The Mostly True Adventures of Wade Wilson in Equestria

Chapter the Fourth
In which Our Hero really should learn to shut up

Wade thought that the sun was still strangely high in the sky for a day nearing its end. Derpy was walking with him through a loose herd of ponies that were gathered in front of the sparkling Friendship Castle. Many of the ponies were clearly tourists. Many were posing happily in front of entrepreneurial artists of varying quality. Some had even brought cameras and had helpful Solar and Lunar guards taking their pictures. The other ponies that were clearly not tourists were milling about in nervous confusion and appeared to be waiting for some proclamation from the Princess.

“Or maybe we skipped ahead a few chapters and read about them there, huh?” Wade said.

The yellow text box somehow managed to grumble in discontent, without actually speaking.

Wade had resumed his cheerful demeanor on the walk to the castle. Derpy still glanced at him with worry, or possibly her lazy eye just kept wandering in his direction. Either way Wade was staunchly ignoring it and doing his best to distract her from his earlier gloomy outburst. As it turned out ponies were much easier to distract than people. He was telling Derpy highly edited and extremely inaccurate versions of some Deadpool’s various escapades. His text boxes were “helping” to correct him, even though nopony else could read them.

“—and then Iron Man gave me one of his sweet jets and I totally got the thingy back from that not at all amazing and totally a jerk Spider-Man. He was all ka-pow, swish, morals and I was all slice, punch, and awesome,” Wade said.

Wade continued on as if he hadn’t heard or read his text boxes, “—and Fury totally gave me a commendation and everything. For being such a swell guy and super great, super hero,” Wade finished up his story as they reached the castle ramparts.

Wade flicked his ears in annoyance.

“Who asked you?” Wade said.

“I dunno, I didn’t pay attention. There wasn’t enough blood,” Wade said, “Anyways, it looks like we’re here. Thanks for the escort and everything, sweetcheeks,” Wade waggled his eyebrows suggestively. The effect was mostly lost behind the hood.

“—but I think we can handle it from here,” he said to Derpy. She frowned up at him and stayed by his side as they passed through the portcullis.

“It isn’t like it matters either way. Not for us,” Wade said to his boxes. Then he looked at Derpy again and said, “Well, I guess it is a free country and all that. If you want to stay I won’t stop you.” They were now climbing a grand glittering staircase up from the courtyard. Solar and Lunar guards were flying back and forth from the windows of the throne room to the barracks with urgency. Derpy instinctively moved closer to Wade’s larger body. She fluttered her wings anxiously at the tension in the air.

“Oh, you mean like all 1984 style with the names being all messed up?” Wade looked thoughtfully at his yellow text box. Derpy looked between them in confusion. They had reached the top of the sparkling crystal stairs.

“Nineteen-eighty-four messed up names, how, exactly?” she asked him. Wade waved a hoof.

“It’s a book about the government taking everything over and being all creeptastic. They name the Ministry of War the Ministry of Peace, and junk like that. Don’t worry about it,” he said dismissively. Derpy looked concerned and confused at the thought of an untrustworthy government. Her eyes wandered out of alignment as she tried to piece together a story from the extremely abridged summary that Wade had given her. She did not have much time to ruminate on this though as they had reached the crystalline narthex that lay before the open throne room doors. The tension in the herd here was very nearly corporeal it was so thick.

“Woah, uh. Hi,” Wade said as Derpy fell back a step and pressed against his flank. His wing involuntarily wrapped around her barrel as pony instincts seemed to kick in.

“That isn’t heavy handed foreshadowing at all,” Wade muttered. Derpy did not notice and was looking around at the just barely not-a-mob that was milling about. From what they could see of the throne room it was not nearly as large as the Solar or Lunar Courtrooms in the Canterlot Palace.

The ponies near Wade noticed his textboxes and made space around him. They stared at the floating boxes in apprehension.

“Guys, guys, this isn’t helping anything and is just obvious padding to the story length. Stop encouraging it,” Wade said to the boxes.

They harumphed pettily.

They muttered unintelligibly. Their boxes shrunk down with their decreased “volume” and therefore became harder to see. They were not apparently harder for Wade to hear though. His ears flicked in annoyance as they muttered near the back of his head.

The crowd of ponies had, intentionally or not, opened a path leading directly to the throne room doors. Wade and Derpy approached.

Standing in front of the raised dais that held the Thrones of Harmony and Friendship was a lavender pony with both wings and a horn. She was levitating no fewer than six lists with accompanying quills and ink wells. She appeared to be writing something on each scroll without looking, and was speaking seriously to two guard ponies in armor more ornate than the other guards that they had passed. She bore a magenta star surrounded by smaller, white stars as her cutie mark. A small purple and green wingless dragon stood by her side, writing furiously on an extremely long scroll that was already halfway used up.

Wade approached with Derpy in tow. The lavender alicorn looked up. Her eyes widened in surprise.

“That’s Zecora’s cloak, I’m sure of it! How did you get that, stranger?” she said. Her magic field grabbed the cloak and pulled it up and off. Wade’s scarred and much abused body was revealed. His pupiless eyes stared at this strange new mish-mash pony.

Derpy’s eyes were crossed as she gazed about the throne room. Wade’s wing that was still draped across her barrel instinctively pulled her closer when he startled at the sudden use of magic. Derpy wobbled slightly off balance from his strength.

The ponies that were milling about the narthex watched the proceedings with interest. Unfortunately the flower sisters were waiting in the crowd for a proclamation from the Princess about the zompony invasion that they had dutifully reported after their panicked stampeding had ended.

“There he is! The zompony!” shouted Lily as she pointed at Wade. The crowd whinnied in fear at this declaration.

“The zompony captured that poor confused mail mare!” Daisy cried out in alarm. A dark grey pegasus stallion with pale blue hair gasped in horror and fainted.

“By the moon and stars, the zomponies are attacking Princess Twilight!” screamed Roseluck. The ponies devolved into a disorganized, terrified mob that stampeded out the castle. The two officers with Princess Twilight Sparkle leapt to her defence and charged. Armored pegasus and bat-pony stallions flew through the windows, they held their spears at the ready as they flew towards the apparent zompony threat.

“Ah, fuck. This is gonna hurt,” said Wade as he shoved Derpy underneath him and launched into the air. His downstroke knocked the charging guard officers into each other, putting them out of commission temporarily.

The lavender alicorn began charging a spell as soon as she saw Wade’s pupiless eyes. The corona around her horn flared as she gathered power.

“I really hate both of you sometimes. Wiff-graze-thwok-splortch-gurgle,” said Wade.

The aerial guards had launched a perfect volley of spears directly at Wade. Despite his extremely inexperienced flying, he had managed to dodge some of them. At least partially dodge some of them. Okay really it was just one of the spears that he dodged successfully. His wings were still pristine and undamaged though, so there was that. One spear flew just below his jaw, another took off an ear as it passed just above his skull. Blood gushed from the head wound. The scrap of ear began to float to the ground.

The remainder of the spears had hit their marks. Two spears had pierced his lungs and heart and come out on the other side of his barrel. Frothy bright red blood foamed at the entry and exit wounds and blood bubbled out of Wade’s nose with each breath that he took. The text boxes were hanging cowardly and uselessly below Wade. Out of the way of the fight.

Two final spears, both thrown from opposite sides, had pierced halfway through his neck and crossed through his throat. His sound effect narration perforce was silenced. His throat gurgled disgustingly as he still continued to try and narrate regardless of the damage.

He was still hovering, gushing a completely ridiculous amount of blood from his wounds and pierced by four spears. The little dragon standing behind Princess Twilight quickly tore off a scrap of paper and scribbled a short message on it before lighting it on fire.

Hot blood gushed from Wade’s neck and mouth, splattering the ground and ponies below. The text boxes did not protect Derpy from Wade’s blood. They were useless.

Wade clearly tried to say, “Really? A Monty Python reference? Like that’s not overdone and cliche.” However it came out more as “Relch, gurgle, splug,” and various other disgusting noises throats make when they are cut open and bleeding violently but still trying to move air through the larynx.

The spell finished charging and Princess Twilight Sparkle cast it true. The scrolls, quills and inkwells didn’t even wobble. The anti-zompony spell struck Wade and his entire nervous system was suddenly and painfully ablated all at once.

Wade’s body spasmed and dropped like a marionette with the strings cut.

His body bounced off of the white courier font text box with a wet, bone cracking noise that sounded something like “spla-krkt.” The force of the landing on the text box knocked the spears from the body. Blood and guts still hot from being once alive exploded everywhere as the spears were forcefully removed from the corpse. The two guard officers struggling to disentangle themselves from each other froze in shock as they were hit in the face with hot pony innards. Wade’s body bounced off of the not quite cloud like texture of the text box and landed in front of Princess Twilight Sparkle. Bright white bone from fractured ribs jutted through the scarred skin of the corpse’s barrel. All four of Wade’s legs were clearly broken and splayed out at unnatural angles. His wings were still completely intact, and miraculously clean. Or they had been before his body had landed, now they rested in the blood and guts strewn about the ground. The feathers slowly getting gory as blood wicked up their shafts. His once golden, flowing tail was a matted disgusting mess of guts, blood and gore.

Princess Twilight Sparkle stared in shock at the dead pony before her. Hot, fresh blood flowed from his wounds. This was clearly not the defeated husk of a zompony. The now gore covered alicorn looked to Derpy. The blood covered Derpy stared back at the Princess of Friendship in horror.

Wade’s tattered ear fell almost daintily onto Princess Twilight’s snout. Her pupils shrank. A vein in her forehead twitched. Her mane frizzed. She screamed.

Loudly.

———————--

Deadpool’s consciousness woke up in the fields of Elysium. He was, not surprisingly, quite adept at manipulating the aether of Death’s realm. His body was not the strange new pony body he had woken up in, earlier that very same day. It was his human body that he most identified with. His mask was on. His katanas were strapped to his back, and his Desert Eagles holstered on his belt with logo belt buckle that may or may not have also been a teleportation device. A fetching black leather choker was about his neck.

“Ugh, that was a new one. I don’t think I’ve ever had my entire nervous system turned from solid to gas all at once before,” he said to himself. Death was not yet present. Deadpool mentally conjured a dainty table and tea service that he remembered Death being fond of. The pleasant scent of a perfectly brewed pot of tea filled the area.

“Better hurry,” Deadpool muttered to himself as he arranged his mental projection of his body on the soft grass next to the low table.

Death appeared before him.

She was a pony and not in the least bit familiar to Deadpool.

“Well. This is awkward,” Deadpool said as he gazed up at the ponification of Death. Her body was a smokey gray through which her skeleton shone as by an undead light. Her skeletal wings were large and bat-like. The smokey substance of her body thinned around the bone of her horn such that it glowed brightly through even with no magic flowing in it. Her ghostly blue mane and tail flowed in a breeze that Deadpool could not feel. Her dark eyes glowed ethereally from her eye sockets. She was both comforting darkness and cold, pale death. Her hoof was raised as she began her welcoming speech.

“Be calm, mortal. We are to begin…” She trailed off from her speech as she blinked and gazed around the strange fields in confusion. This was not what the afterlife was supposed to look like. Ponies had not believed in the fields for fallen warriors in an extremely long time. It took a being of great power, or great knowledge, or both, to manipulate the aether so expertly. “—the great…” she tried to continue on gamely as she was once again distracted by the low table and a very fine tea service. Both in the style that she currently most favored. “— journey beyond...” The scent of her most especially favorite tea reached her nose. She finally set her hoof down and deigned to take notice of the soul that she had come to reap.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong. You are one sexy, bony pony. But I woulda put on something a bit fancier if I’da known to expect someone new.”

Death settled her gaze on the peculiar soul before her. The author had not forgotten to describe anything earlier, except insomuch as to spare the reader’s delicate sensibilities. Deadpool was wearing his mask, his weapons, and nothing else.

Deadpool learned that skeletal bat wings do not go “pompf” when they inexplicably snap to attention. He tried to remind himself to ask someone what the hell that wing popping thing was all about whenever he finally regenerated.

————————

Princess Twilight Sparkle was currently having a mental breakdown. In her defense this is a common response to encountering Wade Wilson, even when he wasn't being Deadpool. Usually though, his text boxes remained in his skull while he was regenerating from being killed. Earlier that very day some kind pony had helpfully removed them from his brain.

Derpy was clinging to Wade's corpse and crying. She was making the most piteous keen that a pony was capable of making. It was heart wrenching. She shook his body and sobbed. It was soul crushingly sad.

“I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry! I can fix it!” Twilight screamed at the boxes, at Wade’s corpse, at the guards, at Derpy. Only the boxes responded.

“I just need some time! I’m sure I can fix this!" Twilight cried out in desperation. The little dragon was currently hiding in her tail, shivering and rocking back and forth.

"I’m so-sorry. I-I never meant... I'm so sorry. So. Sorry," Twilight bowed her head and started crying. The guards were stoically standing at attention, doing their best to fight the urge to panic and run at the combined charnel house stench and complete loss of leadership they were currently experiencing.

Suddenly the light of the noon sun flooded the room, dazzling the eyes of everypony present and causing the exposed crystal to sparkle and glitter most majestically. A pony appeared at the center of the light, winged and horned like Princess Twilight Sparkle. This pony could never be mistaken for Twilight though. She was so large she was almost a horse and her body was covered in golden chainmail and half plate armor. Ancient runes of warding and power were inscribed upon the plate and woven into the mail. Her etherally billowing pastel rainbow mane and tail became visible as the painfully bright light faded from around her form.

“ENOUGH!” bellowed the new pony. Everypony stopped at once. The guards kneeled with obvious relief before the armored mare. Twilight Sparkle and Derpy looked up at her with wet, hopeful eyes. Wade’s body continued to be an obvious, oblivious corpse.

Golden magic flared and slapped the boxes down to the ground next to Wade’s head. They bounced away and landed on the ground near Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“I am Princess Celestia, Co-Ruler of Equestria, Daughter of the Sun and Sky, Light of the Day after the Night, born of the aether from the minds of the gods themselves, and I have said enough!” so spaketh Princess Celestia. Praise the Sun! Ahem. Excuse me. Said Princess Celestia sternly to the chastened text boxes.

The yellow box quivered on the ground near Princess Twilight’s side.

It whimpered pathetically.

whined the white courier font box from where it had landed near the yellow box.

Princess Celestia took in the scene as she floated regally down to the ground. She landed facing Twilight Sparkle and the text boxes. She gazed sadly at Equestria’s newest Princess. “My little pony, what terrible event has happened here this day?” she said kindly.

Princess Celestia cast her stern gaze at the yellow text box and it quailed at her fury.

“Please, Twilight, give no weight to the words of these wretched creatures. They are but sad remnants of a troubled mind.” Princess Celestia said to Twilight. The text boxes cuddled together at Princess Celestia’s words.

Murmured the white box.

Sniffled the yellow box quietly. Celestia ignored them as she waited for Princess Twilight to explain. Twilight took a steadying breath.

Derpy leapt to her hooves and cried out. “She killed my friend!”

“I didn’t mean to! I thought he was a zompony!” Twilight cried out in her defense. Unnoticed in the commotion, Wade’s body twitched as his nervous system regrew.

“So he looked different! Is that any reason to kill somepony?” Derpy sobbed out. Twilight shrunk down into herself. Wade’s ribs cracked surprisingly quietly back into place, coagulated blood was pushed out of the holes through his barrel as they knit themselves closed.

“Hi-his eyes! They had no pupils, what was I supposed to think?” Twilight tried again to rationalize what had happened. Wade’s body had fallen dead with its eyes open, and they were indeed still milky and opaque, lacking in both iris and pupil. The white text box slunk quietly over behind Princess Celestia to be nearer to Wade’s body. The yellow text box sulked near Princess Twilight.

“This is indeed a tragic occurrence, but thanks to faithful Spike’s quick thinking all hope is not yet lost. Soft, my little ponies, whilst I search for this lost soul,” Princess Celestia said gently.

She took a calming breath and braced herself for a difficult search through the aether for Death and quick witted negotiation over a pony soul lost before its time. Her eyes glowed eerily as she cast her soul into the aether, and then almost immediately snapped back. She cast her gaze about the room and flushed pink. Her massive wings fluttered in what was most assuredly not nervousness. She coughed in an not at all awkward way.

“Ahem. Well. Ah.” she said regally.

All her little ponies present gazed at her with the faith of young foals in their mother’s absolute power and rightness. She shifted her weight between her hooves nervously.

“What great luck,” she began again, “His soul still remains in the aether nearby!” Princess Celestia said with forced cheerfulness.

Derpy stomped her hooves loudly with excitement. Princess Twilight collapsed with relief.
“Huzzah!” shouted the Solar and Lunar guards present. Princess Celestia attempted to smile comfortingly and kindly, but it came out a bit strained and disturbed. A vein began twitching underneath her helmet.

The white text box quietly set Wade’s legs so that they would heal properly without needing to be rebroken. The yellow text box twitched and started to poutily make its way over to Wade’s body.

It poutily pouted.

Princess Twilight was so overcome with relief that she did not immediately acknowledge the not-word-that-was-so-totally-a-word that yellow had said. Wade’s body twitched further as his brain finally began to regrow. Blood and brain bits dripped out of his nostrils. Amazingly, still, nopony noticed.

Princess Celestia tried, and failed, to imagine what she could possibly offer that could convince Death to part with this misplaced human soul that had somehow convinced the cosmic being to do… No she would not think of it. Princess Celestia looked about the room. Her hopeful, almost foalishly innocent little ponies gazed at her with the sure knowledge that nothing was beyond their Princess-Goddess. Princess Celestia felt a headache coming on. She sighed and steeled herself for what would surely be an Ordeal.

“Princess Twilight I need a crystal with these very specific thaumaturgical properties in order to keep the soul bound to this plane,” she said as she summoned a highly restricted and mostly illegal scroll with detailed notes on exactly what was required to magically bind a soul that had already left its body. Princess Twilight Sparkle grasp the scroll in her magic and began reading as quickly as she could.

“Right away Princess Celestia!” she declared with renewed vigor and hope. Then she looked at the yellow text box and said, “Did you say poutily? That isn’t a word, you know.”

Princess Celestia had had enough. She had been just finishing a very trying day at Solar Court, looking forward greatly to her evening tea to refresh herself before lowering the sun. She sadly remembered the fondness for tea that she earlier had been feeling that she may now never feel again.

But just as she started to dismiss the Solar Court a torn scrap of paper bearing the words “Zompony invasion! HELP!” scribbled hastily in Spike’s handwriting had magically appeared before her. Just when an end to obnoxious courtiers and nobles had been in sight and her tea— Tea she thought queasily as the tried to suppress her natural awareness of the aether as thoroughly as possible. She had not even remembered at the time to order her sister awakened, her worry had been so great. Which now that she did remember, it was too late to go back and fix it so that Luna would not be angry at her when she discovered she had missed something important and dramatic and “fun” again.

Princess Celestia had immediately summoned her ancient and currently ceremonial but still fully functionally warded armor. In her haste to be gone she had gotten the mail skirt twisted up in a most unpleasant way about the base of her tail that she now could not correct with any amount of fidgeting and shifting. Due to proper Princess decorum she just couldn’t reach back and adjust it, magically or otherwise it was now chafing most unpleasantly. She had teleported in fully prepared for everything to have been a comical misunderstanding resulting in yet another lesson on the peculiar magic of friendship. Instead she had arrived to a horrific scene more fitting of an abattoir than the throne room of an Equestrian Princess, with her little ponies panicking and freaking out and generally acting as if society would crumble into madness and anarchy without her constant, steadying presence. Although she conceded that maybe she was being a bit harsh since there had not been an actual war in centuries and the death sentence had fallen out of favor long before Nightmare Moon had been banished so that even the guards had never actually seriously hurt anypony in a very long time indeed.

Though her fellow Princess was not setting the best example. She tried to remind herself that not everypony had seen the true horrors of the Discordian era in the brief span of time that Discord had reigned again. Even if her student had defeated him she had still been a very innocent little pony.

Now though, there were somehow boxes floating about that spoke in the most vulgar and cruel ancient Equish that she had ever had the misfortune to read. They had seemed to take great delight in traumatizing her former pupil and were obnoxious in the extreme.

She shuddered and pulled her spirit in tighter to her corporeal form. She really did not need the reminder of the bizarre scene occurring just beyond the veil. She could never unsee, nor unfeel, Death’s escapades in the nearby aether. No matter how desperately she wished she could. To top it all off, she was now late setting the sun which was going to make a lot of ungrateful ponies angry at her for not keeping to a completely arbitrary schedule that she made up herself, anyways. And Luna was going to be even angrier, she was sure.

Quite frankly. After a thousand years of peace and kindness and smiling constantly and fixing problems that really, fully grown ponies ought to be able to fix on their own, Princess Celestia had finally snapped.

“WE TOLD THEE THAT WE HAD HAD ENOUGH OF THINE ANTICS!” she bellowed in her most powerful Canterlot voice. The Solar guards fainted from the shock of it all. The Lunar guards, slightly more accustomed to such volume, braced themselves and stood their ground. Derpy let out an eep and cowered before her angry Goddess-Princess. Twilight Sparkle said something too quickly to be heard and galloped out of the room, carrying both Spike and the scroll with her.

Wade’s ears twitched and he blinked his eyes groggily. He shook his head and looked about. Bits of blood and brain splattered the ground around him. And the golden pillars beside his head. He stared at them for a moment until they came into focus as the armored hind legs of a small horse. Or possibly a large pony.

Wade opened his mouth to say something, but blood came out instead as his throat wounds had stitched themselves back together in the wrong order. He stretched his neck out forward to its full extension and flexed his neck muscles to pop his veins and arteries back out of his esophagus. He made a face as he spat out the remainder of the misappropriated blood.

Still no pony noticed his increasingly not dead movements. Transfixed as they were on the terrifying visage of their gentle ruler now uncharacteristically contorted in fury.

Wade felt something soft tickle at his back and wings. It reminded him a bit of Death’s mane or tail, except not exactly.

Princess Celestia summoned her magic to her and her horn flared in golden light.

Wade looked up. Wade learned that Equestrian armor left certain regions generally covered by tails exposed to the elements. Being a highly trained mercenary and assassin, he easily determined that this was to allow the use of the facilities while remaining armored. Being stark raving bonkers he giggled to himself. The queerly flowing sensation on his back was now obviously this new lady pony’s tail. Though from where he was laying it looked like the mail skirt was chafing most uncomfortably.

Princess Celestia struck the yellow text box that was a physical manifestation of a portion of Wade’s fractured psyche with her magic.

“Au-mph!” Wade shrieked and leapt up in reflex. His manly bellow of pain was abruptly cut off as he accidentally shoved his bloodied face directly into Princess Celestia’s royal plot. The ethereal tail now tickled his ears as well as his back. Everypony noticed Wade’s most definitely not dead self now. Princess Celestia’s eyes widened and her pupils shrunk in shock. For one brief, excruciating moment that seemed to last both forever and not nearly long enough nopony moved.

The yellow text box said as it wobbled its way back nearer to Wade’s head.

Wade, being madder than a March hare, and really just making the best of a hopeless situation, helpfully fixed Princess Celestia’s mail skirt.

With his tongue.

Princess Celestia shrieked in righteous fury and bucked with the full might of an angered goddess. Which while a natural and understandable response was probably not the best, given the circumstances. Wade involuntarily coughed up blood and bits of lung as his ribcage was crushed from the force of the godly buck. He struck the wall above the throne room doors. His spine and skull shattered painfully on impact, sending bits of bone into his brain. Wade’s blood dripped wetly down the wall and also down the armored legs of Princess Celestia. His body landed with a “thump-squelch” on the ground and twitched involuntarily in death. The aether rippled as Death welcomed Deadpool’s soul returned to her.

Princess Celestia felt a fugue state descend upon her. Her body burst into solar fire. The ancient armor whose worth was incalculable in both bits and craftsponyship and knowledge was melted effortlessly into slag and dripped from her body upon the floor. The crystal floor began to glow white hot under her hooves. The blood and gore, both upon her royal self and in the the room flash boiled. The ponies that had previously been in the room found themselves suddenly and inexplicably in the courtyard. Except for one other.

The text boxes tried to push the very corporeal and mostly dead body that they were still bound to out the doors without success. Wade’s soul returned and he staggered to his hooves. He tried to push his ribcage back into some sort of shape that was more pleasant to feel than all squished up against his spine. The text boxes did their best to help.

Princess Celestia stepped forward and Wade finally noticed his imminent peril through the brain damage from a violently shattered skull. He smiled deliriously and opened his mouth.

Princess Twilight Sparkle galloped through the open throne room doors, carrying a gem of the exact specifications she had calculated were needed for a pegasus stallion of Wade’s size and roughly estimated weight. Both Wade and Princess Celestia paused and turned to look at her.

“I remembered that I just happened to have a gem of the right size and composition in my study and I calculate that we still have at least one minute and sixteen seconds in which we can still bind the soul,” she exclaimed in excitement. She froze mid gallop as the tableau before her registered in her brain.

“Oh hey Sparklelord, come to join the fun?” Wade slurred out of his bloody, broken jaw. Princess Celestia abruptly resumed her usual corporeal form, sans her regalia which had been left in Canterlot. She glanced nervously behind herself and quickly magicked away the slagged, sad remains of the ancient armor on the floor. She gazed forward and donned once again her familiar regal mask of kindness.

“Princess Twilight, I am sure your calculations are correct. However it would appear the crystal is no longer needed,” Princess Celestia said calmly, as though she were not just moments before the very sun itself come down to Equus. Wade reached up with one hoof to loudly and obnoxiously pop his broken jaw back into place. Fresh blood smeared his hoof. The crystal floor still glowed as if from fiery hoof prints. Twilight Sparkle shifted her gaze uneasily between the other two ponies in the room.

Wade’s ribs cracked wetly as they healed back into place, for the second time that day. He hacked loudly as his lungs expanded and repaired themselves. Bright frothy red blood and dark coagulated clots flew to the floor as he coughed.

Wade ignored his boxes, wiped his bloody lips on the back of his foreleg, and looked cheerfully between the two princesses.

“Well, I don’t know about you ladies, but I’m starving!”

Princess Twilight looked between the still blood covered Wade and the disgusting mess in front of him. She vomited the remains of her lunch at his feet. As this was the usual response to Wade’s unmasked face he took it in stride.

Princess Celestia took a deep breath and marshaled her patience. She thought longingly of her missed tea. And then remembered a different sort of tea and felt somewhat nauseous. Having millenia more experience with life than her former student, she did not vomit. But, oh, how she wanted to.

Her horn flared into a golden corona as she set the sun hurriedly, without spectacle or fanfare. The moon rose just as quickly and was peculiarly full instead of waning as was scheduled. The stars flared into life with a cold, almost angry brilliance. Princess Luna was not amused at being left out yet again, it seemed.

Princess Celestia looked to her former pupil and the pony-that-was-not-a-pony that stood before her. She resolved that she was going to have nothing to do with the next crisis that occurred. She did not care even if it was a villain more vile than Tirek. She would let Luna have her misguided “fun” and see how things played out.

Outside the windows the distant sounds of stampeding ponies reached their ears.

I always wanted to learn to play the violin, she thought placidly to herself. That seemed like it would be an excellent instrument for a just and kind ruler to play. The scent of smoke reached her nostrils. She deliberately did not think of the formerly calming idea of tea.

“Do you like tea?” Wade began.

Princess Celestia remembered that the aether had smelled of Deerjeeling oolong tea. She grit her teeth.

“Oh, I think they must. It was still Death’s favorite,” Wade helpfully answered. His wings and tail rustled in unfamiliar ways in response to his private thoughts.

Princess Celestia stared at him in quiet revulsion.

Her Serene Grace Princess Celestia expelled the contents of her most royal stomach with a dignified and regal “hork.”

“All you had to say was that you didn’t like tea.”