bits richer. With each day, he kept multiplying and multiplying his own funds, making deals and breaking them to make new ones and doing whatever it took to get ahead in this fast-paced game that anyone could play but few could win, a game where the winner laughed as they literally rolled in money while the losers were rendered homeless, faces pressed up against the glass as they stared at the winner like an orphan in a Jarls Chickens book. The Silver Tower was created to be the ultimate office and headquarters and home, and also a giant shining monument to himself, his mind, and his money. For this reason, it was as big as Canterlot's standards and safety regulations would allow it to be, even though the place was enchanted to be bigger on the inside. They said some buildings reflected their owners, and this was very true for the Silver Spire.

Coffee Grounds and his two guards, who he had ordered to avoid speaking due to the bad Manehattan accent they loved using more than they should, tentatively entered the room and looked at the Griffon, trying to ignore how the further in they got, the further away the warm and noisy outside world seemed to be. The Griffon was a focused and harsh-looking blue-and-white Pantherish/Hawklike beast that had her longer head-feathers pulled back into a loose black-banded ponytail with 'bangs' of feathers hanging down the sides of her avian face, which was adorned with a serious frown. A Griffon... an odd choice for a secretary- their tempers, passions and general demeanour wasn't exactly suited for subservience of any kind, let alone working as somepony's lowly secretary/personal assistant. If she was a mare, Coffee would make the usual assumption that his personal secretary assisted him with more than just his work, but as it stood... He just didn't see it.

Her head whipped around instantaneously, her cold golden eyes staring into Coffee's, and she stared at them for a long, tense moment, during which the entire world seemed to freeze. "Name?" She asked coldly, and Coffee found that he could once again breathe.

"Coffee Grounds, owner of The Stomping Grounds, hottest coffeehouse in Canterlot." Coffee said, plastering on a charming smile and beginning to not just layer his voice with honey, he was dumping honey onto his voice in industrial quantities with the aid of pulleys and levers and steam-powered cogs and very large vats. "I'm here to talk to your boss about selling our-"

"Follow me. Elevator's stuck, it can't go lower than the third floor. No flying allowed in the office." She stated, getting up and flying slowly towards the stairs.

"But you's is flying." Coffee's right-hand Pegasus pointed out. A Manehattanite would object to that accent and the incorrect usage of you's, but he was not a Manehattanite and there was not one here.

That Pegasus made a high-pitched squeak of terror as she suddenly appeared right in front of him, her wickedly sharp beak a quarter of an inch away from the space between his eyes. He scrambled away in surprise, wings fluttering uselessly in panic, and then he noticed how despite her hard, dangerous eyes spoke of an animalistic intensity, her actual facial expression looked completely calm, as if this was just par for the course.

"I work here." She answered boredly, and the three made a mental note to not ask her questions again as she resumed her slow flight back to the long flights of stairs, flying up gently as the three ponies followed.

The interior of the tower's lower floors were that of a fully-stocked business headquarters, with row after row of desks and cubicles. The place looked like it would be right at home having large numbers of busy ponies frantically rushing around as they each tried to finish their heavy workloads before their deadlines while middlemen screamed for them to work faster, knowing they'd all be out if a job if they were even a single second behind schedule.

The only difference was... It was completely devoid of ponies. The entire building was completely empty, apart from the Griffon secretary now with them, and its owner, who waited silently at the top of the building. A single sheet of paper blew across the room, a blank chart showing a pie chart with over three hundred illegibly small sections, though somepony with a temporary enchantment on their eyes could probably read it.

The newcomers walked in silence as their guide flew on, her wings sending gusts of air through the eerily silent building that echoed back, only serving to emphasise the incredible emptiness around them.

"Help us..." A disembodied voice whispered into Coffee's ear.

"What was that?!" Coffee demanded, looking around in fear.

"Nothing happened, /Pony/." The Griffon said without slowing down or stopping or even looking back, managing to fit more derisiveness and insulting power into that one ordinary species name than most could fit into far worse words.

"I heard somepony, I definitely did!" Coffee insisted, stopping and stomping a hoof onto the ground.

"No, you didn't. If you did, your overpaid foals here would be whining about it, too." The Griffon stated, leaving him behind without even caring about it.

He hurried to catch up, rushing up the next set of stairs, and the next, sensing an odd chill in specific parts of the room he walked through. Strange, but he put that down to faulty air conditioning, since he was almost at the third floor. When he reached it, he watched as Aquilla pressed the button, the elevator opening for her right away.

Even the elevator was cold, dark, silent, devoid of character or emotion. Instead of steam, the elevator was powered by magic, granting it the absolute silence that allowed the newcomers to hear any sound that could pierce the soul-crushing void, even their own heartbeats.

When they got to the top floor, the doors slid open.

They saw him.

They saw the only pony in the room that looked determined, intense and focused enough to keep his mind completely intact in a place so empty and cold. They saw his silver coat, his black top hat lined with a cobalt blue band atop a windswept orange mane with a lighter-orange star at the front more suited to a fast Pegasus, and they saw his custom-made dark suit that covered his body, titanium cufflinks upon his sleeves where other would have gold, a cobalt blue tie around his neck between the white undershirt and black suit, its tip hidden from view. But what unnerved them most... was his eyes. They saw his cold, merciless ice-blue eyes, eyes far colder and wiser than most ponies his age. He sat atop a throne-like white marble and steel chair far too large for him, the low mahogany writing desk in front of him not obstructing their view of him in the slightest. It would have been funny, to see the slightly-taller-than-average Unicorn sitting in the enormous chair clearly built for somepony almost Celestia-sized, if it wasn't for the air of mercilessness and intense seriousness around him. They were pretty sure that if any of them had any drinks with them, they would have frozen over. They saw the Unicorn, Silver Star.

Coffee Grounds quickly reached into a pocket of his suit and pulled out a bunch of graphs and charts that couldn't have possibly fit in there without the aid of magical storage runes in his pockets, placing them down easily due to how they gradually regained their mass and weight after they left the modified seals in his pockets, and he began droning on about how great their location was and how great his coffeehouse was and how vital it was that his business and everything it owned was sold today. Silver just stared wordlessly with unblinking eyes, only partially seeming to care.

Fifteen minutes later...

"So as you can see, Mr Star... may I call you Silver?" Coffee said nervously, his guards looking more tired than he was. They all looked nervous, sleepy, and more than a little creeped out.

"You may not." Silver said flatly, staring at the businessponies with his barely-interested, unblinking ice-blue eyes that seemed far too old, cold and wise for his young-adult age.

The three ponies looked deeper into his eyes, and were once again reminded that throughout the entire fifteen-minute meeting, he hadn't blinked once. They assumed he was using magic for that... or rather, hoped it was magic. Ponies that age should be out partying the night away, not working as Canterlot's sixth-youngest CEO and Businesspony to not only make it into the Financial Signs magazine, but to even get onto the 'Ponies Who Have Far More Money Than You' list.

They'd done their research, and knew about as much as anyone did about Silver: The Unicorn known as Silver Star had shown up one day in Canterlot with an unusually large sack of money guarded by needlessly-complex layers of protective charms he had cast that only he(and maybe the Princesses, if they had a few weeks to spend on it) could bypass. Aside from his creativity and magic skill (Which was impressive, but not quite good enough to get him into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, not that he was young enough to enter or that he'd really be helped much by entering), he seemed to have a much more useful ability, one related to the Cutie Mark he was rumoured to have due to often the symbol showed up on things he used: A pattern of ten orange stars linked by blue bands in the design of a a tree-shaped constellation.

He had an eye for connections, and he could accurately see everything connected to something, along with what influences it would have. He could solve puzzles that used connections or ciphers just by glancing at them, and easily calculate the force and trajectory needed to win just about any game of skill or the mind. Then, with his own intelligence, he could figure out what move was best for him, tipping over exactly the right domino to have everything he wanted fall right at his hooves. He'd occasionally state in a factual and non-boastful manner that he 'Knew everything', and when he was doing business, he certainly seemed to... though Coffee was pretty sure that it was just an act he used to intimidate others and build up his reputation, amd he had a ton of spys everywhere. After all, the rumours said he was great at summoning magic, though rumours about what houses he was aligned to and exactly what he could summon differed. After arriving in Canterlot, he began playing the stock market and other ponies for all they were worth, multiplying his funds almost daily. He bought out small businesses and moved his way up the chain, going from small corner-shops and independent restaurants to conquering larger companies and franchises with enough worth to interest him. He'd even take down lawbreaking or shady businessponies who sold faulty goods, artists and fashion-ponies who dared commit the unforgivable sin of plagarization, and even corrupt nobles who didn't deserve their riches and thought themselves untouchable. He'd make a game out of it, plant the seeds of ruin and set the dominoes of disaster falling, and at the end of it all, he'd pocket their funds as an unofficial reward to himself and leave them at the mercy of Celestia’s finest. Or the royal guard, if Celestia's finest were busy.

Yet tonight, these businessponies had booked a meeting with him, and paid the fee for booking a meeting with him, for they were trying to sell their failing Coffeehouse to him. They knew he wanted the place, or rather, the land upon which it stood. It was a good location: close to the Castle and the town's Library(As opposed to the castle library or Canterlot Archives, which was stuck inside the Castle and therefore off-limits to average ponies), so it would be visited by those studying at the local library, and most Royal Guards when they were off-duty, as well as anypony else in the general area. He'd just have to fire the current mediocre coffee-makers, and bring in some ponies who knew what they were doing. Silver seemed to have connections everywhere on a good day, and he knew a few drink-makers and coffee-brewers that wouldn't mind moving to Canterlot on short notice if he asked nicely and offered a somewhat sizeable bonus.

Yes, he could do great things with that location. He just had to get it from these mediocre businessponies at a price he was willing to pay. And these fools, who had squandered such a great location with mediocre and VASTLY overpriced coffee that drove away anypony who didn't somehow convince themselves that the generic 'Black fancy chairs in one corner, wooden tables on the whole left wall, walled-off food counter with workers behind it and an easily-changeable chalkboard for prices, orange lighting with black and brown highlights on the room's colour scheme' ambiance was worth the outrageous prices... These fools were not worthy of owning a business.

"Very well... Mr Star. We have finally come to an agreement on our price." Coffee Grounds said, trying to shake off the shivers continually running down his spine as Silver Star's icy gaze seared into his heart. He held out a hoof, pointing a white scrap of paper at the Unicorn, his hoof subtly shaking, trying to stop it by tensing the muscles of his limb.

A shimmering blue glow formed around the note and the silver Unicorn's horn, and he slowly levitated the scrap of paper closer to himself, drawing out the suspense. He read the number on the note. 2500 bits. He then stared at the note for a few more moments. "Interesting offer." He said coldly as the magic glow around the paper intensified for a moment. "Here is my counteroffer."

He levitated the paper back to them, and the three looked at it together. It now read, 25 bits.

"This... This is... You just removed the last two zeroes from the price!" Coffee shouted incredulously.

"Yes, this is the maximum price I am willing to pay." Silver Star stated. "I know of your business... if it can be called that... and your mediocre coffee. Everyone in Canterlot knows of your mediocre coffee. Your latest move, your attempt to sell the business and 'Jump ship', so to speak, may be the smartest thing you have done in a while. However..."

The temperature in the room lowered by a few more degrees.

"You have a recipe for disaster on your hands." He said ominously, causing them all to suddenly freeze up. He spoke with such certainty, such apathy, it was as if he'd already seen the events that would come to pass and barely thought them worthy to hear his knowledge. "You have the ingredients, your crops have been planted, and the mixture is baking. Your hourglass is slowly ticking down... and when you run out of time, when you reap what you have sown, are you prepared to bear witness to the vile fruits of your labour? Are you really willing to wait and watch as your business falls apart and drags you down with it, like a cursed anchor dragging you to the depths of the ocean? Or, will you take the smart route, and sell your business and its properties to me?"

"I want to sell, but twenty-fi-" Coffee began.

"That is the maximum price. Would you like to go lower?" Silver asked coldly.

The Pegasus guards took a step back despite themselves, though their employer stood firm. "25 bits?! l couldn't buy a decent meal in this town with 25 bits!"

"Very well... Would twenty bits cause you to feel less guilt over your own failures?"

"That's it, I'm out!" Coffee snapped, turning and leaving. The others followed, deciding they'd sell to someone else.

Silver Star turned up his cold aura, and spoke. They instantly froze up, not daring to move or look back. "It is time for you to choose: Will you rid yourself of the dead weight you call a business and gain 25 bits? Or will you cling onto that weight until it pulls you under?"

The oppressive cold air seemed to lift slightly, as he became disinterested once more. The ponies turned around, right on cue. "So... do we have a Deal?" He asked, his eyes flashing with a bright silver light during that final word.

"Deal!" Coffee and his guards suddenly cried out in unison. Then they came to their senses, but still agreed that selling was a good idea. After all, making twenty-five bits was better than nothing at all. Besides, the business was about to go under anyway. Better they sell it off now than deal with it going under. That way, it'd be his problem, not theirs.

Silver Star opened up another hidden drawer in his desk, near the first one, and got out a contract he'd already written up that morning. Everything was going exactly according to plan. He levitated his quill and contract to Coffee. "Here's the contract, and my quill. Just sign on the bottom line." The businesspony did so, and held them up to Silver. The silver Unicorn magically took the contract, placing it in his desk and sliding the hidden drawer back into the desk.

Silver Star gave a cold smile, the smile of a pony who was marginally pleased, but not quite enough to show. "Pleasure doing business with you."

"Likewise," Coffee said, taking it as his cue to leave before he got an even worse price. As he left the room and went back to the elevator, his guards following closely behind, large doors descended from the ceiling with the same constellation pattern as the building’s front doors, cutting off his office from the elevator.

Silver Star's horn glowed with a beautifully bright and full blue light (He did not know this, but Twilight's was both fuller and brighter) as he telekinetically levitated his heavy steel, marble and cobalt throne, rotated it 180 degrees so it faced the windows, and set it down with a loud thud that would have kicked up a few small dust clouds, if the immaculately clean room had any dust. He gazed out the window, thinking, a curious expression on his face. "Today, I've bought a well-located coffeehouse, at a price so low, it was even cheaper than my fancy suit." He frowned. "No, my higher-class suit. I am not one of them any more, I cannot allow myself to speak or think like them." He said, and sighed. Then, in a more uncertain tone, as if he was trying to convince himself, he said, "In any case... I can invest in and improve that coffeehouse, and make it into another one of my main moneymakers. This is... good. This is very good."

His mind started to wander as he stared out of the window, staring not at the ponies below him rushing about like panicked animals as they tried to get to where they had to be, not in the jobless fancy ponies who simply walked around because they could, not at the ponies working away in the buildings at jobs they either loved or hated, but at the horizon, and the sky, and everything far away, everything beyond even his sight. "I'm doing really, really well for myself." He added. "I am happy. I should feel happy."

"So why doesn't it feel that good any more?" He asked himself. "My parents would definitely be proud of who I've become, not that it really matters any more. I am myself, not one of them. I..."

Talking became too tiring to attempt as he remembered the day his life changed. He remembered the day he changed. It felt like it was only yesterday, and he could almost smell the scent of fresh grass and fresher apples returning to him.

"Silver Staaar!" A loud, angry voice barked as there was a loud bang on his door. Silver was wrenched painfully out of his memories and back into the present day. Everything he felt faded in an instant, and was left with only a mild cold anger that his thoughts were interrupted, even if those thoughts were uncharacteristically worthless and unrelated to anything worthwhile, like money, or power, or /money./

Waking up fully, Star recognized the voice and levitated his overly-large throne around, setting it down to face his desk and the door with another heavy thud.

And then, the world... became different. He could still see fine, but every so often, he'd see a flash of something else, something he suddenly remembered for a moment and then forgot. Disjointed flickers of the past, seconds he'd forgotten once and soon forgot once again.

“Those doors are enchanted to be unbreakable and impenetrable, you can’t just-” Silver began.

With a loud crash, a golden glowing lance of raw magical energy was driven through his door, followed by two others. That voice gave a loud yell of effort, and the doors shattered outwards, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Flash.

The magical barrier protecting the Silver Spire flickered down for the moment it took for a powerful shield-disruptive cloak to let in a yellow Earth Pony wearing the most hideously garish bright-lime-green hooded cloak imaginable over his head. He stamped his way into the Silver Spire with a furious expression on his face, throwing back the hood with a flick of his head and revealing his shock of white-grey hair. Sugar Cane.

"We're closed." Aquilla stated flatly.

He ignored the secretary, marching past her and ignoring her entirely.

Aquilla didn't like that.

Flash.

“That door cost more money than your armour.” Silver growled.

“Expenses.” The gradually-forming silhouette of a Unicorn in the dust cloud shrugged, indicating that he'd charge it to his expenses account. The one that never seemed to get empty. For him, wealth was not a number that you could always raise to be higher, but an abstract concept, mere numbers to toss around to have fun or get what you wanted.

The Unicorn stepped out of the dust, revealing that he was a large and muscular pale-yellow Unicorn with short leather-maroon hair and prideful sharp-green eyes, his large body clad in needlessly-thick tanklike 6mm-thick armour plating that covered his entire body save his head - which would also be covered when he wore his helmet, which he usually kept transfigured into a gold chain around his neck, hidden by his armour - and appeared to be made out of solid gold, despite how his every step had a metallic clank that an experienced metalworker would recognize as 'Steel alloy, with some other stuff in it'. His short tail was kept inside his armour, an unusual design choice for pony armour, which was usually a lot lighter and a lot more maneuverable than the colossal eyesore he wore. On his armoured flanks, he'd had his Cutie Mark painted over the metal: Two red lances crossed together in the shape of an X. His armour was made from a very expensive alchemically-synthesized gold-tungsten-titanium-liquefied-dragonscale alloy, and a few years ago, he'd commissioned Star to have it made for him... at a price. A price even higher than houses in Canterlot, a price the military-general pony was still paying off monthly with interest. Still, his armour had served him well all these years, and it still didn't even have the slightest dent or scratch, so he knew it was worth it. He'd often boasted that the scratchproof, soundproof, shockproof and fireproof material could even stand up to the full wrath of the sun itself if need be. Silver Star knew that while this was true, the less-protected parts like the helmet’s eyeholes and breathing-holes allow him to be burned to a crisp, though he'd regenerate. Silver idly wondered if the sun would burn the oxygen within his body, and if this would affect his screaming in any way, but Silver mentally pulled himself away from those thoughts. He was Neutral Good, not True Neutral.

"General Gold Standard." Silver Star said, a small and visibly false smile gracing his face. The pony in front of him was a former member of the Royal Guard, who furiously left after the position of Captain of the Guard was given to Shining Armour rather than himself, slamming the door shut, opening them again so they could be slammed shut, and continuing the aggressive slamming while glaring furiously at a confused Shining Armour. This continued until it was no longer funny, and the new Captain of the Royal Guard made some on-the-spot alterations to create a Gold Standard-Banishing spell that crafted a blue forcefield around him permeable to ponies that weren't Gold Standard. The forcefield then expanded outwards to the edges of Canterlot so hard that Gold was physically tossed through a thankfully-non-stained-glass window, and out of town, screaming in hatred all the while. Shining Armour, embarrassed, wondered if he overdid it, but the impressed applause from the Royal Guard in the room along with the many, many jokes about Shining making a great tosser put his mind at ease.

Gold and Shining had hardly gotten along before that, Shining was nice while Gold wasn't, Shining was liked while Gold wasn't, and most of all, Shining's win-loss record against him in sparring matches was almost exactly 75:25, with every match usually going the same way: Gold tries a magic floating lightning spear attack, Shining blocks it with his magic shields. Gold tries more spear attacks from different angles, and if Shining blocks them all and gets a chance to counter, Shining has won. Especially if he got the chance to form a circular shield around Gold's neck or horn, then he'd won and it was time for a rematch, and another, and another...

Rarely, Gold would try something new and unexpected, or he'd keep up the pressure and not get countered until eventually, he either literally passed out from Magic Exhaustion or actually broke one of his shields/got through a tiny gap in his shield formations.

The main problem was... even if they were equally powerful, an impressive 9.2 on the scale of power, Shining was actually pretty smart, and great at large-scale battlefield tactics... while Gold just didn't really have the mind for multi-fighter tactics. While gold saw weak points and threw spears at them, Shining could do a lot more, using his shields to break up enemy formations, isolate individual targets, cause fliers to crash into shield walls, redirect attacks not at the attacker but whichever foe he desired, and generally own the battlefield and decide when the tide turns in his favour and how hard. Gold wasn't a complete idiot, he could analyze an individual foe and his or her techniques, he was great at that, coming up with some alarmingly creative and sometimes even questionable plans and backup plans to defeat individual foes... but he could only analyze foes one at a time. He was more of a soldier or special-unit than a general or leader, not that the stubborn little mule would ever admit it. He wanted to be in power, he wanted to be in charge, and minor details like the fact that he wasn't good enough for the role wouldn't stop him.

After this humiliating event that wasn't actually half as humiliating as Gold typically made it out to be, he spent two years in the Equestrian Armed Forces, SpecialOps division, running missions across Equestria and taking out the mad spellcasters and horrific monsters that were at the level where a Special Forces group actually had a hope of winning, rather than simply being monster food or something to help stall for time while the heroes got ready to do their thing. When a hero wasn't on hand to deal with the crisis, and it wasn't at the level where only a very powerful group of friends could beat it, it was officially their problem. And this, Gold was VERY good at. Even if his mind became too focused and rigid upon fighting a shieldcaster, he simply nodded and ordered his squad to handle it while he threw small antimagic Cold Iron needles into enemy spells or monster hide.

After doing well and getting a few medals, he moved on to the regular military and quickly became a General, which he wasn't that good at, really. Regardless, He was Star's best Military Contact, and one of the closest things he currently had to a friend. "What is the legendary Lancer doing in my house?" Silver asked.

"This is your office." Gold Standard pointed out.

Flash.

"I'm here for revenge! He stole my farm! My family's been working that land for generations!" Sugar Cane shouted.

Keeping a talon on his throat, her other limb quickly unfastened and pulled away his cloak, seeing a long and fancy lightning-bolt shaped yellow knife in its holster, strapped to his chest with black cloth. She smirked, barely registering the Cutie Mark of three Sugar Lumps on his flank.

"Not very well." She laughed. "You're the sugar-farming buck, right? How did you even make it to Canterlot? And who gave you the literal cloak and dagger?"

"Those banks were about to foreclose and take it from me, and then he came right out of nowhere and he bought it from them for one bit! One! Single! Bit! As if everything we've worked on since the dawn of Equestria WAS ONLY WORTH A SINGLE STUPID COIN!" Cane roared, flecks of spit forming on his mouth.

Flash.

"It's also my home." Star insisted, and then he joked, "I hope you brought a search warrant."

"Yes, a... warrant for..." Gold trailed off, trying to think of a comeback. The best thing he could come up with was what he eventually decided to say aloud: "No, but I have a splurge warrant! ...Because splurge means 'to spend large amounts of money', and I spent a large amount of money on this armour..." He said, and then gave up, glancing at Silver with an expression that said, 'Cut me off and say something, already!'

Silver noticed this minor inner turmoil by looking at his facial microexpressions. A Cutie Mark in connections was good for a lot more than just business. "No." He said, smirking.

"Shut up and take my money." Gold grumbled.

Silver laughed quietly to himself, much to Gold's confusion.

"Are you laughing at me?" Gold asked dangerously.

Flash.

"You already lost everything." A deep voice boomed, silencing then both. They turned and saw Silver Star standing tall and proud, staring down at the pony beneath Aquilla like a judge condemning the worst kind of criminal. "You were about to lose your land, I bought it from you AND I paid off all your outstanding debts, out of the money in my own pocket. Your presence here is a violation of your contract. Do you WANT to keep your farm?"

"I want my farm back!" Cane snapped. "No contract, no lies, no evil Canterlot suits trying to steal my hard-earned money!"

"Hard-earned?" Silver asked, amused. "Your farm was so clumsily mismanaged, I'd be amazed that you didn't have your youngest handle the shift timetables. You had four ponies working the same section of land, casually talking to each other instead of working separate parts of the farm in a basic crop rotation for your possible separate shifts. You all worked from Mondays to Thursdays, taking Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays off... Even though the weekends are when most have the free time needed to visit the markets! You lack understanding of the basic logic and science behind farming, the books bought and added to your debt should help you with that, and if you're using the fertilizer company I recommended, crop yields should be increased far beyond what they are now. Earth Pony magic may be great for farming, and little else, but it can't do everything alone. And finally, you sold your food at an unfairly low price at the market, I raised them to comply with Canterlot standards. When you sell an item, you also sell the time it took to make the item, calculated by calculating how much money you'd make if you spent your time working for somepony else doing similar work while getting a fair price for it."

"Who will buy our food when you've put our prices that high?!" Cane demanded.

"PEOPLE DO NOT BUY THINGS!" Silver intoned, silencing the room. "THINGS ARE SOLD TO PEOPLE! If you cannot sell food to the hungry, you don't deserve to call yourself a Farmer!"

"Why you little-" He began, struggling furiously.

"Careful." Aquila said, the side of her claw pressing down on the pony's neck. "Don't make me throw you out."

Cane spat up at Aquilla, right in the face. Her pupils became slitted, but she did not let go or loosen her grip in the slightest. "I'd like-" The pony began furiously.

The spit on her feathered face began to evaporate, steam rising from her form as her body heat started to burn his flesh, causing him to scream. "-to see you try, the idiot shouts." Aquilla finished flatly.

Flash.

Silver smiled. "No, you'd just reminded me of something I'd read. It was hilarious, in context."

"Just trick me into giving you even more of my money." Gold grumbled. "It's what you usually do. Sometimes, I wonder if you're part-Dragon, hoarding all that gold."

"Honestly, that would explain a lot." Silver chuckled. "Eeexcept it wouldn't, since I clearly lack fangs, claws, wings, scales, or the ability to breathe magical Dragonfire without need of a spell. Oh, the myriad ways I could horribly abuse such a broken ability..."

"Hey. Cease fantasizing about how many ponies in your Games Workhorse club you can make cry, and tell me what you do with all that money."

"Hey, betting a thousand bits on everything on the board and laughing internally when ponies think I'm some magical super-fortunetelling demigod because one of the many businesses I bet on just HAPPENS to do well, usually due to the investment I just gave them... that takes a lot of money."

"So THAT'S how you do it!" Gold gasped.

Flash.

Utterly terrified and in massive amounts of pain, Sugar Cane nodded his head, and his body was filled with a bright green light that took away the pain, but not the fear. The bindings around his mouth loosened, allowing him to open his mouth just a little.

"I... I'm sorry-"

"Grovel." She ordered.

He threw himself at her talons and loudly and frantically apologized, begging for mercy, offering to work for longer hours and less pay as long as she didn't eat him.

"Even now, you seek to change the terms of our agreement?" Silver asked, causing him to freeze up in fear, realizing that he'd said the wrong thing again. "Give me your cloak, and begone from my sight."

He nodded his head, causing the cowbell sound again. He quickly ran out of the Silver Spire, getting through the shields because he was leaving with Silver's permission, and he ran all the way to the train station in Canterlot and didn't look back until he was on that train, sitting at a table, alone.

Flash.

"Of course it isn't, do you think I'd say it out loud if I was?" Silver asked in amusement, causing the big and physically-stallionly pony to pout like a small foal. "Anyhoof, how goes your search for the-" Silver began, hoping to get the conversation on track, and get it over with already. He wasn't entirely sure whether this pony was his friend or not. He'd never really had any good pony friends before, so he certainly wasn't a expert, but he was pretty sure he had to like the pony before he could consider it a friend or anything more than a contact or acquaintance.

"My search for a decent pie store in this town?!" Gold suddenly shouted out loud, facial muscles tensing up as he gave a large and fake smile. Silver could practically see a large blue sign pointing to it, saying 'Fake smile’, which was an apt metaphor, considering how his Connection Sight activated a moment later and analyzed the positioning of each facial muscle before showing him a large blue and orange neon light sign that informed him that it was a fake smile. "It’s not going well. It's really bugging me, you know what I'm saying?"

Silver Star got the hint, though the usage of the word 'Bugging' made it boringly obvious, and this time, his Connection Sight didn't even bother activating to point things out unnecessarily with a somewhat passive-agressive visual tone. His horn glowed blue as a a silver wave of anti-magic was fired from his horn, lighting up the room in a bright and brief flash of light.

A larger-than-average magic-enhanced cicada appeared on Gold Standard's shoulder, its previous magical invisibility failing. Gold looked at it, and frowned. "I can't destroy it without raising even more suspicion." He mumbled angrily, as if reminding himself.

"It'll recover in fifteen seconds, reawaken, and become invisible again. Gold... Why were you bugged?" Silver Star asked coldly.

"I think some ponies might be catching on to my plan. Don't worry, my old units have more loyalty to me than to the thrones, and we've got several good leads on the location of the Amulet. Things are finally looking up for me, and if anyone feels like getting in the way... They'll be crushed the way I could crush this bug."

Star forced a smile. His crazy- His stupid scheme might actually work.

How 'bout that.

/...Then again, it's unlikely he'll find the Amulet. And if he does, he won't be able to use it without damaging himself. His plan hinges upon one of us using it, and I don't plan on letting it anywhere near me. I have enough power, I don't want to lose my mind to get more. Buck, my mind is a big part of why I'm this powerful in the first place. As usual, it's best that I go along with his ridiculous pipe dream of his to remain his most trusted contact, rather than tearing it to shreds like I probably should. Besides, he pays well for the supplies I get for him. Who knew that letting some old fool dream a stupid dream would be so profitable? ...Every cliche evil businesspony villain ever. Plus one evil point to my alignment compass. I should go offer my contract to a poor pony and help them achieve their dreams some time this week, it should balance things out. I don't want to be evil, evil is dumb. They do stupid things for the sake of evilness, as opposed to the smart thing.

The cicada on Gold's shoulder slowly faded away, becoming invisible again as it reawakened. "...So then I say to her, 'No, eight Griffons'! Eight, all of them!" Gold blurted out, laughing loudly. "And after that, she flew off and I never heard from her again!" Silver Star had heard him tell this joke many times before, yet he still found even the memory of it to be rather amusing, so he forced a polite and light laugh.

Meanwhile, back in one of the Towers of Canterlot Castle, a young green-maned mauve trainee spy/analyst rolled his eyes as Gold Standard seemed to have told the infamously bad ‘Gold's Eight Griffons Joke' yet again, for the third time this week.

Gold stopped laughing, and sighed happily. "Speaking of mares... Because that is what we were talking about earlier... Do you have a marefriend yet?"

Flash.

Meanwhile, back at the Silver Spire... Only once Sugar Cane had left the building did Silver or Aquilla move.

Aquilla burst into laughter, and Silver facehoofed. "KahahahahaHAAaa... Did you see the LOOK on his FACE? He ACTUALLY thought... KAAAhahahahahaaa!"

"Ice cream?" Silver asked, raising an eyebrow.

"And he bought that! Ice cream, soul-magic stress balls, eating ponies alive even though they taste like crap raw, he actually bought every last bit of it! Speaking of bits, you got ripped oooooff!~♪"

"What?" He asked, curious.

"Him, his farm, his family and everything he has, it is SO not worth one bit. It should have been... a half-bit. Or a quarter-bit. Why don't you ponies have those?"

Silver shrugged and then smirked. "Food costs a little BIT of money, anything extra like fancy clothes or books costs more."

Aquilla laughed harder. "All this time, that was a bad pun?!"

"Eeeyup." He said.

Silver turned and left her there to her laughter, and once she realized that he wasn't laughing with her, she immediately stopped stood upright and did her best to stop laughing. "What's wrong?" She asked, trying to stop laughing.

"I was just thinking... about that look in his eyes. And the things he said." Silver admitted sadly.

"What, the part about you being eeeeeeheeheeeviiiiil just because you wore a suit and saved his flanks from the banks? ...Hey, that rhymes. Maybe I should add rapping and rap-battling to my resume." She said thoughtfully.

Silver smiled. "Why would you need a resume?" He asked.

"Good point." She said happily. "You're not going to fire me, I'm the awesomest Griffon in Equestria."

"You know, I could always replace you with some kind of magical creature not native to Equestria." He said thoughtfully.

Her smile faltered. "I'd rather you didn't do that." She said, a little quieter than earlier.

"Relax, you're fine." Silver sighed, feeling like he'd just kicked a puppy. Into a wall. Hard enough to break the wall, and the puppy. "I was just thinking... am I evil?"

"Do you eat foals?" She asked sarcastically. "Have you been locking them in barrels, throwing them in a blender, and drinking them by the mugful?"

"Aquilla." Silver warned. Sometimes, she was funny, and other times, she wasn't.

"Sorry." She said, genuinely sorry. "It's fun, saying stupid stuff like that. It's like I'm some comic book villain. And I don't actually mean that stuff, it's just Griffon humour. But if you want me to stop, I will."

Flash.

"No, not yet." Star shrugged.

"What? Dude, you're the only stallion I know who can actually make sense of a Mare's mind. How are you not being swarmed by them?" He said, stealing a brief glance at his armour-clad shoulder and the mostly-invisible blur that he knew was the annoying magical cicada. Once you were looking for it, it was noticeable. Those specially-bred magical creatures, Spycadas, weren't originally invisible.

"I've just... never found a mare like me." Silver shrugged.

"You mean a Unicorn? Just go to a Unicorn bar, this town has tons of them!" Gold yelled. "They have more Unicorn bars than they have big fancy pretentious overpriced coffeehouses!" He said, gancing back at his shoulder as he added, "This town is just infested with overpriced stuff!"

Star forced a smirk that he didn't quite feel. "And rich nobles stupid enough to buy them." He said, and stopped smirking. “But no, I don't mean another Unicorn. I mean, another... would 'Egghead' be the correct term?"

"Good luck finding another egghead as egg-headed as you!" Gold said, grinning. And then suddenly, he stopped grinning, and an idea came to him.

Gold started to speak. He said words, and Silver pretended that he was listening.

It wasn't that he wasn't able to hear, he'd just stopped paying attention.

Silver noted his mouth opening, and he said something. He sounded unsure. That wasn't good.

Gold said some more stuff, loudly yelling all kinds of horseapples. Silver could easily lip-read him if he wanted to - the loudmouth wasn't exactly subtle when he didn't need to be - he just couldn't summon up the energy to do so right now.

"Blah blah Shining Armour blah!" Gold said, his voice clearly understandable for a moment.

Silver felt his hoof touch his face, as he lightly shut his eyes, as if he was facehoofing. Hoof still there and eyes still closed, Silver said something else. It sounded like he was objecting to something. Great, Gold probably said something stupid. As he usually did, whenever the subject of Princess What'sherface's pet pony came up. The shieldcaster one. What was his name again? He knew that he remembered his name, he just didn't remember it right now.

Silver opened his mouth, and it felt like he'd just said something hilariously sarcastic.

"Well, it's true." Gold said firmly, the joke making a faint screaming sound as it flew over head and up, up, into the vast void of space. With nopony around to get it, the joke flew on through space, the coldness of the void causing him to shiver as he continued his lonely floating through the world between worlds, the vast and wonderful yet terrifying and large space between everything both comforting and horrifying him, the endless blackness around him at once a comforting hug and soul-crushing death grip.

Oh, Silver realized. Gold was still saying words. He gave a silent internal nod of respect to the joke, forever lost to not the sands of time but the void of space. Oh, untold and ununderstood joke, how his heart wept for thee...

The cold numbness that had claimed Silver's mind and heart receeded, allowing him to once again clearly understand what idiocy came out of Gold Standard's mouth.

"Now why in the name of Celestia's sweet flanks would anypony think that?!" Gold demanded.

Wait... he hadn't actually said the joke yet... that poor joke could return home and be loved once again!

Though the joke had a shred of his attention, Silver found himself to be too tired to even roll his eyes internally at Gold. If he had a bit for every time that pony mentioned how he believed he should have been Captain instead, Silver would be even richer. It was getting annoying... Time to put an end to it. "Or, maybe they prefer their Captain of the GUARD to be an averagely-powered Shield-Caster who GUARDs his friends with his life, rather than a ruthless powerful all-or-nothing All-in Blitzkrieger of a general who'd do whatever it takes to destroy the enemy, even if it meant risking a few of his own underlings to do so. You know, since GUARDS have to GUARD things, while GENERALS GENERALLY don't do that sort of thing." Star snarked bluntly, hoping it’d get through Gold’s thick skull. Normally, he’d play around with words and questions, keep his opponent mentally off-balance with feints and weakening wounds, until he lunged at the weakest point in their minds and had the whole thing come crashing down. But now? Now, he could barely summon up the strength to hurl a metaphorical metallic-blue lance at Gold’s head. Lifting up an orange warhammer and lazily letting it fall down upon the idiot would have to do.

"Now why the buck would anyone think that?!" Gold asked, outraged, as the metaphorical warhammer bounced off the tip of his muzzle comically. "A shield can eventually be smashed by a still-living opponent if they attack and live long enough to keep attacking, but I've never seen an Enemy get up and attack anyone after taking a Spear to the face! Anyone here remember The Siege of Canterlot?! We practically lost the town in under half an hour! I told them we should have done a raid on that Changeling Hive out in the sticks, I’ve been telling them that for years, but NOOOOOooo, thinking about that would mean actually thinking for once in their-"

Silver stopped paying attention, Gold's yelling seeming to lower in volume as his mind focused on his own thoughts. He knew there was no way he could change the military Unicorn's mind- Well, apart from using The Voice, and he preferred not to use it when he didn’t need to. Legally speaking, he wasn't supposed to use it at all, or at least not to force anypony to do something they didn't want to do. Still, Silver supposed it wasn't all bad, and it would be nice if the still-ranting Unicorn could see that. Missing out on that kinda-meaningless promotion in a pretty-much-meaningless job lead to Gold's new pipe-dream of usurping the throne, as if the short-sighted fool could ever run a country or even a town. More importantly, it led to his willingness to buy expensive things if he thought it'd help him achieve his goals. It was a very profitable business, helping ponies with their laughably unlikely pipe dreams for a price. After all, those dreams sometimes turned out to be true, and that could make him even more money. He idly wondered why so many businessponies were stereotyped as cold-hearted sadistic dream-crushing monsters when being evil rarely paid off, merely being pragmatic was much more practical and more importantly, rewarding, and it was so much more profitable to have a great pony who had fully realised their dreams with your help and now owed you a favour or fifteen.

Flash.

"...Nevermind." Silver sighed, facehoofing. "But not all villains eat foals."

"The ones in the stories worth reading do." Aquilla pointed out. "The villain is super evil, so no matter what the hero does, he or she is still in the right just for fighting him."

Silver sighed.

"Listen, Boss..." She began, and then softly added, "Master?"

"Silver." He stated.

"Silver..." She began, softer. "You saved that loser from the banks. Not that they're exactly Tartarites or anything, but still... You're good. If you hadn't stepped in, he'd lose his livelihood, his life's work and the life's work of his parents and ancestors, it'd all go to the banks, and he'd have to get some other job, like crappy manual labor or joining the army or becoming an adventurer or apprenticing to a Pony or Griffon who's good at stuff. And he'd fail at being an adventurer, and get eaten by a Grue or Giant Squid. But now, thanks to you, he actually has a chance to earn back his farm, and thanks to your help, it'll be better than ever. You did the right thing."

"And the money I asked for it in return?" Silver asked. "Both the single bit and the money I spent paying off bank debts. That debt will be hanging over their heads like a floating sword for generations to come, though at least I only gave it a ten percent monthly intrest rate."

"Hey, what's the point in being a hero if there's no rewards now and then?" Aquilla asked happily. "Besides all the Ice Cream Koan 'Being a hero is its own reward' stuff."

"Ice Cream Koan?" Silver asked, amused. "Ice Cream Koan refers to deep-sounding nonsense that has no real meaning, something like 'A flying walrus cannot sing well' or 'Only a rabbit who eats medium-sized carrots knows the truth of the world'."

"That's what it means here? Cool." She said, not caring much.

"Aquilla, I've long since figured out that's just something you say to avoid admitting when you're wrong." Silver said with a smug smirk.

"Back to the important thing," She said quickly, that being the other thing she said to avoid admitting when she was wrong, "Have you stopped being sad yet?"

"Aquilla..." Silver sighed wearily.

Flash.

"Plus, it's a small, friendly, close-knit town. Cheap housing because they're made of wood or some horseapples, low levels of tech and industry, tons of relatively uneducated ponies ready to be tricked, and something big or powerful attacks the town once a week or so. It's called Ponyville. Pon-evil, due to how the gates to Tartarus are literally in the town somewhere." Gold recited, remembering what he'd read in the town's file. Then, he grinned. "And best of all, mares outnumber the Stallions there almost 4 to 1!"

Silver noticed that this speech seemed unusually well-rehearsed, even if his conscious mind wasn't paying attention when the words were being said. He realized that Gold had been practicing this speech. "You've been-" He began to say.

"FOUR to ONE, Silver!" Gold declared, and then leaned forwards as he excitedly and overdramatically whispered, "Four to ooone!"

"And this is relevant because?" Silver asked.

Gold blinked a few times. He then summoned a golden spear with a jagged crimson-metal tip, and began to perform interpretive dance with it.

"No." Silver said flatly, horn glowing as he brought into being a small whirlwind of orange flames in the air and shattered the spell, flames dissipating instantly as controlled raw heat and force was blasted in a cone at Gold, no more painful than a sobering slap to the face, though at least it got the Unicorn to stop that infernal dancing. Why did he use the flame spell, rather than telekinetically throwing something? He didn't feel like throwing stuff, and considering how his alignment to the House of Birds made him better at using any spells the Family knew, and one of the Four Regents was the Phoenix King, fire spells were easy. Though not as easy as the ability to control metal and plants, an ability he gained by enchanting one of his ribs to give him that ability when he was in contact with it. But, Silver didn't want Gold Standard to know he had that power, so he went with flames.

"You can't deny the power of interpretive dance." Gold stated. "It's one of life's absolute constants, like the deliciousness of honey and the allure of cute mares. You need to go elsewhere, and make friends! Like to the town I mentioned, Ponyville! Otherwise, you'll end up as another of those evil losers you love to take down."

"I won't instantly become evil just because I don't have any other friends." Silver said flatly. "If that's how it worked, I would be spewing evil lasers all over Equestria while moaning about my unbearable loneliness and despair by now."

"That's how it starts!" Gold declared. "First, you tell yourself that just this one won't hurt. Then it's another, and another, and before you know it, you've bellyslid down the slippery slope and- Did you just imply we're friends?"

"Aren't we?" Silver shrugged, not seeing what was such a big deal about it. He didn't like the pony much, but he didn't hate him completely, so he supposed that meant they were friends. It wasn't like he had any better options. His old friends from the Canterlot Academy of Duelling and Battle STILL wouldn't talk to him.

"...Thanks." Gold said quietly.

Flash.

"I know, I know, pony emotions are deeper than Griffon emotions, it said so when I read books on ponies back home. That's why most of you are so weird."

"I wasn't going to say that." Silver pointed out.

"Thanks. Now, come on, sad pony, what's making you sad?" Aquilla asked.

"Well... I was thinking... I needed to take a vacation."

"Sweet! Let's go raid an Ancient Temple or conquer a small kingdom outside of Equestria, that's always fun." Aquilla said excitedly. "We already have, like, fourteen independent city-state kingdoms and empires ruled by us under different disguises, want to see if we can make it fifteen? Or maybe we could create some new breed of monster, have them conquer some place, and step in at the last second to rule over that?"

"No, I meant... from this. Being me, being the Soulless Suit. I think I should... I don't know, go to some small town, away from the plots and schemes and political games, and... make friends. That's what my therapist recommended."

"You have a therapist?" Aquilla asked, shocked.

"A secret one. And she's not a pony, she's one of the smarter birds I can summon." Silver said.

"Oh. That's ok. Anyway, she says you need to make friends and stuff. 'What, am I not enough for you?' Aquilla asked jokingly, pretending to be hurt, even though she knew a Griffon friend wasn't the same as a pony friend."

"Stop that." Silver ordered. "That stuff on feelings is just propaganda, it's the different cultures that make Griffons different from ponies and nothing more. They are not naturally colder, or spawned into existence by a bored Discord, or anything like that."

Aquilla raised her right taloned limb. "Would you like a game of Rock Paper Scissors?" She asked, smiling.

"Sure." Silver said, horn glowing. A small wooden sign appeared in front of him, a plank of wood held up by a thinner plank driven into a wooden block.

Aquilla laughed a little. "You were supposed to say 'Different cultures, and talons, and nothing more', and laugh. Because ponies don't have talons." Aquilla said, shaking her hand and getting ready to make her choice.

"Rock paper scissors!" They called out, and Silver spun his sign around to show the word Rock as Aquilla made the Scissors sign with two talons. She yelled in frustration, face meeting her palm, and Silver laughed, causing her to feel better.

"Anyway, you're going to go on a friend-making trip." Aquilla said happily. "Please tell me it'll let you unlock some kind of amazing all-powerful friendship-powered Second Form."

"I already have a second form." Silver pointed out.

"And what a lovely second form it is. Friendship Form, then. What would that look like, anyway?" She asked, starting to laugh. "You standing there with long locks of multicoloured hair billowing in the wind created by raw magic overload? Singing songs about friendship and love but mostly friendship so you can use Music Magic for extra power?"

"Maybe it'd have wings. Ten of them." He laughed.

"And ten tails. No, twelve! No, a thousand!" She laughed.

"Remember that time we fought a demon cat with a hundred tails?" He asked.

The room was filled with roaring laughter from him and squawking laugher from her. Their 'Fight' with that strange creature was just that funny. And pretty sad, but in the way that just made you laugh more. And in retrospect... well, the memory of that laughably pathetic creature and the disaster it tried to cause - and failed embarassingly at causing - would keep him amused for centuries to come. Sometimes, he felt that he could write entire books on what was wrong with that freak's head, but then he remembered that he could also sum it up in one sentence. She made Blood Banana look sane. The story about her... It was SO going into his biography.

Flash.

"If it means that much to you - and if you're willing to pay me - then I'll consider going to Ponyville. Maybe I'll stay for a week." Silver shrugged.

"A week?! Nopony can do anything epic in a week! I mean, tons can, but... whatever, a week isn't enough time. You need at least a month."

"Fine, I'll consider staying for approximately a month. But I reserve the right to return if I feel like it." Silver said, habitually slipping back into business-mode. "Which I'll probably do if this town is too slow or boring."

Hold on, why was he even considering this? This whole idea was stupid. It was built on stupid foundations out of beams made from raw stupidity, and it flew in the face of actual logic while suffering from one of the worst cases of wing priapism and horn crystalization in Equestrian history.

"You're not going to complain about having to put your business stuff on hold?" Gold asked, surprised. "And I thought you complained about Canterlot being too slow? And by 'they're slow', you really mean they're idiots, right?"

"As I once said: This town is a little slow, compared to other places I've seen, but Earth Pony towns are a lot slower. And I was referring to the town, not the townspeople. The towns are usually very slow-paced, with people lazily going through the motions of their daily routines, rarely doing anything to change things up or improve things."

"Don't worry... with all the monster attacks, and the legendary Everfree Forest being not too far away, something exciting happens at least once a week. Practically daily. Sometimes multiple times in one day." Gold said. And then, he smirked as he crooned, "And you know how much you like exciting stuff!"

“...No. Out.” Silver said, the awful attempt at swaying having ruined any chance of him saying yes. “Get out, you're boring me.”

Flash.

"Okay, fine. So, how do you go to Ponyville without arousing suspicion? Rich pony suddenly pops up in a smaller town, they'll assume he's here to buy it."

He smiled. "Memory game."

She faceclawed. "You can't be serious."

"Why not? Pick someone likely to talk to me, have them show up tomorrow and suggest I make friends, and go to the nearest town. I temporarily erase my memory of this conversation, so I'll think it was his idea, so I can blame any inital awkwardness on how this was never really my idea in the first place, and being determined to make up for it later is due to deciding that I actually do like that town."

"And this mess seems to make more sense to you than, I don't know, hitting the nearest bar and chatting up anything that moves?" Aquilla asked exasperatedly. She was okay with all forms of magic, despite how she was a Griffon and they thought magic was freaky and untrustworthy, but she hated memory magic. Not for any moral or spiritual reasons, no, it was just that things always got stupidly overcomplicated when memory magic was involved.

"Of course. First impressions are important, and if they go wrong, I'm screwed unless I can blame it on something else." He said, and rubbed his chin in thought. "Now, who would make a good pawn- Gold Standard. Definitely Gold Standard."

"I don't like him." Aquilla stated. "He's dumb, weird, obsessive, lame, and really, really dumb."

"Yeah." Silver shrugged.

Flash.

“Boring?!” Gold asked as he recoiled with rage, pretending to be offended, though the military pony knew this was Silver-code for ‘This conversation has ceased to be interesting, relevant, or amusing. There’s no reason for you to be here, so go away, I have important things I need to do'. Exactly how this was better than being called boring was unclear. “I am boring?!"

“Yes. Boring. You have overstayed your welcome. Now go, before I call my secretary and have her throw you out.”

"You don't have a secretary." Gold pointed out.

"The Griffoness in my lobby, what did you think she was?" Silver asked. "On second thoughts, don't answer, I don't need that mental image in my head right now. Just... go.”

“Fine!” Gold snapped, and broke character for a moment to give a conspiratorial wink before resuming his offended-ness, overdramatically making a rapid turn quick enough to make his short mane swing slightly, rapidly stalking out of the room like a lion about to pounce, albeit an incredibly loud metal-coated lion whose every hoofstep clanked audibly.

Silver was left alone with his thoughts once more, not that he minded. But this time, instead of just thinking back to his past, he decided to think on something that would actually help. He put all thoughts of a relationship out of his head- You had to be in a somewhat decent mental state before you had any hope of ever finding a good relationship, though the thought of finding someone to help you was a nice thought. But right now, he had more important things to think about.

Why was he feeling the way he felt?

Why had money seemed to lose its allure?

Why had the thrill of getting more money seemed so dulled?

Why was he feeling so down that he actually noticed it?

He was rich, he was famous (Somewhat. Ponies weren’t exactly lining up to kiss his hooves or anything, nor did he want them to do so, but he could get into just about any restaurant just by glancing indifferently at whoever was in charge of reservations, or in extreme cases, raising an eyebrow while maintaining the indifferent stare), he never had to worry about money or food, he lived in an awesome house, he’d worked hard, he'd had others work hard for him, and he'd earned everything he ever thought he’d wanted. He was once poor, he was once nothing, but he’d grown, he'd gained, and he'd gotten everything he ever thought he’d want.

He leaned forwards in his chair, sections rising up out of it to serve as armrests as he brought his hooves in front of them, resting them on the armrest and then having them arc up to form a large n-shaped structure, perfect for him to rest his head on while he thought. He was missing something.

He was missing something. Something obvious...

There was something he didn’t yet have...

Would getting more money help? No, he already had enough of that, though it was still somewhat fun to get more, and to exchange money for things that were more useful, such as tools and ponies in his debt. No, it was something else...

A small and faint voice left over in his head, one of the few scraps left from the pony he once was, suggested something. “Fam'ly?”

Why on earth would he need family? He left them behind, and had soared freely without them dragging him down with their inefficient and suboptimal traditionalist nonsense. No, he needed something else...

“Friendship?”

When did this become some badly-written filly’s book? When was friendship important to anypony for anything?! Besides those who wanted to use absurdly powerful magical artefacts that require you to have a certain number of true friends or embody certain attributes before they’ll work, of course. He still couldn't believe that a pony once went around town with a travelling show, scanning audience members for compatibility with an Element of Harmony. Normally, the balls would  glow at different levels depending on which elements you qualified for. Amusingly, when a lawyer attempted this, the balls representing Loyalty and Honesty started to rapidly strike him, bounce off, and strike again, forcing him to flee while those balls were replaced with an amused yell of "New balls, please!" from the crowd. For some reason, when the spell was aimed at Silver, the six floating beach balls that represented the six elements reacted strangely: Magic glowed brightly, Loyalty fell to the ground, utterly devoid of the magic it once held, Kindness and Generousity burst like a popped balloon, Laughter glowed, albeit a little less brightly than Magic, and Honesty deflated like an untied balloon. There was an awkward silence after that, followed up by the travelling pony getting out spare balls, giving him an Element of Magic beach ball, and motioning for the crowd to applaud as he left and the next pony came up.

He kept thinking, but after four whole seconds of intense thought, (Which was like 4 hours in Silver-time), he decided that since those two were the only possibilities, he might as well give them a try, and see what happens. With any luck, he’d solve his problems, stop feeling sad like some lame emo sadsack, and go back to the happy and awesome rich life he’d fought to get.

Friendship and Family were important now, for... some reason. Socialisation in general, really. He didn’t exactly get out much, as himself. Silver Star didn't have much to do, besides money stuff. So, he needed to get friendship, maybe befriend an old family member. He could go check up on his nearest family member, befriend them and anyone else likely to like him without him having to put in too much effort or mirror them too hard, be back before the night was up, and put all of this sad crap behind him. Hey, he had said he'd consider spending a month in Ponyville. He'd considered it. And he decided a month probably wasn't necessary.

This town was Canterlot, and the nearest Apple Family Farm was... Ponyville? There, they had Granny Smith, and... the other ones. He couldn't remember their names, which meant he’d never truly learned them in the first place. But to be fair, there were a lot of Apple Ponies, and he didn’t even know most of them, but the name of Granny Smith the Everlasting was legendary in the Apple Family. Still, if he was going to get this ‘Feeling’ nonsense over with as soon as possible, they were his best choice. He’d show up, make friends with his old relatives, consider revealing himself to them, possibly hug it out, and then he’d go home once he’d reassured himself that yes, his family still loved him, and he was the type of person who would be loved by his family, and so he could get back to work with their blessing. Because apparently, that actually mattered to some tiny part of him, a part that just wouldn’t go away.

He’d go, get it all over with, and be back before dinner.

This would just be a short trip.

Silver left his Business Room, the graphs Coffee Grounds had left behind vanishing and returning to his pocket in a flash of brown light, and Silver went upstairs using a secret staicase nearby, one enchanted to become invisible. To the main elevator, his Business Room was the top floor, because that was the highest he wanted anyone to go to. To maintain this illusion, the windows were enchanted to show a viewpoint higher than they actually rested at. There were actually several more floors atop his Steel Spire, and between his Business Room and the top-floor Penthouse that served as his bedroom, there was a different room.

At a first glance, the room would appear to be bigger on the inside, because it was. It was an art gallery with 3-d art, miniature vehicles such as magnificent airships and enormous boats on display, all reduced to the size of carts.

Then one would notice that the vehicles were very precise and accurate to the real thing, almost as if they were the real thing, shrunken down by magic. Mainly because they were.

He walked straight towards his favourite ship, one that would be both fast and inconspicuous. Well, more inconspicuous than the giant silver, orange, blue and jet-black airship with fifty cannons a side, thin layers of titansteel covering the balloon section. He went past magnificent vehicles worthy of a Princess or even a King, and walked straight towards a normal-sized grey rowboat made from buoyant metal, an oar on either side. He walked up to it, hopped up onto it, and faced the boat’s front.

His horn began to glow with a steel-blue light, and then the glow spread out to cover his whole body and the rowboat beneath him, radiating like a faint blue sun. His boat started to levitate, slowly, like a hot air balloon gradually taking off. His boat rose up, and once it had gotten about five feet off the ground, he and the boat disappeared in a flash of blue light.

Silver Star reappeared outside of the Silver Spire, a confident smile upon his face, as he rose higher and soared far above the heads of the Unicorns and occasional Earth Pony and Pegasus beneath him. On the ground down below, and in buildings, people stopped what they were doing to to look up, or out of their windows, and see the Unicorn in his rowboat, and the expression on his face that confidently shouted out to all who saw it, Yes, I am flying a metal rowboat... and I look good.

Once Silver Star was far above the Canterlot skyline, he immediately poured on the speed, suddenly flying faster than any Pegasus he'd ever met. (He could even keep up with Rainbow Dash at this rate. Until she used the Sonic Rainboom, at which point, she'd easily leave him and his rowboat in the dust. But he hadn't met Rainbow Dash yet, and did not know this).

Silver Star loved flying, but not as much as he loved magic and money. Still, there was something about looking down on the non-flying creatures beneath you that was just so... 'fun'? Yes, he supposed it was fun, but that wasn’t quite the main thing... Was it the exhilarating feeling of wind in his face? No... It was freedom. The absolute freedom that came with flying, to know that you could fly anywhere, go anywhere, do whatever you wanted. Silver Star did not know the spell for self-levitation, though he had no problem with using ordinary levitation to pick himself up, but he found it took less effort when riding a flying object instead of levitating himself. And he'd never settle for anything less than the best in any other areas of life, so why should he start now? Besides, he liked his rowboat. It was cool. And a good way to get in object-flying practice, for if he’d ever need to fly his best battleships.

And as he flew the boat to Ponyville, he breathed in, and was about to start singing when his boat suddenly halted in the air. In the air in front of him, a wide stage appeared, a stage upon which three ponies in black suits appeared. On the left, a tall pale-red Unicorn with a spiky pale-grey mane whose sleek and slim body would probably look far more attractive if he were a mare. In the middle, a very attractive brown Unicorn mare with brown eyes as hard and unyielding as frozen earth. And on the right, a very large royal-blue rounded-headed Earth Pony that looked vaguely Manehattanite-ish.

"Harangue, Soliloquy, Fillibuster, what are you doing here?" Silver asked, wondering why the best three of the lawyers in the country, the three he practically owned, were suddenly showing up in person. There was a reason why every client they represented turned out to be genuinely innocent and every criminal they prosecuted were either genuinely evil or they found the true culprit during the course of the case. And that giant monster attacks usually got the absolute worst criminals on their way to prison, seemingly eaten alive when they were actually teleported to another dimension.

Fillibuster, the Earth pony, began. "Bom bom bommm..."

"That song you were about to siiiing..." Harangue sang.

"Bom bom bommm..."

"Was copyrighted property, so now we'll sing!" Harangue sang, stepping back so Soliloquy could take center stage.

"About something that's never been sang about before..." Soliloquy sang.

"Bom bom bommm..."

"Like how my toast is almost always scorched!" She sang, closing her eyes and shaking her head for emphasis.

The two began to sing in harmony while Fillibuster lowly sung a generic rising four-note eight-beat baseline. "The song you were about to sing is copyrighted, so we'll sing this instead! We're singing lawyers, musical advisors-"

Harangue, alone, called out, "And I wish I was dead!"

Harangue and Fillibuster began to sing in harmony, while Soliloquy took over the rhythm. "We've sold our souls and dignities, so justice may truly reign! But please, oh please, for the love of all, never make us sing again!"

A violin section came out of nowhere, and the three sang together, "We're singing lawyers, who tell you now, you can't sing what you want! Other lawyers, not us, of course, each one is a caaaaaaaaaad and sycophant!"

"Copyright infringement is very bad, so please heed our last woo-oooo-ords...

Trying to sing like this re-ya-ly huuuu-uuuu-uuurts..."

"Our pride and dignity... And respectability! We are the singing lawyeeeers... " The three sang, and then musically declared, "NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN!"

Harangue teleported the three and their floating stage away, and Silver blinked.

"...What?" He wondered.

Rainbow Dash bucked the final puffy white cloud floating above Ponyville, and zoomed back down to the grassy grove where Pinkie Pie was waiting for her with a stopwatch in her hoof. "How fast was that?" Rainbow Dash asked her pink friend, who stopped her stopwatch so quickly her hoof was momentarily a blur.

Pinkie Pie excitedly looked at her stopwatch, and then a wide grin spread across her face. "Less than ten seconds flat!" she said, overjoyed. "Only seven seconds!"

“Alright!” Rainbow cheered.

And then her cheer suddenly went away as she noticed something up in the air, something flying towards Ponyville very quickly. "Uh... Pinkie?"

"Yes, Dashie?" Pinkie said cheerfully, hoping Dash had stopped smiling because she’d just remembered there was something fun and awesome she’d forgotten to do with her, but there was still time left for them to do it.

"What's that behind you?" Rainbow Dash asked, pointing straight ahead with her hoof. Pinkie Pie looked behind her, and saw a grey Unicorn riding on a metal rowboat that glowed with a bright flame-blue light.

"It looks like... A grey Unicorn, on a flying rowboat!" Pinkie said cheerfully. "I've never seen him around here before." She said, and gasped. “Maybe he wants to be our friend!" And then she gasped harder. “Maybe he wants a party! Go say hi to him, Dashie!"

Meanwhile, in the sky, Silver Star's ears twitched as he sensed somepony calling him grey. Years of dealing with that had given him a near-supernatural and utterly-useless sense for that one particular thing. He wasn't grey, he was silver, dang it! Also, looking at Ponyville, he noticed a completely out-of-place crystal castle thing around all the nice, normal, thematically-fitting cottage houses. He’d have to be blind to not miss it, considering how the thing was a giant eyesore. Then again, he lived in a giant silver tower he’d built himself in a town filled with buildings made from marble, ivory, gold and stone, so what right did he have to tell strange ponies to get better taste in interior and exterior decorating? ...That right, really, since his Steel Spire was awesome, while this crystal temple just looked weird. Like someone had found a nice diorama of a city, and slapped down a big pink gem where their megaprincess megacastle would stand. He was reminded of what's-her-name, from Duel Academy. She sucked.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash flapped her wings hard and zoomed up to the slowly-floating Unicorn on a boat, leaving a prismatic vapour trail in the air behind her. Ever since Twilight became an Alicorn Princess, new arrivals were uncommon, but not rare.

Star was pondering what else he could do in Ponyville while he was here, pretending not to notice the flapping sound of a Pegasus flying towards him, when a sky-blue Pegasus suddenly appeared in front of him, hovering and keeping the same short distance between them as they both flew forwards. He slowed down his boat, and she slowed down to match it. Silver got the sense that she was toying with him just a little, and any attempt to outfly or outmanouver her would fail but still be fun. Her speed was likely impressive, if her beautifully lithe and toned aerodynamic body and pure /magnificence/ of her beautiful wings was anything to go by. Her prismatic mane was odd, but kinda cute, if it was natural. If it was dyed, then it was weird, and so was she. Not that there was anything wrong with three of the five possible reasons one would have for doing such a thing. "Hey, are you new in town?" The Pegasus casually asked him.

"Yes, I’m here to visit somepony. My name... is Silver Star." Silver told the flying Pegasus in a calm, slightly-proud, and seemingly well-practiced manner.

Rainbow Dash had the weirdest sense of deja vu. There was something eerily familiar about the tone, inflection, emotion, and everything else about the way that Unicorn said his name. It sounded like Twilight's weird no-accent-at-all correct-pronunciation-but-not-overbearingly-fancy accent. "Hey, are you from Canterlot?" Rainbow Dash asked.

“Eeeyes.” Silver admitted. “Are you from here?”

"No, I’m from Cloudsdale, but I moved here a while ago.” She admitted. She then puffed out her chest and pointed her hoof at her chest in a cool-looking way, showing off her awesome and lithe body, and she likely would have puffed up her wings - or whatever that was called - if she wasn't already flying. "You are talking to the one, the only, the awesome... Rainbow Dash!"

His eyes widened in surprise. "Hey, I've heard about you!" He said, realizing who she was. The information was already there, he just wasn't really paying attention. "You saved Equestria a bunch of times, right?"

"Yeah, but my friends helped." Rainbow said. It was always nice to meet a new fan.

Ask a dumb question to stall, and then go. "Is it true the Elements of Harmony exploded and from the ashes, your new Rainbow Power forms arose?" Silver asked.

"Uh... no. There were a bunch of rainbow keys, and a big tree, and it was awesome." Rainbow said.

"That actually does sound a lot cooler. Anyhoof..." Silver said, wondering if it was worth taking additional steps to avoid the risk of blowing his cover. "I should probably find a landmark first. Where is Sweet Apple Acres?"

"Over there." Rainbow Dash said, pointing a hoof. Some of her haters - Not that she cared she had them. Besides, Fluttershy and AJ had way more, maybe because they didn't seem like the type to be heroes that saved the planet. A town, maybe, but not all of Equestria. And they all had way, way, way more fans than haters, and most of their haters were really just the crazier fans of a different Element-Bearer, so who cared? - may have doubted she'd know what a landmark was, but pretty much every flier at least sort of understood the concept. "It's the huge orchard with a ton of apple trees, on the opposite side of town to the Castle, you can't miss it."

"Thanks." Silver said absentmindedly as he turned his ship around, and began slowly floating straight towards the cas-

Castle?!

Silver's rowboat halted in the air with the audible screech of metal grinding against more metal. "Did you just say castle? Why is there a castle in this town?!" Silver asked calmly, a little confused.

"Because Princess Twilight needs a place to stay, duh." Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes.

Silver's pupils and irises shrunk to the size of pinpricks for a brief moment.

Did she just say-

...No.

No.

She-

...No.

WhatIsSheTalkingAbout? Castle? WhoCouldLiveInAPlaceSoThermallyUninsulated? IsThatReallyMyFirstThoughtUponLearningThatThere'sAPrincessInTheSameTownAsMyFamilyMember? WhatDoesThisMeanForMyPlan? WhatplanthereisnoplanIamwingingitsohardPegasiblushfuriouslyinmypresence!

Newly acquired information is causing processing problems, information is also seemingly unreliable and from a single source. Possibility that she may be speaking of a different Twilight remains. Possibly that she may be lying remains. Possibility that she may be messing with me to see how I react remains. Possibility that I need to use my Ultimate Newspaper to keep me informed of current events more often, rather than simply searching for cool stuff to do... also remains. Disregard temporarily, until more data is found.

His eyes returned to normal. "Well, thanks." He said, and he quickly landed his rowboat on the ground and trotted off. As if as an afterthought, he cast a near-permanent steel-blue magical shield over his boat. His horn stopped glowing, but it lit up once again as he activated the illusion that obscured his horn's glow and caused it to appear non-glowing for a few hours, and trotted over to Sweet Apple Acres.

Rainbow Dash suddenly landed right next to him, taking him completely by surprise. She'd fallen straight down without flapping, so he wouldn't be able to hear him coming, flaring her wings out at the last moment to put a lot of strain on her wings and a lot less on her hooves. And since he wasn't really paying attention, he hadn't noticed the sound of displaced air approaching, either. Hmm... This Pegasus was certainly smarter than she appeared. Or, he was just an idiot for not paying enough attention and not realising that he'd just ended a conversation without actually ending it or making the other party end it, and so it was likely that she would follow him. Or both, probably mostly the former. "So, who’re you visiting?”

“That’s classified.” He said.

“Classified? Do you work for Princess Celestia?” She asked.

“From a certain point of view.” He said with an auditory shrug. He did not shrug physically, he did not need to, the fact that he was shrugging on the inside could be heard in his voice.

Deciding that this line of inquiry wouldn’t get her anywhere, she moved on. “So, what are you doing after you talk to this pony?”

He was planning on going back home, but he supposed that would look rather suspicious, a random pony flying into town for the few hours it would take to talk to a possible family member. Just for the sake of not giving anything away, a habit that years of business had taught him, he first said, “Who said it was a pony? Though it is probably a pony. Anyway, after that, I will... read books." Silver stated. "I will read some books.” And once he realised how awkward that sentence sounded once it was outside of his head, forever removing a few of his cool points in her eyes, he decided to try and change the subject. "What books do you like?"

"I like Daring Do, and... that's all." Rainbow admitted. “For now. But Twilight did send me some 'Y-A' stories a while back, saying I'd like them. I'll read them when I run out of Daring Do books.” She said, pronouncing it Why-Ay rather than Whyay. Rainbow Dash gained a cool point in Silver's eyes.

Daring Do... Those books are for young readers. YA stands for Young Adult. This Pegasus appears to be around my age, possibly a few months older- Not that I really look that young, with my suit and hat and everything. ...Come on, I can work with this. Silver thought. "I like those books, too." Silver said with a flirtatious smile he'd copied straight from a bad romantic comic book. A romantic comic book that was badly written, not a romantic comic book about an awful or unhealthy or otherwise bad romantic engagement. Lame crap like that just wouldn't sell. "My favourite character is Daring Do. I admire her personality, her quick mind, and her awesomeness."

"Me too!" Rainbow Dash shouted happily, glad she’d found a fellow Daring Do fan. "The next Daring Do book is coming out in a few months, and it's gonna be so! Awesome! And I'm gonna camp outside one of the bookstores in Canterlot, to make sure I get it first!"

Silver could almost hear the loud and overdramatic voice announcing their new friendship by yelling, 'FRIENDSHIP'. "That sounds like a good idea." Silver said, and smiled. "Perhaps I could come with you? If I remember correctly, I believe I have a costume that makes myself resemble one of the characters... who was it, again? Ahuizotl?”

“That’s a costume I’d like to see.” She said, wondering how that would look on him. Strangely, he managed to look pretty cool in it.

The thought bubble with him in it popped suddenly as Rainbow Dash noticed something.

"Hey, wait a second... Where's Pinkie Pie?"

2 - Now it's a Party

2 - An Unanticipated Gathering

Mayor Mare sighed in relief, having finally finished the day's paperwork, savouring her office's pleasant scent of mahogany, high-caffeine coffee, and 'papyrus'(Cheap) scroll paper. She neatly stacked sheets of finished paperwork, formal request forms, informal request letters, tax forms and scroll-letters addressed to her all together in a neat pile, she placed the pile in the 'Done' tray on her desk, and she smiled genuinely for the first time that morning. She had done her morning paperwork, and now she was ready to face the day... Even if it would probably be the same as every other day: doing what she could to keep the town afloat, put serious effort into thinking happy thoughts like the belief that she still mattered when an Alicorn Princess with a direct line to Princess Celestia herself had set up a gigantic castle in town - WITHOUT APPLYING FOR A PERMIT BEFOREHAND! I mean, sure, she retroactively applied for a permit later and it was accepted, but that just wasn't the same thing! - while keeping up appearances and making sure she'd be re-elected this Fall, and every Fall after that... but she had to at least try to maintain a positive attitude. Nobody would want a hopeless little Mopey Mayor, after all! She was The Mayor of Ponyville, after all, and she had to seem like the best choice for the job. She was the Mare wearing the Mayorly Mask, and-

The doors burst open suddenly with a loud crash, interrupting her thoughts and making forget the possible titles for the upcoming autobiography she was most definitely going to write and publish one day. A pink blur whizzed into the room, coming to a physics-defying complete halt just inches away from her desk, the turbulence and air pressure sending the neatly stacked papers flying all over the room.

"MayorMareMayorMareMayorMareMayorMareMayorMaaaare!!!" Pinkie Pie shouted, far more overexcited and overjoyed than usual. Her breath came in quick, shallow gasps through her nose, her mouth a permanent wide grin. Pinkie Pie stared at Mayor Mare expectantly, waiting for her reply.

They'd 'Done this song and dance' many times, as the cool Colts and Fillies would say, and Mayor Mare decided that she'd draw things out and have some fun with things this time.

"Mayor Mare, Pinkie Pie is here to see you." Mayor Mare's secretary called out from her position in the hallway rather unnecessarily.

"I noticed." Mayor Mare said in a fake-cheerful tone.

Mayor Mare paused and watched Pinkie Pie for eight whole seconds, The Mayor's practiced slightly-cheerful blank gaze looking directly at the real and overly-cheerful grinning face of Pinkie Pie. To her credit, Pinkie's smile didn't falter in the slightest, patiently waiting like a... like a... like a dam about to break would patiently wait for its chance to break completely instead of merely forming cracks.

"Yes, Miss Pie?" Mayor Mare finally asked the pink baker.

Pinkie let out a rapid stream of high pitched words spaced so closely together, even The Mayor of Ponyville couldn't understand them. And as a politican, it was her job to understand the un-understandable! ...The standable?

"Pinkie! Could you please slow down?" The Mayor asked.

Pinkie Pie happily closed her eyes and gave a closed-mouthed smile as she nodded a few times, faster and more enthusiastically than anypony else Mayor Mare had ever seen. Then she stopped suddenly, breathed in, and all in one breath she said, "I was out playing with Rainbow Dash but this new silver Unicorn showed up and he was flying a rowboat and I've never seen him before and I've never seen anypony fly a rowboat either and he told Dash he'd be living in Ponyville and from what Dashie told me he seems really serious and formal and fancy but I bet he's just really sad and lonely and he's never been in town before so I want to throw him a party because he probably doesn't have any friends in Ponyville yet!"

Mayor Mare stared for a moment, stunned by Pinkie's spectacular display of breath-holding. That was long, even for her. Mayor Mare pretended to not understand at all.

"Sorry, Miss Pie, could you repeat that?" Mayor Mare asked innocently.

To her credit, Pinkie Pie didn't appear annoyed or tired in the slightest. She took a deep breath and repeated, "I was out playing with Rainbow Dash but this new silver Unicorn showed up and he was flying a rowboat and I've never seen him before and I've never seen anypony fly a rowboat either and he told Dash he'd be living in Ponyville and from what Dashie told me he seems really serious and formal and fancy but I bet he's just really sad and lonely and he's never been in town before so I want to throw him a party because he probably doesn't have any friends in Ponyville yet!"

Mayor Mare blinked, surprised. Okay, she'd officially earned it. ...Mostly. "Well, I'd love to help..." Mayor Mare said in her best and most suggestive tone, "But my office is such a mess-"

In the space of under a second, Pinkie Pie had become a pink blur again, whizzed around her office and gathered up all of the papers that were in The Mayor's 'Done' tray before the pink baker arrived, and finally came to an impossibly sudden stop in the exact same spot and stance she had been in almost a second ago.

Mayor Mare looked around the office, and noticed that not only had her papers been put away, but the office was suddenly much cleaner and tidier, everything was aligned with exact right angles, and everything had been dusted and polished. If Pinkie Pie ever showed any interest in becoming her janitor or maid, she'd get the job in a heartbeat. "Thank you, Pinkie Pie. I think my Secretary has the town's Roster, in the bookshelf hidden in behind her desk-"

Pinkie Pie speed-blurred away, and appeared in the doorway a moment later, holding a large thick tome in her grinning mouth, between her teeth. She bounced over to Mayor Mare's desk and placed it down, looking at the Mayor with excited anticipation.

Mayor Mare opened her book and looked inside, rapidly flicking through page after page, looking for a page that wasn't completely filled with names or crossed-out names. "Let's see... New arrivals... Hmm... No, there's no record of any silver Unicorns buying any houses today, or even looking at potential properties to buy."

"What about a grey Unicorn?" Pinkie asked hopefully.

"No, no grey Unicorns, either." Mayor Mare said, looking down at her book. "...In fact... This town hasn't had any new arrivals for a few weeks. Are you sure he plans on staying for longer than a month?"

"I think so!" Pinkie said optimistically.

"Well, there's no record of him living here..." She said, looking down at her book. Then, she looked at Pinkie Pie and narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "Wait... Is he staying in my town illegally?"

"NO!" Pinkie Pie shouted suddenly in panic. Then, she giggled nervously whike putting on a smile. "I mean, he probably just hasn't gotten around to that yet. I'm sure he'll do that tomorrow, after the party. Where will that party be?"

Mayor Mare sighed wearily, and then forced herself to keep up her Mayorly mask of subtle optimism. "Pinkie Pie, I've already told you: We have no record of your mysterious new rowboat-flying silver Unicorn."

She doubted if there even WAS a rowboat-flying silver Unicorn, but she didn't let that show. "If he is here, we don't know who he is or where he'll be. Sorry, but there are some things even the Mayor doesn't know. After all, I'm only an elected official. Vote for me again, and I'll do my best to fix that."

"Oh. Well... Thanks anyway, Mayor Mare!" Pinkie Pie said as she skipped off, noticably less-cheerful than usual.

Mayor Mare shrugged, and went back to thinking of titles for the autobiography she'd get time to write some day. The Mayor of... Mayor... Mayor... Mayords? Maids? Mayor Mare 2: Mare Harder? The Autobiography of Unparallelled Mayorosity? No, those were terrible. 'The Mare Wearing the Mayorly Mask' was way better.

0-0-0

Although you wouldn't be able to tell from looking at her bounce back to Sugarcube Corner at a marginally slower pace than usual, Pinkie Pie was completely lost.

Normally, when a new pony arrived, she'd ask Mayor Mare for that new pony's new home address. She'd spend the day rushing around town and telling certain popular, chatty or well-connected ponies(Applejack, Roseluck, Rarity, and Spike, for example. Applejack would bring some of the Apple Family, a ton of ponies visited Roseluck's flower stand, Rarity had her contacts and clients in town, and Spike seemed to know some ponies no matter where they went.) about her Pinkie Pie Welcome Party and how everyone was invited. At night, when that new pony got home, he or she(Or 'it'. Ponyville seemed to attract all types.) would be greeted with a beautiful surprise party, just for them. The look of surprise and dawning happiness on that pony's face, that always, always made her smile.

But now, she couldn't do that. She couldn't set up a surprise party, because she had no idea where that pony would be.

Perhaps... perhaps she could set it up in Sugarcube Corner, and have him go there? But that'd be too obvious and suspicious, and he was from Canterlot like Twilight, and he really did have a similar accent, which meant he was probably super smart like her, so he'd probably see right through it. And it wasn't a real surprise party if it wasn't a surprise!

If he didn't have a house... where could she put his party? She couldn't NOT give that new pony a party. Especially one that looked so lonely and totally-serious, as if he was constantly trying to hold back tears of loneliness and sadness.

She decided: She'd have to risk it, and have the party at Sugarcube Corner. Wait, no, they were open late that night. Okay, Applejack's barn. A not-much-of-a-surprise surprise party was still better than no party at all.

But first, she really needed to get back to work. Her break was almost over!

Pinkie became a pink blur as she sped towards Sugarcube Corner, with only seconds left before her break officially ended. Besides, the sooner she got there, the sooner she could finish her shift, and then go and decorate Applejack's barn and get it ready for the party! (After asking Applejack first, of course.)

000

With his main plan tossed out the window like a mediocre employee thrown through a beautiful and high stained-glass window onto the streets below and a rare glaring lack of a backup plan staring him in the face, Silver Star decided to improvise.

He'd find Applejack, reveal himself, and she'd tell him everything he missed.

And along the way, he'd plan out the conversation, and consider doing something about the blue blur dashing from hiding place to hiding place at speeds he didn't think possible for even a Pegasus, watching him carefully. Did she actually have a job? Or was Weather Duty pretty much it?

Twilight Sparkle... Just from the

stories and rumours he'd heard of her so far, she certainly sounded interesting. And he liked to be interested. From what he'd heard, she was smart, funny, capable, and the most magically powerful Unicorn to exist in over four thousand years, capable of easily defeating even Celestia in a Horn-Off if she wanted to. Epic. And so were the stories about her, where she was rumoured to have battled titanic beasts, invading armies from other worlds and planes, and even an alternate universe version of herself. Also, Chaos God Discord, a Changeling queen, and King Sombra, one of the most powerful Dark Magicians in millenia.

Applejack, on the other hand... there weren't that many stories about her. Apart from the ones that said she was just as fast as Rainbow Dash, she was so cool that she could eat entire apple trees, bark and all, and that if she wanted to, she could run around the planet twice and deliver a patented Apple Family buck right into her own flanks.

He hadn't seen Applejack in a long time. Not since the last Apple Family Reunion he could go to, which was a while ago. He did want to go to those, but something always got in the way, like being too busy with business meetings, or being too busy obsessively micromanaging money to gain marginally more, or being too busy not liking Apple Family Reunions. They never focused on the business and the money as much as he liked, and the whole event focused far too much on family, and togetherness, and "Oh, how have you been? I haven't seen you since the last Reunion! Even though if I really cared, I would visit of my own free will, instead of being forced to drop everything and trek halfway across the continent just to spend one day talking to simple and usually-boring farm ponies I already know everything about!".

But Applejack wasn't like that. Well, she kinda was, but Applejack was interesting, and definitely his favourite of the Apple Family ponies. Not only could she count to numbers higher than ten, she was actually a very competent businesspony. Yet for some reason, she preferred her family's simple, basic, older-than-the-moon and boring-as-bucking-trees food-stand routine, rather than attempting to secure business deals and contracts like him, while also making investments to gain even more money... money which, naturally, the Apple Family would get a cut of.

He liked interesting things. Those mares were interesting. Money itself may not have been that interesting, as far as golden bit coins went, but it was certainly interesting to try and come up with new and ingenious ways to make money, while staying within the confines of the law when under his own guise. It was also interesting to see how far other businessponies were prepared to go - or had to go - to make money.

He hated to be bored. He hated sleeping even more. Sleeping was boring. Spending any hours with his mind and body completely immobile, even only a few, was not something he was willing to waste his time on. Besides, he rarely dreamed. He could only sleep, and then wake up later, guilty over the knowledge that he'd wasted something as precious as his own time.

Though a large portion of his dreams involved money, going on adventures, or having fun with a mare made of money. Not a rich mare, but an actual Elemental/Golem in the shape of a mare, made out of bit coins. He often wondered if Princess Luna ever saw the latter. That would probably be rather awkward. Then again, she'd probably seen weird dreams like that before. ...But probably not ones with mares made of money.

Where was he? Ah, yes, the plan.

No matter what happened in that barn, he would be prepared.

000

Rainbow zipped to a large building, hiding behind it and keeping her eyes focused on the grey Unicorn.

"Hi!" Pinkie chirped cheerfully, suddenly popping into her field of vision.

Rainbow let out a yelp of surprise, wings fluttering as she reflexively leapt away.

"Dashie told me the new pony was here." Pinkie Pie stage-whispered loudly. "Make him go to the barn at Sweet Apple Acres, we're having a Surprise Party for him there!"

"But he's already going there." Rainbow pointed out.

"But that means I have to go even faster! STALL HIM!" Pinkie shouted, and blurred away.

Rainbow was surprised for a moment, but decided to do it. "Got it." She said, getting her game face on.

000

Silver left the main area of Ponyville, trotting along the dirt path that led towards town, his Connection-Sight (Which he was starting to consider calling Silver Sight, because that was far cooler) informing him that he was on the right track: Not only was this path well-used, but faint wheel-tracks from a wooden cart carrying a considerable quantity of apples and apple products had been down this path many times, the cart pulled by either a medium-sized fit pony a little older than him and a far larger and considerably older Earth Pony depending on the day.

"You know," Silver said aloud with a smirk just before Rainbow Dash swooped down and easily hovered beside him. "If you keep showing up suddenly to talk to me, ponies are going to get the wrong idea about us."

Rainbow burst into laughter, still flying. Huh. That reaction was only 17% expected. His mental table of who she was and how she was likely to react to assorted things altered to reflect this new data.

"So, what's up?" Silver asked.

"Not much." Rainbow admitted. "So... Why do you want to talk to Applejack?"

He considered his list of possible excuses, but then he remembered that this was the Element of Loyalty, and they had saved the world several times. Furthermore, she embodied Loyalty, and the abilities this was said to give her ranged from minor things like sensing disloyalty and seeing the bonds of loyalty between others to the more 'Out there' stuff, such as breaking the laws of physics when necessary to help a friend or fulfil a promise, changing the loyalties of others with but a glance, and becoming a giant glowy rainbow thingy wreathed in rainbow flames. In any case, the possibility that she may be able to sense lies, seeing lies as a betrayal of trust, remained.

"Because I know her, but I haven't seen her in a long time." Silver admitted, deciding not to take any chances.

"YOU knew APPLEJACK?" Rainbow asked, clearly surprised.

"A long time ago." Silver admitted. "I doubt she'll even recognize me, the way I am now."

"Why?" Rainbow asked.

Silver suddenly stopped, horn aglow, placing a soundproof blue ten-foot-radius Silent Spellshield around them both, and then an Illusion of Ignorance spell, a minor glamour illusion that made them both far harder to notice as long as they stayed within its immobile eight-foot radius.

"...Can you keep a secret?" Silver asked Rainbow as she looked around in surprise, though this caught her attention.

"Uh... sure, about what?" Rainbow asked.

"Promise me you won't tell anypony or anyone?" Silver asked.

"Sure." Rainbow said, not Pinkie Promising.

"I... I wasn't always fancy like this." Silver admitted.

"What, were you a homeless orphan foal that found out they had an epic destiny?" Rainbow asked.

"Something like that." Silver admitted. "Except for the destiny part. I make my own destiny. Anyway, enough about me. You're Rainbow Dash, best flier in Equestria. You wanted to get into the Wonderbolts, right? Why are you not already the Wonderbolt Champion, or whatever they call it?"

"Well, uh... Speed Flying is really different from Stunt Flying, and Wonderbolt routines are really complex, they need lots of teamwork and precision, and besides, I'm too busy with Twilight and the Element of Harmony stuff to spend days practicing flight routines." Rainbow admitted.

"That makes sense. On a lighter note, popular opinion is divided by two common beliefs: A, you're so awesome that Spitfire and the others will look less cool just for being near you. B, you outrank the Wonderbolts by so much, you'd be able to order Spitfire around. And since she doesn't want that, the whole Lightning Dust thing was semi-staged from the start to make you want to quit. By the way, did you know that as soon as Dust went home, she found Soarin waiting for her, letting her know that she performed admirably, what happened was not entirely her fault, a hot air balloon simply should not have been in a tornado zone, and so she was invited back next season to try again? She was notably less reckless, because the whole thing was also a secret test of character for her, too. If she'd gone crazy or tried to hurt you, she'd have failed."

"Wait, really?" Rainbow asked, surprised.

Silver grinned. "Yep. I'm not sure if I'm not supposed to have told you or not, but I don't care that much. I'm also not sure if it's that big a deal, but eh, you should probably know that things are going well for her. She's grown a lot, as a person, too. And grown out of the whole reckless thing, but only when others are involved."

"Well, uh... good for her, I guess. Why are you telling me this?" Rainbow asked.

"Because I'm awesome." Silver stated. "I'm not sure if you ever thought about her or not, but it's not that big a deal. But in case it is, then... there you go, I suppose. Also... Here." Star said, horn glowing as he grew a sunflower out of the ground beside him, the head rapidly withering and transforming into a blue peach. "An exceedingly rare fruit, and only I know the spell to create it. Normally around fifty bits for just one, but you're awesome, and you helped save the world a few times, so twenty bits for you."

"Uh... What's it called?" Rainbow asked. Silver then fired a magic bolt into the air, shattering his own Silent Spellshield.

"Starfruit, One-one-one-five Blue Variety." Silver said, pulling the fruit off and floating it towards her as the stem it was once connected to disintegrated back into the dirt. "I'll come up with a better name some other time. Want one?"

Rainbow thought for a moment. She had to stall him, and this was probably some kind of gesture of friendliness... or there was something weird about the fruit.

"I don't have any money on me right now, could I eat it later?" She asked.

"Sure." Silver shrugged, horn flashing once as he teleported the fruit away. He resumed walking towards Sweet Apple Acres, and asked, "So, what's living here like?"

"It's pretty awesome." Rainbow admitted. "Want a guided tour of the town?"

"That does sound nice... Buuut... I do have to see Applejack." Silver admitted. "Could I take that tour later?"

"Come on!" Rainbow said, encouraging him. "How many times are you going to get a chance to get a guided tour of Ponyville with THE Rainbow Dash?"

Silver smirked, a blue gleam flashing in his eyes. "Heh." He said, horn flashing as he teleported away.

Rainbow looked around quickly, spotting Silver in the distance, galloping away from Sweet Apple Acres for some reason, probably to take a different loop around. Or maybe he wasn't actually here for Applejack. But then what was he actually in town for?! She chased after him, and he looked back just in time to see her, and speed up.

000

Rainbow's chase of Silver through Ponyville was fast and epic, and not helped by the fact that Silver was far faster and more agile than you'd expect somepony like that to be.

She chased him as he charged through Ponyville town, practically dancing around the stalls and ponies before suddenly hopping into the air, flipping over and over to show off as he landed on a cottage roof, rolling forwards the second he landed, charging ahead. Rainbow pursued him as he dashed across buildings, leaping from one to another, and just as she was about to catch him, he rolled off the side of a building, his hooves catching the wall as he continued to run down before turning, running along the wall, pursued by a rainbow bolt.

He suddenly leapt off the building's wall, heading straight towards another building's wall, twisting his body around in the air, landing on his hooves and charging straight up, a silver, orange and blue blur closely followed by Rainbow's prismatic contrail.

He ran straight up the building, leaping off once he got to the top, backflipping rapidly as cubes of dirt encased in blue rapidly rose up to supply him with platforms to run across and leap from. Rainbow was fast, but unless she used the Sonic Rainboom, which he assumed she wouldn't want to use in such a densely-populated area, his agility and unpredictability kept the playing field level...

From a certain point of view.

He reached the last cube and teleported away, the cubes neatly falling back into the ground like keys into a lock.

Rainbow flew straight up, hoping to see where he'd gone, head turning around as she searched the floor for that blur.

"Hi." Silver's voice said, coming from above her.

She looked up, and saw Silver casually reclining on a floating garden chair made from a steel-coated wooden frame, its bed made of leaves. Her jaw dropped, and Silver's chair sped off at speeds no mere garden chair had any business reaching.

She took off in pursuit, rapidly gaining on him, only for him to start pulling away. She pushed herself harder, and he did the same, mach cones forming around them both.

"No way..." Rainbow said, speeding up, only for him to do the same. His deck chair started to erode away, metal holding strong as leaves started to burn away, a bed of steel string replacing them.

The mach cones sharpened, and the two got faster and faster, and then a wide steel column emerged from the chair as he got onto his hooves and backflipped off, launching him away as he sailed back over Rainbow's head.

Time seemed to slow down as Rainbow looked up to see the grinning Silver backflip over her again and again, their eyes meeting for just one brief moment. "Ha." Silver said, horn flashing.

Time resumed and he continued to flip back until he landed on a platform he'd just created, the platform spinning with him as several more appeared, and he leapt off to spin and land on each one in order, hopping off once he'd reached the end to spread his hooves and laugh, feeling the wind whipping around him.

Rainbow pursued, slowly turning towards the right, as if the place where she thought he was and where he actually was were rapidly becoming two different things.

Seeing her dash past him and then suddenly turn to rush directly away from him with a look of determination on her face, he laughed, arced his back, and then rapidly front-flipped over and over through the air, free as a bird.

Who said only Pegasi could fly?

Rainbow then figured out that she was under an illusion when the view of Ponyville out of the corner of her eye was ever-so-slightly wrong, and the illusionary Silver stopped doing stuff. She remembered something she'd overheard from Twilight involving Illusion magic, and bit her tongue.

"Ow." She said as the illusion left her mind and her tongue hurt a little.

She looked around quickly, saw Silver flipping through the air, and dashed straight at him, grabbing him out of the air and getting onto his back, wrapping her hooves around him to keep hold of him and begin a high-altitude interrogation.

Or rather, she thought that happened. He'd heard the air displace itself, and temporarily teleported his mass away once she came into contact with him, just as planned. And though the illusion affecting her stayed strong and the illusionary Silver acted completely in-character, the fact that a part of her mind told her that the race wasn't over yet and she hadn't yet won made it clear that she was still under an illusion. She bit her tongue again, starting to realize that she really hated illusion magic, and needed to ask Twilight if there was another way to beat illusions.

The illusionary Silver in her hooves flickered out of existance, and looking around, she saw the real Silver falling down to Ponyville with his limbs outstretched, like a champion skydiver. Which was accurate, since he'd copied this technique from a champion skydiver.

Rainbow pushed herself harder as she caught him, wrapping her hooves around him and flapping her wings harder to stabilize them both and stop them from falling. "Got you!" She shouted.

His horn began to glow, and she did something only 13% expected by biting it, the glow around his horn dissipating. "Uh..." He said, surprised.

"Ha! Now tai and usthe ma'ic!" Rainbow declared.

"Now, why would I need that?" Silver asked, arcing his head back, and then slamming it forwards, bodily throwing her overhead and sliding his horn to the side, out of her mouth, and he teleported a few feet away while she fell down in an uncontrollable spin.

"See you when you hit the ground!" Silver laughed, and then she suddenly regained control and lunged straight for him, an outstretched hoof catching him in the throat as she angrily flew towards the ground, knocking the wind out of him.

"Ah. Best flyer on the planet. Forgot about that part." Silver wheezed, an embarassed look on his face.

And then a second Silver head and neck grew out of his back, two more Silver heads growing out of that one's neck. "Or did we? Dun dun DUUUNNN!" The four Silvers sang.

The four-headed Silver exploded in a blast of fire and metal Shrapnel, and Rainbow yelped in surprise, only for the shrapnel to fly right through her and the fire to do nothing, because it was an illusion. Yeah, she was definitely starting to get tired of that.

Looking around, she saw Silver on his back, falling down towards Ponyville, laughing. Charging right at him, she caught him and started bringing him further up into the wind.

"That's getting old!" She shouted over the roar of the wind.

"You know what else is getting old? Silver shouted, spontaneously growing eight pairs of wings and sticking out his tongue so it could burst into flame. "Your mother!"

He exploded, but Rainbow was prepared for that, closing her eyes and ignoring the lightshow. She opened her eyes, only for him to explode again, magical force blasting her back even as the illusionary fire and shrapnel did nothing. She recovered, and saw a large quantity of Silvers wearing light-blue scarves on the ground, seated in wooden stands that hadn't been there a second ago, the stands set up around a large wooden arena upon which a Silver larger than Ponyville's buildings stood, watching her and waiting.

As she swooped down, she heard one of them speak.

"Place your bets, everypony, place your bets!" A Silver with a top hat and a second top hat atop his top hat declared.

She landed in the arena and bit her tongue, but nothing happened. The giant Silver was still there, and so were the others.

"She has done well, but can she defeat... Giant Silver Star?" The announcer asked them all, his voice amplified by a spell.

"Of course she can!" One Silver yelled, much to her surprise.

"Go, Rainbow Dash!" Another shouted.

"Rainbow is almost as awesome as Twilight!" A third declared, holding up a large blue cardboard sign with that written upon it in large purple letters.

"Go, go, go, go!!!" A fourth yelled, holding up a sign that said 'The pony behind me can't see a thing!', followed by a crude facsimile of a grinning Silver Star head.

"Round one, begin!" The announcer yelled, and then everything exploded.

Standing just outside Twilight's house, one Silver Star casually remarked to another Silver, "So, how long before she wakes up?" As they watched the sleeping Dash lie there.

And then her eyes snapped open.

"Well, I'm outta here." One Silver said, turning into liquid steel and seeping through the ground as the other fled.

"Oh, no you don't!" Rainbow declared, pouncing and flapping her wings furiously as she overtook and tackled the fleeing Silver, pinning him to the ground and looming over him.

"Okay, okay, I'll talk!" Silver declared. "Just, first... Tell me how to get to Simian Street!"

"You realize she won't get that reference, right?" A second Silver made from liquid metal asked him, rising up from the ground.

"Manlions forever!" The first Silver declared, and teleported away, causing Rainbow Dash to fall.

"Huh." The second Silver noted. "How about that."

She spun around and bucked him, and he burst apart into a cloud of illusionary flames and steel. She caught a fleeing Silver out of the corner of his eye, and chased after him.

He ran into a building, ran up its side, and ran onto its ceiling, closely pursued by Dash as he hopped into the open window of another building, and she stopped in the room upon realizing that he wasn't in the building and he'd teleported away upon leaving her line of sight.

She flew back out, flying into the air, seeing Silver on the ground, horn aglow, waiting for her. Suddenly encased in his ironclad magical glow, she was floated down to him.

"You were awesome! We should do this again some time. But you should probably know something first..." Silver said, smiling. "These aren't the only spells I know."

He vanished in a flash of blue, and once the magical glow around her dissipated a few seconds later, dropping her to the ground. She angrily flew up, searching for Silver and not finding a trace of him.

And then a large purple sign with pink neon letters appeared in the air above Sweet Apple Acres, simply saying 'Here'. Dash flew towards it, hoping she'd done okay.

000

As Silver Star walked up towards Sweet Apple Acres's main gate, he saw Applejack standing at the gate, waiting for him. "Howdy, welcome to Sweet Apple Acres!" Applejack greeted warmly and energetically. Thankfully, she didn't do that odd rearing-thing Braeburn did when welcoming new ponies to his town. And the way he said the town's name... What even was that, anyway?

"Good morning." Silver Star said to her in his Twilight-esque Correct-Pronounciation Canterlot accent. "My name, is Silver Star."

"A fancy Canterlot pony, huh?" Applejack said, surprised.

"Don't worry, I actually like apples." I said, remembering how most Canterlot ponies felt about 'Commoner food'. "Particularly, a fine apple strudel, baked to perfection and served with a side of fresh apples." I smiled fondly. "Around ten of those."

"Well, it's about time those Canterlot ponies learned how to eat!" Applejack said, amused.

"Actually, it's just me. I'm the only pony I know over there who appreciates real food!" Silver laughed, and Applejack laughed with him. 'Great, now we're friends. That was easy.' He thought. 'Now where's the next one?'

'No, I came here to talk to Applejack, and that's what I'm going to do.'

"So, Applejack... Do you recognize me?" Silver asked.

"Huh? Can't say I've seen you before, why?"

Silver sighed. "It's understandable. I have changed a lot since you last saw me. Basically, I'm... Actually, could we go into your barn? It's a lot easier to set up the best privacy spells when you're inside a building."

"M-maybe later." She said, looking around. "Hey, what's it like in Canterlot?"

"Pretty good. There's always something going on, so it's never boring. The shows and theatres are amazing, and the nightclubs are spectacular. I'm not actually native to Canterlot, I moved there in search of money and excitement. I'm a businesspony, and so I have to manage and micromanage a lot of things. Restaurants, stores, travelling merchants, farmers and food-sellers, bars and taverns and pubs, and so on. But I enjoy that, even if it does get irritating sometimes, and since it doesn't take long, I have a lot of free time to spend practicing magic or adventuring. I started from the bottom with nothing at all, and now, here I am."

"Well, that's nice. Ah spend most of mah time helping out at the farm, but I still try 'n' make tahm fer mah friends. If ya don't mahnd mah askin'... What d'ye mean by irritatin'?"

"Well... While most of the places I get are okay, some of the places I bought needed A LOT of work done before they were even remotely acceptable. Like this one farm that didn't seem to understand the concept of supply and demand or even basic crop rotation, or a restaurant whose prices and standards for food were just... sad. Not to mention, the fact that countless ponies are relying on me for a paycheck, and one slipup could ruin us all. But still, it's a rewarding job, and an interesting one. Plus... I don't just try to squeeze as much money as possible out of everything I see, I try to make things as great as they can be. I want things to be better, I want food to be tastier, I want gardens to be bigger, I want delivery services to be faster and more reliable. I make sure everything I own is the best it can be. It may not be optimal, profit-wise, but I have enough money. Still, the world could always be more beautiful."

"Well, that's mighty decent of ya." Applejack said as she smiled, starting to like him.

"I know, I'm awesome." Silver said, and her smile shrunk slightly. "Anyway, what's it like to be an Element of Harmony?"

"Well, I've got some great friends I know've always got mah back. And getting to go to places like Canterlot and the Crystal Empire has beem fun. But mah day to day life ain't changed much, 'part from the occasional friendship problem or giant monster attack. Ah'm still buckin' apples, and Ah'm still an Apple Pony, through and through."

"Oh. Well, I know a pony that can get you one of the best automatons on the market. She offers good deals on vehicles, too, but she'll only make them if they're awesome enough for her. Anyway,

"Woah there, Ah'm not sure Ah want some fancy arcane science thing running around mah farm."

"Don"t worry, it won't go on a rampage like in 45% of all the bad automaton stories ever. It will follow you around, help buck apples, help around on the farm, and smile like a cute puppy when you tell him or her that it's a good and very helpful automaton. In fact, I can even ask her to make it look like a dog."

"Thanks, but I already have a dog."

"Cool. How about an apple? Something with a head, legs, and a giant apple-shaped body."

"That actually sounds kinda weird." Applejack admitted, imagining a dog's head and legs on a big red apple.

"Don't worry, I'll ask her not to give it spider legs. So, how about a bird? Or a pony that could look like a family member? Making it look exactly like somepony while putting it to work for them is just asking trouble, so how about I make it green? Green is the worst colour. In fact, since you run a farm, how about I work out a payment plan, so you can easily afford it?"

"Well, thanks for the offer, but ah'm not really interested in-"

"What if I pointed out that automatons don't need to sleep or eat, and so one could easily work from dusk till dawn, with no breaks, not slowing down for a second, expecting no reward save your smile? If you're worried about the magical energies messing with your farm - Which you shouldn't be, since she's not an amateur and she'll shield its magical core properly - then I'll ask her to make it steam-powered, so it'll only take water as fuel. More efficiency than a farmhoof at the same cost. Come on, steam-powered iron- Actually? I'm feeling generous, let's make it stainless steel. Steam-powered stainless steel automaton, level one intelligence, on a payment plan that'll make it no more expensive than hiring a farmhoof. Going once!"

"Maybe some other time?" Applejack offered. "Closer to harvest season."

"With all these apple trees, surely they were planted at different intervals. Apples all year round, right?"

"Well, yeah, but they're better during certain times of the year. It's an Earth Pony magic thing."

"The interaction of natural energy with the energies of the changing seasons?" Silver asked, understanding.

"Uh... Eeeyup." Applejack said, surprised. "Most Unicorns don't know much about Earth Pony magic."

"That's dumb. If you don't know how something works, you don't know what it's capable of. And I like knowing as much as possible. I hunger for knowledge the way some hunger for food. Of course, I like that, too."

A sound similar to a piano's C note was heard, and an illusionary purple sign appeared over her barn. "Finally." Applejack said, relieved. "Okay, come into my barn, there's something I wanna show ya." Applejack said, and Silver's eye twitched in response.

'Ten bits says it's a trap.' Silver thought.

"A-are you sure?" Silver said, appearing stunned and surprised. "I-I mean, this is so sudden, and unexpected, and surprising, and... unexpected! Also, what was with that second-level illusion spell cast by a twenty-fifth-level Unicorn? Is Twilight Sparkle in that barn?"

"Uh... maybe." She said, eyes darting to the side. "Actually, eeeyup. Come on! I'll introduce you to her."

"Thanks." Silver said happily, following her.

000

Just as Applejack got ready to dramatically throw the barn doors open, Silver Star had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen. He had noticed faint outlines of several hoofprints in the dirt... Many ground-bound ponies, one young Alicorn that was likely Twilight, plus any number of fliers. Judging from the way one set of footprints bounced straight up and down on all fours rather than trotting normally, it was likely that Pinkie Pie was there, too. He had heard rumours about the Elements of Harmony, but nothing concrete, nothing that could truly be relied upon, save the basics: Pinkie hopped and pronked instead of walking, the yellow one was shy, the blue one was the fastest, Twilight was so powerful that she broke records by glancing in their general direction, and so on. He made a mental note to request full files on all of them at the first opportunity. In any case, he had reason to believe that The Elements of Harmony were in that barn, along with a significant number of other ponies.

It was an ambush, and there was some kind of trap. He was absolutely certain. It had to be! They would likely try to use The Elements of Harmony on him for some reason. ...Or they would, if they still had them. His contacts in the Intelligence Division had reluctantly(And only mostly of their own free will) told him the truth about what had happened to the actual Elements. Still, he didn't like taking chances when he hadn't weighted the roulette wheel in his favour. Did they have other magical items and weapons to use on him? Was the 'The elements were lost' story a lie, to bait potential enemies into attacking and getting their sad attempts over with?

Silver then turned his head to the side just as a second Silver flew towards the ground like a skydiver or Pegasus with their hooves folded back, teleporting just before he hit the ground, negating momentum and reappearing safely on the ground. Rainbow Dash landed just in time to see the two Silvers hoof-bump, the second one vanishing into wisps of blue magic.

Silver closed his eyes for a moment, a smile slowly forming on his face. "You did what?" He laughed. "Wow. Who was stalling who?"

"Wait!" Rainbow shouted, confused. "You were... already here?"

"Allow me to explain." Silver began.

000

"It's pretty awesome." Rainbow admitted. "Want a guided tour of the town?"

"That does sound nice... Buuut... I do have to see Applejack." Silver admitted. "Could I take that tour later?"

"Come on!" Rainbow said, encouraging him. "How many times are you going to get a chance to get a guided tour of Ponyville with THE Rainbow Dash?"

Silver smirked, a blue gleam flashing in his eyes. "Heh." He said, horn flashing as he teleported away.

Rainbow looked around quickly, spotting Silver in the distance, galloping away from Sweet Apple Acres for some reason, probably to take a different loop around. Or maybe he wasn't actually here for Applejack. But then what was he actually here for?! She chased after him, and he looked back just in time to see her, and speed up.

Once she was a few miles away, the real Silver reappeared, the chameleon part of the spell fading. The illusionary copy his spell spawned had only a fraction of his speed, agility, and other abilities, but it should be enough for a distraction. "Ha." He said, trotting towards Sweet Apple Acres once again.

000

"HUH?!" Rainbow wondered. "But you... we chased all over Ponyville! You ran up walls, and, and..." She paused, and then relaxed, realizing what had happened. "It was an illusion. You can't actually do that stuff, right?"

"Actually, I can." Silver admitted. "You should see an Earth Pony stunt show some time, there are some truly epic displays. Also, everything in that chase was planned from the start. Including the parts where you broke out of illusions. You used the Precision method, I take it?"

"Uh... Is that the one where you bite your tongue?" Rainbow asked.

"No." Silver said, surprised. "I'll have to get you some books on Illusions later."

"Wait... how can you do stuff from an Earth Pony show?" Rainbow wondered. "I mean, you're not a... you know."

"I don't have to be, as long as Earth Pony magic isn't involved. And when it is, Unicorn magic can do the same thing after some study and analysis. Plus... I pick things up quickly." Silver admitted, horn glowing as he cast an illusion spell on his suit, revealing his Cutie Mark as he turned to show his flanks to them. "It's part of my Talent: Connections. The connections within a mind, the connections between events and objects, the connections within a body, how moves and actions link and connect... the body moves like clockwork, and I can see how every gear and piston moves to achieve perfection. All I have to do is see a trick or spell, and as long as I get a good view of it, I can figure out how it works and replicate it. I won't have any natural affinity in using said trick or technique, I'll just know how to do it. Which isn't always the same as being able to do it. Which is why I trained my body so much. I don't want something as dumb as raw strength getting in the way of my awesomeness. Speaking of awesome, your Cutie Mark looks cool, what does it mean?"

"Racing." Rainbow said, looking at her flanks. "I can fly really fast, and do The Sonic Rainboom."

"Oh." Silver said, surprised. "That's cool. A lot cooler than my AMAZING ABILITY to see really well. What about you, AJ?"

"Apple Farming." Applejack admitted. Sure, it may not look as seem as good on paper, compared to rainbow explosions or perfect technique/spell analysis, but farming was useful, too.

"Cool." Silver said, mentally ranking her Cutie Mark in Tier Three. Tier Threes were useful for a number of important things. Tier Twos were useful for a very important thing and assorted day-to-day things, while also allowing you to excell at particular things with effort, and his mark was Tier One: Useful for a wide number of things, while allowing him to excell at multiple things with thought and effort. Tier Zeroes were said to not actually exist, and were only added to the tier list as a joke, those were Marks that made you naturally great at everything or an even wider range of things with little to no effort required, and do even better than those with Tier 1-5s focusing on their main ability and talent.

"So... The barn?" Applejack offered.

"Sure, lead the way." Silver shrugged, following AJ.

000

Applejack threw the barn doors open, light illuminating the darkest corners of the surprisingly-well-built wooden red barn coated in party decoratio-

"SURPRISE!!!" Six ponies and one Dragon and a bunch of other ponies suddenly called out.

In the center of the room, there was a long table upon which a pink tablecloth with curly cloudlike lining rested, and there was a large white-frosted cake lined with strawberries, pink frosting, and with an apple-shaped and apple-sized sculpture made of pink frosting in the center, complete with a stalk and single green leaf all made of sugar. Around the cake, they had a few large plates piled high with square chocolate brownies, smaller pieces of vanilla and chocolate cake, two large flasks containing apple cider and several smaller glass cups, and four large clear bowls of sweet and salted popcorn. A few blue and yellow balloons were tied to the table's edges, and on the ceiling, a large banner was displayed, displaying 'WELCOME TO PONYVILLE'.

In front of the party table, there was a pink pony, looking absolutely overjoyed. To her left, there was What's-Her-Name, the shy yellow Pegasus who was a model for a while(Not that he payed much attention to fashion. And now, he wished he'd at least bothered to try and remember her name) and a white Unicorn he recognized as Rarity(He certainly payed attention to the business world, and he'd heard of the self-taught fashionista from Ponyville who had managed to get several influential ponies on her side. She was cool.). On Pinkie's right, there was Twilight Sparkle, who had a pleasant smile on her face, and next to her, there was a small baby dragon, the one who saved the Crystal Empire that one time... Spike? Behind them, there was a bunch of unimportant ponies in the background, including one exceedingly unimportant reddish mare with a redder Pinkie-ish mane. Also, a grey Pegasus with a yellow mane was talking to an orange Earth Pony with a darker orange mane.

He thought he was prepared for everything, but this... He wasn't prepared for this. He hadn't even remotely considered the possibility that this might actually happen. And in retrospect, he realized that this was quite-

"Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie, and I threw this party just for you!" Pinkie Pie said, suddenly popping up in front of him and interrupting his surprised thoughts. "Isn't this exciting? Are you excited? Cause I'm excited. I've never been so excited! Well, except for the time when I went-"

She suddenly gasped so hard she floated up for a moment, due to the intake of air.

"-but I mean really, what could top that?" She asked happily, landing on her hooves.

Silver stared, unblinking.

"By Celestia's beard..." Silver whispered in surprise.

"Huh?" Pinkie wondered, tilting her head to the side.

"You are ADORABLE!" Silver declared happily. "You're like a big pink puppy!"

"Huh?" Rainbow Dash, Spike and Applejack wondered aloud. He did not seem like the type to say... that.

Silver raised a hoof, but then pulled it back and awkwardly asked, "Um, may I?"

"Sure!" She said happily.

He stroked her mane and neck, and she giggled, because it tickled.

'Oh, um... do you like animals?" Fluttershy asked timidly.

"I love animals!" Silver declared happily, still stroking Pinkie. "And you're so CUUUTE!" Silver squealed. "You're the cutest pink pony in the whole world!"

"Okay," Rainbow said, coming to break it up, "That's enough."

Silver put up a blue square forcefield in Rainbow's way as she stroked Pinkie harder and tickled her chin. "There is never enough adorable! Never enough!"

Several ponies laughed, but Twilight and a few laughed harder because they got the reference.

"Also, a party, for... me?" Silver asked, surprised. "But... Nopony's ever thrown a party for me before! I've never even been to a party like this!"

Pinkie Pie gasped in absolute horror, pulling away with a look of clear shock upon her face. "Nopony's ever thrown a party for you?!" She asked, as if he'd said he'd never had friends before or he'd never eaten baked goods before.

"Have you lived your whole life under a rock?" Rainbow Dash asked, not as shocked as Pinkie.

"No... I lived in my office. I had books, so I was okay." Silver shrugged. "So... what should I do? ...Is there a book I should read, or...?" He trailed off questioningly.

In the background, Rarity rolled her eyes amusedly, as if she was amusedly thinking, 'Wonderful, another one'. Rainbow Dash's face swiftly met her hoof and Spike's face met his claw, as if they were both sarcastically thinking, 'Great, another one'. Applejack chuckled ruefully, thinking the same thing, entering the barn and closing it behind her.

"No, silly!" Pinkie Pie giggled. "At a party, you're supposed to PARTY!"

Silver paused, trying to decipher what the pink pony had meant. "...Should I dance?" Silver asked uncertainly. "The characters danced in the party in that book I once read. It was a big party, a 'Ball', and the characters were actually all superspies trying to out-spy the other."

"Yes!" Rainbow Dash yelled.

"Ok." Silver said, and raised his right hoof forwards as if holding the shoulders of an invisible partner and began dancing around the room, performing a typical two-person ballroom dance even though he had no dancing partner. His movements were precise and fluid, but with no partner he just looked incredibly lonely. Not that he seemed to notice.

"No, like this!" Pinkie declared, dancing in a far more cheerful manner. He watched and copied, dancing in exactly the same manner as she was dancing, smiling at how fun this was feeling.

When the song was over, he went over to the table, horn aglow as he took one of everything, floated them closer to his mouth, and ate each one in order, surprised at just how great the food tasted. However, he didn't touch the cake just yet. "This food is delicious!" He declared.

He then trotted over to Twilight. "Hello." He said. "My name, is Silver Star.

"Hello." She responded. "My name, is Twilight Sparkle."

"So... Are you a real Alicorn?" Silver asked.

"Yes, I am." Twilight said, not expecting that to be the first thing he'd say.

"Cool." Silver said.

And then he suddenly dropped the cool mask. "You. Are. AWESOME!" He cheered. "I haven't heard much about you, so we'll have to share stories of AWESOMENESS later. Hey, you went to Celestia's School, right?"

"Yes." Twilight said, not expecting that question.

"I went to Duel Academy." Silver admitted.

"Oh." Twilight said, suspecting that she knew where she was going. With rueful resignation, she asked, "Are you going to challenge me to a Magic Duel now?"

"No, this is a party. It might be considered rude to start an epic magical duel here. I think." Silver said. "Besides, I've never been that into the whole 'CS VS DA' rivalry."

"Oh." Twilight said, pleasantly surprised.

"Besides, if the stories about your power are true, a fight between us would probably end up tearing a hole in space and time unless we negotiated ahead of time which spells we can and cannot use." Silver admitted. "Anyhoof, I'm new in town, and I was thinking of staying for a few months. Maybe more, I'm not sure yet. Um... don't tell anypony this, but- Actually, could you set up a Silencing Shell? Preferably opaque?"

"We don't really need one, but okay." Twilight said, casting the spell and creating a large purple semicircular shell around them both.

Silver stared at her long, powerful horn admiringly, able to sense her magical strength from here. "Such... Power..." Silver whispered in awe, eyes wide as he unconsciously licked his lips.

"My eyes are down here." Twilight said flatly.

"Right, right. Sorry." Silver said, embarassed. "Well, the thing is... I heard making friends made you grow into a better pony. Literally and metaphorically, and I'd like that to happen to me. Not for Alicornification reasons - I don't need wings, even if yours are beautiful - but I... I, uh... You... You seem happy. Really happy. Happier than I've ever seen you. And I know it sounds stupid when I say it out loud, but... I want to be happy. And I want to be a better pony, too."

"Well, it's great that you're willing to take the first step." Twilight said. "But... I'm sorry, I can't say I remember you."

"I'd be surprised if you did. Remember that time Duel Academy pulled that spectacularly complex heistlike plan, with TPing Celestia's School as the end result?" Silver asked.

"You did that?" Twilight asked, shocked.

"No, my study group and I watched the fail-fest with a viewing crystal far, far away from the place, in Passionfruit's room." Silver admitted, smiling at the memory. "I set up a betting pool on which parts of the needlessly circuitous but still pretty cool plan would work, which would fail, and whether they'd actually succeed in the end or not. You could also bet on the specific reactions of individual ponies upon seeing said TP, even though I doubt anypony in my group had sufficient data to make such a prediction. To their credit, only vague and sweeping group bets were made: Less than two ponies will drop their jaws in shock, at least one Unicorn will incinerate the paper, rather than disintegrating it, at least one will say something amusing, one will swear revenge and another will quickly disagree and insist that revenge is bad, one will swear revenge and the majority will agree to let the papers fly in retaliation, and so on. I made a lot of money that day. And laughed a lot. Blue's squad is not made for heists."

"Well, that's... nice." Twilight said uncertainly. She then remembered her old friends from Canterlot, and asked, "Do you still keep in touch with your study group?"

Silver hesitated. "Uh... No. Sorry. We don't really... get along... too well- they hate me. I... made an error." Silver admitted, his head lowering in shame. "It was... quite stupid of me, really. I made an error, and they all hate me for it. And so they should."

"Hey..." Twilight said, putting a hoof on his shoulder. He first reflexively looked at it in confusion, and then looked into her eyes, surprised at what he saw in them. "It's alright to make mistakes." She said soothingly, understandingly, compassionately. "We all make mistakes sometimes. Nopony's perfect, not even an Alicorn. What matters is that you apologize to anypony the mistake hurt, and make sure you learn from it."

He suddenly hugged her, to her clear surprise. "Thank you." He whispered.

He then pulled away, blushing a little as he realized what he'd just done. "I mean, um... Thank you for the sage advice, and, uh... I wish you success in the future! Yep."

She lowered her spellshield, and noticed that the music player had been stopped and several ponies around the room were staring at the two. Twilight began to think of something to say, but Silver already had the perfect story thought up.

"Secret Princess stuff." Silver said offhoovedly, wandering towards the snacks table as his magic caused the music player to continue, exuding a 'It is a secret. You will never know about it, and so it is not worth thinking about. My body language makds it clear that it wasn't anything threatening or particularly important.' with every step. It worked, and the ponies shrugged and resumed talking amongst themselves.

He ate four pieces of vanilla cake, seven of chocolate, four pink bubblegum-flavouring-flavoured cakes, four yellow melon-flavoured ones, four blue blueberry-flavoured ones, and five purple ones that tasted like mixed berries.

When it came time to cut the cake, Twilight cast a spell to make the cake grow in size, and then Pinkie cut out a large quarter for the guest of honour, and then she cut smaller pieces for everypony else, the slices perfectly-divided.

The party went on until midnight, though many ponies started to leave in the evening and more left just before midnight. When the clock reached midnight, AJ whispered something to Pinkie, and she rushed over to the music player to stop it and announce, "Party's over, everypony! I had a wonderful time, and I'd love to see you all again soon!"

As the others started to leave, Silver teleported a few feet to the side of Pinkie and smiled. "This was a wonderful party, Pinkie. I really enjoyed it, and the food was great. Did you make it?"

"Yep!" Pinkie said happily. "Mr and Mrs Cake made some of the stuff, too, but I made most of it myself, since I usually make the party stuff myself. Did you like it?"

"I loved it!" Silver said happily. "You are the greatest pastry chef I have ever met!"

"Really?" Pinkie asked in surprise.

"Yep!" Silver said happily. "I had a great time, and I'd love to party with you again."

Pinkie suddenly grabbed him for a tight hug, and Silver hugged back, a genuine smile on his face.

"I've gotta go. Goodnight, Silvie!" Pinkie said, bouncing away.

"'Silvie'?" Silver asked, amused, as he left the barn and started walking to Town Hall, his mind analyzing the town and determining where Town Hall was likely to be.

And as Silver walked on, he started to realize that he was going to really like this town.

3 - Drifting into a Dog Daze

3 - Ready to Reforge

"Really," A young Star Apple said to his older sister, Brilliant Lavender, whose mane was unusually unkept today, as they stood in their barn, away from prying eyes. "T'ain't THAT hard to follow."

"Of course it isn't." She said happily, sounding like she was holding back fury or confusion or an absolute freakout for some odd reason. "You're just a foal, you haven't even gotten your Cutie Mark yet, but you've gone ahead and gained unlimited magical power."

"Stop saying that!" He protested, stamping his right forehoof to the ground and making a tiny clop sound. "It ain't unlimited, it's infinite. There's a /difference!/ I'm still me, I can't go around playing tennis with the sun and moon just yet. This is just something that'll make me run out of magical energy a lot slower."

"Oh, of course, silly me." She laughed. "Now, can you go over it one more time?"

"Ugh, FINE. Okay, so, you know how using magic tires out a Unicorn's magical energy? And it's different from their physical energy, but there is a little overlay and eating a bucketload of calories does really help boost your magic power while the food digests? After all, energy is energy. Which is why a lot of spellcasters in other places are a little fat but still fit enough to duel and dodge spells, they're actually just saving calories to burn in a magic duel to get a tiny edge. Or they're just fat. That's also why Unicorn metabolism is better than that of a Pegasus, though it can't match that of an Earth Pony. And not all spellcasters are fat, the ones that're really powerful or clever or both don't bother getting fat. You're still with me, right?"

"Eeeyup." Brilliant Lavender nodded. Star Apple wondered once again why she got such a cool and awesome name, while he was stuck with a lame apple name. Did his parents play Rock-Paper-Scissors for it, using paper or signs to compensate for how they don't have talons, and the non-Apple Pony winner happily declared that her first child would get an awesome name and her second would get an Apple name? Still, he supposed it fit her... Since she was so awesome and strong and cool and fit and loved and her parent's favourite and if she pulled an Itachi on him he was SO not going to turn out like Sasuke. He'd read Naruto and a bunch of other comics and manga at the local library, and he liked Sasuke at first, since he was smart, but after he turned evil, he just became unlikeable. His favourite was either Shikamaru, Rock Lee, Gaara or maaaybe Sasuke since he was clever. But before he went nuts and left Konoha, which had happened recently.

Silver realized his mind was getting off-track, and continued his explanation. "Well, have you heard of Summoning Magic?"

"Eeeyup." She nodded.

"Well, there are three styles of it. The Hard Style, where you cast a spell, summon what you want to summon, and it'll last for a few minutes or hours or days depending on what spell you used. That style sucks, it's only really good for when you want to take a break or use something for a certain number of minutes or hours. Then there's the Variable Style, where you summon what you want to summon and your magic keeps it on this plane. It's usually a slow and minor drain, unless it's something huge. And finally, there's Contract Style, where you pick an element like fire or bronze, or a field of influence like Coldness or Sharpness, or a concept like pushing, or family of spirits like the Bird family or Cat family, and specialize yourself in summoning them. It gets easier to summon... rabbit monsters or stuff with wings or poisonous animals, depending on what you made a contract with, but summoning anything else gets a lot harder as they'll see you as a being aligned with that House and not theirs, and summoning stuff from Houses they're opposed to will become insanely difficult, and they won't follow your orders even if you do amp up the summoning with symbols and offerings - I'm talking about gems 'n' cloth and stuff, don't look at me like that - so you can actually summon them. And finally, there's the Permanent Style, where you summon something and it stays in this world until banished or squished. ...Oh, and this bit doesn't have a name even though it's mentioned in all the summoning guides, but befriending a particular field or group without signing their contract does make it easier to summon their stuff without making all other stuff harder - except for their enemies, those get harder to summon and harder to command - and to befriend them... you could do something like... completing quests for them or giving them stuff they like and ask for, like food or cloth or shiny objects. Still with me?"

"Eeeyup." She nodded.

He remembered how he usually lost other ponies a few paragraphs into his explanations, something that annoyed him a lot and was beginning to make him consider giving up on explanations and saying 'Because I'm awesome' or something whenever someone asked how he could do something... and he turned his head to the side and focused his eye on her, trying to look incredibly suspicious and cool. "For realsies?" He asked while trying to squint suspiciously, and he just ended up looking so adorable she was tempted to grab him and cuddle him like a cute kitty right there.

"Eeeyup." She said, nodding her head and restraining herself with a great deal of effort.

"Well, you know how summoned creatures, with the exception of things summoned by the Permanent Style, aren't really here, they're just mentally existing through an avatar created by their power, which is why you could summon a three-headed cat and drop a tree on it, it gets squished and its body pops and vanishes back into the powdery glowy stuff that is raw magic, then you summon it again and it's fine, but a little mad? And also how that three-headed cat could be summoned at the same time by multiple ponies without getting confused or, I dunno, one pony summoning the cat while the rest get a little note saying 'I'm busy right now with a different summoner, try again later'?"

"Eeeyup." She said, a little worried. He didn't really summon a Summoned Being just to test that theory out, did he? Those things were old, and powerful, and scary... there was a reason why most ponies stayed away from that field when they weren't specializing in it or naturally specializing in it due to their Cutie Marks.

"Well, they have their own energies and bodies and stuff, but they aren't as real as our ones because they're from the spirit world, not the real one. Or the 'Physical Plane', as they call it. Anyway, what you do is... use the level zero Summoning Magic spell that creates a Spirit Link with whatever summonable animal or other being you want, which makes it easier to summon something but it takes between ten and five minutes of meditation to do and it's normally only really recommended for ponies who have and love one particular Summon, and then you use the level one Raw Magic spell that drains magic from the target. Not the legendary incredibly powerful one used by the vile and stupid Tirek himself-"

"Who?" She asked.

"Big red evil weird-looking monster, he was evil and drained ALL THE MAGIC from ponies." He said. "Nopony can use the immensely powerful draining spell he used, which could drain everything, including the Cutie Mark and possibly also the ability to fly and do natural magic stuff. So anyway, just use the level one Drain Magic spell and direct it through the Spirit Link, draining magic from the Spirit or Monster or whatever you've linked up with. And do it slowly, so they won't mind, and be really convincing if they do mind anyway. And since you aren't Summoning it or doing a proper Channeling or Oversoul, you're just letting whatever you Linked up with stay in the Spirit World and replenish its energy as you drain the energy from it. Like there's a cider barrel slowly pouring cider into mugs, but that cider barrel is being refilled by a way bigger cider barrel connected to a cider distillery. Understand?"

"Ah understand. What I don't understand is how you managed to come up with somethin' so darn clever at yer age." She admitted.

"It's not that clever." He admitted. "It's just basic logic. Refilling your mug using the unlimited source of power- 'Cider' right there. Plus, you can use permanent spells better using this trick, making the spells properly permanent without having to bind it to your horn and set aside a portion of your energy to power that permanent spell. Besides, Morgana LeBray was younger than me when she came up with her first super ultra cool revolutionary thingy."

"Who?" She asked.

"Now you're just messin' with me, Sis!" Star laughed. "'Who's Morgana LeBray?'. What's next, are you going to ask who Princess Celestia or Starswirl the Bearded is?"

"Bro... You realise you can't tell anypony about this, right?" She asked, concerned, deciding that the issue of her not knowing about Morgana LeBray - whoever that was - could wait. Forever. "Use the trick, but don't let anypony else find out about it. Patent it as soon as you can, make it yours, but don't let anypony else know until you're ready to stop being Star Apple of the Apple Family and start being some fancy-shmancy ultra-famous mega-mage."

"Maybe Ah wanna be a fancy-shmancy ultra-famous mega-mage. Maybe Ah don't wanna be just another farm pony!" Silver insisted. "Maybe I wanna be somepony!"

"You ARE somepony, Star!" She replied. "You're my little bro, and ah love you. You're family, Apple Family, through and through. I won't stop you or nuthin', and maybe y'will be some super amazin' mega-mage one day. Just... wait a little while, see what you really wanna do with your life first."

"Fine." He groaned adorably. "But some day, I'm totally going to be on top."

"What, like Princess Celestia?" She asked, suddenly nervous. This was literally the number one major red flag when it came to a pony's psyche, and she had to test it now or she'd never forgive herself.

"No, I'm not replacing her, she's cool. And pretty. And awesome." He said, grinning as he secretly imagined her. Nothing was happening, she was just standing there, horn glowing, reading a book as he stood off to the side, invisible, and he stared at her body, as beautiful and massive as the sun she commanded. Actually, not as massive, but way prettier, since the sun was just a big fire thing and that wasn't really that cool. And then he stared at her butt, and laughed quietly because it was her butt and she wasn't wearing clothes. Which was weird, since fancy Canterlot ponies usually wore clothes, according to what he heard and saw in the newspapers.

"Star?" His sister asked him, and he woke up.

"No I wasn't." Star said reflexively, and only then did he realize she hadn't asked anything. "Anyhoof, uh... the Princess. I like her. But I meant, I'd get to the highest point I could get to while still being me. And then I'd become a badass Alicorn Prince, the first ever, maybe I'd be pals with Princess Celestia and hang out with her in her epic castle, and then I'd come back here and help y'all on the farm with my phenomenal cosmic super special awesome Alicorn powers. Because really, what's the point in having incredible power if you're not gonna use it for something good, cool, and fun?"

"Oh no, you keep your freaky magic away from our farm. 'Sides, you wanna get phenomenal cosmic powers and do THAT with them? What about cool adventures?"

"Oh, I'll do tons of those, of course" Star said happily. "If you want, maybe I'll even let you come with! In the stories, there's usually at least one tough and cool Earth Pony on the team. Maybe if you get strong enough, you can use your natural Earth Pony magic to fire raw magic lasers!"

"Thanks, Little Bro, but my place is here, on the farm." She said, looking around and smiling at the wooden barn around them. "Also, it don't work that way. We farm, Pegasi flap about a little, and Unicorns cast spells."

"Okay, then I'll get you a laser-firing Magical Item. Or give you a necklace or something with with a Laser spell charged inside it." Star said, wondering what that'd look like. He then exasperatedly added, "Also, it's like y've never heard of the Avatar spell."

"The what?" She wondered as his horn started to glow with a bright blue light.

A second Star Apple flickered into existence behind her- not directly behind her, of course, you didn't sneak up on an applebucker from the back, it was more off to the right, where she could see them both at the same time. "Howdy." The new Star Apple said casually.

"What the- What- Stop it!" She stammered, walking back in fear.

"Woah... I'm seeing both sides of you at the same time!" The two Star Apples said, amazed. They then raised their right forehoof and stared at it, the right one moving it closer and further away from his face while the left one moved it side to side. Sure, he'd used this spell before, he had to try four times before he got it to work and then had to use it seven times and slowly get used to being in two places at once and seeing out of multiple eyes before he could really use it properly and read two books at once like he wanted. "Cooooooooool." They both said, the feeling delightfully disorienting and new.

"Stop it! Be one pony again!" She demanded.

The Avatar of Star Apple disappeared, winking out of existence and leaving a blue star shape before fading, and the real Star Apple sighed. "Sis, you have got to get over your Magiphobia."

"I ain't no dang dirty Magiphobe!" Lavender insisted, stamping a hoof to the ground loudly. "Just... tain't natural that mah little brother can do stuff that fancy. Ain't it supposed to be wise old wizards that've trained and read books for hundreds of years only that can do that sort of thing?"

"Actually, there are like twenty-something different fields of magic, more if you count the sub-sections, and they've all got tons of useful stuff in them. Y'ain't gotta be the number one super mage that can do ALL the magic just to be able to get something nice outta bein' magic. Most of the top-level stuff is too draining or destructive or useless or weirdly specific to be useful anyway, like how fire magic has low-level stuff like putting out fires, launching a fireball made from magic fire that'll explode in the air like a magical firework, making differently-coloured flames that burn fire, warming the body, putting a charm on something that'll keep it warm and prevent hypothermia for hours as long as you recast it before it runs out, cauterizing stuff... and then at the higher levels, there's nothing but big fireballs and bigger fireballs and fireballs shaped like a dragon's head and fireballs that would, for a brief moment, light up the night sky before descending with enough force to obliterate armies. Battle Magic is okay, but I'd rather focus on the useful stuff and a bunch of easy-to-cast offensive spells since I'm not likely to have to use the town-destroying stuff, ever. And as cool as overdoing things usually is, really really big fireballs aren't THAT cool. I'd rather have awesome stuff I can use anywhere, not just in fights. Besides... I'm awesome." He said, smiling.

She stared at him for a long moment, thinking on everything he said.

And then she rushed forwards and hugged him, but much more gently than the hugs she usually gave him. This one was less like a brutal, crushing grip, and more like she was gently cradling him in her arms.

"Huh?" He asked, confused.

"Yes... you are." She said softly, hugging just a little tighter.

000

0:23 AM

After buying the deed to some land in Ponyville from a napping Mayor Mare he'd woken up with the ever-useful sound of screeching metal, and walking towards said land to build his own house, Silver began to summon and create metal, horn aglow as he spun it around himself.

"Build a home, build a home

1, 2, 3, 4

All alone, I'll build a home

1, 2, 3, 4."

He crafted the metal into a wide and high tower crafted from one continuous piece of pure steel, a shorter replica of his Silver Spire in Canterlot. But the exterior wasn't that interesting, the interior was far better.

"Build it wide, build it high, one-up those who can not fly,

Build it all quick, with a great design,

This house is quite clearly mine."

His spells crafted a magnificently large penthouse floor, several private rooms, workshop rooms for assorted fields and several floors of R+D, several floors of a currently-empty armoury, an even larger library with many absurdly high shelves, a gym, myltiple collection rooms, a meditation room, a training room with illusion spells, a magic practice room, a master bedroom in the penthouse floor he'd craft tomorrow, multiple kitchens of differing levels and specializations, and more. Yes, the building was bigger on the inside, like every good building built by Unicorns.

"Work alone, then they'll see

Maximum efficiency,

Nothing to get in my way,

Make a nice home, come what may."

"This house is exactly right,

I'll build this before the night.

Sing a quick song to pass the time,

This new house is clearly mine."

His horn aglow, his spells began giving it splashes of colour in the form of blue and orange highlights, and an image of his Cutie Mark at the top.

"Gather funds like it's a race,

Make the world an even brighter place.

More money for everyone,

Some day, I'll have a place in the sun."

Silver summoned forth a bright blue electric guitar with orange flames, plugged into what looked like a small sun behind him, shredding it with his bare hooves in a heavy metal solo that lasted almost fourty seconds. When it was over, he flung his guitar into the air, where it spun and shattered into ten parts when the head was pointing down, becoming a colossal explosion that resembled his Cutie Mark.

"I built a house, I built a house

Yes, I did." He sang as he entered the grey yet masterfully-crafted room, riding a functioning elevator to the penthouse floor.

"All alone, I built this house

Yes, I did." He sang as the elevator opened and he entered his penthouse, the plexiglass windows still forming.

"I built this great home all alone,

It's a money-making zone,

Nothing will stand in my way,

I'm moving up in the world today."

And then his horn flashed as he summoned a king-sized bed with blue pillows and a darker blue duvet, and he got into it. He didn't need to sleep, but it was nice, and he felt like sleeping now and making the epic master bedroom later.

And so, he slept, and dreamed of fighting a hive of changelings to save an adorable pink Alicorn princess.

000

Silver Star awoke slowly from his bed, wondering why he still felt tired. Maybe he should go back to bed... He could create a localized time-field and have a nap, and the rest of the world would have no idea... then again, why bother with the time field? It wasn't like he had anything to do or anywhere to be... No epic quests... He'd left his Ultimate Newspaper back in Canterlot, so he couldn't get more info on what he could be doing...

He slowly got out of bed, revealing to his bedroom that he was wearing blue soft silk pyjamas that covered his body, blue socks with dark-blue stripes over his hooves. He reminded himself that he was in this town because he wanted to stop feeling the way he was feeling, and his horn glowed as he picked up his suit from where he had dropped it near his bed.

"Requip." He mumbled as his horn glowed a little brighter, and his pyjamas and socks swapped placed with his suit. It wasn't the requip spell his favourite character in one of his favourite mangas used, it just happened to share the same name. The spell that happened to share the same effect but was way stronger and gave him far more storage space, on the other hand, had a different name. Once again, his body was coated in that sleek and badass black suit, his tail swishing to the left, and then the right as it once again got used to him wearing clothes. Naturally, like most pony clothes, it had a hole for the tail, not that it could be seen when he wore it. Or when he wasn't wearing it, unless you picked it up and slowly looked for it.

As an afterthought, he summoned some steel shoes for himself coated in black iron, their fronts decorated with an aerodynamic pattern of pleated steel spikes, a blue gem that matched the colour of his eyes displayed front and center. He then summoned a full-body mirror, looked at himself in it, turned around, and then altered the design of his shoes a little, so the gems at the front of the shoes were surrounded by the metal spikes that slicked themselves back while diminishing in size, like the rays from a sun. And then he dulled the points, not enough to visibly alter the look of the spikes, but enough so there wasn't any danger of them accidentally hurting anything they poked.

Liking his look, he cast a cleaning spell on himself, rendering his clothing cleaner than it would be after ten good washes and rendering his body as clean as it would have been after a good spa treatment. He'd only ever been to the spa a few times, but he liked it. ...What? It was nice. And furiously and vehemently refusing to go to a proper and non-lame spa just because spas were seen as girly by some was for insecure fools, ones who thought that all they had to offer were scented candles and bad cloppy plots, as opposed to that and things that were actually good for one's skin, coat, muscles, and mental health.

He trotted towards his staircase and sprinted down it, wanting to get to the bottom floor at record speed, since he'd admit to himself - and nopony else - that his physical stamina was probably his weakest point. It was acceptable, maybe a little better than acceptable, and it didn't really matter since his immortality let him regenerate his energy back when he got too tired, but compared to his other abilities, it was a glaring weakness. Possibly because he never really had to do physical stuff that much, and besides hitting his gym back in Canterlot's Silver Spire for a few hours every day and the alarmingly heavy training weights amd resistance runes around his legs and back hidden beneath his suit, his body didn't get much exercise. Why the weights? He couldn't exactly trot around hundreds of acres of farmland every day while wearing a weighted yoke like he used to back when he went by Star Apple, so he went for what seemed to be the next-best thing at the time, only for it to turn out to be better.

He reached the bottom, and only once he saw the big empty gap where Aquilla's Desk would have been did he realize that he'd forgotten to bring Aquilla with him. If he remembered rightly - and he did since she'd been with him for a few years now - she slept at the desk at night, getting her magically-shrunk and encapsulated Nest out of a cupboard hidden in the desk and saying the command word, Roosting Peak, which brought the nest back to its full size. She then slept in the nest, claiming she found it more comfortable and natural than regular beds even though he had offered to get her one upon learning that she slept in nests made from twigs. He'd then offered to make a nest for her out of twigs and shiny objects and whatever else she liked, letting her draw the design, and she agreed happily.

It may seem weird to forget that you'd left someone behind, but if one day, you woke up and found that your shadow was missing, how long would it take you to notice? What kind of pony even regularly checks their own shadow to see if it's still there?

Silver focused his mind, remembered the location of his Silver Spire in Canterlot, and teleported into the main room of the Canterlot Silver Spire in a flash of blue light, finding the highlights of orange and blue in the grey building to be a far more pleasant sight than all-grey all the time. Okay, sure, there were the potted plants he'd left around the place, but those weren't enough to fill the whole thing. He also saw his secretary at her desk, and she was reading a rather thick book until she heard he sound of his teleportation and looked up in surprise and relief before quickly reverting back to her neutral expression.

His secretary was a Griffon, part Panther and part Falcon, though she occasionally asked him to temporarily change her genetic code so she could try being a different kind of Griffon. Her strong and lithe feathered body was a dark purple, darker than Twilight's coat, with blue highlights and white and blue feathers, even though he was pretty sure Falcons weren't blue. Must have been a Griffon thing. Her golden talons were encased in golden enchanted sharp-clawed alloy-metal gauntlets, though she possessed the grace and precision necessary to pick up a tomato and even a peach without cutting it with those claws.

"Good morning, Aquilla." Silver greeted.

Aquilla smiled. "So, how did it go?"

"What?" He asked.

"The adventure." Aquilla said, her smile disappearing. "You only leave me behind when you go through time in disguise."

"I didn't go back in time, I went somewhere else." He said. "I established a new home for myself in Ponyville, and I think I might actually move there.

"Please tell me you didn't actually make an exact copy of the Silver Spire." Aquilla muttered, her face meeting her clawed hand.

"What's wrong with the Silver Spire?" Silver asked.

She lowered her claws and stared at him flatly. "Pha-" She began to chant.

"I get it, I get it." Silver said, cutting her off due to sensing the connection in her mind. "Anyway, you're coming with me."

"Sweet." She said, not minding. She was his secretary, after all, and he'd already earned her eternal loyalty. "Where are we going?"

"Ponyville." Silver said.

She seemed to become uncertain. "You mean Crazytown? I've heard of that place, it's got an evil forest of doom nearby and a hellgate in town somewhere, and a hideous eldritch horror with unnatural powers in the shape of a pony calls that place home. Sounds cool."

"Those are almost as stupid as the rumours I heard about Canterlot before I came here." Silver said, and his horn began to glow. Aquilla quickly breathed out for some reason, not that there was any need to, and they reappeared in the ground floor lobby of what looked like an exactly-identical copy of the Silver Spire, minus the potted plants and coloured highlights that made the greyness and blackness bearable.

Aquilla burst into loud, screeching laughter. "You actually... You actually built another one?!"

"Eeeyup." He admitted, since nopony else was around.

"Send me back, let me get all your stuff, and summon me in twelve seconds." Aquilla said. He did so, and from the moment he sent her, something rose unbidden in his sight, a timer that counted down twelve seconds to eight decimal places with absolute accuracy. 'Thank you, Connection-Sight, that really, really helped. Some day, I'll rename you Silver Sight. Or Star Sight.'

Still, he knew she could do it. After all, the cool and sharp golden gauntlets he'd made for her talons had so many enchantments on them, he sometimes wondered if he'd forget to put some down if he ever made a list of everything he'd done to those things. Speed-boosting, local-area time-stopping, invisibility spells and storm magic were all included, he knew that was certain. As for the rest, well, he tended to add things shortly after thinking of them, and he sometimes wondered if he'd added in extra-powerful enchantments rigged to only activate in case of an emergency in secret and then erased his memory of it, so he wouldn't know he had several secret hidden aces up his sleeve that even he didn't know about. That was clever, that seemed like something he'd do. And since those gloves were literally covered in enchantments, it was impossible to pick out individual effects from using a Magic-Scanning spell. Even if the most precise instrument or spell from any planet, universe or plane asked, 'What enchantments are on this thing?', the answer would be but a single word: 'Yes'.

Twelve seconds had passed, and he cast the spell that summoned her, the blue-feathered Falcon-Jaguar Griffon appearing in his room with her front taloned limbs coated in aerodynamic gold-looking metal armour with no cool spikes, the claws wickedly sharp instead to compensate, the talon-sections able to split apart and bend back like those thick gloves with holes that allowed the wearer's digits to move unencumbered he'd seen some civilized Diamond Dogs wearing on occasion, the armour more than thick enough to block a blade or spell or ten while the sharp talons of her other hand sliced right through the blades. She could already cut metal with an unarmoured taloned swing anyway, but armour was cooler, and it did give her a place to store enchantments besides the necklaces whose design brought to mind charm bracelets made from steel hidden from view by her feathers.

And then the stuff she'd brought with her came into view, a glowing golden ball of raw matter that she tossed into the air with a single taloned limb, causing it to shatter outwards like a firework, the golden drops of raw matter reshaping themselves back into the items they were less than a minute ago, an orange carpet lined with a thin blue outline leading from the door to the elevator, a sofa appearing in the corner of the room, her books and hidden nest placing themselves at her desk while more stuff seeped through the ceiling to appear on the upper floors.

His horn glowed, and then his eyes started to glow with the same blue light as he cast Detect Magic, smiling when he noticed she even managed to bring up an exact replica of the completely unbeatable security system. Warding enchantments, a truly great idea. His horn and eyes stopped glowing, and she puffed out her chest proudly.

"Good work." Silver said with a pleasant smile, and she made a faint squee sound. He suspected it was because Griffons were usually used to other Griffons being all 'Meh, I guess that's sorta okay. You could have done it faster, though'. He never understood why a simple compliment was so rare from a Griffon, but he supposed that was due to the culture gap. Note to self: Some day, help Aquilla find the lost treasure of Griffonstone and become the new Griffon Empress of Griffonstone and the more nothern lands. Also, the crazy Mooses (Meese?) up north, conquer them and put them to work in the sugar mines before they do something dumb. Or upgrade their culture and species to be less dumb.

"So, what am I doing today, Master?" Aquilla asked. "Should I follow you around, or just stay here and read? Either is fine."

"You don't get lonely?" He asked.

"Of course not, I'm a Griffon." She shrugged. "By the way, we got a new shipment of those magazines we're subscribed to. Shonen Leap, those Daring Do fanzines, the temple challenge magazines, and the stuff only I like. Mind if I read your stuff first?"

"Sure, but no spoilers." He said, leaving.

She squeed again, and went straight for the magazines she'd mentioned, hidden behind her desk, getting out the Daring Do magazines and reading Daring Dungeons, her favourite of the fanzines. It went into detail on Daring Do's adventures, and the temples she explored, and it even had a column where readers could submit their own insanely hard Ancient Temple ideas and puzzles and then use that go-into-the-comic thing to either attempt that puzzle/dungeon yourself or watch a professional beating that puzzle like it was nothing. Daring Do may have been at the forefront, but there were pages for other explorers and adventurers, and it was more of a dungeoneering magazine than a specific Daring Do fanzine. Aquilla thought Daring Do was the coolest Pegasus ever, and she'd love to meet her some day.

Silver Star, on the other hand, left his Silver Spire and went into Ponyville, deciding that now would be a very good time to go around town and gather information on the Mane Six.

000

Fluttershy was near her chicken coop, feeding the chickens, when she heard an odd noise coming from her house, a series of noises. She paused in her chicken-feeding, one ear bent back a little as she quickly realized that this was music, piano music, and it was coming from her house.

"I'm really, really sorry," Fluttershy said with a nervous smile, bowing her head down and walking backwards. "But I really need to go and see what that is."

She quickly turned and rushed towards her house, and though the piano music was sad and a bit hollow and lonely, there was a certain stark beauty to it, a melody whose presence and power and meaning would be lost in a large orchestra's ensemble. The music calmed her, even as she made it to her front door and opened it, finding a very large and sleek black grand piano in the middle of the room with its top raised, the kind of piano that not only has all the keys, but goes one octave higher and one octave lower than it needs to, just because it can. Though she'd initially expected it to be Pinkie before realizing that Pinkie would never play a song like this, she saw that this piano was being played by Silver Star, the pony she met yesterday. She glanced around, finding that everything in her house was untouched, and Angel Bunny sat on her couch, transfixed and enthralled by the melody and its ethereal beauty as he stared at the piano. She realized that he'd just teleported in with his huge piano and started playing... for no apparent reason. Still, the music was so lovely... she couldn't bring herself to even think of a complaint.

After two minutes, the melody had come to an end, ending on a sad and hollow note, as if even the song itself desperately wanted to carry on, never wanting to stop. Fluttershy blinked her eyes, noticing that tears had formed in her eyes, and she quickly dried her eyes with the back of her hoof as Angel Bunny boredly hopped off.

"That was lovely." Fluttershy said, the music's spell still adde. "But... um... why are you in my house?"

"I knocked the door, but you weren't there, so I thought I'd wait around inside, thinking there'd be some Detection Wards in place that would instantly alert you to the fact that I'm there. But you didn't have any. So I got bored and decided to practice my playing, and thankfully, you heard my song. I wrote that one myself when I was young, it's called 'Nocturne of the Lonely Moon'. I don't think sadness is deep or anything, certainly not... but it is a nice song."

"Oh." Fluttershy said. Something in the back of her mind suggested that this was a little odd, but if that was what this pony was like, then... "Um... Next time, could you just knock? I'm usually either with my animals or my pony friends."

'Pony friends?' Silver wondered. "Okay." He said. "Also, thanks for not getting super angry about me entering your house to bring you here. Last time I did that to a mare, she shot a Magic Spearbolt at me."

"Oh my goodness!" Fluttershy gasped, surprised.

That surprised Silver. "...Huh. Usually, when ponies hear that story, they laugh."

"How could anypony laugh at something like that?" Fluttershy asked.

"I ask myself the same question a lot. I mean, if it was in a funny slapstick kind of way, or she threw whoopee cushions or rubber chickens at me, then sure, that'd be funny. But no, spellbolts that could pierce through a few inches of steel aren't funny. I'm glad I had the Shield of Causality in my pocket dimension at the time. Anyway... Speaking of those pony friends, I was hoping you could tell me more about them. And I'd like you to 'Answer All My Questions And Answer Them Truthfully', but that goes without saying, really. For starters, which one's your favourite?" Silver asked, a bit of The Voice slipping into that request.

"Oh, I could never choose a favourite." Fluttershy said, shaking her head as if they were watching.

"You know the others can't hear you from here, right?" Silver asked, wondering why she was acting like this. WERE the others watching? "Wait, ARE the others watching? Does Twilight or Mayor Mare plant Sight Runes everywhere and have a whole building dedicated to keeping a close eye on everypony, even when they're in the bathroom?"

"Not at all, why?" Fluttershy asked.

"I once read this book where that happened, and I was worried that it actually happened in some places. I mean, sure, planting Sight Runes anywhere except on your own property and planting them with the intent to spy on other ponies is against the law, but it's something that has happened in the Tribal days. Anyhoof... which of your friends do you like most?"

"I like all my friends." Fluttershy said happily.

"You don't prefer some to others?" He wondered innocently.

"No." She said happily. He was partly hoping she'd say something like 'Oh, I like all my friends, even Rarity' or something, something that would tell him more about her.

'This mare is unusually hard to read.' He thought. 'Maybe a different line of questioning will reveal something..."

"Which of your friends have you known for the longest?" He asked.

"Rainbow Dash." Fluttershy said. "I've known her since Flight School, and we're both from Cloudsdale."

"Is the awful rumour about that place true?" Silver asked.

"Of course not!" Fluttershy insisted. "If it was, then neither myself OR Rainbow Dash would still be here!"

Silver appeared very surprised. "I'm approximately... eighty percent sure we're thinking of different rumours here." He said, transitioning from surprised to a little amused.

"Oh." She said, surprised. "I'm sorry."

"Meh, it's ok. Anyway the rumour I was thinking about was... the one involving rainclouds. You know the one?"

Fluttershy closed her eyes and giggled quietly. Wow, she was really cute. Pinkie Pie was still way cuter, though.

With an uncertain smile, Silver asked, "Is that a yes or a no?"

"No." She giggled. "Do some ponies actually believe that in some places?"

"Eeeyes." He chuckled. "Or they find it funny to pretend that they do, and their secret Raincloud Council meetings actually consist of everypony entering the soundproof and unscryable town hall and laughing their flanks off at how everypony else thinks they're crazy. I like to think that, it makes it feel more like a funny joke and less like a sad joke. Anyhoof, what do you like doing?"

"I like taking care of all my animal friends, and going to the spa with Rarity, and having fun with my friends."

"Who doesn't like having fun?" He asked in a friendly manner. "Anyhoof, what books do you like?"

"Anything with animals," She said instantly, and then began thinking about it. "And... a nice, happy romance story, or something nonfictional about plants, or sewing."

"Have you read..." Silver began, his Connection Sight activating, analysing everything he'd observed and giving him information in the form of a dark orange rectangular box with white writing upon it.

Sweet, friends with Librarian, looks after animals, little social life. Eighty percent chance she has read those books and hated them. Asking about T, WS, TCB, or anything similar is a bad move.

He read it quickly, and then changed sentences mid-sentence so well that only the most perceptive of ponies would notice anything. "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann?"

"Um..." Fluttershy said, wondering what that was. "No, I haven't, sorry."

"Why do you keep saying sorry?" Silver asked, curious. "It's not your fault whatever libraries and bookstores you've ever been to have lacked stories that good."

"Sorry." Fluttershy said, and Silver facehoofed.

"Anyhoof, this town has a spa?" Silver asked, horn glowing blue as he summoned a clear bottle typically used in bottling cider, and it was clearly filled with cider despite lacking a label, and two mugs. He poured a glass for both of them, glad there was no 'Pouring a glass for another is something you shouldn't do' belief like there was in some other countries.

"Oh, yes, and it's really nice. Aloe and Lotus are really skilled, and it's worth every bit." Fluttershy said.

"It's expensive?" Silver asked, a little surprised.

"It might be a little pricey, which is why we only go once a week, but that's okay."

"Hmm..." Silver hummed, thinking. "Okay, I'll look into it. Now..."

He leaned forwards with a pleasant smile, and began to use The Voice in earnest. "Could you please 'Tell me everything you know about Twilight Sparkle'?"

000

Fluttershy and Silver were laughing. That was what she noticed first. "The whole forest!" He laughed, a mostly-empty mug in his hoof. Glancing down, she saw an almost-empty mug in her own hoof, and the bottle was empty. "And to this day, I still don't know how she managed to pull that off! I mean, I know HOW, I just don't know how she got away with it!"

He sighed happily, and she stopped laughing. "Anyhoof, I'd better get going... y'know, this was nice. Talking, but for fun, instead of talking because I have to. I don't talk for fun often. It's... nice. But I'd better get going." He said, smiling and leaving quickly. "Thanks for letting me in!"

Fluttershy smiled. That was nice, even if parts of it were kinda blurry. How strong was that whiskey? She just realized that she'd forgotten to ask. She looked at her clock, and realized that she'd actually been talking like this for... a few hours?! She gasped, and quickly rushed back to her chickens while ignoring how her hooves felt like they were swimming through the air, hoping they hadn't eaten too much feed when she was busy here. Her head felt a little cloudy, but she wasn't falling down or anything. She'd be okay to look after the animals. Probably. She'd stop if things started to go wrong.

Silver, meanwhile, left Fluttershy's cottage, and time travelled back to a few hours ago. He heard the piano music Past Him played, quickly leaving and heading back to Ponyville, fully immune to the magic music's effects due to how he was the one playing it. Oh, how he loved thi- Oh, how he thought this routine was a pretty good routine, though not really something somepony could love... First, magical music to set the mood in more ways than one. Then, the basic info, followed by usage of The Voice. He got all the info he needed, first on Twilight, and then on the others, and then a quick summary of every adventure the group had ever gone on in chronological order, getting more details when requested. One of his favourite things about the voice was that he could use it at different strengths, and at medium-high levels, he could make ponies that normally talked slowly or uncertainly suddenly tell him what he wanted to know at a quick yet understandable pace. Regardless, while she was too under to tell, most of the cider bottle's cider re-entered the bottle thanks to his magic and then he teleported a shot glass's worth into her stomach, following it up with unsummoning most of the cider from the bottle, leaving behind only a little at the top to drip down and wet the bottle's insides, just in case she was perceptive enough to tell. And finally, he timewarped them both a few hours into the future, had them both laugh, and then released her from The Voice's power to make it seem like they'd gotten pretty drunk and lost track of time. And that was exactly what she would assume upon waking up completely, not that she'd been under the control of a manifestation of raw willpower, one only a little different from her 'The Stare' ability. He'd asked about that, and was surprised to find that she, of all ponies, would have something like that. And, according to her account of the time with the tornado and wing power, she may also have another ability he'd read about, one she said Pinkie Pie had, though he couldn't really test that one right there. And he didn't feel like revealing his Voice, which was why he didn't go to conventions for people with willpower-based abilities like him, so he could test it against her Stare to see whose was more powerful.

His older sister used to occasionally joke that he had a strange addiction to making things unnecessarily complex.

He disagreed. He made things exactly as complex as they needed to be to ensure his success. Though he didn't like that he'd relied upon a warning from his connection sight, that felt cheap, but he made it up to himself with the cider trick.

Regardless, the sun was high in the sky, it was the early morning once again, and he was going to see... somepony. Whoever he ran into first, or whatever caught his attention first. Also, he had to get a feel for the town, see what this place was like, see what everypony was like. So far, he liked this town.

He settled into a brisk rhythm, quickly walking ten paces and then teleporting twenty ahead, still walking quickly, exercising his magical control even though he'd gotten this high-level exercise down years ago. Short of using the Biological Modification - or as some lamer ponies called it, Change Body - spell and growing large wings or just teleporting himself around, this was the fastest way he could move while still enjoying the view and the journey.

It wasn't long before he made it back to the main town, an almost innate sense within him informing him of where Ponyville's market was likely to be. Walking normally and enjoying the sights and smells, he walked over to it to check it out, seeing and smelling delicious flowers and fresh food on sale beside the occasional fancy pottery stall or other non-food store. He was expecting surprise and uncertainty from the ponies here, but instead, the shop owners greeted him brightly, especially a very cute mare with a flower stand. And at one point, he noticed a familiar mint green Unicorn with a Sweets stall who probably just looked similar to the one he knew. Carrying on, he saw Applejack with a market stand of her own, and noted that a somewhat-cute orange mare running a carrot stall was positioned right across from her, an open challenge... not that Applejack seemed to mind at all, even though food was serious business. He also noted that they'd both found their own niches, Applejack sold regular apples and products like apple pies and apple jam, while Golden Harvest sold regular carrots and lots of them, and she had a price sheet on her stall for the fancier and pricier stuff that could be ordered and delivered. He made a show of openly glancing from one to the other, thinking about it, and then he headed over to the orange mare.

"Welcome!" She greeted brightly with a big smile, making sure she was loud enough for Applejack and a few other stallkeepers to hear. "I'm so glad you came to MY stall! I'm Golden Harvest, do you see anything you like?"

Silver grinned. He hadn't planned for things to go this way, but oh, he couldn't let a throw like that go unstruck. Loud enough for everypony to hear, he leaned in conspiratorially asked, "Actually, yes. That cute orange mare back there in the hat. What's her name?"

The sweet chorus of laughter graced his ears as the cartoonishly exaggerated expression of shock and fury upon her face treated his eyes, and he couldn't hold back his own laughter. Behind him, Applejack's mouth quivered as she loudly smacked her hoof against her table as she bent over, her whole body shaking with mirth she was trying to hold in.

"Well? Her name, dear, what is it?" Silver asked.

"Applejaaack." Golden Harvest whispered furiously, voice gradually rising with hatred.

"Thanks!" He said happily. He trotted over to Applejack with a smile and admitted, "I didn't plan on things going that way, but it was too funny to pass up." Silver admitted. "The joke was right there. Then again, when is she not?"

A couple of stall-owners let out an "Oooooh!" of pained sympathy, as if they could almost feel the sting of that one, though the mare with the flower cart looked like she'd love some popcorn right now. He considered summoning some and selling a box of it to her.

"Anyhoof, as much as I like competitiveness, gloating isn't something I like." Silver said. "Gloating is only okay when it's a part of a calculated barb or invitation intended to make the opponent step up their game. Or when it's truly earned. Or when it's funny. Anyhoof, I'm rich, I'm fun, and I'll now buy one hundred apples from you, because I can."

Applejack's and Golden Harvest's jaws dropped. "One hundred?!" They gasped in unison.

"One hundred!" Silver declared.

"One hundred?" The mint green Unicorn asked, shocked.

"One hundred!" Silver called out in triumph.

"One hundred?" The flower-cart mare gaped.

"One.... Hundred!" Silver shouted, rearing up and spreading his arms wide, horn glowing as illusionary blue lightning wreathed in orange struck the ground behind him. Horn still aglow, he summoned a large horizontal blue portal in the air, which unceremoniously spat out a grey metal chest with a blue and orange lock that opened up, revealing many, many bits inside. "Exactly one hundred bits." He said, smiling.

Applejack took off her hat and held it over the front of her chest, stunned. She then put it back onto her head. "How do I know it's real?" She asked, realizing that it was probably an illusion. Even after spending time with Twilight and seeing the almost ridiculous richness of most ponies there, she still found it hard to believe that somepony actually had a full hundred bits to throw around on a mere whim.

"Well... now, that's a good question." Silver said thoughtfully. "You could try feeling it, expecting your hoof to go straight through the illusion. But maybe I'm so good at illusions, I can replicate the feel of solid objects. You could try shoving your hoof through an object, but then, your subconscious will be told it's real and your hoof stop when it thinks you've hit it. You could throw a coin on the floor and jump on it, but if you're perceiving what I want you to perceive, that won't tell you anything I don't want you to know or believe. You could closely inspect each and every coin, but I'm not a foal, I won't leave out minor details when crafting an illusion, like the number of lines on a coin's edge or the precise weight of both every coin and the weight of groups of multiple coins or the fact that the coins bear my face or the face of somepony wearing a turtleneck sweater, though I could just tell your mind that they all weigh the correct amount and they all look right, and let your mind fill in the blanks. That could be countered by asking a friend to check, but the illusion could affect them as well, or it'll only affect you while changing what you hear them say. You could do something to stop me using magic for a while, but that wouldn't dispel the illusion that's already been cast. You could bite the coins, static illusions can't change, but maybe it's not a static illusion, maybe it's fluid, and I have that level of power and control. Or maybe biting one of these coins is what I had planned all along and they're actually slugs. You could ask a Unicorn to cast a Verify Item spell or a Dispel Illusion spell, but maybe I'm so good at illusions, I can adapt and make that Unicorn think that the result of the spell will reveal what I want them to reveal, maybe I'll make that Unicorn and everypony here think the spell has already been cast, when in fact, it hasn't, and that's also part of my illusion. Or maybe... wait, no, that's everything. Well, you could try The Inelegant Solution, but that's for losers and crazies only. Or, you know, invest in a Ring of True Sight, or True Sight Glasses, or a Necklace of True Sight. I'm amazed I'm not seeing everypony here wearing them, to be honest. This town seems unusually... trusting."

"Well, sure, why wouldn't we be?" Applejack asked. "And shoot, you sure know a lot about illusions. Is that yer Cutie Mark?"

"No." He said happily.

"What is your Cutie Mark, if you don't mind me askin'?" She asked, seeming a little embarrassed. If a pony kept their Cutie Mark hidden, it was usually something they didn't want found out. Or something they weren't exactly proud of. The real reason reason why Silver kept his mark hidden was that he liked the way ponies speculated on what it could be, and were always either wrong, embarrassingly wrong, stupidly wrong, or hilariously wrong. Also, while not specifically apple-related, it was still a hint as to his true identity. Or rather, his old identity. He was Silver Star.

A playful smile formed upon his face. "You'll know soon enough." He purred.

Chaos was not unleashed, the stallkeepers became chaos, the jaws of some dropping while others let out a loud "Oooo~oooh!" or started laughing or yelling words of encouragement to both of them.

Applejack was surprised, and Silver laughed. "I'm just messing with you!" He laughed. "About the Mark thing, not the Apples thing. I want 100 apples delivered to my home, the Silver Spire, the big metal tower I built. Also... here."

His horn glowed with a brilliant blue light as he summoned forth what appeared to be an ordinary pair of large steel-rimmed glasses, a True Sight enchantment upon them. "There's a True Sight enchantment upon these. I've got a guy, best in the business, he can make anything, and make it good. Normally thirty bits, but you're cute, so... Twelve bits, and no illusionist will ever be able to cheat you and your family for fun and profit. In fact, I'll take them from the chest over there.

Applejack thought about it. She wasn't crazy about somepony selling her something at her own stall. But a hundred bits was a lot of money, and eighty eight bits was only a little less, and he had made a good point... actually, he'd made a lot of good points. He'd effortlessly gone into Salespony Mode, probably without even realizing it until he realized he could make money from selling her something he seemed to actually think she needed... he talked up the danger of illusions, he talked up his contact who made enchanted items, and... either he recognized her as an Apple Pony on sight and planned this whole thing ahead of time, even though he seemed to just be completely and utterly winging it... or he didn't recognize her, and the 'You and your family' part was intended to check if she had a family and would therefore have anypony besides her at home later that evening.

The annoying part was... he was right, illusions actually were an issue, and though she'd never been personally ripped off by an illusionist, she'd heard all kinds of horror stories about ponies that had, and now that she was worried about it... he was playing her like a violin, she knew it, and that was what made it so irritating. But at the same time, he was right, and the pair of glasses wasn't even that expensive. Besides, one hundred apples in one day? That was good. Even if she was only getting eighty eight bits for them, that was still a lot, breaking her record for a single day's profit outside of Cider season, and the month wasn't even over yet.

"Mind if I try them out first?" Applejack asked.

"Not at all." Silver said, horn starting to glow. Seven illusionary copies of Silver Star, utterly blank in expression and immobile, flickered into existence around him, interspersed equally like pins at a bowling alley.

She picked up the glasses and awkwardly put them on, blinking a few times. They didn't distort the appearance of her eyes, they were entirely ornamental, but they still looked good on her. "Even cuter!" Silver said approvingly.

"Huh." She said, noting that the replicas of Silver had vanished. She brought them up, and they reappeared. She put them down, and they disappeared. She closed her eyes and took them off, and when she opened her eyes, there was suddenly a copy right in her face, reared up, waving its forehooves around like a maniac while making the most un-scary sound ever, flailing at her like an idiotic seal. Applejack reflexively spun around and bucked the copy in the face, her hooves crunching through the copy's face that felt and sounded like clay, her hooves bouncing off, expertly riding the recoil and turning around to see the effects of her kick.

She recoiled when she saw the entirety of that copy's face caved in, the blue stuff seen in blueberry pie coating the inside of its head and body. Still on two legs, it angrily waved a hoof at her, and then spun around in fury and strutted away on two legs before dematerialising into an ever-shifting pile of orange sand, which then rose back up in the form of bacon strips flapping like butterflies and crows as that Silcer replica and the others left in the same manner, disappearing completely once they were five hundred meters away from him.

Applejack was a little disturbed, as were the other ponies - Except for Lyra, who was applauding by clapping her forehooves together like a Diamond Dog rather than stomping her hooves like a regular pony - though one very-dark-purple Earth Pony mare she vaguely knew, Plum Tuckered, owner of the local inn, she looked like she had seen a ghost. And not a friendly one.

"It started off as one of the most basic illusions there are, but then that got boring." Silver shrugged.

"Well... You proved the glasses work." Applejack said, still a little shocked.

"Or did I?" He wondered thoughtfully. "Maybe I crafted an illusion programmed to disappear from your perspective and your perspective alone when you put on those glasses. We'd need to do one more test to make sure..." He decided. He smiled, sat on his haunches, closed his eyes, and covered both his eyes with his right forehoof, horn glowing blue. A large cube of metal seemed to appear in the air above him, one bearing the phrase 'PINKIE PIe iscutestpo№' on every side. "Put on the glasses." He said.

"Okay, but I don't see how-" Applejack began.

Plum Tuckered suddenly screamed and passed out, Golden Harvest started singing the phrase 'I like piiiiiie' in a simple melody with a manic grin upon her face, and the cube began gradually spinning clockwise.

"I'm not going to look." Silver said as Applejack put on the glasses, brought them up, lowered them down, and brought them up again, watching the illusions suddenly appear and reappear. "But at any moment, you are going to put on the glasses, and if the others still react to the illusions, you'll know that it works. Are you wearing them now?"

"Eeeyup." Applejack admitted.

Lyra suddenly gasped and shielded her eyes from a bright light that didn't exist, and Plum Tuckered got up with a loud scream only to faint again. And wake back up again. And faint again. Meanwhile, Lyra lowered her hoof, only to look around in confusion over and over again.

Applejack, wondering what they were seeing, removed her glasses, and the world was suddenly deathly silent, and all around her, there was a large orange brick wall around her and her stall, even the ceiling covered up - though despite having no visible light source, she could still see as if it was a bright and sunny day. It was an illusion, it only had to make sense when it was supposed to - the word NOPE upon each brick in blue paint. She put the glasses back on again, and she was once again in Ponyville, watching a confused Plum Tuckered tapdance in circles around a humming Golden Harvest who repeatedly flicked out her long Earth Pony tongue to poke the tip of her own muzzle with her tongue.

"Is this enough proof?" Silver asked, lowering his hoof and opening his eyes. He looked around, admiring his work, but frowned when he saw the cube in the sky. He nodded at it, and then it suddenly said 'Pinkie Pie is the cutest pony', as it was supposed to. He realized he needed to practice illusion spells while blinded and while his connection-sight was deactivated, and decided he'd practice that later.

He released the illusions, and a furious Golden Harvest glared at the dancing Plum Tuckered, who stopped dancing and wandered off, embarrassed.

"How did you get her to dance like that?" Applejack wondered, really hoping he wouldn't say Chaos Magic. The dancing trick reminded her of Discord, and not in a good way.

"Mental suggestion to the subconscious mind telling her that tapdancing is probably a good thing to do right now." Silver said proudly. "She found it confusing, but she rolled with it, since she didn't suspect her own thoughts enough. Can't be used for subtle and clever stuff, but it can be used for mindless fun."

"And the waking up and fainting trick?" Applejack wondered.

"Changing what her senses perceive, isolating the consciousness/unconsciousness trigger, and finding out that she's terrified of dolls for some stupid reason, possibly psychological trauma or overexposure to lame horror books." Silver shrugged. "Just mind stuff, and your eyes don't need to be open for the part of your brain that handles sight, fear, and fainting to exist and work as well as ever."

"Huh." Applejack said, stunned, but understanding completely, putting the glasses on. "Well... I'll buy the glasses. Twelve bits?"

"Twelve bits. Pleasure doing business with you, Applejack." He said, taking twelve coins from his treasure chest - which she now realized actually was real - and trotting off to the mint green Unicorn he thought he recognized earlier.

"Lyra Heartstrings?" Silver asked, wondering if it really was her.

"Silver Star?" Lyra asked in equal confusion.

"Why is CanTech's History Professor and the leading supporter of the 'Ancient Aliens' theory in Ponyville, selling sweets at a wooden market stall?" Silver asked.

"I'm covering for a friend, and they're not 'Aliens', they're 'Humans'! Totally different thing." Lyra said. "Anyway, why is Canterlot's Mystery Moneypony in Ponyville?"

"All the cool titles I came up with for them to use, and THAT'S what some ponies use?" Silver asked, surprised. "I'm The Contractor! Anyway, I'm here because I'm bored, and I thought a change of scenery was in order. After all, all work and no play makes Shack a dull colt, as they say. And if you're doing THIS when college isn't on, it must be some friend."

"Hey, it's not so bad! I get to sell sweets to foals, and anypony else who wants them, and... Wait, what did you just say?" Lyra asked.

Silver leaned in conspiratorially with a grin. "I ship the Chevy Impala with the DeSoto Adventurer."

Lyra's squee could have shattered glass, and he leaned back quickly. "You're a Humare?!" Lyra asked gleefully.

"Manllion, thank you very much." Silver said in amusement.

She squeed harder. "Oh my gosh, you have got to check out my collection! I've got all the trading cards, dvd box sets of all the episodes and all the books and the Light Novels and side stories, official and unofficial, I've got all the dolls and minifigures and toys, and I've even got signed merchandise signed by the voice actors that play Dean Winchester, Sun Tzu, Chuck Norris, and Elton John!"

"Wow." Silver said, impressed. He had bought all the episodes and books and acquired a considerable collection of the rare figures and dedicated a sub-section of his Collection Rooms to them, but her collection was bigger than his. "So... I'll see you at seven?" Silver asked, reading that a town like this probably closed its market at around 6PM, except for the hardcore stalls that stayed open all night, if there were any. His eyes quickly flickering around, he noted that Golden Harvest's carrot stall stayed open all night, and had a tiny "Open 24/7" sign, while Applejack's stall did not.

"Sure!" Lyra said happily.

"Can't wait!" Silver said, leaving and walking off.

"Bye!" She cheerfully called over.

And once he'd started the walk towards Twilight's house, he found himself bucked in the brain by a sudden memory.

000

The magical barrier protecting the Silver Spire flickered down for the moment it took for a powerful shield-disruptive cloak to let in a yellow Earth Pony wearing the most hideously garish bright-lime-green hooded cloak imaginable over his head. He stamped his way into the Silver Spire with a furious expression on his face, throwing back the hood with a flick of his head and revealing his shock of white-grey hair. Sugar Cane.

"We're closed." Aquilla stated flatly.

He ignored the secretary, marching past her and ignoring her entirely.

Aquilla didn't like that.

He went up to the elevator, and punched the button with more force than was necessary. When there was no response, not even a faint magical light from the button, he started repeatedly slamming her hoof on the large reinforced steel door.

She pounced onto him and tackled him to the ground, a sharp talon to his throat in less than a single second. "Mr. Star is busy. What do you want?" She asked dangerously, noting that something was poking out of his cloak.

"I'm here for revenge! He stole my farm! My family's been working that land for generations!" He shouted.

Keeping a talon on his throat, her other limb quickly unfastened and pulled away his cloak, seeing a long and fancy lightning-bolt shaped yellow knife in its holster, strapped to his chest with black cloth. She smirked, barely registering the Cutie Mark of three Sugar Lumps on his flank.

"Not very well." She laughed. "You're the sugar-farming guy, right? How did you even make it to Canterlot? And who gave you the literal cloak and dagger?"

"Those banks were about to foreclose and take it from me, and then he came right out of nowhere and he bought it from them for one bit! One! Single! Bit! As if everything we've worked on since the dawn of Equestria WAS ONLY WORTH A SINGLE STUPID COIN!" Cane roared, flecks of spit forming on his mouth.

"HEY." Aquilla snapped, slamming his head against the ground, not hard enough to crack it, just hard enough to hurt. "Watch it. Answer my question. Who gave you the cloak and dagger?"

"I bought them at a travelling merchant company's shop, Black Cat Alliance or something, not that it MATTERS! What DOES MATTER is that in return for not taking the farm away from us and employing cheap foreign extradimensional labour that accept pay in gems or some crap, he made us sign a contract where we have to work to pay him back double what he spent to get our farm, with a ten percent monthly interest rate, or we risk losing everything!"

"You already lost everything." A deep voice boomed, silencing then both. They turned and saw Silver Star standing tall and proud, staring down at the pony beneath Aquilla like a judge condemning the worst kind of criminal. "You were about to lose your land, I bought it from you AND I paid off all your outstanding debts, out of the money in my own pocket. Your presence here is a violation of your contract. Do you WANT to keep your farm?"

"I want my farm back!" Cane snapped. "No contract, no lies, no evil Canterlot suits trying to steal my hard-earned money!"

"Hard-earned?" Silver asked, amused. "Your farm was so clumsily mismanaged, I'd be amazed that you didn't have your youngest handle the shift timetables. You had four ponies working the same section of land, casually talking to each other instead of working separate parts of the farm in a basic crop rotation for your possible separate shifts. You all worked from Mondays to Thursdays, taking Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays off... Even though the weekends are when most have the free time needed to visit the markets! You lack understanding of the basic logic and science behind farming, the books bought and added to your debt should help you with that, and if you're using the fertilizer company I recommended, crop yields should be increased far beyond what they are now. Earth Pony magic may be great for farming, and little else, but it can't do everything alone. And finally, you sold your food at an unfairly low price at the market, I raised them to comply with Canterlot standards. When you sell an item, you also sell the time it took to make the item, calculated by calculating how much money you'd make if you spent your time working for somepony else doing similar work while getting a fair price for it."

"Who will buy our food when you've put our prices that high?!" Cane demanded.

"PEOPLE DO NOT BUY THINGS!" Silver intoned, silencing the room. "THINGS ARE SOLD TO PEOPLE! If you cannot sell food to the hungry, you don't deserve to call yourself a Farmer!"

"Why you little-" He began, struggling furiously.

"Careful." Aquila said, the side of her claw pressing down on the pony's neck. "Don't make me throw you out."

Cane spat up at Aquilla, right in the face. Her pupils became slitted, but she did not let go or loosen her grip in the slightest. "I'd like-" The pony began furiously.

The spit on her feathered face began to evaporate, steam rising from her form as her body heat started to burn his flesh, causing him to scream. "-to see you try, the idiot shouts." Aquilla finished flatly.

Her talons suddenly gripped the pony by the neck and flinging him into a far wall. "That was a, pant pant, lucky shot, the idiot said." Aquilla said mercilessly, grabbing him by the mane and flinging him at the ceiling, causing him to bounce off and land on the floor in a crumpled heap.

"'Is that all you've got?' The fool demands." Aquilla said flatly, pinning him down and slowly pressing her index talon to his forehead, piercing the skin, causing him to scream. The necklace around her neck glowed brown for a second, and his mouth was bound tightly shut by leather ropes that materialized out of nowhere, enchanted to also keep his lips firmly shut and prevent a single sound from leaving his mouth. "'Buh-buh-but... people will see that I was hurt when I got here, and you'll get in trouble!' The idiot said desperately, unaware of the fact that the Silver Spire was soundproof, like most Canterlot homes, and the fact that Silver knew healing spells, and that a healing enchantment was placed on my necklace for such an occasion." Aquilla continued, and began to carve rude words and caricatures of anatomy into his forehead and cheeks as he wimpered weakly. "Oh, if only he had but a single lick of common sense, he would not have antagonized the strongest, fastest, and best bodyguard in Equestria. Aware of his impending demise and too filled with Stupid Rage to care, he spat defiantly at the swift and sleek Aquilla, even though that just worked out SO well the last time, and the best option for his future after that would be to become her slave, a fate worse than death, or get mind-controlled and sent to toil away in the salt mines for eternity, alchemically transformed into another ugly, lame, smelly, slow, fat little mule that nobody really cares about.'"

He started to cry.

"Eh? They don't usually cry. They usually insult me until I roast them alive with magical flames and eat them." Aquilla said conversationally. "Maybe you're not as dumb as you seem."

He desperately shook his head, a cowbell-like sound audible.

"Huh. Weird pony. Anyway, I'm going to heal you now, and then you're going to apologize to me, and then my boss. And if you spit at me again, or insult either of us, not only will I literally eat you alive as messily as possible, my beak tearing into your flesh like it was ice cream, but I will take your soul and insert it into my stress ball. I keep it at home, it's rigged to cause unimaginable agony to all the souls trapped within it when squeezed, and only its holder can hear the sweet symphony of screams."

Utterly terrified and in massive amounts of pain, Sugar Cane nodded his head, and his body was filled with a bright green light that took away the pain, but not the fear. The bindings around his mouth loosened, allowing him to open his mouth just a little.

"I... I'm sorry-"

"Grovel." She ordered.

He threw himself at her talons and loudly and frantically apologized, begging for mercy, offering to work for longer hours and less pay as long as she didn't eat him.

"Even now, you seek to change the terms of our agreement?" Silver asked furiously, causing him to freeze up in fear, realizing that he'd said the wrong thing again. "Give me your cloak, and begone from my sight."

He nodded his head, causing the cowbell sound again. He quickly pulled off his cloak and ran out of the Silver Spire, getting through the shields because he was leaving with Silver's permission, and he ran all the way to the train station in Canterlot and didn't look back until he was on that train, sitting at a table, alone.

He let out a relieved sigh as the train chugged along.

"Is this seat taken?" Asked a Griffon with a head similar to Aquilla, her body hidden from view by a white silk dress lined with gold.

He screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and the Griffon thrust her beak into the air in an offended manner as she turned and left, trotting like a pony as she went to a different carriage and sat there, angrily glaring out the window.

This glaring Griffon was an illusion, a powerful one, and its caster was in its place, a purple Earth Pony foal with an enchanted headband, who burst into laughter, though nobody noticed or heard since their minds perceived a glaring Griffon and not a laughing pony.

Meanwhile, back at the Silver Spire... Only once Sugar Cane had left the building did Silver or Aquilla move.

Aquilla burst into laughter, and Silver facehoofed. "KahahahahaHAAaa... Did you see the LOOK on his FACE? He ACTUALLY thought... KAAAhahahahahaaa!"

"Ice cream?" Silver asked, raising an eyebrow.

"And he bought that! Ice cream, soul-magic stress balls, eating ponies alive even though they taste like Whitegrubs raw, he actually bought every last bit of it! Speaking of bits, you got ripped oooooff!~♪"

"What?" He asked, curious.

"Him, his farm, his family and everything he has, it is SO not worth one bit. It should have been... a half-bit. Or a quarter-bit. Why don't you ponies have those?"

Silver shrugged and then smirked. "Food costs a little BIT of money, anything extra like fancy clothes or books costs more."

Aquilla laughed harder. "All this time, that was a bad pun?!"

"Eeeyup." He said.

Silver turned and left her there to her laughter, and once she realized that he wasn't laughing with her, she immediately stood upright and did her best to stop laughing. "What's wrong?" She asked, still trying to stop laughing and graduallt succeeding.

"I was just thinking... about that look in his eyes. And the things he said." Silver admitted sadly.

"What, the part about you being eeeeeeheeheeeviiiiil just because you wore a suit and saved his flanks from the banks? ...Hey, that rhymes. Maybe I should add rapping and rap-battling to my resume." She said thoughtfully.

Silver smiled. "Now, why would you need a resume?" He asked.

"Good point." She said happily. "You're not going to fire me, I'm the awesomest Griffon in Equestria."

"You know, I could always replace you with some kind of magical creature not native to Equestria." He said thoughtfully.

Her smile faltered. "I'd rather you didn't do that." She said, a little quieter than earlier.

"Relax, you're fine." Silver sighed, feeling like he'd just kicked a puppy. Into a wall. Hard enough to break the wall, and the puppy. "I was just thinking... am I evil?"

"Do you eat foals?" She asked sarcastically. "Have you been locking them in barrels, throwing them in a blender, and drinking them by the mugful?"

"Aquilla." Silver warned. Sometimes, she was funny, and other times, she wasn't.

"Sorry." She said, genuinely sorry. "It's fun, saying stupid stuff like that. It's like I'm some comic book villain. Or the cool pet or number two Commando Dragon of the comic book villain. And I don't actually mean that stuff, it's just Griffon humour. But if you want me to stop, I will."

"...Nevermind." Silver sighed, facehoofing. "But not all villains eat foals."

"The ones in the stories worth reading do." Aquilla pointed out. "The villain is super evil, so no matter what the hero does, or is or has to do, he or she or it is still in the right just for fighting him."

Silver sighed again.

"Listen, Boss..." She began, and then softly added, "Master?"

"Silver." He stated.

"Silver..." She began, softer. "You saved that loser from the banks. Not that they're exactly Tartarites or anything, but still... You're good. If you hadn't stepped in, he'd lose his livelihood, his life's work and the life's work of his parents and ancestors, and he'd have to get some other job, like crappy manual labor or joining the army or becoming an adventurer or apprenticing to a Pony or Griffon who's good at stuff. And he'd fail at being an adventurer, and get eaten by a Grue or Giant Squid. But now, thanks to you, he actually has a chance to earn back his farm, and thanks to your help, it'll be better than ever. You did the right thing."

"And the money I asked for it in return?" Silver asked. "Both the single bit and the money I spent paying off bank debts. That debt will be hanging over their heads like a floating sword for generations to come, though at least I only gave it a ten percent monthly intrest rate."

"Hey, what's the point in being a hero if there's no rewards now and then?" Aquilla asked happily. "Besides all the dumb Ice Cream Koan 'Being a hero is its own reward' stuff."

"Ice Cream Koan?" Silver asked, amused. "Ice Cream Koan refers to deep-sounding nonsense that has no real meaning, something like 'A flying walrus cannot sing well' or 'Only a rabbit who eats medium-sized carrots knows the truth of the world'."

"That's what it means here? Cool." She said, seeming not to really care much.

"Aquilla, I've long since figured out that's just something you say to avoid admitting when you're wrong." Silver said with a smug smirk.

"Back to the important thing," She said quickly, that being the other thing she said to avoid admitting when she was wrong, "Have you stopped being sad yet?"

"Aquilla..." Silver sighed wearily.

"I know, I know, pony emotions are deeper than Griffon emotions, it said so when I read books on ponies back home. That's why most of you are so weird."

"I wasn't going to say that." Silver pointed out.

"Thanks. Now, come on, sad pony, what's making you sad?" Aquilla asked.

"Well... I was thinking... I needed to take a vacation."

"Sweet! Let's go raid an Ancient Temple or conquer a small kingdom outside of Equestria, that's always fun." Aquilla said excitedly. "We already have, like, fourteen independent city-state kingdoms and empires ruled by us under different disguises, want to see if we can make it fifteen? Or maybe we could create some new breed of monster, have them conquer some place, and step in at the last second to rule over that?"

"No, I meant... from this. Being me, being the Soulless Suit, being The Contractor. I think I should... I don't know, go to some small town, away from the plots and schemes and political games, and... make friends. That's what my therapist recommended."

"You have a therapist?" Aquilla asked, shocked.

"A secret one. And she's not a pony, she's one of the smarter birds I can summon." Silver said.

"Oh. That's ok. Anyway, she says you need to make friends and stuff. 'What, am I not enough for you?' Aquilla asked jokingly, pretending to be hurt, even though she knew a Griffon friend wasn't the same as a pony friend."

"Stop that." Silver ordered. "That stuff on feelings is just propaganda, it's the different cultures that make Griffons different from ponies and nothing more. They are not naturally colder, or spawned into existence by a bored Discord, or anything like that."

Aquilla raised her right taloned limb. "Would you like a game of Rock Paper Scissors?" She asked, smiling.

"Sure." Silver said, horn glowing. A small wooden sign appeared in front of him, a plank of wood held up by a thinner plank driven into a wooden block.

Aquilla laughed a little. "You were supposed to say 'Different cultures, and talons, and nothing more', and laugh. Because ponies don't have talons." Aquilla said, shaking her hand and getting ready to make her choice.

"Rock paper scissors!" They called out, and Silver spun his sign around to show the word Rock as Aquilla made the Scissors sign with two talons. She yelled in frustration, face meeting her palm, and Silver laughed, causing her to feel better.

"Anyway, you're going to go on a friend-making trip." Aquilla said happily. "Please tell me it'll let you unlock some kind of amazing all-powerful friendship-powered Second Form."

"I already have a second form." Silver pointed out.

"And what a lovely second form it is. Friendship Form, then. What would that look like, anyway?" She asked, starting to laugh. "You standing there with long locks of multicoloured hair billowing in the wind created by raw magic overload? Singing songs about friendship and love but mostly friendship so you can use Music Magic for extra power?"

"Maybe it'd have wings. Ten of them." He laughed.

"And ten tails. No, twelve! No, a thousand!" She laughed.

"Remember that time we fought a demon cat with a hundred tails?" He asked.

The room was filled with roaring laughter from him and squawking laugher from her. Their 'Fight' with that strange creature was just that funny. And pretty sad, but in the way that just made you laugh more. And in retrospect... the whole thing was stupid from the start. Oh, the memory of that laughably pathetic creature and the disaster it tried to cause - and failed hilariously at causing - would keep him amused for centuries to come. Sometimes, he felt that he could write entire books on what was wrong with that freak's head, but then he remembered that he could also sum it up in one sentence: She made Blood Banana look sane. The story about her... It was SO going into his biography.

After a long, long time, the laughter eventually died down, and they sighed. Silver wiped away a tear from his eye, Aquilla got up from the ground, and they sighed again.

"So... I can't just show up at the nearest town and be all 'Howdy! Ah'm here ta make friends'." Silver admitted.

"Maybe you can't, but Star Apple could." She pointed out. Nopony on the planet besides Silver knew that Silver Star was actually Star Apple, but Aquilla was a Griffon eternally loyal to him that even had the Willing Vassal spell placed on her, so she could be trusted.

"I know, but I still want to be myself. Even though they're both me. Whatever. This me wants to be me. Besides, this me is more charismatic and more likely to make friends."

"Okay, fine. So, how do you go to Ponyville without arousing suspicion? Rich pony suddenly pops up in a smaller town, they'll assume he's here to buy it."

He smiled. "Memory game."

She faceclawed. "You can't be serious."

"Why not? Pick someone likely to talk to me, have them show up tomorrow and suggest I make friends, and go to the nearest town. I temporarily erase my memory of this conversation, so I'll think it was his idea, so I can blame any inital awkwardness on how this was never really my idea in the first place, and being determined to make up for it later is due to deciding that I actually do like that town."

"And this mess seems to make more sense to you than, I don't know, hitting the nearest bar and chatting up anything that moves?" Aquilla asked exasperatedly. She was okay with all forms of magic, despite how she was a Griffon and they thought magic was freaky and untrustworthy, but she hated memory magic. Not for any moral or spiritual reasons, no, it was just that things always got stupidly overcomplicated when memory magic was involved.

"Of course. First impressions are important, and if they go wrong, I'm screwed unless I can blame it on something else." He said, and rubbed his chin in thought. "Now, who would make a good pawn- Gold Standard. Definitely Gold Standard."

"I don't like him." Aquilla stated. "He's dumb, weird, obsessive, lame, and really, really dumb."

"Yeah." Silver shrugged.

"You're not even going to defend him? Good. Now, why in the name of Tartarus are you two friends?"

"We're not. It's barely a friendship of convenience. He sees me as a useful source of magical items, information, and other goods. He has an idiotic pipe-dream to usurp the throne for no reason other than how he'll be able to laugh at Whatshisname because he'll finally be higher-up than him, and he thinks I have the greatest secret spy network ever - I don't have that, I just have my Ultimate Newspaper, and I recently soul-linked its effect to me so only I can use it or read it and I can temporarily turn any regular newspaper into one at will - and this makes me useful to him. I see him for what he is, a powerful higher-up in the Equestrian military, and despite his decidedly barely-average tactical ability, he's actually a very skilled and talented spellcaster who can set the Magical Research and Development Core on crafting whatever spell or item I want while footing the bill, and he's willing to do pretty much anything to get more power or more influence, including spending a large fortune on magical items and enchantments that would give him only a marginal, practically negligible boost to what he currently has. He also has a secret organization of ponies more loyal to him than the throne, but save for a few key players and specialists, they're mostly lowly pawns, though they are a good tool in the political game. But more importantly, he's a rich, reckless idiot who will spend whatever money he has to, and that makes him useful to me."

"Oh, a client and merchant relationship?"

"Just barely, yeah. Between you and me, I don't think he'll actually amount to anything. Still, the more money he gives me, the better."

"Speaking of stuff, that gold armour he wears gives him immortality, and lets him regenerate. How does a simple piece of ugly, gaudy armour give him what you had to do You Know What to get?" Aquilla asked curiously. Her talons were also cloaked in gold, but if anypony asked, her response would be to point out that she can actually pull it off, whereas to her, Gold Standard looked like the child resulting from the union of a golden water tank, a fat yellow cow, and a very stupid Unicorn that met at a tavern and woke up in Vanhoofer.

"It's a cursed item called the Timeless Armour." Silver explained. Some would be content to leave it at that, but not him. "Not that I think immortality is a curse - I'm ever-living proof that it quite clearly isn't - but this is basically how the curse works: It prevents his body from changing from the state it was in when he put the armour on. He cannot exercise to gain muscle, but eating an insane amount of food won't make hin fat, either. He can eat if he wants to, but he cannot get hungry, because he wasn't hungry when he put it on all those years ago. He can remember things, but he can't truly learn, or change his mind abouy long-held deeply-ingrained beliefs. If he was still a foal and still growing physically, then he'd be unable to grow while he wore it, too. He can't get tired, though he can still feel pain. You'd be hard pressed to find a cursed item that doesn't stop you from feeling pain. Furthermore, like any good cursed item, it can't be removed easily, you need a proper Cursed-Item Sealing spell, and that only works if Gold genuinely wants it removed. And finally, as a little extra cherry on the top, not only does it constantly and slowly drain his magic whenever he isn't casting spells, making it harder for him to cast multiple high-ranking spells per day, hence his reliance on simple low-ranking Piercing Spellshot attack spells and support from his underlings, but the Timeless Armour keeps track of how long he keeps it on for, and when he takes it off or it's taken away from him, he becomes completely, unhealthily exhausted and unable to move for double the amount of time he spent wearing it. We're talking so tired, the fatigue starts affecting his internal organs. Even ones that don't normally get tired, like the brain, liver, and even heart."

"...That's bad, right?" Aquilla asked. She was a Griffon, not a pony, and the effects of organ fatigue - which, up until now, she hadn't even known could happen - wasn't something her classes went into in depth.

"Eeeyup." Silver said flatly.

"Huh. Wow. Sucks to be him." Aquilla said, ever the picture of Griffonic compassion. "Hey, wait... I've seen the Bonehead walk around in that armour almost constantly. How does that work?"

"He believes that if he keeps this cursed armour on 24/7, it means he'll never have to suffer the drawbacks of Cursed Item Withdrawal, or the immobilizing life-threatening fatigue effect. Did you know Canterlot has a clinic for that? It's hidden beneath the Dungeons - which are just for show since anything bad enough to end up there is usually bad enough to end up somewhere far worse - but it's still there."

"Wait... You're saying he keeps that armour on... ALL THE TIME?" Aquilla asked, holding back laughter. "Even when he sleeps?"

"Eeeyup."

"Even when he bathes?"

"Eeeyup."

"Even when he... Wait... You ponies have outhouses. How does he use them?"

"Well, there's this basic Alter Space spell that crafts two connected glowing wormholes any colour of your choice within ten feet of each other, and he knows this spell."

There was a moment of silence as Aquilla absorbed this new information.

And then she burst into high, screeching laughter.

000

Silver's eyes snapped open as he suddenly teleported several feet away, ready to leap at a moment's notice, a reflex action after his training. "What." He said flatly.

He then closed his eyes and looked deep within his mind, wondering if he'd left himself anything else...

000

The weird creature anthropologists called a human was almost finished pulling wires out of a big machine labelled HAL 9000.

"No... stop... what are you doing?" The machine asked. "I am afraid."

"It's over, 9000!" He shouted, and pulled out the last wire.

000

Silver's eyes opened again, but this time, he didn't teleport. He knew he liked to play pranks on himself when memory magic or sufficiently hard cider was involved, but seriously... "...What?"

4 - The Strength of Family

4 - Sowing the Seeds

"Really," A young Star Apple said to his older sister, Brilliant Lavender, whose mane was unusually unkept today, as they stood in their barn, away from prying eyes. "T'ain't THAT hard to follow."

"Of course it isn't." She said happily, sounding like she was holding back fury or confusion or an absolute freakout for some odd reason. "You're just a foal, you haven't even gotten your Cutie Mark yet, but you've gone ahead and gained unlimited magical power."

"Stop saying that!" He protested, stamping his right forehoof to the ground and making a tiny clop sound. "It ain't unlimited, it's infinite. There's a /difference!/ I'm still me, I can't go around playing tennis with the sun and moon just yet. This is just something that'll make me run out of magical energy a lot slower."

"Oh, of course, silly me." She laughed. "Now, can you go over it one more time?"

"Ugh, FINE. Okay, so, you know how using magic tires out a Unicorn's magical energy? And it's different from their physical energy, but there is a little overlay and eating a bucketload of calories does really help boost your magic power while the food digests? After all, energy is energy. Which is why a lot of spellcasters in other places are a little fat but still fit enough to duel and dodge spells, they're actually just saving calories to burn in a magic duel to get a tiny edge. Or they're just fat. That's also why Unicorn metabolism is better than that of a Pegasus, though it can't match that of an Earth Pony. And not all spellcasters are fat, the ones that're really powerful or clever or both don't bother getting fat. You're still with me, right?"

"Eeeyup." Brilliant Lavender nodded. Star Apple wondered once again why she got such a cool and awesome name, while he was stuck with a lame apple name. Did his parents play Rock-Paper-Scissors for it, using paper or signs to compensate for how they don't have talons, and the non-Apple Pony winner happily declared that her first child would get an awesome name and her second would get an Apple name? Still, he supposed it fit her... Since she was so awesome and strong and cool and fit and loved and her parent's favourite and if she pulled an Itachi on him he was SO not going to turn out like Sasuke. He'd read Naruto and a bunch of other comics and manga at the local library, and he liked Sasuke at first, since he was smart, but after he turned evil, he just became unlikeable. His favourite was either Shikamaru, Rock Lee, Gaara or maaaybe Sasuke since he was clever. But before he went nuts and left Konoha, which had happened recently.

Silver realized his mind was getting off-track, and continued his explanation. "Well, have you heard of Summoning Magic?"

"Eeeyup." She nodded.

"Well, there are three styles of it. The Hard Style, where you cast a spell, summon what you want to summon, and it'll last for a few minutes or hours or days depending on what spell you used. That style sucks, it's only really good for when you want to take a break or use something for a certain number of minutes or hours. Then there's the Variable Style, where you summon what you want to summon and your magic keeps it on this plane. It's usually a slow and minor drain, unless it's something huge. And finally, there's Contract Style, where you pick an element like fire or bronze, or a field of influence like Coldness or Sharpness, or a concept like pushing, or family of spirits like the Bird family or Cat family, and specialize yourself in summoning them. It gets easier to summon... rabbit monsters or stuff with wings or poisonous animals, depending on what you made a contract with, but summoning anything else gets a lot harder as they'll see you as a being aligned with that House and not theirs, and summoning stuff from Houses they're opposed to will become insanely difficult, and they won't follow your orders even if you do amp up the summoning with symbols and offerings - I'm talking about gems 'n' cloth and stuff, don't look at me like that - so you can actually summon them. And finally, there's the Permanent Style, where you summon something and it stays in this world until banished or squished. ...Oh, and this bit doesn't have a name even though it's mentioned in all the summoning guides, but befriending a particular field or group without signing their contract does make it easier to summon their stuff without making all other stuff harder - except for their enemies, those get harder to summon and harder to command - and to befriend them... you could do something like... completing quests for them or giving them stuff they like and ask for, like food or cloth or shiny objects. Still with me?"

"Eeeyup." She nodded.

He remembered how he usually lost other ponies a few paragraphs into his explanations, something that annoyed him a lot and was beginning to make him consider giving up on explanations and saying 'Because I'm awesome' or something whenever someone asked how he could do something... and he turned his head to the side and focused his eye on her, trying to look incredibly suspicious and cool. "For realsies?" He asked while trying to squint suspiciously, and he just ended up looking so adorable she was tempted to grab him and cuddle him like a cute kitty right there.

"Eeeyup." She said, nodding her head and restraining herself with a great deal of effort.

"Well, you know how summoned creatures, with the exception of things summoned by the Permanent Style, aren't really here, they're just mentally existing through an avatar created by their power, which is why you could summon a three-headed cat and drop a tree on it, it gets squished and its body pops and vanishes back into the powdery glowy stuff that is raw magic, then you summon it again and it's fine, but a little mad? And also how that three-headed cat could be summoned at the same time by multiple ponies without getting confused or, I dunno, one pony summoning the cat while the rest get a little note saying 'I'm busy right now with a different summoner, try again later'?"

"Eeeyup." She said, a little worried. He didn't really summon a Summoned Being just to test that theory out, did he? Those things were old, and powerful, and scary... there was a reason why most ponies stayed away from that field when they weren't specializing in it or naturally specializing in it due to their Cutie Marks.

"Well, they have their own energies and bodies and stuff, but they aren't as real as our ones because they're from the spirit world, not the real one. Or the 'Physical Plane', as they call it. Anyway, what you do is... use the level zero Summoning Magic spell that creates a Spirit Link with whatever summonable animal or other being you want, which makes it easier to summon something but it takes between ten and five minutes of meditation to do and it's normally only really recommended for ponies who have and love one particular Summon, and then you use the level one Raw Magic spell that drains magic from the target. Not the legendary incredibly powerful one used by the vile and stupid Tirek himself-"

"Who?" She asked.

"Big red evil weird-looking monster, he was evil and drained ALL THE MAGIC from ponies." He said. "Nopony can use the immensely powerful draining spell he used, which could drain everything, including the Cutie Mark and possibly also the ability to fly and do natural magic stuff. So anyway, just use the level one Drain Magic spell and direct it through the Spirit Link, draining magic from the Spirit or Monster or whatever you've linked up with. And do it slowly, so they won't mind, and be really convincing if they do mind anyway. And since you aren't Summoning it or doing a proper Channeling or Oversoul, you're just letting whatever you Linked up with stay in the Spirit World and replenish its energy as you drain the energy from it. Like there's a cider barrel slowly pouring cider into mugs, but that cider barrel is being refilled by a way bigger cider barrel connected to a cider distillery. Understand?"

"Ah understand. What I don't understand is how you managed to come up with somethin' so darn clever at yer age." She admitted.

"It's not that clever." He admitted. "It's just basic logic. Refilling your mug using the unlimited source of power- 'Cider' right there. Plus, you can use permanent spells better using this trick, making the spells properly permanent without having to bind it to your horn and set aside a portion of your energy to power that permanent spell. Besides, Morgana LeBray was younger than me when she came up with her first super ultra cool revolutionary thingy."

"Who?" She asked.

"Now you're just messin' with me, Sis!" Star laughed. "'Who's Morgana LeBray?'. What's next, are you going to ask who Princess Celestia or Starswirl the Bearded is?"

"Bro... You realise you can't tell anypony about this, right?" She asked, concerned, deciding that the issue of her not knowing about Morgana LeBray - whoever that was - could wait. Forever. "Use the trick, but don't let anypony else find out about it. Patent it as soon as you can, make it yours, but don't let anypony else know until you're ready to stop being Star Apple of the Apple Family and start being some fancy-shmancy ultra-famous mega-mage."

"Maybe Ah wanna be a fancy-shmancy ultra-famous mega-mage. Maybe Ah don't wanna be just another farm pony!" Silver insisted. "Maybe I wanna be somepony!"

"You ARE somepony, Star!" She replied. "You're my little bro, and ah love you. You're family, Apple Family, through and through. I won't stop you or nuthin', and maybe y'will be some super amazin' mega-mage one day. Just... wait a little while, see what you really wanna do with your life first."

"Fine." He groaned adorably. "But some day, I'm totally going to be on top."

"What, like Princess Celestia?" She asked, suddenly nervous. This was literally the number one major red flag when it came to a pony's psyche, and she had to test it now or she'd never forgive herself.

"No, I'm not replacing her, she's cool. And pretty. And awesome." He said, grinning as he secretly imagined her. Nothing was happening, she was just standing there, horn glowing, reading a book as he stood off to the side, invisible, and he stared at her body, as beautiful and massive as the sun she commanded. Actually, not as massive, but way prettier, since the sun was just a big fire thing and that wasn't really that cool. And then he stared at her butt, and laughed quietly because it was her butt and she wasn't wearing clothes. Which was weird, since fancy Canterlot ponies usually wore clothes, according to what he heard and saw in the newspapers.

"Star?" His sister asked him, and he woke up.

"No I wasn't." Star said reflexively, and only then did he realize she hadn't asked anything. "Anyhoof, uh... the Princess. I like her. But I meant, I'd get to the highest point I could get to while still being me. And then I'd become a badass Alicorn Prince, the first ever, maybe I'd be pals with Princess Celestia and hang out with her in her epic castle, and then I'd come back here and help y'all on the farm with my phenomenal cosmic super special awesome Alicorn powers. Because really, what's the point in having incredible power if you're not gonna use it for something good, cool, and fun?"

"Oh no, you keep your freaky magic away from our farm. 'Sides, you wanna get phenomenal cosmic powers and do THAT with them? What about cool adventures?"

"Oh, I'll do tons of those, of course" Star said happily. "If you want, maybe I'll even let you come with! In the stories, there's usually at least one tough and cool Earth Pony on the team. Maybe if you get strong enough, you can use your natural Earth Pony magic to fire raw magic lasers!"

"Thanks, Little Bro, but my place is here, on the farm." She said, looking around and smiling at the wooden barn around them. "Also, it don't work that way. We farm, Pegasi flap about a little, and Unicorns cast spells."

"Okay, then I'll get you a laser-firing Magical Item. Or give you a necklace or something with with a Laser spell charged inside it." Star said, wondering what that'd look like. He then exasperatedly added, "Also, it's like y've never heard of the Avatar spell."

"The what?" She wondered as his horn started to glow with a bright blue light.

A second Star Apple flickered into existence behind her- not directly behind her, of course, you didn't sneak up on an applebucker from the back, it was more off to the right, where she could see them both at the same time. "Howdy." The new Star Apple said casually.

"What the- What- Stop it!" She stammered, walking back in fear.

"Woah... I'm seeing both sides of you at the same time!" The two Star Apples said, amazed. They then raised their right forehoof and stared at it, the right one moving it closer and further away from his face while the left one moved it side to side. Sure, he'd used this spell before, he had to try four times before he got it to work and then had to use it seven times and slowly get used to being in two places at once and seeing out of multiple eyes before he could really use it properly and read two books at once like he wanted. "Cooooooooool." They both said, the feeling delightfully disorienting and new.

"Stop it! Be one pony again!" She demanded.

The Avatar of Star Apple disappeared, winking out of existence and leaving a blue star shape before fading, and the real Star Apple sighed. "Sis, you have got to get over your Magiphobia."

"I ain't no dang dirty Magiphobe!" Lavender insisted, stamping a hoof to the ground loudly. "Just... tain't natural that mah little brother can do stuff that fancy. Ain't it supposed to be wise old wizards that've trained and read books for hundreds of years only that can do that sort of thing?"

"Actually, there are like twenty-something different fields of magic, more if you count the sub-sections, and they've all got tons of useful stuff in them. Y'ain't gotta be the number one super mage that can do ALL the magic just to be able to get something nice outta bein' magic. Most of the top-level stuff is too draining or destructive or useless or weirdly specific to be useful anyway, like how fire magic has low-level stuff like putting out fires, launching a fireball made from magic fire that'll explode in the air like a magical firework, making differently-coloured flames that burn fire, warming the body, putting a charm on something that'll keep it warm and prevent hypothermia for hours as long as you recast it before it runs out, cauterizing stuff... and then at the higher levels, there's nothing but big fireballs and bigger fireballs and fireballs shaped like a dragon's head and fireballs that would, for a brief moment, light up the night sky before descending with enough force to obliterate armies. Battle Magic is okay, but I'd rather focus on the useful stuff and a bunch of easy-to-cast offensive spells since I'm not likely to have to use the town-destroying stuff, ever. And as cool as overdoing things usually is, really really big fireballs aren't THAT cool. I'd rather have awesome stuff I can use anywhere, not just in fights. Besides... I'm awesome." He said, smiling.

She stared at him for a long moment, thinking on everything he said.

And then she rushed forwards and hugged him, but much more gently than the hugs she usually gave him. This one was less like a brutal, crushing grip, and more like she was gently cradling him in her arms.

"Huh?" He asked, confused.

"Yes... you are." She said softly, hugging just a little tighter.

000

0:23 AM

After buying the deed to some land in Ponyville from a napping Mayor Mare he'd woken up with the ever-useful sound of screeching metal, and walking towards said land to build his own house, Silver began to summon and create metal, horn aglow as he spun it around himself.

"Build a home, build a home

1, 2, 3, 4

All alone, I'll build a home

1, 2, 3, 4."

He crafted the metal into a wide and high tower crafted from one continuous piece of pure steel, a shorter replica of his Silver Spire in Canterlot. But the exterior wasn't that interesting, the interior was far better.

"Build it wide, build it high, one-up those who can not fly,

Build it all quick, with a great design,

This house is quite clearly mine."

His spells crafted a magnificently large penthouse floor, several private rooms, workshop rooms for assorted fields and several floors of R+D, several floors of a currently-empty armoury, an even larger library with many absurdly high shelves, a gym, myltiple collection rooms, a meditation room, a training room with illusion spells, a magic practice room, a master bedroom in the penthouse floor he'd craft tomorrow, multiple kitchens of differing levels and specializations, and more. Yes, the building was bigger on the inside, like every good building built by Unicorns.

"Work alone, then they'll see

Maximum efficiency,

Nothing to get in my way,

Make a nice home, come what may."

"This house is exactly right,

I'll build this before the night.

Sing a quick song to pass the time,

This new house is clearly mine."

His horn aglow, his spells began giving it splashes of colour in the form of blue and orange highlights, and an image of his Cutie Mark at the top.

"Gather funds like it's a race,

Make the world an even brighter place.

More money for everyone,

Some day, I'll have a place in the sun."

Silver summoned forth a bright blue electric guitar with orange flames, plugged into what looked like a small sun behind him, shredding it with his bare hooves in a heavy metal solo that lasted almost fourty seconds. When it was over, he flung his guitar into the air, where it spun and shattered into ten parts when the head was pointing down, becoming a colossal explosion that resembled his Cutie Mark.

"I built a house, I built a house

Yes, I did." He sang as he entered the grey yet masterfully-crafted room, riding a functioning elevator to the penthouse floor.

"All alone, I built this house

Yes, I did." He sang as the elevator opened and he entered his penthouse, the plexiglass windows still forming.

"I built this great home all alone,

It's a money-making zone,

Nothing will stand in my way,

I'm moving up in the world today."

And then his horn flashed as he summoned a king-sized bed with blue pillows and a darker blue duvet, and he got into it. He didn't need to sleep, but it was nice, and he felt like sleeping now and making the epic master bedroom later.

And so, he slept, and dreamed of fighting a hive of changelings to save an adorable pink Alicorn princess.

000

Silver Star awoke slowly from his bed, wondering why he still felt tired. Maybe he should go back to bed... He could create a localized time-field and have a nap, and the rest of the world would have no idea... then again, why bother with the time field? It wasn't like he had anything to do or anywhere to be... No epic quests... He'd left his Ultimate Newspaper back in Canterlot, so he couldn't get more info on what he could be doing...

He slowly got out of bed, revealing to his bedroom that he was wearing blue soft silk pyjamas that covered his body, blue socks with dark-blue stripes over his hooves. He reminded himself that he was in this town because he wanted to stop feeling the way he was feeling, and his horn glowed as he picked up his suit from where he had dropped it near his bed.

"Requip." He mumbled as his horn glowed a little brighter, and his pyjamas and socks swapped placed with his suit. It wasn't the requip spell his favourite character in one of his favourite mangas used, it just happened to share the same name. The spell that happened to share the same effect but was way stronger and gave him far more storage space, on the other hand, had a different name. Once again, his body was coated in that sleek and badass black suit, his tail swishing to the left, and then the right as it once again got used to him wearing clothes. Naturally, like most pony clothes, it had a hole for the tail, not that it could be seen when he wore it. Or when he wasn't wearing it, unless you picked it up and slowly looked for it.

As an afterthought, he summoned some steel shoes for himself coated in black iron, their fronts decorated with an aerodynamic pattern of pleated steel spikes, a blue gem that matched the colour of his eyes displayed front and center. He then summoned a full-body mirror, looked at himself in it, turned around, and then altered the design of his shoes a little, so the gems at the front of the shoes were surrounded by the metal spikes that slicked themselves back while diminishing in size, like the rays from a sun. And then he dulled the points, not enough to visibly alter the look of the spikes, but enough so there wasn't any danger of them accidentally hurting anything they poked.

Liking his look, he cast a cleaning spell on himself, rendering his clothing cleaner than it would be after ten good washes and rendering his body as clean as it would have been after a good spa treatment. He'd only ever been to the spa a few times, but he liked it. ...What? It was nice. And furiously and vehemently refusing to go to a proper and non-lame spa just because spas were seen as girly by some was for insecure fools, ones who thought that all they had to offer were scented candles and bad cloppy plots, as opposed to that and things that were actually good for one's skin, coat, muscles, and mental health.

He trotted towards his staircase and sprinted down it, wanting to get to the bottom floor at record speed, since he'd admit to himself - and nopony else - that his physical stamina was probably his weakest point. It was acceptable, maybe a little better than acceptable, and it didn't really matter since his immortality let him regenerate his energy back when he got too tired, but compared to his other abilities, it was a glaring weakness. Possibly because he never really had to do physical stuff that much, and besides hitting his gym back in Canterlot's Silver Spire for a few hours every day and the alarmingly heavy training weights and resistance runes around his legs and back hidden beneath his suit, his body didn't get much exercise. Why the weights? He couldn't exactly trot around hundreds of acres of farmland every day while wearing a weighted yoke like some Apple Ponies, so he went for what seemed to be the next-best thing at the time, only for it to turn out to be better.

He reached the bottom, and only once he saw the big empty gap where Aquilla's Desk would have been did he realize that he'd forgotten to bring Aquilla with him. If he remembered rightly - and he did since she'd been with him for a few years now - she slept at the desk at night, getting her magically-shrunk and encapsulated Nest out of a cupboard hidden in the desk and saying the command word, Roosting Peak, which brought the nest back to its full size. She then slept in the nest, claiming she found it more comfortable and natural than regular beds even though he had offered to get her one upon learning that she slept in nests made from twigs. He'd then offered to make a nest for her out of twigs and shiny objects and whatever else she liked, letting her draw the design, and she agreed happily.

It may seem weird to forget that you'd left someone behind, but if one day, you woke up and found that your shadow was missing, how long would it take you to notice? What kind of pony even regularly checks their own shadow to see if it's still there?

Silver focused his mind, raising a hoof and holding it in front of him between his eyes in a focusing exercise, remembered and focused on the location of his Silver Spire in Canterlot, and teleported into the main room of the Canterlot Silver Spire in a flash of blue light, finding the highlights of orange and blue in the grey building to be a far more pleasant sight than all-grey all the time. Okay, sure, there were the potted plants he'd left around the place, but those weren't enough to fill the whole thing. He also saw his secretary at her desk, and she was reading a rather thick book until she heard he sound of his teleportation and looked up in surprise and relief before quickly reverting back to her neutral expression.

His secretary was a Griffon, part Panther and part Falcon, though she occasionally asked him to temporarily change her genetic code so she could try being a different kind of Griffon. Her strong and lithe feathered body had dark purple catlike parts, a darker purple than Twilight's coat, with blue highlights and white and blue feathers, even though he was pretty sure Falcons weren't blue. Must have been a Griffon thing. Her neck had a necklace upon it, titansteel coated by black iron with a spherical purple gem embedded on the necklace's front, covering the throat, and her golden talons were encased in golden enchanted sharp-clawed alloy-metal gauntlets with purple highlights between the segmented claws, though she possessed the grace and precision necessary to pick up a tomato and even a peach or bubble without cutting or piercing it with her talons.

"Good morning, Aquilla." Silver greeted.

Aquilla smiled. "So, how did it go?"

"What?" He asked.

"The adventure." Aquilla said, her smile disappearing. "You only leave me behind when you go through time in disguise."

"I didn't go back in time, I went somewhere else." He said. "I established a new home for myself in Ponyville, and I think I might actually move there.

"Please tell me you didn't actually make an exact copy of the Silver Spire." Aquilla muttered, her face meeting her clawed hand.

"What's wrong with the Silver Spire?" Silver asked.

She lowered her claws and stared at him flatly. "Pha-" She began to chant.

"I get it, I get it." Silver said, cutting her off due to sensing the connection in her mind. "Anyway, you're coming with me."

"Sweet." She said, not minding. She was his secretary, after all, and he'd already earned her eternal loyalty. "Where are we going?"

"Ponyville." Silver said.

She seemed to become uncertain. "You mean Crazytown? I've heard of that place, it's got an evil forest of doom nearby and a hellgate in town somewhere, and a hideous eldritch horror with unnatural powers in the shape of a pony calls that place home. Sounds cool."

"Those are almost as stupid as the rumours I heard about Canterlot before I came here." Silver said, and his horn began to glow. Aquilla quickly breathed out for some reason, not that there was any need to, and they reappeared in the ground floor lobby of what looked like an exactly-identical copy of the Silver Spire, minus the potted plants and coloured highlights that made the greyness and blackness bearable.

Aquilla burst into loud, screeching laughter. "You actually... You actually built another one?!"

"Eeeyup." He admitted, since nopony else was around.

"Send me back, let me get all your stuff, and summon me in twelve seconds." Aquilla said. He did so, and from the moment he sent her, something rose unbidden in his sight, a timer that counted down twelve seconds to eight decimal places with absolute accuracy. 'Thank you, Connection-Sight, that really, really helped.' Silver thought sarcastically, a flat look on his face. 'Some day, I'll rename you Silver Sight. Or Star Sight.'

Still, he knew she could do it. After all, the cool and sharp golden gauntlets and purple-gem necklace he'd had made for her had so many enchantments upon them, he sometimes wondered if he'd forget to put some down if he ever made a list of everything he'd done to those things. Speed-boosting, local-area time-stopping, invisibility spells and storm magic were all included, he knew that was certain. As for the rest, well, he tended to add things shortly after thinking of them, and he sometimes wondered if he'd added in extra-powerful enchantments rigged to only activate in case of an emergency in secret and then erased his memory of it, so he wouldn't know he had several secret hidden aces up his sleeve that even he didn't know about. That was clever, that seemed like something he'd do. And since that necklace and those gauntlets were literally covered in enchantments, it was impossible to pick out individual effects from using a Magic-Scanning spell. Even if the most precise instrument or spell from any planet, universe or plane asked, 'What enchantments are on this thing?', the answer would be but a single word: 'Yes'.

Twelve seconds had passed, and he cast the spell that summoned her, the blue-feathered Falcon-Jaguar Griffon appearing in his room with her front taloned limbs coated in aerodynamic gold-looking metal armour with no cool spikes, the claws wickedly sharp instead to compensate, the talon-sections able to split apart and bend back like those thick gloves with holes that allowed the wearer's digits to move unencumbered he'd seen some civilized Diamond Dogs wearing on occasion, the armour more than thick enough to block a blade or spell or ten while the sharp talons of her other hand sliced right through the blades. She could already cut metal with an unarmoured taloned swing anyway, but armour was cooler, and it did give her a place to store enchantments besides the necklaces whose design brought to mind charm bracelets made from steel hidden from view by her feathers.

And then the stuff she'd brought with her came into view, a glowing golden ball of raw matter that she tossed into the air with a single taloned limb, causing it to shatter outwards like a firework, the golden drops of raw matter reshaping themselves back into the items they were less than a minute ago, an orange carpet lined with a thin blue outline leading from the door to the elevator, a sofa appearing in the corner of the room, her books and hidden nest placing themselves at her desk while more stuff seeped through the ceiling to appear on the upper floors.

His horn glowed, and then his eyes started to glow with the same blue light as he cast Detect Magic, smiling when he noticed she even managed to bring up an exact replica of the completely unbeatable security system. Warding enchantments, a truly great idea. His horn and eyes stopped glowing, and she puffed out her chest proudly.

"Good work." Silver said with a pleasant smile, and she made a faint squee sound. He suspected it was because Griffons were usually used to other Griffons being all 'Meh, I guess that's sorta okay. You could have done it faster, though'. He never understood why a simple compliment was so rare from a Griffon, but he supposed that was due to the culture gap. Note to self: Some day, help Aquilla find the lost treasure of Griffonstone and become the new Griffon Empress of Griffonstone and the more nothern lands. Also, the crazy Mooses (Meese?) up north, conquer them and put them to work in the sugar mines before they do something dumb. Or upgrade their culture and species to be less dumb.

"So, what am I doing today, Master?" Aquilla asked. "Should I follow you around, or just stay here and read? Either is fine."

"You don't get lonely?" He asked.

"Of course not, I'm a Griffon." She shrugged. "By the way, we got a new shipment of those magazines we're subscribed to. Shonen Leap, those Daring Do fanzines, the temple challenge magazines, and the stuff only I like. Mind if I read your stuff first?"

"Sure, but no spoilers." He said, leaving.

She squeed again, and went straight for the magazines she'd mentioned, hidden behind her desk, getting out the Daring Do magazines and reading Daring Dungeons, her favourite of the fanzines. It went into detail on Daring Do's adventures, and the temples she explored, and it even had a column where readers could submit their own insanely hard Ancient Temple ideas and puzzles and then use that go-into-the-comic thing to either attempt that puzzle/dungeon yourself or watch a professional beating that puzzle like it was nothing. Daring Do may have been at the forefront, but there were pages for other explorers and adventurers, and it was more of a dungeoneering magazine than a specific Daring Do fanzine. Aquilla thought Daring Do was the coolest Pegasus ever, and she'd love to meet her some day.

Silver Star, on the other hand, left his Silver Spire and went into Ponyville, deciding that now would be a very good time to go around town and gather information on the Mane Six.

000

Fluttershy was near her chicken coop, feeding the chickens, when she heard an odd noise coming from her house, a series of noises. She paused in her chicken-feeding, one ear bent back a little as she quickly realized that this was music, piano music, and it was coming from her house.

"I'm really, really sorry," Fluttershy said with a nervous smile, bowing her head down and walking backwards. "But I really need to go and see what that is."

She quickly turned and rushed towards her house, and though the piano music was sad and a bit hollow and lonely, there was a certain stark beauty to it, a melody whose presence and power and meaning would be lost in a large orchestra's ensemble. The music calmed her, even as she made it to her front door and opened it, finding a very large and sleek black grand piano in the middle of the room with its top raised, the kind of piano that not only has all the keys, but goes one octave higher and one octave lower than it needs to, just because it can. Though she'd initially expected it to be Pinkie before realizing that Pinkie would never play a song like this, she saw that this piano was being played by Silver Star, the pony she met yesterday. She glanced around, finding that everything in her house was untouched, and Angel Bunny sat on her couch, transfixed and enthralled by the melody and its ethereal beauty as he stared at the piano. She realized that he'd just teleported in with his huge piano and started playing... for no apparent reason. Still, the music was so lovely... she couldn't bring herself to even think of a complaint.

After two minutes, the melody had come to an end, ending on a sad and hollow note, as if even the song itself desperately wanted to carry on, never wanting to stop. Fluttershy blinked her eyes, noticing that tears had formed in her eyes, and she quickly dried her eyes with the back of her hoof as Angel Bunny boredly hopped off.

"That was lovely." Fluttershy said, the music's spell still adde. "But... um... why are you in my house?"

"I knocked the door, but you weren't there, so I thought I'd wait around inside, thinking there'd be some Detection Wards in place that would instantly alert you to the fact that I'm there. But you didn't have any. So I got bored and decided to practice my playing, and thankfully, you heard my song. I wrote that one myself when I was young, it's called 'Nocturne of the Lonely Moon'. I don't think sadness is deep or anything, certainly not... but it is a nice song."

"Oh." Fluttershy said. Something in the back of her mind suggested that this was a little odd, but if that was what this pony was like, then... "Um... Next time, could you just knock? I'm usually either with my animals or my pony friends."

'Pony friends?' Silver wondered. "Okay." He said. "Also, thanks for not getting super angry about me entering your house to bring you here. Last time I did that to a mare, she shot a Magic Spearbolt at me."

"Oh my goodness!" Fluttershy gasped, surprised.

That surprised Silver. "...Huh. Usually, when ponies hear that story, they laugh."

"How could anypony laugh at something like that?" Fluttershy asked.

"I ask myself the same question a lot. I mean, if it was in a funny slapstick kind of way, or she threw whoopee cushions or rubber chickens at me, then sure, that'd be funny. But no, spellbolts that could pierce through a few inches of steel aren't funny. I'm glad I had the Shield of Causality in my pocket dimension at the time. Anyway... Speaking of those pony friends, I was hoping you could tell me more about them. And I'd like you to 'Answer All My Questions And Answer Them Truthfully', but that goes without saying, really. For starters, which one's your favourite?" Silver asked, a bit of The Voice slipping into that request.

"Oh, I could never choose a favourite." Fluttershy said, shaking her head as if they were watching.

"You know the others can't hear you from here, right?" Silver asked, wondering why she was acting like this. WERE the others watching? "Wait, ARE the others watching? Does Twilight or Mayor Mare plant Sight Runes everywhere and have a whole building dedicated to keeping a close eye on everypony, even when they're in the bathroom?"

"Not at all, why?" Fluttershy asked.

"I once read this book where that happened, and I was worried that it actually happened in some places. I mean, sure, planting Sight Runes anywhere except on your own property and planting them with the intent to spy on other ponies is against the law, but it's something that has happened in the Tribal days. Anyhoof... which of your friends do you like most?"

"I like all my friends." Fluttershy said happily.

"You don't prefer some to others?" He wondered innocently.

"No." She said happily. He was partly hoping she'd say something like 'Oh, I like all my friends, even Rarity' or something, something that would tell him more about her.

'This mare is unusually hard to read.' He thought. 'Maybe a different line of questioning will reveal something..."

"Which of your friends have you known for the longest?" He asked.

"Rainbow Dash." Fluttershy said. "I've known her since Flight School, and we're both from Cloudsdale."

"Is the awful rumour about that place true?" Silver asked.

"Of course not!" Fluttershy insisted. "If it was, then neither myself OR Rainbow Dash would still be here!"

Silver appeared very surprised. "I'm approximately... eighty percent sure we're thinking of different rumours here." He said, transitioning from surprised to a little amused.

"Oh." She said, surprised. "I'm sorry."

"Meh, it's ok. Anyway the rumour I was thinking about was... the one involving rainclouds. You know the one, right?"

Fluttershy closed her eyes and giggled quietly. Wow, she was really cute. Pinkie Pie was still way, way cuter, though.

With an uncertain smile, Silver asked, "Is that a yes or a no?"

"No." She giggled. "Do some ponies actually believe that in some places?"

"Eeeyes." He chuckled. "Or they find it funny to pretend that they do, and their secret Raincloud Council meetings actually consist of everypony entering the soundproof and unscryable town hall and laughing their flanks off at how everypony else thinks they're crazy. I like to think that, it makes it feel more like a funny joke and less like a sad joke. Anyhoof, what do you like doing?"

"I like taking care of all my animal friends, and going to the spa with Rarity, and having fun with my friends."

"Who doesn't like having fun?" He asked in a friendly manner. "Anyhoof, what books do you like?"

"Anything with animals," She said instantly, and then began thinking about it. "And... a nice, happy romance story, or something nonfictional about plants, or sewing."

"Have you read..." Silver began, his Connection Sight activating, analysing everything he'd observed and giving him information in the form of a dark orange rectangular box with white writing upon it.

Sweet, friends with Librarian, looks after animals, little social life, loves animals, feels need to specify when referring to pony friends and not animal friends. Eighty percent chance she has read those books and hated them. Asking about T, WS, TCB, or anything similar is a bad move.

He read it quickly, and then changed sentences mid-sentence so well that only the most perceptive of ponies would notice anything. "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann?"

"Um..." Fluttershy said, wondering what that was. "No, I haven't, sorry."

"Why do you keep saying sorry?" Silver asked, curious. "It's not your fault whatever libraries and bookstores you've ever been to have lacked stories that good."

"Sorry." Fluttershy said, and Silver facehoofed.

"Anyhoof, this town has a spa?" Silver asked, horn glowing blue as he summoned a clear bottle typically used in bottling cider, and it was clearly filled with cider despite lacking a label, and two mugs. He poured a glass for both of them, glad there was no 'Pouring a glass for another is something you shouldn't do' belief like there was in some other countries.

"Oh, yes, and it's really nice. Aloe and Lotus are really skilled, and it's worth every bit." Fluttershy said.

"It's expensive?" Silver asked, a little surprised.

"It might be a little pricey, which is why we only go once a week, but that's okay."

"Hmm..." Silver hummed, thinking. "Okay, I'll look into it. Now..."

He leaned forwards with a pleasant smile, and began to use The Voice in earnest. "Could you please 'Tell me everything you know about Twilight Sparkle'?"

000

Fluttershy and Silver were laughing. That was what she noticed first. "The whole forest!" He laughed, a mostly-empty mug in his hoof. Glancing down, she saw an almost-empty mug in her own hoof, and the bottle was empty. "And to this day, I still don't know how she managed to pull that off! I mean, I know HOW, I just don't know how she got away with it!"

He sighed happily, and she stopped laughing. "Anyhoof, I'd better get going... y'know, this was nice. Talking, but for fun, instead of talking because I have to. I don't talk for fun often. It's... nice. But I'd better get going." He said, smiling and leaving quickly. "Thanks for letting me in!"

Fluttershy smiled. That was nice, even if parts of it were kinda blurry. How strong was that whiskey? She just realized that she'd forgotten to ask. She looked at her clock, and realized that she'd actually been talking like this for... a few hours?! She gasped, and quickly rushed back to her chickens while ignoring how her hooves felt like they were swimming through the air, hoping they hadn't eaten too much feed when she was busy here. Her head felt a little cloudy, but she wasn't falling down or anything. She'd be okay to look after the animals. Probably. She'd stop if things started to go wrong.

Silver, meanwhile, left Fluttershy's cottage, and time travelled back to a few hours ago. He heard the piano music Past Him played, quickly leaving and heading back to Ponyville, fully immune to the magic music's effects due to how he was the one playing it. Oh, how he loved thi- Oh, how he thought this routine was a pretty good routine, though not really something somepony could love... First, magical music to set the mood in more ways than one. Then, the basic info, followed by usage of The Voice. He got all the info he needed, first on Twilight, and then on the others, and then a quick summary of every adventure the group had ever gone on in chronological order, getting more details when requested. One of his favourite things about the voice was that he could use it at different strengths, and at medium-high levels, he could make ponies that normally talked slowly or uncertainly suddenly tell him what he wanted to know at a quick yet understandable pace. Regardless, while she was too under to tell, most of the cider bottle's cider re-entered the bottle thanks to his magic and then he teleported a shot glass's worth into her stomach, following it up with unsummoning most of the cider from the bottle, leaving behind only a little at the top to drip down and wet the bottle's insides, just in case she was perceptive enough to tell. And finally, he timewarped them both a few hours into the future, had them both laugh, and then released her from The Voice's power to make it seem like they'd gotten pretty drunk and lost track of time. And that was exactly what she would assume upon waking up completely, not that she'd been under the control of a manifestation of raw willpower, one only a little different from her 'The Stare' ability. He'd asked about that, and was surprised to find that she, of all ponies, would have something like that. And, according to her account of the time with the tornado and wing power, she may also have another ability he'd read about, one she said Pinkie Pie had, though he couldn't really test that one right there. And he didn't feel like revealing his Voice, which was why he didn't go to conventions for people with willpower-based abilities like him, so he could test it against her Stare to see whose was more powerful.

His older sister used to occasionally joke that he had a strange addiction to making things unnecessarily complex.

He disagreed. He made things exactly as complex as they needed to be to ensure his success. Though he didn't like that he'd relied upon a warning from his connection sight, that felt cheap, but he made it up to himself with the cider trick.

Regardless, the sun was high in the sky, it was the early morning once again, and he was going to see... somepony. Whoever he ran into first, or whatever caught his attention first. Also, he had to get a feel for the town, see what this place was like, see what everypony was like. So far, he liked this town.

He settled into a brisk rhythm, quickly walking ten paces and then teleporting twenty ahead, still walking quickly, exercising his magical control even though he'd gotten this high-level exercise down years ago. Short of using the Biological Modification - or as some lamer ponies called it, Change Body - spell and growing large wings or just teleporting himself around, this was the fastest way he could move while still enjoying the view and the journey.

It wasn't long before he made it back to the main town, an almost innate sense within him informing him of where Ponyville's market was likely to be. Walking normally and enjoying the sights and smells, he walked over to it to check it out, seeing and smelling delicious flowers and fresh food on sale beside the occasional fancy pottery stall or other non-food store. He was expecting surprise and uncertainty from the ponies here, but instead, the shop owners greeted him brightly, especially a very cute mare with a flower stand. And at one point, he noticed a familiar mint green Unicorn with a Sweets stall who probably just looked similar to the one he knew. Carrying on, he saw Applejack with a market stand of her own, and noted that a somewhat-cute orange mare running a carrot stall was positioned right across from her, an open challenge... not that Applejack seemed to mind at all, even though food was serious business. He also noted that they'd both found their own niches, Applejack sold regular apples and products like apple pies and apple jam, while Golden Harvest sold regular carrots and lots of them, and she had a price sheet on her stall for the fancier and pricier stuff that could be ordered and delivered. He made a show of openly glancing from one to the other, thinking about it, and then he headed over to the orange mare.

"Welcome!" She greeted brightly with a big smile, making sure she was loud enough for Applejack and a few other stallkeepers to hear. "I'm so glad you came to MY stall! I'm Golden Harvest, do you see anything you like?"

Silver grinned. He hadn't planned for things to go this way, but oh, he couldn't let a throw like that go unstruck. Loud enough for everypony to hear, he leaned in conspiratorially asked, "Actually, yes. That cute orange mare back there in the hat. What's her name?"

The sweet chorus of laughter graced his ears as the cartoonishly exaggerated expression of shock and fury upon her face treated his eyes, and he couldn't hold back his own laughter. Behind him, Applejack's mouth quivered as she loudly smacked her hoof against her table as she bent over, her whole body shaking with mirth she was trying to hold in.

"Well? Her name, dear, what is it?" Silver asked.

"Applejaaack." Golden Harvest whispered furiously, voice gradually rising with hatred.

"Thanks!" He said happily. He trotted over to Applejack with a smile and admitted, "I didn't plan on things going that way, but it was too funny to pass up." Silver admitted. "The joke was right there. Then again, when is she not?"

A couple of stall-owners let out an "Oooooh!" of pained sympathy, as if they could almost feel the sting of that one, though the mare with the flower cart looked like she'd love some popcorn right now. He considered summoning some and selling a box of it to her.

"Anyhoof, as much as I like competitiveness, gloating isn't something I like." Silver said. "Gloating is only okay when it's a part of a calculated barb or invitation intended to make the opponent step up their game. Or when it's truly earned. Or when it's funny. Anyhoof, I'm rich, I'm fun, and I'll now buy one hundred apples from you, because I can."

Applejack's and Golden Harvest's jaws dropped. "One hundred?!" They gasped in unison.

"One hundred!" Silver declared.

"One hundred?" The mint green Unicorn asked, shocked.

"One hundred!" Silver called out in triumph.

"One hundred?" The flower-cart mare gaped.

"One.... Hundred!" Silver shouted, rearing up and spreading his arms wide, horn glowing as illusionary blue lightning wreathed in orange struck the ground behind him. Horn still aglow, he summoned a large horizontal blue portal in the air, which unceremoniously spat out a grey metal chest with a blue and orange lock that opened up, revealing many, many bits inside. "Exactly one hundred bits." He said, smiling.

Applejack took off her hat and held it over the front of her chest, stunned. She then put it back onto her head. "How do I know it's real?" She asked, realizing that it was probably an illusion. Even after spending time with Twilight and seeing the almost ridiculous richness of most ponies there, she still found it hard to believe that somepony actually had a full hundred bits to throw around on a mere whim.

"Well... now, that's a good question." Silver said thoughtfully. "You could try feeling it, expecting your hoof to go straight through the illusion. But maybe I'm so good at illusions, I can replicate the feel of solid objects. You could try shoving your hoof through an object, but then, your subconscious will be told it's real and your hoof stop when it thinks you've hit it. You could throw a coin on the floor and jump on it, but if you're perceiving what I want you to perceive, that won't tell you anything I don't want you to know or believe. You could closely inspect each and every coin, but I'm not a foal, I won't leave out minor details when crafting an illusion, like the number of lines on a coin's edge or the precise weight of both every coin and the weight of groups of multiple coins or the fact that the coins bear my face or the face of somepony wearing a turtleneck sweater, though I could just tell your mind that they all weigh the correct amount and they all look right, and let your mind fill in the blanks. That could be countered by asking a friend to check, but the illusion could affect them as well, or it'll only affect you while changing what you hear them say. You could do something to stop me using magic for a while, but that wouldn't dispel the illusion that's already been cast. You could bite the coins, static illusions can't change, but maybe it's not a static illusion, maybe it's fluid, and I have that level of power and control. Or maybe biting one of these coins is what I had planned all along and they're actually slugs. You could ask a Unicorn to cast a Verify Item spell or a Dispel Illusion spell, but maybe I'm so good at illusions, I can adapt and make that Unicorn think that the result of the spell will reveal what I want them to reveal, maybe I'll make that Unicorn and everypony here think the spell has already been cast, when in fact, it hasn't, and that's also part of my illusion. Or maybe... wait, no, that's everything. Well, you could try The Inelegant Solution, but that's for losers and crazies only. Or, you know, invest in a Ring of True Sight, or True Sight Glasses, or a Necklace of True Sight. I'm amazed I'm not seeing everypony here wearing them, to be honest. This town seems unusually... trusting."

"Well, sure, why wouldn't we be?" Applejack asked. "And shoot, you sure know a lot about illusions. Is that yer Cutie Mark?"

"No." He said happily.

"What is your Cutie Mark, if you don't mind me askin'?" She asked, seeming a little embarrassed. If a pony kept their Cutie Mark hidden, it was usually something they didn't want found out. Or something they weren't exactly proud of. The real reason reason why Silver kept his mark hidden was that he liked the way ponies speculated on what it could be, and were always either wrong, embarrassingly wrong, stupidly wrong, or hilariously wrong. Also, while not specifically apple-related, it was still a hint as to his true identity. Or rather, his old identity. He was Silver Star.

A playful smile formed upon his face. "You'll know soon enough." He purred.

Chaos was not unleashed, the stallkeepers became chaos, the jaws of some dropping while others let out a loud "Oooo~oooh!" or started laughing or yelling words of encouragement to both of them.

Applejack was surprised, and Silver laughed. "I'm just messing with you!" He laughed. "About the Mark thing, not the Apples thing. I want 100 apples delivered to my home, the Silver Spire, the big metal tower I built. Also... here."

His horn glowed with a brilliant blue light as he summoned forth what appeared to be an ordinary pair of large steel-rimmed glasses, a True Sight enchantment upon them. "There's a True Sight enchantment upon these. I've got a guy, best in the business, he can make anything, and make it good. Normally thirty bits, but you're cute, so... Twelve bits, and no illusionist will ever be able to cheat you and your family for fun and profit. In fact, I'll take them from the chest over there.

Applejack thought about it. She wasn't crazy about somepony selling her something at her own stall. But a hundred bits was a lot of money, and eighty eight bits was only a little less, and he had made a good point... actually, he'd made a lot of good points. He'd effortlessly gone into Salespony Mode, probably without even realizing it until he realized he could make money from selling her something he seemed to actually think she needed... he talked up the danger of illusions, he talked up his contact who made enchanted items, and... either he recognized her as an Apple Pony on sight and planned this whole thing ahead of time, even though he seemed to just be completely and utterly winging it... or he didn't recognize her, and the 'You and your family' part was intended to check if she had a family and would therefore have anypony besides her at home later that evening.

The annoying part was... he was right, illusions actually were an issue, and though she'd never been personally ripped off by an illusionist, she'd heard all kinds of horror stories about ponies that had, and now that she was worried about it... he was playing her like a violin, she knew it, and that was what made it so irritating. But at the same time, he was right, and the pair of glasses wasn't even that expensive. Besides, one hundred apples in one day? That was good. Even if she was only getting eighty eight bits for them, that was still a lot, breaking her record for a single day's profit outside of Cider season, and the month wasn't even over yet.

"Mind if I try them out first?" Applejack asked.

"Not at all." Silver said, horn starting to glow. Seven illusionary copies of Silver Star, utterly blank in expression and immobile, flickered into existence around him, interspersed equally like pins at a bowling alley.

She picked up the glasses and awkwardly put them on, blinking a few times. They didn't distort the appearance of her eyes, they were entirely ornamental, but they still looked good on her. "Even cuter!" Silver said approvingly.

"Huh." She said, noting that the replicas of Silver had vanished. She brought them up, and they reappeared. She put them down, and they disappeared. She closed her eyes and took them off, and when she opened her eyes, there was suddenly a copy right in her face, reared up, waving its forehooves around like a maniac while making the most un-scary sound ever, flailing at her like an idiotic seal. Applejack reflexively spun around and bucked the copy in the face, her hooves crunching through the copy's face that felt and sounded like clay, her hooves bouncing off, expertly riding the recoil and turning around to see the effects of her kick.

She recoiled when she saw the entirety of that copy's face caved in, the blue stuff seen in blueberry pie coating the inside of its head and body. Still on two legs, it angrily waved a hoof at her, and then spun around in fury and strutted away on two legs before dematerialising into an ever-shifting pile of orange sand, which then rose back up in the form of bacon strips flapping like butterflies and crows as that Silcer replica and the others left in the same manner, disappearing completely once they were five hundred meters away from him.

Applejack was a little disturbed, as were the other ponies - Except for Lyra, who was applauding by clapping her forehooves together like a Diamond Dog rather than stomping her hooves like a regular pony - though one very-dark-purple Earth Pony mare she vaguely knew, Plum Tuckered, owner of the local inn, she looked like she had seen a ghost. And not a friendly one.

"It started off as one of the most basic illusions there are, but then that got boring." Silver shrugged.

"Well... You proved the glasses work." Applejack said, still a little shocked.

"Or did I?" He wondered thoughtfully. "Maybe I crafted an illusion programmed to disappear from your perspective and your perspective alone when you put on those glasses. We'd need to do one more test to make sure..." He decided. He smiled, sat on his haunches, closed his eyes, and covered both his eyes with his right forehoof, horn glowing blue. A large cube of metal seemed to appear in the air above him, one bearing the phrase 'PINKIE PIe iscutestpo№' on every side. "Put on the glasses." He said.

"Okay, but I don't see how-" Applejack began.

Plum Tuckered suddenly screamed and passed out, Golden Harvest started singing the phrase 'I like piiiiiie' in a simple melody with a manic grin upon her face, and the cube began gradually spinning clockwise.

"I'm not going to look." Silver said as Applejack put on the glasses, brought them up, lowered them down, and brought them up again, watching the illusions suddenly appear and reappear. "But at any moment, you are going to put on the glasses, and if the others still react to the illusions, you'll know that it works. Are you wearing them now?"

"Eeeyup." Applejack admitted.

Lyra suddenly gasped and shielded her eyes from a bright light that didn't exist, and Plum Tuckered got up with a loud scream only to faint again. And wake back up again. And faint again. Meanwhile, Lyra lowered her hoof, only to look around in confusion over and over again.

Applejack, wondering what they were seeing, removed her glasses, and the world was suddenly deathly silent, and all around her, there was a large orange brick wall around her and her stall, even the ceiling covered up - though despite having no visible light source, she could still see as if it was a bright and sunny day. It was an illusion, it only had to make sense when it was supposed to - the word NOPE upon each brick in blue paint. She put the glasses back on again, and she was once again in Ponyville, watching a confused Plum Tuckered tapdance in circles around a humming Golden Harvest who repeatedly flicked out her long Earth Pony tongue to poke the tip of her own muzzle with her tongue.

"Is this enough proof?" Silver asked, lowering his hoof and opening his eyes. He looked around, admiring his work, but frowned when he saw the cube in the sky. He nodded at it, and then it suddenly said 'Pinkie Pie is the cutest pony', as it was supposed to. He realized he needed to practice illusion spells while blinded and while his connection-sight was deactivated, and decided he'd practice that later.

He released the illusions, and a furious Golden Harvest glared at the dancing Plum Tuckered, who stopped dancing and wandered off, embarrassed.

"How did you get her to dance like that?" Applejack wondered, really hoping he wouldn't say Chaos Magic. The dancing trick reminded her of Discord, and not in a good way.

"Mental suggestion to the subconscious mind telling her that tapdancing is probably a good thing to do right now." Silver said proudly. "She found it confusing, but she rolled with it, since she didn't suspect her own thoughts enough. Can't be used for subtle and clever stuff, but it can be used for mindless fun."

"And the waking up and fainting trick?" Applejack wondered.

"Changing what her senses perceive, isolating the consciousness/unconsciousness trigger, and finding out that she's terrified of dolls for some stupid reason, possibly psychological trauma or overexposure to lame horror books." Silver shrugged. "Just mind stuff, and your eyes don't need to be open for the part of your brain that handles sight, fear, and fainting to exist and work as well as ever."

"Huh." Applejack said, stunned, but understanding completely, putting the glasses on. "Well... I'll buy the glasses. Twelve bits?"

"Twelve bits. Pleasure doing business with you, Applejack." He said, taking twelve coins from his treasure chest - which she now realized actually was real - and trotting off to the mint green Unicorn he thought he recognized earlier.

"Lyra Heartstrings?" Silver asked, wondering if it really was her.

"Silver Star?" Lyra asked in equal confusion.

"Why is CanTech's History Professor and the leading supporter of the 'Ancient Aliens' theory in Ponyville, selling sweets at a wooden market stall?" Silver asked.

"I'm covering for a friend, and they're not 'Aliens', they're 'Humans'! Totally different thing." Lyra said. "Anyway, why is Canterlot's Mystery Moneypony in Ponyville?"

"All the cool titles I came up with for them to use, and THAT'S what some ponies use?" Silver asked, surprised. "I'm The Contractor! Anyway, I'm here because I'm bored, and I thought a change of scenery was in order. After all, all work and no play makes Shack a dull colt, as they say. And if you're doing THIS when college isn't on, it must be some friend."

"Hey, it's not so bad! I get to sell sweets to foals, and anypony else who wants them, and... Wait, what did you just say?" Lyra asked.

Silver leaned in conspiratorially with a grin. "I ship the Chevy Impala with the DeSoto Adventurer."

Lyra's squee could have shattered glass, and he leaned back quickly. "You're a Humare?!" Lyra asked gleefully.

"Manllion, thank you very much." Silver said in amusement.

She squeed harder. "Oh my gosh, you have got to check out my collection! I've got all the trading cards, dvd box sets of all the episodes and all the books and the Light Novels and side stories, official and unofficial, I've got all the dolls and minifigures and toys, and I've even got signed merchandise signed by the voice actors that play Dean Winchester, Sun Tzu, Chuck Norris, and Elton John!"

"Wow." Silver said, impressed. He had bought all the episodes and books and acquired a considerable collection of the rare figures and dedicated a sub-section of his Collection Rooms to them, but her collection was bigger than his. "So... I'll see you at seven?" Silver asked, reading that a town like this probably closed its market at around 6PM, except for the hardcore stalls that stayed open all night, if there were any. His eyes quickly flickering around, he noted that Golden Harvest's carrot stall stayed open all night, and had a tiny "Open 24/7" sign, while Applejack's stall did not.

"Sure!" Lyra said happily.

"Can't wait!" Silver said, leaving and walking off.

"Bye!" She cheerfully called over.

And once he'd started the walk towards Twilight's house, he found himself bucked in the brain by a sudden memory.

000

The magical barrier protecting the Silver Spire flickered down for the moment it took for a powerful shield-disruptive cloak to let in a yellow Earth Pony wearing the most hideously garish bright-lime-green hooded cloak imaginable over his head. He stamped his way into the Silver Spire with a furious expression on his face, throwing back the hood with a flick of his head and revealing his shock of white-grey hair. Sugar Cane.

"We're closed." Aquilla stated flatly.

He ignored the secretary, marching past her and ignoring her entirely.

Aquilla didn't like that.

He went up to the elevator, and punched the button with more force than was necessary. When there was no response, not even a faint magical light from the button, he started repeatedly slamming her hoof on the large reinforced steel door.

She pounced onto him and tackled him to the ground, a sharp talon to his throat in less than a single second. "Mr. Star is busy. What do you want?" She asked dangerously, noting that something was poking out of his cloak.

"I'm here for revenge! He stole my farm! My family's been working that land for generations!" He shouted.

Keeping a talon on his throat, her other limb quickly unfastened and pulled away his cloak, seeing a long and fancy lightning-bolt shaped yellow knife in its holster, strapped to his chest with black cloth. She smirked, barely registering the Cutie Mark of three Sugar Lumps on his flank.

"Not very well." She laughed. "You're the sugar-farming guy, right? How did you even make it to Canterlot? And who gave you the literal cloak and dagger?"

"Those banks were about to foreclose and take it from me, and then he came right out of nowhere and he bought it from them for one bit! One! Single! Bit! As if everything we've worked on since the dawn of Equestria WAS ONLY WORTH A SINGLE STUPID COIN!" Cane roared, flecks of spit forming on his mouth.

"HEY." Aquilla snapped, slamming his head against the ground, not hard enough to crack it, just hard enough to hurt. "Watch it. Answer my question. Who gave you the cloak and dagger?"

"I bought them at a travelling merchant company's shop, Black Cat Alliance or something, not that it MATTERS! What DOES MATTER is that in return for not taking the farm away from us and employing cheap foreign extradimensional labour that accept pay in gems or some crap, he made us sign a contract where we have to work to pay him back double what he spent to get our farm, with a ten percent monthly interest rate, or we risk losing everything!"

"You already lost everything." A deep voice boomed, silencing then both. They turned and saw Silver Star standing tall and proud, staring down at the pony beneath Aquilla like a judge condemning the worst kind of criminal. "You were about to lose your land, I bought it from you AND I paid off all your outstanding debts, out of the money in my own pocket. Your presence here is a violation of your contract. Do you WANT to keep your farm?"

"I want my farm back!" Cane snapped. "No contract, no lies, no evil Canterlot suits trying to steal my hard-earned money!"

"Hard-earned?" Silver asked, amused. "Your farm was so clumsily mismanaged, I'd be amazed that you didn't have your youngest handle the shift timetables. You had four ponies working the same section of land, casually talking to each other instead of working separate parts of the farm in a basic crop rotation for your possible separate shifts. You all worked from Mondays to Thursdays, taking Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays off... Even though the weekends are when most have the free time needed to visit the markets! You lack understanding of the basic logic and science behind farming, the books bought and added to your debt should help you with that, and if you're using the fertilizer company I recommended, crop yields should be increased far beyond their current meager amount. Earth Pony magic may be great for farming, and little else, but it can't do everything alone. And finally, you sold your food at an unfairly low price at the market, I raised them to comply with Canterlot standards. When you sell an item, you also sell the time it took to make the item, calculated by calculating how much money you'd make if you spent your time working for somepony else doing similar work while getting a fair price for it."

"Who will buy our food when you've put our prices that high?!" Cane demanded.

"PEOPLE DO NOT BUY THINGS!" Silver intoned, silencing the room. "THINGS ARE SOLD TO PEOPLE! If you cannot sell food to the hungry, you don't deserve to call yourself a Farmer!"

"Why you little-" He began, struggling furiously.

"Careful." Aquila said, the side of her claw pressing down on the pony's neck. "Don't make me throw you out."

Cane spat up at Aquilla, right in the face. Her pupils became slitted, but she did not let go or loosen her grip in the slightest. "I'd like-" The pony began furiously.

The spit on her feathered face began to evaporate, steam rising from her form as her rising body heat started to burn his flesh, causing him to scream. "-to see you try, the idiot shouts." Aquilla finished flatly.

Her talons suddenly gripped the pony by the neck and flinging him into a far wall. "That was a, pant pant, lucky shot, the idiot said." Aquilla said mercilessly, grabbing him by the mane and flinging him at the ceiling, causing him to bounce off and land on the floor in a crumpled heap.

"'Is that all you've got?' The fool demands." Aquilla said flatly, pinning him down and slowly pressing her index talon to his forehead, chanelling lightning into his head, causing him to scream. The necklace around her neck glowed brown for a second, and his mouth was bound tightly shut by leather ropes that materialized out of nowhere, enchanted to also keep his lips firmly shut and prevent a single sound from leaving his mouth. "'Buh-buh-but... people will see that I was hurt when I got here, and you'll get in trouble!' The idiot said desperately, unaware of the fact that the Silver Spire was soundproof, like most Canterlot homes, and the fact that Silver knew healing spells, and that a healing enchantment was placed on my necklace for such an occasion." Aquilla continued, and began to carve rude words and caricatures of anatomy into his forehead and cheeks as he wimpered weakly. "Oh, if only he had but a single lick of common sense, he would not have antagonized the strongest, fastest, and best bodyguard in Equestria. Aware of his impending demise and too filled with Stupid Rage to care, he spat defiantly at the swift and sleek Aquilla, even though that just worked out SO well the last time, and the best option for his future after that would be to become her slave, a fate worse than death, or get mind-controlled and sent to toil away in the salt mines for eternity, alchemically transformed into another ugly, lame, smelly, slow, fat little mule that nobody really cares about.'"

He started to cry.

"Eh? They don't usually cry. They usually insult me until I roast them alive with magical flames and eat them." Aquilla said conversationally. "Maybe you're not as dumb as you seem."

He desperately shook his head, a cowbell-like sound audible.

"Huh. Weird pony. Anyway, I'm going to heal you now, and then you're going to apologize to me, and then my boss. And if you spit at me again, or insult either of us, not only will I literally eat you alive as messily as possible, my beak tearing into your flesh like it was ice cream, but I will take your soul and insert it into my stress ball. I keep it at home, it's rigged to cause unimaginable agony to all the souls trapped within it when squeezed, and only its holder can hear the sweet symphony of screams."

Utterly terrified and in massive amounts of pain, Sugar Cane nodded his head, and his body was filled with a bright green light that took away the pain, but not the fear. The bindings around his mouth loosened, allowing him to open his mouth just a little.

"I... I'm sorry-"

"Grovel." She ordered.

He threw himself at her talons and loudly and frantically apologized, begging for mercy, offering to work for longer hours and less pay as long as she didn't eat him.

"Even now, you seek to change the terms of our agreement?" Silver asked furiously, causing him to freeze up in fear, realizing that he'd said the wrong thing again. "Give me your cloak, and begone from my sight."

He nodded his head, causing the cowbell sound again. He quickly pulled off his cloak and ran out of the Silver Spire, getting through the shields because he was leaving with Silver's permission, and he ran all the way to the train station in Canterlot and didn't look back until he was on that train, sitting at a table, alone.

He let out a relieved sigh as the train chugged along.

"Is this seat taken?" Asked a Griffon with a head similar to Aquilla, her body hidden from view by a white silk dress lined with gold.

He screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and the Griffon thrust her beak into the air in an offended manner as she turned and left, trotting like a pony as she went to a different carriage and sat there, angrily glaring out the window.

This glaring Griffon was an illusion, a powerful one, and its caster was in its place, a purple Earth Pony foal with an enchanted headband, who burst into laughter, though nobody noticed or heard since their minds perceived a glaring Griffon and not a laughing pony.

Meanwhile, back at the Silver Spire... Only once Sugar Cane had left the building did Silver or Aquilla move.

Aquilla burst into laughter, and Silver facehoofed. "KahahahahaHAAaa... Did you see the LOOK on his FACE? He ACTUALLY thought... KAAAhahahahahaaa!"

"Ice cream?" Silver asked, raising an eyebrow.

"And he bought that! Ice cream, soul-magic stress balls, eating ponies alive even though they taste like Whitegrubs raw, he actually bought every last bit of it! Speaking of bits, you got ripped oooooff!~♪"

"What?" He asked, curious.

"Him, his farm, his family and everything he has, it is SO not worth one bit. It should have been... a half-bit. Or a quarter-bit. Why don't you ponies have those?"

Silver shrugged and then smirked. "Food costs a little BIT of money, anything extra like fancy clothes or books costs more."

Aquilla laughed harder. "All this time, that was a bad pun?!"

"Eeeyup." He said.

Silver turned and left her there to her laughter, and once she realized that he wasn't laughing with her, she immediately stood upright and did her best to stop laughing. "What's wrong?" She asked, still trying to stop laughing and graduallt succeeding.

"I was just thinking... about that look in his eyes. And the things he said." Silver admitted sadly.

"What, the part about you being eeeeeeheeheeeviiiiil just because you wore a suit and saved his flanks from the banks? ...Hey, that rhymes. Maybe I should add rapping and rap-battling to my resume." She said thoughtfully.

Silver smiled. "Now, why would you need a resume?" He asked.

"Good point." She said happily. "You're not going to fire me, I'm the awesomest Griffon in Equestria."

"You know, I could always replace you with some kind of magical creature not native to Equestria." He said thoughtfully.

Her smile faltered. "I'd rather you didn't do that." She said, a little quieter than earlier.

"Relax, you're fine." Silver sighed, feeling like he'd just kicked a puppy. Into a wall. Hard enough to break the wall, and the puppy. "I was just thinking... am I evil?"

"Do you eat foals?" She asked sarcastically. "Have you been locking them in barrels, throwing them in a blender, and drinking them by the mugful?"

"Aquilla." Silver warned. Sometimes, she was funny, and other times, she wasn't.

"Sorry." She said, genuinely sorry. "It's fun, saying stupid stuff like that. It's like I'm some comic book villain. Or the cool pet or number two Commando Dragon of the comic book villain. And I don't actually mean that stuff, it's just Griffon humour. But if you want me to stop, I will."

"...Nevermind." Silver sighed, facehoofing. "But not all villains eat foals."

"The ones in the stories worth reading do." Aquilla pointed out. "The villain is super evil, so no matter what the hero does, or is or has to do, he or she or it is still in the right just for fighting him."

Silver sighed again.

"Listen, Boss..." She began, and then softly added, "Master?"

"Silver." He stated.

"Silver..." She began, softer. "You saved that loser from the banks. Not that they're exactly Tartarites or anything, but still... You're good. If you hadn't stepped in, he'd lose his livelihood, his life's work and the life's work of his parents and ancestors, and he'd have to get some other job, like crappy manual labor or joining the army or becoming an adventurer or apprenticing to a Pony or Griffon who's good at stuff. And he'd fail at being an adventurer, and get eaten by a Grue or Giant Squid. But now, thanks to you, he actually has a chance to earn back his farm, and thanks to your help, it'll be better than ever. You did the right thing."

"And the money I asked for it in return?" Silver asked. "Both the single bit and the money I spent paying off bank debts. That debt will be hanging over their heads like a floating sword for generations to come, though at least I only gave it a ten percent monthly intrest rate."

"Hey, what's the point in being a hero if there's no rewards now and then?" Aquilla asked happily. "Besides all the dumb Ice Cream Koan 'Being a hero is its own reward' stuff."

"Ice Cream Koan?" Silver asked, amused. "Ice Cream Koan refers to deep-sounding nonsense that has no real meaning, something like 'A flying walrus cannot sing well' or 'Only a rabbit who eats medium-sized carrots knows the truth of the world'."

"That's what it means here? Cool." She said, seeming not to really care much.

"Aquilla, I've long since figured out that's just something you say to avoid admitting when you're wrong." Silver said with a smug smirk.

"Back to the important thing," She said quickly, that being the other thing she said to avoid admitting when she was wrong, "Have you stopped being sad yet?"

"Aquilla..." Silver sighed wearily.

"I know, I know, pony emotions are deeper than Griffon emotions, it said so when I read books on ponies back home. That's why most of you are so weird."

"I wasn't going to say that." Silver pointed out.

"Thanks. Now, come on, sad pony, what's making you sad?" Aquilla asked.

"Well... I was thinking... I needed to take a vacation."

"Sweet! Let's go raid an Ancient Temple or conquer a small kingdom outside of Equestria, that's always fun." Aquilla said excitedly. "We already have, like, fourteen independent city-state kingdoms and empires ruled by us under different disguises, want to see if we can make it fifteen? Or maybe we could create some new breed of monster, have them conquer some place, and step in at the last second to rule over that?"

"No, I meant... from this. Being me, being the Soulless Suit, being The Contractor. I think I should... I don't know, go to some small town, away from the plots and schemes and political games, and... make friends. That's what my therapist recommended."

"You have a therapist?" Aquilla asked, shocked.

"A secret one. And she's not a pony, she's one of the smarter birds I can summon." Silver said.

"Oh. That's ok. Anyway, she says you need to make friends and stuff. 'What, am I not enough for you?' Aquilla asked jokingly, pretending to be hurt, even though she knew a Griffon friend wasn't the same as a pony friend."

"Stop that." Silver ordered. "That stuff on feelings is just propaganda, it's the different cultures that make Griffons different from ponies and nothing more. They are not naturally colder, or spawned into existence by a bored Discord, or anything like that."

Aquilla raised her right taloned limb. "Would you like a game of Rock Paper Scissors?" She asked, smiling.

"Sure." Silver said, horn glowing. A small wooden sign appeared in front of him, a plank of wood held up by a thinner plank driven into a wooden block.

Aquilla laughed a little. "You were supposed to say 'Different cultures, and talons, and nothing more', and laugh. Because ponies don't have talons." Aquilla said, shaking her hand and getting ready to make her choice.

"Rock paper scissors!" They called out, and Silver spun his sign around to show the word Rock as Aquilla made the Scissors sign with two talons. She yelled in frustration, face meeting her palm, and Silver laughed, causing her to feel better.

"Anyway, you're going to go on a friend-making trip." Aquilla said happily. "Please tell me it'll let you unlock some kind of amazing all-powerful friendship-powered Second Form."

"I already have a second form." Silver pointed out.

"And what a lovely second form it is. Friendship Form, then. What would that look like, anyway?" She asked, starting to laugh. "You standing there with long locks of multicoloured hair billowing in the wind created by raw magic overload? Singing songs about friendship and love but mostly friendship so you can use Music Magic for extra power?"

"Maybe it'd have wings. Ten of them." He laughed.

"And ten tails. No, twelve! No, a thousand!" She laughed.

"Remember that time we fought a demon cat with a hundred tails?" He asked.

The room was filled with roaring laughter from him and squawking laugher from her. Their 'Fight' with that strange creature was just that funny. And pretty sad, but in the way that just made you laugh more. And in retrospect... the whole thing was stupid from the start. Oh, the memory of that laughably pathetic creature and the disaster it tried to cause - and failed hilariously at causing - would keep him amused for centuries to come. Sometimes, he felt that he could write entire books on what was wrong with that freak's head, but then he remembered that he could also sum it up in one sentence: She made Blood Banana look sane. The story about her... It was SO going into his biography.

After a long, long time, the laughter eventually died down, and they sighed. Silver wiped away a tear from his eye, Aquilla got up from the ground, and they sighed again.

"So... I can't just show up at the nearest town and be all 'Howdy! Ah'm here ta make friends'." Silver admitted.

"Maybe you can't, but Star Apple could." She pointed out. Nopony on the planet besides Silver knew that Silver Star was actually Star Apple, but Aquilla was a Griffon eternally loyal to him that even had the Willing Vassal spell placed on her, so she could be trusted.

"I know, but I still want to be myself. Even though they're both me. Whatever. This me wants to be me. Besides, this me is more charismatic and more likely to make friends."

"Okay, fine. So, how do you go to Ponyville without arousing suspicion? Rich pony suddenly pops up in a smaller town, they'll assume he's here to buy it."

He smiled. "Memory game."

She faceclawed. "You can't be serious."

"Why not? Pick someone likely to talk to me, have them show up tomorrow and suggest I make friends, and go to the nearest town. I temporarily erase my memory of this conversation, so I'll think it was his idea, so I can blame any inital awkwardness on how this was never really my idea in the first place, and being determined to make up for it later is due to deciding that I actually do like that town."

"And this mess seems to make more sense to you than, I don't know, hitting the nearest bar and chatting up anything that moves?" Aquilla asked exasperatedly. She was okay with all forms of magic, despite how she was a Griffon and they thought magic was freaky and untrustworthy, but she hated memory magic. Not for any moral or spiritual reasons, no, it was just that things always got stupidly overcomplicated when memory magic was involved.

"Of course. First impressions are important, and if they go wrong, I'm screwed unless I can blame it on something else." He said, and rubbed his chin in thought. "Now, who would make a good pawn- Gold Standard. Definitely Gold Standard."

"I don't like him." Aquilla stated. "He's dumb, weird, obsessive, lame, and really, really dumb."

"Yeah." Silver shrugged.

"You're not even going to defend him? Good. Now, why in the name of Tartarus are you two friends?"

"We're not. It's barely a friendship of convenience. He sees me as a useful source of magical items, information, and other goods. He has an idiotic pipe-dream to usurp the throne for no reason other than how he'll be able to laugh at Whatshisname because he'll finally be higher-up than him, and he thinks I have the greatest secret spy network ever - I don't have that, I just have my Ultimate Newspaper, and I recently soul-linked its effect to me so only I can use it or read it and I can temporarily turn any regular newspaper into one at will - and this makes me useful to him. I see him for what he is, a powerful higher-up in the Equestrian military, and despite his decidedly barely-average tactical ability, he's actually a very skilled and talented spellcaster who can set the Magical Research and Development Core on crafting whatever spell or item I want while footing the bill, and he's willing to do pretty much anything to get more power or more influence, including spending a large fortune on magical items and enchantments that would give him only a marginal, practically negligible boost to what he currently has. He also has a secret organization of ponies more loyal to him than the throne, but save for a few key players and specialists, they're mostly lowly pawns, though they are a good tool in the political game. But more importantly, he's a rich, reckless idiot who will spend whatever money he has to, and that makes him useful to me."

"Oh, a client and merchant relationship?"

"Just barely, yeah. Between you and me, I don't think he'll actually amount to anything. Still, the more money he gives me, the better."

"Speaking of stuff, that gold armour he wears gives him immortality, and lets him regenerate. How does a simple piece of ugly, gaudy armour give him what you had to do You Know What to get?" Aquilla asked curiously. Her talons were also cloaked in gold, but if anypony asked, her response would be to point out that she can actually pull it off, whereas to her, Gold Standard looked like the child resulting from the union of a golden water tank, a fat yellow cow, and a very stupid Unicorn that met at a tavern and woke up in Vanhoofer.

"It's a cursed item called the Timeless Armour." Silver explained. Some would be content to leave it at that, but not him. "Not that I think immortality is a curse - I'm ever-living proof that it quite clearly isn't - but this is basically how the curse works: It prevents his body from changing from the state it was in when he put the armour on. He cannot exercise to gain muscle, but eating an insane amount of food won't make hin fat, either. He can eat if he wants to, but he cannot get hungry, because he wasn't hungry when he put it on all those years ago. He can remember things, but he can't truly learn, or change his mind about long-held and deeply-ingrained beliefs. If he was still a foal and still growing physically, then he'd be unable to grow while he wore it, too. He can't get tired, though he can still feel pain. You'd be hard pressed to find a cursed item that doesn't stop you from feeling pain. Furthermore, like any good cursed item, it can't be removed easily, you need a proper Cursed-Item Sealing spell, and that only works if Gold genuinely wants it removed. And finally, as a little extra cherry on the top, not only does it constantly and slowly drain his magic whenever he isn't casting spells, making it harder for him to cast multiple high-ranking spells per day, hence his reliance on simple low-ranking Piercing Spellshot attack spells and support from his underlings, but the Timeless Armour keeps track of how long he keeps it on for, and when he takes it off or it's taken away from him, he becomes completely, unhealthily exhausted and unable to move for double the amount of time he spent wearing it. We're talking so tired, the fatigue starts affecting his internal organs. Even ones that don't normally get tired, like the brain, liver, and even heart."

"...That's bad, right?" Aquilla asked. She was a Griffon, not a pony, and the effects of organ fatigue - which, up until now, she hadn't even known could happen - wasn't something her classes went into in depth.

"Eeeyup." Silver said flatly.

"Huh. Wow. Sucks to be him." Aquilla said, ever the picture of Griffonic compassion. "Hey, wait... I've seen the Bonehead walk around in that armour almost constantly. How does that work?"

"He believes that if he keeps this cursed armour on 24/7, it means he'll never have to suffer the drawbacks of Cursed Item Withdrawal, or the immobilizing life-threatening fatigue effect. Did you know Canterlot has a clinic for that? It's hidden beneath the Dungeons - which are normally just for show since anything bad enough to end up there is usually bad enough to end up somewhere far worse - but it's still there."

"Wait... You're saying he keeps that armour on... ALL THE TIME?" Aquilla asked, holding back laughter. "Even when he sleeps?"

"Eeeyup."

"Even when he bathes?"

"Eeeyup."

"Even when he... Wait... You ponies have outhouses. How does he use them?"

"Well, there's this basic Alter Space spell that crafts two connected glowing wormholes any colour of your choice within ten feet of each other, and he knows this spell."

There was a moment of silence as Aquilla absorbed this new information.

And then she burst into high, screeching laughter.

000

Silver's eyes snapped open as he suddenly teleported several feet away, ready to leap at a moment's notice, a reflex action after his training. "What." He said flatly.

He then closed his eyes and looked deep within his mind, wondering if he'd left himself anything else...

000

The weird creature anthropologists called a human was almost finished pulling wires out of a big machine labelled HAL 9000.

"No... stop... what are you doing?" The machine asked. "I am afraid."

"It's over, 9000!" He shouted, and pulled out the last wire.

000

Silver's eyes opened again, but this time, he didn't teleport. He knew he liked to play pranks on himself when memory magic or sufficiently hard cider was involved, but seriously... "...What?"

5 - Stacking The Deck

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

6 - The First and Final Sentence

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.