How I Lived In Equestria

“So… It’s been one week since Shadow and Ish arrived. What do you think of them?”

“Shadow’s a pretty cool dude… At least he knows when to screw around and when not to. Unlike Ish…”

“How so?”

“He’s… something else, to say the least.”

Jorge chuckled. “And then you wonder why I overreacted so much back at the train station last week.”

“Geez…” Dash sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s probably a good friend deep down all that irritating mess. But he needs to learn to keep to his own business!” She rolled her eyes. “Before it used to be just seeing us make out, but now it’s like… every time he sees us even at least cuddle, he shouts ‘so you did…erm, that word...after all’. And after a while, it’s really annoying.”

Jorge cupped her cheeks with his hands. “Well… At least he can’t bother us while we’re at home…”

“Mhm…” Dash hummed softly, feeling the soft sensations of her lover’s lips as they resumed their kiss.

The two of them had spent the day together lying around in bed. Randomly switching from making out to just casual pillow talk. Linda had also evacuated the room, avoiding any random hoof or foot sliding around and hitting her.

Dash took this moment to her advantage. As they made out, she climbed on top of her boyfriend, pinning him down, putting him under her complete control. She pulled away from the kiss, smirking at the thought of now having him wrapped around her hoof.

Unfortunately for her, their heated moment was interrupted by a series of knocking on the front door.

“Ugh.” Dash rolled her eyes. “So much for spending the day in bed…”

Jorge chuckled at the mare’s failed attempts. He gave her a quick peck on the lips. “One day, maybe… But I guess today’s not that day.”

He slowly rose out of bed, put on his slippers, and walked out of the room.

“Put some pants on!”

Jorge looked down, realizing he was wearing only his underwear. “Oh. Right…”

Jorge opened the door, finding Shadow waiting behind it.

“Heya, Shadow.” He spoke. “What brings you here all of a sudden?”

“Twilight wanted me to tell you two that she was going to the Crystal Kingdom, to see if you two wanted to go with her.” Shadow explained.

“Ooh, the Crystal Kingdom… I’ve always wanted to see that in per—wait… Why is she going?”

“Something about a Duke and Duchess of Maretonia?” Shadow scoffed. “Sounds like a dumb place, but, Twilight has to be there.”

“Maretonia… Maretonia… why does that sound familiar…?”

“...Jorge?”

“Eh?”

“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

Jorge looked down at his clothes, seeing the lack of a shirt on him. “Oh. That. Uh, I was in a rush to grab clothes and open the door.” He explained. “Last night got a little…” He covered his mouth as he cleared his throat. “Uh… heated.”

“Riiiiight.” Shadow nodded. “Well. Are you coming or not? Everyone else is.”

“Everyone?” Jorge raised an eyebrow. “Rarity, AJ, Flutters, everyone?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

Suddenly, a thought passed through Jorge’s head. “Wait. Did you say the Duke and Duchess of Maretonia?”

“Yeah…”

“In the Crystal Kingdom?”

“Yeah…”

“Are Celestia and Luna going to be there?”

“Yeah… Wait, how did you know that? I didn’t mention that part…”

Jorge went wide-eyed as he finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together. “Oh no…”

“What? What’s going o—” Jorge interrupted the confused Canadian, pulling him into the house. “Hey!”

“It’s happening.” Jorge stated. “I can’t believe I forgot this would happen.”

“What? What’s happening?” Shadow raised an eyebrow.

“Stay there.” Jorge commanded, and ran off to the bedroom, surprising the mare waiting in the bed.

“Hey, Dashie. Uh… Twilight wanted to know if you wanted to go with her to the Crystal Kingdom.”

“Huh?”

“She has some royal stuff to do, and she wanted to know if you could go with her.”

Dash sat up. “Oh. Yeah, yeah. I can go.” She nodded. “I’ll stop by at her place right now.”

“Alright. Tell her I said ‘hi’ for me.” Jorge said quickly, giving her a quick peck.

“Woah, woah, woah…” Dash grabbed his arm. “You’re not going?”

“Sorry, Dashie.” Jorge shook his head. “I have some stuff to do.”

“Oh…” Dash’s ears flopped back. “Alright.”

“Next time Twilight has to go somewhere, though. I promise I’ll go.” Jorge reassured her. “But today, I just remembered I have some stuff to do.”

Dash raised an eyebrow. “What kind of stuff?”

“Important stuff.” Jorge bluntly stated. “I wish I could tell you, but I kinda can’t. You just gotta trust me on this one.”

“Fine…” Dash huffed. “I’m trusting you on this, Jorge.”

“Thanks, Dashie.” Jorge gave her another quick peck. “I gotta go.”

He sped out of the room, stopping as he came into Shadow once more.

“Jorge, what the hell are you freaking out about?” Shadow asked. “Are you gonna explain to me what’s going on, already?”

“Tirek.” Jorge huffed, stopping to catch a breath.

“Huh?” Shadow tilted his head. “What’s a ‘Tirek’?”

“Not a what… a who…” Jorge sighed, slowly catching all the breath he needed “He’s coming.”

“Okay?”

“No. You don’t get it. Tirek steals magic. Twilight is going to the Crystal Kingdom to simply stand and wave, and then she’ll question herself as Princess.” Jorge began. “A bunch of crap will happen. And I need your help to make sure everything happens the way they should.”

“I-I don’t get it, what kind of crap will happen?”

Jorge covered his mouth with a hand, shushing him, then quickly pulled back as he watched his marefriend walk towards the door.

“So yeah, Shadow. I just remembered I had to do a lot of important stuff, that way we can—”

The door shut behind her.

Jorge sighed a breath of relief. “Discord will betray the ponies, and help Tirek in his quest to suck all the magic out of everypony in Equestria.” Jorge explained. “Once he gets strong enough, he’ll go after the Princesses. But. By then, they’ll have transferred all of their magic to Twilight. She’ll lose control a bit, and then there’ll be a huge battle between the two.”

“And what do we do?”

“For one, when Twilight leaves, you’ll have to steal her spellbook.”

“What!?” Shadow shouted. “Do you not remember all the massive yelling from last week!? I’m not gonna go through that again!”

“It’ll help you win the bet, Shadow.” Jorge sighed. “The Golden Oak Library gets destroyed, as well as everything else in it.”

“W-woah, wait. What?” Shadow jerked his head back. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Jorge nodded. “I don’t help people win bets against myself, obviously, but I’m doing you a favor.”

“Why?”

“Ish owes me a favor.” Jorge snickered. “I can just make him eat his shoe.”

“Ooooh. Alright. So, steal the book, and then what?”

“We stay out of Twilight’s way when she gets all that extra magic.”

“What happens if we don’t?”

“We could change events, and personally, I’d rather not live in a world ruled by Tirek.”

“How would you know that the events would lead up to that?”

“There are a large series of events that have to happen.” Jorge shrugged. “Otherwise, they won’t be able to send Tirek back to tartarus.”

“Oh…” Shadow nodded. “What about Ish?”

“We may need to fill him in, too. But other than staying out of Twilight’s way, we need to make sure those series of events actually happen.”

“Alright, how exactly are we gonna do this?”

Jorge looked out the window, seeing Twilight and her friends walking off to the train station.

“I have an idea…”

A day later, Jorge, Shadow, and Ish hid behind a bush. Watching as their friends made their way over to the Castle of the Two Sisters.

“Why are we hiding behind a bush again?” Ish asked.

“We don’t want to get in the middle of the events.” Jorge sighed. “One little screw up, and we could change the outcome of the entire thing, for better or for worse.”

“And how do you know we don’t change the events for the better?” Ish looked at the worried man next to him.

“Do you want to take that chance?” Jorge raised an eyebrow. “You’re asking to risk to change the events, and have a fifty-fifty chance of either having Tirek take over Equestria, or make it easier to beat Tirek.”

“And I personally don’t want to take that chance and live in a world ruled by Tirek.“ Shadow added.

“All I heard was ‘make it easier to beat Tirek’.” Ish shrugged. “Do you even know what he looks like?”

“Jorge does.” Shadow nudged his head to the aforementioned human.

“Picture a centaur, black horse body, red humanoid body, and an ugly as heck beard.”

“That doesn’t help… at all.” Ish droned

Shadow sighed. “Think satan as a centaur.”

“OHHHHHHH. Okay. That makes sense.” Ish nodded. “‘Aight, damn. So if everything plays out the way they do in the show, then that guarantees he’ll lose?”

“Yeah. Exactly.” Shadow confirmed.

Jorge muttered something unintelligible, the only thing the other two humans could understand was something about “Discord”.

“I heard my name?”

“Who the fuck said you could speak?” Ish turned around quickly, surprised over the new voice. Upon seeing the draconequus, he took a few steps back, and tripped on the bush behind him.

Shadow chuckled at the Asian’s sudden reactions, then turned around to see who was the one that scared the crap out of him. Only for him to jerk his head back at the sight. “Woah. Okay…”

“Eh?” Jorge turned his head back. “Of course you’d show up at the very mention of your name.”

“Godson! My good man!” Discord beamed. “It’s been quite a while since our last encounter!”

“What are you doing here?”

“Why, I was about to ask you the same thing!” Discord crossed his arms. “Are you spying on your marefriend, hmm?” Suddenly, a bright flash of light came from his claw, once it faded away, there were a pair of binoculars in its place. “Y’know, if you wanted to spy on her, you could’ve just asked for my help…”

“I’m not spying on my marefriend, per say...” Jorge shook his head. “More like… carefully watching from a distance…”

“So. Spying.”

“Yeah, whatever, shut up.” Jorge huffed, crossing his arms.

Discord saw the human next to him. “Hellooooo~!” He cheered. “I thought I felt two magical disturbances a week ago! Were you one of them, by any chance?”

“I’m sure as hell magical, but i ain’t no disturbance, unlike your ass.” Shadow spat.

“Oooh. Quite the rude one, you are...” Discord mentally noted, yet spoke aloud so everyone else could hear. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, my name is Discord.” He reached out his paw. “And you are…?”

“Your worst nightmare.” Shadow shook his paw.

“No. You’re not my worst nightmare.” Discord shook his head. “Believe me, you don’t want to know what it is.”

Shadow glared at Jorge, who seemed to be taking a step back.

“Anyway!” Discord pulled his paw back. “I was on my way to catch up with the girls, and here I find you two.”

“DISTURBANCE MY ASS!” Ish stood up. “I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT I’M A FUCKING ANGEL”

Discord kept a blank stare at the shouting man. “...And that one is quite the character…” He noted. “So, how did you two even get here?”

“Long story short, there was a bit of magic residue, or something, and a portal opened on it’s own. And they fell through by accident.” Jorge explained.

“I see…” Discord placed a thinking paw on his chin. “It’s quite a shame that there’s no way back for you three, but, you seem to be handling yourselves pretty fine.” He nodded. “In any case, I suppose I must take my leave.” He tossed the binoculars over to the familiar human. “Ta-ta!”

Jorge covered his eyes, while the other two simply stared as Discord vanished in a bright flash of light.

“That voice sounded so familiar…” Shadow pointed out. “I can’t put my finger on it, though…”

“Don’t think too hard on it.” Jorge shrugged. “You’ll give yourself a headache.” He slowly began walking back home. “Our work here is done, for now.”

“That’s it? We just came here to make sure they walked into that old abandoned pile of shit?” Ish pointed at the castle behind him.

“That. And to make sure Discord appeared to talk to them.”

“And now that it happened, what now?” Shadow asked, following suit.

“We just play the waiting game until Tirek shows.” Jorge looked at the Canadian. “Did you get Twilight’s spellbook?”

“Yeah.”

“Good…”

”I’ll bet he takes his sweet time.”

”Or maybe perhaps these things just take time.”

”You’re back! Did you bring the cucumber sandwiches?”

”I did. I imagine they’ll be your last decent meal for quite some time.”

Jorge, Shadow and Ish simply watched as Discord trapped their friends, minus Twilight. Jorge simply sighed, knowing he had to let his marefriend deal with what was to come.

“Is this supposed to happen?” Shadow worriedly asked. “I feel bad watching this…”

“Then don’t watch…” Jorge shut his eyes. “Unfortunately, this is what happens. And all of their magic gets drained.”

“And we didn’t try to stop this earlier because?” Ish asked, preparing to jump out from their hiding spot, only to get pulled back by Shadow. He looked at the angry canadian, seeing his irritated glare.

“This needs to happen, Ish.” Shadow sighed. “Relax.”

“But I’m bored…!”

“If we step in now, we could fuck everything up. Relax Ish”

Ish groaned. “Fine… As long as I get to do something later…”

”But you said this was a sign of your gratitude and loyalty. A gift from someone close to you.”

”My brother, who betrayed me. It’s just as worthless as he is.”

“C’mon. We gotta move.” Jorge stated. “The next event should be coming along pretty soon.”

“Remind me again why we’re hiding and watching?”

“Just to make sure everything happens the way they should. If not, we step in and try to make it play out as close as it was originally supposed to.”

“Alright… Lead the way, then.”

As Jorge, Shadow, and Ish hide in yet another bush, they watched Tirek walked around, every step sounding a meteor crashing into the ground, as he hunted for the fourth princess he heard about.

“We’re early.”

“We’re early?” Shadow repeated. “The hell do you mean we’re early?”

“I don’t have a time frame of when everything happens, Shadow. I’ve been spending the past couple of days stalking my friends just to see if they played the events how they're supposed to turn out. Cut me some slack.”

“So... We need to buy time then…?” Shadow replied quickly.

“It’s starting to look like it.” Jorge nodded.

“Well, I can’t do it. I have her book in my possession.” Shadow shook his head.

Jorge crossed his arms. “I’m not gonna do it. I’d rather not die from Tirek’s rampage, thank you very much.”

“Then what ab—”

”HEY YOU! YEAH YOU! OVER HERE”

Jorge and Shadow immediately turned their heads to where Ish was originally sitting with them, and then looked toward the sound of the shouting voice.

Ish grabbed a rock, and proceeded to throw it at the large beast. “WHO THE FUCK SAID YOU CAN IGNORE ME?!”

“Welp. Guess we know who’s doing it…” Jorge muttered, while Shadow simply facepalmed next to him.

With a soft “bonk”, the rock his Tirek’s head. He stopped in his tracks, and looked down at the raging Asian.

“WHO ARE YOU?” Tirek asked in a loud, booming voice. “...WHAT ARE YOU?”

"I'M BATMANNNN!"

“Welp. Rest in piece, Ish.” Jorge rolled his eyes, whilst Shadow was struggling to not burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Tirek simply raised an eyebrow. Debating on what to do with the shouting being.

“I’M GONNA REKT YOU SO HARD, YOU’LL BE REKT IN ALL FOUR ANGLES. IT’LL BE A PERFECT REKTANGLE!”

Jorge and Shadow covered their mouths as they tried to sustain their laughter. They could see each other bouncing as they kept inhaling and exhaling sharply in silent laughter.

“AND THEN WHEN YOU’RE REKT AND GONE. I’LL BE CHOWIN’ DOWN ON 40 KEKS— I MEAN CAKES!” Ish continued randomly shouting. “I’LL MEME YOU SO HARD YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO EVEN BEAT A DEAD HORSE” Suddenly, a thought came to mind. “DID YOU KNOW THAT I ONCE SENT TEN PUNS TO A NEWSPAPER CONTEST? DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS, NO PUN IN TEN DID! GOD I’M FUCKING HILARIOUS,"

“Should we stop him?” Jorge asked.

“Nah.” Shadow shook his head. “This is hilarious!”

Jorge looked up at Tirek, who had a large ball of energy floating between his giant horns.

“HEY, DID IT HURT?” Ishtaba grabbed another rock.

”DID WHAT HURT?” Tirek raised an eyebrow.

“WHEN I FELL FROM HEAVEN AND KICKED YOUR SORRY ASS!”

"Jorge... I think Ish is about to become fried noodles... We should do something..." Shadow whispered but as he looked over Jorge wasn't beside him anymore. Wide-eyed, he looked in front of him, seeing Jorge speeding towards Ish.

"THAT BALLS THE SIZE OF YOUR MOTHE—”

Before Ish could even finish his sentence, Jorge had jumped straight ahead, using the little strength he could use in the air to push him out of the way. Unfortunately, though, he risked himself in the process.

As Ish was pushed out of the way, the large ball of magic landed where Ish was previously standing, luckily for Jorge, it didn’t hit him. However, it still sent him flying off several feet into the air, as it landed close to him.

"God damnit Jorge... Dash is gonna kill you if you're not already dead..." Shadow quietly said under his breath, "Wonder if I could actually use any of these spells..." As he looked down at the spellbook in his arms.

Jorge landed chest-first on the ground with a loud “thud”, as well as a soft “crack”. He groaned softly as he attempted to get up, but sadly had no avail in doing so. His right leg was cracked in certain places, as was his left arm hairline fractured, and a few ribs cracked. There were also some minor burns across his chest and face.

“JORGE!” Ish shouted, getting back up. “GOD DAMNIT. WHO TOLD YOU TO INTERFERE WITH MY STALLING!?” He looked at where he previously stood, finding no sign of his Cuban friend. He quickly looked around, searching for him, so he could yell at him directly.

Upon seeing him about a couple of feet away, he ran off to him. Preparing to give him the shouting of a lifetime.

Tirek, meanwhile, figured his work was done. As he saw a certain purple alicorn randomly teleporting around.

“PRINCESS TWILIGHT!”

Twilight gasped. “Tirek!”

“YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME!”

Meanwhile, Ish had caught up with the injured human. Unaware of his injuries, he took a deep breath. “MOTHERFUCKER. I WAS THIS CLO—Oh… Oh shitttttt…” He had gotten a better look, seeing large bumps in his leg and arm. As well as the burns across his upper body.

Shadow came by, and gasped at the injured cuban. "Jorge... This is going to hurt like a bitch but you need to move and this bone needs to be reset.” He looked at the asian. “Ish hold him still."

Ish looked behind him, watching as Twilight and Tirek looked like they were doing what appeared to be the equivalent of “Dragon Ball Z”’s Kamehameha.

“Uh, guys… Shouldn’t we run? Goku and Vegeta are about to fight each other. No wait, I wanna watch.”

"Okay. Jorge, on the count of three I'll reset it. One." Shadow replied quickly as he then reset the bone.

“OWWWW. FUCK.” Jorge cursed aloud. "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO TWO AND THREE?"

"Two. Three." Shadow smiled sheepishly. He looked at the amazed Asian, and patted him to grab his attention. “Ish, you faggot. Help me get him out of here.”

Ish turned around. “But, Twilight’s about to go Super Saiyan…”

“Woahhhhh…” Ish muttered, looking out the window. “Shadow, do you see this shit? They’re blasting the shit out of Tirek with a giant fucking rainbow. A GIANT FUCKING RAINBOW!”

"Good..." Muttered Jorge breathlessly in pain, "That means everything stayed true to the events... Mostly..."

“Ish. Do you have any pain killers in that fucking backpack of yours?” Shadow asked.

“Hell yeah I do. Why do yo—”

"Just that one kind?"

“Yeah.” Ish nodded.

"Okay, well... They'll have to do. Hand em over."

Ish removed his backpack from his back, and proceeded to dig through it. Once he found what he was looking for, he gave the bottle to him.

“Well, these aren't hospital grade so. Jorge take four." Shadow said as he hands the four pills to him. “And Ish. Go get him some water.”

“Why do I—”

“Just do it, you fucking faggot.”

“Fine…” Ish groaned, quickly exiting the room.

“Twilight better hurry up and restore everyone’s magic…” Jorge breathlessly pleaded. “All the doctors and nurses in here can barely do anything since they’ve been drained…”

"Jorge, unless these are healed with magic. No being rough with Dash for a while." stated Shadow, "I mean, my casts only go so far."

“I’m not even sure if there’s healing magic…” Jorge replied. “I remember back in Season two, Dash’s wing was in a cas—”

Ish came back through the door. “‘Kay, I got the water.” He handed it over to Shadow, and then looked back out the window.

"Okay, here is your water, take the painkillers and you should be good for a while. But no walking on your own."

“Kay, so everypony flew away. No idea why or where they’re going, but who cares.”

“They’re returning the magic to everypony in the world.” Jorge answered, taking the first pill. “Geez, these pills are big…”

“If they’re returning everyone’s magic… Then wouldn’t that mean the doctor will be here any minute?” Ish asked.

“Probably.” Shadow nodded, watching as Jorge engulfed the second pill. “It might take them some time, though. Seeing how they have other patients to take care of.”

“Don’t you think they’d put an injured alien on the highest priority?” Ish thought aloud. “I mean, wouldn’t that make sense? Cause they’d definitely put me on priority if I were injured, right?”

Shadow shrugged as Jorge took the third pill. “Dunno. But, tell you what, Ish.” He sat up from his chair. “Hold this book for me. And I need you to keep an eye on Jorge. That amount of pills are gonna knock him out, and he needs someone with him for when the doctor or doctors arrive.”

“Where are you going?” Ish turned around.

Jorge took down the final pill, and weakly chuckled at Ish’s question. “Look out the window again, Ish…”

“Eh?” Ish raised an eyebrow, looking out the window like he was told. “I don’t see anythi—HOLY SHIT WHERE DID THAT BOX COME FROM!?”

Shadow took a look as well, watching as the box buried itself into the ground. “I have a castle to go visit...”

“You are now Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship.” Celestia smiled. “But what is the Princess of Friendship, without her friends?”

“Wait a minute. Where’s my throne?!”

“I don’t think you’re quite there yet.”

“Yes, well, I suppose not.”

Shadow softly cleared his throat. Suddenly gaining the attention of everypony.

“Oh! Hello worst nightmare!” Discord joked. “What brings you here?”

“Oh! Hi, loser!” Shadow remarked. “I didn’t see your sorry ass earlier…”

“Shadie!” Pinkie cheered. “Did you see how huuuuuuge this castle is?”

“How hard is it for you to say Shadow?” Shadow asked. “And yeah. I saw. It’s fuckin’ huge.”

“I still can’t believe there was even an extra throne for me!” Spike thought aloud. “It’s so comfy…” He slowly leaned back further into his small throne.

“So… this is one of the humans that fell through the portal, hm?” Celestia walked up to him.

“You’ve heard of me?”

“Of course. Twilight’s filled me in on the whole ‘portal situation’.” Celestia nodded. “You seemed to have adjusted to living in Equestria faster than the beast did.”

“The beast?” Shadow cocked his head to the side. “The fuck?”

“She’s referring to Jorge.” Twilight pointed out. “When they first encountered, she called him a beast, and now she keeps calling him that just to bother him.”

“Holy shit. The Princess trolls Jorge?” Shadow gawked in awe. “And here I thought you were all stuck-up and shit.”

“Lots of ponies have that assumption.” Celestia shrugged. “I suppose that’s normal. Makes them not want to visit too often. And if you ask me, I like my alone time.”

“Riiight.” Shadow slowly nodded, erasing the new mental image that came to mind.

“Speaking of Jorge…” Applejack spoke up. “Where is the lil' buckaroo?”

"Right... You all... Should come to the hospital with me..."

“The hospital?” Dash immediately shot up. “What happened?”

“Heh… I had to perform some minor first aid"

“Minor first aid?” Dash got closer to the nervous human. “What happened to him?”

“Erm, well. Broke a leg, and an arm. And cracked some ribs along with having second degree burns across his chest and back and partial on his neck."

“What!?”

“...’Kay, if you need me… I’ll be… RUNNING THE FUCK OUT.”

“Damn.” Ish spoke randomly. “Dash is flying so fast… Shadow's only halfway here, and she’s already at the fucking door.”

“Wait. She’s at the fucking door?” He turned around, expecting the prismatic mare to come bursting through the door.

”I’m his marefriend. Look, just tell me what room he’s in, and I’ll be on my way.”

”Oh. In that case, he’s in that room over there.”

Dash bursted through the door. Startling the Asian by the window.

“Shit…” He exhaled sharply. “You took longer to burst through the door than I expected… Didn’t have time to think of a good alibi where I don’t get my ass whooped.”

“What. Happened?” Dash asked angrily.

“I dunno, you didn’t give me much time to think of a good story that doesn’t get me killed,” Ish replied, intentionally disregarding Dash’s anger.

Shadow swiftly entered the room, closing it behind him. He stopped for a moment, and began panting.

Dash narrowed her eyes. “I’m starting to get really mad of you two not answering my question.”

Shadow raised a finger, breathing sharply for a few more seconds. Then finally was able to speak. “It’s all Ish’s fault.”

“Now, now. Let’s not play the blame game here, because it was totally his fault,” Ish replied as he also pointed his finger at Shadow.

“What did you do?” Dash darted her eyes to the Asian.

“I didn’t do anything.” Ish crossed his arms. “I overheard the words ‘buy time’, so I pulled out my wallet and paid some fine ol’pony for some time.”

“Alright. Someone. I don’t care who. But SOMEONE better tell me what happened.” Dash stomped a hoof on the ground. “Now!”

“I saved Ish…”

Dash slowly turned her head to the human in the hospital bed. His right leg and his left arm wrapped in casts, as well as some the second-degree burns along the edges of his face being more visible than earlier.

“Sweet Celestia…” She muttered, walking up to him. “What happened to you…?”

“Tirek was about to blast Ish…” He breathlessly replied. “So I… jumped in and pushed him out of the way…”

Dash gawked as she looked up at the aforementioned human, who appeared to be unscathed in any way.

“Blast me my ass,” Ish crossed his arms. “He was too much of a pussy to even fight me.”

“...Can I punch him?” Dash asked.

“No, you’ll break his bones.” Jorge told her. “Shadow’ll do it.”

“Wait, what!?” Ish stepped back, bumping into the wall. “For once in my life I decide to be selfless, and I’m getting punched for it?”

“Y’know…” Jorge sighed. “I’m starting to regret saving him…”

"Me too..."

Twilight stood near the remnants of the her old home; the Golden Oak Library. The place she’d spent the last several years of her life in.

Suddenly, she felt a hand pat her back. She looked up behind her, seeing a frowning Shadow standing near her.

She looked back at what was left at the castle. “It’s… gone…” She muttered, as small droplets of tears began forming around her eyes. “All of it… gone…”

“Not all of it..." Shadow spoke quietly, kneeling down beside her. “I bet there’s still some books and stuff lying around…”

“No… I checked…” Twilight shook her head. “Everything’s ruined.”

“What about the castle?” Shadow asked. “Aren’t you gonna live there?”

“I suppose…” Twilight wiped her eyes. “But it doesn’t exactly scream home…”

“It could use a little redecorating, but that shouldn’t be a problem…”

“And all my stuff?” Twilight queried. “What are we gonna do about all the lost memories? Hm? Even my spellbook is gone! All that hard work, down the drain!”

“Is that what you’re so worked up about?” Shadow quired quietly, “If that’s the case…”

Twilight looked the human beside her, watching as he pulled Ish’s backpack off of his back, and dug through it.

“What are you…”

“Shhh…” Shadow shushed her. “Aha!” He swiftly pulled her spellbook from out of the bag.

“Wha…” Twilight widened her eyes. “You… You had the book…?”

“Yeah… I saved the book right before you and Tirek started battling it out.” Shadow smiled. “I figured I had to protect it, in case something happened to Ponyville, or the library, even…”

Twilight grabbed the book, and started flipping through the pages, finding every last one of them to be intact. She closed the book softly, and looked up at him, gawking in awe.

“I know you told me not to touch the book. But I had t—” Shadow failed to finish his sentence, finding himself pulled into Twilight’s embrace. He froze for a moment, surprised to see the mare hug him so tightly, but then slowly wrapped his own arms around her.

“Thank you…” She whispered softly. “Thank you so much…”

The two hugged it out for a few good minutes. Every time Shadow would pull back, Twilight would only tighten her embrace, which only had him waiting for her to pull back.

Once she did, she carried a light smile on her face. “At least not all of my things were destroyed…”

Shadow smiled, speaking softly. “I’m glad I was able to save one thing.”

“Me too…” Twilight softly spoke back. “Now. C’mon, let’s go see how Jorge is doing...”