Equestrian Landings

by qwefg

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Princess Celestia, Discord, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Human, Other, Changelings, Original Character, Comedy
Length: 383451

What is the difference between and Individual and a Group? A simple question a mad god asked before tearing apart people's lives and changing them before dumping them in a mystical land. Some seek a path home. Others seek glory. Few seek answers.

What is the difference between and Individual and a Group?

That was the question the mad god asked before tearing apart countless people's lives, changing and altering their very bodies to fit the creatures of this world before dumping them upon this world.

Some seek to find a way home while others see this as a blessing seeking to carve out their own stories... or their own kingdoms. Few bother to seek answers.

(Note they have yet to see Season Six of MLP)/written before Season Six

The Fantastic cover art is from Mix-up

https://www.fimfiction.net/user/Mix-up
http://amalgamzaku.deviantart.com/

also big thanks to Mix-up for helping proofread/edit

Published 2015-09-24 14:30:03 UTC
Last updated 2017-11-30 01:35:10 UTC

ch2 New Settings and New Problems

Lockheart

You ever have one of those days where just everything seems to go wrong? Just yesterday I was doing… alright. I wasn’t rich rolling in money, but I wasn’t broke or up to my neck in debt. I had a job, but I will gladly admit that it wasn’t that great. Still that was life.

“Come on!” I screamed as my feet stopped by the cliff edge.

Then it all changed. Not just to me of course, but to a lot of people. How many you may ask? I have no idea as I was too busy learning how the little “Rules” of this game.

Rule number 1. Everyone gets turned into a pony, or hippogriff, diamond dog, or other various magical creatures until stated otherwise.

Rule number 2. There are the good guys and the bad guys.

Rule number 3. I’m on the villain team… so now I’m just trying to survive. Easy right? I mean it’s not like the rest of the world is out to get me right?

“Can’t you just fly!” Overkill screamed behind me

I shouted back “So can the freaking dragon!”

In under twenty four hours I had just managed to “ally” myself with two other “players” who have lost parts of their memory. In fact, one of them makes me feel good about my situation compared to theirs. Still, just when I get out of one mess I seem to be shoved right into another one.

Stardust looked down over the cliff and shouted “Jump!”

We both watched her jump straight down. Overkill jumped over the edge trying to catch her as I jumped along with them as the red dragon roared. The burst of heat and light burning behind me let me know just how close I was to turning into a crispy changeling. I made the foolish decision to look behind me and saw the dragon.

It was big. Seeing one on TV or in books made you think how big they would be, but seeing one! It’s like a shark. You’ve seen it. You know all about it, but once you actually see it. You don’t comment on the red scales that glimmer in the sunlight or the massive form that would give a T-Rex a freaking noogie.

Instead you’re too busy freaking out its teeth come chomping towards you like some sort of demented Pacman! Forgot the body, the size, and the rest of the details. All you see is teeth coming right at you at that tiny flicker of a tongue clicking… like a lighter.

“Fire! it’s breathing fire!” I screamed out loud seeing the dragon take another deep breath “Down faster! Down faster!”

I continued screaming as I flapped my wings soon overtaking Overkill and Stardust. The ground beneath us was rushing in faster as I could see the river. It was too shallow for my tastes. When you see the bottom of a river when you moving faster than free fall speeds, you know it’s going to hurt if you hit it. I tried to pull up only to see Stardust and Overkill rushing down towards me, as a spark came out of the dragon’s mouth ready to incinerate us.

The next few seconds were a blur. I tried to pull up, and follow or possibly skim across the top of the river. Overkill managed to grab Stardust by her arms and tried to do the same… only to have both of them crash into me. The flames rushed down above us as we hit the water.

******

I gasped for air as I was lying on a sandy shore. I hacked out some water as I could hear splashing nearby. Rolling my head over and tasting mud in my mouth I coughed as Overkill dragged herself out of the water with Stardust’s help. Once on dry land, she collapsed on the ground and started hacking up water.

“Well that went as well as could be expected.” Stardust said with a smirk “Everypony else alright?”

“Just peachy.” I groaned as I tried to get up. I flinched as my back screamed in pain. “Fu…ffff” and now I could taste blood in my mouth from biting my lip.

Overkill groaned feeling my pain “It’s one thing to curse us. But taking away our ability to swear in pain? That’s just cruel!”

My head ached. My back hurt like hell and if it wasn’t for the coat my skin would probably be covered in burns… or the fur is just blocking it. I hacked out more water, and tried to look back to see if Equestria’s living inferno decided to give chase. I sighed in relief see nothing, as I fell back into the muddy sand.

Stardust rushed over to me as I felt her hands… hooves on my… wing. Stupid weird magical pony biology. On the bright side! I didn’t have a stupid knot in my stomach so my magic is good so far... or I was currently feeding on Stardust’s compassion at the moment.

Stardust dug into her saddle bag as I couldn’t help but wonder how it survived the trip? Come to think of it she was the only one with saddle bags. Who got to pick exactly what we came into this dumped here anyway? I mean considering the vast differences between our current equipment… Then again trying to make sense of Discord’s actions seems kind of foolish.

With a touch on my wing, all those pesky questions disappeared, as I just figured out how a dislocated wing feels like. If I was allowed to swear, I would probably summon the dragon again.

“Good news is that we’re alive.” Stardust replied as she started to wrap my wing “Bad news is that our new alicorn friend just got demoted back to unicorn status until his wing heals.”

I shut my eyes and tried not to focus on how strange it felt to have the wing wrapped up. I did keep it underneath a jacket… but I didn’t think too much about it. How does wrapping up a bird wing help a bug wing? Just say magic and leave it at that.

I tried to smile “So I won’t get a cutie mark in flying.” I chuckled mostly to keep my mind off my wing “Still, an injured wing is better than a broken body.”

Overkill rolled her eyes “How did you pass the flying tutorial? You passed us, only to nearly crash when you tried to pull back up to help.”

That’s what she thought I was doing? Just stick with it. Trying to help always sounds better than trying not to crash into the ground.

“Who said I flew in the tutorial?” I quickly replied with ease “I managed to glide and almost crash into the spikes. Then I managed to hold myself in-between some gaps and flapped wings with a lot of huffing like a cartoon character.”

Overkill laughed for a couple of moments before stopping as she groaned, hurting her side. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with an injury. I looked back up and saw the sun shining in the sky without a dragon roaming for us. I glanced at Stardust, who seemed perfectly okay, despite having a pegasi in armor land on her. as everyone went crashing into the river.

How does an unarmed pony get past a fall like that without so much as a scratch? I mean I’d chalk myself up to changeling BS, but my sides hurt like hell as it did feel like I had two fully grown people tackle me.

Stardust noticed our looks and simply answered “Earth ponies. The Master Race.”

Me and Overkill both sighed as we said together “Noted.”

******

We spent the next few hours resting as we licked our wounds. Dear god I wish I had a watch right now… or a regular body. Human body to be exact.

I tried not to mess with the bandages around my wings, as Overkill left her armor near the fire trying to dry it out. Like me, she had a couple of bandages, except the one around her stomach.

I sincerely hope we don’t have to find a hospital for her. I mean it’s one thing to see someone holding their stomach, and another to can’t help but wonder if the fall did any… serious damage. I tried to calm myself down, reminding myself we were in Equestria, the land full of magical ponies and no horrible deaths… unless you count King Sombra.

Or, well humanity. In less than twenty four hours I had my current two ‘allies’ question and threaten me just because my current disguise looked like a sinister alicorn. Sure, they seemed to have simmered down after running away from a dragon… but that didn’t mean I forgot about it… or how they reacted even after I had helped save their lives before.

Stardust left us at our makeshift camp as she scavenged for food. It wasn’t because she was the only one not injured… It was just that she was the only one who apparently knew what we could eat. That stuff about ponies eating grass? Overkill started gagging after her attempt so we left Stardust to find food because she was the only ones who knew what we could eat without making ourselves sick.

So with just the two of us left watching camp, we started checking what we had… and what we could do.

We could pull up one of those Menu screens you saw characters had in MMO animes, but it wasn’t… fully intact? You couldn’t see your inventory, despite the fact I had nothing besides the clothes on my back, which were currently drying by the fire. You could see your skills, abilities and possibly message system… but all the other MMO aspects?

Gone. No exit menu. No mini map. No map system of any kind. A lot of stuff seemed gutted out of the menu, leaving only a few of the usual features behind. I looked at the skill tree again in doubt now. I could see the skills, the branches, and all the little aspects of the level up menu, with my new exp added, which brought up a point of concern. Overkill didn’t have the same level up menu I did.

Mine was a skill tree. You start at the bottom and then it branches out. Overkill had a different system. She claimed her version looked more like an RPG book. Certain skills cost certain points, and there was a little index explaining each skill and ability, along with a short description.

Still, it made you wonder a little bit. Was the level up menu just here to give us a decent start until we adjusted to our new reality… or could we only learn things if we used the system?

What I mean is in a game if you don’t have the skill than you can’t do it. You could have been a cub scout for fifty years and made hundreds of fires, but without that skill point in camping. You might as well be rubbing water balloons together.

“Overkill?” I asked out loud “Any idea if you can do stuff?” She glanced at me as if I was an idiot “I mean… stuff not listed. Like making camp fires. In games, usually, if you don’t have the skill than you can’t do it, even if you know how to do it in real life.”

She opened her mouth for a moment and then shut it. She was silent for a couple of minutes, apparently giving it more thought than I did. I was playing with a full set of human memories, and a lack of pony/changeling skills. She was playing with a mix. Come to think of it, how does a pony start a fire without a fireball spell in their skill set?

“That’s… a good question.” She slowly replied back “It’s probably…”

She didn’t finish her words, as I waited for the answer. She was apparently looking at the menu again. I tried going back to thinking about stories of the subject from books I’ve read, to shows I’ve watched. If we required the points in the skills… than we were missing a lot of basic abilities you don’t tend to think about. If we could do it without needing the skill… then that saves us a couple of points.

Overkill smiled as she walked over to the water. In just a few moments, she plucked out a fish from the stream with her mouth and carried it over to the camp fire, before dumping it on a rock. I watched her take a deep breath, as she pulled out a knife and started to get to work. It didn’t take her long to gut the fish and prepare it for us as a meal.

She turned back grinning apparently having found her answer “A little of bit of A and a little bit of B.”

She, without thinking, placed it on a stick and placed it over the fire as the meat started cooking. Overkill covered her mouth and ran away from the smoking fish, as it looked like she was gagging from the smell.

I on the other hand, wasn’t bothered by the smell in the least… though that was probably a changeling quirk. Herbivores noses probably despises meat, while I… could I even eat any food at all anymore, or is it the pure emotion diet for me from here on out?

“Could you throw it away?” Overkill pointed at the fish while covering her nose.

I nodded and grabbed it with my mouth before tossing it back into the river. It didn’t taste that great… but the smell wasn’t that bad. If anything, it felt like it needed to be cook longer, yet Overkill’s expression (and growing irritation) told me otherwise as she took a couple of deep breaths, trying to get rid of the smell… or something.

I glanced back at her “If you don’t want fish than how about you try a few berries or those twigs back there?” She frowned as I added “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“You have a point…” She mumbled as she looked at the river “But I did learn something important from that experience. I know how to gut a fish. Steel Wings doesn’t because she’s an herbivore. I can’t catch a fish with my bare hands. Steel Wings can with her mouth.”

She sat down, probably opening up her menu, as she stared into the blank space in front of her “This… menu. It’s probably more like a cheat sheet or a beginner’s start up. I mean we’re not foals, so starting out with any basic skills would be difficult. Even then there’s the knowledge or aspects of certain techniques like magic, or in your case flight.”

I knew what she meant, as I replied “Not the top of my class. I know. Still… if it’s both then… how long will it last? I mean I have full memories and no hoof skills so to speak of. You have most of yours and some pony’s skills.”

Stardust walked out of the clearing as we were silent. Already she was chopping up the plants and putting it in a pot to cook, as she hummed a small tune that would have earned a place on the TV show. It would be cute to look at if it wasn’t for the fact that she had lost a lot of her original memories and gained a lot of pony skills, knowledge and second set of memories conflicting with her first one.

“So…” I tried to phrase it the best way I could without injuring someone’s feelings “Let’s test the level up system.”

Just like the first time I used it, my eyes darted as the little icons clicked and moved about, as if I still had a mouse and keyboard to operate them. In fact, it actually felt like I was using a mouse, instead of using my eyes to operate the little clicker, as I clicked on the Skill Tree icon. All of my newly earned points went towards emotional magic and craft disguise. Hopefully, I wouldn’t be just limited to just this the creepy dark alicorn disguise anymore. I clicked on ‘accept’ as I felt my body shiver.

Stardust covered her mouth as she stared at me. I could feel the shift in my body, as I struggled towards the water fearing the worst. I continued to stumble forward, as I didn’t know what the hell was happening to me.

Soon enough, the pain subsided as I stared at my own reflection. What I saw was a complete makeover of what I had been... again. I now had a light gray coat instead of jet black, while my green mane and eyes were now turned blue... and there was now a cutie mark of a heart shaped locket rested on my flanks.

I glanced at my horn, as it now looked closer to those of the run of the mill unicorns… Still, there where hint of my old teeth in my smile. It wasn’t a complete pony smile… just a few pointed teeth and a few flat ones. Hopefully, I would be able to fix that in the future.

I sighed in relief, happy to just see a color change instead of my changeling form being revealed. Now a new title rested above my head, replacing the given name.

Lockheart.

I chuckled in the moment, until I freeze up and realize they had seen me change form, as I turned around to face them. Did I burst into green flames, like the Changelings in the show or did I just suddenly start shifting in colors? What did they see exactly? How screwed was I?

Overkill face hoofed “You picked up illusion magic without fixing the wing issue?”

I glanced back at the water and saw I still had my wings and horn… for now “Still incomplete. I have some illusion skill…” I shifted the colors again, seeing my coat seemingly casually change into each color, before resting back to its gray form “… but not all the knowledge.” I ended with a sour note.

I lowered my head into the water, as an extra precaution, and held my breath as I tried to focus on my horn. Just as anticipated, the wave of green flames flickered passed my horn. I have no idea why the changeling flames appeared this time, but I didn’t need to risk them to see it… and hopefully the water would put out the flames as soon as they appeared.

I focused on trying to make the nub on my forehead to disappear, while I could feel the green flares dance about, as I trying this time to actively change my form/disguise. The flames weren’t exactly burning me, but I could feel the rush of heat around my body. I pulled my head up and grinned, seeing the horn gone… only for a spike of pain to come and my horn appeared again in another the burst of green conflagration.

“Damn it!” I screamed right out of the water, as a burst of magic shot out of my horn.

Stardust shook her head “Are you alright? I mean?”

Stardust seemed to blush as she looked away. I just simply sighed out loud as somehow I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. Still it was nice to feel the concern. It meant they hadn’t seen anything I was afraid of.

Overkill simply shrugged as she didn’t seem to care “So you can’t hide everything yet. What level did you grab?”

I opened my mouth to shout but held my answer back as I checked the menu again. There was only one level of craft disguise. There were more levels for craft illusion and I had one free point left. Hopefully I just needed one more point to hide my wings.

Sure, I could have dumped it into some combat skills… but Overkill has our DPS covered and if it came down between a fight between me and her? One point in combat isn’t going to make a difference. She’ll still kick my ass either way.

“Just the basics.” I muttered selecting the point and dumping it into illusions as my body shivered again.

Instantly, the knowledge seemed to flow into my mind, as I then managed make another copy of myself standing beside me. I glared at it, as copy me had the same black coat and green hair of my first disguise. Seeing the black coat at first made me instantly think it was my changeling form, which I did not want to reveal right now.

I felt my frustration build as I nearly shouted “I can make an illusion of myself, but I can’t hide a horn or a set of wings!”

How does making body double illusions rank lower than hiding wings on the fancy illusion skill tree! I nearly face palmed when I looked back at Craft Disguise. Maybe it wasn’t the skill level that was wrong, but where I put the skill point. I’ll have to remember that next time.

Overkill chuckled walking around my doppelganger “Like I said Stardust. Not a complete set. He has RPG skill without character knowledge.”

Overkill flew into the sky for a few seconds and brought down a dark cloud. I stared at the absurdity of it all as I knew she was using pegasi magic to do it... But, I was staring at a full grown pony sitting down on a lump of vapor. She struck a hoof at the cloud and sent a lightning bolt straight through the illusion as it shattered. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of unease after watching my illusion clone being ‘killed’ so easily.

“I have player knowledge and pony knowledge.” She smugly replied “Increased accuracy, and I can use the Thunder Strike skill without needing to buy the ability.”

We glanced back at her as she sighed “No seriously, there is a separate skill for Thunder Strike. My trick was just bypassing some of the requirements, since pegasi naturally know how to manipulate clouds to a certain extent. I also upped my weather skill talent, because summoning tornadoes seems like a nice skill to have in the future… Though I don’t know how many points I’ll need for that.”

I glanced at my skill tree not finding any ‘Thunder Strike skill’. Of course, a changeling might not have that skill due to the fact that their changelings, and not pegasi. The other possibility could be different rule books or something like that. She had a different level up menu system after all.

I put my blue jacket back on, feeling it press up against my wings. I could still feel a twinge of pain from my wing, at least It didn’t feel broken anymore… but it certainly hadn’t finished healing.

I was slightly annoyed that my only way to hide those wings was with a jacket. I could barely fly, almost no spells for me to use, and I was just barely passing in my illusions and disguises… while being a freaking changeling. That’s like saying flightless pegasi or a unicorn without magic. I think I had enough right to be annoyed right now!

“You feel anything when you used the level up?” I asked out loud “My body just kind of shivered.”

Overkill looked away from us “My… hair stood on end. I…” She tugged on her hair with her hooves for a moment “I told you the friends I was looking for right? Their names?”

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, we both shook our heads. Overkill slammed her head against the static filled cloud in frustration, as Stardust went over to her. I stayed back, not daring to risk another lightning bolt.

“You forgot.” Stardust replied softly “I… was in the forest. Kept thinking about my tour on duty, and something that had happened that bothered me. Just put in a few points and then I felt better…”

They both stared at me. Stardust looked concerned as she kept glancing at me, but not directly looking at my face. Overkill looked terrified. She looked as if she just found her car scrunched up into a tiny brick. They had lost more chunks of their memories, while I had no memory lost as far as I could tell.

“Nothing.” I said out loud, looking back at my memories for what I might have forgotten without realizing it. How the hell could you tell what memories you’ve lost if I don’t know what it is anymore in the first place? “So how do I figure out what I lost?”

Overkill sunk her face into the cloud as Stardust sadly replied “Nothing. You would know they were missing. You would feel the gap of knowledge. It’s not something you simply forgot, but more like… it was taken from you. You just know you lost it.”

I glanced back at the skill tree in new found concern “New skills for old memories. That’s… twisted.”

“Lucky…” Overkill darkly muttered through the clouds “So, Grim...”

“I told you my name was Yadrell.” I nearly snapped back in annoyance. I didn’t have memory loss and she did. She had a right to be annoyed “Or pick Lockheart.”

I didn’t want to be called Grim Tale, and be stuck with a reminder of Discord’s joke… or how lucky that I was to be on the villain team. Join the villain team! Earn new skills and get to keep your old memories. Sure my knowledge dump wasn’t as useful as theirs, but still… I remembered my past. They lost a couple of more chunks of it.

How many people would start to grow jealous, or hate those who didn’t have to deal with the pesky trade off? How long until people were singled out or… I tried to block that disturbing thought out of my mind. It was just another reason why it was okay for me to be paranoid.

Overkill groaned “So that’s what you told me yesterday?” I nodded as she sighed in relief “I’d rather lose your name and have you remind me, than something else important.”

I felt like snapping a little, bit but she was right. Better to lose a stranger’s name than an important memory.

I sighed “Just out of curiosity? Do you have any idea how much memory you lost?”

Overkill nodded “Three chunks. My friend’s names and what they were playing as. The GM of the game and your name. I gained three new skills only to lose three more chunks of my memory.

Stardust pawed her hoof against the ground “I lost how to skin a deer. A moment of fear during my tour of duty… something bad from how it felt when I remembered it… and my first kiss.”

We both stared at Stardust as she sighed “I’m a guy. I kissed a girl. Now I remember kissing a colt name Bright Light. Instead of skinning a deer, I suddenly knew a few more pony recipes and my incident of fear was now replaced, as a unicorn named Mystic Brew taught me how to make potions. You?”

Overkill scratched the back of her head “Mostly just lost. Nothing new added… well not added since relating to my skills…” Stardust continued to stare at her as Overkill coughed nervously “Alright… maybe a little bit of a foggy memory about the Fillydelphia high, but not a lot of detail.”

Overkill’s eyes were still a little bit puffy, but she was trying not to show it now. Apparently, those memories weren’t as foggy as she wanted us to believe. That, or, she just felt guilty about crying over forgetting a few names when Stardust lost important chunks of her life. I really need a term for Stardust because calling her…just seems… rude.

Yes he’s a girl right now, but if you got slapped with a gender swap, wouldn’t you be a bit annoyed being referred to as your new gender? Of course, the fact that Stardust also has a female personality kind of makes it all the more confusing.

Stardust was starting to have an identity crises. Last thing I need to do, is say anything that might set her off. Or cause him to hit me.

The bushes started to rustle as we all turned to face it. None of us swore… Well I didn’t swear underneath my breath. My mind went straight for the magic blast spell. Overkill glared at the bush in hatred, while her storm cloud rumbled, as Stardust hid behind the metal pot used for cooking our meal.

A brown head poked through with yellow hair attached to it. It was a pony… a unicorn to be exact. He glanced at us for a moment, before smiling nervously.

I felt my wings clenched to my sides at the sight of him, and looked over myself to realize that my jacket safely hid them. My secret was still safe. I was too focused on what was going on around me to even have spotted the new commer before he revealed himself to us. I had a changeling skill set as I could sense emotions and I had been completely caught off guard by some guy who just wandered in on us. I going to have to pay more attention to my new changeling sense emotion skill in the future.

“Uh… are you lot alright?” Asked the stranger.

Overkill stood up “Who are you?”

The stranger smiled more firmly this time “Livewire! I just got a little tied up in these woods until I saw I dragon. It was a good thing to because it lead me out of Bansewood forest!”

“Livewire?” Overkill asked in confusion “Is that your name… your real name?”

Livewire blinked “Uh… yes? Are you alright miss?”

I glanced at the menu again. Overkill’s name danced above her head, as the same was with Stardust, but Livewire? No name danced above his head. Just three capital letters.

NPC. Just freaking great. Time to see if we can salvage this situation… or screw it up on purpose!

“Sorry.” I quickly replied “We just are all a bit… lost. Can you tell me how to get back to Midgard?” Livewire looked at me strangely, along with the others “You know Midgard? Big place. City built around the massive tree, you can spot from miles away?”

Why Midgard do you ask? Because everyone knows it, and MLP doesn’t have a Midgard or it’s own brand of Norse mythology… maybe some of the monsters, but not the cities and stuff.

Livewire shook his head slowly “No… You alright mister?”

“Lockheart.” I replied with ease “Had a bit of a scape. It’s a long story, but seriously. Midgard isn’t close by… can you at least tell me where I am?”

Livewire stared at me with unease “Equestria. More specific the Bansewood forest.”

I smiled and continued screwing up on purpose “Can you take me to your king?” He stared at me, obviously having no idea what I was saying “Lord? Uh… person in charge?”

“That would be the princess.” Livewire slowly stated, probably wondering who I was, and if I might possibly be insane.

Stardust tried not to say anything. Part of her seemed to be struggling on telling me to stop messing with the guy. The other part understood that I was simply asking the questions that would make us look strange on purpose. Better to have someone else act like an idiot than do it yourself.

Overkill just stared at Livewire at first, making sure wasn’t a human just trying to fake being a NPC pony or something. Now, she was trying not to smile at his obvious confusion, as I was messing with him. She now struck me as the kind of person who would make Doctor Who jokes in Ponyville or near Time Turner… or Doctor Whooves… or whatever his name was.

I smiled getting ready to solve one of the questions on hand as I replied “Is there a succession problem with the queen, or is there more than one princess in charge of these lands?”

Livewire rubbed his head “Now I know you not from around here. Princess Celestia is the pony in charge. You might want to take a visit to Canterlot though… sounds like you’re a far away from home.”

Okay, that just roughly placed us within the last thousand years of the show…

Livewire glanced at the other two members of the group “What about you two?”

“Canterlot.” Stardust replied, only to sigh as she realized her mix up.

“Boston.” Overkill replied, only to get the same strange look Livewire gave me.

Livewire simply nodded “Must be a deadly place Boston. Never seen a pony travel with so many weapons.”

Overkill shook her head “It’s not that bad of a place.”

Livewire didn’t look like he believed her “If you say so… but you’re carrying a lot of weapons and armor, while your friends here aren’t.”

Overkill looked back at me and then at Livewire with a hint of annoyance on her face. I picked Midgard, while she picks Boston, and our new pony friend, Livewire, thinks Boston is a dangerous place to live in. I would have laughed, if Overkill wasn’t watching me.

Stardust shook her head, as she tried to play diplomat “Sorry, their just a bit mixed up… something happened, and we all ended up in the forest, with no idea what caused it. We were all kind of worried of where we ended up.”

Livewire glanced back at Overkill “So, when she asked about my name?”

Stardust lowered her head and pointed at Overkill “She couldn’t remember her name.”

Overkill sighed, as what Stardust said was technically true. Still, it was better to give our resident NPC an explanation that fit my crazy story, and of our current situation. Besides, it might make it easier to track down other people who got lost in this twisted game… and possibly which time period we are stuck in. Before cannon? Near cannon? Or after cannon?

Alright maybe not after the MLP show, unless someone, or something, just went out and murdered the rest of the other princess. Still, a quick look at the moon might solve that answer… which makes me wish I did that in the first place, come to think of it. Still, at least we have a better idea now.

Livewire rubbed the back of his head “Oh I see… sorry about your troubles miss.”

Stardust smiled, as she walked over to the pot “How about you stay with us for lunch, and help catch us all up.”

Livewire blushed “It wouldn’t be imposing wouldn’t it… I mean you’re from...”

“True, but I don’t know my way out of the woods.” Stardust said honestly “and we don’t know which direction to take. It all seems like woods… unless you follow the river.”

“You might want to rethink that plan.” Livewire said cautiously “It leads to a waterfall.”

Stardust chuckled “So it’s agreed. You help us get out of here and you eat with us, while we all trade stories.”

******

Stardust was surprisingly manipulative. Honestly I’m not sure if it’s Stardust the pony or Frank the human… which still kind of sounds like a fake name to me. Either way, [at first glance] Stardust just seemed like a very nice and innocent soul. Maybe it was a combination of the pony side and human side struggling over control of one another that surprised me about her actions.

One moment she’s trading silly stories about trying to earn her cutie mark, then, in the next moment, he’s laughing and she pickpocketed his bag of bits, and dumped it into her bag saddle bags. Then when he couldn’t find the missing money, she asked if he lost it in the forest, and he just believed her and blushed at her fake concern. [It was just so eerie to watch how she seemed managed shift from one identity to another nearly seamlessly. If you look at her carefully in her mannerisms, you could tell who is in control at the moment; from the demure gestures of one to the alert gaze of the other. Could they somehow both be playing off on an each other without ever bidding for control?]

Livewire lead us out of the forest without us running into any more trouble. The town he apparently was from was called Green Hooves. I tried not to groan at the pun. It’s Equestria. Whatever didn’t have a pun had something weird… like Rainbow Falls. On TV it might look nice, but I’m bettering in real life it would be a glaring eyesore every two steps.

Green hooves looked more like one of those old medieval communities. I half expected a group of ponies to be shouting “She’s a witch! May we burn her?”

The joke made me shiver, as it just reminded me just how close that comment could be made towards me. Instead, I focused on the ponies and the surrounding buildings. Most of the structures looked alike, except for the few colorful signs hanging out in front of them. Unlike Ponyville, with a large mare population, Green Hooves had a large Stallion population… and no, I wasn’t mixing up stallions with mares.

These stallions clearly looked more like Bulk Biceps but without the steroid abuse. You could see the bulges of muscles clearly marking them as men. That, and all the mares wore dresses. In fact, quite a few of them wore fancy dresses, and waving little fans, as a the few stallions who weren't body builders or lumberjacks wore black suits chuckling with their fellow male friends.

I’m guessing this town might be one of those retreats, for the young and rich. Where a wealthy idiot could buy just about everything cheap, and feed their ego, since they had enough money to essentially buy the whole town twice over. Back home, they would be the rich idiot on the safari who had no real idea what they were doing, but joined for the "adventure", but actually came so they could brag about it back home.

Fortunately, None of the ponies in town took a second glance at me or Stardust. I mean I had my jacket keeping my wings covered, as I was sporting a fake cutie mark. Stardust to my surprise I just realized that she was sporting a cutie mark of a laboratory flask, with some green liquid on her flank. I had no idea if she had just earned it, or had it all along.

No, I didn’t look at her butt to check beforehand, because they were human and so was I. Usually, staring at a girl butt back home, will earn you a few snide comments. Staring at her butt trying to see if she has a tattoo on it within face bucking range, will earn you a black eye, or leave you with a few missing teeth.

With my fake cutie mark, and her real one, the two of us went by unnoticed. Overkill on the other hand, stood out like a sore thumb it seemed. Her armor left her cutie mark spot uncovered, and every one of the ponies stared at her, as a couple gasped, or suddenly dropped something, when they saw her blank butt.

I could have taken off to the skies singing at the top of my voice, and shooting lasers out of my horn, and they probably wouldn’t have noticed me at all; everyone stared at her blank butt. I guess they never saw someone older than a foal without a cutie mark.

Overkill just swore a few curse words underneath her own breath, only to have a few random objects fall on her head, as a few overhead pegasi apologized to her. Apparently, the cursing curse was still in effect in a town… just not as deadly.

Needless to say, when Overkill spotted the outline of a train in the distance, we didn’t stay in the town for long, and said our goodbyes to our temporary guide. Why the town had a train far away from the town I had no idea. Maybe it was one of those weird pony logic things, like pony pulled trains, or some rich noble didn’t want the train to clash with the ye old country looking village.

When we finally managed to read nearest train station, Stardust used our freshly stolen bits to buy us three tickets to Canterlot ticket booth, letting us leave this town, before somebody started asking questions we didn't want to answer. If a nice place like Ponyville locks their doors from just seeing a zebra, then I did not want to see what a town full of rich ponies and buff stallions did to someone they didn't like and/or feared.

So we got into the train leaving for Canterlot in search of three things. Information, money, and help.

We needed to know what exactly we were dealing with. Did the reference of one princess mean past Equestria, or did it mean present Equestria as none of the locals paid attention to Luna’s return, or her possibly coming return? Did they even count Cadence as an official princess before she took over the Crystal Empire?

For Overkill and Stardust that would translate to… find element bearers or help current element bearers. For me… find save housing location and wait till someone else fixes this mess. Makes me wish I paid more attention to the other one shot towns they showed for hiding/love locations.

The second reason for going to Canterlot was that we needed money.

I had no money. Overkill only has two bits… so most of our current money is from Stardust’s stolen money bag. On the bright side, Stardust knew enough of Equestria’s economy that the show never explained to keep track of our money. She also knew what prices to sell the plants we found at Canterlot to earn a good profit, to help keep us afloat for the time being.

I’m a little skeptic about that last bit, but it’s our best bet. We won’t be rich, but we won’t be penniless. If we’re lucky we’ll have enough money to buy some train tickets to wherever.

This place wasn’t an MMO, as killing monsters wouldn’t just conveniently fork over a bag full of golden bits. Kind of a shame really, as I could have tried killing a few giant rats for an easy profit. Knowing my current luck, I would probably get a fine, as Fluttershy would shout at me for harming defenseless animals.

The last and least likely of all reasons for visiting Canterlot was help, and we all had different opinions on just where we could find it.

Stardust wanted to ask Celestia for help… but considering my outright lies of being from a distant land wasn’t that far from the truth, and Livewire could barely believe it. I highly doubt Celestia would believe the even crazier version of the actual truth. The fact we were all humans from another world, magically transformed into ponies, for reasons unknown, while missing a few chunks for memories, didn’t forebode well us for the most part.

In normal society, that would get you locked up in the loony bin. In Equestrian society… well someone might believe it, but let’s face it. Without any physical proof, it’s more likely she’ll think we're nuts, lying, or have some sort of cursing blocking our “pony memories”. Since two out of three people in our group have pony memories running about in their heads, mingled with their human ones,the argument would clearly stand against us.

Overkill’s reason for visiting Canterlot was that players would most likely gather up there. Which kind of made sense. It was big and easy to spot, set on a mountain second most known location in Equestria, and… if you're going to panic and shout at someone, why not the Princess herself? That and Ponyville (if it exists yet) isn’t that far from it.

Overkill just thought we could maybe set up a few posters, or something we could gather enough humans turned magical what not, and then be able to do something about the mess we are in. Nice plan in theory, except for one tiny detail.

Staying in Canterlot costed a lot of bits. Bits we don’t have a lot of. Even then how many players would make it to Canterlot without any bits to their name? If Stardust didn’t stealed from Livewire, we wouldn’t have had enough bits to even take the train, much less stay in Canterlot for a few days. Unless we found stable jobs, we wouldn’t stay in Canterlot for long and let’s face it. We’re are still learning the pony basics, much less pony job professions.

To simply put it, we cheated big time. I’m not sure how many people would steal a bunch of bits and buy tickets to Canterlot. I’m even more doubtful on us getting jobs, since most jobs in Equestria seem to be “What’s your cutie mark?” and quite frankly, only one of us actually has one. So, it’s more of a gamble than hoping Celestia can help us.

As for my crazy reason for visiting Canterlot? It’s to see Discord himself. My incredibly crazy stupid idiotic idea that’s likely to backfire… but it kind of ties together with the information reason.

If Discord is still sealed in his stone prison, and if I can manage to lose Stardust and Overkill in Canterlot, Then, I will go back to my original survival plan which is: Fine someplace safe to lie low, as I try to survive. Maybe I could go town to town, as I try to get a hang on both my feeding and magical abilities.

If Discord is walking around after the Fluttershy episode, then all I needed was a quick trip to Ponyville with a talk with Fluttershy to fix the problem for us… or find out what we need to do. All I would need is maybe a guilt trip, or the “please help me” vibe to make Fluttershy make Discord simply snap his fingers, and fix everything.

If that doesn’t work... then I’m not up to kidnapping her. Seriously, that’s suicide levels of stupidity there. I’ll just hide in the background and simply point other former humans there, until one of them manages to fixes everything… or I get to watch the fallout from a safe hiding place. Heck, I could give the mirror pool trick a try, and see if I could feed on them as it would solve the food issue.

******

The train ride was… well let’s face it. It was lousy. Hard wooden seats, combined with tiny space, as what hadn’t been given to the absurdly rich nobles section, feels like a rejected prison cell, due to falling under cruel and unusual punishment category. While as for the cart in front of us sported lots of purples, blues, and gold as it just screamed "High Class Seats". Which of course, were strictly reserved for nobility aka ‘the filthy rich’, so even if we ‘had’ enough bits, we wouldn't be able to get a seat in there.

The urge to simply walk up and toss one of those fancy pants nobles, so that I could impersonate him for an actual seat did cross my mind… until I tried to figure out how to hide a body, since I doubt we were moving fast enough to leave him in the dust, if I tossed one overboard.

Don’t judge me.

The only bright side about these awful seats was that… quite frankly we were the only ones here, leaving an entire train cart for ourselves. Of course, even taking an entire seat/row didn’t help, as we finished going over our half-baked plans, and counting out how many bits we had left.

“Okay, didn’t the train look a lot better… before we got on?” I carefully said, in case anyone was listening in on our private conversation.

Overkill nodded “A lot better. Heck this, even the jail cells looked better.”

Trouble Shoes even got a bed to rest on. Heck, I’d even take the ones with the giant horse sized holes in them, as I think this seat is trying to whittle down my HP bar.

The train shook again, as Stardust rubbed her head “And the tracks. There has to be something wrong with them, because a train shouldn’t sound like that.”

It wasn’t the faint clickety clack of a train wheel over each piece of track set out before it. It was more like… Whamedy smack, with the random screech of metal ramming against metal. Like a pothole in the middle of the road, but only built for trains.

My stomach grumbled, as I tapped my hoof against the back of a chair. I was getting low on energy, and the current mood wasn’t doing me any favors. I glanced back at the upper class section of the train with fancy colors. The urge to do something I would soon regret was growing.

Overkill tried changing the conversation to something else “Now… what about our names.”

I felt like rolling my eyes as I replied “Which ones? Pony or other. It’s not exactly like I know either of your names.”

Overkill huffed, as I tried to ignore the train’s constant noise “Let’s face it. Overkill might work as a nickname… but it’s not exactly a good pony name, unless I want to start sporting a dark cloak and a horde of evil minions.”

Stardust chuckled “Just watch out for the rainbows because those things are killer! Just ask any villain from G1 My Little Pony.”

Overkill sounded much better now as she replied “So… what about Valkyrie?”

At that, I couldn’t help but smirk as I said “Just as long as you don’t call me Loki we’ll be fine. I’m from Midgard remember? As for me… Lockheart works just fine for now.”

The conversation started to lighten up until Stardust went silent. Did I just step on an emotional landmine or something?

She sighed as she said “Stardust for now. I… just want to get through this mess in Canterlot and be done with it.”

With that said, the good mood had just been shot down, bringing back the misery. I closed my eyes, trying to block it out and the noise of the train. Soon, I would be in Canterlot and hopefully getting the answers I wanted. That, also of course meant making my next crucial decision… ditching this group and hiding in fear, or staying with them and trying to keep my identity a secret?

The next bump made me opened up my eyes, as my stomach grumbled again, as my changeling side reminded me about my current problem. I needed food, and diced carrots weren’t going to cut it. No wonder vampires were all mopey. It’s hard trying to find a meal without getting a mob ready to torch your ass.

I needed something to feed on, and with all this gloom around, I couldn’t even get a few happy bites to settle my stomach. I just needed an excuse to leave and find a meal “Time to learn if this train has a bathroom.”

Both of them nodded and looked away, as I walked out of the train cart and went to “searching” for one. The next cart was… how can I put this nicely?

It looked like a five star hotel. One freaking ass huge bed that looked like it could be used as a lifeboat, in case we ran adrift at sea. The only table bolted to the floor was covered in plates and garbage, as what probably counted as the equivalent of a high class lobster meal with extra butter. The stallion on the bed was sleeping looking so content, it made me want to toss him out of the train and watch him bounce away on the railway tracks.

Yes, it would be a stupid thing to do, mostly because the girls were one train cart next to mine… I shut the door behind me. He wasn’t exactly using a lot of energy at the moment… and after being stuffed in that train cart for god knows how many hours, I was very… I don’t know if the proper term is jealous or vengeful, but testing my changeling magic and draining him dry, sounded very tempting right now.

He smacked his lips and slowly got up, as he had one of those sleeping masks on “So, they already sent a maid? About time.”

No court in America would hold it against me… I was about to harm a mythical creature that shouldn’t exist! Who knows? Maybe he’s a Blue Blood, since he had the whole white coat and blond hair deal… combined with an extra helping of fat, giving him more of a beach ball impression than fancy nobility. Either way, he had this coming!

I stepped up closer to him, with my horn glowing and grinned, like a serial killer in a horror movie. You know, the type of smile they have when as they didn’t actually expect the idiots to actually come back into the house. I’m not sure how the whole emotion vampire thing worked with love, but hey, I’m flexible. If anything, it’ll be like eating a very cheap Big Mac. It might not taste great, but it will fill you up.

He raised a hoof and said “Now get me…”

And then I fed on him… well tried to at least. More like a stare as no love energy sucking beam of death hit him, turning him from a fat plum, to a shriveled raisin. Figures, the only guy I wouldn’t mind accidently killing would be the one that it doesn’t work on.

He took off his eye mask and stared at me in confusion, before screaming as he probably saw the look of rage on my face. Before I could even say anything, the entire train jerked, as wind was now whipping against my face. I turned around... only to stare at the huge eldridge monster right behind me.

Oh this went so horribly wrong. This was like the serial killer jumping out from behind the door, with a knife only to see Shoggoth waiting there, instead of the easy to kill cheerleader levels of a plan gone wrong.

Fatty grabbed me with his unicorn horn and floated me in front of him screaming “Save me!”

I’ll honestly admit, I had no absolutely freaking idea what the hell it was. It was roughly three times the size of a bear… or possibly one of those trucks that carried trucks. Point was, this freak of nature was huge and not your standard Equestria mash up monster.

Oh no, whatever made this abomination, cracked open the necronomicon read up and then made notes, while watching horror movies, before asking H.P. Lovecraft for a few tips.

The beast in front of me was a mass of tendrils, as the few that left its body twisted about forming hands that tore into the train. The section that was now ripped only was only torn off to let the other two tendril hand grab onto the train, giving it a secure grip. The only good thing about Shoggoth junior, and the horde of chattering noises, made by its unnatural hell spawned body, was that I was staring at the end of the body.

And that's when Equestria said “fuck you” in nice bold caps, as my horn finally did it’s energy love drain thingy, after fatty shook me with his magic. How being shaken by levitation magic activates love drain on an eldritch monster, I have no idea.

The green glow struck the monster, as it screamed. It wasn’t a raging dragon or howling Timber wolf scream. No, this was a ‘should never belong in MLP scream’, as I could taste the sheer hatred in it’s voice. Hell, I didn’t even need my special changelings powers to feel it’s rage, as the scream shattered the windows as my ears seemed to twist in pain from the noise.

The three tendril arm legs tore chunks out of the train, as it moved around before tearing off the roof of the noble’s cart, like it was nothing. I saw the roof be tossed over it’s back, as the mass of tendrils had two neon red eyes staring at me in rage. In one of it’s arm, it held a black chest wrapped in chains and locks which just spelled evil ancient artifact of doom.

I opened my mouth and simply said “ Oh shit.”

Author's Note

New Chapter up. Like before let me know if I made any mistakes or point them out so I can fix them.

Canterlot travels

Valkyrie

You know it’s bad when you start counting the seconds someone’s gone. I know that Lockheart is doing… something else. Personally I hope it’s finding something to eat, but when you’re left all alone in a room with a person who could be counted as having a split personality. Well you tend to get nervous.

You start trying to find topics that won’t trigger gender identity, lost past, or the new pony bodies. Of course just trying not to think about it is kind of like asking someone not to picture an elephant holding a tea cup. Because it’s been said you start thinking about it.

“So…” I needed something. Anything to cut the tension “What do you think of him?”

Stardust shot me a look telling me I stepped on a landmine.

Way to go moron.

Stardust sighed as she replied “An Alicorn build? No idea what to expect. Does that make him… a ruler or one of those heroes in a comic book?”

I opened my mouth ready to tell her how stupid that would be until I realized we were talking magical ponies in a television cartoon that suddenly come to life. Logic kind of went out the window when we went from biped to quadruped. Still I highly doubt he was going to be the hero of this story… though the fact he doesn’t suffer from mind wipes helps his case.

I rubbed my aching head “I meant as a person. He just… seems kind of off.”

Stardust chuckled as she covered her mouth with a hoof “Everyone just got changed into magical furry animals overnight. Without taking into account of memory problems, body adjustments, and being thrown into a new foreign land it would be strange for anyone not to be a little bit off.”

I couldn’t help but flinch at the last comment as it reminded me about his/her situation. What Stardust said made sense. Looking at it from that angle it isn’t that strange to be… well strange, but… there was just something off about him.

It was hard to explain, but it was his eyes. He didn’t just watch us… he stared. It was like watching a cat stare at a mouse or a cat toy. Even then if you throw in the green eyes and his… teeth. I mean he didn’t seem that bothered by the smell of the cooked fish while I was gagging to death on the stench!

Was I just grasping at straws here? I mean sure teeth plus green eyes, horns, and wings spelled changeling, but they weren’t a race you could pick from. Then again neither were alicorn… and it seemed like he ready to jump ship any moment.

Stardust put a hoof on my shoulder “Are you asking because you think there is a problem… or because he’s the closest thing you can place blame on.” I shook my head because that was crazy talk “Trust me when I say I know plenty about having built up rage and no one to actually blame in sight.”

The train shook for a moment before somebody screamed. I looked back down where Lockheart had left the train cart ready for guards or something to start come bursting out of the train cart. Instead a large section of our train cart was ripped off revealing something from Princess Mononoke or by Studio Ghibli.

The creature before me was a giant ball of bugs. Each one crawling over each other forming the monster as limbs sprouted out of its body letting it grab onto the train. My entire body seemed to freeze up just staring at it as I knew it didn’t belong.

This thing wasn’t from Equestria. It didn’t even look like it belonged in the same reality as us!

The bug monster raised one of its hands above us before balling it up into a fist. Stardust dragged me from my seat before the bug fist destroyed them in its attack. For some reason the creature screamed as I covered my ears. It felt like a banshee wail as the force of the screech shattered the windows. Before it shuffled around back to the cart Lockheart went in as the remains of the bug fist started to fall about into a horde of small chittering insects.

The bugs started to spread out covering the floor only for a glass bottle to strike the ground and explode setting the entire swarm on fire. I felt a hoof to my face as I was knocked to the floor before Stardust picked me up.

She was glaring at me not in hatred… but she was serious “Wake up! Grab a cloud and fight!”

She tossed me out of the train cart as I took flight racing towards the sky. I saw fear in her face, but it wasn’t fear for herself. It was fear for her friends. It was fear of losing someone. She didn’t toss me out because she thought I could help. She tossed me out so I could escape.

Tears ran across my face as I muttered “Come on. Be Steel Wings. They don’t need you to choke up. They need someone to act!”

I grabbed a cloud as I was angry at my own weakness. Racing back down to the train I saw the fight continue thanks to my new pesagi sight. Stardust was jumping about breaking pieces of the wooden future before lighting them on fire in the ever growing flames that threatened to consume the cart. She kept throwing them at the monster while trying to avoid its attacks while the monster focused on Lockheart. He had another illusion of him dancing about trying to avoid the attacks as some sort of green magic was kept on the monster as it tried to kill him.

Lockheart attacked the thing when it went after out cart. Stardust pulled me out before it attacked. Both of them were directly in the monster’s path while I was safe in the skies… still too frightened to do anything as my legs shivered on the cloud. I was safely out of its reach and I was just sitting here watching the battle play out like a spectator.

I wasn’t Steel Wings who could throw down a storm of lightening… I was… me. A coward who was too weak to help her friends.

The menu popped open as two new skill points appeared. They would enhance my combat skills at the cost of my memories. They would let me help my friends by cutting away who I was leaving… hopefully more of Steel Wings in my place.

“They need my help.” I whispered to myself as I clicked on the button

I enhanced my combat reflexes to increase my hit and doge changes in combat. Then I gave myself a boost in aerial combat to further enhance my close combat and weather manipulation attack skills.

My fur and feathers shook as I felt the magic flow into me. I closed my eyes as I felt it rip away the memories of what my parents looked like. I could still feel the emotion and remember them… but their details were torn from my mind. More details about my college life began to blur with images of some sort of flight camp.

My body felt more natural as the rush air went past my face filling me with confidence instead of fear. My wings stretched out happily embracing the sky instead of being strangers that kept me afloat. I looked down at the bug beast not in fear seeing it as some unnatural monster that Seem to defy reality. I saw it as a horde of evil bugs bound together by dark magic, but more importantly it made the stupid mistake of attack my allies!

I slammed my hooves down onto the cloud as the searing bolts of lightning tore into its flesh. It screamed as I took aim again blasting its limbs so that my allies could get away from its attacks.

My name is Valkyrie and it will regret attack my friends!

******

Lockheart

Shit! Shit! Shit!

My horn kept trying to drain it dry as I had no idea how to actually fucking turn it off! My body felt like throwing up yet the surge of magic kept my changeling side from actually doing. Throwing up another illusion of myself I kept dancing about without feeling any of magic as it kept trying to rip me limb from limb.

The eldritch abomination hissed ripping out a chunk of the train. Two of its hand gripped it like a like a baseball bat ready to swing at me only for a bolt of lightning to incinerate the limbs before it could swing. I just kept my up with my deadly game of tag knowing that if it hit me I was screwed.

I had no idea what emotion I was feeding off of… but it was powerful. It’s not love or compassion. Those tiny bites felt refreshing like drinking ice cold water on a hot day. This felt like someone just shoved a bottle of hot sauce down your throat, but instead of a nice and spicy feeling it felt like your mouth was on fire. Still it filled up my stomach and hurt the eldritch abomination.

The train cart lurched for a moment as I felt the track jerk again. Unlike video games stray shot did affect the train and this thing was already a piece of junk before this brawl started. The platforms we were on weren’t going to last much longer.

I glanced at the only cloud racing after the train and screamed “Overkill! Grab Stardust now!”

The cloud rushed down behind the eldritch monster as the flames grew higher. I took a deep breath and swarmed fatty’s train cart with copies of me as the strain of making so many copies really started to hurt as my head screamed in pain. The monster tore through a large chunk of the illusions as the force of the seemed to knock the air out of me as I continued hiding.

My drain magic was still kicking as it refilled my reserves and clearing the screaming headache I was having forcing me to focus on a magic blast. My own horn started glowing as I focused on the feeling I felt whenever I shouted “pew pew”.

With Overkill flying back into the sky with Stardust in her grip I felt another chunk of my illusions be torn apart as the eldritch beast stared at me. It was now the size of an absurdly large bear. A lot smaller than before, but easily big enough to murder me with ease.

It gazed at me in hatred as a shit load of hands formed around its body ready to rip me limb from limb. I smirked not because I had any real plan… but because the monster didn’t need to know I was completely terrified of it. The train hit another pot hole as it dislodged the back of the train cart forcing the creature to grab onto my cart to keep the platform it was on steady.

Then the attack of what would hopefully cause many lawyers to start screaming about copy write laws I shouted “Buck off!”

My horn fired as it struck the floor in front of me. It wasn’t the super magic DBZ doomsday beam attack that would level entire islands with ease, but just a regular tiny magic missile. A tiny burn mark was left on the floor that didn’t separate me from Shooggoth junior as it now found the real me.

I hate Equestria.

All of the monster’s hands came rushing towards me as I did one the thing it didn’t expect. I jumped out of the gapping open hole in the wall right next to me and hit the ground rolling.

I was able to see the eldritch monster turn towards me only for another bump in the tracks to hit the train. It was both horrifying and beautiful to see as the burning section of the train broke. The cart finally broke as the flaming wreck took the eldritch beast with it rolling across the ground turning both the cart and the monster into one large rolling fireball moving away from me.
I pushed myself up hearing the beast’s pain filled screeched before dozens of pesagi filled the sky bringing clouds with them. Soon the creature stopped rolling across the ground and tried to get up as its entire body was on fire. It howled one last time before the spot was covered in lightning bolts as the pesagi kept firing until only a blackened scorch mark rested on the ground with a creepy black chest.

I sighed as Overkill and Stardust came over to me as I said “And here I thought hot air balloons where the only dangerous thing to ride in Equestria.”

Overkill groaned as Stardust chuckled.

I brushed the dirt off my jacket and looked into the distance seeing Canterlot. “Well let’s finish this stupid hike before something else tries to attack us.”

Both of them nodded as the train was well out of sight by now. Two pegasi landed near us as I felt like face palming. They looked like the royal guard from the TV show, but I kind of just tempted fate so anything could happen at this point.

One of the pegasi glance at us and said “Need a lift?”

“Are you sure it wouldn’t be an inconvenience?” Stardust asked calmly as I refused to believe what was happening.

The one of the right chuckled “Seeing as you helped us do our job it wouldn’t be that much of an inconvenience to give you a lift to Canterlot.”

Stardust bowed as she softly replied “Thank you.”

The one of the left blushed as he said “Just give us a few moments to get a sky cart ready.”

Once the blushed pegasi took to the skies we waited for them to come back. Not wanting to tempt fate to screw us over again I looked at my skill menu to see if anything had changed. Three new points to further enhance my skills. I dumped another point into illusions, a second one to craft disguise, leaving the final one to be dumped into mind magic.

I felt my body shiver as the new power flowed into my body. By the time my level up was done the pegasi was back with one of those cloud carts ready to give us a ride to Canterlot as I filled away the creepy bug thing and the black treasure chest for another day to think about.

******

Canterlot was big. You see it in the TV show and in artwork… but Canterlot was kind of like New York City or Washington DC. You see it. You hear of it and know about it, but actually being there was something else.

Sort of like the grand canyon in a sense. It’s so mundane it’s almost boring, but when you stand at the edge you just can’t help but stare. How the hell a city hanging off a mountain didn’t put everyone into a state of panic I had no idea!

Say what you want about skyscrapers and stuff, but those are solid. The very fact this place looks like it came out from the middle ages didn’t make me feel any better as I walked away from the edge of the city and back into the main hub.

I sighed in relief and said “So… an old era… style.”

We walked away from the sky cart that brought us up here. First thing we realized was that… this wasn’t current era. No Ponyville and most of all trains were just in the testing stage, but not really given a lot of thought. Trains the object that would become the number one mode of transportation in Equestria was a gimmick.

I can see how technology tended to be a bit skewed in certain areas now.

Right now it was viewed more as a gimmick for the rich. It was noticed… but viewed as impractical since horse/pony drawn carriages or sky carts did the same work with half the problems and our fight on it properly didn’t do any wonders for its reputation.

Stardust focused on the city in front of us “Alright. Let’s find a hotel room and spend the night. Tomorrow we’ll need to focus on getting to the day court.”

Everyone nodded as we looked for the first hotel we could find which was called Red Hoof Inn. I kept my illusion spell up to hide Overkill’s… blank side until we could find a better way of covering it up.

******

Last night didn’t go to well as we all had to share a room due to budget constraints… and the fact they only had one room left.

Overkill got the bed. Stardust took the couch while I took a blanket on the floor.

Even then we spent what little of our budget on a cheap meal and supplies for Stardust to tinker about with. It’s important for the team medic/alchemist to stock up on supplies just in case things went badly.

No one really spoke much when night came revealing the Moon with Luna’s banishment mark on it making it final that we were in pre-canon territory. So when I woke up early I decided to test out my skills and get a small snack at the same time.

I rubbed my aching head trying to get a hang on the illusion and more importantly the feeding ability. A group of children ran past me laughing. My horn glowed for a moment before shutting back down. A couple smiled as they shared a milkshake with two straws. My horn glowed for a moment before turning back off. Each moment of joy or love caused me to sneak a bite out of it wither I wanted to or not.

Each small bite pushed back the hunger I felt and refueled my energy as I walked down the streets. In front of me was a simple illusion spell of a book called Hidden in Plain Sight as my current disguise was of a purple stallion unicorn with blue hair and square glasses as his cutie mark was an open book. The actual book in front of me of course was… a children’s book for the basic understanding and learning of magic.

Not exactly Grade A text book material as most of it was… gibberish. It talked about “How to do magic” with lots of vagueness. I guess it was supposed to help a foal figure it out on their own without giving them a direct answer. Only problem was that I wasn’t a foal and time wasn’t on my side.

All I’ve managed to learn on my own was how to levitate the freaking book! Oh it sounds great saying… you’ve only been at it for two days, but seeing the foals dance about as you just learned how to levitate an object. That just sucks as I haven’t even master page turning.

I needed better control of my magic and if I couldn’t master my illusion spells than I would have to shift more into the changeling section of magic. So far my spells worked… just not how I expected it to work. My illusion book was supposed to be The History Of Equestria and yet it didn’t come out like that. My distraction spells worked… but not fully. The reason they looked would be different and what they would “see” would also be random or possibly some inside joke or pun like my illusion on the book.

My current theory was that I needed more practice… which meant more use of getting a “feeling” of magic. So lots of magic would help narrow the field and walking through this sugar coated street helped keep my reserves up… even more so when I kept changing disguise in a dark alleyway every few blocks. Either I would figure out how to finally hide my wings or it would help ease my sense of paranoia.

My mind still raced on my new form and skills as I tried to figure out myself. Does feeding directly on a pony enhance my ability or does it keep my “constant drain” effect down on a minim or simply turn it off?

Most of all why was I still stuck in Alicorn form! I could throw up a couple of illusions to hide a few details. Summon illusion clothing, make a small dragon fly through the air, but I had yet to run into an invisibility spell or some way to remove my horn or wings from my transformations. Essentially the only thing hiding my features was a jacket.

I took a deep breath as I tried to focus on my current problem.

The million dollar question… How I would deal with Celestia?

Did she know about changelings? If she did how could I keep myself hidden? If she didn’t how could I prevent myself from blundering? The castle would be more through in their defenses especially in detecting unknown magic or did it just have a walk in policy for villains?

Chrysalis had a life time to prefect her tricks. I had just a few hours and my current plan was either find a pony to feed on or constantly use illusions to “explain” my active magic if the castle had some sort of magic wards to detect my magic.

Yes it all sounded a bit paranoid, but when you’re going to be meeting face to face with someone who could incinerate you because you were an emotional vampire… it paid to be prepared.

Now I just had to find a pony to feed on without any of the others finding out… or finding a good excuse for my illusions… and keep enough energy in reserve to not revert back into changeling from in front of the entire royal guard. High Early Risk vs Late Game Risk. Either way I needed a way to keep a lid on things until I make the meeting or find a way to check on Discord.

I rubbed my aching head. Constant magic use caused slight migraines. Constantly casting the spell given to you helped you get a better grasp... in much the same way running every day and night made you go faster. The magic recharges helped me recover faster, but it didn’t take away the mental strain.

Trying to get my mind off it I glanced down the street and spotted a pesagi kicking her hooves on a park bench in much the same way a human would when they were annoyed. Beside her were a set of flowers that were bright, but seemed to be limp. It wasn’t even a full set, but just a few plucked together as someone didn’t want to buy a full bundle.

I glanced across the street seeing a brown stallion with another mare. He was laughing as the second mare smiled. I could feel the warmth rolling off her… but not him. I could practically taste the sadness and loathing from the benched mare. I could feel my mouth starting to water as I could somehow feel how despite for love she was. How much her heart ached for a gentle soul to help give her a shoulder to cry on? How much she wanted to release her burst of emotion… the sorrow, the sadness… and the pent up love she held for the stallion before she could move on.

My skin seemed to shift as my stomach growled. My magic was still strong… but a hunger grew. I walked into an alleyway staring at myself. Without so much as a thought my form shifted as the green flames danced across my skin. My wings shifted comfortably underneath my coat no longer giving a bulge. My mane seemed a bit more… wavy as I fit the “tall dark and handsome” bit with a charcoal black coat and light gray hair. For a cutie mark of all things… I had a heart. One simple pink heart with two white wings on it’s side.

I walked back out into the street with my former disguise gone and my new one intact as I sat near the pegasi. She sniffed as she glanced at me for a moment.

I shrugged “Let me guess. The stallion is the one you’re angry at?”

“Why does it matter to you?” She muttered with a hint of annoyance.

I simply shook my head “Because the earth pony was my special pony until a few months ago.” She flinched “I mean… I thought we had something. We talked… laughed. Dated a bit and… next thing I know he comes along. Says he just wants to talk. She asks me for a couple of small favors…. Now I’m lost a bunch of bits and a marefriend.”

My head hung low as I sighed “Personally I hope they fall off the side of Canterlot.”

She glanced at me as she sniffed “No… His ego would protect them from the fall. In fact they could build a second Canterlot of the side of it.”

I chuckled “Then obviously the next move must be bucking them straight to the MOON!” I thrust my hoof up dramatically in the air only to lose my balance and fall flat on my back.

That only made her chuckle even more. I smiled as she continued to chuckle. My horn didn’t glow, but I felt stronger. Not… better like cheering her up…. More like… my energy was filling back up… and growing. It felt a lot better than the small bites on the road or the awful run on the train.

I pushed myself up and said “How about we just take a walk? Cry out hearts out. Wish for a few curses on them and then try to move on.” I stood up and grinned at her “Besides Misery loves company.”

She nodded as she got up and followed me. I had no idea why those cheesy lines came so readily in my mouth. I never took an acting class, but it felt more like I was preforming on stage after memorizing every line.

She drew close to my body with a small smile on her face. She left the flowers and a card I hadn’t noticed before in the trashcan nearby. My body switched to auto pilot as we both walked down the street. It didn’t take long for me to spot an empty clearing looking over the edge of Canterlot. No ponies were nearby. No one would see anything if I did something.

Of course this only brought back my earlier question. Do I feed or do I not? Do I risk directly feeding on her with my lack of knowledge or do I risk not doing anything to her and taking a chance on running out of energy in front of all those royal guards?

I lead her to the spot as we talked as I soon begin to regret it. She wasn’t human… but that didn’t make me think she wasn’t a living human being in my mind. It also didn’t help that I never had much experience with these types of things… and feeling her emotions… her pain, joy and sorrow… that wasn’t helping either.

The only question was… what would I do next?

Break—

Celestia

Another day to raise the sun and the more oppressive task of dealing with the nobles. I remember as a filly how I thought raising the sun would be the most difficult task I would ever face. During those endless adventures to untie all of Equestria and keeping it falling apart from the schemes and never once did I think my greatest foe would be… paperwork.

The evil monster that never stopped and currently consuming my desk grew during the last few seconds I glanced at it. It was impossible of course considering I spent over an hour trying to get rid of it all… but it still grew.

“Princess Celestia.” Quick Note spoke softly as she glanced behind the mountain of paper work “The morning court is about to begin.”

I smiled ready to be done with the demon in front of me as hopefully the ponies in my place could bring it down to a manageable size. Without a word I took one step out towards the window to see the rest of the kingdom before me… and know all my hard efforts have been worth it.

“PIG!” screamed a voice scaring the birds and making most of the royal guards turned towards the noise watching the skies as if a Dragon was about to suddenly attack.

Quick Note shivered for a moment as the word seemed to echo across Canterlot “Today apparently is going to be a busy day.”

I glanced back at Discord prison as he was still trapped in the same form all those years ago… yet something seemed different. It felt as if Discord was actually laughing at somepony’s misfortune right now.

“It properly will be.” I replied back.

Dozens of missing reports along with strange incidents happening near Bansewoods. Then there was the sudden attack against the train by an unknown monster. Nothing was inside the chest only because she had its contents moved the last second, but it was still worrying how close it had been. Something was happening in Equestria. Something that needs to be found out before it broke lose.

******

Valkyrie

It was hard trying to find Lockheart at first. Take it for an alicorn who specializes in illusions to make things difficult. Stardust was setting everything up for the morning court meeting and it was my job to haul his ass back there.

So here I was trying not to think about all the happy go lucky ponies that made my inner little girl squeal in delight as I kept my saddle bags over my bare rear. Sure I got a few odd looks, but those passed away quickly after they saw the armor which properly frightened them off.

Still it was better than going bare and having them all gawk at me like some sort of freak. A part of me felt like skipping for joy as I was getting to see Canterlot for real instead of watching it on TV. The rest of me just felt… nervous.

Just when I was willing to call it quits something hit the ground. I turned to see what was going on and saw Lockheart was standing near some café… not nearby, but sitting in a chair like a human… grinning.

The brown stallion quickly tried to pick back up his belongings as he didn’t notice the green aura adding a card to his fallen belongs. The brown stallion turned around and smiled as he pulled out the card handing it to the mare across from him with his magic. She smiled grabbing it with her hooves… and then the smile died.

“You’re the only mare for me… Clear Skies?” She hissed in anger.

Lover boy’s eyes widened as he dug through his saddle bag “Of course not! Just a little…” the green aura flickered again for a moment “Mistake!”

He floated out another card. This one when opened up dropped a small hand drawn picture of another mare in a… rather…. Artistic form. The bronies on the +18 forms thought they were good? This picture put all of theirs to shame as it made me blush.

Not a furry.

“Another mare?” She smiled gently like a serial killer reading her axe. “What were you thinking dear?”

Every male in a relationship nearby gulped as they knew the real message from how she said that one word.

Lover boy smiled nervously as a flicker of green went off as he replied confidently “Making out with three mares of course!”

The cup fell to the ground shattering along with all hopes of his luck in salving the situation. His eyes widened as large of dinner plates realizing the mistake as the mare’s eyes shrunk into two tiny dots not fully understanding what he actually said just a few seconds ago.

“PIG!” She screamed socking him in the mouth with her hoof and sent him flying across the street.

The entire city seemed to shake from the outburst of rage as I was surprised at the amount of air time the unicorn got before crashing into a wall. Super mare huffed in annoyance and walked away leaving the two timing jerk in a painful mess as everypony tried to look away as a few whistled pretending to be minding their own business.

Lockheart left his seat and walked over to me with a smile apparently having enjoyed his mischief and chaos for the day. I on the other hoof felt anger that he would toy with a pony’s life as I knew the guy would never say those words out loud. The fact that he was a two timing jerk helped dull the rage out a little.

Lockheart sighed as he could apparently ready my thoughts as he said “Took a walk… found out he was a two timing jerk and broke a lot of mare’s hearts… and I just figured he needed a lesson.”

I held back my anger for a moment “What proof did you have?”

Lockheart rubbed the back of his head as he uneasily replied “Talked to his ex. The Ex he set up with a dinner date when she came early only to see… that.” He lowered his head “She… talked. Mostly broken up. Sad… Never seen that before… and… I just let her vent. Then I just thought he should get a nice shot of karmic retribution.”

I glanced at his face. It didn’t look like he was lying… just conflicted. He didn’t seem bothered at running the stallion’s love life or waking up half the city. Instead he seemed more… awkward about having to been talking to a mare and having a small moment with her.

For some reason that just made me a bit annoyed. Here I was having a perfectly good reason to be angry at him and he just…

“So why did you come all the way out here?” I spoke with a hint of frustration “I mean we aren’t trying to cause any incidents.”

Lockheart nodded “Practice.” I blinked not understanding what he meant. “Take a look at the window… at my MP.”

I glanced up and had to focus to see the health bar and mana bar as it was nearly full “I don’t understand?”

He glanced back at the crowd “Spent some points for a new skill. Emotional magic. Mostly went for a griefer build. Worse things get stronger my magic becomes.”

I had no idea what that meant “Short version.” And I was kind of annoyed that he got to spend them freely.

“Focusing on emotions around me… I can use it to cast my spells, regain my magic, or empower some of them.” He slowly replied as he checked to make sure nobody was listening in on the conversation

“So a walk down a busy street with lots of emotions and a few small… tests to get a feel for it. Unlike you guys I didn’t come with an instant knowledge package so I need to experiment and test things out in order to get them to work even with skill points being used on them.”

I glanced back at the unicorn “And him?”

Lockheart smirked obviously happy “Sorrow and despair for the chair. A quick shot of distraction magic to hide the card. One shot of illusions to rename the card to hide the earth pony’s card making sure he wouldn’t accidently give her the right card. Then a shot of confusion with a distraction spell… which gave great results.”

I tried to repress the shiver down my spine “You messed with his mind?”

The one guy in the group I was nervous around and he was experimenting with mind control. I don’t’ care how many times it’s done on TV or what labels they give it. It still creeps the living hell out of me. It also screamed evil changeling magic in my mind.

Lockheart seemed to deflate as he frowned “More like… nudged. I can’t do any direct stuff, but just a small push here or there. Honestly the whole “Threesome bit” was a surprise to me though I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the results and full MP to boot… well mostly full.”

“And the mare who you helped?” I couldn’t help but ask in annoyance.

Lockheart flinched as he slowly replied “Resting on a bench… hopefully feeling better and got to see the smug jerk getting clocked. Nothing happened if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good.” I slowly replied uneasily “We need to get to the castle for the whole… morning court issue.”

I took a deep breath and had him follow me. All I needed to do was get past the creepy feeling he gave me and remember he’s human just like me. Besides we were about to see Celestia as I felt like squealing in delight seeing an actual alicorn princess in real life!

******

Five hours… five hours of waiting in line after line. I felt my will to live leaving from my body as I stared at my party members. The only clock in the room ticked as if was laughing at each second we stood there waiting for Celestia’s arrival.

Lockheart was just sitting messing around with illusions. I’ll have to admit that illusions are kind of nice to have in the party mix up… but mostly he spent the rest of the time going over books on magic as he wants to make sure he has a “proper grasp” on it.

I’d rather him keep messing with beginners books on magic and playful illusions that try any more mind magic tricks. Yet it felt… odd watching him having to read a book to figure out how to make it work. I could fly and Stardust… I think she can do her earth pony trick and yet he couldn’t turn a page with his levitation spell. Just mostly hold up the book.

Stardust on the other hand… she’s different. Yesterday he was a guy. Today she is a girl. I can’t tell exactly what’s going on with her… but she been playing about with her menu and keeping a few nervous glances at me.

Well I think she’s playing with the menu. When I access I get a floating menu that only I can see… which kind of makes it hard to judge if someone else is using the menu without you knowing… since only they can see it.

Since her knowledge of Equestria seemed to jump up… I’m betting she forgot about our little chat about skill points. Stardust is just a bundle of confusion. Half of her seems to want to stick close to me and jab a knife straight into Lockheart… and the other half seems to be frightened of me and looks at Lockheart in a… not really sure what to make of it look.

Then again Stardust is dealing with two sets of memories with conflicting emotions as he/she and previously stated. Dear lord oh mighty we are going to need to hire a team of quacks just to fix Stardust’s problems.

“How much longer?” I muttered

Stardust rolled her eyes “As long as it takes. If we took the normal morning court it would be a short meeting. That’s get in. Ask question. Get statement. Then kicked out.”

Male Stardust started to kick in “So unless you want to sum up our problem in a sentence I suggest we…”

His face blushed as he coughed “stupid profanity filter.”

“Will we even get a meeting?” Lockheart asked as he pulled out a few sandwiches. “I mean… it’s been a while.”

He handed one to each of us as Miss Stardust kicked back in “That’s part of the reason for the wait. To simply wait.”

I glanced back at the other ponies that were starting to leave to grab some lunch “If we don’t bother waiting then obviously our problem isn’t that important.”

Stardust smiled “Most likely half will return in the one short meeting tomorrow. This also helps cut down on nobles who wish to waste hours of the Princess’s time about stupid requests and tasks like “Sir so and so spilt wine of my suit! He must be forced to face me in a duel or give me his western estate.” Or the more common "But this is why we need to invest heavily in my new project that will surely work this time." as it properly gets annoying after the hundredth time.”

I nodded as I took a bite out of the sandwich. It made sense in a boring kind of way. Not everybody would get time with the princess and it would be easy to see how many complaints would be filled in during that short amount of time available. I glanced at the sun outside and looked at my menu after finally finding the clock function just to be safe.

Five hours and twenty two minutes. Long enough for morning court on short favors/questions leaving just a small amount of time for the longer questions. Some of the other ponies had started pulling out boxed lunches from their saddlebags. One fancy pants noble had a dinning cart brought out to him. Apparently some ponies had learned from the last time they were here.

I glanced back at my menu’s clock trying to figure out just how much time would be left for us? Stardust didn’t know how long these things could take… but time wasn’t exactly on our side.

A twisted thought enter my mind as I grinned “Hey Lock?” he turned to face me “Think you could… I don’t know. Whip up an illusion of the princess?”

He face palmed… or hoofed as he replied “Anything that won’t get us kicked out?”

Stardust rubbed her chin “Well… maybe thinning the herd a little… but I wouldn’t exactly call it… safe.”

“Come on.” I replied eagerly to help cull the herd “We have some tidbits and they don’t exactly have state of the art defense.”

I could see the two sides of Stardust struggling. Pony side trying to find a peaceful way and Mr. human thinking up the crazy RPG tactics that would have most DMs pulling their hair out.

Then the twisted smile broke through letting me know Mr Stardust was in charge as he replied “Just a few things… A few items cobbled together.”

He went into his saddlebags pulling out various objects and a few cleaning supplies. I stood in front of him using my body to block his mad science from being view by the general public. Lockheart looked as if he was ready to bang his head against the wall.

“Come on Lock.” I whispered trying to ease him into his next disaster. “We just need a smokescreen. Something to help… improve our odds. Besides not everybody has to be present during the round of questioning.”

Lockheart groaned “And what is your “story” going to be? I mean we can’t just flat out say… everything. I might be able to pass a little if she checks me for… differences. Still that’s not exactly an area I want to delve into.”

I actually forgot about the alicorn card we had in reserve. Then again a card we couldn’t use wasn’t a card we could really play. At least not yet.

I smiled “I was thinking… Crazy Princess Cadence.” His eyes widened. “Look illusions won’t cut it. We might be fooled… but they have palace trained unicorns to dispel most illusions.”

He seemed to squirm at that comment. Not that I could blame him. I felt my side being even more exposed if possible. The fake illusion of the steel axe glimmered over the bare spot… but non-cutie mark adult tends to leave lots of notice. I tugged my new saddlebags over the spot just thinking about it.

I took a deep breath “But horn and wings draws attention.” It was going to be the hard part of the sell “And while they might notice illusions… You can’t fake horns and wings.”

“Impersonating a member of royalty.” He muttered underneath his breath “I wonder if Canterlot employ jail cells or petrification spells for that level of crime?”

Stardust chipped in her two bits “Better question is if they can find you in a large cloud of smoke before you shift into a new disguise.”

He paused trying to think over his options. Fleeing from the royal guard wasn’t a mess I would want to be in. Trying so soon after reaching Canterlot seemed crazy… but less face it. We didn’t have unlimited bits and only a fuzzy understanding of this world. Besides worst came to worse we could explain our situation to the Princess if the worst did happen.

I started trying to think up a Plan B when Lockheart to my surprise said “I’ll do it.”

Honestly I didn’t think he would go for it, but I tried not to show it. Personally I would have tried something else… like knocking out the other ponies when they went to use the restroom or something. Or buy some expired food and hide it in every other pony’s lunch tomorrow to help thin out the herd.

Stardust pulled out a rusted can that seemed to be smoking slightly as he replied “Pull the pin. Cover your mouth and try not to let it get in your eyes.” Lockheart nodded as he stuffed it in his jacket. “As for the other one… Try not to use it since I don’t know how effective a chemical fire well be here.”

Both my and Lockheart’s eyes widened at the news of this fact. Personally I wasn’t planning on setting anything of fire… but fire tends to be a descent distraction as Lockheart’s jail comment made me start to wonder. Impersonating a princess was bad… but setting fire to the royal gardens? I shivered at the thought.

Lockheart flinched as he didn’t open his eyes replying “You owe me Big.”

He left the room as we both held our breath. We waited for a couple of minutes trying to act normal… just waiting for the disaster. It was like waiting for a bomb to explode. You knew it was going to happen… you just didn’t know when it would happen or more importantly if you were going to be far enough away to be safe from the explosion.

******

Celestia

“and now for the nobles.” Swift Note finished as the last pony left the hallway.

I didn’t do anything as I tried to keep myself from showing emotion. The worst part of the day. Not the simple requests like from before where a simple answer or dismissal would solve everything.

No it would be listening to some noble rant about some old blood feud that their grandparents had. Sometimes there was a gem or two in the mess… but the hair on the back of my neck told me otherwise. I could feel the growing tension in the air as if a storm was about to break out.

If anything it was going to be a long day…

“Love! Everypony love me!” screamed a crazed female voice.

The guards rushed forth as I tried not to face hoof. Some pony must have snapped from the long wait.

Swift Note shook her head “Hopefully everything will be taken…” a burst of wind flew past us.

Swift Note held his mouth open in shock. I was a little bit stunned myself as I saw the crazed pink pony before me. Her long pink hair was a mess as she had a crazy look in her eyes, but she was dogging most of the guards racing down the hallway with her wings out. Most of all she had a horn as she casted an illusion leaving three crazy pink alicorns flying about laughing.

All three alicorns stopped right in front of me starting at me in fear. It was just for a brief moment, but I could see it before she shot straight through a window and out into the open air.

The guards chased after her as Light Wing bowed “Sorry Princess!”

Another explosion rang out as a sky outside just gained a new cloud as I could smell the various burning chemicals from inside. Light Wing raced outside to catch the intruder.

Quick Note shook her head “What just happened?”

I didn’t bother going outside to check for the intruder. A quick teleport was all they needed to do to escape if they could cast a spell that allowed flight without setting off the castle’s wards… Besides there was something about her stare that bothered me.

I hadn’t seen that look of fear in quite some time as my gut told me there was something else going on. As much as I hated to I walked towards the second half of the morning court as my suspicions seemed correct.

The waiting room was a mess. Most of the ponies had fled in panic or were hiding. Only a few ponies stood in the room waiting their turn. One pony wearing a particular wearing a suit of armor that certainly wasn’t a member of the royal guard just stood there. Most of all I could smell the faint whiff of chemicals near them.

Swift Note noticed me staring as she whispered “Should I send them in next?”

“Yes.” I replied softly.

It was going to be a long day.

******

Valkyrie

Everything was going according to plan or that’s what I kept telling myself. We were meeting Celestia and getting ready to explain our story. We just found out a few important details like… None of them knowing Princess Cadence.

I wasn’t putting a few random words from two pegasi tell me I was in Pre-cannon territory. Even if the mare in the moon was shown there still was a chance we were close to the first episode of the series, but the confused looks and whispers of confusion asking who that mare was meant pre-Cadence transformation at the very least.

Stardust wasn’t nervous until we were lead into a room. No throne room or fancy throne. Just a room with a table… a few guards outside and Celestia with some pony inside the room on the opposite side of the table.

My thoughts raced to the scene before. Lockheart played the crazy princess part well. Every pony was first in shock at seeing another alicorn. Then freaking out when newly appointed alicorn was screaming “love me” as she crashed into every stallion in the room before bolting when the guards rushed in.

Honestly it made me wish I had a camera to take pictures of the moment. Of course I stared wishing for a hammer when Mr Stardust added a few grenades into the mix. Nothing big, but the smell of chemical cleaners and those dam exploding cans hurt my ears.

His excuse was to make sure everyone was drenched in the scent in case they brought guard dogs or something to check for the scent. Considering every living soul in the room now smelled like cleaner and smoke it would be hard to tell that Lockheart had some assistance in his havoc in the room.

Celestia smiled making me sweat. Of course hard was also trying to raise the sun, lower the moon, and banish a living embodiment of chaos itself. Celestia could do hard tasks easily… and I just hoped she didn’t know about our stupid crazy plan.

“Now what is it that you wanted to ask me?” She replied with ease.

Ease as in she wasn’t freaked out about our little disaster or Ease as in she knew we were responsible. I glanced at the cup of tea in front of me. No idea how it got there or where it came from. Right now I wasn’t sure I had enough control to pick it up or pick it up without shaking most of its contents on myself.

Stardust spoke up first “We ran into a problem.”

“It’s nice to know I can tell your parents you’re all right Stardust.” Celestia spoke with ease.

That was when Stardust’s cup fell onto the ground. I could feel myself growing even more nervous… Stardust? I… He’s one of us... Human… how does she?

Ms. Stardust… pony….Mr. Stardust… Human. Two sets of memories. Shit.

Stardust didn’t speak. If anything it looked like she was in-between panic and shock. Half of Stardust frightened beyond belief and the other half shocked at the knowledge of what had just been said. The only question was… which half was out and which emotion did it belong to?

“How long?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Celestia glanced at me “Over a month.”

I shook my head “That’s impossible we all just…” I bit my tongue trying not to say anymore.

That was a slip up. More importantly did she know me? Did I just replace somepony or was Stardust just a special case? Or were we the special cases? I only talked to two other humans and mostly because we were the only ones left around after everyone had finished freaking out or getting lost in the woods.

Celestia stared at me as I felt myself crack “We were only together for just a few days… about two days in the forest. One in Canterlot.”

“And before?” She asked calmly.

I was wishing Lockheart was here. He didn’t mind playing the fool or doing the crazy stunt. Heck he lied his pants off about the Midgard story… but we came here for help. We weren’t planning on lying to her face… or at least I wasn’t.

“Boston.” I felt myself reply “It’s… far from here. We… I…”

I didn’t know what to say. Oh we aren’t from here? Your missing pony is currently being taken over by a guy I hardly know? I’m from a race that eats meat? We’re from a different reality?

“We came for help with… our situation.” Stardust forced out as she was shaking in fear.

I could only imagine how Stardust must be struggling. Two sides mixed together. Properly with this fact mixed in it was breaking her apart. Mr Stardust was in control because he said he was him. The pony was just a fake… a story that he made up. Now he doesn’t exist as the freaking ruler of Equestria knew Stardust because her parents asked for help finding her.

I could already tell this was going to cause trouble for the group in the future if it already hasn’t. Celestia nodded as she was waiting for us to answer. It felt like trying to explain to your mother what happened to that caused the damage on her car or why you screwed up on something.

“I don’t know the full story.” I admitted out loud “All I know… We know… is that three days ago we all home before we suddenly woke up in a forest with… memory issues.”

Stardust shivered after hearing those words said out loud. Memory issues. We would forget things if we used the point system. Stardust having a good chunk of his memories and then getting a pony version of them making him… or her… question who Stardust was. That left leaving Lockheart trying to learn pony skills with experimentation and no memory loss.

That lucky bastard.

Sure he was still struggling to get the hang of levitation… but he seemed just as nervous as we were expect he seemed to think that the world was out to get him if he didn’t keep his disguise on just right.

Celestia seemed to increase the intensity of her stare as she softly said “And this forest?”

“Bansewoods.” Stardust replied “But… a month? My… parents… Three days.”

She held her head as tears ran down her eyes. The pony beside Celestia looked at her in pity. Properly thinking the shock of finding out she went messing for a month finally came crashing down… But me? I saw her mind breaking down. Smashing against itself trying to figure out which was which.

“And your other friend?” Celestia said softly “The one impersonating an Alicorn.”

My body went rigged. Stardust didn’t seem to hear as the other pony in the room was starting to help escort her out of the room… leaving me alone with Celestia. The solar goddess who we just committed an act of treason just to get a little face time with her.

I smiled nervously as I knew there was no chance in hell anybody would buy it “What do you mean?”

Celestia rolled her eyes… Was she allowed to do that? I mean sure she had a less regal side, but… seriously? Eye rolling?

“The moment he saw me he panicked.” Celestia said with ease “While it was enough to impress most ponies with his disguise he forgot a minor detail.”

“I don’t understand?” as I honestly had no idea what went wrong.

She smiled “Gender. I had a good look when he stopped in midair.”

My face went red. Did Lockheart flash freaking Princess Celestia?

She chuckled as she shook her head “Not that kind. He just had a few details wrong.”

I banged my head against the table. Here I was trying to get her help and convince her that I was a decent person and I was just caught with my head in the gutter! I mean… It’s ponies! They don’t wear clothing and honestly… How does that all work? I mean the tail might cover some bits… and the armored barding helps cover a lot more even if it leaves the side of my flank bare
.
My face grew redder and I just realized that this was not the time to be thinking about it… especially as a pony in front of an essentially naked queen.

“Lord oh mighty smite me down and end this misery right now.” I muttered underneath my breath.

Celestia smiled either enjoying my torment or knowing just being a nice pony in general considering it was obvious just how stressed and confused all of us were.

“How about you start from the beginning?” She said with ease as I tried to get my mind out of places no mortal should ever tread least it sends them to the place of madness.

I sighed in defeat and started my story “Well for me at least… Right before I landed in that forest I was getting together with my friends to play a RPG.”

And of course admit a few details. Like saying your just a cartoon from where I’m from or things that might end with me in jail. Like stealing money from an NPC.

Fractured Seal

Lockheart

Pain raced across my chest as I crashed into the ground. My wings itched. My magic was starting to fritz as a tell-tale sign of green flames danced across my body switching between fur and chitin. I pushed myself off the ground trying to force order back into my body. One painful burst of green flames scorched across my body as I tried not to scream before everything went back to normal.

With a couple of deep breaths I was staring at the ground and my feet. The gray fur was back as a slip of blue hair went down in front of my eyes. One quick check at my flank to see if my fake cutie mark back in place… and my wings.

“Shit.” I muttered underneath my breath.

My coat didn’t survive the crash and more importantly… for a brief moment this form I thought was normal. I’m human. I’m not a bug and I’m sure as hell not a pony!

I sighed as I tried to push into the back of my mind to worry about latter. Right now my wings were out for the world to see and the Royal Guard just had reports of a crazed alicorn with illusion magic. Walking around with a horn and wings was practically a death sentence at this point.

I took a deep breath and muttered “Just a coat. Just will my old coat back and I’ll be good.”

I tried to will back into existence my coat as the illusion flickered over my body. It felt strange… really odd to tell the truth. I could see the coat resting over my wings… but I couldn’t feel it. Even then the illusion wasn’t my best work as it seemed… static. It didn’t move as the jacket looked like it had been starched to death. It wasn’t my best work.

One glance up at the sky and the toxic cloud gave me all the reason I needed to move my legs again before I was caught. Then I felt something odd. There was some sort of … scent? Feel? I felt… something?

It drifted in the air… the surge of emotion. More importantly it was powerful and I was running low on magic. While I didn’t want to fight I wasn’t going to let myself be captured without putting up some struggle at least. Without even thinking about it my magic latched onto it trying to suck in the brief moment of emotion to refill my reserves.

I keeled over and threw up as my body ached in pain, but didn’t let go of it. My body twisted in agony, but I felt stronger. I glanced up to take a look at my surroundings and noticed the hedge maze… Discord.

******

Discord

Another day watching the ponies walk about enjoying their little lives as I’m stuck as an overgrown lawn gnome. Worst of all those dam pigeons have returned and decide to take up rest upon me again… little winged rats.

I can’t tell which is the worst part. Being trapped in stone and awake through it all… or the pigeons.

I can’t even tell if Celestia had specifically bred these pigeons just to annoy me. If you can house train a bear not to go on the carpet than why can’t you train a pigeon to not mess around with statues!

An explosion rang out in the castle as I tried to focus on it. My mind already trying to figure out what could have made such a wonderful mess. Was it a buffalo running wild or some griffin ambassador trying to have a dual with old Celestia? Maybe somepony decided to set off a bunch of fireworks inside the castle!

Normally it would have ended there… and return back to the old boring order I was forced to endure day after day, but it didn’t stop there. If I could move I would be smiling again as the culprit burst out a window trying to escape the palace guards. With some fancy magic he pulled on a tin can releasing a burst of smoke making all the little ponies drop like flies.

Sadly like flies my little culprit crashed to the ground. Injured and so close to escaping the fun police if they hadn’t already started surrounding the hedge maze. My only moment of excitement all day was about to end until something unexpected happen. It touched me.

Discord.

The thought rang in my head, but it wasn’t mine. I’ve talked to myself long enough to recognize all the little voices I use when I’m bored, but this? This was different. This had a presence as it tugged on me.

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I watched in growing interest. My magic was touching this pony… No… it’s not a pony. It’s something else. Something wonderfully new in this boring old city.

Most of all I could feel my magic drifting out of its cage. Not taken and stuffed away in some musty old box, but dancing in the air as tiny bits kept interacting with the new creature that set them free. The fun police started to move in to stop him as I shifted the odds a little. To my pleasure an ill placed pot came crashing down on one of their heads as the other guard managed to trip on a root before crashing into his fellow guard knocking them both out.

My magic started to drift across the hedge maze letting me see past my prison. Past my cage and onto a ring side view of the chase as my magic was free. Well… not enough to make any big changes, but enough to have some fun.

If I could rub my paws I would as I prepared to have some fun I hadn’t had in ages.

******

Lockheart

I struggled forward trying to get out of the hedge maze as my body struggled in protest. It tried to stop feeding on the magic as my body kept trying to reject it… yet the emotion. The power that it held kept drawing back in to feed on. It was like taking a sip of water only for it to go down the wrong tube as I kept coughing nearly gagging on each tiny drop that fell into my body.

The craziest part of it all… was that I was just getting a drop. The magic started to hang in the air like humidity as I had trouble breathing as I glanced at one of the sides of the maze. Two guards stared at me ready to charge… until a vase came crashing down knocking one out as the other one tripped on a broken root which sent him crashing head first into a statue of Celestia.

Discord.

I rubbed my aching head and struggled to move forward. I never should have agreed to that moment of stupidity… I should have weighed the options more or simply pushed it to another day. Anything that kept me from doing that stupid stunt!

They didn’t know Princess Cadence which meant pre-show era… but what about the train? Was it real or just something to move some of us around only to disappear afterwards? What was the point of the monster attack? Sure it didn’t have a discord flare… but it did lead us to Canterlot. It lead one of his “pieces” right into the hedge garden running from guards.

Was I just being paranoid or freaking out from just how horribly screwed I was at the moment!

I stopped for a moment mostly because I started coughing badly. My coat flared changing from design to design as my body struggled to accept the next drop of chaotic energy.

Should I just let the guards capture me or continue with plan B? Was there a way to speak to Discord without breaking his cage?

I didn’t bothering asking if I could even break his cage mostly because this was Discord. He wouldn’t have made me a freaky changeling if he didn’t have a way for me to free him. Even in his madness there was a plan just waiting to be played... or that he simply forgot about like the plunder seeds and the Tree of Harmony. The only question was if it suited me better… Me playing as Discord little chess piece or testing Canterlot's jail cells.

I struggled to move forward as I muttered “Discord… Let’s talk about our deal.”

******

Discord

I tried not to laugh.

Really.

Alright it was mostly because I was physically unable to laugh, but it was just so funny to watch.

I could hear all the wards screaming out. I could feel the ponies panicking as they were rushing out to defend the castle… but it wasn’t for me. Oh no… something else was panicking. I could feel the creature racing as fast it could trying to reach the castle. I could feel it trying to set of every alarm just in hopes of stopping my new little playmate.

I moved just a small amount of magic out into the sky expanding the ugly cloud of pesticide over the hedge maze. Surely enough the little ponies flew right past my new playmate rushing off to stop what they thought was an escaping pony instead of an oncoming monster sent to stop me!

Discord

I held out my ear as I listened to what he had to say.

Let’s talk about our deal.

Deal? I never knew about this new chaotic little bundle of joy until just a few minutes ago. I twisted my magic about as I decided two could play at this little tug of war he had with me. I let him tug as I pulled letting me take a good grasp as his magic… and let me get a small look into his head.

That was when I saw it. He saw me… well somebody impersonating me. I mean really? I get set free and I start having tea parties with ponies instead of unleashing a symphony of chaos?

The memories scrabbled about in a jumbled mix so I couldn’t get a full picture, but I caught enough before it all blew away in the wind. The one who had impersonated me was now panicking since the little changeling thought he was me.

If only I could grin to show just how much fun I was going to have with this. What’s more apparently the little changeling knew what would happen if he somehow set me free. Better yet he was planning on it. A soul insane enough to release what everypony called a “mad god” just in hopes of me granting him a small boon.

I turned a few of the open paths shut blocking a few ponies from grabbing him just yet as I planned my next move. Celestia hadn’t noticed what was going on… properly stuck trying to deal with his friends or the fact all the alarms screaming were blocking any notice of the tiny sliver of magic that was being released from my prison.

I adjusted myself whishing I had my rubber ducky and some goggles before I took a dive to get a better look at the little changeling running about and to talk about 'our deal'.

******

Lockheart

I took another deep breath trying to catch my breath. My body ached in pain as it was now covered in sweat. I couldn’t tell if it felt like climbing a mountain or drowning in humidity. My horn was flaring out of control as countless illusions danced about around me as I tried to funnel out the excess magic.

Green flames danced across my body constantly now. Each one bring a searing pain as my injured body would twist in pain before being restored to normal for just a few seconds before the pain set back in again. It didn’t matter if I had stopped switching between changeling and pony forms. Right now the dance of flames would convince anyone I wasn’t a real pony. Even the very ground beneath my feet was scorched from each flaming step as I struggled to move forward.

I gasped for air “Just… Got to get out… drop off the side of the mountain… then fly until it cuts off… then I’m free.”

There had to be a limit on the range of this emotion drain ability. All I had to do was get far enough away from Discord and then it would cut off. Then I would just simply copy the form of the first idiot I saw and hide until the heat died down. Then I would be free.

“Free?” laughed a voice in my head “Free of what? Free of the guards? Free of the lies you’re still trying to weave?”

“Discord.” I spat out the name in pain.

I couldn’t tell if I was angry for the pain I was now feeling or hopeful that he was about to throw me a life line… even if it was to dangle me in front of the sharks. He played with my life in the tutorial, but he didn't strip me of my memories like the others.

I struggled with each gasping breath “Can… You send me… Back…”

“Back? Now why would I do that?” he replied as if I asked for him to stop playing with his new toy.

Come to think of it that exactly what I was doing! I felt a paw… or a claw on my shoulder as I turned around.

A Chester cat smile appeared “What do you have to go back to? Some boring old job you don’t like to pay bills you don’t want just so you try to have fun if time permits it? Personally that sounds all rather drab if you ask me.”

I pushed myself forward trying to figure out how long it would take before I hit the ground once I jumped off the edge of Canterlot and tried to see if I could fly. Any other day this would have been crazy talk… It’s kind of sad really.

“I won’t be your chess piece.” I muttered as the magic lased pain started to ease down. “So send me back home away from all this chaos.”

Discord chuckled “Send you back? Let’s take a look at it then. Best case your just one of a million souls trying to cut out a small piece of a life from themselves. You live a long life… maybe and that a big if mind you… maybe you find a nice girl. Settle down. Have a few kids and then grow old and die barely having lived the life you dreamed of.”

“And no crazy monsters.” I snapped back “No mind wipes, or struggles to lie to everybody I run into. Just a normal life.”

“How about this? You do me one little favor and I’ll give you want you always wanted.” He whispered in my ear.

“A new bike?”I joked back to the insane monster nearby “Sorry but four hooves kind of makes that difficult.”

“Immortality.” Rang the words at me side making me stop as Discord continued his speech “That’s what you want. What you wish for each night. That little thing you whisper to yourself before you go to sleep, but know you may never get. Would you rather be stuck as a little pony with that gift here… or back home without it?”

I could feel myself sweating not from the heat or the oppressive magic in the air. I could hear him chuckling as he knew I was listening with all ears.

“This was the worst part about Discord.” I muttered to myself “He is a fantastic liar.”

“I prefer to call it a creative truth.” The smug bastard replied not even denying it “All I want is for you…”

I could hear him pause just building up the tension. Just getting ready to say ‘free me and I shall grant it to you’… and then turn me into a stone statue shortly afterwards.

“To take an element of harmony.” He finished to my surprise.

“What?” I blurted out loud.

My menu snapped open as a small digital Discord appeared. A Quest icon opened up revealing the six elements of Harmony with two dancing Discords near the accept button. The reward… immortality.

“What’s the catch.” I replied with unease as I kept moving forward.

For some reason the pain had stopped flooding my body… or my brain just cut it off. Maybe Discord fixed it just so I could focus on his crazy deal. This was Discord and while I may not know a lot about him before cannon... He tended to have a twisted sense of humor.

All I had to do was keep him talking while I tried to escape this crazy place.

“Getting it.” Discord replied as if it was obvious “I promise as your fellow companion of chaos that when you have one of the Elements of Harmony in your grasp you shall be given Immortality… the live long bit like Loony and Sunny or yours truly. Personally I’d suggest the Element of Honesty since it fits you so well.”

Grab an element. Keep hold of it. Heck I was already planning on visiting the old castle next… I nearly hit myself in the face with my hoof in an attempt to face palm as I wondered if I was really that stupid. My plan was to hide and more importantly this is Discord! There is something obvious I’m missing here.

Then a small part of my mind whispered back “Element of harmony gone and he can’t be sealed back again. That’s the catch isn’t it? Besides… would it hurt to give it a shot?”

I glanced at the icon feeling my greed rising as I slowly replied “And why are you picking me over everyone else for this… gift.”

Discord chuckled “If you feel that nervous how about this? We shake on it? You’ll see why I like you in a moment.”

He disappeared as I looked around. A group of Canterlot guards stood at the edge of the maze. Spears pointed and blocking my escape plan. They had cuffs ready and spears drawn as my chaotic bursts of green fire danced across my body. In a normal situation this would have worked and I would have been dragged into some deep dark jail cell.

“Shit.” I shouted

A sane person wouldn’t tempt fate.

“Shit, fuck, Holy Christ. Crap oh Crap oh Holy Shit!” I sang out loud to their confusion.

The storm clouds rumbled as I could hear something roar in the distance making them all turn their heads at the roar behind them as I smiled like a mad man as I activated my cursing curse.

“Fucking bastard pegged me now as a dragon wants to skull rape me now!” I shouted running back into the maze before the curse lashed out as I continued to swear with each step I took until the guard ponies were gone.

Hopefully Celestia can clean up my mess.

******

Valkyrie

“and now we’re here.” I finally finished.

It wasn’t easy telling the whole story without sounding insane. Nor was it easy omitting certain details or making believable lies… which thankfully the lying part wasn’t needed that much.

Mostly I kept to the story and… didn’t mention the specifics of each person’s issues. She saw Lockheart’s disguise was flawed… so I could skip the alicorn bit. Stardust wasn’t in the room so I didn’t have to play which side I trusted… since one’s human and the other is apparently a missing citizen that Celestia herself had noticed.

I do not want to be the person/pony who says “We are the body snatchers from Pluto 9!” like some bad sci-fi plot. I also did not want to step into the messy second guessing bit were I wonder if I’m a human in a stolen pony body or if I was never human in the first place.

Celestia was… she was rather calm as she listened to everything without butting in… and didn’t pressure me into saying anything. Of course that didn’t exactly mean she believed me.

“That’s quite a tale.” She calmly replied.

I couldn’t help but shake nervously. This was the big moment. This is where she would either say “Yes I believe you and I’ll send you home!” or “No you’re a crazy pony so off to the dungeon!” which would happen back home if I told this story. Those are my two fates.

The castle seemed to shake as the doors flew opened. Guards were rushing out as ponies in charge started shouting orders. Celestia’s calm presence disappeared to one of doubt. I gulped as I just remembered that Lockheart was still running around.

Please don’t say they caught him. Please don’t say…

“There’s a monster in the hedge maze!” shouted a pony.

I gulped rather loudly or it felt loud in the back of my head. Celestia moved forth out of the room as I tried to run to keep up with her. First instinct was apologize or try to help get Lockheart off the hook. Already I tried to picture the worst case scenario. Celestia already out the castle I looked over the hedge maze in new found confusion.

The maze was a chaotic mess. More so than it possibly should be as a white cloud hovered right on top of the entire maze. A few things moved about in the maze… big things as quills would just break the surface of the cloud before submerging again like sharks. Vines shot out grabbing pegasi and dragging them down into the maze unless another pony cut the vines freeing them. Some parts of the maze were on fire… or erupting like a volcano as bits of flaming rock shot out into the air before crashing back down into the maze.

“Discord.” I whispered in horror.

“What?” a pony guard nearby asked out loud.

I shook my head “What’s going on down there?”

Discord. Worst case scenario. Half a dozen guards chasing a crazed pony through a hedge maze… No don’t think that. There could be a reason for random chaos flying about… like countless swears being shouted into the air.

“I’d be more concerned with up there!” the pony shouted

I looked up as my throat went dry. A large cloud of darkness was crashing against a large shield barrier. My first thought was Sombra until I saw the one large massive eye open up as the thin black slit looked more like a lizard eye than a human’s. A red beam of magic shot out of the large eye tearing through the shield spell before it tore apart the ground beneath the unicorns. The darkness didn't even pause for a second as it moved towards the hedge maze.

Most of the ponies were rushing towards the darkness yet Celestia wasn’t in sight… I glanced back down at the hedge maze when a whimsical laugh danced throughout the air. Canterlot was not a good place to be today!

The guard pony shouted “I’m sorry, but we are going to need every set of wings we can get against that thing until the princess is ready!”

“Sorry!” I shouted jumping head first towards the maze “What’s in the maze needs to be taken care of first!”

No elements. No Candace. No Mane Six. There was just one princess and a bunch of frightened ponies and former humans trying to figure out what was going on. The last thing we need is Discord running free right now!

The cloud covering the maze burned my eyes as I came crashing to the ground. Fudge pudding covered my body as I pulled myself out of the sugary mess only to see just how much had changed inside the maze. The hedge walls were still made out of plants… but it looked more like Ponyville during Discord’s reign as even the dimensions seemed to be off… because I doubt the plants were twenty stories tall outside the maze.

Even then creatures walked about. Not the funny chaotic bits like tall legged rabbits or dancing buffalos. No… These were creepy monsters. Walking stick giants on two legs with two arms crafted out of jagged tree branches as flames danced underneath their feet. Giant pitcher plants with long vines shooting out into the sky trying to drag down ponies into it’s mouth. It looked like the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Book was dumped in here.

The air crackled about as magic seemed to clash. Half of it funny and “happy” while the other venomous and brooding.

“Wark!” shouted a voice behind me.

I jumped back only to see what looked like the “Dragon costume” Rarity, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash used in the dragon migration story… except alive. It wagged its tail happily as it walked past me before lunging at the first creepy monster. Soon more Discord brand madness began appearing fighting the creepy variant monster pack as I stepped back.

“What the hell is going on here?” I couldn’t help but shout.

I felt the air crackle as my small swear just did something bad. I could feel the curse starting to take effect as soon every monster would suddenly want to attack me or something!

“Now what are you?” Discord’s whimsical voice floated past my ear “You look like a pony. Walk like a pony, but you’re certainly not a pony.”

I chuckled nervously “Oh sh…” I bit my lip before I could finish.

Last thing I needed was to summon Cthulhu to this mix. Discord seemed to chuckle at my near miss as I tried to think of something to say.

“Uh… Discord?” I asked out lout “Any chase you could… show me the way?”

“You mean the way out?” a large sign with the exit blinking in neon light appeared pointing at an opening in the maze “Or the way to me?”

I tried to smile “To you… since Celestia is in here and…”

“Big creepy monster that sent you here is coming to town to spoil my fun?” He replied before I could finish.

The words died in my mouth. The thing that sent us to Equestria was outside... or did he mean sending me into the maze? The need to see Princess Celestia grew as I needed to either get her help to stop it so I could go back home… or make sure she isn’t whisked away or something.

The ground shook as a marble stair case rose above the hedge maze, but just under the cloud cover as Discord’s voice rang out “Just take the stairs and maybe you’ll get here before the other party guests arrive.”

I took one step towards the stair case “And the catch? I mean… you’re not going to play some trick on me while I’m on this thing?”

Discord chuckled as he whispered into my ear “Who says you’re the one I want to trick for my grand return?” Discord’s laughter rang in the air “All you need to do is simply get up on the staircase and... enjoy the show while I set up the board.”

I bolted up the staircase as fear surged through my body. Discord was planning to do something to someone. Alright that means Lockheart is in trouble… or is Discord leading the black smoke monster to “banish” Celestia or something… or is Discord trying to distract Celestia from the black smoke monster that’s attacking Canterlot?

Now Discord was floating beside me… but transparent and shuffling a deck of cards in his hands with a poker outfit.

Discord tossed cards in front of my face “But I’ll admit that this is quite fun. Watching everypony running about trying to figure it all out. Since your all by your lonesome I’ll give you a few freebees.”

One of the cards stopped and revealed me… human me. It was unsettling to see Discord showing me my real face as the freckled face stared back at me like a mirror.

“First we have the “players” for a lack of a better term.” He replied as another card flew out “But of course you’re all placed in Equestria… No not ahem… the one you know, but it’s close enough.”

“Before Luna’s return.” I snapped back

Discord smiled “Her return… so that means after Loony’s return I get set free.” He stretched his arms and snapped his finger as an alarm clock appeared along with spotted pajamas “I’ll have to set an alarm clock so I’m ready for that big event.”

I stared at him in confusion “What? You…”

“Didn’t know until now?” He interrupted “Just because I have a rather impressive bag of tricks doesn’t mean I know everything which would be rather boring come to think of it. Any other tidbits you want to exchange future girl?”

I kept my mouth shut. I had no idea what was going on and apparently the stairs were still spiraling upwards. I stopped only for Discord to snap his fingers turning the staircase into an escalator moving me forward anyway.

“Back to the game at hand.” He smugly replied with a smirk on his face “Next we have the villains. Which let’s face it also includes your lot.” I opened my mouth “Can you honestly say everyone is going to play fairly… or not freak out or run into difficulties with their new problems like little Stardust back at the Castle?”

Another card spun out in front of me. On the right was a human reaching for the planet earth as he was trying to drag a pony with him. On the left side was a pony stretching out for Canterlot as she had a hoof around the human’s stomach trying to drag him towards Canterlot. The pony didn't look like Stardust, but it was properly safe to say that Stardust wasn't the only one with his/her problem.

“Not everyone wants to go home. Not everyone wants to stay. Naturally there is going to be some “management issues” so to speak.” He said out loud as he did air quotes with his fingers “And if we take technological or sociological differences some may want to try their hand at making a better Equestria… or making Equestria their kingdom.”

I shook my head trying to focus on the current issue “And what about you? Why are you helping me or even explaining this all to me?”

He pointed down back at the hedge maze I was now above “Why because it will make this game more fun! I know the rules and you don’t. The powers that cursed you all let you speak to me when you’re nearby.” He grinned revealing all his teeth “And watching you having to explain it all is going to be worth it. I’m not going to do anything little pony. It’s you and your friends that are going to do it for me.”

With a wave of his hand I now saw the forest I had left behind as pictures appeared. Diamond dogs and griffins smiling as name tags danced above their heads as a cart was burning and ponies lay dead around them.

Another picture revealed a group of ponies with name tags dancing above their heads laughing in joy as they raced out of a dragon’s cave as bits of gold fell out of their bloated saddle bags.

Four ponies with name tags were defending a group of ponies from a manticore as another picture showed a griffin and diamond dog with name tags drawing up designs for an airplane to a group of ponies.

“There are good souls. There are bad souls. And then there are just souls making a difference.” Discord’s voice sang out “The only question is how long until you each start bucking each other when your goals clash.”

My menu popped open as a new quest just appeared. Two dancing discords rested beside the Yes and No buttons.

The quest read Introducing Humanity. Because let’s face it. Somebody has to. Quest rewards new spoofy team base!

I blinked “This is your plan?”

He simply shrugged “Why not? How many people do you think will try to free me if they think I can send them back home?”

My stomach lurched as I suddenly had visions of Players setting siege to Canterlot trying to reach Discord’s statue to free him so they could go home. I could already hear a few of them coming up with reasons for their actions.

It’s not real. It’s not our home. It won’t matter since they can seal him back up with the elements of harmony. Didn’t that fluttershy episode prove he was just a big softy? It's a lot easier than doing the light side quest to send us home.

A female voice you tend to hear for movie flight attendants said “You shall be arriving at Discord’s Statue soon. Please keep your wings and legs inside the ride while you think about your lovely future. Have fun!”

Break—

Discord

You sometimes you never realize how much you missing the little things like drumming one’s fingers against your own arm… or on something partially sturdy. This was the part I always hated. The waiting.

I had fun setting up all the pieces and get everyone to their little spots. Celly was saving her little ponies from the small bouts of chaos flaring here and there. Little miss Boston was struggling with her new information and what to share and what she wouldn't share with Celly. The boring “monster” was rushing towards ready to stop my “fiendish plan” or whatever it was thinking.

Heck I even let a few things fall out of my control… not that I couldn’t change them mind you. Mostly it was because it would give me a small chuckle or possibly even surprise me if they did something unexpected. Life tended to get dull when you knew everything that would happen and after twenty two years of watching that grounds keeper of an old stallion trim the same spots at the same time and the same say for the last twenty two years!

If I could move my hands then I would have nearly ripping out all of my own hair if not introduction a well-deserved load of chaos on that annoying pony! Honestly it was a shame this was his day off as I had plenty of things that I could have done to him to make things interesting for him.

But such is the way of life. At least the local pigeon population got their just rewards.

The clatter of hooves came before me as I focused on the first player of my little game. Lockheart was having a hard time breathing. His magic kept flaring about as the green flames kept dancing across his body creating new changes as he kept shifting form. His horn flared sporadically creating fresh burst of chaos like a unicorn’s magic that just went out of control.

I almost felt a tear came to my eyes when I heard the twisted melody of chaos ring from the little changeling’s mouth. Green flames sparked out of his mouth like a dragon breathing fire. Each burst of flames came with each curse word he sang out into the air as the original words had long since been twisted into some form of black speech altering the very world around him as various flowers and plants bloomed from the hedge maze in a veritable mess. He glanced up at my stony prison ending his sweet melody of chaos.

“Discord.” He spoke with uncertainty.

I grinned or tried to at least “Lockheart.” It's nice to know we are now on a first name bases.

Lockheart was the first to arrive and apparently not the same pony he was before he entered. Already the chaotic mingle of my own magic and whatever magic Lockheart had rested in his body as the two forces kept shifting about restlessly, but stable. One would think that it would be enough… yet his horn kept trying to suck in the magic around it unable to stop. Each step he took was in obvious pain, but it was pain he had learned to block out.

Or his body forgot to put back in his nervous system to let him feel the pain he should be experiencing.

Lockheart gritted his teeth as he stared at the stone prison that held me and spoke out loud “Clarify… Immortality… the whole deal… not skipping on the important… part.”

“Like I said before. The same deal Celestia has.” I hummed only for Lockheart to glare for a few second before causing him to sigh “You will live for as long as you are alive. You won’t age but you’ll die if a sword goes through your head… and if Sun Butt whips out the Elements of Harmony… You’ll either go poof, or I’ll have a new roommate in this garden.”

Lockheart grinned “Long life… no disease or… tricks?”

If I could have rolled my eyes I would have. Seriously what is up with all these “sort of immortality” deals? What fun is stuffing someone’s brain in a fish bowl or turning them into a statue? Sure it might be good for a few laughs, but then it just gets so boring. I mean without that little kick of life and chaos then what’s the point of doing it?

Apparently Lockheart liked crossing his T’s and dotting his I’s… It was almost as if he didn’t trust me? Maybe I should give him that old “friendship” speech about trust? Celestia certainly harped on it enough over the years for me to repeat it with my eyes closed.

Lockheart frowned “I’d rather…. make sure we are both…. on the same page… if I’m to play the game… I want to make sure… I pick the side I like.”

I felt like shrugging “And pray tell what happens when our little partnership has ended?”

Lockheart chuckled “Then I’ll properly be dead.” He coughed “Still… you’ll think of something… or you’ll already be free… by then.” He steeped closer “Better question… is what will you do once your need… for me has ended.”

“You think I’ll be the one to betray you?” I said in disbelief.

Really? Ponies tended to give up much too quickly. Sure I had plans… but thinking that I would be the one to call it off was laughable. Besides that little bit about the world on a sea turtle’s back and the board game seemed a bit interesting to try out one day. Lockheart even gave the okay for me to use him as a game piece!

Lockheart continued to stare apparently waiting for my response. Next thing you’ll know he’ll be checking to see if I try to steal his soul or take the last piece of cake when he wasn’t looking. I knew I never should have never done that to Celestia.

Oh she goes on and on about protecting her little ponies, but between you and me. I think she carried a grudge about the whole disappearing cake curse I put on her. It was so much fun watching her trying to counter that curse right up until she got all uppity and pulled out the Elements of Harmony.

How was I supposed to know she couldn’t take a joke? Oh Locky is still waiting for an answer!

“I guess we will just have to see how this goes.” I replied “Still it will be fun seeing what you’ll actually do instead of what you would think you would do.” A new sound of hooves came closer “Though I should warn you that I have company arriving.”

Lockheart glanced at the open paw and back at where Celestia was going to arrive.

“Want to shake on it then?”

Break—

Overkill

I saw the fire approaching the end of my “ride” Discord gave me. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but sitting here wasn’t going to help. I pushed out all the complicated questions and focused on the task ahead.

Find Lockheart. Save the Princess. Stop evil Monster. Figure the rest out latter.

I jumped down opening up my wings. I flew forward scanning the maze for any hints of white. Surely enough I found Princess Celestia as she was freeing the last of her ponies from some twisted chaos spawned nightmare.

Seriously… This one looked like it came from Warhammer instead of Equestria. Twisted limbs and tendrils tearing through anything it ran into. Like a demon of old. Dark magic flared out of its twisted body as Celestia fought to protect her rescued ponies and slayed the vile demon with a blast of holy magic.

I landed on the ground only for her to turn to me and say “What are you doing here?”

“Left, right left! Then you’ll be at the center of the maze!” I shouted “Something is burning its way through the maze trying to get there!”

Celestia’s eyes widened as she raced forth. I chased after her feeling guilty. Discord’s little talk made me feel nervous being near Celestia. That I was somehow betraying her… which was silly. Yet I was feeling nervous… scared even. Just a few days ago I was with my friends and family… now I’m stuck here and something is happening.

Stardust… I don’t know enough about her to help… or even if I should? The male side I don’t know… and the female side has a family here. Was it right to tear her away from her family? Was the male side to be trusted and even if he was… how long would he last with the conflicting personality?

Lockheart? I sent him on this crazy goose chase only for him to risk his life in this crazy maze. What happens when he’s caught by Celestia? Would the sudden emergence of a new alicorn make her happy… or make her wonder if we were trying to undermine her or something. Even then I could feel it in my gut that this whole mess was his fault.

Discord wasn’t freed until after Twilight and her friends had the elements of harmony. Just what did Lockheart do to cause this?

Discord said he didn't send us here and that someone else did, but If he didn’t cause this… then who did? Why did I even think Discord was the direct cause of this mess? Discord didn’t seem like an evil mastermind. More like the dog who kept chasing cars… then again the Joker said that line and he turned Gotham city into a mad house.

I was so caught up in my own thoughts I bumped right into Celestia without even noticing. I quickly moved back in embarrassment for a moment before staring in dumb founded fear. This wasn’t the same type of fear of something you saw that looked frightening. This was something deeper.

It tugged at your very soul drowning you in terror making you unable to act. The oppressive weight whispering in your ears tell you that the end was near. That it was useless to resist as you were already dead. The other ponies behind me fell back or simply collapsed. None of them went past me to protect their Princess.

Celestia the only one unaffected shouted “STOP THIS AT ONCE!”

The ground shook from her very voice as the plants in front of her bent over or snapped at the sheer power of her voice. It helped snapped me out of the mind-numbing terror that had trapped me. I stood in defiance against the black smoke monster. In its wispy grasp was Discord frozen in stone. It stared at us all for just a moment before flying straight up into the sky.

Before Celestia could take flight countless spells flew forth from its body as they all came crashing down upon us. Celestia stood ready as a shield spell flared to life protecting us from the deadly assault as the smoke creature left. She opened her wings only for a pained cough to catch her attention as I turned to see it.

Green flames danced around the area revealing Lockheart… bleeding. His body was in poor condition as he smiled. Beside him was a statue of Discord. I stared at the statue in horror as a single crack rested on it’s right hand.

It wasn’t breaking apart, but the jagged crack wasn’t magically fixed. Did this mean Discord’s seal was starting to weaken? Was he going to burst right out or did the crack simply shave of a bit of time before he breaks free again?

“How long until you think it finds out the statue is a fake?” He whispered in pain.

I blinked “How?”

Shouldn’t we be more worried about the freaking god of chaos breaking free? than what smoky the creepy monster is going to do when he finds out he has a fake?

Lockheart chuckled as he apparently misunderstood my question “I “Fixed” a statue nearby…”

He coughed as green eldritch flames flew out of his mouth as he fell to one knee. He started coughing as blood hit the ground. I tried to rush over to him only for Celestia to block me with one of her rather large angel like wings as I was forced to watch him cough up more blood. She stared at him as he tried to smile before he finally collapsed.

Celestia spoke out loud “Get him to an infirmary, but don’t touch him directly.”

The other ponies gave Lockheart a wide birth as their unicorn magic levitated him up.

I shouted “What’s going on?”

Thoughts raced through my mind. It was all my fault. I decided to make a big chaotic mess just to get some face time with Celestia only to end up screwing over everyone around me! Stardust is having an identity crises while Lockheart nearly died! Coughing up blood isn’t a good sign of a health! Neither is coughing up green eldritch flames!

Celestia looked at me grimly “Your friend… is sick.” I glanced back at Discord’s prison. The same prison with a crack holding the reality warping monster that played without lives. “And I would like to know why a creature was after a statue in my garden?”

My blood ran cold as I realized the truth. Lockheart knew Discord wasn’t a statue. Celestia wanted to know how he knew about it. This wasn’t a screw up or a question about his early actions. Celestia wanted to know what he knew. Celestia didn’t know I also knew Discord was more than just a statue!

“So what you will say?” Discord words whispered into my ears mocking me.

I didn’t know if it was a figment of my imagination or if Discord actually said it. Either way Celestia didn’t hear it… or thought it was directed at her instead.

I whispered “Can you promise me he’ll be… alright?”

How do you ask someone like Celestia not to be too rough on an interrogation? Did they even have those in Equestria? The land always looked so peaceful… but what did they do to the really bad criminals when they didn’t have the Elements of Harmony on hand? What did they do to find out information they needed? Did they simply cast a truth spell or something?

"What would they do to me?" Rang the question in the back of my mind.

Celestia gave me a soft smile “We will do our best.”

It wasn’t an answer. It was a deflection.

“Just…” I didn’t know what to say. “Just let me know… when he’s alright.”

I hung my head in defeat… in sorrow. I just left Lockheart… the one I sent into this stupid mess… the one who was worried about everything. I just let him go without a fight and under Celestia’s lock and key.

Celestia glanced back at Lockheart “I’ll see what I can do to help you and Stardust find a place to rest for the mean time.”

I just sold him out for a bed and a hot meal. Discord’s message wasn’t asking who I was about to save… it was asking who I was going to betray. The others left with Lockheart in their grasp. I looked back at Discord. His frozen stone form being lifted up in Celestia magic practically laughing at me before he was carried back into the castle… some place to be hidden since something tried to capture him.

I walked back to the castle… trying to figure out what I would do next.

Author's Note

New chapter up.

Just leave any thoughts, comments, questions, or spelling mistakes that had been missed.

Oh and one questions for the audience. Would you risk releasing Discord before MLP cannon if there might have been a chance for him to send you back home or grant you one free wish?

Look from the Other Side

Lockheart

Dreams… I never dreamed much before… or remembered them. One of the two… and now I’m in Equestria.

I slowly got up as I stared at the hallway of mirrors. I couldn’t place a finger on why I knew it was a dream… but I could just tell it was. Glancing into the mirrors I could see myself… versions of myself to be exact. The changeling form stood right next to both of my alicorn disguises as I could see them glaring back at me in hatred.

I turned my back on the mirrors only to see another mirror holding my human form… except the mirror was cracked as the image was distorted as if someone took a really bad picture and left it out in the sun to long. The cracks in the mirror didn't help either.

I looked at my own body tired of this game and strangely enough I couldn’t see it as some sort of darkness covered it. I rolled my eyes at the less than subtle meaning that didn’t make much sense to me. Either it meant the darkness in my own heart, the darkness from what ever brought me giving me my villain package… or the standard “humans are jerk” bit since I’m in the land of magically happy ponies who have friendship solve all their problems.

"He he he he." A voice chuckled down the hallway as bubbles drifted towards me.

With my cynicism intact and without much else to do I walked down the hallway of mirrors to find the brat. I hated the hallway of mirrors as each one showed a different version of me. Diamond dog, bat pony, dragon… if you could name it then it was in the hallway as all of the mirrors were intact, but the human one.

“So what is this?” I said out loud to either myself or for the dream itself “Some hidden insight or question about my own being? Some subtle play that is supposed to make me ask who I am or what I’ve done?”

Walking down the hallway as I really didn’t give a dam. I was alive and I was still me so what else really mattered? I was already turned into a bug who pretended to be a horse when I used to be a human. At this point I'm happy I still have my sanity intact as all of my memories were still mine.

More bubbles started to appear in the hallway as I walked through them. The sound of a child's chuckling voice grew along with my anger. Was this another game? Another cruel prank with some twisted or pointless reason other than to give someone a few laughs?

A new mirror now stood in front of me showing me… the place I lived in… the life I had just a few days ago. The computer was left on as the screen just showed some sort of bad static. The room was empty as no one seemed to have checked on my disappearance... or had anything happened since I was gone? Heck that old monster show with the summer camp had them spend months in another world only have gone missing for just a few hours or possibly a single day?

I tried to calm myself down "I could still go back home."

“Why would you ever want to go back?” Whispered Discord’s voice “Just one soul out of countless millions each struggling for their own slice of life, but here… you could have immortality.”

The mirror beside it showed me stuck as a my pain in the butt gray alicorn disguise, but the mirror me was grinning as I blew out the candles that were shaped into the number two hundred and I’ll admit… the offer was tempting.

A third mirror appeared as I glared back at it in hatred. I stood in front of six ponies as each of them had a cutie mark as I stood against them beaten and battered in my changeling form hissing. The six Elements of Harmony rose above their heads as the broken pieces started to spin and reform just like they did during the season one two part episode.

The stallion with a cutie mark of a flaming shield said “I’m sorry it has to be this way, but it our only way home.”

The changeling version of me spat at the ground and hissed I hatred “Fuck You Maxwell.”

The Elements of Harmony created their killer rainbow of doom as it crashed into the changeling version of me before he exploded. I wasn’t turned to stone or sealed onto something leaving some obscure mark on the ground or something. instead I just blew up like Sombra in the Crystal Empire. I smashed my fist/hoof into the mirror breaking it.

“I’ll skip that future.” I bitterly replied.

Dying wasn’t in my plan… even if I was a given a villain card.

The mirror shattered as a small filly on some pink plush animal looked up at me. The vanilla coat filly yawned as her wings stretched out. Her… purple… light purple… wisteria mane had a small horn popping out of it as a cutie mark of an old digital error sign was on her flank. One of those red triangles with an exclamation mark inside it.

Her eyes opened up revealing blue eyes filled with joy as she stared at me and said in a voice filled with innocence “Hi Mister Glitch!”

I just stared at her “What?”

She hopped down from her large plush animal and stood in front of me as she barely came up to my chin “My name is Erroria.”

******

Celestia

Celestia walked down the stairs as the cold stone floor echoed every hoof steps. Not a single speck of light was allowed down in this area and a part of me hated what I was doing right now. The dungeons of Canterlot Castle hadn’t been used since… honestly she couldn’t remember the last time it had been officially used. The last time she had came down to the dungeons was for a surprise birthday party for somepony sixty years ago.

If anything it was more like an old attic or basement than an actual dungeon. The fact that it was being used to detain a pony bothered her, but it had to be done. The prisoner knew about Discord and more importantly he knew that the monster that attacked Canterlot was going after Discord.

“Princess Celestia!” shouted one of the guards snapping to attention.

Celestia give one of her practiced smiles at the mare as her over enthusiastic shout echoed throughout the room. The mare blushed in embarrassment at her own outburst. Then again this was probably the most exciting thing she had done all year. Guarding the dungeon was mostly cleaning it out and using it as storage from time to time. Most new recruits were giving the job to teach them patience… or to punish a troublemaker by having them stand around all day doing nothing.

Celestia spoke calmly trying not to raise my voice “How… is he.”

She didn’t feel like calling him a prisoner… but the sad fact was he was a prisoner until we had a better idea on who he was. It was properly also safe to say he was the very same pony who caused this morning’s incident as the crazed pink alicorn so he wasn’t completely innocent.

The guard scuffed her hoof across the ground and shivered “Freaky… I mean! It’s… well freaky. The cell is burnt. It changed the items inside… but it hasn’t woken up.”

Celestia couldn’t help but sigh in sorrow. Just how bad must they think the strange pony be to not even call him a pony? Instead they called him an it just because he was placed in a cell until they had a better idea what to do.

Walking over to the cell and Celestia paused for a moment as she couldn’t believe what was happening. Green flames danced across the pony’s body that was locked in the jail cell. A few would spark off hitting the surrounding cell transforming it. The stone wall now had random sections keeping the overall design… but different parts.

Candy Cane bars rested right beside golden and steel bars. The scent of gingerbread came from a section of the wall as another green spark struck a brick turning it into water as it came splashing down onto the ground. The strangest part was that the pony’s body was affected from each green flame that raced across the body. If anything it… he looked like an offspring of Discord himself than an actual pony. The worst part of it all was that his body twitched in pain as Celestia could feel the traces of Discord’s chaotic magic mixed with his own strange brand.

She focused on the spells she would need to protect myself and tried to wake up the prisoner. Already the four guards in the dungeon crept closer to her. Either they were a bit to egger to do their job or they simply watch out of sheer curiously.

The strange pony jumped up in shock and then stared at me in fear. He had the same eyes from the fake alicorn that fled from the royal guards yesterday. Celestia focused on the next part as she cast the next spell. It was a complicated spell that was meant to help restore the intended target back to their original form. One spell that was made during Discord reign over Equestria before Celestia and her sister found the Elements of Harmony and finally put a stop to his madness and turning him into stone.

The magic struck the strange pony as he closed his eyes. Then to her own horror she could hear the bones readjusting themselves as each crack made the ponies winch in pain. This was the first clue that something was very wrong. Just like a species copy spell or a wing spell it should have been over in an instant.

The spell shouldn’t have caused so much pain as the strange pony was trying to scream in pain only for his voice to be lost during the transformation. Various parts of his body shifted back into a pony form before one final burst of green fire consumed him.

Celestia covered her eyes for a brief moment before staring at the new creature in front of her. It wasn’t a pony. The black caprice now stood instead of the soft coat of fur he should have had. Holes adorned his legs, but if they were natural or made from some previous injury she did not know. Two bug like wings rested across his side like a pegasus's wings, but he had a sharp jagged horn like a unicorn resting on top of his head. The only thing similar to a pony was the green mane and tail that rested on his body. Celestia could help but stare as she had never seen a creature like him before. The guards who were watching him now backed away in fear as the creature’s new green eyes stared back at first in confusion, but quickly switched to hatred.

He hissed “What did you do to me?”

The guards now held out their spears in fear as the creature’s sharp teeth was bared at them. Celestia could feel the hatred being cast off it.

She shook her head. Him. She could feel the hatred being cast off him.

Celestia spoke trying not to show any emotion “Who are you?”

He hissed “Don’t you mean what am I?" each word grew more acidic with each passing second. "What freak of nature stands before you?” He started growling “How will you kill me?”

Each word seemed to echo in her head as Celestia was about to say something until one of the guards shouted “Go back to Tartarus demon bug!”

She glanced back at the guards and then at the creature’s horn. It glowed, but it wasn’t casting any magic. Instead she could feel the now subtly pull as it tried to draw everything in. The guards radiated fear and hatred and he was growing more furious with each passing second.

“Leave us.” Celestia spoke out loud.

One of the guards shouted “But Princess!”

She smiled honestly now “I can take care of this. Please don’t speak about what you have seen… and try to get the doctors in here. Apparently our new guest still is suffering from the magic from the maze.” She sighed loudly for them all to hear “Apparently I might be a little rusty at the spell so you may want to grab some of the old book from the library. Tell Overdue I’ll need the ones in the far back. He’ll understand.”

The ponies left as the creature... as he stood before her and stared at her in confusion. As soon as it was just the two of them he suddenly became a lot less hostile and more… confused and frightened. If his body language was anything close to a pony’s then he would have just “deflated” as he seemed to be smaller than before.

With one last spell cast on herself Celestia replied “Are you alright?”

“uh…” His personality seemed to suddenly change “What just happened?”

She smiled as she let her curiosity and positive emotions run wild “That’s what I would like to know starting with your name.”

He rubbed the back of his head with as he chuckled nervously “Lockheart…”

His horn still flickered yet he was more at ease than she would have expected a normal pony to be. Of course she was starting to get a feel for what was happening. He seemed to be copying her state of mind… or he had some sort of empathic connection to those around him as he seemed to relax as if nothing was strange about his situation. Celestia actually felt a little guilty casting the spell to enhance the emotions she was casting off to get him like this.

Lockheart glanced at the floor in guilt “Please don’t tell me I accidently made you lose some precious statue. I just grabbed the first one I could find.”

Celestia chuckled more to help ease the mood, but mostly to try to remove the guilt from her own mind as she replied “I’m just happy that whatever that creature was it didn’t get what it was looking for.”

She made a mental note to keep her own emotions in check. If he suddenly felt guilty over a small moment of guilt like that… than who knows how much of his personality was being affected by the very emotions floating about in the room. Surely enough he chuckled in the same exact way she did as he had switched for painful guilt to happy laughter.

She took a deep breath trying to focus on trying to trust him “So Lockheart. Why are you here?”

“To get help.” He spoke right away and blinked “I mean… lost in the woods. Suddenly stripped away from home. Not much to tell.”

He glanced away from her as she could tell he hadn’t mean to say all of it. Was he naturally empathic or was this a side effect from Discord? What kind of creature was he? Did he have the same abilities like a unicorn or pegasi or did his race have their own “spin” on it like the difference between a pegasi and a griffin.

Celestia decided to go further “Is this your natural form?”

His body stiffened for a moment before shaking… or shivering in disgust. Right away the green flames danced across his body consuming his previous form before replacing it with a new one. The black chitin body was now replaced with dark fur. The insect wings were now pegasi wings as the horn… it instead of a regular unicorn’s horn it resembled the previously jagged chipped horn. His green eyes and hair remained the same, but they now had a more pony like quality but still somehow retrain it’s otherworldly look, but most of all his teeth seemed to have stayed the same leaving him a set of sharp teeth instead of the normal flat pony teeth.

Instantly Lockheart's demeanor changed as he snapped back “Of course not! I’m just skilled with magic and illusions. Tried a few alterations under my belt… I mean just look at me. I’m not exactly normal.”

He grinned revealing his sharp pointed teeth that ha more of a predatory smile than the gentle smile her ponies carried. His horn stopped glowing as he seemed more in control of himself than he was before. More importantly Celestia could tell he was lying or holding something back. Celestia focused on the spell again trying to put out more trust and more emotions to help “calm” him down.

This time Lockheart stared at her as a hint of malice filled his voice “What are you doing?”

Before she could answer the guards from before came running down shouting “Seriously it’s the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen!”

The four prison guards along with four more royal guards members and two doctors came rushing down all with weapons ready only to stop when they saw Celestia and Lockheart’s new form. He face hoofed and muttered in annoyance as she cut off her spell. Honestly she wasn’t expecting them back so soon.

Celestia smiled “Personally I would have called him unique.”

“Ha. Ha.” Lockheart replied bitterly “It’s not every day you see an grown idiot without a cutie mark.”

The guards stared at him in confusion. Surely enough his flank was bare as he actually seemed annoyed that they would comment on it. The royal guards shook their heads in a combination of annoyance and embarrassment while the prison guards tried to explain what they had seen.

Celestia decided to keep the information contained for now “I have managed to remove most of the foreign magic that’s altered his form, but a second opinion wouldn’t hurt.”

Now the prison guards looked guilty as one of the royal guard pony opened up the cell. Lockheart sighed as he let the two unicorn doctors poke and prod him checking for any signs of injury or for anything out of the ordinary. Celestia couldn’t help but watch both in concern that they would find out he’s different… or that they wouldn’t notice.

Something was off about him. Even if the current form was his "natural" form it was different from most ponies she had seen before.

His wings snapped back as he shouted “Ow! Warn me next time!”

“Sorry.” The unicorn muttered as she inspected the feather she plucked straight out of his wing.

The fact it didn’t fall apart or transform into something else meant the feather wasn’t part of an illusion spell. That of course only brought up the question about what the previous form was… or if it was just a byproduct from Celestia’s own attempt to restore him to normal when it failed or some cruel prank left by Discord.

The other unicorn replied “Now this may sting a little.”

Lockheart flinched as his teeth grinded against each other as the second unicorn checked to see if his horn was alright. The other unicorns winced as the doctor wasn’t to gentle in her checkup.

After a few more minutes the rest of the guards started to relax as Lockheart would sometimes snap back shouting when every they plucked a hair or feather from his body or asked questions about his “lack of a cutie mark” which he replied back with some very bitter if not colorful comments oddly without a single swear thrown in it.

Everything seemed alright until it came to the final test. Mostly checking on the magical aura and just to be safe… strength and durability of the horn. Most unicorns feared this part of the check up, but understood the importance. A horn was their main source of controlling and utilizing their magic. A brittle horn could not only be dangerous, but life threatening. Thankfully today they had new medicines and magical remedies to help fix or strengthened a damaged or injured horn.

Of course a completely broken horn… That hadn’t been seen for years and was the unspoken fear of most unicorns. The jagged horn just only raised concerns about it’s over all health since it wasn’t the traditional horn seen. Even more so since he had a horn and wings.

With one resounding hit Lockheart cursed out loud. Everypony jumped back as the eldritch speech frightened them as green flames danced out of his mouth like dragon fire. The eldritch green flames scorched the floor underneath turning it into a patch of dirt as poison joke bloomed right on the spot. Everypony including Lockheart seemed shocked at what just happened as Celestia removed the chaotic flowers from the area and sealed them inside a bag.

Lockheart glanced at the doctor “I take it that’s not normal… because if it is then this is a really strange land. No offense.”

The doctor nodded as she turned to Celestia “Good news is that his body is fine. Unfortunately his magic is still affected by what ever happened inside the hedge maze.” She glanced back at Lockheart “And please try to cut down on the swearing.”

“That’s swearing?” One of the prison guards asked out loud

The doctor rolled her eyes “Unfortunately what was supposed to be a simple swear was… warped by the chaotic magic still affecting him.” She glanced back at Lockheart “So like I said before. Cut down on the swearing. Other than that I’d suggest staying down here for a few days until everything either is fixed… or until you can deal with the side effects unless you feel like walking about outside only to accidently turn Gingerbread Corner into actual Gingerbread.”

Lockheart couldn’t help but smirk for a moment before he frowned at having to be locked up… for his own good. It would also give Celestia more time to find out about him and what his natural abilities were and what was altered by Discord’s magic. She wasn’t happy with the situation… but she was curious about this new pony.

“Now I must ask you all to keep this a secret.” Celestia calmly replied

The doctor nodded “No sense on shouting he’s an alicorn until you finish your checkup.” She glanced at his flank “Even if he’s a blank flank.”

Lockheart groaned “Please keep the alicorn comment to yourself.”

His horn glowed as his black coat became gray and the green hair light blue. A cutie mark appeared on his side of a locket shaped heart with one half black and the other half white with a keyhole in the middle.

The doctor gave a quick look over his body again “Pigment alteration. No flow of magic to the altered area, but descent enough to fool the average pony until you have time to put up a half descent spell to disguise yourself.”

“Half descent?” He shouted back “This isn’t just half descent it’s… Ow!”

The doctor smirked as the gray feather she had pulled from his wing turned black “Half-descent.” She turned to face Celestia and bowed “Please let me know how the rest of his checkup goes Princess.”

As soon as all the other left the room for Celestia and Lockheart to be alone he muttered “Who was that crazy mare?”

Celestia couldn’t help but smile “Thinking of asking her on a date?”

He glanced at her in confusion before staring at the wall in annoyance properly thinking it was the last thing he would ever do. Still it was nice to know he was at least similar to her ponies. She couldn’t help but feel a grin tug at the edge of her mouth. Besides it might be a little bit of fun sticking them together in the same room again. After all it was important to limit the knowledge before she could get a better grasp on the situation.

“And what about my...” Lockheart spoke softly as he stared at her. “Those who came with me?”

Celestia couldn’t help but wonder if he thought she might do something to them. She shook her head “Their fine. Miss… Valkyrie is out training while Stardust is meeting with her parents this afternoon. Is there something you want me to say to them?”

Lockheart chuckled bitterly “Not exactly… Just tell Valkyrie that I’m being treated. That some old spell from Loki kicked up and I’ve having to recover for now. She’ll understand.”

Celestia paused for a second “Loki?”

He grinned “Someone from back home. Mostly I don’t want her to think it’s her fault that I’m stuck here. At least one of us should still be able to enjoy ourselves in Canterlot. Besides with Discord locked away that smoke monster shouldn’t come back anytime soon.”

“Alright, but only after you answer one question.” Celestia replied trying to figure out how many knew about Discord.

Lockheart’s grin grew revealing his sharp pointed teeth “How did I know about Discord?” Celestia nodded “Because I know… and he kind of told me.” He leaned against the wall “Heck. I’m willing to bet all my bits that any other pony lost in that maze also heard his voice during that time.”

Celestia focused on Lockheart as she replied “The truth.”

Lockheart flinched “Because I simply know. Just in the same way you're little dreams let you get a general idea of certain threats. Enough to know… but not to fully understand. I know you sister Luna was banished by you. That before Sombra’s defeat he took the crystal kingdom. I know that on the thousandth year Nightmare Moon shall return along with a few other bits.”

Celestia could tell he was holding back. He properly was keeping it to himself until he had something to trade for. She had seen similar behavior shown in the jails of other kingdoms. The only question was what he wanted and more importantly who else knew about it.

She brought herself up to full height making an imposing figure as she spoke “What do you want?”

Lockheart shrugged “Magic. I’ll say my bit and you teach me some tricks. I’ll say what I know and then I go free with the others…” he rolled his eyes “If they want to leave of course… Deal?”

Celestia couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow “Tricks?”

Lockheart chuckled as if it was all some sort of twisted joke “Why not? Either way you’ll find out. I can say it and get something out of the deal or somepony will find out about me and beat me up just to give you what I know. So I might as well get a few tricks out of it.” He sighed “I mean I can barely levitate a book. Besides don’t you teach some ponies who are special in some way or catch your eye? As for when I leave… I’ll let Miss Valkyrie decide for now. Deal?”

Lockheart held out a hoof. Celestia nodded as she accepted the deal. She needed to know how many knew about Discord… and if there was some way to help ensure her sister turning back into Luna instead of Nightmare Moon, but most of all Lockheart’s smile also made her want to keep an eye on him. It was the same one she had seen worn by many of her enemies worn by those who fought both her and her sister during Equestria's founding.

She didn’t trust it.

******

Steel Halberd.

Steel glanced at his new temporary recruit. He didn’t understand the full story, but he knew enough. This was one of the strange ponies that tried to help Celestia against the smoke monster. From what he could gather she wasn’t from Equestria… and it stood out.

His first thoughts were that she was griffin trained. The armor didn’t seem to bother her as it weighed far too much for a common pegasi. If anything it would have been given to the earth pony recruits to strengthen their muscles until they were given a real and much lighter suit of armor. Her body was fit… too fit in some cases making a few of the other guards stare at her during the rare few time she was out of it.

Back in the old days of the Three Tribes Valkyrie she would have been considered the ideal image of the perfect mare as it almost seemed like she had been sculpted instead of naturally born. Needless to say a couple of the stallions used cold water for their showers now after seeing her without her armor covering up most of her body.

Of course what really got Steel Halberd was that Valkyrie was able to do all the same training they did while wearing that armor that would have counted as a steel coffin on any normal pegasi.

He couldn’t help but shiver at the thought. Still it made the second part all the more… annoying. Apparently she suffered memory loss. She had the movements, the strength, and most of the skill… but at the same time she lacked the proper basics. She put herself in bad stances as she tripped over her own hooves. She could barely keep track of aerial maneuvers. In some ways it was like she was fresh out of boot camp.

Though when anypony got close… that’s when her freaky griffin training kicked in. Sudden turns to avoid attacks before bringing down her hooves (as the armored gauntlets would have done serious damage) and managed to counter attack ponies easily in the air… when she let her body react instead of trying to act.

In some ways he could understand her frustration. She knew what she could do, but it was like somepony suddenly gave her four left feet as she stumbled around. After the first few days he began to truly understand just how dangerous she could be as he watched her gather clouds into a thunderstorm formation that required three ponies just to make. He also began to think this was why the princess asked him to look out for her.

“Good.” He replied with a small hint of surprise “Now strike those targets in the field.”

No sooner had he finished the thunderbolts flew. Each bolt destroying the dummies they struck. These weren’t the average straw dummies, but wooden ones built to take a blow. Her aim was a little bit off, but five out of ten dummies had been destroyed as scorch marks rested beside the surviving dummies.

Normally that would be considered a good score since the purpose was to hit them one at a time or one per pony. Instead he saw that small smirk on her face. Before he thought it was joy or excitement since griffins did like to fight, but he knew it was more than that. It was that she found a new skill and wanted to improve upon it.

He cleared his throat “Alright… that’s enough. Let’s practice rain since the target practice needs a quick wash.”

Valkyrie hit her head against the cloud muttering. For a pony who seemed excessively skilled at violence she wasn’t that adept at normal skills like rain. She struggled trying to get the right… Grip? Grasp? Kick?

Steel rubbed his head trying to figure it out. Just about every pegasi he knew could make a rain cloud rain… even the ground bound pegasi bakers on baker’s street who hadn’t stepped on a cloud for years. Was this one of those cultural things or did they just not teach it where she came from? Boston sounded like a very strange if not a slightly frightening griffin city.

Only when a small trickle dropped from the cloud like a leaky faucet did he flew up to help her. None of the other ponies went to assist mostly because she frightened them as every skill she had seemed to revolve around fighting. It was properly another reason why Celestia assigned him to help her as he was one of the few who didn’t let her frightening skill frighten him away.

Steel landed on the cloud “No… it’s right here.” He pointed at the sweet spot in the cloud as she stared at it in confusion. “Here… Just a good push… and there’s the water.”

The cloud started to rain a little as it lightened up. Valkyrie move and tried to strike the sweet spot only to miss it shooting a lightning bolt out of the cloud as it tore through another target. She face hoofed as he sighed out loud. This time he directed her hoof finding the exact spot and had her push down. Her body seemed to shiver as the cloud started to rain.

Her eyes were clenched shut for a moment before she opened them and blinked. She pushed the spot again and again making it rain more as she searched the cloud for other sweet spots trying to get a feel for it. It was clumsy like a filly just learning, but she wasn’t casting down lightning bolts which was an improvement.

Steel rubbed the back of his head “I’m kind of surprised you haven’t run into sweet spots before.”

“It just rains when it does.” She replied before catching herself “I mean… it’s more like the Everfree forest clouds.”

Now Steel shivered as it might have explained a few things. She kept acting as if the clouds would fall apart any moment unless she was using it to attack something. Apparently she wasn’t used to stable clouds, but the voice at the back of his head told him it was more than that. Like how she kept playing with her armor or how she kept her flank covered.

That had to have been the biggest surprise of them all. A blank flank adult. She didn’t seem to mind until everypony stared at the bare spot. It was properly the biggest sign for her growing up in a griffin city. Griffins didn’t have cutie marks so growing up without one might not have seemed like a big deal. It did tug his heart a little bit seeing that she had yet to find her special talent.

She was skilled. Frighteningly skilled to a degree most guards ponies would envy or even give up a leg for. Yet she didn’t have a cutie mark in fighting. All that combat training and reflexes… all of her training was just built around combat.

Steel couldn't even imagine what her life must have been like. What would it be like never finding your special talent and being forced to do something else? To live as a blank flank… not like a donkey or a griffin… but to know you have a special talent… a destiny and never know it? To be forced into a life you did not want? He rubbed his own cutie mark just thinking about it. Two halberds crossed together.

He didn’t fully know what his cutie mark meant, but he knew the feeling of it. To protect. It’s why he joined the royal guard. Why he fought and trained despite the fact an all-powerful alicorn protected most of Equestria.

He took a deep breath “Now… try striking one of the targets without destroying it.”

Valkyrie nodded as she struck the cloud firing off three bolts at the target. The first took out the “legs” as the second tore through the chest leaving the last one ripping apart the head. She huffed in annoyance and tried again. Steel couldn’t help feel worried that now he was training a pegasi who seemed to know only how to use lethal force.

Steel sighed “Take ten. Clean yourself off. We’ll meet again tomorrow.”

“I’m sure I can do better!” She quickly shouted in desperation.

He couldn’t help but shiver. Better? That was kind of the problem. None of the soldiers including himself had been able to destroy the testing dummies set out for her. If anything she needed to do worse just to make them not feel incompetent!

Steel took in another deep breath “I have to check up with medical. A few other ponies are getting out and hopefully we can start finishing up damage control. Hopefully we can get back to organizing search parties and focus on finding the creature or stopping the new rise in bandit attacks.”

Valkyrie scuffed her hoof against the cloud as she looked away from him “Sorry… I…” She sighed “Tell… everypony I hope their doing well.” She glanced back at the remaining dummies “I’m just going to try to get some more practice in…”

“SHOWERS!” Steel shouted out in his best drill Sargent voice “NOW!”

She snapped to attention and bolted to the shower room. He couldn’t help but smirk as he was happy seeing the nervous mare. It was one of the reasons why it made it so difficult to teach her. She shouldn’t be out fighting. It… it just felt wrong.

She flapped down from the cloud as already some of the other recruits raced to grab it. One thing she had a talent for was building with clouds. Already he could hear the bolts crashing against the few remaining training dummies along with the few curses of the new recruits. The clouds were better than the ones they could make even if they couldn’t use them as well as her.

“Maybe building is her special talent” He spoke out loud to himself before shaking his head “Get you're head in the game Steel Halberd! Remedy Cross!”

The blue coat and red mane unicorn sighed “Please… Just call me Remedy.” Her cutie mark was of a red cross

He simply nodded. Three days ago he wouldn’t have spoken to her. Heck he never really got along with doctors… and nopony really got along with her. Still they were the only two besides the princess who even had a picture on what was going on.

Remedy shook her head “Tests normal. A few elevated magical reflexes, but nothing that couldn’t be explained by simple or specialized training. In fact I would expect far more internal bruising or light scaring than what I’ve found so far.”

Steel resisted the urge to face hoof “What about her friend? Or have you heard anything else about Stardust?”

Remedy shrugged “Nothing to comment on. Less on Stardust since her arrest.”

“It wasn’t an arrest.” He repeated Celestia knew how many times.

Remedy rolled her eyes “So she just happened to knock herself out in a restricted room.”

This was why nopony liked being near Remedy Cross. Ask her what she thinks and she’ll pick the worst possible thing or just analyze it before moving it. It was kind of a shame really. She did have that tall Canterlot build and she either worked out or had a good personal fitness trainer. Even her cutie mark of a red cross seemed to complement her…

Steel felt like bashing his head against the wall! Already trying to get past Valkyrie’s well-toned body just to focus on another mare’s while trying to talk about Valkyrie.

Remedy smirked “You know it’s rude to think of another mare while talking to one.”

Steel groaned as it brought the second thing that started to annoy him. Apparently to those who survived her cold rebuttals, and bleak outlook on life. She liked to taunt or tease ponies. Remedy chuckled… which she had never done before in all the years he had seen her. (One too many since each visit brought him to her medical ward)

She quickly stiffened up and coughed “Sorry.”

“For laughing?” he replied out loud.

She frowned “Yes. The Princess…” She looked extra frustrated “Has… been trying to get me to ‘open up’ or how she puts it.”

Steel blinked in disbelief. Open up? All it took was three days being constantly near Celestia to get a stiff pony like the dreaded Ms Cross to open up? Maybe in Celestia’s free time she could teach the nobles how not to be stiff jerks and then fly on magical rainbows ending all despites across Celestia by simply waving at them.

At this point he wouldn’t be surprised if it actually worked consider what had happened during the last few days.

He shook his trying to get rid of the image “So how is… Lockheart?”

Remedy shrugged “A mystery. Celestia brings me in during the second half. I try to go over the basics. He tries to do them while Celestia finishes her royal duties.”

She paused for a moment. Steel waited for her to finish her deep thoughts about the subject. It wasn’t everyday somepony was picked to be taught by the Princess. Even then being taught to do… regular tricks was kind of off… like Valkyrie’s skills kind of off. Seriously Levitation? Fillies learn that before even earning their cutie marks! It’s like the unspoken magic spell that every unicorn knew!

Remedy just scowled “Obviously he must have blackmailed her.”

Steel couldn’t help but face hoof at the absurdity of it all “So the unknown alic-“

“Winged unicorn!” She practically shouted “No confirmation of earth pony ability or check off by the Princess!”

Steel rolled his eyes “Alright a 'Winged Unicorn' comes out of the blue. Hides whatever the monster that burst into Canterlot was looking for… is blackmailing Celestia who can raise the sun and is older than Canterlot itself! Just what could this ‘blackmail’ be?”

Remedy put a hoof to her chin muttering “That’s what I intend to find out.”

Valkyrie was a mystery to Steel Halberd and he could live with that. Remedy on the other hoof just had to find out. There was no mystery that went unsolved or no theory left unsaid that explained everything. The very fact this Lockheart character kept throwing her off must mean he’s either an alicorn or about to become one right after he makes Remedy’s head exploded in sheer frustration.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She snapped back “It’s more than that.”

Steel sighed “Well let’s go with what we know. Valkyrie just destroyed most of the practice dummies that’s survived everything a full squad of pegasi could attack. Her reflexes are quickly improving or returning to normal… kind of hard to judge by her body and current level of skill. Other than that apparently the weather is closer to the Everfree forest than Equestria.”

Remedy nodded “Lockheart’s skill in illusions is growing and he just reveled he’s unique talent is emotion magic.” She paused for a moment “Or that he has a knack for emotion magic since he doesn’t have a cutie mark.”

Steel couldn’t help but shiver as he whispered “Mind mage?”

Remedy was about to say something before she paused “Not exactly… From how he described it. It’s more like he feeds off emotion.”

Steel couldn’t tell which bothered him more. A unicorn skilled in messing with a pony's mind or one that was some sort of emotion vampire like the ones from his old childhood books like Iron Blade and the Thousand Ghouls of Death.

“Nothing like that.” She replied in annoyance “More like using the emotion around to jumpstart his spells. Surely you’ve heard about the research and theory about emotion and magic. There have been many instances of sudden boosts when concerning love.”

Steel waved his hooves “First off! Not a unicorn! Second of all! No fancy business in my group. That stuff only happens in sappy romance novels!”

Remedy nodded but didn’t seem to be convinced “Still this 'cheat' has let him build up a rather impressive magical reserve despite it’s flaws.” Steel glanced at her “I’m convinced the Princess has already found some of them as she tests them while I’m in the room with him.”

Steel tried not to snort. Princess Celestia playing pranks? That seemed even more farfetched that Lockheart blackmailing her.

She shook her head “Anyway from what I can tell Midguard… is either someplace he’s made up or nowhere near Equestria. He’s lack of talent is more likely from a lack of teacher since all his skills seem self-taught. His talent in illusions properly stems from his constant use in the subject.”

“But no cutie mark.” Steel firmly asked.

Remedy nodded “No cutie mark. Just like the bandit your group captured.”

Steel frowned as this was one of the things that worried him. Not having a cutie mark… a Blank Flank was for fillies. Just getting a cutie mark usually was a sign that they weren’t fillies anymore, but adults… well growing up to be adults at least. Of course some towns have legal age having a cutie mark.

A blank flank adult was just unheard of really. Two blank flank adults was something you would read one of those gossip magazines that talked about moon ponies abducting griffins or something. Twelve? That just spelled trouble.

Three reports had come in. Four mark less bandits including the one locked away. Seven near the Everfree forest and three having solved a town’s manticore problem. As for the rumors? More blank flank rumors seemed to be coming in along with an increase in sales of clothing in those areas. Something was happening and Steel Halberd knew a lack of knowledge was a deadly thing. It was the kind of thing that cost lives.

He sighed trying not to think Valkyrie was in the same category as the trash locked away in a cell. The earth pony couldn’t put up a proper fight when he wasn’t attacking helpless traders. His so called “friends” ditched him without a thought. They were more like rats than actual ponies. It made his blood boil just thinking about it.

“But their ponies.” He tried to say calmly “I mean not magically transformed animals like in the old fairy tales.”

Remedy smiled. The smile grew across her face making it extra creepy. Kind of like the old tale of the Grinch who tried to stop Heart’s Warming Eve.

“No…” She slowly replied as the grin grew three sizes larger that time “No they are not. They are ponies. Down to their flesh, blood and bone.” She glanced back at the infirmary “but what if the others are not?”

Steel grabbed his aching head “Say that again, but in basic Equestrian.”

“Different cities speak different stories and these two come from different lands.” She replied calmly “So what if… their not the only ones? What if? Somepony out there is… is one like in the old fairy tales.”

Steel shook his head “So what? I should check the rat in the cell to see if he’s actually a rat?”

“Of course not.” She replied as if that was the dumbest thing he could possibly say “You should get a unicorn to check.”

Steel glanced at Remedy Cross trying to make sure she wasn’t pulling her leg or making some weird joke at his expense. Instead he saw the light in her eyes with that “cut it open and poke around” stare she had whenever she held a knife near somepony she was about to operate on. For the pony in the jail cell… if he’s lucky he’s actually a rat. Unlike the other two blank flanks he didn’t have the Princess’s protection and… technically he’s already injured.

“Dear Celestia he’s going to die.” Steel spoke under his breath.

Remedy continued to smile as she was bringing a frightening amount of medical tools into her saddle bag “Of course he’s not going to die. Earth ponies tend to be quite sturdy.”

Not one word in that sentence convinced him that she wouldn’t try to do it anyway. Heck she’ll properly complain that he was a weakling or a push over if he actually kicked the bucket. She’d properly berate him for dying while he was dying. If he survived the he would properly never attack a trader much less try to shop lift for the rest of his life.

Remedy Cross was now humming a tune. The same tune most foals learn when figuring out how all the bones connected to each other. The same cheery tune had a less happy melody when hummed by her. Valkyrie could be frightening at times. Remedy Cross was just frightening. Already a few words of praise and thankful relief came from the infirmary as they knew Doctor Cross was leaving for the day.

******

Remedy Cross

Remedy hummed to herself as she walked into the next appointment on her schedule. She opened up the door as Lockheart and the Princess sat in the small room. The Princess’s smile seemed to turn into a frown as Remedy tried to figure out what the foreign pony did to her.

Princess Celestia softly replied in the same tone a mother would scold a foal in public “Is it true you tortured an innocent pony?”

Remedy sighed “I didn’t torture the prisoner. The report did state that the prisoner in question was a convicted criminal.”

Really it was all in the report. Mr. Brass Balls...obviously a fake name… had harmed caravan traders, killed both ponies and griffins, and tried to escape the prison he was placed in before his hearing could be made.

It wasn’t her fault that he was a whiner. It certainly wasn’t her fault if he moved during the procedure. She didn’t mind the comments or poorly made insults he threw out her, but the screaming just got on her nerves. Besides he was returned back to the jail cell in one piece… for the most part.

Lockheart seemed to glance at the report on the table “Did you really?”

Remedy smiled “Of course not. She was already a female.” Celestia glanced back at Remedy obviously not happy. “If you check the reports did state her unusual condition and how she snapped at anyone who tried to undress her. Properly to hid her gender from the other criminals in her group.”

Celestia glanced back at the report as Lockheart seemed caught up in between embarrassment… and amusement.

Remedy took a deep breath “Besides I double checked with a medical spell to confirm that she was female. Which came back positive.”

Thanks to some alteration tips, medical background knowledge, and a magic feather stuffed full of reality warping chaos magic. Honestly it was the prisoner’s fault if you think about it. All she did was run a few tests. He just made it personal.

“So far from the correlation reports more “blank flanks” seem to be appearing in the surrounding area where Miss Valkery and Lockheart had appeared.” Remedy calmly replied “It may be possible whatever brought them there gathered a large selection of other blank flank stallions and mares, but for what purpose I do now know.”

Celestia stared at Remedy in disappointment “And what did your research find?”

Remedy stood proudly “The magical oddities in her aura seem to suggest a number of things. For one thing her magical connection places her closer to a mule than an actual earth pony. Almost as if somepony grabbed a template of an Earth Pony and forgot to color it in right.”

Lockheart shook his head “Wait… she’s a fake?”

Remedy nodded “Properly an imperfect cast. Without a proper model to base it on or to fix the mistakes the culprit in question tried to fill in some of the blanks. More muscle to make up for the lack of magic. Enhanced bone strength and tougher skin like a minotaur. In truth a donkey is closer to a earth pony than she is.Thankfully the Royal Guards were able to catch two more criminals to test my theory on.”

Two that were completely silent and refused to be away from the guards when in her sight. Honestly what did they think she was going to do to them?

“Did they have… memory loss?” Lockheart hesitantly replied.

Remedy nodded “For whatever reason the ones with “missing gaps” had normal magical auras. The rest of the details should be in the report.”

Remedy studied Lockheart’s reaction. He seemed to be watching her as he waited for something else… but then again it could be just curiosity. After seeing nothing was going too happened he refocused on the magic lesson Celestia seemed to have given him as he focused at the block of granite.

Celestia on the other hoof seemed displeased “Please watch over Lockheart for the lessons for today. I have something I need to check on.”

Celestia left the room which hadn’t happened before. She was always in the room to keep an eye on Lockheart. A part of her wished to believe Celestia was giving her an “okay” to find more information about Lockheart while having plausible deniability… but Celestia was properly just checking on the new prisoners for a more detail check of her reports.

Green flames danced across the stone only for it to collapse into a pile of dust… gold dust. Instead of shouting for joy or gathering it up like some crook Lockheart instead face hoofed and muttered something in the spidery language as green flames shot out of his mouth transforming the gold dust into a glass vase with a single rose in it.

“Language.” Remedy spoke out loud only for Lockheart to face hoof again “What sort of magic were you casting?”

Lockheart groaned “The spell was turning the block into a sphere. The burst of fire from my mouth? That was swearing.”

Remedy nodded as she understood about Lockheart’s strange quirk. Still chaos magic was a dangerous thing if left un-supervised. It was one of the main reasons why Celestia was around when he tried casting new spells just in case the chaos magic was mixed into it.

A simple light spell could turn into a fire ball or drop the tempter in the room to below freezing levels and most of all the same spell with chaos magic would never cast the same results.

“And the flames?” She couldn’t help but ask. Green flames normally didn’t accompany spells. “On the first spell?”

Lockheart shrugged “Alteration spell. Why green flames appear? Magic.”

Remedy now felt like banging her head against the wall. That was his answer for most questions he didn’t want to answer. Magic. Like that word just summed up all explanations ever needed. Canterlot had thousands of books on the subject of magic itself… and he reduces it all to a single word without any meaning behind it.

Remedy pulled out her standard needle as it hovered near him “Now I’m going to need a blood sample.”

Lockheart flinched as the needle went into his foreleg. His muscles tightened as his entire foreleg went rigged until the needle was removed and she applied the bandage to the tiny wound.

He sighed in relief “Done?”

Remedy nodded “This should suffice for now.”

Hopefully it would last longer than the last batch. She could still feel the faint tingle of chaotic magic dancing about in its cage. Another reason why he was such a strange pony. The chaotic magic should have dissipated from or consumed his own magical aura. Instead it seemed to adapt itself into mixing it together.

Ponies had one magical aura. They kept their own brand of magic. Comparing magic would be like comparing cutie marks and you never ran into a pony with two different cutie marks on them. Which brought to question how his magic even worked in the first place?

Was his winged form some sort of spell gone wrong or was it some other pony’s attempt to craft an alicorn. Judging from how he had a hard time using his wings and… that he simply used alteration magic to clean them. Broken feathers, dirt, and any other “flaw” would be burnt away as the wing would recreate itself in much the same way a unicorn could recast a wing spell on themselves.

His natural magic seemed more selective if not otherworldly. It took the useful traits of those around it and then shifted it into its own means. Regular magic used to jump start spells and more powerful forms are then taken, stored, and used to further enhance his magical reserves.

Alterations always included the green flames because chaos magic was the best form of magic for altering objects or reality in general. The chaotic flame curse seemed to be a side effect or something.

He may have been an experiment that was still in the “Testing stage” so to speak. Of course his lack of skill in levitation may even suggest him being an earth pony who had been altered to be given a unicorn horn and wings.

Remedy put away the vial of blood as her eyes scanned the room only for Lockheart to say “None of her feathers fell.”

She couldn’t help but frown “I don’t…”

Lockheart rolled his eyes “None of Celestia’s feathers are around here, nor her hair or anything else you could bag.”

Remedy tried not to let her emotion show. If Lockheart was some sort of magical step/experiment towards perfecting an alicorn transformation spell than cross checking and comparing it to a flesh and blood alicorn was necessary to check for differences. Of course nopony just walks up and ask if they could pluck feathers or draw blood from a Princess. Much less the very princess who had control over the sun… leaving such academic testing left in the dust.

Lockheart on the other hoof pulled out a book from his saddle bag as his hooves shifted into draconic fingers to turn the pages. All the while he scanned the book as intently as a student right before their class’s final for the semester. Too bad it was “Unicorn Magic For Fillies”. Then again levitation is one of the easiest if not most versatile abilities in a unicorn’s selection of spells. Most unicorns have a hard time not using the spell at least twice a day as levitation to a unicorn was like flight to a pegasus.

Remedy sighed as she prepared the next intro for her “teaching” as she lifted up a tennis ball from her saddle bags “Now let’s focus again. This is a ball…” I place it on the table “now pick it up.”

Lockheart rolled his eyes as he tried to focus on his horn again. The magic shimmered for a moment before just shinning as nothing happened. Kind of like a foal trying to figure it out.

She shook her head in slight annoyance for watching him cast a high level alteration spell with ease… only to fumble with a basic spell most foals learn before earning their cutie marks “Alright. Let’s try this again. Pick it up without magic.” He nodded and then paused for a second. Either he was overthinking it… or he didn’t know how to. “And no transformation magic either.”

He huffed as Remedy hid her grin. His hooves moved to touch it… only to knock it back. As it slowly rolled away his wings moved forth grabbing it before pulling it back to him. It was… odd seeing wings used like that. Certainly Celestia had used her wings in a similar manner… but they were usually smaller gestures.

“Now let’s try that again without wings.” Remedy replied as he flinched “The trick is finding how many ways you can grab it… and then just keep going until you figure out how to grab it with magic.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He moaned

Remedy felt herself frown as she replied “Levitation takes into account many things. Size, weight, shape. Too much on one end tips it over and not enough makes it fall. If you don’t have a basic grasp then you just need to think up a lot of different ways until you get a feel for it again.”

He face hoofed as she smiled “Nopony said magic was easy.”

******

Lockheart

I have no idea how much time has passed. I stared at the cursed tennis ball. First I used my wings. Then a wing and a hoof. Then just a wing. Then two hooves. Then one… then the back hooves… then my mouth. I even tried my tail as I swear she giggled at my attempt with it.

I ran out of ways thinking how to catch it without trying to blow on it before she pulled away the ball for the next portion of the lesson.

Remedy Cross tossed a book at me as I caught it in the air. I like changeling magic. I have thumbs again!

My smirk quickly died as I saw the book as she replied “Is there a problem?”

A Beginners guide to Necromancy.

I can’t tell which is more insane. That I’m being given a book on necromancy… or that a magical pastel pony in a land full friendly unicorns and pegasi based on a TV show for kids… just gave me a book on freaking Necromancy. I’m surprised that they even have a book on Necromancy!

Remedy Cross raised an eyebrow “Did I just cross some sort of taboo?”

I blinked for a few seconds. Opened up the pages and skimmed through it. Death, flesh, mending bones. Necromancy sounding words. Yep it’s a death book.

“Uh…” I tried to find the right words “Just never thought you would… have a book on the subject.”

She simply shrugged “It’s just medicine.”

Medicine? Are we talking about the same subject here? Necromancy tends to have a darker labeling in peaceful societies. Maybe this is one of those peaceful alternative phrasing…

“Application of bone manipulation and flesh rending tends to work well against enemies and grants a more in-depth focus on mending broken bodies in the ward.” She answered out loud as I stared at her “Don’t look at me like that. You tell me another branch of magic that works well for in depth medical knowledge and can help defend one’s self.”

I just simply nod. “Is this normal here in Equestria?”

She sighed in annoyance “Sadly no. Too many saddle rider stories and Role playing game influences have left this field of magic with a bit of disrespect. Undead minions make great use for villain material. That and there aren’t many books on the subject… oh and that’s my book so treat it with respect.”

I nodded again. A unicorn nurse who practices necromancy in her spare time and preformed an invasive procedure on a criminal. Now I know why they call her Doctor Cross instead of Doctor Remedy.

I slowly put away the book in my new saddle bag “No offense… but why did you give it to me? Not that I’m complaining.”

Her horn glowed “Really? Most would be offended.”

I shrugged “Necromancy tends to be interesting an interesting subject. The power to overcome death itself and the attempts to achieve immortality…”

She smiled “Looks like truth spells work on you.”

I chuckle nervously “And I’m shutting up.”

Her horn stopped glowing as I quickly opened up my menu looking for mind protection spells or some sort of mental resistance boost. I do not need mind mages mucking about in my head! I try not to look annoyed as I saw my ‘new level up screen’ as it flickered.

Chaos magic. Apparently it messes with magical menus. Already it looks as if it came from a game with bad coding or some sort of hack or glitch affecting it. The words shifted between letters and symbols as I closed it for now. I could try deciphering it when I wasn’t sitting in a room with a pony watching me like a hawk, but it’s properly safe to say my level up screen has finally died. So much for free power ups.

Her horn still glowed as she said “What is your name?”

I let my own horn glowed as I cast a misdirection spell and muttered a small curse before saying “Princess Celestia.”

She frowned. I smiled. A small model of the Death Star was now resting on the table. Either my misdirection spell worked preventing the truth spell or the chaos magic prevented it from working. Either way I had something to use against it in the future.

“Alright… what’s your perspective on magic in general?” She replied as her horn focused more intently

“Magic.” I replied truthfully trying to fight it back “Magic is magic. It’s a tool or a gift that I didn’t have before and I want to keep.” She stared at me "A skill you can't use is a skill you don't have."

Her horn dimmed for a moment as I stepped up “I have half a bag of tricks and everypony around me seems to have more knowledge about it than me. The one place I’m not having to worry about complications, death threats, fear, or nobles and I’m having to learn from beginner books just to get a basic grasp on it. How about you tell me how I should feel about it?”

“Death threats? Fear? Nobles?” She asked out loud.

I realized my screw up and sunk back into the couch “uh… can we skip that part.”

Her stare increased. It was… odd. Not Celestia level stare that makes you feel guilty like your mom just spotting you next to a broken window. The kind of guilty that gnaws at you making you feel like a lousy person. This new brand just tore into you. Like an integrator just finding out that you actually knew something he didn’t. Something he wanted to know right now as a matter of fact.

Her gaze bore straight on me as she said one simple word “No.”

It didn’t matter that she didn’t scream it or the fact that wasn’t a hint of malice in her voice. It made me shrink back into the couch as I suddenly felt frightened. Very very frightened. I was even more frighten than when I was running from people who were running about and possibly had a good reason to kill me.

So I did the best thing I could do “How many alicorns do you know?”

I deflected.

“The Princess.” She stated back.

No tone. No Emotion. Yet those two words held more weight than someone shouting at the top of their lungs. I just had to play my cards right. That or take a few poker lessons in bluffing.

“And do the nobles look up to her?” I slowly asked back “Do you have little foals playing about pretending to be little alicorns?”

She blinked “Of course. It’s only natural.”

“Which is the problem.” I quickly replied “One Princess. One Alicorn. One ruler. Where does that leave one who looks like an Alicorn… without all the regal bearings?”

She opened her mouth, but I cut her off “On one side that’s the “He’s a fake” which leads to the death threats, and fear because naturally if their impersonating than their up to something bad… real bad if being an alicorn lets them have political power anywhere near Princess’s Celestia’s level or that of a high ranking noble.”

She simply nodded as she jotted it down “And the other side?”

I shook my head “Celestia’s a protector. A powerful individual who can raise the sun and stop evil monsters. I just have half a bag of tricks for my powers and skill. Ponies start to think I can solve their rampaging dragon problem or make some magical solution to fix their plight.”

I sighed out loud closing my eyes and hanging my head. I could feel the quill slowing down. I could also feel her cutting of the magic to her truth spell. I tried not to smile as I got ready to wrap it up.

“So on one hoof I’m a villain.” I replied holding one hoof up “And on the other… I’m one of Celestia’s knights in shining armor able to solve all their problems. So you tell me how you think they react when I tell them their wrong.”

I could feel myself gritting my teeth “Try explaining that you don’t have the answers to their problems? How their hope suddenly falls to bitterness. Try explaining that you just look like an Alicorn. Try explaining you haven’t caused their problems or planning some evil scheme.”

I could feel my rage building up. Being given a changeling body. Being tossed in a crowd of panicking idiots. Finding out everybody has been told a different variation of the same lie… and I’m not even sure the story told to me was the “real story” as the Smoke Monster from Lost seems to have a better idea than me right now!

The air hissed through my teeth as I took a few deep breaths in and out before I spoke “Either way it all leads back to the same ending… Everypony gets mad. Names are thrown out and then I’m running out of town.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle “And now I’m in Canterlot living in a cell as Princess Celestia is trying to teach me magic because I suddenly gained chaos magic. Honestly I don’t wither I should laugh or cry at this turn of events.”

Remedy Cross went silent for a few moments. I grinned as I knew that look. Their faces were close enough to be human for me to get a basic idea… which is kind of funny. I never really was good with empathy or emotions before. Must have been a changeling perk.

“So tell me? With all of that having happened…?” I couldn’t help but twist the metaphorical knife in her as she flinched for a moment “Which side of the two where you on or did you think looking like this didn’t come without any problems attached to it?”

“Read the book. You’re skilled with autonomy and alteration based magic so hopefully it should help widening your variety of magic.” She replied without looking at me “I have to finish the reports for this magic lesson.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I really hope she wrote it all down. Mostly because it would be a great story to use on anyone else I ran across. The only trick of course would be getting them to listen… and having Celestia nearby to cover my back if they didn’t.

Still it’s better than my hide in a village and wait until someone else fixes everything. I even got a small meal out of it… Is it Ironic that Pity has a sweet taste that quickly turns sours or that it doesn’t fill me up as much as I would like?

Author's Note

Well new chapter up. Tried giving the Equestrians a different style to help tell the difference between them and the former humans.

Let me know of any mistakes I didn't catch as I'm going to try to catch the mistakes from the previous chapters.

One last question to the audience. How do you think Equestrains would react to this situation? How do you think they would try to explain what they saw or how the humans would try to explain their situation?

Hidden Threats

Celestia

Celestia walked towards the jailhouse in Timberton. The town itself was small as it rested near the border of Equestria and the Griffin kingdom. It had the old rustic charm to it as it served as a trading point in-between the two kingdoms. In time it might even grow to be it’s own Majestic City like Canterlot as it was one of the few places where Griffin and pony culture managed to mix together peacefully without clashing into each other. In time it might not even be that uncommon to see more ponies or griffins visiting each other's kingdoms.

She couldn’t help but feel like sighing as she noticed the crowd nearby the jailhouse. The place was built to hold ponies or griffins who had drunk to much or to lock away the those involved in the random bar fight. Sure they had a few scuffs, but nothing ever serious. Right now every pony and griffin in town kept an eye at the jailhouse with either grim or vengeful looks. One of the griffins was sharpening a butcher blade as he set up shop near an open window of the jailhouse.

As soon as she stepped inside Sheriff Good Heart bowed “It’s an honor to have you at our small town Princess Celestia.”

Celestia smiled as the sheriff seemed like a nice unicorn. Light brown coat with dark brown hair with a silver star for a cutie mark. He levitated out a set of keys as he escorted her to the jail cells. Most of them were empty as the sound of the butcher blade sharpening outside grew louder. At the very end of the jailhouse rested three cells and a window with an angry griffin outside.

The first two ponies simply rested in the corner of their cells with blankets wrapped around them. They stared at her in disbelief for a few moments before trying to avoid her gaze. The Pegasus tried to pretend he was asleep while the unicorn started looking for a way out of the cell that didn’t involve running into her.

The last cell… the earth pony shivered in fear. The blanket wrapped around her clung to her sides as she was sweating heavily. She didn’t even seem to notice the cell door being unlocked as she stared at the wall.

“Ms. Brass.” Good Heart spoke out loud “You have a visitor.”

She turned around in anger only to see Celestia as the mare's pupils began to shrink down in fear. The same type of fear Lockheart seemed to have when he first saw her. Brass quickly scooted back on her hind legs until her back hit the wall leaving her trapped in a corner of the cell.

“Could you explain why you attacked the caravans?” Celestia asked out loud.

Good Heart was about to say something until Brass quickly shouted in panic “To distract the town! Let them focus on us instead of Sanguine Point!”

Good Heart’s mouth was left wide open in disbelief that she corporate so easily with Celestia and that Ms. Brass's actions wasn’t just an act of robbery… and murder. Celestia on the other hoof cast her magic as she tried to get a better feel of Ms. Brass.

Fear was obvious and after the mare's encounter with Remedy Cross and being stuck in a town that wanted to hang her it was easy to see why she was a nervous wreck. What bothered Celestia though was the magic around her. It wasn’t the same brand as Lockheart’s… but it was off.

Like one of those foal coloring books. Everything looked alright, but all of the colors were wrong as they had drawn Canterlot Castle except they used pink or purple instead of white. To a normal pony she would look normal, but anyone who could sense magic would be able to notice something was off about her.

“What was this stallion after?” Celestia slowly replied letting Brass work herself up.

If it was physically possible Brass would have would have shrunk deeper into the corner of the room as small amounts of dust kicked up underneath her hooves.

“I don’t know!” She quickly replied in panic “Just some magic artifact. We do the bandit act. He steals the goods. The town finds it missing and blames us for the act.”

Celestia casted all the spells she knew of to strip away illusions. The mare didn’t budge as the foreign magic resisted it. Celestia didn’t let it show, but the mare didn’t have any illusions cast on her. It was all physical alterations… the earth pony body was just muscle enchants and regeneration, but none of the natural earth pony magic. Even then the foreign magic shifted about trying to resist the spell even though it hadn’t done anything.

Celestia spoke out loud “Why did you attack the caravans at first?”

“Money.” Brass responded quickly “Lost in the woods… then some big smoky thing grabs me and dumps me in the wild west. Grabbed some others and showed them a few tricks.”

She grinned in bliss for a moment as she fondly replied “No guns. No violence. Just a quick stick up and some looten. Easy money.”

Celestia made note of the wood “guns” as they seemed to be some type of weapon or magic. Brass didn’t even seem ashamed about committing the robberies. In fact she seemed proud of them. Grant it griffins like to prove their strength, but she had yet to see a race that took pride in the act of stealing.

“And the deaths?” Celestia couldn’t help but reply with disdain.

Brass’s quickly shifted from outright shock to fear “That’s when new management arrived. I just had a few boys in my group. Two dogs, a griffin, and two ponies. Big enough to keep us out of trouble, but small enough for even splits of the profit.”

Good Heart shook his head “So you started robbing us only for somepony to take over? You’ve been at this for three months!”

Brass blinked “Three months? Funny… it felt like I just started last week really.”

Celestia focused on Brass “Where you lost in a large forest? Others running around having no idea what was going on?”
Good Heart stared at Celestia in confusion “How did you know? I mean… there wasn't a lot of folks there. Every idiot was running about like chickens with their heads cut off until smokey came along and dumped me here”

"And you didn't find that strange?" Good Heart replied back as he clearly didn't believe a single word of her tale.

Brass snapped back “Lost in the woods. Frightened scared and a fuck long way from home!”

A brick from the celling fell on Brass’s head as she struggled not to shout out loud. The strange magic seemed to activate when she said something. Celestia checked to see if she had any chaos magic in his body only to find a small trace of it dancing about. Nowhere near as dangerous as Lockheart’s amount, but there was enough to easily notice it if somepony knew about chaos magic.

“When did the killing start?” Celestia replied as she felt uneasy about the answer.

Brass was about to snap back until she realized Celestia said it and went back to being scared “When the new management arrived. Brought a lot more people under his wing and a fuck load of crazy!”

The tiny flare of chaos magic acted up again making another brick fall on her head. Celestia could now tell it was acting up whenever she swore… or at least what counted as swearing to her.

She rubbed her head “That’s when the killing started. Granit said no and the creepy fucker took off his head.”

This time Brass held a hoof over her head only for a glass bottle to somehow fly in-between the bars of the window and smash against the side of her head. Brass just glared at the celling as the tiny flare of chaos magic settled back. Apparently she also knew that swearing caused it to act up.

Good Heart shook his head in disbelief “Wait! He killed somepony just because they said no?”

Brass chuckled bitterly “No… He killed the diamond dog and then held the head up to the rest of us and told us we didn’t have a choice. Submit or die. So we did and prepared to bolt the first chance we got. That’s when the attacks increased and the bloodshed came in to the Caravans. Those who refused joined the dead.”

Now Good Heart looked sick. Celestia couldn’t blame him as she felt sorry for Brass. She did commit crimes, but she didn’t hurt anypony. Sure still deserved to be punished… but it was clear that this Sanguine Point was the real problem plaguing this town.

“What do you know about him?” Celestia asked trying to get an understanding of this problem.

Brass shrugged only for another brick to fall on her head “No freaking clue.” She glared at the celling “Only that he isn’t a real unicorn and the sick freak likes to kill. Must have been a convicted serial killer or something. No idea how he got here of all places.”

Good Heart looked back at Celestia “So… what do you want to do with her?”

Break—

Valkyrie

Showers. It’s funny how I never really cared about them before. It was just a way to get clean.

I tried to keep to myself as I avoided the gaze of the other mares in the shower. I just wished I could have a private shower as they all kept staring at my butt… well my ‘flank’ trying to figure out my cutie mark.

First day it was annoying having them stare as I tried to figure out the right amount of shampoo that was required(Showering was so much easier as a human) . By the end of the third day it went from staring at me like I was some sort of freak to rumors about what my stupid butt mark is supposed to be. Considering how long a couple of them stare at me I can’t help but wonder if their gay or just can’t comprehend my rear being blank.

I've gotten sick of hearing ponies ask if my cutie mark is the same color of my coat or something equally as stupid. I don't know what my "special talent" is supposed to be and quite frankly it wouldn't help me when I went back home so why bother?

It’s actually sad that I actually envy Lockheart right now. Private shower. Private room… even if it’s a jail cell. He’s even getting private lessons in magic for Pete’s sake! Meanwhile I’m trying to keep a log of my activates and try to forgot about the cursed magic point system.

I mean spend a point. Gain new skill and lose some memories? It’s practically gambling with your life! Still at least my memories are mine… and I don’t have an identity issue. Still don’t have a “pony name” but then again I can’t even remember my “real name” either. Valkyrie has a nice ring to it… but it’s not pony-ish as it earns me a few stares. Still it’s better than Overkill. That blasted nickname doesn’t seem to want to die!

If I find out who spread that nickname to the rest of the guard I’ll give them a knuckle sandwich… or a face full of hoof. I seriously need new pony terms to help express my frustration.

“Don’t bother her.” One of the mares whispered “She’s the one who keeps breaking all the training equipment.”

I turned off the shower and walked out before the gossip set in. I quickly dried myself off with a towel as I felt better. Now that I was getting the hang of hooves I didn’t feel like a cripple anymore. My old armor rested inside one of the lockers as I quickly strapped it on.

The suit was heavy, but unlike most pony fashion it could be altered. With a quick adjustment to some saddlebags they covered my blank flank and kept the saddlebags secure. I don’t care if the rest of the ponies go ‘natural’ but I prefer something covering my body… even if it’s a suit of armor.

As soon as I walked outside a pony stood to greet me. Steel something. One of the few ponies I don’t mind being around as he at least feels normal. No idea what he’s thinking, but that’s just it. He’s thinking instead of blurting the first idiotic thing on his mind. That and Steel isn’t that strange of a name considering how many fantasy books I’ve read.

“Hey Steel.” I shouted as he simply nodded. “So what’s happening?”

Steel glanced at the skies as I couldn’t help but stare at his dirt brown coat and gray mane “Now… we’re trying snow. You’re less likely to have an accident with this exercise and fall is coming so having another pegasus on hoof for winter wouldn’t hurt.”

“Snow?” I glanced at the bright sunny skies “Won’t it be hard with all the… sun?”

Steel glanced at be now in confusion “Why would that make a large difference?”

“Heat?” I nervously replied “Or… sunlight.”

One of Steel’s eyebrows rose “You do realize that the clouds will block the sunlight… and sure it won’t be as easy as it would be during the winter, but here in Equestria we make the weather.”

I nodded in frustration. Magic... That was the answer to everything as my normal logic obviously had no place in a land full of unicorns and pegasi. Steel flew over to one of the clouds as I followed after him and landed on the cloud.

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve done it as my hooves land firmly on the cloud. I can’t help but think I’m about to fall through them any moment. It always feels like I’m at the edge of some fluffy soft thing… like marshmallows or really fluffy cotton… and I’m just one step away from falling off the edge.

It doesn’t matter how many steps I take they all feel the same. My mind tells me it’s impossible, but my body make it feel like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like it’s crazy to think that a cloud could harm me or that I shouldn’t feel strange at feeling so calm as I rest my wings in the air.

Steel took a small walk around the cloud before jumping off and pushing it towards the next area. I grabbed the cloud and tried to keep a good grip on it.

“Don’t think about the ground. Or how your grabbing it. It’s just like your wings.” I thought back in my head “It’s magic.”

The cloud soon stopped as I sighed in relief. My menu popped up revealing I had earned a new skill point as it even shows a section of weather management. I shut the cursed window and the abundance of points out of my sight. I don’t care how easily I’m earning them right now. I’m not giving up any more of my memories!

“Are you okay?” Steel asked out loud.

I shook off my doubts and replied “I’m alright. Just thinking about… things.”

It’s now been a week since I’ve seen Lockheart. A week since Stardust left to visit her family… why hasn’t she come back? Was she a pony suffering human memories… or was he suffering from a conflict of split personalities? What about Lockheart? Why did he let me be the one to pick when we leave? Had he spoken to Stardust? Why hadn’t any of the rest of humanity come to Canterlot?

I glanced back at Steel apparently waiting for an answer “Just how things are different… and how long I have left to stay. I mean at some point I’m going to have to find a way to earn some money… and lodging.”

Steel coughed into his hoof “You could… always try joining the royal guard.”

“I highly doubt it.” I quickly replied as I suppressed a shiver.

He stepped closer “Why not?”

“Because…” My mouth hung open as I tried to find a reason.

“It’s complicated? I’m not from Equestria? I’m human?” My mind screamed out.

Instead Discord’s voice seem to dance in my mind “It’s easy money. You don’t have a job and they don’t care. I’d say you’re a pesagi unless humans walk on clouds during their free time.”

I felt like snapping back at the voice only to realize that it was right “Well it’s complicated. I mean… guard duty.”

Discord’s voice chuckled “It’s not part of the game. In games you get quick short runs. You do jobs, they only last a few minutes before you go back onto your grand adventure. Heroes in stories don’t take day jobs. You don’t want to admit it’s real. That it’s really happening. That there isn’t some sort of quick fix or grand adventure that will solve everything.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath “Because I’m frightened."

“Frightened of what?” Steel asked.

I felt a hoof on my shoulder. Strangely I didn’t recoil from it. I didn’t like the other ponies touching me. It felt strange yet… I didn’t mind this time?

An explosion rang out as fire danced across the town. Two ponies were running out of the castle with a pony on their back. I recognized Stardust lying unconscious one of their backs. I jumped off the cloud and shot straight down towards them in rage. One turned around as a green shield appeared before him as I crashed into it.

The unicorn laughed “Sorry about that. I thought you were one of them.”

I stared at him in confusion. A title floated above his head Dream Maker. He had dark blue fur covering his body and dark green mane in a ponytail of all things. The other unicorn beside him had the title Blinker as he had orange coat and purple mane styled in dreadlocks. On Dream Maker’s back was Stardust.

“What are you doing?” I replied back keeping my eyes on them.

Dream Maker chuckled “Doing what needs to be done. I’m bringing us home and Rarity is going to do it for us.”
Before I could react Blinker’s horn glowed before they suddenly disappeared. I slammed my hooves at the ground in frustration as I had let them escape! What the hell where they planning to do with my friend!

Steel landed as he shouted “What happened?”

“They took Stardust!” I screamed out “I hesitated and they escaped!”

Steel Wing would have simply knocked them out. Steel Wing would have caught on that Blinker meant teleporter. Why couldn’t I be more like Steel Wing instead of my worthless old self?

Steel moved closer “Did you get a good look?”

“Two unicorns…” I muttered in frustration “dark blue coat. Dark green mane. The one with the orange coat and purple mane could teleport.” I shook my head “Can we get some unicorn to check where they went… or maybe get Celestia?”

Steel looked at me in sorrow “We can’t. None of the unicorns would be able to tell where they went… and Celestia was just called away. Something happened at Timberton.”

No Celestia. No magic back trace. I just let Stardust who came back to the castle… to possible talk to us only to get kidnapped. I huffed in frustration as I could feel teeth grinding against each other. I needed help and nobody could help me…

“I need to talk to Lockheart!” I shouted out loud “We need to find those two bastards and right away!”

******

Lockheart

I glanced over the dead chicken bones. Green flames rested inside the joints of the dead bird as it walked about on the table making it looked possessed. Remedy Cross kept jotting away in her journal apparently excited at my new skill. I made the walking skeleton navigate the made out of tinker tot toys and colorful blocks as it slowly pushed the ball to the end of the maze.

“That’s actually impressive.” She replied “Tell me. How did you animate it? What magical theorem did you use? Did you focus on each step or?”

“I just moved it.” I quickly replied “I filled the joints and made it walk.”

Remedy just stared at me “Filled the joints?” Her horn glowed lifting the block underneath my undead chicken’s feet forcing it to readjust it’s weight preventing it from falling off the block “That’s a lot more than just filling in the joints.”

I shrugged “The bones are in place. It walks about. I just have it do what the body can do. It’s not that complicated.”

Remedy looked as if she was going to pull out her hair “That’s simultaneous movement of countless joints based on natural movement instead of magical manipulation…” She pulled out the other chicken skeleton “You should be running into errors or scrapping bone!”

Her skeleton chicken walked towards mine. The movements were unnatural as it glowed blue with each joint jerking about. When her undead chicken flapped it’s wings to control its balance as the sockets moved apart or went straight out of their joints.

“And yet yours?” Her skeleton chicken crashed into mine. Mine flapped it’s wings only to crash onto the floor. My undead chicken moved it’s wings to pick itself up like a human would use their arms to push themselves off the ground “It just acts normal. Can you even get it to move past it’s joints?”

I licked my lips as I tried to place more magic into it. My undead chicken kept flapping it’s wings trying to get back up to the table only for her undead chicken to glide down before flapping it’s wings and flying around my undead chicken like some sort of undead vulture.

“How do you get it to fly?” I asked back in confusion “Chickens can’t fly.”

“Making it fly is easy!” She almost shouted back “Heck making one 'fly' is a common mistake! How can you not do it?”

We both groaned. I stared getting an understanding, but not an idea… or the same idea she had. Her magic animate the bones or something… and mine connect it together. It’s like readying the same book and getting two different stories out of it.

“And yet you only just started to get levitation down.” She muttered in annoyance.

I frowned “It’s tricky.”

She glared at me “Tricky is life like imitations.” She pulled the ball up in the air with her magic “Tricky is trying to get the numerous joints working together and having it navigate a maze while pushing a ball!”

She nearly face hoofed “How can you get an undead chicken to get a ball past this maze and not levitate it out on your own?”

The doors opened up as I shouted “Finally. Please tell me…”

“I need your help Lockheart!” Shouted Valkyrie.

I turned my head as I saw the panic on her face. She was breathing heavily as some pegasi was right behind her also breathing heavily. Honestly I was expecting Celestia.

The unknown pegasi whispered loudly “We should get the guards. Search the area.”

Valkyrie ignored him “Two unicorns ki… Foalnapped Stardust. No marks. One teleported.”

My blood ran cold as my undead chicken fell to the ground. The pegasi stared at the bones in with a look of fear while Valkyrie didn’t seem to notice. I quickly got off of the couch and went over to… help her or something.

First step was to calm her down “Look we can get Celestia. Tell her about them.”

She shook her head “I could have stopped them… they talked about finding a way to fix it. They called her Rarity.”

It clicked together in the back of my mind as I felt a cold sweat run down my back. Heroes and villains. I’m a villain and the hero side is getting put together. The elements of harmony…

“Names.” I quickly whispered back.

“They didn’t give any.” She replied, but my menu popped up as the message read “Blinker and Dream Walker. Blinker Teleports.”

Neat she finally found the message system. I’m going to need her to teach me where to find the blasted thing!

I simply nodded “Rarity. They said Rarity?”

“They called Stardust Rarity.” She replied uneasily “They claimed she could fix everything.”

I cursed under my breath as my throat burned in pain as my locket burned across my neck. No chaotic green flames danced out of my mouth, but the burning sensation wasn’t that pleasant. I glanced as the silver heart shaped locket that Celestia had made for me to help keep the chaotic magic under control.

“Lockheart?” Valkyrie asked again out loud snapping me back to the current situation.

I already had a similar discussion… well a question similar to it about something else. Dear god please don’t let it be what I think it is.

Remedy spoke out loud “What is it Lockheart?”

I closed my eyes “Ever heard about Thor’s hammer?” And prepared myself for the worst of it.

“Can’t be moved by those not worthy… This is Stardust we are talking about!” Valkyrie snapped at me “She can’t possibly.”

“She looks close enough.” I muttered under my breath “More importantly if they don’t care about ethics there’s a lot they can do with that.”

“Ethics?” the pegasi asked “Do you think they’re going to kill her or something!”

I sighed “There is an old debate on the subject of Thor’s Hammer. A few questions asked about how one could move such a hammer. If someone put it on a cart then could you push the cart? If the hammer was placed on a table and then you break the table would that count as moving it? That sort of stuff.”

They all stared at me. I didn’t like thinking about the other twisted methods. Who decides? What counts as right as long as it fits? Heck the old harry potter wand bit has a lot of confusion and manipulations done with it.

“One question was… if you make someone like Thor… then could he or she pick up the hammer?” I slowly replied dreading the next response.

Remedy blinked “Make someone?”

Valkyrie’s stared at me not wanting to believe it as I simply nodded “Elements of Harmony. If a pony matches the element than they can use it… then would it matter if you did a bit of mind magic to make a personality that matched it?”

Valkyrie shook her head “You can’t be serious. Even then the amount of…”

“Min-Max.” I simply replied “The question isn’t if they can do it, but how… ethical they’ll be. If it only cost six lives to get what they want? Then all that’s left is tweaking the personality until it’s just right even if you have to wipe it clean.”

The pegasi shook his head “Alright. Worst case scenario we have a group of crazed cultist, but we can’t do much right now. We don’t know where they are!”

I hung my head “Everfree forest. Castle of the two sisters. Properly near the throne room.”

The pegasi stared at me as Remedy asked “What makes you think that?”

I sighed “Because that’s my blackmail. That’s where the Elements of Harmony are being kept hidden by Celestia and apparently those two ponies know about it.”

******

I didn’t enjoy the sky cart at all. I don’t care if two pegasi were pulling the dam thing it still made me feel uneasy as Valkyrie and Steel Halberd pulled us towards the Everfree Forest. The forest with it’s own rules that I know nothing about and couldn’t help but wonder if the cart would suddenly fall apart if it flew to close to the forest.

I glanced down over Canterlot. It was strange seeing it from above. It was stranger not seeing the train tracks or a small Ponyville in the distance. I could see the forest, but Ponyville wasn’t even being built or even founded as it was just left as a large patch of dirt and open fields.

I couldn’t help but shiver as the response only reminding me of my wings. It had taken a week for me to get used to my new alien body and pretending to be a pony. My strange wings twitched at being so far up in the sky as I began to wonder if they would keep me from falling.

I could feel a scent in the air as it seemed the very taste of the air changed as we flew above the clouds. I tried to shut my eyes only to have my changeling side enhance my other senses. I could feel the worry and doubt from Valkyrie the guilt hang over her leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

I could hear the rapid heartbeat and even the sweet scent of fear emanated from Steel as we drew closer to the forest. His pride and concern outweighed his fear… but I could tell the concern was only directed towards Valkyrie. Either he thought me and Remedy could take care of ourselves as he was worried about Valkyrie or he didn’t really care what happened to us. If he was human than I’d be more inclined for the second reason, but ponies… I still have a hard time figuring them out.

Remedy seemed emotionless on the surface as the ride didn’t bother her at all, but the torrent of emotions mixed together seemed to leave her wide open. I could taste the excitement at the prospect of adventure. The tingle of amusement as she watched Steel try to overcome his fear of the Everfree forest, but most of all I could taste her unadulterated rage after my discussion of mind control.

I forced my eyes open again as my changeling senses seemed to die down. I didn’t like how that aspect seemed to have grown during my encounter with Discord. It just felt wrong being able to look so deeply into them.

Before that ability was more of an emphatic ability as I could gauge their emotions better… especially when I was feeding on it. Even then I could mostly tell if it was positive or negative when my horn tried feeding on the emotion given out. Now I was starting to be able to get a better idea of the emotions and where they were directed without even trying to replenish my strength.

It was one thing to be trapped in a new body, but to be able to have access to an entire array of senses that didn’t belong was sometimes overwhelming. The feel of the wind in my wings, the scent of emotions around me, or even the shifts of transformation or alteration of my own body as it tried to readjust itself to better fit the wind blowing past me.

Was I just getting used to this new body as I was just getting used to them or where some of them caused by the chaotic fluxes of the chaos magic resting in my body. Hell for all I know the explanation could be because I was given a villain card unlike everyone else so far.

It was hard to keep track of all the subtle background senses that seemed to change every few seconds. The wings acting up in the air. The emotional sense and tingle near those with strong emotions or simply when I’m feeling hungry. The nagging fear in the back of my mind as I keep having to place so many things I don’t understand as simply “magic” because it doesn’t make sense to me.

I glanced at my menu as it flickered about. Glitched… broken… I didn’t have to worry about losing my memories and now I couldn’t use it. Instead I spit out chaotic fire when I curse and possibly made a deal with the devil… well pre-reformed Discord anyway.

“An Element of Harmony for Immortality.” I couldn’t help but say in the back of my mind “And now I’m having to rush into the place… because some idiots plan to use mind control to try to get it to work.”

Did Discord know that someone would try to do this or did he just simply guess we might end up ruining things ourselves?

Did it surprise me that someone would try to use mind control? Desperation with a healthy dash of “For The Greater Good” can make anyone commit vile acts without so much as batting an eye. Just throw the number game in for good measure and reduce it to six lives vs… however many were sent here and you could easily convince a crowd that it was the right plan… just as long as they were not part of the “Noble Sacrifice”.

Then simply dump points into mind control as you get the rest of the Min-Maxers to protect you and you have a perfect formula for this lovely brand of insanity. If it doesn’t work the first time then keep using mind control to tweak their minds until it works. The fact they called her Rarity means they plan to go a step further.

Why keep a flawed human personality when Rarity can use it? Pesky memories in the way? Why not use that delete function or simply rip them out until you place the known cannon memory of what you think Rarity should be and then just keep tweaking it until you get the perfect Rarity.

Now I’m left with three choices… Grab the elements and give them to Celestia. Grab an element and make the discord bargain since the Elements of Harmony will be used as a source of conflict… which also works for Discord. Then there is the final option to let the players who kidnapped six random people to try their insane idea. Maybe it’ll work. Heck the TV showed a lot of different version of mind magic including the “alicorn love spell” which was perfectly acceptable just as long as Princess Cadence did it.

“That’s not why you’re worried.” I could hear my voice whispering in the back of my skull “You’re worried you’ll screw up. Low level skills vs very powerful one trick players.”

I took a deep breath as the venomous voice continued whispering my unspoken fears “Or maybe you’re just afraid that Discord was right. That there’s nothing waiting for you back home. That you’ll play the villain simply because you don’t want the heroes to succeed. You’re afraid that the Title Usurper is who you’ll really be. Just another villain that needs to be blasted away by the heroes.”

The pegasi cart finally lands as I happily left my grim thoughts on the cart of focus on more pleasant thoughts like running through an enchanted forest full of monsters that would want to eat me… How did this happen again? Oh right evil crazy nut jobs.

Steel Halberd shook himself like a dog before he walked towards the Everfree forest nervously. Valkyrie on the other hand was racing towards the tree line trying to find any trace of the criminals… or where Ponyville would soon stand. It sounds silly, but the path to the Two Sisters Castle was near Ponyville. No Ponyville meant no easy way to follow track in a forest with an ever-growing deadly array of monsters.

Remedy Cross quickly caught up to Valkyrie leaving me in the back of the group. With one deep breath I started the trek that would either save Stardust… or doom myself. I opened my menu and set the quest tracker function. A nice small arrow appeared pointing me to the castle.

One small gift from Discord to ensure I wouldn’t get lost... unless I ran into a monster den or something only the way. Still better than nothing.

******

Steel Halberd

It was strange walking about in the forest. The plants seemed to defy all logic as a blue marrow hawk rested beside a nimbi root. Never mind the two species needed to be grown in completely different habitats or found on the opposite ends of Equestria, but here they were both in bloom.

It was almost tempting to pick them… if he didn’t see a large lizard jump on the plants only for some sort of stinger to suddenly piece the lizard’s body and dragged it into the darkness. He glanced at a small manticore’s body… Equestria’s number one predator strung up in a spider web as countless spiders crawled across it’s body slowly tearing it apart and doing something to it. The manticore’s eyes were glossed over, but the beast was still breathing despite the lack of flesh and blood.

Steel would take facing a dragon head on than explore the Everfree Forest… which sadly made it a great place to hide if you invoked the wrath of Celestia and didn’t have enough time to cross Equestria’s borders. Of course the fact many criminals didn’t was because it’s the Everfree Forest. The deeper you went the worst it got.

He glanced over at Valkyrie… or Overkill as Lockheart called her. Sure the nickname made sense seeing her in the armor… but it didn’t feel right. Valkyrie… just had a better ring even if it was foreign.

The bushes began to shake forcing him to pull out his Halberd. Four Timber Wolves jumped out of the bushes growling only for Valkyrie to charge them. Her hooves smashed through the skull of the first one taking them by surprise as she smashed through the second one’s skull with ease making the two surviving ones flee.

“Come back and face me you cowards!” She screamed in rage

Lockheart continued down the path he only seemed to know as Remedy followed him. Valkyrie was angry and wanted to lash out at something. Lockheart didn’t even give the bodies a second glance which kind of unnerved Steel.

Was it the fact he trusted her skill to defeat the Timberwolves… or that he wasn’t bothered at seeing dead bodies even if they were Timberwolves?

Before he could think more about it there was a shout in the distance. Valkyrie shot forth towards the scream as they all raced after her. Steel kept his halberd ready in case it was the cultist again… Honestly he was hoping for kidnappers, but the cultist image Lockheart painted was stuck in his mind… even more so in this cursed forest.

Kidnappers you dealt with a ransom or by threatening they would feel the wrath of the Royal Guard. Cultist just didn’t care and would usually speed up their plans.

After pushing past a through a couple of branches and over a few fallen trees did they find the source of the distress. A large serpent like creature snapped at the earth pony. It had two large wings on it’s back as dozens of smaller legs pushed it forward more like a centipede than normal limbs. The earth pony’s sword swung down making it back away hissing before sparks flew out of the snake creature’s mouth. Steel covered his eyes for just a second from the bright shower of light.

Before he could opened his eyes he heard the creature screamed in pain. Four identical earth ponies now stood staring at the monster in confusion as blood dripped from it’s mouth. One of the illusions flickered away revealing a sharp jagged rock.

Lockheart shouted “Run!”

The earth pony’s eyes widened as he ran towards them. Right behind him was the serpent creature hissing in rage as it used the wings to propel itself forward.

“Valkyrie! Wings!” Steel Halberd shouted.

Already she took off into the air as he followed behind her. The serpent noticed them as it twisted it’s body back and snapped its tail forth like a whip. Steel flew close to the ground as the tail tore through the trees nearby as if they were nothing. Valkyrie managed to doge the attack as she was above the monster. She plowed straight into one of the wings as her metal clawed boots left a deep gash in it.

The serpent screamed out in pain giving him enough time to get close. The halberd dug into the other wing as it tore through flesh and muscle ruining the wing as the creature turned around to bite him. Instead a blue aura glowed across it’s legs as a painful snap echoes in the air as it fell over on its side. The legs on its left side were broken in weird angles as soon copies of himself as Valkyrie flew about in the air.

The serpent rolled about trying to use it’s wings to get back up as blood splashed about all over the place. Valkyrie took another dive against the creature as her weapon left a deep bloody gash across it’s back. The monster coiled itself into a ball ready to attack the next pony. Steel banged his halberd against his armor trying to signal Valkyrie to break of the attack. She quickly flew back into formation as they raced away from the monster.

Already ahead of them were the unicorns and the new earth pony as one of them started to slow down as he looked behind. As soon as the trees started crashing down behind them it gave them enough panic fueled strength to pick up the pace. The bloodthirsty howl told Steel all that he needed to know as he didn’t bother looking behind.

They raced forward only for them to stop at a ravine. Gagged rocks littered the ground below as the rapid torrents of water smashed against the rocks. It was too far for a pony to jump… but not enough to fly over.

“Valkyrie! Grab Remedy!” Steel shouted “I’ll get the earth pony!”

Lockheart took a few couple of steps back before he took a running start and jumped off the edge. His wings snapped open as they flapped awkwardly struggling to keep him afloat to the other side. Valkyrie grabbed Remedy and took flight as Remedy used her magic to help lessen the load. Steel took a deep breath and grabbed the earth pony who hung onto him for dear life as he took flight across the ravine. The monster behind them kept tearing through the forest howling in rage as Steel struggled to fly faster.

He hit the ground on the other side as they both went rolling across the group. Valkyrie landed a little bit better than they did, but still crashed in the end as Lockheart struggled to pull himself up. Steel raced over to pull him up as he saw the serpent staring at them. It’s claws gripping the side of the ravine as it stared at them with bloodshot eyes.

“No….” Steel spoke out loud as hints of fear and doubt filled his voice “Don’t you dare.”

The serpent backed up just like Lockheart had done. Steel pulled Lockheart up as they both moved away from the edge as the serpent leapt forward at them. The long body stretched across the ravine as it was already half way across before it’s hind legs left the ground. The wings of the monster spread out it tried to take flight only to flap uselessly. Lockheart and Remedy immediately opened fire shooting magical blasts at it’s body and wings as it howled in rage before falling out of view. Steel took to the air and looked at the side of the Ravine along with Valkyrie making sure it wasn’t climbing back up.

Instead it kept falling down ripping chunks of stone with its descent before crashing against the rocks in the river and being swept away with the current. Steel sighed in relief as he landed back on the ground and collapsed. His heart was racing as he wished to never set hoof in the Everfree forest again.

The earth pony sighed out loud “Why did it have to be snakes?”

Steel glanced at the earth pony “You’re afraid of them?”

The earth pony chuckled “Not really… just felt like the right thing to say!”

This got a groan from Lockheart and Valkyrie as everypony tried to rest. Steel just examined the earth pony trying to get an idea of who he was. Light tan coat with dark brown hair tied in a long ponytail that hung off his shoulder as a long cutlass was resting in his tail. He was also had a cutie mark of one of those white opera masks… expect grinning. Not the traditional smile, but more like snickering with teeth and a small hoof over part of the mouth.

The earth pony pushed himself up “Name’s Maxwell or Max for short! What about you…” He paused staring at them in confusion. “Uh… what’s?”

“There with us.” Lockheart replied to the unspoken question.

More than that Lockheart seemed to flinch when he hear Maxwell’s name. Maxwell didn’t seem to notice it as he focus on the two ponies with cutie marks.

Maxwell shook his head “I mean you do realize…”

“They are not objects!” Valkyrie snapped back “Their living breathing people! Unlike the bastards who started abducting friends!”

Steel Halbred and Remedy Cross stared at the earth pony in question. Neither of them fully understood what was going on… but being referred to as objects? That didn’t settle well with them. It really didn’t settle well when Maxwell didn’t seem to respond.

******

Maxwell

Just great. I ticked off the only two humans around and I’ve got two NPCs staring at me like I’m a criminal. Just take a deep breath and try to figure everything out. Maybe their bodyguards or one of those ‘save my family’ quest NPCs used to help fill up the DPS line up?

I backed up “Whoa… there for a moment. By friends do you mean?”

The one called Lockheart nodded “Two idiots from this forest took our friend. These two” he pointed at the NPCs “came to help us… you?”

I smiled… well tried to smile as I glanced at the NPCs “Uh… is it safe to… you know talk?”

The NPC seemed annoyed as he glared at me “I’m part of the Royal Guard. If anything I should be concerned about you considering the two criminals we are chasing after attacked the castle!”

Oh freaking great! I just pissed of one of Celestia’s royal guard! He might rank high enough for a personality… or something close enough to cause trouble. Either way he’s either alive… or high enough level to kick my ass.

I quickly put my hooves up in the air shaking them “Wo! Wo! Wo! Hold up a sec! You mean two of them just kidnapped someone from Celestia? Like raise the sun or…”

“Smite if angry and having an angry physical god would be a bad thing for us all.” Lockheart calmly replied “So what do you know?”

Shit. Pegasus looks like he wants to rip me a new one. The one called Valkyrie is angry as she’s marching up a storm. Why did I have to get stuck with an Earth Pony build instead of a unicorn or pegasi build? At least then I could run away!

I took a deep breath and tried to play it off “Not much. Lost in forest. Got together in a group and grabbed a train ride. Half way through I convinced everyone to jump and what do you know? The freaking train is a fake. All tracks and no refuel points as it stopped right away.”

The pegasi and unicorn stared at me in confusion. Alright… trains don’t exist so jumping ship was a good idea! Nice to know I was right all along!

I focused back on the two humans in front of me getting ready for the hard part “Half of us split up. They went right as we went left. When we got back together a few days later we brain stormed. My side found out there’s something fishy as none of our facts added up and the left wing group formed a party doing Min-Max to cover each other’s bases.”

The unicorn NPC shook her head “Do any of you understand what he’s saying?”

Valkyrie seemed bothered, but not that surprised at what I was saying. Lockheart either didn’t care or already knew. Funny… most tend to have a hard time believe their version of the tale might be wrong. Of course considering everyone had a slightly different “vision” or “intro” than everyone else… it’s not that hard to believe.

Did they have the train as their intro into Canterlot or was it something else?

I prepared myself for the upcoming fallout as I continued my tale of failure “They also had a different plan. Mine was… ‘Hey. There’s a castle. Maybe find the ruler and ask for help!’ I just figured a goddess who raised the sun might be able to help us out get back home.”

And here it comes “But instead Duran talked about the Elements of Harmony. Apparently a fix all McGiffin. Since the Mane Six were supposed to be able to use them… he started recruiting.”

The Pegasi twitched as he grew angry “You mean foalnapping ponies.”

Foalnapping? I always thought the term was fillynapping… or does that apply to adults or gender… Focus on surviving this encounter! Terms latter! Survival now!

I nodded “I mean… it didn’t seem bad at first. The first “Applejack” was kind of a fun guy. Great at card games and didn’t have much at home. Bumping him up to mystic hero seemed like an easy win.”

“Then the mind control came into play?” The unicorn asked out loud in a neutral voice that somehow carried anger like an enraged anime killer/girl.

I couldn’t help but shiver just thinking about it “More like freaky Twilight Zone kind of stuff, but yah. Apparently Poker Ace wasn’t “honest enough” and the other look alike ponies… weren’t right. So one night Poker Ace is playing cards. Next day he’s staring into the distance like a zombie with drool running out of his mouth.”

I flinched closing my eyes and opened them just a peek. Valkyrie just continued to walk back and forth like a lion ready to pounce. The Pegasus seemed outright disgusted… or disturbed. The Unicorn didn’t seem surprised, but she did look annoyed. Still none of them blamed me which was a good thing.

I couldn’t help but try to avoid their gaze as I continued “Duran called it an accident. He said Poker Ace was stealing… We took his word.”

We were human. They weren’t. This wasn’t real in a sense… and none of us would think twice about it if we got home. Is it any wonder that things got screwed up so quickly? I felt a small taste of bile in my throat… Was it guilt? It didn’t matter as what was done was done.

Yet I couldn’t help but hang my head in shame “Us vs them and all that BS. Then… Emerald Smith was taken out. Something about not being the right shape… or that he was a guy. Same drool. Same eyes. Emerald Smith ended up just like Poker Ace. So then one of us tried to leave that night. Duran caught her. Duran brain scrubbed her and then woke us all up shouting for joy… He started calling Rebecca… Fluttershy… The strong girl we all knew and love ready to pick a fight and laugh about it later… was gone. What stood in her place was a glossy eyed impression of Fluttershy…”

The unicorn nodded as if it was nothing “He couldn’t find the ponies he was looking for and started making them.”

“That just it!” I couldn’t help but snap back “He started making them! Apparently his mind mumbo jumbo didn’t work all too well on Equestrian ponies. So he moved on to us. Used his freaky mind puppets to guard the camp and started grabbing ponies to add to his army. He took anyone who could look like The Mane Six and started screwing with their heads!”

The NPCs didn’t seem to understand… why should they? Valkyrie looked guilty, but I recognized that look. She was more outraged that Duran moved onto humans instead of sticking to the NPCs. Lockheart… he just kept staring at me. Shouldn’t he be outraged or something? I’m talking about human lives and he doesn’t even seemed to give a fuck!

Lockheart glanced at my side “What about you? What’s your story?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle nervously. Make or break time “Look I’m one of you. I’m…”

Lockheart glared at me in anger… His ‘I don’t give a fuck' look suddenly snapped into vengeful wrath as he shouted “I don’t give a freaking dam about that! This Duran idiot took one of my friends! Tell me where he is!”

“You can’t be serious!” I shouted back.

This is grab the royal guard or send Princess Celestia to fix the mess! You got NPC help so why don’t you fucking use it! We don’t need to risk anyone else falling into Duran’s special brand of insanity!

Valkyrie glared at me in hatred as she shouted “Finish the story! What do we have to look out for!”

I took one last glance at all of them in fear. This wasn’t a normal group. I had a small Indiana hat and a cutlass because I lost my whip. Valkyrie had real armor and weapons. The Pegasus was a higher level than me as… screw it. They have the team build up on tank, dps, ranged dps, and healer. Four vs one really won’t end well for me.

I sighed and hopped for the best “We found the freaking castle. He set up shop trying to find the Elements. Turns out it’s a lot harder than you would think… or I wasn’t the only one planning a break for it.” His tail flickered about on the ground “When he went to grab sacrifice number three I told him I had enough. Forgot the crazy plan! Forgot the madness! Three days and not a single piece found? Obviously whatever magic kept the place in check thought we were evil and kept the freaking elements away from him.”

Valkyrie stared at me in confusion along with the two NPCs. The NPCs trying to figure out what I was talking about. The human was trying to figure out how a group of people couldn’t find a simple object after spending a few days in a castle and the NPCs trying to figure out how we managed to fall so far.

Too bad the castle is a lot bigger in real life and lacked the easy path the TV show had… Then again most of us were more nervous about Duran turning us into mind puppets than trying to focus on finding a bunch of rocks. It certainly doesn’t help the place was built as part funhouse or something.

Lockheart kept staring at my side as I frowned knowing the next question “I told everyone I’m leaving. Others followed suit… and then the sick freak attacked. Tried to turn me into a puppet soldiers right in front of everyone… and it didn’t work. I shook it off somehow. Shouted for him to… you know… and then we broke for it. Fought our way out.”

Valkyrie hadn’t noticed. The other two ponies didn’t seem to notice the problem… I took a deep breath getting ready for the real reason why I’m alone now… The real problem that I was left… behind.

I glanced at the cutie mark on my side “Then outside we were lost. No idea how to get back home… or to civilization… and then someone pointed out I got my butt marked.” He chuckled bitterly “They… didn’t exactly trust me afterwards. I resisted freako’s mind screw and… I wasn’t… part of the group anymore.”

I prepared myself for the worst “They went one way near where they thought a town was… and I… went the other way… as Duran is still pissed off I got everyone out of there. Kept sending a few of his mind puppets into the woods to finish the job. Last one woke up the… whatever that thing was.”

I waited for a few seconds as each one dragged on. Each second making the uncertainty even worse as the seconds kept ticking away like some Chinese water torture device. Humans are social creatures. Ponies… even more so. Being alone wears down on a person… and while I’ve spent a few camping trips alone… this feels worse. SO, So, so… much worse. Like last soul on earth worst as I don’t even give a dam who they were before the event that screwed us all over just as long as I won’t be left alone any longer.

“Well?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Oh please oh god please don't have them leave me alone!

Lockheart glanced back at me “We’re still going. If you want to join go right up ahead.”

I blinked “Just like that? I mean… I’m marked.”

The pegasi shrugged “You hate this… Duran villain and you didn’t help him out in his evil plan. If you want to get in line to hit him then we won’t stop you.”

Lockheart just glanced off into the forest staring at something “So you have a cutie mark. Stardust also has one. Better question is how many memories do you still have on you?”

My jaw dropped as I shook my head “What? I don’t understand… why would I be losing more memories?”

Valkyrie looked depressed as she slowly replied “Something attacked Canterlot. Tried stealing a statue… caused a few problems. We think it’s behind the forest incident.”

My menu popped up as I opened up the message. I stared at it in disbelief… I couldn’t believe it…. I read it again just to be sure.

The skill tree or point system in the menu. The more points you put into it… the more memories you lose.

Grant it I never put any points into it. I was more concerned on finding a way out of Equestria than playing games. Heck I was more focused on running away from Duran when he went mind wipe crazy than thinking the earth pony build had some sort of anti-mind magic skill… I didn’t even look at it in the forest because I was too busy running in fear or trying to find someone else.

I opened up my menu… the skill tree was resting there. The fact I could lose more memories sent shivers down my back. I glanced back at the letter trying to figure out what just happened.

The smoke monster was after Discord. Will explain more in private.

“Are you alright?” The unicorn asked out loud

I tried to smile back as I replied “Just… a little overwhelmed. Sure a lost a few memories… but I didn’t think I could possibly lose more memories.”

The Pegasi looked away from me as the fear on his face was obvious. The very thought of losing more of one’s memory was frightening. Was Duran’s little insanity spree made because he dumped more points into his build? Heck why didn’t anyone else say anything or did they all just assume everyone else knew?

I took a deep breath and tried to push it out of my mind and said “Just relax. Right now we’re off to slay the wizard. The evil wizard of magic. We dash we slay we find we play and Celestia will thank us in the end. We’re off to slay the wizard and save every soul we know.”

Lockheart groan “Rule number one. No singing.” He mumbled “I already get enough of that back at Canterlot.”

What wait? I stared at the others “Seriously? You actually just burst into song?”

Valkyrie shrugged “I mostly run into humming or drill tunes.”

The Pegasus nodded “It isn’t that unusual in pony towns.”

“It’s a bloody nuisance in the labs.” The unicorn muttered.

I stared at the unicorn “Wait… You’re a pony who doesn’t like singing?”

She stared at me like if I was an idiot “Singing should be done in moderation. You wouldn’t find a kitten cute if it kept jumping on you back every ten seconds with it’s claws out.”

Lockheart chuckled “She’s also the one teaching me Necromancy.”

I tripped over a branch as my brain tried to reboot. Necromancy? Isn’t that a big no no? Like there’s no freaking way a land full of colorful ponies has Death Magic as a normal means of magic?

The unicorn glared at me “Is it that unnatural! The only difference is that in the end I’m using magic instead of scalpels and drugs to remove dead flesh, mend muscle, and fix your broken body!” She huffed in annoyance “I was hoping at least more of you would be a lot more open minded.”

She simply walked off and joined the front of the group with Lockheart as I just got on her bad side. Just great… I ticked off the team medic and she’s a budding necromancer to boot! Suddenly an alicorn player doesn’t seem that strange anymore. He must have tried hacking his account or something to keep running into all these glitches.

Valkyrie simply whispered “It’s not a game. This is real life.”

I simply nodded. Of course it was real. We could die… It’s more like that anime… die in the game. Die in real life. That’s all. No way this is all… really real. Just deadly real. We just have to find the end game event that sends us all home! That crazy guy’s intro couldn’t be right… it had to be wrong…

Earth couldn’t be gone. We can’t be the last humans left in existence. He just got some crazy dooms day script. No fucking am I going to play this game and try to live the rest of my life as a freaking pony!

I got back up and followed the others. Find Duran. Kick his ass. Grab the elements and find a way home. Then just simply post an ad in the papers and find who can actually use the dam things to send us back home!

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay. Holiday troubles and so forth.

New arch up and we get to see more of humanity. Turns out not everyone had the same "intro" as Lockheart as Maxwell's involved the end of the world.

As for any questions about Maxwell jumping off a train? Yes he and a bunch of others did jump off the train. Also as previously stated Equestria's current train system isn't that great either. Insidious trap or faulty construction?

Now a question for the audience... did any of you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes that were missed?

Also how would you react or think people would react to finding out that there were a lot of conflicting intros or "explanations" for their arrival to Equestria?

It's A Mad World After All

Lockheart

I couldn’t help but stare in disgust at the Castle of the Two Sisters. The castle seemed to have various emotions hang around it area outside could best be described as a crude makeshift fix. The broken walls now had logs closing the gap as crude planks covered the windows.

The bridge was left in poor shape as I half expected it to fall if anything actually got on it. Of course the wooden makeshift fort was made out of fallen trees and logs rested nearby it. It looked as if someone had the idea of a fort and then quit when they barely made the foundations.

Instead of seeing people yawning in border outside everyone guarding the fort seemed to have gone nuts. I could feel the wrath and paranoia coming from everyone guarding it. The guards had shadows underneath their eyes as they stared into the distance ready to attack the first thing they saw. Hell a few of them twitched as if they were hopped up on coffee or about to shout the same crazed nonsense most raiders did in video games.

I took a deep breath as I waited for Steel Halberd to pass the spyglass over to me again just so I could make sure that they actually looked insane instead of my mind playing tricks on my. What I saw wasn’t much to go on, but the castle seemed to make my entire body itch and that didn't exactly feel like a good thing in this case.

Grant it the castle just looked wrong with the improvised defenses and repairs, but there was something more to it than that. The same type of feeling one has when staring into a dark cave or walking around in one of those distorted fun houses.

Steel shook his head as he handed off the spyglass to Valkyrie “I’ve never seen griffins and diamond dogs work together.”

Valkyrie frowned “No cutie marks on the ponies.”

I could see Valkyrie’s lips moving as she mouthed the various titles that hung above each player’s head. I felt my wings twitch in irritation at the thought of the titles.

Just one glance and you could tell who was human and who wasn’t. Just one glance helped give you an idea of who you were up against. Hell titles seemed to be the human equivalent of cutie marks right now. I’m glad I get rid of my title… but it’s going to be hard getting past them all if all it took was one look to see through a disguise.

I tapped my feet against the ground as I thought back to all the stories I’ve read about similar situations. Hiding the name of a title when the sunlight came up behind them was a popular one. Pretending to be a NPC as keeping your title out, but being hidden in a crowd of people… Sadly most stories involved hiding the fact your a player instead of an NPC. Not pretending to be someone else.

How do changelings keep themselves hidden? They have caprice instead of fur… yet the ponies had a lot of physical interaction. Even then with how magic seems to be the dump/save all answer or solution for most things the answer could simply be magic. Of course there’s always mind control as that was a weapon Queen Chrysalis TV canon used to help fix any blunders she ran into.

The though gave me a small chuckle as I tried to come up with a plan. Just a little bit of misdirection and a few nudges could get past the title problem. It would be just like the cheating boyfriend incident back at Canterlot… except this time the focus would be on me instead of a floating title above my head. Of course I would also need to figure out if any of them had mind control powers.

Valkyrie handed me the spyglass with her wing and said “Take a look at the green unicorn.”

I peeked through the spy glass and stared at the green eyed unicorn as I saw what she meant. The others stood on pins and needles ready to attack the first possible threat they saw. The unicorn looked as if she was bored out of her mind as she held a book in her hooves.

The unknown unicorn’s title was Shimmer Field. For pony names that isn’t much. For a unicorn who seemed bored out of her mind has she had magic while everyone else around her was going nuts? I’m going out on a limb and saying she’s a villain... well someone with mind control powers at the very least.

I paused for a second as I noticed she was wearing jewelry… grant it I’m wearing a big jacket, and Valkyrie’s wearing armor that covers her body. The fact the unicorn wasn’t wearing anything except for a necklace was setting off a ton of warning bells. The fact the rest of the males were either walking in birthday suits or nothing covering their… flanks as the unicorn would take a glance and smirk to herself every once and a while.

The wind blew as her fur flickered for a moment “She’s a fake.”

“What?” someone from the peanut gallery asked out loud.

I handed the spyglass to whoever was next “Low level illusion spell. Her fur flickered when her clothing moved in the wind. That and everyone else is standing on pins and needles while she is… ahem… enjoying the view so to speak.”

Completely lost on our Equestrian allies, but they didn't exactly have the same... aspects or social cues as we did. Personally I blame the internet and Rule 34.

I heard Maxwell whistle “Alright… How many races in Equestria have access to mind control?”

I groaned “That could mean a unicorn with a mind magic skill set, or a changeling screwing with emotions and minds, though Sirens can also mess with people’s minds and lower inhibitions or common sense before advancing to outright mind control. Better question would be which races don’t have access to mind control.”

Steel shook his head “So how many are innocents and how many are actually guilty?”

I couldn’t help but shrug “If we take out the green eyed unicorn things might get easier… but this isn’t just one crazy unicorn who’s causing everyone problems.” I could feel the tension in the air “It’s a group. Either one plays public figure while the rest work in the background… or Duran’s started teaching his mind magic tricks to his followers. Either way it’s not good.”

The plan to go back to Canterlot and have Celestia fix this mess sounder better and better by the minute now. Just let the Royal Guard swarm the castle with numbers and have Celestia mop up any resistance. Of course the only problem was trying to figure out how many players had combat builds and the level of difference between the players enhancements vs the Royal Guard. Then throw in a hostage crises and a few dirty tactics…

Look Celestia may be powerful, but the Canterlot wedding did prove one thing. Celestia is mortal and cheap shots still work in this universe. Now coming from a member of the human race that’s made it’s way to the top by out evolving/killing the other races on our planet instead of using friendship and rainbows… It’s going to get bloody.

No that's not a phrase. That's a fact. A painful literal fact. I don't know how certain things translate, but I do know one things. The Canterlot didn't have murder holes until we came along.

“Alright I’ll just fly over and” Valkyrie started to say as her wings opened up before Remedy used her magic to force them shut.

“You’ll get yourself captured.” She quickly stated “But we can’t just leave either.”

While I had doubts about Celestia being able to fix everything I was properly sure she had a better shot than we did… especially when the fields of mind control and dark magic came into play. Of course leaving someone we knew to get possibly brainwashed didn’t exactly set to well with me either.

“Why not?” I couldn’t help but ask as I brought up a major problem “They have guards and emotions are running wild in this area. I do not want one of you to take a wrong step and suddenly go bipolar or something.”

Maxwell rolled his eyes “Last thing we need is for someone to start saying ‘Resistance is futile’ or ‘you shall be assimilated’ just because they took a wrong step.”

It was sad but true. The despite the fact that it rubbed me the wrong way that Maxwell agreed with me it was kind of difficult to come up with a way to get past a field of magic we literally knew nothing about. Heck the only rules on mind control I’ve seen is proximity and that changed depending on which brand was being used.

Remedy opened up her saddle bags as started to search through them “I know a few spells that can protect us, but the problem is finding out how many there are and what type of mind control is in play.”

Maxwell shook his head “It’s mind control. What else matters?”

Remedy sort of glared at him “If it’s domination of another mind or direct manipulation than taking out the caster will restore the rest of them to normal or at the very least incapacitate them. If it’s “nudging” like Lockheart’s version or removal of impulse control than counter spells will be needed until the effects wear off.”

Steel sighed as he gave in “It’s the difference between having to fighting everypony or just a few crazed individuals. It will also determine just how many victims there are.”

I really hated what this meant. We had to be stealthy and figure out what type of mind control it was while we tried to find Stardust. Mind Control was always a subject that irked me. If this was also determining who was guilty… that always was a subject of controversy in any story.

Maxwell tried to chip in “What else do we have on our side?”

I shrugged “I can do illusions and the brand of mind control I have is more like nudging.”

Maxwell stared at me as he added “Green eyes, green magic, illusions and mind control?”

Valkyrie to my surprise came to my aid “Just give the wings a jerk if you’re curious.”

Before I could say anything the freaking jerk yanked out a mouthful of feathers. I bit back the fury of curses that rested at the tip of my tongue as the chaotic flames of magic danced in my throat as I glared at Maxwell. The feathers fell from his mouth as the gray feathers turned black hopefully dispelling any questions he had. I rubbed my aching wing it stung like hell. Maxwell wasn’t exactly gentle in his test, but seemed satisfied that I wasn’t a changeling.

Maxwell spat out the feathers as I muttered “Alright. If we get into the castle are we all sticking together or should we split up.”

Valkyrie took a look at the bridge again “How about we just skip the bridge and go straight under the castle?”

Valkyrie handed me the spyglass as I caught sight of the staircase leading down the gorge and to the Tree of Harmony… or at least I think it lead us too it. Her plan didn’t sound that bad until the vital flaw was revealed.

Maxwell shook his head “It doesn’t connect to the castle so unless you brought a shovel we won’t have much luck.”

If he meant the tunnel didn’t connect or he had actually checked the area out before he fled the castle he didn’t say. The fact I tried not to suggest we check it out anyway to see if he was lying was only because I didn’t want to waste any time trying to avoid being seen or checking if they had any guards hidden there if the cave really did connect to the castle.

Remedy smiled “Doesn’t matter. We have a griffin down near the bridge on our end with three other ponies.”

Steel opened up his wings and went forward with Valkyrie as I couldn’t help but groan. Apparently we were going back to plan A. Knock someone out and hope our illusion specialist can trick the enemy.

Sometimes I hate my life.

******

Stardust

The first that that happened when I opened my eyes was fear shooting through my veins. I was trapped in an unknown room as the last thing I remembered was being fillynapped. Every instinct in my body wanted to scream.

All it got was a frightened “Meep!”

The kind of fear were you were just too scared to scream. I reached for my saddle bags and sighed in relief happy to know they were still there as I took out one of the potions to calm my nerves and to hopefully help me think straight.

“Just calm down Stardust.” I repeated to myself “Your panicked, but remember what dad always told you… and besides it can’t be as bad as…”

I gripped my head as it started to ache again “as…” The two conflicting memories clashed again. “Dam it!”

Tears ran down my eyes as the confusion set in again. I could see dad resting my on his back as he told me about his adventures in the Royal Guard… then there was the bitter memory of the road bomb nearly taking out my squad.
The second memory had to be a fake because there weren’t cars in Equestria… yet nopony told me how to craft… certain volatile items. Of course the fact memories of my parents didn’t seem to stand up as well as the other memories.

I took another sip of the potion. It was made to help deal with the nightmares, but it also helped in times like this.

“Think about now.” I said to myself as tears ran down my eyes “Just focus on what’s happening now and then deal with the past latter.”

Rummaging through my saddle bags I started to see just why they didn’t take anything. It was all junk. A few cosmetic items and a small cleaning supply item or two, but nothing really… important. Of course like the old saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” as it really was nothing… until you mixed it together.

“Okay remember the old rules.” I muttered to myself as I tore up the bed sheets and started to get to work “Masks mean hostages. No mask means something much worse because if I see their faces I could describe them to the police.”

I shook my head as I was forced to destroy a few pieces that cost a nice chunk of my bits. Dad talked about trying to have me get used to everything again and Sis… I held my head as two conflicting memories clashed as one had me in a wheel chair and the other looking at expensive smelly junk.

No idea if it was perfume or some home remedy concoction. I pulled the small smelly liquid out and gladly dumped it on the torn up bed sheets. The chemical makeup was the only value I saw in that junk.

With one kick to the bed frame I managed to get a mixing spoon/block and started getting to work. I needed something close to a flash bang to get past the initial guards. Then I needed other items to deal with whoever chased after me… volatile mixtures worked great sealing off hallways and it would warn the fire department… yet unicorn magic could do some trick stuff.

Then again trying to come up with chemical bombs similar to tear gas didn’t exactly work to well if they had guns and simply shot you. Fire blinded people and gas… gas just pissed people off as most would try to cover their mouth or do something else.

I muttered to myself “It’s just like the meeting with Celestia. Make chemical stink bomb and focus on pony biology.”

I needed to talk to Lockheart and Valkyrie again. My memories were a mess as even the ones that seemed to claim to be about Equestria seemed to conflict… I mean Luna? The Mare on the Moon story was just an old mare’s tale… and Discord? I think I heard something about him… yet he couldn’t be resting in the maze garden by the castle. Even the info about Terik seemed to conflict as Centaurs don’t like that long… well naturally at least.

The sounds of hoofsteps warned me somepony was coming as I quickly went to work. Just one perfume bottle with a deadly mixture and a torn up piece cloth to use as a fuse. I broke my brush on the floor and ripped out the small piece of flint I hide inside it to lite the first mixture as the hoofsteps grew louder.

And dad thought I was paranoid. Sadly that only works when people are not after you.

Each strike against the piece of flint made me grow more nervous as the unknown assailant came closer and closer. When the cloth final took the small spark and started to burn it took all my strength to not shout for joy as I raced back to the broken bed and turned it on it’s side.

The door opened up revealing a dark blue coat unicorn with some sort of green slimy looking mane. His green eyes seemed to be filled with some unspoken evil or horror as his smile only seemed to darken the room around him. The strangest thing about him was that instead of having a cutie mark on his side he had floating words above his head labeling him as Dream Walker.

Either he had a stupidly large ego or he wasn't your average unicorn.

Dream Walker chuckled as he stepped forward into the room without fear or doubt as he openly mocked me “Hiding behind the bed? Really? Is this the moment where you kick it striking fear into the unsuspecting guard before you make your heroic escape?”

“Oh whatever am I to do?” He replied as sarcasm heavily dripped with each and every word “Oh it’s not like I could just simply…”

Before he could finish a green magical aura grabbed me and the bed lifting us both up into the air. Dream Walker now pretended to gasp in shock as he tossed the bed across the room and pinned me to the wall like a mare getting ready to preserve a butterfly. All that was missing was the chloroform and some pins.

“But seriously. Earth ponies are worthless. Pegasi can fly giving the finger to physics and unicorns can do whatever they want.” Dream Walker chuckled “Or at least we can. Now be a good girl as I try to make something out of your worthless life into something that will save us all… well most of us.”

His horn started to glow brighter as I shut my eyes. Thank Celestia that the mixture finally went off as the explosion didn’t go off with the grace of a flash grenade. Instead of a bright and loud bang disabling the opponent’s senses it went off in a much cruder form.

The blast of light was bright enough for me to see a white flare behind my closed eyelids, but the chemical stench that quickly assaulted my nose nearly made me gag. The sound of the explosion wasn’t so much of a bang, but some sickly sound before an ear cracking pop as the wave of heat assaulted me.

Dream Walker’s scream of agony as he screamed a line of profanity was a sweet symphony to my dull aching ears as his magical grip let go of me. As soon as I hit the ground I charged at the sound of profanity tackling him until I ran straight into a wall. Fire licked my hooves as I rushed out the door as the flames quickly grew faster than I had anticipated.

I opened my eyes to see the old castle hallway and turned down the first corridor I could find as Dream Walker screamed in fury “Find her! Grab her! Don’t let that bitch escape!”

The sound of the something heavy collapsing came from behind me as I pushed forward. Either this castle was really old… or that small sense about cursing being a bad thing was somehow more than just hurtful words and phrases.

Either way this damsel in distress was going to save herself!

******

Valkyrie

My wings itched as Lockheart’s coat rested on them keeping them trapped against my sides. I tried to keep calm as we walked across the rope bridge to the small makeshift fort at the other side of the gorge.

I know I shouldn’t be making fun of it, but the fort looked like a bunch of ten year olds made it as the logs were piled against each other instead of an actual fort. Lockheart constantly muttered underneath his breath as a couple dozen thorns, and those pesky spiky seeds covered his body along with a few small cuts and scrapes.

The ambush worked out well enough. I don't know system their using, but being hit by a surprise attacks tend to end badly in most games. Remedy and Lockheart put up illusions for the rest of us as he tried to copy the griffin. He was able to copy the hands and the body enough to pass for one... but he walked like a drunken sailor on land. So we had to give an excuse for it... thus the thorns.

Lockheart's plan was to keep their attention on him instead having them look at us… or our lack of titles. Either his plan would get us to the castle or hopefully buy us enough time for us to strike first.

As soon as we reached the makeshift fort the former humans stood up and stared down at us. The diamond dogs held bows as the griffins held swords and spears. The unicorns stayed in the back as their horns started to glow as everyone had bloodshot eyes. Heck a few of them were shaking so badly I thought they were going to hit us by mistake.

The only one who didn’t look like they would have a heart attack was the green unicorn as she stepped forward. She started humming a little tune as my head began to feel foggy. The green unicorn smiled as her ruby like necklace glowed as she stared at us.

“What do we have here?” The unicorn started to say in a sing song voice.

As soon as she was within arm’s reach Lockheart grabbed her by the throat with his claws.

Everyone quickly turned their weapons towards Lockheart as he growled in a rough voice “I’ve been stuck in the forest running monsters spawned from Doctor Seuss’s Nightmares and you want to play games!”

Everyone took a step back as Lockheart didn’t exactly look friendly. He growled as his teeth clenched together seeming to take a predatory aspect as his claws tightened around the unicorn’s neck.

The unicorn struggled for air as he continued “I’ve been bitten to death by bugs! Forced to run through thorns and now you want to play games when you know who I am?” One of the griffins held a sword near Lockheart only for him to use the unicorn as a living shield “So let’s just skip the games here.”

He let go of the unicorn as she gasped for air. She quickly moved to get away from him ready to tell everyone to attack before she stared at him in fear. The hatred, rage, and wrath seemed to roll off his body as he stared at her. His claws dug into the earth as the feathers on the back of his neck stood up on edge as it seemed like he was going to attack her any second.

The unicorn’s amulet started to glow as everyone started to calm down “You’re just a little bit stressed.” Lockheart’s stance started to soften along with everyone else “Everyone’s just on high alert since Maxwell’s… incident. Did you find anything?”

Lockheart looked down at the ground as he shook his head “Sorry. I was just… stressed. I don’t know what came over me.”
The unicorn grinned as she walked straight back up to him and pushed his head up so he could look her in the eyes. She wasn’t afraid of him anymore. If anything it seemed like she was gloating as her amulet continued to shine.

“Everyone’s stressed.” She replied as if she was talking to a child who had wet their bed “Just remember that Duran’s looking out for everyone and we are so close to finally going back home. Just take some time off in the castle and enjoy yourself before your next shift.”

Lockheart nodded as the unicorn waved everyone to let us aside. She didn’t even bother looking at us as she went back to reading her book.

I tried not to make any sudden movements and kept my mouth shut until we were far away from the wooden fort. Lockheart sighed in relief when we were away from it as suddenly all the tension in the air seemed to have disappeared.

Maxwell shook his head “Did we just walk through the front gate?”

Lockheart couldn’t help but grin “Yes we did and all I had to do was act just like the guards. High strung, paranoid, and ready to attack the first person I came across. Then just copy everyone else’s expression and let her think she was in control. Did anyone else feel anything different?”

Steel shivered as he replied “My head felt foggy when you started talking to her. Other than that it’s hard to tell.”
Remedy pulled out a book from her saddle bag “She was using Siren magic to mess with our heads. Give me a moment to make sure we aren’t affected by the next one.”

Lockheart stared at Remedy in surprise as his feathers seemed to stand out on end “You knew what type it was?”

Remedy just smiled back as she glanced through her book “She hummed a tune each time and then everypony seemed to have a shift in personality. She didn’t use her horn to cast magic and she seemed to focus far too much on her ego as she flaunted her control over you. She sounds like a siren of old at the very least.”

Lockheart simply nodded as Remedy cast another spell to help protect us against the magic as we walked to the castle’s doors. I know the Castle of the Two Sisters was pretty much left in disrepair after Celestia left, but the show didn’t show just how bad it really was.

Sections of the roof was missing as parts of the castle wall had fallen in on itself. The grounds were a mess as the few statues in the court yard had fallen into ruin as the rain seemed to have worn away any expression that were on the statues when they were first made. Wooden logs were placed over the broken sections as the smell of rotting wood filled the air.

I took a deep breath preparing myself for the scent of musk and decay that would properly fill the abandoned castle as Lockheart opened the doors. Instead I was hit with so many various smells it was kind of hard to pin it down. Of course what really got me were the people.

It looked like a freaking opium den.

Nobody was standing as most of them just lied down on the floor in dazed stares oblivious to the world around them. My head felt alright, but the scents in the air made me wonder if Remedy mixed in an anti-drug spell as the only smell I could recognize was smoke. Heck I wouldn’t have even been surprised to have seen pot lying around at this point.

Lockheart’s face seemed to twist in disgust as he practically spat out “It’s official. Everyone else feeling pissed off?”
Maxwell just stared at them in confusion “How can this be? I mean it’s only been…”

Remedy quickly cut him off “You said no pony asked any questions or seemed to go along with whatever he said. It’s possible you just never realized just how much of an influence he was exerting until now.”

I couldn’t help but shiver in a combination of fear and disgust. Outside they had turned everyone into a mob army. Inside they had turned them into a drugged up stupor as no one seemed to have noticed. I could only imagine just how messed up some of the other sections of the castle might be.

Lockheart seemed pissed off as he tried stay calm “Alright. Everyone else with the unicorn while I take a look around.”
Maxwell shook his head “We shouldn’t just start splitting up.”

Lockheart turned around as he snapped back “This is a big castle and the more time we waste in here the more likely we are to get caught. Remedy can protect everyone else from the mind magic. I can cheat my way out of it and while you may have gained some sort of resistance against it I doubt we can trick everyone we run into.”

“Splitting up the party is always a bad idea.” I caught myself saying “Besides what happens if your caught?”

Lockheart looked away from us as he bitterly replied “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.” He sighed out loud “Just ask Remedy… besides the moment we search one of the places their supposed to be at everyone here will switch to red alert and try to fortify the other position so it’s best to check both spots early.”

I didn’t like what he was saying and I found myself angry at Steel Halberd for nodding in agreement. Remedy didn’t even say anything as she started to walk down the opposite end of the hallway! Why did they think splitting up was a good idea!

Maxwell stared at me for a moment before he replied “Good luck.” Before he tried to catch up to Lockheart.

I was about to say something until Steel cut me off “Remedy can keep the illusions up on us, but we need to stick by her.” I turned to face him only to be struck by an intense stare as he switched to his commanding officer voice “You may not like what he is doing, but we don’t have a lot of time. You can either trust him to succeed or help us finish our part so that we can head back to help him. Either way we have to move!”

I shut my mouth and felt like gritting my teeth together in frustration as I was going to abandon Lockheart again. I did not want another repeat of the incident at Canterlot and what’s more… I hated myself for turning my back on him as I followed the two Equestrians. I let the two humans walk away from me again… because I was a coward.

******

Lockheart

My claws tapped across the floor as I had the sounds of hooves behind me. I know I haven’t know Maxwell long, but for some reason he was pissing me off. I had the magic stealth and illusion skills as I even fucking tricked bloody a mind mage into letting me inside the castle so why the bloody hell did he decide to follow me around?

If he wanted to help then why didn't he go with the others? If anything I'm the only one who could go it alone. Hell my changeling nature made me the best one of the group to infiltrate placed by myself. If he was trying to look out for me or trying to help then he was wasting both of our time. Then again neither of us really knew each other.

I could hear Discord voice ringing in the back of my head “It’s because he’s supposed to be the one who beats you.”

I shook my head and couldn’t help but mutter “That story is a load of BS.”

I couldn’t help but smirk as some form of my swearing was still of use. Sure it didn’t have the same ring, but it’s the little things that count.

Discord voice chuckled “Which story? The one where you die or where he escaped from this place?”

I rolled my eyes and kept my mouth shut. There was no way in hell I was going to have a conversation with a voice in my head. Even if there might be a possibility that it’s actually Discord. If he wants to talk than he can do so in person.

"You do realize that I’m stuck as a statue back in Canterlot?” The voice quipped back to me as I tried to ignore it “So you’re walking next to someone who got promoted to hero status. Pesky little things. Always with the heroic speeches as everyone instantly forgives them for all wrong doings. Even then they always find some way to succeed even when it shouldn’t be possible. Like a magic barrier fueled by love to fight a race that literally feeds on it.”

I tried to ignore him as I continued forward. All I had to do was find Stardust. Find some way to defeat Duran.

“Find the Elements of Harmony and kill Maxwell.” Discord finished “Of course there’s the old trick of throwing them in dungeon or try some subtly word play, but you’re not exactly that talented in manipulation and I highly doubt you want him to be your new bunk mate.”

Maxwell finally spoke “So… You’re an Alicorn?”

“Not an alicorn.” I snapped back “Why the heck did everyone ditch you because you got a cutie mark?”

Maxwell shook his head “Because they didn’t have one. They didn’t know what it meant … because…”

I waited for an answer as Maxwell didn’t give me one. Instead my irritation only grew. Could he have been messed up by mind control to bring in more people to mind wipe or was he telling the truth? Either he was lying and a threat or he’s telling the truth… and still ticking me off.

My stomach grumbled as I tried not to look at Maxwell as I knew I would be glaring at him in hatred.

This was the second reason why I wanted to go alone. The fight in the Everfree forest took a bit of my magic and keeping up this griffin disguise took up even more power because it wasn’t something I was used to. The entire body felt unnatural to me as my body began to twist itself around trying to go back to it’s natural form.

I could revert back to my alicorn form… but I would properly need a small snack and I highly doubt Maxwell would take too kindly on me shaving of a bit of drugged up happiness from his former associates. Why couldn’t that pain in the butt have went with the others?

Maxwell smiled like a puppy dog that found his owner returning from work “Still Canterlot… Never saw it except for the show. Any idea how expensive the rent is or did you use some sort of technology trade knowledge?”

I gritted my teeth as I now finally had a reason to be annoyed at him. The only way I could use some sort of trade of knowledge was if I actually knew how to build it and even then I would have to go into the finer details of making the smaller parts… Try thinking up all the steps involved in making the parts of an item before you go into making the item as a whole.

Let's just go with hang gliders for an example. Simply a large metal kite you fly on... only how do you get the materials to craft one? How do you make something sturdy enough to not fall apart and somehow keep you afloat? How do you go into the process of crafting the materials of making the item?

“I own a small cot in a jail cell for impersonating a royal official.” I slowly replied as Maxwell stopped in his tracks as I couldn’t help but grin “What? Did you really think that walking into Canterlot like this wouldn’t cause any problems?”

Maxwell shook his head “But you’re an alicorn?”

I chuckled “Oh no. Alicorns get the royal treatment which involved a heavy chain ball strapped to their legs before their pushed off a sky cart over a pond full of Hyrdas. Sure it takes a while to recover the steel ball, but it’s cuts down on issues of succession and legality matters.”

Maxwell just stared at me as the second part really was just a line of bull. Still it would give him something to think about.

I just raised one of my eyebrows and stared at him “What? You didn’t think this was a children’s cartoon show? Canterlot has politics and in any universe politics tend to be nasty. Think of it like jedi training. There’s an age limit. Under the age you get trained… over the age you don’t.”

Maxwell just went silent as he stared at me in disbelief "You're lying."

I smiled "Am I? You forgot that Celestia banished her own sister so believe what ever you want. Just remember that the world might not agree with your belief."

******

Valkyrie

I was wrong. Drug dens had nothing on this place as I tried to stay calm as Remedy applied another protection spell just to be safe. The Castle in Everfree forest had really become messed up.

The entrance had everyone in a drugged dazed as the stairs down to the next floor had been crudely modified to make multiple fighting arenas as anyone inside the squares would try to beat each other into a bloody pulp. Anyone outside was stuck in cheerful state as they rallied on their friends apparently oblivious to the bloodshed and would chuckle in glee with someone nearly died.

I don’t know if it’s the fear of watching two people beat each other to a pulp or the fact they thinks it’s all some sort of game, but sadly… the area down here had less mind control that the front door. I’m not exactly sure if that’s a good sign or not.

The ones who seemed the most happy where the fake ponies with the amulets around their necks as some sort of purple mist kept flowing into their amulets. I tried not to stare in horror as a Pegasus went toe to toe with a Diamond Dog as they used moves either straight out of a game or an illegal fight club.

Where the Sirens feeding on the conflict or where they causing the fights?

Steel whispered in a hushed tone beside me “This is insane! Why in Celestia’s name are they doing this?”

Remedy shook her head as she calmly replied “Power. Sirens used conflict to fuel and further enhance their powers.”

Steel tried not to glare as he kept the fake smile plastered on his face “Making two friends try to kill each other? The fact they turned their own allies into… this?”

I tried to keep my mouth shut as I recognized a few things. It wasn’t much, but all the markings were there as I saw rankings, guild markers, and venders. This place seemed to have turned into a guild market or something you see in MMOs. Either they were beating each other senseless to prove rankings or trying to earn points to “level up”… or there mind control was in play.

In games duels weren't that bad. Seeing it in real life... Even if they are just beating each other until some health bar drops to 50% it still looks messed up. Horribly messed up as everyone shouted in glee as they watched the blood sports being played right before their eyes.

One of the amulet ponies turned to face us as I tried not to let my fear or stress show. Getting into one of those rings would be a death sentence. If there was mind control then one of us would go nuts… or not be affect only to have everyone attack us. If there wasn’t any mind control they we would have to deal with a combat build player ready to tear us limb from limb.

The new tormentor grinned as the purple coat and sea foam blue mane pony held out his hoof “How about a bout in the ring?”

I shook my head “Sorry but we only have so much time off.”

He frowned as he repeated in a more demanding tone “It will only be for a few minutes.”

I tried to copy Lockheart’s tactic and lied “But we were about to see how the Mane Six are doing.” I tried to smirk “Besides I heard a rumor about Rainbow Dash.”

Be vague. Let others fill in the blanks. Most of all copy what everyone else is doing. If that doesn't work then do what ever is counted as insane.

At that a grin appeared on the other pony’s face “Oh…. Well don’t mind me as I know how popular he is. Shame really considering how weak he is then again the only reason why he hasn’t been traded out yet is because he’s popular with the ladies.”

I chuckled while trying not to feel sick to my stomach “Well it was nice talking to you.”

I guess I didn't have to punch him in the face and cause a scene. No idea what I would have done next, but that was my only other idea.

One of the ponies with an amulet shouted “Ten quid on the red one!”

We quickly left the crowd and walked into an empty section of the hallway before he quickly came back. We were just far enough away for the shouting to become background noise. The sea foam unicorn stood in front of us as he simply shook his head and stared at us. I felt the knot in my stomach as I realized he wasn’t staring at us… he was staring at the titles... The titles Remedy and Steel didn't have.

He grinned “Now what you two doing here?”

Remedy shrugged “Foalnapping you?”

“What?” He replied back before a blue aura covered his fore legs.

I flinched as Steel shot forward wrapping his hooves around the stallion’s mouth as Remedy's magic went to work. It wasn’t a bone snapping break, but… I highly doubted a leg was supposed to look like that as it dangled uselessly across the ground. The stallion had passed out from pain or the shock of suddenly having both of his fore legs dislocated at the same time.

Remedy shook her head as she moved over to the stone wall as she started pulling bricks out of the wall “Tie him up. Make sure you when you remove the amulet you watch out for anything unusual.”

Steel nodded as he pulled off the amulet as the stallion changed before us. His fur started to fallout as scales covered his body. His sea foam mane turned into fins… or frills. The back legs somehow merged together creating a fish tail as the sea pony was lying on the ground before us. Steel pulled out some rope from his saddle bag as Remedy managed to create a pony sized hole in the wall.

She turned to me “Keep an eye out. It’s easier hiding one pony than two ponies.”

******

After checking to make sure that the pony was not only unconscious, but also still breathing we left the siren in the wall as I was feeling much more nervous around Remedy Cross than I should have been. Remedy didn’t try to justify her action. Heck she acted like she hadn’t sealed a guy up in a brick wall!

Remedy simply stuffed the Siren amulet into her saddle bags. I couldn’t help but shiver as the last thing I had seen was the title “Fortunato” appear above the player before he was sealed away. How the heck was that fortunate?

We continued deeper into the castle avoiding the other players as we came closer to the dungeon. Each step made we only grow more nervous as the fear of being caught grew worse and worse. When we finally reached the dungeons I couldn’t help but shiver as everyone seemed naturally happy as even what could possibly be siren ponies didn’t seem to mess with anyone’s minds.

Steel took a seat near the back along with Remedy as I took a look at the room. The cells had been converted into small shops or cots as two players seemed to be attempting to make popcorn and what looked to be a soda machine.

The floor was covered in large pillows for people to sit on as a massive wooden stage took up half the room. The only decorations on the stage itself seemed to be two masks as one was the Greek grinning looking mask resting beside the Greek sorrow looking mask.

So I didn’t pay much attention to theater or Greek history. All I knew was that this looked to the like the closest thing to normal in this messed up castle. Of course it was at that moment they decided to prove just how wrong I was as the curtains opened up revealing a very close look alike to Applejack and Rainbow Dash. A small sign dropped from the stage saying “The Iron Pony Competition”. It was then I saw the hidden horror in the room as I stared at the copies up on the stage.

I’m not talking about actors or people trying to play the role of the main characters. They were more like puppets. Puppets operated by someone else behind the scene except instead of using puppets that had life sized versions. Versions made from people.

The Applejack look alike had her fur dyed as patches of yellow could be seen in her orange coat as her blond hair dripped onto her coat. Her eyes bothered me the most as they were glossed over like one of those frozen fish you see in the super market. Her “Cutie Mark” was a little bit smeared as a few former humans in the crowd complained about the “rushed job” instead of the fact they had dressed someone up like a puppet for their own amusement!

The Rainbow Dash clone made me flinch for various reasons. The rainbow mane looked like a bad dye job as the colors seemed to smear together instead of blend together like a rainbow. The hair itself was poorly cut as their attempt to copy Rainbow Dash’s messy hair style with scissors didn’t end to well. The body was much closer to the original Rainbow Dash as the slim athlete body looked much better than the larger more butch like Applejack clone who stood taller than the fake Rainbow Dash.

What got me through was the bad job on the tail. Pony tails tended to work by covering things up, and the hidden social cue where one does not try to take a sneak peek in much the same way one does not try to stare down a woman’s shirt. Sure people stare at the area… but they don’t look directly down the shirt.

The Rainbow Dash clone has his tail butchered so badly that it was hard not to stare at his… I could feel myself blushing as he took to the skies and saw how this version of Rainbow Dash was popular with the ladies. I mean sure ponies and horses tended to have sort of a "sheath" covering up some of it...

Do not go any deeper Valkyrie for down that path lies the road to madness.

The fake Rainbow Dash's eyes seemed a little bit more full of energy than Apple Clone’s eyes… of course that could have been him trying to copy Rainbow Dash’s energetic personality. While his voice didn't exactly match Rainbow Dash's voice it wasn't that bad on a body like his.

When the competition started I started seeing the flaws in the fake Rainbow Dash more clearly as he was losing the events the real one was supposed to have one. The fact he was squinting as if he needed glasses as even using his wings to “cheat” didn’t work against the overgrown Applejack clone as some of the former humans started to mutter in annoyance.

One of the former humans muttered “Why can’t we just axe this Rainbow Dash already?”

The female beside him hummed “Because he fits the arch type better than the rest so far. While he doesn’t have the dash body he does have the dash treatment.” She hummed as her eyes focused on the fake’s body “In more ways than one. Besides most tend to burn out or break by now.”

The former human simply grumbled back “Rainbow Dash should be a girl.”

I bit my lip as I felt like screaming at them. All of us were sent to Equestria. Maybe we were sent for a purpose to save someone. Maybe we just got dumped here like some bad joke as we are trying to find a way home. Whatever the god dam reason was I highly doubt trying to recreate My Little Pony Friendship is Magic episodes to watch as your brainwash people to play as actors is one of them!

It also might not help that the Applejack on stage could properly pass for a female Big Mac if you swapped the paint pallet.

Steel shook his head “Their competing for Gala Tickets?”

I glanced back to the two Equestrians as I had to come up with a lie “Ever read one of those… foal tales? Kid who cried wolf? Magic Treehouse? The Hobbit?” Steel glanced back at me “These… characters are the ones who matched the item their looking for. They are the ones who are able to use the Elements of Harmony.”

I rubbed the back of my head “It’s hard to explain.”

How exactly do you explain to someone that you know about their world by watching a cartoon show about it? Hell how do you explain that everyone else thinks that your home isn’t really real and… who should I be angry at? The people complaining about the mind control puppets? Do they really know what was going on or are they just suffering from an extra helping of mind control to ease over the bumps like kidnapping and turning people into puppets. Was everyone wearing an amulet guilty or was everyone here in on it?

The sickening pit in my stomach grew as I began to wonder what would have happened if I ran into this group when I was lost in the forest. Would I have gone along with them? Would I have ended up on that perverted stage dressed up like a doll or worse… would I be in the audience complaining about how the replacements weren’t the real ones. That I would nitpick details instead of realizing that they are running people’s lives just to recreate a children’s cartoon show!

I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout! I wanted to run around and start beating everyone senseless and try to create a jailbreak freeing everyone trapped before rushing back to Canterlot to have Celestia throw them all into the sun or something!

Of course I knew that wouldn’t work as I forced myself to pretend to smile as act as if their awful abomination wasn’t stomping over my memories of the show.

I tried to pay attention to see if Stardust had been put on the stage or if she was being kept hidden somewhere else.

I waited each painful second as Remedy focused on the details of the actors trying to figure out which brand of mind magic was screwing with their heads.

I just sat there and waited… as everyone else was either paying for my mistakes or trying to solve this problem while I did nothing.

The menu popped up again revealing my skill tree as I could see a few skills that could help if things took a turn for the worst. Just a few memories would be all that it would cost me to hopefully stand toe to toe with a gang of mind controlling Min-Max players.

I could hear a voice whisper in the back of my mind “What are you waiting for?”

I looked up at the stage as saw the fake Twilight in her costume. The job done on her was either really good or she was closer to the original Twilight frame than the others. The only problem was that she looked like a puppet.

Her movements were stiff. Her fur stood on end as the look in her eyes… they weren’t fully glazed over and they were slightly puffy. It was almost as if she had been crying her eyes out just a few hours ago. On her flank was Twilight’s Cutie mark as it actually looked like the real deal… which was impossible since she wasn’t Twilight.

The crowd waited for her to say her lines. They waited for “Twilight” to talk about her method for racing she had learned from a book. Instead she stood there as something dripped from her nose. Water formed around her eyes as her face was stuck in that cheerful smile ready to talk about her book.

The pain filled voice just on the edge of crying said “I… I want to go home…”

It wasn’t Twilight’s voice. It wasn’t the cheerful voice of a pony ready to race. It was the sound of a tortured soul who had barely enough control as she was forced to watch her body be played like a puppet against her own will for the amusement of others.

The crowd started to mumble in annoyance for having their show interrupted. Two ponies started to walk onto the stage… one with an amulet and the other with green hair and eyes. The Twilight Replacement kept the cheerful face despite the fact she was crying as snot ran down her nose.

Something snapped as I saw the amulet glow from the siren and the horn glow from the unicorn. It was stupid. It was foolish. I was screwing everything up due to my own dam idiotic actions again as I shot forward to the stage and swung my first as the unicorn’s horn.

He screamed in pain as I bucked the siren in the chest sending him flying into the wall. The Rainbow Dash and Applejack replacements just stood there as if someone had cut their strings as they waited for the puppeteer to make them do something.

The Twilight Replacement whimpered out a small cry “Thank you.”

I turned to face the crowd as they glared at me angry that I had stopped their perverted show and prevented their goons from trying to turn an innocent soul into another god dammed puppet. I dumped a few points into the system as I felt my rage burn through me as I prepared for a fight.

“Buck this!” I shouted out loud as the unicorn and amulet wielding ponies stood up ready to take me on.

Celestia as my witness I wasn’t going down without a fight as I was going to make all of them pay and send them back to Tartarus were they belonged!

Author's Note

New chapter up. Let me know if I left any mistakes that I need to fix.

Might as well ask everyone a question while I'm at it.

Would any of you have tried coming up with a way to beat the anti-swearing curse or have tried something and if so... what would it have been?

The Fates We Weave

The Fates We Weave

Stardust

“What do you mean you can’t find her!” Somepony shouted outside.

I hid behind the wall both thankful of my luck and cursing it at the same time. The upper floors were in a panic as they were trying to find me. The fire was a good idea as it brought everyone to deal with the fire…

The only problem was that instead of an orderly fashion they flooded towards the burning room from every corridor. I sighed in relief as I was safely hidden away in one of the secret parts of the castle.

Either this place really was built as part “funhouse” or the original builders kept many hidden passages just in case the wild creatures from the Everfree forest ever got inside the castle. Considering what little upkeep it had been given over the years I’m not sure if the pony who built this place was a genius for how long this castle has stood… or possibly insane for building it in the Everfree forest in the first place.

I really wish I had paid more attention to history class.

I sighed as I tried to bring up any knowledge that could help me. Fun houses used tricks to move a pony about. Trick houses or those places with secret passages in murder mysterious had rooms with dimensions off so find rooms that were off were your best bet of moving about unseen.

Of course hidden passages built for escape… either they were built to reach the next passage or strung out in a manner that operated on day to day functions. That required knowing how the castle was built and more importantly the room layout. You wouldn’t find a secret passageway in a kitchen, but throne room or “boss’s bedroom” where the only tunnels out of the castle.

“And I highly doubt I could put on a sexy dress to trick him to letting me in the room before a smashed a vase across his head.” I joked to myself “Nope. Just chemical explosives and…”

My mouth ran dry for just a second as I realized a vital flaw in my plan. This was a Castle in the Everfree forest. How in Celestia’s name would I get back home? I mean out in the open everypony is trying to find me, but in the forest? I had no idea which direction I should go!

My head started to ache as I tried figuring a way out of this mess.

Forest had animals. Animals had sensitive noses. Creatures in the Everfree forest stayed away from Poison Joke due to it’s harmful effects. All I needed was a few blue flowers and something to wrap them up in.
I needed curtains.

“Find the entrance hallways and steal some curtains or something.” I slowly replied as I walked down the tunnel “Now only if I had Rarity’s dress making skills. Then I could properly make something that would be hard to run in.”

Maybe if I was lucky one of the groups would talk about the location of a nearby town. After all they had to get their food from somewhere.

******

Lockheart

I rubbed my aching head as I tried to figure out where I was now. Maxwell was getting on my nerves and I wasn’t about to let him find out about my alternative method of feeding/refilling my magic.

Then there were all those statues and one of them… somehow had a slide attached to it or something as I was split up from Maxwell. Now I was lost in the castle with no idea on where to go... unless I tried to find the Elements of Harmony.

The hallways were oddly deserted as I found one of the rooms I was looking for. Well a section of the room at least as I didn’t see where the pony version of Necronomicon or Drug Abuse was hidden away. Either they hadn’t found it yet or they thought it was too dangerous to use.

Hopefully they stayed away from any evil or creepy looking objects that stand out in a land full of sun shine and rainbows. While the broken down castle was placed in a forest full of monsters… in a land ponies couldn’t use their magic to tame the land…

I smacked myself in the head and muttered “It really is an evil villain fortress. All that’s missing is a monolog and a badly dressed villain! The only thing that makes this place seem “friendly” is that it belonged to Celestia and Luna and of course Ponyville being close to it.”

How the heck was the Everfree Forest kosher in Equestria?

I sighed as I started to look through the books in this section of the library. I wasn’t cracking them open and reading them, but I did skim through the covers trying to see if any interested me or could possibly help me. Worse come to worse I shove in my saddle bags with the rest of items I had found. If only I had more time or if this place wasn't filled with so many crazed enemies.

sigh

Information was important so I looked at the covers on every book on magic or possible journals left by Celestia and/or Luna. If I was going to be stuck in Equestria lore and magic were important things I needed to know. I sat on one of the cushions for a moment and took a deep breath as I felt the subtle tug of warped emotions pollute the air.

Honestly it felt sickening trying to feed on it, but my magic was low and I found a place to rest. If I just stayed calm and try to keep my mind of the bitter distaste of my current actions I would be fine. Hopefully I could gather up enough magic to deal with whatever disaster struck me next.

So I did the one thing I hoped I wouldn’t have to do for a good long time. I thought about my situation and my plans for the future.

Did changelings have any sort of natural anti-mind control ability like how Earth Ponies deal with nature and Pegasi can naturally fly or walk on clouds? If that didn’t work would gorging on emotion work? Would I have to try unleashing chaos magic and hope the fallout didn’t screw me over?

I felt the locket around my neck grow heavy at that thought. Celestia made it for me to help deal with the chaos magic and I honestly had no idea how to use it. My small bag of tricks included illusions. I had some subtle mind magic, and of course alteration magic always helped. What little necromancy I knew would be worthless in a fight. Heck the only weapon I had was just a "one trick shot" that would be rendered completely useless after I used it.

Even then it wasn't a complete guarantee.

“All it would take is a big burly tank to beat me to death.” I muttered to myself in annoyance. “So what about a plan B?”
They didn’t have the Elements of Harmony and I could find it thanks to my quest system made by Discord. I could grab the Elements of Harmony… but what then?

“Do I just leave them here for them to find?” I muttered to myself “Blackmail might work… of course using them as a bargaining chip against Duran wouldn’t work out to well.”

I had seen one too many shows where they villain side simply double crossed the heroes. Heck I wasn’t even sure if Duran wouldn’t try taking it by force or be enraged that he couldn’t find it while living here and I found it in just a few hours.

Of course if I did find them what would I do with them? Stuff them in the saddle bag? Try to keep one away from them so they couldn’t complete their crazy scheme? Trade one for Stardust… keep the rest hidden and then have Celestia clean up the mess?

“Take Discord’s deal?” Whispered an acidic voice in the back of my mind. “One piece of harmony for one shot at Immortality.”

I ignored the voice as I went onto the second issue. What the heck do I do with the rest of the former humans? Let’s say I get Celestia and her Royal Guard captures everyone without any bloodshed or problems?

I rolled my eyes as I heard myself say “Here’s a bunch of Former Humans who kidnapped and brainwashed your subjects.”

I could see the look of confusion on Celestia’s face and the upcoming death threats and attempts on my life from my former members of humanity. That’s not even including Equestria’s population! Take Luna for an example!

One shot of the Nightmare parasite to make Nightmare Moon. One thousand years down the line she is still feared as a foal eating monster. Heck Luna doesn’t even look like Freaking Nightmare Moon! Nightmare Moon has shark teeth, reptile eyes, and a bunch of other details and they couldn’t separate Nightmare Moon from Luna!

If they couldn’t take the redemption of Celestia’s own sister then how the hell could I convince them that humanity (and me by inclusion) wasn’t a bunch of blood thirsty heartless brain washing monsters!

Of course even if they did get captured how the heck could they be contained? A unicorn could simply dump some points into Teleportation. Earth Pony would dump some points to pretend to be the Incredible Hulk. I don’t know what for pegasi, but every race properly has some get out of jail card.

So throwing them in jail would only end with a bunch of angry people escaping with a grudge against me. Heck how where they going to even use the Elements of Harmony to get home? My only guess would be to de-curse Discord and try to threaten him to poof them back home.

That would obviously end badly… either making the Elements go poof and trapping them in a world full of chaos… or possibly sending them back to earth… but not as humans. That would go down horribly for them back home.

Ways back home would be to either find out how this twisted game worked… if there even was a way back home at the end of the twisted joke… or try to use one of Celestia’s reality mirror things. I mean Pony Earth version isn’t that far off… and the people are hopefully better than regular earth.

“At the very least I’ll get to eat hamburgers and have the internet.” I sighed “Of course it only works every two and a half years or something.”

“Do you want to even leave?” The acidic voice replied again “Just one soul out of a million trying to crave a piece of life out for themselves. A lot of people would literally kill to be in Equestria. Heck you’re doing something instead of just being a minor cog in the machine called life back home. ”

I glanced at my side as I stared at my fake cutie mark. I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t even a pony as I was some sort of emotion vampire. I’m a race that every living soul fears and the rest of the players would properly out right kill me if they found out I was a changeling. Staying in Equestria wasn’t exactly safe for me either.

Back home if I barely knew what I was doing I could either make due or lose a paycheck or my job. In Equestria… I could die.

“I don’t even want to think about the time differences.” I muttered “Is it normal time or like that one TV show with the kids at Summer camp where a few months only ended up as a few hours.”

I go back home only to have missed a few hours as I’m forced to pretend all of this was some crazy dream or try to repress it all… or I along with hundreds if not thousands of other people went missing for weeks. Best case I end up as “found” as I’ll return home to a lot of bills and missing payments I suddenly need to pay off. Worst case the public or the government tries to make me tell them where I had been.

Either option wasn’t really that great.

I felt my hooves itch as I glanced at the menu again… The Elements of Harmony. I could just take one of them. Use it to get close to Duran or Stardust… sucker punch the guards and then bolt for it. With one Element of Harmony in hand I could blackmail Celestia into dealing with these creeps and then try to either piece together some sort of plan or simply craft myself a new persona.

I bit my lip and shoved it all aside as I stared into a nearby mirror and said “Who cares? You hate Duran. Duran want’s the Elements of Harmony. Just take one. Then grab Stardust and bolt. Worst case you run into a trap and go nuts with chaos magic. Otherwise you get what you need to have Sun Butt torch every mind bender in this place. She can deal with the PR nightmare as you can make as many fake cutie marks and disguises as you freaking want! So shut up and deal with this mess instead of worrying about the insanity of your current situation!”

I nodded to my reflection and followed the arrow to the Elements of Harmony.

******

Valkyrie

I coughed as I tried to wave the dust out of my eyes and tried to recall what had happened in the last few seconds.

I did something stupid. I tried to save the Twilight Replacement Copy and then I pissed off everyone in the stands as they were getting ready to beat me senseless. Then Remedy’s horn started to glow and…

I rubbed my aching head “Oh right. That’s when everyone started swearing.”

It was hard to try to watch the level of chaos that filled the room and claim it was the same neat and orderly room as it looked as if something tried blowing up the place. Even then I could barely figure out where all the junk came from as the center of the room was a mixture between a hole and a hill as the floors had caved in… yet also a ton of items fell on them while the celling was still intact.

Was hammer space employed to make this possible?

Some parts of the rubble started to move as I prepared myself for round two. The cursing curse took out a lot of the players, but there were still enough to cause a lot of pain and trouble for us to deal with. Fake Applejack and Rainbow Dash just stood still like statues waiting for their next order or something. Fake Twilight tried to move, but her body was essentially frozen stiff.

This was going to be a hard fight and unlike them I haven’t had any experience fighting humans.

The first pony pushed them self out of the rubble as the yellow coat and blazing red mane pony got up. He wasn’t exactly large like Bic Mac… but he was buff. What surprised me the most was that the earth pony had a cutie mark... a cutie mark of a bull’s skull. The kind you see in deserts or wild west movies.

He spat out the dirt and grim in his mouth and cursed out loud “Fucking Bullshit!” He turned around clawing his hoof into the ground “You used some Fucking Bullshit magic spell to screw us over bitch? Well tough luck bitch, because I’m god dam fucking immune!”

Instead of a hail of chaos or some other disaster ready to strike him with the wrath of Celestia herself he charged after Remedy. Remedy’s horn glowed as magic started to form around the cursing pony’s legs only for it to fizzle out as something sparkled around his neck. Steel quickly swung his halberd drawing blood as he forced the cursing pony to turn away.

The cursing pony growled as the blood red gash across his side bleed profusely as Steel held his halberd ready to strike again. To everyone’s surprise the cursing pony only laughed as the wound started to close up in a matter of seconds.
He grinned as he wiped the blood off his coat only to reveal the wound was gone. “Sorry little shits, but you’re playing in the big leagues now.”

I snapped my wings open ready to help only for something to snap around them as I fell to the ground. Some sort of balls attached to a string kept them tied up as another one wrapped itself around my back legs tying me up.

“Well now Sheela.” A really bad impersonation of an Australian accent joked out loud “Three against one isn’t really fair is it?”

The sky blue coat Pegasus grinned as he adjusted his gray Fedora hat over short brown hair. He lacked a cutie mark like me, but the way he grinned properly meant he wasn’t a push over.

“Funny thing about cursing is that it only works when you shout the right swears.” He gloated as he pulled out two more ball rope things from his saddle bags with his wings with the same flexibility as if he still had hands… I need to figure out how to do that. “Still you might make a fine Dashy.”

I pushed myself off the stage as one of the ball ropes were thrown at me only to crash near my neck. This was not good!

******

Lockheart

I walked across the room as I found what I was looking for. One stone brick wall stood in my way as the blinking arrow pointed straight at it. I sighed in a mixture of annoyance and sorrow as the green flames wrapped around my right leg reforming a draconic limb so I could take off the locket Celestia made for me.

I could feel the chaotic flames start to boil in my chest as I stared at the wall in front of me. I spoke a single curse as the words became twisted into an eldritch tongue as the chaotic flames coated the wall. I took a step back as the wall began to warp and shift into itself. Pieces of it altered and changed before my very eyes until it settled down to the form of a big red door.

I took a deep breath as I placed Celestia’s locket around my neck again “It’s now or never.”

I felt the clawed digits take hold of the door as I pulled it open. I couldn’t help but shut one of my eyes and hesitate before I quickly moved to the side expecting some sort of trap or sugary concoction to come flying out of the door. When nothing flew out to strike me I stared at the door excepting to see a brick wall or some other sick joke only to actually see the Elements of Harmony on it’s weird stand.

“One, two, three, four, five…” I counted out loud “Where is the sixth… oh right. Magic BS machina.” I tilted my head trying to look around the large stand “Or possibly just on the other side of the thing.”

I stretched my hand out to the first one I could see and felt my skin shiver as I quickly pulled it back as I stared at the room. Was there some sort of protection spell over the place? Possibly some sort of anti-evil aura set up to guard the orbs? I stared at the empty room as I couldn’t believe that this was all the defense these little rock orb sealed elements had.

Grant it they were essentially locked them up in a forest everyone is afraid filled with deadly monsters. Then they were placed in a castle built like a maze littered with traps and fun house reject projects. Then they were sealed in a room with no entrance as Celestia’s new castle was on a nearby mountain letting her get down here rather quickly if anything should happen…

“When you say it like that it doesn’t seem that bad.” I caught myself chuckling “To bad she’s off somewhere else.”
Not wanting to take a chance I focused on my horn as I levitated the first orb over to me. Honestly it felt horrible… not cursed retribution horrible, but more like carrying a bowling ball over your head as you feel like you’re going to drop it any second horrible.

I licked my lips as I brought it back over to me as green flames covered my fore legs granting me the use of both my hands again. I stopped as I stared at the orb as I couldn’t help but wonder how it worked.

I tried to smile as I felt like an idiot as I spoke to it “I’m just going to borrow you. Evil villain. Friends in danger. Celestia should be alerted by your theft letting her save everyone else… I mean everypony.”

No idea if that did anything, but hey… Talking to a rock may sound stupid until you realize that it came from a magic reality warping/fixing machine. That and all the fanon had crafted a lot of tricky little details. Like magic lock on rainbow wave and Thor hammer judgement.

I did not want to piss off the magic rock that could turn me to stone.

I took a deep breath as I grabbed the orb with my hands only for pain to shoot through my body. I felt like screaming for a moment as I knew something went horribly wrong. Was there some sort of protection spell? Where only those worthy were allowed to touch them?

“Just take an Element of Harmony.” Discord’s voice rang in my ears.

Green flames danced around the orb as I stared at in fear. The menu snapped open as Discord was doing a little victory dance. Discord’s quest wasn’t talking about me giving him an Element of Harmony or even keeping one… just taking one.

Pain wracked through my body as I screamed. My chest burned in pain as I struggled to breathe as my body was quickly becoming drenched in sweat. The orb moved closer to me as it touched my chest. My voice died at that moment as it started burning through my chest.

Discord’s laughter could be heard all around me. My own body started shifting and changing again. Each burst of green flames altering a piece of my body. Bones started cracking apart only to reform again as tears ran down my eyes. The orb was half way into my chest when my side felt like someone shoved a torch onto it.

It felt as if someone was taking a knife and carving an image into my very hide as the orb disappeared into my chest. I collapsed to the ground struggling in pain as my body reverted to the changeling form again. The other elements of harmony rested on the stand… and on my flank was a new cutie mark… in my changeling form.

It was a heart locket with a key. Expect this key had a starburst symbol on it. I didn’t need someone to take a guess what the hidden meaning could be as my heart started beating again. It was Discord’s own little joke with the subtly of a baseball bat to the knees. I get immortality… and the freaking Element of Magic is locked safely way in my heart.

The menu popped up as Discord’s voice chuckled “The Element of Honesty for one who always lies. Nice pick!”

“You suck.” I muttered in agony

Discord chuckled “Why you shouldn’t mind a few tiny scrapes considering you have your whole life ahead of you now! Oh and one last thing.”

With the sound of a snap the entire stand holding the other elements disappeared. I stared at it in horror. Oh shit.

“Now you don’t have to worry you head if it’s an Element of Magic, Honesty, or any other one from the whole collector’s set.” He sang cheerfully like a brat “Oh and the guards properly noticed that. If you want you can tell Celestia that you have one of the Elements locked away inside your heart… and just hope she doesn’t try ripping out your heart.”

That stupid Indiana joke played out from the menu “Cover your heart Indy!”

Discord laughed at the bad joke “Come to think of it… Lockheart really does fit you now. Are you locking away your feelings? Is it referring to the locked away a piece of magic trapped in your heart? Maybe it’s some two bit tale of destiny about somepony opening up the heart you locked away from the world? Which let’s face it… it’s going to hurt. Have Fun!”

I laid on my back forcing my disguise back up. The gray fur covered my body. The wings forming back again as my body didn’t have much time to recover… the cutie mark or “joke” was still seared onto my butt as it rested on my new disguise.

The problem with Discord is that he never makes you think straight. It’s always twists and turns where you think you can out think him or something. The truth is I made the same mistake the girls did when they tried to get the Elements of Harmony back from him.

I knew what he said. I thought I knew what he meant… but in the end. He already had a card to play as the real meaning of the phrase was utterly lost on me until I practically tipped on it only after I lost playing his game.

Sadly I don’t think a friendship report is going to solve this blunder.

******

Valkyrie

Something felt wrong. Horribly wrong as everyone in the room paused for a second. That’s when the scream came. The inhuman agonizing scream that reached into the back of your brain and racked it’s claws against your skull laughing.

Trying to explain it was like trying to explain the idea of nails of a chalk board. It wasn’t the sound that bothered you the most. It was the sudden shock and pain as something horrible was mixed into the painful melody that assaulted your ears.

It also bought me enough time to rip part of the rope freeing my legs as the blue Pegasus turned to face me again only this time I was prepared. He threw the weapon at me still unnerved from the sudden noise as I jumped straight at him. The rope crashed along the ground underneath my feet as I pounced on him like a savage animal.

I fought a freaking monster that looked like an eldritch horror as the train went up in flames! I wasn’t going to let a jerk in a hat and some creepy sounds stop me!

He screamed in fear as I hit him in his face with my gauntlets.

He was going to turn me into a Rainbow Dash clone.

My gauntlets struck his nose as blood started flowing out of it.

He had captured, tortured, and brainwashed innocent people as he pretended this was all some sort of game!

His wing moved to the saddle bag grabbing another rope. I slammed my hoof down on his wing and pulled down as the claws left blood gashes.

He gloated about it. He acted as if there was nothing wrong with what he did!

“Stop!” someone shouted as I lifted my hoof up.

Something grabbed it as I struggled to get free before I felt someone grab me from behind. I quickly grabbed the foreleg ready to snap their limb only for wings to wrap around me.

“It’s over.” Steel shouted as I felt my body freeze up “He’s down… he’s down.”

I looked back at the Pegasus before me as I couldn’t recognize him. His body was a mess as blood pooled from his body. Remedy’s magic began to shine as bandages were wrapped around his wounds. I felt sick to my stomach as it looked like he had been mauled to death by a wild bear. I was surprised he was still breathing.

In contrast my body was still brimming with energy as the power rush from the point dump still filled me with strength… strength that bothered me now.

Steel gently pulled me away as Remedy went to work on saving his life or at least keeping it stable. I looked at Steel as bags had formed under his eyes. Blood now stained his dirt brown coat as he kept his grip on me.

Two ponies were lying on the floor… one was a unicorn who’s horn was broken. The other was the red stallion as his blood covered the floor. A golden necklace with a black gem rested away from his body as a halberd rested nearby covered in blood. I stared at the stallion’s neck and saw the dozens of white bandages around it… I didn’t want to think about how Steel removed the amulet.

I looked back at the unicorn “What happened to her?”

Steel sighed as he looked tired “She used a silence spell on herself. Caught us by surprise since she didn’t make any noise… Remedy fought back as the mare specialized in fire spells.”

I just noticed the scorch marks on the walls and along the ground. A fireball is a standard attack in RPGs. Heck it’s unusual to not have fireballs in an RPG much less an MMO. Of course in a game it does a set amount of damage… in real life… it’s fire.

Maybe it might have the same cartoony logic as lightening for some aspects… but considering my lightning bolts tore through training dummies… It’s properly safe to say it was dangerous.

Steel shook his head as he stared at the scorch marks “I’ve fought in the Royal Guard. Recused ponies, fought bandits, but most of our efforts are focused on dealing with wild monsters. If a hydra goes berserk then the Royal Guard takes care of it before it rampages across a town… if a bandit strikes than they either flee or surrender before the might of the Royal Guard came down on them.”

Steel didn’t say anymore as I understood. The Royal Guard wasn’t a military force… it was a force… but it was somewhere in-between monster hunter and police officer. Kind of like how a SWAT team is different than a police officer, but neither of them are military soldiers.

I turned my head around as I remembered something important “The unicorn mare…”

I relaxed as I saw Remedy’s horn glow as the fake Twilight’s features seemed to turn less stiff. Sorrow now filled the former human’s face as she cried. She wasn’t stuck as a lifeless puppet, but she was a sobbing mess as she curled up on the floor. I didn’t like Remedy’s expression as she stared at the other two puppets.

Maybe they were just too far gone for her to help… hopefully she just needed help as the fake Twilight’s problem could be solved with a quick fix.

“Is Stardust back there?” I asked in a mixture of fear and hope.

I hoped she would be nearby. I hoped we would be able to find her before they did anything to her… or at least enough to quickly fix whatever they tried to do to her… after all fake Twilight didn’t seem completely brainwashed. Then again according to Maxwell’s story Duran just mind wiped his victims.

“But she wasn’t…” I looked back at fake Twilight in fear.

She continued to cry as I saw the tears were real and suddenly felt like a jerk. The fact there was more than one person doing mind control properly meant fake Twilight was lucky to have a two bit hack screw up instead of being face to face with Duran to have a full mind wipe.

It also meant we had a chance. If we went back with what we had we could convince Celestia to send the Royal Guard along with her to clear out this place. The fact we survived the battle meant our protection spells worked well enough for a much larger force to attack with Celestia guiding the assault herself.

“I don’t believe this…” Remedy spoke in shock as I went around the stage to her.

I stared at the makeshift dressing room. Each of the puppet versions of the Mane Six stood in their perspective booths. Two other version of Applejack just stood there as various paints and makeup stood by along with a check sheet.

Twelve different Pinkie Pies were placed around in her room as I could even see some pegasi and unicorns as the papers talked about trying to get the right… feeling for Pinkie Pie and her antics. Apparently it wasn’t enough to make a crazy pink pony. They wanted their version to also come with the Pinkie Pie tricks.

The failed version were either kept around in case the current version didn’t fit the bill or to be simply used as mannequins to figure out the right… makeup? Design? They turned living people into freaking props!

I felt a sick knot in my stomach as I stared at the section for Rarity. Dozens of items littered the room as a small version of Rarity had been turned into a living doll along with attempts to make the hair into the style Rarity had… yet Stardust wasn’t in the room.

She wasn’t here.

She was still missing.

******

Stardust

I held my breath not daring to make a sound as I crawled my way through the hidden hallway. Dozens of green sticky sacks and green glowing goo covered the walls as black creatures filled them.

I had no idea where they came from, but a part of my mind called them changelings… how did I know about a creature I had never seen before? I had talked about them on the train… yet…

Both my body and my thoughts froze as one of the green sacks shifted for a moment. Every hair on my body stood on end as the black insect like pony shifted in its sleep for a moment before staying still again. My eyes stayed fixated on the alien creature as it didn’t exactly match the changeling image that rested in the back of my mind.

These changelings had four wings spread out resting in the goo as some sort of stinger rested on it like a wasp. Even then unlike the pony form it seemed further warped or stretched resembling more like a xenomorphic than an actual pony.

Far away it might not seem like much, but up close I couldn’t help but feel the unnatural… wrongness of the creature before me. It was kind of like one of those warped pictures that either looked very cheesy or very creepy depending on your point of view.

The sound of hoof steps beat across the floor as I quickly ducked as part of the wall cracked open. Three ponies walked into the room carrying some sort of sack.

I slowly peeked out from behind my cover and watched them. The two armored ponies dropped the sack without much care as they stood there like statues. The third pony who wasn’t in armor grumbled before a burst of green flames covered his body only to reveal a changeling… except more similar to the ones in my memory than without the unnatural creepy feeling as the ones in the pods.

More than that the changeling didn’t seem happy. He seemed to shiver when he looked around the room and he didn’t exactly seem thrilled at leaving whatever he was dumping here.

The changeling sighed “Well there goes another one. Hopefully she will help fix the next batch…” He frowned glancing at the green pods “Whatever Duran’s next batch is going to be.”

He turned around and glanced at the two armored ponies before lifting one of the visors up. The pony stared at him unmoving as the changeling waved his hoof right in front of the armored pony’s face.

“Mind Control, replacements, body swaps…” The changeling sighed “What’s next? The Spanish Inquisition?”

His body froze as he quickly turned around as I hid behind the creep green sack holding the creepy changeling. It took a few moments before the changeling sighed in relief as if he was expecting something to have happened. My hoof moved over to the insect replant as I had no idea if it would work… but hopefully it would buy my enough time from how horrible it smelled.

In a burst of light the changeling muttered “No way am I going to let that crazy freak try to feed me to a tree.”

The wall cracked open again as I heard the ponies leave the room. Once the wall closed I peeked out from behind my cover and scanned the room just in case the changeling was still in the room.

Once I slowly got out I rushed over to the green sack that had been dropped and stared at it. A changeling was stuck in the green gunk, but it looked more like the changeling that entered the room than the freaky bugs in the other cocoons.

I rubbed my chin “What is going on?”

My hoof shifted as I glanced at the floor… there was a root. A large sickly gnarled root that was moving.

I quickly jumped back as the root tried to grab me! My heart raced in my chest as the root slowly returned to the floor as if it hadn’t tried to grab me. Instead it slowly started to coil around the green cocoon.

The room was filled with creepy bugs and the non-creepy bug… dear Celestia that sounded wrong… was being grabbed by the freaky tree things. A part of me just wanted me to leave, but then I saw words floating near the cocoon. Words… like the ones Lockheart and Valkyrie had above their heads.

“Well I could always use a hostage.” I bitterly joked to myself as I pulled out my makeshift Molotov “Besides I haven’t had my fill of Arson today!”

I ran forward as the roots slowed down ready to try to ambush me again. I grabbed the icky creepy sticky bug thing with my fore legs and tossed the bottle with my mouth. To my utter horror and surprise the roots grabbed my Molotov before they started to converge on my.

Thank Celestia it caught the bottle upside down as the burning liquid poured down onto the roots setting the thing on fire. The roots flailed about obviously unhappy at my dirty trick as one of the roots flung me into a wall and tore the cocoon.

The changeling inside started to cough as it opened their eyes staring at me while I was trying to catch my breath. I never expected it to stare at me in fear, but I’ll take shocked fear over standard horror trope… which sadly was starting to happen as the other bug cocoons started to move.

“You with the freaky killer tree?” I quickly asked out loud.

The changeling shook it’s head “No!”

I smiled “Then let’s run!”

“But!” The changeling muttered in confusion “Aren’t you with Duran to…”

The changeling gulped as I had a sinking feeling on just what Duran might have had been planning for her.

“Well you’re not a creepy bug thing so let’s run!” I shouted trying to find that stupid wall door again!

“But…” The changeling started to say before the words died on her lips.

It was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one to think the other changelings were Nightmare Moon brand of scary as the Changeling beside me stared at them in horror. The flames started to lick the cocoon as the demonic bugs started hissing, growling, and perfectly befitting a horror movie scene as the dancing flames just seemed to bring out their pants wetting terror creepy levels.

The friendly changeling’s horn started to glow as a shield came before us just as the creepy flaming demon tree roots struck them. The changeling was hopping up and down in a nervous fit. As I ran my hoof against the blasted wall trying to find out how to open it.

“Come on! Come on! Come on!” The changeling shouted frantically as the demon bugs birthing scene continued behind my back.

It’s kind of creepy how they hissed like snakes or how their wings buzzed like the sound of angry hornets.

“Found it!” I shouted in joy pulling open the secret door as the changeling ran into me pushing up both through the barely opened door.

As soon as we fell into the hallway the demon bugs started to claw their way to the door nearly forcing it open with sheer numbers if not from the green barrier spell keeping the opening shut. I pulled out another incendiary concoction and hurled it at the door as the demon bugs flew back.

“Shut it!” I screamed as the green magical aura slammed the door shut.

I sighed in relief as my new partner in crime sheepishly smiled “Thanks for the safe, but you know Duran’s going to be… angry at you.”

I smiled back as I ironically found a new friend in my attempt to escape “Well if we both get out of here we can call it even.”

Both of us froze as what sounded like dozens of bugs clawing their way through the stone walls. These were thick walls and there were a lot of bugs on the other side of said walls.

“Run now talk latter.” I quickly shouted as we both bolted down the hallways before the demon bugs could escape their prison!

******

(may remove)

Maxwell

Okay deep breaths. You’re lost in the crazed fun house that turned Luna into a demonic horse of vengeance while warping a normally peaceful forest into Freddy Kruger’s backyard funhouse… or crazed animal zoo!

Don’t think about how everyone in the castle knows you and wants to rip your heart out. Never mind the fact you screwed them all over and managed to get everyone else to safety… who then promptly ditched you right away.
I’m not alone. I have friends… well allies who are with me… well currently near me… inside the castle at least!

“There’s the bastard!” Someone screamed “Lets rip his b- Ahh!”

I turned around. Fucking molten lava fell through the celling onto the poor sap or very close to him. Even the castle warps the very curses into a demonic entity by itself!

“Buck! Buck! Buck!” I shouted as I bolt through the hallway.

The sounds of my former associates charging through the hallway only to stop as the screaming from Bob’s possible death slowed them down. I could hear one start to naturally curse out loud from the sheer shock of it before his or her allies stopped them from dooming them all.

I think this is the real part of the cursing curse that makes it so deadly. It’s like being told you’re not allowed to have a cookie while having it right in front of you. The fact that you can’t have it makes you want it even more. The fact that the whole world around you is completely bonkers also kind of helps.

Kind of like that one Jurassic park scene where yelling only attracts the T-Rex… which is kind of hard not to do when you see the thing trying to eat you!

Without even thinking I opened up my menu and froze. Lots of skill points. Lots of abilities, talents, and nice shinny things that could help me. All of them could be mine… all for the low price of every memory I hold dear. I snapped the skill menu shut and switched to the map.

Well it wasn’t exactly a map, but more like a… drawing. This place is a madhouse and unlike some idiots I kept a rough draft of this place including all it’s secret doors.

Like the one down the hallway as I kicked the stand opening up the staircase and shutting it behind me as the crazed horde descended down the hallway trying to catch up with me.

I sighed “Alright… maybe there was some thought put into this madhouse.”

The cursed menu of doom continued to blink as it had the memory wiping numbers dancing in front of my face. Unlike the cursing curse which slapped you hand every time you did it. This was more like watching a bear trap… above a shark tank… with a 10% discount coupon on your next purchase on something as bait.

“So not worth it.” I quickly replied closing the skill tree icon and hiding it behind my trusty non-memory wiping map. “Guards above with prisoners below. That just leaves the evil overlord sitting on the throne.”

I rested my back against the wall. Just how could I fight a magic evil unicorn with mind wipe abilities with my hooves… and non-mind wiped mind? No idea why it didn’t work. It just didn’t and somehow I didn’t feel safe betting on it to save my bacon without an alicorn powerhouse to back me up.

So I did the only thing I could think of and prayed “Oh merciful chaos and scion of fun. May Discord guide the way to let myself run.”

Okay not a rounded about prayer or something to put in a bible, but hey. Not a lot of deities to worship and Celestia is currently occupied. I’m kind of running short on options here!

I twisted down through the broken rubble and damage left through years of neglect. The rocks scrapped across my skin as I moved down to the next level. Ash and dust filled the air as I managed to fall through the roof and land on the floor below.

As soon as I pushed myself up I came face to face with a griffin. Leaping back I pulled out my cutlass and prepared myself for his attack. To my shock and horror he didn't move at all as I saw the blood stained face before me now.

The armor the griffin wore was now twisted, bent, and warped. Pieces of his own armor stuck out of his bloody dripping in blood. The reason why the body hadn't fallen was because the armor kept the corpse propped up like some twisted scarecrow.

"Maybe I should have pray to Celestia instead." I couldn't help but mutter in fear.

That's when I heard the laugh... Lockheart was laughing? What the hell! We came to rescue someone and have Celestia save everyone! Not this! We didn't come to kill them!

I raced down the hallway trying to reach them before it someone else died. My heart raced in my chest as I had to stop it!

A crack filled the air as my body froze up. Something hit the floor as Lockheart stepped forward. His coat was black as his green hair rested down his head. His fur was matted with blood as he walked towards me. His eyes blazed in fury as the scent of smoke reeked from him.

"What happened?" I couldn't help but ask in horror.

Matteson was one of the few people who hadn't tried to escape. Sure he was a bit of a jerk but... he didn't deserve this.

Lockheart glared at me "Let's move."

I glanced at Matteson... "What happened? Why did you..."

"It was a trap..." Lockheart bitterly replied "We need to find the others and warn them. Duran was expecting us. The Elements of Harmony aren't here... Their gone."

"But why did you kill them?" I repeated out loud. We did he kill them?

Lockheart shook his head "Their still alive... The griffin passed out from fear. Not blood loss. The other one... isn't getting up for a while. "

I glanced at Matteson a second time... he didn't look alight. His arms were a mess. Blood covered his body as he wasn't moving. Lockheart rolled his eyes and held up a piece of a broken mirror to Matteson's mouth as the glass started to fog up.

Lockheart shook his head "Their alive. Castle is on aleart so let one of their doctors patch these two up and we get back to the front of the castle and warn them!"

Lockheart started moving down the hallway as I shouted "What makes you think they'll be there?"

Lockheart shouted in frustration "Because I don't know any other way out of here and neither do they!"

******

Valkyrie

It was rough but things were going well for us. Remedy managed to make the replacement ponies follow us as… Lilly.

I wasn’t sure if that was her real name or if that was the first thing that popped into her head. Well to be precise the first thing she did when she stopped crying was go into the Rainbow Dash room and dump the blue paint over her head or something as she was now sporting two colors.

Now the top half of her body was sky blue as her back was purple. Her hair was now dark blue as the ends stayed purple. Remedy gave her a cloak to cover her back as Nighty was terrified. She didn’t want to be turned into Twilight Sparkle.
It felt old calling the sky blue unicorn Lilly “So… how do we warn Celestia?”

Steel shook his head as he watched the hallways “I can tell Remedy how to perform an Emergency spell flare. Hopefully Canterlot will be able to stop it… but we are going to have to run through the Everfree forest.”

I tried not to flinch. Our escape plan was to run and hope we didn’t get caught. The fact that we had just kicked the hornet’s nest didn’t help either as I felt the silence was a mixed blessing. Of course just because we haven’t seen anyone yet didn’t mean we were safe.

Everyone stopped as we heard footsteps racing down the end of the hallway. We hid behind one of the walls as we tried to stay calm. The footsteps grew louder and louder as I felt like one of those cartoon characters hiding right behind the villains back praying to Celestia that they didn’t turn around.

The wall next to us cracked open as a changeling stood face to face with me. Before I could react another figure came into view pulling the changeling back and holding a hoof up.

“Wait!” Stardust whispered loudly “In now!”

Without wasting any time we rushed inside the hidden hallways before the changeling shut the door behind us. The hidden passageway wasn’t bad if you were trying to escape, but it was a little bit cramp for a group.

Stardust and the changeling looked out of the wall apparently having found peepholes or something as they waited.

“See! Just two halls down a left at the statue and…” One of the players started to mutter.

His companion face palmed as she groaned “How the heck did you lost?”

“Hey!” The first one snapped back “Left hallway was sealed shut from some wild animal or freaky monster attack! Besides worse come to worse we just lock the doors to the movie room and wait for this to all blow over.”

Someone else chuckled “And thus why nobody in Equestria does anything when the big bad attacks.”

The first one grumbled “Isn’t that why we are making the Mane Six. That way we don’t have to go outside every time a pack of Timberwolves or monster gets too close to this dump?”

I sighed in relief when the bickering group finally left though it did hurt me a little on the inside to see them so… useless?

Well I had bigger things to worry about like why Stardust was traveling with a changeling after being kidnapped by a crazed psycho path. I turned to face her as Steel and Remedy glanced at the changeling in… confusion? Horror? I guess disbelief would be the best term.

Stardust sighed in relief “Please tell me you have a way out of here.”

I rubbed the back of my head “We have a plan, but we need to get outside…”

Stardust glanced at me and then at the changeling “Oh don’t worry the cuddle bug is friendly.”

The changeling seemed to stand on end like a frightened cat “Cuddle Bug?”

Stardust simply rolled her eyes “You don’t look like one of the creepy bugs back in that room and you’re not trying to rip out my throat.”

The changeling nodded “Meh. You win on that point.”

“Wait! Time out for a second.” I tried to wrap my head around what was going on “Creepy Bugs?”

Stardust shivered “Like Cuddle Bug, except less pony-like and more Nightmarish. We kind of set that part of the castle on fire when running from them.”

“Can we please get out of here and possibly try warning Celestia or something?” The changeling asked out loud “I mean I would, but…” She gestured to herself.

Steel shook his head as he chuckled a little “I knew this was going to be crazy, but… Cuddle Bug.” The changeling… no the player looked at Steel Halberd like a frightened child “Sorry for the delay and try to be careful.”

The changeling paused for a second “What?”

Stardust smiled “Did you try to capture and brainwash the people captured here?”

The changeling shook her head “No!”

She looked disgusted at the very thought of such an action. Glad to know she kept her humanity better than most of the creeps in this place.

“They offered food and they didn’t run away or try to…” She hung her head obviously not wanting to talk about it.

Stardust simply hugged the changeling. I on the other hand rubbed my aching head as the situation was growing more difficult. Apparently Duran was still recruiting and he wasn’t discriminating with who he picked. Now it’s confirmed that he had mind controlling shape shifting bugs under his employment now.

We really needed to warn Celestia just in case Duran thought it would be a good idea to invade Canterlot to try to figure out the proper “requirements” needed to use an Element of Harmony.

I know it sounds insane, but I have a swarm of Pinky Pies behind me. Sanity had left this building a long time ago!

“Okay.” I took a deep breath and tried to recap “Lockheart and Maxwell are still missing. Castle in on alert and there are changelings…”

“Demon bugs!” The resident changeling argued back “They even creep me out.”

“Demon bugs,” I replied as I rested the urge to do air quotes “and we just rescued a bunch of hostages from a mad
psychopath. Anything else or does he have the Elements of Harmony?”

The changeling shrugged “Actually he’s rather… frustrated as he hasn’t found them. Then again he’s been keeping secrets from everyone else like his hidden creepy demon bug swarm. Not kosher I might add.”

I had no idea what that exactly meant, but it was just another reason to get out of here and call in the Calvary.

******

I’ll admit that when I came in here I was expecting to have to rescue Stardust. I didn’t expect… him… her? It was a little hard to come up with which gender term to use as Stardust seemed more… positive?

Grant it Stardust was just as frightened or worried as the rest of us, but she was putting on a better face for the group than the rest of us. Steel stood strong and gave the fake Mane Six members who were given back some free will to look up to. Remedy helped provide hope that the others may be helped, but she wasn’t exactly warm to begin with.

Stardust took her time to help everyone who had been captured. She gave the changeling hope and a friendly face who didn’t mind her being given an unlucky pick as I’ll be honest… the changeling did unnerve me a little.

Stardust talked about Canterlot and joked about how she would give them a tour of the place or a place to rest for the next few days. She did her best to try to help ease everyone’s worries.

I just wish we had a better plan that walking out the front door. Grant it we just needed Remedy to fire up a flare for reinforcements, but with the castle on high alert and a hidden group of creepy changelings added to the mix?

I really underestimated how much trouble a group of panicked humans could cause in the Everfree forest.

Everything was looking up as Maxwell came into view. He paced around the entrance of the castle nervously as no one was around. The castle was in a panic trying to stop the fires and sudden bug invasion leaving the exit free for us to use.

Maxwell turned his head noticing us and shouted “You have them! Good!” He turned around racing out the front door “We need to get going now!”

Everyone else got ready to run as we walked towards the exit. All Remedy had to do was fire up that flare and then we would have to run into the woods. Of course there were still the ponies at the makeshift fort to deal with… but hopefully Remedy’s curse would buy us enough time to run past them.

As soon as we entered the archway of the castle Maxwell turned around and smiled. His eyes briefly glowed green for a second before a flash of light covered the room.

Runes etched into the walls glowed around us as Maxwell was now sporting a unicorn horn as the title Traitor hung above his head. I felt like screaming or cursing at him, but the magical trap kept us frozen as the string of profanity and curses were unable to be spoken.

Green flames surrounded Maxwell revealing him to be a changeling as he smiled “Fooled you.”

It was a changeling… we were tricked by a fucking player turned changeling! I should have seen this coming as the traitor walked past us looking us over as if he was inspecting some item before buying it.

“Nice flanks, but a bit too much muscle. Wings are a bit large, but with Butch Jack I don’t nobody will care too much.” He simply commented “Shame about the unicorn. It’s hard to find Twilight replacements as this one is going to need a through work over.”

He glanced at Remedy and then Steel “But hey… free maid and a guard isn’t that bad of a catch. That bonus is mine this week!”

“Of course I need a new disguise…” the traitor started to say as the castle doors opened up.

Duran stood outside along with a dozen other players. The changeling player turned around and smiled nervously as he had yet to recast his disguise. The other players looked at their changeling ally in disgust as he tried to look towards Duran for help.

“Duran!” He shouted in fear “Look I caught them! I set up the trap and…”

Duran shook his head “Tisk tisk. I should have seen this coming. I never thought a villain would be lurking amongst us after Maxwell’s betrayal.”

The changeling player looked at Duran in disbelief as his allies glared at the changeling. These weren’t the eyes of allies welcoming their friend for stopping us. These eyes were filled with hatred as they saw the changeling player as an abomination.

Duran sighed “You just happened to catch them only after we stood by the exit.”

The changeling player shouted in panic “You told me to…”

Duran’s green magical aura snapped the player’s mouth shut “This is why we must have constant vigilance for who knows when someone might try to sabotage our work. After all if the Mane Six have the Elements of Harmony than are able to go back home, but naturally the villains will want to stop us.”

The changeling struggled as the magical aura covered his body yanking him out of the doorway and out into the open. He hit the ground hard as he landed right in front of the angry mob.

As soon as Duran’s grip was released he screamed “Guys you know me! I’m Malcom! We play poker and I helped…”

Duran’s magical grip shut Maclom’s mouth again as Duran shook his head “Lies spoken by a traitor who can’t be trusted. Let’s show him what happens to villains because after all… Changelings are a villain race as none of us were given the choice to be them.”

Malcom stared at his former allies in panic before they descended upon him as we were forced to watch. The mob attacked him as the weapons they held were soon covered in blood as Duran simply smiled enjoying the slaughter.

Duran just betrayed his own ally… he used Malcom to impersonate Maxwell to trick us and then killed him. He properly already had a convenient excuse to take the credit for the trap and why the heck he kept everyone waiting outside.
If anyone was a villain that it was that slimy bastard who stood before me!

As soon as the slaughter had been finished the players turned around and stared at us. Every single one of those twisted bastards were glaring at us darkly for trying to steal their “ticket home” after murdering one of their own allies.

Duran stepped forth smiling as he revealed his shit eating smile “I told you that you wouldn’t escape from me. You tried to run and I caught all your little traitors... including a second changeling?”

He frowned at that. Apparently Malcom was the only changeling he had planned to kill. The other players glared at the only person Duran hadn’t poisoned. I wanted to run, scream, do anything to stop them!

Duran glanced at us and grinned “Rarity so how about you stop being selfish and show me your generosity and kill that other changeling for me.” His horn started to glow “And don’t worry… You’ll enjoy slaying the villain my little hero!”

His horn glowed with an eldritch green as he took his time. The traitors behind him cheered as he basked in their praise as he knew we were trapped. I could only move my eyes as I frantically tried to do something! Steel was trapped as Remedy’s horn didn’t glow. The friendly changeling started to tear up as she knew she was about to be killed.

Stardust shut her eyes as tears ran down them. She was getting ready for the attack and was going to try her best even if she had no idea what to do. I strained my eyes trying to see behind us as I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else was still able to move.

There had to be someone who wasn’t caught by the trap. They couldn’t have waited to spring that trap until we were all in it.

It couldn’t end like this.

Duran laughed “It’s just like I promised! I’ll save us all!”

The light from Duran’s shot out and as I shut my eyes. The light exploded as I heard everyone gasp in shock. The castle doors were shut blocking the magic attack apparently. I couldn’t help but stare in shock at the close save before the doors were covered in a green magical light.

“Enough games!” Duran screamed from outside as his magic ripped the doors from their hinges “I… I…”
The mad man’s face was frozen in fear as the color drained from his face. Those behind him stared at us in fear as the looks of anger and vengeful pride and disappeared. A few of them started shaking in fear as one of them actually dropped their weapon.

“Pardon me. Excuse me.” A familiar voice spoke behind me “Love what you've done with the place, but honestly I thought there would a lot more pointy spikes and random fireplaces set about to fit the whole evil villain motif.”

I turned my head as my blood ran cold “Discord?"

The dark god of chaos was right beside me as he grinned “Who were you expecting? John de Lancie?”

Author's Note

In the fate of Gods and Dice one must remember to be careful of what one says before the dice are thrown before them.

New chapter up. Sorry for having a cliff hanger near this time of year. Let me know of any mistakes and hopefully I'll have time to fix them.

Hope you have a happy holiday.

Broken Lives

Stardust

Fear coursed through my veins as the impossibility stood before me. Discord an ancient Equestrian villain of old who looked more like a poorly drawn monster made by a foal or a failed taxidermy attempt stood in front of us. Even Duran the crazed villain stepped back in fear as the cartoonish mockery hadn’t made a single move.

Discord turned his gaze towards Duran and smiled “Fake-ey! You’re still here? How’s the whole evil villain gig working out for you?”

Duran took another step back as he started to stutter “Y-You can’t be… You should be back in…”

“Canterlot?” Discord replied as he took a few steps forwards towards them. “Didn’t you get the memo? I know I sent you one.”

Duran’s eyes shrunk as he broke out in a cold sweat “No… no I’m a… I’m a hero.”

The beast of chaos just laughed.

Every instinct in my body screamed that I should run, flee, or find a rock to hide underneath. The same primordial fear that taught us to run at a Manticore’s roar or to be frightened at the dark was being set off by his unnatural laughter.

It wasn’t a laughter that mocked somepony or was happy. This laughter if it could even be called that tore through my body reducing my muscle to jelly and seemed to promise that my darkest fears were just blissful wishing made by a fool compared to the horrors that were about to befall me.

No one dared to move as Discord walked past us out onto the castle grounds. He pulled out a file and started sharpening his nails. He whistled a small cheery tune without a care in the world.

Duran pointed a hoof at the eldritch horror that stood before us “Stay back! We have the Elements of Harmony!”

Discord shook his head as he waved a finger at Duran “Tisk tisk tisk. Do you really think I would be here if you actually had the Elements of Harmony? How do you think I’m free now?”

Discord laughed again as lightening seemed to scream across the sky or his voice bore deep down on my soul letting me know there was nothing any of us could do.

Duran’s allies fled as they screamed in terror helpless against the power that stood before them. Discord didn’t try to stop them as he didn’t even pay any attention to them. He just simply walked closer to Duran as he was frozen in fear.

Discord held his chin as he leaned forward staring at Duran who was couching on the ground in fear shivering like a frightened dog before a hyrda. To simply put it Duran was outclassed by the foe before him and he knew it.

Discord poked Duran in the chest as he flinched in pain “Quite the little usurper aren’t you?”

Duran shouted in fear “I’m a hero! I’m supposed to…”

“Yes.” Discord replied mockingly as he clicked his tongue before frowning “The Element of Loyalty for the one who betrayed everyone around them including yourself.”

Discord rose back up and as Duran’s mouth hung open “Why?”

Discord laughed rubbing his hands together as it sounded like metal screeching against metal “Why not? Isn’t that the line you always used to convince everyone else? So let me ask you little pony… how many memories have you taken?”

“Get back!” Shouted a rough voice.

Discord shot up from his spot jumped back as a bolt of lightning tore through the earth. A griffin shot down from the sky tackling Discord before crashing into the ground. Everyone who hadn’t run away stared at the crash site expecting Discord to simply laugh it off or reveal to have captured the griffin in some sort of mockery.

Instead cracks appeared in Discord body. The griffin that had tackled Discord had his eyes shut as he tried to restrain Discord in a bear hug. Discord bit his lip as green flames consumed his body nearly blinding anyone who was looking at him.

A green blast of magic went off sending the griffin flying back as the dust began to settle. Lockheart groaned as he stepped out from where Discord had once been standing as he trying to shake the dirt out of his black coat. His wings and horn stood out for everyone to see.

Duran stared at Lockheart for a moment as it soon clicked all together “You tricked me… You tricked me!”

Lockheart chuckled bitterly “It was worth a shot. Besides…” he grinned “It got rid of most of your minions.”

Duran screamed in a voice impossible for a normal pony as flames of hatred burned in his eyes. He bared his teeth out like a savage animal as two large fangs seemed to have popped out of his mouth.

“Come on. Come on.” Whispered a voice beside me.

I turned around and saw a strange earth pony with a hammer and chisel striking at the glowing runes as some of the others started being able to move again took one of the tools or broken items he left nearby them. He wiped the sweat from his brow and continued to work faster.

Valkyrie was the first to speak “Maxwell?”

The earth pony turned around smiling “Sorry for the shock, but we didn’t exactly have a lot of time to go over the plan.”

He placed a small broken spear beside me before he want back to the glowing runes and started to continue chipping them away. I glanced back at Lockheart as I realized was trying to buy us time to escape.

Lockheart shook his head as he continued his distraction “I found the chamber. The Elements of Harmony were missing.”

Duran flinched “So I had to ask… After all this time why didn’t you find those blasted rocks? It’s because you didn’t want them to be found.”

Duran leapt forth as Lockheart threw some dirt into Duran’s eyes before firing off a magic blast.

Maxwell managed to break another rune allowing me to move. I grabbed the broken spear with my mouth struck it against the wall trying to break the integrant lines. We just needed a few more seconds.

Lockheart continued talking as he moved to some nearby cover to avoid Duran’s erratic magical blasts “You found one of them. Grabbed an Element, but then what? Where you worried that with the Elements they wouldn’t need you anymore? That someone else would find a way to use them?”

The ground shook as I turned to see what was happening. Duran was practically foaming at the mouth as a large bolder rested near Lockheart’s location. Each exhale from Duran’s body seemed to make his body grow a little bit bigger as his entire mouth seemed to be filled with sharp teeth.

Lockheart walked out from behind Duran “That’s why you made the little revolt. You get all of the ones who didn’t want to play mind games all in one spot so you could get rid of them all at once? When that didn’t work you resorted to slander?”

“You’re lying!” Duran shouted sending his hoof through Lockheart’s face only to fall through him. “I’m a hero!”

The illusion laughed “You’re a hero? There are many terms for what a hero may be, but I don’t think what you did was heroic. You’re just another two bit villain with delusions of grandeur.”

Another magic blast struck Duran as he turned around to face Lockheart. I felt my body grow lighter as the last rune was broken. As soon as the trap was destroyed Valkyrie shot through the air like a bullet as she slammed into Duran’s side sending him crashing into the ground.

Everypony rushed out into the castle grounds as Remedy shot up a flare to signal Canterlot. Duran rose back up as Valkyrie stepped back in shock. I couldn’t help but stare at Duran in horror. His body had grown even larger as cracks ran across his entire body. Instead of simply growing larger his body now seemed misshaped and twisted like some twisted parody of a pony’s actual body.

Another magic blast struck him in the face expect this time it was from one of us. I dug through my saddle bags pulling out what few items I had left as any pony that could think for themselves prepared to fight him.

Duran glared at us in hatred “You dare betray me!”

“You betrayed us first monster!” The fake Twilight shouted

“Monster?” Duran hissed in fury as he seemed to have snapped “Monster!” The cracks in Duran’s body started to glow as a feminine voice filled with malice replaced his old voice “I’ll show you a real monster!”

Duran’s body shattered revealing a new form. He now stood possible as tall as Celestia herself as his legs were now black and riddled with holes as his hooves tore into the ground beneath him. His stomach seemed to be malnourished as it clung to his rib cage. His fur was gone as a black caprice covered his body as two reptile like eyes stared down at us in hatred. The unicorn horn was now a jagged broken dagger curved back as two wasp like wings shot out from his side.

My brain froze trying to figure out what he was until I remembered the creepy changelings back in the castle. Cuddle Bug was a changeling… but Duran looked closer to some folk tale monster than an actual changeling.

It was like trying comparing a Wendigo to a Pony!

Duran hissed as the feminine voice screeched out “You will all pay for your transgressions!”

Black words now formed about Duran’s head spelled Gaichuu.

Lockheart chuckled bitterly “I really hate being right sometimes.”

Remedy’s magic went off again filling the sky with lights. The monster glanced up at the sky and growled before it focused on us again. That’s when the buzzing came from inside the castle. Everypony else tensed up as they knew what was coming. Just like any insect hive the swarm was coming to protect it’s wretched queen.

******

Lockheart

I ran to the next piece of cover I could find. Duran or Gaichuu turned out to be a girl… who knew? Maybe he was a guy in real life and got stuck in gender bender situation or she was a girl, but chose to be a guy because… reasons.

Honestly I was just shooting blanks. I Blame Duran for the missing Elements of Harmony. Say a few vague odd things and pretend to be a skilled manipulative asshole! I wasn't planning to actually fight him! Just... frighten away the his group and leave anyone left to try to turn on him.

Another bolder scrapped past my cover as Gaichuu really did fit the overpowered evil villain role better than I did… In case you weren’t listening world that’s me demanding for my Super Mega Ultra Demon Boost Power/Form!

I’ll even take a crazy hairdo!

“Wait…” Duran hissed in rage “Are you… Feeding on me!”

I glanced up at my horn and… yep. Mana Restore Mode is on as it’s focusing on his massive bloodlust and/or wrath pointed at my direction.

I know you hate me Equestia… and the feeling… it’s mutual.

“I’ll kill you!’ Gaichuu screamed at the top of her lungs as all the rocks lifted up into the air officially labeling her as a girl in my mind because hell hath no fury like a pissed of woman!

I turned to face her and took a pot shot at her face before she could crush me with the boulders. She shouted in rage as the rocks came rushing down towards the ground. God I wish I knew that bubble shield spell everyone used on TV!

I ran forward using my wings to cover my head only for something to tackle me in the side. My ribs hurt like hell, but the cloud of smoke informed me that I was away from the impact sight as Valkyrie tried to catch her breath.

“Oh Valkyrie.” Thank goodness I’m… no we’re still alive “Do me a favor and distract her!”

“Isn’t that your specialty?” She snapped back “Besides if you had some sort of plan why didn’t you use it when you were right in front of her!”

“One!” I shouted as I ran for cover as Gaichuu fired a magic blast tearing through the ground “I was about to… I just needed time to get it ready.”

I looked for that blasted griffin to see if he was still up “Two! I was about to end it right until the griffin sucker punched me!”

“What is it then!” Valkyrie shouted

I held back the bile in my throat “Three… it’s something I have to do. Remedy doesn’t know the needed spell and…” I glanced around “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Changelings! God dam table turning changelings were fighting for the freaking bug queen! Was there some sort of “Evil Overlord Guide” hidden in the menu or something because I know they’re not players!

Players have titles and stuff. They do not try to emulate the zerg swarm in all it’s horror! They’re not even using the copy trick to split everyone up and are just trying to use sheer numbers! Was I supposed to get access to that skill before my menu went on the fritz because of fucking Discord!

Pain screamed across my back side as I just realized one important detail I missed. I still had a pissed of Changeling Queen who wanted me dead. I fell to the ground and tried to get up as the woman I had scorned drew closer.

I turned around and tried to smile. I was in a lot of pain, but she didn’t need to know that. I just had to employ the Spiderman School of Super Heroics which was to simply box up the pain and store it away for 2 AM tomorrow and throw insults until then.

Instead of shouting a quick quip or timely insult I was rewarded with painful sensation of having both of my wings pinned down to the ground by a Changeling that was bigger than Celestia and a lot more ugly than Chrysalis.

Chrysalis didn’t foam at the mouth like a wild animal.

A green light blazed from Gaichuu’s horn as she screamed at me “Die!”

I opened my mouth as she grinned properly expecting me to beg for my life. I didn’t because unlike an equestrian pony I had canine teeth and anyone who had been bit by a dog can tell you… they hurt.

Gaichuu screamed in shock as I upped it. Green flames covered my body shifting my form as my body hurt like hell. Necromancy had a unique benefit of know how to put the bones back together… and it hurt like hell dislocating my wings.

Still it gave me the freedom of movement. She lifted her hooves up a little from the sudden shock or possible burns of my transformation as it helped give me enough room to twist out a little from her grasp and fire another magic blast except this time I had a better view of her ugly face.

She screamed clutching her right eye “My eye! Why the!”

I fired again at the other one as she quickly moved away from me. Her wings buzzed like an angry hornet as she bared her teeth at me. I could see her bloodshot eyes glaring at me… Where the hell are you Valkyrie as my magic blast power is shit!

Gaichuu’s horn started to glow again only for Valkyrie to come crashing down onto her back. Gaichuu screamed as Valkyrie’s metallic clawed boots dug into the bug queen’s back. I quickly bolted running for my fallen saddle bags and the weapon I needed to end this fight.

The griffin was still knocked out and the others were dealing with the sudden changeling swarm. I found what I had been looking for and quickly shoved it back together. It was a crude and sloppy job, but hopefully it would do its job.

Gaichuu screamed in triumph as Valkyrie smashed into the ground beside me.

Valkyrie had a combat build. If she couldn’t win then… I felt the lump in my throat just thinking about it as I turned around. Gaichuu was grinning like a madman. Her horn crackled with magic as one of her legs was dripping blood. She licked her lips as she was going to kill me.

She wasn’t going to try to turn me into a puppet. She planned to outright kill me!

Oh dear god! Please Monolog! Please Monolog!

“What do you think you are doing?” She hissed in fury “You came into my castle and harmed my subjects. You tried to steal from me our way back home!”

Thank you God! I just need a little bit more time as I had only one shot for this trick.

“You don’t get it do you?” Her lips parted into a sickening grin revealing a smile fit for nightmares “I’m the hero of this tale! You’re simply the villain.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that line as I replied “That suits me just fine.”

It wasn’t much, but then again humanity isn’t that much to begin with. In a fair fight most creatures would kill us. Of course the trick was not to fight fairly. That’s why we made guns.

The look of shock and horror on her face was priceless when she saw it. Human’s recognized guns. Humanity knows the danger of guns and more importantly… we fear guns. It was that sudden shock of seeing the crude makeshift shotgun that gave me an opening as I pulled the trigger as I hoped it would fire again.

My horn shot off the spark needed to ignite the crude mixture and I mean crude. This wasn’t a musket. This was a hollow spear with one end magically sealed shut by alteration magic as the insides was filled with lots of coal dust, crude oil from the lamps in the castle, and of course highly chaotic unstable magic. Hell the muzzle was just one of those metal kitchen funnel things shoved and fused to make the barrel of the gun.

Needless to say that this wasn’t a proper gun as the end of the riffle exploded, but that didn’t matter… it was close enough to her face for the shrapnel to do it’s work. That’s why I needed to get close to her in case something went wrong. Too bad it took so long to load the blasted device and it screwed up when I tried shooting her the first time!

My wings were already in position to protect my face as the shards of metal tore right into them as I was prepared for the worst. She wasn’t as I could hear her scream tear into my ears as most of the shards managed to cut past her defenses. I spread out my wings to see her as she clutched her face as she rolled on the ground in agony.

I tried not to scream though I properly already did as I worked my magic on my wings. It really hurt shifting them back to normal or at least to a point where they wouldn’t hinder me. The broken makeshift shotgun rested on the ground broken and tore apart… but it had a jagged end.

I glanced at her. She was injured for the moment but she wasn’t out for the count. My magic lifted the broken gun and prayed that it was sharp enough to finish the job.

She screamed “I’m the hero!”
“And I’m a villain.” I coldly replied as I grabbed the broken gun “Villains cheat.”

And unlike heroes… they can also kill.

I plunged the spear down only for something to tackle me. Expecting to see Valkyrie or someone from the peanut gallery preparing some good will speech I saw a changeling hissing at me as three more tacked me to the ground… I kind of forgot about them.

“Kill him!” Gaichuu screamed in rage “Rip his throat out!”

The changeling cracked open it’s jaw revealing a much better set of teeth than mine as it went in for the kill. To my surprise Gaichuu screamed again as the changelings looked to her. Part of the Changeling Queen’s horn fell to the ground as fucking Maxwell stood there with his sword.

His cutie mark of the opera mask started to glow before it was burned away in a burst of light. Now a shield with flames stood there… the same fucking one from my nightmare.

Just like some fucking lucky jackass he shouted “No more!” And wouldn’t you know it? As soon as the Bug Queen’s broken horn started to glow Maxwell swung his sword again cutting the rest of it off as she screamed in agony. “No more lies! No more tricks! No more!”

With the changeling queen on the ground trying to recover Maxwell just stood there like an idiot trying to catch his breath. I would have been alright with his sudden BS moment if he didn't just leave the changeling queen there alive as he rushed off to check on Valkyrie and left me dog piled by evil changelings.

I felt like screaming “Just kill her already!” Sadly changelings can also sense emotions as the four on top of me refocused their efforts on trying to kill me.

Maxwell was an idiot who let his guard down. I wanted to play it smart and end her life before she pulled out another nasty trick. Guess who they thought was a bigger threat at the moment?

The changelings snapped their teeth into my legs. The one on my side started to tear into my wings. It hurt as the one on my back tried growing for my neck again before tearing off the locket.

I spoke a single curse as my rage and hatred boiled over. The chaotic flames rushed out of my throat and scorched the ground. The torn up field turned into butterscotch as we all sunk into it’s sugary coated mess.

One of them that had tried to bite me was coughing up a syrupy mess as I struggled to get free and more importantly some fresh air. What might have been a dream for a little kid was turning into a nightmare as I struggled to break free before I was completely submerged to death in this sugary mess.

The changelings started trying to bite me again as the butterscotch slowed them down as I tried figuring out a spell, some sort of trick that could save me. Instead a golden light shot down from the skies as the changelings hissed in anger.

With the changeling off me I broke to the surface and gasped for air. I glanced up into the air and couldn’t help, but smile as the Celestia had just showed up along with dozens of pegasi.

Gaichuu hissed “I can’t lose… I’m the hero… I’m…”

“You’re a loony.” I snapped back and used my magic to mend my body and hopefully remove the mess covering me.

Gaichuu glared at me… the shrapnel from the gun left an ugly scar on the right side of her face “Villains never win.”

I held myself up butterscotch free “Then obviously you’ve never heard of Vetinari.”

Where was that dam riffle again?

She snapped her wings open as her changeling swarm moved to cover her escape. Celestia focused her magic on taking out the changelings trying to harm the others as the changelings quickly turned into crazed fanatics lunging themselves at their closest target and attacking like wild animals.

I just held myself up as I knew my wings were shit so a chase out of the question. Celestia landed on the ground as I tried to get over to her. I was ready to tell or even shout at her to go after the crazed idiot who was trying to escape until I saw she seemed to be just as exhausted as I was.

She looked alright as if she really was the Shinning General who just came to save us in the nick of time. Emotionally though… she was even more exhausted than I was! She was just bottling up all her pain and exhaustion until a small box for 3 AM in the morning. Even then I recognized a weak illusions spell when I see one.

Everyone else was just too happy to notice or too busy cleaning up our mess. Already Celestia was using what was left of her strength to tend the wounded as Pegasi doctors started bandaging those who didn’t need her help.

“Wait their friendly!” Stardust shouted.

I groaned as I quickly rushed over to her as three royal guards looked at two changelings in confusion. These two weren’t foaming at the mouth and Stardust wasn’t having her emotions or mind manipulated.

“Don’t bother them.” I bitterly muttered as I had no idea where the second one came from.

Both Royal Guard ponies looked at me in confusion “But…” Their mouth fell open as they stared at me in disbelief.

What’s so strange about… I looked at my hooves to see the same dark fuzzy fur as a few bloody feathers fell down. Oh
right. I kind of forgot about that bit.

“They helped us rescue the ponies captured.” I glanced at the changelings making sure they were human “And… it’s a long story. Just keep some guards nearby if you must, but don’t … you know.”

My legs started to sway… Please don’t be blood loss.

“There’s a couple of nut jobs running in the forest.” I tried to keep myself steady “Be careful of the going inside the castle.”

My head started to ache. “And…”

My body gave out as I fell to the ground. Everything just hurt.

As my eyes started to shut I heard a voice whisper into my ear “Don’t worry. Your dear friend Discord well make sure everything’s all right.”

Oh shit… I forgot about the Elements of Harmony.

Discord chuckled “Well it wouldn’t exactly be fair if you’re secret was blown just yet. Besides with the game being played right now I’m in need of a few pieces and it’s only fair I look after my favorite piece!”

I heard Discord’s laughter before I finally passed out.

******

Maxwell

I glanced back at my cutlass as the past few minutes played itself again in the back of my mind. Duran stood above Valkyrie as his face was covered in scars. His horn glowed in eldritch light as Valkyrie tried to get back up.

He was going to do the same thing he did to Rebeca, to Scott, to so many others as I had just stood there.

The cutlass in my grasp I swung.

I looked at my hands… they were hooves. This nightmare was real. This world suddenly threw a cold splash of reality on me as I saw the matted blood on my fur covering my body.

I had nearly died going up against Duran. Valkyrie was nearly killed for trying to stop her. So many people had lost themselves in this twisted world as one of Duran’s own human allies was murdered right in front of us just to simply shift some blame around or something.

I couldn’t help but wonder what we had been fighting for… what they had been doing. Was any of we had been doing worth all this bloodshed?

“Are you alright?” asked a horse beside me… no a pony.

He was a pony. He wasn’t a human. He wasn’t from earth. He was one of those background royal guard ponies with bandages of all things… I glanced back at Valkyrie as I noticed her wounds. I had scratches while she had bloody deep gashes across her body. Bits of stone were stuck in his flesh as the armor she wore was slightly bent and warped.

If she wasn’t wearing armor she could have died.

There wasn’t a flash of light or a respawn when the changeling died… just a corpse... a corpse... Valkyrie could have died for real!

“No.” I quickly replied trying to keep calm “She needs help more than I do.”

The pony smiled “She’s being taken care off.”

I opened my mouth ready to shout until I saw Celestia. I suddenly felt small… very small and disgusted at my past actions.
Celestia stood before me in her regal grace as the light seemed to shine around her. She stood taller than me… taller than anyone else as she even seemed bigger than Duran was! Her horn shinned softly as Valkyrie’s wounds began to mend.

It wasn’t the crude magical cure some of the medic unicorn builds used. They had to pull out rocks, twigs, or anything that got stuck into the skin before they healed someone. Celestia’s light simply glowed over the wound as the bits of rock and dirt simply vanished as the wounds seemed to simply vanish as if they were never made in the first place.

Celestia looked at me and smiled… I couldn’t look her in the face as I lowered my head. I had pretended it was all a game. I had stayed with everyone even when Duran started ripping memories out of people and started turning them into puppets.

I didn’t even try to warn Celestia about the problems in the Everfree Castle when I finally fled the place. All I did was get lost in a forest trying to find a way out of there. Even then Duran’s justification still rang in my head.

He believed himself to be a hero. He believed he was the one who was going to get us all home. He stole the Elements of Harmony, brain washed and kidnapped people. Bloody hell he even was growing an army in secret from everyone else.

Had Duran simply been lying to us all along or had he simply ignored his morals simply because he believed it all to be a game? I mean most people tend to drive over pedestrians in GTA, but no one would do that in real life.

Valkyrie started to groan as she pushed herself up “Oh… it worked.”

Celestia smiled as she looked down at Valkyrie “You seem to have gotten into some trouble since I had left.”

Valkyrie simply grinned “But it all worked out in the end.” She flinched in pain as she tried to get up “How’s Lockheart?”

Celestia glanced uneasily at his direction… that couldn’t be right could it… oh right. Alicorn.

Was he just joking about the chain and ball gag or was he actually serious?

Celestia shook her head “He’ll be alright, but the next few days are going to be tough for him.”

Valkyrie stared at Celestia as guilt filled her face. I felt a small twinge of jealousy, but quickly buried it away. Lockheart did all that he could to piss Duran off. Valkyrie had armor to protect her… Lockheart didn’t.

Celestia shook her head “He’s alright, but the battle left a few… difficulties. Not everypony in Canterlot knew about him being an Alicorn… or the fact he finally got his cutie mark.”

I blinked… cutie mark? Wasn’t he using an illusion for it or…

I glanced at my side as I remembered the light. The laughing mask was gone from my side as now a flaming shield replaced it. Instead of a sense of unease that filled me every time I looked at it I felt a small sense of peace now.

When did that happen?

“The poison…”

“Poison?” I quickly repeated snapping back to reality.

Celestia nodded “These… creatures you fought apparently had some type of poison used to incapacitate their pray. Lockheart’s… unusual condition just delayed the reaction. He’ll survive, but it’s going to take a little while for him to recover and by then.”

Was Celestia telling the truth or was Lockheart going to be brought back home in a body bag? I mean he wasn’t wearing armor.

Did he die?

Valkyrie simply sighed “Word’s going to spread about another alicorn. Can’t you just… you know?”

I blinked. Wait was going on? Didn’t we just establish Lockheart was an Alicorn… was he a changeling just like Duran? Was he some sort of freaky bug queen!

Celestia simply shrugged “I could try to slow it down, but honestly after all that has happened… it’s not likely especially after Timberton…”

I stared back at Celestia and then at Valkyrie. What happened at Timberton? What was going on! Did I miss a cut scene or something!

I stared at Celestia’s face as that’s when I noticed it. I saw the bags underneath her eyes. Celestia was tired… the goddess who raised the sun and moon each day was tired. That’s when it suddenly clicked.

We just sat in a forest playing games all day as we pushed Equestria to the side. If we weren’t dealing with whatever unnamed threat was lurking out there then who would be left to pick up our slack? I felt even worse about myself think that this was all some sort of game.

Valkyrie spoke the unspoken question “What happened in Timberton?”

Celestia just smiled “Right now we have to take care of this mess.”

Valkyrie didn’t smile back and neither did I. The smile Celestia had on was just to help us relax. Whatever happened in Timberton didn’t end in a happy ending.

******

Valkyrie

I stood in front of jail cell as I stared at the inmate. The news had frightened some of Equestria’s citizens, but it was kept under wraps. Right now we were just in the process of find who had committed what actions and more importantly… why they had did it?

Not everyone was guilty of the major crime of kidnapping and brainwashing people… Some had simply gone with the flow as they didn’t see a better option or didn’t want to argue with the benefits of Duran’s madness.

Sadly this meant checking what a few of the players did and why they did it… including Lily who we had tried to rescue. The joyful tears were gone as she was finally away from Duran… only to be landed in a jail cell.

I tried to be nice as I said “So… why did you did you join?”

The former human rolled her eyes as she said “It wasn’t exactly like we had many options.” Her eyes frowned as she stared at my body in envy “Not all of us were as lucky as you.”

I didn’t respond as I tried not to make her feel uncomfortable. What was important was that she was a former human like me. She grew up on earth and lived her life until we both were suddenly tossed into Equestria without any idea.

She stared at me in annoyance as she replied “Yes I’m a love sucking monster! All that’s left is for some love sob story and a truck load of glitter!”

Lily was her real name. She had the misfortune of being turned into a changeling when she came into Equestria. Every urge in my body felt like turning to my fight or flight response as the creepy looking bug pony sat right across from me trapped behind steel bars and magical seals.

She was the human they tried to turn into a Twilight puppet. I didn’t hesitate when someone needed to save her, but now it was difficult getting past the irrational fear in the back of my mind.

Despite all her… buggy body I could see the traces of humanity… or pony-ness in her. She looked just like one of those smaller changelings from the cartoon except she had long green hair. Her wings were bound to her body by some sort of jacket or restraint as a ring was placed on her horn that was supposed to keep her from casting magic.

I had no idea if the hair was real or made by some sort of spell, but the only difference between her and the other changelings was the style of the hair… I couldn’t help but wonder who she was before she was transformed into a changeling.

I pushed those thoughts away and tried to focus on the main issue “Why did you work with Duran?”

I wasn’t sure if I would like the answer.

Lily hung her head “Because he… she… it? Duran wanted some extra muscle and he could provide us a meal. If his plan worked then we would all go home… if it didn’t then we would at least be safe until someone else figured out a better plan.”

She shook her head as the glowing green eyes focused on me “What where we supposed to do? It wasn’t like there was a manual on this stuff! Besides if we used that… system… then what would happen to us?”

She shivered as it made sense. Losing chunks of memory wasn’t pleasant. Losing memories and possibly having them replaced with a false life? I tried not to think about Stardust. Lily might have had it worse as everyone else got pony memories… what would it be like having changeling memories?

I shivered at the thought.

Lily continued “So we took the deal! We did a bit of testing. We tried to figure out what we could do and helped do whatever tasks Duran asked of us. In exchange we got a roof over our head and a meal each day. Unlike you we can’t eat grass!”

A part of me felt… disgusted at that comment? Of course the fact that they didn’t use the point system in fear of losing their humanity made me sympathizes with them. It was one thing to end up as a pony. I could only imagine the horror of ending up as a changeling.

Lily huffed “and now we are trapped in cages to be experimented on instead of being thrown on stage to dance for their amusement.” I opened my mouth as she glared at me “Celestia didn’t let our existence go public which means we are not getting a court trial. That never is a good sign.”

I kept my mouth shut. Hopefully Celestia was going to treat them well… but how exactly do you care for a race you know little about? How do you help them when they barely know themselves?

Lily circled back to her bed “I wish I got the alicorn deal. The lucky sod is properly living the good life while I’m trapped in a cell.”

I focused on the last question I had “And what about Duran?”

Lily shrugged as she curled up on the wooden bed “We didn’t come until after whatever fallout they had. What he asked of us wasn't all that much either at first. Just look around and try to help anyone who was... sad or depressed."

Lily chuckled bitterly "Heck the most we could do was feed ourselves and smooth things over. Then we he revealed to us his...solution...” She chuckled bitterly “I said no and you saw how well that turned out. It’s kind of funny considering how that everyone ended up in jail cells anyway.”

I stared at her as she hadn’t compromised herself to the point system. She had admitted to helping out with part of Duran’s insane scheme, but she didn’t agree with brain washing people. Of course how much did she actually know? Did she simply kept her head low until Duran started to demand for more from them?

Should I be angry that she compromised her morals so that she wouldn’t have to sacrifice her memories to survive or sorry that she compromised her morals in order to survive?

I shut my eyes and started to wonder if I was starting to let some sort of hidden prejudice color my judgment or was she really changing her story so that she would be sentenced for her crimes? After all considering all the work they did to try making copies of the mane six it wouldn't be that far from the truth to add Changelings to the mix... especially if one can go back and forth from regular Twilight and Alicorn Twilight when ever they wanted.

“One last question…” I replied with unease “Why didn’t you use it?”

Lily glanced at me and smirked a little “Because I’m me. Whatever magic tore me from my home and dumped me in this place as it tried to tear away my memories… it isn’t going to get any more of them. I’d rather stay me and struggle than lose myself and possibly end up turn into some sort of... monster.”

Lily hung her head “Even if it kills me.”

******

Remedy

Remedy glanced at the tree again behind the safety of the barriers. It was the gnarled old twisted tree that Stardust had described that had “birthed” the changelings. Needless to say such an object needed to be dealt with… but not destroyed right away.

After all there were the hornet variant and the “regular” variant still moving about. The tree didn’t come from the Everfree forest so somepony or creature must have planted it. Besides while the tree reacted to it’s surroundings it proved no smarted than a large Venus fly trap.

Remedy paced around the room speaking to herself “It’s a plant that gave birth to these… bug ponies. By gathering around the surrounding materials it can construct a new hive, but…”

Where did the plant come from? What was it’s purpose?

Were changelings an artificial race like some sort of sentient golem? Did they share a symbiotic relationship with the tree itself or was it some sort of magic crafted in an attempt to preserve their race?

Each race had it’s own form of magic, but it was usually guarded in their own ways. Griffins shared similar skills as pegasi, but years of coexistence helped share their knowledge. The diamond dogs kept their secrets hidden as some ponies still can’t figure out if the diamond dogs use the gems for some sort of magic… or if they simply just liked shinny objects. For all she knew they might have ate gems like dragons did as it took forever to figure out that was the main reason why dragons gathered gems.

Of course there were the Centaurs and Gargoyles, but relationships with those species and Equestra were always stressed. Centaurs valued strength, but sometimes those with strength were not good natured as Tirek the worst of their race had killed his own father and attempted to steal the magic from countless creatures.

Thankfully he was a rare case as most Centaurs and Gargoyles viewed magic theft as a heinous crime with harsh punishments. Sadly it didn’t stop the amount of bad apples from finding other ways of causing problems for both nations.

“So what were you supposed to be?” Remedy asked out loud as she stared at the tree “Some sort of weapon to produce vast amounts of disposable soldiers? A way to preserve a race should a disaster ever strike? Possibly some means to fix some sort of defect or to make it possible for the next generation to be able to have children with the nearby races?”

It was one reason why the Centaurs and Gargoyles got along so well. If a centaur and a gargoyle got together than their offspring could be either centaur or gargoyle. In fact Equestria's relationship with the griffin actually became better after finding out that a union between their two races could produce a hippogriff.

It was just one of those hidden facts of life as unions that could not give birth to children was generally looked down upon in most cases. Sure there were a few social conventions and uplifting that helped lessen the age old stigma and many other... Remedy rubbed her aching head as she remembered why she stayed out of those psychology classes and stuck with medicine.

Remedy used her magic to seal the room as she moved onto the branches and roots that had been lost or hacked off during the transportation of the magical plant. Nothing cutting something open and finding about all the secrets it held!

The roots seemed sickly, but magic still pulsed through them. The veins were used to gather items to feed the tree and possibly creature the next race of changelings, but these had quickly withered away.

Remedy pulled out a knife and slowly cut into one of the roots. While she was skilled in various forms of magic her skills… her knowledge with plants… was a bit more sketchy than she would have liked at the moment. Mostly her knowledge was treating wounds from plants instead of helping plants out. The tree had magic and Remedy wanted to figure out how the tree worked.

A small grin appeared on her face as she began to wonder about how the tree could be… properly applied. The green cocoons slowed vitals and helped preserve whatever was placed or grown inside it. The liquid kept the subject asleep and also slowly tended to their wounds.

Such secrets could help save lives and possibly open up new forms of medical treatments. If the subject could be kept safe then possibly longer treatments could be made. A pony with a broken wing could be stored inside to speed up recovery. A sort of adhesive Band-Aid could possibly be crafted to prevent infections and help mend a damaged area until a proper doctor could treat it.

Remedy’s smile continued to grow until she ran into her first problem and grumbled in annoyance.

The “taint” of dark magic seemed to fill the plant which would properly have some “noble” pony to toss it in a furnace than find the possible secrets or benefits of the tree. That or Celestia would lock it away where it would rarely be studied.

Celestia knew of the importance of knowledge… but she preferred keeping knowledge of dark magic to figure out how to counter it than to find uses for it. No doubt any secrets found from the Tree would be how to kill it than anything useful.

“Okay focus Remedy. Focus.” She repeated to herself “It’s a magic tree. There are certain types of magic plants both harmful and helpful. Even Poison Joke can be seen as a blessing or a curse depending on it’s use.”

Of course the issue on how to keep the tree healthy came to mind. It’s original care taker seemed to feed those she didn’t care for to possibly speed up the process or perhaps altered it’s original purpose.

The question was if she should hire a few earth ponies to help her study of the tree… and how to help protect them if they had to get close to the tree. Maybe with enough care and earth pony magic they could alter the tree to be… safer?

“It’s funny how nopony really checks to see the extent of skill of earth ponies.” Remedy mused “They can have crops harvest countless times and even grow homes. It’s rather charming to have live in a tree and have it include all the same luxuries of a brick and mortar home.”

Of course those same skilled artisan and builders also tended to be expensive and rather difficult to find. With Celestia’s help the task would be far easier, but Remedy of course would have to explain her reasons for keeping the tree alive and reasons to keep it alive.

It was going to be a long night.

******

Stardust

I walked around Canterlot Gardens as countless memories of a small filly came to mind as she jumped around from place to place treating the hedge maze like her own playground. Of course the fact that I was reminded again the… memory loss made things more difficult.

Not all of my memories were with me as there were a couple of gaps. Memories of another life seemed to mingle, stand apart, or sometimes even blur together as I’m quite certain that the Princess Celestia doesn’t live in Buckingham Palace or the fact that I told everyone in school as a filly that I wanted to be a fireman.

I couldn’t help but sigh as I tried to make sense of it. The others didn’t belong here… they were strangers… but what about me? Dear Heart and Sacred House… were they my parents or were they strangers? Was Trish my red head sister real or a delusion created by my mind?

I thought it would be easier figuring this out if I simply asked Valkyrie and Lockheart… but what would it mean to them? Would they think that I was lying? Would they tell me to stay away from my family and not let the memories take over… or where the other memories fake… Earth or Equestria? Two feet or four?

“Why does this have to be so difficult?” I muttered out loud.

“Sorry?” a voice spoke above me.

I glanced up and froze as a small smile came to my face.

It was a bat pony. A honesty to God Thestral or more commonly called bat pony flying right above me! I felt like squealing like a filly who just got her cutie mark as I tried to keep my composure. I shouldn’t be freaking out as it would properly make her nervous.

“I was just kind of lost in thought.” I openly admitted.

The thestral nodded “A lot had happened today.”

I glanced at the new statue in confusion “What happened to the old statue?”

The thestral chuckled nervously “Well after some creature tried to break in a couple of things were… broken, but never mind that. My name is Midnight Vixen what’s yours?”

I smiled and extended a hoof “Stardust. Sorry but I just hadn’t really seen a lot of Thestrals before or do they… I mean you prefer the term bat pony?”

Midnight chuckled “Bat pony. Way too many Saddle Rider Tales about some cheesy undead vampire bat things. You say Thestral and the first thing most ponies think of is Count Biteula or worse…” Midnight shivered “One of those Daylight novels. How is staring over somepony while their asleep counted as romantic?”

I couldn’t help but laugh along as both versions of my memories found those books kind of strange… that or I didn’t find the “love defies all obstacles” bit as enjoyable as I used to as pesky logic messed it up.

I took another good look at Midnight as she really did seem like the standard bat pony idea most people had. Her dark grayish blue coat gave her a very nice “night theme” as the messy dark blue hair with light blue highlights that made me think she belonged in a night club as a DJ than being in the Royal Guard. Kind of like seeing Vinyl Scratch in one of those golden suits of armor... or was that Shinning armor?

What made it even stranger was the fact she had three white stars for a cutie mark.

Kind of a shame since Equestria didn’t really have a night life… now I just had to find a DJ and a building to rent at night along with some ponies like Valkyrie and Lockheart…

“One problem at a time.” I muttered to myself “Sorry it’s just…. Everything that’s happened.”

Midnight held up a hoof “I understand. Fillynapping, strange ponies, and a very messy situation. The more you try to figure it out the worst it gets.”

I nodded as my mind seemed to be stuck trying to figure out things that didn’t make any sense. First it was Cuddle Bug and Lily’s situation… then my own memories and now drifting over to a less complicated situation possibly involving bat ponies in general.

Midnight smirked “So what’s the first problem?”

I couldn’t believe I was going to vent on a complete strange “I have a… well a…” it was hard to put into words “I ran into trouble and a pony helped me out only for others like her to have turned out rather… nasty.”

Midnight chuckled “Fancy Hat ponies want somepony to blame and the good pony is the only one they found. Just look up old Equestrian court case of Rover and the Emerald Hills trial. The diamond dog Rover helped assist the Royal Guard when a new pack leader called Gravel had changed their pack’s laws.”

I shook my head “It’s a bit more complicated.”

Midnight shook her head “Before Gravel ponies who "stole" gems from their territory were forced to work off their debt before being released back to their town in much the same way some restaurants force ponies to wash dishes if they tried to dine and dash. Gravel started having the pack raid nearby pony settlements and force the ponies to work in the mines as slaves.”

I chuckled nervously as this started to sound similar to the changeling cases. Reasonable methods turned twisted due to a crazy power hungry leader.

Midnight continued “Rover helped the Royal Guard find the ponies held hostage as he didn’t believe that Gravel's methods were right. Because the Royal Guard focused on saving the ponies instead of capturing the villain he managed to escape leaving Rover and a few of the other corrupt Diamond Dogs. Since Rover was a part of the pack and most of the Diamond Dogs were guilty he didn’t have a lot going for him. Thankfully the trial proved Rover was innocent and more importantly it claimed that those who helped right the wrongs of their leaders should not be held accountable for their actions… kind of like your friend’s situation doesn’t it?”

I sighed in relief as one problem had just been solved “Thanks. I never was good at law.”

“Me neither.” Midnight replied to my surprise “If it helps I can give you the statements I gave during the trail or a copy of the case… it’s not often the Night Guard gets to do more than just dusting statues or being assigned to Night Watch.”

I was going to have to find a way to pay her back.

“Any other problems while I’m here?” Midnight asked with a smug look on her face.

I shook my head “Not unless you know of an expert to talk about ancient Equestria… lore or would it be history?”

Midnight shook her head “Sorry. Maybe Celestia can help you?”

I sighed as that was one of the questions I didn’t want to ask. To my Celestia was the Princess… somepony important to not only me, but the rest of Equestria… and yet… it would feel like asking my own mom if I really was her daughter… or…

“Are you alright?” Midnight asked as I could hear the concern in her voice.

“I’m fine.” I lied through my teeth “Just a small headache.”

Don’t worry ------ We’ll help take care of the hospitable bill.

I shut my eyes trying to block out the memory “Just a bit of…”

It didn’t work as I could taste the sand in my mouth. My hearing seemed to have been shot as my left leg ached in pain. Something sharp was in my arm as I tried to recover from the accident… no trap… they rigged the road.

Panic started to set in as I tried to move only for something holding my legs… Where the hell are my…

“Stardust!” The bat pony shouted as she shook me “Are you alright!”

I put a hoof up to my head… a hoof… I glanced at my body and counted all four of them… yes all four of them.

I tried to smile “Sorry I kind lost myself.”

I needed to talk to Valkyrie or Lockheart… I needed to know if they were having the same problem and hopefully some way to deal with the headaches. I just had to take my mind off it for now and focus on the present. I had to focus on helping my friends out.

******

Celestia

Celestia stared at the injured pony before her. His body had recovered, his magic was still a mess, but most of all the strain on his mind kept him from waking up. It had been almost a week

Celestia went over her options again as the nagging sense of wrongness continued to surround the pony before her. Lockheart wasn’t a changeling… of that Celestia felt certain of. After going back through her records and reading up on Equestria’s ancient foe Lockheart didn’t match Queen Chrysalis’s changelings.

Of course neither did the other two changelings… well they matched the old records, but they didn’t act like those changelings. The changeling that had impersonated a unicorn matched Queen Chrysalis’s changelings as they didn’t see ponies as people, but food. They stole from others, manipulated ponies into paranoid fear and of course had a lust for power only outmatched by their own greed and pride.

Celestia glanced at the fallen pony again. His wings felt real. His fur was real. A part of her mind seemed to claim he was an alicorn… but the chaotic magic could warp anypony’s senses into believing things that weren’t true. One of the main reasons Discord’s rule over Equestria was left undocumented was because everypony felt a different impact of time.
For one pony it could have been for two days and another an entire generation.

Thankfully Discord was still sealed inside his stone prison.

Celestia closed her eyes and focused on the lessons she had with her sister. Luna was always the best pony to deal with situations like this. If Celestia was the scholar then Luna was the artist. Celestia would analyze a painting, while Luna would search for the emotion that came from it.

There was a simple solution of course and that was to go into his mind. Of course that was the problem. Celestia analyzed while Luna saw. To walk in another’s mind much less to view their dream required a certain aspect that Celestia knew she lacked.

It was like what Star Swirl once told her “You can see the forest, but Luna can see the trees. That is why despite your skill you are having difficulty with that field of magic.”

Celestia couldn’t help but frown at the memory as it brought up memories of her sister again… memories that were lost to the past as the parasite Nightmare Moon still had hold over her and trapped in the moon for a few more hundred years.

“Still… I need answers.” She told herself “He knew things he shouldn’t have known and… something is interfering with my own gifts.”

Celestia hadn’t seen the fall of Timberton. Her insights of the future had become… clouded in a sense, but instead of having difficulty understanding it she was simply overwhelmed. Too many problems were starting to appear, but most of all the assault near Rainbow Falls, the chimera population going wild near Golden Fields, the fillynapping, the destruction of Timberton, and the attempted theft of Star Swirl’s old mirror happening all on the same day?

Something knew about her gift of foresight and was trying to hide from it by throwing countless disasters. Celestia didn’t even know about Timberton’s destruction or the atrocities being done at her old castle in the Everfree forest. The theft of the Elements of Harmony was also a major blow.

It didn’t matter if she didn’t have any ponies who could wield them right now. What mattered was the fact the Elements of Harmony… the magical relics that she and her sister had used were just stolen from right under her own nose.
Celestia’s horn glowed as she cast the spell… hopefully this would also help Lockheart recover.

******

Celestia opened her eyes and stared at the dreamscape… or possible mindscape in confusion. Most ponies tended to have things relating to them or revealing certain aspects. One who loved to read held libraries or sometimes had them reliving those adventures they had once read. The point was that no matter how chaotic the place may have seemed it made sense to the pony in question.

Yet why was this place so… orderly?

Celestia stood in a hallway filled with mirrors each the same size and shape. The walls held no color and the floor only held a red carpet that didn’t really seem to belong there. Celestia stared at the plaster walls as the dull white gave no life to the place.

“Focus on the meaning not the item.” Celestia muttered to herself.

Celestia glanced into the first mirror to see… herself. She saw herself giving Luna a bubble bath after that one incident where she sprained her wing and some pony had accidently dropped a bowl of pudding all over her. It was a memory she cherished… yet what was it doing here?

Celestia turned around and saw another mirror expect this one was playing back the destruction of Timberton. The buildings were on fire as the crazed monster Sanguine Point laughed. He grinned like a mad stallion as countless knives floated in his blood red magical aura. A foal was tied up crying as Sanguine held a knife to her throat openly mocking Celestia.

“What is going on?” Celestia asked out loud both in anger, but also with a hint of fear.

The next mirror down the line revealed to her sister’s fall as she became Nightmare Moon as she tried to kill Celestia… yet beside it held a purple unicorn talking to both Celestia and… Luna. A glass window revealing her sister being freed from the parasite’s control by the Elements of Harmony?

Celestia started to trout down the hallway as each mirror seemed to twist to face her. The entire hallway seemed to be a mockery of something else… some sort of twisted joke that only made sense when the dreamer woke up.

The mirrors revealed images of the past Celestia held dear or tried to keep buried as they showed both peaceful visions of the future… and horrors Celestia did not wish to see like Sombra’s return as Equestria struggled to keep him from dominating the land. Fates were Equestra was practically dead as ponies used strange weapons to kill each other.

When one mirror showed Celestia standing over Luna ready to end her own sister's life the real Celestia smashed the mirror with her own hooves as cracks filled the mirror yet the mirror didn’t fall apart. Instead the dull endless hallway grew darker as the glass mirror started to take a crystal like appearance.

Celestia could feel the taint of chaos magic tingling in the air. Luna had warned Celestia about the dangers of dream walking. How one could make a problem worse or how a dream could turn into a nightmare.

Celestia thought she understood before, but as the mirrors started to whisper she began to wonder if she misunderstood what Luna had actually meant.

Solar Tyrant. Cruel Dictator.

The crystal mirrors showed Celestia a mockery of herself. The mirror Celestia had flames instead of her multicolored hair. Instead of compassion and wisdom brought forth from Celestia’s long life now bore hatred and sorrow as the being only saw the slow decay of death around her instead of the hopeful spring of life.

The ponies around her bowed not out of respect, but fear as the sun blazed in the sky with a scorching heat. As much as Celestia wished to look away the crystal mirror had a way of drawing her in as it showed her a nightmarish form of Celestia. The mare in the mirror with the bone white coat was Celestia in the same way Nightmare Moon was Luna.

The mare spoke “All bow before the Ever Gold Throne.”

There was no compassion in her voice. No peace or compromise. Only hatred and domination radiated from her as she didn’t look at any ponies in the room… no. In some dark twisted way Celestia knew it wasn’t even speaking to her… it was speaking to the ponies. It saw their lives to brief to even care about, but useful pieces to move about. Who cared what a few mortals thought? Once the land was under her rule and her sister bowing back down before her and the Solar Tyrant would never be alone again.

Celestia ran.

She ran from the mirror. She ran from the haunting promise that it claimed she would become. She could feel her mind trying to make sense of the mirror and how frighteningly ease it saw how Celestia could become the nightmare.
The mirrors started to gather together as they blurred across the endless hallway. The pieces of plaster in-between them started to disappear before they turned into an endless hallway with one giant mirror on each side. The images tore into Celestia.

It showed her folly and the obvious depression of her sister Luna. It showed Celestia trying to keep peace with the Centaurs only for Tirek to kill his own father for his own mad lust for power. Each image showed Celestia’s failure as they drew closer and closer. Each image attacking her as they seemed to blur together.

Solar Tyrant.

The dark images of the twisted future of Equestria falling from a peaceful nation to one filled with bloodlust and war.

Failure

Her inability to save her ponies from Chrysalis’s swarm.

Traitor

How she was caught up too much in the limelight of her ponies as she didn’t notice her sister’s depression.

Puppet

Ponies lying. Ponies twisted laws around to suit their twisted needs.

Liar

Celestia giving one of her many “tests” only for it to end badly instead of having everything work out alright in the end.

“Sun-Butt!” a cheerful foal shouted.

Celestia slowed down as an… odd alicorn… filly tilted her head to the side had held up some sort of yellow bottle and a stick of some sort.

The little alicorn filly opened her wings up “Wana blow bubbles with me?” she replied with a cheerful smile full of blissful innocence.

Celestia stopped in front of the little filly as her mind blocked out the mirrors. Instead she focused on the strange filly that stood giggling before her.

The alicorn filly had a vanilla coat, wisteria mane, and large blue eyes. She had some sort of large pink… sloth behind her? What did the oddly placed filly represent in a hallway of mirrors and why was it blowing bubbles out of the stick… that smelled of soapy water?

As if reading her mind the filly happily replied “Because it’s fun!”

The mirrors started to scrap together as Celestia felt a different type of magic interfering. It wasn’t Lockheart’s own strange brand of magic, nor the chaotic touch made by Discord. This magic… was old and trying to subtly twist the room into a walking nightmare.

Celestia’s horn glowed as she tried to tear the magic out of the dream only for the crystal mirrors to shatter. The broken shard gathered to the other side of the hallway until they formed a pony’s skull.

Celestia stood in front of the oddly placed filly and prepared to protect her… This must have been what was interfering with Lockheart’s recovery.

The crystal skull opened it’s mouth “Pony” the word dripped with the same venom Tirek’s kingdom spoke of their hated lord. “You dare try to steal from me yet again!”

This voice spoke in a hatred and malice Discord never had yet it didn’t raise it’s voice more than that of a loud whisper. More importantly than that she could feel it’s wrath growing as it’s foul touch was slowly being stripped from the land around her.

“Leave this place at once.” Celestia commanded.

The crystal skull’s eyes glowed now with flames as it stared at her “A worm like you tries to command me! You stole my gem. You stole my General and now you wish to steal from me yet again!”

Celestia stood up to the monster as she had finally found the source of the problems that had been plaguing her lands. She had found the monster pulling the strings behind the scene and more importantly she had found the one who had unleashed that monster on Timberton setting the entire town ablaze in an attempt to hide it’s other twisted activates.

Celestia unleashed her Royal Voice to show her full displeasure “You shall leave this pony alone and stay away from my land!”

The force of her Royal Voice shattered pieces of the crystal skull, but instead of backing down it replied with venom dripping in it's voice “You insignificant worm. I ruled these lands long before you and your misbegotten ilk ever set their wretched feet upon this place. Your worthless kind shall stare into the face of death upon my return and I shall grant neither you nor your worthless kind any mercy when I return.”

Celestia horn glowed as she focused on her memories… the lessons Luna had taught her… the hope of the one future the mirror had shown of her sister’s return.

Celestia placed her hooves on the ground as the tainted magic was finally all in one place “But today you fall.”

The crystal skull hissed not in anger, but annoyance. Whatever creature was behind it was old… older than Equestria itself. It didn’t see this as a battle it lost, but simply a pause before it’s next assault.

Once the crystal skull was destroyed Celestia felt another magic in the hallway. It didn’t carry the same chaotic force of Discord’s magic or the strange weave of Lockheart’s own magic. Celestia followed the magic as the hallway returned to normal as she finally figured it out.

The hallway finally ended revealing the carven of the Tree of Harmony. The same Elements of Harmony Celestia and Luna had plucked from the tree were now bare, yet the sense of peace it brought filled the room.

Sadly the room was not like it had been when she had seen it before. Dark vines covered in thorns filled the room as they were tangled around the mirrors. Each thorn encrusted vine showed a dark future… some of them of Equestria falling.
The other mirrors showed the peaceful futures as Celestia couldn’t help but smile as her sister was enjoying Nightmare Night. In fact Luna was begin her old playful self-giving some of the ponies a nice scare. She saw the Crystal Empire back as the crystal ponies walked around in joy as a… Pink Alicorn similar to the one Lockheart impersonated waved at her subjects.

Right before the Tree of Harmony rested a mirror of Lockheart smiling as he blew out some birthday candles. On the opposite side the vines held a mirror revealing Lockheart’s before he was killed by six ponies.

Celestia steeped closer to the object between the two mirrors as she felt one of the Elements of Harmony as it shined trying to bring light to the cave, but the dark vines tangled around it forming a cage.

Inside the cage was a darkness… a shade or an outline of… something.

In every book, tale and theory about dream walking or entering another pony’s mind it always talked about the pony being in there… but not one of them talked about the pony being there in mind but not in body.

Celestia could tell Lockheart was in the center of the obscuring darkness… but she couldn’t tell much less see anything inside it. Even then the darkness wasn’t the body, but more like one of those burnt holes from a canvas left to long out in the sun.

Instead of giving her answer the form only gave Celestia more questions as Lockheart didn’t even seem to be certain what he was anymore.

“Lockheart?” Celestia softly called out.

The being in the cage slowly turned around. All she could see in the darkness was a searing white scare across the chest and two frightened eyes.

Lockheart simply replied “I lost.”

******

Celestia woke up as the spell ended as Lockheart quickly shot up. He grabbed her chest and started hyperventilating as he started to panic.

Celestia fell back to her old teaching methods and took hold of Lockheart “Deep breaths! In and out. In and out.”

Only once Lockheart’s breathing returned to normal did Celestia let go. His disguise fell apart as he fell to his black coat and strange green hair that reminded Celestia of Chrysalis.

More than that the memories of that… hallway were stuck in her mind. It wasn’t like her dreams which gave glimpses or hints of the future. She couldn’t help but repress a small shiver as she remembered the intruder twisting the hallway to show Celestia her past failures and the dark futures that would hopefully never come true.

Celestia glanced down at Lockheart’s chest and saw the large white scar… it looked as if somepony had grabbed a hot poker to his chest, but roughly the size of a large rock. Lockheart noticed her gaze and quickly tried to cover it up with his magic.

“Where did you get that?” Celestia couldn’t help but ask in concern.

To her fear Lockheart replied “I lost… It was from a mistake I made.”

Celestia saw him tense up while he said it. He was telling the truth… but it was clear as day he was hiding something. Part of her mind went back to what little she really knew about him. The few tale about him trying to keep his identity hidden that he always quickly glossed over…

“Lockheart.” Celestia softly spoke

Lockheart quickly replied “We should have waited for you. We lost the Elements of Harmony… I’ll try to help get them back.”

He had hint of fear in his voice. If it was some fear from the past or a byproduct of that creature lurking around in his dreams Celestia didn’t know. More than that she could tell that Lockheart was scared of her.

Celestia was torn in-between trying to hug the small alicorn and telling him that it would be alright or simply giving him the space he needed. Instead questions plagued her mind as she now recognized what the hallway reminder her of.

When a normal pony ascended into becoming an alicorn they would experience a similar hallway like the one from Lockheart's mind... expect it would show them their past and help show them the good in them. Honestly it should have been a wonderful moment also it would also show or help guide them in a similar manor like their cutie mark did or give them an idea of their role or possibly their talent.

Somehow Celestia doubted Lockheart either fully understood it... or that it wasn't such a wonderful moment for him.

Still who was the little filly or what did she represent? Why couldn't he figure out what he was? What were those dark vines or those mirrors? What did the two mirrors show him or where they just short glimpses into a possible future?

Celestia's head started to ache as Lockheart somehow made even less sense now then he had before.

At least her unknown foe made a bit more sense. Some ancient evil that either felt they were wronged or was just another power hunger fool. If he brought Sanguine Point to be his “general” that he was either prideful of his abilities or a bit foolish if not flat out insane.

Celestia didn’t fear his so called power, but his ability was. If he was willing to unleash a monster like Sanguine Point than it would only be a matter of time before he unleashed some monster he couldn’t control.

She could check the old records latter on to see if anything matched what was currently happening now. Right now she had more important things to focus on like helping the traumatized pony in front of her calm down and figure out what to do with him.

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay.

New chapter and the sad start of the new year meaning the start of trying to clean up the old chapters of spelling errors and mistakes so don't be surprised if there is a delay in the next chapter or a few changes in the previous chapters.

My question to the audience.

What do you think the fates of the captured players should be?

Adjusting to Equestria

Lockheart

I stood before the Canterlot gazing down at all the citizens and fellow travelers to this happy magical world. At the end of the balcony I knew what the right decision and that in these types of settings the right decision was the best decision! I discarded my disguise and let the world know who and more importantly what I was! No longer would I be living a carefully constructed lie doomed to fail!

The crowd gasped in shock for a moment as I stood before them waiting for the dark turnabout before the heroic twist. You know those moments where the hero obviously did something foolish, but everyone would band together and help him out or prove that he was right.

Celestia sighed “You know that was a stupid move.”

I glanced at her in confusion “I’ve stopped trying to lie… I want to become honest like…”

Celestia rolled her eyes “Honesty? You do realize I feed my kingdom a spoon full of lies covering up my misconduct for countless years. Heck most of Equestria doesn’t even know about the Elements of Harmony. To them the solve all magical artifact is just a bunch of shinny rocks in a foal’s bedtime story.”

I started to move away from her only to bump into the balcony. The scent of fire came from the crowd below as pitch forks and torches were being prepared. I glanced back at Celestia ready to beg her for help only to see her brandishing a flaming red sword.

Celestia sighed “Really? All you had to do was wave to the public. Bring your idiots in and help me keep them under control, but no… you wanted to be an idiot.” The sword swung around a few times in her magical grip as if testing the weight “Now I need some way to save myself from this political blunder… so be a dear and hold still for just a moment. I promise to make it painless.”

I turned around only to see the pointed spears of the royal guard. I stared at Valkyrie in panic as she also held a spear towards me. I stared at her in hope... surely as a former human she could understand... possibly help me escape!

Valkyrie shrugged “It’s a paycheck. Besides Changelings aren’t the good guys in this story. It’s your fault for not reading the script.”

I felt my heart sunk as Valkyrie held no ill will towards me. She wasn't even threatening me as she simply stated a simple fact or stating what the weather outside looked like.

I turned around again trying to find a way out. Celestia handed the flaming sword to Maxwell as she messed with his hair “Ah the hero of the story arrived. Be a good pony and hack his head off. We need to reclaim one of the Elements of Harmony he stole from me.”

Maxwell grabbed the blade with his hooves as he stood on his hind legs “It’s you or humanity. Villain dies and hero survives. You just drew the short straw.”

Maxwell changed at me plunging the blade into the white scar across my chest and prepared to gut my like a fish.

******

“Are you alright!” Sparrow shouted in panic. She had kicked open my door and stared at me.

I held a hand…hoof to my beating chest “I’m alright… I’m alright… it was just a nightmare.”

She glanced at me for a moment and chuckled “Really? Not that I’m making fun of you… I mean.”

I sighed as I stared at the oddly colored Pegasus. Most ponies had simple color schemes, but she seemed to have painted just like a sparrow than the usual one coat, one mane color scheme. Her cutie mark was of a bird with open wings and more importantly she was also one of the ponies who had watched over me when I slept in the Canterlot dungeon.

“I know… Now that I’m not sleeping in a jail cell I feel uncomfortable.” I chuckled trying to relive the tension.

Emerald Spear stepped into the room… Sparrow’s friend and partner in crime for their punishment duty. Like her name suggested her coat was emerald green and a violet mane to go with it. Her cutie mark was of a spear.

She stared at my… new accommodations in confusion “How could you feel uncomfortable in a place like this?”

The room was nice… not royal nice, but I could see Twilight or Sunset shimmer living in one of these rooms while they were Celestia’s student when they were young. The bed was much better than the hard bunk and instead of stone walls surrounding me I had a balcony so that I could sit outside and stargaze… or something.

Yet it took away one thing that I liked “Because the old room was safe.” Emerald tilted her head and stared at me in confusion “The room never felt like it was keeping me trapped… but to keep threats from getting to me.”

Sparrow chuckled “Only you would see it like that. We’ll keep any 'evil ponies' away from you.”

Sparrow wasn't trying to mock me... she just believed that Equestria wouldn't harm me and that the nation of warm and friendly ponies would welcome me with open arms... I wonder how much of that would be true if they knew the truth? Still she cared enough to at least solve some of my dietary needs without causing any problems.

Emerald tried to whisper “Do you think he’s worried about that… rumor about him?”

Sparrow tried not to burst out laughing “Are you kidding? You’ve seen him! That rumor is just a rumor… Some upset Canterlot Noble probably started it before it got tossed about in the rumor mill! I mean seriously... Some ponies think we actually toss alicorns into a lake full of Hyrdas!”

Emerald gasped in shock as they closed the door leaving me in the deathly silence of my room. I tried to get comfortable again as the past few days still made no sense to me… I know Equestria tends to move faster on some things and the fact that I was out for a week.

I turned in my bed trying to get back to sleep as I attempted to push the nagging questions away.

I had no idea why… no … I might have had a slight theory for why Celestia let everyone know about my... presence. The public already caught wind of me… Timberton was reduced to a pile of ash. The Everfree Castle had evil changelings and a kidnapping ring.

Even then the issue of the criminals that had been captured and more importantly what to do with them was causing a couple of problems… especially after some of the former humans found out about them being put on trial. I could only imagine the fear of what they thought was going on before they heard the full story… or the fear they felt after hearing what the other members of humanity had done.

So naturally Celestia needed something to show to the public to calm them down and hung me out like bait in hopes of trying to get the rest of humanity under control… or at least figure out how many of us were running around her kingdom.
I tried to shut my eyes as the bitter nightmare still lurked in the back of my mind… there was a good chance that I was wrong.

Maybe Celestia had some descent or noble reason for letting every idiot out there know who I was or more importantly... what race they thought I was.

Sadly my justified paranoia gave me plenty of more realistic reasons for darker ulterior motives.

I checked underneath my pillow again making sure my crude attempt of a gun was still in one piece… it wasn’t comfortable to sleep on, but I didn’t feel safe in sleeping in such an open room. If anything the room made me feel more like bait at the end of a hook than a well-treated guest.

I sighed as I tried to get ready for the next day.

******

Maxwell

I'll admit life isn't that bad right now. I have a roof over my head and my punishment was community service... and by community service I was now 'required' to help Poker Ace out as he bought some deed to a building and turned it into a tavern open 24/7. He welcomed me with open arms and introduced me to his family who was rather happy to have him back.

I felt a bit guilty considering the fact I had... thought of him as an NPC instead of a living person... but he was thankful that I got help to rescue everyone and that our... time before Duran took over made him talk with his family again.

So here I was a former human turned earth pony working to help set up a bar for wayward travelers and other down on their luck souls. We traded stories and information with the other players. Sometimes we would be able to get in contact with some of the old... scratch that... the sane members of our old group and see how they were doing and if they made any progress with our original plan. I mean... even if the Elements of Harmony were hidden from us or somehow scattered across the land we would still need ponies or possibly people to use them.

Simply gathering them together wouldn't solve everything if we didn't have anyone that could use them... or at least candidates that might work.

Still that was another problem for another day as I joined Poker Ace at the nightly poker game we had set up mostly to trade stories and see how everyone else was adjusting to Equestria. It had been a month after the Everfree Forest incident and some people were starting to realize that not only this wasn't a game... but we might also be stuck here for a while.

I sat down in one of the wooden chairs as Poker Ace dealt the cards out. The rest of the former humans just watched in awe as the earth pony moved the cards around with the same skill of a New Vegas dealer... which was even more impressive considering the fact that Poker Ace didn’t have any hands.

He tossed us all our cards as we started with the first test of revealing our skills.

Holding the cards.

Each race had their own way and… apparently human turned ponies had their own versions as well. We all took a look at each other seeing how they managed to adapt to their... situation.

Former Human called Glory Wings held the cards to her using her wings in a similar manor as if she still had hands. Her sky blue coat and bright yellow hair caught a couple of eyes as she grinned tossing a few chips onto the table.

She smiled as she said “Never thought I’d be playing poker in Canterlot.” As she eyed the house pot ready to take what she believed was going to be easy winnings.

Griff chuckled as he tossed his bits onto the table and replied “I never imagined that there would be a market on animal pelts either.”

Griff kept his human name despite being stuck in his new pony form. The dark brown coat earth pony somehow managed to get his cards to stick up like tiny dominos except they wouldn’t budge an inch no matter how much you… accidently bumped the table or sneezed in their general direction.

No one’s figured how his trick yet and are just calling it “earth pony magic” because… reasons.

Poker Ace chuckled “That’s because you lot are the only ones crazy enough to hunt in the Everfree forest.” He tossed out a few extra bits “But I’ll just warn you that open season is going to end when the forest’s population has returned to normal.”

Unlike the rest of us Poker Ace somehow held the cards with his hooves. We had no idea how he managed to do it. Glory Wings claimed it was magnet hooves or something. Our other former humans turned earth ponies shrugged as they still haven’t figured out how to do that trick either. For all we knew it could have been his special talent or something.

Marcus sighed “Still it’s better than trying to dig up plants.” He rubbed his sides “I might try taking up Blitz’s job offer on his printing press than trying to dig up another batch of flowers from that forest.”

Marcus the magic teleporting unicorn. Dark purple coat with black and blue highlights in his hair. His violet magical aura held the cards up as he threw a few extra bits into the pile. If it wasn’t for the name or lack of cutie mark he might have been able to pass for a normal pony or an odd one from Ponyville at least.

I chuckled “Still it’s better than the mail currier job you tried last week.”

Despite Marcus’s speed, magical power, and ability to teleport he lacked the endurance needed to keep up with the pegasi.

I let the smile show to show my good humor and hopefully hide the fact I had a full house. All I had to do was keep my hand hidden until that pot became nice and full. Poker Ace on the other hand just stared at my tail. While I may not have magic hooves I was quite skilled with my tail. Skilled enough to make up for my loss of hands in some cases at least.

Marcus groaned “Now I know why most mail carriers are pegasi. Still at least it was quick cash.”

With the pot large enough I smiled as I upped the stakes “All in.”

Every last bit ready to keep me satisfied for the week. The others groaned as surely enough they all folded as I dumped every shinny bit into their beloved new home. With a quick pat on my now much heavier saddlebags Poker Ace started dealing the cards again until a new member sat down.

Poker Ace sighed “I’ve got something I need to take care of.” He glanced at me “Just call me if you need any help cleaning up.”

I nodded as Poker Ace didn’t even bother greeting Verrat as she stared at Poker Ace as someone else might stare at a dead rat left in her seat. Everyone at the table went silent as the former human turned Griffin had essentially killed the lucky go happy mood we had going.

Verrat sighed out of annoyance at seeing Poker Ace at the poker game “Why did you let one of them at the table?”

Marcus lifted his cards to with his magic and hid behind his cards “Because he has bits and owns the joint.”

Glory chuckled lifting up her mug “Free ale is good ale!”

Verrat simply scowled at Glory as she responded by rolling her eyes at Verrat’s distaste for having a NPC take her place during the poker game. Verrat lifted the cards up with her golden claws as her white feather ruffled across her body. Hopefully it meant she had a bad hand.

Griff coughed as he tried to change the conversation “So… Maxwell. What’s it like having a Cutie Mark?”

I simply shrugged as I had been asked that question a lot lately “Nothing changed. I looked at it. Tried figuring out some random hidden meaning and… all I can tell is that now I have a tattoo on my butt.” Verrat grumbled “So… Verrat. What happened with you?”

Verrat tossed a few bits onto the table “Timber wolf infestation. Chopped some logs and got the bits.”

Glory sighed “Then what’s your problem?”

Verrat glared at Glory as she hissed “Because the last party got annoyed that I didn’t give a dam about some random NPC’s background.”

Griff shook his head “Their people too you know.”

Verrat’s claws tore into the cards in her hand as she bitterly snapped back “Then they are no better than the Fae. You know the creatures in stories that kidnap people and then play with them for their own amusement. The ones made by the Brothers Grimm instead of the cheerful and colorful Disney variety.”

No one spoke as Verrat decided to keep her anger directed towards the Equestrians. She blamed the Equestrians for taking us all away from home and dumping us here. While everyone seemed to have different “intro tales” Verrat didn't trust any of them. Her personal theory was that Princess Celestia grabbed a couple off MLP viewers and then tried to make them into her little ponies or some Conversion Bureau fic.

In short… anyone who wasn’t a former member of humanity didn’t matter in her book.

“Besides what right did Molestia have on passing judgment?” She mumbled trying to straighten out the cards.

A stream of alcohol shot out of Marcus’s mouth as he coughed a few times before saying “The crazy nut job wanted to kill them! If anything you should be pissed at Lockheart!”

I shook my head "You do realize that was just a rumor."

I couldn't help but shiver at the comment anyway. It was a rumor made by some idiot... but it was a well known rumor that sadly people started to believe. Still Lockheart had fully admitted that Celestia was the pony in charge. Still the fact she let the public know about his... existence can't help, but make me wonder how many ponies were happy that they gained a new alicorn in Equestria? For all I knew maybe some former human was pissed off that they didn't become the next new alicorn.

Verrat to my surprise shrugged “How's Lockheart's judgment any different from Celestia's call?”

Marcus shouted out loud “They would have died!”

Verrat rolled her eyes “At least they would have died with dignity. Instead… we get them locked away, thrown on suicide duty, or mind wiped. Celestia just didn’t want a human getting rid of her new playthings.”

In truth the judgment of the current cases ended with the former humans being put in jail to serve time, help with public service, and be put on watch in some town as they helped them adjust to Equestria… sort of like a foreign exchange student program.

Of course if you ask Verrat you get a different story. She thinks Celestia has sent them to slay dragons or try the dreaded “reform spell”… which despite the cheerful wording still frightens the rest of us into thinking mind control. The fact that spell is actually legal is even more frightening.

“I’ll raise.” I said out loud tossing more bits into the pot.

I tried to get their attention back on the game instead of the next argument that would soon come to trading blows and when your dealing with some people... those blows tend to leave a mess. I glanced at Griff to see if he could help me out restore the peaceful happy atmosphere as we traded barbs and jokes with another instead of insults and swords.

Griff tried to hide behind his cards and replied “I tried my hoof at Applebucking.”

Everyone flinched at hearing him say it. I know it’s kind of hard not adapting to the terminology when everyone around you keeps saying it, but still...

Griff put his hand face down on the table and groaned “Seriously? The job pays good bits and I needed something to do while waiting for my next level up.”

Verrat dropped her hand as she nearly shouted “You’re using that thing!”

Griff huffed in annoyance “It’s free skills. So what if I lose a few minor memories. Being able to actually do stuff is worth it.”

I sighed as I put the cards down on the table. Some people still used the level up system despite the fact it stole their memories. Some used it in difficult situations to help ensure their survival while others… simply didn’t care. If you told Verrat that you would think they didn’t want to be human anymore.

Verrat shouted at him “It’s more than just a 'few minor memories'! It’s your life! Tell him he’s wrong Maxwell!”

Griff chuckled “Oh yah. The one with a cutie mark is going to tell me not to try to adapt.”

I face palmed as I replied “Actually I agree with Verrat on this one. If you do it too much it could screw you up.”

Griff stared at me in disbelief as Verrat smirked and practically doing a little victory dance with it. My opinion... I didn't trust the thing. Maybe I'm shifting the blame, but personally... I blame the memory theft gizmo for turning the rest of my old group into... well crazed individuals. Maybe it messed with their mind or warped their perception... but... I needed something to blame and the memory theft menu just didn't sit right with me.

Griff started arguing about how it was his life and his choice to make while Verrat shot back a few snide comments. I sighed shaking my head as the card game had been put off for now as Poker Ace had moved anything easily breakable away from the area... Hopefully I could get them to calm down before a fight broke out.

*****

Lockheart

I glanced at Celestia in confusion as another pony was inside the room, granted Celestia has been trying to make me... less reclusive. I have been forced to help her understand some of the... quirks of humanity and more importantly help deal with explaining certain concepts, ideas, or items and of course helping out with the paperwork.

It didn't help that some former humans are re-writing and selling some of earth's old stories. Trying explaining the Lion King isn't a historical event where one leader committed genocide to an entire race until two brave souls managed to teach a young king how to let their race survive without having to eat other sentient races.

If there are talking sentient lions in MLP that story is going to bring up a lot of questions.

I focused on my latest problem as I stared at the bat pony before me. I hadn't exactly seen a lot of them and well...they had one episode and that one was Nightmare Night so they could have been pegasi in costumes.

Was this another human turned Equestrian or was she a native to Equestria?

Celestia gave that all knowing goddess smile that left me dreading in fear of the words that would come out of her mouth as she said “This is Midnight Vixen. She will be your…”

“Wait one moment. Midnight Vixen?” I couldn’t help but ask out loud.

Celestia and the new bat pony stared at me in confusion. Apparently they were not joking about the name. Just another smash up of words and how Equestria sometimes made no sense to me… like Royal Script, Pound Cake, Snickerdoodle, and Lipton Hopin Meaner Mirer the strange pony with the bushy eyebrows and weird accent that works in the kitchen.

Midnight Vixen to my surprise blushed as she softly replied “It meant night child. Midnight due to being born at night and Vixen because my mom thought I was the cutest mare in the world.” She stared at my body for a few moments “And I still have no idea where your parents came up with the name Lockheart.”

I flinched as I bitterly replied “Names have meanings and some end up meaning things that have yet to happen. The less one thinks about it the better.”

Celestia simply shook her head as it seemed we were off to a rough start. Oh the joy it was going to be for both of us to try to understand each other. At least Remedy had gotten to the point where she simply ignored certain aspects of my speech.

Celestia went back to leader mode as she replied “She shall be your bodyguard and flight instructor.”

I nodded “Alright I can see why she needs to keep an eye on me… but flight instructor?”

Celestia just gave me a glance that said ‘you fly like a brick with wings’ as I simply nodded. Sure I wasn’t the best flier… but I never really grew up with wings on my freaking back! I’m just lucky enough as it is to be able to lift myself off the ground much less reach the celling in my room!

Midnight… because I refuse to call a pony Vixen… stepped forward. Her dark grayish fur matched the “night guard” armor, but her messy dark blue hair with light blue highlights were pushed back behind her bat like ears as he had apparently decided not to wear her helmet or she simply forgot it. I mean it seemed like she just woke up with bed hair… which she might have considering bat ponies tended to be nocturnal.

Midnight took a step forward “I may not be a Wonder Bolt, but I am one of the best fliers of in Canterlot after dark.”

I nearly face palmed taking out my eye in the process. Stupid overly large eyes. One of these days I was going to re-master that technique.

“Please tell me you don’t suffer from night vision.” I slowly replied only for Midnight to stare at me in confusion “Night vision… or… certain birds and bats tend to have specialized vision so birds have difficulty flying at night while bats tend to suffer the same problems birds do, but only during the day due to the difference of light levels between day and night.”

Midnight blinked as she stared at me in confusion “Why would bats sleep during the day?”

It's official. She's an Equestrian and not a former human.

Celestia thankfully intervened “Lockheart grew up in a very different place from Equestria as the place had similar aspects of the Everfree forest.”

She stared at me in confusion again despite what Celestia had just said as I nodded “You fall through clouds as they are also much higher in the sky. Animals take care of themselves and very little could be altered with magic. If anything the Everfree forest would seem natural to me… if not for the horde of dangerous wild monsters and crazed mystical plant life.”

Midnight slowly nodded as Celestia replied “He may also need a few remedial classes in weather management.”

I couldn’t help but shiver “I don’t care what you say. I am not going to try sitting much less try sleeping on a cloud. I am not going to trust a lump of moisture to keep me up.”

Midnight shook her head as apparently she knew that this was going to be difficult. To be fair I have had an easier time hiding my wings than hiding my horn. It’s also much easier to keep magic as an option than flight considering I now knew more spells than flight tricks.

Besides if this is some sort of alicorn test... it would probably be easier than trying to pretend to have earth pony powers... I also need to check up on that plant growing spell Twilight used to make that flower bloom.

******

“Wings out and use the lift!” Midnight shouted as I flapped my useless limbs “And watch out for the…”

I didn’t need her to shout the last warning as I saw the tree coming at me. The only problem was that when I tried to turn right… I managed to do some sort of cork screw slam into said tree. A few apples fell from it as one conked me on the head.

I lifted myself back up as Midnight slowed her descent to the ground as she checked if I was alright. My throat burned trying to keep the long string of curses held back as my head strung like heck. Even now I could feel the chaotic magic dancing about in my body.

Stupid changeling minions losing the stupid locket as none of the stupid guards could find a minor trinket!

I huffed in annoyance as two green flames shot out of my nose like some cartoonish parody as I pushed myself back up.

Hopefully Celestia would have another locket ready to keep this chaotic magic under control again.

Midnight just stared at me as she was a little bit shocked at the small oddity as just I shook the dirt out of my wings and prepared to take flight again. Celestia to my dismay was lying down on a cloud couch right on the balcony. She had a small end table with a bowl of grapes sitting out for her to munch on while I made a fool out of myself.

Then again this was one of the few times she got to watch someone else teach me without having to clean up the mess… or she still held a grudge about the Everfree Forest incident and the fact we had went alone instead of waiting for her return to clean up the mess.

I flapped my wings back in the air as I slowly rose back up. Midnight on the other hand stared at me as if I was trying to swim the wrong way or something… which to be fair I probably was. She flew over to one of the clouds as I followed her lead like a drunken idiot.

“Now to practice your landing.” She calmly replied as I started to move back towards the ground “On a cloud.”

With one loud gulp I flew over to the cloud as she smiled. My hooves moved closer to the mass of water floating in the sky as I tried to land on it. To her surprise and my dismay when I shut my wings and landed on it... I fell straight through the cloud.

A golden aura quickly caught me as I took a couple of deep breaths as I had been flapping my wings to try to stop my crashing descent to the ground. Celestia oddly enough stared at me in confusion as Midnight pulled the cloud with her before placing it under me. As soon as the cloud rested beneath my feet Celestia let go… as I fell through again.

“Oh come on!” I screamed in fury as I tried slowing my descent again before I crashed painfully into the ground.

Midnight landed on the ground with perfect grace as I tried to remove the dirt from my coat “What happened?”

I shrugged still sore from the crash landing “I messed a step? So what’s the magic secret of cloud walking?”

Midnight shook her head “There isn’t one. Even newborns can sleep on clouds.”

Instead of a light tap I nearly knocked myself out trying to face palm again. It was really starting to get annoying to be messing up on things foals could do.

Celestia got up from her royal seat and glided down from the balcony to grace us with her presence before her horn started to glow “Try one more time.”

Midnight nodded as she brought the cloud down to ground level as I flew back up into the air and tried to land on it only to fall through again. Celestia looked really confused when I walked through the cloud without any of it sticking to me.

“Are you feeling okay?” Celestia asked out loud as I had no idea why this seemed to be so confusing for them.

“I fell through a cloud again.” I replied with a slight bit of bitterness in my voice “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel or is this one of those 'you have to believe' for it to work deals?”

Celestia shook her head “The cloud walking spell I cast on you should have kept you afloat even if you tried going through the cloud on purpose.”

Midnight stared at me in confusion as I stared at Celestia with my mouth hanging open. Honestly I thought it was the old 'magic feather' trick like Dumbo had.

With a glow from her horn she summoned one of the Canterlart gardeners and casted the cloud walking spell on both me and the earth pony. Sadly instead of a gentle attempt to try again she wrapped us both up in her magic and flung us at the cloud.

I got a mouth full of dirt as I fell through the cloud and straight into the dirt. The earth pony on the other hand defied gravity and glanced down at me while he sat on the cloud without falling through.

Midnight shook her head “This is going to be harder than I thought it was going to be.”

******

I scratched my head trying to figure it out. It was just one of the many minor questions that lead up to the major ones on how Equestria worked. The kind of things I wasn’t allowed to repress into the back of my head like how does a rock farm work due to the fact that I had to deal with it now!

“So… why does Equestria have it’s own pony made weather… when areas like the Everfree forest and places away from pegasi don’t?” I asked my flight instructor. “I mean it still goes on… does it?”

Midnight rubbed her chin. Sure it was probably a stupid thing to ask a bat pony, but… didn’t they sort of do the same thing as pegasi? I know that with Luna stuck in the moon their kind of in the unemployment line for anything other than a nightshift job... or did they live in caves or something... I really wish I knew more about them before having to deal with them so that I wouldn't say anything stupid by mistake... then again we spent most of the entire day trying to get me to walk on a cloud so stupid questions can’t be taken for granted right now.

I was now laying on my stomach somehow holding a death grip on the cloud as she rested on her back without any fear of falling.

It also started to make me wonder about ponies in general… well some of the less talked about aspects. I mean tails cover most of the issue… Even then horses had some sort of sheath… So unless you went underneath a pony you really wouldn’t see much or something… but how does flight factor into it or will I need to by a flight suit to keep my sanity in check?

Was I even allowed to buy one since they didn’t allow alicorns to have jackets? I already had a had a few complaints about my attire because my jacket covered up my wings and cutie mark. Personally I liked having my jacket to help keep my sanity.

Midnight shrugged and snapped me out of my spiral towards insanity “That’s… a bit harder to explain, but mostly it’s cultural.”

At that I couldn’t help but ask “Cultural? Manipulating the weather is cultural?”

She chuckled “Weather still goes on… but not as effectively as it does in Equestria. You get droughts, storms, floods. Mostly the amount of imbalance is greater outside of Equestria. It’s magic, unity, and all that jazz.”

“Jazz?” When did bat pony’s learn that word much less that phrase?

She covered her mouth and looked away “Sorry that was uncoth of…”

I groaned as I was just curious “You didn’t say anything wrong. I just didn’t expect any of the ponies here to have heard of that phrase.”

Midnight sighed in relief “Well… with the new population and night clubs started forming… that and someponies are more active at night it… well kind of… helps they don’t mind a few… oddities.”

I didn’t know what to say about that. Was this because bat ponies were related to Luna and thus Nightmare Moon… was it the teeth or the… feeding habits. I know they have different teeth that regular ponies, but did that mean different taste buds? I know some bats eat fruit and a few others eat bugs... how much bat did bat ponies have in them?

“Back to the cultural bit.” Midnight coughed slightly trying to get back to the subject “If you look at the three tribe era. Windigos turned everything into a never ending winter. So the pegasi had to manipulate the weather so everypony wouldn’t starve. When the Windigos were finally gone the ponies could make summer finally return… so they did so.”

I nodded as she continued “Which lead to problems. While it was nice at first… a long period of warmth as plants thrived. Sunny skies and peaceful breezes making it the perfect… until the never ending summer ended up baking the land and turning it into a desert.” She chuckled nervously “At that point they didn’t think of trying to let the weather return to normal because at that point manipulating the weather was not only their lively hood, but also because of the ingrained fear of starvation.”

I think I was starting to see what was going on “They feared that if they stopped they wouldn’t be needed… or that winter would return again making them all starve.”

Midnight sighed “So then they started studying the Everfree forest. The one place with natural weather became the model for Equestria’s weather.” She caught my confused stare and smiled “It was one of the few places not affected by the Windigo’s freezing winter storm or the pegasi summer scorch. So the pegasi copied the weather inside the forest until it became trial and error to get the seasons and weather outside of the forest just right.”

“So then the pegasi experimented a little...” She stretched out her wings as a small grin appeared on her face “After all if a part of Equestria was going to flood while another area was having a drought then why not move some of that water over? If the wind was becoming a bit rough blowing away clouds then why not move them back? Eventually they kept studying the forest until they fixed the weather and then made… well this.”

She motioned at the sky as it was quite peaceful. Come to think of it… it might have made sense making a castle in the Everfree forest if the rest of the land was still stuck in a blizzard or burning to a crisp until they worked out the bugs.

Midnight just looked at the moon “So there you go. We screwed up and made the weather worse and when we cleaned up our mess… we figured out how it worked. So instead of letting random droughts, storms, and other disasters or even having the wind run wild… we regulated it. It kind of sounds boring when you put it like that doesn’t it?”

“That… actually makes sense.” Which left one last question “So what about the areas outside of Equestria?”

Midnight shrugged “That’s a bit more complicated. Magic lets us manipulate the weather. Magic is what also keeps the weather around the Everfree forest wild. In the end it just simply boils down to what magic affects the area and how the natural weather is going. Once we move into a new area the earth ponies try to get a grasp of the land. Then pegasi and unicorns come later to help bring a sort of harmony to it before making it a part of Equestria as a whole.”

She started to chuckle “Of course anypony else they’ll just say some speech about destiny, tradition, or more likely jobs. I mean not every earth pony has to tend to a farm or every unicorn has to study magic. It’s just common that they tend to do so. Does that answer your question?”

I nodded as she grinned “Good. Now that your done resting let’s see how far you’ll get before crashing into another tree.”

I sighed. Flying was not my strong suit.

******

Valkyrie

I turned the knob on the shower head as I let the water hit my body. With one deep breath I tried to ignore the stares of everypony… everyone as I tried to ease my mind.

The dreams weren’t helping either. Back home I had dreams when I fell asleep… but they were never much. Just random bits of my mind playing out or trying to make sense of my troubles. Stuff about rowing down a river of chocolate while have sock puppets chase after me.

After the Everfree Forest… they started to get more vivid. I started remembering them more often as a few of the dreams would have me as a pony… but I’m human. Sure I like to fly… and I haven’t used the point system in a while, but I still had enough memories to dream about home. Why wasn’t I dreaming about driving to work or messing around on a computer or was this some sort of Equestria deal?

I mean Luna did have the ability to dream walk and help deal with nightmares and stuff.

The water fell across my wings as I scrubbed my mane. My old hair was a tangled mess of knots that would break a hairbrush in two while my mane was soft and much easier to brush despite having to use my mouth and hooves.

I felt like talking to someone about my problems… but who could I talk to? An Equestrian doctor probably wouldn’t understand. Lockheart… quite frankly I trust him as an ally, but not as a therapist. Stardust… is a whole different can of worms.

Maybe I should put out an ad in the paper “unmarked therapist wanted.” Of course trying to find someone who knew what they were doing would be hard… The one time I want to go to a therapist is the one time I can’t find any. I bet Discord is laughing his stone butt off.

I turned off the water and got ready to dry myself off. It had taken a while, but I had finally become another face in the background. No pony… No one stared at me as if I was some sort of freak or that I didn’t belong here.

I quickly strapped back on my armor as I grabbed my bag full of bits and sighed. It had been hard to keep track of the days without a calendar. While it was nice I could rest in the barracks for the Royal Guard… it was time for me to look for a more… long term solution.

A month had gone by and I was still in Equestria only this time I had a 'slight' idea on what I was doing. People were moving into or near Canterlot as the former humans were gathering together trading information…but mostly to check on the trials.

The Elements of Harmony were missing… and Celestia didn’t trust Lockheart enough to let him know about the magic mirror. That or they were using it, but had yet to properly align it or something. Heck the Equestria girls movie had the rough “two years” gap before it could be used again… or was it longer than two years?

Unlike the movies I doubt we have a magical artifact back home we could hook up and link the mirror up to help align the two realities together or something… Well pony human earth might be close enough… Not much of a plan B, but at least it gives us a second option.

“Finally deciding if you want to stay or not?” Arrow Strike spoke out loud as I turned around.

The Pegasus sheepishly grinned as he tried not to look embarrassed. He was one of those bleached white coat pegasi found in the royal guards, but he kept his spiky orange hair underneath one of those stupid golden helmets. Funny enough he had a cutie mark of an arrow in pony’s knee.

He was also wearing that annoying Canterlot Royal Guard armor. Sure it looks nice in the cartoon, but in real life he’s wearing a shiny suit that will blind anyone who looks near him. I always feel tempted to just throw a bit of dirt on it to cut down the glare.

“Since it doesn’t seem like it will be fixed quickly I might as well see if there are any cheap rooms.” I quickly replied.

The second reason was to help with the housing situation. Lily and Stardust’s new friend… Cuddle Bug were changelings and thankfully found innocent. They were going to need a place to stay and quite frankly I needed to talk to another human just to try to keep myself sane for now.

Arrow Strike waited for me to continue or give him some more information about what I had meant. This was one of the odd details I never understood about ponies.

Back home you had co-workers. You might talk to them or chat, but mostly your goal was to finish your hours at work so that you could get that paycheck and head back home or somewhere far away from your place of work.

Sure you might talk to each other during work hours or during break … but it was never much. If the person left the job then you would never even give them a second thought. It was like high school or college really. You shared classes with other people and you might even remember a few of their names, but after the semester was over you would forgot most of them as you moved on.

Ponies on the other hand… they tended to interact more. They kind of behaved more like a sitcom you watched on TV as everyone in the work place knew each other… they may not exactly be friends, but they were a lot closer than what you got in real life.

Of course you still get the social clicks as most of the mares just give me a few odd stares since I always wear my armor. I don’t care how many fanfics have former humans going nude. I’m not going to be one of them.

I finally tossed Arrow a bone “I figured I would also check if they had any clothing I like.” And by that I mean anything that didn’t hamper my movement or wasn’t just a hat or a scarf. “That and I could use a new pair of boots and socks.”

Arrow’s face turned red as he replied “Socks?”

I blinked “It’s… don’t tell me nopony knows what they are.”

Arrow gulped as he looked out of the room “I…”

“Arrow Strike!” somepony shouted out loud in the distance

Arrow quickly sighed in relief “Oh shoot! Forgot about that. See ya Valkyrie!”

He shoot out of the door as I just shrugged. It would feel a little bit silly asking around for locations of stores, but if I’m renting or buying an apartment room I might as well make myself comfortable.

******

Steel Halberd

Steel sighed as he glanced at Valkyrie wearing her armor. Still it was nice to see that she was starting to get used to living in Equestria. She had passed the test for joining the Royal Guards easily and gave the others something to strive towards.

He took a deep breath as he felt… vulnerable without his armor. Valkyrie wanted to do some shopping and it was his job to help look after her. That was all there was to it and Celestia did want to make sure Valkyrie adjusted Equestria peacefully.

With tensions high from the rescue of the missing ponies from the Everfree Castle it was only a question of if the ponies would mob her for questions about the daring rescue… or place blame on her because she was a blank flank.

Steel shook his head not wanting to think about those darker thoughts. These were Equestrians and not the rough griffins, thuggish diamond dogs, or brutish dragons. Besides she needed the break as she seemed to be bothered by something during these past few days.

“So what are you looking for?” He asked trying to start a conversation.

Valkyrie glanced at her bag of bits “Socks, boots, maybe a book or two.”

Steel gulped as he probably heard that statement wrong “Socks?”

Valkyrie stared at him as he could feel his face redden. She couldn’t possibly mean…

“Socks… or do they not make socks?” Valkyrie replied with far too much ease than she should have.

Steel held up a hoof and took a deep breath “What exactly do you mean by that?”

He could feel himself starting to sweat. Surely she couldn’t be meaning what he was thinking. After all it would be foolish to think such crazy thoughts. Even then going in together into such a store…

Valkyrie rubber her chin “Socks… Small articles of clothing used to protect the... hooves. Their used with boots to help soak up water or to help keep one’s legs warms.”

Steel felt himself cool down… and slightly felt the painful sting of sorrow strike across his foolish heart. Socks had a different cultural meaning to her. To her Socks were like boots, or scarves, or hats. There was no hidden message or… (gulp)… deeper meaning.

“I… I think I might know of a place that could help.” He replied uneasily as he thought about it.

Steel had a sister who ran a clothing store. It felt cheap dumping the problem onto her, but it would be easier to explain to his sister the difference in cultural text than run into an embarrassing incident at a much more public store. He’d probably owe her a favor for having her explain the Equestrian cultural aspect of... socks.

******

Steel walked into the dreaded store full of dresses and hats no self-respecting stallion would ever wear. It wasn’t that this was a more… private store.

It was just that most stallions avoided this store simply because all hope and pride the stallion had was left at the door. Their job as a stallion was to nod, smile, and wait for hours as the mare they were with tried on the many different dresses, fabrics, and talked about things that most stallions barely understood. Oh and a couple of items tended to be rather expensive.

Steel wished he could have switched places with one of them at this moment. They were the lucky ones after all... they didn’t have a sister who not only worked in the store… but would stop whatever they were doing just to bug the living daylights out of them. To make things even worse... Steel's own sister ran the store making it almost impossible to avoid her.

“Steel!” His sister shouted for the rest of Canterlot to hear as she dashed over to him “It’s been to long… and you’re with a mare.”

He smiled gritting his teeth together as he hugged his sister Jade Pin. The sapphire coat mare had her lavender mane curled up into a ball held together by two sewing needles. Her cutie mark was of a pin cushion with three pins jabbed into it. His sister gave a not to subtle stare at Valkyrie already getting ready on her not so subtle way to torture her dear brother like any annoying yet adorably cute younger sister.

Steel saved her the devious planning and hopefully from having her embarrass him “This is Valkyrie and she was born outside of Equestria.” She nodded still ready to make him suffer “And… she has a few different cultural aspects about clothing.”

Jade nodded “I’ll gladly help.”

Steel quickly pulled her over dragging her away from Valkyrie “And… I need your help.” She grinned as if she was about to make him sign some sort of infernal contract “She… wants some... socks…” Her grin grew with his ever growing embarrassment “And… they don’t have the same... meaning as they do in Equestria.”

Jade blinked “What?”

Steel took a deep breath “Their viewed like… scarves or hats. No… other meaning…” much to his unspoken dismay “And… it would help if you… helped explain some of the… cultural differences.”

Jade nodded as she stared at her older brother in confusion before shouting “Find anything you like dear?”

Valkyrie shrugged “Do you have any… pants?”

Jade’s face flinched as she quickly glanced back to him for an explanation “No cutie mark and she’s griffin raised so expect a lot of cultural clash on certain things.”

******

Jade

Jade felt a little bit annoyed. Her big brother had finally paid her a visit only to ask for help with work of all things. Jade pulled out the tape measure with a small hint of anger as she checked Valkyrie’s body. Her light brown coat was much softer than Jade expect and her blonde mane was surprisingly well kept.

Most ponies in the Royal Guard tended to forgot about mane hair care as they were too busy thrusting spears in the hot sweaty sun all day which was perfectly alright for the stallions. (A pony could find a nice spot and watch them work out)The same could not be said about the mares thrusting those same spears in the hot sun.

Jade checked Valkyrie’s wing length and then check it again as the numbers couldn’t be right. With a third check Valkyrie's wing length was… larger than expect as the armor made them seem much smaller. They were also taken very good care of.

Jade shook her head trying to figure out how the odd measurements “Armor off. I need to finish checking near the base of the wings.”

Valkyrie sighed in slight annoyance as she undid her armor. Instead of the loud clatter that reminded Jade of empty cans a resounding thud came when the armor hit the floor and possibly denting if not breaking some of the floor boards. Jade tried to lift one up with her magic only to falter for a moment from the ridicules weight.

Steel simply shouted “And that’s her armor so be careful with it.”

Jade glanced back at Valkyrie in disbelief “This is your actual armor?”

Valkyrie on the other hoof didn’t seem to have been phased as she nodded “It’s better than the tin foil suits they give to the rest of the Royal Guard.”

Jade glanced back at the armor and then back at the mare in question. What should have been an overly buff pegasi instead stood a warrior goddess. Her muscles were tight, but they hugged her very feminine frame.

“Now stretch out your wings.” Jade replied as she tried not to look Valkyrie in the eyes.

Her wings now fully opened to their majestic glory Jade was starting to have doubts if she was dreaming or if the pony in front of her actually existed. Celestia was a strong mare as she could easily out hoof wrestle every body building stallion in Equestrian with one hoof tied behind her back.

Valkyrie either shared that same build or had a lot of earth pony blood ruining through her veins as her muscles were very tight. After going around her waist that most models would tear their hair out for Jade was starting to wonder if some crazed unicorn sculpted her out of clay or something as she had never knew a pony could naturally be born to look like this.

Of course she probably didn’t need a lot of help keeping those muscles in shape with that lead coffin wrapped around her body…

“How long have you worn that armor?” Jade couldn’t help try to ask calmly as she began to wonder if Valkyrie used some sort of alchemy enchantment to achieve such a… nice form that somehow made Jade feel both skinny and fat at the same time.

Valkyrie shrugged “Just about every day. I don’t have a lot of clothing.”

“Well that explains the body to some extent.” Jade thought in the back of her mind as she moved around to Valkyrie’s flank.

Jade felt her face turn red as she started to feel… embarrassed. Valkyrie’s body was just as tight and firm as it was up front… yet so soft. It must have been a mixture of the muscle and fur…

“What conditioner do you use?” Jade whispered to herself

Valkyrie glanced back at Jade as her own cheeks reddened “What?”

Jade quickly coughed realizing just how that could have been interrupted “I said… Have you been applying any dyes on your side?” and quickly glanced at the armor looking for an escape “I mean your armor has a large hole in its side right around where the cutie mark should rest.”

Valkyrie coughed “Actually that’s for the saddle bags. That way they are secure for when I’m flying.”

Jade simply nodded and tried to convince herself that she was into stallions instead of mares. Not that there was anything wrong with it… but… she was pretty sure she was into stallions as she went over the measurements again.

Trying to get her head out of the gutters Jade replied “What are you looking for in a dress?”

Valkyrie to her surprise frowned “I’m not a fan of dresses.”

Jade couldn’t believe what she had just heard! What mare didn’t like dresses! It was practically the number one rule of mares! Valkyrie could have told her that she was Celestia herself and Jade wouldn’t be half as shocked as she current statement.

Valkyrie sighed out loud “Their too… cumbersome. I like to be able to move my legs freely.”

It took all of Jade’s formidable power to not facehoof at the absurdity of it all. Still she guessed that was the reason why Valkyrie was training in the Royal Guard instead of walking around as a model. Ponies didn’t mind dresses because they liked how they looked… not the difficulties of wearing them or walking in them… especially with some of the corset dresses that seemed to be the rage these days.

Still Valkyrie was her client and her client wanted something that one could move freely in. Weight apparently wasn’t an issue considering her current attire. Jade frowned as it would feel right if she made something that didn’t show off the beauty she kept hidden underneath that ugly suit of armor.

Of course considering the fact she called the Royal Guard armor a suit of tin foil, either meant she didn’t like the design or she didn’t care for the protection. Jade began to wonder if she still had a few of the griffin fashion magazines lying about since a couple of them focus more on utility than fashion.

“And what about socks?” Jade couldn’t help but smirk as she said it.

Valkyrie replied with a straight face “Anything’s fine. Mostly I’m looking for something to wear with some boots.”

Jade blinked as she wasn’t sure she heard that right “Boots as in…”

Valkyrie rubber her chin “Something thick and durable. Hiking boots or something to deal with mud if I have to go back into the Everfree Forest for an extended period of time.”

It was then Jade knew that the universe has a twisted sense of humor. After all…Why else would it make a pony so impossibly fit and beautiful yet make them have no sense in fashion? Boots are supposed to be code word for high heels or those golden shoes like Celestia has. Not… stuff to trout around in a swamp!

Jade had the nagging feeling that she could have simply pulled out a pair of boots from the local dumpster and Valkyrie would have been fine with it just as long as they were in one piece! As a seamstress, designer, and well known artist Jade had to summon all her willpower to calm herself down.

She took a deep breath and had to remind herself about Valkyrie’s upbringings. It wasn’t the poor girl's fault that she was raised up by extremely strange griffins in a faraway land having never experience pony culture for herself and as a fellow mare it was Jade’s own duty to help her out.

Jade glanced at Valkyrie’s hooves “How do you take care of your hooves?”

Valkyrie gave them a quick glance “I wash them and check for cracks?”

Jade lifted a hoof up and studied them. In her line of work Hooves also tended to tell much about a pony. In general earth ponies tend to have more durable hooves, but may have a few slight chips or bits of dirt if they work on a farm. Unicorns tend to have a shine as magic or magic spells can clean them and helps with the rid of hard to reach places. Pegasi tend to have slightly softer hooves than most along with a sort of padding that is more common with those who live in cloud homes or rarely set their hooves on the ground.

Valkyrie’s hooves were different. She didn’t have any chips as they resembled more like an earth pony’s hooves. The small bit of shine to it seemed to indicate good care, but no magical assistance, yet she lacked the subtle grace of a pegasi. With a quick tap and feeling how strong the hooves were… Jade was willing to bet Valkyrie could break rocks with them if she wanted.

Valkyrie tried to smile “I know most pegasi tend to forgot about them since they tend to walk on clouds. I’m… not used to cloud walking.”

Steel shouted “Her home’s weather is like the Everfree Forest!”

Jade simply nodded as she then glanced at the armor plating that once held Valkyrie’s hooves. Jade knew about many types of shoes, boots, and had even been commissioned to build a suit of armor for some random noble… these boots weren't made for comfort. Her brother or somepony in the royal guard might have been able to use them... but these boots would probably chip if not break a normal pony's hooves.

Suddenly the sculpted theory didn’t seem so far-fetched after all. Jade could see in theory at least that a pony would end up with a rather strong build if they were forced to wear similar armor for most of their life. Of course such an existence wouldn’t have been fun.

“Well you might want to get it looked at in a spa every once in a while.” Jade replied trying to find some sort of fault in the almost mythical body.

It looked less and less like Valkyrie worked to keep her built shaped like it was and more like it was hard for her body not to look like it did from some sort of extreme training she had taken. Jade had the feeling she could probably use Valkyrie’s hooves to file her own horn! Of course her hooves might need to be filled a little just to be on the safe side.

Jade sighed as she put away the tape measure only for Valkyrie started to hide the Pegasi of old definition of perfection back into her large and not too wonderful looking armor coffin. Jade couldn’t help but frown as the armor seemed to make the lovely body look more like a smaller griffin that looked… sort of nice… but certainly didn’t even hold a candle to her natural form without the armor!

Jade felt her face turn red as she thought “Not a fillyfooler”

Jade quickly focused on her current task and the plans she would have to make “I can have some items ready for you tomorrow, but it may take a few days for larger articles of clothing.”

Valkyrie nodded “I understand. How much will it cost?”

Jade smiled as she looked at her rather nervous big brother “Don’t worry. Since most of what you’re asking for is basic the money set aside for the Royal Guard will pay for it. The bigger stuff I would just need your opinion on if they match what you’re looking for.”

Valkryie glanced at me with unease “Are you sure…”

Jade held a hoof up cutting her off “Darling… what you’re looking for is accessibility and utility. I just need to do a few simple modifications to what I have. Then we can talk price.”

Valkyrie smiled as she said “Thank you. I’ll be here tomorrow to pick up the items.”

Steel walked out of the store with her as Jade started to wonder how many stallions had even seen her out of that armor. The thought couldn’t help but make her chuckle she guessed that their standard issue armor now served another purpose.

Still Valkyrie had yet to understand what it was to be a mare as Jade as her fellow ally would simply have to show her. With her magic she flipped over the sign closing the store early as she pulled out her rather large address book. All she had to do was now find the right designers, artists, and friends to reveal the hidden beauty that Valkyrie had kept hidden.

Jade didn’t think there was anything wrong with what she was doing simply because Valkyrie was still a blank flank… and if living such a militant life hadn’t earned her a cutie mark then maybe seeing some… alternative might help her… branch out.

Besides she also needed help on figuring out griffin design fashions and how to employ them without making Valkyrie look… bland. Something most types of Griffin fashion seemed to specialize in.

Author's Note

New chapter up. Sorry for the delay and still going over some of the older chapters for spell or grammatical errors.

Question for the audience...

What do you think bat ponies did until Luna came back or What would be the first thing humanity would try to bring back/recreate after landing in Equestria?

Day at the Spa

Jade

Jade levitated the next set of fabrics out “Look so you dumped him. I don’t see why your still hung up over it.”

Breeze sighed “It’s not him I miss… it’s…”

Jade rolled her eyes “Oh yes mister tall, dark and sexy.” She added a little bit a hip shake to the last one as her friend blushed “You’re telling me that somepony fitting that description isn’t already dating somepony?”

Breeze blushed at the description of her hidden crush as Jade shook her head. Breeze was a good friend and a talented tailor. Her last special pony turned out to be a two timing bit jerk… who had ran into a sudden rush of bad luck and had tried getting back together with Breeze only because every other mare in the city dumped him! Jade was just happy that her friend had slammed the door shot on his two timing nose!

Jade pulled out one of the griffin magazines again… their fashion was so… bland.

Sadly her latest client preferred utility above all else “So any thoughts about our newest client’s… taste?”

Breeze was already running through sketches and working on the on the mannequins… Jade felt her face scrunch up a bit as she inspected her friend. Her dark brown coat had caught many stallion’s eyes as her short cut black mane gave her sort of a… unique appeal especially in taverns and bars.

Jade couldn’t help but stare at her cutie mark for a few seconds as the spool of white thread with a needle resting across it really drew attention to her flank. It was hard to imagine such a mare having a hard time finding a date… of course the trick was finding one who wasn’t a jerk.

Breeze glanced at Jade as her cheeks were a little bit red “Uh… Jade? What are you doing?”

Jade shrugged “Trying to figure our client out.”

Breeze was a nice catch… but she fit in the normal category. Some ponies liked dresses and shirts with frills and some ponies didn’t. It was just a matter of preference… one that easily told Jade that she preferred stallions over mares... well most mares as she found a rather... nice section revealing swimsuits.

Jade tried not to picture what Valkyrie would look like in a swimsuit…yet they were easy to wear and didn’t limit mobility… and it really showed certain areas… while being publicly acceptable. She felt a small bit of drool hang out of her mouth as she pictured Valkyrie wearing a two piece showing off her rather firm...

“How did you two meet again?” Jade replied trying to get her mind out of the gutters as she wiped her mouth!

Nothing killed a mood like a sappy love story! Besides it was something her dear perfectly straight friend loved to talk about these days! Perfect for making Jade focus on anything else at the moment!

Breeze smiled as she blissfully recounted the tale like a love struck filly “He just sat next to me… apparently his special pony was also dating mine.” Breeze frowned at this section as a part of her always was sad… and the annoyance crept into her voice when talking about her old ex “Turns out he wanted more variety.”

Jade noticed Breeze was starting to bend the drawing board “The nice guy. Not the jerk! Mister sexy butt.”

Breeze blushed at the comment and more importantly stopped bending the drawing board to its breaking point. Jade sighed in relief as now her mind was not only back in place, but she had also prevented losing another item due to that two bit jerk’s attempt to rekindled the flame. All he had accomplished was making Breeze’s rage surface again as any love she had for him and been burnt to a crisp after she found his cheating flank!

Breeze chuckled nervously “He had a dark black coat and long silver mane.”

Jade rolled her eyes as his description from the other ponies was the weird charcoal unicorn with gray hair from when she tried to figure out what happened during the infamous breakup scene.

“And he had a pink heart with two white wings for a cutie mark of all things.” Breeze said with the same sappy joy bad actors gave when doing a love scene. “We talked a little… mostly we just enjoyed each other’s company.”

Breeze sighed in sorrow “I never got his name.”

Jade nodded as there really wasn’t much on this mysterious stallion. Even trying to find him by cutie mark was almost impossible… and Jade had tried searching for him, but sadly his old mare friend didn’t exactly remember him as she was a bit too worked up about the sudden reveal of the jerk she was dating and how that same jerk tried to play her for a fool.

Of course she could have been lying and trying to apologize to the previous stallion she dumped who actually was a swell guy.

Jade tried to smile “Well maybe Valkyrie can help you find another nice stallion.”

Breeze was the one who had started to grin “You mean your sexy butt?”

Jade coughed as she felt her face brighten “She’s just a stranger who grew up in a rather… odd griffin city.”

Breeze chuckled “You mean the mare that could file your horn with her hooves that made my stallion seem like an everyday occurrence?”

“She’s a bit different.” Jade replied uneasily “And… we kind of… have to…” Jade gulped as now she felt extremely embarrassed “make… socks.”

Breeze glanced at the drawings for the dress again “Look I know she’s rather unique, but if she’s asking for socks than doesn’t that mean she has a…”

“Different meaning!” Jade replied much faster than she would have liked “Their… ahem… like hats… and scarves… and she just wants… plain white socks.”

Jade sighed both in disappointment, but in sorrow as it felt like some brilliant designer suddenly died of a heart attack every time she said those words out loud.

Her brother explained Valkyrie’s… cultural view and their purpose… but it was such a waste.

Valkyrie frowned as she looked at the griffin magazine “What’s with those bags? The… lump looks really out of place”

Breeze checked if the dress hampered the wings on the mannequin as she replied “Their fit so that the gap between the coat and the bags will allow the wings to easily fit inside to help protect against the cold… or be used as an easy access pouch by some griffins and ponies.”

Jade couldn’t help but frown. The suit looked gaudy, but it focused more on utility than looks… and even that bit was confusing. Hopefully they could fix the leg issue before they were forced to take more… griffin like aspects of design.

Jade couldn’t even find…shudder… pants in the fashion magazine as the closest thing to it was a jump suit or that one odd suit that looked as if it could double as light armor... which was apparently popular.

If Jade had learned anything from this new learning experience it was that...Griffins didn’t wear a lot of dresses.

******

The door opened up as Jade felt herself tense up. Valkyrie had entered the store again and most of her items weren’t ready! Sure Jade might have… lead her to believe it might not take too long… but she hoped to have at least a dress ready that would reveal the full beauty of Valkyrie’s hidden form!

Steel walked beside her as both of their faces were a little flushed until Steel shot her little sister a bit of a nasty look which Jade felt was completely uncalled for!

Valkyrie got right next to Jade and whispered “I… need to talk about an… order I made… yesterday.”

Jade blinked as the oblivious warrior goddess sounded so… meek and… adorable! Valkyrie seemed to be trying to hide behind her long hair as her face was a lovely shade of crimson making Jade just wanted to hug her even more… in a naturally planktonic kind of way of course.

Valkyrie gulped as she brought her strength together “It’s about the… socks?”

And that was when the other boot hit the floor as Jade suddenly understood Steel’s… rather… justified anger towards her little sister. Apparently Jade had… forgotten to inform Valkyrie… about some of the… cultural aspects of Equestria.

Jade felt herself blush out of embarrassment for forgetting such an important thing as she pulled out the paper bag holding the rather dull boring white bland socks. Jade felt the moment of embarrassment disappear as she felt slightly ashamed at herself for making such… It was hard to imagine that an article of clothing could be made… dull.

Valkyrie quickly took the bag and moved into one of the changing booths properly to see if Jade kept to the contract… or tried making something worthy to be actually called a pair of socks.

Steel frowned as the shades of red around his face had yet to die down “Do you realize how embarrassing it was for me to explain the cultural aspect?”

Jade sighed “Probably as difficult as it was for me making such… bland objects. I’m not even sure if they have any right to be called socks anymore.”

Breeze entered the room in a panic “I have the base model down, but so far it’s just a white summer dress. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to make something that won’t hamper movement or affect her wings… she won’t mind if it reveals her flank right?”

Jade felt embossed for Breeze asking such a stupid question until Steel replied “Hopefully she won’t mind, but see if you can’t find some sort of… saddle bags to go with it.”

Breeze nodded “Blank Flank… right!”

Jade sighed as she forgot about that tiny/major detail as most ponies would be more confused at seeing an adult without a cutie mark. Just another reason that Jade had to make the perfect dress so that Valkyrie would branch out from her job of being a guard pony. Maybe even possibly a model?

The changing booth opened up revealing Valkyrie in all her most of her splendid glory… if not for the four dull white objects covering up her ankles and hooves… as Jade apparently forgot to get the measurements right which Valkyrie didn’t seem to notice.

Valkyrie frowned “Does this look really fit… that description?”

“It did get you out of that armor!” Somepony replied in a jokingly flirting tone.

Valkyrie’s face turned beet red as she flung a boot at the pony speaking before shutting the curtains again. It took a few seconds for everypony to a few seconds to recover as they looked at the pony who had replied. A light tan earth pony was lying on the floor as extremely heavy boot was lying near his side.

Steel rubbed his chin “Jade… this is Maxwell. He’s… an odd pony.”

Jade nodded “Well I was going to go with Breeze to visit a spa… should we invite Valkyrie after… this?”

Steel sighed in both frustration and relief “Just… try to help… explain certain things. She’s from a different culture and I’m doing my best to help her adjust.”

Jade smiled as she happily replied “What’s the worst that could happen?”

******

Valkyrie

I sighed as I was being dragged to a spa by everyone around me. Jade and Breeze were going to the spa only to then invite me… and have Steel suggest/make me accompany them. Maxwell decided to tag along as he had… apparently came to Jade’s place to get some design work on a new tavern sign in hopes of drawing in more people.

He lacked a way to make up for the total loss of his hands, but he and his friends had the bits to order a new costume made sign… one that would have to appeal to Equestrians, but also let anyone from earth know that they had a place to go.

Breeze’s ears shot up “It’s him!”

Jade shook her head “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Breeze started to smile as she picked up her pace “I haven’t heard anypony else crack a joke that bad! It has to be him!”
Breeze shot off into the distance as everyone ran to catch up to her. I opened my wings and tried to catch up as Breeze was practically flying now.

I could hear some one’s voice up ahead “Two words. Moon. Cannon.”

Breeze squealed for a moment before tackling a pony up ahead as I landed… only to see Lockheart, the scary doctor pony, some bat pony, and Stardust. Breeze was right on top of Lockheart who was now looking at him in confusion as Lockheart… seemed to be suffering from a brief heart attack.

Breeze blinked for a few moments “I thought I…” she quickly jumped back as a small burst of flame came from

Lockheart “What was that for!”

Lockheart held up a hoof and coughed a bit more as it seemed as if he was trying to catch his breath. The bat pony nearby stood protectively near him as the scary medical pony stared at me in annoyance… I really wish I had remembered her name right now!

Steel managed to catch up to us “What happened… Remedy?”

Remedy the scary doctor pony rolled her eyes “I can’t take a day off every once and a while? Why did she tackle Lockheart?”

Breeze rubbed the back of her head “Sorry… I just… thought you were somepony else.”

Lockheart hit his chest a few times as he tried to recover “Tall pony. Black coat, wavy gray hair?”

Breeze’s eyes widened “Cutie mark of a pink heart and two wings?”

Lockheart held up a hoof and took a deep breath “You’ve seen Tender Heart… or is he actually going by that lousy nickname Dream Boat?”

I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what was going on “You know who she’s talking about?”

Lockheart sort of shrugged as he didn’t exactly seem sure on what to do “Sort of… It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time!” Breeze quickly replied

Remedy rolled her eyes “But we don’t. I already reserved us a spot at the spa.”

Jade quickly interjected “Crystal bathes?” Remedy frowned “That’s the same one we are going to… how about we walk and talk?”

A few of us sighed as the trip to the spa just got a lot more complicated… All that’s missing is Celestia or some random monster attack.

Breeze started off “So how do you know him?”

Lockheart tried to look away from her “I knew him before… it’s just… I meet him on my travels and I didn’t even know he was here… he’s in Canterlot right?”

Maxwell quickly replied “How could you not know?”

Lockheart frowned as he bitter replied “Same reason why none of us can figure out how we got here. I didn’t think he was in Canterlot or even Equestria for that matter… and we were just acquaintances at best.”

Breeze sighed in defeat as Jade face hoofed. The stunning secret of Lockheart’s past… was just some person he barely knew. Probably some guy he played games with, but never really got to know. Still it’s nice to know that at least one of us might have found someone we once knew.

Jade stared at Lockheart sizing him up “Why was he called Dreamboat?”

Lockheart cracked a grin “Because he described his cutie mark as a soaring heart. Essentially he could find ponies that had broken hearts and he could figure out how to make them soar again. Nice guy… but to tell the truth most people quickly forgot about him after he helps them… or so he told.”

I couldn’t help but stare at Lockheart in confusion “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Lockheart shrugged “All I really know about him is that he crack bad jokes and liked to laugh. Other than that… well Valkyrie probably understands.”

I couldn’t help but raise an eye brow “In just what way would I understand?”

Lockheart rubbed the back of his head “Well… didn’t you land here… in Equestria… by…”

I face hoofed as I just realized how awkward I must have just made it for him. He was referring to my old pathfinder games… I really wish I knew what happened to them. Trying to ask around for ponies who showed up in armor wouldn’t be of any use… hopefully they will have remembered my character at least.

“You mean ponyfinder.” I muttered out loud “There was a get together at this one shop were a few people got together… and just played RPG games… like Oubliettes and Ogres.”

I felt my cheeks redden as just about everyone stared at me in shock.

“What? I enjoyed playing that game every week.” I quickly snapped back.

A few of the ponies started to whistle or try to not make eye contact.

I groaned “What? Did you think I just trained every minute and hour each day before I came here?”

“Yes.” Remedy replied with a straight face.

The others around me were now staring at the walls of buildings or taking a keen interest of the road…. Even Maxwell wasn’t trying to make eye contact with me leaving just Lockheart and Stardust to look at me normally.

I groaned “Let’s get to the stupid spa already... why are you going to a spa anyway?”

Lockheart groaned as the bat pony replied "After having been checked over by twelve different doctors and having to take various medical tests Celestia thought he should relax for a little while."

Lockheart rubbed his side "Especially since a few of them weren't as kind as Remedy."

Steel glanced over at her in confusion "Didn't you hit his horn to test it's durability and rip out a few feathers just to prove his illusion magic wasn't as powerful as he thought it was?"

Lockheart simply nodded "Like I said. Not. As. Gentle."

I couldn't help, but chuckle to myself a little. I'm willing to bet that a trip to the spa will end up feeling like a big waste of time by the end of all this. I mean... Ponies have hooves so I doubt they'll be able to give a massage, and sitting around in a pile of mud doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.

We walked towards the place as I sighed not looking forward to it at all.

******

Okay… I’ll be the first to admit that maybe I was… wrong about my first initial impression of this place. I sighed in relief as the pony worked her hooves into my back getting rid of all the knots and the built up stress. How was it possible for a pony to be so good at giving a massage?

I don’t know… nor did I care at the moment. All I cared about right now was for her to use her fancy hoof magic to continue doing whatever it was doing as this felt like it was worth every single bit I paid for.

Jade spoke up first “You really played Oubliettes and Ogres?”

I tried to shrug “Well not that one… but something similar. Is it that hard to believe?”

Stardust chuckled “Considering your nickname is Overkill I can see their point.”

“Overkill?” Jade asked in confusion.

Remedy made a soft chuckle as she added “Only pony to tear apart reinforced training dummies. For the first few weeks Steel Halberd had to train her to hold back. Her combat skills were off the charts, but she barely knew how to do any basic weather management. Steel had to teach her how to make it rain.”

I could hear a few repressed chuckles coming from the other ponies. The fearsome Valkyrie who could rain lightning bolts down from the skies with ease didn’t know how to make it rain. I could feel my face growing red from embarrassment…

Thankfully Stardust came to my defense “The clouds from where she’s from aren’t as stable as the ones from Canterlot. Most of them are closer to the clouds above the Everfree Forest.”

The chuckling died down a little as I chipped in “It’s true. You wouldn’t get clouds like these in Boston.”

The massage was over as I slowly got up and looked around… too bad the guys were being held in a different section of the spa. Something about pony cultural… thing.

I shook my head “So who’s the bat pony… am I even saying that right?”

The bat pony nodded “My name is Midnight Vixen… I’m Lockheart’s new bodyguard and flight instructor.”

I blinked “Flight instructor… you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“He’s an Alicorn!” Jade quickly replied in shock “Shouldn’t a Wonder Bolt be teaching him how to do some fancy Arial tricks or something?”

Midnight… because calling a pony Vixen just sounds strange… rubbed the back of her head “He’s… a bit of a challenge, but not in the… normal sense.”

Remedy chuckled softly “Normal is understating it. Just plain unusual would be more accurate.”

Breeze glanced at them in confusion “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Midnight glanced at Remdey before being given the okay “He’s… off in a sense. Lockheart actually fell through the clouds as it took the entire day just for him just to figure out how to walk on clouds.” Everyone stared at her in a mixture of disbelief or confusion “Princess Celestia even cast a cloud walking spell only for it to fail.”

Hopefully I wasn’t the only one with their mouth left hanging wide open. When Princess Freaking Celestia couldn’t cast a spell on him to make it work… than you know there’s something wrong. Sure I was a bit nervous about walking on a cloud… but… all I had to do was just step on it. It was like flying in a sense… just open up your wings and flap.

Midnight sighed “So that’s my job… trying to help him learn how to fly.”

Remedy shook her head “At least it’s better than his attempts in magic.”

I groaned as I couldn’t help but wonder what went wrong as Stardust asked “Why?”

Remedy stared at her “Why? No… the correct question is how? How does he do it! I know magic. I’ve taught him magic and I don’t even understand how he’s doing it even when he cast the same spell I showed him! It just doesn’t make sense!”

I blinked “It’s magic.”

******

Lockheart

All of us rested in the pool of water. The steam drifted to the celling as the heat eased the aches in our bodies. This was the life...

I rubbed my ears “Did you just hear a high pitched scream?”

Maxwell blinked “I thought that was a whistle.”

Steel shrugged “Don’t care. I’m off duty and I’m comfortable. If it’s really a problem than one of the nearby guards can deal with it.”

******

Valkyrie

I had just learned an important lesson.

Never say “It’s magic” in front of a unicorn! Especially Remedy Cross!

I took us a minute to recover and then a couple of minutes to having to listen to Remedy giving me a small speech about the technical workings and how unicorns have studied magic turning it closer to a branch of science… than it just being summed up as magic.

There was something about colors and emotions… honestly I just nodded and kept my mouth shut as most of it went over my head. It was like listening to someone talk about quantum physic or some other complex subject that you knew nothing about.

At least my wings don’t require an instruction manual in order to use them.

Everyone got together as we just… relaxed. Jade and Breeze rested having a mud facial. Remedy went over some notes in her notebook as Steel glanced over what the spa still had to offer.

“I told you. Don’t. Use. Magic!” Midnight said as she raised her voice.

“It’s… ow!” Lockheart replied in pain.

I glanced up and stared at them… as I felt my face start to turn red.

Midnight frowned “Seriously! Didn’t you have them get looked at?”

Midnight stuck her face into Lockheart’s wing and pulled out some more feathers. Lockheart tried not to shout, but it was getting everyone else’s attention. Midnight spat out a few feathers as they drifted onto the floor before turning black.

“Are they supposed to do that?” Maxwell asked in confusion “and… is it just me or…”

Midnight started giving a more… intense preening on his right wing as I felt my own wings start to push out from underneath me as my face felt like it was starting to burn.

Lockheart groaned “If it’s just getting rid of dirt or broken feathers than a simple alteration…”

He never finished as his entire face locked up in pain. Steel and Breeze who now were curious about what was going on flinched in pain as Midnight just pulled out a ton of feathers before she spat them out onto the floor. My own wings that had been slowly expanding had now just recoiled in horror as the small mouth full of feathers now drifted down to the floor.

“How do you even know…" Lockheart tried to argue back as she pulled out another patch of feathers that made me wince just by watching "You’re a bat pony! You don’t have feathers!”

Sadly Midnight didn’t stop ripping out another set of feathers “My sister has a Pegasus son and has to help preen him. I also help when I fillysit him… I told her to just date a nice bat pony, but no she had to date some Wonder Flunky that wears one of those stupid blue suits.”

Midnight continued plucking more and more feathers as the pile on the ground slowly grew larger. No one spoke in both fear… and morbid fascination as we all couldn’t help but wonder how many feathers were going to be plucked out. It was like watching a horror movie in a sense.

******

Lockheart

“Are you done yet?” I asked trying not to sound annoyed.

I twitched in pain as she pulled out another couple of feathers with her mouth. I thought preening was supposed to be some sort of private thing… or was she treating me like a child? I’m not exactly sure which one is worse as she buried her face into my wing.

I glanced at the others as… none of them were giving me any eye contact. Was this something normal or…

“Seriously you have wings a pegasi would love and a griffin would kill for and you…” She huffed in annoyance “No wonder you keep crashing. All the feathers are in, but not trimmed for flying… it’s like you’re wearing a pair of fake wings!”

You ever had someone just straight out and pull a hair off your leg? That tiny sharp jolt of pain amplified by the fact you didn’t expect it? That’s what it felt like when she started yanking out feathers… expect the amount she was pulling felt more like she just stuck a piece of duct tape on my leg and ripped it off laughing!

“Are you done?” I asked trying not to shout as she ripped out another dozens.

Seriously! If I had any doubts about Discord chaos magic fucking around with my body than this test proved there was something wrong with me! I’m not even sure a real changeling could put up with this amount of physical inspection!

If a changeling really could then then people didn’t give Chrysalis nearly enough credit considering how touchy ponies tended to be… especially when they see something as a problem they can easily fix! I’d just be as grumpy as her if it wasn’t for the fa… she just ripped out another chunk of my wing!

I gritted my teeth as Remedy's lessons came to mind as my magic worked on fixing the damage cause by Midnight... or making my wing numb so I wouldn't feel the pain.

Midnight simply muttered oblivious to my pain “You’re just like her. ‘Oh look how soft they are. Look how nice they look.’ Too much sheen and not enough flight!”

I flinched as my wing felt like it had been cleaned by ample use of duct tape before she moved onto the other side.

I tried to defend myself “I focused more on hiding them than using them.”

Why the hell I was defending myself I had no idea!

I glanced at the others for help. Remedy now had her face entrenched behind her book. Maxwell had started to shiver as he didn’t try to make eye contact. Every pegasi in the room had their wings clenched to their sides as not even the ponies working in the spa wanted to make eye contact.

Midnight just chuckled “That excuse might have worked for the first week in Equestria, but that’s no excuse now!” She ripped out another set making me bite my lip “Besides I’m just clearing up the knots.”

Dear lord or mighty she was just getting started! Please don’t let it get any worse. Please don’t let it get any…

“Does this spa even have a wing specialist?” Midnight slowly asked herself.

Everypony in the room shouted “YES!” as I had to cover my ears.

Midnight turned around as she blushed “Oh… sorry I guess I got…”

“Yes we do!” one of the spa ponies quickly replied as her wings clenched her sides “We can have one ready for you now if you want!”

Midnight sighed “That would work just…” She glanced back at me “Open up the wings so I can just make sure most of the knots are out.”

I sighed as I spread my wings out… It felt really embarrassing as Midnight glanced over them like a mother trying to make sure there wasn’t any mud on the child’s face.

I could still feel the stinging pain in my wings as I replied “I don’t need to have them checked by a doctor again?”

Midnight sighed in relief as she smiled “No… just a clean-up… possibly some extra maintenance," she frowned a little and muttered underneath her breath "The overpaid half wits didn't even notice the knots in his wings!.”

I nodded as I followed the spa pony for the next part of my stay here. Hopefully it wouldn’t hurt too much.

******

Valkyrie

Everyone tried to figure out what to say or how to react to what just happened. Remedy cleaned up the mess caused by the feathers as none of the ponies bothered us… though I’m not sure if they were being paid extra or if they were happy that an alicorn was in their spa.

Either way everyone else moved onto the next part as the spa ponies worked on our hooves or the horns on some of the unicorns. I sighed as… there wasn’t any easy was to describe a hoof version of a manicure. In a sense it was like a regular manicure… but you know when you get a hangnail that stings and that sense of relief you get when you clip it off?

That’s what it sort of felt like.

Jade was the first to speak up “Did Lockheart come from Boston and if so… do all Boston ponies have such impressive wing spans?”

A few of the other ponies smirked at the memory of it.

I felt my face brighten up as I quickly replied “He’s not from Boston.”

Breeze slowly spoke up “How do you know him and what was with that nickname he gave you?”

“I sort of ran into him when I first came to Equestria.” I replied remembering how foolish it seemed that I was running from a manticore.

Don’t get me wrong their deadly… it’s just… I’ve ended fighting and running away from much bigger and dangerous foes than the manticore in just the first week.

Stardust chipped in “All of us were lost and nopony had any idea where we were. After wondering around in the woods all day we just stuck together and slept in a tree.”

A few of the mares giggled as I quickly replied “It wasn’t anything… there were dangerous creatures in the forest.”

Maxwell chuckled “And here I though you would have flown out of the forest and figured out which direction to go.”

I couldn’t help but smile “The next day we ended up running from a rather large red dragon just because we were in front of his rampage.”

I wasn't going to say that I forgot that I could fly. I was a normal girl panicking at the fact I had just been transformed into a pony! I'm not even sure if anyone from that day wasn't in a state of panic or tried to think about things "logically" considering we were all human just a few hours ago.

One of the spa ponies dropped something as another one replied “You fought the dragon that lives in Bansewood forest?”

Stardust shook her head and replied “No. We simply ran and ended up escaping her rampage by jumping off a cliff and into a river when she nearly incinerated us. Maybe somepony nearby tried stealing some of her treasure?”

Everyone in the room was now staring at Stardust in shock as she told our little adventure like someone commenting on the weather outside. Personally I forgot about our run in with the dragon after Lockheart’s precision weapon’s grade cursing. Now a part of me wonders what happened to the area where we landed in Equestria.

If Lockheart’s cursing rant could summon a dragon then what accident did the rest of the players cause… or was that area safe to curse in?

Jade raised her voice “Wait… let me get this straight. You just appeared one day in Equestria with no idea how you got here… then ran into an Alicorn to spend the night in a tree together… only to flee from a dragon rampaging across the area the very next day?”

I glanced at my new manicured hoof as it felt rather nice “Oh we also pooled our money together. Bought a ticket for a train ride only for it to be attacked by some monster I’ve never seen before as the ensuing battle destroyed a couple of train carts before the Royal Guard called in a couple thunder strikes to destroy the monster.”

Steel held a hoof up into the air “To be fair the monster was created from dark magic and it was closer to a golem than an actual living creature.”

Maxwell was now staring at me in shock “You can’t be serious… You were attacked by a dragon and some evil dark magic monster! What happened next? Nightmare Moon came down from the skies to challenge you to a duel?”

Remedy chuckled “No she had her friend impersonate an alicorn to shorten a line just so she could explain their problem to Celestia to see if she could help.”

Stardust giggled at the disaster we had unleashed “Think Pretty Pink Princess with a crystal heart for a cutie mark.”

No one else understood the joke, but Maxwell as his jaw was left hanging open. I’ll admit that it was actual pretty funny remembering the looks on their faces. Of course the chemical grenades Stardust had whipped up had been a little bit of overkill considering what happened.

Steel groaned “And after chasing a large pink pony only to lose sight of it… another monster attacked Canterlot and filled the garden maze full of chaotic magic. It left trying to steal a statue thinking Celestia had hidden something in it.”

Maxwell glanced at me as he mouthed the word “Discord”

I didn't respond as... that was one of those secrets that Celestia wanted to stay secret and I kind of agreed with her. I mean... who knew what would have happened if everyone else found out that Discord was still around? Come to think of it those three days had been some of the most chaotic and confusing days of my life. Now… I’m lying back in a chair relaxing in a spa as attendants tried to remove all the stress from my body. It’s kind of funny how life can be sometimes.

“As for the nickname… we didn’t really know each other and we just sort of… shouted the first thing that came to mind.” I meekly replied “We cleared up the confusion latter on.”

“Wait… just time out for one second.” Jade replied as she got up “The first thing he could think of when seeing you is… Overkill?”

At that comment Steel tried not to laugh as Maxwell tried to whistle while Remedy didn’t seem surprised at all. I stared at Stardust to see if she would help defend me… only to see her shrug.

I stared at them all and asked out loud “Really? None of you thought that nickname was odd or that it didn’t fit me?”

Stardust sounded like she was trying to apologize as she said “You were the only one with weapons and armor that we ran into.”

Maxwell coughed “To be fair I first meet you saving me from some sort of overgrown winged snake the size of a hydra.”

Steel nodded “You were very skilled at fighting.”

“You destroy a lot of training equipment that was been made to withstand groups of ponies attacking it only to destroy half of them on your first try.” Remedy bluntly replied “I hear their making the next brand of training dummies their trying to make them Valkyrie resistant before they have you start testing materials built to withstand dragon attacks.”

I planted my face in my newly manicured hoof as I muttered “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Somewhere out there I could swear I heard Lockheart laughing at me. The worst part of it all… I knew arguing with them wouldn’t do anything.

“So what about our illusive alicorn?” I asked out loud trying to change the subject “Has he done anything to convince anyone he really isn’t an alicorn?”

Just about everyone stared at me as if I had gone mad. They stared at me as if I had just tried saying that Celestia was actually a guy, flying monkeys actually ruled the government, and that when I was offed the red pill or the blue pill I popped them both in my mouth while smiling like an idiot.

Remedy was the first one to come to my defense “He really does hate it when ponies call him an alicorn. In fact he’s the only pony that I know that claims he isn’t an alicorn.”

Jade nearly shouted “But just look at him!”

Remedy simply shrugged “Mostly it’s cultural or a perspective difference which is both rather interesting and a little bit sad at the same time. He doesn’t view himself as an Alicorn simply because he doesn’t associate himself with what they stand for and the unexpected expectations.”

I glanced at her in confusion “Care to explain what that means to the rest of us lowly mortals?”

Remedy actually smirked at my comment “What do you think of when you imagine Princess Celestia? For us it’s a kind, caring, and strong individual who looks after her subjects. Lockheart on the other hoof is a skeptic, paranoid, pony who has been barely taught any skills and is now having to have a flight instructor teach him how to fly.”

Midnight coughed “That’s a bit… harsh isn’t it?”

Remedy shook her head “No harsh would be what he’s been through. Having others immediately think he’s an imposter or get angry when he lacks the power to do what they want. They simply expected him to naturally be able to solve all their problems without giving him any time or training or political power to do so.”

I felt like saying something against it… only to remember Lockheart’s rather cynical view point when she first meet him… and how even Stardust told him to hide his wings until they figured out what to do next.

Remedy’s rant didn’t end there “He didn’t even have a cutie mark until he came to Equestria!”

All of the Equestrian’s in the room gasped besides Steel as most of them couldn’t believe what they were hearing. I just tugged on the towel wrapped around my body as I tried to make sure it covered up the bare spot on my side.

Remedy sighed as she seemed to have calmed down “Right now he’s trying to help make the ponies in charge understand some of the various cultures and the flow of ideas that are coming from the sudden influx of foreign races and ponies. We are trying to help teach him magic and help him learn how to fly… honestly there should have been somepony to have helped him out before he came to Equestria.”

A few of the other spa ponies seemed a little bit… disheartened after hearing that including Jade and Breeze. To me I didn’t really see what the big deal was as he could handle himself.

Then it struck me as I remembered the key detail that separated us. To me and the other players Lockheart was just another human who had been transformed into an Equestrian before being dumped here. To the Equestrians that lived peaceful lives as Celestia watched over them?

They knew what an Alicorn could be. They have probably had other alicorns serve as role models or do fantastic things. Now they get someone isn’t as bright and cheerful as all the others and had a hard time doing any of the basic skills an Alicorn was supposed to be able to do.

To them it would be like having a famous military general or poet or inventor being forced to clean the toilets or something.

“So what’s with that jacket he was wearing?” Jade asked trying to change the subject

Midnight shrugged "He wears a different one each day because the nobility keeps trying to take them away. He just wears them in an attempt to hide his wings."

Jade rubbed her chin "But the design? The markings? Where did they come from?"

I huffed at an out of place strand of hair “That’s just from the Fullmetal Alchemist series. It’s about some alchemist who uses magic…”

The words died at the end of my mouth as Remedy stood over me. Her eyes were drilling into my skull as her serious expression made me shiver back deeper into the seat. The dragon that attacked my on my second day in Equestria looked like a joke compared to Remedy’s harsh gaze.

She spoke in a tone that frightened me even more than Duran's creepy changeling voice when he revealed himself as Remedy spoke to me “You mean to tell me… that the jacket he wears… if from a book that talks about the uses alchemy as a field of magic?”

It felt like I should say something, but honestly… I was too frightened to speak. Remedy Cross looked as if she was ready to cut me open and catalog me organs or something. What’s more I could see the fire in her eyes as she expected some sort of explanation for Lockheart’s strange ability in magic… other than the explanation being left simply as “it’s magic”.

“Remedy Cross. Please back away from Valkyrie as you’re scaring her right now.” Steel simply replied.

Remedy slowly backed again as I took a deep breath trying to recover only for her to say “So what type of spell book or grimoire was it?”

I gulped as I sadly replied “It’s not a spell book but a… fantasy novel…well a manga to be precise.”

Remedy blinked as she stared at me as if trying to come up with some sort of explanation for what I had just said only for Maxwell to add “Honestly I thought he learned those alteration tricks from that manga.”

******

Celestia

Celestia glanced outside as all the birds flocked to the air. Dog howled at the noise their owners couldn’t hear as cats hissed clawing at nearby ponies who tried to take them out of their hiding spots. Even Celestia’s own phoenix Philomena had been affected as she finally burst into flame and turned back into her youthful young form.

She made a mental note to cancel that appointment with the veterinary as Philomena never liked to go through her transformation without playing around with somepony and making it difficult for them. Right now Philomena was flapping her wings on Celestia’s table trying to show just how healthy she was as if to avoid being taken to a vet.

Just what on the world could they have heard to frighten them so deeply?

******

Valkyrie

“And that is how magic actually works!” Remedy Cross replied putting the fear of ponykind into Maxwell’s heart.

No scratch that. The fear of Doctor Cross as I haven’t run into any pony that could be as frightening as she was!

I properly should have warned Maxwell about her and more importantly to not say “It’s just magic”… though he seemed to have found an even bigger button to press.

Remedy sighed "Why is it that when ever somepony reads a cheap poorly written novel they automatically assume that they instantly know everything on the subject? It's just like the Bat Ponies and Necromacny all over again."

"Uh... the bat ponies?" I couldn't help but ask in confusion.

Midnight groaned "Count Biteula and... the Daylight novels. The reason we aren't out in the morning is because we work night shift not some magical curse that makes us sparkle in the sunlight!"

Midnight sighed "Sorry... Sorry... I've just had one too many ponies ask that question these past few days."

I nodded "I can understand... so what the story behind the Moon Cannon that Lockheart was talking about?"

******

I spread out my wings and drifted out in the skies as I honestly had a lot of fun today as we lost track of time. Right now the sun was starting to set as everyone had said their good byes.

Remedy was doing some research about the changelings as Maxwell got a contract with Jade to help make a design that was acceptable for a Tavern… apparently an eagle’s head could be perceived an insult to some Griffons, the Cocoa Cola can was too confusing to Equestrians and the contents of Earth just didn’t bring enough attention.

That might have worked for bring in humans… but it’s a tavern that also required Equestrians to help pay for it’s bills and right now there were a lot more Equestrians in Canterlot than former humans.

Jade and Breeze had gotten a few ideas for some new clothing lines as Steel wished his sister good luck. He also seemed to have been the one who enjoyed the trip to the spa the most out of all of us.

Lockheart left with his wings bandaged up to help his wings heal after having them plucked so much… and he also had some sort of wing maintenance kit as Midnight started going over the proper procedure again as she also told him not to use alteration magic to fix his wings until she told him it was alright… which was probably never.

I spotted the small building near the outskirts of Canterlot and came in for a landing. The door opened up as my new roommate smiled.

“Everything go alright Valkyrie?” Lily asked in her unicorn disguise.

I landed on the pavement in front of the house “Ended up being dragged to a spa. Talked to everyone else and saw how they were doing… you?”

Lily levitated up a flier “Apparently someone in Canterlot is offering money to run a few tests on… Changelings. It isn’t anything big as they just want to see what they can eat and what their talents are.”

I rolled my eyes as I have read plenty of stories that start off like that only to end badly.

Lily brought the piece of paper over to me “It’s a steady paycheck and it’s being run by the pony who helped rescue me. Besides it’ll be nice to help pay for some of the rent and give me something else to do besides hide inside all day and follow people.”

I blinked “Follow people?”

Lily rolled her eyes “I don’t know Canterlot all that well and… I do have dietary needs. Still they do have a nice park.”

I chuckled nervously as I… forgot about that detail. Without Duran’s crazy castle scheme there wasn’t an easy way for her to….

Lily held up a hoof “No I’m not. I just sat there and watched a few of them. It’s a nice place where you can practically feel the love in the air. I like to visit it on occasion.”

I sighed in relief “Well that takes care of one problem.”

I took one last look at the sunset as… everything went alright today. Sure it was a little bit chaotic, but I enjoyed it. Hopefully the next few days wouldn’t have any problems either.

******

Celestia

Celestia glanced reports in confusion… He lacked the understanding or connection of his earth pony magic. His pegasi magic was… off for a better lack of words.

The fact he fell through a cloud after a cloud walking spell was cast on him was… not only troubling, but also frightening in some ways. The fact Lockheart didn’t even seem surprised that it didn’t work… felt off.

Celestia couldn’t help but shiver a little. It was like running into a unicorn who couldn’t use magic or a pegasi who had never realized they could fly. Most Alicorns did have some difficultly trying to learn the abilities and quirks of the other new abilities... but to have problems with everything?

Lockheart’s sense of… off-ness for a lack of a better word was unsettling. Almost unsettling to the point where trying to cast a reformation spell to help him sounded like a good idea. Sadly Celestia had the feeling that it would take more than a subtle nudge to help him see how his magic worked or that she would simply have better luck using an aging spell to turn him into a foal and simply raise him as a possible blank slate...

Celestia shivered again as the thought was rather unsettling. Being around Lockheart brought up past ideas she had left buried for a reason and somehow a sense of… helplessness. Celestia hated feeling helpless as it brought up memories of her... past mistakes... mistakes that she could have easily fixed if only she had paid attention to them sooner.

The scar on Lockheart's chest was still vivid in her mind. She couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to him to cause such painful looking scar… or even when it happened. The fact he reacted so… strongly when she had seen it didn’t help either as he seemed... guilty, frightened... as if she was going to lash out at him.

Then there were the actions he had taken in an attempt to distance himself from others had been… confusing.

Apparently he had… certain soft points and annoyances. Lockheart wasn’t a bad pony… as he did try helping adjust funds to support the new residents or help ease the difficulties of a starting business. He was also looking into or at least checking up on Equestrian politics… in a sense as he tried to understand the positions of the bat ponies when Celestia had assigned them to him.

He was trying to figure out how the Night Guard and Bat Ponies worked before he tried to change anything. He was looking into their past records and setting aside funds from the... allowance he had been given to help pay to replace their old outdated equipment... but he usually kept to himself or stayed hidden in his room.

The biggest problem of course was that Lockheart… really didn’t get along with nobles.

Of course that could have been from past experiences. For one who tried to avoid individuals in positions of power… including foreign diplomats he had some sort of…

Celestia tried finding the word she was looking for. It was true Lockheart barely understood Equestrian politics. In fact the pony sent to help him was forced to help with most of the work… no the real problem was how he perceived certain ponies… ponies who thought they could manipulate him or pass some obscure law or request that wouldn’t have been given to her because she already dismissed it… or they thought about trying to pass it behind her back.

Instead simply trying to reject their request or getting Celestia to help Lockheart seemed to focus on the emotion they were feeling and… twist it about.

A promise made from greed would start with hooves shaking only to end in them losing it. Somepony trying to use Lockheart to allow them to host the next Gala would be accepted… only to have that pony be allowed to host the Gala long after they were dead and their family couldn't inherit the right after they died either.

To be fair Lockheart didn’t cause a lot of problems… it was just the few problems he had caused quickly spread amongst the public. Celestia wasn’t sure where all the problems were coming from as the few actions he did… shouldn’t have become this bad as it seemed like somepony was actively trying to ruin his reputation.

Already rumors about him tearing apart years of tradition or sending the ponies that had been captured to an abandoned island out in the middle of the sea continued to spread. There was even a rumor about him hiring changelings to replace individuals who caused him problems!

As the problems continued Lockheart simply kept saying… that he wasn’t an Alicorn.

Celestia sighed as Lockheart was a unique case. Most ponies tried living up to their new status or enjoyed the gifts of being an Alicorn. Lockheart wanted to stay hidden and viewed the perks as a curse… in some ways he was the exact opposite of a regular alicorn as he expected the worst in others instead of looking for the good they held.

The fact Lockheart preferred sleeping in an old jail cell instead of a regular room made Celestia wonder if she should hire a psychiatrist… which would be difficult considering how he naturally kept to himself.

Celestia shook her head “I don’t even know how old he is.”

If she asked him then he would probably give some vague statement or answer that wouldn’t really answer anything. The only aspect of himself he had been honest with was his magic… which made just as much sense as he did at the moment.
Celestia pulled out a rather old tome as dusted off the cover. To most ponies the book would hardly make any sense and most ponies didn’t really learn anything because most of it had become common sense.

“Star Swirl the Bearded’s Study of Harmony.” Celestia slowly read “The teachings and understanding of unity between each other… and ourselves.”

The book was made during not only the warring times… but also the fragile peace held between the tribes as they moved their nations to Equestria. It was a time where paranoia was high as scars from the past were still fresh. It was a time were ponies like Lockheart weren’t uncommon, but probably not to the degree paranoia or distrust to which he had descended to.

Each tribe knew that they were going to have to work together… that a peace had just been established that wasn’t made due to their forced and strained cooperation during the reign of the Wendigoes. This was during the period in which the tribes had to not only get used to each other again… but learn that the other race wasn’t out to get them… despite the deep scars of their past and past experiences that said otherwise..

Celestia would have to look through the books again in order to figure out how to deal with that level of paranoia… and sadly make sure that it wasn’t justified paranoia as she could already hear one of his cynical comments in the back of her mind.

“Is it really paranoia when someone is out to get you?” the voice whispered in the back of her head “I know just enough to be a problem… yet not enough to be of any use.”

The sad fact was that Lockheart really did have enemies. The only question was who they were… and what was the cause for their actions? It was something Celestia didn’t want to ask him not because he would find a way to avoid the answer… but because she was worried about what the answer would be.

There was a small part in the back of her mind that knew he had not only a cynical answer… but a cynical answer that held a cruel and bitter twisted truth that would sadly made sense.

Quick Note entered the room “We have the medical reports from the other doctors back.”

Celestia quickly pulled the papers out of her grasp and began to look them over as she finally found something useful. She focused on every word and detail as these would make a large impact on not only Lockheart’s possible claim of being an Alicorn… and his status in staying in Canterlot.

The papers in her hooves would simply decide Lockheart’s fate in Equestria once and for…

Celestia’s face scrunched up “Inconclusive?”

Quick Note nodded “He has the possible magic of an Earth pony… a Pegasus… and a unicorn… yet the magic was… off. They confirmed a sense of harmony… A type of magical resonance which you share… from the reports one might claim that he was your biological son.”

Celestia glanced back at one of the reports that had even suggested it due to the… unique magical signature. Which was impossible as Celestia would have known if she was pregnant. In fact she was starting to wonder where did Blind Trial get his medical degree?

Quick Note quickly tried to defend herself as she thought Celestia was upset at her “Mostly their not able to make an… exact judgment due to the chaotic nature of the chaos magic that still rests in his body. Until it clears up… no pony is able to make a definitive answer or at least until we have another alicorn besides Princess Celestia to draw comparisons from.”

Celestia felt like tossing the papers into the fire… as they proved nothing. The nobles wouldn’t have any “proof” and they would keep complaining about Lockheart's "alleged status" whenever they didn’t get their way. The very fact that Celestia had to drag more ponies into this tangled mess for some unknown reason annoyed her… possibly because the last batch solved nothing.

The basic abilities of being an Alicorn… Lockheart couldn’t comprehend… and yet he somehow managed to confirm his possible Alicorn status by simply being so… bad that he tested positive in some cases as Celestia still couldn’t figure out how the cloud walking spell attempts had failed.

In fact one of the few ways to fail was being an actual pegasus since it tried to mimic their natural cloud walking ability! It would be like casting a water breathing spell on a fish or trying to make water wet!

In some ways Lockheart was the exact opposite of what an Alicorn should be both mentally and physically as not even the highly trained medical professionals could make sense of it! At some point Celestia felt tempted to find some way to free Discord if only to strangle the annoying twit for making this a lot more difficult than it should have been! If it wasn’t for that stupid infection of chaos magic then so many questions could have been solved so easily!

The fact that Lockheart’s infection should have disappeared weeks ago only enraged her further as there hadn’t been a single pony in Equestria's entire history that had kept Discord’s chaotic brand of magic for so long!

“How is the statue by the way?” Celestia replied as she felt her frustration growing

Quick Note pulled out her notebook “It’s in the Canterlot dungeon right behind the Heartwarming Hooves decorations.”

It was hidden away in a dark room left behind in a room that barely changed. Personally Celestia would have preferred placing Discord in an empty room with black white walls to stare at all day… but this would have to be a close second if only to ensure that her latest foe didn’t try stealing Discord again. After all how many would think she left him in the basement of all places?

Celestia managed to calm down a little as she focused on her latest issue “Cloudsdale has managed to support a larger group of these new foreign ponies and a few griffons. They could use some help in seeing not only which projects are even viable… but also test how far Lockheart’s skills have come.”

Quick Note stared at Celestia in confusion “Princess… are you sure that’s a good idea? He’s still learning to fly and… we have all heard about the cloud issue.”

Celestia nodded as she prepared for the plan “The conference will show how he deals with a larger group which will help test his political ability… when not faced with ponies trying to con him or have him explain a new concept. Cloudsdale is home of pegasi experts so they should at least be able to help define Lockheart’s natural pegasus abilities.”

Celestia searched through library for any other books or possibly ponies that could help her “More importantly it will give the Canterlot Nobles some time away from him. Hopefully I can gather together a few earth pony specialists to help test his abilities in the fields of earth pony magic or help teach him to understand it.”

Quick Note glanced up from her notebook “There are specialists in Earth Pony magic?”

Celestia tried not to roll her eyes “Earth pony magic tends to be much more… subtle than Pegasus or unicorn magic. Simple tests usually work yet… it’s harder to define as not all earth ponies are natural farmers despite their connection to the earth… which would be just as hard to explain as the sense of connection a Pegasus has with the clouds or weather and yet not every pegasi can be a weather pony.”

Celestia knew the reason why she held off on earth pony magic was that… she never had a full grasp on the subject herself. She could help teach some earth pony magic… but it would be like having a novice trying to teach them and to be fair it's a little bit hard to focus on those abilities when she was stuck trying to rule a nation.

None of her ponies liked the idea of Celestia going in the garden and tending to the plants as dirt twigs might get into her white coat and even now she was having to be escorted to placed by sky chariot just to ensure that she didn't work up a sweat when she arrived...

Still the vital aspect of Earth Pony magic in a unicorn was to help bridge together the rest of the magic. The flow of strength allowed them to use their wings easier or to help adjust the magic used in spell casting. Earth Pony magic specialized in subtle actions which in some ways was one of the hardest parts to teach about the magic. Why breathing was a simple action and yet when you got down just how it all worked it was a very complicated and sometimes difficult concept to explain.

Then there was the other problem of trying to find a pony who understood how to not only teach it… but also spot the differences. A pegasi or unicorn could beat an earth pony in wrestling… but that would because they were using physical strength which… most ponies looked to as the main signatures of earth pony magic. Having plants grow better and faster was a much longer and more difficult task to track… and making plants grow instantly wasn’t a skill most earth ponies could easily do.

Just like how unicorn spells had different levels of difficulty... making a plant grow instantly through earth pony magic was considered a more… advanced skill. It wasn’t even safe to say that just about any earth pony could do it if they were called on to do it right away.

In some ways the final test with earth pony magic… was the final judgement of Lockheart’s Alicorn status and one of the hardest test at that for both Lockheart... and Celestia. She knew it was going to be difficult to find suitable ponies for this task… ponies that would also have to deal with Canterlot’s high standard made by it’s nobles.

After all if Lockheart really was an Alicorn then “It wouldn’t be fit to have a commoner teach him.”

Usually Celestia would have had plenty of time as she would help teach unicorn magic. One of the royal guard or pegasi would teach flight. Then when the surprise of a sudden new alicorn died down she could simply hire a new gardener who could help teach the new fledgling alicorn as they would have gotten a sense of the unique magic that ran through their body.

Still she didn’t have many other options right now to help confirm his Alicorn status... unless another Alicorn decided to appear or setting up a new baby room for a new possibly alicorn filly that used to be Lockheart…

That sad thing was that Celestia could already picture just how easy it would be to do it. Lockheart wasn’t skilled in magic so he probably couldn’t resist. He wouldn’t be a political threat to any pony and it might even be nice taking care a small cute giggling filly that she could…

Celestia sighed as she muttered under her breath “Deep breaths. It isn’t that bad yet."

Celestia glanced back at one of the medical tests hoping to find something useful in the massive amount of colorful medical terminology that was worthless. Celestia stared at the one unique magic signature that she had that Lockheart also shared… what trait besides being an Alicorn could he have shared with…

Celestia face hoofed as she knew the answer. It probably had something to do with the Tree of Harmony since she saw it in his mind… if so… then what for Tartarus’s sake did it mean! Every answer she managed to pry out of him only seem to unleash twice as many questions.

Having a unique connection to the Tree of Harmony was practically like having somepony shout in the Royal Canterlot Voice telling everyone that this pony was important! It was a very powerful magical artifact or plant that had helped them stop Discord, unit Equestria as a whole nation, and helped guide Celestia and Luna right up until…

Celestia closed her eyes as she remembered the last time she saw her sister. It was also the very same day Celestia had lost her connection with the Tree of Harmony… Yet how did Lockheart have a connection to it? How did he even make a connection with it since he had been in Equestria…

At this point Celestia wouldn’t be surprised if his biological parents were a rubric cube and one of those abstract paintings because nothing made sense about him at this moment. In fact such an impossible union might actually explain a few things at this point.

Celestia sighed tired from the day’s events “How did the Spa trip go?”

Quick Note chuckled a little “The ponies there have never meet such a… unique group of ponies.”

Celestia rose an eyebrow as she tried to figure out what just happened. Remedy was a little bit… alright she was unusual, but Midnight Vixen was a model pony in the… often forgotten Night Guard. Stardust couldn’t have caused any problem.

Quick Note flipped the pages in her notebook as she began her report “Four new ponies arrived with them… Valkyire, Steel Halberd, Jade Pin, and one… Breeze who had accidently tackled Lockheart as she had accidently mistaken him for another pony.”

Celestia nodded as… Valkyrie was an odd pony who drew attention without even noticing. Still Steel was a model pony in the Royal Guard as his sister ran a store catering too many of Canterlot’s elite. Surely there hadn’t been too many problems.

Quick Note continued “Apparently there was an… incident that many ponies refused to talk about as they flinched when the subject was brought up. A lot of them were most interested in rumors and… Valkyire’s… unique build.”

Celestia tried not to face hoof in front of her loyal subject. The doctors were useless as honestly she hoped that one of the ponies in the spa might have been able to find her some answers.

Quick Note stared at the page for a moment “Was he really joking or do you actually own a Moon Cannon?”

Celestia’s head fell to the table as she couldn’t even figure out how that rumor even came to be.

The nervous pony glanced at the door “Other than that he had a bunch of knots in his wings and bought a Wing maintenance kit as one of the spa ponies taught him how to use it… apparently he was using alteration magic to clean his wings.”

Celestia tried not to sigh as she found one thing from her report. Apparently one of the reasons why Lockheart was having problems was because he didn’t take proper care of his wings. It wasn’t much of an answer, but it at least explained something about him.

"Also despite his ability in magic one of the ponies..." Quick Note took a deep breath "Felt various... scars or places that might have had... wounds as his body seemed covered in them. The pony had rarely encountered a situation like it before as the skin beneath his fur was... almost unnaturally rough. There was also a description of the possibility of a rather large scar running down his chest as that area was very rough."

Celestia just closed her eyes as it was apparent that Lockheart was getting better at hiding his wounds, but this description? She didn't like where her mind was going.

Hopefully she would finally get through with this stupid Alicorn debate and finally put her mind to ease.

Celestia focused on the next task ahead “Get the next reports ready as inform the Night Guard to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. Hopefully we can find where the other rumors are coming from. Also make sure to give Midnight Vixen some time to adjust to morning hours as she and Remedy Cross will also accompany Lockheart to Cloudsdale.”

One pony to help catch him if he falls and the other to help patch him up should an accident happen. Now all she had to do was find an earth pony specialist, send the royal guard to capture that pony selling cursed magical artifacts and of course find out what monster had tried to attack her kingdom.

It was going to be a rough week.

Author's Note

New chapter up and the old chapter one... lots of editing, cleaning, typing, and hopefully I got rid of most of the bugs or quirks that was stuck in it.

I also split it up into a Prolog which deals with Lockheart's "intro" and then Chapter One as a few people thought the Prolog section was a little bit crazy... so that's why it's now two chapters instead of one.

Well now it's time to ask anyone reading...

How old do you think Ponyville is? It's been listed as hundreds of years, as old as Granny smith, and one hundred and fifty years... but it's been left in a rather vague way.

Or any odd questions you might have since this was primarily a slice of life chapter.

As for the Moon Cannon... that was an old joke made by fandom roughly near the end of season one since Luna was the only "villain" the story had and she was shoot to the moon.

A day in the clouds

Lockheart

You ever have one of those days were life just decides to prove how much of a jerk it can be?

This was one of those days as I had just been given my marching orders by Celestia herself to attend to this suicide mission. Maybe it’s all some sort of overly complicated test as Princess Celestia had sent Twilight to save the crystal kingdom and stop Sombra from trying to conquer the land… as a test.

To be fair before that she sent a reclusive Twilight to a small town to make five friends in under two days just in order to use the Elements of Harmony on her sister… and Celestia also had Twilight and her friends go out to stop a dragon from sleeping near Ponyville which would result in their entire town being covered in ash as the smoke would block out the sun over the area. Heck that was almost as bad as giving Twilight the magical powers of three other alicorns telling her to keep it a secret and didn’t even give her manual or pamphlet on how to raise the sun either while Tirek was magic draining every pony in Eqeustria.

Celestia showed me to my flying funeral ride and smiled “It’s just a trip to Cloudsdale. They have gained a large amount of foreigners and they just need somepony to help smooth a few things out.”

Celestia put on one of those motherly smiles “Everypony is trying to get used to each other as communities are starting to grow and besides… you have two ponies who will help ensure nothing bad happens to you.”

I just slowly nodded as I stared at the hot air balloon. I’ve heard about the previous MLP jokes calling it a flying death trap. There are sky chariots that could bring me and Remedy up to Cloudsdale, but no… Celestia just had to make me ride in a small cramp hot air balloon that had limited control if things should go wrong.

Remedy and Midnight stepped into the flying death trap… as Midnight tried to stay awake since it was early in the morning. I took a deep breath and sighed as they didn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest, but I knew why they had been chosen to accompany me.

Just one unicorn to cast a cloud walking spell to help me out and of course one loyal bat pony to catch me should the spell or my own cloud walking ability suddenly chose to fail. I was also pretty sure that both of them were there to help keep watch over me and of course keep me up to speed on the whole weather issue.

“Where’s Legal Right?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Celestia shook her head “He’s already in Cloudsdale getting the paperwork for the rooms. The entire situation is excepted to last for an entire week as most of the problems are questions about how it will affect Equestria or how they work… but a few tried to make… proof of concept projects funded by a few… excitable nobles.”

Meaning they didn’t need me to explain… they just needed an Alicorn to play peacekeeper or make the final call if they couldn’t come to an agreement. This was going to be just lovely.

I stepped into the hot air balloon and stared at the floor trying to calm myself down.

In mean in theory everything should be alright. Just walk in… make a few final verdicts and then go back to my room. I should be high enough in the sky to catch myself before I came screaming down towards the ground…

Then again the fact that Celestia’s little future sigh didn’t warn her about Sunset Shimmer’s future realty jump incident, Chrysalis being inside Canterlot before deploying the shield bubble, and of course the current chaos that threatens Equestria showed that she wasn’t all knowing.

Of course I’m properly overreacting here as I gained a very sudden fear of heights as I entered the hot air balloon and tried not to think of how many ways this could go oh so horribly wrong.

******

Cloudsdale was interesting. Unlike Canterlot it looked just like you thought it would look like in real life. In much the same Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory did in a person’s mind. The very fact that it was so far from reality and twisted up in it’s own crazed laws of reality… just made you not think about it.

In fact it was easier to just think of it as a really big set to a movie or something… than to admit that it was actually real. Otherwise someone would start questioning the rainbow rivers… and the custom made snowflakes… or the slight bits of industrial innovation being made to the city as metal floor panels were being installed to a cloud… with screws… Dear God it really was the pony version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory!

“Is something wrong?” The bat pony who stood out like a sour thumb in the land of fluffy cotton candy clouds said.
I slowly nodded my head “Just… it’s…. surreal. Too surreal.”

The very short history lesson helped explain some aspects of the floating weather factory. The fact you could BS over a bit of the explanations with “Magic” helped cover up some of the questions… But seeing it now was just playing with my mind even more than Discord’s chaotic maze.

The fact Discord's Maze of Chaos made more sense than this place bothered me!

“I know!” A pegasi shouted near to me “I never would think it would feel like I’m walking on marshmallows mixed with fluffy cotton!”

I stared at the pony in conversion as he held out his hoof and said “I’m Rachet. New name. New lot. New story.”

He had an orange coat and a ton of highlights in his hair as he had light blue, dark blue, and two different shades of green. The important thing was his cutie mark… or lack of a cutie mark labeling him as a former human.

I shook his hoof “Lockheart. So… what are you doing here?”

Rachet grinned “Making a Pinky Copter!” I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that “I mean if you can make a copter that can be powered by an earth pony… then add a few wings and a propeller and then Bam! Pony sized tiny aircrafts!”

Midnight and Remedy stared at him in confusion. I tried to wrap my head around the concept for a few moments trying to figure out how such an idea came to be… before figuring out just how he was going to test it much less make one.

Rachet flapped his wings so that he could stand on his two hind legs continued “Just think about it! Most of the distance is traveled by hoof or wing. Sure you got the iron horse being brought up to snuff, but that doesn’t leave a lot in the ways of personal transport.”

“You’re trying to make cars?” I couldn’t help but say in disbelief “Flying cars.”

Rachet nodded “I thought about calling myself Ford… but Rachet has a better ring to it and I couldn’t figure out a Ford pun. Besides what’s not to love about flying cars! It’s like the future but doable here thanks to magic!”

I shook my head “Just to get things clear… how big are you planning for the size of these aircrafts to be?”

Rachet stopped flapping his wings and shrugged “Uh… properly motorcycle size. Something to sit on and peddle… or magic power… It should make traveling easier, but… The weather boys are worried about what effects it would have on the skies… and the whole concept. It’s like trying to explain a submarine to them.”

And this was why I was sent here instead of Celestia. No one else really understood the concept much less the terms being used. If you boiled it down to the basics however… it made sense there would be conflict.

If someone could make personal airplanes the same way we had cars back home then there could be a bit of strife. Especially when you add the fact that pegasi fly and more importantly use clouds as weather tools, beds, houses, and entire cities.

Sure you could give the speech about cars and it’s impact on society… but it was slow adaption. Start with carts then throw horses. Build roads for horses. Upgrade to slow cars and use same roads. Then replace horses with cars. The system was already in place before the item was ever made, but flying cars or planes?

Sure you had flying moving companies and stuff, but the major difference was that pegasi could turn or even stop on a dime. Planes on the other hand… there is a reason why the run ways are so long and that’s without even getting into the more finer technical aspects that are bound to show up.

“And you’re one of the projects I’m supposed to check on.” I bitterly replied as he nodded happily.

I just stared at him wondering how the hell he still seemed to be on a sugar rush or if this was one of the side effects of being turned into a pony? He certainly had more of a… Pinkie Pie vibe than a normal person should have. That and he didn’t seem to understand the concept of personal space as he stood right next to me.

“Just one of many inventions of the Sky Bolt Industry line!” He shouted in joy right next to my ear “We figured we get everyone together and throw what we came up with at the board until one of them finally stuck!”

I shook my head in disappointment. A group of former humans all bound together in the attempt to making inventions… by spit balling ideas. Sure that method created a few good ideas… the only problem would be checking which ones they had working version of… and which plans hadn’t even left the planning stage yet.

I turned my head to the left to see the regular ponies marching across the cloud either ready to welcome me to Cloudsdale… or toss me off the side of the city. By the looks on their faces and the business suits they wore it could honestly be both. I tried to smile as they smiled only making me more nervous.

The ringleader spoke “My name is Fine Point and these are my associates. I take it you’re here to solve the disputes?”
I nodded as I could already tell it was going to be a long day.

******

Celestia

It was already proving to be a long day as Celestia glanced at the next possible earth pony teacher. The first trick was having to find an Earth Pony noble… then finding an earth pony noble that didn’t just focus on business… or politics… mostly finding an earth pony that had nobility and could teach earth pony magic as the last four nobles were trying to pass business deals instead showing Celestia they could teach earth pony magic.

“Be the rock! Feel the Rock! Touch the rock! Taste the rock!” The latest earth pony spoke… as she was now licking the rock

Celestia tried not to groan as she whispered to Quick Note “What is she doing?”

Quick Note scrunched her face up as she tried to figure it out “Golden Age is… don’t you know?”

The pony called Golden Age was now standing on her head “Feel the world revolve around you…”

Celestia honestly had no idea what the mare was doing… or why she was rubbing up against a tree. In fact a part of Celestia started to wonder if perhaps that drug test needed to be double checked.

“I never thought I would meet a pony that would bring more questions to my mind than Lockheart.” Celestia whispered to herself.

*****

Lockheart

I nodded as the political big wigs continued their tour of Cloudsdale as they showed me how they made Equestria’s snowflakes… and then tell me the importance of tradition has let their fine city thrive in these uncertain times just like they said during every other part of the tour.

It was both very confusing and also starting to get annoying. Apparently they had ponies crafting each snowflake by hoof… something about the sensitivity and natural pegasi magic combined with bla, bla, bla!

I didn’t pay much attention to it as I already was planning on drafting up plans for that pegasi snowflake industrial machine. The quant charm of hoof made snowflakes had no place in this messed up rainbow factory!

Snowflakes should take seconds to make instead of three seasons!

They are tiny things that no one really bothers to check on their “Design” or if two flakes really did look alike. The traditional side kept yapping about the job, and tradition, and cutie marks. The progressive side talked about freeing up “hooves” and making a few commemorative snowflakes.

Like coins or stamps. Just simply grab a snowflake for each year and make your own collection!

Finer Point droned on “And this is the rainbow river where we make each rainbow shine.”

If dunking my head underneath the molten liquid would end this torture I would do it in a heartbeat. Instead I had to hear about the finer points of liquid rainbows instead of the quick fix of regular rainbows… which was water and refraction of the light passing through it.

That’s a heck of a lot cheaper and easier to do than magic river paste that makes no god dam sense at all! I mean… what’s the point of it? Even in MLP you have rain making rainbows and even a Sonic Rainboom made by a pony going fast… so what was the purpose of the liquid rainbow!

Remedy caught my expression and asked one of the tour guides “You sell them by the bottle?”

Finer Point nodded “Of course as there are quite a few ponies who enjoy it.”

I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Did he mean they bought it like how somebody would buy a lava lamp… or did he mean food? Was the rainbow liquid some sort of food… could it go bad… how could a liquid rainbow go bad?

Remedy left the group and bought a few bottles… to either study, help me understand what they are… or possibly taunt me with it as I could see the grin on her face. Remedy Cross finally found some sort of revenge to employ against me.

Remedy smiled as she cheerfully mocked me “It’s just some Rainbow.”

She cheerfully waved that impossibility of reality itself right before my very eyes… this is how she must have felt whenever I explained how my magic worked and unlike me… she can actually explain how it works!

So I did the only thing I could think of and asked the bat pony “How exactly is this all… possible?”

Midnight shrugged “Which part? The floating city in how they move it across Equestria, how they regulate all of Equestria’s weather, how they expand the city by adding new districts or buildings, or are you asking how they are able to hang pictures off a cloud wall?”

My eye started to twitch as I saw a Pegasus hammering a picture frame into the cloud wall. He was even on a step ladder... Alright it’s official. Both of them are out to get me!

I took a deep breath and tried to figure out as much MLP lore I knew… and tried to ignore any of the unusual oddities I saw.

How did exactly did Cloudsdale move about in the sky? Did they have pegasi push it place to place or did they manage to install some sort of propeller to this place? If it was propeller then how did they move around before… did they just pull up some boat sails?

My head started to ache from my pesky logic trying to make sense of a magical kingdom run by magic. That was the answer… magic. Don’t ask any more questions as magic is the answer! Just say magic and leave it at that!

I might as well be asking how big the sun or moon was? Was it the same size as earth’s sun and moon or did they have the discworld variant where the sun was actually smaller than the planet as the discworld sun was… I think as big as a rather large mountain range?

Remedy snapped my out of my insanity spiral as she asked “What exactly is that over there?”

Finer Point grumbled as he replied “That’s Swift Wind’s latest project. Apparently he hired a few of the new foreigners to build that infernal contraption.”

I glanced into the distance and stared at the item in question with both open awe and horror. It looked like a large blimp… possibly an airship? It was hard to tell as metal and cloud wrapped around each other as countless ponies moved back and forth from the ship as I couldn’t tell if the clouds were being used as a docking port or if they were actually a part of the ship itself.

Still it wasn’t a complete ship… more like the rough skeleton of a ship as a few pegasi lifted up a room and connected it to the inside of the ship like one of those trailer trucks that carried sections of a house.

A sea green pegasi with orange hair moved towards us grinning… as he wore a one of those red shirt with the white frills surrounding it looking like some old Victorian noble… which might be time period accurate come to think of it.

The pony smiled “Ah the Elusive Alicorn has come to take a sneak peek at my joy and pride?”

I flinched as I bitterly responded “Not an Alicorn.”

The Swift Wind nodded “I understand. Until the lineage if fully confirmed you’re unable to take the title.” I didn’t bother replying as no one really listened “Still all the paper work should be alright and we did make sure to move the testing of the engines to the ground after Wing’s Flight had their testing accident.”

I held up a hoof “Wait… engines?”

Swift Wind nodded “We’re mostly testing to see which method is more viable… A few of the blank flank earth ponies used to work by having artifacts powered by lightening.” His wings drooped as he sighed “Sadly gather the proper materials to remake the strings and finding a proper source of power that can contain the power of lightening… is proving a bit more difficult than previously imagined.”

It took a few seconds for me to comprehend what he had just said… apparently we had a few former electricians in Equestria. Their only problem is trying to figure out a way to harness electricity… without blowing any fuses.

Lightening makes for an easy source of power. Keeping the charge or building enough excess batteries to hold the power isn’t as easy… especially when Equestria has yet to invent batteries and how exactly magical ponies went about creating these lightening bolts. For all I knew they could have Taser level strength instead of earth version lightening bolts.

I took another look at the hybrid project “I’ll need to look over a few of the details to double check the viability of the engines considering your last accident… and if any other projects or requests are running into similar situation.”

Swift Wing blinked “Alright… but I’m the only pony building The Sky’s Grace.” He added in the same tone one talked about a prized trophy or vintage car.

I nodded “It’s not the ship itself… but the parts as I take it electricity was taken out of the equation due to power overloads and the inability to keep a battery or stored means of internal electric power.”

Midnight glanced at me “You know what they’re doing?”

I shrugged “I know enough to be a problem, but not enough to be of any use… I just figured that if someone else already figured out how to fix some of the internal problems…”

Swift Wing nodded “Then maybe a kind benefactor could assist them.”

“But I still have to look at the drawing board for the internal engine system.” I quickly replied “Last thing we need is for the crew to have to eject the core over some town underneath or have the entire ship go up in flames before crashing down in a highly populated area.”

Everyone was now staring at me as I sighed.

It was time to give a history lesson “Hindenburg was a passenger airship that kept itself afloat by using a highly flammable fuel source. It worked well… until an accident happened leaving… have any of you ever seen a hot air balloon fall?”

Everyone nodded as I really felt like there should have been some MLP joke there...

I took a deep breath “It’s essentially the same… except everything is on fire as a burst of flame is shooting out of the hole in the balloon. Like I said… I need to take a look at the engine design and how the implementation of clouds are being done… just to make some reassurance that some piece of metal isn’t going to get to hot and suddenly evaporate or dissipate a cloud leaving an entire section to plummet to the ground.”

I glanced at Midnight “I’ll also need for it to be looked over by some pegasi or bat ponies… who actually know stuff about clouds.”

Swift Wind stared at me “Isn’t that a little bit… extreme?”

I rolled my eyes “If it works than you have officially built a very impressive and powerful device that will get you a lot of attention. If it fails… ask those foreign workers if they know what the word Chernobyl or Three Mile Island means?”

Remedy moved to get a better view of the ship “What happened?”

I nervously replied “Just how bad an accident can be when you don’t have proper control over a very powerful source of power…” Yet I couldn’t help but grin “Other than that I can’t wait to see how it turns out.”

Midnight chuckled as I stared at her in confusion “Sorry it’s just… It’s rare to see you… enthusiastic about something.”

I rolled my eyes at the comment “It’s a magical airship… it’s… a cultural thing.”

As we walked away Remedy asked me “Have you ever seen one before?”

I took a deep breath “Let’s put it this way… if a hot air balloon can take you up here and yet a sky chariot can also do it much easier and safer… so why make a hot air balloon?”

They stared at me as Midnight shrugged “I… really don’t know. Maybe to use when somepony doesn’t want to pull a sky chariot?”

Remedy shrugged “I always thought it was for the view. Sure a unicorn could cast a cloud walking spell… but first you would have to find a unicorn that could cast it and then find some way to get onto a cloud in order to see the view.”

I nodded as I took one last look “Well it’s sort of the same reason for an airship and personally… I hope they succeed. I just want to make sure it’s maiden voyage doesn’t end up as it’s last voyage.”

******

Celestia

Celestia gave one of her political smiles as Morning Song continued “And that’s how I would do it. A little bit of work at the orchid never hurt anypony.”

It was kind of a shame really. Morning Song had a successful tie to nobility and seemed like a pony Celestia herself would like to get to know… but her plan of making him do ranch work?

Besides the fact most of those activates could be accomplished by physical strength... having to take care of plants… tended to take time to see different results… results that could be affected by all the other earth ponies helping out on the ranch or also helping tend to the plants.

Celestia smiled “Please let Quick Note know where you are staying as we may need to get back to you in a little while.”

Morning Song nodded as the mare walked away feeling cheerful with herself. Celestia tried not to sigh as… Finding somepony to teach earth pony magic was growing increasingly difficult since those who taught it lived it… they were great at teaching other earth ponies… just not… teaching them how to do it.

Finding somepony to help teach earth pony magic was always the easiest... or hardest thing to do due to the simple nature of earth pony magic.

She also had a feeling that if she told Morning song she had to stay in Canterlot to teach Lockheart… that it might end up being a deal breaker with her. Lockheart still needed training in unicorn and pegasi magic and sadly if Celestia ending up sending Lockheart to the ranch at this moment then it would most likely be perceived as confirmation that Lockheart wasn’t an Alicorn… or that Celestia was sending him away because she thought he was a disgrace in much the same way nobles had certain elements of their family deal with some new frontier problem that was very far away from Canterlot.

Celestia took a sip of tea wishing she could have been instead eating that nice slice of cake she had hidden in her room. Instead the pestering complaints of nobility trying to find a more definitive means of conformation was making this task even more difficulty.

In all honesty the ranch would have been her choice as he would have ponies to help teach him, a community to work together, and hopefully a chance to make some new friends… that didn’t conflict with job or duty. Maybe if she wasn't being rushed to use earth ponies to confirm or deny Lockheart's possible Alicorn status she would have been able to manage this entire mess better...

Celestia tried not to sigh as there wasn't much she could do at the moment expect keep up her mask of “all knowing perfection” as she waited for the next pony.

Quick Note prepared the brief summary “Bolderdash is one of the branching nobilities sent to deal with the problems of Thunder Peek.”

Senior Blue Blood snorted as if Quick Note told a funny joke… Celestia founder herself growing more irritated with the old unicorn as he was the pony responsible for dismissing half of the candidates Celestia actually liked!

Quick Note stared at him “Is there a problem?”

Senior Blue Blood shook his head “No. No problem at all… It must be such a grand honor for him to have the chance to join his betters.”

Celestia frowned as it sounded bad… but it was an insult possibly suggesting that the next pony’s line of nobility wasn’t as… strong as it should have been due to the fact two unicorns parents gave birth to an earth pony.

Before Celestia could say something… an odd sight struck her as everypony else went speechless.

Nobility tended to be odd. Sometimes really odd, but they served their purpose and Bolder Dash had successfully quelled the civil unrest, strengthened relations between the pony city and griffin kingdom, while increasing their revenue turning the poor dying city into a strong and health city… So one or two oddities were allowed.

The dark brown earth pony with light azure hair had a cutie mark of a bolder. He was dressed in a rather well made business suit and had a… young griffin by his side. Grant it he was roughly the same age as her… but… Celestia was a bit surprised seeing the two kiss as Senior Blue Blood looked like he was about to throw up.

The earth pony smiled “Name’s Boulder Dash! I take it you’re the one who needs help… I’ll admit that he’s a bit flabby, maybe a little soft in the heard, but I’ll do my best to turn chubby sitting next to you into a proper pony!”

Celestia was glad everypony else was staring at Boulder Dash in shock… as it was just wrong of her to have cracked a smile at what he just said.

Senior Blue Blood shouted “You are not here to do anything related to me!”

Boulder Dash tilted his head as he stared at Celestia in confusion “You mean the Blue Bloods aren’t related to you?”

This was the last thing Celestia had expected to see this day!

What just got her was just how… honest he was saying it. It wasn’t meant as a backhoof barb or some attempt to disgrace the old unicorn’s standing nobility… but a honesty and poorly phrased question as if a foal said those words instead of an adult.

When Celestia finally managed to get control of herself and calm Senior Blue Blood down she said “No we are checking for any ponies who could help teach earth pony magic.”

“And state the authenticity of some outrages claims some might have.” Senior Blue Blood acidly replied as he already had an immense distaste for this new pony.

Boulder Dash stared at Senior Blue Blood “So there really is some new Alicorn in Canterlot?” Celestia nodded as Senior Blue Blood adamantly shook his head “Did you check if he had wings and a horn?”

Senior Blue Blood looked as if he was about to strangle Boulder Dash while Quick Note quickly tried to intervene. Celestia noticed that the griffin Bolder Dash had kissed had two griffin bodyguards nearby each carrying one of those new crossbows and had their claws ready to pull them out as their lady frowned.

Quick Note pulled out a few papers to show Boulder Dash “There are a large amount of oddities surrounding him… and in some cases out right confusing or almost impossible if we didn’t see it without own eyes.”

Boulder Dash nodded “So foreign Alicorn steps in and everypony else panics.”

“Better than a half-baked mud pony.” Senior Blue Blood cursed underneath his breath.

Boulder Dash walked over to the large bolder that was left for display purposes or to assist the earth ponies that came and lifted it over his head with one hoof. Boulder Dash glared at the older noble as he tossed the bolder up and down with one hoof like a foal with a hoofball.

Boulder Dash gritted his teeth “Here’s a simple test. Catch.”

Senior Blue Blood shut his eyes as Celestia quickly prepared to catch the boulder… only to catch a small pebble that would have just landed on the table in front of them.

Boulder Dash laughed like a mad stallion as he placed the bolder down and pointed at Celestia “See honey! That’s a real pony!"

Celestia glanced at the small pebble “You tossed a pebble?”

Boulder Dash shrugged “Why not? Toss a boulder at a pony over a small dispute would have been crazy and besides... just look at him shivering there like an idiot. Too many ponies just ready to roll over at the first problem they run into. He didn’t try catch it or doge… just sat there like an idiot really. The mare at least had a brain.”

Celestia glanced at Quick Note who was brushing off some dirt as she gave a nervous chuckle.

Boulder Dash glanced over the papers “Well teaching this new would be a bit tricky… He can’t even fly?”

Celestia took a deep breath “He is currently having some success with a flight instructor.”

Boulder Dash nodded “Have you tried throwing him off a cliff?” Everypony stared at him in shock “Not a big cliff! Just a small one… If he gets a few scrapes and bruises it’ll just help to build character in the end.”

Boulder Dash was… certainly an odd pony. Almost like a crazy pony trying to pretending to they were sane, but he probably wasn’t going to be picked due to Senior Blue Blood anyway… yet Celestia couldn’t help but ask “He’d probably fight back if we tried tossing him off a cliff.”

To her surprise and slight horror Bolder Dash laughed “Of course he should be allowed to fight back! It’d be only fair since I would be the one trying to throw him off a cliff.”

Senior Blue Blood groaned “How in Equestria did this fool stay a noble?”

Boulder Dash glared as Senior Blue Blood in anger “I’m a Duke! Nobles are frilly little ponies who ask their parents for donations. Dukes on the other hoof work hard, own property, and of course help run Equestria! Any idiot with a few extra bits could become a noble, but Dukes have to be earned!”

Both of them locked eyes as the older unicorn felt he needed to teach the young upstart his proper place while the younger earth pony glared at the older pony seeing him as an old worthless piece of junk that had yet to be tossed out in the garbage. It seemed as if the two ponies would come to blows any second.

Celestia tried to intervene ““He was asking why you didn’t have a house or any servants tending to the estate your family gave you.”

It was a poor save, but the earth pony didn’t seem to mind “Oh that? My family sent me to deal with the griffins and so I went to their lord as I knew that the secret behind any good male is a good woman... so I went to sweep that gal off her feet!”

The griffin walked beside Boulder dash giving him a small punch in the shoulder “And he ran into me. Dad had a rather confusing talk and… somehow the two of them hit it off. Dad thought that a pony living in such a small house shouldn’t be dating his daughter… so he had him move in.”

The earth pony chuckled “My new house is in griffin territory and yes I make all the tax payments including the parts requested by Equestria, but the territory I look after gets along well with it’s residents.” He hugged the griffin as she nuzzled his neck “Some better than others.”

“Besides I came to Canterlot because some odd noble asked me about the train system I had running back…” He started to say before Senior Blue Blood threw a boot at Boulder Dash’s face.

The look of rage was clear in the older stallion's eyes was clear as day for everypony to see. The trains had been taken from his family and now he was seeing an earth pony upstart who he hated was possibly about to take control of the monopoly he had poorly ruled over.

Senior Blue Blood shouted with venom coursing through his voice “I challenge you to a duel to take back what is mine!”

The earth pony grinned wiping the blood from his mouth “When, Where and with what?”

Quick Note whispered to Celestia “He does realize that technically if Boulder Dash wins than he is eligible as a teacher despite any complaints Blue Blood might have?”

Celestia sighed “Please tell the others to wait a little while…” and muttered “or until we find another noble.”

Quick Note ran back into the castle to inform the rest of the earth pony nobles about the slight delay. This was one of the problems with nobles… they were so quick to judge as Celestia already knew that Lockheart properly wanted to know how Boulder Dash’s ponies managed to fix the problems the trains were having going uphill… especially since the train in Boulder Dash’s territory went from the bottom of mountain and straight to the top of Thunder Peek.

Celestia prepared to watch two idiots fight… Maybe she really should have gone to Cloudsdale instead of staying here to deal with this mess. Lockheart was probably having an easier time than her right now.

******

Lockheart

I rested my head against the table and sighed. Everyone else started checking over the projects requests as I was the one who was forced to see if the projects were even possible. Sure it’s easy building a paper airplane, but currently Equestria lacks the natural metallurgy skills to create the needed weight and durability to craft a normal airplane… and trying to fix the gaps with magic just made me feel… nervous.

Remedy glanced at the last attempt “They tried using a fire ruby for an engine?”

I’ll admit my magical gem lore was non-existent, but no one from earth exactly knew the magical to power ratio of certain gems. It would be like comparing a block of gold to a block of silver to a group that has never seen them before. You know their valuable… but you don’t know how valuable or important they could be.

“Are you asking about the budget they used… or the action they did?” I couldn’t help, but ask as I dreaded hearing the answer.

Remedy rubber her chin “It wasn’t fully ripe… but it did cause a bit of damage… enough to have Cloudsdale request a ban on further attempts to use gems in any of their engines.”

“And the gem was a gift from a noble… who ran the company and apparently thought that making the engine bigger will solve the issue.” Midnight replied to my dismay “Why are there separate papers for this thing?”

Legal Right was already at work with his vast array of quills and ink wills. His light green coat now covered in spots of ink as his gray-ish silver hair reminded me of a mad Beethoven right now. He was the pony assigned by Celestia to help me with equestrian legal matters and the pony that helped make a couple if not half of my "alleged actions" against Canterlot's nobility possible.

Legal Right filled away the next stack of papers “Because three different companies are competing with each other and until one group manages to build their invention… That’s three different sides, papers, plans, and techniques being employed and it wouldn’t be fair if one group sabotage their own failed engine… just to get rid of the other group’s working engine.”

"Politics." Remedy summarized

I groaned at I took another look at the paper again. This was the Equestrain version of the space race.

Sky Bolt Industry was a group of former humans trying to remake earth technology… and attempting to use magic to fill in the gaps. Some items earned profit and others… were still being refined as they were too costly to mass produce… but made great items to show off or bought as an expensive commodity or gimmick by some rich noble.

Sky Bolt Industry was trying to build the air plane version of a car or motorcycle since Swift Wind was trying to build an Airship. Right now their model designs seem to be based on trying to recreate the MLP "Pinkie Copter"… or trying to find someway to utilize a gem to power a come to life spell as… Equestria had yet to create the technique that was used to create Tank’s little helicopter device… or the magical power system that Flim and Flam used on their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 machine… or did that use some other source of fuel?

Either way Equestria’s own advancement in their magical system hadn’t reached MLP standard techno magic ability that was taken for grant it in MLP or just generally talked about or brought up questions... like the purpose of the dam was used to generate electricity as a hydro electric plant... or something more mundane like diverting a river or making a pound.

Wing’s Flight an Equestrian company saw Sky Bolt Industry as a rival and since they had a powerful noble backing them… they also entered the race trying to build their own machine… which used to be an air plane until the fire ruby incident forcing them to switch to a large blimp design. They also were the ones that tried using their own accident to make the other two groups unable to continue with their gem powered tests.

I wasn't sure if they were employing a few former humans or if they copied if not stole some of Sky Bolt Industry's plans and then tried to fill in the gaps with their own arcane knowledge. They had made a rough estimate on how much power would be needed to make the plane fly... and underestimated the needed strength of the engine or the ability to keep a sustained amount of constant power. Sky Bolt discarded the plan due to the weight... and Wing's Flight tried to solve it by pumping in more power... and caused a large mess as it shot off like a rocket before exploding thankfully away from the general population.

I took one last look at Swift Wind’s pet project turned political nightmare as he… took a practical approach to it. He was fascinated at the skills some of the former humans had… and then after realizing the difference of technologies he tried employing skills they knew for his airship.

The plans were built of the first bases of trying to re-employ electricity and powering the entire thing by electricity… but thunderbolts overloaded the wires and they had yet to create a workable battery to feasibly power most of the ship… yet they did manage to create an ecofriendly kitchen as the grills used electricity to cook the food and they managed to put in a patent for their bases of building a refrigerator… which was one of the pet projects in the larger pet project.

In fact there seemed to be a question on if Swift Wind was building an Airship… or building a flying restaurant as many of the modifications being made was for the purpose of allowing just about any race to work or live on the ship without the need of a clouding walking spell. Still unlike the other two groups he was focusing primarily on the air ship as the budget going into it was much larger than the other two companies. The rest of the items were just cast offs or as there wasn't even a plan on how the airship would fly through the sky by some sort of propulsion system or if he would hire a few pegasi to pull it like a sled.

“I know I should be happy about the new innovations being made…” I took a deep breath and sighed “But I don’t know if I should be happy at the progress or worried at the mistakes.”

Remedy shrugged “Don’t you usually deal with this type of work?”

Legal Right came to my aid “Most of the work we dealt with had been explaining the concept and dealing with complaints. The other cases…”

I rolled my eyes “Greed I can deal with. Lies, attempts of deceit, or con schemes I can recognize… but this? Actual legal paperwork with no schemes or attempts to cheat? I’m a little bit out of my league.”

Remedy couldn’t help but chuckle “So the great secret to getting past your tricks, deceit, and vindictive nature… is to be completely honest.”

Legal Right dealt with the papers as I dealt with the people. It also didn't help/hurt that I had to deal with the nobles in person... in much the same way Celestia's morning court operated, but that's Equestria for you.

Still I couldn't help but smile “And now you see why the nobles hate me.”

With a wave of my horn all the sheets, scrolls, and documents were swept away leaving the next few stacks of projects left to deal with that didn't cause a notice of concern from Remedy or Midnight. Canterlot had it’s fair share of inventors… yet Cloudsdale?

It must have been because of that old human expression The Sky’s The Limit as getting to live in the sky… it brought out some of the more unique and possibly crazed aspects of human ingenuity. Canterlot built a printing press and was making fountain pens until they managed to recreate ball point pens. Essentially small mundane, but useful items…
Cloudsdale? Their trying to invent Hang gliders, airplanes, light bulbs, microwaves and of course a few humans trying to reinvent modern electricity… and it was my job to check which projects were viable… and which projects should be put on hold until further testing is done.

Then after I made my decision it would all run through the Equestrian political system… which I would have to also be present for as they made the final decision before it was passed… or passed to Celestia depending on the possible size or impact of the project in question.

This was going to take a while.

“Oh Legal Right?” I started to ask.

He simply nodded “I already secured you a room with a regular bed and specialized room so that in case you have a slight… hiccup nothing bad will happen.”

I sighed in relief as apparently I would have to worry about falling asleep only to plummet to my death tonight.

******

Celestia

The sun rose high in the sky as Celestia moved onto the second stage of the testing. It was difficulty finding enough earth ponies who may have qualified for the rigged standards of Canterlot’s nobility… in fact after how many were dismissed Celestia might finish finding which candidate to pick today simply because there was only a small amount left.

Most of the earth ponies either didn’t have a… solid means for checking earth pony magic or they had ended up not being good enough for Canterlot’s upper nobility. Apparently being born of noble blood wasn’t enough for them nor having the ability to run their family’s business or managing their territory well counted as important… just how much influence their family had and if they knew how to play the games of nobility… as half of the small amount picked ended up bribing a few nobles before they came to help secure their vote.

Needless to say the reason for the second part of the screening stage was to ensure Celestia could check them over again… without any biases eyes watching them and to ensure they knew what they were getting into. It was for this reason she held the talks in the very same room she taught Lockheart in.

There were no luxuries or valuable items adorning the walls as the entire room had been almost stripped down to it’s bare necessities… yet the chairs and the couch were rather comfortable as the hard wood desk rested in front of Celestia filled with quill’s, ink pots, and sadly… documents to read, sign, and go over rested there as the current documentation they had on Lockheart including the medical reports rested on top of the desk.

Of course the best secret about the desk was not the polished surface or the fancy decorations and carvings that wrapped around the legs of the desk… but the secret compartment that held, aspirin, some water, one rather delicious slice of cake… and that delightful new concoction the foreign ponies called… hot cocoa as they even included those small white fluffy things to go with it that crunched in her mouth or became soft and fluffy when heated up.

It was expensive due to it's productions cost... but being a Princess had it's perks. Celestia kept the hidden sugary goods in mind as she prepared to deal with Noble House.

Noble House was one of the few ponies that had passed the tests. The nobility liked him because he came from a strong and influence family that had “ensured” that he would get to this stage as his family would gladly try to use their new found authority if Noble House was picked to teach Lockheart.

In short picking him would create a lot of waves in the political world… yet Noble House came from a fine family. While he didn’t own or run much held by his relatives in Canterlot… he was not only an accomplished sculptor, but he had taught various races of ponies so he was more familiar with a wider variety of magic than most ponies did.

Noble House stepped into the room as his dark purple coat was well groomed as his blond hair had been combed back as it sparkled a little from either water or some sort of gloss. He wore a dark black suit and a top hat just resting over his head. His cutie mark was of a bag full of golden bits.

Noble House bowed “It is an honor that you grant me time to speak with you alone Princess.”

Celestia simply nodded as she tried to keep it short. She went over all the recent incidents… and Lockheart’s oddities as she even gave him a few of the documents to prove just why everypony else couldn’t make up their mind about his status as an Alicorn.

Noble House simply handed the sheets of paper back “And what is it that you want from me Princess?”

Celestia kept calm and simply asked “What would you teach him?”

Noble House chuckled as if Celestia was making a polite joke mixed in with her question “Why I would teach him art. If he truly is of noble blood then we must ensure that he understands the grace of nobility… the respect that it holds and that one we most also uphold.”

He guested towards her desk “Why take a look at this room. This chairs are obviously well made and that desk… a peasant couldn’t hope to afford it, yet the purpose it serves is just the same as their own desk. The reason why we adorn ourselves in our culture and our art is to help show that we truly are better than those beneath our standings so that they can look up to us in hope to solve the problems that plague their lives.”

Celestia nodded as she didn’t make any movements. Noble House kept his cool, but he kept taking a small glance at Celestia trying to read what her thoughts was. To be honest Celestia wasn’t even sure if that was his real answer… or some carefully planned speech made by his parents.

Celestia moved onto the next question “In what way exactly?”

The last two nobles took a while to respond as they had vaguely promised her results… but didn’t expect Celestia to have them explain how they would achieve those results.

Noble House smiled “I am an artisan and I have trained countless ponies to create many extravagant works of art. There is an artist in each of us… but most of all I have taught ponies from each of the tribes. I know not only how to teach… but also what to look out for.”

Celestia nodded “And how exactly would you deal with the situation if you had to move to Canterlot? Lockheart may not even be a real Alicorn.”

Noble House made a slight bow “If that is what the Princess wishes than who am I to argue? If your worried about my estate than I have servants ready to take care of it during my absence.”

Celestia checked it off as she said “What would you do if Lockheart is proven to be an Alicorn… or if you find out he isn’t an Alicorn?”

Noble House made a small twitch before he replied “If he is of noble bearing than I would do my best to further his teachings… and if he isn’t than I would let you know.”

Celestia made note of his reactions as she replied “Thank you… that will be all for now.”

Noble House nodded as he got up and left the room. There was little Celestia could say at this point… except give him some time to think over his decisions and what he would do next.

Celestia pulled out her paperwork to get some of it finished until Morning Song arrived.

******

Boulder Dash entered the room with a black eye, a few bandages wrapped around his side and a very large grin… as he had been accepted only because be bested Senior Blue Blood in a duel.

The older noble was taught the fine grace of dueling. Bolder Dash was taught the fine art of winning by griffins… griffins who thought a good duel ended with a sporting scar instead of a minor easily healed scratch. While he lacked the normal grace that most nobles had… he made up for by labeling himself as a duelist during the fight and by the old traditions of Canterlot itself most despites could be resolved in a duel between two nobles.

Needless to say there weren’t any ponies objecting unless they knew which end of a rapier to hold properly. In many ways Boulder Dash being picked would cause a couple of waves in Canterlot simply due to his… eccentric personality or the griffon body guards that stayed with him to ensure no other despites would break out against the pony that was dating their lord’s daughter.

Celestia had just finished going over Lockheart’s information, his oddities, and of course the documentation provided by the doctors… which Boulder Dash didn’t seem to pay much attention to after reading the first document.

He shook his head as he gave Celestia back the papers “From what it sounds like the problem is the odd magic, but the fact he doesn’t have a point of reference. Sort of like a griffon that never flew… as their natural abilities would make it so they wouldn’t need to rely on their flight abilities as much as a Pegasus would.”

Celestia nodded “So how exactly would you teach him?”

Boulder Dash smiled “That’s the thing. I wouldn’t… don’t get me wrong I’ll try… but trying to explain to him how it works would be like trying to describe colors to a blind pony. You have the terms, the knowledge, and the experience… but the central aspect of it is just so simple… it’s surprisingly complex.”

Celestia’s expression didn’t change as Boulder Dash seemed a bit nervous…but he was doing alright so far.

Boulder Dash continued “So… there isn’t much that can be done until he understands… of course the real trick will be teaching the grasp of it… Which to be honest will end up looking a bit… silly.”

Celestia couldn’t help but chuckle “In what way exactly?”

His face started to turn red as he muttered “By seeing what he has a connection with and working up from there. If he has a gift with plants then try to show him how earth pony magic grows plants… if it’s rocks then I can teach him a few tricks… if he doesn’t know… Then I’ll just get a Fun for Foals book and make him do all the exercises until I can see something he connects with.”

None of the others thought of trying that… which was for a good reason considering how silly it would look. In fact it was a little bit hard not trying to picture Boulder Dash shouting at Lockheart like a drill sergeant as he forced the other alicorn to build a sandcastle or make a silly picture with hoof paint.

Celestia took a deep breath and returned to her questions “And how exactly will you deal with your situation if you move to Canterlot. Lockheart may not even be a real alicorn.”

Boulder Dash chuckled “Why should that matter? The important thing is that I’m in Canterlot with my wife! There’s a reason why I’m married to a griffin. Both sides pony and griffin tried living apart and it worked fine for the past few years… but as soon as trouble comes along every pony and griffin panics. Just look at Timberton! Quaint little place serving as a place to go in-between two territories. Now that it’s burned down it’s gotten better.”

Celestia was quite honestly surprised that… he had married a griffin. Honestly she though he was dating her or that it was a passing fancy like the others… but to actually have married a griffin? She didn’t have anything against it… but this was the daughter to a foreign lord who didn’t have a good relationship with Equestria… or the fact Boulder Dash was still listed as single by his own family.

Boulder Dash held up a hoof “Tell me Princess… have you ever went to Timberton before the disaster? Did you ever notice how the ponies and the griffins kept to separate areas. They lived together as neighbors… but they hardly interacted. Now that the town was burnt down… their rebuilding. Griffin and pony working side by side to rebuild their homes except this time their working together instead of drawing lines in the sand and splitting the town apart.”

Celestia nodded “And what about your territory?”

Boulder Dash smirked “That’s why I’m here. I understand this. My town understands this and even the griffins including my own wife understand this. She came with me to open up negations with Equestria. We’ve been neighbors living side by side enjoying drawing line in the sand and mocking the other for far too long.”

Celestia was surprised as Thunder Peek had enjoyed being kept separate from Equestria and the other griffin kingdom as they lived their own lives without any care of what their neighbors thought. In all honesty she just assumed that Boulder Dash was just seen as a unique oddity to them… but she never thought they would open negations.

Boulder Dash sighed as he shook his head “Equestria is a peaceful place… Personally I would like it to stay that way… yet things are changing. The Centaurs are having a civil war, there are rumors about the Yaks having run into some sort of problem… yet none of that really mattered to us until Timberton was burnt to a crisp.”

She saw the sorrow on his face as he closed his eyes “Timberton of all places burnt to a crisp. I mean… what was the point? There isn’t any gold. It’s just an old frontier town placed between two nations… there wasn’t anything of value and yet some crazy monster tore the place apart just for the fun of it.”

Boulder Dash chuckled a little, but it was clear that he was nervous and possibly a bit frightened “So that made us start asking questions. What’s going on with the Centaurs. Had any pony, griffin, donkey, or creature heard what happened to the Yaks? Maybe it’s just a coincidence that doesn’t really mean anything… but it’s enough to make somepony start to get nervous and well… it’s nice to have friends.”

Celestia couldn’t help but smile as Boulder Dash was being completely honest with her. Still she just had one final test to see if he would pass.

Celestia stared down at Boulder Dash as she said “How would you determine if Lockheart’s ability to use earth pony magic?”

Boulder Dash shrugged “That’s… a good question. Mind if I ask you one first?”

Celestia slowly nodded as she was curious to see what Boulder Dash would say. Most of the other ponies focused on favors, or ensuring they would keep their job or their new status of power even if Lockheart wasn’t an Alicorn. At best it was a request to hear his wife out and at worst she could simply dismiss the question if she wanted to.

Boulder Dash took a deep breath “Does it really matter? I mean if he’s your family?”

Celestia shook her head “No he’s not my son.”

Boulder Dash frowned “Of course not. I think somepony would have recognized the queen being pregnant… but… the griffins in Thunder Peek have… old records and well… you did have a sister at one point.”

Celestia was torn between chuckling and throwing Boulder Dash outside of the room. It was sort of a mixed blessing that there was a group that remembered Luna… but did they remember Luna or that thing that stole her from Celestia!

Sure Celestia hadn’t taken care of her sister like she should have… nor did she address her needs as… sadly Celestia had let the spotlight blind her from his sister’s troubles. Still she couldn’t bring herself to believe that her dear beloved sister Luna had attacked her… that she wished to plunge the world into darkness.

Surely it had to be some sort of twisted magic that affected her or possibly some sort of magical parasite… why the Everfree forest held it’s own rules as the forest could have affected her… or created something.

“I’m sorry if I’m out of line.” Boulder Dash quickly apologized

Celestia took a deep breath as she tried to focus on happier thoughts… like her sister’s eventual return. Those twisted mirrors held some truth and it was possible to have her dear younger sister come back one day and stand by her side…

Celestia nodded “It’s alright… but I have to ask. What made you think that?”

Boulder Dash chuckled a little “Well… according to the rumors he’s using an illusion spell to hide the fact his coat is black… so black coat, blue mane, wings and a horn, not liked that much… I’m pretty sure he could do a descent impersonation of Nightmare Moon.”

Something in Celestia’s mind snapped… or possibly got something lodged right in the gears in her head.

Celestia shook her head as that couldn’t possibly be true… after all Luna had been banished and sealed inside the moon for all these years. Even then Celestia knew that Nightmare Moon would attack her as soon as it broke free instead of running about the country making insidious plans or…

At the very least Lockheart would have been conceived before Luna had been…

“Princess?” the earth pony spoke as Celestia didn’t like how the pieces seemed to be sliding together. “Are you alright?”

Distrust of nobility. The scars on his body and the fear he had of being called an Alicorn. Why others would see him as a threat instead of a blessing… the fear he had shown when Celestia saw him the first time… a connection he shared with Celestia and the terror in his eyes when he found out she had entered his mind… but that would be…

Celestia shook her head trying to banish the thoughts “No it’s just… you wouldn’t believe how many ponies asked me if he was related to me. He’s just… an injured pony that could use some help.”

Boulder Dash nodded “Sorry if I insulted…”

Celestia quickly cut him off “It’s not the first time I’ve been asked the odd question when dealing with the possible new emergence of a new Alicorn. Then the plague of questions or requests as they begin to wonder if I can make everypony into an Alicorn if a new one that isn’t somehow possibly related to me suddenly pops up.”

Celestia shook her head “You wouldn’t believe all the charts they have listing my possible bloodline that flows through Eqeustria.”

Boulder Dash smiled “Just had to ask. Still I’ll do my best.”

Celestia nodded as she let him leave the room and listed him down as a possible candidate.

Still the question he spoke of plagued Celestia’s mind… but that was just a silly thought wasn’t it? There wasn’t any possible way that he was actually… besides his hair was green not blue… or that foals may share the colors of both parents…

Celestia rested her head on the table “I really need to find out how old he really is.”

******

Luke

Luke checked over all of his gear as the rest of his party did the same. They all knew the risks they were taking and each of them were prepared for the trial ahead. In fact the hardest part of the task they were going to have to deal with soon.

Luke did one final check “Everyone remember we’re looking for a KO instead of a kill! If the dog kicks the bucket then we are in real trouble. So make sure the bouncy ball is used first… and if it doesn’t only then do we engage combat.”

Everyone nodded as Luke took a deep breath “First team that finds Tirek make’s sure you gag his mouth shut. Last thing we need is a magic drain before we need it to happen.”

Everyone doubled checked their gear as they knew just how bad this operation could go down. Still Discord was a major threat to Equestria… and the only one who managed to beat Discord was Tirek. Luke couldn’t help but chuckle as Tirek was a magic draining monster… but he would be a lot easier to fight then a being who could alter reality at his very whim.

Today was going to be a big day.

Author's Note

New chapter up. Let me know if I made any mistakes or didn't catch something when transferring it to Fimfiction.

Question to the readers.

What do you think the purpose of the Rainbow Liquid is? Could it be some sort of magical run off or by product of something else? Could it simply be a decoration, or possibly some sort of magical or cooking ingredient?

Also which noble Earth pony do you think Celestia should pick and why?

One Day Off

Midnight

Midnight tossed and turned in her bed as the vile and wicked evil sun tried to wake her up.

“Nu.” Midnight muttered into the cloud bed “Sheep-ef em.”

It was her day off… their day off as they managed to finish up most of the legal work leaving tomorrow for waking up at this dreaded hour and then she would have the privilege to stand around in one spot all day while countless other ponies talked about things she barely understood or wouldn’t get a say in the matter.

Midnight continued to dig deeper and deeper into the cloud until she was safely cocooned inside wrapping the bed sheets around her body not so much to keep the cold out, but to protect her from the most insidious thing know to all of ponykind… sunlight. Yes the dreaded creature of eternal sorrow that sought to interrupt her dreams tried to keep her from her rest as Midnight started drifting back to sleep.

Yes… she smiled as she finally became comfortable as the stallion of her dreams walked up to her. She could see his sexy flank as his magnificent therstal wings spread out ready to wrap her around her and pull her closer to the stallion of her dreams. Midnight was now able to continue their date through the streets of Canterlot as they both gazed up at the stars in the sky.

Midnight started to drool in her sleep as her dream boat bat pony smiled ready to kiss her … only for burst of green flame shout of his mouth forcing Midnight to jump out of her bed in fear as her bed was on fire!

Fire? Fire. FIRE! How did her cloud bed catch on bucking fire!

The flames died out as a small… Midnight gulped… piece of parchment fell on it? She slowly inched around the bed in fear not knowing if she was having a nightmare… or if that paper was suddenly going to burst into flames again.

Midnight glanced at the seal “It’s not a dream.” And moaned as not only her sleep had not only been cruelly slain thanks to this sudden and terrifying interruption… she also highly doubted that she could go back to sleep as Princess Celestia sent her a message so early in the morning.

Midnight broke the royal seal and braced herself for the bad news… Razer Wind Captain of the Royal Guard had not only informed Midnight about Celestia’s ability to send messages by magic. He also warned her not only to watch out for the sudden burst of green flames… but more importantly the messages would usually hold grave importance… or a status report, question, or duty that Midnight would have to do… or try to help employ.

Midnight unrolled the letter and slowly read “Dear Midnight, during this free period you, Lockheart, and Remedy should take the day off.”

Midnight paused for a few seconds… blinked, then rubbed her eyes as she went over it again.

“No this is not a request. I checked and yes you do have the entire day free. What I want is for the three of you to be able to enjoy yourselves… and deal with a few ponies who are not trying to get Lockheart to make some political favor or have him try to pass some bill, project, or new spending request. I also want you to make sure they don’t stay locked up in their rooms for the entire day either.”

Midnight rubbed her chin as… this was quite possibly one of the oddest letters she had received.

“Also if possible… try checking to see how old he is?”

Midnight closed the scroll and… tried to figure out what exactly was going on? Did Celestia find out about some of the projects they had to look over… or was it an attempt to allow Lockheart to avoid some sort of political whiplash that was about to happen? She sighed as her life was a lot easier when all she had to worry about was simply protecting something from getting hurt or damaged… even if most of those situations were guarding a vase or statue in the castle.

Midnight opened her door and prepared to wake the other two up because if she had to wake up at this unholy hour then everypony else had too!

Midnight opened up Lockheart’s door as a burst of green flames went off as she shouted “We just got a message from…” her words died in her mouth as she stared at him.

Honestly she wasn’t expecting him to be up… or expecting him to have been on one of those workout machines… without his jacket as his body was now glistening with sweat as he stared at her. There was something about this scene that shouldn’t have really done anything… but…

She just continued staring as Lockheart seemed rather nervous… almost in a sort of embarrassing panic and yet… Midnight suddenly felt like reaching for a cold glass of water. His horn glowed shutting the door as it took a few seconds for her brain to restart.

“I’ll be out in a few seconds!” He quickly replied in a nervous panic.

Midnight blinked as she didn’t know why a normal pony not wearing any clothes was… it must have been the embarrassment that confused her or…

“A few seconds?” she said to herself before opening up the door again “I told you not to use those spells…” Midnight facehoofed as it was too late “Your stupid spell knotted up your wings again!”

All feelings of embarrassment, blushing, and confusion had been pushed aside as Midnight preened his wings again trying to get rid of all the knots. She couldn’t help but sigh as… he really needed to get either stop using that stupid spell!

******

Remedy

Remedy gathered together her supplies as… honestly she didn’t think she would spend much time exploring Cloudsdale. She just expected to have a few free hours to eat in peace, read a book… or having to check just how far Lockheart’s unicorn magic had manage to progress.

Remedy could now hear Midnight trying to convince Lockheart to leave his room as the “not an alicorn” was quite happy being left alone in the room for the rest of the day. Remedy rolled her eyes as… Lockheart barely left the room he was assigned to in Canterlot and that included the time he lived in a jail cell. Midnight had her work cut out
.
The door was kicked open as Midnight spoke in annoyance “Oh no… both of you are coming even if I have to physically drag you both around with me!”

Remedy put away her items “Alright… just what do you expect us to do? I’m a unicorn, Lockheart’s magic fluxes could have him drop through the clouds at any moment… and you’re a threstral a sight rarely seen in Cloudsdale.”

Midnight rolled her eyes “Bat pony… and besides my idea of a vacation would be visiting Hollow Shades.”

Lockheart grumbled “Look you’re tired, we have yet to receive any new paperwork so how about you get some rest and we’ll wake you up when some…”

“No…” Midnight grumbled “No paperwork, no nobles making bargains, or dealing with complaints. You need to see that not everypony is out to get you or simply using you as a means to an end!”

“There you are!” a Pegasus shouted “We need to talk about the…”

Midnight whipped around and bared her fangs at the Pegasus wearing the business suit hissing “No more paperwork! Take you complaint and return tomorrow if it’s really that important!”

“But…” the pegasus whimpered

Midnight’s eyes seem to glow as she started to growl “Unless Cloudsdale is under siege, being attacked by some monster, or the city itself is about to fall from the sky it can wait till tomorrow!”

The pegasus turned tail and fled as Midnight turned around revealing her rather sharp fangs “Now I’ll be nice and let any of you pick were we go out to eat for breakfast as long as it’s not room service.”

Remedy stared at Midnight in… surprise. Apparently Celestia wasn’t kidding about forcing them to have a day off. Remedy highly doubted that anypony would be willing to risk the bat pony’s wrath… especially after seeing that display.

Lockheart just shrugged as he cynically replied “I give it thirty minutes at best.”

Remedy glanced at Lockheart only in confusion. Lockheart didn’t seem any bit surprised by Midnight’s outburst or worried at the fact she threatened a possibly powerful pony. Instead Lockheart just yawned as he resided himself to his fate… fully expecting his cynical predictions to become true.

******

Midnight placed her head on the table groaning “Order to go.”

Remedy head rested in her hooves as she tried not to sigh out loud. When Celestia came ponies would nearly bow over themselves just to make sure everything was perfect… one minor word or slip of the tongue could spread success or failure and that was not even including the great privilege of having Princess Celestia visit them.

They hadn’t even received their order before they had been pestered to death by questions, requests, and various complaints from both the nobles… and anypony nearby who either found one of the foreign unmarked pony’s inventions distasteful if not a “danger to their native way of life” or being pestered by questions about Lockheart’s possible alicorn status… why Celestia hadn’t officially told everypony he was an Alicorn… or the possibility if Lockheart was a changeling or what his stance was on changelings.

It was just… Morning Court was where you dealt with these problems. You certainly did not walk over to the Alicorn trying to order breakfast and pester them with complaints. You certainly didn’t move past the armed body guard who had deployed her wing blades just to try to detour the crowd… and you most certainly do not place the alicorn in the public seating arrangement instead of the private section… simply because they didn’t order reservations in advance… or “fear” of having a low born imposter eat with the important nobles and their bodyguards.

When the food finally arrived it was immediately placed in bags as Midnight lead them back to their rooms and to Remedy Cross’s shock and horror the crowd of complaints continued to follow them all the way back to their rooms… until the Cloudsdale Guards forced the mob of complaints, requests, and idiots back allowing them to escape to their rooms. Now they just sat in Lockheart’s mostly empty room just so that they could eat their meal in relative peace.

Midnight grumbled “If we can visit a spa in Canterlot without running into any problems than we can have one day off here!”

Lockheart shook his head “Doubt it.” He levitated his fork and knife and started cutting up his pancakes “We are visiting during an important meeting where most of the duration of this week is being spent going over reforms, double checking legal papers, and of course settling the issues between three rivaling groups as each one of them are trying to build their own version of an airship or personal air craft. That doesn’t even include the smaller groups, individuals or other factions who’s projects, requests, or ideas have yet to be brought up because of the current issues being settled during this week.”

Remedy sadly had to admit that… he had a point. Why bother waiting a few more weeks or even months when you could bypass all that paperwork and have Lockheart deal with their proposal now rather than later. It also brought to mind the… what she felt like was the lack of respect from a couple of ponies in Cloudsdale.

In Canterlot the nobles didn’t want to deal with Lockheart unless it suited them. They saw him as a political threat as it was clear that both sides had little if no respect for the either. Cloudsdale seemed to be giving him the same treatment as… they were letting him in on the discussions and talks… but she had a feeling that was more because Celestia told them to instead of actual respect. Instead they saw him as a foreign stranger who was barging in and telling them what to do and were only happy if he agreed with them.

Of course every other alicorn Equestria had before was born in Equestria… then adopted or raised by Celestia has they kept strong ties to Canterlot or whichever region they looked after. Lockheart had no connections, no training, and countless rumors that weren’t very flattering… After all who in their right mind would simply ask if he was a changeling right in public!

Remedy picked at her breakfast as she tried to plan out what they would do next before the list of complaints and requests grew larger enough forcing them to deal with it. She thought back to the alteration magic books she had and… wondered if he wouldn’t help her try to see if his brand of alteration magic had any similarities to Equestrian magic or if he employed a different method or reasoning to it?

Midnight whispered to Remedy “Just keep him company while I get plan B set up.”

Midnight picked up her empty plate as she left the room leaving Remedy with the task of dealing with Lockheart while she figured out some way to complete her “mission” that Celestia had given her.

Remedy sighed as this “day off” was ending up a lot harder than she had originally thought.

******

Luke

How in the bloody world did Tirek managed to escape? I jumped to the side as Cerberus wasn’t going down. Everyone had discarded their deadly weapons because killing the guard dog of hell wasn’t a good idea.

In fact trying to jump on Cerberus's back and tying a rope around one of the heads to make it pass out was also a bad idea as Johnny was left looking like a bad rodeo clown as either… the other two heads provided enough flow of oxygen to keep the third head awake… or the fact that the other two heads could snap the rope or grab anyone or tried to get on their necks.

I hid behind one of the trees as a large bolder soared past me. Rag weed was useless, sneezing powered, knock out powdered… I think the sleeping pill bottle just pissed him off… hell at this point I’m not even sure if it has a biology at this point! Maybe he runs on some strange form of outer logic like that one episode where Spike became a vicious dragon as he kept growing bigger the greedier he got.

I glanced behind the tree and saw… a three headed growling dog with bloodshot eyes.

“Why won’t you go down!” I screamed as I threw whatever powders left in my bag at the demon dog’s eyes.

Cerberus howled in pissed off rage nearly swiping me with his claws if the ground hadn’t collapsed underneath my feet. I nearly kissed Ms. Brass and her brand of thugs as they quickly motioned me to follow them down the hastily built tunnels as Cerberus started to dig.

“Boss you sure fighting big dog is good plan?” one of the Equestrian Diamond Dogs asked their leader.

Brass coughed “Of course not. That’s why we didn’t try fighting it first, but if the heist goes off… no more running for us boys!”

The diamond dogs seemed to pick up their pace as… honestly I had no idea why she joined us. Still it didn’t matter as those who wanted to stay in Equestria and those who wanted to leave had both agreed that letting Discord run wild wasn’t a good plan. Slaying Discord and getting the fame and reputation would have Celestia let us try to use the Equestria Girl mirror to leave or go somewhere close to home or clear up any criminal records or grant them a few rewards to those who wanted to stay.

Brass glanced at me “Do you have any bombs left?”

“Not any useful ones.” I quickly replied… I’d rather have the mission fail and try again latter than try to kill Cerberus.

“Found him boss!” one of the dogs shouted.

Brass grinned as… I’ll admit it. There was something about her that just made you look up to her especially when she had that grin.

“Have anything that can go down his throat quickly?” she replied in a sadistic voice as a few of the other diamond dogs whimpered.

We came out of the hole they had dug and ran into the second group trying to recover along with some of the Equestrian allies. One griffin smiled… Quick Wing I think as he had a bundle of plants as the diamond dog had their ears flatten against their heads.

“What is that?” I asked in confusion.

The griffin chuckled “These make certain that any doggy will be out of commission for a while.”

I shook my head “We tried everything else!”

Brass stared at me as I was one of the few medic/poisoners that didn’t use unicorn magic. She handed me the bag of strange plants and placed it in my wings as she said “Not everything… this is a special herbal remedy… a powerful one so me may need to wait a little and hold our breath. Either way Cerberus won't die, but he may wish he had.”

I glanced at the odd array of plants and shrugged “Just buy me some time and I’ll see what I can do.”

******

Remedy

Remedy pushed herself back up as she tried to go over the last few seconds again.

Midnight wasn’t happy that Cloudsdale wasn’t a place to relax during this week. She had did something… and probably checked with Celestia before going with her “Plan B” as she had a sky chariot prepared for us.

In order to keep our trip a secret or to ensure that we weren’t followed by more complaining ponies she had herself and Lockheart pull the cart. The chariot fell out of Cloudsdale they were stuck in a nose dive as Lockheart struggled in an attempt to pull up. Midnight was trying her best… but it wasn’t enough to get them to pull up. Then Lockheart grabbed the jugs of water that was in the cart before throwing the jugs in front of them…

Remedy glanced around her as they were still in the sky… but they had crashed into an oddly shaped cloud. She glanced at it in confusion as… it sort of reminded her of cotton candy as the fragile cloud had just saved them. She looked up and saw that the cloud… it had extended almost like somepony dropping a small weight in a ball of dough dragging it down until either the force and the weight finally broke or dough absorbed all of the impact and managed to keep hold of the weight.

She took a glance over to Midnight and Lockheart as she could hear them arguing “Are you crazy!”

Remedy applied a quick medical check to make sure she didn’t sprain anything and was happy to have only received a few scrapes, bruises, and oddly enough a slight burn but nothing really major. Even the small bit of humidity wasn’t that as she, the cart and everypony else was also alright.

Midnight shouted “And what was that trick you did!”

Lockheart groaned “I deployed the emergency landing! We were going to crash and I just…”

Remedy glanced at Lockheart as she said “Emergency landing?”

Midnight shook her head “What emergency landing? Pulling up was to ensure that we didn’t crash… and what’s all this?”

Lockheart stared at her in disbelief “It’s cloud! Every race with wings can manage to safely land on them so all I did was just heat up the water to make some steam and…”

Midnight seemed to be tugging on her hair in frustration “You didn’t know how to pull up… and yet you were able to make an emergency landing cloud in just a few seconds?”

“Why else did you bring that much water?” Lockheart argued back. “Besides you helped make this cloud too!”

Midnight just went silent as there was a small twitch in her face… a small twitch that Remedy Cross had come to learn when dealing with the Paradox made physical form. He might have just proved that he had Pegasus magic… by doing something that made no utter sense what so ever… even confusing the pony who was teaching him Pegasus magic and apparently helped make it happen.

Remedy didn’t know if this counted as a repeat of the necromancy lesson involving the skeleton chickens... or how he was able to fall through a cloud even with the magical assistance of a cloud walking spell. How one pony kept managed to confirm his ability by creating double negatives she would never understand.

Remedy just reached over the chariot and placed a hoof on Midnight’s back “Don’t… just don’t bother asking.”

Midnight turned around as Remedy knew all too well that look of utter confusion “But how did he? It just isn’t…”

“I just used magic.” Lockheart replied as if that one word summed everything up.

Midnight’s jaw was just left hanging wide open as Remedy replied “See. It’s not just me. Everypony can’t understand…”

Midnight shouted interrupting her as nearly screamed “That wasn’t magic! To make a cloud you need the proper amount of water and you just made an emergency cumulus cloud landing… and that wasn’t… I just tried grabbing the cloud to slow us down… there couldn’t have been enough water in the jugs…”

Lockheart rolled his eyes “Water moisture helped.”

Remedy casted a silence spell on her own hears so that she wouldn’t hear Midnight’s scream. She didn’t know much about weather management or how pegasi were able to do it… but she was pretty sure that wasn’t the correct answer.

******

Remedy sat in the cart making notes of what had just transpired as Midnight was forcing Lockheart to help her gather up the cloud to be stored away for later use. Lockheart seemed to think it was strange if not impossible that they could wrap up a cloud and store it in a bag… when he just defied the laws of physics… or came really close to it.

The amount of water in the cart had did not make up an elastic cloud of that caliber. The explanation when asked to go further into detail… was just as useful as the explanations he used for magic as Midnight was claiming that it should have been impossible… if not for the fact it already just happened.

Remedy made note of it in her journal as… she couldn’t help but wonder if it was influence from the chaos magic… or if the reason why he still was infected with the chaos magic was due to him nearly breaking the laws of reality whenever he did something he counted as “normal”.

Maybe it was a combination of the two?

Lockheart tried explaining it again “Look I just quickly made it hot and then tried to cool it down! There wasn’t anything easy about that!”

Remedy shook her head as she didn’t even need to be a weather pony to see how utterly confusing that statement was as she whispered underneath her breath “Maybe his parents should have named him paradox instead.”

Midnight apparently heard it and muttered loudly “Paradox? That sounds about right. How can a pony barely manage to fly… and yet make something like… that!”

Lockheart shrugged “It’s just a cloud.”

Midnight twitched said “Just a cloud?” in the same way a pony might call a fire ruby a sparkly rock “A normal cloud would have popped trying to catch us. A normal cloud would have failed yet… you made an entire length of segments connected together to slow down our velocity yet band together tight enough not to snap from under the pressure and continued adding onto the chain until we finally stopped!”

Remedy nodded “He is still trying to master basic levitation and yet he can cast a few highly complex spells with but a shrug. Now you know how I feel trying to teach the crazy alicorn.”

Lockheart tried one more time “Not an alicorn… panic also properly helped.”

Midnight had to be rolling her eyes as she replied “Then maybe I should try tossing you off the edge of Canterlot with a gallon of water tied to your back when we get back.”

“Are you crazy!” he shouted in panic.

Midnight chuckled “See! Even he finds it crazy. A normal cloud should fill up a bath tub and he made that with…”

Lockheart shouted “Then what was the water for!”

Midnight blinked “To help water the clouds…”

Lockheart just froze as he seemed utterly confused by that statement in much the same way everypony else was when he did something that made no sense. In fact it was kind of funny really… but how else did he expect for pegasi to help repair their homes or make some expansions to it?

Lockheart sighed as he had given up trying to figure it out... and yet Remedy had to know. Just what exactly made him think that making a cloud… would be easier than simply pulling up? Why in the world did he think water was for emergency landings?

“How are clouds made from where you are from?” Remedy flat out asked.

Lockheart to their surprise simply shrugged “Water vapor. You get water hot enough and it starts to evaporate… then as it rises up into the atmosphere it starts to slow down and gathers together in the same way condensation happens when you leave a cold object out in the sun only to have it wet when you come back. The moisture in the air is drawn together from the cold creating precipitation."

Remedy glanced at Midnight who… seemed to have a slight understanding, but was still confused.

Lockheart continued “So from there it was a matter of moving the jugs of water in front of us then heating up the water to create steam thanks to an over charged fireball spell… I’ll pay for the jugs… then a bit of Alteration magic focusing on the cold and trying to bring the steam together and hope that Midnight could help finish forming the cloud."

Lockheart focused on Midnight as he said “See… you helped too.”

Midnight made a slow nod “Alright… how in the world did you keep the “steam” from escaping behind us instead of staying in front of us? Considering how fast we were falling it should have dissipated or left a rather large hole after we crashed into it.”

Lockheart blinked “That wasn’t you?”

Remedy shook her head as… in theory that made quite a bit of sense, but that still didn’t explain how the cloud didn’t break or pop during their descent. She had seen enough pegasi pop a cloud by simply kicking them and the cloud that caught them didn’t have enough water in it to have kept it’s form as it should have popped.

Yet Lockheart… If Remedy could go back in time then she would find the pony that came up with the phrase Ignorance is bliss and shove Lockheart in his face. Either the ensuing madness could turn that pony crazy… or create a picture of Lockheart’s face right beside the phrase for all future generations to see.

******

Luke

We walked through the halls of Tartarus itself as we were on a time clock. Cerberus was temporarily knocked out as the “herbal remedy” was built to purge a body of all of its toxins. Needless to say when Cerberus regains he strength he will be very angry with us.

Tartarus was a unique place as they didn’t have the standard grid by grid jail cell methods. Instead they had a winding staircase leading to each criminal trapped in a circle as chains were wrapped around their arms and legs as those trapped in the circles were either stripped of their powers… or had their own powers turned in upon themselves.

I motioned for the next team to come to my location as I glanced at the current dammed prisoner as she struggled to say in a faint whisper “So cold… need warmth…”

I opened up my hastily made book on Equestrian legends ranging from most of the races to see if any ancient villains had been rewritten as children tales. Villains of old tell how a dangerous person managed to conquer so much, but villains in stories are just personifications of evils as the villains themselves don’t exist.

I glanced at the shriveled up lizard barely concealed by her mandatory prison robes… apparently used to mark the difference between sentient prisoners and mindless monsters. How many newts where in here that related to cold, fire, or is this some sort of ghost or wraith? If she's a vampire that I'm shooting a wooden stake into this cell.

Grogar and Bray are already on the kill on sight if found list.

“Who are you?” I muttered off hand trying to find her in the book.

The shriveled up lizard whispered “Ember… Emberess.”

I smiled as I found her name… an old MLP version of a crazy Aztec god or monster in the same way Daring Do's villain is judging by the style of the art. I couldn't find a lot of back lore for this one, but she came from a dead or the same obscure society Monkey butt hand's group cultist came from.

I motioned for the others to come over and shouted “Fire user over here!”

“Emberess… the Mistress… of Flames.” She whispered trying to assert her authority.

I simply nodded as she could provide a big enough distraction if things went wrong. Besides Discord strikes me as the kind of guy who would go out of his way just to torment someone called The Mistress of Flames so she would be a descent distraction for the Tirek power drain plan… or possibly the Slay Tirek because he drained Discord stage of the plan.

Once the others arrived I ripped out the page in the book pertaining to her and said “Be careful and keep this one away from fire and heat until we get out of here.”

I flapped open my wings and flew to the next jail cell trying to find another useable pawn for our goals. They had to be smart enough to want to follow us out of here, but weak enough so that when we free them we don’t have a method on stopping them. Unstoppable eating machines are not a good plan, but elemental users can easily by countered by using the opposite technique.

I flipped through the pages again “Binding… binding… who might be able to hold Discord for just a few moments?”

My ears tensed up as I could hear some shouting as a few of the others also gifted in flight was signaling everyone over to them. It turned around and did my best impersonation of Rainbow Dash streaking across the place trying to reach them.

As soon as I landed on the ground I couldn’t help myself stop grinning like a kid on Christmas morning as Tirek was staring at us in a mixture of hatred in fear. He was sitting down on the ground trying to hide the fact that one of the chains around his leg had finally been broken.

Tirek tried to sweet talk his way out of his situation “I’ve been trapped here for years powerless and now you have decided to mock me? Wouldn’t your beloved princesses be ashamed of you if they found out?”

Apparently Tirek had yet to be informed about what has happened during his imprisonment. Still Tirek was one of those types of people who had a brain and could employ tactics… but that was only after finding out that brute force didn’t work. Since he was powerless at the moment and waiting for one of us to ether enter the circle to reveal his handy work or trying to ensure we don’t slap new chains on him he had to employ his brain.

I glanced at the chains and then at him as… he looked old… like Crypt Keeper old as I could see him practically licking his lips trying to regain some of the power he once had. A part of me still can't help but wonder how the heck he managed to escape... unless he just stood by the exit waiting for the day Cerberus left the entrance.

I glanced at the others as the also grinned pulling out the chains much to his horror “Don’t worry Tirek… you’re on probation.” No one entered the circle as they threw the chains around his body and wrapping him in chains until we couldn’t see any part of his body “So don’t struggle unless you want to deal with Cerberus by yourself.”

Anyone who could fly took off getting ready to alert everyone it was time to leave. As much as I would love to add to our gallery of rouges… it was better to get out of here before Cerberus recovered.

******

Lockheart

I dropped in relief as we finally made it to Hollow Shades. I managed to finish pulling the cart and it certainly helped having the bat ponies guide us to the village but… I just laid on the ground exhausted as I had burned up a large chunk of my magical reserve.

I really hated feeling the strange combination of magical exhaustion as my body was alright… if you ignored the head ache that dulled your thoughts and made you wish you had some Tylenol if not the entire bottle nearby. In fact a part of me felt like throwing up, but I knew the magical exhaustion would easily go away after a bit of magical restoration… and throwing up would leave me tasting bile and feeling even worse.

I don’t know the exact changeling magic regeneration ratio… if changelings even have/had one, but this trip burned though quite a bit and I wasn’t expecting it to recover quickly. Cloudsdale saw me as an outsider as those who wished to talk to me either wanted to manipulate me or get something from me. Canterlot… besides the guards outside my room and the small trickle of emotion granted to me by the Night Guard or any other pony that was radiating positive emotion that didn’t make me feel sick…

Honestly I was expecting to feel like utter crap for the next few days which was why I was suddenly surprised when I received the rush of joy directed towards me… and then the pain of being tackled by half a dozen foals. The pain was not worth the small trickle of magic I gained back.

“It’s a new pony!” the first one shouted jumping on my stomach.

The sound one climbed onto my side “He’s a Pegasus!”

“No unicorn!” the third one shouted next to my face.

Midnight broke the argument “He’s an alicorn.”

All the foals gasped in awe as I muttered “Not an Alicorn!”

I opened my eyes to see a dark grayish blue filly with dark purple hair stare at me “Why does he have funny teeth and a strange horn?”

I sighed “It’s not strange.”

The filly nodded “Yes it is! Mommy and Daddy say only bat ponies get sharp teeth and you’re not a bat pony!”

A light blue filly with teal and green hair replied “Did you bring us cookies?”

Every foal’s eyes widened in hope as they jumped up and down again “Cookies!”

They sang their devilish chant as they continued to jump up and down on me… as Remedy and a few other adults managed to pry the fillies off me. A few of the ponies had started to apologize for their children’s actions after I had nearly been trampled to death.

I sucked in a deep breath as I tried to box up all my pain for latter as I replied “It was an honest mistake. They thought I was… why did they ask about cookies?”

One of the mares chuckled nervously “There’s a… new pony and every time she comes to town she brings a patch of cookies for them.”

I shook my head “I’ll have to remember that next time.”

Remedy’s horn glowed as she checked me over and said “I guess you aren’t used to a lot of visitors?”

Midnight sighed “You can ask questions later. Right now I have to introduce Lockheart to my uncle.”

All the foals giggled as a few of the colts went “ooohh!”

Midnight shook her head “Look he said I would never amount to anything in Canterlot and right now I’m one of the personal guards to an Alicorn.”

I face palmed as I repeated myself “Not an alicorn.”

Midnight chuckled “Close enough.”

I shook my head and followed Midnight. My body was sore, I burnt up a good bit of my magic… and the town was kind of creepy. It was the middle of the day… and yet it almost looked as if it was closer to sunset.

I wasn’t exactly afraid of the dark… sure I was a bit nervous, but the fact most of the buildings had a fantasy gothic architecture… well a light version of it as the buildings didn’t give the… evil villain or serial killer hiding in wait vibe, but if you just added a bit of fog and then turned out the lights.

I rubbed my chin “This place must get a lot of business during Nightmare Night.”

Midnight paused for a moment and stared at me “It’s just a small town. Why would it get a lot of business during that day compared to Canterlot or…”

I took a deep breath “How many ponies specialize in the genre of horror?”

Midnight stared at me “How frightening could a book be compared to real life?”

I couldn’t help but smile “Remind me to tell you the story of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde latter one... and if you're really brave I'll tell you the horror story called cupcakes."

Remedy chuckled a little "You do realize that's a pastry right?"

Midnight stood her ground "I doubt it would be that scary."

I couldn't help but grin as I replied "Don't say I didn't warn you."

******

Valkyrie

“You’re kidding…. Please tell my you’re not joking around.” I nearly begged him.

Steel chuckled “Really? You know most ponies would find it rather… dull.”

I took a deep breath as I had to remember that this was a fantasy world. Ponies were not that afraid of dragons because they were common… heck a lot of ponies didn’t bat an eye at Cerberus until Pinkie Pie told them to start running away and scream in panic… as Twilight didn’t seem surprised at seeing a giant living mythical guard dog… and yet they cowered in fear from a zebra because of their fear of the unknown.

What was common for them wasn’t exactly common for me… even if I had gotten used to a few things. I’m pretty sure that if I showed them a laptop or cellphone then they would be just as excited and amazed by it just like I was about meeting Cerberus even if those two devices wouldn’t make me even bat an eye.

I gave a sheepish smile “What can I say? Your norm isn’t mine… and would it be… alright to…” I gulped “Give him a belly rub?”

Steel just burst out laughing as the rest of the ponies just stared at me in surprise. Alright I might not exactly know all the social norms as I had either… made a gigantic blunder or…

Steel shook his head as tears came from his eyes “You know you are the first pony I’ve meet that is so happy being given this mission… but honestly it will be a nice break from the rest of the current insanity.”

Arrow laughed “Just wait until we have to play fetch or give him his bath. Then you’ll wish we were back on cursed clean up duty.”

I glanced at Arrow “You make him sound more like a pet than a guard dog.”

Steel finally stopped laughing as he tried to sound dignified as he replied “Well you see… every few months there is a bit of a swap on who visits Cerberus. He guards Tartarus and all the old ancient villains and monsters are sealed away. Our job is to help give Cerberus some company… and make sure everything is fine.”

Arrow groaned “If somepony or other race doesn’t check up on Cerberus sometimes he wonders about bored… You ever here the story of how the Orthros came to be? On day when nopony came to visit a dog during that time of year came nearby...”

Steel coughed loudly “And that’s enough of that story… but seriously Cerberus is like a rather large puppy dog and he does need attention from time to time. The reason why we do rotations is to ensure equal responsibility… and of course if a new villain or monster needs to be placed in Tartarus.”

I blinked “Wait a new monster or villain?”

Steel sighed “Sometimes something arrives that… is rather unusual. Something that doesn’t belong in a normal jail cell and…”

Arrow chipped in “Twenty years ago the dragons had to seal away this giant monster that ate everything in it’s path including their treasure… Either it wasn’t a sentient creature or it simply didn’t care as it even tried to eat their young. By the time they had stopped it the creature had reduced a large section of fertile land into a dry and arid desert as it had also destroyed a couple of towns.”

Steel coughed “Of course it’s really rare and most races who had placed dangerous monsters or villains in Tartarus also want to ensure that Cerberus keeps them from escaping.”

I sighed in relief as... Tartarus was currently reserved for monsters like Tarrasque from DnD than the green gak Smooze from G4 MLP. Green Smooze could be reasoned with... to an extent. Tarrasque was just a chaotic mindless monster that wouldn't stay dead and probably would be tossed in Tartarus if they could subdue it long enough.

Steel pointed at the clearing underneath us as I spotted Cerberus sleeping on the ground as Steel said “See everything is alright, but don’t expect him to continue sleeping once we land.”

Everyone landed as Cerberus continued snoring peacefully. In fact taking a look at the giant three head dog sleeping like this… made me understand why Hagrid called his three headed dog Fluffy. Everyone started to move around getting ready for him to wake up as a few pulled out fresh food, water, and a large rubber ball to play around with.

Steel looked around the area as he slowly replied “Does… something seem off to you?”

I glanced around at the surroundings and spotted nothing. Still Steel seemed a bit nervous as… everyone else was starting to relax as Cerberus kept snoring. Honestly I was hoping for a little bit more excitement from the big guy as I wanted to see if he really was a big happy fluffy dog.

Something hit the ground as we all looked towards the cave or entrance into Tartarus itself as a couple of ponies, diamond dogs, and griffins walked out of the tunnel and paused for a second… as they had four chained up people and one of them looked like Tirek!

Tirek the big bad of the group wasn’t just tied up… he was wrapped up in so many ropes he looked more like a hunting trophy as his mouth was even gaged shut! The other two mystery villains still had their evil villain hoods over their faces as they were also tied up, but the unicorns in the party still had their horns glowing ready for any sign of trouble from their prisoners.

The first one from their group shouted “Plan B!”

That’s when everything went to hell. The fliers in their group opened up their wings and grabbed the captive prisoners. The ones who were ground bound started rushing towards the forest as few of them charged towards us. Everyone prepared to stop them only for a second group to leap out of the forest and attack us from behind.

I was knocked back down to the ground by a large griffin with a scar over his eyes as he said “You won’t stop us because today… we can finally slay Discord himself!”

My eyes widened in fear as his plan was insane! They freed Tirek just to try to kill Discord the crazy powerful monster that could alter reality!

He noticed the look of shock on my face and chuckled as he was about to say something back until something hit his face and threw off his balance off as I bucked as hard as I could. I could hear him trying to catch his breath as I had knocked the wind out of him… or struck a bit further south. I gasped for air as the cool sweet breeze rushed into my throat as nearly coughed from the sudden rush of air filling my lungs.

The griffin tried to strike back only for a mace to hit him in the face knocking him down to the ground. Steel was breathing heavily as sweat dripped off his forehead as he grabbed a small whistle around his neck and blew as hard as he could.

Everyone seemed to pause for a moment as the whistle hit just that pitch that drove people nuts, but more importantly everyone could hear something growling.

I glanced at Cerberus… who had just gotten up as one of his heads was still asleep… his middle head drowsy while his right head was wide awake and that head reminded me of angry junkyard dog that caught you in the middle of the night as the bloodshot eyes promised immediate retribution to those who had pissed it off.

I cracked a smile "Today is a good day to die."

******

Lockheart

I sat on the pillow that had been placed on the floor as I waited for Midnight’s uncle. It was rather uncomfortable as two new foals were racing around me chasing each other. One silver coat bat pony with light green hair was chasing the midnight blue pony with purple hair as neither of them had their cutie marks. Remedy my part time jailer just sat safely away from me chuckling at my misfortune as the fillies continued to play.

The first filly spoke up “How’d you get your cutie mark!”

I cringed as the other one bumped into her and then started at my butt staring in awe at my cutie mark. I just had to remember the importance of cutie marks and how Equestrian society viewed them. I certainly should not try to tear my hair out as they began to bombard me with countless questions.

Remedy came to my aid “One question at a time.” And quickly silenced any hope of reprieve.

I think she's a little bit angry that I told them the Cupcake story and just how dark that fanfic was or how they couldn't look at a normal cupcake the same way after hearing the story.

The silver coat bat pony blinked “How did you get your horn mister?”

The dark coated bat pony shook his “How did you get your wings!”

It hurt to pretend to be smiling as Remedy stared at me watching for any lies… or unable to tear herself away from watching the two big eyed foals staring at me in awe as I replied “The same way I got the other one.”

They both pouted.

The silver one frowned “How old are you?”

I shrugged “Older than my teeth, but roughly the same age as my tongue.”

The dark coated one stood up on his hind legs as he tried to stare at me straight in the eyes “How come you’re not an Alicorn?”

“The same way you’re not vampony.” I countered much to their dismay.

Both foals grouped up together and started whispering loudly. Remedy couldn’t help but chuckle a little as these two foals tried to find some way for me to answer their questions… without me giving them a vague yet correct answer. Ponies can be devious… but compared to humanity they have yet to learn the ways of being utterly despicable.

After all they have yet to invent “customer service” to deal with complaints or even create the IRS.

The silver coated one pointed at my teeth “Why do you have funny teeth?”

I frowned “Their not funny… they are… just a bit… different.”

I flinched as the dark coated brat just plucked a feather from my wing. Why do all changeling tests seem to involve plucking something off a pony? Is this the reason why you don’t see many changeling impersonating pegasi because of all the feather plucking tests!

The dark coated brat stared at my feather “Why did it turn dark? Are you a tree pony?”

I blinked “What?”

The dark coated brat stared at the feather as if it would suddenly tell him the secrets “Well mom said if you pluck a leaf off a tree it turns dark… and your feather turned dark so are you a tree pony?”

Remedy held a hoof over her mouth leaving me to explain “No my father did not build a puppet and wish upon the first star he saw that night, nor do I have a cricket for a conscious…”

The dark coated brat stared at me “Because you ate him?”

At this point I had just noticed Midnight… along with her uncle… both of which didn’t even seem to bother trying to hide the fact they were laughing as I began to wonder just how long they had been watching. I just groaned as apparently the one meta joke that I quipped back… was used against me.

Remedy managed to say with a complete straight face “That would explain how you dealt with Canterlot’s nobility.”

The silver coated one stared at me “Is that why he is always evasive… so his nose doesn’t grow?”

I groaned “How in the world do they know Pinocchio?”

The uncle a dark blue almost midnight black bat pony with silver hair smiled “Some of the new residents did a play on it. They wanted to see which of their old foal tales worked in Equestria and if we knew of any good ones. Their unicorn was really good with illusions.”

I shook my head as I had apparently walked into that one… in fact judging from the foal’s smile the little brat either was preparing to use that line… or they were happy pulling one over me.

Congrats little brats. You managed to pull off something the rest of Canterlot’s nobility has yet to accomplish.

Midnight’s uncle smiled as he glanced at his grandchildren “Run along while Grandpa has a talk with the funny looking pony.”

“Okay!” They both cheerfully replied before running off.

The uncle stared at me… and that’s when his playful demeanor stayed on his face… and I could feel a hint of blood lust coming off him. In fact a normal pony under his gaze could properly feel the intense dislike he was radiating towards me… and yet skilled enough to seem cheerful to those around him.

I gave my best back stabbing pony smile and held out my hoof “Lockheart. You?”

The uncle grabbed my hoof… and I never knew it was possible to attempt to crush another pony’s hoof with a “bro hoof” as the uncle smiled “Willow Leaf, but you can call me Mr. Leaf!”

I nodded “Understood…”

The silence was left between us as neither of us knew what to say. In fact it was hard to say exactly what to say as it was obvious that neither one of us wanted to talk. I was ready to leave and he was ready to kick me out the door, but we were both forced to stay for some unknown reason.

Mr. Leaf coughed “So… what are you?”

“Alive.” I bluntly replied.

The silence continued as Remedy sighed walking out of the room as Midnight tried to chip in “He’s the pony Celestia put me in charge to look after. He’s also the pony who’s trying to help deal with the Night Guard.”

Mr. Leaf stared at me with distrust “And what’s with all these… reforms your trying to make?”

I blinked “What?”

Mr. Leaf nodded as he didn’t let up “New gear, new training… this… division thing you’re making?”

I groaned as I rubbed my aching head “Look you just can’t simply lump up all the groups into one package. Even then the new gear is to bring them up to date. The new training is to separate the groups into sections as Equestria is the only place that I’ve seen that doesn’t tend to have crimes happen more often during the night than during the day!”

Mr. Leaf frowned “Is that some sort of jab?”

Midnight tried to intervene as I countered “First of all at what? Second of all what better time is there to commit an act of burglary than at night? Anyone who does it during the day is either trying to get hostages, use the initial shock and awe of the robbery to escape… or are just plain idiots who end up getting caught. Even then there isn’t a lot of activity during the night which means tired guards having to stare out into nothing who follow a pattern that you can exploit.”

Mr. Leaf just stared at me for a few seconds “And the division parts?”

I shrugged “Technically during a time of war the Night Guard is a divisional branch of the Equestrian Military and the primary act is to separate those divisions which better suit a police force, guard duty, and those who would be able to deal with threats to Equestria wither they are an invading force or a wild monster attacking the area nearby as there are plenty of predator species that hunts during the night and dealing with those creatures need weapons and armor made during this century.”

Mr. Leaf rubbed his chin as he calmly replied “You don’t get out much do you?”

I couldn’t help but crack a grin “Actually I don’t tend to stay in place for very long. Pitchforks, torches, and angry mobs or upset lords tend to make living arrangements difficult.”

“Aren’t you an Alicorn… I mean…” He started as I flinched.

I took off the first layer of my disguise turning my gray coat black and the light blue hair back to its changeling like green quality. I opened my eyes and stared at him as… grinning pointy teeth, unusual horn, and a dark color scheme was like waving around a giant sign that said Evil Villain! Lock the doors and call for the local Heroes before he does something really nasty to you!

I sighed as his body kind of went ridged as I replied “Does this look at all child friendly to you?”

It wasn’t the changeling form… but it was far away enough from the norm to send a few shivers down their spine in much the same way people tended to flinch when they saw someone take off a prosthetic arm or leg right in front of them. They could feel the hint of something unnatural about me… I reapplied the illusion layer of my disguise turning the coat back to “normal” along with my hair.

I couldn’t help but smirk as I bitterly replied “Tell me… did a simple change in colors really need to invoke that kind of response?”

Mr. Leaf flinched as… I could feel the hostility radiating off from Midnight.

She smiled revealing her rather sharp and pointy teeth that made both of the men in the room shiver as she said in a calm voice that invoked fear in every child that had did something wrong and was just caught “Like I said. You can’t judge a book by its cover… How about you help me get some ingredients while…” she turned her head towards me “You help look after the foals. There are some snacks in the upper cabinet if their hungry and…”

The door opened up as the two foals returned… with friends… lots of friends!

“Help keep eye on Glimmer and Shimmer’s friends.” Midnight replied calmly “And yes… he’s an Alicorn.”

I flinched as the swarm of foals rushed to me bombarding me with questions as the two bat ponies adults left the room forcing me to deal with this tiny demon swarm… after a few minutes of them having finally calmed down long enough to stop shouting over each other I tried to figure out what to do next.

A lot of stories had Changelings taking care of children… giving a few cookies to orphans or feeding carrots to a bunny for a tickle or source of love to help feed on or a way to help regain their magic.

This house didn’t have cookies.

I sighed and shook my head “I wonder if they have any ice cream?”

“What’s Eye Scream?” One of the foals asked in confusion as I paused in step. “Is that one of those scary stories?”

They didn’t have ice cream… did that mean Equestria in general or this town? How could they have gone through cake, cookies, a large variety of sugary treats… that made me think sugar might possible be one of their food groups in the same way meat or grain was to humans... and not have…

I took a deep breath “I need water, sugar, and milk.”

Let’s see how much I have learned so far in the art of transmutation…

******

Remedy

Remedy walked back into the room as… she never thought the rumors were possible. That they were crazy myths or jokes told out loud and yet…

Each of the foals gazed as Lockheart in a unified effort trying to hone in on their natural cuteness that it was… it was weaponized cuteness as they even had diamond dog puppies! Those big eyes and that look! They even had little spoons sticking out of their mouths as an empty cup stood before them!

Remedy grasped her heart and managed to catch herself as she saw the first few causalities resting in the doorway. Four fully grown diamond dogs clutching their hearts stuck in a cuteness overload state as a few therstal parents also seemed to have suffered the same fate.

Lockheart sighed “Okay so you do like ice cream… should I make another patch of vanilla or”

He was pelted by a swarm of children who had just had their first taste of some sugary delight and just learned that it came in other flavors.

Remedy quickly applied her medical knowledge and started ordering the parents that managed to recover to quickly zone off the sight until the cuteness levels had just entered safe levels to prevent another cuteness overload. Given the fact a few of the children practically tackled him they might have to quarantine the place for an hour or two.

Celestia help them all as they tried to prevent anymore heart attacks.

******

Midnight

Midnight walked across the town square as she had missed this place. Sure she was a little bit tired… but what pony wouldn’t be after having worked exclusively nightshift and then suddenly being forced to work mornings?

“I still don’t like him.” Leaf replied as he picked out a few mangos

Midnight rolled her eyes “Look Princess Celestia just wanted me to help give him a day off. Just please try to be civil for one day.”

Leaf stared at Midnight for a moment “Isn’t it the job of the stallion of the house to be extremely judgmental when their daughter or niece brings a stallion home?”

Midnight hissed in panic and frustration “It’s not like that!"

Leaf slowly nodded “Right… because there are not plenty of stories about some young princess or prince falling in love with their royal guard… isn’t that why you went to Canterlot in the first place?”

Midnight held up a hoof “Okay first of all Prince Leo is a stuck up Tribalist jerk. Secondly… Lockheart is my boss!”

Her uncle chuckled “Then why do you preen his wings?”

Midnight’s wings shot out straight open as her face was in full blush “It’s not like that… I have to help teach him how to fly… and he doesn’t take a lot of care of his wings…”

Her uncle nodded as he replied “Really? You mean you didn’t bring him here just to prove something to the other mare that just happened to accompany the two of you?”

Midnight frowned as she tried not to let her senile uncle get to her “She is just his doctor… and… she’s helping teaching him unicorn magic while I teach him how to fly.”

Leaf rubbed his chin “So… I should have been interrogating the mare since you’re a…”

Midnight slapped her crazy senile uncle in the face with her wing “Just for that you are paying for the food.”

Leaf took a deep breath as his check still stung a bit “Look… there’s something… off about him. I can’t tell what… but… I know I’m not your father, but I just want to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

Midnight nodded as… she was kind of hoping her uncle would be proud of her. Midnight wasn’t stuck in the same dead end night shift jobs… even if she was moving up the ranks. Celestia was making changes while Lockheart was a literal force of change… even this little town seemed to be growing up as more ponies were starting to visit it.

Leaf smiled as he placed a hoof on her shoulder “Besides… considering how much you wrote about him I had to check to see if he was a good stallion.” Midnight opened her mouth “And don’t try to argue… First you talked about the rumors about the elusive alicorn. Then you wrote about how he and a few other ponies rescued a group of fillynapped ponies. After that it was helping out some unicorn and how everypony else was reacting to the latest alicorn.”

Midnight huffed as she didn’t like how this conversation was going “Alright maybe I talked a little bit about him… but just about everypony else in Cloudsdale and Canterlot rants about him also… just not as politely.”

Leaf didn’t look happy as he replied “You didn’t find it strange that he flinched when they asked about his cutie mark? Everypony I ever knew loved talking about how they found their talent… but him? That’s the face of a pony that’s hiding something.”

Midnight didn’t respond as… something was always off about him. His altitude, his magic… even his past. They were always off simply because it wasn’t normal in Equestria. It kind of bothered her how casually he joked about being chased by angry mobs with pitch forks… and that smile when he dispelled the illusion? She hadn’t seen a smile so… bitter before.

Leaf tapped her on the shoulder “Sorry if I… said anything wrong.”

Midnight shook her head “No… I was just… lost in thought. According to the others… he… didn’t have a good life until he came to Equestria. He didn’t even have a cutie mark until the Everfree Forest incident.”

Leaf stared at her in utter disbelief “Wha… He… he’s at least as old as you… and he was a… blank flank?”

Midnight tried to chuckle, but she didn’t have much energy in it “Sure there are a lot more blank flank adults… but… How exactly do you feel about the new foreign ponies?”

Leaf rubbed his chin “Honestly? I just thought they were more like the ones from Saddle Arabia… but after speaking to them… I wouldn’t want to live where they are from.”

Her uncle brought them to… a large sideshow stand as two ponies were working on their illusions as a nearby… band had a cello player, a DJ, and a singer? It was an odd sight… really odd but they waved at them so Midnight waved back.

Willow Leaf smiled “Apparently they just worked… went to school to get a broad sum of knowledge… then to another school and another school until they either paid for a fourth school or tried to find some way to make bits.”

His frown died down as he stared one of the groups sharpening weapons as a unicorn foal was practicing combat magic “It didn’t matter what you were good at just as long as you worked… a few even had to give up what they loved to do just to meet ends meet… and that was the standard of life…They didn’t try to earn their cutie marks… simply because they no longer had a meaning where they were from.”

Midnight felt a small shiver up her back “You can’t be serious?”

He sighed “Take a look at that foal… the one practicing a fire ball spell. A foal his age should be in school learning and trying to figure out his cutie mark. Instead he shows enough strength in combat as the others use him to help fight any monsters their commissioned to fight… sure they look out for him and do their best to protect him… but they simply have lived an entirely different existence that it’s normal for them and that’s… what frightens me.”

Midnight strained her ears trying to pick up the conversation. The young colt was talking about how exciting their last fight was… how they managed to slay the evil creepy demon bugs. How the… bug pony in the group nodded as she thanked him for helping them out.

Willow Leaf glanced at the stage “There’s something different about them. They don’t care about race, species, or gender as much as we do. Our school took in a few of the children that were with them… but there are still a few that stay in the adventurer groups.” Her uncle chuckled “We even ended up taking a few diamond dog pups in the school.”

Midnight now spotted a few of the diamond dogs as… they looked like diamond dogs. Not foreign diamond dogs that wore pants, but regular diamond dogs with pockets filled with gems and sounded like they were gargling rocks while speaking.

“When did this happen?” Midnight couldn’t help but ask in confusion.

“Oh them?” he replied as if it was common knowledge “Apparently some demon bugs started fillynapping them and the foreign ponies came to help. The diamond dogs lost a lot of their homes, but managed to clear out most of the nest… yet it wasn’t safe for them to stay there anymore so the foreign ponies traveled with them and… then they just became part of the town.”

Leaf couldn’t help but chuckle “After taking a look at the mountain nearby they just started digging making themselves a new home. Sure a few of us were a bit worried or annoyed that they suddenly took up residence… but after they showed their skill with a hammer and seeing those puppies beg.” He sighed “Did you know that the foreign ponies actually taught them how to beg? Just looking at them… it was completely unfair as nopony could argue!”

Midnight couldn’t help but laugh as her uptight uncle who didn’t like change… had been defeated by a bunch of puppies begging. Sure she wasn’t too sure if she would stand up to it any better… but the idea of just seeing a group of diamond dog puppies begging?

Leaf tried to regain his dignity as he continued “The real thing that got us stuck with them… was that the demon bugs? We spotted one that a manticore had recently killed. Sure someponies say there isn’t a difference between the two… but for anypony that actually seen a demon bug… it’s like comparing a pet dog to a diamond dog.”

The freaky monster changelings were close to Hollow Shades! Midnight scanned the town in panic first of all because she was worried about the town itself… the second reason was that she had just left Lockheart by himself after he had angered their queen which according to the reports was a crazy shapeshifting mind warping monster that wanted him dead.

Her uncle quickly placed a hoof on her shoulder “Calm down… the local guard keeps us safe as the diamond dogs help out… even then anytime we find a large concentration the foreign ponies wipe them out. Besides even with the demon bug’s abilities… they don’t interact. If one tried to infiltrate the town they simply stay quite or try to capture those who… stray too far from the town.”

Midnight stared at her uncle in horror “That’s it?”

Her uncle sighed “It’s a big forest… and we finally managed to track their nest down and got rid of it. For now everypony is trying to recover from the incident… as the diamond dogs try to treat the ones they had lost when the crazy bugs attacked them... and what the heck is going on here?”

Midnight looked up ahead… as she saw a few lines of police tape and a couple of pony and diamond dog parents waiting outside their house. Remedy was treating one of the fallen ponies as Midnight was afraid at what just might have happened.

She rushed towards the house ignoring Remedy’s warning. Hollow Shades was supposed to give them a break… it was supposed to be safe! Was Lockheart….

She stopped as soon as she entered the living room. There were a bunch of foals… even a few diamond dogs staring at her. Each of them had a small cup nearby them looking at her in wide eye excitement as they had spoons sticking out of their mouths… and Lockheart… the crazy alicorn was wearing an apron as one filly was on curled up on his back… and the other… was leaning up against Lockheart’s head with his hooves resting beside Lockheart’s horn as the small foal was sniffing the air… trying to get a peek inside the bowl Lockheart was carrying!

“D’awww.” Was the last words that came out of Midnight’s mouth before she passed out

Author's Note

Let me know if I missed any mistakes and yes... yes there will be some action in the next chapter.

Questions for the readers.

What do you think should be done with the former humans turned children? Place them in pony school or attempt to make a school for humans turned Equestrians? Should the children stay as adventures and help fight/adventure if they have the strength to do so?

Do you think the Tartarus breakout will succeed, fail, or fail horribly or possibly go horribly right considering these are ancient foes sealed away in much the same way Tirek is a power hungry magic draining tyrant who's lust for power leaves no questions for any attempt at redemption.

Fallen Hope

Luke

I flapped my wings as hard as I could. It sucked but the plan was simple as anyone ground bound would focus on trying to slow them down as anyone with wings tried to secure the packages... the only question of course would be how many escaped and how many of our allies would actually stay to fight instead of trying to bolt.

I took a deep breath as I glanced at the others with me as everyone carried the villains by the chains used to wrap them up as we had two griffins pulling Tirek just to be safe as they stayed far out of Tirek's arm range as he was left hanging upside down.'

Still the odds were in our favor as we had players carrying the packages as...

Shit!

Something nicked me as I lost some altitude as I tried pulling back up again. I felt a lump in my throat as the two Griffins carrying Tirek tried to keep hold of the chains as an armored pegasus was ahead of us all glaring at us.

The royal guard had a player on their side and I'm willing to bet she wouldn't exactly be heart broken if Tirek accidently fell from the sky and went splat. The problem with that of course was that we needed him for the Discord power drain plan.

The armored pegasus player frowned as she shouted "Stop. If you just surrender than I promise that we will be lenient on you."

My grip tightened around Emberess not out of fear of dropping her... or the fact I was practically having to hug her as I flew... but the fact that the armored pony could fly faster than anyone carrying a villain and she didn't have to beat us. All she needed to do would be to make us drop the villains or simply get rid of them once and for all.

I tried to smile "Fine we surrender." The rest of my allies nodded "Just let's talk over there on that cloud okay?"

The armored mare nodded "Alright... but hand over the prisoners first okay?"

I smiled as I really hated that she wasn't naïve or that she simply didn't trust us one bit. As soon as she denied my request I folded my wings and went into a freefall towards the ground taking her by surprise as she rushed down to stop me.

I could hear the wind screaming against my ears as I let go of Emberess and grabbed one of my grenades. I had a fire elemental boss in hand and a few incendiary/Molotov grenades left to use. I shoved two of them into her chains and pulled the pins before snapping open my wings and trying to pull up/away from her.

"Warmth..." The ancient hag whispered in fevered joy before the grenades went off setting her ablaze as she crashed into the forest.

I crashed into the tree line falling to the ground as I quickly pushed myself back up. Instead of seeing an armored pony or a few Royal Guard Background ponies I was blessed with the sight of smoke rising towards the sky as something roared in triumph.

Emberess's voice now roared out in strength as she shouted "I am Emberess the Mistress of Flames! Forsake the false prophets and worship me!"

Flames danced across the forest as they slowly began to grow. I on the other hand had just released my distraction hopefully buying the others enough time to run as I stayed on the ground. There were plenty of trees covering me right now and a flaming monster big enough for them to focus on it instead of who ever may be lurking about in the woods.

All I had to do was make it to the EVAC point they left and of course keep an eye out for anyone else that had also fallen or taken the ground route.

******

Steel Halberd

Steel Halberd could feel the bile rising in his throat as he shouted "Fall back!"

They enemy flew away with three Tartarus criminals in tow as the fourth villain was currently free and rampaging across the forest beneath them. If they were willing to unleash one of the villains so quickly than they would drop or unleash another villain if they continued to try to chase them.

Steel Halberd stared at the chaos below as the ancient villain let forth another surge of flames scorching across the air burning everything in it's path. The ancient villain looked like some large spotted lizard made out of molten lava and flames as the creature had two large black rocks for eyes.

She laughed as more of the forest was set on fire "For one thous... countless years have I been trapped beneath the earth and now I have comeback for my vengeance!"

The ancient villain... Steel shook his head as he went back to his training. The monster was fire based as currently it was the size of a two story house and it was growing bigger as more of the forest was catching on fire. That either meant it derived it's strength from heat or the very flames themselves. Not only that, but every time it breathed fire setting everything on fire it was aiming for any of the nearby clouds... which meant it was weak against water.

Steel shouted at the top of his breath "Everypony gather up the clouds and move them away from her!"

The monster continued to laugh as smoke started to clog up the sky making flight harder for them.

"Valkyrie! Go back to the cave and let Flicker know about what's happening!" Steel shouted "Then get a group to go with you to the nearby diamond dog tunnels... the ones we cleared out from the cursed artifact incident."

Valkyrie glanced down below "Alright..."

Steel could sense the unease in her voice "Right now we need the tunnels to get ready to be collapsed and I need it ready if we are going to defeat this thing."

Valkyrie nodded as she flew back as Steel sighed in relief. She wasn't exactly happy with his decision... but she followed them anyway. Steel knew she wasn't skilled in making it rain and a frontal assault against this monster would end badly. It was better if she focus on the tunnels as she had been part of the cursed clean up team... and just in case any gem golems still lurked about.

Besides when it came down to it... Steel knew that he was more expendable than Valkyrie was as somepony had to play the role of bait.

Steel glanced at Arrow Strike "Arrow... follow the ones trying to escape, but stay back and treat it like tracking a Hyrda..."

"Because they probably have one ready to be unleashed." Arrow joked back.

Steel smiled as he softly replied "Good... Everypony else gather up the nearby clouds and try to put out all the flames!" He stared down at the flaming monster below... if the monster caught on then she would simply find a spot to entrench herself and set the rest of the forest on flame. "Well... it's time for me to earn my paycheck."

A part of him tried to figure out how he could possibly trick an ancient villain that had been planning her revenge for all these years. The fact she had grown to the size of an adult dragon didn't help either... in fact it felt more like one of those super foal stories he read as a foal.

Of course unlike those stories he highly doubted that Frost Wing or Super Mare would come and save the day. Heck Soaring Chance would probably...

Steel flew down near the forest as he sucked in as much air as he could before screaming "Mistress of Flames? You're just an overgrown bag of hot air!"

Steel immediately moved out of the way before he finished taunting as a blast of flames flew across the sky where he had been at.

Emberess howled in fury "Bag of hot air! You shall regret your folly!"

She stormed after him plowing through the trees and haphazardly trying to incinerate him with burst of flames as Steel kept trying to avoid. He hated this part as he now had an ancient behemoth enraged at him... but it was better to have a sloppy enraged villain after him than a smart villain who thought about their actions or attacks that wasn't completely focused on him.

Of course that also meant he had to keep taunting "That's your best shot? You couldn't even light a fire in the middle of summer!"

Emberess roared as Steel quickly out paced her... and forced himself to slow down. He had to buy time for them to get ready and for the rest of the group to put out the flames. Hopefully Celestia and the rest of the Royal Guard would arrive here soon.

******

Celestia

Celestia glanced at the sea blue earth pony and her dark purple hair with two lighter highlights in it. The mare's smile for some unexplained reason filled Celestia with an unknown worry or a type ill ease. Still Ms Eiferer was doing quite well, her territory was prosperous, and she had a long record of helping teach other ponies.

Ideally she fit the category and Senior Blue Blood didn't have any complaints... and neither did Celestia until she got a closer look at Eiferer. The mare was... Pleasant in some ways... but that pleasantness just made Celestia uncomfortable. Eiferer was quite cheerful... but there didn't seem to be any warmth behind her words as a sense of coldness seemed to fill her words despite the happy tune she spoke in.

Celestia moved onto the next question "What would you do if you had to move to Canterlot? Lockheart may not even be an Alicorn."

Eiferer just stared at Celestia as if she said a bad joke until she chuckled "Canterlot is the jewel of Equestria and I am sure I could teach Lockheart despite any previous difficulties a stallion of his age might have obtained without a proper teacher to help him out."

Celestia nodded as Eiferer... didn't exactly fill her with ease. Some of the other nobles had doubts, or questions... but Eiferer simply seemed to take the remark as a possibility that her teaching methods could be flaw instead of the fact that Lockheart may simply not be an Alicorn.

Celestia made a polite political chuckle "Still I have to ask for the sake of the question."

She rubbed her chin "Then I guess I would see how different some of their societies operated from ours... how they viewed magic or how it's employed..."

A spark seemed to shine in her eyes as she spoke with more enthusiasm "Their lore on Alicorns or possibly the insane reasons for their short sighted reactions? Why some of the things the traveling mark less ponies talk about are rather interesting including their talks about Midgard."

Celestia couldn't help but be a little bit curious about Midguard... considering it was the place Lockheart had claimed to be from. Even then considering how closely he guarded his past... it would help give her an idea about what he had experienced... of course she would have to word her question carefully.

Celestia smiled as she gently replied "You know that like most rumors..."

"You can't take everything at face value." Eiferer replied in slight annoyance "And some of the things they say are..." her face locked up in much the same way one of the teachers who were taking the foals on a field trip to the castle did when somepony that somehow managed to bring their dog with them as it had left a small... mess on one of the rugs.

"Misinformed." She politly replied "A few thought that Nightmare Moon was actually real and some of the more... troubled ponies are receiving the proper care from proper professionals as the curse that affects some of their memory can be troubling sometimes."

Eiferer finished her speech with a very calm and kindly reply that most ponies wouldn't have been able to pull off without previous experience. Celestia simply nodded as she had paid attention to the few attempts to repress an eye twitch and of course the small smile she had if a mare doing a good deed... matching with the gentle phrasing she had replied with.

"Thank you for your time." Celestia gently replied "Just try to stay for a few more days as we try finish up with the rest of the applicants."

Eiferer nodded as she said "Of course Princess Celestia"

Eiferer walked out of the room with a smile on her face as to her... it was obvious that she was the only pony that was worthy of this job and she had just secured her position for it.

Celestia waited for the pony to leave the room as... she made a mental note to have a few of her ponies to double check Eiferer's territory to make sure everything was okay... and that Eiferer wasn't trying to make Celestia out as some sort of sun goddess.

Those never ended well as most of them would start out nice... until they tried finding ways to please her or for filling the visions granted to them when they stared at the sun for too long. In all of her years ruling as a princess... Celestia couldn't think of a single time when she wanted her towns on fire or for some of the more... crazier actions certain groups had tried.

Hopefully it was just a political game or ploy as the worst she had was fudging her taxes or trying to run an illegal business... and the crazed fevered spark wasn't hinting about some crazed devotion or something else that could be possibly wrong with her as she seemed a bit... off.

Celestia pulled out her mug for her sugary treat... and some medicine to help deal with her current headache as some ponies that passed the initial stage... they were perfectly fine in public, but when trying to prove faithful or as a promising pick they showed some of their real side which was not as nice as their public personas as some showed clear signs of corruption, offers or bribes.... or how they smiled when talking more about the position of power than what they would actually be doing.

Celestia pulled out the fluffy white treats and the hot coco mix as she could just taste the lovely mix of chocolate and the fluffy white sugary treats mixed together into a nice hot and soothing drink to calm a pony down... especially since it started to get colder as a few small towns started preparing for Fall.

A scroll burst into existence in front of her as it landed in the mug... thankfully empty this time. Celestia slowly opened it up as she tried to guess if it was a status report, a minor problem... or a status update on what was going on with Lockheart. Hopefully it would be another despite or a major...

Celestia stared at the scroll in shock as she couldn't believe what was written on it. A group of races actually broke into Tartarus just to free some prisoners for some unknown reason and one of the ancient foes that had been unleashed was Emberess.

She rushed out of the room and prepared to signal the Royal Guard to come and assist her. Emberess was a dangerous foe back in the past... and one of the last few foes she and Luna had fought together. Besides the danger she posed and her love of flames Emberess was a vengeful and petty monster as she would destroy entire towns for simply not worshiping her of if they brought her bad news.

Of course a darker thought whispered in the back of her mind "Or do you just fear that she will talk about Luna?"

Celestia had mixed feelings as... on one hoof Luna had been forgotten as Nightmare Moon became a story to frighten little foals... She might even be able to use this moment to slowly reintroduce her sister back into Equestria... as her return was possible.

Of course the simple fear of her ponies asking what happened to Luna came to mind or worse... the open mockery or hatred everypony had when Luna was banished... not that they were angry at Celestia.... but the hatred they had of her sister. Everypony already had low view point of Luna, but after her banishment it had sunk down to the same levels as Sombra and even Tirek of all creatures! Celestia had to carefully remove knowledge of her sister's existence... if only to save Luna's name instead of having it sink to the same depths most centaurs used to describe Tirek these days.

It was better for Luna to have become forgotten than remembered in misery.

Celestia entered the barracks and shouted "Gather the soldiers and we need to move now!"

Celestia just noticed the bat pony saluting right along side with Razor Wind. That was when she remembered that Lockheart was trying to up the training and get some experience for the Night Guard as... a new twisted knot appeared in her stomach as thoughts about her meeting with Boulder Dash surfaced in the back of her mind.

What would happen if word got out to him? How would he react? Would he want Luna to be remembered or kept hidden away so that the taint of Nightmare Moon wouldn't affect her? How would news of his Sister possibly affect the Night Guard as Lockheart was trying to give them a more active role in Equestria?

Celestia shook her head as she banished the thoughts "There has been an incident near Tartarus as a villain broke free that uses fire."

Razor Wind nodded "I'll get a few pegasi teams ready and some unicorns."

Celestia glanced at the Night Guard as she handed them the scroll "And they may need help collapsing a few nearby tunnels..."

To her credit the bat pony mare nodded before giving a quick exchange with Razor Wind before they both separated gathering the ponies they needed for this mission as Celestia was left to her own thoughts as she tried to figure out the purpose of the... jail break and why four prisoners had been selected.

If it was to just create chaos then why not unleash all of them? Why bother with the planning... and why did they sacrifice or leave behind Emberess or had she been picked if only to simply hide their true target?

Celestia sighed as she missed the old days when villains were at least straight forward about their plans even if it was just trying to conquer all of Equestria or somewhere along those lines.

******

Valkyrie

My wings itched as I walked through the dimly lit tunnels as a few gems sparkled giving us some light. No one touched any of the gems as... this cave used to be cursed. The diamond dogs that lived here ran into a pony wearing a trench coat who sold them a magical artifact that would help them find and collect gems.

Turns out it the pony in question dealt in cursed artifacts as the magical statue gathered the gems in the tunnels and created golems made out of gems.... that would attack anyone including the person holding the statue forcing the diamond dogs out of their home as the gem golems lurked in the tunnels... until we were called to clean up the latest mess caused by the cursed trader.

I couldn't help but shiver as the team I had been on was forced to make an emergency teleport forcing me to be one of the portable pony parachutes. Still that pesky feeling of claustrophobia kicked in as I couldn't help but stare at the walls in fear... I mean we did get rid of the cursed artifact as the gem golems made the tunnels unstable.

It just didn't help that the diamond dogs gathered up the remaining gems they could carry before leaving this place even after the cursed artifact was removed from this place. I stared at one of the tunnel walls as I could just imagine some sort of gem diamond dog popping out of the rock or a large gem like serpent taking up most of the tunnel as it chased after us as I cursed my overactive imagination at the moment.

Fail Safe walked behind me as she was one of the unicorns that came only with us stared at the tunnels in awe. She was our resident teleporter and one of the few ponies in our group trying to master that spell that gave ponies wings. Her job was to make it to Tartarus while keeping up with the rest of the group to prove her ability... and since it was a harmless mission there wasn't much of a reason for concern.

She stared at one of the large gem formations that was as big as her and said "Why would they leave. This place doesn't look that bad."

I tried to repress a shiver as I said "That's the million dollar question isn't it."

They stared at me for a second until they caught on as... I remembered that all of my expressions hadn't gotten around. Still a part of me was envious of the four behind me as the pegasus was nervous... but stared at the place in awe like a child in front of a crocodile at a zoo. The two unicorns didn't even seem nervous.

Fail Safe just smiled as she said "It shouldn't be too bad. Just knock over a few supports and then teleport out of here."

I held out my hoof stopping the group as I felt the twisted knot in my stomach grow "Unless we are not the only ones in here."

Right in front of us was a gem golem... corpse? The head was bashed in and it wasn't moving... I even tossed a rock at it before attempting to get close as the gem golem seemed... dead at the moment.

Quick Wind walked up ahead and whistled as she said "Teeth marks... Claw marks on the ground could be a day... or maybe a few weeks old. My bet either golems are eating each other.... or a few dragon whelps heard about an empty diamond dog mine filled with gems."

I glanced at the gem golem "Does that mean we have to warn them before we drop the place on them?"

Silver Wing shook her head and stretched her wings out "It's an abandoned mine as the signs outside warned anypony... or drake who could read. Even the big warning symbols should have been a hint."

Fail Safe nodded "Besides it's not uncommon for a few dragon whelps to have to dig their way out during a tunnel collapse... some don't wait for the diamond dogs to leave the mine when they go searching for gems. They'll be angry, but they'll live... but we'll warn em if we run into them."

I sighed in relief as... quite frankly I'd rather deal with punk teenage dragons then golems that moved through the dirt like fish. Sure that's bad when you think about it in how deadly dragons are... but that also meant that the dragon brats are taking care of any real threats down here.

Geo the last member of our group glanced at the wall "One moment..." His horn glowed as the ground shook a little as bits of dirt fell from the celling "Okay... just don't lean against the walls for a while and we'll be good."

Geo... the unicorn with a gift in rocks since his family was a bunch of earth pony rock farmers. Either his family taught him was to look out for... or it was because of his pickaxe cutie mark, but he was the pony in charge of setting this place to collapse when the giant flaming villain arrived.

Silver Wing slowly nodded as she drew her wings closer to her body "Thanks." she replied with mixed feelings about having the tunnel become unstable "Still it won't collapse while we are still here will it?"

"That's what Fail Safe is for... no offense." I said out loud as the mare in question smiled.

She increased her pace as she replied "Today my job was to levitate a ball around or help clean up any messes... now I get to teleport everypony up to the surface should the worst happen. Maybe they should have put that on the recruitment posters instead?"

I held out a hoof as I gulped "Geo... can you make this part of the tunnel... stable?"

Geo glanced around the area as he rubbed his chin "This area doesn't look that bad."

I shook my head as I saw the chalk mark on the wall "This is an area I marked... and it didn't have any crystals sticking out of the wall last time I was here."

Geo's horn started to glow as we pulled out our weapons and prepared for a fight.

"We've got company." Geo replied as he pointed at the celling above the shinning array of gems "Apparently not all of the diamond dogs left this area."

As soon as the dirt stared to fall from the celling I prepared to rush in to help them... if only to have them help us until a brass colored earth pony landed on the ground and stared at us. It threw me off for a moment until a magical barrier appeared right in front of us.

Fail Safe shivered a little as she said "What is that?"

I glanced at the brass colored pony who seemed to smile when she saw us and said "Can't you tell Equestrian?"

Both unicorns were in defensive stances as they stared at her as if she was a fire breathing dragon. I also prepared for a fight since she was human and also probably one of the people responsible for the prison break... but Geo and Fail Safe seemed terrified of her despite the fact this wasn't the first human turned pony they ran into to.

The brass colored mare just stared at us as her tail swept across the ground back and forth "Armored mare... Royal Guards... You wouldn't happen to be Valkyrie would you?"

Silver Wing whispered "What's going on?"

Fail Safe hissed loudly "That is not a pony or even one of the bug ponies!"

That made me focus on the brass colored mare as... cursed tunnel plus strange pony that scares the locals equals trouble. The only question was what exactly made this mare seem so frightening to them?

Silver Wing didn't seem to have noticed anything, but she quickly pulled out her bow along with one of the ice arrows just to be safe.

The brass mare held a hoof to her mouth and pretended to be frightened "Oh dear me. Four against one. Oh what ever shall I do?"

Something fell from the hole above her head as her tail quickly snatched it as the object rested against the side of her body like a lance. I felt my blood turn cold as I recognized the crude design and the small fire at the end of it and screamed "Shields!"

The two unicorns made another magic barrier and gritted their teeth as the burst of flames shout out of the flamethrower and smashed into the shield before us. The flames licked across the shield growing brighter for a few moments until the shields broke as the brass colored mare smashed through them as she now had her teeth on the barrel of the flame thrower and used it like a club knocking Quick Wing up against the wall before tackling me.

I swung my fist at her only for her to chuckle as the punch knocked her back as she replied "One combat build and three secondary regulars... and two who are still frightened."

Geo's horn glowed as he stated loudly "We request for you to leave these tunnels Miss."

"Brass Balls." She... he? The former human in front of us replied. "And if you wouldn't mind bringing out that wicked witch and leaving her with me than I would be happy to oblige..."

"Who?" I couldn't help but ask as I had a sneaking feeling my name was going to be called.

Brass chuckled in irritation "The Cross witch of course..."

Geo's horn glowed again as a part of the ground collapse revealing two diamond dogs and a chained up prisoner... like the ones taken from Tartarus.

Brass frowned "Boys... we're taking the hard way."

The diamond dogs grinned as they pulled out their maces... and these diamond dogs looked like the guards from that mlp episode. Geo started to sweat as I glanced at Fail Safe... there was one Tartarus Prisoner nearby and two rather large diamond dogs.

I whispered "Think you can?" she nodded, but didn't seem happy at the prospect.

Geo whispered "She also has more dogs lurking in the ground around us."

I chuckled nervously as... I really wished I was fighting the teenage dragons instead. At least they would also be confined in this small space. On the bright side they couldn't collapse the tunnels on us because...

"Stupid pony!" a gravely voice shouted in anger as Geo had bucked a diamond in the face when he tried to pop out of the ground.

I gulped as I took another look and just realized... she had natural diamond dogs in her group as the ground shook a little. They were not going to collapse the tunnel on us... because this place was already unstable... highly unstable and also in their odds as the walls started to open up revealing new tunnels with a large amount of diamond dogs wearing vest full of gems.

Brass smiled as she said "What was that old line again? Remember the Alamo?"

******

Brass

One player, three equestrians, and a couple of diamond dogs on my side. The odds were in my favor and I had been stuffed inside a jail cell until that freaking bitch cursed me and made me into a girl... so naturally I wanted a bit of richly deserved payback since armored chick is friends with her.

The armored girl was about to say something, I didn't give her a chance to finish as I charged. Pegasi could be strong, but that only worked against normal fights and I'm anything but normal as I pinned her to the ground and started wailing on her face. Say what you want about it looking like a slapping fight, but ponies have hooves making this the equivalent of slapping someone with a glove that held a brick inside it.

One of the blasted ponies kicked one of the diamond dogs at me knocking me off her as she managed to get up and then bucked both of us across the room as the rest of the diamond dogs tried to charge her.

I shouted out loud "Get the others first!"

I could see a few of my diamond dogs getting beaten up as... diamond dogs used swarm tactics and the terrain to their advantage. Being underground in an unstable mine made things a bit more difficult... also most of them sucked at fighting as their closer to thieves or highway men than actual brawlers.

It's the reason why the Mane Six managed to beat them so easily and sure training would help them get better... but most of them are new fresh green horns who are used to digging instead of fighting. Their the type that lost to the Mane Six in a regular brawl despite having larger numbers and even with armor and weapons.

But there were a few good ones in the mix.

"Bruce, Spike! Strike!" I screamed as they charged her with their shields.

She managed to doge the first ramming charge, but Spike jumped into the air ramming her and brought her slammed down into the ground. As soon as she was grounded Bruce jumped up and landed on the shield keeping her down as I retrieved one of the fallen maces and charged after the unicorns.

They had magic and one of them was dealing with the tunnel preventing the diamond dogs from making the tunnel more stable so that they could use their normal tactics as the ground kept literally shifting about as the second one was swinging the metal spear around knocking them back or jabbing the blunt edge of the spear at exposed points.

Sure a blunt spear tip sounds like a joke right up until you have one jabbed at your stomach. It is a weapon that adds reach and just because it won't kill anyone... doesn't mean it won't hurt like heck when it hits you.

I charged blocking the spear with my mace just long enough to slam my feet down on it and tackle her. Her horn started to spark and I promptly started punching her in the face and against her horn giving the diamond dogs some space right up until someone tackled me and slammed me into the ground.

Now I saw how she got her nickname as she stood over me with wings spread open wide ready to beat me up. Too bad for her she is thinking like a pony and I'm thinking like a human as I spat at her face before head butting underneath her chin. Sure it hurt a bit, but picking up a mace off the ground with my tail I slammed it into her shins... or that joint that locks up in pain whenever someone kicks it during a soccer game.

The world blacked out for a moment as a pain shot through my head as the wana be hero groaned "Of course you have a hard head."

I'll give her this... either she bought some really nice armor or she picked up some hero perk that doesn't let her fall down easily. She swung her fist trying to hit me as I pulled back... my left leg was now incased in ice as she took another swing hitting me in the face.

I swung again only for my fore leg to be incased in ice as it smashed against her armor as she slammed her armored gauntlet into my shoulder.

"Need a helping hoof Valkyrie?" A jackass replied as she was surrounded by frozen diamond dogs.

I really hate magic.

A pegasus smiled as she was using her wings to pull back the draw string as she loaded another arrow. Bruce and Spike managed to stop her for firing another arrow as I focused on the opponent in front of me. She huffed in pain and frustration as she had taken a few good beatings... and I knew I wasn't going to beat her in a fist fight.

The armored mare shouted "Just stop fighting! There is an ancient evil your group just unleashed and it's coming this way."

Just great. They were pulling the giant flaming distraction over here. The other diamond dogs stopped attacking as... they didn't seem happy with the prospect of facing the rest of the royal guard if the entire place didn't collapse when the villain walked over this place.

I chuckled as smashed the ice off my legs and said "Sorry, but it wouldn't be right if I passed up this chance." Spike and Bruce smiled as they moved their shields to let me attack "Besides... you're Remedy's friend are you and I have a score to settle with her."

I glanced at the hole I had fell from and shouted "Do it now!"

All of them glanced back at the villain I had been carrying with us as they expected me to unleash it or something stupid. Instead my good pal Quick Wing dropped the bag as I pulled out my backup plan.

That's the thing about these stupid menus is that it makes people stupid. Suddenly it's all about trading memories for power and seeing which idiot can be the next magical powerhouse or they think that they are the next special little butterfly that gets to be the hero.

Me on the other hand? I remembered the best ability of all is being human... because we cheat. I didn't get my revenge against Sanguine Point by being stronger than him. No... I won because I cheated as I pulled out the basilisk from the bag.

The armored girl turned to stare at me as I smiled holding the basilisk at her. Her allies stared at us in horror as I couldn't help but laugh as she fell over. The Basilisk continued hissing as I stuffed it back in the bag as Quick Wings dropped from the hole above me.

He shook his head "Don't try to follow us. Don't try to stop us and we'll let you finish up your job."

I smirked as I stared at him "You could have helped sooner you know."

He shrugged "Sorry, but facing unmarked ponies who could beat me to a pulp wasn't in the job description. Besides I did help out in the end and that has to count for something right?"

"I'll just have to remind your uncle when we get back." I quipped back as he sighed.

The rest of the Equestrian ponies hung their heads in defeat as we had won. The rest of my group chuckled as a few showed open signs of enjoying their victory on their faces as they refrained from shouting in joy... if only to ensure the tunnel didn't collapse.

Now all we had to do was get out of here before the rest of the Royal Guard came. Thankfully we just bought enough time for me to set up plan B.

******

Steel Halberd

Steel Halberd pushed himself forward as he tried to run across the ground. His wings ached in pain as he nearly dogged being roasted alive... but it wasn't going to be flying anytime soon as a few of his feathers still reeked of smoke.

Behind him he could hear Emberess taunting "Where are you? No more taunts or barbed insults? Did I now hold back enough and made you extra crispy by mistake?"

She barely nicked him and he knew it. The holding back bit was as Valkyrie called it.... a line of BS. He had no idea what that meant, but he was sure it applied to this situation as he kept moving forward. The ground underneath him was starting to become rocky as he saw a few hints of diamond dog tracks.

All he had to do was keep luring her forward. Once she arrived at the sight the Royal Guard could finish her off as he would give a very big apology to Valkyrie once this was all over. He couldn't help, but chuckle as here he was risking his live against an ancient revived villain... only to be thinking about a mare at this time.

"I really have fallen into a story book right now." He softly said to himself.

"I shall find you no matter where you go!" Emberess howled as her voice... was getting farther away.

Steel felt like facehoofing as the only two things she had to do was follow him.... and not kill him. Now he was going to have to let her know of his presence again if only to ensure she didn't go the wrong direction again.

Emberess laughed out loud "I am the greatest terror to ever fall upon Equestria."

"No you're not!" Steel shouted at the top of his voice "Discord beats you there!"

Sure he was an ancient foe who... please don't let them have freed Discord from Tartarus or something.

"He is but an ignorant man child compared to me!" She screamed in rage.

Steel couldn't help but snort at that statement as he was pretty sure she didn't have any right to argue with that statement.

Steel started running again as he could hear her moving towards him "Everyone quakes in fear of my name as even your beloved Princesses couldn't slay me!"

Steel started to cough as the smoke started getting to him. The flaming behemoth was setting everything on fire around her as the heat was becoming unbearable. Steel had been forced to discard his armor as it wouldn't protect him against the flames and it only grew more unbearable as the heat kept rising. The trees began to crackle around him as the dirt had been baking underneath his hooves.

Behind him in the distance he could make out the towering figure that now stood larger than a fully grown dragon as the black coal like eyes scanned the forest trying to find him. Thankfully she didn't share a dragon's keen vision as she had kept losing track of him a couple of times.

Still he had a job to do as he drew closer to the assigned meeting place "Never head of you until today and quite frankly you're not the scariest thing I've seen either."

Steel jumped to the side as a blast of flames incinerated the cover he had been hiding behind. Emberess might not be the smartest villain, but her aim was improving. More important she kept here eyes on the ground instead of watching the sky as a massive rain cloud nearly blocked out the sun just a little bit away from them. Even then the amount of trees and cover was running low... as Steel would have to plan his next moves more carefully.

Emberess howled in rage "I am flame incarnate! Nothing is more terrifying than me!"

"Crazy mind controlling monster that fillynapped ponies just to force them to act in a play as they are completely aware of their actions, but unable to do anything about it as the crazy monster plays with them like literal puppets" Steel snapped back as he felt a shiver down his spine as the memory was a lot more frightening than the monster before him.

Instead of rage or a blast of flames there was... silence as Emberess seemed to be at a loss for words which of course only lasted for a few seconds before her ego kicked in "Celestia and Luna's forces assaulted my temple for seven days and seven nights as even your false prophets struggled against my power!"

Steel Halberd held perfectly still behind one of the few remaining boulders. The trees had mostly thinned out as the few bits of vegetation that had struggled to thrive in the rock and sandy environment had died out now due to the heat. The ground shook with every step as she drew closer as Steel couldn't help, but sweat.

It felt like standing next to a blazing furnace or possibly one of Canterlot's forges set on high. The rock started to burn his hooves as it felt like he was walking across a frying pan or a row of hot coals as steam hissed out of the behemoth's mouth. Still it was not the heat that made him sweat so badly... but the fear.

The ground was unstable as the tunnels were supposed to have become more unstable. He didn't know how far they had managed to get, but a part of Steel hated himself as his wings couldn't support him now. The moment Emberess stood on the trap was the moment he would also share the ancient villain's fate.

"After all these countless years I have crawled out of the very depths of Tartarus itself to have my revenge." She hummed with pride "Even now your pathetic excess for a "princess" who isn't even worthy of being called a queen hides in fear of my very presence."

Steel bit his tongue as he tried not to shout back. With one deep breath he prepared for the worst as... he needed to lure her further... deeper towards the diamond dog tunnel system. If he ran she would chase as flames would scorch the very earth itself.

In a cruel yet satisfying cold logic he knew how it would go. If he was burnt alive or incinerated in the flames then she would go over to his body... hopefully setting off the trap. If he dogged the flames than either she would catch up to him and crush him... or cause the ground to collapse burying them both under rocks, dirt, and then the drown pour of water drowning them as this entire area would turn into a miniature lake... or hold the ancient villain long enough for Celestia to finish her off.

******

Geo

Geo Limestone felt awful as they hadn't been tied up or tossed into some pit. There weren't even any diamond dogs really watching them as most of them were to busy digging out the exposed gems and acting rather smug about it. Of course the fact that moral was low and that the twisted brass colored mare petrified Valkyrie had been enough to force them to surrender.

The worst part of it all... was that the battle could have gone a lot worse. Sure there were a couple of bruises from the maces or where the diamond dogs punched them... but none of them used a bladed weapon or aimed for their heads... except the brass colored mare. Still with how lax the guards were... they could probably escape if they left Valkyrie behind as the thought made him feel ill.

The same mare nervous about being underground would be abandoned by her comrades and left to the brass colored mare's mercy didn't sit well with him. Geo looked around the tunnel trying to find some way out of this situation until he spotted the villain that had been taken from Tartarus as he had mixed feelings. On the bright side the ancient villain had been turned to stone so they couldn't unleash him like they had with the previous villain... but just why they wanted an extremely large spider with a giant eye and two tusks was beyond him.

He also didn't feel good as the griffin and the brass colored mare were next to some strange arcane device they had brought with them instead of trying to dig a new tunnel or getting ready to flee. Instead they were almost camping out in the tunnel despite the fact they had been warned that the Royal Guard was coming and a giant flaming monster was about to collapse the entire mine.

Geo closed his eyes as he focused on their voices trying to hear what they were saying as all those years trying to listen on other conversations was finally paying off. They weren't that loud and the other diamond dogs interfered a little by speaking amongst each other... but just like a rock farmer listening to the sound of the rock to hear the gem he too listened for the shine of the gem in this confusion.

He also felt like apologizing to his father about that crazy phrase or all those times he had Geo work in the caves despite all the noise and yet remember to listen for the subtle sounds... like the ground starting to shift as something heavy was moving above them.

The brass colored mare said "He never specified what he was after... just a shipment and I thought it would be nice to have during a rainy day."

The griffin chuckled "That explains how you escaped TImberton so easily. Still I can't help but ask... why didn't we use this sooner?"

"Because I don't want to attract Celestia's attention or Sanguine Point's former employer..." Brass replied in slight annoyance "and the whole 'alliance' would take it from us if they knew we had it. I for one want a quick method out of Canterlot when they pull off their crazy plan."

The griffin laughed "You think they don't stand a chance?"

Brass shook her head "Against Discord? Not so much...but against Tirek? I think it's better to have a group in reserve to deal with him after his rampage... besides would you rather like to be seen as the group that unleashed the havoc and chaos along with an ancient foe... or the group that valiantly came in to save the day after someone else takes the blame for the mess?"

Geo felt sick as the griffin replied with a hint of pride "You're rather quite evil aren't you?"

The mare chuckled "History is written by the victors and public opinion does not follow the truth... but the biggest voice that tells them what to think and no body will want to say that the heroes that saved them were also responsible for the mess... especially when they haven't been seen causing any problems."

Geo couldn't help but shiver as it sounded... no... the group was planning to invade Canterlot or something along those lines. Even then it sounded as if this brass colored mare planned to betray the group she was currently working with. All the while none of the guards seemed to be making sure they didn't teleport away or...

They didn't think they could teleport since it was an advanced skill. They thought he was leading the group down the tunnels and that he would know just when the ancient villain would arrive.

Geo whispered to his comrades "Close your eyes and count to five. Then I need you to grab Valkyrie if you can."

Fail Safe nodded "You do realize that the trip will be rough?"

Silver Wing tried to smile as she said "I can carry two ponies if you can keep Valkyrie safe." she was lying, but hopefully she would be able to soften the landing.

Geo nodded as he knew they had to escape and warn Celestia... even if they couldn't rescue Valkyrie as the ground began to shift about. He closed his eyes and focused on the first spell. It was a simply light enchantment that should never be done inside a crystal mine as he learned about it the hard way as a foal trying to learn the gem detection spell.

As soon as the diamond dogs howled in pain as the searing white light seemed to burn against his closed eyelids he grabbed hold of Silver Wing as the strange sense of being teleported filled his body as they landed right next to the stone form of Valkyrie. Geo's horn flared as he focused on trying to make the tunnel collapse as the already unstable tunnel didn't need much help.

That was when he felt the burst of magic in front of him as he opened his eyes. It was a brief moment but he could see the brass colored mare's anger as she turned around. He could see the lush courtyard and the castle that stood in the distance behind her... and all of the armored griffins rushing forward as two of them quickly pulled the griffin beside brass and the mare inside as the diamond dogs rushed through the portal.

One of the griffins fired off a cross bolt at them as the world suddenly disappeared before being replaced by the sky as gravity took affect.

Geo wasn't afraid to admit he was screaming at the top of his lungs or proud that he noticed Valkyrie falling in the air as he quickly caught her in his magic... and felt the strain of catching her as his horn ached in pain as he struggled to keep her afloat. Thankfully a squadron of pegasi rushed over to catching them before they went hurdling towards the ground.

To his surprise Razor Wind flew over to them with a cloud in his magical grip as he had a pair of see through wings on his side. The white stallion was known for being captain of the Royal Guard and if he was here... then reinforcements had finally arrived.

After they landed on the cloud Razor Wind replied"I take it that the mission didn't go according to plan?"

Geo glanced at his group as... Fail Safe was exhausted as the strain of her magic had proven too much as she was probably suffering from magical burn out right now. Silver Wing dropped on the cloud as the weight of two ponies must have been a strain on her body even if it was trying to slow their descent. Then there was of course Valkyrie who's beaten and injured form only brought pain to his eyes as the brass colored mare not only escaped... but took the basilisk with her.

Geo felt the weight of their failure as he could see the massive storm cloud up in the distance as he wasn't even sure if they had weakened the tunnels enough to make it collapse... or if the strange magic the brass colored mare employed prevented the mine from collapsing.

"I need to talk to Celestia." Geo replied in a panic as he remembered the mare's conversation "I need to talk to Celestia!"

The white unicorn nodded as he dispelled the magic that gave him flight "Calm down... take a few deep breaths... what happened?"

Geo felt tears in his eyes as he said "Tell Celestia the brass colored mare from Timberton took it. Tell her it... she'll understand."

She was planning something dangerous... something that endangered Canterlot. They had to capture her before she enacted her evil plot!

Razer Wind placed a hoof on his shoulder "Just... calm..." His horn glowed "... down."

Geo felt himself growing tired as he replied "Tell Celestia... the brass mare.... isn't a pony..."

The last thing he heard was a the older stallion saying "You did good. You did what you could."

******

Steel

Steel Halberd stood his ground or did the best he could as he couldn't move. The flames that had scorched his legs burned, but the damage wasn't deep enough to cause any lasting harm.

No... Emberess was playing with him in much the same way a cat would toy with a mouse or some other small object instead of tearing it apart. More than that he could tell that she was enjoying tormenting him if only to feed her overgrown ego.

She smiled as she whispered close to him. The smell of sulfur filled his nose as she openly mocked him "Tell me little one how did you think my followers would react? Did you think they would let their goddess stay trapped? Did you think they would not return to me or speak my name in such devoted praise?"

She was delusional. In fact she had yet to realize out of all the criminals that had been taken... she must have been worthless if they dropped her first.

She flicked him on his side as his side burned from her touch "Tell me how my kingdom fairs... the battles they fight against your foolish forces. Maybe if you fall down and worship me I may let you live."

Steel chuckled as he would rather worship Discord before this insane monster. In fact considering how much of an ego she held Celestia probably erase the monster's name from the history books because that would hurt the over grown blow heard the most.

Emberess frowned as the ground began to grow unbearably hot "Tell me. Tell me of my kingdom. Of my worshipers of the horrific tales you wove to frighten foals about my presence."

Steel couldn't help but laugh as the ground began to shift as Emberess was so focused on her own ego she had yet to notice how she had started to sink into the ground as Steel happily replied "I never head of you until today."

Emberess clenched the ground in rage as it started to bubble as she hissed "So Celestia sought to prevent my escape by sending her best to stop those loyal to me!"

Steel shook his head as he replied "No I mean when you gave your overblown intro. Until today we never even heard of you."

Emberess raised his fists in rage "The ancient temples speak of my name!"

Steel blinked "Really? Last I heard it was Scorchy something."

Steel didn't know much about ancient Equestrian history, but he was sure that really drove it home as Emberess howled in rage as she just realized that she was forgotten by the rest of the world. That or she thought he was lying and was going to kill him now instead of latter. Steel closed his eyes as he prepared for the end only for nothing to happen. Instead of a blazing heat the temperature seemed to have died down forcing him to open his eyes.

Emberess was slamming his fist down, but a magical golden dome covered him as the monster's fist parted against the golden dome unable to touch him. It was then that he saw Celestia gliding down upon the battlefield as Emberess was now trying to claw the dirt around him in a futile attempt to reach him.

Celestia chuckled drawing Emberess's attention "You still have a one track mind don't you."

Emberess hissed in rage as the flames grew more intense as she howled "You come alone? Is your sister to frightened to face me or is she lurking in the background with your armies attempting to stop my return!"

Celestia seemed to flinch as Steel couldn't recognize the hint of pain in her eyes... as Steel just realized that Celestia had a sister or maybe a close adopted relative since there wasn't another alicorn ruling by her side.

Celestia shook her head "After all these years you haven't changed one bit... all that time in Tartarus hasn't even made you repent for your actions or think about the harm you have caused."

Emberess drew to her full height and shouted shaking the very earth "I am Emberess the Mistress of Flames! I am a goddess amongst you pitiful mortals. The only regret I have is that your foolish forces managed to keep me bound for this long as I will enjoy bringing ruin to your castle in the woods and replacing it with a temple worthy of my presence!"

Steel blinked as... either this monster was insane or she hadn't been aware of how many changes have happened over the years. Celestia on the other hoof sighed in much the same way one found out they had a Para Sprite infestation.

"Do you at least remember a stallion named Shooting Comet?" Celestia asked as she slowly levitated Steel up into the air.

Emberess laughed as she grinned maliciously "The foolish bat pony who thought he could stop me? Tell me... does your sister still care so deeply about her abominations or was that bat freak special?"

Celestia's calm gentle smile turned into a frown as Celestia harshly replied "Even now you refuse to change or even learn from your past mistakes."

Emberess laughed as the flames around her body started to converge towards her mouth as a massive ball of flame started to appear. Instead of running, preparing a defense, or even having her horn glow Celestia simply raised up a single hoof up into the air before slamming it against the ground.

That was when the ground finally fell apart as Emberess fell face forward into the massive pit as Celestia carried him away before the flames erupted behind them. He could hear her screaming in rage as the ground started to consume her as more chunks of the earth fell ontop of her burying her alive as the pegasi in the sky took it as their cue to unleash the storm of the century as water flooded down the collapsing mine carrying boulders and turning the rocks and dirt into a torrent of mud as the flaming behemoth struggled to get free.

In fact she reminded Steel of one of those old creatures that fell into a tar pit from his history books as her massive size and power did little to assist her with against the mud as her body was consumed by the mud as more water rained down upon her turning the massive pit into a small boiling lake.

Steel sighed in relief as the royal guard quickly moved into position to ensure that the ancient villain didn't escape as his body was placed on a cloud as doctors came to treat his aching wounds.

Celestia smiled as she said "Thank you for your hard work."

Steel shook his head "If I actually did a good job than none of them would have escaped."

He could see the smoke drifting across the remains of the path Emberess had made. He also knew that many of the creatures responsible for this mess took advantage of the moment either setting more of the forest ablaze or simply escaped while they were forced to deal with her.

Celestia shook her head "You came out far better than most would have as she was a dangerous foe in the past."

"Don't mention it." Steel replied as he didn't feel comfortable with Celestia's praise "I mean... she has a big ego and the main reason why I survived was because she needed somepony to gloat to." Celestia just stared at him letting him know he shouldn't argue "But if you want to do something for me... just stand in front of me as I'm sure Valkyrie is going to bite my head off after seeing this."

Steel chuckled at his bad joke until he saw the grim looks on their faces "I mean I shouldn't joke but..."

Razor Wind landed in front of Celestia and bowed "The team recovered is resting... but none of the other unicorns know what to do."

Steel felt a knot in his stomach as he dreaded saying "What happened?"

Razor Wind simply stared at Steel in the same way he had to tell somepony's family about a guard hat fell in the line of duty. Still that couldn't be right... his sister was safe in Canterlot. His father retired from the guard years ago...

"Valkyrie..." Razor Wind spoke as Steel felt cold "She did the best she could."

Celestia stared at Razor Wind "What happened?"

"Basilisk..." the old unicorn commander said as Steel couldn't hear the rest.

To him it felt as if they were talking about some other mare. Valkyrie wasn't a regular pegasus in much the same way Smart Cookie wasn't an ordinary unicorn. There wasn't anyway that something bad could have happened to her as she wasn't even near the fighting after they pulled back. In fact she had been sent to the mines to set up the trap.

Steel shook his head "Basilisks are only found in the Everfree forest."

Razor Wind coughed "This... Brass colored mare apparently kept one."

That was when he saw her... Valkyrie was lying on her side as her face was covered in bruises... turned to stone as the look of defiance was still on her face despite the fear and shock that had crept into it. Even the flank was left bare of a cutie mark as deep down he knew it was her to his gut wrenching horror.

"The rest are being treated, but..." Razor Wind said before stopping Steel from getting up "Just stay there and try to..."

Celestia placed a hoof on Steel's chest pinning him to the cloud far more effectively than Razor Wind's unicorn magic as she said "I promise you that we will find a way to fix this." She tried to smile "There might be some old spell books that can help undue the cruse Ms. Brass Ball had placed on her."

Steel slowly nodded as he stayed down. He wasn't of any use now as he couldn't even fly... Valkyrie was still alive for the moment as Celestia was going to look for a solution. Still there was another way to dispel the curse and all he needed was the basilisk that originally cursed Valkyrie in the first place.

A small sickening feeling came to his heart as he thought about the mare named Brass. She was one of the ponies responsible for this disaster and she was the one personally responsible for what happened to Valkyrie. all he had to do was find where she was lurking.

******

Lockheart

The knocking on the door woke me up as I yawned gently trying to unlatch myself from the two fillies that managed to nuzzle up next to me... probably in an attempt to make more ice cream before I leave or one of those strange equestrian culture customs I barely understood.

A part of me still tried not to think about how most of Equestria goes about preparing their food. I mean unicorns use magic... but where does that leave earth ponies and pegasi? They walk around on their hooves all day... do they wash them before preparing a meal or is this closer to the time period where earth butchers didn't wash their blades as they had yet to learn how bacteria and how diseases can spread.

Of course that had more to do with finding the correlation of diseases and how they could be transferred and that was discovered by dirty knifes and butcher shops... and this is a primarily vegetarian society....

The knocking on the door woke me up again as honestly... is was to late in the night to think about these things and if I dwelled on it too long then I would start to question if the sun is Discworld size or normal earth variant... Does the manipulation of the stars mean moving real stars about... the light cast by them... or possibly close smaller rocks that cast of like... sort of like mini moons the size of small asteroids nearby Eques instead of dealing with the human definition of stars. Even then shooting stars only happen when junk or debris hit the atmosphere just right so that it would burn across the night sky without... completely burning up or possibly come crashing down to some lucky/unlucky area.

Those questions were best filled under "Don't care" right along with the fact that Cuthluu might be real considering I traveled to another plane of reality or free will vs fate debates. I glanced back at the two bat foals who were still asleep as they slowly snuggled up against each other and then smiled as they were warm again.

Now I had to figure out what caused me to lose my bed/large floor pillow.

Remedy yawned unhappy that she was getting up as I could hear Midnight muttering underneath her breath "First they say work during the day... now at night. Make up your mind already."

I couldn't help but smirk as Midnight stretched out yawning like a cat as Remedy merely rubbed her eyes and started walking into the kitchen for a moment before stumbling into the hallway. Once they both had their eyes opened I simply pointed at the door as they both groaned.

I stared at Midnight "Is your uncle expecting anyone?"

Midnight yawned again "What makes you think that?"

"This is one of the few places that operates twenty four seven... everyday of the week." I quickly replied

She simply frowned "Not enough sleep to deal with that... take a look out the peep hole."

I nodded as I walked over to the door and took a peek at who was on the other side of the door. I couldn't help, but frown as I saw the group of players because I highly doubted that anyone from Equestria would get their friends together to stand in front of a door while wearing capes designed to look like the national flags from different countries of earth.

I sighed as I said "Their probably here for me... and their not being very subtle about it."

Midnight nodded as she replied "One moment." as she strapped on her wing blades as I stared at her "What? I read the Everfree Forest incident."

That threw me off for a second "Wait... just what are you expecting?"

Midnight shrugged "If something crazy happens than it's my job to make sure you make it back to Canterlot in one piece... and now I'm good."

I merely nodded as... either I needed a chat with Celestia or there was something Midnight wasn't telling me about because that was the only adventure I had outside of Canterlot since I came here...and my only other time besides this past week that I even left Canterlot.

I opened up the door as their leader smiled wearing a British flag on his back as he said "We need to talk to Celestia."

The one with a Japanese flag simply replied "Just tell him."

First thing that got me.... was that either they didn't come from the same nation as their flag... or that what ever force dropped us in Equestria also altered our language to fit Equestrian as they only had a slight accent, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The second part was that they wanted to use me to get face time with Celestia. This was one of the reasons why I didn't like interacting with people. Equestrian gave me their far share problems, but so too did my fellow members of humanity. Of course their were more interested in my position or what crazy scheme they wanted to try... or how they just expected me to have some sort of secret clue that would help them figure out what the hell had happened to us.

That's why I let Equestria's bureaucracy normally deal with them as they would remove most of the troublesome one and leaving me to deal with the ones who I actually need to deal with. If this was going to be another equivalent of a crazy person's idea or theory about what happened or what "we" need to do... I was going to slam the door on their face and then see if I could throw them in jail if they persited.

It's the middle of the night so I'm allowed to be grumpy and a tad bit vindictive.

Brit noticed my look of irration as he caught the message "Look... we need Celestia to check something... we found this and we..."

I didn't listen to what he was saying as he pulled out an Element of Harmony still in it's rocky bowling ball form as I felt a painful jab in my chest. Maybe it was guilt over my past actions or fear of what would happen next... heck it could have been some sort of magical connection to the one Discord gave me along with the scar on my chest.

I quickly interupted him "Hand it over and write down where you found it, what was around it, and any other details about it including when you picked it up and bring it here in the morning!"

Brit moved the Element of Harmony back into his saddle bag "Look if you can get us a talk with Celestia..."

I glared at him and stated to him "In the morning we are going back to Cloudsdale and currently we only have one sky chariot so that leaves one spare seat unless you have a pair of wings or another sky chariot you have."

I pulled myself to my full height "We would go now but if that actually is real than flying in the middle of the night would be a bad idea especially since the ones responsible for their disappearance would want anyone for trying to let Celestia know. So drop it off... write it all down... or find a means of transportation to come with us or get to Canterlot and people will be angry if you were the ones who managed to lose it during the trip to Canterlot."

I think that last bit drove it home as they looked a bit nervous. Just because they had the fancy artifact did not meant they were the chosen wielders... after all plenty of people in stories lost the item or died right before the hero found it.

I levitated a saddle bag from the house over to it as Brit dropped it with some reluctance... and relief as he probably had a line ready to help fix his bruised ego. Personally I didn't give a dam as I closed the door as Remedy and Midnight stared at me.

I sighed as I placed the bag down making dam sure I didn't touch it "Let me guess you want to know what I'm doing?"

Remedy glanced at the bag "Are you sure that it is..."

"Either a good forgery made to be a booby trap, or its real." I simply replied'

Midnight glared at me letting her know of her immediate displeasure "You are leaving a cursed artifact in this house?"

I held up my hoof "If it was going to go off then it would have taken the idiots outside before anyone in here! That means that if it's cursed than it's set to go off when it is in contact with Celestia or.... I did tick off the one behind the Everfree Forest incident."

They both stared at me as Midnight rolled her eyes "Right..."

"Not an Alicorn." I quickly replied "Besides if it is one of the Elements of Harmony then... we kind of need it. They are a powerful set of magical artifact when used together..."

Remedy stared at me "You do realize what I saw from that incident right?" Her horn glowed "The truth."

I felt like cursing as... honestly I wanted to chuck it in a volcano... or something. All this stupid rock did was remind me about my current situation as I had one of the blasted rocks stuck in me, If I tried to gather them all up... then how would I deal with the one in my chest? If I tried to stop it... then how could I do it, make sure that my twisted bad end future doesn't happen... or even figure out a way to destroy the Tree of Harmony... which wasn't even a sure answer if it would stop the Elements of Harmony.

"If used by the proper ponies who stand, or bear the meanings or expression of the chosen element they wield they can do a couple of things." I slowly and bitterly replied "They can turn chaotic creatures of chaos to stone...or help restore one's sanity, or break a curse that was affecting them... and trust me that last part is going to be needed."

Remedy and Midnight just stared at me for a moment as... honestly I couldn't tell what they were thinking. Even if I could read/feed on emotions all I got was some sort of... not really sure because I never really encountered this emotion before.

I let out a long sigh "And currently we have a lot of lost souls missing chunks of their memories and... their frightened, desperate... and a little bit worried. If this object is real than maybe Celestia has some spell to help find the others and if it isn't than she could help warn everyone on what to look out for."

I glanced at the rock as I felt a sick pit in my stomach "Because you should never underestimate fear. It can drive people into doing things they would never have even considered before... and right now... it's better if we let Celestia know and let her decide."

I walked back to the bed and shook my head as... it was still taken by the two sleeping foals. I managed to recover the blanket and just slept on the floor as... sleep wasn't going to come ease tonight.

I had an Element of Harmony stuck in my chest... and while Equestrians might try to find some safe way to remove it... four simple words I knew of filled me with terror as I knew what might happen if push came to shove... or if someone else didn't want to wait.

For the Greater Good was the human equivalent of a magic solve all spell as it washed away most vile sins as it "redeemed" any action committed once it had been said. After all if one life must be sacrificed so that the rest could live or be "saved" then plenty of people would gladly do it since it didn't ask for their life to be the one sacrificed.

Fear and desperation made people do stupid things as... I'll admit my Equestrian magical lore wasn't that great... but right now I needed to look over Starswirl's unfinished spells, that one memory spell Twilight used on her friends in the first Discord episode/intro... and as much as I hate to say it... I may need to ask Discord about the Plunder Seeds, and a certain spell... but after his last deal I wasn't exactly inclined to trust too much on matters like this.

I hoped that the Element of Harmony they gave me was a fake or that I managed to figure out someway to make myself feel safe... before my fear got the worst of me because if there is a spell that can point out the Elements of Harmony... then ditching the alicorn disguise and trying to go with another disguise might not work if they had a magical GPS on my location.

I already had a nightmare/vision of six former humans killing me and I was discovered as a changeling? Happy future had gray color scheme. Bad ending had black chitin.

I tried to close my eyes as... I tired not to think about it. It actually had been a good day until this happened... hopefully it's a fake.

******

Luke

I sighed in relief as we just made it. Griff the former human turned unicorn rubbed his head "Well we made it. Three villains out of four isn't that bad."

I blinked "I only saw two..."

Griff shrugged "That girl you recruited... the brass one had a few griffins bring her and the third villain here." He shivered "They also talked about sending supplies to help ensure our success."

I glanced around the crystal caves as Brass was in the room smiling as... I didn't expect her to arrive here. In fact I was a little bit worried now as we were going to get more supplies after our stunt. Just because nobody used the tunnels underneath Canterlot due to their magic dampening effect didn't mean it was the safest place to hide.

Brass smiled "Don't worry my boys hid nearby some other diamond dog packs as the griffins had a separate pick up point for me if I ran into any problems. After that it was a quick ride and a story about some upcoming negotiations."

I nodded as... it wasn't good that she didn't trust us. Still she was loyal to the plan and slaying Discord would absolve any sins we had committed. Personally I just wanted to go home or use the magic mirror and get to a place close enough to home as I'm pretty sure that Equestria Girl Earth was a little bit more friendlier than normal earth. Still it was a descent backup plan.

Brass pulled out a book from her saddle bags "We also just received a book on Centaur biology... or one close enough to work for now."

Besides despite the minor problems or fears she caused it was hard to argue with her results as she got us what we needed. We had Tirek locked up with three villains in our grasp. We had an outside source supplying us with goods and most of all we had a plan ready to enact when Discord broke free. Heck we even found a few changelings players had have them use their Jedi mind tricks to make anyone stumble across this place forgot about it.

Now all we had to do was find Discord or wait for his release as he was going to break free soon. Any story with Discord was like a Call of Cuthlu game. You knew the ancient evil was going to be unleashed... it was just a matter of when it would happen and if you were prepared for it.

Author's Note

please let me know about any mistakes that have been made as there were a few problems getting this chapter up and trying to fix the parts that were lost in the crash.

hopefully laptop problem will be fixed by next update.

Questions

Celestia

Cloud Chaser bent head over hooves as he apologized "Sorry for the mess! If we knew you were coming!"

Celestia just nodded as she had more important things on her mind. Her own thoughts were focused somewhere in-between the past and the present. Emberess had been taken care of but the damage she had caused was starting to fester. Questions about Luna were slowly being asked as her ponies began to wonder if Luna was her adopted sister who died to old age... or died on one of the many battlefields.

There were a few other villains who had escaped from Tartarus... as one criminal who had escaped from Timberton...

Celestia forced another strained smiled as Cloud Chaser interrupted her thoughts "We already prepared a room for you if you need one!"

Celestia tried not to roll her eyes as this wasn't what she wanted to talk about. Right now Celestia was starting to see an entire replay of the wars that tore into Equestria when it was being founded along with the added bonus of the unease, confusion, and doubt of the three tribes as they tried to band together and not let the scars of the past control them. There were even a few opportunists pecking at the foundation... The only question was if a new griffin high lord would try expanding his territory or the pony working with him was trying to become the next Sombra.

There was even the pain of the past replaying itself as Celestia wasn't alone... No... she had another alicorn helping her... one who the public didn't like as they continued to shine the spot light right on their beloved Solar Princess. To make matters even worse a nagging sensation about the question of his possible... heritage was starting to drive her nuts.

It wasn't like she could simply ask him if he really was... related to Luna. That would be like saying 'Oh I just wanted to know if you were possibly my sister's secret foal who was then exiled from Equestria so that you wouldn't suffer from your mother's fallout when she tried to overthrow me and bring about an eternal night that would never end?'

Of course before Equestria was founded it had been common for one ruler to execute the offspring of the rival who tried to kill or overthrow them. That was done so that the infant wouldn't try to take revenge against the current ruler or try to undermine their authority in the future as it was a widely practiced tradition amongst unicorns. Sure Celestia and Luna outlawed that distasteful practice, but there were more than enough ponies who still remembered when similar policies were common practice.

"Still it is nice to see that you are taking over..." Cloud Chaser started.

Celestia did her best to keep up her public smile as she knew Cloud Chaser hadn't realized what she had been thinking about. With one deep breath she smiled pretending that everything was alright as she said "I came to check on Lockheart's message and to check on what he had found."

Cloud Chaser stopped for a moment as he then replied "He was... checking for something?"

Celestia put on her best motherly smile that always helped invoke a sense of guilt to her little ponies as she replied "I offered to do it, but he ended up convincing me that my presence may end up interfering with the search. Something about him being used to lies and tricks... hopefully he'll learn that not everypony is trying to lie, cheat, or manipulate him."

Cloud Chaser slowly nodded "Oh... yes..." he tugged at the collar of his shirt as he began to sweat "And just... what was he checking?"

Celestia rubbed her chin as she knew it was an awful thing to do. Sure she had played the same trick before in the past... letting a few vets treat Philomena without informing them about the phoenix's... flare for dramatics. In fact Celestia wasn't even lying as she was telling the truth... and letting him draw his own conclusions about a few statements that were correct... but had nothing to do with him even though they could match what ever he was thinking about.

It was times like these Celestia wished she could take a glimpse into another pony's mind if only to take a glimpse at the whatever was going on in their heads. The sky chariot landed on the clouds in front of them as Cloud Chaser suddenly looked nervous.

He smiled as he started to back peddle "If you excuse me I have to..."

Celestia used her wings to push him forward as she didn't let him escape "As the pony in charge of Cloudsdale I'm sure you would want to know especially after following me all the way up here."

What Celestia saw was rather interesting as she hadn't expected to see Lockheart having straps from the sky chariot tied around him as Midnight helped untie him from the chariot. Remedy got out from the chariot after casting a cloud walking spell as she brought three jugs of water in her magic as a new unknown pony carefully placed her foot onto the clouds making sure the cloud would support her instead of having the poor mare fall straight to the ground.

As soon as the straps had been undone Lockheart collapsed onto the cloud as he certainly looked out of breath as Midnight simply face hoofed and muttered something underneath her breath as she was embarrassed that Lockheart had collapsed in front of everypony. The new pony after planting all four of her hooves onto the cloud turned to face them only to stare at Celestia in fear. The poor mare's legs were shaking as her fear of heights seemed to have been completely forgotten as she stood in front of Celestia herself.

Celestia studied the new pony as she tried to figure out where she came from. She had a pink coat as her yellow mane was tied into a long pony tail as the earth pony held a death grip on the bag that was in her mouth. The biggest hint about her origin wasn't the cape that rested on her back, but the lack of a cutie mark on her side marking her as one of the lost foreign ponies that somehow ended up in Equestria.

After many years of dealing with her ponies Celestia prepared to help calm the young mare down...

"Either you found it or you warned Celestia of a counterfeit." Lockheart spoke out loud before Celestia could speak "Either way she'll thank you for it."

The mare in question glared at Lockheart like a pony who just had the stain on her dress spotted out to the rest of the ponies at a party to see. She took a deep breath through her nose and then bowed. The other ponies nearby had relaxed at the scene as they were now happy that Lockheart's investigation had nothing to do with Cloudsdale's operations.

Celestia's horn glowed as she took the object and opened the bag revealing... an Element of Harmony. Celestia watched their reactions as Remedy and Midnight seemed to be waiting for Celestia's response to sate their growing curiosity. The earth pony just seemed nervous as she wasn't sure if it was an Element of Harmony or a forgery. Lockheart... Celestia focused on Lockheart as he seemed uneasy.

In fact he wasn't even looking at the Element of Harmony as if he didn't care... or already knew. Which would have been silly as the Elements of Harmony in their dormant state...

"Why did you need me to check if you already confirmed it yourself?" Celestia asked herself.

Lockheart flinched at the statement has quickly replied "I wasn't sure and I just wanted to play it safe. Honestly I didn't think it was enough to warrant you coming to Cloudsdale yourself to immediately check it out yourself."

Celestia blinked as she just realized she accidently said it out loud... and that Lockheart was lying. He was lying to her face as he already knew it was an Element of Harmony before he even told Celestia about it... but how could he have known? He would have had to...

Cloud Chaser coughed "What exactly is it?"

Celestia smiled as she told part of the truth "This is one of the objects that had went missing during the Everfree Forest Incident."

Cloud Chaser nodded as he didn't know the full reason, but pretended he fully understood and agreed with Celestia's judgment as the other important ponies nearby also nodded as they didn't want to look ignorant either. Celestia slowly placed the Element of Laughter in the bag as she couldn't help but wonder how he could tell it was an Element of Harmony. The pony who found it thought it might be an Element of Harmony... but Lockheart already knew.

Celestia rubbed her head as the doubts questions that rested in the back of her mind seemed to have grown. In fact her mind was starting to draw up unsettling connections or possible explanations about Lockheart's elusive past... and looking at him up close she could start seeing a rather unsettling resemblance to Nightmare Moon if one simply painted his fur a dark blue... or possibly turn it black.

"You may want to take a quick shower as the rest of the committee is getting ready to talk about those changes you were discussing about this week Lockheart." Celestia replied softly as she tried to focus on the task at hoof.

Thinking about how a pony may or may not show a resemblance to her long lost sister was not a good thing to think about when that pony stood in front of her. It wasn't good if a pony started to wonder about the crazy possibility that the pony in front of her might actually be her biological nephew or how he was able to know it was an Element of Harmony while revealing information a normal pony shouldn't know.

Lockheart glanced at her "You mean you..."

"I am taking the mare in question back to Canterlot." Celestia quickly cut off "And placing this item along with the others. I'll let you know how it went after you are done with this and come back to Canterlot."

Celestia certainly was not backing away in fear about a possible blood relative that she only found out about yesterday. She just needed to quickly put away the Element of Harmony that had been brought to her so that she could prepare to tell Lockheart tomorrow that she had found him an earth pony tutor.

Of course he would need somepony to help him adjust... and then talk about how some of the ponies in Canterlot were talking about Luna... who was revealed by an ancient villain as Celestia needed to figure out how to deal with the questions and how Lockheart would react to those questions.

Thank heavens the Royal Guards came back with her sky chariot ready to take Celestia and the foreign mare out of Cloudsdale and back to the relative safety of Canterlot. She quickly pushed the mare onto the chariot ignoring all the questions the other ponies were starting to ask as her Royal Guard took off taking them safely back up into the air allowing her time to think.

Celestia did feel a little bit guilty dumping the task of the meeting on Lockheart... or getting Cloudsdale into an uproar at her rather sudden arrival and exit. Still the new Element of Harmony needed to be placed with the other two Elements she had managed to recover... and her ponies needed to get used to Lockheart... and Celestia needed some extra time to get her own feelings settled before she had to inform Lockheart about... Valkyrie's... condition.

Celestia wasn't exactly sure just what Lockheart would do if he found out as... she was one of the few friends Lockheart had. He did rush into the Everfree Forest to rescue a pony he only knew for a few days. He also had a bit of a low-self esteem issue similar like Luna as he thought most ponies...

If Lockheart... was Luna's... son... then would he understand just why Celestia had banished her own sister... would he understand why Nightmare Moon was a story told to frighten foals as Luna had nearly been censored from all of Equestria's history? Was he afraid that if Celestia knew the truth then she would act like all the previous ponies that had mistreated him in the past?

Was he scared of her?

"Are you okay?" A voice called out.

Celestia opened her mouth only for foreign mare to say "Never really been up so high before."

Celestia quickly closed her mouth and tried to calm down. Hopefully somepony would have found where the rest of the escaped Tartarus Prisoners were hiding so that she could hit them until she felt better. It was much easier trying to deal with ancient evils than... what ever this was that she had with Lockheart.

Come to think of it just where did the strange pony fit into her life? When did he change from being a pony Celestia was interrogating for information... suddenly become such a big deal. When did trying to talk to him somehow cause her to be more terrified than having to fight an ancient villain that wished to burn her kingdom to ashes?

"Are you okay?" another voice asked.

Celestia blinked as she realized this one was for her as she chuckled "I'm just glad things went as smoothly as they did."

The confusion in the mare's voice was as clear as day as she said "What do you mean by that?"

Celestia smiled as she found something to focus on instead of getting lost in her own thoughts again "Let's just say the delegate from Griffinstone wasn't as easy to deal with even when I was the one doing the negotiations."

******

Stardust

I ran the brush through my mane again as Comet sniffed at one of the perfume bottles she had brought with her “Personally I prefer Wild Flower Perfume, but Daisy says that Powdered Gem’s new perfume line is going to be the next big hit.”

I nodded as I made sure my hair was straight… that it didn’t have any curls, spirals, or bends in it. I could see Comet in the reflection of my mirror frowning as she slowly moved closer to me. She hugged her forelegs around my neck as she tried to get me to smile again.

“I’m alright sis…” I replied softly as I tried to reassure her “I just don’t have as much of a taste in fashion as I used to have.”

Comet was no longer frowning as she had instead opted for a comical pout as she said “But your hair. You used to love…” she bit her lip as I sighed knowing she was trying to avoid an emotional landmine “I mean…”

“It was rough, but I’ve talked to Mr. Good Heart and things are getting better.” I lied as I hadn’t been completely honest to him “Still no matter what happens I still love my little sister.”

Comet pouted as she spread her wings out “In case you haven’t noticed I’m not little anymore. Besides you have been hanging out with that bug pony…”

I smirked as I couldn't help but joke back “Does little Comet have a crush on the Cuddle Bug?” She blushed a little “Oh come on. You didn’t seem to mind him when he was Mister Cuddle.”

Comet frowned and gave me a gentle whack in the back of my head with her wings “That was a bad prank and you know it. I mean shouldn’t you be…”

“Frightened or possibly terrified of the big scary bug pony?” I joked back “He’s just a guy that ran into the same bad luck I did…” I couldn’t help but shiver at the memory as Duran and what he was planning on doing to me “Besides he’s just a pony. It’s not like all unicorns are stuck up jerks or all earth ponies have bricks for brains.”

“Or all pegasi being air heads.” Comet finished as a small smile came to her face “But I’m allowed to be a little bit angry right?”

I drew my little sister in closer and hugged her “Of course you’re allowed to be a little angry… but just remember who you are angry at and don't take it out on those around you... how has your training been going?”

Comet rolled her eyes “Say what you want but you are going to be looking at the next pony who’s going to win Best Young Flyer Competition!I’ll be so awesome I’ll even do a Sonic Rainboom!” I couldn’t help but chuckle “Hey I can do it!”

“Not if you keep adding pounds.” I playfully replied

Comet sat down on her hind legs and crossed her forelegs as she muttered “It’s not my fault there’s so many good things to eat came out this month.”

I smiled as the white coated Pegasus tried to not look at her stomach as her long mane only ended up slowly falling over her face as she looked down. I tried not to laugh as she quickly raised her head and tried to pretend she hadn’t checked. Her mane was dark blue, but after meeting Lily she added aqua green highlights and red-violet highlight at the edges of her tail. She used to wear dresses all the time until she finally got her cutie mark. Now she had put away most of her dresses or starting looking for shorter hemlines. Her cutie mark kind of reminded me of an aviator badge.

My little sister was a good mare, but she tended to be a little bit jumpy as she was more likely to take flight than actually fight. Of course funny enough she was one of the first to try to get used to Cuddle Bug and the other changelings… just as long as they stayed in one form and preferably pony form. After Cuddle Bug revealed his changeling form she dashed behind the couch and hid until I told everything was alright.

Comet went over to my chemistry set and sniffed again “What are you making over here? Some sort of perfume?”

“Stuff.” I pathetically replied “Nothing that’s safe to digest or…”

Comet rolled her eyes “Stone Mortar is still making you whip up stuff? I know it’s all ‘fascinating’ and stuff you somehow picked up zebra alchemy during you missing trip, but couldn’t you try making perfume instead?”

I did my best to smile as Comet had made it a habit of calling my disappearance a "trip". I didn't live at home with them anymore and bought myself a small place to live in as I tried to make sense of my own messed up memories. Stone Mortar one of my old teachers discovered a few of the things that I had been experimenting with and he was fascinated by it.

“Perfume is nice, but this ‘fascinating’ and stuff makes a lot more bits.” I replied as I rolled open one of the scrolls. Comet did her best not to gasp as she saw how much I was being paid “New stuff is fancy stuff and fancy stuff is expensive… especially with proper instructions in how to make them.”

Comet stared at the various chemical compounds, cleaners, and gardening items “Still seems strange… and what is Thermite exactly?”

I gulped as Comet was thankfully standing away from the box with all the warning symbols plastered all over it. She knew well enough not to go near anything with a warning label and I made sure to keep anything with a warning label safely wrapped up... and then placed into a steel box with a lock or a glass beaker to be put into a steel box with a lock.

I nervously chuckled as I replied “An attempt to recreate dragon fire.”

Comet shrugged as I tried not to sigh in relief. Some ponies try to deal with their issues by not thinking about it… I was trying to ignore it and use it to bring me some comfort. It was much easier to sleep at night knowing I had enough dangerous chemicals, mixtures and explosives to make Duran the second pony on the moon if he ever tried coming back and with the access Stone Mortar has given me I had been able to make a few items that your average pony wouldn’t have been able to get their hooves on.

Comet stared at the box and tilted her head to the side “Why is it listed as a spice?”

Besides some of the items… well some are helpful in ways I didn’t expect.

“Because to some drakes thermite is the equivalent of jalapeño peppers... it's a really hot pepper that makes your mouth feel like it's on fire.” I replied off hoof “Still it’s hard to make and none of the dragons know how to make it.”

I know dragons had different biology and they also ate gems for food. They also only eat thermite when it is raw in much the same way people didn't like it when you sprayed a jalapeño pepper in their face. Personally I found it both amazing and horrifying at the same time.

Comet just shook her head “So we were going to go out and see what most of the commotion was about…”

The words died on her mouth as the door opened up. One of Celestia's Royal Guard entered the room as I tried to figure out what was going on.

The pegasus took off her helmet as she said "I'm sorry to inform your friend Valkyrie... she has been injured in the line of duty."

My body tensed up as I said "What happened?"

The pegasus hung her head as she said "Valkyrie... she was turned to stone by a Cockatrice. Celestia is doing her best to help."

I couldn't believe that something happened to Valkyrie. I just stayed in my seat as I listened to the pegasus before me tell me what happened.

******

Maxwell

"Well if you find any programmers let me know." Dawn finished as she pulled out her bag of bits "And just to be clear their looking for more of a Java or CC+ than trying to make it say Hello world or create the next HAL."

I took the bits and pulled up the contract "I'll put it on the board and try to see if I can't find you anything. What's the expected pay or work environment?"

Dawn smiled "It's Equestria. We promise the building to be above ground and for the egg heads to start small." She pulled out a small scroll "Just be prepared to work with some Equestrian unicorns and try to explain the concept to them as personally... I wouldn't mind having a calculator again."

I nodded as explaining it did seem a little bit silly, but magic tended to end up being a short cut for a lot of things... for better or for worse sometimes. How do you explain a sprinkler system when you control where it rains? Trying to explain crop rotation, or farming techniques on how to keep the soil healthy to an earth pony farm was difficult when their magic worked better than any man made fertilizer.

Pocket Ace chuckled when Dawn left the room "Should I just turn one of the bed rooms into an office for you?"

"Don't blame me." I replied with a small grin on my face "More job offers mean more costumers visiting to check the boards which gives you more people that will end up buying something while they are here."

The door opened up as Pocket Ace frowned and snorted a little like an angry horse as Ivan entered the room. I'll admit that Ivan wasn't one of my favorite people, but he was part of a large group... a group that needed information and paid good money for it... even if it came from our makeshift mess we called a Tavern. Ivan pulled up a chair as Pocket Ace just stared at him letting the human turned earth pony know that he was welcome to this establishment... the owner wouldn't mind him leaving as soon as possible.

Ivan smiled "I'll take what ever takes a while for him to make."

Pocket Ace nodded "One Buck Special coming right up."

"You know you shouldn't agitate him." I whispered back to Ivan.

Ivan chuckled "Look if you need helping turning this into a proper bar..."

"What do you want this time?" I flatly replied before he could finish that sentence.

Ivan rolled his eyes as he was one of those people who either didn't like the Equestrians... or thought we were better than them. His dirty white coat and black mane made him look like he belonged in dark alleyway with a knife or a gun ready to mug some poor unsuspecting soul. The reason why he came to our bar was because it mostly focused on players... and Ivan's group wanted to make it a player exclusive bar. Even with all the rejections Ivan still offers the same bargain each time he came in.

While this place did carter to a lot of humans... Equestrians also mingled in the crowd sometimes and they were the ones who offered jobs for any adventures who wanted to give it a shot. They provided jobs for us and the humans had a place to mingle as they had regained a small slice of home. Of course it didn't hurt that a lot more therstals had started checking out the place during the night or Pocket Ace finding a few other natives of Equestria to help run this place.

Ivan pulled out a golden pocket watch not to check want time it was, but just to show it off even if the clock didn't work. Either this was his latest attempt to show how good his group was doing... or how much money I could make if I accepted his offer. Maybe it was my own bias tainting my judgment, but I did not want to be a part of any group that reminded me of Duran's twisted logic.

We landed in Equestria, but we are not heroes. We are simply people lost in a new world and we either needed to learn to live along side them... or figure out how we go back home. Running around with a sword and calling ourselves kings was the worst thing we could do.

Ivan started at the watch checking the time or simply pretending that his pocket watch actually worked "A trade of knowledge... and rumors. Why exactly has the exclusive alicorn left the shinning halls of Canterlot?"

Sure I wasn't exactly a fan of Lockheart... I mean he wasn't a bad guy... but he wasn't exactly a great guy either... Still I didn't like how Ivan had said it.

"He went to check up on some meeting in Cloudsdale." I replied as that knowledge really wasn't worth much "What's the problem with that?"

Ivan frowned "Because he's an imposter."

I couldn't help but scoff at that comment "No offense, but the same could be said about us."

None of us were really ponies. Calling Lockheart an imposter would be hypocritical really and at least he admits that he isn't an alicorn. He's just a random human just like the rest of us.

Ivan glanced at the kitchen as he whispered "Have you thought about my other offer?"

I rolled my eyes "Again... No offense but I would rather live in this bar than whatever place you or your friends have set up in the bad lands. Now what about the other question?"

Ivan glared at me as he softly replied in the same grace as a convict holding a gun underneath the table "The coming times are about to change things."

"And Discord isn't cracking free for another couple hundred years." I snarked back "So unless you plan to..."

Ivan snapped the pocket watch shut "As soon as Lockheart arrived an incident happened in the gardens as one statue had been removed from the Canterlot's garden maze. During this time descriptions of otherworldly or "chaotic" events happened. Discord's imprisonment only lasts until the thousandth year if someone doesn't try to interfere."

He drew himself closer to me as he continued "How long do you think this false peace will last when people cry out his name for retribution for having their lives stolen or for a group of fools to try to release him in the hopes of being sent back home? If you won't secure this place for the coming disaster then just come with me and see the one you should be following."

I pretended to smile as I firmly replied "You're question?"

Ivan frowned obviously unhappy at my response. He was one of those people who believed some of us worked for Discord... that we had hero and villain players. It was that type of thinking that made Duran justify all of his insane actions and create the demonic changelings that were more feral than sentient. Of course if you tried to explain that to people like him than it just further proved that Duran was a villain class player instead of some self claimed hero.

Besides if there really was a group of humans who were worshiping Discord than why haven't they tried to free Discord already?

Ivan sighed as he finally moved onto why he had come here in the first place "A certain individual has caused waves. She calls herself Brass Balls of all things... probably due to an accident in her arrival, but that doesn't excuse her actions." I nodded as I couldn't help but wonder just what exactly this person did to piss them off "We couldn't find anything about her... until yesterday as we just recently found out that she was the person responsible for Valkyrie's current condition."

That was when I felt the shiver down my spine as I quickly replied "What happened?"

I had seen just how far we could fall if a mad man was at the wheel. All it took was someone to focus on the worst aspects of our fears and turn ordinary people into committing actions they would have never thought possible. Duran was living proof of that as he turned a quest in finding and using the Elements of Harmony into a nightmare worthy of the Rainbow Factor. Was Brass just another individual who followed Duran's crazy form of logic forcing Ivan's group to kick her out?

Ivan blinked "You didn't hear? Apparently Ms Brass had obtained a cockatrice and used it on Valkyrie. We don't know the full story, but apparently it had to do something with pony named Remedy Cross who was with Lockheart as he currently was not residing in Canterlot during that day. We would also like to know the story behind that if possible."

I felt my teeth clenching together as Ivan was attempting to mislead me. Lockheart was at Cloudsdale and Valkyrie was taking a trip to see Cerberus... a few people wanted to see if she could take pictures. Still it was a cheap trick to play as Pocket Ace stood outside the open door with the "buck special"... a sandwich made from rock hard bread and what ever he was about to throw out in the garbage, but had yet to look inedible.

"I'll let you know if I find anything out." I calmly replied.

Ivan left a large bag on the table "Here is some... assistance in helping you find her current location." He opened it up to reveal a large assortment of gems "Morganna also wishes you the best of luck even if you don't wish for a meeting between the two of you."

I pulled the bag of gems closer to me and made note to have Pocket Ace check how much these gems were really worth "If she wants a meeting then tell her to come here to meet me."

Ivan shook his head as he picked up his chief special and left the room. Pocket Ace just shook his head as he was happy that Ivan was gone. I took another glance at the gems as... I just talked to people. People came because they wanted a place to feel comfortable... they talked about quests because most games have the bar as the quest hub or library. All we did was play on that old joke so they wouldn't feel as lost as they really were in this new crazy world.

Pocket Ace sighed "Want me to grab your sword?" I shook my head "Look... I know that look. You want to do something and yet you don't know what to do so why don't you just go up and try asking Celestia if there's anything she can do or anything you can do for her to help out?"

He placed a hoof on my shoulder and chuckled "It would certainly be a lot easier than grabbing a sword and search the world for a crazy mare."

I couldn't help but smile "So any idea what we should do with these?"

Pocket Ace rubbed his chin "Use them. Wasn't there a group trying to buy gems for some crazy experiment?"

******

Stardust

I stood outside as I stared at the bar. Maxwell talked about trying to get a sign that would draw in attention or one better than the current sign they had hanging up.

Comet stared at the sign “Why do they have a picture of a mollusk?”

I couldn’t help but snort “It’s a Helix fossil.”

Comet stared at me in confusion “What? What’s so funny?”

I shook my head as somepony had written underneath the picture “We shall maintain the anarchy”

I opened up the door as a couple of ponies, griffins, and diamond dogs were enjoying themselves. There didn’t seem to be much order as one table had a group talking about their latest adventure as the table next to them was making trading cards. One small group was made up of diamond dogs and griffins as they were making small models and toys of anima and cartoons that didn’t exist in Equestria.

This place could easily be called a mad house as I saw a diamond dog trying to sell newspapers as a few ponies in armor gathered around a large wooden quest board. They even somehow managed to get a karaoke machine set up that had been crafted from a record player, a few non equestrian songs that had been made, and a microphone that was rigged up to a few speakers made out of improvised megaphones.

It was a place Discord would probably feel right at home and it made my head hurt. After countless talks with my family and my therapist from the Everfree incident… it was hard to make sense of certain things when I saw conflictions in my memories sometimes. I just took a deep breath and looked at my very real smaller sister who stood right beside me.

“What can our humble establishment do for two fine mares?” a familiar voice replied causing me to look up and see Pocket Ace smiling.

Comet blushed at the comment as I’m pretty sure the earth pony stallion winked at her shortly after seeing her blush. I just smirked as he somehow traversed through the maze of bodies and made it to us… as he wore a black tuxedo with a white collar shirt as a deck of cards rested in his right chest pocket. Somehow I was surprised he wasn’t setting up another poker game or was he just getting ready until we came barging in.

He made a small bow as he said “Nice to see you again Lady Dust.”

“It’s Stardust. Not Duchess Star or Lady Dust.” I quickly replied only to have him grin “I… need to talk with Maxwell.”

Pocket Ace nodded “Talk, business, or pleasure?’

I scuffed my hoof against the hard wood floor “Just talk… and possibly business.”

Pocket Ace nodded as he lead us to a booth that seemed to have been hidden from the room before leaving us with a menu that listed the price of his food… and the average price of certain services from “adventure squad” to “Board listing and ranking” while rumors seemed to have various prices. There was even a section for renting rooms.

To anypony else this would have been beyond weird… but it felt expected from a place like this as it seemed to operate on it’s own rules. In fact having normal menus might have seemed even stranger somehow.

Comet glanced at the menu “What are you planning on doing?”

I took another look at the prices… as I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. Celestia was going to try to help Valkyrie to the best of her ability. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with just leaving it up to her, but…

“Valkyrie rushed to my aid when I was in trouble.” I replied honestly out loud to both my little sister and to myself “She could have just waited, but she did what she could do to help and… If I don’t try doing something then… it wouldn’t sit right with me.” I glanced at her and smiled “Besides she helped him out so it might not be that bad.”

What exactly I wanted Maxwell to do as I had no idea. Would gathering cockatrices help? Magic wouldn’t exactly help as Celestia was the closest thing to an expert one could get. The best I could do was removing problems instead of solving them… all I could think of at the moment was letting Maxwell know and see if he knew anything… or keep an ear out if he heard of anything.

Comet just stared at the menu “They offer a price for foal sitting and at that price!”

“You do remember mom’s stories about us?” I chuckled “The baby gate didn’t stop either of us. Besides what other bar tries to offer jobs for weather management in the Bad Lands?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at it as sounded a bit insane, but no one was living in the Bad Lands which made property values cheap… especially when you didn’t need to buy the land in the first place.

Comet didn’t respond for a moment “It does pay well… really well actually.”

“You do realize that a couple of other ponies tried expanding in the frozen north only to fail spectacularly.” I quickly quipped back “Heck a few of the ponies in this room could probably tell you how different weather can be in different regions.”

Honestly I hoped she didn’t give the job too much thought. Any job offering that much bits for a short time was a lot harder than it looked like on paper.

“Oh Stardust… how are you doing?” Maxwell spoke surprising both of us.

I did my best to smile “I’m doing alright… not as well as you apparently.” He chuckled nervously but I could see his unease “Is everything alright with you?”

Maxwell shook his head “No… I just received some bad news, but enough about me. What did you want to talk about?”

I glanced back at the menu as… I didn’t know exactly what to say “Remember Valkyrie?”

To my unspoken relief and sorrow Maxwell sighed “You heard about it too? I can’t believe it happened to her out of all people... Do you think that Princess Celestia will be able to help?”

Comet to my surprise and embarrassment shouted “Of course she can! She’s Princess Celestia!”

Maxwell quickly raised his fore hooves and apologized “Sorry! I just… I’m nervous alright. Who’s is she?”

I smiled happy to switch to a different topic “Comet is my sister and a descent flier.”

“And the upcoming best flier at the next Young Flier’s Competition!” She bragged out loud as she turned around “I even have a cutie mark to prove it!”

Maxwell coughed nervously as I just realized how that could have been interpreted as she showed her cutie mark. To his credit Maxwell did his best not to look guilty as he tried his best not to look at her flank. I'll admit that his nervous blush was rather cute.

Still I cut him a brake and said “She recently got her cutie mark a month ago and she was… a bit nervous.”

Comet frowned “Not everypony gets their cutie marks right away.”

I hugged her as it had been a little bit rough on her. Maxwell couldn’t help but chuckle as most of the ponies in this place didn’t even have a cutie mark.

“So what’s up with all the strange prices?” Comet asked trying to change the subject.

Maxwell shrugged “Depends on the question. If you ask a new arrival to Equestria about weather management vs and Equestrian pony then you get two different, but none the less correct answers. It’s my job to help manage the mess in-between and find just what exactly my cliental is looking for amiss this sea of chaos.”

“And the foal sitting price?” Comet dead panned.

Maxwell rolled his eyes “You try taking care of a baby that walks on ceilings. Those prices are for foals in their magical flux states which parents will want ponies who can protect them from anything.”

Comet blinked as she stared at the picture “You can’t be serious.”

Maxwell simply nodded “Socky the monster is what they called it. It’s what you get with a sock puppet, a come to life spell, and whatever magic haphazardly mixed into the equation near a basket of dirty laundry. Not all cases are like that… but most ponies don't go for that service unless it has become that bad and the “baby sitters” do the job because it pays that much. That and a few of the nobles feel better at having “professional foal sitters” looking after their bundle of joy.”

I looked back at the listing “Or ensuring their bundle of joy doesn’t damage anything in their estate during their magical fluxes.”

“That too.” Maxwell quickly replied “Besides Celestia is trying to hire a pony to teach Lockheart earth pony magic and the rumors about some of those stories? It makes these jobs seem sane in comparison.”

Maxwell went silent for a few seconds before saying “Have you… tried asking help from Lockheart?”

I shook my head “He’s in Cloudsdale, but he is supposed to be coming back to Canterlot soon… why?”

Maxwell coughed as he fidgeted in his seat “Because he’s… you know… different.” Comet just blinked as Maxwell sighed “When the problem arose he was one of the few that came rushing and… as much as I hate to say it.”

He took a deep breath and sighed out loud “Things could have been a lot worse if he wasn’t there. He may not be the strongest person out there… but you do have to admit he was quite skilled at making a scene.”

I nodded as his Discord impersonation fooled us all. Sure he took a beating after his disguise fell apart, but he was one of the few ponies that tried their best to rescue me before Celestia saved the day.

“That and…” Maxwell looked really unease as he said “The person responsible for it… has some sort of grudge against… Remedy Cross. Whatever she knows about the person responsible for this could help… and Brass might come after her.”

Comet shook her head “What… do you want to use her as bait!”

Maxwell quickly shook his head “Of course not… besides if that really would have worked then… wouldn’t she have tried something already or when they were at Cloudsdale?”

He sighed “Besides I… I just don’t know what I can do right now. All I know is that Brass turned Valkyrie into a lawn ornament and that Celestia is going to try to help… I don’t even know how it happened! It’s just…”

“Frustrating.” I replied as he nodded “It’s frustrating to see what happened and… being unable to do anything about it.”

Maxwell sighed as a small smile appeared on his face “It sure is… Still rumor has it that Celestia is gather up the Elements of Harmony. I hear she even as a new one coming in today!”

I shook my head “Of course you would still need those who matched the Elements…” A small shiver went up my spine as I remembered Duran “Of course Celestia will know what she is doing.”

Maxwell slumped back into his seat “She’ll do a better job than we did… well… I did…”

I leaned in closer “So just between you and me… which ones would you call candidates. Personally I’m putting my bits on Remedy being kindness.”

Maxwell stared at my for a moment in disbelief “You can’t be serious!”

I smiled “oh come on. Can’t you just picture her in a nice small wooden cabin being surrounded by animals?”

Maxwell cracked a small grin “Sure I can. The only question is if their stuffed and if she’s sporting a hunting rifle. Or would a scene of her stuffing a dead rabbit full of cotton be more fitting?”

I shook my head “What about Steel Halberd being the Element of Laughter? You could picture him popping out of a cake and singing party tunes.”

Maxwell shook his head “What type of party are we talking about and where’s the cake for the men in the room?”

Comet rubbed her chin “I could see Remedy being kindness.” Both of us stopped and turned to stare at her “Well sure she isn’t warm and cuddly, but she does make sure no pony gets picked on and she does help out with Celestia’s school for the gifted from time to time.”

I blinked as the pony most people were afraid of… working at Celestia’s school for the gifted sounded… off a little bit off “What exactly does she do there?”

Comet took a deep breath and whispered “Promise not a word leaves this table?” Both of us nodded “She… helps out with the birthday parties. Mostly for foals who had moved into the boarding school section and can’t really visit their family’s back home. She has a soft spot for foals.”

“But just to be clear Steel Halberd doesn’t host birthday parties and pop out of cakes?” Maxwell slowly replied.

Comet sighed in disappointment “No he doesn’t… and he has such a great flank.”

Maxwell shook his head “Two mares. One Stallion… can we move onto a topic that is easier for the male at the table to talk about?”

I broke out a grin “We could get you into a cake.”

Maxwell frowned “And how exactly does that make it easier on me?”

“Because you would get to see a lot of pretty mares when you finally popped out?” I replied back as he stared at me for a few seconds unable to say anything.

Maxwell shook his head “You should come here more often.”

Comet smiled as she her head was still on the table, but now staring at Pocket Ace’s direction “Maybe we should?"

I shook my head “I’ll let you know if I’m able to talk to Lockheart, but I highly doubt it. He’s an alicorn and it would be hard to be able to get time to talk to him.”

Her eyes lighted up when she saw the bar suddenly sing “Hakuna Matata!” without the same precision and grace of a what you would expect from this place as a few people sang off key... Which somehow made it all the more harder not to be swept along in if you knew the lyrics.

Comet pointed her hoof at the stage “Anypony can sing up there!”

“That’s the point of it.” Maxwell replied with a smirk “A place where you don’t have to worry about feeling normal despite the madness of the world around us.”

I shook my head as I knew Comet was going to want to explore this place “I’d ask Pocket Ace to see if they have any songs you know of first.”

Comet was gone in a blur as I couldn’t help but chuckle. Maxwell just sat back in his seat and closed his eyes trying to relax as there really wasn’t much we could do besides wait. Hopefully tomorrow would hold the answers we needed.

******

Luke

Have you ever tried putting together one of those really big puzzles? You know the type that has all those little random shapes and pieces as you are trying to make that simple picture you see on the front of the box? Have you ever had a pet jump up on the table knocking aside all those pieces you had put together and when you start putting them back together… you realize that you are suddenly missing a few pieces?

That’s what I felt as I worked at my lab table. Actually it was just large chunk of rock carved to have a flat table surface as a few glass beakers and a mixing mortar rested on it. The walls had enough crystals to give me light and I went over one of the books Brass brought us as the rest of the amateur chemists looked over one of the other books trying to see if they could mix any of the toxins together.

I almost sure that a starter's chemistry set was more advanced than what I had as that came with it's own Bunsen burner. I wasn't even able to make do with a candle since... candles were not exactly essentials considering how hard it was to sleep at night with all the glowing crystals.

I rubbed my eyes as I bottled up another mixed patch of poison to be tested latter as Duke said “Any luck?”

I glanced back at the dark brown unicorn with dreadlocks and said “Depends on what you’re asking for. We can kill him, but the question is which poison and which dosage?”

Duke frowned as he was one of our resident teleporters who had run himself ragged trying to get us all to safety. He was also one of the unicorn teleports who would have the unhappy task of warning us if Discord was free on the surface or teleporting to the surface to warn Celestia if things went bad down here.

Duke sighed as he said “Well what do you need me to get then?”

“It’s not a lack of materials so much as…” I paused for a second trying to sum it up “It’s how long it will take. When Tirek did his magic drain of Equestria he grew bigger so if we ignore any magical benefits or additions…”

Duke promptly face palmed and groaned “A dose for a pony sized target wouldn’t work on a target the size of an elephant.”

“Thus we have a time limit and we don’t know how powerful Discord’s magic will make him.” I quickly added “Of course the second less reliable option would be Poison Joke. That roughly takes a day to snap into effect… but it’s Poison Joke.”

Both of us sighed as Poison Joke not only ran on it’s own rules… but neither of us knew just how effective it would be. It might turn Tirek into the size of a mouse which would make things easier to deal with… or Tirek might end up sounding like a chipmunk ready to incinerate us.

It was times like these I wish we had modern technology and some sort of dead man’s switch strapped to his heart. Right now we don’t even have a radio much less a remote control switch.

Duke glanced at the blue flowers “Can’t you just use both?”

I shook my head “Poison Joke works by it’s own rules and as a general rule of thumb… it isn’t wise to mix medications as it could make the “joke” come into effect sooner or the poison might run it’s course faster than expected. I really wish we had a human turned donkey or something similar.”

Duke stared at me strangely “Donkey… you’re kidding me.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle “Diamond Dogs can move through the ground like fish. Griffon fly just like ponies. Donkeys seem to be the least magical race which would make them the most effective group at fighting Tirek right alongside with… cows maybe?”

Duke held up a hoof and took a deep breath “Just for the sake of argument… what exactly would we do with them if we found a group of donkeys and cows to fight by our sides?”

I shrugged “I don’t know… have a second line of defense to throw Poison Joke at Tirek in case the poison doesn’t run it’s course fast enough? Personally I just plan to find a lethal strain and test it on something large… like a chimera or something and see how long it takes. Then guess a half dosage and stick it into Tirek threatening him if he doesn’t follow us we don’t cure him.”

Duke smiled “Which of course is a big fat lie.”

“Would you doubt these big innocent eyes?” I mockingly replied doing my best puppy dog pout “And when has a group of ponies ever turned out to be devious?”

Duke rolled his eyes “Roughly about after we gagged him and tossed him into a prison cell.”

I shrugged as that sadly made sense. Still as long as they didn’t have someone like Luna I highly doubt anyone would know where to find us. It was one of the things that I was both thankful and hated as at least that era would be closer to what everyone was used to in terms of technology or magical substitute.

“What about the other two criminals?” I asked out of curiosity “Is that spider really…”

“I have no idea.” Duke replied honestly “It’s a big spider… he was able to resist some attempts at spells, but Brass was able to turn him into a lawn ornament. Even if he really is a G1 villain… would you admit trying to commit genocide to an entire race when you are held hostage by a group of dangerous people?"

"Assuming he's the same G1 spider or not some retcon character." I countered "After all G1 Tirek had Rainbow of Darkness. This one drains magic making him grow bigger and stronger."

I opened up the next book a glanced over the contents and frowned a little. Equestria didn’t have a lot of poisons… most of it was to hamper one’s movements or quickly kill it’s target. There wasn’t a lot of in-between like keeping the victim alive for roughly about three to four hours. That or this book was simply lacking the "slow acting poisons" section.

“See if we have any Zebra players or anyone who can use a dart gun.” I muttered to myself “At this point dart guns with venom seem to be our best option for dealing with Tirek after he deals with Discord.”

I could hear Duke starting to pace as neither of us liked talking about the major flaw in our plan. Keeping Discord distracted long enough to get Tirek to get a surprise power drain would be difficult. Not only that we would also have to… sacrifice a few Equestrians so that he would be strong enough for a power drain on Discord.

I’m not sure it would have worked if he did manage to hit Discord the first time they meet… but I’m willing to bet even he had limits since Tirek was barely able to do anything or even drain any powerful and important ponies before Discord helped him out. Maybe he was trying to avoid Celestia's wrath... but Tirek didn't even try attacking Canterlot until he drained half of Equestria.

Maybe letting him drain a couple of those savage changelings might help deal with that morality choice. Personally I hated the fact our "secret weapon" had too many unknowns or missing details.

“Bright side…” Duke hesitated a little “The web has some resistance… something one of the guards found out when he tried to escape of course the web doesn’t last very long.”

I turned around and faced him “How long? Days, hours?”

Duke scratched the back of his head “Hours and the web just falls apart or “dissolves” during that time so don’t expect any anti-magic silk garments for any future fights, but hopefully strong enough to give Discord some trouble... if he doesn't grow bored and turn them into French fries or something.”

I took a deep breath as it wasn’t a complete lost. We just had to send the spider first and hope he could bind or distract Discord long enough for Tirek to work his magic. Maybe find the large worm creature from the Discord episode and trying to got a bottle of it's sneeze... or cold gunk. That had an effect when it hit Discord when he wasn't expecting it.

“What about the other prisoner?” I needed to know if I needed to produce a few extra vials for someone other than Tirek “Found anything useful?”

Duke shook his head “Our third guest little bit smarter and a bit more paranoid. We are trying to find some more information… but we haven't gotten anything from it.”

“It?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Duke nodded “A few of the others… they don’t like referring to the prisoners as… people. They know Tirek is already set for the chop block and essentially the other two criminals are cannon fodder for the fight against Discord so they don’t want to refer to them as people.”

I shrugged as it sadly did make sense. A lot of people would easily say they would shoot or kill some evil criminal or monster if they had too… but having to keep that same monster alive while you waited for the unknown excitation date to finally arrive? I wonder if this is how a prison guard feels as they watch the criminals on death row.

Duke glanced at me “That and… a few of the supply runners… well it turns out Brass is not a popular pony.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle “In case you haven’t noticed none of us are popular until Discord breaks free.”

Duke nodded as he seemed a little bit skeptic “The thing is… she has someone going to a lot of the player run establishments And he is paying people to find out where she is hiding.”

I took a deep breath and calmly replied “You do realize that’s because if they figure out where she is… they know where we are. Even if she is caught outside of this place I’m willing to bet Celestia has a unicorn ready to pry her memories out of her skull and then look them over to see where we are hiding.”

Duke scratched the back of his head “I mean… what if she really is trouble?”

“A search for Brass right after a Tartarus Jail break?” I deadpanned “You do realize that this is Celestia we are talking about… the same pony who sent Twilight to Ponyville so she could find and use the Elements of Harmony to use on her sister? This is just another plan made by Celestia in an attempt to figure out where we are hiding."

Duke sighed either in relief or slight irritation as he would also half to help spread the word that this was a trap set by Celestia to figure out where the hell we had vanished to. It made sense really… figure out how loyal we were and then just try to catch one of us to pry the knowledge of our locations out of our heads.

It also meant that anyone who was on the mission wasn’t allowed to go to the surface during this period which was going to be a pain in the butt to explain to everyone else for the rest of the week. That left the scouts on the surface to keep bringing in supplies as we waited for Discord’s arrival.

Duke scratched his chin “So… how long until Discord is free?”

I shrugged “I’ll stop waiting for Discord when Celestia puts his statue back in the garden. Until then I’m just going with the bet that Discord is slowly breaking free and when that day comes… we’ll be here ready to stop him.”

The door opened up as a chipper blue Pegasus with light blue and white highlights in her mane cheerfully chirped “You won’t believe what I found!”

Green flames consumed her as a changeling now stood in her place as I smiled. Crystal the human turned changeling was a handy addition to our group as changelings could get in and out of places with ease. Her horn glowed pulling out a large cloth as I could feel my mouth starting to salivate as I stared at it.

It was a black powder… the holy grail of modern weaponry… the step away from TNT or the spark needed to light the explosive hail of lead upon your hated foes.

Crystal shook her head “It’s not TV strong as it is… kind of weak, but still someone named Stardust is making some of this stuff.”

I took a deep breath and tried be calm… key word was try “Get one of the recruiters ready and check how she is before anyone tries to give her a tour of the place.” Last thing we needed was someone losing their mind as they made weapon grades explosives “If she looks alright then give the opening speech and when you do make sure that no one else is watching. We have the villains and right now anyone in the Royal Guard would love to get their hooves on us.”

As much as I would love making barrels of TNT for a insurance plan after Discord was taken care off… it wouldn’t do us any good if we got caught before Discord broke free. Still we had time to revise our plans and of course we have a few scouts checking around Canterlot trying to figure out where Celestia could have placed him.

Discord was kept in Canterlot so that Celestia would know when he broke free. It stood to reason that she would keep it nearby or at least have some sort of records for where she hid him and now that we had Tirek in our grasp… it would be nice to figure out where Discord’s stony butt was hiding.

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay. Let me know if I made missed anything.

New laptop so hopefully no more really long delays anymore.

Would it matter?

Celestia

Celestia prepared herself as she was certain she had covered all her bases. She had a small list of questions she had prepared in advance to ask Lockheart since she knew she couldn’t ask him upfront. Either Lockheart would find a way to weasel out of answering one of the questions or he might panic.

With a deep breath and a gentle push against the window with her magic she was happy to feel the new wards in effect; they would hopefully keep Lockheart inside the room if he tried to flee. Her desk drawers hid the fresh food and drink she had requested for this meeting, along with some nice slices of cake for herself.

Celestia glanced over thoughtfully at a “family relations” book she had purchased for herself...~~ages~~ years ago. It reminded her that sometimes there could be a gem born into the Blue Blood family line, and how the little foal would become close to Celestia’s heart. Often, you got a bad apple that would learn to interfere for their own gain, or the happy foal simply grew up more distant as life took it’s course… but sometimes one of those happy foals would grow up to be a fine mare or stallion that would still feel like a valued member of her family. A pony that refused to let life beat them down, or allow society to make them stuck up, or let hardships make them cynical of the world.

Celestia took a deep breath as… She realized she had to treat her current situation like one of those "family" moments. The often-heartless biological “Parents” of the latest happy foal generally disliked Celestia because they enjoyed playing the games of nobility. While their foal was so close to Celestia, any interaction couldn't be handled within the same relationship as ruler and subject. If anything went wrong, then the foal's “Parents” would usually decide to send the foal away to a boarding school for nobility, invariably turning the happy foal into a grumpy stuck up jerk…

Celestia took another deep breath and slowly exhaled. A part of her preferred to think of Lockheart fitting into the "Parents" category of their upcoming "family" moment… It was simpler, from that point of view: Lockheart was the stallion of influence who she didn’t exactly see eye to eye with, but simply forcing him to do or say something only on her authority as Princess Of Equestria wouldn’t be the right thing to do because of an existing personal relationship. More than that, Celestia had already been through enough theoretically similar situations that she had a rough idea of what would happen if her plan was a success… or a failure.

Lockheart, on the other hoof, continued creating more questions every day, and the few answers she had received didn’t make the situation any easier… much less how little she actually knew was actually true. She was having to deal with a frightened pony who was used to running away. If Celestia was too forceful in her actions then Lockheart would simply flee, because that was how he managed to survive up until now.

“Don’t simply ask him if he’s an alicorn,” Celestia reminded herself aloud. “That is not only a loaded question, but his view point on what 'alicorn' means or what it stands for is different from my own. To him, the term alicorn is one of meaning or status instead of a simple biological fact.”

Celestia closed her eyes and thought back to his alteration techniques and his… emotional ability. His emotions could affect or be altered by those around him, especially when he lowered his guard or removed the extra layers of disguises and illusions he constantly wore.

“His cutie mark must be referencing his personality and special talent,” Celestia told herself. “He keeps his own heart locked up, yet he can also slip past the 'locks' of others to take a peek into their hearts.”

Celestia rubbed her chin. “Or instead of the cutie mark describing him...could his cutie mark be referencing his past trauma, and how destiny may yet provide a way to open his heart up again?” Celestia shook her head. “Why couldn’t it have been a simple cutie mark that was easy to interpret? I mean, having a cutie mark of the sun or the moon is easy: It could mean a talent for astrology, or a talent for magic… The pony’s personality generally makes it easy to guess what it stands for.”

Celestia glanced outside as she looked at Canterlot in an attempt to calm herself down. It was such a peaceful city; despite all of its problems, Canterlot continued to grow and flourish. She had defended her land from monsters and invaders, wherever they tried to attack her peaceful nation. She had helped tend to the fields and helped tend her ponies, when pestilence or disease stuck her kingdom. She had established a school to gather young gifted unicorns together where Celestia could teach them of magic and Harmony, so that those ponies could then spread out into her fair nation and help those around them.

It was funny to Celestia, in light of all those accomplishments, how badly this one single moment now frightened her; she felt like a filly about to take a test only to realize how unprepared she actually was. The biggest, and possibly easiest question that would solve most of her fears… was also the hardest one to ask.

Asking that one simple question wouldn't be just be asking about if he was related to Luna… it would invite him to share what he truly thought about Celestia, and how he felt she had done in managing the kingdom since Luna's banishment. All the actions she had made throughout the long years as Princess of Equestria would not be placed in front of the court of another ruler, who’s judgment could be colored by the fact they were allies or rivals or enemies, potential or otherwise. Her actions would be judged by a single pony; a pony that had inadvertently been on the wrong side of one of Celestia’s worst mistakes.

The worst part of it all, was a small hint of stomach sickening dread that made her shiver, as Celestia started to draw a few unsettling facts together. What sort of nation would be frightened of an Alicorn that also held ponies? What sort of nation would claim him to be a “monster” when Alicorns had been known as peaceful rulers?

A nation that had seen one Alicorn turn into Nightmare Moon.
A nation that had seen another Alicorn banish her only sister for the greater good.

It's easy to convince somepony to forgive your choices when it's proven you were in the right. It's harder to convince somepony to forgive you if that somepony directly suffered from your actions because you foolishly wiped their parent's names from the history books, leaving only a nightmarish tale about a foal eating monster passed down through the common pony's superstitious folklore to act as their legacy.

The door opened. Celestia turned around and put on her best smile as Lockheart entered the room. Celestia felt her heart clench in actual pain as she saw just how nervous Lockheart was as he entered the room. Lockheart had locked his wings against his sides to streamline himself into the smallest possible target. His face and neck were tense with the grimace of stress. His eyes glanced into every corner of the room, yet his gaze always landed back onto Celestia's horn or hooves between each ocular twitch. His leg muscles visibly coiled with each carefully measured step, as if his instincts were expecting some sort of trap to be sprung. He nodded towards Celestia after fully entering the room, but she recognized the look in his eyes as he was trying to plan where he could run if things went bad.

Whatever inner peace Celestia had managed to achieve earlier was swiftly broken by a rush of empathy as Lockheart's old paranoia and fears took root again.

Celestia calmed herself, or at least did her best to mask her own unease as she said, “So how was Cloudsdale?”

Lockheart stopped scanning the room for possible exits as his head snapped forward to meet Celestia's gaze directly. “I now understand some of the differences between different political climates of Equestria.”

That was not the sort of answer Celestia was expecting. “Can you explain?”, Celestia asked calmly.

“Canterlot focuses more on blood ties and the social status of those around them. A pony who owns more money or power than even the lowest noble is still considered to be lesser than the noble, even if that noble is flat broke.” Lockheart replied as if he was taking a test. “Cloudsdale, while it holds ties to nobility, is more politically focused towards a Capitalist political landscape. They focus more on success than ties to nobility, but nobles are still considered important for their cultural connections and governmental finances, not due to the fact they are of noble blood. A pony in Cloudsdale born with the same resources as a given noble but without noble blood would be considered to be of equal importance as the noble.”

Celestia just sat there as Lockheart kept his eyes focused on her, as if he was afraid that she would summon the guards to toss him into the dungeon or something. A part of her mind couldn’t help but wonder if he could somehow sense her own emotional turmoil and was now being affected by it… or if Celestia was seeing her own panic and stress be openly displayed right in front of her through his special talent.

“How was Hollow Shades?” Celestia carefully replied as she tried to move onto a safer topic.

Instead of relaxing him, Lockheart’s body became rigid. His muscles visibly tensed, as if preparation to fight Celestia or run for his life, while he reported, “I didn’t know about the Element of Harmony; they had contacted me in the middle of the night. I sent a letter to inform you about the possible situation as soon as I could!”

“What about the fact you introduced the local foals to ice cream?” Celestia quickly replied, trying to ease his worries. "And please let it be a happy story!" she pleaded in the back of her mind.

Lockheart simply stared at Celestia as if she had grown second head. It was clear to anypony in the room that Lockheart wasn’t expecting that question at all. She couldn’t help but wonder what exactly had happened… He didn’t seem nervous in Cloudsdale... or had Celestia’s surprise arrival done more than give a small scare to the locals of Cloudsdale?

Celestia held up a hoof and tried to calm him down. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I was just… surprised that the area had been zoned off because of a possible… Cuteness Overload?”

Celestia couldn’t help but chuckle at her own comment, as the statement seemed so utterly ridiculous… but this was an event involving Lockheart; a pony who's very existence actively defied whatever could be counted as “normal” on a weekly, if not daily, occurrence.

Lockheart started to relax a little as he nervously replied, “I was experimenting with my magic a little. I had a bunch of children to entertain and… I’ll admit that feeding them ice cream wasn’t the smartest idea...”

“...Because you had hoped to draw on their excess joy in an attempt to replenish your magic.” Celestia finished as a she smirked. “I already read the reports regarding your current skills in magic, as well as what magics you have attempted to experiment with.”

Lockheart blinked as he asked with a hint of fear and confusion, “Doesn’t that concern you? I mean…”

Celestia rolled her eyes as realized she should have seen this coming. Her sudden arrival and departure must have caused a lot more problems for Lockheart than she realized. Instead of her ponies seeing her praising Lockheart’s success… they must have interpreted the whole incident as Celestia checking up on Lockheart to see if he was doing a good job, or messing things up.

Celestia did her best to stay visibly relaxed as she calmly said, “Magic that deals with or focuses on utilizing certain types of emotions have existed in Equestria long before changelings became public knowledge. Can you tell me how the Crystal Heart works?”

Lockheart shrugged. “The Crystal Heart focuses the joy and cheer of the Crystal Ponies through the Crystal Kingdom's magical arrays, which in turn empowers the Crystal Heart to protect them and even generate nice and pleasant weather instead of having the kingdom freeze to death.”

Celestia knew that was all she needed to say. Hopefully that statement would help alleviate what worries or concerns he might have had after any… unpleasant rumors or barbs she had inadvertently subjected him to as… Celestia tried her best not to sigh out loud. She could believe Lockheart really was Luna’s son, if only by just how similarly she had made things worse when she tried to help either of them.

Still... a part of Celestia wanted to see just how much knowledge of the Crystal Empire Lockheart possessed. “And what about when a Crystalling happens?”

“A new born infant is presented in front of the Crystal Heart when their parents find a gem that best matches the foal. Then the love and energy from the Crystalling ritual is used to strengthen, repair, and improve the Crystal Heart, while also helping to apply the crystal effect to the ponies themselves.” Lockheart replied with the same monotonous tone he had used to describe the Crystal Heart.

Celestia was honestly a little bit surprised that he knew of the Crystalling ritual as it was a background cultural event similar to “The Running of the Leaves”. The only time it was ever celebrated on par with a national holiday was when the rulers of the Crystal Kingdom gave birth to a new royal heir; even then, the celebration was not so much about the Crystalling of the new foal, but about formally recognizing the latest addition to the Royal Bloodline with the promise that the peace and prosperity brought about by the current rulers would be continued by their children.

It would have been fine if he had stopped there… but then Lockheart continued, “Due to the protection of the Crystal Heart… the Crystalling ritual is also important as it helps expand the current barrier so that the kingdom is large enough to support it’s new population without the population growing so large that only the way to sustain their numbers would be to send the excess citizens out into the frozen wasteland as a means of population control. Of course, if the population is reduced than the magical protection is cut back, reducing the amount of magical energy needed to sustain the shield barrier, and forcing anyone who wished to invade the kingdom to have to deal with the harsh elements of the north; this helps compensate for the lack of defenders that would normally be available for the Crystal Empire, as the shield would then only extend to the kingdom’s outer walls.”

Celestia nodded as she said, “See? It isn’t that unusual...”

What was unusual was Lockheart's grimly logical addition to the Crystalling event that he had added to the simple question. He had turned her question about a happy celebration into a question about a nation’s defense or method of expansion. In fact, Celestia wasn’t sure how many other ponies besides Lockheart would have thought to consider both the major and minor ramifications of such a simple event.

So she did what anypony would do by saying, “And yet... you don’t know how long a moon is.”

Lockheart simply groaned. “I still can’t tell if you’re using lunar cycle, weekly, or some subjective term that varies depending on the situation it is used in!”

It was nice to know that some things still eluded him.

Celestia shook her head as she used her magic to pull out snacks and drinks from the desk drawers. She thought some refreshments would help ease the current mood... and hopefully show Lockheart that she wasn’t trying to interrogate him like a common criminal. It also reminded her that Lockheart knew a lot more about some things than what could be considered “normal”.

When Luna was still around, and for at least few years after her… banishment… such knowledge would have been commonplace. Now that the Crystal Empire had been gone for hundreds of years, only a few books even talked about the “mythical empire”. It was especially surprising to hear somepony talk about a common event that nopony ever bothered recording in a history book because of how it was so… mundane back then.

Lockheart took a small sniff of the hot cocoa as he tried to levitate it up to himself. Celestia could see the hot liquid slowly lurch about in the mug as he did his best not to spill any of it, and she couldn’t help but try to steady the mug for him. Instead of a cheerful smile, Lockheart looked a little bit ashamed for not even being able to carry the cup without nearly spilling it on the floor.

“I’m still trying to get the hang of it.” Lockheart apologized to Celestia.

Celestia felt a small jab of pain in her heart as the kind gesture had been mistaken for her being angry or upset at… his lack of skill. Boulder Dash’s dreaded question now gnawed at the back of her mind as she wished she could figure out what she was supposed to be doing.

Celestia would gladly go and fight Emberess and all the other escaped Tartarus criminals all by herself than struggle with her current awkward situation. She decided to wait for Lockheart to finish with his drink before she accidentally made things worse again… or at least wait until the point she wouldn’t feel like face hoofing if she said something wrong.

“But look at the bright side!” Celestia told herself in the back of her mind. “At least he doesn’t think you’re going to banish him to the moon or incinerate him!”

She nearly sighed out loud as she hated how that actually did sound like an improvement. Now instead of being terrified of her... he was simply stuck feeling as if Celestia thought he was helpless or even a public embarrassment.

“Is everything alright?” Lockheart asked in confusion.

Celestia was about to open her mouth until she saw the hints of doubt and fear in his eyes. He wasn’t so much asking out of concern for her… but from some unspoken fear that still lingered.

“What makes you think that?” Celestia managed to calmly reply even as she tried to hide her own doubts and fears.

Lockheart motioned towards the desk. “Drinks… food… no questions about any of the documentation that has been signed or any that might be resubmitted back to you for proper authorization if the event may extend past Cloudsdale?”

Celestia tried not to groan. She had tried to make a peaceful atmosphere… only to make everything seem so… unnatural. Lockheart didn’t even touch the hot cocoa; he only pretended to drink some of it before setting it aside. All that had changed was that Lockheart had managed to calm himself down so that he was ready to act rationally instead of panicking if she tried to do something nasty to him.

Celestia couldn’t take it anymore as she let out a large sigh. “I was… worried. You spend more of your time locked up in your room than even when it was just a small jail cell. When I saw an excuse to visit… to see how you were doing outside of Canterlot… I’ll admit that I was a bit foolish to send you to Cloudsdale and expect anything different.”

Lockheart was now staring at Celestia as if she had taken off her wings and admitted that she was just one of a long line of white coated unicorns who dyed their hair and pretended to be an alicorn while the sun and the moon somehow naturally went around Equs without anypony’s direct intervention to ensure that the moon or the sun didn’t collide into Equus or each other.

Celestia stared back at Lockheart, and she couldn’t help but smile. “Is it so hard to believe that even I make mistakes or feel sorry about something?”

Lockheart just sat there as Celestia waited a few seconds for an answer… and then began to worry that she had somehow broken him.

When he finally moved, Lockheart shook his head as he said, “I know you have you have your own concerns, worries, and fears… but…”

Celestia closed her eyes as she finished his sentence, “Just… not about you.”

Lockheart actually thought that she-!… Well…she could see why Lockheart might think she didn’t care what happened to him. He had blackmailed his way into learning magic. He was given a flying instructor only after he had accidentally let himself be noticed by the public at large, and that was also when he had been given better quarters.

In fact most of the “blessings” that Celestia had given Lockheart could have been given out of a show of public image. It wouldn’t look good to see a flightless Alicorn. It wouldn’t be “proper” for an Alicorn to sleep in a jail cell. It wouldn’t be “right” if an Alicorn struggled to move a cup full of water, or a mug full of hot cocoa, without splashing any of it on the ground.

While Lockheart was paranoid of her… it wasn’t exactly like Celestia had really ever shown any… care for him.

That might have been the most painful part of it all; that she was still making the exact same mistakes she had made all those hundreds of years ago. Now the words Boulder Dash had spoken to her no longer talked about Lockheart possibly being Luna’s son… but of her treatment of him, or rather her lack of treatment to him.

Silence filled the room as neither of them knew what to say. Celestia wished she could figure out what Lockheart was thinking… or how he was reacting to what she had just… told him. A small smile did come to her lips when he finally took a small sip of the hot cocoa as he just sat there trying to figure out what to do next.

“So…” Celestia started to say. “How was Hollow Shades?”

Silence blanketed the room again. Celestia couldn’t help but start to feel a little bit awkward as… it was just them. Usually Remedy Cross would have said something, or somepony would pop up with an important matter, but the one time she needed an interruption… it refused to come.

“It was… nice.” Lockheart meekly replied as he had no idea what to say.

Celestia took a sip of her hot cocoa as the silence drifted back into the room. Mentally, she berated herself, thinking how it shouldn’t be this hard to simply talk to him; she never had a problem talking to Lockheart in the past. That, and the awkward silence between them, was starting to bother Celestia to the point that she would have been happy if somepony outside had let off a set of fireworks near the castle, or if an ancient monster suddenly decided to attack the city.

Celestia shook her head, “This is ridiculous… let’s just try to be honest and get any questions off our chest.”

Lockheart didn’t seem to look any better after hearing her suggestion when he replied, “Any question?”

Celestia did her best to smile as she said, “Just a few questions. You can even go first.”

Lockheart just stared into his cup. Celestia couldn’t help but listen to the ticking of the clock inside her room. It was a crazy suggestion, and even then there was still the chance he would simply dismiss her questions or reject the whole arrangement…

“Why do you try to sabotage the Grand Galloping Gala each year?” Lockheart replied.

Celestia was shocked by his statement.

“That’s your question?” Celestia asked in surprise at… how blunt it was.

Lockheart nodded. He watched her like a hawk as he refused to back down. He didn’t want to play this game, but at the same time… he refused to be the one that backed down.

Celestia couldn’t help but feel a small smirk forming on her face as she said, “First of all… what makes you think that?”

Lockheart rolled his eyes. “You had me deal with nobles about certain transactions and quite a few of them talk about the Gala.”

So it was that obvious? Lockheart hadn’t even been to a Gala and he could tell something was up. This was going to be tricky, but Celestia refused to back down. “Alright… but only if you answer one of my questions afterwards.”

Lockheart stared at her. “And what would that be?”

Celestia’s mind raced for an answer and said, “Tell me… how exactly did you get Silk Scarf to trade her estate for swamp land?”

The confusion on his face was plain to see as he replied, “That’s your question?”

Celestia smiled as she said, “I’d rather prefer asking why you did that, but if you don’t think that’s equal to your question…”

Lockheart held up a hoof. “Alright… Silk Scarf was a rather annoying mare as she reeked of greed. I could practically taste the deceit coming off her as she tried to twist some obscure law into allowing me to pass a bill that was rejected by you.”

Lockheart took a deep breath. “So… I figured the best way to deal with it was by giving her what she asked for… but not what she wanted, as most of this was just an attempt to keep future nobles from bothering me. I took the papers and then saw her… bill to preserve some random swamp and create a tax for it. I looked at where the funds were going and what groups would have moved in afterwards.”

Lockheart rubbed the back of his head. “I ended up gaining control of her house because the funds were being siphoned to it.”

Celestia’s eyes widened as she said, “That can’t be right… her estate has belonged to her family for generations… surely you couldn’t have used some paper document to take it from her!”

Lockheart shook his head. “Who said I took it? I simply took control of her wildlife preservation act using royal authority and then under the act I simply repeated the same steps she did to take a couple of other ponies' homes. Turns out she wanted to use the tax to get more money and to quickly evict the ponies from… Diamond Gulch and because they were the ones who found all of the gems and they founded the town without the help of a Canterlot Noble… Silk Scarf wanted the land under her swamp territory.”

Lockheart then went into detail about how the laws Silk Scarf used allowed her to tax the ponies living there before kicking them out of their homes. The homes and buildings would then fall under the crown's domain, which Silk Scar would then "sell" to the ponies in her employ, allowing her to illegally evict the ponies from their homes while keeping the land and the mines for herself.

Lockheart, on the other hoof, wasn’t as kind as Celestia. He passed the law… and then used it to quickly seize her house through the same twisted laws and logic she used, before he had the Lunar Guard… help return the missing property. When the criminals who bought the land realized it was being taken from them by the same law Silk Scarf used to originally give them the property... they resisted the Lunar Guard, which landed them in jail, where they then ratted out Silk Scarf, resulting in the law being double checked… which Celestia remembered returning the land back to their owners in Crystal Gulch… and didn’t realize Silk Scarf’s home was also taken.

Lockheart rubbed the back of his head. “So you see… I never actually took her house. Still, if she admitted her involvement to you she could easily get her family estate back.”

Celestia face hoofed. “And open herself to investigations. Just out of curiosity… what exactly did you do with her house?”

Lockheart shrugged. “Nothing, because I don’t even know where it is in Canterlot's noble district. When the other nobles asked why Silk Scarf hated me, or why she abandoned her home… I just told them I got her house when I gave her some swamp land… because that’s what Diamond Gulch was listed as in her bill. The house is still listed as property under the crown; you could give it back to her anytime you want.”

Celestia shook her head as she replied, “The reason why I try to sabotage the Gala each year is because…” she sighed “The first Gala. It was to celebrate the completion of Canterlot. Then the nobles invited other ponies over to throw one big party to help everypony cheer up and laugh. It was done to help ponies have fun instead of trying to make business arrangements or flaunt their wealth.”

Lockheart nodded. “And…”

Celestia frowned. “It was simple. I got to socialize with everypony else; it was suppose to be a moment were we all could just be ponies. I wasn’t Princess Celestia, but just plain Celestia; one stallion even tried his hoof at a date with me.” A small smile came to Celestia's face. “It ended up being the best night of his life.”

Lockheart took a loud sip of his now room temperature cocoa as he tried very hard not to think about what she said.

Celestia couldn't help but smile. “So when they wanted to do it every year, who was I to complain? One day out of the entire year where I could stop being Princess Celestia and just be… me. Then as the years went by it became less about charity, good will towards others, or even having fun. It became more about ponies flaunting their wealth, or making backroom business deals… more ponies came each year, repeating the same song and dance... whatever they didn't remove for something more expensive was kept exactly the same, except they didn't keep the spirit of the first Gala, and year after year… it became my job to stand at the door and smile and shake everypony’s hoof as they came in.”

Celestia stared up at the ceiling; it felt good to let it out. “So the one day I could take off my crown… became the day I stood by the door. The day I was forced to talk about the things I didn’t want to talk about, and deal with nobles who no longer cared what the Gala originally was. Then came the first Gala Disaster… a wild paraspite wandered into the kitchen the day before and… do you know what a parasprite is?”

Lockheart flinched. “Let me guess… on opening night the castle was suddenly flooded with tiny colored puff balls that barfed out new parasprites.”

Celestia couldn’t help but chuckle. “The mess started when somepony first cut the cake, only to unleash a tide of parasprites. I just watched the disaster unfold and… it was fun to watch! No pony got hurt, and we cleaned up the mess… but the best part of it all was how ponies talked about it. Certainly some ponies were upset, but most of the others saw it as a funny accident that they talked about fondly for days afterwards. Then when the second disaster happened…”

“Still not your fault?” Lockheart questioned her.

Celestia shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you. A couple had brought their foal with them, and she had a magical surge… which ended up making the food come to life and attack everypony. After the next two Galas, each having similar disasters, the fifth one was… back to normal. It was dull, boring… and honestly no pony really remembered it. So, when the next Gala came… I set in motion a possible disaster… and then just like the other Galas no pony got hurt, and while a few were a little bit sore… everypony fondly talked about that Gala for days later until it became… expected.”

Lockheart held up a hoof. “So wait… the disasters are caused… to make ponies happy?”

Celestia couldn’t help but smirk. “That’s true… but it also lets me have some fun trying to prank everypony who attends. It’s also a little bit funny watching how a few ponies bring pranks of their own in an attempt to avoid being hit by the next prank or disaster. Sometimes it’s as minor as a few dribble glasses, and sometimes a minor prank I had set out… ends up becoming much bigger than I had imagined.”

Lockheart stared at her in confusion. “You're joking.”

Celestia rolled her eyes, “All right it wasn’t the best prank I ever thought of, but it was fun watching their reactions as they tried to pretend nothing was wrong while making sure they didn’t pick up one of the rigged glasses. So does that answer your question?”

Lockheart simply shook his head, but she could spot the smile on his face. Maybe this was all she needed.

******

Steel Halberd

Steel shook his head as he stared at Valkyrie. Her injuries couldn’t be healed while she was trapped in stone. The doctors and cockatrice experts told him she wouldn’t feel the pass of time, and she was essentially “preserved” until they fixed her. The problem was that those words did very little to help fix the pain he felt in his chest whenever he looked at her.

The Royal Guard Barracks felt different now, as the others walked about trying to live their lives. Ponies patrolled the walls as new recruits were training outside, while the older guards practiced advanced formation techniques.

Steel just sat in front of Valkyrie; he wasn’t wearing his armor. He had been given a few days off to settle down… to try to relax and not do something stupid.

Steel couldn’t help but chuckle sadly as he said, “What happened to us? The Royal Guard used to be the elite of Equestria… the ponies that could protect Equestria from anything.” He shook his head as he felt a mixture of pride and shame at that statement. “We were the best, until this chaos happened… not you Valkyrie, but… Duran, Sanguine, Brass… more villains keep popping up, each one twisted in their own unique way.”

Steel glanced at the medal he had been given. He forgot what it was exactly for, but he had written it down somewhere… the small medal of the sun had been given to him for his quick thinking, skill of command, and managing to lead a small force of ponies to defeat an ancient enemy from the past that required an army to fight.

It was a win for the Royal Guard… a big win, as even if Celestia hadn't arrived at the last minute to save him… the plan would have still gone off successfully, as he would have been the only casualty.

He glanced back up at Valkyrie. “Celestia says she is looking for a way to fix this in one of her old spell books… but how long will that take? How much of the world will change before you are free?”

Steel opened his saddle bag and pulled out a jug of water. He refused to bring alcohol with him, not only because was he still a member of the Royal Guard… but because Valkyrie was still alive. It was Steel’s personal belief that a pony in the Royal Guard should only drink in honor of a happy time, or when somepony died. Valkyrie wasn’t dead, so he didn’t drink alcohol… but he felt like drinking something.

“Four months ago, the biggest thing that would usually happen was somepony catching Celestia trying to change her routine, or eating cake in a… manner not befitting for a Princess.” He replied to himself with a small chuckle. “Now? Crazy mind controlling monsters, magically powerful monsters, and twisted ponies who act like monsters. We even have a group breaking monsters out of Tartarus for... Celestia only knows what. How will Equestria look next month… season… year?”

Steel sighed. “It’s even gotten to Celestia. She smiles, but she’s not really smiling anymore. She just smiles because that’s what we expect. We want her to smile and tell us everything is alright, despite what is actually going on.”

Steel took a sip of water from the jug before glancing at Valkyrie. Valkyrie ~~had been~~ was still their best fighter, a pony who wasn’t even born in Equestria as she hadn’t ever discovered her cutie mark. The same nervous mare who lost a decent chunk of her past, yet managed to be the pony they were all striving to be.

Steel shook his head as he thought back to his encounters with her. She was a good fighter… almost a prodigy really, but it wasn’t because she was born that way, nor had some unique cutie mark talent given Valkyrie her amazing ability. It was her training… how she pushed herself. While it was true that most ponies wouldn’t be able to reach what seemed like a lifetime devotion of training their combative skills… she was a mortal pony.

Steel couldn’t help but smile as he remembered her rather endearing flaws. She was useless with a bow. He had to give her basic weather management courses, as she had never before made a cloud pour down rain… Her lack of knowledge with Equestrian culture could sometimes be humorous or quite embarrassing, but it was often both. When you simply got down to it... when you took Valkyrie off the battlefield, she was a very innocent and sweet pony who had managed to worm her way into his heart.

Steel sighed as there wasn’t anything wrong with feeling something towards another pony in the Royal Guard… but it was preferred that the pony was in a different division or group. The worst part of it all was how he couldn't stop thinking about his last order to her, over and over in his mind.

Brass’s gang of criminals had taken to the skies. They had released an ancient villain to secure their escape. The ones near the entrance to Tartarus were already dealt with by Cerberus. Emberess was growing more powerful by the second and somepony had to be bait.

Steel had the training and the experience. He had played the role as bait before, luring dangerous monsters away from towns and into traps or ambushes. Valkyrie was trained for combat instead of playing bait. She could make it rain, but not only would it have been a waste of her skills, she was one of the few ponies who had already traversed through the diamond dog tunnels. Brass’s criminal allies that stayed on the surface were trying to use the forest for cover as they escaped.

Steel placed his hoof against his face as he went over the last details. He had made the right call with Valkyrie. Not only was it the safest place at the moment, they needed somepony to help deal with any Crystal Golems that might have prevented the trap from working, and Valkyrie was able to quickly recover and help catch one of the unicorns in case they had to make an emergency teleport to above ground... after all, the plan was to bring down the entire tunnel complex right under Emberess's feet.

Looking back at what he knew now… Arrow Strike had managed to follow the criminals to a relay point where unicorns with the Teleportation skill managed to evacuate any criminals who arrived, but they had only waited for a certain amount of time; anypony afterwards was left behind. Brass didn’t go to the relay point; she went underground as she had a separate means of escape.

Not only that, but according to Valkyrie’s group Brass didn’t want her other allies to know about her magical means of escape… and that Brass had allies with a Griffin nation. She wasn’t the mastermind behind the prison break, but she was important enough to be recruited for it.

Steel glanced at Valkyrie and sighed, “Which one is the biggest threat? Would going after Brass be wrong because I wish to toss her in jail and cure you… I mean, she is a dangerous pony. While she may have helped take Sanguine Point down with her cockatrice, that doesn’t excuse her for seeking revenge against Remedy Cross or turning you to stone.”

Steel shook his head. “The mare calling herself Brass Balls is a skilled criminal leader who will hire her team out to whoever has the bits and doesn’t mind her sketchy morals.”

Steel pulled out a daisy sandwich and took a few bites. He had plenty of reasons to chase after Brass, as they all held very clear and valid points. The problem was that he didn’t know if Brass had reunited with the other criminals, or if she was hiding out in some random location, or if she had gone to an unknown Griffin nation to prepare another business arrangement, or possibly adjust her former employer’s plans to better suit her own plans.

“Then there are the… flunkies.” Steel replied to himself in disappointment. “We don’t know much about them. We don’t know why they broke into Tartarus to steal those villains. We don’t even know how they knew about them, even though the Pegasus who unleashed Emberess certainly seemed to know what he was doing.”

Steel took another few bites as he tried to calm down. “They abandoned their own allies. The ones we caught were useless, and the ones that tried to save their own flanks only told us what Arrow Strike told us. The ones who didn’t talk just sat there and smirked as… either they really are that loyal, or they don’t expect to be in jail for that long. They were part of a group that orchestrated a jailbreak into Tartarus after all.”

He couldn’t figure it out. Whoever had hired the extra ponies had apparently promised them a way back home or the chance to be heroes… they had gathered together a large group of criminals of all races, only to then abandon them after they got what they wanted… but what made those villains worth more than all the allies they had left behind?

Steel groaned in frustration, “Even then, their signal for a second meeting or to regroup or act… All they were supposedly told was that they would know when it happened.” He sighed “Were they being played for fools, and the pony pulling the strings is planning something terrible… or do we have an idiot who is doing the wrong thing for the right reason?”

He glanced at Valkyrie as he wished she was able to talk to him. “You’ve seen the differences. The crazy bug monster… that thing was twisted, but it was still able to give a decent “hero speech” as it lead them into doing things they wouldn’t have normally done. Maxwell was a part of their group in the beginning… but that was before they went off the deep end; he is a good pony… who just ended up not realizing just how wrong things were becoming until it had gone too far.”

Steel stared back down at the floor. “If we find Brass, then it’s easy; we get her to talk before we toss her in jail. She’s a criminal, and while she has managed to escape… her acts have proven that while she isn’t as…insane as Sanguine Point, she won’t stop what she is doing. If we find the other group… do we try to talk them down? Do we end up fighting as they continued to follow their own misguided ideals? Do we simply treat them like Brass or one of the other villains?”

Steel finished his daisy sandwich as he weighed the options. One group was an unknown, and they weren’t even sure when, or even if, they would act again. Brass was a known criminal who wasn’t going to stop after this incident. She already had another employer for some other job, and she had fully admitted that she was going after Remedy Cross as she would gladly harm anypony that was associated with Remedy Cross just to hurt her.

The worst part of it all was that he had no idea what was going to happen. Would he be put in charge of picking who would go after her, or would they simply assign which group to go after? The worst thing that could happen was the possibility that he would be put on guard duty… not something bearable like guarding Remedy, in case Brass tried to attack her… but guarding a random hallway just to keep him from being involved with either choice.

Steel wouldn’t say it, but he knew that he needed to feel like he was involved, even if it was just sitting behind a desk and sending reports to help keep both groups up to date on what they had found out so far.

“When this is all over…” Steel took a deep breath, “When we can both talk again…”

Steel sighed as he packed up his saddlebags and left. A part of him didn’t feel right without Valkyrie, but he wanted to make sure he wasn’t mistaking losing a pony under his command for something else. Then there was of course the issue about her home, 'Boston'…

He saw the joy in her eyes when she talked about it. Even if she had lost a couple of her memories, it was clear she still cared about it. If there really was some way for her to return home… would he just end up having to say goodbye to her again? Would a relationship really work out?

He was going to have to figure out what he would say to her when she was back.

******

Celestia

Celestia enjoyed her the rest of her slice of cake as she glanced over the papers she had to deal with. Lockheart was reading over one of the few books on the Crystal Empire Celestia owned, either trying to figure out how their theory of magic worked... or to see if anything caught his interest. Both of them had asked each other questions, but they would only answer… if the other pony would answer a question they deemed of equal value.

Celestia had enjoyed the simplicity of paper work before, as she could see the odds and ends of it. The question game with Lockheart, on the other hoof, felt more like a game of chess, but with an oddly shaped chess board. Lockheart used his rooks and bishops with ruthless efficiency, as some of his questions were meant to have Celestia simply admit defeat. Yet he made sure that the nature of the questions were not too ruthless or painful, as he focused his assault on eliminating her pieces rather than risking a piece to get her in check.

So Celestia had to counter with well placed pawns… simple questions that wouldn’t mean much by themselves, but at the end of the game they would transform into powerful pieces. In opposition to Lockheart's ruthless efficiency, Celestia asked minor questions about almost meaningless details. Lockheart would certainly refuse any questions that directly asked about his past… but his answers could paint a picture of his experiences, and what things he had learned in his journeys.

Still, like any good game this match would soon come to an end. Either a more pressing matter would pop up to forcibly close this game out, or one of their unspoken questions would become too much to hold in. One of the questions they would ask… would simply have nothing worth the price of the question itself.

Celestia shuffled together the last of the papers and sighed. “Sometimes I think that I should simply try making this nation a… I believe you call it a democracy in order to help remove some of this paper work.”

“It wouldn’t work.” Lockheart replied without interest. “Democracy, monarchy, even a Dictatorship all bow before one power.”

Celestia couldn’t help but smirk as she replied, “Friendship? The will of their subjects?”

“Bureaucracy.” Lockheart replied without missing a beat, “In the end a nation will grow too large for one individual to govern everything. Those underneath will send requests for what is needed as those above them must debate between the smaller groups and the requests they give which in turn goes up another level repeating the same process over and over until they reach you. The only thing that will change as time goes on is how many extra levels will be added to the ever growing chains of Bureaucracy itself.”

Celestia rolled her eyes as she jokingly replied, “Go on, continue. I’m sure I can find a foal with an ice-cream cone for you to knock over, or would you rather grab a cloud and hover over a birthday party?”

Celestia had to admit that… it was easier having Lockheart help relieve some of the paperwork, even if he knew some of his actions wouldn’t win him any popularity. She also found it a little bit humorous when she learned about how much detail he had put into the… “Air Race”.

While the reason for this "race" was silly, Celestia had to admit that it gave them something to strive for, even if it was just for the sake of competing against each other. Some of the experimentation being done with these arcane machines was both interesting… and worrying, especially after seeing the reports on an incident involving a fire ruby.

While Celestia still had to give her final opinion on a few things… what would normally have taken an entire week was reduced to just two hours at her desk. She couldn’t help but chuckle as she thought about getting used to this sort of productivity, but sadly her break from the dreaded eldritch monster of bureaucracy would end by the beginning of next week, as Lockheart’s task of dealing with the new flux of civilians and their requests would certainly be matched by the attempts of those few foolish or greedy nobles willing to trick Lockheart into passing something that had already been rejected by Celestia.

Of course, she knew that Legal Right was the pony that made half of what Lockheart had done possible… it was hard enough finding a single pony to help her out with her own paper work… Celestia wasn’t sure if she could find a third pony in all of Equestria that was as skilled with a quill, without the possibility of that pony abusing their position.

All she knew about Legal Right and Lockheart’s relationship was that Lockheart respected the unicorn and… Legal Right enjoyed his new position… and understood that Lockheart had some hidden ability to detect emotion, along with a rather twisted sense of humor when it came to punishments.

Still, Celestia knew he would be busy enough in these next few days trying to go over forms and attempting to bring the Luna Guard up to date, or up to “His” standards for certain areas. Then of course there was the earth pony training and testing and...

Celestia prepared herself as she said, “Lockheart… why do you detest being called an Alicorn, or even the very possibility of it?”

Lockheart didn’t answer for a moment. “Can you be more precise?”

“The position… how ponies look at you… how every time somepony calls you an Alicorn you immediately dismiss it and say “Not an Alicorn” for everypony to hear.” Celestia replied, carefully choosing her words. “With Cloudsdale, you didn’t seem to notice or care about what had happened, or how some of the residents had mistreated you.”

Lockheart shrugged. “I wasn't exactly surprised by it.”

Celestia rubbed her temple with a hoof and said, “That’s what I’m talking about… what you’re doing right now… why?”

Lockheart went silent as Celestia figured she had pushed too far. The seconds passed by as Celestia couldn’t help but wonder what his answer could be… would he dismiss her question, now that it had been brought to his notice? Would he try to evade the question like all the others… or would he simply lie?

“To borrow a phrase I’ve once heard…” Lockheart replied, “Would it matter?”

Celestia blinked. “I don’t understand.”

Lockheart stared at her. Celestia could tell he was serious. His body had tensed up and his eyes were completely focused on her as if looking for any sign of weakness or unconscious reaction that might betray her. Celestia stood firm. She cleared her mind and mentally prepared herself; Celestia was certain Lockheart was trying to get ready to read her emotions.

“It is both a question and a story in itself, though.” Lockheart firmly stated. His gaze didn’t let up.

Celestia nodded, as she prepared herself.

“Would it matter if I was a changeling.” He finally replied.

Celestia blinked. “That’s the question?”

Lockheart shook his head. “Not exactly, as there is more to it than that… I have to say all of it, otherwise the question itself will not be said.”

Celestia took a deep breath and nodded. Lockheart’s question wasn’t so much a question… but a statement to see just how Celestia would react. If she could handle what he said, then he would answer her question.

Lockheart took a deep breath. “Would it matter if I was a changeling?”

His horn glowed as Celestia prepared her mental wards. She didn’t know if it was an attempt to influence her emotions or an attempt to read them, but all she had to do was listen to the story.

“Would it matter if I lied to you about who I said I was?” Lockheart firmly replied to himself.

Celestia shook her head “Considering you are used to living in disguise, I wouldn’t say I would blame you.”

Lockheart sighed. “I’m sorry, but can you... just wait until the end?”

Celestia stared at Lockheart. “Wait… your question is not to have me answer?”

He shook his head “It’s not a quick answer, but… essentially, it’s a story about two friends sitting across the table. One says the comment off hand, and the other one asks why. The first one simply asks “Would it matter?” and the other one says “Of course it matters” and so in turn the first friend asks why would it matter.”

Celestia tried to wrap her head around the question that… oddly enough, was currently in question. “Then what is the point of the question, if not to answer it?”

Lockheart hung his head and sighed in very much the same way Luna would when she talked about one of her paintings. “It is not the question itself that matters, but what it brings into question, and the reaction it brings as it forces the listener to think about the question that has both been spoken and has yet to be spoken.”

Celestia slowly nodded, “And that question would be… if it would matter.”

“Exactly.” Lockheart replied in a heavy sigh. “So just think about the question as I repeat the tale. I’ll let you know when I finally ask you the real question, and if you can respond… then I will answer your question. Is that fair?”

Celestia nodded, as she figured it was a fair trade. All she had to do was simply wait for Lockheart's question-story to reach the end so she could finally learn an important answer.

Lockheart started from the beginning again, “Would it matter if I was a changeling.”

Celestia prepared herself for any tricks he might have. The only question she had to answer would be the question he would let her know she had to answer. The rest of the questions were simply a means to distract her and hopefully let him escape without giving an answer to her question.

“Would it matter to you, if I lied to you about who I said I was?”

Celestia took a deep breath as she mentally applied the emotional persona she used in court. In a flash, she had reduced herself to fit the mental mask of 'Princess Celestia', and waited for him to finish with a expression of beatific tranquility.

“Would it matter to you that you would never have accepted me, if I had never spun that lie in the first place?”

Oddly enough, that part of the question was rather… close to home.

“Would you think I only came here to feed on the love of those around me?”

Lockheart's horn continued to glow, yet Celestia stayed calm.

“Would my actions suddenly change, now that you know who I am?”

Then to Celestia's surprise, green flames consumed Lockheart's body for an instant. His coat had become almost midnight black in color. His mane had changed to a green color that shined with an otherworldly appearance. He stared at her with eyes similar to Nightmare Moon's; his eyes were filled with unspoken hatred.

His voice now carried more emotion as he said, “Would it matter that those around me curse me for my lineage, despite the fact I haven’t committed any crimes, other than feeding the lie of my disguise?”

Celestia stayed calm.

A smile appeared on his face. “Is it wrong for me to want to come out of the shadows, and wish for something more?”

Then a very familiar chill suddenly ran down Celestia's spine.

“Is it wrong for me to also wish for the affection of those around me, even if I know that they despise me?” His voice somehow whispered into her ears.

His eyes focused on her. She could see a hint of rage and almost bitter jealousy in those eyes.

He stayed focused and refused to break eye sight as he continued, “Would you have ever given me the chance if you really knew the truth?”

Celestia held her ground; she called upon the countless years of listening to delegations to keep her calm and not show a flicker of emotion.

Lockheart turned away from Celestia, and the green flames consumed his body again, returning him to his usual disguise as he said, “So would it matter if I was a changling?”

He turned his head back to stare at her. “Would it matter in the end?"

He sighed, and Celestia could see the sorrow in his eyes. "That is my question, Celestia.”

Celestia blinked as she had been momentarily been caught off guard. This was where she was supposed to answer the question so he would answer her question?

“It wouldn’t.” Celestia calmly replied with a small smile on her face.

Then to her dismay, he smiled, revealing his sharp teeth as he venomously replied, “Even considering how the public would react if they learned of my lineage?”

Celestia opened her mouth, and Lockheart sighed, “Don’t bother saying anything. Your expression says it all.”

“Was that the question?” Celestia calmly asked as she did her best to again mask her emotion.

Lockheart shrugged. “Actually, that's the end of the story. Essentially, it’s about two friends who ask a simple question as one couldn’t help but wonder about it. Still, the story never says if the first friend was really a changeling or not… but in the end, it didn’t matter.”

Celestia took a deep breath as she prepared herself. “Why didn’t it matter?”

Lockheart rubbed his chin. “Because it’s easy to say something without thinking about it until the truth of the situation hits you. That was the point of the other question being asked after the question had been asked. It's kind of hard to explain without making the story lose it's meaning."

Celestia couldn’t help but feel a little bit uneasy after hearing his “Story” as it fell a little bit too close to home… especially if somepony replaced the word “changeling” with “Luna’s son” during the “transformation sequence” Lockheart had done.

Celestia nodded, and she tried not to let it bother her as she said, “And what about my question?”

Lockheart looked away from Celestia before saying, “Because I am not you.”

“Can you explain?” Celestia replied as she couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying to evade the question.

Lockheart sighed as he didn’t meet her gaze. “Simply because...I..." He sighed out loud, "... am not you. They do not want an unknown to suddenly come into their lives. They do not want a… pony who does not match what they expect. They do not care who or what I am simply because…"

Lockheart now gazed at Celestia as he said. “I am not you.” His words seemed to burn themselves into her mind. “It’s just as simple as that. In the end… it wouldn’t matter.”

Lockheart got up from his seat and started to walk to the door. Celestia thought about what he said for a minute, because what he said… had reminded her of Luna.

Celestia watched Lockheart reach the door, then she said, “Is that all?”

Lockheart simply turned around as a bitter smile appeared on his face. “If I'm telling the truth or if I’m lying? Would it matter either way?”

Celestia sighed as it wasn’t a straight answer. “Just do me a favor and… think before you act.”

Lockheart tried his best to chuckle. “Who do you think I am?”

Celestia shook her head. “A pony who’s worried about his friend?”

Lockheart blinked. “What?”

Celestia then realized that Lockheart didn’t know… she hadn’t told him when he entered the room, and nopony must have informed him of what had happened.

Celestia hung her head as she truly felt sorrow for him. “Valkyrie is in recovery… she was turned to stone by a cockatrice.” Lockheart's body froze as the knowledge struck him. “A mare calling herself Brass Balls used it when Valkyrie had tried to capture her… Brass took the cockatrice with her and escaped.”

Celestia looked up at Lockheart to see his reaction. He simply stood there, as if he didn’t know how to make sense of the world.

Celestia knew she should have told him sooner. “I thought somepony had informed you before you…”

Lockheart was gone from the room, and she could hear him running in the hallway. He had ran to rescue a pony he only knew for two days from the Everfree Forest. She had no idea what he would do with the name of a pony who had cursed Valkyrie.

Celestia shook her head as she thought to herself, “What did he see when he asked that question? Should I have told him that I didn't care if he was related to Luna... or that I care for him because he is my nephew?”

Celestia sat in the room trying to think about the question that he had said... and the unspoken question that he was too frightened to ask. Most of all, Celestia hoped that if he really was Luna's foal... she hoped that Lockheart didn't inherit his mother's wrath.

Author's Note

One story. Two different interpretations. In the end... Did any of it matter?

Well you know the drill. Let me know if I missed anything.

Also thanks mastermenthe for help with proofreading.

Storm Clouds

Harald

Harald looked over the city of Iron Claw. If Canterlot was the shinning jewel of Equestria than Iron Claw the center of his kingdom, but unlike Canterlot his city wasn’t built upon the mountain like a flat disc that was gently balanced against the cliffs least it would fall onto the sharp rocks below. No the city itself had been carved out of the mountain side by their own talons before building additions to the great kingdom. Now it stood on top of the mountain like a crown on an emperor’s head instead of being served up to the world on a silver platter.

The wind rushed past his face as he watched his nation at work. The fires from smith forges roared in the morning sun as they shaped the metals of the earth into powerful weapons for their nation. The pounding of hammers against metal would ring out into the air like an army marching towards the next castle to conquer.

Harald looked down from his balcony into the courtyards to witness the greatest part of his nation... it was something he had picked up from the stories that spoke about Canterlot. He could see the fresh recruits being trained together as they would be forced to discard their useless ideology of weaker tribes or worthless griffins. They would soon be molded into a competent fighting force as each griffin would work and fight side by side in his ever growing army.

Every griffin served a purpose here as the strong would become the foundation of his kingdom. The ones that learned to become a part of his nation would create the building blocks and crave out their future... as the weak, but mostly the stupid ones who refused to see the glory of his kingdom. He couldn’t help but chuckle as even they had a place in his kingdom. He believed the lovable term by that one mare called it... meat shields?

He cracked a small grin as he recalled “After all... why grind up useful lives to be made into mortar when idiots do just as well?”

The other idiots and fools would help build his kingdom even if they disliked him and after seeing the flames of war and how simple it boiled down to... either they would learn to work together and grow a brain cell or they would be the bait to help attract the enemy’s attention while the more useful soldiers secured the kill.

Swift Wing entered the room laughing “Careful uncle. Stand outside to long and some of them may think you’re out to conquer them again.”

Harald almost sighed as he did long for the days when he could freely wield his axe on the battlefield. Sure there were plenty of duels that still went on, but those were only among the smaller houses trying to show their standing amongst his kingdom. Even then the thrill of the battlefield had been rather sparse as most tribes would throw down their arms and surrender when they saw his armies.

“Can’t an old man dream?” He replied with a smirk “Still how goes your adventure?”

Swift Wing’s talons shifted against the floor “We are waiting. Brass is checking what her allies need and is planning her next step.”

Harald rolled his eyes “I am an old bird, but I am not a fool. What are you really doing?”

To Harald’s pride Swift growled “That is what we are doing. Brass took down an important traveler who had made powerful friends in Canterlot. If she sticks her head out than their Princess or one of her associates may come looking for it.”

Harald clasped his talons together as he spoke with pride “So now you seek to do battle with the leader of Equestria or are you gathering your forces so you can meet her on the field of battle?”

Swift Wings shook his head “We are sell swords not war lords. We take the task paid to us by the highest bidder.” Swift Wings then glared at his uncle “While it may not be the life you approve of at least my kin will not end up dead at the next line of succession.”

Harald nodded “Ah yes you and that Brass mare would make a lovely couple.” Swift Wings stared at him in disbelief “What? While I am not a fan at how weak the life styles of the Equestrians are... I do approve of the strength and ability of those travelers. Why if I was just a few years younger I would set my own sights upon...”

Harald smiled in what could have been called fatherly pride as his nephew Swift held a sword up against his neck. He had to give the hatchling credit to have managed to sneak a sword past his guards and then manage to close the distance between them without showing a hint of bloodlust. It was a small shame his nephew still held a grudge about him killing his father. There could only be one king and Harald planned to be the one on the throne instead of the one in the ground.

Still despite that minor flaw his nephew was still one of his favorites as he did not cut his dear beloved uncle’s head of his shoulders as it would fall down to the courtyards below where his troops would then rip and tear his nephew’s body apart before tossing it off the side of the mountain. Harald at least had the decency to put his brother’s corpse in the hall of warriors despite their disagreement in who should rule.

Harald grabbed the blade of the sword and moved it away from his neck “And that is why you two make such a good couple. She finally has coxed the fire from your belly and made my nephew into a warrior. While you may call yourself a sell sword to the world we both know that you have enough soldiers under your flag to be called differently.”

Swift grudgingly placed the sword back in its holster “It would be weird. I mean I knew her when 'she' was a guy.”

Harald scratched his chin “Yet she is still a girl. I mean she is able to give birth to your young.”

Swift coughed “Is that really the talk you wish to give me?”

Harald shrugged “She fights, she thinks, she wins and most of all she has a strong body to bear strong children. I do not care if your young are hippogriffs or pure griffin as she could certainly earn herself a house of her own here in Iron Claw even without your assistance.”

Swift groaned as Harald didn’t understand what the problem was. She was a strong mate and he could see the fire in his nephews eyes... maybe it was the same fire his men had when Harald led them into battle or it was the fire to covert something that just laid out of your talon’s grasp. Still the mare had started out with a small band only to now gather together various allies underneath her banner as there were a lot of diamond dogs that followed her lead.

Harald would die a happy bird if he could convince his nephew to stand in for the crown and marry this mare as their union would keep his kingdom standing instead of descending into anarchy as the lesser houses would fight tooth and claw to take his crown after he had died.

It was a cruel thing for fate to weave letting Harald forge his mighty kingdom... only to know that it would fall after his death. Only through his iron grip did his kingdom stay together and unless he managed to find some way to keep them together he knew they would fall apart once his grip had been released.

It was for this reason that he followed his nephew’s lead... and also because he knew that he would try to invade Equestria in the future as he would not know if he would win... but to at least do battle with the Princess of Equestria as she was the mare who forged her kingdom through blood and despite the long years it still held together. She had obtained that which Harald had desired and if by some fluke of fate he had managed to conquer her kingdom.

A smile fell to his lips as Harald he was certain that she would be bear fine children.

******

Brass

I stopped my hoof and shouted “Formations again! It doesn’t matter if their a member of the Solar Guard or some Adventure who can pull a train. Everyone has a weak point and even the largest hulking brute can go down with a well placed hit!”

“Yes Boss!” They shouted in unison as they went over the formations again.

Diamond dogs were not like human fighters. If anything they were closer to gorillas than humans as their front arms to support themselves, but they could hold most of their weight on their hind legs. So with that in mind I had them go through Zangief.

I have no idea who he was when he was human, but he went with a Diamond Dog build built for grapple attacks… and apparently he knew a lot about wrestling. I’m not sure if he’s trying to make a new life… or if he was actually a weakling back on earth who enjoyed his new strength. Still he was a dressed like character's counterpart grinning all the while as he trained the rest of the diamond dogs.

Zangief held a diamond dog larger than him in a painful hold as he said “Even if your stronger than me you can not move your arms and I…” The Diamond Dog grunted as he clenched his mouth shut “I can still apply more pressure. You ready to give up?”

The diamond dog whined as Zangief let him go “Why have us learn weird fighting Boss? Attack doesn’t seem good against ponies.”

Zangief laughed “Best fighters back home would grapple with bears twice their size and three times as nasty. For now you get the basics so that you are never helpless if they knock your weapons away.”

I gave the diamond dog a pat on the back “That and most of your old tactics for when things got rough was brute force or dog pile. A dog pile won’t work if your dealing with an adventure that can pull a train or lift up half of you with their magic. At best you need to be able to take out the target with a two to one advantage… and most cases you’ll be the underdog.”

He grunted in annoyance as he didn’t like what I had said, but he didn’t have a better answer. The other half of the group were practicing with their oversized shields. Unicorns had a variety of spells that used line of sight or only worked on the first object they hit. Pegasi would be trapped in narrow caves… as it wasn’t best to give a Pegasus air superiority. That just left earth ponies with their strength or any other abilities that they held.

Once they became proficient in holding a shield wall or blocking attacks… then they could pick their weapon, but some diamond dogs had started to prefer slipping another shield on their armor or grabbing a club as they started to train against the other adventures left in the base. The older diamond dogs had taken up the task of training the newer diamond dogs who had joined out of the rumors of power, gems, or simply the growing size of 'our' pack."

I left the training room that my group had sent up and moved onto my next task as I focused on the training room built by the other wayward members of this alliance. I stared at them with a mixture of disgust and annoyance. This part of the group thought of the world like a game… they set up raid groups, monster locations, and they even set up an improvised craft workshop used to turn all those “Monster Drops” into usable gear.

I had no idea just how long this place had been here or if this place had been made before the Tartarus Jailbreak, but it just irked me. This entire 'alliance' was split between two types of people… those like me who preferred Earth’s knowledge and trying to bend if not break the rules of this 'game' we are trapped in. Then there are the power players who spend more of their memories of earth in exchange for power. The group I was talking to took it a step further.

I stepped in front of the human who was in charge of the event “Carolina where is Luke?”

The human turned unicorn turned around as she had been given the Canterlot Unicorn build with a tall body and thing limbs. Her coat was light blue as she had an almost silver like mane that gently rolled off her back and to make her humanity she wore a white robe giving her a cleric like appearance.

Carolina made a small bow as she replied “Master Luke is currently checking up on our foe.”

I also hated the fact that some of these idiots liked to role play… why be a human suddenly thrust into Equestria when you can pretend to be some OC character they had drawn up before being tossed in here? Any idiots who did that just meant they didn’t care for what reality was. To me this was the equivalent of having a group of players play an RPG who then have their characters gather together to play an RPG.

I could see trying to better yourself or look up to a character that made you feel stronger like Zangief, but this was plain stupid.

I rolled my eyes as I tried to keep this short “Well has he found the blasted mirror yet or Discord for that matter?”

Carolina glanced back at her band of idiots “Do not worry Mercenary of the Iron Claws for we shall clear a path up to the foal beast and to deploy the weapon before taking down our hated foe.”

“You do realize Discord will just snap his fingers making your plans worthless… or Tirek just power drain you if you run straight at him.” I reminded the air head.

A simply charge shouting for glory would end with all of them dead.

She just held her head up high “Discord himself will not end the battle quickly for he will want to try to toy with us first. As for Tirek all we need to do is simply cut the head off the viper after we slay Discord in his powerless state.”

I walked away as I couldn’t stand to translate her stupidity. She was one of the strongest players in the group, a heavy hitter with lots of magic and she could be a descent strategist when it came down to leading groups to attack wild monsters… but for the love of God can’t she talk like a normal human being!

At least when I asked one of the others for a head’s up I was given a clear answer. Of course the fact that Luke went running off somewhere without informing the me since I was his contact with Swift Wing’s Uncle… pretty much the back up to his plan should the battle against Discord or Tirek go south… That usually meant he was off trying to keep one of his secrets hidden from me.

I know he and a few of his followers are trying to talk to some random pony in Canterlot, but they haven’t let me know who their talking to or what their looking for. Sure I have a few secrets hidden from them, but I am the one who's allowed to have a few secrets. It’s one of the reasons why I’m still alive.

As soon as I left the room Tracker popped out of the wall grinning “Want me to follow his scent boss?”

I glanced back into the room full of the other former humans. One way Luke could receive the Equestria Girls mirror or take “guard” over the statue of Discord was by handing over a wanted criminal who turned a Royal Guard into a lawn ornament.

“Keep your distance. If he’s just debating about what he is going to do after all of this then I don’t care.” I firmly replied “But if he’s been keeping an important secret from us.”

Tracer grinned revealing a diamond tooth “See what he does and prepare the point for whatever the feathered pony is looking for.”

I nodded my head “But remember… be careful. It’s better to let him think we don’t know than to take it ourselves.”

Tracer rubbed his paws together “I know boss. Still doesn’t mean I can’t have a little bit of fun.”

******

Luke

I took a deep breath and tried to relax despite my current situation. Everything was going according to plan within a marginable degree of error. We had supplies along with the evil villains tucked away in a safe place. My fur didn’t feel like it was dunked in paint as the dye job would hold long enough to my trip into town and just to be safe one of the former humans turned griffin did a descent job painting a fake cutie mark to help.

Instead of the snow white Pegasus that lacked a cutie mark which half of the Royal Guard wanted to hang on sight for his actions… I was now Fleet Foot the strange coal black Pegasus with blond hair and a cutie mark of a bag full of golden coins.

Equestria was both easy to figure out and manipulate. All you had to do was take one look at a cutie mark and you knew what they did. Heck a part of me wondered if they simply showed their cutie mark to apply for a job. Still it made things easier tricking some of the Equestrains into thinking you were a banker if you just added a bit of ink to your butt.

Stone Mortar and his “apprentice” Stardust came up to my table. She wasn’t your average Rarity earth pony rip off… she was a human like me and more importantly… she could make gunpowder.

The old unicorn stallion sort of looked like Star Swirl the Bearded… if you gave him a light gray coat, added square glasses, and of course made him chuckle like an old drunk as he said “It’s nice to meet you Fleet Foot. This is my apprentice Star Dust and the one who made that…”

The old fool licked his lips as he tried to come up with the unknown word as I chipped in “The black powder.”

Stone Mortar nodded as I didn’t gave a dam about him. Hell the only reason I contacted him was to use him to get a “normal contact” with Stardust as she looked at me for a moment trying to figure out who I was.

“I would like to commission a few barrels of this… black powder and the cost and materials used for the shipment.” I replied as I tried to stay calm.

Stone Mortar glanced at me like if I was an idiot as Stardust replied “You want to mass produce it?”

I shook my head as I lied through my teeth “In small quantities it can create a large enough blast to help open up old objects without damaging them.” I just had to stick to the script “Some of the old temples in the more tropical or jungle like regions tend to have some resistance against unicorn magic and simply kicking open a two hundred year hidden door can damage the artifacts or even the surrounding walls.”

“So you plan to be a tomb robber.” Stardust replied out loud.

I wanted them to think I had something to hide, but I didn't mind if they thought I was some Tomb Robber. That would just leave Celestia some warning about an idiot carrying explosives to some old tombs far away from Equestria. If I was lucky it might even remove some of the guards in Canterlot Castle.

I held up a hoof and continued to pretend to be innocent “We prefer… archeologists. There are plenty of items in the Canterlot museum that are there thanks to individuals like me. Besides I just want to ensure that none of the ingredients could attract one of the jungle creatures or any other precautions I may need to take when handling this substance.”

Stardust just glanced at me strangely “I’m surprised you’re not asking for Thermite.”

As much as I would love to I sadly had to reply “Why would I want to bring a bug with me?”

I had to play stupid as thermite would cause some alarm. I also couldn't help but wonder how the hell Thermite was now being sold as a really expensive form of candy to dragons. That was a shock to everyone but someone claimed it wasn't that much different from Flight of Dragons where dragons ate coal to sustain their flight and ability to breath fire.

Stone Mortar nodded as he said “We’ll draw up the contracts for your shipment, but we’ll have to inform Celestia about your intentions.”

“Is there something illegal about the substance?” I replied trying to keep calm.

If she banned black powder than it was going to be more difficult to procure guns or even get the necessary materials needed.

Stone Mortar shook his head and laughed “No it’s just that some of the ingredients are hard to come by and Celestia would want to know why we would want the sudden increase sulfur.”

Now I just had to leave a good impression and see how much black powder we needed for our operation.

“My expedition team can try to help cover the costs.” I replied as I tried to sound a little bit sad “If we must make do with a reduction the current amount of black powder we have ordered by the end of the week than let us know.”

I placed down a small bag of bits “Lunch is on me.”

I got up and walked away letting the two of them enjoy their selves at the restaurant as I started to draw up plans on finding someway to procure Sulfur… that was made out hot places right? I knew we needed potassium Nitrate and that can be made by... water and bat guano I think... I really should have paid more attention in chemistry. Hopefully one of the other chemists that were crafting volatile mixtures could help me figure out what we needed to do or the ratio involved in mixing it together.

Otherwise we may need to... "borrow" Stardust's expertise and convince her we are doing the right thing. Hopefully it won't come to that, but we need a more secure method of removing Tirek after he drains Discord than random amounts of poison running through his system.

******

After leaving a message behind for my colleges I moved onto my second objective and walked into Canterlot Castle. Thankfully I had managed to make it in-between the brief period of the end of morning court, but before the Canterlot guards helped remove the ponies out from the castle as they informed the left over ponies that morning court was over.

Anyone who arrived late didn’t want to be informed that they had to wait another day so they complained out loud thinking it would grant them an audience with Celestia. With a small group of ponies making a racket as they whined about their petty complaints. The Royal Guard right at that moment reminded me of a Costumer Service employ dealing with idiots.

Still they were at least a good enough distraction to let me sneak into the unauthorized sections of the castle. I walked down the hallways as I pretended that I belonged in this place as my suit hopefully would have me mistaken as some noble if I was seen from a distance and focused on the paintings on the wall.

I finally found what looked like some artist’s rendition of a white unicorn standing in the middle of a lake as the moon shined down upon her I nearly shouted in joy as I pulled out Crystal's instructions for the hidden room.

“Under the moon of the lake with the mare... Four blocks down and Three blocks right.” I muttered to myself.

I stared back at the wall and tried to figure out which stone block I had to start with and that's when I knew the universe was out to get me. I heard the sounds of hooves stomping across the stone floor as apparently the left overs of morning court were kicked out of the castle sooner than I expected... or somebody spotted me and knew I wasn't supposed to be here.

With time against me I started pressing all the stones trying to find which one was used for the combination as I heard one guard say "I'm telling you there's nothing to worry about. If Lockheart isn't paranoid about changelings then they must be alright."

I leaned against the wall trying both of my hooves as there were too many dam block in the walls. I might as well have been calling them slightly larger than average bricks!

"That's different." a female voice replied "Your talking about an alicorn for bucking sake."

I smiled when the final combination worked as the wall slowly slid open only for something on the other side to break as it stopped halfway. This was barely a large enough passageway for a foal, much less an alicorn!

The sounds of hooves came closer as the first voice replied "Are you joking? He's paranoid about everypony to the point he was checking to see if the cooks washed their hooves before preparing his food. He thought they were going to try to poison him or something!"

I sucked in my gut and tried to claw my way into the hidden passageway. My coat scraped across the wall as I managed to fall into the hidden room before grabbing my fallen saddle bag and pulling it inside. The wall slowly moved back into place leaving me in darkness as I heard the sounds of hooves outside.

"Still don't they seem kind of creepy?" the second voice asked?

That's when I heard the sound of armor scraping against the wall as the voice came clearly "Don't you read those Daylight series? A changeling isn't that much different from one of those vampoines."

The second voice chuckled "There is a big difference!"

The first guard laughed as my body tensed up in fear that he would somehow accidently open the passageway up leaving me facing two Royal Guards by myself.

"Think about it. They both have fangs... prey of love struck idiots... have fangs... and I'm sure I've seen one or two of them sparkle in the sunlight." The guard joked out loud.

The second one sighed "Now you know I'm going to have to get back at you for saying that."

"But you can't un-see it anymore can you?" the first guard joked back as they started to walk away.

My heart raced with each passing second as I waited unwilling to make any sounds that could reveal myself to the guards outside. After a few minutes passed as I didn't hear anymore hooves hitting the stone floors did I start to relax before I realized I was unable to see anything in this darkness.

I stumbled around in the dark trying to retrieve my lantern from my saddlebag and then muttering in rage as I needed to find a match or piece of flint to light the stupid thing as apparently the lamp in my bag had a stupid wick you needed to light instead of simply turning a nozzle.

I did my best not to curse while I stumbled about in the darkness as I had a good feeling that as soon as I swore… the secret passageway would suddenly open up revealing a squad of guards that just happened to be taking a coffee break right outside. It was not fun trying to grab a match with your mouth and then light it… only to use the sudden blinding light just a few inches from your face to light a wick.

When I put out the match and closed up the lantern for proper use was I finally blessed with the sight of dozens of paintings, stain glassed windows, and various statues of important figures that I knew nothing about.

“Deep breaths.” I told myself as I looked at the room “Just take a couple of long deep breaths.”

I lifted up the lantern and held it up near one of the stain glass windows… it was a picture depicting two alicorns fighting a black unicorn wearing a red cape as the ponies around the crystal castle were left in chains. I couldn't make out some of the details but it was a story depicting the battle against Sombra.

I looked at the next set of mirrors as I could make out the some of the stories only because I knew what they were referring too. It also filled me with a mixture of joy and frustration as I found Celestia's memory vault. Each statue had been made to represent a villain she had fought in the past and each stain glass window told a tale about her accomplishments. This was essentially the entire history of Equestria... and I couldn't figure out how to read most of it!

I glared at Tirek's stained glass window as I couldn't figure out how they managed to defeat him without the Elements of Harmony as fallen ponies without cutie marks laid around him before the icons of Celestia and Luna attacked. The rest was left out of my reach or understanding.

I looked at the next stain glass window in morbid curiosity “Spider held in the air and a lake full of bones?”

I shook my head… These were properly made to be notes to help Celestia remember past events without letting anyone else know what hidden secrets were left in the past. If I started showing the drawings to a Equestrian who could translate the windows... it would alert Celestia that someone broke into her secret memory vault. Of course I might get lucky and ask Brass for assistance with her griffin allies, but...

Something caught my eye as forcing me to walk down the hallway. I saw a couple of statues of various races including a raven bird in a cloak, but the statue that surprised me the most was the one of three humans. It wasn’t the fact that there was a statue of a human that surprised me, but the mirror that stood beside it. The same mirror used in the Equestria Girls movies as the statues of the humans beside it where the Equestria Girls Sirens, but in human form.

I rubbed my hoof over the statue and couldn’t help but say “Apparently Starswirl wanted to make sure they couldn’t return or did he send them into that place because he knew they wouldn’t be able to use their magic or maybe some sort of warning?”

I shrugged as it didn’t matter. All three sirens were stuck in EG universe and they didn’t know about the return home mirror/statue. What did matter was the fact that the mirror was currently being stored along with the rest of Celestia’s secret memory vault.

“What’s the matter? Afraid that your little gang of misfits will break apart when they realize what that mirror is?” a voice openly taunted me.

Every strand of hair stood on edge as I turned around trying to find the source of the voice. This was the voice of the most dangerous creature in existence. This is what Q would have been if the Q continuum didn’t breath down the back of his neck whenever he did something really bad. Sure he could get away with pestering the Starship Enterprise, but he wouldn’t shift contents around or turn rivers into gravy.

“Oh come on. Brighten up a little! You just found the magical item that solves all your little problems without any big climatic fights against overwhelming ancient evils…” Discord openly replied as I could swear he was smirking “Or is it because you found it without any big climatic fights that it bothers you?”

I shook my head as I tried to find him in the maze of statues… was he free? Was he taunting me because he knew I couldn’t hurt him?
That’s when I saw the statue… Discord was still trapped in his stony prison, but his lion paw was riddled with cracks as they had reached up to his elbow. His prison was damaged… he was getting ready to escape.

“Do you really think I would somehow break free within your lifetime?” Discord openly mocked me “No you just wanted to hang the threat of the big bad monster over people just so you could play hero.”

I walked closer to Discord as I scanned the room for any possible traps or really anything out of the unusual.

“No I’m trying to fix the mess that you caused.” I firmly replied “You tossed us all in this world for your own amusement. You threw our lives into chaos, twisted our actions to suit your own needs. Do you even care about the pain you have caused!”

That’s when Discord laughed… that earth shattering laugh like laugh somehow made lightening erupt in the background as he replied “Oh if that really was the case then why aren’t you and your band of vagabond misfits running around the world looking for the Elements of Harmony? I know you know about them and that you know they can beat me… but you didn’t even go looking for them. Instead of breaking out into groups and exploring the world you simply caused chaos.”

I slammed my hoof down and shouted “We will stop you!”

Discord openly mocked me “You are not a hero looking to save everyone. You are simply someone who wants to watch the fight go on. For you the biggest threat is not being trapped in this world or being sent back home… but to find out that there is no battle or challenge to overcome. That it doesn't matter if you are back in your own world or if you are here in Equestria because no matter where you are... you are still a nobody.”

I covered my ears as his voice dug into my skull “But if there is a battle… a chance for the wayward souls to defeat some deadly threat? If you go back home then the knowledge of you being a hero would satisfy you. You would have earned your way back home. If you are stuck in Equestria than… you were the valiant hero who banded everyone together to defeat the ancient villain.”

He chuckled as I could swear he was right behind me as he said “To you everyone else is a secondary character as your the protagonists of this tale. That’s why you stole Criminals for Tartarus. If they escape than you and your group can help “save” everyone from them.”

I shook my head as I refused to listen to his lies “You are just trying to trick me!”

“Trick you?" Discord laughed at me "Then I dare you to do nothing. Just sit back and let the real heroes do their job or maybe steal that old mirror and show everyone that there is a second option available. Just show them that they do not need to risk their memories or their lives for a chance to go back home… or a place close enough at the very least.”

I could feel talons digging into my shoulder as his voice whispered in my ear “All you have to do to stop me is to simply do nothing.”

******

Midnight Vixen

Midnight watched Lockheart continue his earth pony training as it was odd. Most ponies started out with something simple like discerning types of gems or trying to have them grow a flower. From there they would move onto more advanced things… or that’s what the book claimed as she checked the contents again.

Right now Lockheart was standing in front of an apple tree… In what why did kicking an apple tree count as earth pony magic? She understood why a straitjacket had been placed over his wings keeping them shut tight and the helmet along with the items tied around his horn to detect. Any attempt to seal his magic was meet with rather vicious remarks and a molten sealing ring from one noble that had tried.

Boulder Dash didn’t talk or try to give advice as he simply watched how Lockheart tried to knock down the apples from the tree by simply kicking it. If he could use his magic he could pluck them from the tree with ease. If he had use of his wings he could simply fly up and grab a few with his mouth. The area around the tree was bare as Boulder Dash sat on a large boulder keeping track of Lockheart’s work somehow.

Midnight couldn’t help but speak up “How exactly does this help prove he’s an alicorn?”

Boulder Dash chuckled “For one thing he tells me he can’t even buck right. Take a look at his legs… see how he tries to kick the tree?”

Midnight watched as… the motions were simply off. Lockheart didn’t brace his forelegs properly and when he kicked with his hind legs they sort of dangled in the air for a moment as if unsure of what to do next. He could kick fine with one leg, but both? It was almost as painful as watching him try to fly.

She sighed as his next attempt to buck made him fall face down on the ground “Alright, but besides the fact a foal can buck better than him what’s the point of this?”

Boulder Dash shrugged “He’s angry and he needs to hit something?” Midnight frowned forcing him to change his answer “You know what I see when I look at him? I see a pony who has gotten so used to life kicking him in the flank that he has a hard time not realizing that there are descent ponies still out in the world. I see a stallion who simply needs to be told that everything will be alright without any strings attached.”

Midnight glanced at Lockheart trying to figure out how he should be trying to kick the tree “He just wants somepony to be there for him?”

Boulder Dash chuckled a little before sighing out loud “It’s always the simplest things that are the most difficult. Take a look at the changelings. They hide in fear because their afraid of what may happen to them if they reveal themselves. Even despite the fact Canterlot has set up a place to help register changelings there are still those who hide in fear and yet they feed off of love of all things.”

Midnight nodded as she didn’t give it much thought “It’s just a matter of who they are. Some simply prefer impersonating other ponies and stealing love while others are worried about the general public mistaking them for the mindless monsters that fillynap ponies or somepony trying to take advantage of them.”

Boulder Dash was now staring at Midnight in surprise “How exactly does a pony frighten or take advantage of a changeling? I can understand most ponies being scared of them like griffins, but…”

Midnight rolled her eyes “That was one of the things Lockheart taught the Night Guard to look out for. The smaller stuff is easy… impersonating another pony to help make adjustments to a suit or training a changeling to help out in a play is minor stuff. The problems that fall under crimes are much worse as a lot of them are gifted at illusions.”

She couldn’t help but groan at all the old records and training plans that had been made against unicorn illusionist who applied their talents for more morally dubious means.

Midnight leaned against the boulder “You get some organized crime group threatening to expose them or some employer who presses the boundary of what’s legal. Why hire an actor to do a play when you can get a changeling to do it for you? Why pay a model for a photo shoot when you can get a changeling impersonate them? A few of my friends even had to arrest some unicorns talented in illusions impersonating changelings… both in causing crimes and pretending to be changelings in an attempt to get hired since changeling are 'master of illusions' or some such nonsense.”

Boulder Dash just whistled in surprise “Wow… I take it you had to make a couple of new laws to deal with the situation?”

Midnight chuckled as she shook her head “That’s the funny part. Lockheart just simply found the laws needed for it and just… reminded us. Everything has already been set up to deal with changelings and all he did was simply show us where to look. A part of me just wonders how many of the changelings came from somewhere else… or if some of the new changelings were already a native resident of Equestria.”

Boulder Dash glanced back at Lockheart “The old chicken or the egg question. You know what the most frustrating part about him is? It’s the fact that he’s so helpless and clueless… that it oddly enough makes sense that he is an alicorn.”

Midnight stared at him as if he was insane as what he said made absolutely no sense at all.

He simply shook his head as he slid off the boulder “Think about it. An alicorn is a combination of the tribes. You get a pony that is naturally blessed with all the pony talents and yet… how does one pick one talent from another? Take the tree for example… why bother learning how to kick when you can fly or pluck it with magic? Why bother learning how to make a flower grow by magic with all the complicated tasks of measuring each and every input and change when earth pony magic is much easier.”

Midnight glanced back at the tree “Wait… isn’t that one of the bigger debates?”

Boulder Dash chuckled “Earth pony magic would be like using a watering can over a field of flowers. You get a general idea of how much water you need as you just have to spread out it evenly. With a unicorn it’s more like using a bathtub to water a potted plant. You use too much and it drowns. You don’t use enough and it shrivels right up. I’d give him a plant to check to see how he would use magic on it… but magic isn’t his problem.”

He became more somber as he stared up at Canterlot Castle “The real problem you could say is that being an Alicorn is the cause of all his problems.”

Midnight glanced back at Lockheart as she shuffled her hoof at the ground “Well… Equestria’s better than where ever he was from.”

“Better is a strong word.” Boulder Dash replied “If he wasn’t an Alicorn than he might not be receiving as much flack for his hard work. All he has in Canterlot is a large group of ponies testing him as none of them respect him. He is not an alicorn foal that had been adopted by Celestia or one that had ascended to an Alicorn as one of her personal students.”

Midnight turned to face Boulder Dash as she replied in shock “Wait Ascended? Aren’t you just born an alicorn?”

Boulder Dash shook his head “That’s a complicated issue that you would have to ask Celestia about… anyway the problem is his status. I mean the room he has been given… the work, his training, or even the Night Guard… it’s all tied to his status as an Alicorn instead of his value as a pony.”

Boulder Dash hung his head as he bitterly replied “He doesn’t see Equestria any different than the nations he fled from. Equestria doesn’t see a lost pony trying to survive. They just see what race he is instead of what type of pony he is. If he succeeds than it’s because he’s an alicorn. If he fails than that’s because he’s a fake. How would you like somepony to claim all of your success or failure by stating that you’re a bat pony?”

Midnight flinched as the comment struck her… it was natural for bat ponies to be put in the Night Guard because they were normally nocturnal as most places hired them primarily for night shifts. It was common for Night Guard ponies to be passed over for promotion when their Solar counter parts were given more duties than simply watching over an area at night. Even when a crime did occur it was usually given over to the Solar Guard because they had more experience or training.

There wasn’t any exact discrimination as a couple of the actions did make sense… she rubbed her own foreleg with her hoof as nopony in the Night Guard would have ever dreamed of being a personal guard to an Alicorn. A part of her couldn’t help but wonder if a normal alicorn would have been given a personal guard from the Solar Guard instead of the Night Guard.

Boulder Dash sighed as he apologized “I’m sorry if I accidently offended you.”

“No… you didn’t say anything wrong.” Midnight apologized back “I was just… He’s different. He’s odd and somehow able to make complicated feats seem easy and yet he can barely figure out the simple stuff. I bet that if you told him to turn a lump of coal into a diamond by pressing his hooves together he would be able to do it with ease.”

Boulder Dash chuckled “You mean use his horn to cast some fancy spell or…”

“Nope.” Midnight replied with a small smirk “You could properly give him that boulder you’re sitting on and tell him to pull out the sapphire you hid inside it.”

Boulder Dash shook his head “But this is a normal rock without any gems inside it. Besides that’s a bit more…”

Midnight grinned revealing her teeth as she replied “I bet you ten bits he finds one by only using his hooves.”

Boulder Dash glanced at the boulder and then at Lockheart who was struggling to figure out how to buck much less how to apple buck “And the reason why you think it would work when he is struggling to figure out how to kick properly?”

Midnight shook her head as replied “Because it wouldn’t make any sense and that’s why it would work. It’s like multiplying negatives to make a positive somehow.”

Boulder Dash focused on the boulder he had been sitting on as he she could see him debating… she could see him not only trying to figure out if a gem had been stashed in the boulder without his knowledge… but how such a feat could be accomplished.

She couldn’t help but chuckle as she could just see it “All I did was make it turn blue. No wait I just pressed the rock together really hard.”

******

Midnight walked down the hallway as she left Boulder Dash and Lockheart together. Right now it was time for her to get the reports from the Night Guard so that they could be transferred over to Legal Right to double check their work… before being sent back up to Celestia and Lockheart to see if anymore changes needed to be done.

Lockheart's attempt to bring the Night Guard back up to strength was... confusing at sometimes. Some of his changes made sense as he starting shifting around some of the Night Guard into more specialized positions to help deal with the lack of numbers. The fact that he lessened some of the restrictions to allow the large surge of adventures to join the night guard had been meet with a few complaints.

Normally the Royal Guard was kept to citizens of Equestria to ensure that a foreign power couldn’t manipulate Equestria’s military or some other reason that was prevalent during the early years of Equestrai’s founding. The odd part was seeing the rise of changelings applying as changelings. Grant it there wasn’t a swarm of changelings filling up entire ranks of the Night Guard, but they had a few griffins and diamond dogs even apply for applications.

Midnight walked through the hallways until she reached the Night Guard barracks and saw two ponies arguing with each other. The Mauve bat pony in Night Guard armor with dark blue bangs shouted "It's where one of Brass's diamond dog packs were located! The Night Guard should be in charge of this operation!"

Midnight recognized the voice belonging to Melody Blitz the bat pony in charge of the Night Guard. In front of her stood Razor Wind the commander of the Royal Guard who didn't look happy at Melody's suggestion. Both of their cutie marks were covered up by their armor and judging from their expressions it looked like they would start a duel or a brawl at any moment.

Melody placed her hoof down on the table “I’m telling you Sonata and Bass should be in charge of the mission. They’ve had experience traversing shifting caves and tunnels unlike Spade and Dust Pan.”

Razor Wind’s horn glowed as the unicorn replied firmly “But Spade has experience with dealing with diamond dogs and Dust Pan’s skill as a earth pony in detecting changes in the ground made by diamond dogs is the reason why they should be put in charge.”

Melody didn’t let up the assault as she countered “Sonata has a diamond dog, a changeling, another therstal and a night shift unicorn in her team all built around underground excursions. This would not be the first time they have done a mission underground even before the newest additions to their team.”

Razor Wind stood like a mountain before the howling wind not daring to budge “And Spade has not only the most experience in dealing with diamond dogs out of the group, but he is also a trained commander who helped deal with the gem golem incident.”

Midnight slowly stepped forward “Then why don’t you have Sonata and Spade lead the excursion?”

Razor Wind and Melody looked at her as if she was an idiot with a death wish until they realized who she was. Sometimes it was nice being the personal guard and messenger pony of an unorthodox alicorn.

“Because this is an issue revolving which group is leading the task force.” Razor Wind replied firmly stating that it should be the Solar Guard who should be in charge.

Melody gave Midnight a polite smile as she replied “And at some point the team may need to trade members of their party or determine which course of action they should take if one of the leaders becomes incapacitated during the duration of the operation.”

Midnight repressed a sigh as she understood the real problem at hoof. Razor Wind was a traditionalist as he saw the Night Guard as a smaller branch of the Equestrian military that was there to assist the Solar Guard. If a pony wanted to move up the ranks than they transferred to the Solar Guard.

Melody was from a militant family as they all served in the Night Guard, but Melody managed to advance up the ranks by quick thinking, skill, and a couple of rushed calls that allowed the Night Guard to take president over a situation before the Solar Guard could take over. One of the reasons why Razor Wind didn’t like her is because the risks she had taken would have had her punished… if she didn’t succeed.

Razor Wind was like a chess player as each piece had it’s own role and rules to follow. Melody was like a gambler with a cup full of dice or a card hidden in her wing. Razor Wind wanted the Solar Guard to be in charge because they had more experience and Melody wanted the Night Guard to be in charge because she saw a chance to get out from underneath the Solar Guard’s shadow. It wasn’t any surprise that they didn’t get along.

Midnight decided to settle their debate “Celestia wanted me to bring the reports to check how the Night Guard and Solar Guard were doing.”

Both of them flinched as if Midnight had physically bucked them in the stomach as they looked off to the side. A few of the Night Guard and Solar Guard ponies gathered together the necessary paperwork before giving it to Midnight as their respective leaderss just sat there waiting for her to leave before continuing their debate.

Midnight walked away from the room as she was happy. Her job was to defend Lockheart and help teach him how to fly instead of dealing with backroom politics and debating between which group of ponies were supposed to be in charge or how the two groups should work together.

The Night Guard usually worked night shift and the Solar Guard day shift. Now that they had to work together to help either check up on the Night Guard's status or to give them some experience that didn't involving standing in one place for long periods of time.

******

Midnight followed the routine of leaving the paperwork involving the cooperation attempts between the Night Guard and Solar Guard before picking up the books that Celestia had finished and deemed… safe for the Canterlot library.

It wasn’t Midnight’s job to question what made certain books dangerous or useless. All she knew was that they came from the Castle of the Everfree forest as most books were almost as old as the founding of Equestria as one book had even showed the picture of two alicorns on the cover!

She had to admit that some of those books made her curious… but when one of the banned books had the words “mud pony” and “fog mule” describing earth ponies and pegasi… a couple of those books properly needed to be edited to remove some of the tribelist idiots who had made them.

When she walked out into the hallway carrying the last load of books to a very happy librarian happy to add them to Canterlot’s collection… That’s when she noticed the diamond dog lurking outside the castle. Sure there had been a few diamond dogs that tried their hoof… paw at trying to join the night guard, but they didn’t slink about. The adventurer diamond dogs stood tall wearing suits or armor when they tried to apply.

This diamond dog only wore a jacket as a few diamonds were stuffed or sown into the jacket as his paw held onto a thin piece of what looked like charcoal as he wrote down something into his book. All of her training in the Night Guard instantly screamed thief as she motioned for two nearby Solar Guards to accompany her.

When Midnight was just a couple of hooves away from the diamond dog he had finished writing something down before turning and catching sight of her. Both of them made eye contact for a brief second until Midnight froze for just a second.

The dark dirt brown diamond dog with a small chunk missing from his ear quickly matched one of Equestria’s wanted posters. Tracer was a diamond dog responsible for countless thefts and accused of foalnapping before he switched to the life of robbing stage coaches with none other than the notorious mare called Brass Balls.

With one quick snap of her wings Midnight pulled out her wing blades and raced outside along with her Solar Guard counterparts as the diamond dog suddenly disappeared. The other members of the guard quickly rushed over to her to see why a member of the guard was running with weapons drawn as she tore into the bush revealing a diamond dog sized hole recently filled up.

Midnight quickly snapped orders “Inform Razor Wind that Tracer has been spotted! Somepony start checking where this tunnel leads to or where he’ll pop out!”

Two earth ponies started digging as the nearby pegasi and bat ponies flew away to warn the rest of the Royal Guard. One of the nearby unicorns managed to find a leftover page with very crude writing written all over it. Midnight had to strain her eyes a little to make sense of it.

Her blood went cold when she recognized the shift rotations and crude markings that denoted how many guards would be on watch and where they would be during those times. Tracer wasn’t just spotted in Canterlot Castle. The diamond dog had been in Canterlot for a good couple of days spying on them to get all of this information. The only question was… what was he after?

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay. Let me know if I missed anything.

Letters

Mort

‘Doc’ or Doctor Mort was a unique pony… or that’s what he liked to think of himself. The autumn brown unicorn with chestnut curly hair and beard had graduated from Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns and had studied a large and wide variety of species and various forms of magic and magically induced ailments.

Of course that didn’t mean he was without his own faults… or mistakes that landed him in trouble. So maybe a few individuals tended to pay more for a good doctor with a wide degree of biology and healing talents than going over three similar biological templates.

Maybe it was a bit… foolish to have joined a less than friendly group of individuals and ignored just how they earned the bits to pay him. It also might have been a bit foolish to also not question how those unique individuals helped supply him with the necessary medical equipment or how the ponies that bought his medical supplies always seemed a bit shifty.

Mort had simply ignored most those pesky details in the past as he always figured the bits he made to improve his research would then go out to help improve the lives of other ponies and races in this world. If helping one questionable individual allowed him to help a hundred regular individuals by sending his findings to other doctors than who was he to question the results?

Maybe if he thought about those minor details a couple of months ago he wouldn’t have ended up in his current mess. He took a deep breath as he was no longer stuck underneath the dark tunnels of Canterlot Mountain with an ancient centaur that could break out and suddenly try to drain them all of their magic.

Now he was currently in one of the outposts of New Terra as various humans walked around as everyman… everyhu? Every-ien? Mort couldn’t think of a proper species term to label a group of humans.

From what he could tell New Terra and it’s outposts were mostly made up of humans or had either grown tired of Equestria not believing that they were former humans… or they saw the wide open area and just wanted to play around or make something with it.

He looked up in the sky as one of the pegasi water shipment teams pushed the rain clouds and sky carts back towards the city of New Terra as he overheard one of the former humans say “But where do they get the water?”

He glanced at the two former humans standing watch as the second one rolled her eyes “The ocean. You just simply carry a lot of ocean water and bring it back to the settlement. Then you heat it up and have the pegasi make it into clouds as the remaining salt is left within the containers.”

She stretched her wings out “The job pays well, but it's a lot harder than you think to carry a few gallons of saltwater across all of Equestria.”

Brass bumped her hip against his side as she whispered “Less playing tourist and more unicorn magic. Do any of them check out?”

Mort sighed as he replied “Their normal… well as normal as a race that’s been magically transformed into another race can be.”

Brass didn’t look pleased. Mort on the other hoof was a little bit annoyed that he couldn’t visit the main city… sure the outpost was nice as they even had a small pond that a pony could refill their canteens with, but the place looked like a boring old outpost. Alright maybe an outpost that looked like it had been made out of clay but the posters on the walls showed him what was being shown in New Terrera.

Sure some of human culture and inventions had started to worm it’s way into Equestria, but it was subdue… either it was a gimmick or an attempt to adapt or modify what they knew to fit Equestrian terms. The ideas with the “planes” didn’t make much sense as they wanted to mix clouds with steel when apparently the first flying aircrafts humans made were made out of wood!

His horn glowed leaving a blue magical aura around flyers as he looked at it. The art style was a bit… cartoonish in a sense but “Star Wars A New Hope” sounded interesting.

“Why are they starting at episode four instead of episode one?” Mort muttered out loud.

Brass chuckled “Because that’s how it was produced… and episodes one through three sucked. I still can’t believe that no one seems to have spilled the beans.”

Mort shrugged “It just comes down to a combination of Ockham's Razor and Habeas Corpus.”

Brass raised an eyebrow at that “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Mort felt a small shiver down his spine as he continued “For the most part at least. Let’s say that roughly… half of those fallen here want to stay and half want to leave… that would roughly leave about fifty percent of your race that might tell the truth.”

Brass nodded as Mort went through the statistics again “From there let’s just assume that half of that percent manage to find a group that would listen to them instead of simply dismissing their actions. Say what you want, but currently every human that ‘landed’ in Equestria have the same biological body and functions of every other Equestrian… for the most part.”

Brass rolled her eyes “Yes I know… I’m the alien of the aliens around here.”

Mort nodded “So that’s where the second problem comes in… where’s the proof? You don’t have anything out of the ordinary… strange armor or weapons designs… but swords, shields, bows and arrows for the most part. Then you add in memory loss or… replacement by the use of the menu and it could be seen as the possibility of thinking you’re a race that doesn’t exist in Equestria as a delusional side effect brought on by the strange magic that brought you here and ripped out a few of your memories.”

Brass grunted as she didn’t like that answer. It helped explained why a lot of them wouldn’t tell the truth or if they did tell the truth than it was simply shrugged off. The former humans weren’t exactly seen as normal or sane in some cases.

She shook her head and pointed at the play “Alright then explain that.”

Mort sighed as he would have liked to see the play “It’s a story with unicorns properly using a series of illusions to help recreate the effects while they use a more Equestrian based cast. Still none of you are walking around with glowing sticks or flying around in space ships.”

He flipped the flyer over “I mean technically if I went to earth I could say we have mastered golem craft and have golems do all the hard labor in Equestria as I simply copy a few lines or ideas from your Robot novels. Technically you wouldn’t know if I was lying or not and while I could fill in a few pieces of Equestrian lore to help change some of the words or show a new idea… it wouldn’t be enough to convince your government if all of my medical tests showed that I looked like a red blooded American citizen.”

Brass slowly nodded “So you're saying… Equestria’s thick headed.”

Mort face hoofed as she wasn’t completely wrong “Let me put it to you a different way. The magical “menu system” has yet to be detected by normal magic. The only reason I was able to detect your menu was because you are also currently infected with chaos magic and we were trying to find the menu.”

It also helped to constantly watch pony after pony enhance their power by sacrificing a few memories to the system. He was able to have a better grasp of detecting it now… but he was no closer to understanding it much less seeing the magical menu from when he had just started.

“If not for some of the bizarre stuff I saw…” Mort remembered all the strange and weird things that he saw “I still have a hard time believing some of it.”

In less than one hundred years they had went from sailing across oceans taking weeks… to less than twenty four hours to travel around the entire planet and even plant a flag on the moon. Why did they travel to a lifeless rock circling their skies they couldn’t inhabit? Simply because they wanted to show that they could do it.

He shivered at the almost insane idea of creating a contained explosion resting underneath one’s flank to go off in not one explosion, but a series of explosions just to send a small metal device with the prisoners/pilots in fragile suits to protect them against the harsh and cold void of space where a single crack could horribly kill everything on board the shuttle… and then simply fall back to earth and try to ensure that gravity or the force of reentry didn’t kill anybody who survived the trip into space.

“Which part? The power we had?” Brass spoke out “Our Creativity or possibly our insanity?”

“I was going to go with… difficulty.” Mort gracefully replied “To have no defense against anything that might hit the planet… if an asteroid or dangerous outer space object came towards Eques than we’d move the sun over a few degrees to protect us. On earth… well the dinosaurs already showed you what happened. Do you even have the technology to stop one if it slowly came towards your planet?”

Brass shrugged “Back to the main issue Mort.”

Mort sighed “Well combine memory loss, lack of evidence, and a certain lack of credibility to prove you are not insane and that leaves a small percentage left of people who won’t give up and leave it to somebody else to spill the beans while everyone else simply gives up or moves to a human centric town or group.”

Mort shivered a little as he felt a little bit strange being surrounded by so many humans. The ones in the tunnels were either simple or they were off in a sense you could clearly tell they weren’t from Equestria. The outpost that he was walking through had various races walking in and out of it as they acted like normal ponies.

Brass could tell who was human and who wasn’t simply by looking for ‘Titles’ but it was a little bit unnerving to him since he would have to stop and cast the spell each time to check if they were human… and that’s only worked if they had their menu out.

Mort took in a deep breath as he tried to focus on his current task. Brass was easy to pick out from the crowd as she looked like an earth pony… but any normal Equestrian unicorn who studied magic would be able to tell with just a glance she wasn’t an earth pony.

The crowd around him only made him marvel more at the amazing work that had been done to humanity. According to Brass they had managed to learn how to walk in a completely different body within twenty four hours… very few of them ate something that didn’t mix with their biology… and if not for the lack of cutie marks or the unusual talents then it would be hard to tell them apart from a normal pony or whatever they currently were.

Currently most of Equestria did believe they weren’t from Equestria… but the farthest they gone to believe is that they came from someplace else on the planet… maybe they would go so far as to believe they came from the opposite side of the world or something, but certainly not space aliens or beings from an alternate universe.

Mort sighed as he didn’t seem to find any others like Brass “Just out of curiosity what do we do if I somehow manage to find Gaichu?”

Brass rubbed her chin “Maybe sit down and have a nice cup of coffee… See how she is doing and try to convince her to work on a plan that doesn’t involve brainwashing people and turning them into real life puppets.”

Mort groaned “Let me rephrase that… what do we do if I somehow manage to find Gaichu?”

Brass rolled her eyes “She wants the Elements of Harmony. I managed to convince Luke to at least let me check this lead while Swift deals with some old contact method about a griffin with an Element of Harmony… Honestly I didn’t understand most of it.”

Mort rubbed the back of his neck as it did sound kind of strange. Essentially a client would hire a group by sending out a message or request at a certain place where the method would reach the group in question. Nopony really asked how it happened… but when you’re a mercenary going by word of mouth you didn’t tend to care how they other clients figured out how to contract you just as long as you got paid.

Brass glanced at him as she continued “Celestia has four Elements of Harmony. She might have one… and when Swift comes that leaves Six Elements found which makes the anti Discord plan a lot safer and more likely to succeed than the power drain play Luke is starting as he’s… preparing the weapon.

Mort shivered as currently they were feeding Tirek magic to get him to a strong enough level to ‘fight Discord’ and yet make sure that Tirek didn’t break free to try to have his revenge against them. That was just another reason why he was happy to be outside instead of in the tunnels underneath right now.

Brass nodded as she saw his reaction “You don’t have to like her… We just have to let her know where the other Elements and keep them in one place.”

She took down a poster from the wall and smirked “And I think I just figured out where she is.”

Mort glanced at the poster. There was an armored covered Stallion with his fore hooves in the air as the ground was dark. Behind the stallion looked like some sort of green cloud or fog behind him as the title read ‘Fallout: Equestria” in big bold letters.

“I don’t get it.” Mort spoke out loud.

Brass grinned as she explained “She’s looking for wielders of the Elements of Harmony… The Mane Six was not the only story that had a group that could wield the Elements of Harmony.”

Mort shivered “You don’t think she is…”

Brass shrugged “Either it’s a creepy puppet show or she is hiding in the crowd and doing a little bit of window shopping. Besides what’s the worst that could happen?”

Mort shook his head “And now you just tempted fate… You know I could always go back and try telling Celestia what you’re doing.”

Brass turned around as her tail ran right underneath his chin “But you won’t.”

Mort sighed for two reasons. The first reason was that for some idiotic reason he wouldn’t betray her. Brass just had some sort of charisma that swept everypony up as they followed her lead. The second reason was that even if she failed… Equestria would be end up better than before Brass had tried her plan.

The diamond dogs kept following her as more seemed to be joining as if she was their version of Celestia. The griffins were following her as they knew they would fall apart the moment Swift’s Uncle Herald died. Celestia would take pity on them and while they were temporally together as a race or a group… Celestia would be able integrate them into Equestrian society or fix their fractured nations.

That two groups that didn’t have a stable society either falling under Celestia’s wise rule… or having their society fixed and become allies of Equestria making any short term problems outweighed by the future benefits. It also might be just the blow needed to make Equestria wake up to the issue of humanity around them.

If Brass succeeded… Mort shook his head as he knew Celestia would succeed, but if she didn’t… Brass would concede to her judgment and form a counsel of leaders… Equestria would greatly change, but it would still end up being for the better or that’s what he kept telling himself.

He just hoped she didn’t get the two of them killed before it happened.

******

Valkyrie

I took a deep breath as I was resting in the hospitable as the last few moments were kind of a blur. One moment I was fighting Brass and then suddenly Celestia was forced to restrain me because I nearly attacked one of the ponies close by as they had just finished de-petrifying me.

Now I was being treated for the injuries I had sustained during the fight as the doctors tried to make sure that I was alright. They didn’t find the original cockatrice Brass used on me so they had to work some sort of magical work around to save me.

I sat back in my bed with my arms… well forelegs crossed in front of my chest as I stared out the window. Not only did I feel useless, but the dull pain in my body only seemed to remind me of my failure.

I didn’t know what the people who kidnapped Tirek would do next… other than wait for “Discord’s return” or whatever they meant by that. I fought another human… who sucker punched me by turning me into a statue.

The flaming salamander… gecko creature was out of my league. Apparently it was left to Steel Halberd to lure the monster into the trap. Meanwhile I lead my group straight into an ambush… despite all my stronger than average powers… it didn’t matter as I lost.

I couldn’t stop Stardust from being kidnapped… I couldn’t stop Duran or whatever the crazy person when we tried to escape the Everfree Castle. I had to be rescued after my fight with Brass.

Did I simply need more training… should I have spent a few points to give myself an edge during the fight… or was I simply just deluding myself? I wasn’t a skilled fighter back home. I was just a normal girl who’s closest attempt at fighting was video games and tabletop RPGs.

Was I just simply deluding myself into thinking things would be different simply because I was in Equestria?

I glanced over to the door as Steel Halberd was doing his best to ferry ponies in and out of the room. After Celestia cured me from petrifaction and transferred over to a hospitable to get my injuries treated and word must have gotten out because there was a line of people waiting to see if I was okay.

Back home I would be visited by maybe a few close friends or my immediate family that lived nearby. What got me was that a lot of people came to visit me… the members of the Solar Guard including a couple I barely knew… Steel’s sister and her assistant… Some former humans that I knew or helped rescue from the Everfree Castle… even a few Night Guard ponies I didn’t know.

I’ll admit that it did bring a small warm feeling in my heart knowing that a lot of people visited and yet it also felt strange. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought as people visiting me because I was injured was stranger than flying talking ponies in a world full of magic and rainbows as the sun and moon revolved around the planet.

“Do you have any idea where Lockheart is?” I asked Steel as he brought the next group of people into the room.

Steel lead the next group of Royal Guards into the room as he looked a little bit uneasy at my question. Was he just busy or was I still being treated to make sure some magical screw up didn’t happen. I know it sounds silly but I was a statue a couple of hours ago and all I can think about was a couple of Twilight Sparkle ‘Oops’ moments like accidently turning Fluttershy into a vampire fruit bat pony or making parasprites devour the town.

One of the guards from the group visiting me spoke up “Is there a reason why you wish to see him?”

I shook my head “I guess we weren’t as close of friends as I thought… I mean since Remedy and Midnight visited me and he didn’t…”

Steel sighed as he seemed a little bit less uneasy now, but not by much “Lockheart went missing just a few days ago. There are searches for him, but… things have gotten out of hoof.”

“In what way?” I couldn’t help but ask.

The other members of the guards seemed to gather together with worried looks as they left Steel to break the bad news. He didn’t seem any better as his body was a little bit rigid as his wings clenched to his sides. He wasn’t exactly afraid… but I couldn’t imagine a way for a pony to look any more nervous than he currently was right now.

Steel took a deep breath before he summoned the courage to speak “Well the public opinion suddenly changed as everything about the entire situation feels… off.”

The bat pony groaned out loud “After our alicorn gets foalnapped some snob pays off a bunch of ponies to start insulting him as they try to sweep his disappearance under the rug! If that doesn’t show foul intent I don’t know what does!”

One of the Solar Guards sighed “You don’t know if that’s true.”

The bat pony muttered out loud “Of course there is nothing strange with how Lockheart suddenly disappeared one night only to have a bunch of random ponies the very next morning spreading a bunch of rumors and insults about him.”

Steel glanced out the window as he continued “All we have been informed is that… something happened… a monster escaped from Canterlot… and this may sound a bit strange, but… we found notes left behind by Lockheart hidden in a box.”

He pulled out a letter from his saddlebag and placed it in front of me “Apparently he wasn’t expecting to stay this long in Canterlot as he made a few letters addressed to a couple of individuals should he be forced to leave Canterlot.”

“Or go missing.” One of the ponies muttered out loud.

I heard the familiar clang one guard hitting another guard in the back of the head.

I held the letter in my hooves as I felt a little bit uneasy “Was he expecting something bad to happen to him?”

Steel shrugged as it was clear he didn’t seem to know what to say “We don’t know… some of the nobles are claiming this is a confession stating that he was a false imposter who fled when a... ‘real alicorn’ appeared.” He replied in bitter distaste “Of course there are a few…”

“A lot!” the bat pony raised his voice.

Steel shook his head “A large amount of ponies who think that he was looking into something and these letters were left behind should anything happen to him.”

“What’s this about a ‘real alicorn’ appearing?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Steel sighed “It’s more of a rumor, but apparently some ponies claim that a new alicorn is coming to Canterlot. I wouldn’t put much faith in the rumor.”

A part of me couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. Lockheart went missing as another alicorn might have appeared? If this second alicorn was real then why didn’t they appear sooner… or come to Canterlot when everyone was panicking? Celestia found ponies when they ascended to alicorn status so she would have informed everyone if a pony suddenly became an alicorn. I mean she found Cadence and Twilight pretty quickly.

Everyone seemed to be watching me as they wanted to see what exactly was in the letter. I pretty much held one of the last messages Lockheart had written before he suddenly disappeared.

I opened up the letter and glanced at the message “I know it may not sound like much, but don’t feel down. It sounds foolish to think I know everything or how you might even be feeling, but I’ll just say this. Your decisions are your own and we don’t owe each other anything. If you’re happy with where you are at then just be happy. If you’re worried about your strength then train with others… after all it takes more than a single character to make up a party. Most of all… treasure your memories as they are what makes you who you are and each day we live only adds to them. So make sure you don’t forget them… and if trouble comes in the future? Think smarter and rely on your friends.”

I sighed as I didn’t exactly know what to make of it. Still I guess he was trying to figure out a way to make me feel better about Brass’s surprise cockatrice attack.

Steel glanced at me as he looked uneasy “What did it say?”

I shook my head “It’s kind of a sappy… Don’t beat yourself up and rely on the friends speech. I guess he wasn’t sure who I would react after having been turned to stone.”

Steel seemed to look a little more at ease as I passed the letter around for everyone to see. I pushed the person who had turned me to stone out of my mind and tried to focus on the present. Something happened to Lockheart and now a new alicorn just happened to arrive shortly afterwards. Maybe it was Lockheart in disguise… or something bad was about to happen.

Hopefully I would be out of this bed before it happened so that I could see just where the rumors came from.

******

Celestia

Midnight Vixen dropped of the new reports along with the rest of Lockheart’s old belongings. The Lunar Guard mare seemed to have lost her smile since Lockheart’s disappearance. Celestia was now searching through his old belongings in an attempt to make sense of that night.

She shut her eyes as the scene always was played back in the back of her mind. He was practicing an innocent spell only to have it mess up… then after the reveal of their memories he fled from her in fear for his life. Celestia didn’t know what bothered her the most. Was it the alien like appearance his body had transformed into as the ponies mistook him as a monster or was it the look in his eyes.

She had fought many races… captured thieves, stopped tyrants, defended her kingdom against countless threats. Tirek was defiant even in the end as his hate filled eyes watched her even when he was last seen being placed within the depths of Tartarus. Discord was almost openly mocking her even as the Elements of Harmony struck him turning his body to stone… the rage in her own sister’s eyes when she was banished and her hate filled shout filled the air when she was banished to the moon. None of them ever looked at Celestia in terror… that Princess Celestia was the creature they were frightened of.

The solar princess muttered to herself “Why didn’t I just tell him I wasn’t going to harm him? Why didn’t I just stay on the ground and let him calm down as he would have realized that I didn’t blame him?”

Celestia sighed as she rubbed her aching head. The same ‘What If’s’ she always tried to avoid kept popping up. What if she spent more time with Luna or tried to make a Luna appreciation day before she turned into Nightmare Moon. What if she spent more time with delegation talks with the Centaurs to prevent Tirek’s rampage or to spot the problem before it grew into a problem?

Her eyes glanced across the book that talked about the lost Crystal Empire and how obvious it would have been to have easily solved Sombra before he took control of the empire only to make it disappear. How easy it should have been to solved her current problem before it suddenly spiraled out of control.

Celestia looked back at the rest of Lockheart’s notes and his belongs. There were notebooks filled with random plans that he was thinking over… or toying with to see if they would have actually been of any use to Equestria.

Celestia shook her head as there wasn’t anything wrong with the plans or ideas he had… sure some of them could have been written better and there were a few ideas that just needed a little bit of refinement or a softer touch applied to them.

What bothered the solar princess the most was that Lockheart had multiple wills. Every few days he seemed to have updated his will as he even left instructions on how to continue the tasks Celestia had given to him should he disappear from Canterlot. The more she looked at them the more it hurt her as it was obvious that Lockheart never planned to stay in Canterlot.

She glanced over the series of letters addressed to certain ponies as sort of an apology for his actions or to try to give them one final piece of advice. None of his letters talked about what he would do after he left Canterlot. If anything it looked as if he was expecting all of his ties to Canterlot to have been cut when he left the city.

Celestia closed her eyes as she muttered “And in some ways that is exactly what I did to him.”

Celestia took a deep breath as she had did her best to deal with that problem as she went over Lockheart’s ‘Emergency Plan’ once again which looked more like a check sheet.

1.Find a method to deal with the vines.
2.Find the spell to recover or at the very least share memories.
3.Star Swirl’s unfinished spell.
4.Look for a spell on linking two books together.
5.Find gem inscribe or enchant method.
6.Find reality bubble/restoration spell.

Celestia stared at the list as she couldn’t tell if it was written in code or if she was simply missing the pieces needed to make sense of this list. She didn’t understand what vines meant much less a spell used to link two books together. The most troubling item on the list was Star Swirl the Bearded unfinished spell.

Did he simply cross it out because he gave up on it or did he find the spell? If he found the spell then why was he looking for it? Was it an attempt to win her praise or help try to secure a place in Canterlot… or was there another reason for that spell. She would have known if he casted the spell… but why would he want the incomplete spell instead of any of the countless other spells made by Star Swirl the Bearded? Why was the unfinished spell placed on this list!

Celestia glanced back at the reports about their attempts in finding him… key word was attempt. As soon as he disappeared false reports suddenly flooding in and the sudden surge of insults or rumors stating that Celestia had banished him for being an imposter, throwing him in jail, or currently hunting him down to make him pay for his crimes. It filled Celestia with an unspoken dread.

Equestria had grown since Luna’s banishment as they no longer feared alicorns. They didn’t even know about Luna’s existence… but there were some the new foreign ponies and races that were suddenly dropped into Equestria that might know about Nightmare Moon. Then of course there was Boulder Dash as he found out from the extensive records of Thunder Peak which proved there were some factions outside of Equestria that knew that Nightmare Moon was not only real, but they also knew of Luna’s existence and her fall from grace. Lockheart’s past also seemed to be filled with other races or nations that were out to get him.

Was it possible one of the citizens from a nation that he ran from had also appeared in Equestria? Did an enemy from his past see the chance to get rid of him or was there a group nearby Equestria that feared he may be a descendent of Nightmare Moon? That for some foolish reason he would try to bring about an eternal night like Nightmare Moon?

Right now Celestia wanted Lockheart back in Canterlot so that she could explain her reaction to his memory… it still filled Celestia with unease as she had checked on Discord’s current state making sure his prison was holding him and that he didn’t somehow slip out in between the cracks made in it. What frightened her was that when she just checked up on the statue… she had discovered that it had been moved various times without her knowledge.

The fact that Lockheart even had a letter written to Discord bothered. If Luna had a child the foal would have been born after Discord had been sealed. He had been sealed right in the Canterlot hedge maze for all these years right within her sight.

Was the seal not as strong as she originally thought? Was somepony moving the statue or perhaps some of Discord’s chaotic magic still drifting about? Was the Draconus manipulating more ponies without her knowledge?

The letter Lockheart had written to Discord was confusing and there were no hidden words or spells attached to the page. No special ink was used or hidden magic woven into the words itself. There wasn’t even an anagram or secret message made by the words written inside… something Celestia had spent a couple of hours wasted trying to figure out.

All the letter said was “It was fun while it lasted.”

The letter Lockheart had addressed to Princess Celestia rested on the desk unopened as Celestia had yet to open it. Her reasoning had been sound as she wanted to quickly find him before he disappeared. She wanted to explain her actions and make sure he was safe rather than open up the letter that he had left for her. Still her eyes would gaze of the hidden letter from time to time as her mind began to wonder what final words he had left for her.

Would they be comforting words to a dear friend? Did he write about his regrets or state his heritage… or had he written down one final curse as he blamed her. That he was fed up being neglected by the perfect princess? That he had grown tired of being the center of the blame while Celestia herself received all the praise! That deep in his heart he hated her!

Celestia stared at the map again as she tried to narrow down the locations again. Anyplace claiming to have seen him was a lie. He would be running around in a new disguise impersonating a unicorn… or a ground bound pegasi… maybe an Earth Pony with a top hat and cape?

Celestia shook her head “Of course that only works if he is still in Equestria. For all I know this might have not been his first trip to Equestria and he already had setup a means to escape from Equestria.”

The badlands were rough… but there have been times when somepony had crossed them. The frozen north was dangerous, but even the yaks would seen friendly in comparison to a ruler that he thought wanted to kill or seal him away. Then of course was passage by sea or running to the edge of Equestria’s map before plunging head long into areas unknown.

Celestia started to pace about the room as she felt restless before she stopped in front of a mirror. She stared at herself in surprise as she didn’t recognize herself for a moment. Her normal well groomed mane seemed to have a few mats in it. Her own mane seemed to look a little bit dull as she noticed the tired look in her own eyes. With one deep breath her horn glowed as she freshened herself up making her look alright.

“Okay…” Celestia told herself “Let’s say I find him and bring him back to Canterlot… what happens next? What do I say?”

She knew his secret as he felt responsible for the missing Elements of Harmony. He knew that she had personally banished her own sister… he knew that she had banished Luna and then held a Celebration on the day she was banished each year!

Celestia’s felt her heartbeat quicken as she began to worry before she tried to reassure herself “He knows the reason for why I had to banish her. I had to do it for the good of… Equestria.”

He had an Element of harmony and technically that was more important to Equestria than him.

“Pony Feathers.” Celestia muttered under her breath.

The more she thought about it the more her stress continued to grow as she gave the unopened letter written to her as she couldn’t take it anymore. She carefully picked it up with her magic as if it would suddenly try to bite her before slowly opening it up.

“If history has taught us anything… it’s that you must prepare for war if you want peace. Nations will only respect equals as those with power will take from those without… or that’s the rules other countries have lived by. I say this not to demean, insult, or reject Equestria’s beliefs but to give an informed opinion and hopefully a better understanding of those who now inhabit your lands.”

Celestia felt a little bit better as it didn’t sound that bad. In truth she would rather prefer a business memo than curses or insults.

“For me to judge your nation would not be fair as one can only judge their nation by watching those around them. While I may have traveled far greater distances than most of your subjects what I know about your lands tells a different story. I see a nation that had went from a band of vagabonds that managed to put aside their differences to create a better future. I see the lands around your nation face different obstacles as some suffer poverty by their inability to work together… paranoia of outside cultures… struggles of internal conflict… and of course hostility towards anyone different from them.”

Celestia felt a small bit of pride and joy at that small bit of information.

“While you may have created a great nation all I can warn you is that some people like myself… we have seen other nations, histories, joys never thought possible and horrors that should never have been allowed to be made possible. Take joy in what you have built, but remember that those who have visited your land during this time will react in different ways as their version of common sense simply differs from yours. In ten or twenty years it will properly have been long forgotten, but for now things will be rough… and I apologize for any problems that I may have caused.”

Celestia stared at the letter with mixed emotions as tears formed in her eyes.

“I may not agree with some of your actions, but I can at least try to understand the reason behind it even if I’m probably wrong about it. I may not have been the pony you were looking for, but hopefully I will have caused more good than harm before I was given my notice to leave this place and if not… then hopefully you may understand why I did so.”

Celestia shook her head as it hurt.

“To quote a good writer… “The oldest and strongest emotion known to us is fear and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Sadly it is this very fear that makes us do stupid things.”

Celestia put down the piece of paper as she didn’t know what to say. Was this letter an apology for his actions or had he expected that eventually Celestia would try to get rid of him? How long ago had this letter been written or had his feelings changed from then?

She sighed as she could tell that he at the very least… respected her. The only problem was the divide between them now. The rumors and insults spreading throughout the land would certainly give him second thoughts about returning. Then there was the fear he felt towards Celestia… the sick joke Discord had played which kept a painful sliver of doubt in the back of his mind.

To make things worst that same painful sliver of doubt had now nestled inside her own mind as she knew she would have to answer that single nagging question before she talked to him. What would Celestia… The Princess of Equestria and former wielder of the Elements of Harmony do… if Lockheart actually had an Element of Harmony… trapped inside his body?

Celestia felt a lump in her throat as she thought about it. That piece of magic could explain the connection she had with him… the reason for why some of the Canterlot doctors has suggested the possibility of him being her offspring. It would help explain a few things as the Element of Harmony simply gave false positives or false leads as some of his actions…

“Would my actions suddenly change now that you know who I am?” whispered Lockheart’s voice in the back of her mind.

Suddenly Celestia felt ill… she felt disgusted at her own train of thoughts as a small taste of bile filled her throat. Did the possibility spoken from a lying, manipulative, deceitful creature really be trusted? For all she knew Discord had said those very words just to ensure Lockheart would never be at ease with her. That until the Elements of Harmony were found he would always have to lie or hide a part of himself out of fear… out of the possibility that it would change everything.

She couldn’t tell which could be worse… If he truly was a fake as the Element of Harmony was only making her believe that he was a real alicorn and possibly Luna’s son… or that she would commit a dreadful act believing that he wasn’t an alicorn only to find out that Discord had lied. That she had placed her faith in Discord instead of Lockheart as Celestia would be the one responsible for shattering the relationship between them and any trust he once had for her.

That she would become the monster that he had feared.

Celestia looked at his letter… a letter written by a pony who was frightened at what his fate could have been. How he felt that one secret he tried to keep from Celestia could ruin the only place that seemed to welcome him if not tolerate his presence.

Celestia stared at the old Everfree forest selection of spell books that she had yet to finish checking up on as it became obvious at what she needed to do next. She needed to find out how Discord was able to communicate with Lockheart… and she had to find a safe way to remove an Element of Harmony from him if there even was an Element of Harmony hidden inside his body in the first place.

It might not even be that hard coming up with a spell to detect another Element of Harmony that might be close by as she could use the other Elements she had gathered to help find and detect the missing pieces.

Celestia looked back in the mirror as she saw herself now. She looked like her old self know but more importantly she knew what to do right now. Sadly the door opened up as Boulderdash came into the room.

The earth pony glanced at Celestia as he said “Is this a bad time?”

Celestia took a deep breath as she prepared herself “I take it you want to know what really happened with Lockheart.”

Boulder Dash rubbed the back of his head “You know how it is and quite frankly the last time an alicorn stormed off in a rage we ended up with a tale to frighten foals with.”

Celestia nodded as she tried to keep her emotions in check “He’s been looking into some of Brass’s allies and… we had a disagreement.”

Boulder Dash hung his head “I take it he planned to do something you didn’t agree with.”

It was stretching the truth if not twisting a lie to fit her needs but she nodded “I just want to make sure he doesn’t do something he will end up regretting. Is there anything else?”

Boulder Dash sighed as he pulled out a scroll “Apparently there has been talk about something strange happening near a city made up by the Travelers that came to Equestria near the badlands. I don’t know if it’s related to Lockheart…”

“I’ll send a group to check it out.” Celestia finished.

Boulder Dash smiled “Sorry to impose.”

Celestia she unrolled the scroll and said “It’s politics. I understand how annoying they can be sometimes.”

The new town set up in the badlands was called New Terra. Technically it stayed outside of Equestrian borders and it was set up in a region that nopony or any of the other nations owned. The only problem was that it had gained a sizeable population of the races and ponies that suddenly found themselves lost in Equestria.

Normally this shouldn't be a problem, but apparently some ponies and griffins thought otherwise.

“Oh what exactly was the problem that the griffins in Thunder Peek want me to check on?” Celestia gently added.

Boulder Dash shrugged “Either the fact that an entire group of Travelers have a town built in the middle of nowhere without any connection to anypony or that some of the residents have been showing odd behavior.”

Boulder Dash left the room as Celestia glanced at the scroll again and sighed. Why did life always seem to get in the way of her plans?

******

Swift Wing

Swift sat in the Tavern of the Battered Mare. He never actually understood how the name for the Tavern came about, but it was one of the few Taverns that solely rested in the roads of Equestria without being near a town.

The residents in the Tavern weren’t that much better. It certainly wasn’t a den of thieves, but most of these ponies looked down on their luck. A pony with a pallet and a paintbrush was currently washing mugs as a Pegasus was stuck cleaning the rafters as he had checkered flags for a cutie mark. He didn’t know much about Equestrian ponies, but these ponies looked as if they had their own personal rain clouds pouring water over their heads.

He shook his head as this place was a dump. Still it was a useful place to talk shop because nopony would listen… they were too caught up in their own misery to realize what was going on around them.

A black griffin walked up to his table as he growled “Move to another! I’m waiting for someone as dis table!”

Swift glanced at the griffin. The top part of his body resembled a normal griffin if not for the pitch black feathers. The lower half of his body was covered in a dark cloak as in a poor attempt to ‘hide’ himself. With how the griffin kept looking from side to side as if expecting the Royal Guard to come crashing in. It was obvious this was the idiot Swift was waiting for.

Swift sighed as he said “I’m Swift Wing… I take it you’re the client.”

The griffin stared at him for a moment “How do I know you’re not a changeling?”

Swift pinched his brow and as he replied with a sigh “Because I’m a griffin and I’m waiting for you?”

The nervous griffin pulled out a small flask snapped “Take a sip den! If you’re a changeling den you won’t be able to, but if you’re a griffin like you claim you are den you’ll be okay!”

Swift rolled his eyes not only was he dealing with a paranoid griffin, but he was dealing with a tribal griffin that seemed to be having trouble speaking Equestrian if the constant ‘de’ instead of ‘the’ were a sign. Hopefully this wouldn’t be more annoying than that one rhyming zebra client.

Swift stare straight into his possible client’s eyes and bluntly replied “And how exactly do I not know if it’s poisoned or if you are a changeling in disguise?”

The griffin grunted as he took a large gulp of the unknown liquid before wiping his beak “I drank! You drink or no deal!”

Swift took a small sip of the liquid as it tasted horrible… Almost as if a random griffin just scooped up a talon full of random plants with some mud mixed in and filled it full of cheap or strong alcohol. There was a strong bitter after taste in his mouth as the paranoid griffin continued to stare at him.

Swift put the flask onto the table and coughed “See… not a… changeling.”

He hit his chest as the paranoid griffin replied “You sure?”

Swift took a deep breath “Just not used to... whatever you used to make it.”

“It’s Vodka… lots of Vodka and de secret mixture used to de-change a changeling right before me very eyes!” He replied back one of his eyes nearly bulging out of its eye socket. “Can’t be too careful dese days… ponies not acting like ponies… changelings walk-in about… all dis talk about what is or what isn’t.”

Swift managed to recover from the drink as he replied “So what is it that you want from us?”

The griffin shook his head “Swift Wings right? Name’s Haberdash. Don’t blame for de name I didn’t get to pick it just like you didn’t get to pick yours.”

‘Haberdash’ kept scanning the room as if expecting some sort of trap to suddenly spring out at any moment. Only after ensuring that the Pegasus cleaning the ceiling wasn’t going to try to dive bomb him did he finally pull out a sack full of jewels. Swift kept his cool as the ‘reward’ was certainly worth the eccentricities of Mister Haberdash.

Haberdash leaned in and whispered “You know about dem weird rocks the ponies keep talk-en about? I found one of them… stuck somewhere safe for now… bugs keep walking about look-en for it. I feel de creepy crawlies just getting ready to nap me in de middle of de night!”

Swift nodded as he gently replied “You want help moving it to someplace safe.”

Haberdash shook his head “No you crazy fool! I want it gone! You work with de brass colored mare… stole something big. I figure if you lot take it from me then the bugs leave me alone and try to chase after you.”

Swift tried not to chuckle as this was much better than he initially thought. If this griffin actually had an Element of Harmony they were being paid to take it off his talons. Swift was originally planning on trying to steal the Element of Harmony in transit, but this also worked.

If the crazy griffin was smart he could have tried to use it to bargain with Celestia… then again judging from his tired expression a few good nights of sleep might also help. The griffin was terrified that a changeling was suddenly going to grab him and wrap him in a cocoon or something.

Haberdash shivered as an earth pony waiter came up and said “What will you be having?”

Haberdash nearly shouted “Two specials… and some ale! Dat’s it! Go! Go! Go!”

The earth pony shrugged as he walked into the kitchen. Haberdash pulled out his flash and took a large sip from it again before hiding it back in his pocket before whispering “Did you check to see if de chief was real?”

Swift nodded as he could feel a migraine starting to form “He’s the real chief… I checked him myself.”

It was a lie, but Haberdash just nodded a few times. All Swift had to do was simply ease the griffin’s worries and let him know that everything was going to be alright.

Haberdash shivered “I’m… just going to make sure our waiter comes back… count the jewels. I know I promised bits for de job, but dat’s the quickest amount of money I could bring with me to prove I could pay for de job.”

Swift nodded as he left the crazy griffin go as he inspected the payment. He couldn’t help but grin as it was a fine haul. There were a lot of jewels… valuable objects including a rather nice crown and a unicorn ring. Swift scratched his chin as he thought about the crown for a moment and if Brass would like it.

He shook his head as he muttered to himself “Curse you uncle for even saying that.”

Yes Brass was strong… charismatic… and after having half a dozen chicks from rivaling houses trying to align his ‘heritage’ with their house for when his uncle died… Brass looked a lot more attractive then he would have liked to admit right now. Maybe he really should try the double date with Doc as the stallion tried his hoof at the former vet he liked. Swift would see who the griffin mystery date was.

He groaned as he knew his life was messed up when he was happy that the crazy griffin returned. Haberdash placed the food down as he eyed the waiter suspiciously as if waiting for the earth pony to suddenly reveal that he was a changeling all along.

Haberdash muttered “Would take de sip… changelings don’t take de sip because dey know it’ll reveal dem.”

Brass picked up the crown as he said “I’ll take hold of the crown as a faith payment.” The crazy griffin stared at him as if he just snatched away a lollipop from a hatchling “I’ll give it back after the job has been completed and you pay us four hundred bits.”

Haberdash shook his head “It was dree hundred bits. Silk Scarf was very specific on dat.”

Swift raised an eyebrow “Silk Scarf?”

Haberdash quickly stared at Swift in panic as every feather on his body stood out. Swift couldn’t help but chuckle as he looked like a chicken who just realized what the stump with the axe was for.

Swift moved his talons over the bag and dragged it back over to him “Oh so that’s how you know. What exactly did she say?”

Haberdash sighed as he glanced around “Some deal went down and she’s wounded. She wants something to get back up and recover her lost fame… she…” He gulped “She… hypothetically said what might happen if de changelings found out about what I had.”

Swift grinned as this helped explain so much “You think she has some changelings in her pocket.”

Haberdash nodded “Four Hundred bits and not a word of this comes out. I was just robbed by a group of strangers dat I didn’t know.”

Swift sniffed the plates as there was pork chops… how long had it been since he had a simple decent meal? In the caves most of it was dry stuff. The ponies and some of the former humans could get some meat… but most of it was usually veggies and griffin military rations. The stuff was so dried and filled with preserves some griffins claimed the meat was older than Equestria itself.

He took a nice large sip from the ale washing out the bitter after taste of the ‘anti-changeling’ brew before sinking into the pork chops. It tasted a little bit off, but ponies didn’t tend to eat a lot of meat either. Besides it helped give him something to do as he listened to Haberdash going over the plans.

“Dere will be a key out by de front door hidden underneath de rock. If you can’t find it den just…” he flinched “just break down de door. Look underneath de rug in de living room and you’ll find de door… just try not to take too much or how ever your group does dese types of jobs.”

Swift nodded as he took another sip of his ale. It was a good thing he paid for a room already. The storm wasn’t letting down outside and he felt exhausted dealing with the paranoid griffin. This wasn’t the first time he had been hired to “steal” from a client’s home.

The griffin glared at him “And I will keep track of what’s been stolen as dat’s coming out of de bits dat I pay you!”

So they weren’t allowed to steal eight hundred worth of bits and expect to be also paid four hundred bits. Considering the ‘faith payment’ was worth more than the bits he was offering Swift didn’t worry. The griffin was stressed and he wanted it to be over. Those types of people tended to allow them to get away with a few extra items just as long as the job was convincing enough to remove their unwanted attention.

His eyes felt a little bit tired as he glanced at his ale.

Haberdash continued “Try not to break anything either… but I will leave a list under de rug of items you can break… if you need to make it look more convincing.”

Swift noticed something at the bottom of his mug that had yet to dissolve. He stared at the griffin in front of him as he saw a flicker of green in his eyes. Haberdash grinned as something hit Swift in the stomach from underneath the table as he fell to the floor. Underneath the table he saw a rather large gem glowing as his mind began to wonder how old the pork might have been.

Why was his mind drifting back to those random thoughts instead of the fact his ale had been drugged! His mind felt sluggish as he tried thinking about all the oddities… or the questions he should have been asking instead of wondering if the owners of the tavern bought their pork or if there was a farm that grew pigs nearby?

Haberdash got up and continued “Took a bit longer than I wanted.”

Swift tried to fight as he could barely push himself off the floor. He stared into the griffin’s eyes with a mixture of fear and rage. Swift just noticed that the wings on the griffin were wrong. The entire griffin’s body seemed a little bit off balance now that he focused on the griffin as he tried to break through the random idle thoughts flooding his mind as his body was losing strength.

Haberdash placed a talon over Swift’s mouth as he spoke in a very calm voice “I’ll be blunt. I don’t give a…” Swift flinched as an alien sound came from the griffin’s voice. The word seemed to whisper, twist and warp the air around it before settling back again.

Haberdash rolled his eyes “Your bait, a hostage, and a decollation of war all wrapped up into one convenient package.”

Swift eyes tried to locate the others… Brass always made sure they didn’t travel alone… they must have noticed… he saw Tumbler and Mortar being dragged upstairs as both of them were unconscious.

Haberdash nodded “I figured the room you rented might as well be put to some good use so I put your friends in there.” He grinned revealing a set of razor sharp teeth “And don’t bother telling me some boring speech about how you’ll never talk or your friends will find you.”

Haberdash adjusted his cloak “Because I want her to find me and unlike the folks in Canterlot… I don’t care as much for morals as they do.”

Swift struggled to speak “Why?”

Haberdash stared at him like a hawk before a mouse as he said “Because I’m pissed. I’m not a saint and Brass is one of those ponies that pissed me off. Besides I’m going to need a bit more magic for plan B if I want to deal with the tree problem.”

This wasn’t an idle threat. Swift had heard that same tone of voice when his uncle talked about conquering another tribe. It was the same tone his uncle used when his father talked about taking the throne. It was also the same tone his uncle used when he explained Swift’s new position as he the guards took his father’s body because his uncle killed him.

His eyes shut as he had to warn Brass not to come rescue him.

******

Maxwell

The room was currently locked as I held the letter in my hooves. Lockheart had suddenly went missing and he had left a letter for me incase anything happened to him… why did he leave a letter for me? Just what exactly was happening?

I tried to wrap my head around only to stop and take a deep breath “Just calm down Maxwell. I’m sure everything will be okay.”

I opened up the letter as it read “Well I never thought I would be writing a letter to you, but here I am. I never felt comfortable around. Then again you didn’t seem comfortable around me either. May we just naturally clash or we just imagine each other as radically different people as we place our own self doubts and fears upon each other.

Either way it doesn’t matter. I’m not in Canterlot anymore as I’m either kicked out of the city… or dead.”

I dropped the letters as I broke out in cold sweats saying “What? What in the hell were you…”

I clenched my teeth a piece of the floor suddenly broke making me fall forward and hitting my face against the floor. I clenched my nose muttering in pain before getting back up and looking at the letter again.

I looked at the dead part as… that made me nervous “Still I guess I should say I had my reasons, but they properly don’t matter anymore. Here’s a bit of advice for the future. Don’t mess things up, believe in yourself, and try to stay calm. This next part might make you panic, but don’t do something stupid or work yourself into a crazed panic mess.”

I put down the paper and took another deep breath. I had the final words from Lockheart before he went missing. Something about the letter seemed strange as... Why didn’t Celestia read this or was there some secret hidden meaning that I would only understand?

I opened the rest of the letter as it read “The other five are closer than you think. Yes it’s super vague, but you should be able to figure it out when everything starts going to hell. So take one big deep breath and remember that if the vines go crazy.”

I dropped the piece of paper as it finally clicked as I shouted “That can’t be it! I mean he has too… there has to be…” I tried to grab my hair with my hooves as I nearly screamed in frustration “Okay… just think… maybe it’s a message referring to the Elements of Harmony wielders being in Canterlot… or that I should go out and check the Tree of Harmony or warn Celestia about the possible progress the plunder vines may have grown without her knowledge.”

I started to pace as I talked to myself “Or is there a second part of the message buried by the tree of harmony filling me in on the rest of the details to make sure nobody read the letter before hand and destroyed it?”

I groaned as I wished that Lockheart was still here if only to ask what did he mean in that letter and why he sent it to me of all people!

I shook my head “I need to see if Stardust or Valkyrie received a letter.”

Author's Note

Another chapter up. Let me know if I missed anything.

Train Ride

Swift Wing

Swift woke up as he scanned his surroundings looking for his captor. To his surprise he saw a rather tired looking griffin who was leaning up against a tree. He didn’t seem to have any real weapons or armor on him as he was currently taking a sip from his canteen muttering “I never should have left Canterlot much less try doing this insane task.”

Swift Wing moved his talons to his side and was surprised as he quickly found his old sword nearby next to the rest of his belongings. Swift quickly retrieved his sword before grabbing his would be captor by the back of his head and pressing his blade against the unknown griffin’s neck.

“Please don’t kill me!” the unknown griffin shouted in panic.

Swift spoke in a threatening tone “What is going on?”

The griffin chuckled nervously as he replied “Oh Swift? Oh thank goodness you’re not a changeling.”

Swift applied more pressure as the blade cut through one of the griffin’s feathers as he repeated “What is going on.”

The last thing he could remember was being drugged by a griffin client who actually wasn’t a griffin. Waking up in the middle of a forest with no idea how he got here made him a bit paranoid at the moment.

The other griffin tried to shrug “You went missing. Brass was angry and Luke gave the order to abandon you as he prepared to move on with the original plan.”

Swift slowly nodded as he heard something rustle in the bushes “What happened to me?”

The other griffin chuckled nervously “Changelings got you. Apparently Gaichu decided that she should be the one being given the Elements of Harmony… and you were held hostage.”

Swift turned behind him as two feral changelings lunged out of the woods getting ready to attack. He quickly moved in step ducking beneath their heads and swinging the sword cleaving their heads off in one swift movement.

The other griffin stared in shock for a moment before saying “Oh Fudgemuppet.”

More branches started to break as the feral changelings were moving in. The other griffin quickly grabbed the bag full of supplies before motioning for Swift to follow. Both of them ran through the forest trying to not make any noise as the ferals continued to chase them.

All questions from Swift’s mind were discarded as he focused on his current threat. After a couple of minutes of running the other griffin leaned against a tree taking another big sip from his canteen before pulling out what looked like a piece of rock candy and popped it into his mouth.

The griffin glanced at him before replying “Thirsty?”

Swift took the water canteen before taking a small sip. He swished it around in his mouth a little trying to make sure it didn’t have any funny tastes considering the last thing he remembered was a tainted mug of ale.

Only after confirming it was just plain water he gulped some of it down and replied “So who are you?”

The griffin hung his head as he muttered “Of course you don’t know. I mean I just figured you would, but I guess I’m not important enough.”

Swift studied the new griffin as he looked like a standard griffin. The back end of his body was more of a dark gray as his upper half was covered in gray feathers. The highlighted feathers around his eyes were green.

The griffin rolled his eyes as he replied “It’s William… the guy with the supplies? You still have no freaking clue who I am. Do you?”

Swift tried to remember if he had ever seen this griffin before, but he didn’t look familiar. Still the odd name must have meant he was an adventure... or flat out lying.

William sighed “Okay then… how do I tell if you’re a changeling?”

Swift hissed loudly “I’m not a changeling!” he was not falling for this trick again.

William hissed back “And I just grabbed the first griffin in a pod and ran as fast as I could! I just help deliver supplies… not some sort of Secret Service Rescue Squad or something.”

Swift took a deep breath as he had to check if this was another trap “How do I know that you’re not a changeling?”

William raised one of his eyebrows as he deadpanned “Really? How about the fact you’re not in a stick green pod.” Swift continued to stare at him before he sighed “Fine… Brass’s menu is broken. How many other people know that little detail?”

Swift shook his head “What are you…”

William groaned “Brass told me to tell you that her menu was broken and that was because Remedy Cross introduced a bit of chaos magic messing up the entire system and making him have a gender swap to her new current form. If you don’t trust where I lead than then how about I follow you and just let you take us to wherever it is you want to go to?”

Swift stared at the other griffin “Just like that?”

William sighed as he face palmed “Or I go back to base empty handed and have Brass demanding what happened which will properly end poorly for me. Besides if you really are changeling than you would have no idea where how to go back to base and that I should ditch you in the middle of the night just to ensure you don’t try to stuff me in a pod.”

Swift felt one of his eyes twitch as he said “That’s your reason?”

“That or Luke gets angry at me for following Brass’s orders only to top everything off with the fact I didn’t bring you back to ensure that nobody knows how to get back to the base.” William retorted back to him “So where shall we go crazy paranoid one?”

Swift glanced back at the forest as he could hear the feral changelings trying to find them again. He didn’t trust William right now, but he had lost an uncertain amount of time… was drugged in the middle of a bar… and now feral changelings were after him as Gaichu wanted the remaining Elements of Harmony all for herself.

Swift closed his eyes as he knew of one place he could safely go to without compromising anyone. He was still a little bit paranoid right now, but he couldn’t let it interfere with his job. If he went to his uncle that he could inform him about the new time table. If William was lying then let’s see how he would deal with an entire city full of griffins.

Besides this was his best chance to get to someplace safe if his new griffin ally was just another changeling in disguise who just had freed him from nearly being stuffed in a green cocoon by feral changelings. It was for this very reason that Swift really hated psychological mind games.

At least as a sell sword his objectives were simple. There's the enemy. Take care of them.

“Follow me.” Swift replied as he made sure he was the one carrying the only weapon they had.

William nodded “Alright Mr. Swift!”

Hopefully he would be able to figure out the truth before they arrived in Iron Claw… or figure out a way to lose his escort.

******

Steel Halberd

Steel glanced at Valkyrie as he didn’t know what to say. Back at the hospitable it had been easy. She was injured… the where other people always nearby and he just tried to bring her back up to date on what she had missed.

Now she had just gotten out of the hospitable as various bandages covered her body. She could walk just fine, but the doctors insisted that the bandages stay for a few more days and that she didn’t wear her armor while they were on.

Now it was just kept to him, Valkyrie and Lily…

“Get a hold of yourself Steel.” He muttered in the back of his mind “You went to Lily for advice as you tried to understand Valkyrie’s past. They were friends and if Valkyrie’s roommate was able to figure out that you had a crush on Valkyrie…”

He sighed as he had mixed feelings about that. On one hoof he was told by a race that feed on love that he cared for Valkyrie more than a normal friend or comrade. The only problem was that he didn’t know what to say to Valkyrie right now.

A bell rang above Steel forcing him to return to reality as they entered his sister’s shop. He also suddenly realized that Valkyrie had already been whisked away by his sister without his knowledge. Lily was currently sitting in one of the nearby seats as she was staring at a few of the dresses in curiosity.

Steel took a deep breath as he tried to keep it simple. All he had to do was simply ask a simple question. If she said yes then he could simply let Valkyrie get transferred over to another division or group and try to take her out on a date. If she said no then hopefully they could still be friends… easy right?

Steel started to pace as he thought about it some more. Was asking her how she felt about him too soon? He had time to figure out the emotions he had towards her and she been stuck as a statue during that entire period of time. Should he wait a week or two to ask… did she like some other stallion? How did she feel about Lockheart? Maybe he should…

The curtains flew open as Jade spoke out loud “I told you I could get a dress right for you!”

Valkyrie was blushing like mad as Steel felt his face burn up a little. It was a simple sundress… cut to look very nice to emphasize the curves on her body. Jade Pin also managed to keep the fabric away from her legs so she could run freely. To finish it off a pair of saddlebags with a sunflower design etched into them rested right where her cutie mark should have been giving her a very innocent look.

Sure Valkyrie wasn’t wearing her armor when she left the hospitable… but the bandages kind of stood out in the same way her armor covered up her body. The dress covered up the bandages revealing a rather attractive and nervous young mare instead of a pony that just got out of a fight with a manticore.

Jade looked at Steel for only a moment before for a sadistic grin to appear on her face “I’m glad that you also think that it looks good on her.”
Steel suddenly realized he was standing instead of sitting down or with his back against something as his wings were stretched out. He felt his face burn up as Valkyrie kind of caught him by surprise. He quickly prayed to Princess Celestia lower the sun or somehow make it dark before…

He promptly face hoofed as Valkyrie blushed as she looked away from him. Of all the things she had to know about Equestrian culture… she had to know that. Steel had his wings return to his sides as he felt embarrassed like burring his head like an ostrich.

Jade spoke up as she loved every single second of this disaster as she continued “Let’s check out the other dresses and see how they fit!”

Valkyrie tried to speak up “I’m good with just the…” she never got to finish her sentence as Jade pulled her into the changing room as a rack full of dresses suddenly flew towards the changing room.

Steel shook his head as he promptly replied “Valkyrie… I knew thee well.”

His sister had that sparkle in her eyes and Valkyrie wouldn’t escape her sights until all the dresses have been used. It was going to take a while.

Time slowly passed by in slow and unique way that could only be seen or experienced by those who waited for those last few minutes on the clock to end so that they would be done with work… or by any male gender of a species that was stuck waiting in a seat as two females continued to talk about things not meant for male ears while various dresses would be put through the test.

The door opened up as Steel sighed wishing something would come to break up the dull moment and help him focus on something other than trying to figure out how to ask Valkyrie how she felt about him… or some crazy plan to try to invite her on a date just too simply test the waters.

Currently his plan somehow involved a group meeting where most of the ponies would suddenly not arrive or call in sick leaving them both together to… do water polka. He groaned as he tried to think of something else. Going to the tavern run by Maxwell would be a good idea… but as just two friends. Of course the 'sort of date’ would turn into a group outing.

There was the beach… but how would he come up with a reason for why nopony else came? He needed something to help easily test the waters before simply asking…

“How are you Steel Halberd?” a voice spoke right beside him.

Steel turned his head muttering “I…”

He stared as he just realized that either life had a funny sense of humor… or Discord had decided to take up request as Princess Celestia stood right beside him. His eyes shrunk to the size of pin pricks as surely enough there were two Solar Guard ponies standing watch outside the shop as Princess Celestia had decided to visit.

******

Valkyrie

Dress after dress was shoved on me as I felt like I was stuck in the department store as a little kid with my mom again. Don’t get me wrong I did like some of the dresses, but I had learned a long time ago that I was on the average side of cute.

Jade pulled out what looked like a red slinky dress and smiled “So what do you think of my brother?”

I felt my face light up as I shook my head “Why are you asking me that?”

Jade shrugged as she checked on a white version of the same dress “Because he is my brother?”

I took a deep breath as I tried to explain myself “He’s a nice guy… I just screwed up.”

There was a pause for a few seconds before she replied “In what way?”

I hung my head as I tried to figure out the right words for it. I could feel my body starting to ache as the pain killers subsided, but I didn’t want to take another pill and act a little bit loopy… or have less control over my own emotions.

I sat down on the on the seat and sighed “I underestimated the pony who apparently… turned me into a lawn ornament for a couple of weeks. Steel Halberd sent me away from fighting the giant crazy fire gecko monster as he played the role of bait.”

She stared at me in confusion asks she asked “That’s what you’re talking about?”

I shook my head “I’m faster, stronger, I can even take more blows than he can. He would have died if Celestia hadn’t come in at the last second to save him! Why didn’t he just send me to play the role of bait? Did he think I was too arrogant… that I had let my strength go to my head or…”

Jade placed a hoof on my shoulder and sighed “My brother has the most experience in playing the role of ‘bait’ as you call it. He sent you down to the tunnels because he believed you were the best pony to send down there if anything happened.”

I glanced at the curtains as I felt myself start to feel nervous “It’s just… whenever something big happens it just seems like… I’m in the way.”

Jade gave me a hug as she softly replied “You’re scared… nervous. You had a possible brush with death and only now are you letting the stress of the traumatic moment affect you. You should have seen Steel after the mission…”

I bit my lip a part of me just felt awful… The Everfree Forest? Remedy was a bigger help to the party than me. Lockheart saved us from the trap and Maxwell managed to stop the crazy bug queen. Coming to Canterlot… I wasn’t of any use. Now Lockheart has suddenly gone missing and I’m being placed on the sidelines because of my injuries from my latest screw up.

Jade sat right down next to me as she continued “He talked about your strength… how you never seemed to falter in the Everfree Castle despite all the horrors around you.”

“That’s different.” I slowly muttered back “Stardust was in trouble and we needed to save her.”

Jade smiled as she softly replied “But not any pony would have jumped onto that stage just to save somepony they didn’t know from being turned into a puppet.”

I shook my head as I tried to argue “I was foolish… If I was a bit more level headed or…”

Jade had promptly placed a hoof in my mouth as she groaned “You’re a good mare. You are brave… the others look up to you for courage when things get rough. If you want to talk about reckless actions than you should be complaining to Steel as he should have just waited for Celestia to deal with Emberess. He should have evacuated the nearby areas instead of trying to lead the ancient villain into a massive trap.”

Jade’s magic wrapped itself around me forcing me to stand as she continued “As for Brass? She tricked you with an underhoof trick. Next time you run into her you will know she fights dirty and you’ll be prepared for her to try some other type of nasty trick.”

I shook my head as a small smile came to my face “Thanks Jade.”

She nodded apparently happy with her work “Just remember that you have friends who care about you Valkyrie.” She grinned as she grabbed the curtains with her magic “Now let’s see how they like this dress!”

Jade opened up the curtains with a large smile on her face only for her to stand there as a slight… squeak left her mouth. I opened up the curtains a little bit more to see what was going on as I saw Celestia standing in the room with two royal guards standing outside.

I glanced at Jade in confusion “Why is Celestia standing inside your shop?”

Jade blinked as she slowly whispered back “Why is Celestia standing inside my shop?”

Celestia tilted her head as she spoke out loud “Am I not allowed to visit?”

“No! I mean yes… I mean no to the question and yes to the visit…I mean” Jade spoke in a flustered panic before throwing up her hooves in the air and begging for mercy “I don’t know what to say!”

Celestia smirked as she wasn’t bothered by Jade’s sudden panic from realizing that Celestia was standing inside her shop… and I think the Solar Princess was enjoying the shocked reactions by everyone in the room. Steel looked as if he was about to have a heart attack as Lily was doing her best to stay calm.

Celestia looked over to me as she said “I need to talk to you Valkyrie.”

And that’s when the shock of Celestia visiting finally hit me. Oh dear god what did I do? Were there some questions about what I knew about Lockheart or anything that I might have know about his sudden disappearance? Did somebody finally tell everyone we’re actually human?

I mean I felt like say something… but there never seemed to be a good time to say it… not to mention Discord wanted me to say it which was probably a bad idea. Wait was it the fact that he told me to tell Celestia in an attempt to make me not tell Celestia about it or was it…

“Valkyrie calm down and take a few deep breaths.” Celestia spoke out loud “You are not in trouble as I just needed to ask a favor of you.”

I tried to stand tall as I waited to see what she wanted. Celestia stared at me for a few moment either figuring out how to phrase her request… or making sure I had calmed down long enough to actually listen to her request.

Celestia took a deep breath as she said “I need you, Steel Halberd, Remedy Cross and Midnight Vixen to go to New Terra.”

I think my brain broke as I must have heard that wrong “Where?”

Celestia spoke in a calming tone “A large group of ponies and races that suddenly found themselves lost in Equestria like you have set up a town in the badlands.”

I coughed as I didn’t know what to say.

Celestia continued “I had plans to send Lockheart to help… open a dialog, but as you know he has suddenly gone missing.”

I feel back on my rump as I said “Shouldn’t you send a diplomat… or a…”

Celestia placed a hoof on my shoulder “I know it’s a big task but there have been strange reports in the area. They do not want a pony to talk out terms of trade or opening a dialog. They want somepony who understands what they’re going through and to see if they can figure out what is causing the odd disturbances in the place they have set up.”

Celestia looked a little bit sad as she said “I would go there myself… but I want to be ready in case something happens here or if any news of Lockheart comes. I know it sounds a little bit selfish asking you as soon as you got out especially on short notice…”

“I’ll go.” I quickly replied “I mean all I’m going to be doing is just simply taking a train down there and then walking the rest of the way by hoof.”

Celestia shook her head “You will be trying to help deal with any panic the town might be dealing with. If things look like they are getting out of control that let me know right away.”

Celestia left the room as she flew back to her castle just as my legs gave out leaving me a sprawled out on the floor. I wasn’t even out of the hospitable for an entire day and I was being shipped off to a human run town to figure out what was going bump in the middle of the night.
Should I be worried that I’m not surprised at these turn of events?

******

Remedy Cross

Remedy Cross stood by the train station in frustration as the letter Lockheart had left her still burned in the back of her mind. It was your standard goodbye letter as he thanked her for her services and gave her a small piece of advice before trying to leave a note ensuring she would keep her new status… or an apology if she was punished or demoted when he left Canterlot.

At first she was enraged as a few pieces of furniture had not survived her initial outburst… Did he really think that she only got close to him or was even nice to him because he might have been an alicorn? That she was trying to use him in some crazy stupid politic scheme?

After she calmed down she read it again as he didn’t want his departure from Canterlot to harm anypony he cared about. That made things a little bit easier on her, but it still didn’t excuse the fact he still thought so… so little about them. Once Lockheart left Canterlot they were supposed to simply shrug and forgot about him? Move on with their lives?

She gritted her teeth as she bitterly muttered “Oh keeping up with us would be too much… we’re not allowed to send you letters or keep in contact with you simply because you got fed up with a bunch of idiots?”

The rags throwing out insults enraged her. Oh Celestia did her best to disband them… but she thought Remedy’s method was too extreme as she simply wanted it to make it illegal to print slander against Lockheart until he returned. Not this simple break up where official companies couldn’t print these worthless rags. She wanted to have the culprits that were caught to be thrown in jail for even attempting to sell those papers. That would certainly get the message across to the general public and stop any other idiots from trying to do the same!

Remedy Cross wanted Celestia to make it crystal clear that no one was allowed to continue this bad press against him! Maybe then Lockheart would finally get over his… extremely low expectations of Equestria and simply see that this country wasn’t like all the backwater rejects that couldn’t pull their own muzzles out of their…

“Remedy is that you?” a voice called out.

Remedy sighed as she turned to face the mare her interrupted her train of thought “Vixen… What are you doing here?”

The night guard pony rubbed the back of her head as she replied “I could ask you the same thing.”

The unicorn groaned as she pulled her bags together “I angered the Solar Princess so now my talents are being needed elsewhere.”

Midnight tilted her head to the side “You mean you were also assigned to helping check on the situation in New Terra?”

Remedy rolled her eyes “I’d say it’s more likely I was assigned to stop being so vocal about my opinions in Canterlot.”

The bat pony chuckled “Well you did nearly bite somepony’s head off when they tried searching for any clues on where Lockheart might have went to.”

Remedy shook her head “No I was against rummaging through his belongs and nearly packing up everything he owned. Celestia says he went missing. I say something happened and Celestia is trying to keep quiet about the whole affair.”

Midnight looked at her in disbelief as Remedy continued “First we have the unknown monster that attacked during the first few days Equestria had all of these travelers suddenly appear. The creature was after a locked box on a train. The second creature that appears suddenly tries to steal something from Canterlot Castle. Now a third creature appears and Lockheart goes missing.”

Midnight hung her head “Do you think Lockheart actually had something to do with it?”

Remedy Cross snorted “That’s baseless rumors created from uneducated self entitled idiots who would still think the world was flat if Celestia didn’t constantly remind them that the world is round. No it’s more likely that Lockheart was the pony fillynapped when the monster attacked as Celestia was unable to catch up to it or he chased after the monster in an attempt to retrieve what had been stolen.”

Remedy stomped her hoof on the ground “That makes a whole lot more sense than those idiotic rumors floating about. My concern is what happens when he comes back only to find out how stupid the rest of Equestria seemed to have become. Do you think he will even want to be here much less expect Equestria to be any better than all the other various nations he ran away from after hearing what they are claiming he did?”

The unicorn sighed as she was tired and a little bit cranky. She fell back against her various bags of luggage as she expected to be dumped in some backwater town they just “found” off in the middle of nowhere while the other grown brats of Canterlot continued throwing their hissy fit until Celestia found their pacifiers and shook something shiny in front of their faces. Then Remedy could return back to Canterlot and be forced to go with the new status quo.

“Did the letter that Lockheart left for you make any sense?” Midnight replied much to Remedy’s irritation.

Remedy grumbled “Did he send you one?”

Midnight pulled out her letter with one of her wings “Of course he sent me one…” She hesitated as she glanced at her “Did he not leave a letter behind for you?”

Remedy’s eye twitched as she snapped her head towards the other mare “Of course he sent one to me! He left a letter to me… but what was he even thinking when he wrote it.”

She slowly got back on her hooves as she eyed Midnight Vixen “What message did he leave for you?”

Yes Midnight Vixen was his flight instructor in the same way that Remedy Cross was his magic instructor for when Celestia was busy… which tended to happen a lot as she was tasked in helping Lockheart relearn the basics of unicorn magic.

There was a perfectly valid and reasonable response for just why he sent the Thestral a letter. It was probably an apology or an attempt to ensure that Midnight’s position wasn’t harmed if anything happened to him. That’s what she reminded herself as one of her hooves kept pawing against the ground like a bull getting ready to charge.

Midnight nodded her head “The usual… I mean he wanted to make sure that any funding he had left would continue to help the Night Guard. He also wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be demoted or for anything bad to happen to me as he tried to leave an apology to me if something did happen.”

Midnight slowed down as she looked at the ground “It was my job to protect him… to look out for him and… I don’t even know what happened to him. The night he went missing he was left with Emerald Spear and Sparrow watching over his quarters. I should have asked or make sure a patrol went past his window more often… or…”

She shook her head as she wiped tears from her eyes “It’s like he knew something bad would happen to him… that he was expecting it to happen and I… we wouldn’t be there to help him out… that none of us would even be able to help him.”

Remedy frowned as she felt horrible. Here she was getting angry at her own situation only to not realize that this… disaster was tearing up Midnight. The unicorn doctor placed a hoof around the bat pony as she tried to comfort her.

A part of her felt better as she wasn’t the only pony who wasn’t happy with Lockheart’s sudden disappearance… and yet a part of her didn’t like this. She didn’t like Midnight crying as she dug her face into Remedy’s shoulder as the bat pony felt guilty about Lockheart’s disappearance.

Remedy’s annoyance was probably the snot and tears being stuck in her mane… that was properly it.

Once Midnight removed her head and stopped crying she meekly apologized “Sorry about…”

“It’s okay…” Remedy Cross lied through her teeth “I’m just… I’m just happy you are not like those self entitled bone heads in the castle.”

Midnight covered her mouth as her eyes went as wide as dinner plates “You did not just say…”

Remedy rolled her eyes “I’m a unicorn so it doesn’t count as Tribalist. So any clue about who else is joining us on our exile cruse?”

Midnight turned her back as she pointed at the other two ponies who just came into view. The pegasus Valkyrie walked towards the station as she was still wrapped in bandages. She was properly being sent in an attempt to send her out on a harmless mission while she tried to recover from her injuries. Steel Halberd was also coming along to ensure that nothing bad happened to Valkyrie and so that he didn’t bring any personal grudges if they found Brass or any of the other criminals responsible for the Tartarus breakout incident.

Remedy got onto the train as she refused to listen to whatever half hearted speech Celestia had prepared on sending them out into the middle of nowhere for 'diplomatic purposes'. If that was the real reason for this ‘mission’ than she would have them escort a noble or some other pony gifted in the arts of politics.

Remedy walked onto the train cart as she prepared herself for the long trip ahead of her.

******

Valkyrie

The train ride was a little bit stressful as nothing seemed to happen to the train itself, but you could almost feel the pressure building up in the room. Remedy Cross looked like she was ready to bite someone’s head off. Midnight seemed to have a cloud of gloom around her that she was trying to recover from. Steel just seemed to keep twitching in his seat as he didn’t have anything to say.

Then after sitting around in silence for an entire day the train broke down mid way to our destination as the conductor apologized “Sorry for the delay, but we are currently trying to get the boiler to cool down.”

That just had a series of groans reside from the room as it was hot. I looked up at the skies as ponies were struggling to get things dealt with as they were trying to convince the earth ponies on their crew to help pull the train to the next refuel station.

I could hear a few of them grumbling about the heat as I think I understood why it took so long for Equestria to expand out in certain areas. Ponies had the mastery over weather which left them to be a little bit helpless against normal weather conditions.

I heard Steel muttered out loud “Ninety Eight degrees… why in Celestia’s name would anypony want to live in this type of heat?”

Remedy groaned “Just wait till we get to the badlands where you can have it one hundred and five degrees by mid-day and a chilling fifty or possibly twenty five degrees at night.”

Everyone shook their heads at the thought of it. I wasn’t happy about it either, but I also was kind of expecting it. Earth didn’t have any magical ponies setting up weather schedules as we were forced to make due with the current weather we got… and we also learned to make air-conditions systems.

I looked at Remedy as I couldn’t help but ask “Is there any reason why you can’t cast a cooling spell or something?”

Remedy stared at me as if I was an idiot “That’s like asking you three don’t make it cooling. Also my magic is focused more towards medical applications than weather spells.”

Midnight nodded “Also some of the ponies in Dodge Town might not like it.”

“Doge Town… not Dodge City?” I asked out loud as the comment took me off guard.

Midnight nodded “It’s just a starting settlement made up by a group of earth ponies. They are trying to use some of the weather from the Hayseed swamp to deal with the heat and slowly convert the place to be connected to the Equestrian Weather System, but some of their setbacks had caused the town to be abandoned before having new ponies move in.”

Steel pointed a hoof into the air “Humid swamp with monsters right rest near an arid climate. There are some ponies who just simply use the town to get to Hayseed Swamp and try to live 'going it alone' or something.”

I shook my head “That’s crazy…”

Midnight chuckled “Not really. The climate is stable for most of the year so you do not need any pegasi to regulate the weather. Nopony really owns any of the property and while there are dangerous creatures living out there all you really need is a sturdy wall to keep most of them out.”

I face hoofed as I couldn’t help but ask “Then why don’t we simply go through there instead of taking a train through the desert?”

Steel sighed “Because most of the 'settlements' are just small communities that don’t tend to last long. The ones that are made tend to be made by Tribalist jerks who are trying to claim or “show” that their race is the best. In the end most of them simply head back to Dodge Junction and return to Equestria trading their tribalist belief for an area not infested with wild animals, monsters, and bugs. The heat may suck, but you will not be bitten to death by thousands of tiny little bugs.”

I couldn’t help but smirk “So I take it you had a tour of duty there?”

Remedy chuckled as she pulled out a small paper fan “When the guard is sent to Hayseed Swamp it’s when something bad happens and while it may seem a bit out of the way having a train travel through this unpopulated area… Celestia does have meetings with the Buffalo tribes in the nearby areas as the rest stop ahead is where the buffalos inform Celestia of any problems they have when they feel like it.”

I caught the last part of that sentence “I take it they’ve caused some problems before?”

Steel grunted “If a group tries to set up a settlement near one of their Stampeding Grounds you may get a chieftain who simply decides to stampede through the settlement instead of simply warning them or letting Celestia know about the problem.”

I nodded as I saw the low demand for this part of Equestria. Natural and very hot weather combined with buffalo stampedes where certain chiefs may not simply tell ponies where their Stampeding grounds are as they simply plow straight through the town.

The train started moving again as the conductor came into the room “We are back on track now.”

Everyone nodded as he left the room as they were about to go back to their silent corners of the room. Maybe the heat was finally getting to me but I couldn’t take it anymore.

“So what’s wrong with everyone?” I asked out loud as they all stared at me as if I was insane. “Look everyone seemed to be cheering up when we were complaining and I am not going to simply just sit in this hot room while everyone goes back to secluding themselves in their own personal grumpy corners of the room so let’s continue talking!”

Everyone just averted their eyes as they were nervous. I sighed as despite popular belief ponies were not better at handling their emotions than humans were. Ponies simply had a different set of methods and flaws when dealing with their emotions where they could be just as idiotic if not worse than humans.

Remedy was the first to speak up “I’m kind of frustrated at Equestria in general. Lockheart goes missing and after trying to show that Equestria is different than all those places he fled from… they are still just as stupid as the ponies he ran from.”

Midnight sighed “I’m not even sure if I’m being sent on this mission to help protect everypony of if Celestia is upset at me. I was supposed to protect Lockheart and I have no idea what happened to him on the night he disappeared.”

I nodded my head “Alright what about you Steel and don’t say everything is fine as you look as if you're sitting on a bunch of splinters.”

Remedy chuckled as she bluntly replied “He has a crush on you and he doesn’t know if he should say anything.” Something in my brain just broke as I tried to comprehend what she just said. “He was really upset after you were turned to stone and now that you're better he’s been trying to think of the right moment to talk to you, but he can’t help but wonder if a relationship would even work.”

I stared at him in confusion “What?”

Steel’s feathers seemed to be puffed out a little as his face was red “I admit that I do like you… but…”

I shook my head “I’m to rash? I don’t think things through?”

Steel quickly shook his head as he blurted out “You still miss your home and I’m not exactly sure if you want to stay in Equestria. I mean Princess Celestia has been trying to figure out how all of you suddenly fell to Equestria and if she found some way to reverse whatever spell took place…”

I was left speechless as I didn’t even know that Celestia was trying to figure out the spell that sent us all here. I mean it makes sense and she properly hasn’t have had a lot of time due to all the other immediate problems, but just hearing about it somehow makes things different.

Steel looked down at the floor as he continued “I also thought it might be bad to suddenly ask you how you felt… right after you recovered. I tried asking Lilly for some advise…”

I planted my face into my seat and muttered out loud “Let’s go back to awkward silence while my brain reboots.”

I had a pony that was attracted to me who was a nice guy… and I didn’t know what counted as attractive to ponies as my tastes in dating were still geared more towards humans than ponies. I’m not even sure what dating would account to or… Why did you suddenly disappear Lockheart and leave me with this confusing mess?

If you didn’t disappear one night than I would be stuck on this train trying to figure out what just happened simply because you…

“Is the reason why you’re both upset because the two of you like Lockheart?” I asked the other two mares in the room. I saw their flustered reactions at my sudden comment.

Steel seemed a little bit disheartened as he replied “Do you like him?”

I shook my head as I wasn’t able to switch topics “I just see him as a friend I can talk to… honestly… I haven’t really dated or even thought about dating before I came to Equestria or even after I arrived. I mean I’m not really… attractive.”

All the ponies in the room stared at me as if I was insane as Midnight spoke up “Uh… just what counts as attractive from where you come from?”

I rolled my eyes “I’m average. I’m not one of the girls who wears a ton of makeup or likes dresses. I’m average in the sense that you could properly find a lot more attractive girls who actually put work in their image. As for dating while I had a few friends who were also guys… and that was it. I mean they were nice guys, but not exactly people you would want to spend every day with.”

Remedy held up a hoof as she replied in shock “Hold up… so let me get this straight. You see yourself as average and most of the guys you ran into were alright… but not somepony you could talk with normally.”

I rubbed the back of my head “Besides no one really has… asked me out on a date before.” I heard something fall as I looked at Steel in confusion “What happened to him?”

Midnight shook her head “Just realizing how odd the world works sometimes… but seriously not one pony or maybe a griffin?”

I felt my wings moving to cover my face as I meekly replied “None.”

******

Steel Halberd

Steel groaned as he slowly woke up. The room was almost empty as Remedy was sitting in her corner of the room reading a book. Valkyrie and Midnight had temporarily disappeared for the moment.

Steel glanced at Remedy as he spoke out loud “What did I miss?”

He had the craziest dream that he…

“Valkyrie found out you were attracted to her. She was surprised as she had never been asked out on a date.” Remedy Cross replied as she turned a page in her book “Also she thought she was average or below average as what you said kind of threw her off balance.”

Steel was about to argue about Remedy simply blurting out her he felt until what she said reached his brain “Below average… she thinks she’s…”

“She was never asked out on a date before as you are the first pony who let her know that you were interested in her.” Remedy replied with ease “Maybe she has self-esteem issues, but she didn’t know how to react as she left in a nervous fluster as Midnight tried to give her some advice.”

Steel sat back down in his seat as he felt odd. Technically Valkyrie didn’t say no as she is trying to figure out if she wants to try having a relationship. While the timing could have been a lot better this was not the worst case scenario.

Steel glanced at Remedy as he replied with a hint of unease “So she’s talking to Midnight Vixen?”

Remedy shrugged “She wanted somepony to talk to and considering you passed out that left me or Midnight since her usual mare friends are not here.”

Steel slowly nodded as he couldn’t help but groan “And now things are going to be awkward between us during this entire mission.”

Remedy snorted as she shook her head “We are just being sent out here to be out of Celestia’s mane. If there really was something important going on she would have…”

The train shook for a moment as they looked outside. The ponies had stopped pulling the train cart as they had reached the refuel station, but the force that shook the train had landed right in front of them. Steel had dealt with dragons before as they varied from dragon to dragon. Some were friendly and easy to talk to. Some were thick headed and refused to budge an inch and of course some were colossal plot holes.

The large brass colored dragon stared at the train as he could easily take one of the train carts and fly off adding it to his horde. Hopefully this wasn’t a dragon in a hoarding mode as you needed an entire squadron to deal with them. The ponies on the train were in a slight panic at seeing the dragon land in front of them either fearing for their lives or more likely their valuables.

Steel grabbed his weapons as he left the train cart and prepared to see what was going on.

To his surprise the dragon noticed him and said “Can you let the group from Canterlot who’s going to the badlands know their transportation has arrived?”

Steel slowly down as he stared at the dragon in confusion and said “What?”

Valkyrie and Midnight Vixen both made it outside the train as they stared at the dragon trying to figure out what to do. To their surprise the dragon scratched the back of his head as he said “The train was supposed to stop somewhere near here or near Doge town and I’m supposed to pick them up and fly them over to New Terra.”

Valkyrie was the first to recover as she spoke up in disbelief “You’re an adventure?”

To their shock the dragon tapped his chest with a fist as he cheerfully replied “You can call me Peter.”

Steel stared at the dragon as… Peter didn’t sound like a normal dragon name. In fact this entire situation seemed abnormal. There had been adventure diamond dogs, griffins, sirens, and bug ponies, but apparently there was a dragon added to the mix? I mean sure there were rumors as one claimed there was a penguin in a tuxedo that was an adventure... but no one actually believed those stories.

Peter rolled his eyes as he stepped away from the train “Sorry about the rough landing… so is this the train or did I arrive early… or late?”

Steel shook his head as I replied “Just wait one moment while we… get our items.”

Peter nodded as he stood off to the side nearby what looked like a small train cart… only without any wheels. Steel headed back into the train cart as Remedy Cross stared at the dragon outside also apparently confused at what just happened.

Steel glanced over to Valkyrie as he replied “So… should we continue on course or take the dragon express?”

Valkyrie shrugged “I’d say take the dragon express… unless dragons have made it a habit of asking ponies to follow them before locking them away in their caves to count the dragon’s horde or something.”

Midnight rubbed one of her forelegs “It’s a choice between having a dragon fly us to New Terra or renting a cart and going there by hoof.”

Remedy just continued to stare at the dragon outside “They sent a dragon to meet us?”

Steel sighed as he bluntly stated out loud “Apparently this isn’t going to be an easy mission if a dragon was picked to be our escort.”

Remedy closed her eyes as she knew what Steel Halberd meant by that. Steel also began to wonder just what exactly they were getting into. While he didn’t like simply trusting a random dragon that suddenly appeared to take them to their destination… he did have to admit that it was properly the best course of action.

If the dragon was sent to stop them then all he would have to do is simply break the train tracks. If he wanted to capture them then he could simply follow them and grab their train cart or wait until they were traveling by hoof towards the badlands.

On the bright side this meant they wouldn’t have to walk by hoof across the baking sun while they shivered during the freezing cold nights.
Steel nodded to himself as he spoke up “Okay then we just grab our supplies and see just what we got ourselves into.”

Cloudly Nights

Maxwell

I stood inside Stardust’s house as we tried to argue our points. I had received a letter informing me about a possible problem near the Tree of Harmony and something about the other five. The only problem was that we didn’t agree on what the letter meant.

Stardust poured me a cup of tea as I felt a little bit impatient and said “Why not?”

“First of all it’s the Everfree Forest.” Stardust replied as if that answer somehow summed everything up “Secondly… do you realize how vague the whole letter sounds?”

I took a deep breath as I tried to explain “He was trying to keep it secret.”

She rolled her eyes “No names or anything really pertaining to you. It is just a really vague statement with a possible clue leading you out into the middle of the Everfree Forest to do what exactly?”

I shook my head as I guessed out loud “To check on the vines?”

She nodded her head “And didn’t that letter also say not to do something stupid... like checking on up on a set of magical vines without any means to fix it?”

I sighed in frustration as she did have a point. The only way they fixed it in MLP was by putting the Elements of Harmony back into the Tree… and not all of them had been found. Even the few that had been recovered were currently resting with Celestia so unless we had a really convincing argument I doubt she’d just simply hand them over to us.

I rubbed my aching head “Well what do you think the letters meant?”

Stardust pulled out a second letter “Either it is a cryptic message left by Lockheart that would only be revealed when the stars aligned… or it could be a fake.”

She handed the letter over to me as this one wasn’t so much a last will… but more of a get well card.

“While it may not seem like much advice all I can say is that you should just take a look in the mirror. If you are happy with your life than be happy. If you are unhappy then think about your options or why you are upset. Besides someone once told me that “Reality is but an illusion we use to entertain ourselves.” It may not sound like much, but it depends more of the person’s perspective than what others may judge or think.”

I stared at her in confusion “What is this letter saying exactly?”

Stardust smiled as she sipped her cup of tea “I was having… issues. I didn’t know what to do so when I tried talking to Lockheart about it he sent… this.”

I stared at the letter in confusion as I couldn’t understand what was being told. Was there some sort of cipher I was supposed to use or some missing detail that I didn’t know about?

She nodded her head “It sounds kind of weird as I think he was trying to sound really wise and intelligent like Princess Celestia. Still he told me his advice and at the time… It really helped me out.”

I fidgeted in my seat as I really wanted to ask her what the question was about to make sense of the letter… but I wasn’t sure if that would be appropriate.

I handed back her letter “So you think his letters are more like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?”

She tilted her head to the side “What?”

I chuckled as I tried to explain “Oh it’s a book. One group got fed up with the question of life. ‘Why are we here or what’s the meaning of life?’ That sort of stuff… so they built a giant supercomputer to solve it. The computer turned out an answer stating forty two.”

Stardust chuckled as she shook her head “They didn’t like that answer.”

“They really didn’t.” I replied as I shook my head “So the computer told them the answer didn’t make much sense without knowing what the original question was… and without the Ultimate question then the answer wouldn’t make much sense.”

She relaxed in her chair as she sighed “So the letter as one of two possibilities. Either the letter is a fake meaning someone is trying to manipulate us… or it’s the answer to question that has yet to be asked and without the question being said… the answer is useless.”

“That is kind of bleak isn’t it?” I replied as I stared at my own version of a very odd letter “I mean… Celestia sent Valkyrie and the others off on a mission while nothing seems to have happened to us.”

Stardust shook her head “Valkyrie is a member of the Royal Guard along with Steel Halberd and Midnight Vixen. Remedy Cross works for Celestia so it makes sense that she would send them off somewhere. After all technically both of us are civilians who are not a part of Equestria’s military.”

She poured herself another cup of tea “You run a bar helping people adjust to their new lives while I sit in my house trying to mix new chemicals together just to see what makes a bigger boom. So I wouldn’t sell us short.”

I took another sip of her tea as… this felt nice. I should visit her more often… but I just wish that I could simply do something… more. Was that bad of me? I mean here I am in a land full of magic and I just feel a little bit… useless.

She noticed my expression “So how are some of the people you’ve been trying to help?”

I closed my eyes and sighed “Well they’re what you’d expect. Sometimes it feels like I’m trying to herd a group of cats as everyone has their own ideas on what they want to do. I mean the fact that some of the groups in Cloudsdale sent someone to check about wooden planes.”

I shook my head as I figured they would have tried starting with wooden planes before attempt to craft metal ones… but they somehow thought the clouds would fix the weight issue or something. Sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if turning somebody into a pony messed with their ability to use common sense.

Stardust nodded “Do you think that the reason why you’re looking at the letter’s hidden meaning is because you’re feeling a little bit bothered from everything that is happening with your clients?”

I thought about it for a moment as she might have a point. Between some of the random requests why I can find a Java programming expert and not find a civil war re-enactor just to help build guns was a little bit grating. Trying to build a golem was a lot more interesting than sending out requests for someone to try to make old inaccurate riffles when people could shoot fireballs and throw boulders like baseballs.

I shook my head “Why do you seem so calm? I mean you seemed kind of nervous when Valkyrie was cursed. Why aren’t you worried about Lockheart’s disappearance?”

“Yes… but the difference was that I didn’t know what to do when a friend of mine was in trouble.” She carefully replied “Lockheart’s disappearance is a little bit worrying…. But Celestia hasn’t said anything bad so he should be alright. As for the complaints… The public is a fickle beast as I’m sure they’ll all shut up when he returns.”

I felt myself smile as… things really didn’t seem that bad anymore. She smiled as she had helped me out by simply lending me an ear and giving me a small bit of advice. Maybe this was all I really needed… someone to talk to.

“So… are you doing anything tonight?” I asked out of curiosity.

******

I walked around the bar as Pocket Ace chuckled “So you finally asked somepony out?”

“Just a get together…” I softly muttered “Things in Canterlot feel a little bit off and… I just want someone to talk to.”

Pocket Ace nodded as he wagged his eyebrows “Yes you want to talk to the mare. That’s why you’re setting up a private room and making sure the meal is cooked to perfection.”

The griffin chef called Pierre laughed out loud “I will do my best to make this my culinary masterpiece!”

Some of the chefs chuckled as I sighed. I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind if things went that way, but for some reason I just felt a constant nagging feeling on the back of my neck. It felt like I was forgetting something important or that there was some obvious detail that I had yet to realize.

“I have the rest of the day off.” I muttered to myself and looked at Pocket Ace “Do you think it would be a bad idea if we tried just letting the customers know about some of the good things Lockheart has done?”

The stallion chuckled “We can give it a shot, but some of us have been joking about the complaints.”

One of the chiefs shouted “We’re placing bets on seeing if they’re going to blame Lockheart for alien abductions or making the trains run on time!”

One of the other chiefs cheerfully asked out loud “Why is that last on a bad idea?”

The others shouted “Because the trains are never supposed to run on time! Everybody knows that!”

I shook my head as I had no idea where these idiots got their jokes. Personally I blame humanity as we were suckers for bad puns, jokes, and the unique brand of insanity that makes us want to create a food that sets our mouths on fire… and then try to figure out how to make it even hotter.

I turned around and prepared to look for Stardust only to see the problem I had forgotten about. Ivan stared at me with great distaste as I had yet to hear his daily offer before give him his daily rejection. Then he would revealed an actual purpose for the meeting or he left my humble tavern.

I stared at the dirty white stallion “What is it this time?”

He glanced at Pocket Ace with disgust “I was going to suggest you get with the times, but apparently you have let a bad influence affect your judgment.”

Pocket Ace smiled as he replied in a cheerful tone “If I knew doing a bit of PR would tick you off I would have done it weeks ago.”

The two of them glared at each other as I didn’t have time for this. Ivan could come back tomorrow with whatever job offer or complaint he had about this place. Right now I had more important things to deal with as Stardust should be arriving any minute now.

I started to walk away only for Ivan to place a hoof in front of me “We still need to talk Maxwell.”

I gritted my teeth “And I give you my answer every time you come. I don’t know why you seem to act as if Lockheart had dumped a bowl of hot soup all over your lap and while he’s not my favorite person he has done some good.”

“The point is he isn’t an Alicorn.” Ivan stressed “He is a liar and a deceiver…”

“In what way?” Pocket Ace shouted “I don’t mean to be the voice of reason but what is he lying about? He hasn’t accepted the title of Prince as he isn’t claiming to be an alicorn. None of the things he’s done would have really made a difference if you said he was a unicorn or a hippogriff!”

Ivan glared at Pocket Ace “How about you grab whatever garbage you can find while I give you some bits to leave me alone so that I can conduct my business in peace?”

Pocket Ace shook his head “How about you just state your offer or should I go out into the crowd and see if I can’t hire a bouncer to toss you off your high throne and into a garbage can?”

The room felt colder as the two stallions stared at each other as it felt like a fight was about to break out. I stepped in between them as I didn’t like Ivan, but he paid good money. While I did agree with most of Pocket Ace’s comments he didn’t have to be so blunt… especially with that last comment.

Ivan glared at me as he replied “Look just come with me and we can talk about my offer and price is not an issue.”

Pocket Ace flared his nostrils “And you can tell that offer to me as he already had prior arrangements today Ivan. As it turns out you are not the center of the universe.”

I took a deep breath and replied “I have someone else I need to talk to so you can either wait until after I’m done or you can and Pocket Ace can try to be civil with each other and talk about the job offer.”

I stepped out of the room as I had enough of him. Ivan always stressed me out and right now I didn’t want him to be repeating the same song and dance number again.

The idiot had other ideas as he grabbed me said “This is the last time I offer you. Come with me or be left in the dust. You didn’t try gathering up candidates for the Elements of Harmony or going back to fight the one who betrayed you because you wanted a pathetic life of tending to a tavern. You did it because you wanted to be a hero and I doubt that stamp on your flank means your task is to wash dishes and listen to ponies complain.”

I took a deep breath as I stared at him “If you think I charged straight in there because of some wish for glory or some thrill than you are dead wrong.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath “If I was a hero I wouldn’t have fled from the Everfree Castle when Duran went forth with his insane plan.”

Ivan hissed “Gaichu had…”

I shook my head “I knew that person before they went crazy as both of our goals was to just go home. I left because I was terrified and the only reason why I returned was because two people risked their lives to stop something I was too frightened to stand up against!”

I slammed my hoof down “Maybe I helped cut of the bug queen’s horn but I only entered the fight after Lockheart and Valkyrie fought her first. I know I’m a coward… and I do want to help people, but if being a hero means turning my back on the friends I’ve made than I’d rather be a stupid spineless coward who is left in the dust than be a hero!”

I took a deep breath and stared him straight into the eyes “So tell me right here and now what do you want from me?”

Ivan glared at me with disgust as he replied “I wanted someone who wasn’t a fool.”

I smirked as I couldn’t help but reply “Funny how those were the same words she had said to me before turning the Everfree Castle into an insane asylum. I just hope that you don’t blind yourselves like Gaichu did and think the ends justify the means.”

Ivan walked out of the room as I hung my head. I was not going to miss him, but I will miss his money. Pocket Ace looked over thrilled as he couldn’t help but smile. I looked at him as I could see the beads of sweat rolling down his face along with the nearby workers trying to hide what looked like a party banner and a cake.

I rolled my eyes “Yes you can celebrate, but just remember that he might get over his ego and come back tomorrow.”

Pocket Ace and his Equestrian friends laughed as I tried to straighten myself up before taking a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if Stardust thought if we were going to talk or if this was a date… but you know what? I’m going to give it a shot.

I walked into the main room as I spotted Stardust with her sister along with a white unicorn with a long pink mane. I shook my head as apparently they were in the middle of a girl’s night out. I prepared to greet them only to see a look of concern on their faces.

I took a deep breath as I hoped Ivan didn’t make a scene or say anything that could have caused any problems. I mean it would have been petty… but I wouldn’t have put it past him.

Stardust looked at me as she said “There’s someone who wants to talk to you and I think you should listen.”

I sighed “Who is it?”

The floor shook a little as a voice replied “This is pony who can help Yaks?”

I turned to the voice and stared in utter shock at the rather large yak wearing a cloak. My brain temporarily froze as it tried to make sense of what I was seeing.

I mean yaks aren’t supposed to come until after the Crystal Empire returned. Was this just another player who somehow ended up as a yak? I mean… why would a Yak be looking for me instead Princess Celestia or someone else?

The Yak cleared his voice “Sorry Equestrian bad. Not good at many words.”

I slowly nodded my head “Okay… who are you?”

The Yak took a deep breath “Rotifer captain of the scout division. I go to Equestria for problem.”

Stardust looked worried as she replied “You really need to hear what he has to say.”

******

My dinner date was put on hold for now as the Yak stood rested on one of the couches. Pocket Ace put the meals on hold as he had stumbled straight into a wall when he saw that a Yak was inside our building. A mug of ale had been given to him along with a sandwich as it looked like he hadn’t eaten for days.

The Yak had a brown coat and one of those Norse Viking looking beards where he had two long thick brands underneath his chin. While he was as freakishly big as their cartoon counterparts as this Yak seemed twice as big as me… and yet his body looked malnourished leaving more of a raggedy old doll look than a fearsome Viking warrior.

Rotifer made a small bow towards me “Thanks for meal.”

“No problem.” I honestly replied “Just take your time and tell me why you are here.”

Rotifer took a deep breath and said “Black things… Black…” he muttered something that I couldn’t understand as he seemed to grow frustrated “Scroll… Need scroll to show.”

I quickly pulled out a sheet of paper and left a quill and a bottle of ink for him to use.

The Yak bit his lip as I went to grab a piece of charcoal “Things attack Yakyakistan. Attack walls on when light. Yaks go missing at night. They repeat for days.” I came back with the charcoal and placed it by the paper “Snow forced them back. Ran to strike them.”

He sighed as he took the charcoal and made a crude dragging of what looked like a changeling queen with a large tree standing behind her.
I stared at the drawing in fear as Rotifer continued “One leading attacks out in snow. More creatures attack each day. We sent group for allies… I’m only one left.”

An awkward silence filled the air as I didn’t know what to say. I mean the Yaks were asking me for help and the ones that were attacking them were changelings! I didn’t think about what would happen to the Yaks considering the two nations wouldn’t talk until after the Crystal Empire returned. I’m not even sure if I should be surprised that someone was attacking their nation considering they were kind of jerks in MLP.

Rotifer hung his head “Others attacked by things in forest. I was caught until fire happened.”

Stardust took a deep breath “Can you show him the card?”

Rotifer nodded “Strange pony who broke my cage gave me card. Told me find pony to talk to.”

I felt a small chill up my spine “Who was the strange pony?”

Rotifer shrugged “Pony was strange pony. Set creature den on fire. Saw me awake and pulled me over. I told him things attack homeland and needed help. He gave me card and told me to talk to pony.”

I flinched as I had to ask “Black coat? Green mane?”

Rotifer nodded “I talk to you because pony helped free me. I owe pony so I ask pony for help.”

I tried to make sense of what he was trying to say “Why didn’t you ask Celestia.”

Rotifer frowned as he bitterly replied “Sun Pony not allowed back in Yakyakistan. Old King still say keep her out. If Moon Pony go mad than Sun Pony go mad. You pony and pony has coin soldiers. Yak King has coin for coin soldiers.”

“Where were you originally planning to ask for help from then?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Rotifer pulled out a map “Giffin Metal Claw has warriors. If they fight then they fight things that attack. If they want coin than Yak King has coin. Rotifer thanks pony for meal, but can pony help?”

“Give me a moment.” I quickly replied.

I tried to make sense of everything that was happening. Gaichu or another group of players with changelings was attacking Yakyakistan. The Yaks needed help, but they didn’t trust Celestia or they still had a grudge for something that happened when the two nations stopped talking. Right now Rotifer was looking for help as he didn’t want to ask Celestia’s help. He also didn’t care if the soldiers were sellsword mercenaries.

I looked at the Yak and sighed “I can try to help, but I’ll need at least a day to contact some people. I can offer you a room and something to eat until then.”

Rotifer shook his head “Pony gift is nice. Yak can support self.”

I shook my head “Your look like your skin and bones and your Equestrian is a bit… rough. Just use the time to help regain your strength while you try to inform everyone what is happening up north and any other information they need to help your people out.”

Stardust nodded “Are the city’s walls still intact? Is it a siege where the entire city is surrounded or are they just camping outside and trying to starve your city? Do they launch attacks at night or do they simply try infiltrate and abduct one or two Yaks every night? Is it just a single race or are their other races hidden in the group?”

Rotifer stared at Stardust in confusion before looking back at me “Rotifer take gift to prepare talk… can Rotifer also borrow more scroll?”

I sighed in relief “Paper, ink, quill, charcoal, chalk board. The more information we have the easier it’ll be to convince them to join. They want to make sure you know what you’re asking instead of sending them out into the frozen north with no idea where to go.”

Rotifer smiled “Nice to see coin soldiers here know more than swing and hack.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I replied “My coin soldiers have pride in being good soldiers. They just prefer to have more options available to them.”

I got up and escorted the yak out the door as I spotted Pocket Ace “Pocket Ace… our new client has a big job for us. Give him one of the spare rooms with a chalk board with lots of paper and ink.”

The earth pony just nodded as he was still staring at the Yak in shock “Anything else?”

“Get ready to contact anyone who is used to feral exterminations along with anyone who can fight.” I quickly added “I’ll do my best to explain the rest of it tomorrow… and give him supper on the house.”

Pocket Ace nodded “Alright… I’ll show you to your room. Is there anything you would like?”

Rotifer didn’t say anything for a moment “Stew… hot stew.”

Pocket Ace nodded “A bowl of hot stew.”

I watched both of them walk up stairs as I felt Stardust’s unspoken question and to be quite honest… I didn’t know what to do.
She was sitting down as she seemed to be lost in thought as I walked over to her “So what do you think that I should?”

Stardust bit her lip “I think you should tell Celestia… but… Today was supposed to be simple.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle “Yah… any idea how we break this to Celestia?”

She stared at me in confusion “Why are you chuckling?”

I shrugged as life was really strange right now “Well Ivan pestered me for the last time as he left sort of a vague and ominous threat. I made a comment about Gaichu and now a Yak comes to inform me that the very person I was talking about earlier may be attacking his nation.”

I shook my head as I continued “So I don’t know if I should laugh or cry right now. I mean Celestia is going to notice me sending requests out to so many people talking about a bug infestation. Then I’m going to have to deal with explaining to Celestia why I’m gathering all these people and why a Yak went to me instead of her.”

I hung my head “So yes… I really don’t know if I should laugh or cry at this moment.”

Stardust smiled “But you’re still going to try to help.”

I nodded “I’m still going to send word out and try to help. I’m just not looking forward to it.”

Stardust looked at the table where I had a dinner plan only to have it canceled by the recent disaster.

She wrapped a hoof around my neck and asked “Want me to try to get an audience between you and Celestia right now?”

“You can do that?” I asked in genuine shock.

She looked a little bit nervous as she replied “Do you remember the unicorn that came with me?”

The door opened up as Stardust’s sister and her friend came into the room. Once they shut the door in a flash of light Celestia was now standing inside the room as I felt my jaw drop. Why was Celestia in this place? Did she notice the Yak and wanted to know what was going on?

The solar princess stood in front of me and spoke in a soft tone “Thank you for seeing me at this hour Maxwell.”

I nearly coughed as I think I was missing something “Is it about the Yaks because…”

There was a look of concern or possibly embarrassment on her face as she replied “I was the one who rescued him and suggested that he visited this place.”

My ears had heard what she had said, but my brain was trying to process just what exactly she had just said to me. Celestia frowned as her horn glowed for just a moment revealing an illusion of Lockheart…

I shook my head as… I had no idea what to say. I mean… why was Celestia impersonating Lockheart? I mean shouldn’t it be the other way around or was this a changeling impersonating Celestia…

Celestia closed her eyes and in a bright flash… suddenly we were all in her office. Celestia had just teleported everybody in the room to her office just so that she could pick up two objects and open up the door revealing a couple of soldiers.

Celestia smiled as she spoke “If anypony asks tell them I’m in the middle of a meeting.”

The guard nodded as Celestia closed the doors before teleporting us all back to the room we were just in as I stared at her in shock. Now I think I understood the reason for them looking as if they were sitting on pins and needles when I saw them waiting for me.

Celestia glanced back at me “If it would be alright I’d like to have some… privacy talking about my request.”

Stardust and her sister walked out of the room as I was suddenly left alone in the room with Princess freaking Celestia. I’m not sure if this afternoon can get any weirder after this? I had Yak client brought to me from Princess Celestia because she knew the Yak wouldn’t accept her help.

I stared at Celestia and replied “You impersonated Lockheart so that the Yak would talk to you allowing you to send him to me so that I could send people to help him out!”

Celestia nodded her head as she replied “And I have a few ponies that I’d also like to add to your expedition force to help out.”
I felt my heartbeat quicken as I shook my head “But… why did you disguise yourself as Lockheart?”

I saw the proud ruler of Equestria sigh as she hung her head… I mean I knew she was a pony and that stresses can affect her just like everyone else, but… I wasn’t actually expecting to see it myself.

“Because…” Celestia started to say before she paused “Because it was not only the easiest way to help convince your client to visit you… but because it also was my attempt to make up for a past mistake.”

I opened my mouth as I wanted to ask… but kept it shut as it was probably way above my pay grade.

Celestia wore a soft smile on her face as she replied “The short version is that I was young and I didn’t realize just how long a yak could hold a grudge. Still I doubt they would actually accept my help even if their kingdom was on fire.”

I rubbed the back of my head “If you don’t mind me asking… what exactly happened with Lockheart?”

Celestia looked upset for just a moment as she shook her head “We… we had an argument and I was the one that was wrong.” a bitter smile hung over her face “Even after all these years I can still make mistakes.”

The solar princess got up from her seat “If you need more ponies or funds to help Rotifer just tell Stardust to let me know about it. “
In a flash of light the white coat and pink mane unicorn reappeared as she walked right out the door. Stardust came back in with Pocket Ace who was staring at me in shock.

He shook his head as he replied “Well I think that’s everypony… yak… or possible clients we might have. Want me to bring you both anything to eat?”

Stardust slowly nodded her head “Something light... “

“And alcohol.” I replied as I just had a Yak hire me to help find mercenaries to help his kingdom only to have Celestia then arrive to hire me for the same job.

“Wine, ale, hard cider… anything with alcohol.” Stardust replied “I take it you realized the full detail of the job.”

I nodded my head “Yep… Ivan is definitely not the center of the universe.” She looked at me strangely as I couldn’t help but chuckle “Just a client who thought their meeting was more important.”

She chuckled as she nodded her head “So what now?”

Pocket Ace came back into the room with the meal that had been put on hold “I say… ‘Eat, Drink, and be merry for tomorrow is a busy day’ and you don’t have to worry about a bar tab for today.”

Stardust shook her head as she couldn’t help but smile “Thanks.”

I shrugged as Pocket Ace wagged his eyebrows causing me to roll my eyes. I’m going to have to fill him in on the full details of this job tomorrow. I looked across the table as Stardust and decided to take his advice.

******

Tirek

Tirek was currently huddle in the corner of the crude cell that he was resting in. He stared at the steel bars in hatred as he held his broken arm. He hated Celestia for stopping him… how that wretched mare had tore away his magic before tossing him into the pits of Tartarus to rot.

Oh the days he spent trying to nurture the flame of vengeance in his heart as he planned on what he would do to Celestia and her kingdom once he returned. He thought after being freed from Tartarus he had faced the worst the world had to offer him… but he was poorly mistaken. Instead these… non-equestrians took him out of that pit only to toss him into a new one.

They kept his mouth gagged at all times as they didn’t treat him like a person. They didn’t even see him as the evil dark and dreaded centaur that had nearly become unstoppable. They treated him like an object… something to be used only once and then tossed aside when he was no longer needed.

His last attempt to escape the wretched earth pony guard broke his right arm snapping the bone as the non-equestrian griffin laughed before tossing him back into the cage. When he had tried stealing their magic they had gagged him and nearly broke his legs.

Of course the only reason why they didn’t was because they wanted Tirek to walk so that they wouldn’t have to carry his ‘worthless body’ out for their plan. He gritted his teeth as the flame towards Celestia had slowly died out only to be replaced with a burning flame towards his captors.

His brother scorpan the weak coward that he was had respected Tirek, but he couldn’t stand watching him continue his quest for power. The wretched Princess of Equestria knew of his strength as they feared him. His own kingdom hated him… but they all knew he was somebody important.

It was not his own broken body and the gruel they rarely fed him that made Tirek wish vengeance upon his captors… it was the fact they ignored him. They did not respect him. They did not fear him. They laughed at him. The only thing that kept him going was the thirst for revenge… when he regained his power he would make them pay.

A small chuckle came from the other right end of the cell “Oh how was your escape attempt this time oh great and might Tirek?”

He hissed in rage as he replied “At least they know who I am witch.”

The third voice sighed “At least try and wait for their plan. Otherwise they may simply try hacking your limbs off and healing the stumps with their magic.”

The witch laughed “They think you’ll be of any use? I doubt you’d even be of any use against the wendigoes.”

Tirek growled as he snapped back “Reminded me where you are the history books Royal Scepter?”

The mare stuck at the walls as he couldn’t help but chuckle. Royal Scepter… the pony who would have lead the Unicorn Tribes after Princess Platinum died until the pony’s reformation era came into existence. The lithe snow white mare with and ice blue mane had been a figure depicted of beauty only to now look like a shriveled up old gray witch.

The mare hissed back “At least I’m not powerless like you.”

“Then why haven’t you broken out yet?” Tirek snapped back.

“Because unlike you I employ something called strategy you brainless oaf!” She replied raising her voice.

Tirek rolled his eyes “Oh yes what was your brilliant strategy when you got kicked out of Equestria?”

Royal Scepter kicked the wall hissing out loud “That’s only because that traitor Clover used some sort of mind manipulating magic on the Princess! I only went only with that unity farce as long as we were in control! When they decided to put those freaks on the throne they had gone too far!”

“Oh yes one thousand years of peace certainly showed them.” Tirek quipped back. “Especially after the wendigo scare.”

Royal Scepter growled “If the forced the earth pony fools and the pegasi into submission the wendigoes would have left because there would be no pony to hate. I still can’t figure out why we didn’t just tear the flying rats from their skies and burn the fields of those mud ponies.”

“And that is why your own people tossed you into Tartarus.” The third voice added.

The mare snapped back “Oh some deceiver you are Wolf. They don’t even realize you’re the wrong spider!”

Wolf chuckled “Better to be mistaken for someone else than to let them know who you are really are."

Tirek rolled his eyes “I can’t believe you haven’t tried luring one into your cell already.”

Wolf sighed as they heard him lean up against the bars “And do what? Even if I get lucky there’s only so many ponies I can wrap in my webs before they overwhelm me with numbers.”

“How did you even get tossed into Tartarus?” Royal Scepter spoke out loud.

Wolf groaned as he replied “Turns out I had taken a liking to one of Celestia’s friends. The young mare was drawn to my pound where I tempted her near my layer before… in hindsight I should have moved to a different area sooner as Celestia was quite… displeased after finding the remains of her friend.”

Tirek grumbled as he watched what little of the world he could see from outside his jail. The guards wouldn’t return after giving them their daily gruel. He choked down the foul mixture they called “food’ as he was forced to listen to the spider continue “I did manage to capture Celestia and pin her to the ground. Oh how lovely she would have tasted… sadly I did not have enough webs to deal with the other forty ponies and their torches.”

Royal Scepter sighed “Just another reason why having that weakling on the was a bad idea a pure blooded unicorn would have had both of your heads on a pike.”

Tirek glared at the adjacent cell “That weakling has more magic in her than you. Alicorns also have the magic of three tribes instead of one.”

“Making her only one third of her useful.” She replied “Place a bottle of fine wine and mixing two thirds of it with dirt and water does not make it better than a bottle of pure wine. We should have stripped those two freaks of their magic and used it for ourselves, but Star Swirl had to listen to the crazy rants of his traitorous apprentice.”

Wolf spoke up “Guards are coming.”

They all went silent as they had learned to trust the spider’s warning. After a few more seconds the sounds of hooves came from the hallway as two Zebras came into the room escorting some sort of bug creature. There was a feral look in the creature’s eyes as it hissed while being dragged towards Tirek’s cell.

The first zebra glanced at Tirek “Try anything funny and we break the other arm.”

The centaur nodded as he watched the guards unlock the cell door… before tossing the feral creature inside. The zebras stepped out of sight and spoke out loud “Now you can take the feral’s magic.”

The feral creature bared it’s fangs as it prepared to pounce him only for Tirek to work his magic. He felt a small sliver of strength return to his bones as he drained the creature of it’s magic.

The guards spoke up “Try anything funny and we break one of your legs.”

Tirek gritted his teeth as he watched the Zebras unlock his cell only to drag out the fallen creature. Most ponies would have fallen weak or looked helpless… but the bug looked like it had died as the light in it’s eyes went out. The guards didn’t seem to care as they locked Tirek back up in his cage before exiting the room.

Once they were finally a safe distance away wolf spoke up “We’re going to need a plan we can all agree on before they send in the next bug.”

Royal Scepter coughed “Abomination would be the correct term.”

Tirek rubbed his broken arm as he thought about what Wolf had said. Until now they had always tried to prevent him from draining any magic yet now they freely handed him something close to a pony as they wanted him to drain it dry.

“Their getting ready for their plan.” Tirek said out loud to himself

They could hear wolf moving around in his jail cell “And we all know what that means. They’ll take us out of these wretched cells before sending us outside. If we all go our own way they’ll decorate our heads on the end of their pikes.”

Royal Scepter sighed “Just who is this Discord creature?”

Wolf chuckled as he bitterly replied “A creature that can bend reality to his will. Surely you heard of him down in Tartarus.”

The mare huffed “Yet he was never placed in the pit.”

“That’s because they banished him. Sealed him away or turned him into a statue.” Wolf replied out loud “He was a creature that made the sun and moon dance to his fingers and I highly doubt Tirek would be able to beat him.”

Tirek gritted his teeth “All I would have to do is drain his magic.”

Wolf sighed out loud as he replied “And tell me how you will hit a creature that can turn you into a rabbit or alter the very fabric of reality with but a snap of his fingers. Even if he lets you get a free shot do you think he’ll just stand still and let you hit him?”

Tirek kept his mouth shut as he didn’t like the spider’s response. If he had the magic of Equestria at his fingertips than he was sure he could stand a chance against Discord… but he wouldn’t exactly want to run into Discord in his current state.

Wolf began using his honey coated words as he tried to convince them to his plan “On the surface they will do either one of two things. They will attack Celestia’s forces as they try to free Discord in their vain attempt to slay him… or he’ll be free and we’ll be sent up there to try to fight him.”

Royal Sceptor sighed “If the rumors about him are true then how would we even fight him.”

Wolf hesitated before he replied “We follow the ones who captured us. There will be no safe place to run to and he will turn this land into his own personal playground. The only way to avoid him is not being in Equestria. He will play with this nation he finally grows bored and moves onto another land. All we have to do is be anywhere but here.”

Tirek rubbed his neck “But I get the feeling that the use of our lives will be at an end once Discord is dead.”

Wolf went silent for a moment before replying “Which is why we need to work together long enough to escape. Most likely they’ll try to bring us to where Discord will be released before they release him.”

They could hear Wolf moving about in his cell “They’ll keep feeding Tirek new bugs until they feel is he fat enough for their hunt. Once they bring us out to the surface we’ll need to work together and that involves helping each other.”

Tirek rolled his eyes as he knew how that always ended.

Wolf hissed “Yes we all know that after we escape one of us will turn on the others. Tirek would drain us dry of our magic. Scepter would hack our heads off as she tries in vain to take over the nation that rejected her and I wouldn’t mind feasting on the marrow in everyone’s bones.”

Tirek nodded as that sounded about right. Unlike most ‘alliances’ this group fully knew that the others were not to be trusted as they would all stab each other in the back without batting an eye.

Wolf sighed for a moment before trying his honey coated words again “Miss Scepter… you have done a very good job hiding your magic from our captors. I’m sure they haven’t realized that your back to full strength and could easily cure those wrinkles.”

Tirek looked at the wall where Scepter was with interest now. There was a large source of magic which he could use to break himself out of here? If he knew about that sooner he would have spent more time trying to dig a way into that jail cell that throwing insults at her.

“I can quite adept with my webs… but I cannot take on an army by myself.” He freely admitted “While the two of us may have our differences… both of us want the Princess Celestia’s head. You want to take control over the nation and for me I simply want to feast upon her succulent body.”

Royal Scepter chuckled “That gives me reason to work with you, but not for Tirek to work with us.”

Wolf chuckled “But for us to escape we’ll need to help stop the guards around us. Tirek you wish for their magic… if we take them down then it should be easy for you to drain them dry and before you think about saying no to our offer… need I remind you that Celestia had defeated you once before and I highly doubt the magic from a group of random maniacs would be enough for you to beat her.”

Tirek grunted as he replied “Who says I’ll march straight to her throne?”

“Because once these idiots declare their little rebellion…” wolf slowly replied as he waited for the words to sink in “Celestia and her forces will try to stop them. I think the big red centaur will be number one on the list of targets to go after.”

Tirek frowned as he realized his role in their plan “I’m bait.”

“Bait… assistance. Take your pick.” the spider cheerfully replied “I have taken her down before… but never got to finish the job. I’m sure with the three of us we can take down an alicorn. After that… you should have enough power to make your valiant last stand as we try to escape and go forth with our own plans.”

Tirek growled “You’ll ditch me after I’ve accomplished my task?”

“No you’ll try and betray us because you should have enough magic to think you’ll no longer need us.” Royal Scepter replied “Personally I’ll enjoy watching you rant before one of the unicorns kills you.”

“What I am saying…” Wolf spoke out loud “Is that they’ll send Tirek another order of bugs to feed upon and we are now on a clock. If we cannot agree in trying to work together to get out of these cells then let us see if we can work out a plan for when they drag us up to the surface.”

He growled as he said “Another shipment has arrived.”

Everyone was quiet as they could hear more hoof steps. The pair of Zebra guards came in except this time two griffins walked with them as they escorted two more bugs towards Tirek’s jail cell.

One of the Zebra spoke up “Try and break out and we’ll break the other arm.”

Tirek clenched his fists as he waited for them to unlock his door. He kept himself from trying to break out and draining their magic before snapping their necks as he focused on the two feral bugs that were dropped off in his cell.

The bugs stared at him before they prepared to attack him. Tirek managed to start draining one of the bugs only for the other one to leap at him baring it’s fangs. It landed on Tirek knocking him tot he ground as the bug went in for the kill.

Tirek watched the bug twitch before falling to the ground as one of the griffins replied “One bug at a time then.”

Tirek focused on finishing draining the bug in front of him as he kept an eye on the other bug that currently had a cross bolt in its neck. he took everything that he could from the bug as its lifeless husk collapsed onto the ground.

He clenched his teeth as he bitterly replied “If I try anything you’ll break one of my legs.”

One of the Zebras chuckled “Glad you understand.”

It didn’t take long for them to drag the bodies out of the jail cell as Tirek unclenched his fists. They were planning on moving forward with their plans. He glanced at the other two cells as he tried to figure out what he was going to do next.

******

Rover

Rover put away his pick axe as he grumbled over the poor pickings he had received for the day. The black and white diamond dog had moved to New Terra in hopes of living the easy life. At first he thought he would follow in his cousin Tracer’s steps only to realize he was way out of his league.

How many other cities had a dragon living in it and not one of the punks that could be defeated by a simple dog pile. Oh no this was an adult dragon big enough to swallow him in one gulp. So he tried legal work.

He rubbed the small golden bits with distaste as he was stuck buying his gems. There were no gem mines nearby this town as most of the construction work was simply work. They’d hire the dogs to help lay down foundations, build basements, and reinforce structures. Sure there were a couple of dogs who enjoyed this change of pace… but Rover was in it for the jewels.

He glanced at one of the wanted posters on the wall and kicked the wall before biting his lips. Matilda… the cow highway bandit was finally captured. A cow had been robbing everyone going in and out of New Terra with her gang of multiracial thieves.

Rover tore down the poster informing everyone of her capture “I don’t know if I should be laughing or crying right now.”

New Terra was the second chance for some dogs. It was the random collection of races that all had managed to gather near a big artificially created lake as the fledgling town had grown into a fledgling city with a dragon for a mayor. Right now there seemed to be more work in building rooms as the other races were curious at their little oasis out in the middle of the badlands.

Rover kicked the dirt as he hated his life. The Badlands was suppose to be where he would strike it rich… only to not find any places with gems and water was a bit hard to come by. The only reason why he was even stuck living in this place was because he needed food and water in order to survive.

Oh sure he made enough bits to have a room to himself and be able to look around the New Terra… but he didn’t make enough bits to cover his entire room in gems. No he barely had any gems as merchants were the only ones who brought gems to the this wretched place. He glanced at a diamond dog and griffin couple as he had no idea how that even happened as he saw the griffin chick kissing the diamond dog.

Rover shook his head as they must have been adventures or something. It was just another thing he hated about this town as it was full of those freaks. The adventures were crazy, but they were strong… then again if he had that strength he wouldn’t be sulking in the streets as he felt envious towards a cow.

How was he jealous of a cow… and not some sort of adventure cow with crazy powers, but a normal brown cow that came from Equestria out of all places! He marched towards the apartment complex and marched over to his mailbox. He tried to ignore the changeling who was flipping through his mail. How those creepy black bugs ever became accepted into society he had no idea.

The changeling muttered to himself “I’ll need to restock on whoopee cushions… maybe get a bit more confetti. Also remember that with pranks turnabout is fair play.”

Rover shivered as he hated those bugs. No he hated New Terra… he hated everything about it! He didn’t strike it rich or make his dreams come true. Oh no he was just another little runt in a pack full of alphas only this time life just kept mocking him. He glared at the package his cousin and sent him as it was life’s way of reminding him just how pathetic he truly was.

Rover gritted his teeth as Tracer hit the big leagues. Apparently he was helping lead the pack back home as Brass had been recruiting more diamond dogs. He was doing so well he even sent Rover a box full of gems.

Yes his cousin Tracer was doing so well he could freely give away gems as he was offering his cousin a chance to join up with Brass’s pack. Here he was trying to strike it rich only to see every other dog including cows striking it rich as some adventure dog named Richard had gotten a promotion over him.

Rover hated toiling around in the dirt. He hated trying to reinforce sections as they looked into the construction techniques of different races. Oh how he despised working with the wet gooey rock that would harden when it dried.

Rover kept gritting his teeth as he walked down stairs to his apartment room. He hated opening up the door revealing the soft bed as the few gems in his room barely lit it up. He hated that he’d have to buy a house or one of those smaller apartment homes just so that he’d be allowed to dig holes into the wall to cover the room with the faint light of his gems.

Most of all he hated how he placed the box full of various gems right beside his own collection of gems and how much bigger his small bag of gems stood against the small package full of gems.

There was a knock on his door as Rover opened up it up and bitterly replied “What do you want?”

He glared at the donkey as she replied “Your rent Rover.”

Rover tried not to growl as he paid the donkey. He hated that a donkey was forcing him to give her money. She should have been tied to a mining cart dragging his gems instead of forcing him to pay her for the apartment room he living in.

"Maybe you got passed over for promotion because you're a lousy person." The Donkey replied as she stomped her hoof waiting for the rent money.

Once he had finished paying her the bits she left as she cheerfully asked the changeling that lived next do to him. The changeling was more than happy enough as the love sucking tick… Rover felt a soft growl come from his throat as the bug had more money than he had.
He walked out of his room as he needed to find a good bar to get himself drunk.

******

It was dark outside as the stars lit up the skies. Rover glanced in the direction of the castle in the distance as he knew he couldn’t see it. He hated that he wasn’t sitting on that throne. He hated how the mayor surely had more gems than Rover had in his old gem mine he called home back in Equestria. Oh how he wished he had the same luck… power… whatever that damn cow had to let her become a somebody instead of a no… no he was just down on his luck.

Rover wasn’t a nobody… He refused to be a nobody!

A soft chuckle came from a dark alleyway causing Rover’s ears to rise up as he heard a voice say “Just trust me. You know statistics, but I know people. I know the course of action they will take instead of what you think they’ll take.”

Rover glanced into the alleyway as he couldn’t help but wonder what they were talking about.

“He’ll take the offer for his lust of gems.” The voice replied “And as you pointed out this will be a big job. We can’t have someone backing out at the last minute.”

Rover strained his ears as he tried to hear the second voice. He wanted to know what this job was. Was it a con or were they planning to make a heist? Where they going to get a cart full of gems?

Rover’s eyes focused on the bright light as he saw a cart full of gems resting near one of the figures. His fingers ached to touched them as wanted to just jump straight into that shining horde and swim around in it. He cursed the cloak figured for covering up the gems as forcing Rover’s eyes to adjust to the dark… and the fact he could no longer see the gems again.

The cloaked figure chuckled “As you can see it would be hard to not tempt him with this. You say he’ll go with Brass, but trust a fellow crook to place his faith in the greed of men.”

Rover took a step closer only to curse as he notice the cloaked figure turn and stare at him. He couldn’t see any of the person’s details except for the odd almost luminescent yellow eyes. The figure raised a cloaked appendage to the right and shook his head. Rover glanced up to the right as something large disappeared from his sight leaving talon marks on the roofs of the buildings.

“You’ll have to excuse my friend.” The cloaked figure replied “She prefers not to be seen especially after having seen you stumble upon our meeting.”

Rover took a step back “Sorry I was just trying to take a short cut to a nearby bar.”

Something large landed behind him as he could feel talons around his neck. He glanced down and noticed large bird talons wrapped around his neck. His ears tried to strain themselves as he thought he heard the person behind him say something.

The cloaked figured rolled his eyes “Yes but we do need another person for this job so let’s ask him?” Rover tried turning his head only to feel something grab his arm “Sorry but my friend is a little bit shy about her looks so let’s try not and offend her shall we?”

Rover slowly nodded his head as he felt the death grip around his neck loosen. He could feel the body heat of something larger than him standing behind him as it was hard not to look with the unknown creature staring at him.

The cloaked figured chuckled “As you might have guessed we’re about to pull off a big job… a heist you could say, but sadly we are one member short.”

Rover glanced at the cart “And just what are you planning?”

The cloaked figure held up a talon revealing himself to be a griffin… or maybe a hippogriff. The point was he had front bird talons and a cart full of gems.

The yellow eyes focused on Rover as the cloaked figure replied “We were planning on sending someone to distract the dragon… run a little bit of interference just to buy us a couple of minutes. Thus the cart full of gems.”

Rover stared at the gems as that would certainly attract a dragon’s attention. It certainly had his attention when he walked into the alleyway.
The figured walked over to the cart revealing it’s hidden treasure “But we didn’t know if such a treasure would work. After all our goal is to try to prevent a dragon from transporting… a train cart so to speak.”

Rover stared at the gems as he slowly nodded “What’s in the cart?”

He felt his ears strain as he watched the cloaked figure nod his head apparently listening to the person behind him. Rover couldn’t help but shiver as he tried not to turn his head. He tried not to look behind him as he focused on the gems.

The cloaked figure sighed “But the real problem is getting the cart away from the city. I mean we can easily take the cargo if it falls from the skies… but it might be a bit too hard dealing with it once it enters the city.”

Rover glanced at the cart “Thus the cart full of gems.”

“Exactly.” He replied… but it didn’t sound like he was agreeing for the same reason Rover was. “We just need the gems to help out a little.”

Rover glanced at the gems “I’m not sure that’s enough to distract a dragon.”

“Oh no we have more…” The figure replied “Everybody has their own little quirks and desires… but the gems are just used to help pay for the distraction. I mean I can get the dragon's attention… but I’m going to need someone else to deal with the dragon.”

Rover licked his lips “I just have to distract the dragon… I distract the dragon and I get to keep all those gems?”

Rover felt his ears start to strain as he watched the cloak figure listen to the other one’s response. Rover could hear the talons shifting around in the dirt as apparently she didn’t agree with his decision.

The figure rolled his eyes “I don’t need the gems and quite frankly you only care about grabbing that stupid magical artifact… Yes I know it’s important.”

Rover tried to focus on the cloaked figure “What are you looking for in the train cart?”

The cloaked figure shrugged “A few goods… maybe a good haul of loot and to help prevent her statistic probability as she’s really feeling the stress of her boss about some screw up their group made. I’d tell you more about it… but that would be only if you want to stick around after this job.”

Rover glanced at the cart full of gems as the figure revealed the gems “So do you want the offer or do I need to show you the rest of the carts?”

The cloaked figure let Rover touch the gems as he felt their touch… he rubbed his paws over them as he stared at a diamond the size of his head and they had even more gems. All he had to do was distract a dragon and they would be his.

“You’ll get his attention and it’ll be my job to distract him when he notices me.” Rover replied as he wanted to ensure he kept the gems.

The cloaked figure chuckled “Oh trust me when I say he’ll have an easy time spotting you… so what do you say?”

Rover grinned “I’ll need to see the rest of the gems.”

******

Rover stood outside the city as the cloaked figure escorted him to the site. He stared at the dozen or so carts full of gems as this was the haul he had been searching for. He could easily spend one of those carts to buy himself a house and then replace the walls of an entire room with a four walls and a roof made out of gems as he laid down on a bed made out of gems.

The cloaked figured motioned towards the carts “So do you think this will be enough for the distraction cost? Any gems you have left over are yours to keep.”

Rover stared at the carts in greed as he was going to take all of them. He didn’t care about the legal ramifications as he would sell out his own mother for all of these gems. He could go back home and buy his pack while still having enough to live like a king.

Cloaked figure now stood beside him with a talon held out “So do we have a deal?”

Rover grabbed the talon and smiled “I’ll distract the dragon.”

He didn’t care about any of the other details. He didn’t care what would happen next. All he cared about was the gems as his greed consumed him. He didn’t even notice the cloaked figure’s other talon until he pressed up against what looked like a square made out of light.

His eyes widened in panic when he saw it tear through the square leaving a burning blue flame wrapped around his talons. Rover noticed the raven like face revealed underneath the hood along with the griffin’s twisted grin as the flaming blue talon grabbed Rover by the face.

He nearly screamed as the figure replied “Now let’s put that greed of yours to good use.”

Rover felt his body burn as the flames consumed him. His body twisted as his fur fell out… yet his skin felt thicker as the griffin started to shrink. The diamond dog felt two appendages grow out of his back as a fire started to burn in his stomach. He closed his eyes only to open them again revealing a sharper sight.

Rover started to laugh as he felt strength coursing through his body. His claws tore into the very dirt as his wings kicked up a storm around him. He noticed gray scales covering his body as flames flicked out of his mouth. The cart full of gems had a new calling to him… they were his. They were his horde, his treasure.

He felt stronger as he grabbed the carts as his tail grew longer. He wrapped his body around his treasure as he felt it rub against his scales. He glanced at the griffin only to realize how small he had become… no how big Rover had become. How much stronger he felt as he no longer thought about hiding from the Mayor’s wrath. No he felt strong enough to kick that scaly drake out of his hole and take his hoard for himself.

Rover shook his head… it wasn’t the mayor’s horde. It was Rover’s horde that the mayor had denied him. In fact the entire town should be following him… giving him his tribute as they listened to his orders.

He looked down at the griffin who grinned “I told you I’d get him to notice you.”

Rover the dragon coiled his body around his horde “And what happens next?”

The griffin shrugged “Well you deal with Peter. Do whatever you want. Kick his butt out of town and take his horde. Set yourself up as king. Heck you could even take what’s inside the cart for yourself if you want.”

Rover flicked his tongue out tasting the night air “Won’t your friend be mad?”

The griffin shook his head “All we want is one measly item and for this job to be done. I’m also the only one who can turn you back… or keep you in this form depending on which form you prefer.”

Rover stared down as the griffin as he didn’t like the threat, but he enjoyed the power coursing through his veins. He stretched his body feeling the muscles that could crush buildings and talons that could tear through the earth far faster than his old claws. They thought some old cow was a big deal? Then let’s see how all those fools reacted to a dragon.

The griffin stretched his talons out cracking his claws “I’ll let you know when Peter arrives. You just make sure that package doesn’t reach New Terra.”

Author's Note

New chapter up and let me know if anything was missed in the spell check.

Cracks in the mirror

Valkyrie

I yawned as I felt the slowly steady beats of Peter flying as we were approaching New Terra. Remedy Cross was eating some of the food she had brought with her while she was reading one of the books that she had brought. Steel Halberd was currently looking out the window trying to figure out how much time we had saved or how much further we were from New Terra.

I couldn’t help but smile as I saw Midnight wrapped up in a ball like a cat in the corner of the room. I could almost swear she was purring as she was nestled in her spot. I stretched my body as I tried to remember if I had any sort of trail mix left in my bags.

Steel shook his head as he said “Do you think he’ll tell us what we’re expecting before we reach our destination?”

Remedy shrugged only for Peter to reply “Is everyone up?”

Midnight groaned as she had just woken up “Are we there already?”

I shook my head “Well we’re all awake now.”

There was a soft chuckle as Peter the dragon replied “Sorry about that, but I figured I’d wait until we were near New Terra before explaining why we requested Remedy’s assistance.”

There was a small pause as Remedy spoke up “Wait… you wanted my help?”

Peter coughed as there was a moment of silence “You are Remedy Cross… the pony doctor who was a part of the Everfree incident and who also traveled with Lockheart?”

Remedy slowly nodded her head “Yes… but why did you want my help?”

The silence continued for as Peter finally replied “It’s hard to explain… or believe, but we have a situation in New Terra and we didn’t know anyone who could… help.”

I took a deep breath “What happened?”

Peter sighed “Well at first it started with one of our residents as they just… changed. I mean we were accepting more people as the population grew and one of our changeling residents just… changed.”

We could hear the frustration in his voice as he groaned “At first we were just planning on sending her to canterlot until the other non residential changelings became a little bit… possessive. You’d have to see it to understand.”

Remedy nodded her head “You want me to check to make sure another Everfree Incident isn’t happening?”

“Well Mirage isn’t a bad person.” Peter tried to explain “Still she’s more confused as she’s an adventure… then we started getting strange rumors until another resident changed race overnight. This time it was a donkey who turned into a zebra.”

Steel glanced at remedy before saying “Couldn’t that have just been a changeling impersonating a donkey?”

There was a small grunt as Peter continued “We thought so at first… until it started to spread. Adventure, Equestrian, and other natives started changing species overnight as each of them claimed they had met a figure in a cloak dragging a cart full of random items.”

Steel’s ears perked up as I dreaded what was about to come next. Please don’t say Cursed Clean up. Please don’t say…

“He called himself a Trader who specialized in unique items.” Peter spoke out loud “And none of them can remember his face or what species he was.”

Steel groaned as I shut my eyes. Of course this was a cursed clean up job.

We heard concern fill his voice “A lot of people had been scared to walk out at night. One of the Equestrian citizens we had detained because she was a highway bandit used to be a brown cow named Matilda had turned into a griffin a few nights ago. We’ve managed to keep a lid on most of it, but people are worried or their trying to find this unknown trader in hopes of regaining what they had lost.”

Remedy quickly spoke up with rapid interest “You say a cow turned into a griffin overnight? Has her dietary needs changed? Does she still go with a more herbivore based diet or has she changed to a more carnivore based diet? Has her body changed to include the necessary griffin magic to produce flight or has she kept most of her bovine traits?”

Peter spoke with a hint of confusion in his voice “You’re not questioning it… or asking if there was memory loss or…”

Remedy rolled her eyes “Of course there was memory loss if she couldn’t remember who changed her race. I’m more curious about the effects or transition details! Was it immediate retention of her new form like a race copy spell or was it more of a gradual understanding on learning how her body worked?”

She caught my expression of confusion as she shrugged “I mean technically the pony calling herself Brass isn’t actually a pony. Most of her abilities are more of a reinforcement of muscle and bone to make her look like an earth pony in terms of ability, but she lacks the inherent magic every earth pony is born with. It terms of species she might be closer to that of a donkey… maybe a bull or buffalo?”

The unicorn sighed as she said out loud “The point it this isn’t the first case I’ve ran into… but everything I knew about that case was written down in a report and Celestia also checked the pony in question before she escaped.”

There was an awkward silence as I’m sure Peter was starting to wonder if Equestria knew that all of the adventures were former humans. I mean I’ve been planning on saying something, but things just kept getting in the way… I glanced at Steel and shook my head.

Now I’m starting to question myself along with the whole humanity detail question including the fact that somebody had a magical artifact that was changing people’s species overnight!

I sighed as Remedy looked at me “Is something wrong?”

Steel grunted as he spoke up “No… it just sounds like the culprit behind this is the cursed trader. We’ve been trying to clean up all the cursed items he had ‘traded’ to ponies and other races across Equestria as his standard reason for giving away these items just seems to be causing chaos.”

I nodded my head “Like an artifact to help find gems only to turn the gems into crystal golems that try to attack people or a magical artifact to help promote nature growth only to spawn a forest full of Timberwolves. Items that always tend to have deadly side effects.”

Peter grunted as he had just been informed that the culprit behind this was a wanted criminal who had a habit of causing chaos and destruction. An item that could help someone change their race would be valuable in a town full of former humans. The only question was what strings were attached to it and if the cursed trader was still roaming about in New Terra or if he pawned off the item to someone else.

Peter cleared his threat as he finally spoke up “Well… we would appreciate the help in trying to track this individual down and Remedy Cross’s medical expertise.”

A dragon roar filled the air as we all looked out the window. Peter suddenly moved to the left as a gray dragon flew towards us with claws wide open and sparks of fire coming out of his mouth. The train cart we were in was shaking as he just managed to avoid being tackled by the new dragon.

Steel managed to look out one of the windows and shouted “Everypony prepare to abandon the cart!

Midnight quickly got up and grabbed a hold of Remedy was taking a deep breath and gathering as many items as she could hold in her magic. I quickly finished strapping my armor on. Steel was about to jump out of the cart only for it to shake again.

I rushed to put on my armor as I shouted “Where are we going?”

“There should be a small outpost nearby!” Peter shouted “Go there while I try to deal with this dragon.”

The cart suddenly fell into a free fall as Steel held onto the door motioning for us to jump out. Midnight pushed Remedy out the door and tried to slow her descent. I stumbled forward only for Steel Halberd to grab me as we both went flying out of the cart. Both of us spread open our wings only to hear the cart smash into the ground.

I opened my eyes and saw the outpost rushing towards us. I opened my wings as we tried to slow our descent Midnight was doing her best to carry Remedy Cross to the ground only for a second figure to swoop towards them. Steel moved to intercept the creature as I followed his lead.

Remedy’s horn flared creating a shield preventing them from being hit, but only to spin into a free fall. Steel moved to help stabilize their flight before they crashed into the ground as I chased after the creature that was preparing for a second strike.

It went into a death dive towards them as rammed myself straight into the creature’s back cause us both to crash into a nearby building roof top only for me to slide off and crash onto the ground. I pushed myself up and noticed the empty streets as no one was outside or panicking about the fact two dragons were battling right above this place.

“Where is everyone?” I muttered to myself

Bits of rubble fell to the ground as I looked up at my latest opponent. My entire body shivered as I could now see what this creature looked like. It had the body like an owl as it was covered in yellow feathers like some sort of savage version of Big Bird, yet it had a patch of black fur covering the creature’s underbelly as bits of hair fell to the ground.

I shook my head as the griffin like talons dug deep into the mortar of the rooftop as bits of green scales seemed to cover it’s legs. The creature’s tail whipped about as it seemed to be some crude mixture of a horse tail mixed with feathers as the black mane continued all along it’s back. The face was the strangest part of it all as it looked like one of those old sci-fi wrinkly raisin faced aliens. It didn’t even have a mouth as it’s eyes were a solid red color almost like a changeling.

I had inadvertently took a step back as this creature didn’t feel like it belonged in Equestria. I felt the same terror I had felt when I was on the train when we were all trying to reach Canterlot only for the creepy mass of bugs monster attacked the train.

A voice screamed inside of my head “Unnecessary complication.”

One of the doors to the buildings were knocked down as a griffin covered in armor walked right out. He held a large two handed axe in his talons as he was breathing heavily.

The creature on the rooftop looked over to him as the voice spoke again “Kill her.”

The griffin turned to me “Steel… Wing…”

I stared at him in confusion until it hit me “Steel Tide?”

Steel Tide, Steel Wing… we had a steel theme in our RPG party group. I smiled as I prepared to greet my friend only to notice his armor was glowing red as he tightened his grip around his axe. I was the warrior in our party and Steel Tide. He was the berserker.

His eyes focused on me as he screamed “Steel Wing!”

******

Steel Halberd

Steel looked above the outpost as Midnight and Remedy were safe. He gritted his teeth as he felt the nagging feeling at the back of his neck from seeing the unconscious ponies in the barracks. Each pony was sleeping as a faint blue glow drifted around their eyes as they didn’t wake up.

Eclipse Slumber was one of the cursed magical artifacts from the Everfree forest as it made anypony or creature in it’s area have a peaceful sleep only to not wake up. The artifact wasn’t that hard to deal with just as long as you didn’t go to sleep… but with the two sudden surprise attacks the enemy might be planning just to knock them out for the cursed item to work it’s magic.

“Steel Wing!” a voice shouted out loud.

Steel looked down as he saw Valkyrie trying to dodge a large muscular griffin covered in armor who was currently wielding a glowing red two handed axe. He quickly dived straight towards them and swung his halberd against the griffin’s weapon. To his utter shock the weapon snagged on the handle as the mad griffin yelled swinging both the axe and Steel in one swing.

Steel quickly let go of his weapon and recovered in the air. Valkyrie dashed into one of the nearby buildings as Steel grabbed one of the cloth blinds from a nearby window and threw the on top of the crazed griffin during the middle of his next swing.

Valkyrie quickly took flight trying to escape the griffin as Steel lead her to one of the buildings to hide in.

She shook her head as she kept muttering “I’m sorry… I should have tried finding you sooner…”

“Valkyrie!” Steel hissed loudly as he shook her for a moment “What is going on?”

She tried wiping the tears from her eyes “I…” She shook her head “I can’t remember his name, but I knew him. We need to move before he finds us again.”

Steel glanced out the window as the griffin was tearing the cloth into pieces with his talons and axe instead of simply holding still and unhooking it from his axe. He was acting more like a wild animal than a griffin at this moment.

Steel opened up a nearby door and replied “Who is he?”

Valkyrie looked depressed as she replied “He’s someone I knew. Well… sort of knew.”

“Steel!” The griffin shouted “Come out and face me!”

Steel turned his head only for Valkyrie to place a hoof on his shoulder and said “He means me…”

They could hear the griffin rampaging outside as Valkyrie took a deep breath. She looked as if she was about to say something only for a part of the wall to break down as the griffin charged. With a back hand he knocked Steel to the other side of the room as he swung at Valkyrie with his axe.

She kept doing her best trying to dodge as he was backing her into a corner. Steel Halberd bucked a nearby chair at the crazed griffin at the attack barely phased him. The Pegasus grunted as he yanked a nearby throw rug off the floor and threw it at the griffin’s face temporarily obscuring his vision as Valkyrie managed to evade his attack and flew out the door.

Steel quickly followed as the griffin yelled “Steel Wing!”

They both flew behind a nearby building as Valkyrie was out of breath… no… he noticed the scratches and dents in her armor. The Mad griffin was overpowering her.

Steel took a deep breath “Are you alright?”

Valkyrie shook her head as he noticed her damaged wing. There was a gash from where the armored talons had wracked against her wings. Steel quickly pulled out a bandage to help cover the wound as Valkyrie wasn’t looking to good.

Steel kept an eye out for the griffin as he replied “Why did he call you Steel?”

Valkyrie sighed as she hugged herself while shivering in fear “That’s my character name… I mean… Before I arrived in Equestria a few of my friends played an RPG. Each of us called ourselves Steel… Steel Wings for me since I was the party Pegasus. Steel Tide for the berserker… Steel Will for the mage and of course Steel Copper for the party healer.”

Steel glanced back at Valkyrie and then as the general direction of the screaming griffin “What’s with the glowing axe… or the eyes for that matter?”

Valkyrie took a deep breath “We need to remove that axe from him… maybe then he’ll return to normal.”

“What’s happened to him?” Steel repeated.

Valkyrie looked at him as he saw the fear in her eyes “He…” her wings drooped as she hung her head “He wasn’t like this before. Actually he was a skinny guy. Steel Tide… his character… that was the buff griffin berserker.”

Steel rubbed his side as he figured the cursed trader had something to do with this. A weak griffin who dreamed of being strong? Now he couldn’t tell friend from foe as his mind solely focused on attacking “Steel Wing” and as he ignored everything else.

He paused as he looked at Valkyrie “What gender was your character?”

Valkyrie blushed as she coughed “Male…”

He looked at her armor as he remembered the mindless rage he showed… how he seemed completely focused on her as he called her out by a character’s name instead of her real name.

“I need you to take off that armor.” Steel replied to her shock “He’s after Steel Wings which means anypony wearing your armor he’ll chase after.”

Valkyrie nodded as she started taking off her armor. Steel quickly removed his own armor before trying to slip on her chest piece… which felt like the old boot training camp where a particularly cruel flight instructor had tied two bags of rocks to their armor.

He wouldn’t be performing any precision flying for long, but it would be enough for now.

Valkyrie hissed in panic “What are you doing?”

Steel glanced at her “He still saw you so there’s a chance he’ll chase after you… but hopefully a male Steel in this armor will make him change his target.” She quickly shook her head as he stopped her “Look you know him. I’ve played bait far longer than you have and quite frankly… I can’t harm him. He tossed me aside like a rag doll.”

He gritted his teeth as his ribs still hurt from that monstrous strength “He if he focuses completely on me than you can hit him with everything you have or can throw at him. Now is there anything else we can use against him?”

Valkyrie tapped her hoof against the ground for a moment as she looked up at him “Where do you think they’d store the spare clouds?”

******

Remedy Cross

Remedy searched the barracks trying to find something… anything that could help. She stopped as she found a few fireworks in the confiscation bin. It was probably from somepony trying to sell them without a permit or an idiot who thought they could launch them into the air without looking for a no fly zone or checking to see if there were any nearby pegasi or griffins in the area.

She quickly gathered up the bundle of fireworks as Midnight replied “Nothing down here… and why do you have a bunch of fireworks?”

Remedy glanced at the various items and then at Midnight as she would be a better expert at her current plan “Do you know any signals… or markings thought could help alert anypony in the nearby area?”

Midnight shook her head “Well right now it’s really bright outside so nopony is going to see them. We might be able to use those to help distract the other dragon.”

Remedy glanced at the fireworks “You think these can harm it?”

Midnight chuckled grimly as she shook her head “These are nowhere near powerful enough to harm a real dragon… but it might be closer to a gnat bite.”

Remedy frowned as she looked at her failed plan “How does that help us?”

Midnight smiled as she cheerfully replied “Gnat bites can be very annoying and being distracted in a fight could be dangerous. The only problem is that we’d need to get someplace high and wait until they get close.”

Remedy nodded “So find the highest building and see how the fight is going. Anything else?”

Midnight paused for a second before she hesitantly replied “Keep one of them on hoof incase anything attacks us. It would be extremely dangerous to use one of a normal pony or griffin… but it should be strong enough to disorientate or force whatever tried attacking us to the ground just as long as we don’t aim directly at it.”

Remedy nodded as she was wishing she had picked up more combat lessons or looked into more advanced magical subjects. Her version of necromancy would help against races she knew about… put the magic was precise like a scalpel instead of a broad sword. The less you knew about the species the harder it was to use.

She did have a spell to help apply a mild sedative… but that required hitting the target with a visible magic attack the enemy could see. She shook her head as she wished it was a normal Pegasus or one of those adventure types that was possibly lurking outside. Just a simple curse was all that was needed to take them out.

Midnight held up a wing as they saw a shadow pass by as something was flying above them. Remedy saw the malformed creature land on one of the buildings nearby searching for them.

“Do you have any idea what that creature is?” Midnight asked with a hint of hesitation.

Remedy stared at the bird like creature… it had scales sort of like a basilisk, but it didn’t account for the fur. There were myths about a more bird like version of a Pegasus… harpies as they also had fur and feathers, but that had equine features as most of their body was bird like. They didn’t take into account of scales… or the almost griffin sized height as the creature stood on two legs.

As for the creature’s face… she shivered as that seemed completely alien. Still it had a magical signature and was probably using magic to help sustain its flight. There might be a good chance that it had other magical abilities to make it look less alien… of course those stories tended to have the monster eat other ponies and sentient races.

“Just try not to make eye contact.” Remedy replied “I can’t tell what race it is, but it does have magic.”

Midnight paused as she glanced at Remedy before whispering “At the count of three run to the next building.” They waited at the creature looked down at another street “Three.”

They dashed to the next building as more sleeping ponies were left lying about. Midnight pointed at the next building and started the count again. When they reach three they dashed into it and stopped as the entire first floor of the room had dozens of guards.

These were not guards that had fallen asleep, but had been forcibly knocked out. Helmets were dented as blood had dried on the ground. There was an abandoned cart resting in the middle of the room filled with objects of darker intentions.

Remedy could feel the dark magic just pooled around the cart as she whispered “I think we found your cursed trader.”

They heard something crash against the floor and hid behind the fallen bodies of some of the bigger races. The unknown bird creature walked nearby the cart as its talons scraped across the floor. There was another commotion as they heard something heavy being dragged across the floor.

Remedy peeked out from her cover and spotted a griffin dragging two ponies down a set of stairs while grumbling “Of course you come after I had finishing up the clean up job.”

The bird like creature tilted its head as he snapped back “Yes it was hard to handle! You get X amount of people falling asleep and X amount still awake. Someone starts searching and before you know it you either get a riot or a ton of people trying to leave town.”

The bird flapped its wings and readied it’s talons only for the griffin to snap back “Oh no! I had to drag their butts down as you told me they’d be nowhere near here! Turns out they are not in the freaking north like you thought they were in!”

Midnight motioned for Remedy to move closer to her while the enemy was distracted. Remedy nodded as she crawled over and glanced at the two unconscious ponies as she recognized the unicorn as he had written a few papers about other races and their medical practices. Mort was a fine doctor, but most of his papers weren’t read due to his shady funding and possible connections to some criminal enterprises.
The earth pony on the other hoof made Remedy stare at in irritation… like a bug bite as she was right here in front of her… she could easily be taken back to Canterlot and yet they weren’t able to do anything. Grant it she was being held captive by another unknown group, but it was just the principle of it!

Midnight whispered “You deal with the bird and I’ll focus on the griffin.”

Remedy nodded as she watched the griffin sigh “Seriously! We could have skipped the whole dragon incident!” The bird seemed to hiss “No I do not care if Remedy Cross is still roaming about. We have the earth pony and she should know where Star Swirl’s magical thingamabob is! We do not need to fix any other miscalculations!”

The bird flapped its wings practically hissing as the griffin shouted “We have a dragon fighting another dragon outside with most of the town sleeping! You can’t fit into most of these buildings and I have no idea where Brass could have stuffed it in town. For all we know it could be hidden back from whichever rock she had been hiding underneath for all this time!”

Remedy casted the strongest sleep spell that she knew of as it struck the bird creature. The griffin turned to face them only for Midnight to tackle as she had tried pinning him to the ground. The bird creature tried to get back up again as it slowly shifted from foot to foot as Remedy tried casting another spell as the creature stumbled, but refused to fall.

It stared at her with his strange eyes and marched forth after her in a drunken stupor nearly tripping over its own two feet. She quickly grabbed some of the nearby shields and helmets and started tossing them at the creature causing it to stumble. It didn’t matter how much force was put behind the attack just as long as it kept the monster off balance.

The creature stumbled as one of the attack managed to hit it in the eye causing it to stumble straight into a wall. Remedy quickly searched for any robes or fabric that could be used to help hamper the its movement as she was feeling out of breath.

“Pony feathers!” Midnight shouted out loud causing Remedy to turn her head.

The cart was now missing along with everything it was carrying as a large mirror was now resting in it’s place. The inside or “reflection” of the mirror had a very annoyed griffin as he was staring at the tail of hair in front of the mirror. By Midnight’s side were Brass and the other unicorn with shorter tails as her wing blades were lying inside the mirror as the griffin was banding up his talons.

A few muffles and moans came from the crowd as some of the sleeping ponies started waking back up as Midnight replied “Do you want to still take us on?”

The griffin sighed in annoyance as he shook his head “I know when it’s time to call for a strategic withdrawal.” He picked up a sledgehammer and muttered “Until then there’s always tomorrow.”

Remedy flinched as she heard the sound of glass break only to open her eyes to see a shattered mirror. A few of the other guards started to get up… and scream as there was a giant unknown creature trying to get back up.

Midnight took a deep breath and shouted “The outpost is under attack. Subdue the bird monster! Once it’s been taken care of get anypony that can fight ready to deal with the dragon problem outside and follow me!”

Remedy wiped the sweat of her brow as she tried to push all unnecessary thoughts aside. Focus on the current problem… then find some way to ask Celestia what in the world was going on.

******

Valkyrie

I looked around the room “So what is this place again?”

Steel replied as he readjusted the armor he was wearing which used to be mine “It’s a cloud factory… a low budget improvised one but a factory nonetheless.”

I used one of my wings to fan myself as I looked at the large pot resting in the center of the room as the entire place felt like an oven. Steel walked over by one of the cloud storage rooms and opened up the door as I stared at all the clouds. Some of the pegasi were already sleeping on top of the clouds as some almost bathtub sized containers of water rested underneath the clouds.

Steel glanced at the collection “So what’s your plan?”

I bit the inside of my cheek as most of these were tiny clouds that you saw on MLP and nothing large enough for a house or something. Steel was trying to get a feel for my armor as he walked about as I had to tell him about my… slightly insane plan.

“I’m going to use the clouds to restrain him.” I said out loud “I mean… he’s a griffin and they can walk on clouds. So I’m going to wrap him up in clouds.”

Steel took a deep breath “You do realize he can also pop clouds just as good as a Pegasus can?”

I nodded my head “That’s why I want you to help me make sure they have enough water. Besides… you can easily get yourself out of being covered in snow… but you can still get buried in it and unable to move despite your strength.”

“Steel!” my old gaming member cried out loud

Steel quickly rushed over to the clouds as he tried to helping me give the clouds enough water to work with. The real trick would be making sure he wouldn’t pop enough of them to prevent us from capturing him or that swinging around that axe of his didn’t mess up our hard work. We could wrap him in clouds… but not his axe.

I started gathering together the clouds as I wished I had a set of handcuffs or steel chains. Weapons could go through clouds and unless they were treated to hold items or more likely have items enchanted to interact with clouds… I was using a ball of water vapor to stop someone stronger than me.

I pulled up my menu as I thought about cashing in a few memories. My life was in danger as I was fighting a foe who outclassed me as I was trying not to hurt them. I opened up the point menu and tried to figure out which few skills could help me out the most…

I turned around as I felt a hoof on my shoulder as Steel smiled “Just take a deep breath Valkyrie. I can distract him. All you need to do is take a deep breath and wait for my signal.”

I nodded my head as Steel walked out into the center of the building as I closed the menu and tried gathering the clouds together. The door were kicked open as I saw Steel Tide marching into the building growling as he dragged his axe across the floor. I could hear the metal grinding against the ground as he focused on Steel.

“Steel Wings…” He growled as he lifted up his axe and screamed “Steel!”

Steel jumped back as the axe tore into the ground as my old friend tried to grab him by the collar of his armor. Instead Steel pulled out his old golden Royal Guard helmet and dodged the attack before shoving the helmet on backwards over the griffin’s face and bucked.

I covered my ears as I could hear the sound of metal scraping against metal as he then kicked off the griffin’s head and rolled onto the ground. Steel Tide struggled to removed the helmet as his talons scraped across the metal trying to tear it off instead of trying to calm down and push the golden tin foil helmet off his own helmet.

Steel shouted out loud “Now!”

I grabbed the mass of clouds nearby and dragged them with me as my old friend was swinging the axe blindly while trying to remove his helmet. I warped part of the cloud around his legs and flew back as the axe nearly got me. Steel rushed for grabbing the end of the other side of the cloud and wrapped it around the griffin’s side.

Steel Tide went into a blind rage swinging blindly tearing the cloud off his body as he tried to blow it away. Steel rushed forth and struck him before pulling back as the axe scraped against the armor as I went forth and pushed more cloud onto his body. I felt my heartbeat pounding in my head as the axe nearly went for me only for Steel to scrape the armor against the floor causing the griffin to turn his axe around and try to strike Steel as he had already moved out of the way.

I raced into the other cloud storage room grabbing as many clouds as I could as Steel continued distracting Steel Tide. I could fight, but my attempts at dogging were to move into a better position to strike. Steel on the other hoof was like a mosquito or a fly as he kept focusing on just dogging the attacks.

I grabbed the last nearby cloud as I heard metal scrap against metal as I saw Steel’s body had stopped rolling on the floor as a nearby axe was embedded in his armor. I rushed forward and shoved the last mass of clouds onto Steel Tide leaving him trapped in the cloud as he was unable to shake free.

I raced over to Steel as he coughed “I’m okay… hurts like Tartarus, but…” He kicked the axe free as there was a tear in my armor “Mostly wrist… one Tartarus bent throw… but not enough to cut deep.”

I helped him remove the armor as his side was bleeding… but it was more of a bad cut than a life threatening gash. I pulled out some spare bandages and wrapped them around his side as he groaned in pain.

He looked at me and smirked “Well we just captured a griffin only using clouds… Let’s make sure their compact enough to prevent him from wiggling his way out.”

The door burst open as both of us turned to see what was happening only to see a group of griffins, bat ponies, and pegasi standing outside in armor. Steel groaned as he pushed himself up as I prepared myself for another fight.

It was then the leader of the group shouted “Are you alright?”

I nearly collapsed to the ground “Who are you?”

The leader stepped forward revealing herself to be a griffin “My name is Rebecca and we just arrived after hearing a report about this town falling under some sort of curse… who are you?”

“Steel!” a muffled cry came out as I groaned.

Maybe I should have used more cloud around his head “Are you with him?”

The ground shook as I heard Peter groan “They’re with me.”

The soldiers turned around as the griffin shouted “What happened to you Mayor!”

The dragon groaned “A dragon attacked me… who apparently didn’t spend a lot of time being a dragon. Are the delegates from Equestria alright?”

There were a few more groans as some of the sleeping ponies started waking up. I looked back at the cloud ball as sighed “We need this griffin restrained… and nobody touch the axe. He’s under the influence of dark magic.”

The soldiers quickly rushed to their duties as I fell back against the floor. Steel Halberd chuckled as apparently Peter managed to rescue himself. My body ached in pain and judging from the bruises covering his body he’d end up wrapped in bandages like me.
Steel took a deep breath and sighed as we both promptly passed out from exhaustion.

******

Maxwell

I woke up as it felt like I had a ball of cotton in my mouth. My eyes slowly adjusted to the light as I spotted a nearby barrel… a few plates… as the feeling of hair on my nose. I tried blowing it away as it kept brushing up against my nose.

I finally opened my eyes only to see a mess of purple hair right in front of my face. The slight throbbing pain in my head slowly started to subside as I tried to figure out what was going on. My brain was in the middle of trying to piece things together as I remembered wine…laughter… alcohol… a surprise visit from princess Celestia and…

The wall of purple moved for a moment as a soft yawn filled in the last detail as I spotted the white coat. Then just because life has a cruel sense of humor Stardust rolled on her side as we both bumped faces as she stared at me in confusion.

Cue freak-out in three…two…one…

Stardust freaked out as I felt four hooves suddenly kick me in the gut… before she fell to the floor as her kick to my gut had also pushed her off the couch. I felt a blanket fall off me as she quickly rose back up and looked at her surroundings in confusion.

My own mind was racing as I tried to remember what happened last night. What did I say? How did this happen? What was going on?

The door opened up as Pocket Ace said out loud “Oh good you’re both awake.”

Stardust stared at him in panic “What just happened? Did… I mean…”

There was a soft chuckle as another familiar voice replied “Told you Ace. Pay up.”

My ears caught the sound of a bag of bits being tossed in the air as I saw Stardust’s sister… what’s her name…

Stardust shouted in panic/outrage “Comet!”

I stared at the multicolored mane Pegasus flying in the air as she was chuckling as Pocket Ace was rolling his eyes.

The younger sister landed in front of her sister “Relax nothing happened. I helped escort… Sunny Days back home and when I came back me and Ace found the two of you sleeping.”

She pressed her hooves together “Oh you two were just so cute! He was leaning against you and your head was resting up against his shoulder as you were drooling on him.”

I checked my shoulder as I found a small bit of drool on it. Stardust was bright red now as her burned while she had a rolled up newspaper in her grasp. She started at her sister for just a moment before trying to hit her with the morning news.

Stardust shouted “I can’t believe that you…”

“Did what?” her sister cheerfully replied trying to dodge the newspaper “Just what did you think happened dear sister?”

Pocket Ace walked over to me and rested his foreleg on my shoulder as he shook his head “You had wine… a nice meal… and you still didn’t even make it to first base… well maybe you did, but I doubt either of you would remember.”

I felt my own face burn up “Why did you two leave us like that?”

Pocket Ace grinned “First of all because both of you are heavy and it was much easier grabbing a sheet and letting you sleep on the couch than trying to drag you both to your beds. The second reason of course… was because we thought it might be funny.”

I looked back at the couch as it wasn’t that bad to sleep on. They were polite enough to give us a blanket and yet they came in right before any misunderstandings formed. I glanced at Pocket Ace who was smiling as he had a good reason for most of his actions.

I smacked him in the back of his head with my hoof as he shouted “What was that for?”

I pointed at Stardust and Comet “For the bet. Just what were you betting on?” There was a moment of silence as I stared at him “Pocket Ace?”

He grinned as I could see the beads of sweat dripping off his face “Well on a completely unrelated topic I’ve been helping Rotifer out and since it will take time for everyone to arrive… I’ve taken the liberality of writing all those pesky letters as you calendar for the day is mostly cleared up.”

I stared at him as I just remembered the visit from Princess Celestia “Oh about that…”

Pocket Ace held up a hoof “Comet filled me in on the details. The next few days will probably be really busy for you so I took it upon myself to help get your schedule arranged to help out with our client relationship.”

I tried to smile, but for some reason Pocket Ace was staring at me as if I was the Joker from Batman. Maybe I was using too much teeth or the fact I knew he was planning something behind my back. I mean he’s a good guy… but he’s not an honesty apple so to speak.

“What did you do?” I carefully asked him.

“Ow! Ow! I give!” Comet shouted from behind me. Pocket Ace sighed in relief as she replied “We set the two of you up on a date to the art exhibit!”

Now I stared back at Pocket Ace as he quickly held his hooves up “Before you do anything distract just listen to me! You still have that pony with the art request to deal with and if we are dealing with feral changelings and one insane bug queen… then it might help if we can hire a few changelings on our side.”

I took a deep breath as I tried to stay calm “And how exactly does an art request help us out?”

Pocket Ace rubbed the back of his head “Because it’s artsy… and stuff? I didn’t understand all the details when I took up the request, but since I’m writing letters out to everyone and seeing how long it will take to get them here I figured you could help deal with the art job.”

I took a deep breath and sighed “You do realize that I do not have that much of an expertise on Equestrian art.”

Pocket Ace shrugged “Who does? All that really matters is that you can show Stardust around a fancy place or take some time off while the Yak tries to get his information together as we try to find more people for this mission.”

I looked over to see Comet dragging her sister over to me “And besides it’s not a good idea to be messing around with explosive when you have a headache. It’s just life’s little reminder that you drank too much.”

Stardust groaned “And here I thought I’d be the one who’d give you that speech.”

Comet cheerfully replied “And I’m loving every single minute of it… just give us a moment to bring back some food.”

Both of them left the room leaving two tired ponies who just realized that their friend/sister were playing match makers as they were not letting last night’s sudden rush of very important clients ruin the attempt at a date night.

I looked at her as she shrugged. Well how bad could an art show be?

******

Stardust glanced at the hallway full of paintings “So… do you know anything about paintings?”

I shook my head “I know about art… but I couldn’t tell the difference between a Raphael from a Johannes Vermeer of classical art or the artistic touch. I mean I can understand the value of classical vs modern as some types of art place more emphasis on abstract meaning play an important role as it’s usually combined with the social inequalities or the political atmosphere of the times.”

She glanced at me in surprise “So what can you tell by these pictures?”

I glanced at a picture of a pony and shrugged “I know the technical terminology… but my terms for art fall in… it looks neat or I really don’t get it.”

I stared at the pony wearing the hat before shrugging and walking off. I really didn’t have much of a say in art much less how Equestria would hold their values or versions of art to earth as some paintings held more importance due to their title and historical significance… while others just looked neat.

I mean on earth the Mona Lisa is a very important and widely recognized piece of art known by millions… but without the historical tags or the fact a famous painter painted it… would anybody really be able to tell the difference between it and another painting of a woman smiling?

I reached the end of the exhibit as I found the client… who oddly enough was a siren. She looked really nervous as she was sitting nearby an empty chair as her hooves were tapping against each other. Beside her stood a tall gray Canterlot build unicorn with a long white mane who seemed to be trying to comfort her.

“Ah… Are you the ones sent to help?” The pony spoke with a what sounded like a British accent.

I stared at them for a moment as I replied “Pocket Ace was busy as he sent me…”

The siren looked up at me as she continued tapping her hoofs in steady beat “Can you help? I mean you’ll be able to help me out right?”

I took a deep breath as my first job was to calm her down and figuring out what was wrong “And your name is…”

“Jewels…” the siren replied “I… I forgot my real name as Miss Pallet has been helping me out.”

I smiled as I held out my hoof “My name is Maxwell and this is Stardust. What’s the problem?”

The unicorn sighed “We had a break in a few days ago… one of Ms Jewels paintings was destroyed.”

I stared at both of them in confusion “This is about a destroyed painting?”

Pallet shook her head “It’s more than just a painting. It’s reputation. Some critics in the art community didn’t like some of the art while others just simply didn’t like the artist… and now that one of her paintings has been destroyed and some ponies are starting to accuse her off destroying her own painting in an attempt to boost her own reputation!”

She ran a hoof through her mane “I just need help dealing with the press and for Jewels to have some help.”

I took a deep breath as I shook my head “Can I take a look at some of the paintings?”

******

I’ll admit I was surprised at the series of paintings as most of these were what I’m familiar with. I saw the standard dogs of the poker table along with a kitten playing with a rocket… stuff that you wouldn’t need a art degree or social context to understand.

I stopped in front of one of the paintings that just… it just struck me odd as I stared at it.

Pallet sighed as she saw the painting “Oh The Scream an artist rendition of a classical piece of art. I really don’t understand why it gets attention from the adventure community.”

I bit my lip as I stared at the screaming earth pony as my head felt a little bit cloudy. I shook my head as it was probably all the art history lessons coming back to my head. Still Pallet needed a little bit of help with the press and I did know about the painting.

I stood beside the painting “The Scream by Edvard Munch shows the neurotic depression he was going through with his father… I can’t remember all the details, but during this century some artists were using paintings as a form of medium to help express emotions.”

I saw the look of interest she had as I shook my head “These could be inner thoughts, feelings, or emotions as some artists used bright or exaggerated colors and simple shapes to place more emphasis on the emotion or feeling being placed in the painting than focusing on the level of detail or realism most commonly seen or expected.”

I stared at the painting “To one without even understanding the background detail or historical context you can still feel the sense of the scream… the unspoken cry that cannot be heard. Maybe it appeals to the adventures more because some of us may recognize the painting… or we understand the unspoken scream.”

Pallet chuckled as I looked back at her only to notice the notepad she had “So I take it your were an art history major or a curator back from where you are from?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I shook my head “Oh no… I just happened to take a course in art history with a very enthusiastic teacher.” I glanced at some of the other paintings “In fact I’m sure a real art major would be chewing my out as I probably got a few details wronged or over simplified a lot of details.”

The mare chuckled as she smiled for a moment “Jewels is great with a paintbrush… but not that skilled when it comes to history. She can paint the paintings and remember the painters as she primarily works in restorations… but the history or meaning of the paintings is sometimes lost on her.”

I rubbed the back of my head “What was she doing before she was a restoration artist?”

Pallet took a deep breath and sighed “She was one of the ponies caught up in the Everfree incident. She was sent on parole to help out a town… yet her reputation was shot. The incident combined with the old tales of three sirens really didn’t make life easy for her. I walked by her place one day and saw the paintings outside and I just had to know who painted them or what the meaning behind the paintings was.”

She smiled as she stared back at Jewels who was currently trying to carry her bag of art supplies as Stardust was trying to help her out. It was surprising that I was running into another one of the humans from the Everfree Castle as most of them were scattered around Equestria either trying to pay their debt to society… or placed in jail if they haven’t gone missing.

Pallet shook her head “She was of some use to the local guard, but I managed to convince Celestia to let me be in charge of her watching over her. Jewels has helped restore some old pieces of Equestria’s art… as she truly enjoys working with a canvas.”

I kept my mouth shut as I realized part of Jewel’s problem. She loved art… and some of the memories that she had lost where about the subject that she loved. I looked back at the various paintings as I could only imagine how easy it would have been to simply claim the work as her own.

Pallet hung her head “What about some of these other paintings… or the history behind them?”

I shook my head “I can try looking for a few art majors that might be able to…”

I stared at one of the paintings as I honestly didn’t expect to see a classical piece of Japanese art mixed in a collection of European art. The picture itself was common enough that you could probably make a stamp of it, but the meaning behind it I knew I was going to butcher as Pallet brought the painting to me.

I stared at it as I felt like I was taking a history exam “That’s more of an eastern culture painting… as…”

I felt my tongue getting tied up as I remembered Mr. Smith using this painting on his dam final exam. Oh the sweet joy of remembering a flashback of a test that roughly made up twenty five percent of your grade.

I cleared my throat “The Great Wave off Kana-waga… kana-gauga…Kanagawa! The painting is Ukiyo-e genre… A type of wood block prints…”
“Wood block prints?” Pallet asked in confusion.

I took a deep breath “During the seventeenth century to the technique of printing from blocks of wood was used to help illustrate poems and romances. The rise of the style of technique was primarily used by lower castes of society like artists, merchants, and ronin.”

I took another deep breath “These were used to help develop their art and literature. While I may not be able to give the full significance or detail of the meaning besides a giant wave rising out of the ocean and nearly capsizing or drowning the fishermen aboard the ships I might be able to find someone who can help with eastern art.”

Pallet glanced at the painting and then at me “And how exactly were the wood blocks used?”

I shrugged “You get a block of wood and carve the image. While certain regions only had a limited amount of ink, paint, or colors one could simply carve the image they desired using different layers of thickness or depth onto the wooden block to help out the level or layer of ink they wanted on the painting.”

I rubbed the back of my head “It wasn’t until near the beginning of the twentieth century that the creation of artificial dyes had become more common allowing for a larger group of artists and painters to have a wider selection of colors so some of the paintings may emphasis of certain degrees of colors due to the limited color palette they had available.”

Pallet couldn’t help but smirk “Why didn’t you simply have unicorns change the color of the paint to allow for a wider mixture of colors?”

I rolled my eyes “Because not everyone has access to unicorn magic. Some of these paintings come from different cultures, societies, along with different ways of life. What about you? Do you have a reliable method to create a larger variety of colors?”

Pallet scratched the back of her head “To varying degrees. While magic can help there sometimes falls into the issue of reliable magic as Transfiguration can change one object into another… the issue becomes keeping the object that has changed as one pony can be painting with a wide array of paints only to have them revert back to normal leaving a canvas smeared with dirt and leaves.”

I flinched as I could only imagine how frustrating that could be.

Pallet took a deep breath “And then of course comes the issue of magic over talent. If a unicorn can simply 'magic' a painting up then was it really talent or was it a spell that any unicorn could cast if they knew the spell?”

I nodded my head as it sounded like the issue with cameras had on the art industry. Why do realistic drawings of scenery or people when a click of the camera would do the same job in seconds?

The unicorn chuckled “So paintings made that have had less magic used in it's creation are viewed as more valuable. While certain brands of paint or colors can be hard to obtain in certain regions… this is Canterlot and Jewels has made a good name for herself…”

She frowned as I looked at the paintings as I started seeing a similar trend. There were plenty of other classical paintings… but the ones involving humans were lacking or they were like The Scream as they were vaguely human to being with.

There was no Mona Lisa or Napoleon on his horse. I was surrounded by all of these paintings and there wasn't a single human in any of them. T kept feeling a nagging fuzzy feeling in the back of my head as I tried to ignore it. I mean it was probably nothing.

Stardust came back to me “I think Jewels might need to talk to you.”

Pallet smiled “I’ll probably come to your office sometime soon to put out a request for art majors.”

I nodded my head as I followed Stardust into the room where Jewels was currently sitting in front of a canvas. I could see her tail twitch as she moved from side to side in a slight panic as if she had lost something important.

Stardust cleared her throat “I brought him here like you asked.”

Jewels stared at her for a moment “Could you give us some privacy?”

She nodded her head “I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”

The door was closed behind us as I stood in front of the nervous human turned siren as she kept looking at the canvas and a few other unfinished paintings… well they looked unfinished as they were some sort of modern art I think. Mostly vague blurs that my mind couldn’t make out.

Jewels glanced at me as she replied “My last painting was destroyed and I can’t figure out how to draw a new one… I mean I worked really hard trying to make it work and just when I got something close to it… somebody destroyed it.”

I could see the tears in her eyes as she was really upset. I couldn’t imagine just what exactly she had been trying to draw, but I could see the loss of the painting hurt her far more than any damage it did to her reputation.

“I can try and help… just describe what the painting looked like.” I carefully replied.

Jewels shook her head “That’s just it… I can’t remember… none of us have… but you haven’t used the menu as you found it creepy. Just tell me someone… anyone…”

I rubbed my head “What are you asking?”

Jewels bit her lip “A human. Any human. It doesn’t have to be you… just any human you can think of.”

I tried to figure out what exactly she was trying to say “Did you try to draw yourself… from before this?”

Jewels shook her head “No… maybe yes… I just… you try. Just draw a human. It doesn’t need hair or be really detailed just draw one.”

I bit my lip and shrugged as she dragged my over to a table with a sheet of paper and a quill. If drawing a vague cartoon human would help her out then I might as well. I started drawing a circle for the head only for a few seconds had passed I heard her to grunt as I had accidentally drew a pony.

I shook my head as it was natural. I mean I was stuck seeing countless MLP faces that I might have… I coughed as some of the feathery bits of the quill got stuck in my mouth as it ended up messing up the drawing. If I was a unicorn I wouldn’t have had to write with my mouth.
Jewels started to pace as I looked back at the piece of paper as it shouldn’t be that hard. I mean all I had to do was draw a face… some arms and legs… “Why do you want me to draw a person again?”

The siren grunted in frustration “Look most of us have a hard time remembering what we looked like… but we remember the simple stuff. Hands… feet… arms… but can you just draw a hand?”

I went back to the sheet of paper as she placed a hoof on it “Not a diamond dog paw or a griffin talon… but hands.”

I glanced at the vague blurry pictures that she had discarded as none of the details were right. The faces seemed to always end up blurred… the fingers… the hands were constantly scratched out. The canvas she had been working on had dozens of books nearby them as there seemed to be way too much detail on…

“What is that?” I asked out loud

Jewels stared at the canvas filled with various hands from various races “It’s a collection of hands.”

“Why did you make a collection of hands?” I asked in confusion.

She stared at me “Can you even remember what a human hand looks like?”

I looked back at the painting as I shook my head. It had to be all the abstract paintings nearby that was messing with my head. I mean I spent a bit of time looking at recreations of earth art only to run into a couple of various charcoal sketches…

“Can you remember what anyone looked likes?” Jewels asked with a slight hint of fear. “Not if you forgot or there is a hole in your memory… but what they actually looked like. What a human looked like.”

I looked back at the sheet of paper as I tried to think of someone… anyone… I mean it should be that hard. There was a group at the bar that made freaking anime toys and mechs... I tried to remember any of them as various robot like mechs came to mind instead of human shaped ones.

I tried again as I tried to remember the various mechs and their designs “Look maybe I can…”

I bit my lip as Celestia wouldn’t be able to help. Jewels was more upset with the fact the painting was lost than any damage to her reputation. Come to think of it from all the various mechs… was there a human like mech made? I mean I’ve seen Mechwarrior ones and some of the sci-fi ones with cannons for arms, but…

I tried to remember my mom’s face as I could still remember her. Her name was Rebecca. She was an average white American woman with brown hair and she also had a few freckles. I didn’t have any, but my dad thought they were cute…

“Maxwell?” Jewels asked in concern “You’re pressing too hard against the table.”

I looked back at the table as I shook my head “I’m sorry… it’s just…”

I bit my lip as I looked at the crude blurs in fear… the level of detail and emphasis she had placed on the centaur hand and the various books on faces known to equestrian.

I shook my head as I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t used the menu since I fell to Equestria. The thing frightened me as I personally held the unknown magical device as the object responsible for screwing everybody up in the Everfree Castle.

I hadn’t lost any memories as everyone just said that you just knew. That it was like someone cut a hole out of your memory and left a big black spot from where it should be. We could curse out loud only to have something bad quickly happen to us after we did it, but that didn’t stop some people from trying to find ways around it.

I shook my head as surely someone should have said something about it… I mean it… I tried to remember the details as I wrote them down and looked at the list. I could write down the details… the color of her hair, the freckles, gender, the color of her eyes and a dozen other various details that told me this was exactly what my mother looked like… but it was a police description.

I could remember her… I could remember the various races, genders, and details of humanity and yet… I glanced at the paper as I tried to think about a standard face. A face had a nose, a pair of eyes and ears… a mouth… I could name the details of the face and yet I couldn’t figure out how to draw it.

I knew what a human looked like… yet…

I glanced at Jewels with a slight hint of fear “Surely you’ve told someone else or… someone must have…”

She shook her head “I mean I’ve been trying to… but… things just… sort of always came up. Some of the others were just quiet as they didn’t believe me… or they didn’t see a point in drawing something that Equestrians wouldn’t understand.”

She looked at me as I saw her shivering “The painting was only out for one day and it didn’t get a lot of attention… I just put it up because… I felt like I was missing something and…. Now it’s gone. Pallet hadn’t thought much about it as she didn’t give it a lot of attention before it was left as a burning pile of ashes.”

I shook my head “What about the guards? Did they see who it was or…”

The former human shook her head as she started to cry “They spotted the disaster when they were notified someone was trying to steal the painting. When they arrived the culprit had already escaped leaving a burnt pile of ashes as the flames threatened to consume the rest of the building.”

I took a deep breath as I tried to calm myself down “I have a few friends who work on making models… maybe one of them might be able to help?”

Jewels shook her head “But if you can’t remember then how…”

I placed a hoof over her mouth “You're stressed… worried… and looking through half a dozen books trying to figure out which collection of drawings is the set that makes you go insane. That’s the strategy of most Eldritch Cults.”

I removed a hoof from her mouth and took a deep breath “You can’t remember the finer details… but try looking at it from a different aspect. We’ve been in Equestria for quite a while… we see a lot more faces of different species… maybe looking at a couple of earth culture centric things might help you out.”

She slowly started to calm down “I know it’s not much, but think about it. You’ve spent a lot of time trying to recreate earth paintings. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to help others out… maybe we just need someone spends more times making old anime mech models to help clear up some of the details and give our brains a reminder.”

She nodded her head “You think they’ll help me?”

I shrugged “Well I own the tavern they like visiting and I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt for you to get some fresh air instead of staring at a blank canvas all day.”

She looked a little bit flustered as she replied “No I mean…”

I shook my head “We’ve all made mistakes. The important thing is that we learn from them instead of pretending that we didn't do anything wrong.”

She nodded her head as she replied “Thanks…”

Both of us walked out of the room as Pallet seemed more happy about Jewels getting over her moment of depression than any of the notes I had given her about the paintings. I couldn’t help but smile as the former human just needed a good friend to help set her back on the right track.

I also made sure to stuff the sheet of paper that had my failures at drawing a human into my saddle bag with a message “Can anyone draw a human?”

It seemed silly… but the question was starting to gnaw at the back of my mind. I could easily despite my own mother… but for some reason it wasn’t the same. I had the description and details for it… just not the template.

I just hope that I’m being paranoid.

What is seen and how little is known

Remedy Cross

Remedy Cross had to admit that today had been rough on her. The dragon attack was bad enough without an unknown criminal wanting to fillynap her. There was also the issue of Brass being located in the town and that the mayor of New Terra wanted her to look over the problems left by the cursed trader.

She didn't know what was going to be done to Brass or if she would be shipped over to Equestria to pay for her crimes... or simply kept in New Terra for any problems she had committed or information they wanted from her. A part of her couldn't help but think it was just to try to use Brass just to get something from Equestria instead of giving her to them for free.

Remedy looked back at her current patient as the donkey turned zebra looked mildly annoyed as she wrote down some more notes on her clipboard. It was surprising to see the increasing amount of racial transformations without the obvious tell tale signs of chaos magic. It would have been rather fascinating if there wasn't any dark magic involved.

Remedy tapped the zebra’s foreleg testing for motor control “And you were a donkey before this happened?”

The zebra nodded “The name’s Yanky of course most folks just called me Yanky Doodle. I have to ask… do you have any idea what the whole zebra mark thing on my flank means?”

Remedy glanced at the zebra version of a cutie mark and shrugged “I’m sorry but you’d have to ask a native zebra.”

Yanky sighed as he shook his head “Figures… Do you have any idea who long it will take to turn me back to normal?”

Remedy’s horned glowed as she as focused on removing the taint of the dark magic from his body. Yanky closed his eyes as she did her best to remove the taint of the dark magic before a flash of light went off. When he opened his eyes he sighed heavily in relief happy that he was back to his normal donkey form.

Yanky started to get up only for Remedy to reply “Now we just need to make sure everything is okay.”

He glanced at Remedy in concern “Okay…”

Remedy noticed his nervous expression and sighed “Right now we just have to make sure there isn’t any side effects or strange lingering sensations. That’s why we do a medical check before seeing if we can turn you back.”

Yanky nodded as he watched Remedy pull out the medical tools again “Isn’t just turning me back to normal solving that problem?”

Remedy shook her head as she continued “Dark Magic is banned due to the lingering effects it leaves on both the caster and the victim of the curse. While we may have gotten rid of most of it we just need to make sure that it is completely gone. Even then there is the matter of making sure certain movements or reactions have returned to normal.”

Yanky chuckled nervously as he replied “Well most folks say there isn’t that much of a difference between zebras and donkeys…”

Remedy nodded her head “It’s more important when there has been a larger racial change… and to see if any possible dark magic flares up during the process. If it does than I can get rid of any remnants that were left instead of waiting to see if you’ll turn back into a zebra or start talking only in rhymes.”

Yanky nodded as Remedy looked back at her list. Sixteen cases and so far she had only been able to treat four of them. It was going to take time for her to remove the more extensive amount of dark magic in the other victims and making sure that everything turned out alright. It was just very exhausting dealing with dark magic as it took a lot of magic and hard work to remove it.

With the current list she was already planning on seeing if New Terra had a Spa as she felt exhausted. She tried to keep up with the check up making sure Yanky was completely cured before scheduling him with another appointment a two days later to ensure that he was okay.
Remedy placed his medical report along with the others as she tried to figure out the fastest way to send these to Celestia… along with a request for a book or medical journal about possible side effects of dark magic on other races.

The next patient entered the room as Remedy turned around and spotted a group of changelings staring at her. She kept her mouth shut and tried to figure out if one of them had been changed into a different race or if they used to be a different race. After all there was a ‘sea pony’ that used to be a diamond dog so anything was possible at this point.

A voice shouted “I told you it’s alright. She’s from Canterlot!”

The changeling turned around as she could hear one of them say “But there’s nothing wrong with you!”

“What if she takes you away?” another one hissed

Remedy took a deep breath and sighed “What’s the problem?”

The changelings slowly parted ways as… Remedy rubbed her eyes as she looked at the changeling in the center of the group. Instead of the standard black changeling with holes in their legs stood a soft teal changeling with a hint of amber around her throat with beetle like wings and an almost cape like… tail or was that bit of wing outside of the caprice? The center or chest of the changeling was just a slightly darker shade of teal as she looked… she looked like a fairy book character.

The changeling spoke in a feminine tone as she sighed in embarrassment “Please tell me you can fix this?”

Remedy glanced at the changeling “Can you be more specific? I’ve had a lot of patients today.”

The changeling took a deep breath “I was a changeling. Helped found the town… before the whole cruise incident I was a normal looking changeling… except my wings for some reason had a glittery sort of look. I don’t know why, but I liked how they looked.”

Remedy nodded her head as she hadn’t seen any changelings like this. There also didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her.

“Are there any problems or issues?” Remedy asked out loud.

“Nope! None! She’s perfectly alright!” a few voices spoke up.

“She isn’t starving anymore!” one shouted out in jealousy.

The colorful changeling turned her back and shouted “I wasn’t really starving when I had glitter wings!” She sighed and took a deep breath “My name’s Mirage and I’m an adventure and these changelings keep saying nothing is wrong with me.”

Remedy tapped her hoof against the ground as she knew about the changeling’s need to feed. She also knew that some managed to curb their hunger as others had turned glutinous and hostile. Most of her cases were trying to help the changeling integrate into society… mostly to obtain documentation for their approved disguise if only to prove that they didn't replaced somepony.

Remedy took out her notepad “So… what’s the issue?”

Mirage pointed at her body “How about the fact I look like I lost a fight with a makeup stand? I’m stuck as this for my base form.”

Remedy looked at her over again as changelings would have been a lot easier time being accepted into Canterlot if they looked like she did. In fact there didn’t seem to be a lot of information on changelings that was even known by the ones she talked to.

“What about hunger?” Remedy continued to ask “Any hunger, growth, or sudden pain?”

Mirage sighed as she shook her head “Besides my pride? I mean I liked how I looked. As for these guys… their natives and they keep pestering me on how this happened.”

Remedy glanced at the changelings as the other horseshoe just dropped. Reports of another group of changelings attacking the feral changelings. Of course any regular changelings that might have been hiding in or near equestrian borders would be wondering what in Tartarus was going on after hearing reports of changelings being spotted out in the open within Equestria!

She noticed their expressions as they seemed more like somewhere in between bodyguards that wanted to protect her and tag along ponies who only wanted to find out her secret.

“What about your hunger?” Remedy asked “Any issues in feeding… any increase or decrease in appetite?”

Mirage shrugged “Not really. I mean when I got the glittery wings I was pretty much okay. I was mostly passive as I didn’t really need spending time at the more active lover lanes.”

Remedy nodded as she continued writing this down “What about what happened before this change?”

Mirage rubbed the back of her head “Well… we kind of mistook the 'native' changelings for adventures… one of them tried to feed on me because he was starving and I tried helping him. I mean I knew he needed love and I could easily get some more and try to help him out once he calmed down.”

One of the ‘natives’ groaned “We’ve given love to other members of the hive plenty of time!”

One of the changelings behind him smacked him in the back of the head. Remedy was slightly curious where the native changelings got their love from or how the whole process really worked. Most of the adventure changelings really didn’t like sharing their love. They would share locations or give advice… but they didn’t share the ‘food’ they had gathered.

Remedy was rather curious about what the native changeling meant by giving love or how their culture worked? Was it biology, culture, or something else as there might have been other differences besides cultural differences between the feral changelings and the adventure changelings. That’s without even diving into Amber or the monster trees Gaichu experimented with.

Mirage glanced at the other changeling before rolling her eyes “As you can see I’ve gotten a lot of attention and complaints about getting my natural black caprice back.”

Remedy took a deep breath as before looking at one of the other ‘native’ changelings “I’ll need to ask you a few questions. Have any of you had glittering wings, shared love, and if possible how much direct feeding does you race normally rely on?”

One of the native changelings shifted about before saying “Why does that matter?”

Remedy looked back at her notes “For one thing this could be an effect from diet or stress… possibly environment.”

“How does environment come into play?” one of the native changelings asked out loud.

Remedy pulled out one of her older medical books “The easiest example would be Therstals or otherwise known as bat ponies. There have been some debates on if Thestrals are a subspecies of pegasi or if it’s the other way around. The region could have also played an effect as the chance of giving birth to a Pegasus in Cloudsdale than giving birth on the ground even if both parents are not pegasi. ”

Mirage glanced at her multi colored caprice “How does being in a desert result in looking like I lost a fight with a paint factory?”

Remedy shrugged as she didn’t know the exact reasons “Well it may be the desert climate as darker colors tend to absorb more light which would also generate more heat. So a lighter color would help could be a valid reason for this change. There has been various research projects looking into these factors… but sudden transformation could also include external or rapid change in environment.”

She tapped her hoof on the ground “Are there any large or ‘queen changelings’ around in the area or have you seen once since you’ve moved here… anypony?”

The natural changelings tried not to confirm or deny anything as they mostly kept silent and avoided eye contact. Mirage simply shrugged as she didn’t understand the question or didn’t know what to say. Remedy bet on the former as it would make more sense for her theory.

“Will Mirage was suddenly taken away from her home and thrust into a new environment. Then you have a smaller changeling community mixed in with a larger multi-cultured and racial community where you were suddenly placed in charge.” Remedy slowly explained as she watched their expressions “That would have caused changes, but the last deciding factor could have been the fact you were feed on.”
“But we…” one of the native changelings spoke up.

Remedy sighed as she interrupted him “It’s common for you, but not for them. The sudden change or stress could have been the final push needed for her body to enact radical changes to help adjust to the situation as it removed unnecessary talents in favor of more useful one depending on the environment.”

Remedy noticed their blank expressions and rolled her eyes “While changelings show equine traits you also have insect traits and certain breeds of bugs like caterpillars can undergo metamorphosis.”

One of the changelings spoke up “You’re kidding me.”

Remedy shook her head “In theory you would more likely get a therstal community to be born from a Pegasus community that lived in a cave or dark areas… and the opposite if you moved a therstal community into a sunny and bright place like Cloudsdale. The fact that her wings underwent a change could have been evidence that it was possible for a future generation to undergo a similar change until external forces caused a sudden shift.”

She looked back at Mirage “You mostly kept with a passive feed system. You just focused on the love around you than directly taking the needed amount for somepony else. You live in a community where nopony, dog or dragon cares about what you are as it isn’t uncommon to find larger areas filled with love without having to switch to a disguise or method that would require you to spend more energy just in order to feed yourself.”

Remedy smiled “I’d still like to go over a few medical checks and see if you have went under any physical or mental changes, but it may be that there is nothing wrong with you… except for maybe a molting issue in the nearby future.”

Mirage cringed as she whispered “Molting issue?”

Remedy rubbed the back of her head “The color scheme maybe due to a sudden coat… or chitin change so there may or may not be a molt change or two in the nearby future. Just make sure to inform me if there are any other changes or odd feelings or itch when we go over the medical test.”

Mirage nodded as Remedy made a mental note to look up the more colorful version of changelings in any of Equestria’s old myths. She rubbed her chin as she thought about the dramatic shift in appearance between the black changelings and the more colorful version of Mirage… Maybe one of those old mare tales actually had information about changelings.

******

Maxwell

You ever wonder how those zombie apocalypses on TV start? How such an obvious thing in hindsight only seems to keep growing worse? Like how that one guy who was bit keeps walking about claiming he’s alright only to be hacking up a lung every few minutes or how some people just think resting in a graveyard would be the perfect idea?

I think I finally understood what was going through their minds as I watched the ‘outbreak’ start to grow inside my little piece of the world. Jewels was introduced to a few people who built models… and it only occurred to me now just how bad or ‘simply’ a harmless experiment could be.

Jewels picked up a gundam unicorn model… only for it to be a unicorn version of a gundam. The old standard green zaku looked the same… if you swapped up the human version base for an earth pony base. Despite all of the mechs and anime gimmicks that had been made all of them had been ‘ponified’ for a lack of a better word. Sure the non-human mechs looked the same, but anything that was human bases was now a pony.

To make matters worse… now I had a group of people starting to mutter as they tried to figure this out “It can’t be this hard.”

Jewels shook her head “None of you managed to make a single one?”

Another one face palmed “Bipedal to quadruped. That’s means two feet. Give me a hand that implies hands and if a scarecrow is simply a cross with straw that means two hands, two legs, and a head.”

“Then why are you drawing a diamond dog Mat?” a griffin nearly shouted
The diamond dog growled “How about it’s because it bipedal? Still it’s a lot better than your griffin drawing!”

Yes I just threw one infected person into a room full of normal people… or I just figured out how to make an eldritch cult that would bring about the end of the world as their writings and drawings would send people down into a spiral of ever growing madness forcing them to question their own sanity.

I looked back at the small models as I tried to figure out just why we could draw humans. Was it an attempt to prevent cultural contamination… which was oddly specific considering some of the stuff we had done. I mean I run a tavern with where people sing Disney songs makes meta jokes as Cloudsdale is trying to build airplanes… with limited success.

I looked out the window and at Canterlot Castle as I tried looking at it from a different perspective “How do you tell someone you’re human?”

First answer would be to simply tell them… then what? Do you draw a picture? Turns out you can’t draw a picture as every attempt is censored… but not in the same way cursing is censored. You draw a picture and you think human, but you draw something else making you look crazy.

Do you describe a human? Two arms, two legs, face… mostly hairless… trying to describe a human to someone who hasn’t seen one and that when you draw one you end up drawing something else would be problematic.

I looked at one of the mech models in front of me. Why didn’t I see this problem sooner? Was I just simply filtering it out and not paying attention… or was it being filtered out on purpose until someone pointed it out. Sort of like asking how many waiters are in a restaurant, but not being allowed to look when the question is asked.

I took a deep breath as there was an easy answer to this question.

I could just ask Celestia about any strange paintings or odd actions amongst the human population. All I had to do was simply walk up to Canterlot Castle and… Pallet is waiting for me outside.

I took a deep breath as I walked up to her and said “Is there anything else?”

Pallet nodded her head “Will Jewel's be alright?”

I thought back to the rather simple and yet complex question being held in the room behind me “At this point she just needs to vent and release all that pent up frustration before she suddenly explodes. I already sent Pocket Ace orders to help bring them a good lunch and something to help take their minds of the problem if they are still stuck on it.”

Pallet sighed in relief as she shook her head “Thank you… but I’m sadly going to need your help for a little bit longer.”

I tried to smile as I felt a creeping sensation down my back “With what?”

The Canterlot unicorn tried to smile, but I could tell she was tired “The Equestrian Cultural Festival is being held soon and since Lockheart had went missing… the work load was shifted over to us… and because Jewels needs time to rest we still need a qualified adventurer to help out with judging some of the artwork.”

I slowly shook my head “So you want me to look for some art majors right now?”

Pallet shook her head as she stared at me “I did request your services with helping me out… it’s just that I’m going to need that help a little bit longer today.”

“Right away?” I replied with a hint of panic in my voice

Pallet nodded as she replied “And right now one of my best artists is trying to recover and Celestia wants me to find a few more candidates to show off during the Cultural festival. Something to help show how Equestria has grown along with sharing parts of the culture of those who have found themselves lost in Equestria.”

I slowly nodded my head “Yes, but why do you need my help?”

Pallet smirked as she replied “Because you're honest and if someone claims a work, song, lyric, or quote that is not theirs then it would be best to quickly remove them and focus on those who are more deserving.”

“Besides…” Pallet continued as she pulled out a scroll and a bottle of ink with a quill “Not all of Equestria’s allies have gotten to know about certain cultural aspects of the adventurers or newer allies like Griffin Stone or Thunder Peek need a good impression of Equestria.”

I gulped as I caught on to the unspoken message “You mean politics.”

Pallet nodded “It is not enough to simply take a good tale. History needs to be shown or something to help stand out from the rest. There can be a theme or a trick being done, but what needs to be shown is an aspect or understand that shows a piece of civilization revealing to nobles of other lands that you are not mindless warriors who only know how to strike their foes with their swords.”

“And something to help stand out if it is shown to a noble.” I quickly added.

Pallet sighed as she slowly nodded her head “While rap and techno are ‘valid’ forms of music I doubt certain groups of high society would also agree.”

I shivered as I could deal with techno… and I did like certain rap songs it was just that I hated most forms of rap and techno music. I tried not to even think about songs or limericks that were written in a different language as some quickly start to sound strange or ‘off’ when you translated them to English.

An earth pony walked into the bar only to stare at me “Is this the pony that you hired?”

Pallet nodded her head “He has helped me out with another problem and he should be able to help point out anypony who is claiming a piece of art as their own original Noble House.”

I bit my lip as I waited to see which group would go first “So… are any of them going to sing or…”

Noble House rolled his eyes “Another group is dealing with songs as… some ponies had a few good songs but were worried about some sort of Mouse from Disney appearing if they sang the songs at a festival. Also I am not sure about some of the… forms or music that your culture has.”

I couldn’t help but smile “You mean rap or techno…”

“Rock and Roll is also one…” Noble House replied in slight annoyance “Or any things that involves generating enough noise to shake the very foundations of a stage.”

I looked back at the center of the room… the room was mostly empty except for the three seats we had and the rather large clock that hung above the door. This almost felt like American idol in a sense… all that was missing was a stage and someone who could give enough insults to make people cry and yet keep them watching for more.

I took a deep breath as all I had to do was just give an honest opinion and point out someone using any famous lines or paintings from history. How hard could it be?

******

I sat in one of the chair inside the some random room back in the museum as the room was almost empty. The walls were left with a simple white coat of paint. The chairs were rather comfortable… as they kind of reminded me of the Crystal Chairs in Twilight’s Castle. They were large enough for you to sit/stand on as if you were a cat except they were made out of wood and the back support didn’t tower over your head.

Pallet sat in between me and Noble House as the rest of the room was left bare… making us seem almost like some sort of council that decided the fate and lives of people below them. I mean we were judging what would be shown to be presented in a Cultural Festival… but not determining if somebody was being judged guilty or being sentenced to death.

A diamond dog walked into the room as he stared at us with a slight hint of nervous fear as… the chairs were kind of imposing. Still he kept his back straight and placed down his set of art supplies and presented a black canvas to us.

He made a slight bow towards us and replied “My name is Smith.”

Noble House glanced at the black canvas “And what is this?”

The former human turned and shook his head “Oh I’m more of a speed painter. The canvas was covered in black gesso as I let it dry before putting sap green in the middle and blue around the outside.”

Noble House stared at the painting in confusion “It still looks black to me.”

I also had to admit that it did seem a little bit strange seeing a black canvas. Most painters or sketch artist I had seen at a park used white paper… and that was mostly drawing someone’s face. Sure it helped earn a couple of bits, but I wasn’t sure if this would be enough to impression Pallet or Noble House.

Smith nodded his head as he didn’t seem worried “Art supplies were also cheaper back home. Now I’m going to be adding white to the painting as your friend wanted a drawing a picture of the northern lights.”

“Why white?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Smith chuckled “Because that color will be able to pick up the blue and green I already put on the painting. All that’s left is showing off and painting the picture.”

“Showing off?” Noble House asked in confusion again.

Smith glanced at the Canterlot unicorn “Art supplies are cheaper back home and being labeled a professional artist or making a career out of it… I’m just not one of them. Still I’d like a spot to help inspire a couple of other artists or show them a few new tricks. If you have any questions please wait until the end.”

Smith turned back to the painting as he started to get to work. At first his work seemed a little bit sloppy as he made a couple of crude brush strokes to make the ‘northern lights’ only to go back other with a dry brush smearing the paint a little before going back against with a wet brush with water to make to appear much better.

He quickly swapped his paint brush for a wooden stick… the end was more of a curved as he placed a dab of paint on the end of it before spreading it across the side of the painting. The more paint he added gave a thicker layer of white and the less paint he placed on it gave a lighter shade to help create depth in the painting as he was adding mountains to it. He finished off the mountains by using the drying brush as he went back to painting again.

He quickly grabbed one of his smaller brushes and started making lines underneath the mountain which soon turned into trees as he finished off the bottom of the painting with a few quick brush strokes. The brighter areas of white were used to mark the land as the more murky area near the center of the bottom of the picture was then turned into a lake.

I saw the smile on his face as he added a few trees near the front of the picture and even added a bit of snow onto them. It was a rather good painting he had made in just under ten minutes.

Smith smiled at Noble House and grinned “You’d be surprised at what you can accomplish with just three colors and a few minutes of your day.”

Pallet smirked as he had used only a few colors to accomplish his piece of art. It was fast, used a limited pallet… and helped showed how creative some people could be.

Pallet looked at the painting for a little bit longer before replying “So you are just making copies of this painting?”

Smith rubbed the back of his head “I have a few others and some friends who also do a bit of speed painting like this. All we just ask is for someone to give us the supplies we need. Then you can just auction off the paintings made and either donate it to whatever cause is being done.”

Noble House nodded as ‘free money’ was golden to his ears. Pallet seemed interested the technique as he helped explain what he was doing and the reason behind it. He also showed what could be done with a limited pallet and the ‘showing off’ as Equestria apparently didn’t have ‘speed painting’ in the same way on earth or it wasn’t held in the same manner.

I glanced at the other two “Any complaints?”

They shook their head as Noble House replied “Just give us a list of supplies that you need and the names of those who are also attending. We’ll get a booth ready for you, but just be prepared if someone asks for something a little bit more complicated.”

Smith nodded his head “I understand. I’ll just add that we will not be drawing any famous monuments as we are not familiar with all of them… much less how certain famous castles are suppose to look like.”

Pallet nodded as she wrote it down as Smith left the room. I took a deep breath as this didn’t seem too bad.

The next person entered the room revealing herself to be a tan Unicorn with chestnut mane and a cutie mark of a pile of sand. She pulled out a glass panel of a rather impressive image of the great wall of china along with a Chinese dragon fighting a tiger.

She took a deep breath “My name is Terra and I don’t have the same budget or talent with paint but I do have a knack for sand. I can show you a drawing to prove I don’t simply ‘magic’ up a painting.”

Noble House frowned a little as Pallet replied “What is the painting that you currently have?”

The unicorn looked at the windows “Can we close the blinds first.” The lights were dimmed leaving the room dark as she light up her horn revealing the depth and detail of her painting with a light behind it “It’s an image of the Great Wall of China… a bit of Chinese culture.”

Noble house nodded “And the art?”

Terra took a deep breath as she tried to keep calm “It’s sand art… or for some Sand Animation. Sand Art like the painting is just a painting used by certain amounts of sand to generate darker shadows or lighter shades of light across the painting. You hold it up behind a light or a candle and you get a black and white painting for to look at.”

She looked down back at the spare sheet of glass she had “As for Sand Animation that is a technique and style used by adding amounts of sand to the painting and drawing out scenes. Then adjust or modifying parts of the painting to add new detail or help make a story as the sand if shift about from scene to scene. Usually it’s done with fingers… or wings… just something to help pour sand and move it about.”

Pallet rubbed her chin “Can you show us?”

She put down the glass as she pulled out a container full of sand along with a candle. The glass was placed over what looked like a small table without any paneling as the candle underneath started to flicker.

She walked out of the room and said “Fiddle, Echo I’ll need your help.”

A griffin and a unicorn entered the room as the griffin seemed to have various objects with her as the unicorn nodded. In a flash of azure blue light a copy of the glass on the table appeared on the wall like an old movie screen as the griffin pulled out a guitar and played a few notes as Terra went to work.

She grabbed a handful of sand and slowly poured enough onto the glass creating a fishing pier as she used a light sprinkle of sand to create a setting sun. We watched her use her magic to slowly parcel out more sand underneath the pier creating shadows before making a sunset over the ocean before finish with an Earth Pony sitting at the edge of the pier.

Pallet looked at Terra in curiosity as she adventure started pushed away some of the sand at the opposite end of the pier as the buildup of sand started making the outline of a face. Terra moved back to her container of sand as she made eyes and a mouth to the ‘pony’ before it took on the shape of a siren.

Sand was added underneath the ‘head’ creating a shadow as if the siren was rising out of the ocean as she was soon holding the earth pony at the palm of her hoof before blowing as the sand was shifted obscuring the sea and the pier into a breeze of air. The earth pony was then obscured as the sand as pushed aside leaving the image of a bird flying in the sky. The breeze continued to grow removing the siren from the picture only for another bird to be made as it was pointed at the bird that was on the pier.

More sand was pushed away until the two birds grew closer as the image grew until they finally touched. Sand was placed back onto the painting darkening the image leaving the faces of the two birds. Terra shifted the sand away from the bird faces creating an earth pony and a Siren kissing each other in romantic embrace.

The music continued to shift as Terra wiped away the two ponies leaving a bright outline of a moon and a trail. She moved the sand creating small trails of light as the straight trail of light became a path of light left in the ocean as the earth pony and siren stood next to each other as birds flew in the light of the moon.

The sand shifted in the ocean slowly bloomed into trees and flowers as the setting moon and couple were replaced with a bright heart. Sand was slowly added as the couple stood at the on a fallen log as the earth pony and siren and a foal.

The music ended as Terra smiled “Do the pictures or the ‘sand animation’ interest you?”

Pallet slowly nodded her head “It was certainly different.”

I smiled as things were looking up. Maybe this was just the break I needed from all the madness. I just needed to take a good look at the things in life and try not to think about my problems or how nobody seemed to know how to draw a human.

******

I had seen many forms and pieces of art. Some stood out as pieces of earth culture adapted to Equestrian understanding… others of pieces of history drawn out like when the Berlin wall was torn down. Some pieces of art were simply not accepted as they were not interesting enough and others…

The human turned earth pony smiled “What do you think?”

“What is that?” Noble House spoke out in disbelief “No I mean what is that?”

Pallet shook her head “It doesn’t seem to be paint of any type that I know of.”

“It’s a human!” He spoke out loud with a mad grin.

I looked at the… tapestry? I don’t think it was a painting considering most of them used a canvas… and their paintings didn’t look like they moved. I mean sure there were optical illusions where you could make a painting look 3D but I could almost swear some of the lines were literally moving on their own!

The object in question made me shiver as various colors mashed together only for dark shadowed black lines to flicker about making shapes and images my mind couldn’t possibly understand… and apparently I wasn’t the only one judging from the slightly worried faces of Noble House and Pallet.

I kept watching them as Pallet hesitantly replied “An Adventurer? Uh… what type of adventurer?”

The former human chuckled as his smile seemed a little bit hinged as he replied “Hu-man.”

I looked back at them as Noble House replied “Adventurer?”

He shook his head as he seemed to grow more frustrated “I’m not crazy. Miss Eiferer had illegally placed me in that Asylum. I am sane. Completely sane!”

I shivered as I dreaded asking my question “What exactly is your… object made out of?”

The former human glanced at his art piece as he replied “Blood, sweat, and tears.”

Pallet glanced at me as she whispered “That’s an expression right?”

I chuckled nervously “Just checking what it’s made out of so that we can make sure that we can place it within the right conditions… Saddle Arabia is bringing an ice sculptor and some of the paintings need protection from humidity or sun…”

The former human nodded “Oh… It’s mostly hair… a few scales and feathers…”

“How was this piece even accepted?” Noble House spoke out in slight horror.

The former human scrunched his face “I think Gilded Coffers said he liked the emotion the tapestry gave off and the glance into a sight unseen by most.”

I slowly nodded my head “Okay we’ll get in contact with you if there is a spot available to help… preserve the tapestry.”

The former human nodded as he dragged it out of the room as there wasn’t anything left behind. We all waited a few moments before he left to tell each other our real feelings about the art he had made.

Noble House shoved his face into his hooves and muttered “How in Celestia’s name was that even allowed to be made?”

Pallet shivered as she tried to come up with a positive comment “Well it was… an accurate feeling or description of madness. The unseen lines trying blur together to bring forth images that have been forgotten by the mind as you are left with a sense of unease glimpsing at something you should know, but can no longer remember?”

My skin froze as a chill washed over me as the tapestry came back to my mind as I accidently spoke out loud “The Tentacled horror from beyond my stars spoke, and Von Neumann help me, in my madness, I understood its words.”

Noble House slowly nodded his head “Alright let me rephrase that… How was it allowed to even be made? I mean… did you hear what he used to make it?”

I shivered as I remember the items “What was that part about Eiferer?”

Pallet face hoofed as she muttered “She was the earth pony who tried an alternative method in helping or dealing with the adventurer population. They had memory loss and as you saw with… did anypony catch his name?”

Noble House shook his head “I think the cursed tapestry seared his name from our minds.”

“It’s not cursed simply because there was no magic in the tapestry…” Pallet replied with slight hesitation “Being placed in an asylum for the mad built just for them probably had a few side effects. I mean what did he mean by stating it was an adventurer? That’s just a title or a term like princess or mayor… is Adventurer the term of an actual race?”

It took a few moments for my brain to finally register what was just said. The sanity impaired human had just said human and everyone else heard the word adventurer… was the word human actually censored?

“You mean human?” I asked out loud

Noble House shook his head “Is adventurer an actual race or are you still trying to recover from the tapestry?”

I shook my head as I prepared to save my own butt… and send out a slight warning to everyone else in the tavern/adventurer community… just as soon as I figure out how to do so without sounding insane.

“Sort of…” I replied out loud “I mean in the same way Princess in Equestria could be counted as a term for alicorn or Celestia, but most people would say adventurer is an occupation.”

Noble House slowly nodded his head “One last question… is the stories of Lovecraft fictional stories or nonfiction considering that line you tossed out?”

I shook my head as I quickly replied “Oh sorry about that… I just sort of realized the meaning behind the madness as it suddenly made sense to me… not that he’s a part of an eldritch cult. It might be a good idea to get him away from that tapestry and into a support group or something.”

Pallet slowly nodded her head “I’m also making a note for Celestia or somepony to check up on Gilded Coffers just to be safe.”

I nodded my head as anything non-magical that could make a magical unicorn question if it was cursed or not was probably worth a note of concern. I looked back at where the tapestry once stood as I could only imagine how bad it would have been being trapped in an asylum trying to say your human… only to have everyone else hear that you're saying you’re an adventurer.

The fact that nobody could seem to draw a human wouldn’t help and then being tossed into a room with other sane people slowly growing insane… No wonder some of them went a little bit nuts. It also explained how nobody seemed to be able to say they were human…

I pulled up my menu as it had been such a long time. I looked at the arcane device as no one could really see it. No one could read any of the messages sent by it unless it was to another adventurer… any language you spoke was automatically shifted to ‘English’ or Equestrian so to speak. So when you put it like that then it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that the word human was also censored.

Why was that word censored? We’ve been here for a while and technically we’ve done far more ‘damaging things’ like building certain inventions early or raising an army of killer drones to attack people. We’ve got a magical system that can literally make us into heroes of old or walking power houses. So what made human a term to be censored when we could do just about literally anything else?

I shook my head as the more answers I found only seem to lead to more questions. I wished there was somebody else I could talk to or dump these questions on.

Noble House took a deep breath “Okay now that we’ve recovered from that show… let’s see what the next one holds.”

The door opened up as a former human turned changeling grinned “The Le Frolif Nor Tof!”

I frowned as he was trying to sound fancy but in reality he was just making up words to hide the excuse for his garbage… no it was pieces of toothpicks, a few shards of broken ceramic and glass before a pile of glow or some sort of sticky substance held it into a vague shape as the ‘cave’ was still had bits of feather, scrolls, and whatever else didn’t stick to the mass of the stick substance.

Pallet looked at the piece with interest and Noble House rubbed his chin. The changeling grinned as I promptly face palmed. I wonder if this was how ‘modern art’ was started? Did someone accidentally spill a bit of glitter glow into their garbage and pulled it out to displace as a unique piece of artwork?

I mean no one could have made that piece if they actually tried making it as I was expecting to see a piece of a soda can mixed into it.

Pallet spoke up “So where did the inspiration of the piece come from?”

The changeling put a hoof over his heart “A simple modest changeling home out in the deep lands of my homeland.”

I felt like groaning as he was trying to pretend it was something. Nobody knew what a changeling was and nobody could really say a changeling home didn’t look like that since nobody had really seen one.

I felt like cringing as Noble House replied “And what is the exact translation of the piece that you just said?”

The changeling took a deep breath “The noble home of the simple worker… of course some of its meaning is lost in translation.”

Noble House looked at me as he didn’t seem to be buying the former human’s story and Pallet was somewhere debating on the line that separated garbage from art. Yes art is a matter of perspective… but this was just pushing it.

I shook my head as Noble House nodded as he gladly replied “Sorry but this is not one of the pieces we are looking for.”

The changeling frowned as he replied “You’re not doing this out of an attempt to discriminate the changeling population?”

I groaned as I quickly replied “No we are not…”

The changeling marched out of the room muttering something about a lawyer or something. I tried not to sigh as I did expect a few bad eggs.

Hopefully the next one would be… oh sweet Celestia.

The former human turned diamond dog was carrying what looked like painting of a cheese burger as she smiled “Simple pleasures.”

I just simply buried my face in my hooves and prayed to god that they didn’t pick it.

Author's Note

Let me know if I messed anything and here is where some of the art from this chapter came from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFBgHGoXd54 Landscape speed painting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zphbnum0_BY&list=RDzphbnum0_BY#t=2 sand art by Fatmir Mura-Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t8a_k0362A Legends of China

Art is a precocious thing. It affects us along with others where a single comment can raise us up and a single critic can tear us down. Sometimes we do it for fun and other times we let it consume us. Still it is something that cannot be easily defined but we still love to see the sights that it can bring to us.

It doesn't matter if it's a story or a picture drawn by hand, but I guess the important question is which do you prefer? The thrill of working on the art you made or how you can see how others are touched by it?

Plans

Valkyrie

I rubbed my aching body as I sat back in the chair. Remedy was under guard trying to treat those who had been transformed or affected by the cursed trader. Peter had dropped us off at a place that could repair my damaged armor for free.

It was sort of an apology for not being able to help us during the surprise attack or more likely an attempt to earn good will since the issue of who should get the criminals popped up. Midnight was the only pony who could send a quick reply back to Equestria and currently we were waiting for a response to appear.

I looked out the window as the city of New Terra wasn’t that bad. On the hill stood a castle that looked far older than the clay like city around it. The only real brick and mortar buildings was the ground based cloud factory which looked like one of those factory buildings with the big chimneys, but instead of smoke it spewed forth steam which was then collected by the pegasi around it.

I looked back at the castle on top of the hill as a small artificial lake stood behind it as New Terra even had its own ‘Cloudsdale’ resting above it. The fake Cloudsdale did not share the same majestic look as it’s equestrian counterpart, but unlike it’s ground based counterpart that worked on function over design it seems that the Cloudsdale of New Terra put a lot more emphasis on design.

Sure it was being used to help store, transport water and help make weather for the town, but it didn’t seem to be as… stable as the cloud homes in Equestria. When you looked at a cloud in Equestria it had a more solid look to it as if you're staring at a floating ball of wispy cotton… yet the clouds here felt closer to the ones back home making it much easier to believe they were clouds of water moisture that couldn’t support your weight.

Were the humans having a hard time making the clouds more ‘solid’ or was it due to the environment? I mean This is a desert and Equestria has a fully functioning city to help produce and guide most of Equestria's weather.

Steel shook his head as he spoke out loud “They make trips to the ocean just to bring water back to this place… why do they do it?”

Midnight shrugged “I’m more curious about the lake. Did Peter the dragon dig the lake up himself or simply think it would be a good place to set up because there used to be a castle.” She took a long sip from her cup of water “The better question is why they decided to live out in the badlands with this heat.”

I rolled my eyes as I knew the answer “Because it’s far from Equestria and none of the nearby nations have really claimed it for themselves. If someone sets up shop here than no one will bother them unless they want to.”

Steel looked out at the artificial lake “Nopony would want to attack because this place is too high maintenance for now. They need constant trips to the ocean to supply water. The earth ponies are the only group that is making it possible for those plants to grow… and the unicorns are the only group here with enough magic to burn the water to create their steam for the clouds and to add fresh water to their lake… unless Peter also helps with the steam process.”

I looked at the area as they did have a point. From another perspective this place was a money pit. The amount of work needed to get water was ludicrous. The amount of earth ponies needed to work together just to create the green ‘garden’ around the lake seemed insane. In fact getting enough people to come together to keep this place stable seemed insane.

Most settlements start of as tiny dots with only a small population. From there the settlements that survive that have found something of value… good soil, valuable natural resources, or a valuable or strategic position when compared to the rest of the nation.

The land needed earth pony magic to become fertile. The water was brought in by air shipments from the sea. There was nothing around here as it was far enough from most nations to make strategic value useless… unless you’re talking about being far away from everyone.

Still it was the closest thing to a ‘nation’ or place the remnants of humanity had. Sure there were settlements built in Equestria, but those technically could fall under the territory of some random noble and you also had to follow some of Equestria’s rules so you couldn’t set up a settlement in a nature preserve or some noble’s hunting ground otherwise the guard would fly in and inform you about your mistake.

Maybe that’s why so many people seemed to be here. It was a place where they weren’t bound to the laws of other nations or there was a valuable resource that made settling here worth the effort being put into it. I looked at some of the shops outside as this town did have a currency.

“Where did they get the money?” I whispered to myself as it didn’t make any sense “Where did they even get the money to start their economy? Did they rob a couple of dragons for gold and jewels or did they simply grab a bunch of bits from Equestria and bring it with them out into the desert?”

The door opened up as a burst of heat and steam entered the room as a dusty coal gray earth pony named Forge chuckled “We get a large part of the town’s income from processed steel.” He wiped the sweat from his brow and smirked “That’s how we have so many bits in circulation in town.”

Steel Halberd shook his head as he glanced at the ponies flying about “So you mine for iron ore? I don’t see how that would offset the cost of building a settlement here.”

The former human shook his head “No our main important is processed steel. You see most of the others in the groups lack the whole industrial mass-production process and the surrounding areas tend to be rather descent in iron ore.”

He grinned as he continued “The rest was gathering a few like minded folks and those who read a bit too much on wikis and history books as it took a lot of work to remake the Bessemer Process. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass and keeps it molten.”

Steel looked outside the window as he seemed to be looking for something as he said “I didn’t see any enchanting facilities or unicorns with forge cutie marks.

“Our process doesn’t require magic for it’s mass production method” Forge replied with a hint of pride “ And any other questions you may have can be found in a history book under ‘it’s our business and we’re keeping it that way.’ Yes we can easily fix, mend, or simply make you a new suit of armor, but making a new suit is going to cost a lot of bits… how did you get some of those dents in your armor?”

Equestria was getting by, but Steel was expensive as they were using iron for their railroad tracks. Plate or Steel armor was very expensive and hard to find… well I had a hard time trying to find good quality steel armor. Finding out that this slice of humanity had managed to find enough iron ore and get enough people to build a mass production line for steel filled me with pride… and a little bit of fear.

I took a deep breath as I replied “A griffin punched me… still can you actually repair my armor?”

Forge shrugged “Possibly? All I know the metal in your armor could be some sort of fantasy or magical metal that runs by it’s own rules. What I can do is help fix the damage with normal non-magical Steel.”

He motioned us to follow him as we walked out one of the doors as a rush of heat came from the right. I saw a massive almost egg shaped like structure pouring out hot molten metal as various people worked carefully around the machine as they continued their work as we spotted a few dozen similar objects through the windows of the building.

I turned my head and noticed Steel Halberd staring at some of the ponies were already trying to make steel beams. Some of the workers seemed to be carrying some of the cooled down metal over to what looked like a group of smiths as I had a feeling they had spent a couple of points in weapon or armor crafting. Sure they could use a mass production model for certain items like kitchen knives or pots and pans… but the high quality repairs or specially made weapons were handed over to the smith builds.

The Royal Tinfoil armor that the Royal Guard wore was useful for flight and looking like a unified force in the Royal Guard… but it was also the difference between someone wearing light or possibly ‘costume armor’ vs someone in heavy armor.

Forge lead us to another building as he replied “I’m surprised to see a Pegasus wearing a type of plate armor. Most of fliers focus on speed as most of our plate armor goes to earth ponies, diamond dogs, and a few ‘magic knight’ unicorns.”

“Of course higher quality steel is a bit more complicated in time, money, resources and of course experimentation.” Forge continued “The standard method for steel armor is sturdy enough to withstand most attacks. Heck a full plate armor suit would make it difficult for anyone to break your armor through normal means.”

Steel nodded as he didn’t seem happy at that knowledge… then again just realizing that you had a group making mass produced plate armor and weapons for anyone with the bits was also a bit concerning.

I didn’t know if it would make that big of a difference in Equestria. I mean back on earth it was deadly as it took a lot of work to damage a suit of plate armor to the point it was easier knocking a knight unconscious from repeated blows than actually being able to kill a knight.
Of course in Equestria a Pegasus could fly above you and zap you with lightning or a unicorn could try out a fireball spell. That’s not even thinking about how you would fair if a large monster like a manticore tried to maul you or if you ticked off a dragon. Plate armor is good… but Equestria and it’s surrounding lands did have it’s fair share of deadly monsters without needing to dip into the villain category threats.

“Still if you want high quality stuff is expensive so unless you willing to pay a lot of bits...” Forge chuckled for a moment as he stared at Steel Halberd “Just because we can make it cheap doesn’t mean we have to sell it cheap. Besides people need to see the stuff as expensive to put a greater value on it. They need a reason to flock here and spend money to help bring people to town. The money from the sales help fund the town which in turn helps the economy and make this ‘money trap’ actually turn a decent profit.”

He turned back to look at us as he said with a sigh “Still… we promised to help out with the repairs to your armor since you did help us out…” He looked to Steel Halberd and Midnight Vixen with a grin “or do you want to talk prices for a second suit of armor?”

Midnight shook her head “If it’s too heavy it won’t be of much use.”

Steel Halberd rubbed his back “I wouldn’t push my luck as the first time was hard enough.”

I frowned “You do realize that this is the type of armor I’m used to.”

Midnight nodded her head “I’ll just look for a set of new wing blades.”

Steel shook his head as he couldn’t help but smirk “Halberd… maybe a spare mace… and something sticky to throw at opponents.”

Forge’s face scrunched up as he replied “Something sticky?”

Steel took a deep breath as he nodded his head “All the ‘unordinary opponents’ lately have been freakishly strong or deadly. In fact I have a hard time thinking of a time where a better quality weapon would have made a difference… maybe some new armor might help… but light and durable would still be my main focus.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle “You get a chance for good quality steel armor… and you decided to check the discount bin?”

Steel stuck out his tongue at me “The first job of being bait is to avoid getting hit. If something hits me much less catches me than I am already in deep trouble.”

I shook my head “How many times have you actually used a halberd in a fight?”

He stared at me and replied “A halberd is a perfectly good weapon. You get the point of a spear at the tip and the blade of an axe at the side. The added reach is perfect for flyby strikes against larger foes. Besides it’s a practical weapon when dealing with large beasts or monsters.”

I nodded my head “What about close range fight or average sized foes.”

Steel rolled his eyes as he quickly countered “What about your tactic of charging and hitting foes with your hooves?”

I frowned “It’s called close combat. My hooves are covered in armor and my suit of heavy armor can pack quite the punch and that’s without including the additions to the armor that are built for damage.”

He nodded his head “True, but your initial attack just sometimes makes me wonder if you are suppose to be wielding two shields. Sort of like a flying battering ram.”

I felt my cheeks burn as I shook my head “Need I remind you who is better in combat?”

Steel rolled his eyes once again “Midnight you’re the tie breaker. Hooves vs Halberd. Heavy vs light.”

“Tinfoil vs armor.” I countered “Close range vs reach.”

Midnight shrugged “You’re asking a pony that spent most of her time watching vases and statues during the middle of the night.”

I frowned as that didn’t sound right “Weren’t you picked to guard Lockheart? Also if he really had any problems with your ability I’m pretty sure he would have told Celestia.”

Midnight sighed “Are you sure about that?”

I nodded my head “He’s not exactly shy… I mean he’s reclusive… and a bit paranoid…. But if he really doubted your ability to protect him then he would have said something.”

Midnight nodded her head as she shrugged “Mobility first. I have spent more time trying to avoid objects or trying to help Lockheart avoid stuff than trying to face something head on. Besides wing blades are the best weapons. Unicorns have magic. Earth pony have their freakish strength and we have our wings so why pick anything less?”

I shook my head “Aren’t those things kind of hard to use since you also need your wings to fly?”

Midnight rolled her eyes “Not all of us fight like griffins. If you are fighting on the ground then why not use your wings? You don’t have to worry about wing blades falling off when you take off and pegasi or bat ponies prefer flyby strikes in the air instead trying to have a grappling match in the middle of the air like griffins tend to have.”

I shook my head “I’m not a griffin.”

Steel nodded “Yes you’re the other mythical breed of pony rarely known in this world. One blessed with earth pony magic and Pegasus magic allowing you to wield the metal coffin without barely any change in your speed.”

I frowned “You do realize that Pegasus magic could also make the armor lighter as it isn’t uncommon to see a Pegasus carrying heavy objects from place to place.”

Midnight shrugged as Steel chuckled at my comment as apparently neither of them believed me. Still this felt nice as we didn’t have to worry about anything else. Brass was locked away until Peter and Celestia could agree on who gets custody over her. The freakish bird creature was in a cage… and Remedy was dealing with the transformation issue in town.

Too bad it was a dark magic related incident instead of an actually way to turn back to normal or safely change your race. I didn’t know much about dark magic other than the fact that it tended to leave bad side effects. On the low end you had magical artifacts that granted inspiration or power at the cost of one’s sanity and self control.

I shivered as I remembered the Sombra future in MLP with the crystal empire citizens being turned into soldiers against their own will. That was higher up on the dark end of dark magic in MLP.

Forge opened up a door as he replied “Take a look and let me know what interests you.”

Midnight glanced at the various weapons as Steel shook his head “How did you come up with these prices?”

Forge shrugged “We had weapons and people had money. The town needed money and they wanted good weapons. I mean it’s a lot easier trying to take down a hydra with a good quality steel sword than a simple iron blade you find outside of a common shop.”

I glanced at some of the prices as these weapons were closer to the high end of the scale… then again these were high quality weapons. These weapons were not made to be used for a rare occasion or to be used for common threats. These were weapons made for the intent purpose of harming if not killing your opponent while making sure that you stay alive.

I glanced at the various weapons as some were your standard fantasy weapons… and yet you could find a katana sitting right next to a great sword. I looked back at Midnight who was staring at a pair of hook swords with a mixture of interest and confusion.

Forge couldn’t help but smirk “Equestria and it’s neighbors do have various weapons… but for those of us who have a skill with a hammer and forge ran into a few issues of supply and demand. Why make a weapon that isn’t native to Equestria if none of the natives will buy it? How can you make ends meet if you don’t make enough bits to buy enough ore to work with?”

He shook his head “So most of our local smiths just left a few of their discarded projects here and I can help you get in contact with them if you like their work… or want a more personalized weapon or suit of armor.”

Midnight slowly nodded her head “Was this an experiment or…”

“Hook swords... an eastern style weapon.” I slowly replied “The five components of the sword are… the back of the sword used as a regular sword. The hook which is used to trip enemies, catch weapons, and used for slashing. The crescent guard is used for blocking and slashing as the end of the hilt is also sharpened. I’m not exactly sure on how you use or link the weapons together to increase your reach, but it’s a specialized weapon that takes a lot of training to use.”

My eyes widened as I saw a weapon that caught my interest. I walked over to the display case and stared at it with rapid interest until I realized that I probably couldn’t use it. Steel and Midnight glanced at the dagger I was looking at in confusion.

“Why does that weapon look like it’s broken?” Steel replied in confusion.

Midnight shook her head “Why does it look like a comb?”

I took a deep breath “The Sword Breaker is a very sturdy and solid dagger that has slots cut along one side. While these slots make it look much like a comb. The unique thing about this weapon was that it could be used to capture an enemy's sword. When the enemy swung his sword the sword breaker would catch it in one of the slots. Then a quick twist from it’s owner the dagger could break the enemy’s sword blade.”

I rubbed my chin as I studied the ‘teeth’ of the blade “Of course it would be more accurate to call it a sword catcher since it’s more likely to catch a sword or to be used as a defensive weapon than actually being able to catch and break the blade of your opponent. Sword breaker is just the term used to help add in intimidation factor and that it could break your opponent’s weapon.”

Steel looked at me in a mixture of confusion and surprise as Midnight replied “How many weapons have you trained with… or that you know of?”

I chuckled as I shook my head “I’ve read a lot about a couple of weapons… but I’m mostly good at hitting stuff with my hooves.”

Steel glanced at the dagger and then at Forge “How sturdy is the dagger?”

Forge grinned as he cheerfully replied “High quality steel. It’s a sturdy dagger, but most adventures tend to deal with wild creatures than sword wielding thugs.” He shook his head as he glanced at the weapons on the wall “Still we get more requests to replace blades as some people tend to forget that weapons and armor require maintenance from time to time or the importance of wiping a blade before you place it back in it’s sheath.”

Midnight slowly nodded her head “You don’t seem to have a lot of wing blades.”

Forge sighed as he shook his head “They are not as common as some of our other weapons. While some of these weapons are strange or foreign to you they are not that foreign to our clients.”

I looked back at my own hooves as I thought about my old character Steel Wings. What would have happened if I picked a different style than my current setup? How did other people deal with their ‘exotic build’ when nobody could repair their weapons or supply them with new ones?

I looked back at the weapons as I realized that half of the price was simply because there wasn’t as much of a demand for them… and that this town was one of the few places that could make these weapons.

I looked back at Forge who was continuing his speech “Wing blades tend to be lighter weight weapons, but they also need enough strength to hold with a cut. Some people tend to go with a weapon underneath the wings… sometimes all that is needed is replacing the hilt of a saber or a cutlass and fitting the weapon handle and sheath underneath a wing.”

He walked over to one of the cases and pointed at a few curved blades. Some of them looked as if they were attached to pieces of armor, while others had hollow handles along with straps to be wrapped or slip over the wing.

Forge motioned to the display case “And some refer to a wing blade as a weapon that is attached onto the base or the outer edge of the wing. These weapons have more emphasis on slashing actions than the thrust ability of the under the wing model… so which type are you looking for?”

Midnight rubbed her chin “I prefer the under wing method.”

She moved to her own wings and pulled out one of her swords… which looked like some sort of odd clips or tags that you put on a bird’s wings. The blade was rather simple kind of like a short sword or a saber as its main job was to be lightweight.

I looked at her other wing as I saw the bat pony’s ‘thumb’ and then back at the grove of the wing blade before the blade popped out. I couldn’t help but wonder if the under wing method was mainly for bat ponies due to their thumbs… or if there was a Pegasus version.

I looked back at Steel as I always remembered him carrying a halberd… but now I started to wonder how it was set up? I knew he preferred to use it for fly by attacks, but was there some sort of attachment to his armor or did he carry it with his mouth? I shook my head as I really should have played closer attention to it.

Midnight must have caught my confused expression as she chuckled “It’s mostly focus on quick thrusts, slashes, attempting to pin the enemy or a surprise attack. Sure they are easier to disarm than the side wing method, but I’m more comfortable with this method.”
Steel looked at me in surprise “You didn’t know anything about wing blades?”

I shrugged “I was kind of taught wings are more used for flying than fighting. I mean… get jabbed underneath the wing and it hurts a lot… and too much armor over the wing and you can’t fly well as it becomes harder to generate the lift needed to sustain flight.”

Forge slowly nodded his head “If you don’t mind leaving one or both of them here I can just get one of the smiths I know to make a copy of these blades with a higher quality of steel.”

Midnight nodded as Steel went back to check up on some of the various weapons as I was curious on how many types of weapons were made… or if someone had made a couple of civil war riffles and were selling them to the public.

******

Celestia

Celestia looked over the report again as she made the necessary adjustments. The delegates from Thunder Peek were being placed near Saddle Arabia so that they wouldn’t be sitting next to Griffinstone, but not far enough away so that they would think the other group was conspiring in secret with somepony.

That would also leave enough space so that Maretonia’s delegates wouldn’t sit next to the delegates from Saddle Arabia’s own delegates but not too far away so that they didn’t think they were being excluded from whatever conversations or peace talks that were being presented.
Celestia moaned as she rubbed her forehead “To much distance and they think they're hiding something. Too little and they’ll start getting into fights. Sometimes it feels as if I’m dealing with foals instead of adults.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle as she began to wonder if politicians should take a year as an elementary school teacher before stepping into the world of politics first, but that might be because she had a unique perspective on politics since she’s been in office longer than most.
Celestia shook her head as she tried to remember if there were any other problems between the nations. Griffinstone was trying to recover and rebuild it’s name. Thunder Peek saw them as a pack of scavengers who finally managed to have one greedy idiot climb to the top of the trash heap. Griffinstone was going through a various reforms as the nation was trying to rebuild itself. Sadly there were still a couple of old birds who still argued or brought up past issues or conflicts that had ended five hundred years ago.

Thunder Peek had mocked Griffinstone’s decline since they separated from the Griffin Empire which had also broken up into minor nations and no longer existed… but Thunder Peek liked to skim over that detail as they liked to link their nation to the empire that no longer existed. Griffinstone either had griffins who cared little for the past as they claimed they needed to move on… and those who couldn’t let go of a past that could barely be remembered.

“Of course it be much easier if this was only limited to griffins.” Celestia muttered in annoyance as she knew Equines could be just as foolish and stubborn as griffins.

Saddle Arabia saw Maretonia as a ‘joke’ claiming them to be well dressed idiots as Celestia ruled their nation for them… and Maretonia still trying to prove they were a separate nation from Equestria as they tried to prove that not all pony nations were ruled by Celestia. They would often snap back at Saddle Arabia calling them backwater savages who can’t even make a working kitchen sink much less a decent day of weather.

Maretonia could regulate it’s own weather and Saddle Arabia was more at whim to the random elements of nature than the level of control that Equestria had… something that Maretonia loved to rub their face in.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Equestria was the buffer zone between the two nations she wouldn’t be surprised if they started a war. As much as they hated each other… they still preferred their relationship with Equestria than starting a war with a nation on the opposite end of their ‘ally’ nation and both sides didn’t want to test which nation Celestia would support if they ever went to war.

Military wise they could be a threat if they attacked Equestria. In terms of economics the war would be short lived as Celestia had a decent amount of weight in both nation’s bank accounts. It’s one thing to go to war for honor and glory… it’s another to tell their soldiers they are not being paid for it.

Celestia took a deep breath as she focused on the second problem… Iron Talon. The griffin nation that hadn’t seemed to change since Equestria was born. They still had constant civil wars as each war band would slaughter each other as they always tried to retake control of the capitol before raiding and plundering the surrounding nations.

At best the rulers would run their nation as a kingdom of mercenaries ready to take any job just as long as they were paid. At worst they were warlord who conquered anything they could reach… the only reason why Harold stopped his warpath was simply because he couldn’t stretch his armies out any further and his ‘subjects’ were already getting ready for the next line of succession.

What bothered her was the letter the old griffin king had sent her as he was asking for a ‘seat’ in the Cultural Festival. The griffin who she had meet once and that was only to mark the end of his territory who reeked of bloodshed with a smile on his face… wanted to talk.

“Normally this would be a good sign.” Celestia muttered to herself “It would be a chance to offer them a different method of government or at the very least a different method of succession.”

Still there was something about this letter that bothered her as she tried to figure it out. Was he trying to profit from the recent chaos or be given an excuse to bring an army to fight somepony? Was he coming to Equestria to challenge Celestia or somepony to a duel as he wanted to die fighting… or he wanted to test the strength of some of the adventurers?

Celestia bit her lip as this could always be a cheap excuse to scout her territory. A chance to take a look at her lands before trying to finally break past the border and strike out taking everything they could get their talons on as it would be one final war before retreating back to their territory as their next bloody civil war.

To tell the truth the last option seemed the most likely as the griffin king knew his kingdom would fall apart right after he died. It was the sad truth about their nation as it always fell to ruin right after their leader died the nation would tear itself apart in civil war until a new leader sat upon the throne drenched in the blood of his rivals.

Celestia shook her head “And all it would take to ruin his nation before he attacks is a simple slip of poison in his next meal.”

That was why none of the other nations near Iron Talon feared him. If worse came to worse than a single assassin could destroy the nation as they would just have to get one lucky shot and then let the nation tear itself apart.

Celestia shook her head as she muttered “I know two alicorns who would call me fools for allowing this request.” She sighed as she pulled out a new scroll “Still if I can get one of those griffins to listen to reason then maybe everypony near Iron Talon won’t be shivering in fear when the next line of succession and ‘restoration’ comes into play.”

“Besides…” Celestia muttered to herself sadly “At the very least I’ll be able to tell what he plans to do next and nip it in the bud if it is a problem to Equestria.”

Celestia finished the letter as she sealed it up and placed it on her desk as she planned to check with her court advisers to see if they also agreed on letting the griffin visit their nation. Maybe she was being too harsh as one could claim she held a grudge against Iron Talon in the same way the Yaks held a grudge against Equestria.

Of course maybe the advisers agreed with personal distrust of the nation as Iron Talon really was just as bad as she thought the nation was. Maybe she just needed somepony else to nod their head and agree that it was a bad idea to invite them to Equestria.

A burst of green flames appeared in front of her face snapping her back to reality as she grasped the letter that had appeared in front of her. What should have been a simple assignment and a chance to help guide or help a city that had refused to give up their attempt to settle in the badlands had turned out with mixed results.

Celestia had sent them there in an attempt to relax and cool down… Valkyrie and Steel Halberd recovering from their fight with Brass and cure of Valkyrie’s petrifaction… Remedy Cross and Midnight Vixen after Lockheart’s fallout.

Celestia gritted her teeth as things turned out much better and worse than she had expected. Midnight’s self confidence had seemed to have recovered. Remedy Cross wasn’t treating the assignment like she was being punished as Steel and Valkyrie seemed to be getting over their mistakes from the Tartarus Jail Break which was good.

The only problem was that the mayor of the city… who also happened to be a dragon had tried to escort them to New Terra. Apparently there was an issue involving the cursed trader who was changing various races into other races with dark magic. To make things worse he tried to attack Remedy Cross in transit.

Celestia face hoofed as this wasn’t what she had planned on dealing with. On the bright side Remedy was able to treat those who had been affected as she also was requesting a couple of book on biology, dark magic symptoms, and… mythology?

What bothered Celestia the most was that Brass had been nearly fillynapped by the cursed trader who escaped. Brass was currently behind bars with another doctor named Mort who had a rather impressive charges, medical skill and knowledge about treating other races. Then to top it all off an unknown avian like race was captured who was working with the cursed trader.

Celestia sighed as she was now going to have to figure out how to negotiate with the settlement and figure out any possible connection with the various events. She chuckled in a mixture of annoyance and joy as she didn’t have to worry about finding Brass or worrying about what Valkyrie or Steel would do if they encountered her since that issue was already resolved.

She used her magic to gather up a few nearby books and muttered to herself “You’d think that after all these years things would get easier. Dealing with politics would be child’s play if you’ve been doing it longer than nations around you have existed. Figuring out motives would be simple once you’ve seen all the tricks somepony can play.”

She cracked open one of the books as she continued “The Yaks are about to get some reinforcements. Griffinstone is trying to rebuild and more importantly step back into the world instead of hiding behind the ruins of their history.”

Celestia felt herself smile as this year might have finally been giving her a break. Brass was captured as it would be easy to have her transported to Equestria. Then from there she could easily find the ponies responsible for the Tartarus Jail break. If the Yak expedition force ran into any problems she could send some of her own soldiers to help under the guise of ‘checking borders’ or rumors about feral nests.

She pulled out her dream journal as she looked over all the problems. She had found a solution to the changeling queen… she found a way to track down Tirek. Now all she had to figure out who the last foe was and how to deal with him.

If the current books in the Canterlot Library had nothing on this unseen foe than maybe one of the three tribes got lucky and wrote something about him or his race as a rumor or myth. Celestia bit her lip as someponies had a hard time believing that the windigos actually existed.

“Is he a new threat or an ancient threat?” Celestia muttered to herself “Let’s see what I can find.”

******

Herald

The griffin king sighed as he sharpened his weapons. His guards kept patrolling as the lesser houses were debating on how the land should be ruled. The soldiers were finishing up their training as each group was being split into divisions.

Herald looked at his own reflection in the shine of his hand axe as he recognized the look on his face. Right now it felt like the last few days before his own birthday as a hatchling. He knew that his presents were being tucked away in the closet as his parents were baking the cake.
He could feel the joy that would soon arrive only for the sweet temptation to drift into the air as he was forced to wait as he tried to ignore the siren’s call. Herald placed down his axe and moved onto his sword as he went over the plan once again in his mind.

The Cultural Festival was when he could finally unleash his blades and be allowed to fight. Until the signal was given he would have to contend with trying to talk with the others nations and seeing what defenses they had.

The smaller details didn’t matter… like how he would deploy his troops or what tactics he should use to counter the Royal Guard. Those things always changed when you engaged the enemy and all you really needed to do was kill the person shouting orders. The fact that he would be left deep in enemy territory also didn’t matter because that was where most of the best fighters also would be stationed.

Herald watched the sparks flew from his sword as he couldn’t help but think about the real prize of battle. How would the commanders fair? Were they the noble warriors who fought on the front line leading his troops or the skill strategist that focused on the entire layout of the battle. They would be sending messages or moving their forces to pull back, reinforce, or lull the enemy into a false sense of security before unleashing their wicked trap!

He grinned as he focus on the sound of the grindstone sharpening his blade as he couldn’t help but wonder how his beloved nephew and his mate would act? Would they unleash traps or follow the battle on a larger scale or did they lead their troops like he did? Would Celestia join the field of battle or sit upon her throne directing her troops?

Herald chuckled to himself as he tried to figure out how she would fight. Would she go straight for the throat and use her hooves to smash all those who stood in her way? Did she fly about the battlefield picking people off and dives down from the skies with her pegasi skewering her foes with steel tipped lances? Maybe she would stand back and unleash an arcane barrage made up from the countless spells she had learned throughout history?

He placed the sword aside and moved onto the next weapon as he tried to picture the fight against Celestia. Would she use swords held in her magic? Did she have her own unique style of combat or did she switch to whatever method that might be more suited against the enemy?

“Will she force me to fight her to the death…” Herald whispered to himself “Or can I tie her down to the ground and claim her along with her kingdom for myself?”

Herald looked back at his collection of weapons with mixed feelings. In the old days he’d just simply grab an axe to start a battle and then simply pick up the weapons off the battlefield when a blade was caked in too much blood or chipped to pieces by a foe. Unicorns did prefer to use magic instead of swords and blades while earth ponies seemed to prefer iron boots to crush their foes.

“Two thirds that use weapons I can’t use.” Herald muttered to himself “And the commanders probably have some really good armor.”
He looked back at his assortment of weapons… both old and new as it also seemed cruel to force him to pick which weapons he would be forced to leave behind. The door to the room opened up forcing him to leave his thoughts of the upcoming battle as he would be forced to deal with the lesser tasks of ruling his kingdom.

Herald watched the servant walk into the room as he began to grow more irritated at what minor task they needed him to solve. Was some small clan or family butting heads with another family? Hadn’t they all realized by now that Herald really didn’t care as they all lost to him. He owned their lands, houses, and he also had a much larger army ready to fight for him than they did.

Herald took a deep breath as he replied “I’m a simple king as I have just one rule. Don’t make me come over there.”

“It’s a little bit more than that…” The servant replied with a hint of fear.

The griffin king went back to examining his weapons “I just ask for a small amount of soldiers for my armor. That they pay their taxes then they can ‘rule’ the small patch of lands they are on unless they want me to try conquering them a second time.”

“It’s not an issue with the noble houses.” The servant spoke out only this time he was hiding behind the thick sturdy door “Your nephew has returned had has gotten into an argument with your associates.”

Herald rubbed his chin as he held one of his axes in his talons “Didn’t I make it clear cut that I have taken an interest in supporting his activities?”

The servant nodded “No he is having a problem with the other associates he works with.” Herald turned to stare at the servant in confusion “The ones that hired him?”

“You mean the tag along group.” The griffin king replied “What do the idiots that ride on my nephew’s tail want to complain about?”

The servant coughed “It’s more of an issue about verification. Your nephew wants to check on something in Equestria… and he seems to be paranoid of both the griffin that travels with him and his own allies who are currently refusing his request.”

Herald shook his head as he thought he had an idea on what was going on. Brass was a wanted criminal and the group she was working with was a bunch of cowards. Swift just wanted to make sure that his ‘associates’ hadn’t backed out or traded Brass to save their own hides.

He quickly grabbed his cape and strapped a short axe and shield to his side as he prepared to deal with the current problem. Maybe they were talking about something else… but Herald couldn’t think of anything that could make his nephew act out in anger especially since he wasn’t in the room with him.

******

Herald sat in his chair bored out of his mind as he looked at the two parties complaining. Normally he enjoyed a good shouting match, but that was always because the argument ended when they would either start a duel or back off. Sadly these ‘civilized’ races had yet to use duels to stop pointless arguments.

Swift gritted his teeth “I just simply want to see how Brass is doing.”

The adventurer unicorn shook her head “And I am telling you she is doing just fine.”

Swift shook his head “Then can you have her send me a message? A simple message will do just fine.”

The unicorn shook her head “As I told you before she’s busy.”

“Busy doing what?” Swift replied as he glared at the unicorn.

“That’s classified.” The unicorn replied.

Herald face palmed as he couldn’t take it anymore. What was with the whole point of this act? He knew that some of the adventures had some sort of system that let them contact each other over long distances… something they refused to share with Herald and his kin.
The griffin king shook his head “Let’s cut to the chase. Swift… why do you think the unicorn is lying?”

The unicorn turned to face him as she shouted “My name is…”

“I don’t care.” Herald replied “All you do is send messages back and forth. Now Swift… why do you think the unicorn is lying?”

Swift glanced at the griffin beside him before he replied “The contact that I was suppose to meet was a trap. Instead of a griffin I ran into a changeling working with Gaichu.”

The unicorn glared at the second griffin “And we do not know of a griffin named William.”

The griffin rolled his eyes “Figures… deliver packages and everybody calls you package guy. Get called on a mission you don’t want to do and everyone forgets you.”

Herald couldn’t help but chuckle at that comment “So William is being claimed be a liar for helping rescue my nephew… when the two allies you sent with him returned without him. Now that you are being asked for one simple check on his ally you suddenly can’t comply with his request.”

The unicorn frowned “I am telling you that he isn’t a part of our group!”

Herald glanced back at the delivery griffin. Swift’s associates didn’t believe in rescuing their ally and yet this griffin was supposedly sent to rescue him. The unicorn claimed the griffin was lying or a spy… and the griffin claimed that they were lying.

Herald sighed as he shook his head “Let’s make this simple then. How about you simply let Swift ask Brass his question and if he gets the answer he is expecting… then obviously the delivery griffin is lying. If you can’t deliver the message than obviously your group is lying.”

The griffin in question shrugged “Fair enough.”

The unicorn shouted “You can’t honestly believe that imposter over your own allies!”

Herald glanced at William “Because he is willing to take punishment if he is wrong. If he is lying than he’s a spy and since this is my kingdom I’ll probably put him to death. You on the other claw just have to send a simple message and you keep complaining.”

He glared at the unicorn in question “So tell me the reason why you can’t send a simple question that actually makes sense little unicorn?”

The unicorn thrust her a hoof out at William “He’s obviously a changeling in disguise!”

The griffin shrugged “I’m willing to take a test to prove I’m not a changeling only if Swift agrees to the person giving the test.”

The unicorn shouted in rage “What do you mean by that?”

The griffin rolled his eyes “You claim I am lying so why should I trust you to do the test?”

Herald glanced at the others in the room. The ones standing with the unicorn stood ready to defend her. The guards in the room seemed ready to attack Swift’s former associates. Normally they would stand waiting for their king’s command or getting ready to follow the plans of their clans. Come to think of it there seemed to be more guards than usual.

Herald glanced at the griffin in question “Give me your arm for one moment.”

The griffin nodded “so you’re going to pluck a feather or…”

His eyes went wide when he saw Herald pull out his axe. In an instant he started screaming like a coward as he tried to pull his arm away, but the griffin king’s grip was too strong. The axe bit into the griffin’s arm as blood dripped onto the table as the adventures fell out of their seats as they stared at Herald in terror.

Swift shouted in panic “What are you doing!”

The griffin king stared at the bleeding arm as William kept cursing “Shit, Shit, fuck, shit, fucking shit.”

Herald glanced at all the surrounding guards as one of them had switched to a stance ready for combat. His guards were better trained than this. They wouldn’t prepare for a fight whenever he left a simple scratch on somebody in question.

Herald let of William’s bleeding arm as the griffin in question kept whimpering in pain as he clutched his bleeding arm. Swift quickly pulled out a set of bandages and tried tending to the wound while Swift’s former associates were shivering in fear.

William spoke in a mixture of frustration and pain “Is this good enough?”

Herald kept an eye on that guard that had reacted “Changelings tend to drop their disguise when they’ve been attacked as suddenly as this. Now he was willing to go with my test to prove himself… so are you able to grant their simple request?”

The unicorn was shivering in fear along with her allies as Swift was glaring daggers into the back of his uncle’s head. He couldn’t help but grunt in annoyance as he simply speed everything up. William wasn’t a changeling or he was a great actor and now all they had to do was answer a simple question or tell the truth.

Herald smiled “If it helps you can simply tell your boss that you have an axe held against your neck as we are waiting for a response.”

The unicorn to her credit nodded as she did her strange magic trick. Her eyes seemed to be staring at something they couldn’t see as sweat rolled off her body. Herald glanced back at the guard that had reacted as his body seemed to tense up.

“Brass is currently investigating the where Gaichu is possibly hiding.” The unicorn replied in panic “She didn’t take one of our associates so we can’t send you an immediate response.”

She shook her head “Would you prefer asking someone else or…”

Swift gritted his teeth as he replied “Ask Tracer… What’s in the sack?”

Herald watched everyone in the room as he felt the air grow tense. The fake guard looked tense as the unicorn’s allies watched everyone in panic. William seemed to watch them in fear as Swift was waiting for the question to be answered.

The unicorn finally spoke up “A sack full of rocks?”

Swift sighed as he shook his head “Alright so where did Brass go?”

The unicorn paused for a moment before replying “She went south. Are there any other questions?”

Swift shook his head “That’s all I wanted to know. Now if you excuse me I need to make sure William doesn’t bleed out.”

Herald watched Swift walk out of the room as he began to wonder who was telling the truth. Could William have been lying to his nephew in an attempt to fracture the trust between Swift and his allies… or had Swift’s allies started to move without him as they were preparing to betray Brass.

The easiest course of action would be to simply ask their leader face to face, but that wasn’t likely to happen. The second action was far easier to check as Herald motioned for all the guards to leave the room with him. All he had to do was simply force the guard who acted differently to spill his guts and see why he was impersonating one of his guards.

Herald waiting until they were far away from the room until he turned around “Now I need you all to…”

He frowned as he saw he was missing one of his guards… to be more precise it was the guard in question. He walked back to the hallway and stared at it in confusion. Seven guards had followed him… and yet there were only six guards left. The hallway was empty as there weren’t any windows for the guard to escape. There weren’t any other doors or hallways he could have turned down and Herald remembered seven sets of armored guards following him down the hallway until he turned the corner.

He stared at the wall as he couldn’t help but chuckle as he rubbed the wall “Get me a map of the castle.”

One of the guards spoke up “Is there a reason why?”

Herald chuckled as he stared at the uneven laws on the wall. The biggest problem most people ran into is that they never doubted the information they had unless it could harm them. Herald couldn’t help but chuckle as he felt a groove in the wall… almost as if there was a hidden exit in this hallway.

“Now just who are you?” Herald whispered to himself “And who are you working for?”

******

William

William shook his head as he kept a tight grip on his arm. His arm had nearly been hacked off by that freaking crazy king just to prove he wasn’t a changeling. He shivered as he had no doubt in his mind that the griffin king would have hacked his head off if he actually was a changeling.

The room was almost bare except for the single bed and dresser in the room as two guards rested outside for William’s own ‘safety’ just in case Swift’s former allies tried something against him.

The wall cracked open as a griffin in armor walked into the room “So how was Swift’s paranoia?”

William groaned as he held up his bandaged arm “Better than his uncle’s paranoia. You do realize the job didn’t include the possible chance of dismemberment.”

The griffin sighed as he disappeared in a burst of green flames only to reveal a pony in a cloak “And I’m sorry for that as I didn’t expect him to nearly try hacking your hand off. Still hopefully this can help as an apology.”

A bag was placed at the edge of the bed as William opened it up and grinned. Various diamonds were poured out onto the bed as this amount of money would have easily made up for the loss of his right talon.

“So is your arm okay or…” The pony replied.

William rubbed his arm “It’ll be sore for quite a while, but I accept your apology.” He quickly scooped up all the gems “Did you find out what you were looking for?”

The pony hung his head in disappointment “I reach Iron Talon only to find out Brass isn’t anywhere nearby.” He sighed shaking his head “I also have no idea where she is or where her secrets lie. If they had managed to contact Brass than one of them would have made a method quickly return to their hideout.”

William slowly nodded his head “So I take it you want to extend the contract and try to help sow a few more seeds of doubt between them?”
The pony nodded his head “If possible, but I understand if you want to leave.”

William laughed as he clutched the bag full of diamonds “Are you kidding me? This insane job pays more that most griffins make their entire lives. Heck when I return to Griffinstone I could buy myself a mansion and live is luxury.”

The pony stared at him in confusion “Isn’t griffinstone… kind of down in the dumps?”

William shrugged “It was when I left, but apparently some random griffin managed to find the lost idol and is actually starting to rebuild the nation. So a chance between a house in Equestria or a founding member of my nation is going to cost a lot more gems and bits… so of course I’m going to stay and take a few more gems from your pockets.”

The pony chuckled “Just make sure you stick to the script.”

William grinned as he placed the bag of diamonds into his saddlebags. All he had to do was continue following the pony’s advice and everything would be alright. Besides it not as if he should care what happened to Iron Talon or the group that attacked Equestria. All he had to do was continue asking a few simple questions as he continued pretending he was used to deliver packages for them.

The pony tapped the wall as a doorway appeared once again “Well let me know if anything goes wrong as I try to get plan C ready.”

William nodded as he gazed back at the diamond he had been given. The pony found him in a bar one day and offered him a lot of gems to escort another griffin back home. He just pushed aside any questions about what the pony was doing or why he wanted revenge against Brass.

All that mattered was that William could pass as a griffin because he was a griffin and for him to just recite a few lines. The door opened up as Swift walked into the room as the griffin looked worried.

William smiled “So I take it you don’t think I’m a changeling infiltrator anymore?”

Swift sighed as William knew the griffin was feeling guilty about his uncle’s rash changeling detection technique. He had been expecting some sort of magic scan or feathers suddenly being plucked… not nearly having his hand hacked off.

Swift shook his head “I’m surprised you’re not asking what the message I sent was.”

In truth William didn’t care what the message was. All that mattered was that he was getting paid and for Swift to feel uneasy about his allies. After all his client wanted to remove Brass’s allies if he couldn’t find her himself.

Swift shook his head “What if it was a message claiming you’re a spy?”

William shrugged “Then I thank you for not telling your uncle to hack my head off. So how is Brass actually doing?”

Swift groaned as he shook his head “How can you be so calm after that?”

He couldn’t help but chuckle “By feeling relieved that I’m not in the same room as your uncle anymore. So did anyone remember who I am or does everyone forget the names of the people delivering their mail?”

Swift sighed in annoyance as he replied “Other than the fact that you drop your supplies at drop off point so you never had any idea where the main base was.”

William shrugged as he tried not to panic “I can neither confirm nor deny what you said.”

Swift rolled his eyes “You still won’t give me a straight answer?”

William nodded his head as he didn’t know if Swift was trying to test him once again or if that was the truth. The pony just told him to keep up with vague statements and pretend that he was on the bottom of the barrel.

“Let’s see… I spent most of my days picking up random groceries until I was forced to do this crazy mission.” He rubbed his chin “And now two heavily armored guards stand outside as your uncle doesn’t even bother remember anyone who isn’t listed as ‘important’ as my job falls under that category.”

He couldn’t help but grin “So forgive me if I still want to be as vague as possible if only to make myself seem important enough not to take another changeling test.”

Swift sighed as he promptly face palmed “Now you see why I was hesitant on relying on the assistance of my uncle.”

William couldn’t help but nod to that comment. While his arm still ached in pain as it felt like the crazy griffin was ready to hack his hand off… the gems still worth it. That and he finally had Swift to shift his paranoia over to his own allies. Hopefully the rest of this job would be easy.

Sticking to a script was easy. Having an axe pointed at him wasn't something he wanted to repeat again.

CH21 Trouble

Peter

Do you know one problem that most people seem to forget about when they think of going into one of those fantasy settings is communication. Not the normal communication problems like where they speak a different language, but the more basic types of sending communication and getting a reply.

Back when America was being founded it took weeks just to send a message to England and possibly months just to get a reply. Villages would have to wait days or even weeks depending on the roads or if some natural disaster took out a bridge. In fact the further you go back in history the longer it took to receive new information. It’s one of those things we have forgotten after being so used to getting new information with just a few clicks of a button.

Moving out into the Badlands gave us independence… at the cost of sticking our heads in the sand. We have no idea on what’s happening in Equestria and at best we can rely on rumors which isn't exactly the most reliable means of information.

“I’m telling you that this is insane!” shouted Theodore the former human turned griffin “Why are we giving up our prisoners to Equestria?”

I sighed as I pinched the bridge of my nose as despite popular belief… I wasn’t completely in charge of New Terra. I was the mayor I didn't make all the decisions by myself, but I did have the final say in most matters.

I looked down at him and tried to keep it simple “We have a bandit, an illegal doctor, a mad griffin and some sort of weird monster bird sitting in a cage and that’s without getting into the former diamond dog turned into a dragon that is ‘mostly’ turned back to normal. If you have a good reason to keep them in our jail cells than go ahead and tell us.”

Theodore huffed in annoyance as his brown feathers ruffled together making him look more like a barnyard owl than an actual griffin. He shook his head as he muttered “I’m just saying maybe we should try asking for something in return. If we simply give them over then nothing happens… but if we trade them for some supplies… information…. just something of value than it would be a lot better.”

Ashley the former human turned diamond dog nodded her head “It might not be that bad of an idea to deny a prisoner transfer until we get something out of it. We only accepted their help with dealing with this 'cursed trader' incident. These new prisoners that they want are not even a part of the previous deal.”

Theodore rose his voice “They are sending someone else to talk about a prisoner transfer instead of using on one of the people they had already sent here! Are they doing this because these criminals have something important on them? Is this an attempt to get something else from our town without our knowledge?”

Ashley sighed “He does have a point… and if we just hand them over without anything in return some people may see us as simply bowing down to Celestia and letting her set the laws. While there are different reasons we people came to New Terra… I believe we all can agree that we came here because humans would be in charge… not to have someone from Equestria dictating the rules.”

William the former human turned donkey stared at her “Didn’t you say we should inform Celestia about this cursed trader problem?”

Ashley slowly nodded her head “That was because we needed help and Equestria was looking for this cursed trader. Yes having Remedy Cross helped out with some of the victims… but do you really want Celestia to simply came over here and tell us what we can or cannot do?

Do you want to set precedence where she gets the final say on all issues?”

William rolled his eyes “You make it sound like she’s ‘tyrant’ Celestia.”

Theodore chuckled softly “I doubt she’s a tyrant, but if we look at the facts… her nation is bigger than ours. Her kingdom is older than ours. We are left to our own devices simply because we are not worth the trouble to enforce. If one or a group of her cabinet decides that we found something of value than they will of course want to have it for their much larger nation.”

He held up a talon “Not that I’m saying their corrupt… but you don’t send a diplomat to check on a prisoner if all you're looking for is just a simple prisoner transfer. Otherwise Celestia would be just fine with asking us if they can bring the other criminals they caught back to Equestria instead of making us wait.”

William huffed in slight annoyance “Personally I don’t see any problems with shipping them back to Equestria. The ‘mad griffin’ is stuck in a cursed suit of armor giving us a perfect example of just why dark magic is bad. I’m pretty sure all he wanted was a little bit more strength without having to trade away his memories. Now he is a raging berserker just one minute away from shouting ‘Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!’ and we no idea how to treat him.”

He glared back at Theodore “The criminal known as Brass has committed so many crimes in Equestria… that Interpol would be after her. Just because she jumped state lines it does not mean she gets off scot free… It’s better to hand her over without any fuss than trying to let everyone think that just about any criminal can move into New Terra and not have to worry about the law catching up to them.”

“And ensuring the trust of the citizens… and being compensated for our troubles would help fix the damage caused by this cursed trader.” Theodore quickly replied “While ‘Rover’ the dragon may be back to being dog sized. There is a fair amount of damage left by this incident and this isn’t a comic book where there is a simple wave of hand to magically fix everything.”

I could see the point they were trying to make… but my biggest problem was that Equestria was sending another group to pick up Brass. They didn’t just ask us to help escort them back to Equestria as they decided they should bring their own diplomat and soldiers just to be safe. I want to think that there is a perfectly good reason for this… but if this was just another group of humans I would think there was something they weren’t telling us.

William shook his head “If this was just a simple problem like bandits or someone going on a power trip I can deal with it. If there is something more complicated than I can try to fall back on what I know from earth. The moment you place something that is completely foreign to us... then obviously we are going to need some help to fix it."

He cleared his voice "We know practically nothing about magical artifacts and curses other than the fact that magic is involved. The only doctor who knows how to treat the symptoms is currently on loan from Equestria.”

He looked back at everyone “I mean they didn’t have to stay and help clean up the mess this cursed trader left us. They could have simply packed their bags up and left after realizing that this cursed trader had left but they didn't. They stayed and are currently trying to help fix anyone who wants to be treated and you are asking if we should hold out just to charge them extra?”

Amber the human turned earth pony nodded her head “I know it sounds bad, but would you rather let Celestia come in here and take any possible criminals she is looking for? What if she asks for us to register all the changelings… or starts placing limits on what we are allowed to produce. I mean sure the musket rifles are inaccurate, but she might just end up banning them due to the possible danger they possess? What if she decides to tell us to stop with our weather production system because it’s not up to Equestria’s standard? I mean it took a lot of work just to set up the lake so that we could then be able to grow our own crops!”

William groaned “We are just letting a few wanted criminals be sent to an Equestrian jail and you make it sound like we are resigning from office and building a throne for her.”

Amber huffed in annoyance “Maybe you didn’t make a mistake in the past. I mean some of us figure out how to walk on our own right off the bat without running into any problems. A few of us weren’t so lucky as we ended up making the mistake of traveling with the wrong crowd. Some were simply misguided as they had yet to realize the reality of our situation.”

She took a deep breath before she spoke with a harsh tone “What if she wants to toss some of those people in jail. What if she wants to take our changeling residents back to Equestria to make sure they are ‘safe’ for the general public? I mean they are essentially psychic vampires that feed off of emotions so it would technically be a valid concern as she would have a valid reason for placing them all in jail... even if it’s morally wrong.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as a part of me simply wished the criminals responsible for this entire disaster had escaped. If this was a cartoon it would have all been wrapped up after the criminal had been caught… but sadly reality had to kick in making a simple prisoner issue into a political debate. This is why seemingly simple laws have a hard time being passed back home due to all the extra things politicians tack onto those bills.

Theodore was trying to turn a prisoner transfer into a business trade. He didn’t want to give something for nothing and while his reason for it was bad… his reasoning wasn’t. There was damage caused by the Cursed Trader and we could use the extra funds… or any help that we could get.

Personally I would like to think the extra ponies being sent over are to help us rebuild and fix the damage caused by Rover the Dragon… but the human skeptic didn't believe it as there were various other reasons they could have been sent besides helping cart away a few prisoners. Maybe there is a problem back home or maybe they are looking for something around New Terra without informing us about it.

William on the other hand didn’t care about any of this as he just wanted to get rid of Brass. We already managed to stop one bandit problem and that cow wasn’t even a former human! If a normal cow wanted to be an 'adventurer' had caused us a lot of problems then how bad would Brass be if she managed to break out of jail and then decided to set up camp near New Terra?

Maybe she wouldn’t be as… inspired as the brown cow, but I couldn’t exactly fault William for wanting to get rid of Brass as soon as possible. The only problem was that he didn’t care about the aftermath. If Celestia wanted to ship anyone we had in a jail cell or walking on the street over to Equestria without any due process than he’d gladly do it.

“I think we should ship over Brass and the griffin… but we shouldn’t just give them the freaky bird or the doctor.” Silver Wind the former human turned Pegasus replied as she noticed the various stares from her colleagues. “Not that I’m saying we shouldn’t keep the rest of them.”

She flapped her wings until she was hovering over her chair “I mean we don’t have any use for the mad griffin and he’s a hassle to keep chained up. We already have a bandit in jail and Celestia has a long list of grievances against the one we just received. If we were back on earth I’m sure we would have been required to hand her over to Equestria unless we made it legal for any criminal to cross the border and not be held responsible for any major crimes they may have committed.”

She took a deep breath as she looked back at everyone “Still that does not mean we should give up the other criminals for free as they haven’t even caused any major crimes in Equestria, but they had broken a couple of crimes within our territory… Not Equestria’s territory."

She held up a hoof "We have some doctors who were former veterinarians or picked up a few healing skills from the menu but their expertice stops when you introduce magical problems. We lack a doctor in the magical medical problem field and while the unicorn doctor might be an illegal doctor native to Equestrian... He is still a doctor that we could use. It would also be within out legal right to simply sentence him to X amount of hours of community service.”

William groaned as he promptly face palmed “I’ll give you points for the unicorn, but why would we want to keep the other criminals? What about the other two? I mean the diamond dog also wasn’t under the influence of anything more than thinking that nothing could stop him because he was turned into a dragon.”

Silver Wind rolled her eyes “I’m more interested in the bird as that freak isn’t from Equestria. We’ve all seen the show or read some fic about MLP yet that creature doesn’t exactly fit the setting. If that bird isn’t native… and we got dumped here in Equestria as we also are not native to this land… then maybe there is a connection between it and what has happened to us and I for one would hate to give up the clue we have.”

She flew above the human turned donkey and chuckled “Besides that freaky thing was with the cursed fellow responsible for all this. If anything we should be trying to make it tell us where the cursed trader went or how he was able to pull off his magic tricks because last time I checked turning into a different race over night is a rare event… and when was the last time griffins snapping their fingers to cast magic as if they were unicorns a common trick?”

William stared at the Pegasus above him “You think this ‘cursed trader’ is actually Discord in disguise?”

“Na… I’d think the lack of insanity or dancing buffalos proved he wasn’t Discord.” Silver quickly replied “But walking into a mirror and smashing it from inside isn’t a part of the standard Equestrian playbook even by Pinkie Pie’s standards. Maybe he’s the same species as Discord or maybe he knows something important that we don’t know.”

William groaned “Well we were able to find out that the avian does have a menu so she’s probably human.”

Theodore coughed “She’s human? Heck how did she even tell you considering she lacks a freaking mouth?”

William shrugged “Remedy claimed that our caged prisoner has had a variety of enchantments and spells wrapped around her to the point she doesn’t even know what our guest originally was. Maybe she was the first mixture of attempts our cursed trader was trying to do to our citizens? That and anyone with a menu can apparently hear her voice. Natives of Equestria seem to be unable to hear her.”

I stared at him in disbelief "Are you sure she wasn't pretending to not hear her?"

William shook his head "Considering the criminal in question was screaming at the top of her lungs and the native Equestrians didn't hear a thing... I'm inclined to believe them."

Silver frowned “Okay… maybe ‘she’ is a human, but if that’s the case than we should keep her in order to figure out how our people were turned into a different race overnight. Some of us didn’t get to pick what we would appear as and I would like to know how they were able to swaps races overnight for anyone who does want to be a different race.”

Of course everyone knew that she was still curious about looking into the possibility of turning back into a human... or upgrading to an alicorn package.

William rolled his eyes “What about you? What’s your opinion on this matter mayor?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I replied “I still think making me mayor was a bad idea.”

Theodore shrugged “You’re the only one who went to law school or had been a politician before being dumped in Equestria. The public also did vote for you to put you in office.”

I sighed as I quickly muttered “If you’re asking for my opinion then I can’t say much.”

William shook his head “You don’t want to leave a commit on which side you take?”

“Actually I don’t want to pass judgment without seeing the lawyers.” I replied with a slight smirk “But personally… I think some of you are blowing things out of proportion. Celestia is sending a diplomat over to ask a few questions and check on the criminals in question.”

I rubbed my sides as I could feel some of the cuts left by ‘Rover’ the dragon. If there was a transfer request for the mutt than I would want to know what the reason was… as I was personally ready to string up that mutt and pin all the problems from the cursed trader disaster and let the courts tear him apart, but I couldn’t let my personal bias interfere with my job.

“Until we know exactly what they are going to do, offer, pass judgment, or whatever they are being sent here to actually do… guessing about it won’t solve anything.” I calmly replied “If they are anything like the people back home… I’m expecting a mixture of helpful commits or attempts to help keep peaceful relationships between New Terra and Equestria. They will ask a few seemingly harmless questions or give us a few ‘gifts’ to help us as they try to get a voice in our government. Nothing major like taking control and dictate what we should do, but making a voice just strong enough for them to ‘hopefully’ hold some weight in our decision making process.”

I looked down at everyone “They don’t need to set up policy if they control our income and Equestria has been around a lot longer than this settlement. The prisoner transfer isn’t so much the issue as it’s an excuse for them to take a look around at what we have and try to see just what we might be holding in our hand. Maybe they might try tacking on a few extra policies or items onto what should be a simple prisoner transfer, but that's politics... or politics back home.”

William frowned “You didn’t seem that worried about letting the other Equestrians walk about.”

“There is a fine line between tourist and diplomats.” I quickly countered “Tourists don’t try and steal trade secrets or look for dirt that can be used against their humble hosts. Besides we also need to know what’s going on with their end of the world if they want to poke their nose into our business.”

William continued to stare forcing me to sigh “But for the prisoners… I just want someone to watch during the questioning process. If they find anything of value than that’s great otherwise we end up with a few dangerous prisoners that we can’t do anything. Instead of being an asset they become a liability.”

I looked back at Thedore “If you can sneak in a deal to get a free toaster than by all means go ahead and do so… but I’d rather ship them all out for free than wait to see if Brass won’t have her gang of criminals try and bust her free.”

I know it wasn’t that great of a point but it was enough for them to work with. I didn’t care what happened with the other prisoners just as long as Equestria’s problems weren’t in my backyard.

Theodore took off ready to see what New Terra needed and what he could safely weasel out of Equestria. Amber went off to tell her allies to be on the lookout for any ‘0’ that came along with the diplomat as William prepared to check New Terra’s security once again as he prepared to send Brass away as soon as possible.

Silver glanced at my body “Are you a little bit ticked that you are not the biggest thing around now?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as most people would have been happy to be a dragon considering how easy they could play out a power fantasy with my size. Heck I didn’t even need to use the menu system to empower myself due to the fact that I was already a dragon.

That was probably why life thought it would be funny to give it to me. I was stuck to a desk job for most of the day and rarely got to spread my wings out to fly. That and my size made working difficult since the town wasn’t built to accommodate fantasy sized dragons so I was forced to delegate a lot more than I wanted to.

In fact I kind of found my size odd as I didn’t really have a horde and I had actually been trying to make myself smaller. Maybe there was something ‘wrong’ with whatever force decided to drop me in Equestria as a dragon… or being mayor of this place had somehow made New Terra listed as ‘my horde’ for a better lack of term. Personally I’d just like to reach a size where I didn’t have to dictate everything I said just because I was too big to write anything down.

Silver smirked as she stared at me “So do you really think the previous group Equestria sent over here were actually tourists?”

“No…” I told the former human “I recognized their looks as someone who was being sent somewhere else to not cause any trouble. We didn’t care about Equestria and they didn’t care or even notice us until now. The fact that they are now sending a diplomat means that one of those criminals are important enough to play ‘nice’ with a fledgling settlement.”

Silver nodded her head “But not nice enough for her to come down herself.”

“That’s where you’re wrong…” I grimly muttered “If she came down here than it would be a simple prisoner transfer… the fact she is sending someone else means that something more troubling is happening either in Equestria… or she isn’t after Brass, but one of our other prisoners.”

Silver frowned “Then why would she send someone else?”

I couldn’t help but smirk as I remembered my business dealings with other people back on earth “You want an honest face you send an honest person. You want to keep something secret then you send someone who is good at deceiving others. Apparently Celestia wanted someone from the latter group to meet us is what’s bothering me.”

“As for why I didn’t bother telling everyone this…” I pushed myself up and smiled “I would rather prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised if I’m wrong than hope for the best only to be disappointed. That and the last thing I needed to say is anything to help fuel any paranoia towards Equestria’s actions.”

“Never think it’s malice when ignorance is just as plausible.” Silver quoted with a smirk

I nodded my head as it could be just as likely that Celestia wanted a better set of eyes and ears to understand what was going in my little city here. Personally I hoped that we got through this without any more trouble.

******

Regal Script

They sky cart was pushed through the air as one of the pegasi replied “We could have been looking around a swamp for a bucking cursed tree, but you wanted to try pulling strings.”

The other white Pegasus grunted “So you would rather be dealing with monsters spawned from dark magic than pulling a cart?”

“I’d rather be a member of the Royal Guard than being used as a glorified taxi.” The first one replied out loud.

The unicorn in the back who was growing increasingly annoyed shouted “You do realize I can hear you!”

The Pegasus shouted back “And it’s too hot outside for me to care!”

Regal Script let a soft grunt escape his throat as he said “And that I can have you punished for those comments!”

Regal Script huffed in bitter annoyance as he didn’t like when the lesser help refused to respect their betters. If the glorified feather duster couldn’t get him to the dirt hovels the savages in New Terra made than what good were they?

The unicorn sighed as he looked out the window of his prestige cart only to see grow more bland in this colorless desert. There was no scenery for him to watch and the fact he would have to let these peasants outside rest in his cart each time they landed or when Regal Script required a bathroom break irritated him to no end. The ruffians would always stink of wet fur and sweat forcing him to air the place out and let in even more heat.

“If only they had a competent weather team to deal with this Celestia Forsaken heat dump.” He muttered to himself “or do all the weather teams in Equestria just dump the hot air out here?”

“No they just give them seats in Canterlot Castle.” A Pegasus spoke out loud much to his annoyance.

Regal Script growled as he replied “Who was the pony who made that comment?”

“Bilbo Baggins.” A random glorified cloud mule replied

One of the pegasi whispered loudly “Bilbo Baggins?”

The one destined for being shipped to the frozen north replied “One of the others told me about him. Some little guy who followed a bunch of dwarves to stop a greedy dragon that liked to attack villages and steal their valuables. It was a weird story.”

Regal Script pulled out a quill ready to write down his name only for another Pegasus to say “Aren’t you afraid he’ll ship you up north?”

“Are you kidding me? That’d be great. I mean I’m kind of dating this adventurer mare who has this great gig up north for bug slaying and I’m sure my CO would probably want me to help slay any of the creepy bugs up north.” The cursed Pegasus replied “Heck I might even get a bonus if I work with her party.”

Regal Script hissed through his clenched teeth as he hated this pony. Not even the threat of having his tail frozen off seemed to be working. Maybe there was some spot near the badlands he could have this pony transferred too. Better yet maybe he should request good soldiers instead of simply demanding a regiment's best flyers.

A burst of green flames appeared in front of him as a scroll dropped onto his lap. Regal Script adjusted his tie as his white business suit was hanging near the window. He quickly took out a mirror and made sure that his brown coat was well combed and that his black mane didn’t look… oily due to the insufferable heat of this cursed land.

“Maybe there was an evil empire down here that Celestia removed by scorching the land dry with a piece of the sun.” He muttered to himself “Still if Celestia sent a letter than this will all be worth it.”

He popped off the seal as he… skimmed the letter “Dear Regal Script. I have come to inform you about… words, words, more words, fluff, don’t buck the locals… don’t buck the leaders…don’t leave a bad impression… and make certain you use the spell to double check the race of the caged monster that they have locked up.”

He looked over the spell as it was one of those boring old medical scan spells that had been mostly replaced by the newer/more flexable version that were not limited to checking for a single aliment. Regal mostly found them useful in making sure that a griffin or donkey didn’t have one of those rare temporary race change/mimic spells cast on them, but those old spells always gave him a horn ache after casting them a few times.

Alight that may seem like a bad reason to study how to cast old outdated spells, but to be fair he knew his future would end off being married to some old hag or greedy gold digger so naturally he had bought his rank in the Equestrian Military help to help bar that ugly future for a little while so that he could freely enjoy life's bounty.

He looked over the spell scroll as this was just another thing that Celestia wanted to check just in case he couldn’t make the prisoner transfer happen due to some obscure reason the local band of savages might have for not following the orders of their betters. In the end all that really mattered to him was restoring the proud Script name and possibly usurping the Blue Blood Family and standing on the top of the noble families.

He could see it now… the Royal Script family. The Blue Bloods would be back to… whatever they were in the past as his family would be in charge of ruling Canterlot… with the assistance of their beloved ‘aunt’ of course... and possibly annulling any political marriages his parents had set up.

Another scroll appeared as he opened it up and looked over the series of details she wanted investigated… apparently she wanted to see if he could figure out their weather system. He knew enough to talk about their Equestrian Weather System in a conversation… but not enough of the finer details to tell how it all worked out.

He just knew that there was some age old problem of trying to convert saltwater into fresh water which had limited the Equestrian weather system to be reliant on reservoirs or natural lakes. Apparently those who had been sent before him weren’t allowed to get a better look, but this was one of those secrets that would greatly help benefit Equestria (And his family) if he managed to figure out how it operated.
Simply saying ‘make it hot’ would be like saying a smith made a good sword was made by dumping rocks into pot over a pit of fire and simply waited a few minutes.

There was temperature control, heat dampening, cloud structure, or dealing with water pressure and cloud quality. It wouldn’t be safe to make a container out of a conductive metal only to accidently make lightning storms thus charging the container into a giant pony sized bug zapper… or somehow falling out of the cloud factory and smashing into the ground.

Something he thought was impossible until he read one of the reports of the… airship experiments. Apparently some ponies were switching to wood in the hopes of noticing it catching on fire rather than having pieces of their craft fall through the sky and crash into the ground.

Regal Script sighed as he thought to himself “Talk to the prisoners and make sure they are being treated fairly. Use the scroll to test the unusual cases for abnormalities and find some way into the weather factory so that Equestria can see if it’s a simple trick to copy or if we’ll need help setting up a salt to fresh cloud converter factory.”

“Why couldn’t these backwater idiots set up shop in Equestria and just give us what we wanted.” He muttered to himself “Most of them seem to be doing their best showing everypony and their grandmother... and yet the one time they manage to make something useful… the idiots in question decided to settle out in the middle of the badlands to keep it a secret.”

He poured himself a glass of ice water and took a long deep sip as this heat was unbearable for a unicorn. The pegasi were probably just fine as they had some sort of natural weather magic or something to cool themselves off. He was just happy he spent the time learning a few ice related spells instead of those flashy dueling techniques as his colleagues back in Canterlot would be drowning in their own sweat by now.

The cart shook a little forcing him to glance out the window once again only to see that the cart was slowly starting to descend. He was prepared to snap at the guards as they already had a rest break an hour ago, but stopped himself when he caught the sight of a couple of other flying races.

Regal Script quickly did his best to clean himself up and look professional. Leaving a good and proper impression was one of the most important things to start with when introducing oneself to an unknown pony. He quickly fell back to his many years of working in Canterlot as he prepared his ‘calm, caring, and polite’ noble persona as nopony really cared what he thought just as long as they heard what they wanted.

He stepped out of the cart and replied “Who are these fine ponies Sergeant?”

The pony in charge of his protection/transportation glanced at him apparently in surprise that Regal Script remembered him. That was of course a lie since he only memorized ranks. It showed a bit more respect when others saw him ‘remembering’ those underneath him without him actually remembering who they were. Sometimes the soldiers would also think that he would remember them which could be an added bonus sometimes.

The Pegasus straightened up “Apparently they are members of New Terra’s Weather shipment teams. They were setting up a spot to rest for the final leg of the trip.”

The voice sounded familiar… but annoyances were to be dealt with when the potential costs of punishments didn’t outweigh the need for a good impression. He noticed some of the guards that should have been pulling his cart was helping the other ponies land their carts.

Regal Script was surprised to see that they were full of water. Not fruit, vegetables or some sort of consumer product, but lots and lots of barrels, buckets, and other various containers full of water. Some of the griffins were pulling out water skins and taking a few sips before passing it around as none of them drank from their storage supply.

One pink mare with a yellow mane walked up and spoke with a strange accent “Name’s Buttercup… Sorry about the interference Gov, but my crew needed a stop and we kind of dragged your fly boys down with us.”

He nodded his head as he didn’t give the order, but he wasn’t going to let such an easy opportunity to pass away as he politely replied “It’s no problem at all since we are all headed in the same direction.”

The other ponies and griffins seemed to be at ease while his own guards stared at him in disbelief. Of course their opinion didn’t matter since he was not required for them to like him. Their job was to bring him to his destination and he actually needed the locals to like him.

Buttercup nodded “Well it was a big help all the same. Carting around this sea water is a rough on the wings.”

“Sea water?” one of the guards spoke in disbelief.

Buttercup motioned towards the various carts “One trip empty to the sea and a second trip back. Sure we get a fine bit back from the cloud system we have set up, but we still need to dump into the cloud factory up top and the sea salt does fetch a fine bit of coin on the market place. Well after we repair the damage cart or find some other way to bring the cargo with us.”

Regal Script nodded as he pretended to know about everything she had just said. The important thing was that this mare was a way to get what Equestria actually wanted from their backwater settlement.

“Taking it from a nearby water source could disrupt any nearby weather systems.” He parroted back the random sentence he once heard in his youth “Still I have to commend your strength to carry it for such a great distance.”

Buttercup rubbed the back of her head and smirked “Thanks love. Still there isn’t too much distance before we reach one of the outposts or the factory.”

Regal Script nodded as he used his magic to pull out a bucket of ice water and placed it in front of everypony. They all stared at it in the same manner a serf would stare at a sack of bits. Sadly one of his guards had face hoofed as if expecting a disaster.

Regal Script smiled as he placed the bucket down in front of them “Well tell you crew I’m happy to share some of my fresh water as we won’t be lifting off without you.”

Buttercup’s crew already stepped forward ready to fill their water skins up only for her to reply “You don’t have too as we can make it to the next outpost soon.”

He just simply just gave his best Celestia smile as he replied “Not at all. It looks like some of your crew could use a small break and I’d be more than willing to help out a fellow pony. Besides it will give us some time to get to know each other.”

Buttercup’s crew was already taking their fill of water as Regal Script pulled out another bucket as he gave it to his guards saying “We can take a small break right Sergeant?”

The guards simply nodded as they were confused at seeing the kind unicorn noble instead of the one that constantly complained and hoarded his water supply despite the unbearable heat the badlands had to offer. Now he was giving them ice cold bucks full of water and ice as he was helping out other ponies.

Buttercup chuckled “So what brings you to our little slice of terra?”

Regal Script chuckled “I’m here to act as a diplomat and talk to the leaders of New Terra about a few boring political matters.”

“You’re a diplomat?” Buttercup replied in a mixture of surprise and disbelief.

He nodded his head “I know… A diplomat’s job is to say ‘Nice doggy, nice doggy.’ while they try to find a stick.”

This got a chuckle out of the mare “Was that a joke?”

He shrugged as a small grin came to his face “Well you do have to admit it takes some talent to make a dog wait while you find a good stick. What about you? It must have taken a lot of skill to build a weather system all the way out here.”

Buttercup shook her head “Trying to sweet talk me or something?”

“I mean it.” He replied with (fake) sincerity “It would have taken us years to be able to make crops grow and have a weather system we could rely on and yet all of you managed to make a viable system all the way out here.”

That comment made the mare blush for a moment as she quickly replied “Isn’t your system a lot better than ours. I don’t see all of you taking trips to the ocean to pick up water.”

“There is a fine line between different and better.” Regal Script quoted “Just because your system is different than ours it does not mean it is inferior. There may be some parts that you do better and there may be some parts that we are better at. The trick is seeing what stands before you and being open minded enough to see what has been done and how it can be improved. After all the only perfect system is one that has never been introduced to reality.”

The mare beside him chuckled as he took a good glance at her. Strong wings… athletic body, but not too much muscle for it to look unflattering… sure she lacked a cutie mark, but that was because of the rather odd society they came from. Something about work before skill… not every nation could be blessed with a competent government system that reflected talent.

Who knows? Maybe if his family was born in their messed up society his parents would have still insisted on him trying to swing a blade instead of letting his natural talent in politics to blossom when he gained his cutie mark while his sister would have been stuck trying to memorize speeches instead of happily swinging a blade against foolish nobles?

Regal Script started to make some polite chit chat with the mare as all the unimportant ponies and griffins were left drinking some water and preparing to drag the rest of their cargo back to town. It helped to know more about who he had to impress before he actually meet them.

Things were so much easier when you knew that the ponies you were talking to couldn’t somehow stare into the back of your skull and somehow act if they had been listening to your thoughts instead of the words coming out of your mouth.

His thoughts froze as he spotted a changeling “Just out of curiosity… there were a few rumors about the pony in charge of New Terra being an… alicorn.”

Buttercup chuckled “Not an Alicorn.” Regal involuntarily cringed at the statement “He’s actually a dragon.”

Regal Script’s brain temporarily froze for a few seconds “And here I thought it was a changeling.”

“Oh no we have a couple of changelings and a couple of other folk on the city council, but Peter is a dragon and the mayor of New Terra.” Buttercup spoke off hoof as if she was talking about a unicorn or an earth pony that decided to take up residence in Cloudsdale. “Why is that a problem?”

“No the… I mean there was an issue with an individual called the cursed trader who was using dark magic near New Terra.” Regal Script quickly replied “I just wanted to make sure that my information was correct or if there had been a sudden…‘change’ in the situation.”

Buttercup rolled her eyes “Makes sense. I mean I knew some folks that had fur one day and feathers the next day. That and the local dragons of Equestria don’t seem to be the type that would be voted into office.”

Regal Script nodded as not only was it polite… but he was trying to figure out how he was going to talk to the dragon. Earth ponies tended to be blunt, while unicorns tended to prefer the game of politics more than the actual purpose of the discussion. Diamond dogs could usually be lead about by their greed as buffalos were a pain until you finally had them point out on the map where their tramping grounds instead of preparing to declare war on a fledgling town.

Dragons were an unknown as he didn’t have any… ‘racial patterns’ to follow so to speak. He was also starting to feel a little bit worried about a changeling being on the city council. This wasn’t because he was afraid of their admittedly creepy looks, but mostly because of some of the rumors floating about.

He already had to deal with one completely unfair cheater as it shouldn’t be legal to simply look at another pony and somehow know everything they were thinking in the back of their head. One should be allowed to lie, deceive, and use subtle tricks of trade or influence than wondering if the pony on the other side of the table had mind reading as a racial skill.

Celestia would play the game of politics as she would try to let on more than she knew. She played the game of politics like a grand chess master as her countless years of experience had her carefully plan each move out before finally putting cornering her opponent and forcing them to surrender.

Lockheart on the other hoof would pretend to play the game and somehow halfway through the game the entire board had been replaced. None of the pieces looked the same and the entire rule book was now written in some strange foreign language.

Sure his family did profit a little from the other foolish houses that tried to trick him... but they had enough stories to know that they shouldn't touch the 'not an alicorn' with a ten foot pole. That was reserved for their rivals who wanted to try passing something without Celestia's oversight.

Buttercup stared at him for a few moments “Are you alright?”

“I’m good.” He lied through his teeth as he snapped back to reality “I just needed to see the changeling say something.”

Buttercup looked behind her trying to see which changeling he might have been talking about “Oh right the… other bugs.”

“Demon bugs.” Regal quickly clarified “They are close enough to changelings to give a sense of unease, but all you need to do to tell the difference is to hear one of them talk. Sorry if I accidently offended…”

“So you don’t have any problems with them?” Buttercup asked as he knew she was testing him.

Regal Script chuckled as he politely replied “I am only afraid of those uncivilized enough to think that words are useless. If one cannot talk to another than I think that is reason enough to be worried.”

Buttercup rolled her eyes “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Well let me put it this way.” Regal Script replied as he added a small bit of charm “Equestria was not built with one type of pony. It was built with artists, explores, painters, builders, warriors, and speakers. It was built by those who talked with each other… what race, gender, or ‘tribe’ they were didn’t matter so why should I mind another humble worker?”

Buttercup grinned as she shook her head “Because he’s a changeling?”

“That’d be too difficult then.” Regal Script replied “Then I’d have to reorganized all my sheets. I rather liked my simple sheet. I mean why are you afraid of manticores and not dragons? By all accounts a dragon is a lot more dangerous than a wild beast.”

Buttercup chuckled “Because my mayor is a dragon… besides you can talk a dragon down if you’re lucky, but you can’t exactly do that with a manticore.”

“And that my dear is the reason why I’m not afraid of changelings.” He replied much to her amusement.

‘Just as long as they can’t read my mind.’ He added in the back of his head.

******

Pocket Ace

Pocket Ace placed down all the items he had gathered as he watched Maxwell start setting everything up. Sure he didn’t know what he was going to do with all of it, but if this helped him out then who was he to complain?

The door opened up as the guests/guinea pigs arrived.

“Glad to see you could make it Glory!” Pocket Ace replied with a smirk

The pegasus groaned “There isn’t much to do while waiting for the rest of the raid to form.”

The earth pony stallion beside her chuckled “Yes because it will be lovely marching out in the freezing snow trying to figure out where a group of bugs managed to make their home.”

Glory rolled her eyes “Griff. You didn’t seem to complain about the job near Crystal Cove.”

The earth pony smirked “To be fair surf and sand is a lot more interesting than ice and pick. That and unlike those lovely games back home we will actually be freezing instead of starring in marvel at the scenery while we prepare for the raid.”

A dark purple unicorn teleported in one of the nearby chairs “Is there any chance Celestia’s school for gifted foals has a refresher course or something…”

Pocket Ace stared at the purple stallion “I don’t think they take adults Marcus… but what seems to be the problem this time?”

The unicorn groaned “Oh I managed to get better at not wasting as much energy… but the mental exhaustion the spells take is getting to me before I run out of juice.”

Pocket Ace nodded his head “I think that’s called horn ache. You might want to take a look with a doctor about that or take some time off and recover as I heard some unicorns compare horn ache to running a marathon.”

Griff glanced at the table “So what’s the special? Poker, Blackjack, Go Fish?”

Pocket Ace shook his head as the next group arrived. A pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony… all being lead by Maxwell.

The sapphire coat mare with the lavender mane smiled as she politely bowed “My name is Jade Pin…”

Pocket Ace couldn’t help but chuckle as the pegasus mare simply waved to them all enthusiastically “Comet!”

The yellow earth pony mare with blue hair smiled “I’m Booknote. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

Griff stared at Pocket Ace in confusion “Uh… is this some sort of speed dating thing or…”

The native earth pony stallion chuckled “No offense but if this was speed dating than I’d be setting myself up for a date instead of trying to find one for the rest of you.”

The regular poker players just rolled their eyes at the native Equestrians seemed puzzled at the statement. Still all of them had been gathered to try this crazy experiment. Hopefully things wouldn’t get out of hoof if the group was kept this small. He wiped his forehead as he finished setting up the phonograph as he made sure the device was ready.

“Any unicorns want to make sure this thing hasn’t been tampered with?” Pocket Ace replied out loud.

Some of the ponies in the room nodded as Griff glanced at the device “Are you going to play a song or something?”

Pocket Ace chuckled “It’s just going to record our voice so that we can make sure nopony cheats.”

Booknote looked back at Maxwell “What sort of game would require something like this?”

Maxwell took a deep breath “It’s easier to show you than to explain it.”

The door opened up as one last pony… no a griffin entered the room. Most of the ponies flinched as Pocket Ace promptly face hoofed as this was one of the problems he wanted to avoid.

The griffin stared at them in confusion “I just need to talk to Maxwell for a moment… Are you having trouble with that old thing?”

Booknote looked back at the phonograph “Isn’t this brand new?”

Maxwell coughed “Is everyone alright with Verrat taking a look at it?”

Everypony backed away as Verrat promptly went to work on the device. Pocket Ace stared at the griffin in surprise as she certainly seemed to have a better idea with what she was doing that everypony else.

Booknote spoke up “Do you work at the Song and Thread store?”

Verrat simply grunted “Nope. My grandpa had one of these… Oh don’t tell me their natives…”

Griff rolled his eyes “Yes apparently we did plan on expanding our group without informing you.”

Jade spoke up “Is there a problem?”

Pocket Ace prepared to say something only for the griffin to reply “Keep your speeches about Molestia outside and we’ll be just fine.”

“Molestia?” Booknote spoke in a mixture of confusion and embarrassment.

The griffin reached into her saddlebags and was now starting to replace parts within the machine “I never thought I’d end up being thankful for having to repair antiques…” she pulled out a gem stone out of the machine and tossed it behind her “These stupid gems don’t even seem to work half the time.”

Comet frowned “What’s wrong with Celestia?”

The griffin turned around almost glaring at the smaller pegasus “Let’s see… for starters what reason does she have for running the government? I mean most of you ponies have cutie marks slapped on your rear telling you what your jobs will be and all of you thought that the pony in charge of raising the sun would be better than a pony with a cutie mark in politics, bureaucracy, or something government related?”

Booknote quickly replied in a firm tone “Cutie marks change with the times and so do some of the old meanings. During the Three Tribe Era it was more common for unicorns who lost their magic or ‘burnt’ themselves dry with the ritual for moving the sun and moon to take seats of government positions or help pass on their knowledge to a younger generation.”

She stared at the griffin “So while it may seem strange today to associate a cutie mark of the sun with a government position today. It was seen as a sign for ponies that had a talent in ruling or teaching and by the looks of it I would say Celestia has both of those qualifications.”

Verrat turned around as she stared at the earth pony who wasn’t backing down “Who are you?”

The mare just simply smiled “My name is Booknote miss Verrat and I helped look after the library in Canterlot Castle or does the fact that I’m an earth pony confuse you?”

Verrat shook her head “No I’m more curious about why you seem to stick up for Sunbutt to the point of butting heads with me?”

Booknote didn’t back down “How about the fact that I’m sick and tired of hearing countless complaints revolving around the alicorn issues!”

Maxwell cleared his throat “Verrat you might want to stop right now.”

Verrat continued glaring down at the earth pony “Well maybe if Molestia didn’t cause our problems we wouldn’t be complaining!”

Booknote rose her voice “Blaming all the problems upon one pony is not only foolish, but it shows just how little you understand how the government works. Do you think she runs the entire whole of Equestria without any assistance? Do you think that some noble in charge of their territory will pass a law or do some stupid action making it Celestia’s fault when she didn’t even know it happened!”

Verrat’s feathers started to stand on end as she countered “How about the current actions or maybe the current problems?”

“Verrat!” Maxwell snapped “What did you come here for?”

The griffin sighed “I should leave…”

“She probably came to see if you could help her out with her friend’s problem.” Booknote quickly replied of hoof

Pocket Ace glanced at the earth pony “What friend?”

Booknote rolled her eyes “Apparently she made friends with a native earth pony named Baldwin. The train system that is being switched over to focusing on moving cargo instead of parties for nobles has changed a few things about as some of the settlements are trying to adjust to them.”

Pocket Ace stared at Verrat in disbelief “What does he need? A job?”

Booknote chuckled “If I’m correct it think was along the lines of new apple trees or helping hooves to assist him on the farm. Apparently the demand for apples grew as the train system became a beneficial aspect instead of a detrimental one.”

All eyes focused on Verrat as she rubbed the back of her head “Look I just… sort of owe him… and…”

Griff was the first to speak “It’s official. It’s the end of the world. The crazy griffin has a crush on a native earth pony.”

The Pegasus beside him promptly hit him on the back of his head as the griffin pinched the bridge of her nose “Just because I do not blame one pony for my problems it doesn’t mean I’m going to get comfy with the fae queen.”

Maxwell cleared his throat “Well since your arrival was unexpected… what to join in?”

Pocket Ace opened his mouth to counter… until he realized that Verrat would probably be the easiest one to test… and the hardest one to deal with if something went wrong. He looked at Maxwell trying to make sure if this was a good idea.

Verrat shrugged “What are you doing?”

Maxwell took a deep breath as he tried to smile “We’re going to play a game.”

******

Everything started off just fine in the beginning as most of the game nonsense. They started off with charades before moving on to drawing pictures and seeing which pony (or griffin) would be able to call it out first. This had went on for a little while until the real reason for this ‘game’ was setup.

Maxwell passed out the small blackboards for everypony to write the answer down on “Alright… now everyone write down what I say and then we’ll see what happens next.” He moved over to the phonograph “And to make sure there isn’t any cheating we’ll test this thing first.”

Maxwell cleared his throat as he spoke out loud “She sells sea shells by the sea shore.”

He waited a few seconds before having the device play back “She sells sea shells by the sea shore.”

Pocket Ace frowned “A little gravely…”

Verrat sighed “Give me a second to fix it…”

Marcus shook his head “So… how was your shot at joining the royal guard Griff?”

Griff groaned “Night Guard filled up and the other spots left required you to pay for your job. I said it once and I’ll say it again… the Royal Guard is really incompetent.”

Comet frowned “Did you try the Canterlot branch or one of the other towns?”

Griff glanced at the Pegasus in confusion “What difference does that make?”

Booknote spoke up “One of the many issues with the Royal Guards being reorganized is the placement of tradition. Typically the lower members are fresh recruits who can go up to the rank of Sergeant through hard work and minimum amount of money or influence due to the connection or relationship to a noble house. Above that rank is where most officers are ‘commissioned’ as one must pay a fee while having their family history checked to help one go up the ranks even further. If an officer is deemed unworthy during their service in the Royal Guard then they will have to 'cash out' which essentially means they must either pay a large fine to help recover any ranks they may loose as punishment.”

Griff glanced at Booknote in confusion “Wow… that’s really messed up. I guess that helps explain why the Royal Guard is incompetent, what makes the Canterlot version any different?”

Comet quickly replied “That’s because they protect Celestia and the only way to go up the ranks… is to start from the bottom and work your way up meaning the pony in charge is can not only fight, but lead their ponies into combat should the worst ever happen.”

“It is also traditionally the highest ranking or high ranking officers from both forces that are suppose to come together and talk during peace negotiations, surrendering, or calling for a ceasefire between both sides.” Booknote softly replied

The earth pony continued to lecture them “So if you have a noble who is trained in solving a problem diplomatically... vs a soldier trained to fight and defend their home having only seen the ‘enemy’ as somepony trying to invade. Then when both sides most come together and talk for peace it is better to have the diplomat be in charge than the warrior. In the worst case scenario if the Equestrian captain is taken hostage it will not impact the army too much since the 'actual' commanders will still be back in camp.”

She smiled “So to summarize the officers are not so much leaders, but diplomats meant to keep the peace. The officers in Canterlot are not diplomats because if an enemy reached Canterlot then negotiations are probably off the table by that point.”

Griff slowly nodded his head “Okay besides the fact you allow a systems that puts people who have no idea how to lead an army to be in charge... why is the Night Guard version different?”

Booknote shook her head “Before Lockheart the Night Guard was held in less… esteem. Areas outside of Canterlot didn’t have a strong Night Guard presence… or those positions were used as demotions or punishment shifts for the Solar Guard in the area. In fact it was more common to serve the ‘grunt years’ in the Night Guard and simply transfer over Solar Guard after their first promotion since being a higher rank in the Night Guard didn’t really count for much outside of Canterlot.”

The earth pony frowned “After the Night Guard was ‘given’ to an alicorn they were trying to rebuild and since most of their higher ranking members were held in Canterlot… they just expanded their ‘tradition’ across Equestria the rest of regions.”

She rubbed the back of her head “So without any other higher ranking officers the Canterlot tradition was moved over to the other branches. This in turn had upset quite a few nobles who thought it was an action caused by Lockheart when in truth it was a motion carried by the commander of the Night Guard since the focus was on rebuilding the ranks instead of the traditions followed by the Solar Guard.”

Griff shook his head "And why is that a bad idea?"

The earth pony sighed “Because some saw it as an attempt to usurp the other captains or noble families who paid a lot of bits to buy their rank which in turn was used to help pay for the weapons and armor of the soldiers underneath them. The Night Guard who didn’t have access to this secondary funding was having their equipment upgraded by Lockheart since he wanted the Night Guard to have weapons made during this century. Now the once seemingly useless positions of power in the Night Guard were actually worth something and you didn't have to fork over a fortune in bits to get them.”

She grunted in frustration “Then combine that with some of the incidents caused by less than ethical ‘adventures’ or the fact that certain noble families quickly rushed to fill the ranks of the Night Guard to stand on ‘equal ground’ with their rivals and you can see how some nobles might have issues with the sudden change in power from the ‘orders issued’ by their alicorn and not to mention the plans he had left over for incase he suddenly disappeared…”

Jade spoke up with a hint of concern “Are you alright dear?”

Booknote took a deep breath and sighed “Sorry… it's just… you wouldn’t believe how tired I am of hearing about it."

The earth pony shook her head and tired to smile "So in case you were wondering what was the reason behind the bad PR event towards Lockheart. This isn’t because of some of his actions... some of the laws he made… or questioning if he actually is an alicorn. The sad truth is that all of it is just a basic political maneuver to damage his claim as an alicorn... is just an attempt to damage the rivaling ‘noble houses’ that have joined the Night Guard. This way the Solar Guard is the only 'Guard' that actually protects an alicorn.”

Griff shook his head in disbelief “Okay now that is just crazy.”

“In a feudal based system that does make sense due to the fact that rank in the military did coincide with money.” Verrat replied to everyone’s surprise “Commanders were granted ‘gifts’ by their rulers and one of the easiest ways to increase one’s standing was by their deeds and what better way than to sit back and let an army do all the heavy lifting? So either you were in charge of an army because you were rich or you became rich because you were in charge of an army.”

Silence filled the room until Glory spoke up “I actually thought you’d be all for Celestia being the one behind it all.”

The griffin grunted “If someone is going out their way to rant about the incident than obviously Celestia isn’t behind it. Her style is to simply hush up the incident before sweeping it underneath the rug while everyone else forgets it happened. If he didn’t accidently tick so many nobles off I’m sure Celestia would claim he was just fine as he ‘stays’ within his room without anyone visiting him without her consent.”

The Equestrian natives nodded their head as they weren't exactly sure what to make of the foreign griffin.

She pushed herself up “Testing, testing, one two three.”

“Testing, testing, one two three.” The voice replied back.

Pocket Ace took a deep breath and sighed as apparently everything was working out so far. Now it just came to the next part which Maxwell was also nervous about.

Maxwell got up and spoke out loud “Okay politics aside… is everyone ready?” only after everyone had prepared to write down what he was about to say did he reply “Hello. I’m a pony who has been turned into a pony holding Eques in my hooves.” Half of the room stared at him in confusion “Is there a problem?”

They simply shook their head as they went back to writing down what they had heard. The other ‘normal’ half of the room had already finished as Pocket Ace could feel himself sweating as he wiped his forehead. This was the real problem they were going to have to deal with as he couldn’t help but feel nervous as he began to wonder just what the others had heard.

Soon the timer had ended as Maxwell replied “Alright… let’s see what you had heard. We’ll go around the room and you just repeat what you had heard.”

“I’m a pony who has been turned into a pony from the planet Eques.” Was repeated by almost everypony… the only difference was that the griffin had said “I’m a griffin who had been turned into a pony holding Eques in my talons.”

The ‘native’ residents didn’t seem to know what was wrong while the ‘non-native’ residents seemed to be staring at the other half as if they were crazy. In truth Pocket Ace felt a little bit crazy considering what was happening.

What was worse was that he saw the small justifications they were making to explain what was going on. The Equestrians had simply misunderstood the statement. Maybe one of them misheard it or more likely wrote down the wrong answer thinking it was the right answer as they didn’t understand what they were suppose to write down as the correct answer.

He couldn’t help but flinch as he heard Maxwell reply “Now let’s see what you had written down.”

Pocket Ace closed his eyes as he already knew what was going to happen. He could hear some of them starting to argue or ‘asking’ if the chalk had been enchanted or if this was some sort of prank. When he opened up his eyes he stared at the griffin… who didn’t write anything down. She just looked tired as if she already knew what was going on.

Maxwell cleared his throat “I’m sorry for doing this… but play the recording as we have checked to make sure that the device has not been tampered with.”

Pocket Ace made the machine play back the record as he closed his eyes as Maxwell’s voice replied “Okay everyone ready?” there was a small pause before the recorded voice continued “I’m a…”

Everypony (and griffin) flinched as the unholy sound seemed to echo across the room as his hearing started to return “a pony holding” as the sound came again twisting about as if it came from an insane cultist wearing a hood in the middle of a graveyard instead of a pony playing a game of charades.

Now they were all looking at the phonograph in horror. Pocket Ace simply waited for one of them to make up an excuse to explain what had just happened. He could already tell that some were trying to rationalize what had happened as the truth seemed crazy.

Sadly for them the recording was still continuing as Booknote finished “holding Eques in my hooves.”

Pocket Ace covered his ears as the next adventurer spoke only for the same words to be replaced by the unholy noise. It continued until the phonograph was turned off as Marcus just shook his head in disbelief as he refused to hear it any longer.

Glory spoke up first in irritation “What type of prank is…”

“It’s not a prank.” Maxwell replied “I tested it and I didn’t believe it. I really felt that something was wrong when simply recording my own speech ended with… that.”

Jade shook her head “Why did you ask us to come if…”

Pocket Ace sighed “Because you girls wouldn’t cause a scene and they needed to see an honest reaction.”

“That and I needed to see if I was the only one affected.” Maxwell replied “Booknote has helped with cataloging some of the Everfree forest’s old cursed magical artifacts… and I needed to see if this was because of something during the Everfree Incident or if others have been… censored.”

Griff shook his head “Oh come on… surely someone would have noticed this sooner.”

Verrat huffed in annoyance “You think this is a trick? Try having a pony selling cheap copies of that device in a market place and have your argument get blasted out for everyone to hear. If there is a magical curse that hits us everytime we try to swear than why is it so hard to believe that there’s a curse that removes select words and replace it with something else?”

Griff shook his head “If that’s true then why is it that I fucking curse?” the leg of his chair suddenly snapped causing him to fall onto the ground “Why does this happen instead of something else!”

Jade bit her lip before she replied “I’m sorry to sound insensitive… but how bad is it to not be able to say a few words… it’s only a few right?”

Maxwell shrugged “What if I told you that one of the words I was using was an attempt to warn you? What if instead of hearing us say something like dangerous criminal and you heard fluffy kitten instead?”

Comet’s wings were pressed up against her side as she tried to make herself seem as small as possible. It was a scary thought to even think trying to tell somepony something important… just for them to hear something else. It was even more frightening to realize that almost Nopony had noticed it… except maybe the ones tossed into a 'happy farm' as the doctors tried to help them.

“So what did you say?” Comet replied “Was it actually dangerous?”

Maxwell shook his head “No… but it would be easy to see rearrange that sentence to make one group hear something innocent and the other group to hear something horrifying.”

Verrat sighed “That and you need help trying to figure out how to make sure everyone else doesn’t think you’re crazy… or this is a bad prank?”

Maxwell slowly nodded his head as everyone could tell it was going to be a long night.

******

Booknote

The earth pony stood outside the tavern as she looked at the other two native equestrians and said "So... does anypony else find it creepy that the adventurers didn't realize they were being censored?"

Jade shook her head "What about that speech? I mean... I'm a blank that been turned into a pony. Are they really ponies or something else?"

"Their ponies... and well gryphons, diamond dogs and so forth." Comet quickly replied "I'm pretty sure my sister would have told me if they weren't ponies or something."

She nodded her head "That whole... not a pony thing was probably some sort of crazy phrase like "I'm Nightmare Moon turned into a pony and holding Celestia's throat within my hooves.' which if you think about it... is pretty scary."

The other two ponies nodded their heads as that would certainly get a reaction from somepony. Booknote frowned as she thought about the strange occurrences... how certain actions from the adventurers didn't add up sometimes.

She looked at the other two ponies and said "What if... what if this 'censor' that is preventing them from saying certain things... what if it's also affecting other things?"

Jade frowned "Could you say that again in Equestrian?"

Booknote spoke in a firm tone "Well... before I just sort of thought the adventures were displaced. I mean I've read up of old spells, history, how the Breezies technically live in a different reality... or was it a dimension like Tambelon?"

Jade rolled her eyes "Now you sound like somepony who's been reading to many of those new lovecraft novels.

Comet glanced at Jade "Lovecraft?"

Jade shook her head "Despite what the author's name... they are not romantic love stories."

Booknote stomped her hoof down "Back to the main issue here... They can't curse due to a curse nopony really cared too much about. They can't say certain things due to another curse which is something that we really should be worried about. And even if we excuse the strange sentence Maxwell said..."

Jade rolled her eyes "I'm pretty sure Celestia would have realized if they had been magically transformed into a different race."

Booknote frowned "The point is that we can't just keep treating them as displaced citizens. Maxwell wanted to make sure he wasn't the only one inflicted by another curse... but what should we do?"

Comet shrugged "What can we do? Tell everypony 'oh you might also have a few other secret dark magic spells that are messing around with your mind, but don't you worry as we have no idea what to look for!' Even then I'm sure Celestia wouldn't want us to cause a panic because we know that they are good ponies!"

Jade rubbed her chin "Well maybe we should try telling Celestia. I'm pretty sure she would know what to do."

Booknote sighed as she slowly nodded her head "Okay so first thing tomorrow morning we just get ready to stand in line for morning court."

The earth pony hoped that she was just blowing things out of proportion.

******

Mort

Mort rested in the back of his jail cell as he had prepared to resign himself to his dreaded fate. Equestrian would send their delegate to poke about and ask a few routine. The citizens of New Terra would just shrug before letting Equestria drag them back to Canterlot where Celestia would have a few choice words with them.

He sighed as Brass would either rat out her allies or end up as a lawn ornament in the gardens if she really ticked off Celestia… or be sent to a very secure jail. Of course that would be assuming Luke’s group of idiots didn’t burst out of Canterlot Mountain launching their attack early just to ensure that Brass wouldn’t sell them out.

Then things would slowly descend into an unorganized mob as Canterlot would still have all their soldiers within the capital and instead of a simple trick to point the blame at somepony else… it would be a painful battle that the former humans would probably lose.

Oh sure he knew about some of the ‘gifts’ humanity had been given since they fell to Equestria, but he was an Equestrian born native and despite some of their unique ‘skills’ that could be gained by trading away their memories… Canterlot still had an army to fall back on. It had a Princess who knew far more spells than Luke’s little club had combined. Most of all they could simply collapse the tunnels the former humans were in thus avoiding a large battle before routing what was left of Luke’s resistance group.

He shook his head “And to just think… once Celestia left to the meeting with the other nations we would have won.”

Now the only question was what was going to happen to him and how was he going to save himself. He couldn’t help but chuckle as he doubted his old excuses would work against Celestia. After all working as an illegal doctor could be excused by simply asking “Was I supposed to let them bleed to death?” would probably not work against Celestia.

He flinched as he felt a faint… annoyance brush up against his mind. Mort couldn’t help but grit his teeth as he felt the alien magic trying to manifest itself once again.

Without leaving anything to chance he checked outside the jail cell to make sure Nopony was watching and checked for any possible detection spells that might have been placed on his jail cell. At this point he was thankful for the… lax security… the jail had. Sure it was under the guise of everypony being able to pull off insane feats of magic… with the promise of even more guards with the same tricks would come down and beat them up, but it was the small things that counted.

Like having Nopony watch him as he opened up a menu.

He bit his lip as he felt the alien thoughts and images creep into his head once again… distorting his sight, thought pattern, and possibly even his own sense of self… but it was important. He glanced past the frayed edges of his menu… and the few cracks he had tried inflecting upon it in order to weaken it before selecting the message system.

“Port to call within twenty four” the fractured message replied “Will you stay there for that time?”

Mort blinked a few seconds before a grin appeared across his face “Call to port, but in two spots. Can you manage the call?”

He gritted his teeth as images of earth started to creep into his mind… memories of a different life. A small sense of unease started to fill his body as he could hear faint whispers of something else… someone else panicking… asking for help… trying to find out what was going on. What went wrong… why was this happening to them?

The message came back “One shot or can you wait a few a little?”

Mort closed his eyes as he could hear the other voice growing… gnawing at him… The jail wasn’t built to hold people. It was built to show people. To place them in an area in the complete understanding that retribution would come smashing down the moment they stepped outside the door.

“Make the port stay for a while and we’ll both get through.” Mort replied

“Understood.” The message replied

Mort gritted his teeth as he summoned his magic. He had studied Brass’s accident for a long time and he had experimented… after all a human’s grasp on magic was rigid. They thought magic in the terms of math where one plus one would always equal two. Mort was a little bit more creative as he viewed it like art… or where one pony lacked one color of paint so he just mixed some paint together until it was close enough to work.

His own spell came to mind as he focused on the menu… every thought… method… idea and most of all… his fear surged forth as he blocked out the other thoughts and struck the menu. The strange magic started to crackle until… it was forced back once again. It was a little bit damaged… and he could feel the irritating sense of loss… depression… the idea that he might have lost something important… but he didn’t care.

With a deep breath as he tried to relax as he said to himself “Mort…wanted for various crimes in the state of Equestria due to some less than legal adventures. I was born in manehattan and I learned that morals and values don’t always equal money and power.”

He sighed as his mind calmed down. Earth was a story told by the former humans… it was not a memory. He had ideas, but they were best understood when someone else helped explained how they worked. Most of all he was himself.

He shook his head “Countless humans fall to Equestria and nobody noticed the pony that fell with them.” He chuckled “Then again the cost of memory for a trick? Who would believe a pony being a pony when they had the same curse a human had? Who would believe the truth when nobody knew what was going on.”

With another deep breath he focused on humanity and Equestria. What humans knew and what ponies knew… how everyone in humanity always joked about everyone knowing Morse code… and everypony knowing Radiant Flash.

His horn flickered for a few moments sending the message until surely enough… the equestrian resident in jail who wanted to leave sent the message down the line until Brass finally replied.

The message was of course rather simple “Stall and say hello.”

Mort frowned as he understood. Twenty four hours and they would be free. Twenty four hours to figure out a way out of their jail cells and most of all… in twenty four hours they had to be in the jail. The moment they left the jail was ironically the moment they would lose their freedom.

Mort tapped his chest as he got to work “Hello… my name is Mort… Why of course Equestria already knows you were originally humans. They just didn’t care.”

He sighed as… he was going to have to make it sound a lot more convincing… and hope that Equestria didn’t know as much about the strange magic that afflicted the adventurers as he did.

He looked back at his cutie mark as he frowned. His natural cutie mark was of a Bone Saw… crude, frightening, dark… and yet it did serve a necessary and important service in the medical industry. Now a small flower seemed to have been slightly smeared over the bone saw.

Mort summoned his magic as he muttered “I don’t care if you were real or an idea brought upon by this curse inflicted upon me Kathrin.” The flames started to ‘trim’ the edges of his cutie mark “But my name is Mort… and I was here first.”

Kathrin… human born somewhere on earth. Mort… an actual unicorn with proof in Equestria to show that not only was he alive… he also went messing roughly around the same month that a lot of other Equestrian natives went missing… and also returned roughly around the same period a large percentage of missing natives were also spotted returning… along with most of humanity suddenly appearing roughly around that same time.

Mort smiled as his cutie mark was still there… the bone saw was mostly intact though it ‘did’ sort of look like it had been recently used. Still a small bit of healing and a good night’s rest would fix most of it in the morning. Hopefully he could help ensure that the talks for the prisoner transfer… would be delayed.

Author's Note

I'm still alive.

If I missed any mistakes let me know and I'll do my best to fix them right away.

ch22 See No Human, Hear No Human, Speak No Human

Valkyrie

I stood outside near the edge of New Terra, watching a few adventures buying a cart as they planned to explore the Badlands for their next adventure. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were trying to search for bury treasure… maybe slay some local monster or perhaps they were searching for a new site to dig at?

Lucky them, they get to do all the fun stuff.

I couldn't help but sigh, as I was stuck waiting out here while the sun was slowly rising up in the sky. How long had I been waiting out here? We had to stand out here when the sun woke us up… I think that was six maybe seven AM? Then we were stuck waiting outside for an hour… or was it two hours.

“How long have we been waiting?” I asked out loud

Steel took a deep breath as he replied “Just a few hours.”

I glanced at Steel Halberd “Why are we supposed to be standing outside instead of waiting in a nearby building… or near one of those gift shops?”

I didn’t know the correct name for the shop, but it looked like a small hut and it sold various small overpriced trinkets to be used as mementos to remind you of your wonderful experience… preferably when you forgot all the problems and annoyances you had to getting to or being in New Terra. The shopkeeper smiled ready to meet and attempt to (legally) swindle them like a Disneyland Gift Shop.

Steel held his head tall reminding me of one of those nameless background guards in MLP and recited “Because Celestia sent a diplomat and our orders are to render assistance to them.”

“It’s politics, but in your case orders.” Remedy Cross grumbled as she stood off to the side “We needed extra ponies to help transport Brass safely, so why not send a diplomat along with them while they we’re at it? “ She said pragmatically. “Brass was a part of the Tartarus outbreak, so the other nations will want to know what she was looking for, or what they are planning with the escaped criminals.”

I stared at her as she didn’t exactly looked thrilled with what was going on, and having to wait out here certainly wasn’t making it any better. The unicorn was glaring at the ground as if it had offended her in some way, as I could almost swear she was muttering underneath her breath.

I looked over to Steel Halberd “Hum, What other nations are involved in this and what does Tartarus have anything to do with them?”

Steel shook his head “Tartarus is also a jail used by other nations and races, and other groups. They just want to make sure that one of their ancient villains and monsters was not freed during the prisoner break.”

Preferring not to learn anything more about the terrifying monster called politics, I cleared my throat and spoke out loud “So how was your encounter with Brass?”

Remedy kicked the ground as she spoke with a hint of annoyance “Well, When she was knocked out, it was rather civil. I treated her injuries to make sure she didn’t somehow choke on her own spit… and then when the little menace was awake we tried to be civil towards one another as we understood our positions.”

Steel quirked an eyebrow and stared at her in disbelief at the odd statement “You were civil?”

Remedy groaned in annoyance “I didn’t harm her physically… or mentally, if that is what you mean.”

A small smile appeared across her face as there was an almost…cheerful tone to it “I followed the medical textbook procedures… and dislocated one of her legs.” she caught us staring at her in disbelief as she rolled her eyes “To be fair, she did come at me while swearing up a storm, and the guards did try to rush in to stop her.”

Steel Halberd groaned “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Remedy shrugged as she chuckled a little “A small thundercloud actually manifested itself inside the room and zapped her. It was actually rather funny, seeing the curse itself in action. ”

Steel coughed as he tried to look professional “While we may have found her, we don’t know what she could have came here for. We don’t know how long Brass has been there, or what was she looking for, or more importantly if she found it.”

“So you think she could have been stealing more priceless artifacts or playing highway bandit again, right?” Remedy replied in a firm tone.

Steel took a deep breath as he tried not to face Remedy Cross “We also have four ponies to bring back with us, that’s four prisoners in total.” Emphasizing is words on that last part. ”Beside, we couldn’t exactly just ask Peter if he could carry us back to Canterlot, right after we arrived at their settlement, especially after he was injured just getting us here safely.”

I took a deep breath as that at least did make sense. Even if you ignored who the criminals were… it wouldn’t be a good idea to have a prisoner escort to have the same amount of guards as you did prisoners. It was a long ride getting to New Terra with dragon assistance. and it would be even more difficult to pursue if one of them managed to escape, as we would also have to keep guard on the other prisoners remaining.

It also wouldn’t look good of us to have promised assistance to the settlement, only to leave them on their own, just when we found the fugitives to bring back home.

I sighed as Steel had a pretty good point “Okay… but why do I have to wait out here without my armor when it’s ready to be picked up.” I turned my head down on my backside, seeing only my bare cream coat.

The human turned earth pony calling himself Forge had said my armor was fixed, and I wanted to see how effective his repair job was. And, I had to admit that it felt strange being outside without my armor on. I tried not to chuckle as it felt strange to not be wearing it.

Still, after the last fight with...Steel Tide… one of the members of my old RPG group who ended up as a crazed griffin berserker had damaged it severely… who am I kidding? He practically used his axe as a can opener and tried tearing it to shreds in a crazed fury!

I looked down at the ground as I couldn’t help but remember how… much he had changed. Steel Tide when he was human… he was just another member of my Tabletop RPG group. I didn’t know what he did for a living, but he never really liked talking about his job either. We both hung out because we had fun playing our little RPG and just having fun. You could talk to him for hours about random stuff and just chill out with… there was no judgement or expectations as you could just be yourself.

Now he was foaming at the mouth and had tried to kill me. Was he angry at me? Did he just go nuts from whatever cursed object was affecting him?

I looked back up at the skies as I wanted the ponies from Equestria to come already. I wanted to see some sort of magical doctor specialist fix my old gaming friend, I want him to be back to his old self again. I couldn’t help but scraping my hoof at the dirt, as I hated feeling so… powerless.

I felt a soft tap against my shoulder as Steel looked down at me in concern “Are you alright?”

I sighed “I just hate feeling so… helpless. You also didn’t answer my question.”

“They should be arriving soon.” Steel spoke as he didn’t even seem to believe the words coming out of his own mouth.

“It gives the Equestrian Royal Guard a perfect excuse to inspect New Terra’s armory, as they accompany you to pick up your armor.” Remedy Cross added in a bored tone “This town’s main source of money seems to be mining , refining ore and selling weapons. So, Equestria wants to see what sorts of restrictions they think they should place on New Terra.”

I stared at her in disbelief “Okay, first of all… why do they think they would even need to place any type of restriction on what New Terra can or cannot do? I mean, the last time I checked, the badlands wasn’t even a part of Equestria. We were just coming to render assistance to them… not to do a hostile takeover.”

The unicorn chuckled as she spoke with a hint of annoyance “Try telling that to the nobles. They will end up finding something they don’t like anyway, and naturally, they will want their say in the matter. The only real question will be if they ‘suggest’ it or if they will demand it.”

Steel gave me a quick tap on my shoulder and pointed at the carts being pulled by a squadron of pegasi in Royal Guard tinfoil armor. The group of pegasi had been traveling along with a small swarm of other flying residents of New Terra who were also carrying various carts over to the center of the city.

The cart slowly descended towards the ground as I heard Steel mutter “Not enough guards to carry all the prisoners in one trip. Did they not realize how big some of them were or are they preparing a separate prisoner transfer for the others?”

When the cart landed on the ground a unicorn in a fancy suit walked out of the cart causing Remedy to mutter “Oh this isn’t going to end well.”

I stared at the unicorn wearing the white suit “What’s wrong?”

Remedy shook her head “The diplomat they sent is Regal Script… I mean normally that wouldn’t have been a bad idea, but Regal Script as far as I know has done his best to stay away from the adventurer problems.”

Steel was staring at the unicorn who was straightening his suit “But he’s a good diplomat right?”

Remedy rolled her eyes “He’s… inflexible.”

I nudged Midnight Vixen awake as I whispered back to Remedy “Inflexible!?You mean he doesn’t like to compromise?”

The unicorn doctor groaned “No… he’s good with negotiating with the other nations… but you know how not every griffin comes from Griffinstone or how not every pegasus comes from Cloudsdale? Regal Script… doesn’t exactly deviate on how he interacts with other groups.” She said, unusually diplomatic for her.

Midnight yawned as she slowly replied “Aren’t you a doctor?”

Remedy Cross closed her eyes as she said with a hint of regret “My sister told me all about him, and she is also betrothed to him. Something he has apparently been trying his best to escape.”

I stared at her in confusion “And who is your sister?”

Remedy Cross now stared at me in disbelief “You’ve been working in Canterlot for a few months now, and you still don’t know?”

Steel Halberd groaned “Oh right… Remedy Cross is the daughter of Red Cross and Blue Shield who are both very prominent nobles. Her sister is Blue Cross.”

“In Equestrian, that means I know about politics even if I don’t want to.” Remedy replied with a hint of annoyance “Most of them usually are the same. They all have their own little narrow view of the world and promptly ignore anything that doesn’t fit into it.”

Okay… so we essentially had someone who going to look down on everyone. I tried my best to pray that Regal Script wouldn’t rub anyone the wrong way… or piss them off.

I heard someone clear their throat behind us as I looked back... The dragon mayor of the city was standing behind us… ,wait, was he waiting quietly all this time with us or did he just arrive? Did Peter grab a few points in stealth to sneak up on us? Does the menu allow giant ninja dragons to not be seen, unless they wanted to be seen?

With his massive body sitting up with his long neck curved upward, Peter looked down at the Equestrian diplomat who was trying his best brushing any off the wrinkles in his suit as the dragon mayor tried to speak to him as gentle and friendly tone instead of his normal deep voice that most ‘movie’ dragons seemed to have.

The end result didn’t work out as well as he hoped as he sounded a little bit like Sean Connery from Dragonheart “Hello, My name is Peter, I am the mayor of New Terra, and I wish to welcome you here.” He waved his massive serrated claws in an inviting gesture into the settlement.

Sadly this seemed to have the opposite effect as Regal Script took one look at the dragon before turning pale at his sheer size and seemed as if he was ready to run back to the cart, tell his drivers to fly the hell out of here.

To their credit, The Royal Guards were firmly standing their ground, despite starting at the dragon mayor in a mixture of awe and terror. In his panic, Regal Script seemed to have backed up against the cart’s door as he looked at the dragon that was trying to give him a friendly smile, but sadly, was showing a little bit too much teeth with that same smile.

The unicorn clenched his chest hard with his right hoof, trying to calm his heartbeat. When he finally managed to calm his nerves enough, he adjusted his tie around his neck before awkwardly walking toward the towering reptile. The unicorn was clearly apprehensive at getting any closer towards Peter. When he razed his gaze to him, he took a nervous gulp and quickly staggered out into the open “He...he...hello, My.. my name is Regal Script and... I was sent… Princess Celestia had sent me to be the d...diplomat for this meeting and I… and I need to make sure the prisoners…eh... our prisoners that you have... and… and I need to make sure they are alright.”

Sensing the unicorn’s obvious terror, Peter tried to speak in a calm tone as he slowly nodded his head “Ah yes, Miss Remedy here, that you have sent us, made sure that they are all healthy.” He waved his claws toward her direction.

The Regal Script frantically nodded his head before pausing for a moment “Oh, I also have a few scrolls I need to check to confirm that the prisoners are okay! I have a scroll for a griffin berserker to help! I need to inform Celestia of the results right away! You know, uh, in case something goes wrong!” His eyes darting every which way, planning an escape path in case he need to bolt away suddenly.

Peter wasn’t smiling anymore. I didn’t know if he was unhappy with the diplomat sent by Equestria or if he was annoyed at himself for frightening the Equestrian Diplomat.

The unicorn noble left the area in a hurry, as he was being escorted by a donkey towards the jail, while most of the other soldiers from the Royal Guard started to go their own separate ways. Steel looked as if he was ready to leave, until Peter the dragon turned around and stared at us, his eyes conveying a sense of unease over what just happened.

I tried to smile “Is there anything wrong?”

Peter stared at us for a little while until Remedy spoke up “I’m sorry for Regal Script’s… rude exit. He was told that you were a dragon, but he probably thought you would be around his height.”

The mayor sighed in resignation as he rubbed his arm “I understand… He was just… probably expecting to see a dragon three feet high, instead of three stories high.”

Peter flapped his huge wings, and flew away as I sighed in relief. I wasn’t sure what Regal Script’s reason for skipping straight to visiting the jail first, but hopefully he was just surprised at Peter’s size. As soon as Peter disappeared from sight a Pegasus guard with a Teal coat and an orange mane swiftly flew over to us and presented himself “I am Sergeant Bristol.”

Steel quickly saluted “Steel Wing, and Valkyrie reporting for duty.”

The pegasus stood tall as he stared at us. He had sort of an air of tradition and authority around him as he reminded me of one of those old british army captains in films. His golden suit was kept in an almost pristine condition.

He looked at both of us and nodded “Good work on getting Ms Cross to the settlement under trying conditions.” He smirked as he spoke with a hint of pride “Two of the Royal Guard’s best finally capturing one of Equestria’s top criminals and preventing any civilian casualties.”

The pegasus looked at Midnight Vixen and paused for a moment, as the cheerful tone in his voice died out, as he stared at Midnight with slight disdain “The Night Guard pony can stay with Miss Cross while the rest of us can pick up Miss Valkyrie’s repair order.”

I looked at Steel Halberd in disbelief as this pony didn’t seem like any of the other ponies from Canterlot. I mean sure there was some difference between the two groups… but both of them were glaring at each other as if they were getting ready to fight.

Steel took a deep breath “Bristol is from Smokey Mountains.”

Midnight must have noticed my confusion as she whispered “That means he bought his rank with money.”

The pegasus must have heard it as he glared at the bat pony as he replied “It means we care about tradition and distinction.”

Midnight rolled her, eyes as I just kept my mouth shut. I didn’t know what he meant by tradition and distinction, but I wasn’t about to ask what it meant as I could see the obvious friction between the two. That would be a question I would ask Steel Halberd when we were out of earshot of these two.

The two ponies continued their staring match until Steel practically shouted “Let’s go see that blacksmith!”

Bristol broke eye contact with Midnight and tried to pretend as if nothing happened. Steel Halberd seemed to sigh in relief when Midnight started to march after Remedy in the opposite direction.

After a few seconds Bristol said “What is your assessment of the area Steel Halberd? Are there any problems? Does the population have a bone to pick with us… or do they look up to Equestria?”

Steel shook his head “It’s a new settlement. The local population is doing their best to work out the kinks after building everything from scratch… but New Terra seems to be growing faster than they were expecting… or that’s how it feels if you compare it to a normal fledgeling settlement from Equestria.”

The Sergeant Guardspony seemed to sigh as he muttered underneath his breath “Previous reports on Brass Balls suggest that she prefers going after high value targets and stealing trade secrets and this doesn’t seem to fit her style.”

He turned his head as he glanced at me “Are they any pieces of unusual equipment, items, or possibly weapons that this settlement might have that might interest her or possibly her cohort?”

I tried to put on my best smile as I said “Just a few weapons designs you wouldn’t see in Equestria.”

The pegasus guardspony nodded his head as Steel lead him to Forge’s shop where my armor was resting along with the rest of the foreign weapons New Terra was currently remaking for pony use.

******

Regal Script

Regal Script tried not to show the joy on his face as he had escaped his encounter with the dragon. He had mentally prepared himself for such an encounter… but Peter’s actual size was far more frightening than he had ever imagined. The way he moved his claws as he commanded the situation… how he looked down at him… Regal Script shivered as this wasn’t a creature he could strike the fear of Celestia into.

He couldn’t help but smile as he saw the normal everyday and pony sized races who he could strike the fear of Celestia into and force the dragon to listen to him if only through the sheer volume of voices arguing back at him. If this dragon cared about his position in the town than Regal Script had to focus on the ponies in this backwater settlement.

The unicorn noble had to admit that he was marginally impressed that this backwater settlement was not some poorly built jailhouse that had a single cell for all of their drunken idiots to sleep in. There was an actual wall around the prison building even if it was a little misshapen… which was also a little bit concerning.

Why did they build a wall for their jail when half their population could fly over it or dug under it with ease? The wall wasn’t even that tall as it just stood at the height of a diamond dog!

Then here was the question of why the jail house was a two story building. In fact it was actually larger than a few jail houses he had seen in some cities. The guards that he could see were far to relax in their duties, as he could see them joking about and making idle chit chat.

“Slackers.” He thought to himself while entering the building.

Once they stepped inside, he saw a teal unicorn with a dark blue mane munching on a bundle of hay and was in the middle of reading a book. Regal Script sighed in slight exasperation as he was getting tired of following the donkey around as he wanted the actual superior to guide him through the jail, rather than the lowly grunt that had escorted him to the jail.

To his surprise, the donkey shouted “Lucas!” to the unicorn dropped what he was doing and stared at the donkey “Tell Amber, Theodore, and Silver that the schedule had been bumped up.”

The unicorn guard named Lucas nodded “Should I also get Remedy Cross to deal with Matilda?”

The donkey shook his head “I’m sure she has other patients she needs to help before we try restraining Matilda, so that she can turn that crazy cow back to normal.”

Lucas trotted away as all the other guards quickly dropped what they were doing as they went back to work. Regal Script shook his head as he couldn’t believe they were taking orders from all things a donkey! The donkey stared at him as he apparently noticed the unicorn’s expression for what it was… which wasn’t good.

He needed to say something to save face and quick “Who or what happened to Matilda?”

The donkey grunted in annoyance “A native from Equestria who wanted to try her hoof at being a bandit.”

Regal Script rubbed his temple in irritation, hoping that he didn’t hear that right “I’m sorry… what did you say?”

The donkey just sighed “She ran around calling herself an adventurer like us and managed to a few other races together, was running around as a highway bandit.”

The unicorn noble just shook his head. They had a donkey commanding unicorns who struggled to catch a simple bovine bandit. He would have ask how this place was still standing, but having a dragon probably made up for most of the inadequacies their guards had.

“Just take me to Brass.” Regal Script replied briskly as he prepared to get this over with.

******

Maxwell

I looked around the highly ornate room as a couple of pillows filled the room… sort of like beanbag chairs. The walls were painted white as a few tapestries hung on the walls, depicting scenes that probably would have made sense if you knew the story behind them. All that stood between me and Celestia was a large wooden table that seemed to shine as what looked like a china tea set rested in the middle of the table.

I couldn’t help but fidget in one of the rather large seats as Celestia stood in front of me. Booknote, Comet, and Jade Pin had apparently decided to tell Celestia about the… censor problem, so Celestia had me visit at the castle in order to further understand what was going on.

“Would you like some tea Maxwell?” Celestia spoke as she noticed my unease. It was kind of hard to hide when your stuck sitting across from her.

Her white coat and jewelry gave her a sense of majesty… sort of like a mythical deity like Okami or the White Stag… and having a mythic like being staring down at you, as if she knew you stole from the cookie jar, made it rather had to sit comfortably underneath her gaze.

“Are you okay?” she replied with actual sincerity… instead of just the standard question people ask to be polite, but they don’t really want to know or care.

I chuckled nervously “I’m okay…”

White walls surrounded me. The window was just there to let in sunlight, just as the guards standing right outside the room were more for ceremonial purposes. After all, this was the room that apparently she held morning court in… not the one with the throne room. The other morning courtroom.

I never actually knew there was more than one courtroom, and yet being inside this place, made me more nervous than being inside a jail cell or when Celestia suddenly popped in the tavern that Pocket Ace ran.

Celestia cleared her throat “Booknote informed me about your discovery ,that you had made. Could you explain it to me in more detail, please?”

I slowly nodded my head “Well, we just found out parts of our speech have also been censored.”

I took a deep breath, as this was going to be difficult to explain or how badly this could end up. After all, how do you explain something when your very own words are going to be censored in the explanation?

******

Regal Script

The unicorn noble sat in what counted for an interrogation room in this dreary building, which he had a suspicious feeling that it was also used as a break room. There was a single bolted table placed in the middle of the room, and the seating arrangements for everypony were hard crude chairs. Why they didn’t just get a few pillows, or something that didn’t feel like a medieval torture device for non-prisoners to sit in was beyond his comprehension.

Still, it was better than being outside, where the Mayor would be watching him. He couldn’t help but shiver as he remembered those large predatory eyes staring at him, like some sort of quick snack, before the dragon would decide to take his next nap on the town treasury.

The criminal named Brass just kept glaring at the door as he first thought she was trying to escape. She had two rather heavy looking chain balls cuffed to her hind legs, as she also seemed to be chained to the floor… or the weight of the iron balls. She looked healthy enough, at least, in the sense that she doesn’t seemed to have been beaten up and she was being properly fed, but the way she shifted about and tried to hide behind the table. How her stance was getting ready to charge, or tried to flip the table bolted to the floor bothered him.

A side glance at the guards didn’t make him feel any better, as they stood at the corners of the room like cheap poorly dressed statues. Their uniforms at least matched ,as they looked like crude versions of the Royal Guard armor, lacking the standard gold and silver, opting instead for a cheap metallic gray color.

Of course, their weapons… they just showed how incompetent the guards were. They had metal pipes attached to blocks of wood, just so that they could figure out which ‘end’ they were supposed to point at the prisoner. The guards even had little sights at the end of their pipes, so that they could make sure that could line up the shot when they rammed their opponents with the tips of their ‘safety spears’; because of course, the real guards didn’t trust them with actual spear tips!

That just left his guide… it was a donkey. They didn’t even send the pony in charge of the local guard to escort him, how insulting. Obviously this meant they were looking down on Equestria.

If the proper political protocols were followed, he would have the pony or individual in charge of the local forces stand with him. They would bow down in respect, as they would fully know that Regal Script stood not only to represent Equestria, but by extension Princess Celestia herself, who has moved the sun and the moon themselves and had ruled justly and wisely for countless years!

Still, he had to interrogate the prisoner. Check up on the mutt and pigeon convicts, before taking a good look at the dangerous, heavily armored, cursed crazed griffin… and if that damned sun scorched monster isn’t chained to the ground and securely immobilized to the point he couldn’t even blink! Than he would get his own guards to protect him.

Maybe ask for the dragon's help… after giving Remedy Cross the scroll so that she could do it in his place.

Regal Script cleared his throat as he prepared to deal with the first criminal of the day “Miss Brass.”

“Brass Balls.” The mare spat out in hatred “My name is Brass Balls.”

The unicorn rolled his eyes over this, as it was probably just a fake name… or her father wanted a colt instead of a filly. The thought was kind of funny considering how mares were usually held in the spotlight in Equestria instead of stallions… which probably made sense due to Celestia having ruled Equestria since its founding.

The mare stared at the door “Is this it?”

Regal Script cleared his throat again “If you mean we are going to execute you, than no. It is my duty to ask you a few questions, while we finish the preparations needed to send you back to Equestria for your trial.”

The guards looked annoyed that he had presumed that Brass was already going to Equestria ,without him even getting confirmation from their leaders. ‘Of course it doesn’t really matter' he thought to himself. It was just a matter of time before the ponies running New Terra would give him over the prisoners. After all, no civilized pony would actually refuse a request from Princess Celestia herself?

Brass looked nervous as she obviously knew that her time of judgement was about to arrive “So, I’m going to be sent to Canterlot?”

“You are correct, Miss Brass Balls” Regal Script spoke in a smug tone as he prepared to listen to the criminal’s plea “If you wish to strike a bargain before the court hearing ,then all you need to do is simply tell us how you managed to broke into Tartarus and state your reasons for releasing any of those notorious criminals, monsters, and other threats that had been securely imprison inside.”

******

Maxwell

I looked up at Celestia as I began to have second thoughts “This isn’t going to hurt… or tingle… sting…”

Celestia smiled softly “I assure you that there will be nothing to be worry about the spell, Maxwell. At worst, you might hear a small buzz or a whine in your ears. But, if you feel anything, just let me know.”

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves “So... I just start saying stuff?”

Celestia shook her head “Just talk normally… try explaining what’s wrong in your own words and, hopefully, I should be able to detect the magic the moments where things starts to alter our perceptions.”

I tried to smile “Well, we sort of did that already with a phonograph.”

Celestia nodded her head as she stated “If it is a physical change it could be affecting your voice, or possibly your hearing… but that wouldn’t account for the discrepancy with the recording… maybe a combination of spells or...”

I stared at her in confusion, as she slowly began to devolve into a very high tech gibberish that would require a master’s degree to fully understand. There was a small gleam in her eyes, as she was carrying the conversation with herself, and tried hypothesizing the causes behind my problem. She really must have a passion for research… doesn’t she. I couldn’t help but be reminded me of a certain purple unicorn, later alicorn that I was familiar with.

I took a deep breath as I tried to figure out what to say “Okay, hum… first of all… humans tend to get nervous when you start talking about certain things that make sense to you… but we really don’t understand what you say.”

I scratched the back of my mane “I’m not sure how this started… or why anyone hasn’t noticed already. I think some had tried explaining they were humans from earth, but the thoughts… the memories that should so easily come to us. They seem to become foggy when we focus on them.”

Celestia nodded her head “Coming from a different nation can be rough. Though, I still find it a little bit strange that some of you try referring to yourselves by your nations instead of your race.”

I face hoofed… I had no idea what she was saying or what she had heard… or even heard before I was the one trying to explain it to her. Why did a land full of unicorns and rainbows have to be so complicated?

I shook my head as I said “Let’s try something simple like ‘I’m a human turned into a pony from the nation of America, that lies on the planet Earth’.”

Celestia shook her head “You said you were a pony placed in Equestria, from the nation Amareica that lives on the planet Eques.” Her horn continued to glow as she said “While I can see how having a nation be mistaken as a different nation could be frustrating… It doesn’t seem any worse than the ‘cursing’ curse.”

This isn’t good. Last night… the word ‘turned’ was still ‘turned’… but now it had also been altered. Was this censor curse learning or was it modifying the context of my sentence?

******

Regal Script

Brass chuckled as she stared at him “Really?” he couldn’t help but shiver as she stared at him with an almost predatory like gaze “I thought this was about the problem of the ponies in this city trying to turn back to normal?”

Regal Script rolled his eyes “That is what we are doing right now. Now, stop trying to evade the question. Do you have any idea how dangerous some of those criminals are, that you helped break out?”

Brass shrugged “Tirek eats magic. The spider ate ponies, and the unicorn was a stuck up racist.”

Regal Script frowned at the rather overgeneralization she gave him. She made it sound like they were common criminals.

Anypony condemned to in Tartarus are not placed there because they had committed a crime, like robbing a bank or burning a city down. They were placed into Tartarus because they are trotting, talking, cataclysms of their own!. Each one of them had enough power to be a threat on their own, that could wipe out a civilization individually, and some of them have just done that, and they lacked almost all of the moral restrain that made civilization possible.

With the looming danger hanging over Equestria Regal Script tried to focus back on the problem at hoof “Why did you cause the prison break?”

The crazed mare shrugged “Money. A place to rest since Celestia was sending her hounds to go after me, due to me stealing a magical artifact.”

The unicorn noble stared at Brass in disbelief. He was expecting some sort of self justification, or an attempt to shift the blame onto one of her cohorts, maybe even a tragic backstory about how mommy didn’t love her enough. As he had prepared to kick whatever ‘moral’ standing she was using to justify her action, and help prove to the idiots in New Terra that she should be tried by Equestria’s courts.

He didn’t expect her to just… give it to him.

******

Maxwell

I could feel myself growing more frustrated as I tried to explain it to her “I’m worried that what could be said could be taken completely out of context and lead to a panic.”

Celestia frowned “I’ll admit it is a little bit disconcerting that this ‘curse‘ seems to somehow also be altering parts of your speech patterns.”

I groaned in annoyance “What about all the people trying to say their humans, only to get odd looks from everyone else? What if they try to warn someone… or say something? What if people start panicking because someone understood something different or misleading?” Heck, why would anyone bother to go through all the trouble of altering our words like that? Why can we hear everything we say without censure to each other, while the natives hear a censored version? And why didn’t we noticed all of this before? Why can’t we even draw what a human look like? Why is it so important that Equestria doesn’t know about humans, but lets us show them our own ideas, culture, inventions or concepts? It’s like someone wants us to become a part of this world, but is making up rules and exceptions without any sense to them, almost as if there isn’t any reasoning behind all of this!

Celestia was silent for a little while, as she seemed to be thinking about what I said “Then wouldn’t it make more sense for them to try talking it over with each other, while making sure that everything is clear to everypony thus fixing any misunderstandings? If somepony heard something different, then the adventurers would calm down and talk to the other Equestrian ponies and try to explain what they had meant like civilized ponies until both sides understood each other.”

A small smile formed on her lips “Besides if a major incident has yet to occur since all of you have arrived in Equestria than it would be safe to say this is a minor if not frustrating inconvenience at best.”

She had a point. Hell, I didn’t even realize there was a problem until recently, when it was shoved right in my face. It wasn’t until an artist that was desperately trying to recall how to draw a human looked like that I began to realize that something was wrong. Was I really freaking out over nothing?

“Of course, if it helps I could always try a reform spell…” Celestia replied to my horror

“No mind magic!” I shouted in a horror! Why in the world did Celestia just casually offer to tamper with my mind!

Celestia flinched as she seemed genuinely hurt by my response “I’ll admit I am kind of surprised that you are willing to take an extensive magical scan of your very being without a second thought… and react so strongly to the suggestion of a reform spell.”

I kept shaking my head as there was something fundamentally wrong with what she had just said “I don’t know about you, but mind control is a very messy and scary subject from where I’m from. I’m not sure anyone would be comfortable with the thought of having their thoughts altered… or twisted…like that”

Celestia frowned for a moment as she tapped her hoof against the pillow underneath her “What exactly do you think a reform spell is and how exactly does it count as mind control?”

“Overriding or subverting someone’s free will.” I nearly shouted out in terror.

Celestia sighed as she tried to clarify with a lecturing tone “A reform spell, under the most common example, is a spell that reminds you of something. If you were taking a diet and thought about eating a cake, then it reminds you about the diet. If you were about to steal something and promised not to break the law, then it would remind you about the promise.”

Celestia then smiled at me as she continued. “Of course, the pony in question can still ignore it, as it doesn’t remove a pony’s free will or turns them into mindless slaves. If anything, it’s more like that lovely story from one of the adventurer groups about the cricket and the puppet… the one called pinocchio if I’m correct.”

“Are there any uncommon examples that are a little bit more forceful?” I replied with a hint of fear.

Celestia took a deep breath “Nothing that breaks any legal laws from any nation that values free will.”

Okay, so the Reform spell isn’t the same as the common evil mind control or turning a person into a blank slate or superimposing another personality… and I should probably ask just what makes the spell Celestia is using worse than using a reform spell… after she is done.

******

Regal Script

Regal Script hit his hoof against the table “Can you not realize the severity of your crimes? The numerous thefts of dangerous and priceless artifacts, acts of wanton destruction, petrifying a member of the royal guard to stone...”

Brass, to his surprise, broke out laughing “Yes the earth pony used her fancy magic to turn someone to stone. Then, her victim just walked it off.”

The unicorn hissed in slight annoyance. Unicorns born, bred, and raised in Canterlot did not sneer, growl, not hiss like lowly common street thug! He brought himself to his full height and firmly replied “You captured a cockatrice from the Everfree Forest which I might add is a highly dangerous and endangered species. You used it against Private Guardspony Valkyrie. It was only through the hard work and efforts of Celestia were we able to turn her back to normal.”

Brass had a smug smile plastered across her face as she had the audacity to smile, as if it was all one big joke “Oh yes the solar tyrant...”

The unicorn noble was now sternly staring at the criminal low life in front of him. “And what makes a pony who specializes in fillynapping and theft have any right to judge her?” He certainly did not growl, ignoring any pretense of civility or composure at the moment no matter what any other misguided pony said.

Brass pretended to sigh as she then looked up at him smirking “Because Celestia already knew about the ponies in her kingdom. She knows all about Equs and ponykind and right now she is doing her best to make all the ponies into happy little ponies.”

Regal Script blinked, as he had no idea what she was saying. While he hadn’t personally dealt with a lot of the so called adventurers himself, he had heard of a few crazier rumors… like sending foals to fight alongside them, or how some of them pretended to be insane so that they wouldn’t go to jail.

He shook his head “And what’s wrong with that?”

The room grew deathly silent as the mare didn’t look worried in the least. She didn’t seem to care that she was being interrogated, or realize the level of severity of the crimes she was being charged with.

Regal Script straightened his tie as he decided to play hard ball “You could be given a life sentence trapped behind bars, or perhaps stuck outside in some Celestia forsaken patch of land, and be forced to do hard labor for the rest of your life.”

Brass rolled her eyes at his threats. She didn’t seem the least bit bothered by them. Maybe she was already expecting that to be her punishment? All he had to do was give her a way out… or show her how much worse things could become if she continued to be so belligerent.

He decided to switch to the carrot and the stick approach. First he would present a chance for her to save herself with a light punishment. Then when she refused he would show her the stick and make her regret ever being born.

“Of course… you may have a reformation spell be placed on you.” Regal Script replied in a soft tone “A skilled unicorn could…”

“Keep your twisted magic away from my head or I’ll tear your head off!” Brass shouted in rage.

Regal Script nearly fell out of his seat, as the chains around her legs prevented her from jumping over the table and strangling him with her own bare hooves! The guards behind her rushed forward, in an attempt to restrain her as she lashed out striking dents into the table, and before trying to hurl one of the iron weights at Regal Script.

The guards did their best to restrain her, as she pointed her right hoof at him and spat at him “Maybe this pony doesn’t want to be a happy little pony.”

Regal Script did his best to stay calm, as he pulled out a small white cloth from his breast pocket and wiped his face clean. It took a few minutes for her to settle down as she was now glaring at him., He just only wished they had strapped another pair of weights to her legs.

Brass spoke out loud “In case you haven’t noticed there is a rather prominent pattern that whenever Celestia makes a mistake they tend to be swept underneath the rug rather quickly! Everypony thinks she is a great happy leader, without questioning anything she does. Anyone who disagrees with her almighty judgment quickly disappears forever, or reappears a few days later acting completely different!”

She looked at Regal Script and frowned “I told Valkyrie what was going on before and she agreed with me. The next week I’m told she in being placed in intensive care because apparently I turned her to stone.”

******

Maxwell

I shook my head as Celestia continued “I can understand your worries, but most ponies and civilized races tend to be good souls. If we weren’t as loathed to seeing the sufferings of others or feeling their pain, than we wouldn’t have come as far as we are now.”

I couldn’t help but sigh “I just want to make sure that nothing bad happens. I mean… the whole Everfree Incident started off as an attempt to go home. There was nothing sinister or evil about what we wanted.”

The memory of how that one idiot started trying to turn people into copies of the mane six. Grabbing a strong willed girl, and tearing her mind apart, until she acted like cheap copy of Fluttershy because Fluttershy could use the elements of Harmony. Then, how it slowly devolved into brainwashing anyone who didn’t agree were then turned into puppets for his little theater show.

My ears started to droop as I remembered the disaster “And yet all it took was one person to twist it around.”

Celestia walked around the table, and placed a hoof on my shoulder, and said out loud “I know it may seem bad… but when it comes to situations of abuse, or actively trying to subvert the inherent good in anypony, those who try usually fail. Even if they somehow manage to succeed, their so called ‘reign’ tends to be rather short.”

I looked up at Celestia as I couldn’t help but ask “All it would take is one person at the right moment to cause a riot.”

Celestia nodded her head “And it would easily be solved by one pony coming fourth in to fix the problem, unless dark magic or something forcefully alter one’s emotions or judgment.”

I stared at her as I felt a nagging feeling in the back of my head “You really believe that?”

Celestia smiled in that wise all knowing (and some would say smug) smile “I have yet to see a moment in my entire life to have proved me wrong.”

I wanted to believe her after seeing how peaceful things have been these last few weeks… but I just felt like it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped.

******

Regal Script

Brass sighed as she wore a soft and almost tired looking smile “I know I’ve done some messed up stuff that probably doesn’t make any sense… but I’m not the villain here. I haven’t done anything illegal or dangerous in New Terra before they decided I should be placed in a jail cell.”

Regal Script spoke in a harsh tone “I think the various crimes you have caused, and even admitted too, are perfectly good reasons to throw you in jail.”

Brass chuckled softly “But they’re not a good reason to kill me.”

The unicorn frowned “You are going to be tried for your crimes in Equestria.”

Brass shook her head “No, what is going to happen is that there is going to be a tragic ‘accident’ that will happen during the prison transfer where I will have died before even setting foot in Equestria. Then all of the little nagging truths, that I kept trying warn people about will be swept underneath the rug, like countless people ponies before me.”

The donkey sighed in what seemed like regret “You still have to be pay for the crimes you had committed.”

Brass raised her head in pride as she looked over to the donkey as a hint of pride entered her voice “And I’m willing to face whatever judgment that may be, as long as the court hearing is done within New Terra, and I’ll tell you everything I know during the trial.”

******

William

I tried not to sigh as escorted the Equestrian diplomat out of the room. He seemed much more relieved and happy that he was no longer in the same room with Brass… but he was still rather upset with his encounter with the mare.

I didn’t like how he kept glancing at the ponies each time we stopped or how he seemed confused whenever they let us through. Were things different in ponyville with the Royal Guard or was he not expecting a donkey to be in charge?

I took a deep breath and tried not to think that he had something against donkeys. It was probably more likely that he is trying to figure out how the guards operate in New Terra vs how they operate in Equestria.

I continued to listen to the Equestrian diplomat vent as he continued “I can’t believe the nerve of that prisoner!”

“I know.” I softly replied as I tried not to think about the greater implications she had spoken of.

Celestia couldn’t have already known about humanity… or us. I mean that would just be silly right? Wouldn’t it be more likely that Brass was lying since she didn’t want to go to jail, especially after being threatened to have a Reform spell used on her?

I bit the inside of my cheek as I glanced at the unicorn who had recently threatened to alter someone’s mind with magic. Maybe he was bluffing. There was a good chance he was just threatening her in an attempt to make her talk, because the ponies in Equestria certainly didn’t use mind control to ‘reform’ the criminals in Equestria, right!?.

I took a deep breath and said “So Celestia already knows about humanity?”

The unicorn groaned “Of course she knows. Why wouldn’t she know?”

I couldn’t help but flinch as I guess it made sense? I mean someone would have opened up that can of worms and told someone that we were human. It would actually be silly to even think that the big secret of humanity would be kept a secret for so long.

“And Celestia sent Remedy Cross to turn the humans into ponies?” I couldn’t help but ask.

I mean it was silly. Celestia isn’t the Tyrant Celestia some of the others in New Terra kept raving about. Princess Celestia was not rewriting the history books making her out to be a peaceful ruler. She was not trying to keep the population under her iron hoof, as she made her ponies complacent and ignorant of the world so that they would believe every word she said, as they blindly worshiped her as if she was the ‘God Empress of Ponykind’.

She did not right her sisters out of the history books, so that she could get all of the credit. She did not make the Crystal empire into a myth, to ensure that nobody knew that she failed to save a kingdom. Star Swirl the Bearded was not left in obscurity because he had helped Celestia stop a lot of ancient villains!

Regal Script grumbled before he spoke out loud “Yes. Yes Celestia is trying to turn them all back to into ponies.” I stopped dead in my tracks as I stared at him in disbelief “I can’t believe she sounded so proud of her actions. That smugness…”

I looked back at the others behind me who also seemed to be staring at me in disbelief. I shook my head as I must have misheard that. All of us must have somehow misheard that. Maybe he just meant turning the humans who were turned into ponies, that had been turned into something else… back as humans turned ponies!?

I rubbed my aching head “Just one more stop and then this will all be over.”

Brass was a criminal. That native unicorn doctor who had been claiming that Equestria already knew about humanity was right… And yet, like that mare, he was also a criminal. You couldn’t trust a word from a criminal, because they would say anything just to avoid prison time. And… It was his job just to keep them in their cells, and he had to make sure that they didn’t break out of jail, or cause any major problems. Morals, questions, or debates about right, wrong, innocent, or guilty didn’t matter. He had to keep them in prison, until someone else figured out what to do with them.

Besides if anything did happen, I would be the one blamed for the disaster.

We walked into the basement, as the guards on duty made sure to check us for any weapons or reflective objects. All we knew was that this… cursed trader had apparently escaped by walking through a mirror. It sounded crazy in my opinion as I didn’t actually believe it... but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The Equestrian seemed to glance at the riffles as he shook his head. Was he unhappy with that we had made guns? I mean it took a lot of work trying to make the gunpowder and harness to work since most of us lacked hands.

The ‘battle saddles’ were made so that the humans who were turned into ponies could still use guns. All they had to do was bite down on the bit of the bridle to fire the gun. And honestly, a few of us felt a little bit of pride that we were actually able to make them.

I just hoped that this wasn’t going to cause any problems down the road as we walked into the room. I glanced at the former equestrian turned science experiment as Rover the diamond dog grumbled in his cage. Remedy had managed to help return him to normal, for the most part…

What I mean is that he was now (mostly) turned back into the size of a normal diamond dog. Still, he had a few patches where his fur was still missing, where there were a few grey scales that were still clinging to his body. His eyes however, still had those slits… those creepy reptilian pupils that stared back at us. His arms were clenched to his sides as one could almost see the outline of the diamond dog’s ribs.

The unicorn was shaking his head, apparently upset at our treatment of the diamond dog. Sure, placing him in a steel cage like a wild animal seemed a little bit harsh, but we had to make sure he couldn’t break out. Remedy Cross was trying to help the others who had been affected by this disaster, and Rover the diamond dog was refusing to eat his meals.

“Hello William.” a inhuman voice replied.

My body couldn’t help but shiver as I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. It felt as if I heard the voice all around me… I could hear the sounds of someone or something breathing on me as it rested on the edge of my vision.

I turned to look at the second prisoner who looked as if somepony had taken one look at Discord, and tried to imagine a similar creature, but one that was more… orderly so to speak, if that could even make sense at all.

Her body was mostly avian, as her bird like talons scraped across the floor, as green scales sparkled across her legs. Her tail slowly swept from side to side, as the hybrid feather and fur tail seemed to continue all the way up back, like a horse’s mane. She stared at us with those inhuman eyes…

These were not the large and ‘daw’ adoring pony or kitten eyes. These were large solid red eyes with no pupils in them as her face… her face didn’t have a mouth, nose, ears, or any ‘features’ besides her eyes. Instead all that was left was the creepy alien like wrinkles where her mouth should have been… like if she was a sectoid from Xcom or a Protoss from Starcraft.

To put it simple... she didn’t look as if she belonged in Equestria.

She stared at me as if she was a statue as the inhuman voice surrounded me once again. “So you are bringing in another Equestrian to deal with the problem?” She kept staring at me with her unreadable gaze as her mouth didn’t move at all “Are you upset that you are not playing the hero… that you are just another helpless townsperson waiting for the lead character to save them?”

“Shut up…” I muttered in annoyance

No one liked her. Every time a human walked into the room she would toy with them. She would taunt them… she would say things that would get underneath your skin. How she would try to make it a game… make them doubt themselves as she would make them seem worthless… helpless… just an extra in someone else’s story.

“What?” The unicorn nearly shouted in surprise

I stared back at him as I forgot he couldn’t hear her “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

He grunted in annoyance “What happened to them?”

“The diamond dog’s a native and the avian is…” I paused as I stared at her “Well we think she is an adventurer.”

“You don’t want to call me a human because it would mean that humanity is the cause of all your problems. That all the problems caused to this world is not because of some ancient evil or dark spell… but because this world was cursed with humanity’s presence, as we are the ones tearing it apart.” She spoke as I couldn’t help but grit my teeth “You do realize he isn’t going to say anything to you; being the ugly stupid, smelly worthless mule that you are. He is just going to talk about magic, knowing you your simple little mind won’t understand a single thing he says, before walking out of here leaving you.”

I shook my head as I stared at the Equestrian. I didn’t know what it was about our second prisoner… but humans could hear her voice. Amber claimed it must have been some function of the menu… She was one of the people trying to study the menu and figure out how it works. She claimed that since there was a message system in the menu that there might even be a call function.

I tried not to let her get underneath my skin. We didn’t know her name and she wouldn’t tell us. She just kept being an annoying prick as she tried to taunt us because she was stuck in her own personal bird cage while her ‘ally’ had ditched her.

“You do realize he thinks less of you right? I’m not saying this being you’re just a side character.” she replied in a mocking tone, as I swore she was smiling “Of course you do know that. You could have been a different race… something else than a donkey, but you were too much of a coward about the possibility of your new and better form being linked to dark magic. It scares you that there is a force taken here for granted while you know nothing about it, doesn’t it? You don’t know how to stop it or how to deal with its problems, and you would rather bury your head in the sand then try to understand it.”

Regal Script looked at the diamond dog in a clinical curiosity, blissfully oblivious to what the avien was saying. “I thought Remedy Cross was helping deal with those who had been afflicted by this curse?”

“You left him like that because you wanted him to be punished.” She whispered insidiously to me “He was an Equestrian native who betrayed your settlement, and caused so much damage to one of the fledgling outpost. You want him to leave a freak like this. You want to watch him suffer… to feel ashamed and disgusted at his own body, knowing he will never have the power he craved, or the normality that was torn away from him.” Then like the little devil she was she gleefully replied “You wanted to make him into a copy of yourself that you could freely hate.”

I felt my body tensing up at her accusations, as I firmly replied “He’s not a dragon anymore, and there are more important cases to take care of.”

“Like Brass.” The prisoner continued to whisper “Did you hear what you wanted from her? Did she tell you the truth? Did she tell you that what you were doing here was meaningless?”

I felt my hooves start to scrape against the floor as I tried to ignore her. She was just trying to take her frustration out against me. She was trying to drive me mad, since she perfectly well knew that Regal Script couldn’t hear her voice.

I turned to glare at her only to see that she had tilted her head to a perfect ninety degrees to the right. I couldn’t help but shiver, as I wanted her gone. She could be left in an Equestrian jail, where she could scream all she liked, without anyone being able to hear her.
The unicorn was now staring at me with a hint of unease

I took a deep breath “I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you over her. Could you repeat what you just said?”

Regal Script just shook his head in disbelief as he muttered under his breath “Daft donkey.” Before replying in a calm tone “I said why hasn’t this… individual been treated by Remedy Cross?”

I frowned as I could hear her chuckle “He doesn’t believe that you couldn’t hear him. He thinks you’re lying… slacking off on your job. Apparently he thinks you’re more suited to be a background character instead of a side character.”

I shook my head “Because, according to the medic that you sent us, there are so many overlapping spells, and some magical gibberish … that if we were attempting to fix, alter or remove any parts of it without how it works as a whole, could end in a very painful death for her. I mean… she doesn’t even have mouth or a nose to breathe with, and yet she is still alive somehow.”

Regal Script looked back at the prisoner, paying more attention at the aforementioned area, and his eyes widen at the impossibility of what he was seeing, as she really didn’t in fact have a nose, or a mouth. It was kind of unsettling to just stare at the slightly wrinkled area, where the rest of the face should have been, as the only things on her face were her eyes. It was hard to even see the line of fur/feathers that was on the back of her head, when you stood in front of her.

“And why hasn’t the diamond dog been treated?” He asked once again while he looked for something in his suit.

I tried to calm him down from his false assumption, “He was a full grown dragon before your medic treated him. Right now she is busy trying to help… fix everyone else.”

“What is he doing?” the pest spoke in annoyance and what almost sounded like a twinge of worry inhuman “You already had that evil mare say she didn’t know what she was doing!”

I looked over at Regal Script who had now pulled out a scroll from somewhere in his jacket. I had no idea what that thing was, but if our house guest had stopped bothering me because she saw it, then it might actually be dangerous.

“What are you doing?” I shouted as I had no idea what he was doing

Regal Script licked his lips “I’m just casting a simple spell.”

“Didn’t you hear what William just said?” a voice shouted behind us.

The unicorn noble turned around to see a Pegasus and one rather irate looking earth pony. I tried not to flinch, as Amber and Silver had just arrived. I didn’t want them here to cause a scene… or react without thinking. I could only imagine what Amber would have thought, if she misheard Regal Script wanting to turn everyone into ponies.

Amber was now glaring at the Unicorn as she spoke with growing hatred “Why is he even down here if Brass aka the ‘real criminal’ he is looking for is upstairs?”

I tried not to sigh “That’s because both of these criminals were working with the cursed trader, who they were originally after.”

Silver shook her head “But didn’t Miss Remedy claim she couldn’t do anything for her… she had no idea what our prisoner even originally was before… this?”

The unicorn rolled his eyes “She was examining the criminal for conventional magical spells.” he replied in a slightly condescending tone “What I am doing is verifying her condition for spells that don’t fall under the normal or conventional casting methods.”

“Being changed into another species overnight counts as unusual for us!” Amber snapped “Or are you saying that is common in Equestria?”

I bit my lip as I pulled her aside and whispered “What do you think you are doing?”

Amber nearly snapped at me as she harshly whispered “Mort the Equestrian doc already knew about humanity? I think you should have told us about that before the Equestrian jackass arrived!”

She nearly spat at me, as her harsh attempt to whisper grew louder “Why the blazing fuck does Celestia already know about humanity, and why did I have to hear from one of your guards, that apparently, Celestia is trying keep us from turning back to normal!”

“What are you doing?” Silver spoke out loud.

“It’s just a more extensive scan.” Regal Script replied as he pointed the scroll at our avian prisoner.

She started flapping her wings as she screamed “No! No! No!”

Anyone who used to be human, covered their ears as she screamed in terror. I could see her eyes widened in horror, as she flapped her wings frantically in some sort of vain attempt to escape. Silver tried to stop the unicorn as he ignored her protests, completely focused on his spell.

The scroll glowed as the arcane text turned blue, a light struck the caged prisoner, causing the avian’s head to suddenly jerk to the right. There was a faint smell of smoke coming from the scroll, as they could hear the caged prisoner scream at the top of her lungs, before everything disappeared in a puff of smoke.

******

Regal Script

“Fuck! Fuck!” shouted a mare in a un-lady like tone, which certainly wasn’t helped by the rather loud gagging and subsequent hacking sounds she made.

Paws, hooves, and wings moved about trying to dissipate the smoke as they tried to see what happened. The doors opened up as guards came rushing along with a breath of fresh air. The mule squadron stood ready behind him with staffs tied to their armor… no they were spears without tips, since apparently the donkeys couldn’t figure out how to properly line them out, without an improvised device to help line up their shots.

Still, he should be at least grateful if they rushed to their positions in a quick and orderly time. More importantly, they moved in front of him with the spears ready in the air, so that if the bird tried to escape it would charge into them instead of him.

Once the smoke died down, the mare quickly replied “Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding…”

There was a sound of something falling, or splashing, on the ground behind him, but Regal Script didn’t pay attention to it, as his focus was on the cage in front of him. He was expecting a fireball… burnt remains lying on the bottom of the cage, or ashes set out in a grim pattern of a skull. Instead, it looked as if… it looked as if somepony had placed a small piece of fireworks into a pot of oatmeal… except instead of oatmeal it was meat… and feathers… and lots of former pieces of the unknown creature now stained the room.

In fact, if it wasn’t for the two bird talons, almost left comically standing with smoke drifting off them… he would have never guessed there was a large bird that was standing in the middle of the cage. Well, there was certainly enough bits carpeting the floors, walls… and sweet Celestia it was even dripping down from the ceiling!

He turned his head only to see the donkey, earth pony, and pegasus staring at him. The donkey seemed to be waiting for an explanation. The pegasus was looking at him, as if she was ready to throw him in jail. The earth pony trying to shake bits of… avian off her, looked as if she was about to kill him.

“What did you do?” The earth pony spoke in a low tone… a low raspy tone, normally reserved for griffins in dark alleyways with butcher cleavers. “What caused her to suddenly go pop, like a balloon?” She even had the same kind glare, as she kept growing at him.

“We don’t know that she dead…” The donkey spoke with a faint hope “maybe she’s alright?”

Regal Script looked down at the scroll as… it was currently a pile of ashes on the floor. The scroll shouldn’t have been reduced to a pile of ash as it was… alright it wasn’t a simple, but more of a complex magical spell used to do a detailed analyzed scan of the pony/subject. It would then only react to one type of problem… but it certainly shouldn’t have made the avian prisoner explode, or be reduced to a pile of ash.

One of the key points of making magical scrolls like it was to ensure that the process could safely be reproduced and carried out by any unicorns, if they lacked the necessary skills or knowledge to cast the spell properly in the first place!

The pegasus that stood near him shouted “She’s dead! He was told about her condition and decided to play around anyway. And, unless he can show me where her body is, than he’s going into one of those jail cells!”

Regal took a step back, as this really was a bad problem. He lost a very old scroll and, somehow, caused a major diplomatic incident. What he wanted to do in that moment was just to send Celestia a letter so that she could explain what happened… wait what did the pegasus just said?

The donkey glanced at him “Still, maybe we should get a copy of the scroll to have our experts take a look at it. Then, he turned to the other ponies in the room… maybe it was just some sort of teleportation spell or…” he said in a placating and hopeful tone.

“Certainly! I’ll send you a copy of one later.” Regal Script replied as he was quite certain that they would never see a copy of the scroll he promised. He knew they didn’t have any experts. They were just saying it so that he could promise them a copy that he would never give them.

He focused on the ashes of what used to be the scroll. He certainly didn’t mis-cast the spell, as it was a very old and very valuable piece of ancient pony history... an historical relic of an ancient era... that was now a pile of ash upon the floor. Maybe he would be lucky as there would be another copy of that scroll in some vault in Canterlot?

“Why can’t we use the one you used?” Hissed the earth pony, who was currently being restrained by the reasonable and friendly donkey.

Regal Script started to adjust his tie as it now felt like it was strangling him “Because… apparently there was some sort of magical backlash.” Everyone in the room stared at him “Look, the scroll was reduced to a pile of ash on the floor. That pile of ash on the floor is… no it was the scroll that I was using. It had suffered from the magical surge.”

The Pegasus looked at him as if he had claimed the moon was actually made out of cheese. The donkey didn’t believe him. The earth pony on the other hoof judging by her venomous glare she is casting on him, seemed to be planning his execution in the back of her mind.

He glanced back at the guards, the jail employed as they had started to point their spears towards him. Even if they were ‘non-lethal’ spears, all they had to do was simply beat their victim unconscious, and the unicorn noble was certainly feeling like a victim at this moment.

The donkey quickly stepped in-between him and the guards and spoke in a firm tone “Listen, this might have been an accident… a very untimely accident.” He paused just a moment before continuing “One that just happened at the worst possible moment. Still, do you want me to bag up the remains of the prisoner to be shipped to canterlot, or should we take care of the mess you left behind?”

He was about to say something else, until he noticed the donkey quirking an eyebrow at him, as if he was signaling him to give the ‘right answer’ to start making amends.

Regal Script really wished he had taken some more members of the Royal Guard with him, or that he hadn’t left them to ‘inspect’ New Terra. Guards in general were meant to protect him from accidents… not brandish their weapons at him or accusing him for being the one responsible for the disaster. “I’ll have to check with Princess Celestia… and it might be a good idea to have Remedy Cross check to ensure the remains are safe.”

The Pegasus quickly muttered “Isn’t she suppose to help you out when you check on Brass? In fact why wasn’t she with you?”

Regal Script straightened his suit “She had other duties to attend to and her presence could have aggravated Brass during the interrogation.”

The earth pony spoke with seething hatred “So he was left to walk around, ignoring our rules… killing someone… and we are just going to pretend nothing happened?”

He felt himself starting to sweat, as he gathered up the remains of the scroll, and placed them in his suit’s pockets. He could still do this… things looked bad right now, but he could still pull it together.

First, he would see how their weather operations went. He would then be able to help suggest that he could send a few Equestrian weather ponies, to help the citizens of New Terra work out some of their settlement’s weather snags.

Then, he would send letters to Celestia. She could help explain what the scroll was suppose to do, or help address some of the issues they were having… and hopefully help smooth things out.

He could still find a way to succeed, despite this rather painful setback.

The donkey spoke in a firm tone “We don’t know what happened yet. For now, we should just take him back to a room… a regular room and try to figure out what had happened.”

Regal Script tried not to sigh in relief. He tried his best to pretend to be the innocent noble of Equestrian nobility that he was, as he allowed himself to be escorted out of the jail, while he tried to figure out some way to salvage this.

******

Steel Halberd

Bristol looked around the shop as the dust gray earth pony named Forge placed the rest of Valkyrie’s armor out on display.
He smiled as he cheerfully replied “It took a bit of work trying to get the right mixture, but it should be fine.”

Valkyrie started putting on her armor as Steel was once again reminded of the almost mythical feat of strength of watching Valkyrie be able to walk around in the armor without any strain or unease. He rubbed his sides as he remembered his brief moment as it really felt like wearing a lead coffin when Steel Tide was trying to tear him apart.

He shook his head as he preferred something that didn’t restrain his movements so that he could avoid the attacks instead of taking them head on. Still Steel Halberd couldn’t help but smirk as he noticed Bristol staring in slight disbelief as Valkyrie seemed unhindered by the armor as she trotted around the store.

Valkyrie took her helmet off as she shook her head “It feels a bit lighter.”

Forge rubbed his chin “We tried going for an earth pony tank variant so it should stand up against most conventional weapons.” He looked down at his notebook “Though if you want something heavier we could try making a new suit if only to test how durable we could make a suit of armor.”

Valkyrie just shook her head “Maybe next time. I’m just happy you managed to fix it.” She tapped her breastplate with her hoof “So what did you test it against?”

Forge closed his notebook as he replied off hoof “Gun fire.”

Steel noticed Valkyrie’s eyes shrink as she stared at the smith in disbelief. Bristol who had been going over the wide array of weapons had stopped to turn around as he noticed the odd pause in the conversation.

Steel Halberd glanced at Forge as he couldn’t help but ask “What is gun fire? Some sort of flaming arrow or a device that spews fire?”

Forge chuckled “No that would be a flamethrower and those are too expensive to even try crafting right now.”

Bristol spoke up as he watched Forge “Can we see this gun fire?”

Forge nodded his head as he didn’t seem bothered “Sure, but just remember that we haven’t finished working out all the kinks. If you have any questions about prices just let me know.”

Bristol quickly followed the earth pony out of the shop as Steel quickly moved beside Valkyrie as he whispered “What is gun fire?”

Valkyrie looked bleak as they heard the sound of something going off in the distance. Steel felt a small shiver down his spine as the sound reminded him of Lockheart’s makeshift weapon that harmed the changeling from the Everfree forest.

Valkyrie shook her head as she muttered “What do you know about Bristol?”

Steel Halberd shrugged “He’s a Sergeant from Smokey Mountains and has helped fight in a few skirmish battles. I doubt he is going to cause any problems as he’ll just want to see what type of weapons and armor that is made in New Terra before filing a report to his commanding officer.”

They heard the sound again in the distance as Steel felt a small bit of unease as he continued “Most likely he’ll just dismiss most of the equipment or he might try and buy a weapon or piece of armor for himself. Whether it will be for decorative purposes or combat use I don’t know.”

They stepped out the building as they saw a dozen citizens standing behind a row of sandbags. Each of them held odd yet slightly familiar weapons as they took aim at a few suits of armor. Then the sound rang out in the air again as Steel recognized what should have been obvious to him.

The sound of gunfire went off as each crack of the riffle unleash it’s fury upon their targets as Forge spoke in a cheerful tone “We’ve built a few reliable riffles and so far they are working like a charm without any major problems.”

******

“How could it have all gone wrong so fast?” Steel asked himself in the back of his mind.

Bristol and Forge were getting into a heated argument. Valkyrie was banging her head up against a nearby wall and Steel Halberd barely understood what was going on.

“Do you have any idea what you are doing!” The pegasus sergeant shouted out loud

The dusty gray earth pony pointed a hoof “This town wasn’t built in Equestria. It wasn’t built by Equestrians. So naturally, you don’t get a say in what we can or cannot do!”

Steel closed his eyes as he tried to figure out what he should do. He had already tried thinking up ways to help deal with the fact that the citizens of this town figured out a way to produce better quality steel, at a much faster rate than Equestria knew of.

He was even prepared to help try to deal with any cultural… and inevitable misunderstandings, or talk of how their foreign brands of armor were different, compared to than the traditional suits of armor that the Royal Guard wore.

Bristol was a traditionalist and if the armor his grandfather wore when he was in the Royal Guard was good enough for him. Then naturally the same standard of weapons and armor were good enough for Bristol. Seeing ranged weapons that he knew nothing about that had also been built to render his armor useless that Forge was planning to mass produce naturally didn’t set well with the pegasus sergeant.

Steel Halberd looked at the various suits of armor that were being used as target practice… as the ‘gunners’, as Valkyrie called them, were testing out their new/old invention called the rifle. It was an odd and slightly frightening device, that looked like a pipe with some odd bits of wood and metal attached to it, as they put small oddly shaped bits of metal into the device.

Sure, he knew of the weapon Lockheart used in the Everfree forest… but that was used nearly at point blank range, and the weapon itself didn’t last that long. These rifles were being used to shoot targets at the distant, with a frightening amount power.

The oddly shaped pieces of metal called ‘bullets’ pierced the armor, leaving holes or sending helmets flying off their stands. What was unnerving was that these weapons didn’t even use enchanted ammunitions, like the bows and arrow the griffins tended to favor.

Bristol saw this as a dangerous weapon, since ponies needed a type of harness to fire the weapons (unless they were unicorns), and the fact that the weapons were tearing through armor. The Equestrian Pegasus thought they needed to be restricted and regulated under Equestria’s laws, if not out right banned.

The dusty coal gray earth pony named Forge who had repaired Valkyrie’s armor saw this as some random foreigner trying to enforce ‘their authority’ on some place they didn’t even own. Forge was making weapons meant to help defend other ponies, and now some stranger was telling him what he can or cannot do?

Steel glanced at the riffles as he noticed some of the odd changes in their designs “How did you even make them?”

Forge rolled his eyes “Some diamond dog named Tracy or something gave us a few of them. He wanted us to help make replacement parts and we just made cast copies of the various components. I mean sure it’s easy to build gun… all you really need is a few pipes, a spring, and a welding torch.”

“Where is this diamond dog? Why are you making replacement parts for him?” Anger started to seep into his voice “Where did he get the weapons? What are his plans for the weapons!” Bristol spoke with a tone of suspicion

Forge shrugged “I don’t know and I don’t care. ”The earth pony spoke with growing annoyance “What you don’t understand is that riffles need ammunitions, as you can’t just pick up a bullet off the ground, and stuff it back into the riffle. It needs a powerful propellant to create the force needed to send the bullet flying forth. It needs maintenance, so that the barrel doesn’t warp reducing the gun’s power, or some other problem that could cause the rifle to explode, hitting the user with a shower of shrapnel in the process!”

“So you are giving out weapons that can also kill it’s user!” the pegasus shouted back in fury.

The two ponies continued to argue with each other as everypony had started to take notice of the shouting match. Steel Halberd glanced over at Valkyrie as she was the only one who really seemed to understand the weapon that he could safely talk to.

Steel glanced back at Valkyrie as he whispered “Is there any sort of protection against it?”

The mare shook her head as she seemed nervous “Well there’s Kevlar… but no one knows how to make it… or they can’t make it. But, If those guns work like musket rifles, than getting the weapons, or the powder, wet would render them useless.”

“Or that’s how it works in the movies at least.” she muttered underneath her breath.

Steel sighed in relief, as it wasn’t completely bad. If there was a group of ponies using such weapons, than all it would take would be a simple spring shower to stop them. It was still a dangerous weapon, but there was something that could be done against it.

“What about the ammunition?” Steel replied hastily “Are there any enchantments on them or… or enchantments on armor that could hamper or stop them?”

“None.” Valkyrie replied slowly “I mean no one had made any enchantments… to use with the ammo or to stop them with.”

Steel felt that was a strange answer to give, but then again other nations can operate in strange ways. Before Equestria pegasi relied on their gifts of flight and staying bound to their cloud made homes for refuge, where their enemies had to be able to fly in order to reach them. Unicorns would seek tall peaks like mountains where the paths would limit their opponent’s movements, while they cast a variety of spells to slowly whittle away their numbers. Diamond dogs used their tunnels and broken terrain to avoid their opponents and launch sneak attacks. While the buffalo preferred open plains to simply charge into battle.

Steel shook his head “So… no enchantments… it’s just a small piece of metal, being propelled forward due to a small contained explosion behind it.”

Valkyrie nodded her head “That’s pretty much it.”

Steel looked at the armor that was being struck by the hail of bullets… and then how the weapons were being reloaded. Some used something called ‘black powder’ was poured into the riffle. Some simply slid the ammunition down the barrel only to be shouted at by the ponies in charge. The ones who didn’t, get shouted at were using bristled sticks to push the bullet down to the bottom of the barrel… and after each shot they used the bristled sticks to clean the barrel before preparing to fire another round.

Some of the ‘gunners’ were slipping in tiny oddly shaped bullets in the center of the rifle, before pulling a level sealing the opening up then opening fire once again.

Apparently, they were busy trying to make a bullet design that wouldn’t be affected by a heavy down pour or where a good rain storm would render their next shot useless. He took a deep breath as that would mean the bullets would also be expensive, and if you couldn’t reuse the ammunition, than you would have to buy more bullets, which in turn would cost more bits.

“How do they determine how much force is used… or where the bullet hits?” Steel asked as he tried to figure the weapon out.

Valkyrie shook her head “You don’t really determine how much force is behind it. As for aiming you just try to line up your shot.”

Steel nodded his head as these rifles sounded like a stronger version of a crossbow… except they didn’t have enchantments. A good rainstorm could render them useless, and they were expensive to use or to maintain.

With that Steel just sighed in relief “Well that isn’t too bad.” Now it was Valkyrie who was looking at him strangely. “I mean sure they are stronger, but it shouldn’t take too much trouble to update or inform Equestria on how they work and, more importantly, the different flaws they have.”

Valkyrie blinked “I thought you would be acting more like… him.”

Steel shook his head “I’ll admit they are unsettling, but if they can’t be enchanted, or the amount of work to enchant a single bullet is extremely costly… then yes it will be a dangerous weapon, but it won’t be that bad.”

Valkyrie stared at him in confusion she muttered “Are you telling me this to calm me down or…”

Steel shrugged “An ice arrow with at a cloud and the result will be a large cart sized chunk of ice falling from the sky. A few ice arrows with a large cloud can end with a small iceberg falling down from the sky. Can a gun do that?”

Valkyrie was now staring at him in disbelief “You’re kidding!”

Steel Halberd couldn’t find it how odd it was that a pegasus wearing a suit of armor, that would be counted as a lead coffin to any other type of pony… one who seemed quite skilled at fighting, didn’t seem to know one of the more basic techniques used by pegasi during the Three Tribe Era.

Maybe it had to do with their crazy weather hampering their natural weather manipulation techniques, or the lack of magical expertise that caused them to diverge from the Equestrian standard of what counted as normal.

Valkyrie seemed frustrated by his lack of worry as she replied “But what about fire lines? How easy it is to learn how to shoot a gun?”

Steel rolled his eyes “The same could be said about crossbows. The only difference is that we have griffins trying to help make versions that ponies can use.”

Steel shrugged “I’ll admit that a few ponies back home will be nervous, but if their guns cannot be integrated with magic… then they will just became another normal, if rather dangerous, types of weapons, like a crossbow or a ballista.”

Valkyrie seemed to relax, from his threat assessment. “It can’t be that simple!?”

Steel shook his head “Equestria may want to limit the amount of guns made… Princess Celestia would probably just negotiated a contract or something to allow Equestria to be the exclusive buyers. Then, while the weapons are being tested, it will be done under careful management without causing too much restriction for New Terra.”

Valkyrie stared at him in a mixture of confusion and surprise “What makes you think that?”

He couldn’t help but chuckle “I’m a member of the Royal Guard. We are more than just pretty faces who stand still outside the castle gates. Sometimes, we also help pull Celestia’s cart, or stand by her side, while she negotiates with other groups who also have crazy ideas.”

Steel moved a hoof in front of his mouth as he whispered “You can learn a lot from that.”

This actually earned a chuckle from the mare as he smirked “Yes, one day too you may be graced with the honor of standing in a room bored out of your mind, while listening to Princess Celestia trying to convince a bunch of ponies the importance of restrictions while, offer them a lucrative contract to continue their research.”

Valkyrie shook her head “I just wish Bristol wasn’t making such a big deal over it.”

“That’s because he’s a member of the Royal Guard… just like you.” Steel reminded her “It’s our job to protect Equestria and when a new weapon is being mass produced right in front of your doorstep…”

Valkyrie’s ears flattened against her head as she looked down at the ground “I can see your point.”

Steel Halberd glanced at the rifle range “Still, I can’t help but wonder why they are even building these things? I mean their method in steel production should be enough to solve their money issues.”

A nearby diamond dog spoke up “It’s because a gun is simple and everyone knows to be afraid of it.”

Steel frowned as he looked at the diamond dog cleaning a rifle “I don’t see how showing your enemies that you have guns would frighten them considering most of us haven’t even heard of a gun.”

The diamond dog shook his head “They’ll figure it out quickly. Besides it’s not like everyone here can lift boulders or hurl lightning bolts. As for our secret for making steel… it’s not a good idea to place all of your eggs in one basket. Guns may be crude, violent, and dangerous, but they offer us protection while earning us some money.”

Steel nodded his head as he kept his mouth shut. They were out in the badlands all by themselves only to have a rogue diamond dog get turned into a dragon and nearly destroy one of the outposts. They couldn’t exactly stand by and wait for the Equestrians to swoop in and save them. They needed protection that they could reach or rely upon.

Grabbing hold of a weapon you know that can protect you while a dangerous criminal was still on the loose would be a comforting thought. The only question was if the ones making the riffles were trying to profit off the fear of the common citizen, or if they were trying their best to protect their home in their own ways.

Bristol shouted at the top of his lungs “When the Noble houses hear of Equestria hear of this!”

“We’ll tell them to buck a cactus!” Forge shouted as he somehow managed to make what felt like a rather rude jester as he held up his hoof.

Steel took a deep breath as he looked at Valkyrie “Now get ready for one of the most important lessons you can learn while being in the Royal Guard… learning how to pull away your superior officer before he stabs himself in his hoof.”

He moved over to Bristol, and tried pulling him away, while Valkyrie tried to apologize, and smooth things out. All he needed to do was calm the pegasus down… help explain the rather glaring flaws of the riffles, while Valkyrie could somehow manage to assure the adventure/weapon smith that Equestria wasn’t coming down to tell them what he could or could not do.

“This is what I think of your weapons!” Bristol shouted at the top of his voice.

Valkyrie’s eyes widened in terror as every hair and feather on her body stood out. Seeing her in wide eyed terror, Steel turned around in panic ready to see a monster or that cursed griffin ready to attack. Instead he saw Sergeant Bristol holding one of the riffles and… the nozzle was pointed straight at his face.

Steel and Valkyrie rushed forward before Bristol could make the display of smashing the butt end of the rifle, against the ground in a vain attempt to break it… without realizing that he could accidently end up blasting his own head off.

Valkyrie managed to tackle Bristol to the ground, as the gun hit the floor and went off. Everypony ducked for cover, as the round went off without hitting anypony. Bristol was shouted various curses, as he tried to shove Valkyrie off him, while Steel quickly went to apologize to Forge over the mishap before getting ready to escort Bristle to anywhere else.

Hopefully they could help smooth some ruffled feathers and explain the other side of the story to Bristol and Forge… and hopefully they would talk again, like civilized ponies tomorrow.

******

Peter

The council was convened once again to discuss our current predicament. I tried not to groan as I was expecting the usual issues, like the Equestrians wanted to ‘suggest’ a few restrictions on the importation of steel, trade deal, or on our production of firearms or perhaps even providing assistance in moving Brass to Equestria.

The normal boring council politics that you only want to smash your head against a wall until you have finally been rendered unconscious. Of course that wouldn’t stop the small, simple, and irritating problems that always would start building up on the unforeseen issues on planning larger projects that would crop up, all the while trying to solve all the logistical issues that was being dealt with.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath… why was I still stuck doing my old job with the same old problems that I had back in earth, but now it was in land full of magic, unicorns, and rainbows? I opened my eyes as I tried to focus on the current problem.

I was not expecting for everyone to say that we should close our borders with Equestria. I mean, we haven’t exactly talked with Equestria previously, or really interacted with them, as New Terra wasn’t big or important enough to warrant Equestria’s attention, until now.

I looked down at the council in dismay “Okay, what happened with the ponies that Equestria sent to us?”

Amber growled “Equestria is the source of all our problems.”

I bit my lip as that didn’t seem possible. I looked at the other council members, as I was expecting for someone to quickly argue back like usual. It was a bad sign to see them being unusually silent which said a lot more than what they usually say. Sure some of them didn’t believe what Amber had said… but they were not denying it either.

Theodore spoke up “That weird bird looking adventurer turned monster… The unicorn delegate named Regal Script blew her up.”

I stared at the human turned griffin in disbelief “By blew up… do you mean shout or…”

“Nope…” Theodore replied shaking his head with a semi melodramatic pause he finally said “She just blew up.”

I stared at him in disbelief as he continued “One moment she’s there playing her usual mind games and making everyone angry. Then the next moment… well… we are still scraping off bits of her remains off the walls. Silver saw it. Amber saw it. A couple of other guards on duty saw it.”

I bit my lip as William simply nodded his head in confirmation, which only made me feel worst. Personally, it felt wrong to even think that a pony just out right killed someone… but thinking that this place would be just like the TV show was wrong.

I tried to stay calm over what looks like a crisis situation “Okay… how did this happen? Did she antagonize him or maybe provoked him to retaliate… possibly out of fear? I know that there have been plenty of complaints from the guards who have brought her meals.”

William shook his head “He couldn’t hear her. He’s an Equestrian native after all. We did warn him about her medical condition, as Ms Remedy herself claimed that messing around with her whatever spell that kept her in that form could be fatal.”

Silver slammed her hoof down on the table “He ignored our warnings, and used a scroll on her that caused her to explode. The scroll that he used was ‘left’ as a pile of ash on the floor, and he ‘claimed’ he could send us a copy of the spell from Canterlot.”

Amber huffed in annoyance “Which could be a fake for all we know.”

I looked over at her in surprise “Do you think he actually did it on purpose?”

There were a few grunts of agreement from some of the others, but Silver’s ears fell to her side as she looked down “It doesn’t matter if it was accident or if it was on purpose. That’s not the main problem. I mean, sure she wasn’t a member of New Terra… but she did have a menu system, so she was human. I could see throwing her in jail or letting the courts pass judgment due to her crimes on what she did with the ‘cursed’ trader.”

Silver looked up at me with a hint of anger in her eyes “But, what if that was one of us? He blatantly ignored our warnings about her serious condition. They went ahead doing whatever they wanted because ‘we’ were not as advance in the field of magic as they were, and dismissed us completely for it. When she died he claimed he would try to get us a copy of the scroll. He didn’t say what the spell was about, only that the spell was to check for a unique condition… or something ‘magical’ and he didn’t even say what he was looking for!”

I grimaced as Amber replied “He... he didn’t even show any remorse over what happened. He didn’t say he was sorry or offer his condolences about his spell ‘accidentally’ murdering her. All he did was try to escape the blame.”

She sighed as it looked as if she had just aged years before my very eyes “I’m not sure we can trust them to look out for our own well being. What if they want to test another spell on one of us, and see what happens next? Does the fact she was a criminal make it ‘alright’ that she was experimented on, or worse since she was in our jail surrounded by our guards and now reduced to paste on our walls, simply because we let a unicorn walk in with an unknown spell, which we have to take his word for what it actually did! For all we know, Canterlot might send us a scroll on how to check for the chicken pox, and we wouldn’t even know if that was the actual scroll he had used!”

She placed a hoof against her forehead as she continued “We claimed we had experts that could look over the scroll. We don’t have experts. All we did was send Regal Script back to a hotel room so that we could discuss what he did!”

I bit my lip as Silver was really upset, and the others were worried. Come to think of it were they even allowed to just send the Equestrian diplomat back to his room? Did they just tell him and he didn’t refuse or do they have guards standing outside of his room preventing him from leaving?

I glanced at William “Why didn’t you place Regal Script in a jail cell after all of this?”

William scoffed at the question as he bitterly replied “Because he didn’t invoke that escorting him to his room would be a violation of his ‘diplomatic immunity’. He sighed in relief “And we all know how that could have made things even worse when Equestria would have found out about it.”

I think what is bothering me the most was how… casually all of this had happened. We didn’t know who our dead prisoner was or even what her name was. We were keeping her in jail, if only to check which crimes she had committed… and if they were big enough to warrant her to be shipped straight to Canterlot. Instead, we had one single pony make all the decisions without our consent, and by the time we realized something was wrong it was already too late.

I looked back at William, quirking an eyebrow “Why did you allow him to bring the scroll with him?”

William hung his head as I knew my old friend was ashamed to have let this disaster happened under his watch “The guard that searched him was only looking for weapons and mirrors… not sheets of paper. Even then, considering some of the tricks the humans turned into unicorns can do, with just their magic, it was easy to forget what a normal unicorn could do. I mean, it’s not like we have any anti-magic rings laying around that can prevent a pony from casting spells or something.”

I stared at William, as I knew he was holding something back “Is there anything else…”

He sighed as he slowly nodded his head “That… and from the reports, he didn’t seem that bad with the other humans turned ponies… but I could feel the chip on his shoulder when he addressed anyone who wasn’t a pony.”

I took a deep breath as I tried my best to smooth things over “I wasn’t there, but from what it sounds like to me… you have a slightly arrogant diplomat who screwed up.”

“And got someone killed for it.” I thought in the back of my mind,

Ashley shook her head as the human turned diamond dog looked the worst out of the entire group “There is also the issue of Brass’s interrogation, before he made the bird … I mean a human explode.”

I sighed, as I knew this didn’t have a happy ending “What happened?”

Ashley shook her head “That’s the odd part… it was rather… civil.”

I blinked in disbelief at what I just heard, as I couldn’t help but ask “Civil?”

Amber nodded her head “When Remedy Cross was there we kind of had to force the guards to drag her away… after she dislocated Brass Ball’s leg with her magic.”

Theodore stared at her in disbelief “The doctor pony who is going about treating anyone who was afflicted by the cursed trader?”

Amber coughed as if uneasy at that reminder “Yes… and Brass… she just kept kicking and screaming about how she was going to kill her even after Remedy Cross dislocated one of her legs..”

I held up a claw “Brass was going to kill Remedy… or Remedy was going to kill Brass?”

William coughed “Brass trying to kill Remedy… but Remedy wasn’t exactly thrilled to see Brass either.”

I shook my head as I tried to prepare myself “Was Regal Script upset that we were keeping Remedy Cross from the interrogation room to prevent another fight?”

Amber groaned “If only… the others were sent to help figure out what Regal Script did as the unicorn just went out and admitted that Celestia is behind it all!”

I stared at Ashley who slowly nodded her head “Well… he started asking Brass a few questions and her responses were sort of… strange.”

Amber slammed her hooves onto the table “She said and I quote ‘You want to turn all the humans back into good little ponies’ and he replied by saying yes… not some sort of arbitrary statement that could be seen as saying yes, but he literally said the word yes for all of us to hear. He didn’t even act as if there was anything wrong with her what she said!”

William rose his voice “You weren’t even there, at the interrogation!”

“The guards told me what happened.” Amber coldly countered as she stared at him “But that was what the Equestrian diplomat had said wasn’t it!? I dare you to say otherwise!”

I looked back at the others and most of them were either looking at the floor or slowly nodding their heads. It wasn’t an attempt to just let Amber rant… but looked as if their parents told them that Santa Claus in the mall was just a hobo with stuffing down his shirt, and the real jolly man had died ages ago as ‘Santa’ was just an excuse for rich people to claim their children were better because ‘Santa’ always gave them the best toys.

I pinched the bridge of my nose “He just said yes… just like that?”

William sighed “Not to get off topic, but Brass Balls is a confirmed criminal. Maybe she didn’t do every crime Equestria claims she did, but she is a criminal. We shouldn’t believe anything she says.”

“What about Mort!” Amber viciously countered

William frowned as it was obvious he didn’t want to talk about it “Her… ‘friend’ named Mort… he just kept asking me a bunch of questions, before the delegate arrived. It was just small stuff, like how was earth… , or the concept of magic and how it worked for us, since humans don’t have magic, and how those who have adjusted to magic have reacted to it, or did they switch to the Equestrian brand or possible little bit of a mixture between certain theories of magic from earth and the magic they learned from Equestria.”

I stared at him in disbelief “Her friend… you mean the Equestrian native unicorn?”

William nodded his head “I just figured he was well… an oddity. I just thought that maybe he was the exception to the rule, since you don’t really hear anyone else from Equestria talking about all the humans that fell from the skies and changed overnight.”

I rubbed my temples as this… this sounded absolutely crazy. I mean sure there hasn’t been a lot of talk about why none of the ponies seemed to be talking about humans… but you’d be surprised at the levels of denial people can make up for themselves. I mean, for some people still refuse to believe humanity even landed on the moon, despite all the evidence that proves that we had in fact landed on there.

“Was there some sort of magic… maybe a spell that altered his perception?” I asked as I felt like I was grasping at straws.

William shook his head “He was escorted straight to Brass and she didn't have anything on her. We asked him the same question when he was away from Brass and Regal Script still have us the same answer.”

“He also threatened to use a reformation spell or mind control on Brass if she didn’t cooperate.” Amber spoke with growing disgust “I can understand being thrown in jail or serving hard labor… but having someone go into your mind and trying to make you a ‘better pony’ is wrong no matter how you cut it!”

Her entire body shivered as she shook her head “If the diplomat uses the threat of mind control on a prisoner than I dread to think of what the actual verdict could be.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose as that was what I just needed to hear. Regal Script… murderer, saboteur, and he freely admitted that Celestia wants to turn us all into ponies and if we refuse than he’ll screw with our minds until, we are all happy little ponies, who will go along with whatever they want.

I really don’t want to believe what they are saying… but it’s getting a lot harder to refuse the facts so to speak. As much as I hate to admit it… I was starting to entertain the thought of closing all borders with Equestria.

Theodor spoke up “Forge along with a few other concerned citizens had a few complaints about the Pegasus named Bristol… apparently he demanded that we are not allowed to make anymore guns.” He rubbed his temples with his talons in frustration “He was really up in arms about it. Even claiming about how the nobles in Canterlot would react when they heard about this. A lot of people are rather upset about Equestria wanting to ban guns right after we were attacked by a dragon.”

I took a deep breath “And what about the other four… the ones that didn’t accompany the unicorn diplomat that just came to visit us?”

Theodore cleared his throat “At this point does it matter? I know I wasn’t exactly onboard with the prisoner trade without… compensation, but…” He scratched his neck as he looked nervous “No offense, but they are friends with a human. Either they don’t know… or don’t care.”

Ashley spoke up in disbelief “How could they not care if Celestia wants to turn us all into ponies?”

Theodore coughed “I mean if you look at it from a technical viewpoint…”

“Technical?” Amber hissed in fury “We were turned into ponies almost like one of those creepy Equestria takeover fanfics… except that the solar bitch screwed up on her fucking potion since we still have free will!”

A piece of the ceiling fell as I quickly moved my hand over to protect her. The stone fell against my hand instead of on top of Amber as everyone looked up at the ceiling, as if expecting another stone to fall on one of them.

I released my grip and brushed the dirt of my hand, as Amber was shivering in fear as if expecting another attack. I just simply sighed in relief as that… moment of bad luck ended without any problems other than making everyone else nervous.

Theodore was the first recover from the scare as he said “Let’s face some of the facts… A pony can look at a sunflower as a light snack instead of a decoration. I’m a griffin who can fly and push clouds around… that is not something you associate with humans.”

He sighed “I’m still human… but I could see how some people might not… well they might not care anymore. Heck Celestia may have just given up and figured if we are happier as ponies in Equestria than humans on earth… why should she try to change it?”

“Because we are human.” Silver replied “Let’s get back to the main issue here. Equestria sent a pony to look up on our criminals. He blew somebody up. The other human called Brass Balls has a bone to pick with Equestrians, and the pony sent to talk apparently knew that we used to be human and he doesn’t care.”

She took a deep breath “We don’t have any real ties to Equestria and quite frankly… we don’t want them here. The only question is if we kick them out of New Terra with the prisoners they asked for or without them?”

Amber raised her hoof “Kick them out. The rest doesn’t matter just as long as we close off our borders.”

Ashley sighed in disappointment “Kick them out and give them the prisoners if only to make sure they don’t come back. Closing our borders might be for the best.”

Theodore shook his head “I vote kick them out… but we should keep the prisoners. Give them a court hearing or see how Equestria reacts to see if we are dealing with Solar Tyrant or unwanted ‘assistance’ version of Celestia. As for closing our borders right away… that might invite more unwanted attention.”

William nodded his head “We know how to deal with humans as the sad truth is… we kind of govern ourselves. The fact that we had a human die in jail … Honestly I always thought it be from another human or more likely a wild dragon …”

He glanced up at me “No offense.”

I rolled my eyes as when my growth kicked in there were a few questions about how I would… adjust. Spike’s episode had him act like Godzilla and dragons can be territorial. We were just lucky that the dragons don’t seem to care for the badlands either.

William shrugged “I vote to remove the prisoners and have them leave. If they want to wait for more guards to arrive… we’ll have to let them know that they can either leave with the prisoners or leave by themselves.”

Silver shook her head “I vote we let them keep the cursed griffin, but they don’t get anyone else. We need someone with Equestria’s knowledge of magic since we are kicking out our only expert. Maybe they had their own reasons for killing our prisoner or maybe it was really a mistake.”

Silver frowned as she looked at the table “But deciding that we would be better as whatever they decide instead of who we are is not something that I can agree with. If we want to be human than let us be human. If we want to be a pony, or a zebra, or whatever we are going to be stuck as then we should get a say in that decision since we are going to be stuck with it.”

The council now looked at me as they awaited my decision which of course had been already been made. Sure, I could be able to veto them under the grounds that they were making the decision too fast… maybe they were being emotional or that it had only been one day.

On the political end, it would be like shooting myself in the foot. I would be isolating myself from the rest of the council and claiming that I didn’t respect or care about their opinions. There was also a very good chance that it wouldn’t help the case against Regal Script anyway.

I didn’t know what had happened, so I have to rely on their reports. We don’t know if the scroll had accidently killed someone, or if it was done on purpose. We have one pony talking about humans and another pony that was acting strangely as they didn’t seem to find anything wrong with what was going on.

I looked back at them “I will agree with closing our borders for a short time… under the excuse of trying to ‘search’ for the cursed trader or any possible places he may have fled to. In the meantime we should send a few people out into Equestria had wait for them to come back.”

I had no idea what these people would do or what they would look for out in Equestria, but I’m quite certain everyone else was already drawing up plans or starting to form a list on exactly what these individuals would do.

I focused my eyes on them as I firmly stated “Then depending on what they say to us. Then we should make the decision on if we should keep the borders closed or if they should open them back up. Does everyone agree with that decision?”

They all nodded their heads as those didn’t want to close our borders would have to hope that the people we sent came back with good news… as for those who didn’t seemed to be sure that their suspicions would be confirmed.

“And the prisoners?” William asked out loud

“We’ll tell the ponies sent by Celestia that they will have to leave in the morning.” I calmly replied “If nothing bad happens than we can listen to what they have to say and take it from there. If they don’t ask for them then they already got what they were looking for and ‘giving’ them the prisoners would be pointless since they will not want them.”

There were a few grunts as I could swear one of them whispering that I was stalling… but I would like think about this decision after hearing what just happened. All I know is that one prisoners has a grudge against one of the Equestrians and another prisoner blew up.

If I just toss Regal Script out and the rest of the Equestrian natives with the prisoners then I’m certain they would blame me for any accidents that happened due to me rushing them. It would also make us seem like ‘jerks’ for throwing everyone out just because we had a problem with one (maybe two) people, but Equestria (as a whole) wouldn’t care anymore because they had the prisoners and we were no longer worth their interest.

If I toss Regal Script in jail, on charges of murder, than I’d be breaking several diplomatic laws and even ‘if’ they didn’t exist in Equestria everyone who lived in New Terra wouldn’t be comfortable with that decision.

If I keep the prisoners and sent the Equestrians out of New Terra then, I am certain Celestia will want to send a letter asking me what is going on, and why I was closing my borders while keeping the prisoners. Maybe Celestia will be able to provide the answer I am looking for, or maybe she will just lie to get what she wants… and now I’m stuck thinking like a full blown (and possibly a little bit corrupt) politician once again.

Either way I want some time to think about this decision and hopefully… Alarms filled the air as I quickly took flight towards the alarms as I had a feeling that things were about to get much worse.

******

Mort

The unicorn turned criminal wiped the heavy amount of sweat from his forehead, as he tried to unlock the jail cell door. The guards in the prison had sounded the alarm far sooner than he would have liked. They were in a panic, trying to figure out just where the nefarious criminal Brass Balls had escaped.

Mort muttered to himself “Fifty, Forty nine, Forty eight.”

He smiled as the gate was unlocked before he held the jail cell door to prevent it from swinging open as he put away the makeshift lock picks he had managed to create in his cell. The other prisoners were either running wild trying to reach where the first portal had appeared, forcing all the guards to pull out their billy clubs to beat them up… Thank Celestia that they weren’t resorting to using guns for now.

He looked at the second group of prisoners who were leaning against the jail cell doors in anticipation for the second portal. Lets the first wave of idiots tire out the guards so that they could use the confusion of the brawl to escape without their notice.

They knew that there had to be a second portal only because the Equestrian Natives had picked up that both Brass and Mort would be escaping. Brass was gone, so naturally Mort was going to be the second one to escape.

The floor shook as the fighting continued, while various criminals were being beaten due to the fact the guards had better equipment, or because there were more guards than prisoners. Mort licked his lips as he kept counting down “Thirty, Twenty Nine, Twenty Eight.”

He could feel the slight feeling of pinpricks as the portal was starting to form. His eyes darted to the center of the room until the ground shook as they heard the draconic mayor roar “What is going on!”

Fear coursed through him as he screeched for the portal. He needed to run. He had to run before the dragon caught him… before the Equestrians caught him.

“Twenty, Nineteen, Eighteen.” He whispered in horror as he heard the door get kicked open.

More guards came rushing through. Soldiers from Equestria flew in trying to contain the perceived riot as the rest of the prisoners were about to be taken out.

Mort kicked opened his cell door and bolted as the other half of the jail went into a full riot. The slightly smarter groups of criminals moved to join him or they were the new focus on the jail’s reinforcement. Various races were knocked aside as the guards came towards him. He knew they were after him as he had to open his mouth.

The air flicked for a moment before the portal appeared. That’s when the other criminals rushed forth as the air smelled of smoke and ash, causing Mort to stop. Another explosion went off, shaking the entire jail as dozens of parasprites flew out, apparently confused by their new surroundings.

A claw wrapped around his side as a rather large… and odd white griffin with brown spots like a cow said “You’re my ticket out of this jail or my name isn’t Matilda.”

Mort stared at the griffin in disbelief “What?”

The griffin rolled her eyes “I was a brown cow. Now I’m a griffin. Being an adventure is a lot more fun than working on that old farm in Sunnydale.”

Mort’s eyes went wide with terror as he said “Not another crazy human.”

The griffin laughed “I was a cow! Not a pony so you better hang on tight!”

The griffin plowed through the rest of the criminals laughing, as they both went through the portal before it closed shut.

******

Peter

I shook my head as the jail break had ended… It took a couple of guards, a little bit of help from the Equestrian guards, and playing the old ‘Do you really think you beat a dragon?’ card in order to quell the riot, but the damage was done.

Brass and Mort had escaped by some unknown means that no one could figure out. A few prisoners managed to escape the jail during the confusion either with Brass and Mort… or they were currently hiding within the town waiting for the heat to die down or taking their chances with the bad lands.

A few of the guards were pointing the blame at the Equestrians. Adventurers could teleport, do great feats of magic or strength… but making a portal was not in the standard playbook that anyone in New Terra knew about which ‘naturally’ meant it was the Equestrian’s fault for this rather sudden jail break.

The Equestrians… they started to shift the blame back at New Terra. They claimed the guards were slacking or ‘ill equipped’ to deal with actual criminals. They pointed out our ‘security’ was just a few iron bars and a poorly made dirt wall to hold prisoners who could teleport, fly, or dig underground.

The only thing I could tell was that neither side had no idea how this disaster happened and they were starting to descending into a mad mob as both sides kept shouting arguments, complaints, or barbed words at one another. Both sides had their reasons for wanting the prisoners or not wanting to take blame in the unexpected… and unknown means which the jailbreak was created.

I took a deep breath and cleared my throat loud enough to get everyone’s attention as they went silent. I could see them staring at me as they were waiting to see what would happen next.

I looked down at the two Equestrians who were the source of my grief…the outraged prison guards… the council that had grown to mistrust Equestria… and shook my head “Regal Script. I am sorry to inform you that most of the prisoners have escaped.”

There was an utter look of terror on the Equestrian unicorn’s face as he stared at me “I demand…”

He was making demands at me after killing one of the prisoners, insulting my staff, and trying to place the all the blame on the guards without hearing the full story?

I glared at the little pony who promptly shut his mouth as his fear over took his arrogance as I said “But as I was saying… you may take back the griffin and the diamond dog named Rover back to Equestria right now if you wish, but I must ask you and the other to leave while we sort this out.”

The pegasus named Bristol shouted “We demand to look into the cause of this prison break!”

“And we demand to know what that fucked up scroll did and you won’t tell us!” One of the prison guards shouted back in a venomous tone.

The other guards began to voice their agreement… and their discontent. Something had riled them up. They were far too eager to come to blows with the Equestrians.

Regal Script spoke out loud “I promise you Princess Celestia…”

“Screw her!” shouted another guard “She knew about humanity and she didn’t do fucking anything! She knew and she didn’t fucking care!”

Normally the guard should have been reprimanded for interrupting or even preventing Regal Script from finish his sentence, but most of the room was angry at the two Equestrians in charge.

Regal script spoke in a slight panic “She heard about the transformation problem, and tried to turn you back to normal.”

Something seemed to have snapped within the crowd forcing me to slam my hands into the ground stopping them from doing anything foolish. I looked down at the two Equestrians in spoke in a firm tone “You may leave with the Steel Tide as we can’t do anything for him here. You can take the criminal named Rover if you wish, or you can leave him to face his judgement in New Terra. Either way, you have to leave now.”

Bristol had his ears flop down as if he was dog who had been told ‘no’ after they did something bad. Regal Script seemed to be trying to muster the courage to say something… only for his own fear or incompetence to keep him silent.

The rest of the crowd was still angry… but they didn’t refuse or argue against my judgement as we exited the council room. Outside stood the rest of the Equestrians and a small crowd of disgruntled citizens as I repeated my judgement.

It didn’t take long for everyone prepare the armored berserker griffin and Rover for transport. The one called Steel Tide was left wrapped in chains within his cage unable to move as Remedy Cross used a spell to render him unconscious. The diamond dog was left in chains as his ‘cage’ had been attached to the end of Regal Script’s cart.

I couldn’t help but feel a small amount of pity or regret as I watched the other Equestrians go about their work. The Equestrians who came to New terra first help them with their problem looked hurt… but knew I couldn’t help them.

Something caused this these people to nearly come to blows and I wanted to figure out the cause behind it. I also needed to figure out how Brass had escaped, before thinking over what I should say to the Equestrians if they even bothered to send me a reply after this disaster.

Maybe they will just wash their hands of this entire situation. If I’m lucky they might apologize and try to make amends… but if they wish to send another team to look around the jail to figure out what we did wrong… Was this all on purpose?

New Terra was small and having a prison break would give them the perfect excuse to undermine our autonomy while ‘helping’ recover most of the prisoners. They didn’t have to wait to hear our response on the prisoner situation since Brass and Mort were ‘missing’ on our watch. The Avian was a smear on the ceiling and they didn’t really care too much about the last two prisoners.

Of course this could all be an accident. They might have nothing to do with the prison break… but I highly doubt that the guards they sent to help ‘assist’ us would be in our best interest. They would still undermine our independence or start trying to find more ‘problems’ that we needed to fix.

Closing our borders with Equestria might be a good idea for now.

******

Celestia

Celestia sighed as she prepared for her next case to be presented. Hopefully this wasn’t another noble trying to pass some half finished bill or proposition. Brown Muzzle had wasted far too much time arguing about the fact that anything the Night Guards had found was not in any way connected to him and that the papers they had forged were ‘obviously’ an attempt to smear his clean name.

If it wasn’t for a small idle threat Celestia had left… something about an inspection team having possibly gained a warrant to search the noble’s house before he came in, than he would have never left.

If only all of her problems could be solved that easily. Still she felt good about helping alleviate Maxwell’s concerns about the latest problem he ran into. She couldn’t help but smile as the earth pony seemed to be a lot more chipper these days. He was a far cry from his self-doubt plagued self that constantly blamed himself for the disaster in the Everfree Forest.

Celestia sighed as she wished she could solve everypony’s problem that easily.

Booknote cleared her throat “Princess Celestia… there may be a problem that…”

A burst of green flames appeared right in front of them as Celestia sighed retrieving the note “One moment.”

She skimmed over the scroll before shouting “How did Regal Script get kicked out of New Terra in less than a day!”

Author's Note

Chapter is finally up.

Sorry for the delay, but had a lot of things going on. Going over some of the earlier chapters and trying to help clean some of them up.

Big thanks to Mix-up for his help with the proofreading and editing process.

here is a link to his work down below and thanks for the new cover art that he made.

https://www.fimfiction.net/user/Mix-up
http://amalgamzaku.deviantart.com/

Ch22 Jingoism

Lockheart

I looked over the worn wooden table as the candlelight burned away in the dark room that I was in. With a wave of my hoof, green flames consumed my forelegs in a quick blaze. When the magical conflagration had passed, my black hoofs had now been turned into a set of draconic digits, as I opened the notebook at my side. In each pages that I looked there were a few diagrams… drawings made by a host of gun nuts and enthusiasts that I managed to swipe/buy from.

I ran my fingers across a few pieces of scrap metal that I had gathered up across the table With a wave of my jagged horn, more the green flames consumed them before reshaping them into a long rifle barrel. I took a deep nervous and exhausted breath, as my form of spell casting had taken a lot from my emotional magical reserves with the various attempts to finally craft a functioning gun from scratch.

It also didn’t help my situation that Iron Claw wasn’t exactly the bastion of love and good cheer like Equestria that I could subtly feed off of, making it that all the much harder for me to replenish my already very limited magical reserves. There weren’t exactly a lot of friendly griffins around the area, and I was not that good at trying to impersonate and hanging around them for long periods of times. I mean, I could impersonate a griffin, but that burned more of my magic than I liked, making it counterproductive when trying to replenish my magical reserves.

The candle light began to flicker as I heard a filly’s voice reply “Excuse me Mister, but why don’t you go back to Equestria? I’m sure you could explain yourself to Miss Celestia that everything was a misunderstanding.”

Ignoring the pleading voice at the moment, I grunted as I used my meager magic reserves to craft an ammo belt for the riffle. I would have plenty of rounds to use if things went bad and reloading wouldn’t be that much of an issue. Sure, I wouldn’t have much time to practice with the gun… or figure out how to quickly reload it properly, but that was a question I could deal with later.

Off to my right, I could see the faint image of a filly sitting on a small box looking up at me with wide eyes. The same little alicorn filly that I kept seeing in my dreams since I arrived in Equestria. I tried to ignore the odd figment of my imagination as it kept staring at me. But, I knew it wouldn’t stop staring until I answered her, so I (eventually) acquiesce to her silent pleading.

“She chased after me.” I briskly replied back “ You know… my whole Changeling ‘sensing emotions’ thing…that allows me to know what people are feeling all the time...” I huffed in annoyance “ Well, it told me that Celestia was filled with fear, anger, frustration, and all of it was focused straight on me. Quite frankly I didn’t want to find what she’d do to me if… no once she got near me.” I shivered at the memory of when my failed attempt at casting a spell to see or help remind someone of their own past backfired on me. And Celestia, who shouldn’t have been there in the first place, who just had to be there at that exact moment of when I had my guard down, just decided to peek in my mind revealing all the truth about me. She knew in that moment, that I lied about everything, about who I was, and most importantly, what I was. She then even pursued me herself all the way to the Everfree Forest to deal with me, for once and for all.

I tried my best to evade her back in Canterlot, as I did my best to dodging and weaving her through the streets, but that didn’t stop her, she was determined to catch and reclaim that which I had stolen back in the Everfree Castle. I am not sure how I finally managed to lose her in the Everfree Forest, I am still fuzzy on the details how it happened. All I could really be certain of is that I was hiding in a tree all night, in panic-stricken horror of waiting for the moment Celestia would catch me, or would just burn down a section of the forest, just to be thorough.

“But, didn’t the large sunny mark pony look kind of sad when she was trying to catch up to you?” the filly asked with a hint of hope in her words that I might be wrong, which oddly enough caused a slight lump in my throat.

In a flash of light, a miniature Discord was now standing next to the candle with a black executioner's hood over his head as he was sharpening an axe on a wheel grinder. The mini Discord chuckled as he said “Well my dear, he did trick her into thinking that it was the bug pony from the Everfree that was behind the theft of the Elements of Harmony, and when she inevitably found out about I doubt that a simple ‘sorry for lying to you and disappear your magical mcguffin away’ would cut it.” Discord added while holding the axe right over a log “He was also trying to fly away before she could throw him in the dungeon once again… for his own safety of course.” His axe fell, and cleanly split the log in two pieces.

The candle light continued to flicker as I gritted my teeth. Not even in a dark cellar could I get away from these two tiresome voices… It all had just started after I had kidnapped Swift Wing, aka Brass’s ally, as I tried to figure out what I should do next. Every single damn night, when I closed my eyes, the two of them would appear within my accursed dreamscape recapping the day’s events, and adding their own ‘two bits’ on what I should do next.

Some of the advice was helpful (though I’ll never tell them) but they were the only two ‘people’ who had sticked with me after my flight from Canterlot. Heck, they are probably the only ones who would bother to speak to me… or at least without cursing me or accusing me after my escape.

The alicorn filly was always trying (by nagging a lot) to appeal to my morals… and Discord trying to sharply remind me about the deadly reality of my situation. To make things worse… the two of them have started to pester me in the waking world too.

“You don’t know that!” The filly shouted “Maybe the really tall lady was trying to catch up to him? She could have been worried about his safety or…”

“Started preparing a smear campaign to ruin his ‘good’ name and help cut any lingering family ties she may have felt for him before the big reveal?” Discord quickly chimed in, while making another practice test swing with his axe.

I cursed out loud as something banged across the floor. I turned around to see a small rat standing on the end of a barrel as a large golden amulet had fallen onto the flooring. I quickly snatched the precious artifact(?) off the floor and turned back to the table I was working on… only to see the box full of scrap metal was now missing a few pieces as a newspaper was now resting on my work place.

Picking the the broadsheets with with my magic, I frowned as the front page showed a black and white copy of myself except this one had sneering smile and the classic long handle bar mustache reserved from villains who ties helpless maidens onto train tracks. The head article read “Extremely Nefariously Foul, Dastardly, Smelly and Ill Dressed villian wanted for impersonating an alicorn and a royal official, selling swampland, along with various acts of assassination, abstraction, coercion, corruption, conflagration, distortions, desertion, destruction, extortion, exploitation, fiction, grammertation, indoctrination, inebriation, obliteration, oblivation and any other general acts of villainy that we have yet to uncover and before this vicious endeavor of untold terror.”

“Well that’s a mouth full.” Discord replied flippantly.

That’s when I felt something press down on my head, as a vanilla coat and wisteria mane fell in front of my face. A small alicorn filly was now leaning over my head as she pointed her hoof at the offending article and shouted in squeaky outrage “That’s not what they say!”

A curse word escaped my lips causing a burst of green flames to consume the paper. The filly on top of my head gasped as I pulled her off my head and dropped her on a nearby box/chair before turning back to put out the flames on the burning newspaper.

When the flames died down, it showed my blue and white self in my Canterlot disguise on the front page frowning as it read “The ‘Supposed’ alicorn Lockheart attacked Princess Celestia before escaping Canterlot! What is his connection between him and the dark creature that assaulted our dear princess? Is he related to the same attack on the train for several months ago or the previous sudden random monster attack that struck our fair capital just one day after his arrival?”

In a flash of light, a miniature Discord appeared on the table lying back in a recliner chair wearing a fez along with a pipe in his mouth and with a small copy of a newspaper in his hands called ‘The Night Watch’. He removed the pipe from his mouth and looked inquisitively at the front page and the symbol of an eye underneath a house before nodding his head.

“Oh yes, this is much better than the previous paper.” Discord mock cheerfully replied “You know, It’s amazing how quickly these papers came out of the presses after you left Canterlot. I mean, the news didn’t even wait a day to see if you would come back to them or explain yourself before branding you as the villain behind it all.”

“I’m sure there’s a good reason mister…” The filly meekly replied “Surely you can just go back and talk to Miss Celestia and leave this plan behind.”

“I can’t…“ I hesitated for a moment as I had thought about the filly’s all so tempting offer, but before dismissing the idea I remembered the pressure of the constant and ever growing scrutiny I was under as everyone around me seemed to be just waiting for me to screw up the role/image of something that I never was “ besides, I have put a lot of time and effort in order to get this close.” I bitterly replied shifting my attention on more recent events for me.

Discord grinned as the filly looked disheartened as I spoke (more to remind myself than their sake) of how I arrived at this point in my little investigation “After going through all the trouble of sifting through rumors and leads in tracking one of Brass’s allies down, I managed to get lucky enough to kidnap one of them. Then, I just hired another griffin to ‘rescue’ the one I abducted, before I followed their trail trying to figure out just where they were going.”

I clenched one of the bullets in my fist as I continued “Brass found some griffin warlord who isn’t exactly quiet about his ‘dream’ to invade Equestria. From what I managed to gather, this entire nation is built around its sole ruler with no unanimously accepted heir to replace him… which doesn’t really matter since the other griffins are all scheming for the throne anyway.”

“Then why stay?” Discord asked stroking his goatee “Why even bother staying here?”

“Because Celestia isn’t here and I don’t know where else to go.” I half heartedly replied. “I just needed to find someplace to hide until things started to cool down. Celestia is trying to find out where Brass, is so naturally hiding with her would prevent Celestia from finding out where I am. If she tries to chase after me than she will notice Brass first and go after her instead, in the meanwhile I sneak away and hide someplace else.”

“Really?” The filly and Discord replied skeptically, much to my annoyance.

I shook my head as I muttered “Of course that’s my reason for hiding here. That, and the rest of the world is just as cruel. I mean Equestria wants to kill me. Griffin Stone is run by thieves, The other nations around Equestria are worse than the nation that wants to kill me.”

“And what about the kingdom you’re currently hiding in?” Discord taunted me “None of them can find you. They didn’t even realize you had snuck in the city and they had yet to even notice you until yesterday’s little incident.”

I felt the bile rise in my throat “Iron Claw? What do I have against this city?” my blood boiled as I thought why I hated this place “It’s like a bad parody of a medieval society. Whenever the king dies the nation tears itself apart as they fall back into civil war all the while waiting for the most vicious pretender to climb up to the top of the dog pile.” I let out a frustrated sigh before continuing “So, all I need to do is take out their leader and the invasion will quickly fall apart. The rest is irrelevant!”

Who cares about all the civilians... who are going to be trapped in the ensuing crossfire of yet another brutal civil war. It wouldn’t be my fault… I mean, this bloody cycle had apparently been around long before I got here and it looks like it will just stay the same even if I leave things alone.

I took a deep breath, as I reassured myself “It’s just like the Everfree Forest. All I need to do is grab a gun… get a disguise… get the underlings to panic, run away, or fight amongst each other. Then, just pull the trigger at the boss’s face.”

Another bullet clicked into place as I continued “I mean, his ‘lieutenants’ are already preparing for the next power struggle, so all they really need is a few suggestions and a slight push for them to tear their kingdom apart. You’d be surprised how effective a griffin disguise and a few glass diamonds are in securing and breaking alliances.”

I felt a hoof press up my shoulder, causing me to turn my head and look at the alicorn filly, as she spoke in sorrow “You don’t have to do this, Mister Lock.”

I chuckled in disbelief at the filly’s pleading words as I shook my head “Then what am I supposed to do? Sing him a song? Try a friendship speech on every sword wielding griffins while they try to tear each other apart?”

The filly replied with a hopeful smile “Maybe you could get your friends to help you out and fix everything, mister.”

In a flash light, a mini Discord now stood on the table over a large sheet of paper that wasn’t there before. It looked like an old RPG dungeon map with figured spread out all over the place, who looked like cartoon parodies of my so called ‘friends’ that I had spread across the table. Each one with a cheerful smile and trying to hide a rather almost comically large weapon right behind their back. Except for Valkyrie because she was a statue… Han Solo carbonite style to be precise.

“Oh yes, you could get the amazing Valkyrie Statue to blend in with the other stone decorations!” Discord replied laughing out loud as I felt a sharp pain of guilt strike my heart.

It was foolish because I couldn’t do anything for her back in Canterlot. I didn’t know any spells or go on any adventures that just happened to uncover some random magical artifact that could help her. All I could do back there in Canterlot was to pretend to be a prince until their latest test proved I wasn’t an alicorn. Until then, I was stuck in Canterlot Castle until Celestia found some sort of errand for me to do.

Discord picked up the next figure as he played with it in his hand “Or maybe Maxwell the human who actually beat Gaichu. Of course, he might try to stab you since your theft was revealed.”

“Ah yes the ‘lucky’ one who had his friend forgive him for his screw up. I’m sure a bartender would be of ‘great’ help right now.” I replied with a hint of annoyance.

Discord smirked as he picked up the bat pony figure “Maybe that Midnight mare might place you in cuffs before throwing you in front of Celestia‘s throne, so that you could beg good old cranky sun butt for mercy?”

I rolled my eyes “The one night guard who was ordered to protect me. The one pony who was sent by Celestia to watch over me and report my every actions. If it came to a choice between me or her then it would be obvious who the member of the Royal Guard would pick.”

Discord held the last figure as he held the model of the unicorn right in front of my face “Of course, Remedy Cross could just try cutting the Element of Harmony out of you, since you are the scripted ‘villain’ pretending to be a hero. In fact is there anyone that you haven’t deceived? Anyone who you actually knows who you really are? Not the whole ‘you are not an alicorn’ bit, but who ‘Lockheart’ actually is?”

I pushed Discord out of my sight as I focused on the riffle right in front of me. I must be going insane if I was actually paying more attention to hallucinations than focusing on a gun right in front of me. I need to finish up in Iron Claw so that I could go leave this place and find real people to talk to.

With a deep breath I focused back on my job “All I have to do is just… take one bullet. Throw a few distractions and help give the griffins one final push so that they will turn on each other once the bell is rung signaling the king’s death.”

I thought back to the times where I had impersonated some of the high ranking griffins… all the secret plans, deals, the countless bribes made with fools good or glass diamonds as I pointed them at the other houses or let them seek retribution at the clan they ‘allied’ with when they realized the bribes were worthless.

Then of course were the rumors… how annoying it was to spread a word or a tale amongst the locals or trying to whisper a false secret to a maid, guard, or some griffin that had a noble’s ear. Then of course were the minor acts of mayhem… sprinkling a pinch of bug poison onto a few slabs of meat to make few griffins sick. Using the stolen gems and gold to buy sand, and pyrite to help replace some valuables… or use as bribes to unsuspecting griffins.

“Going over some of my favorite highlights of this vacation?” Discord cheerfully replied as he waved pictures of my misdeeds about in the air.

I closed my eyes as I muttered “Then all I have to do is escape. Preventing another nation from invading Equestria should make us even… I mean… it’s not even as if they have anyone that can use the Elements of Harmony... at the moment. It wouldn’t be wrong for me to just… stay away until the One Thousandth Summer Sunset Celebration would it?”

“But won’t you feel really, really, really bad, mister?” The filly asked in disappointment.

I nodded my head as I said “I’ll regret it… in fact I’m already regretting my decision right now,” I felt the unease in my heart because no matter how you cut it I was about to cause a lot of pain to god only knew how many people “but… that’s the thing. I’ll be able to regret my actions because I’ll still be alive to regret my actions. ”

That makes sense, right!?

I looked back at the amulet on the table “Besides… I already stole back a valuable magical amulet, so they will now need to alter their plans.”

I tested the weight of my newly minted rifle “I rushed one of my plans, leaving a disaster of a distraction to cover my tracks, as I stole the stupid thing which somehow closed the portal and stopped more of Brass’s allies from walking through it. The griffins in this city are already on the lookout for anyone trying to leave. They won’t be trying to search the castle to see if I was waiting for the heat to die down.”

Honestly, I felt a little bit annoyed thinking about it. They filled the courtyard with guards, while I was taking stock of the place, and then suddenly a portal opened up in the middle of the area, just as I saw Brass walked out of it. I saw a magical amulet that could literally send me to anywhere I wanted in Equestria. The possibility of just having it would be endless… and I had no idea how to use the bloody thing! It didn’t exactly come with a set of instructions!

Now I couldn’t wonder if Brass had been foolish enough to leave some sort of user manual left in her bedroom, giving me yet another reason to go back to that wretched castle.

Discord chuckled “So now you're off to storm the castle… but my I ‘suggest’ one thing?”

I bit my lip as I didn’t really trust any of discord’s ‘advice’ ,after all, his last bargain was the reason I was forced to leave canterlot in the first place; the scar on my chest would attest to that…

Then again… beggars can’t be choosers.

“I’m listening.”

********

The soft sound of claw against stone filled the hallway as I could hear the disgruntled mutterings of an irritated griffin. I spotted one of the hideaways I had left in the castle and dove inside it before the griffins entered the hallway.

“Damn them! Curse those fools!” the griffin spat out in hatred “The best of Iron Claw and they can’t even catch a simple vagabond thief!”

I walked around the to the peepholes that I had left as I took a look at the griffins. One dressed in fine garments and the other dressed in armor. I couldn’t get a good look at them, but I could easily recognize the rant of a noble from my times in Canterlot.

The noble muttered in frustration “Now our great king has decided to search our holdings in his pursuit of this thief, who has undoubtedly, fled as far away from this capital as he could fly!”

I bit my lip as I tried to remember which griffin was talking in the hallway. I could feel his outrage, his anger, but most of all his paranoia and fear. On paper all the griffins were united under a single banner, but in reality they were stuck in a constant power struggle. Each clan was sharpening their blades as they worked behind the scenes trying to whittle down their opposition before their next great big civil war.

I reached out my magic to try to nurture the anger and paranoia as the griffin spat at the ground “It’s the fault of those outsiders meddling in business that doesn’t belong to them. Flooding the markets with their gems and having that so called nephew and the ground walkers, trying to take the throne out from under us!”

A soft growl escaped his throat as he snapped at his guard “And the Ebon Hawks! Their in on it too! I’ve seen them paying their soldiers in gem instead of cold hard gold! Those filthy vultures are cooperating with the outsiders!”

I tried not to chuckle as I watched it unfold. I cut my magic, as he was already consumed in his emotions as his fear was burnt away by his anger and paranoia, as soon greed started to seep in “King Harold is getting older… growing senile if he’s even accepting the dirt pony onto his council. What we need to do is teach Swift Wing a lesson, and the traitorous cohorts that align with him.”

The griffin walked down the hallway now muttering his plans for revenge instead of being disgruntled about a simple house search while I was left with the satisfaction or watching the fruits of my labors start to unfold. All that time scheming, tricking, lying, bribing, and causing general mischief was starting to reach the boiling point.

I think my only regret when things finally exploded… was that not all of the griffin nobles would be here. Canterlot may be stuck up, snooty, and general pains in the butt… yet I felt no ounce of pity for these griffin nobles as each one was just as bad if not worse than the other.

Canterlot ponies may bicker, argue, or get into pointless duels, but they weren’t out to kill each other. More importantly, while they didn’t always get along with each other… they at least stood together as they tried to work for the betterment of Equestria (even if it was by ‘their own subjective standards’ which wasn’t always a good thing.)

The griffins of Iron Claw, on the other hand actively conspired to murder each other, or ‘drill holes’ into the little ship they call Iron Claw having the entire nation go under… just as long as they get to be the first one to climb back up on the top of the ruined heap.

********

Mort

The Equestrian unicorn was back in Iron Claw after their nearly disastrous escape from the jail cells in New Terra. As if trying to cause a jail break wasn’t bad enough there apparently was someone in Iron Claw trying to prevent them from breaking out of jail. Infact if they had acted just a few minutes sooner than they would have succeeded.

Brass was naturally pissed as she shouted up a storm... and got just as much back at her. Swift had rushed to protect her as he thought it was an assassination attempt on her life. Mort didn’t know what to think during the chaos and their new griffin tag along… she didn’t seem to notice what went wrong.

Still, Mort figured he should be grateful that he was sleeping in a soft bed instead of behind bars on a wooden bench they called a bed. Brass was trying to figure out who was responsible for this disaster… and Swift tried to explain how he was captured only to be ‘rescued’ by someone claiming to be following Brass’s orders.

Brass didn’t know the supposed package delivery by the griffin named William and she certainly didn’t like the ‘suggestion’ that Luke was just going to leave Swift to be held hostage by whoever tried kidnapping him in the first place. Swift, of course, reminded her that if he wasn’t warned about Luke supposed betrayal, than he wouldn’t have tried contacting her in the first place which would have left her trapped in New Terra, if not being carted away in chains before Celestia’s hooves.

Mort glanced back at Brass and Swift Wing as the other two ‘griffins’ were not left in the room for this discussion. Brass had decided to keep it down to the so called founding members of her little group which just left Tracer out since he was in Canterlot.

Swift ran a claw through his feathers “If you didn’t send the griffin then who did? Why did he help? Why was I even abducted?”

Brass shook her head “Well going south didn’t help us find Gaichu since she wasn’t there. All that was waiting for us down there was a trap left by a buff griffin… and some freaky bird monster.”

She groaned “Oh, and we faced jail time because Remedy and friends caught us before we were finished being kidnapped. We were just lucky enough to escape by using the portal exit.”

Swift sighed “But this till doesn’t explain William… the griffin who ‘rescued’ me from the changelings.”

Mort cleared his throat as he tried to add his two bits “Maybe William was told to help you from somepony impersonating Brass. I mean Luke does have a few changelings on his payroll. It wouldn’t be that difficult to have one of them pretend to be Brass to a griffin that hadn’t meet her before. It also wouldn’t be that hard for him to have you temporarily abducted either.”

He wasn’t exactly sure if Luke was behind it… after all we would he try to alienate one of the few allies he had? Sure Mort couldn’t think of anypony else who could do it or had a reason to do so… and why did Brass not seem surprised at the possibility of Luke betraying them?

Swift pinched the bridge of his nose “Okay, so assuming that someone wanted to impersonate Brass to have someone rescue me, after I was taken… then why would they even bother to ‘rescue’ me after kidnapping me?”

“Because they were either going against the order of whoever decided to kidnap you by giving you a free knockout meal…” Brass pondered out loud “Or, maybe they wanted you to doubt William, and return to Iron Claw, instead of going back to Canterlot. That way, both of us would be away from Canterlot when Luke starts his little plan.”

Mort stared at Brass in disbelief “You think this is all some sort of power play?”

Swift kept shaking his head “That kind of seems… crazy. I mean why bother trying to have you get thrown in jail or…”

Brass bit her lip “We were supposed to be kidnapped. We just got lucky when we were thrown in a jail we could escape from.” There was a hint of growing annoyance in her voice “If everything went according to ‘plan’ than I would be missing. Swift… you would be stuck in Iron Claw.”

She pressed her hooves against the table as she bitterly spat out “We would have no way to communicate with our group back in Canterlot without relying on Luke’s allies to send messages for you. Luke would be calling the shots to our group… my group.”

Swift grunted “I could just go back to Canterlot…”

“And then one of Luke’s allies here would inform him of what you are doing. Then there would be a convenient tip off to Celestia’s forces having her position some of her troops to intercept where you or your uncle might go.” Brass countered “They just want to ensure that attention is brought away from Canterlot for Luke’s crazy a…” She snapped her mouth shut “For his crazy ‘plan’ to work.”

Mort rubbed his head as he didn’t like thinking about how easy it would be for Luke’s group to betray them… and claim to have a ‘legitimate’ reason for doing so. Besides… only the ponies that saved Canterlot would get the pardon. If Brass and her friends weren’t in Canterlot during that moment… then it was just ‘a run of bad luck’ for them.

Swift took a deep breath “So you think William is telling the truth?”

Brass shrugged “I don’t know… but it’s safer to say that even if he is lying…he was picked because he was expendable and because he has no idea on what is actually going on.”

Mort felt the gnawing feeling in his stomach as he replied “You think that something bad is going to happen in Iron Claw?”

Brass stared at Mort with a hint of unease as she slowly replied “Nothing so… insidious… but I have a feeling that Luke’s little adventurers are going to just keep a close eye on us especially after my sudden arrival and the loss of the amulet.” She hissed in annoyance.

Mort sighed as he rubbed his temples “Star Swirl’s magical amulet… the item Sanguine Point was after in Timberton. That stupid magical artifact that we betrayed that crazy psycho path and his unseen benefactor for.”

He gritted his teeth “All that work… all those hours spent studying it as we could go just about anywhere in the blink of an eye.” the unicorn spoke with growing lamentation “And now some bumbling idiot in a suit of armor stole it right out from under us!”

Mort felt like banging his head against the table in dismay at the moment “We don’t even know who to blame! Was it one of Harold’s bickering turkeys who stole it just because it looked shiny, or one of Luke’s lackeys who thought they deserved it more than a group of ‘thieves’ since they think they are more ‘righteous’ than we are!”

Swift pinched the bridge of his beak as he tried to rationalize the situation “Look, we kept this secret close to our chest and they don’t have weeks trying to figure out how to make it work, so it still probably has to be in Iron Claw at least. I’m sure if my uncle has it, he will give it back to us if only because he wants us to use it for him.”

Brass pressed her hoof against the table as she replied “Okay, so we don’t have Starswirl’s magic get away amulet anymore… the only question now is what we should do next. Luke doesn’t know about the few tricks we kept hidden from him, but we don’t have a quick method back to Canterlot anymore… and we all know that Luke’s group is going to be all too eager to help ‘assist’ in the search for Star Swirl’s stolen amulet after learning about how it helped me break out of jail.”

Mort bit his lip as he knew what he was being asked “You want me to send a message back to Canterlot letting the rest of the group know that it’s time to move out?”

Brass nodded her head “As discreetly is possible. Besides, our job is not to help ‘slay discord’ but to help clean up the mess afterwards… and if Luke’s plan does fail, then it’s best to pull back into Iron Claw until everything blows over.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Swift asked with a pensive look.

Brass chuckled “Then just suggest to your uncle for him to send some griffins to stand by the borders and remind him that Equestria expects to see his griffin in the air instead of underground. Hopefully Buddy will have finished the tunnels that leads to Equestria.”

********

Lockheart

I checked the map once again as I made sure I was heading in the right way.

“You don’t even know if they are even in that direction.” Discord’s voice mocked me

I ignored him as I continued way towards Swift’s room. I needed to find where Brass was, and find out what she was planning. I was currently trudging through the castle hallways, hiding in plain sight of every griffin in one of the armored suits that the guards castle wore, walking along as if I was just a guard on a patrol route. Seeing that I already had a very meager magic reserve, I needed to use what little magic that I could gather on other things and, wasting any power trying to sustain a complex disguise spell would be an unnecessary drain for me. So, just wearing the regular 'uniform’ of a nondescript guard was far less trouble for me and made it just as easy for me to blend in if I am part of the scenery.

Okay, maybe the armor was a ‘little bit’ bigger than I would have liked. My horn barely reached the ‘neck’ of the griffin helmet and I had to make some holes into the chest plate just so that I could see. My wings were just widden underneath the wing guards just as long as I didn’t spread them out and of course after readjusting the armor I could still fly.

The important thing of course, was that most of the other griffins tried not to pick fights, or even bother a griffin that towered over them which worked just fine for me.

I glanced at the walls, as each gem embedded into the wall marked a hiding spot/hallway that I had made. Old castles tended to have a few escape routes in them. I just enchanted a few gems with an ‘ignore me’ spell and one illusionary wall, add a few planks of wood just to be safe and nobody's the wiser.

(Thank Celestia for that book on crystal enchantments)

I felt a whiff of cheer in the air as I moved over to the gem marked wall and used my magic on it. Green flames raced across the stone mortar as the wall began to slide back. I couldn’t help but smirk as I squeezed myself through the opening I had made before closing it behind me.

Light trickled into the small hidden cover, as I looked through one of the peepholes and spotted my prey. Two griffins were patrolling the hallways in ‘mostly’ good cheer. My horn glowed as I prepared myself to collect some of that good cheer and energy.

One of the griffins stumbled as he muttered “Did you just feel a cold breeze?”

The one beside him looked around the room not knowing what his companion was talking about “You sure you weren’t enjoying Hilda's celebration party too much?”

The first griffin straightened himself up as he muttered “Well today isn’t going to be a basket of roses… Our ‘liege’ King Harold wants us to search for a crook. He had another round of changelings tests… oh and his beloved bride to be decided to visit.”

The second griffin chuckled at his statement “You must be new, because every griffin here knows that the only lust he has is bloodlust. I’ve heard the rumors how some of his changeling tests are just an excuse to outright slaughter some of the griffins he perceives as too ‘weak’ for his armies.”

Fear started to replace the good hearted cheer they had at the utterance of their ruler’s name. They glanced at the walls as they hadn’t seen me… but there was a general sense of unease and fear that was starting to build within them.

The first griffin shook his head “Do you think the incident yesterday… that it was one of the griffin lords trying to usurp him?”

The second one shivered “Impossible… I mean Harold gladly welcomes anyone to challenge him for the throne. I think the last griffin that tried had ten of his best bodyguards join him in on the fight.”

The first one glanced at him in surprise “What happened?”

“What do you think bloody happened?” The second one snapped back “He outright butchered them! Edrick told me he laughed as the king refused any assistance from his own bodyguards because he wanted to enjoy the fight. The foolish lord was left alive in the dungeons not because he tried to assassinate him… but because Harold was annoyed at the fact that they didn’t give him a ‘good fight’ so now he listens to the screams of agony the foolish lord gives each night before he goes to bed!”

Fear soon replaced their joy as the first griffin whispered “You don’t think that’s what made him increase the patrols? He’s mad that he didn’t get to fight the griffin who tried to kill him!”

The second griffin started to pick up his pace as I started to lose sight of him “Pick up the pace. I don’t want our liege to ‘test’ us because you drank too much last night!”

The two griffins disappeared into the distance as I used my magic to open up the wall and slip back out into the hallway. The Castle was on high alert and the griffin king wanted his magical amulet back. I could do this… all I had to do was avoid catching their attention.

“You could always let a few more parasprites ‘escape’ their notice near their food storages again.” Discord suggested “If that doesn’t strike your fancy you could go to their armory and seal the doors or replace the gems in their treasury with glass copies.”

“Of course you could just walk about sealing shut every door in this castle. Maybe even rearrange a few walls to change the layout of the place.” He replied chuckling

I turned down another hallway as the filly added “You could teach some of the griffins about friendship!” I grunted only for her to add “Maybe all they need is a friend instead of a big meany telling them what to do all the time.”

“That would imply that they want to change the system they already have.” I quickly muttered “Going into a bloody civil war and taking everything by force seems a time honored tradition with these griffins.”

So why not try and speed things up a little?

********

Celestia

Celestia walked through the hallway of Canterlot Castle, as Quick Note continued reciting the day schedule and reports “The requisitioning of the trains for the Frozen North have been paid off, as this attempt to send aid to the beleaguered yaks… is being done without revealing your ‘direct’ assistance in this matter, Princess.”

The yellow unicorn secretary looked up at Celestia with a mixture of drilled obedience and confusion “Your highness, wouldn’t it be better if you were openly endorsing the assistance towards the yaks?”

“No Quick Note, the yaks are paranoid and a prideful nation…” Celestia took a deep breath before measuring her words carefully “And… and I didn’t have the same experience I have today, as I did back then. I… I left a very bad impression to them and the yaks still hold a grudge over it to this day.”

Quick Note frowned “Pardon my disrespect your highness holding a grudge for generations seems kind of silly, princess.”

“I’m just happy that they are asking for Equestria’s help. While they may have their reservations about me… they don’t have any grudges against anypony else in Equestria. It’s just a shame they are more focused on mercenaries and privateers that will be working for coin and gold.” Celestia replied softly.

She took a deep breath as she remember going to Yakyakastan all those years ago shattering the floor of their palace with the stomping of her hooves. In her own arrogance at the time, she had demanded to see every record, artifact, or anything that could help explain what had happened to Luna… She wanted some sort of reason explaining the emergence of Nightmare Moon and why she had replaced her beloved sister Luna. She also remembered how she nearly plunged Equestria into war during that period of grief.

Celestia shook her head trying to forget that lingering old memory as the Yaks had been a not too subtle reminder that she wasn’t perfect… and that she could also make mistakes. She just hoped that assistance sent their way will stop the changelings that are threatening the Yaks would help go a long way towards build some goodwill between their two nations and have the yaks stop with their isolation policy with Equestria.

She wasn’t expecting them to be prancing around Canterlot singing songs with her little ponies… but hopefully they would be more open to a dialog and Celestia could show how much she had changed since their last bitter encounter. Maybe in a couple of years, they might acknowledge each other as neighbors, or join into the same cordial relationship Equestria had with Saddle Arabia.

Quick Note cleared her throat “Besides that, there is your meeting with Maxwell to finish up any loose ends and you also have a meeting with Cloud Puff to go over the arrangements for any Breezes that were left behind in Equestria…”

Celestia let herself feel a small moment of pride as she had taken a chance with Maxwell trying to bandage up the wounds of the past with the Yaks. He did a good job in being able to muster enough of the ‘adventurers for hire’ to gather a large enough group that wouldn’t draw too much attention to the members of Royal Guards that she had personally picked to be mixed in with them to get the lay of the land for her.

She made a mental note to remember to try to find someway to thank Maxwell for his efforts, as it must not have been easy trying to deal with a weary yak and organizing everything on a reasonable time frame, especially when there was the yak breathing down on his neck that wanted to head back to help stop the changeling invasion as soon as possible.

“How is ‘Great’ Klok Magiker Cloud Puff by the way?” Celestia asked out loud.

Quick Note shrugged “She is currently left in one of the guest quarters after trying a… pixie stick.”

Celestia chuckled as she could only imagine how the little breezie would act after finding a piece of candy that wasn’t bigger than her. Still, she should, hopefully, have come down from her sugar rush, when Celestia came to talk to her.

Trudging along the immaculate marble hallways, everything was going well, which was the precise reason why at that moment she could hear the echoes of shouting that she soon recognized as being that of Midnight and Bristol yelling at each other from the room down the next hallway. Sure, the other ponies around her had yet to hear their voices… but it was giving Celestia an inkling of an idea on just how difficult her next problem on the docket was going to be like.

The reports that she had been given from her guardsponies and diplomat about the situation in New Terra were inconsistent as some parts were conflicting with each other, or simply didn’t make any sense. If she had any hope of fixing this diplomatic blunder, than she needed some details cleared up.

At first, things seemed to be going well even if it started out badly. Peter the dragon and mayor of the town had decided to personally escort them to New Terra to help deal with the Cursed Trader. Sure, they were attacked before they even reached the settlement and the mayor was wounded during the fight, but they seemed to have been harrowed as saviors by the settlers as they just so happened to catch four other dangerous criminals along the way, most notably Brass Balls, and help with dispelling the lingering curses within the residences.

There weren’t any major problems until Regal Script came to town… What should have been a simple prisoner transfer had somehow lead to the cheerful settlement to kick them out before slamming its doors shut on Equestria. There were also conflicting reports between Regal Script’s team who had just arrived and Steel Halberd’s, who had been there for a couple of days.

Celestia used her magic to open the doors as she heard Bristol shout back “Canterlot Tradition! As you should know...”

Midnight didn’t let him finish as she shouted “Is that your excuse for everything you stuck up brat!”

Seeing that the two bickering guards didn’t notice their ruler’s arrival yet, Quick Note cleared her throat as she spoke in a firm voice “Princess Celestia is here to see you.”

Midnight and Bristol had both shut up as their royal guard training kicked in at Celestia’s presence, and they then both turned to the solar princess and bowed to her.

Both ponies were a part of the Royal Guard with good records behind them. Both ponies had did a fine records in their duties. The problem was, of course, that the Solar and Lunar guard ponies were almost completely different in performing their respective tasks. Even then, the two ponies had clashing personalities, with the added bonus of possible regimental rivalries.

Midnight Vixen was a good pony in the Royal Guard, and she was good at dealing with other ponies under her charge on a more personal level that most guard don’t usually do, making her easy to trust, and never shirked her duties. This made her a good body guard of course, that was why she picked her as Lockheart’s flight teacher and bodyguard in the first place… but she had shown great annoyance at having outside interference or meddling while performing her duties.

Sergeant Bristol on the other hoof was, according to his background, apparently a capable commander. He was patriotic and was very proud in his duties. But, he didn’t had much in the way actual field experience yet, as he had operated mostly within Equestria during his career. This had also apparently been his first command that he had been given that rested outside of Equestria’s borders, and the pegasus was known for his fervent stance of Equestria’s importance. Celestia had hoped that this experience would have allowed him some actual frontier experience that would allow him to widen his world views.

Celestia shook her head at the sight, as she could understand how the ponies would be frustrated, and would start lashing out at each other, especially after their mission to help a fledgling settlement had ended so badly. Just when she had finally started making headway in opening her borders with the yaks... Equestria now found its borders closed to another state.

She calmed herself as she projected her usual all knowing princess mask, as she prepared to calm her ponies down and figure out just what went wrong.

The solar princess looked down at her little ponies in her usual maternal and serene tone “Now what happened in New Terra that caused you a problem Sergeant Bristol?”

The Pegasus guardspony straighten up in pride “Your highness, I have discovered that the settlement of New Terra have developed a new and highly dangerous magical weapon that could be a threat to Equestia’s security without any sort of regulation as it is being sold on the open market, with almost no concerns about who they are selling these weapons to, and the dire consequences they could bring because of their careless actions.”

Celestia grew concerned as to what Sergeant Bristol’s had such dire concerns about, as she wondered what this ‘new’ weapon could possibly make her Guardspony so worried so much?

Quick Note tapped her clip board interjected “To who precisely and what sort of action is it?”

He frowned “They are selling weapons to anyone who has the bits to buy them! This could harm not only Equestria, but also harm any and all nearby nations!”

Midnight rolled her eyes at Bristle’s descriptive tale of doom and gloom “They are making the something called guns…” She looked back at Celestia and blushed as she just realized that she may have spoken out of turn “Your highness… Steel Halberd explained to me what this weapon was and they are apparently work in a similar means to a crossbows expect they are more powerful, longer range, and apparently easier to use, though they do cost more bits to use and maintain. It uses an explosive called ‘gunpowder’ to propel a metal balls throw a long metal pipe.”

Celestia thought back to the what she knew about these so called ‘guns’ as they didn’t seem to be that dangerous. Based on the descriptions, she knew that Lockheart had used a crude version of it in the Everfree Forest against the changeling which was certainly dangerous… but it didn’t kill the changeling outright.

From Steel Halberd’s report these ‘guns’ did sound dangerous… but not exactly game changing in the art of battlefield tactics. The only real difference that she saw was that these weapons would be easier for ponies to use than bows and arrows which was the traditional ‘ranged’ weapon that griffins and diamond dogs seemed to favor.

“Like a pot watcher would understand the dangers of an unregulated weapon.” Bristol muttered underneath his breath.

Celestia turned her gaze upon him making him quickly stand straight as he spoke out loud “What I mean to say your highness, is that this Night Guard had not personally seen what targets these new arcane weapons were practiced on.”

Midnight stomped her hoof on the ground “First of all, those rifles are not ‘magical’ weapons you polished ninny, and yes, I do know that they were shooting armored dummies from some old royal guard surplus. I mean, it’s not like they have wild creatures with a hide as tough as a cragadile or a quarry eel to practice on, and it’s a lot easier testing weapons against targets that don’t strike back.”

Bristol curled his lips as if he had sniffed spoiled milk as he spat back “Weapons that are build to punch through royal guard armor and sold with no regard as to who they sell those too are dangerous, no matter their intention or intended purposes Night Shift....”

He raised a hoof into the air as he continued his rant “What if these weapons falls into the hooves of a group of bandits and decided to attack caravans? Think of the innocent ponies they could hurt with those so called ‘guns’! To make matters worse our own soldiers are ill equipped to deal with these weapons, and Celestia forbid another nation purchasing a large stocks of those and starts a war with their neighbors in the belief that the enemy will be unable to defend against these fearsome new devices!”

With those points razed, Celestia did admitted to herself that this issue could be cause for concerns for her guards and subjects, especially near the borders where the patrols are more spread out, and emboldened rogues armed with those weapons could try to take advantage of caravans. And, having her neighbors possibly started to acquire those weapons in bulk for their armies could become a concern later on too.

Midnight, for her part, dug her hooves into the floor as she replied “And you just had to come in with your high horses demanding them to stop in accusing them and then threaten them!? We were doing just fine handling the situation until you idiots arrived.” She turned to face Bristle and glared at him “In less than one day you managed to destroy all the good will that we had built with them! Do you really think they would have listen to you on your word alone and not butt heads with them?”

Bristol held his head up high indignation as he replied “Then it mustn’t have been that much if trying to impose some regulations is all it takes to break their so called ‘good’ will.”

Celestia stopped her hoof making them both stop bickering once again. She knew that there were a few minor problems issues between those two branches of the guard… but she didn’t think it had grown bad enough for them to act like foals whining about who’s fault it was that the vase broke, instead of acting like full grown adults of the Equestrian Royal Guard! Still, she might have now had a better understanding on what might have strained the relations so much, if Bristol was so vocal about his concerns with those weapons. But somehow, this incident didn’t seem to warrant being kick out of New Terra just like that. There were details that she was missing here.

Celestia cleared her throat wanting to clear a few facts on what her sergeant did, as she stared at them “Okay… Sergeant Bristol?” The pegasus snapped to attention as he waited for the Princess’s next questions. “Have the citizens of New Terra have refused any offer of aid from Equestria or any advice you had on how they could better defend their settlement? Did they needed support to help calm the fears of the populace down while their mayor recovered from his wounds?”

She wanted to know what beyond the issue of guns could have left such a bad impression to the settlement, and it was normally customary for the Royal Guard to help make settlers or locals more self reliant, and to help promote some good PR to induce trust in them; Equestrian citizen or not. She couldn’t imagine that they would just spur any assistance from them on that issue alone.

Bristol held a hoof up in the air as it looked like he was about to agree with her… until he paused as he lowered his hoof with dawning gaze. Celestia focused on the pegasus guard as she had recognized that look on countless foals from her magic school in the past. The one that told her that they might have overlooked an important detail.

Celestia took a deep breath hoping that that she might be wrong on this “You did offer them assistance to help their militia in being more effective, right? You didn’t just try to out right banned those weapons without giving them a better alternative other than saying it would be ‘too dangerous’ to give everypony a gun in the settlement, right after they had just been attacked by a monster, right sergeant Bristol?” She quirked an eyebrow down at him, letting him know she wouldn’t tolerate any dodging or falsehood to the question from him.

Bristol eyes widen in realization, as he obviously thought over his actions in a new light that might not painting him in the best of roles that that he couldn’t ignore, and then looked away from his princess as he replied “I needed to take care of the problem before it grew out of control, your highness.” He sheepishly confessed, in a roundabout way.

Inwardly, Celestia couldn’t help but frown as she recognized the look on his face. She could infer from his answer that Bristol had probably thought New Terra was just going to be just some sort of backwater settlement with little of value. The pegasus sergeant must obviously have been shocked to see that those settlers had created a new weapon that Equestria didn’t possess and outstriped what it had. Then, being a minor noble, and a sergeant in the Equestrian Royal Guard who had mostly operated within Equestria’s borders… the pegasus had somehow forgotten that he couldn’t just simply order those settler ponies to do what he wanted them to do, and they certainly didn’t respond very well to his words at that.

As for New Terra, it wasn’t a part of Equestria, as they lacked the comforting knowledge that the Royal Guard would provide protection to them in their time of need… something that Bristol clearly had forgotten when he was dealing with them.

Celestia thought over if there could at least be a silver lining out of this faux pas before glancing over at the Night Guard bat pony “Private Midnight Vixen, what can you tell me about the the New Terra’s militia? Do you think they can manage to defend itself on their own properly?”

Midnight nodded her head “The citizens of New Terra were just starting to organize a town militia together in the shortest amount of time possible Princess. I think they could defend themselves on their own, for the most part, from small threats like bandits easily enough; Larger ones too with the mayor Peter the dragon. I don’t think they would pose a threat to Equestria on their own,and they aren’t looking for any trouble with us.”

Celestia was relieved to hear this, as she didn’t want to deal with this at the moment, and would like to address the issue of those guns later at a better occasion.

The princess looked around the room as she noticed that some ponies were missing “Now, where are the others?”

Midnight pointed over to the next room as she replied “Regal Script and Remedy Cross are waiting inside, your highness. They were supposed to give a separate report about what happened with the prisoners and at the council meeting.”

Celestia glanced at the door “And what about Steel Halberd and Valkyrie?”

Bristol seemed to huff in annoyance as he quickly replied “It is the duty of the senior commander of the expedition or mission to report their findings to the commanding officer or Princess. Steel Halberd and miss Valkyrie were not required to attend this meeting Princess.”

Midnight shot the pegasus a glare as she coldly replied “And as the senior commander of the Night Guard.” The pegasus rolled his eyes as if she had said a bad joke “It was my duty to stay here and help submit my own report on the matter. Though, I can inform you that they had found out that miss Stardust had fallen ill… and they also seemed to have a few questions for her.”

Celestia frowned “What questions… and what has Stardust fallen ill from?”

“The questions are not my place to say, your highness.” Midnight said as a small blush covered her face “As for Miss Stardust… all I know is that she had fallen ill from something, but I did not have enough time to ask why.”

Celestia had also made a mental note for later to check up on Stardust to see if she was okay, and send her a get well basket. In all her long years on the throne, she had often found herself extremely busy with her duties. As some time, she had trouble in keeping contact with her close friends and could simply be unaware when somepony she cares for falls ill. Which was always something that irked her when that happen; especially with what happened between her and... Nonetheless, she did wished that somepony had bothered to told her about it sooner.

Celestia shook her head, as she had to worry about that question later. Right now, she had to focus on the current problem with New Terra. So far, all she could see was an argument about a weapon being sold. That couldn’t have been enough to cause a major incident so there had to be some other problem that had happened to make things much worse. Hopefully she could find what the problem was after talking to Remedy Cross and Regal Script.

********

Lockheart

I continued to walk down the hallway as I pulled out a map from my disguise. Right now, I looked like every other griffin soldier covered from head to toe in armor. I held the map in front of my face as I tried to figure out which room Brass would be hiding in.

I needed to know where she was and what she was planning. All I knew was that Harold was planning for war and there was a lot of talk of invading Equestria… mostly that Harold was getting annoyed at having to wait for his ‘nephew’ and the mare’s plan to come together.

I turned down the hallway and spotted two griffins standing guard by one of the rooms. I quickly hid my map as I could feel myself starting to sweat in fear as I walked past the guards. They didn’t react as I was surprised I didn’t sense them. The only faint whiff of emotion I could get from them was of duty… mindless duty as they performed their tasks without any other thoughts other than their job.

“You could always let a few more parasprites ‘escape’ their notice near their food storages again.” Discord suggested “If that doesn’t strike your fancy you could go to their armory and seal the doors or replace the gems in their treasury with glass copies.”

“Of course you could just walk about sealing shut every door in this castle. Maybe even rearrange a few walls to change the layout of the place.” He replied chuckling.

I turned down another hallway as the filly added “You could teach some of the griffins about friendship!” I grunted only for her to add “Maybe all they need is a friend instead of a big meany telling them what to do all the time.”

“That would imply that they want to change the system they already have.” I quickly muttered “Going into a bloody civil war and taking everything by force is a time honored tradition with these griffins.”

I opened the map as I tried to get my bearings “If you can show me just one griffin that isn’t like that from this city then maybe I’ll listen.”

“You have a what!” a voice shouted out loud.

I turned my head down the hallway and spotted one unknown large griffin, a brass colored pony and Swift Wing walking down the hallway. Of course I just had to taunt this crazy world. Now I had Swift Wing, Brass and some large body guard walking down the hallway towards me.

I turned back around and hid behind the wall. I needed someplace to hide before they caught me. If they caught me than I would be in trouble. If they asked me any questions I would be screwed, because I don’t know anything.

“Oh, hide in a statute!” The filly shouted.

I looked around the room trying to find a statue until I realized that there wasn’t one in the room. I could hear the footsteps growing louder as Swift groaned “Not so loud.”

I summoned my magic and tried my best to hide before they could see me.

********

Swift Wing

Swift rubbed his head as Brass replied “Yes I have a cockatrice. It helped me deal with a few pesky ponies, and after the screw up in New Terra, I want it back.”

They turned down the hallway only to see another empty hallway with a few decorations.

The cow turned griffin named Matilda stared at the statue resting up against the wall “Is your uncle using it on some of the guards?”

Swift turned to stare at the oddly placed statue as it stood at attention. If a somegriffin saw it from a distance, they would probably think it was an actual griffin guard. He ran a talon across the statue’s helmet for a moment before shaking his head.

“Nope… just another decoration.” he muttered “Though frankly I’m surprised it doesn’t have a weapon in it’s talons like all the others.”

Matilda sighed in boredom as Brass replied “Where is Harold keeping my cockatrice Swift?”

“In his room.” Swift replied off talon.

Matilda coughed “Why would he have a cockatrice in his room?”

“Because it can rip a griffin’s throat out and turn someone to stone with but a stare.” Swift noticed their odd stares as he rolled his eyes “Naturally my uncle thought it would be the perfect pet to keep until you wanted it back.”

Brass shook her head in frustration “Is there anything your uncle has that doesn’t count as a weapon?”

Swift chuckled as he shook his head “Well, the weapon decorations on the walls… those are actual weapons.” clueing them to the answer to her question, earning a guffaw from Matilda, before Brass stormed out of the room .

********

Lockheart

Shortly after Brass and her cronies left, I felt the alicorn filly flying above me banging her hooves like against my head as if it was a pot (Making it sound as if a gong was being stuck right next to my ears!) as the little brat whispered loudly “Pst. Mr Lock! Their gone!”

I strained my senses as I tried to hear them in order to make sure they had left. I couldn’t feel any emotions, or hear any footsteps walking across the stone floor, causing me to sigh in relief. My horn glowed as I removed the layer of stone that had covered my armor and took a deep breath of fresh air.

Brass was in the castle and none of them noticed that I was there… and Brass’s cockatrice was in the griffin king’s bedroom because he thought it would make a good pet , which that last part is completely insane. I know some rich people might keep a lion as a pet… no I’m getting off topic.

I know where the bedroom is, but that was on the other end of the castle. Brass was walking down the hallway behind me.

“Which way are you going to go?” Discord taunted me “Are you going back down the hallway to follow Brass or are you going to the king’s bedroom to pick up a little pet?”

I looked to my left towards Brass as the filly replied “Valkyrie was hurt by the bird! Can’t it help her?”

I looked over to my right as Discord replied “But of course who knows what Brass could be planning? Maybe she is planning a nasty surprise in Equestria or maybe she want to get to the kitchen to make a banana split?”

I gritted my teeth as I tried to figure out what to do… before walking towards the room with the cockatrice.

“Why are you going down here instead of chasing after Brass, isn’t she also a ninny pants?” The filly asked outloud.

I shook my head as I muttered “Brass with a cockatrice is dangerous. If I get rid of the bird than she can’t randomly turn people to stone. If she wants the bird back than I need to steal it before she can get it back.”

“Wouldn’t it be more prudent to follow Brass since she is the one in charge?” Discord taunted me as I continued down the hallway “Or is this because you don’t want to face the oh so terrible griffin king?”

“Brass is the one setting the time table and she is a thief.” I quickly replied “She isn’t planning anything. Whoever she is working for is making up the plan. The griffins are just a distraction!”

The filly giggled “Then what are you going to do with a cockatrice?”

I frowned as I quickly replied “Send it to Canterlot.”

Discord gasped “Oh so you plan to turn Princess Celestia to stone. I never knew you had it in you!”

I picked up my pace as I quickly snapped back “Of course not!”

“Then why are you sending it to Canterlot?” The filly replied with far too much cheer.

I grumbled in annoyance as I firmly stated at them “Celestia won’t do anything dangerous with it and she will probably return it to the Everfree forest, right after using it to depetrify Valkyrie of course.”

“Right…” Discord and the alicorn filly both said at the same time.

I frowned “It’s not like I know any other places I can send a cockatrice to!”

Discord appeared right infront of me as I frowned. This wasn’t tiny mocking Discord or standing on the side of my shoulder with an angel or devil costume. This was full sized Discord standing at the edge of the hallway with a Charlie Brown ‘doctor is in’ office.

In a flash of light my armored disguise was not replaced with a charlie brown costume complete with yellow shirt with black zig zag design. Discord was currently resting his feet up on the the stand fiddling his claws.

“Good grief, I don’t have enough time for these games.” I spat back

Discord smirked as he picked up the cup and shook it a little revealing a nickel inside “I think your problem is that you don’t know what to decide. You keep saying woe is me, but that’s because you don’t actually want to choose.”

He snapped his fingers revealing two rather colorful signs pointing at each end of the hallway. The sign on the left revealed a crown while the sign on the right revealed a picture of valkyrie when she wasn’t turned to stone.

Discord leaned on the sign on the left. “On the left is the throne room. Home to the fearsome griffin king in all his feathery glory. Take him out and you’ve ‘saved’ Equestria proving to everyone that you are a hero instead of a villain.”

He batted the sign on the right with his tail making it spin. Once the sign stopped spinning it showed a picture of me as a statue “Take the path to the right and you are picking one to save one mare instead of an entire nation. I’ll just add that the mare in question isn’t into you… so no going out to save her because of true love or some other such nonsense.”

I frowned “First of all I’m not interested in her. Secondly… all I know about cockatrice stuff is that you need the bird that cast the curse to break the curse. If I don’t grab it now than there’s a good chance I’m not going to find it in the near foreseeable future.”

“So you're going to save her!” the filly shouted in joy with a swooning gesture.

“No, I’m going to steal the cockatrice because that bird is a lot more harder to deal with than taking out a griffin on the throne!” I shouted at her “I can always go after Harold later.”

Yes, that was my reasoning for not wanting to fight a griffin who specialized in fighting and tearing people’s limbs apart. I was running low on magic and I just needed to find someplace far away from Iron Claw to refill my magic. Then once I’m at full strength I would come back to try my luck against the griffin king.

********

Celestia

Celestia walked over to the room and opened up the doors. The inside of the room had various pillows for ponies to sit upon and a rather nicely made table… but the mood was anything but pleasant as the two ponies in the room sat far away from each other as they resembled foals waiting for the principle to call them into her office, which ironically she was.

Celestia walked over to the largest pillow in the room and sat upon it, as she watched the two closest ‘experts’ she had who would also know what happened in New Terra. Sure, there was a report sent to her… but she wanted to hear it directly for the pony’s mouth.

Regal Script came from a fine noble lineage in Canterlot and while he may have been more concerned of raising his own rank… and could also be a bit pompous at times (which sadly was a common trait with nobleponies)... and prefered ‘courting’ far too many maidens for Celestia’s liking, but he was a good diplomat, which she could always over look and he had yet to fail her until now. His skills were of great help during the last negotiations between Saddle Arabia and Equestria and was a good stepping stone for him to elevate him in his career, at least it would have been if it wasn’t for this.

Remedy Cross on the other hoof… it would be a lie to say that Celestia and the medic didn’t butt heads from time to time. Remedy Cross was a good field doctor, but she wasn’t a ‘ponies’ pony. The mare could be blunt, rude, had a set of ethics that Celestia felt was a little bit sketchy. But, she was ‘very’ good at what she does, she had more nerves than most seasoned guards had while under fire. Most of her commanders were willing to put up with her brazen attitude, if it meant she would do her absolute best to dispense medical needs, while castigate them for needing them in the first place.

She was the most capable field doctor to deal with the medical or magical situation in New Terra and cure the ponies of their medical or magical malady… but only if Steel Halberd and the other ponies played peacekeeper to keep anypony from being offended by the mare’s lack of bedside manor. In fact, out of all the ponies sent with Remedy Cross she would have been the last pony Celestia would have trusted to handle a diplomatic situation.

Celestia looked down at Regal Script as he was visibly nervous with his constant fiddling with his tie or cuffs, while Remedy, still having her usual irritated demeanor, didn’t seemed worried at all.

The solar pony watched him feeling concern for him as she noticed his unease as she wanted to let him the chance to explain himself freely over what happened, so she asked in the most casual manner as possible“So Regal Script, how was your stay in New Terra for you?”

Regal took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself as he said “Well, your majesty, New Terra showed little care or respect to my status as a diplomat and, by extension, the whole of the Equestrian crown. When I arrived with my escort to that New Terra, I was only greeted by the mayor. ”

Celestia glanced over to Remedy Cross to confirm the statement, who she could always rely on her in being honestly blunt with her words, who answered in a deadpan manner “He skipped the greeting with the mayor only to then ask to immediately interrogate Brass, and he has somehow managed to alienated himself from the local prison guards of New Terra.”

She looked back at Regal Script, who was in the middle of adjusting his tie “I...I was informed that I was meeting a dragon for a mayor, barely an hour prior … I was not informed of his sheer size, or that of those claws...“ he then took a big gulp ”or of those huge teeth.”

The solar princess nodded her head in a show of understanding. His unpreparedness about the mayor’s stature could explain (not excuse) why he skipped out of his greeting shortly at his arrival. After all, that was a detail that she wasn’t aware about either up until now, and could be understandable, seeing that large dragons certainly have a ‘very’ intimidating presences all on their own, as most ponies would run for the hills at the sight of them. And, their fiery reputation doesn’t help them to make ponies be at ease with either. Still, it was indeed unusual, but not rare, for a dragon to make his or her home in a city. Of course, most of those dragons tended to be around about the size of a pony or a diamond dog. So, it would be understandable at how very unusual for such a large dragon to make their home in a city. Even more so, being trusted enough by the settlers to be their mayor… speaks volumes at how reasonable this Peter is compared to the rest of his kin.

“Still, you were able to reschedule a meeting later on that day.” Celestia queried, as it was the most sensible thing to do after that faut pas.

With a nervous look, Regal Script shook his head “No your highness, I was not able to reschedule a meeting with him due to their paranoid actions and behaviour, before they exiled us from their backwater settlement.”

Celestia felt like frowning. She knew things didn’t turn out alright, but she was hoping for an explanation… instead Regal Script seemed to have taken being kicked out of New Terra as a personal affront… which wouldn't be that far off the truth considering how everything ended.

Remedy rolled her eyes “… oh and he accidently killed one of the prisoners.” Adding her own two bits to the conversation.

On those words, Celestia winced as she was not sure if she had heard those words right. To her horror Regal Script as shouted in panic “That wasn’t what happened at all! I mean we don’t know if it was even sentient.”

Thinking over his word, Celestia knew some of what happened to cause the diplomatic disaster , but ‘obviously’ Regal Script had skipped out on a ‘few’ important details in the letter she had sent him.

A diplomat apparently killing a prisoner, or more likely causing their death through criminal negligence, was going to be hard to explain.

Remedy rubbed her temples obvious irritation “That stickhead used some sort of old magic scroll on a being that was bound together by various intertwining dark spells matrix that was holding the creature together. He didn’t checking with me first for a medical assessment, if the spell might have adverse effect with the criminal.”

Regal Script shook his head as he started to sweat “I was just givin that scroll,by you your highness, and you ordered to use it to scan the bird creature that was captured in New Terra; I was told that it was absolutely harmless to anypony… I mean any creature. Beside that, for all we know that could have been a wild animal! It didn’t say anything when I entered the room. Sure they ‘claimed’ that only they can hear it, but the creature made no obvious actions or signs of intelligence the entire time...”

Celestia grimaced at the reminder that she was the one who gave him the scroll in the first place, and that the unicorn stallion mistook her reassurance of the time she gave it to him as iron clad truth, and didn’t consider that he would have needed an expert opinion before casting. Still, it irked her to know that she was indirectly responsible for the unknown creatures death.

Back to the matter at hoof, Celestia closed her eyes as she tried to set aside her slight gilt as she said “What happened to it?”

“It died.” Remedy Cross replied in deadpan once again, much to the stallion’s annoyance.

Celestia took a deep breath “What I mean is, How did it die?”

Regal coughed as he tried to loosen his tie a little “Well, it died… and the scroll suffered some sort of magical backlash, causing it to be destroyed as well.”

Celestia cursed herself on that, as losing this precious relic was a great lost her, because of the ancient magic simply couldn’t be replicated as it was made even before Celestia’s time.

Moving on again, the solar princess looked down at the unicorn noble “How did it die?”

The unicorn gulped and closed his eyes as he meekly replied “It exploded.”

Silence filled the room as Celestia rose an eyebrow to that statement while Remedy growled out loud “What did you say?”

“It. Blew. Up.” Regal Script slowly emphasised “It was like a bunch of griffins stuffed a roast turkey full of firecrackers and set it off.”

Celestia flinched as he continued slowly increasing the volume of his voice “Then, things went spiraled downard rather quickly after that. They started throwing accusations, threats… if it wasn’t for the donkey, things could have escalated to violence very rapidly.”

He sighed as he hung his head “I was told to go back to the room they had set aside for me… looking back I should have tried arguing to speaking to the mayor to explain my side instead of waiting for them to cool off.”

Celestia glanced at Remedy Cross as the mare replied “To be fair, even knowing about her condition… I wouldn’t have expected her to suddenly blow up. Maybe get health issues or have trouble breathing as it was stuck between two if not more forms… we might have been able to fix if we treated it immediately afterward… but spontaneous avian combustion was not on the list. Whatever dark magic that was holding it together in that form was very unstable for whatever scan that scroll was supposed to do.”

Remedy shook her head “The rest of the citizens altered by this ‘curse’ were changed from one species to another… not a mixture or combination of species making Regal Script’s… blunder a unique situation.”

Regal Script eagerly agreeing with her nodded his head “You see! There was no way to know that disaster could have happen. I was just following orders as it wasn’t my fault that it failed. Either the scroll was faulty due to age as some of the ink that might have worn out, or maybe it was something in that creature’s curse that interacted badly with the scroll that made it fall apart!” He pointedly added to avoid any blame his way.

The solar princess could see how that would make the citizens of New Terra worked up into a panic. If the ‘bird’ was in fact a sentient being, than Regal Script had accidently murdered it. If the ‘bird’ was just a wild beast… then everypony else saw an unknown spell blow the creature up and the pony who cast the spell wanted to try it on a sentient being.

Celestia took a deep breath as she now knew that one would be a tough one to explain to the citizens of New Terra and how it would have turned into a diplomatic disaster if the same situation happened anywhere else. Still, if it was just one disaster…

Celestia could see his regret as she said “What did you say at the subsequent jailbreak?”

Regal Script bit his lip “Turns out waiting for things to cool down didn’t work out as well as I thought. A few hours after, I was escorted away to my room their was a jailbreak, and some of them started throwing accusations of us in intentionally instigating it. I, of course, vehemently denied any responsibility of this and made sure that if their was any fault to be had over what happened in their facilities then it should be theirs. The ones who were throwing accusations and threats at me were blaming us for the jailbreak because it just so happened right after we arrived.”

That part Celestia knew about the jailbreak, and wondered how Brass and her acolyte could have managed to escape and evade capture in the middle of a desert.

Remedy shook her head “What about the one about Princess Celestia, wanting to turn everypony into a ‘happy’ little pony; what was that about?”

Regal Script rolled his eyes “During Brass’s interrogation, she claimed that Princess Celestia wanted to make all the ponies in New Terra happy, it just doesn’t make sense on why they would be upset about it.”

Celestia stared at him as she tried to figure out how that translated into…

“What were her exact words Regal Script?” Celestia spoke in a calm voice.

Regal Script took a deep breath as he recited “She claimed that Princess Celestia was trying to turn all the ponies in New Terra into happy little ponies and she did not want to be a happy little pony.”

Celestia tried not to flinch as she thought about her meeting with Maxwell. Remedy Cross facehoofed as she groaned out loud “And you said yes?”

Regal Script rubbed his temples “I fail to see how Celestia wanting to make them happy is a problem?”

Remedy Cross rose her voice “How about the fact that some of the ponies in New Terra were actually an entirely different species? I had even treated a hippogriff turned into a ‘sea pony’ for Celestia’s sake! Now during this whole fear of being transformed into a different creature overnight… you just went out as the representative of Canterlot and claimed that Celestia wasn’t going to treat anypony who was turned into a pony!”

Celestia didn’t say anything as what Remedy Cross said did sound feasible… but she couldn’t help but remember her discussion with Maxwell about how some words seemed to have been censored or have their meaning changed and how most of the adventures have yet to realize it for some odd reason.

Somehow, the solar Princess didn’t feel as if Brass’s comment would have generated the same amount of ire… if what Regal Script had heard was actually what she had said. Either the meaning of what she said was different from what he had expected… or he had heard a censored version while everypony else head a different speech.

Frustratingly, She wished she knew what parts of Maxwell’s speech had been censored just to give her an idea of what Brass had actually said to the ponies of New Terra. For all she knew, it could have been a simple as transforming every beings into ponies… or declaring that Princess Celestia was planning to incinerate their entire town with a solar flare. Maybe not that last part, but there was no telling what Brass had actually said to everypony else in New Terra.

Regal Script shook his head as he started to raise his voice “There was nothing wrong with the interrogation with Brass, besides the fact she may be clinically insane. I mean… Didn’t she try to attack you when she first saw you?” He said to the unicorn medic.

Remedy nodded her head in satisfaction“She did. She also swore enough to somehow summon a thundercloud to zap her.”

“That’s my point… There should have been no reason at all for them to trust the words of a convicted criminal, instead of trusting a representative of Equestria.” Regal Script replied as he tried to stay calm from his previous agitation.

“What else did she say during the interrogation?” Celestia asked as she tried to figure out what else could have gone wrong in this disaster.

Regal Script was silent for a few seconds as he tried to loosen his tie “Okay, she may have freaked out and threatened to rip my head off, if I used a reformation spell on her…”

Celestia felt a pit in her stomach as she further remembered the rest of her talk with Maxwell, and thought in disbelief at the sheer coincidence of the seemingly unrelated events, somehow made sense together. There was a slight misunderstood belief amongst the Adventures that the reformation spell was closer to mind control rather than a simple conscious reminder.

If they were anywhere near as paranoid of frightened as Maxwell was at the mere suggestion of a reformation spell… That would have been the biggest disaster that Celestia could have possibly imagined before she found out about the rest of his disasters during this trip.

Remedy was now resting her head in her hooves, as she bluntly stated “How badly did she react?”

The canterlot unicorn stared at her in confusion “It was just an offer of a reformation spell over jail.”

“How badly did she or the other ponies in the room react Regal Script?” Celestia queried as it started to make sense in her mind. Seeing her intense gaze on him turning his confusion into despair.

“Well… she sort of… threatened to rip my head off.” Regal Script softly replied as he began to look back at his actions not as a unicorn who had been unjustly wronged… but of a unicorn who had unwittingly kept making blunder after blunder, compounding the political disaster. To make things even worse he was played by the very pony he was sent to retrieve!

Regal Script continued, “She had also… implied that... the guardspony named Valkyrie was never turned to stone. That Princess Celestia had altered her mind in some way.”

Celestia did her best to stay calm and pretend that she wasn’t bothered by this news. She did her best not to think about just how badly Brass managed to twist Regal Scripts words around, before he had accidently murdered one of the prisoners, and had inadvertently implied that Equestria had an established practice of brainwashing its citizens into being obedient mind slaves.

Celestia looked down at him in pity “What happened when you finally spoke to the mayor?”

He wiped his forehead with his hoof as he couldn’t make eye contact with her “It was shortly after the prison break. In the heat of the accusation, I let my anger get the best of me as I pointed the blame back at them. It was their faulty jail that was responsible for the escape of Brass after all.”

He was now looking firmly at the floor as his hung his head in shame “That dragon came about around that time and he wasn’t in the mood for talking. His eyes were practically glowing red as smoke drifted out of his nostrils. His claws… his claws had dug into the pavement tearing it apart as he looked down at us… and his teeth… I swear to you there were sparks of fire flickering by them. He wasn’t in the mood to talk… he wanted to roast us alive and he would have if not for the crowd. So instead, he told us to leave.”

The solar princess was already making a list on the needed things she needed to apologize for or help clarify before things got worse. It was bad… but hopefully the amount of good Equestria had did for New Terra would help convince them of that this was one big horrible misunderstanding.

The only thing disaster left was how Brass escaped… and sadly Celestia already had a good idea how that had been accomplished.

Now she just had to prepare a letter and hope she could get New Terra to understand what happened… and clear up any misunderstandings that might have occurred during Regal Script’s short visit. Still, somepony would have to take the fall for this disaster.

She glanced at Regal Script as she knew under normal circumstances this wouldn’t have happened, but the sad truth of the matter was that he was in charge of the mission and he was the one who caused the biggest incident to occur.

Sadly, this would spell the end of Regal Script’s political career. New Terra wouldn’t accept any terms if the pony behind this disaster didn’t suffer any punishment. Celestia couldn’t help but realize that she was partially responsible for his misfortune due to the scroll she had given him. With Regal Script’s diplomat career at an end, his family would probably try to distance themselves from this disaster of an embarrassment for them.

Regal Script’s family would most likely follow the Canterlot tradition of sending their unwanted family members to look after a small town or remote settlement as far away from Canterlot as they could find. The disgraced pony would be left in charge of running the backwater town as they would be left or die in obscurity.

If he was ‘very very’ lucky then hopefully one of his heirs would be welcomed back to Canterlot, if the town or settlement had prospered well enough to warrant Canterlot’s attention, or has managed to great acts of valor during a crises. But sadly, those chances are few and far in between.

********

Lockheart

I leaned against the wall as I slowly began to mutter to myself. It shouldn’t be this hard really… I knew where Harold’s bedroom was. I know how to get there, but the most frustrating part of it all was how I couldn’t get to the accursed room!

Entering from a window was pointless due to my poor skills in flight… and the dozen or so soldiers that would see me outside. Two hallways had been blocked off as the griffin soldiers are searching the area. Last thing I need is to catch the attention of the griffin inquisition squad.

Quite honestly I had started to give up with plan A of walking into the room as I was now looking to see if I could get underneath or above the room… then I could just make a hole in the ceiling/floor to sneak inside.

“Maybe you should get a cardboard box?” Discord mocked me “Of course, you could alway try shooting out the lights or crawling through the air ducts.”

I hissed in frustration “There are no…” I shook my head “No… just ignore the voices and focus.”

The alicorn filly walked to the end of the hallway as she said “Oh you could try asking for help!”

“This isn’t a mlp story where I’ll conveniently come across the younger brother of the villain who just so happens to want to stop his evil older brother.” I firmly stated.

“But look over there! It’s that funny pony from the castle!” The alicorn filly spoke in joy.

I walked over to the edge of the hallway as Discord chastised me “Oh so you’ll listen to her crazy ideas, but not mine? You wound me Locky.”

I looked around the hallway fully preparing to mark this area as another dead end, only to see Boulder Dash and a few non-Iron Claw style armored griffins standing guard beside him.

What was he doing here? Why was he even in Iron Claw?

The alicorn filly jumped up and down as she started to shout “Mister Boulder, Mister Boulder! Over…”

I quickly grabbed the little filly and pulled her behind the wall with one of my gauntlets, firmly placed over her mouth. She squirmed and grunted in frustration, as she was obviously upset at my attempt to…

Wait...

Why was I trying to prevent a figment of my imagination from shouting? Why was I trying to ‘hide her’ when I was the only person who could see her?

“How will it look to the other griffins when they see you cuddling up with a big ball of air?” Discord replied in a mocking tone “Also, why is Boulder Dash… loyal pony of Equestria and hand picked to help teach/test your ability with earth pony magic has decided to come all the way out here?”

I felt a shiver down my spine as he added “Why is he being brought to a guest room instead of the dungeon? I mean it’s not like he’s planning to betray Equestria, because humanity weakened the entire nation, making it a prime target to one warbird and one human turned pony, who wants to play queen... Is it?”

Okay, new plan. I needed to get close and find out what was going on. Brass in the castle was bad enough… but a possible traitor? That was even worse!

“Maybe he doesn’t know that the mean griffin is planning something bad?” The alicorn filly replied.

“Maybe Iron Claw just has a decent 401K plan or maybe the nation of Iron Claw has another fake alicorn that Celestia is interested in and she sent Boulder Dash to pick him up.” Discord replied in a sarcastic tone “What is important is that they are down there and you have a hallway leading down there.”

I looked back at the wall I was leaning against as I noticed the gem resting inside it. I used my magic against the wall and surely enough a hidden passageway was revealed. I pushed the filly into the hidden passageway sealing the exit behind me as I tried to catch up.

The filly ran ahead of me as she shouted in joy “Oh, you could give Mister Boulder the amulet and the bird. Then he could take them to Miss Celestia!”

“Or he could be a spy… maybe an opportunist who would think that it would be better to sell him out to Harold instead of trying to help Equestria.” Discord countered “Maybe he just wants to avoid Harold trying to invade his town so he’s offering Equestria on a silver platter?”

I walked down the hallway as I tried to focus on the voices. I tried to ignore the fact that Equestria was messing with me… I make a plan to run away and now suddenly Brass is inside the Castle. I make a plan to steal a cursed animal, only for Boulder Dash to suddenly arrive making me question what the hell was going on!

Am I going to run into Nightmare Moon in the next few hours, or is Boulder Dash going to turn out to be a rather vivid hallucination, like the alicorn Princess filly and the chaotic serpent of chaos?

I heard the voices start to become more clear as I slowed down. Were these the words of a naive friend, a distrustful traitor, or possibly a fool who had yet to realize the danger he was in or maybe just the actions of a powerful and ‘gifted’ individual who didn’t care just as long as it didn’t interfere with his life.

“Lord Harold is pleased that you were able to meet with him in such short notice.” one of the griffin guards replied “Though I am surprised that he sent his daughter instead of coming himself.”

“I’m hope King Harold does not take offense.” A female voice replied “You asked to speak to Thunder Peek, and I was the closest one to Iron Claw. It is an honor to visit your kingdom.”

“The view from the top of the mountain was absolutely splendid.” Boulder Dash replied in posh fascination.

“Yes… many a griffin have to stand up here and look over the mountain side.” The male griffin replied, quirking an eyebrow to the fancy dressed Earth Pony as if he was some lost tourist.

I frowned as the two griffins continued to trade meaningless words and empty gestures with each other, while Boulder Dash commented on the scenery or decorations, seemingly oblivious to where of all places he was, and acted as if he was part of a guided tour of the castle. I had spent enough time in Canterlot to recognize it. The male griffin was just trying to find whatever he could needle out of her to report to Harold before their talks… while the female one was doing her best to probe him to find out about whatever was being kept secret from her.

I picked up my pace as I heard Boulder Dash’s bride say “So why has Iron Claw asked for an alliance with Thunder Peek?”

The griffin chuckled as if it was a good hearty joke “Why it’s because we’ve stayed apart for far too long. All the other races stand unified behind their country and yet despite our skill, abilities, and prowess the griffin nations always stand apart.”

Suddenly I could taste a hit of unease as the griffin continued “Besides in these troubling times is it not best for us to put aside our differences and stand together, or at least tolerate one another?”

Thud

I looked up at the end of the tunnel, as I saw the wall start to shake. There was another thud, as dust was kicked up into the air. I could feel the hint of excitement and joy, as the end of the tunnel started to have a trickle of light leak through it.

I stared up at I worked my magic creating an opening in the ceiling. It was a bit of a rush job, but being in a hidden tunnel that was about to be forcibly opened up wasn’t a good idea. Green flames danced across the ceiling, as I escaped through the freshly made hole and sealed it up behind me.

A part of me cursed my ill luck, as I couldn’t hear them anymore. In fact, it would be hard enough trying to get back down there, without running into someone, or trying to figure out where they were going.

“Last chance.” Discord openly mocked me “You know they are going to speak to Harold. You also know that you are just a short trot away from the bedroom.”

I moved towards the bedchambers. I needed to steal the cockatrice, keep the stolen magical amulet on me, and now send a message to Celestia warning her about Boulder Dash’s possible allegiance to Iron Claw. Was there anything else that I was missing?

A griffin wearing what looked like a french maid dress came out of one of the rooms and stared at me. She was a bit bigger than most of the griffins around here, but she didn’t have a weapon, and I was dressed up like one of the guards in the castle.

“What are you doing here?” I harshly demanded, using the guard armor to cow her.

I could sense a bit of fear emanating from her as she replied “I was just cleaning up the bedrooms.”

“Which clan are you from?” I asked in a stern voice.

“House Twin Blades.” She replied as I could feel her unease.

I didn’t want to talk to her anylonger than needed. She didn’t want to stay as she had probably did something illegal.

I looked at the room she was in and then at her. It wasn’t the griffin king’s bedroom so I didn’t really care. All that matter was getting her out of here before she could start questioning why I was there.

“I suggest you leave before one of the other guards see you.” I sternly warned her.

The maid made a slight bow before heading off. I picked up my pace as I just had to avoid being caught, and more importantly, I had to pay attention to my surroundings so that I’m not suddenly caught by surprise anymore.

********

I walked into Harold’s room as searched for the last item I was looking for. I could hear the soft clucks of the cockatrice that was in the very large birdcage. I stared at the creature in disbelief as it had one of those hawk or bird blinders placed over its head. The cockatrice walked about the cage trying to push its head against the bars attempting to remove the cowl placed over it.

I shook my head at the stroke of good luck since it couldn’t turn me to stone right away… and there wasn’t any sort of elaborate defense that I had to figure out or overcome. Just a simple metal cage with a small metal hook to keep the cage door shut.

Now I just had to figure out how I was going to take the cockatrice. I mean just grabbing it didn’t seem that complicated of a plan… but the bird was big… like iguana size big. Just trying to carry it outside this place would be difficult, especially if it freaked out.

I took a deep breath, as I walked over to the cage only to see the cockatrice turn around, spread out it’s wings out wide, and hissed in my direction. I’ll admit, it was a little bit terrifying, as I saw the hind claws on the cockatrice dig into the straw matted floor as the tail thrashed about, making it all too clear that this bird was not happy.

Okay, could these things understand ponies talking to them or could they just understand what Fluttershy said to them because of her special talent? I mean some animals were semi-sentient… smart enough to follow orders with ease, but still just animals.

“It seems kind of silly to be trying to fillynap a creature that could turn you to stone.” Discord replied in an ‘innocent’ tone.

I shook my head as I rustled around in my armor trying to find something to use… maybe a good burlap sack or something.

“In fact, it seems like it would be easier just ignoring it and trying to focus on bribing a noble or sealing up the doors to the treasure room.” The Discord cheerfully replied “Are you sure it’s not because you’re feeling guilty?”

I frowned “What exactly do I have to feel guilty about?”

The filly shouted “ Why Miss Valkyrie of course! ”

I shook my head “You're just drawing conjecture.”

“I drawing a what?” the filly asked back in confusion “I don’t have any crayons!”

“I’m sure if you had any crayons, you would be doodling on the walls right now.” Discord added in his mocking tone.

I gritted my teeth “I said Con-jec-ture.” I took a deep breath “Besides the last thing I need is for Brass to suddenly pull out a cockatrice in the middle of a fight.”

The Cockatrice hissed as the creature's tail bashed against the walls, as I snapped back “Shut up!”

“You should apologize to Peanut Butter.” The filly replied “She doesn’t know what you’re trying to do.”

I watched the entrance of the cage as I muttered “What does peanut butter have to do with this?”

Discord chuckled as he said 0“When most colts or fillies get a pet, it is common for them to give them a nickname.”

“We are not getting a pet!” I hissed in frustration “We are just getting it out of Iron Claw!”

The creature paused for a moment as I walked over to the cage “Just calm down for a moment as I’m going to let you out.” The cockatrice continued to hiss in my direction, as it was preparing to peck my hand, the moment it got close to the cage door “I’m going to remove that cowl… and so help me if you try to turn me to stone I’ll keep a death grip on your little neck, so that you will be strangled to death by a statue!”

The mutant snake-bird stepped back, as it continued hissing as I shouted “I just want to dump you back in the Everfree Forest!”

At that the Cockatrice stopped hissing as it cocked its head at me in an odd angle. I felt silly having to explain myself to this bird… but if talking to the bird ensured that it didn’t try clawing my eyes out then I wouldn’t complain.

“You should also ask her if she can help out Valkyrie.” The filly loudly whispered “That’s why you’re in here.”

I bit my lip as I muttered “I already told you. I’m here for the bird to prevent Brass from doing something with it.”

“But you could have left Iron Claw a really, really, really, long time ago!” She shouted “But nope! You just walked about trying to find this room instead of sending Celestia a letter letting her know about the big meanies in this place.”

“No that was because I lacked evidence. Even if I did tell her, there wouldn’t be any reasons for her to believe it.” I quickly muttered back “Besides, I was looking for way to undermine their authority while finding a place to hide from Celestia.”

“Sure…” she replied in a slightly mocking tone… not mocking like discord, but more childish mocking… like when the CMC learned a secret and couldn’t help, but me smug or try to ‘hint’ about them knowing about it.

In short, it was the type of tone only a child could pull off.

I did my best to ignore her as I my hoof and transformed it into a griffin claw. I still had a suit of armor to protect me from it’s fangs and talons. I had a pair of shaded goggles to help try to prevent me from being petrified, but if the mutant chicken manages to do that, than my would be a statue would still be strangling it to death.

“Where in the world did you ever get that idea?” Discord asked out loud.

I grunted “Well they had some guy using a shield to defeat Medusa. That’s kind of similar to this, isn’t it?.”

“Oh yes, because we all know hollywood prides itself on checking its facts.” Discord sarcastically replied.

“I thought Mister Perseus mirrored shield just turned Medusa to stone because her gaze stared back at her; it didn’t say anything about actually protecting him from her gaze?” The filly say unsurely, with an adorable naive gesture.

“No he just walked up to the fiend and stabbed her in her sleep.” Discord dourly replied “History tends to be rather boring with the CGI fight scenes to spicen it up.

The monster slowly took a few steps forward as it stared at me… unsure if it was safe to walk out of it’s cage. I took a few steps back as the cowl was still over the creature’s eyes and I didn’t want to try pulling it out of a small cage even if I had some armor to help protect me from it’s claws.

The Cockatrice walked out of the cage sniffing the air like a dog. I slowly prepared the rope needed to tie it up with my magic, only for the bird to screech as it charged after me. I screamed as I dropped the rope and tried grab it with my magic only for the monster bird to knock off my helmet and claw it’s way into my armor.

I closed my eyes and fired randomly trying to keep it from clawing my eyes out only for the dam thing to crawl it’s way down onto my back. I stumbled about trying to get the damn thing out of my armor only to feel it’s claws dig into the point in between my shoulder/wing blades as it hissed.

Then to my surprise it curled up in that spot entrenching itself as it stopped hissing and clawing my back. I tried to look back to see what was going on… or try to remove it from my back. Every time I tried to tilt it off my back the dam creature dug its claws in and hissed as it refused to budge.

I stopped my hoof and it hissed back.

I growled back saying “Fine… but if you bite me or try to tear open a hole in my back than we can see how Kentucky Fried Cockatrice tastes!”

There was a soft hiss as the Cockatrice shifted about on my back making itself comfortable.

“Awww… Peanut Butter is purring!” The filly replied in gleeful cheer.

I took a deep breath and walked forward trying to be mindful of my new unwanted houseguest resting inside my armor or to be more precise… on my back. The stupid beast didn’t seem to care too much as I turned around and started walking towards the door.

How was I going to get out of Iron Claw?

“You’re going to leave!?” Discord shouted in a mixture of surprise/annoyance “But we’ve barely just gotten started!”

“Of course he’s going to leave.” the filly replied “He’s got Peanut Butter. He doesn’t have any other reason to stay in this creepy place.”

I shook my head “No it’s too hot right now. I stole the magic Mcguffin that Brass had and she want’s it back. I stole her cockatrice…” I felt the creature’s claw dig into my back as it hissed “I’m trying to rescue the cockatrice from her.”

The wretched beast seemed to huff in satisfaction as it calmed down. I opened up the door and looked both ways trying to ensure that nobody was about to appear and capture me.

I walked into the hallway as I muttered “I helped bribe/trick a few nobles, helped stir up a little bit of trouble while planting the seeds of doubt amongst them. I’ve done enough.”

“You found a magic amulet and a cockitrice that your sending back to Canterlot.” The filly added “You’re just a good pony who’s worried about his friends and doesn’t want to admit it.”

“I poisoned the food supply that hadn’t been devoured by Parasprites with insecticide.” I harshly whispered back “I replaced a part of this castle’s treasury with costume jewelry and cheap knock offs while using the real stuff to bribe other nobles or stuffed then inside a rainy day chest to sell somewhere else.”

“You’re trying to go back to Canterlot to give them a magical amulet and Peanut Butter!” She shouted back.

I gritted my teeth as I whispered “It’s near the Everfree forest and it’s one of the few places I know about. I mean, I don’t know anything about the other nations and I know I can atleast trust Celestia not to do anything dangerous with the magical amulet.”

Boom

The harsh sound of an explosion rang out as the floor under me shook slightly. I looked around in a panic as guards went racing down the hallway. I could hear the Cockatrice caw in confusion as we weren’t anywhere near the source of the explosion… then the bell rang.

The bell… the one that signaled the king was dead… except it just happened right after the explosion. It was as if somebody hadn’t even bothered waiting to confirm that the king was dead before they started ringing the bell. I mean, sure, I had thought about ringing the stupid bell, once just to try to have the city fall into chaos but…

I face palmed as I realized one vital flaw in my plan. I had expected the nobles or ‘lesser houses’ to follow my plan exactly how I envisioned it or to continue to slowly doubting one another until it came to blows. I had expected Brass’s allies to wait… or try to confirm Brass’s story. I didn’t expect hostilities to break out the very next day Brass had came in this stupid city!

A roar rang out through the hallway as the griffin king shouted “Who did this!”

I groaned “They didn’t even kill the king?”

I took a deep breath and loaded my rifle… oh great… now I had to try to figure out a way to kill a griffin who slaughtered his way to the throne just when someone had already tried to kill him. Maybe I can just walk out the…

I heard the sounds of talons screeching against the floor. There stood a rather large griffin with a few burnt feathers… covered in armor… and wielding two axes as an aura of bloodlust radiated from him. It was the type of bloodlust that you could practically taste when you saw him as he threw an axe near my head.

I did the only sensible thing I could think of at that moment, I ran...

********

Harold

Harold laughed as he chased after the assailant. Sure someone had just tried to kill him, but he couldn’t let something as little as a minor explosive deter him. Of course, he was thankful for that maid warning him about some odd griffin near the royal wing who was seen walking away and trying to avoid being stopped.

So naturally, this unknown griffin must have been the assassin that had tried to kill him! After all if the griffin truly was innocent he wouldn’t have tried to flee. All of his guards knew that Harold could have easily struck them with that axe instead of missing them on purpose. He grinned as he could feel his heartbeat racing as the thrill of the hunt started to consume him once again.

The masked griffin turned and muttered “Come on!”

The griffin king laughed as he retrieved the axe strapped to his back not realizing that the griffin he was chasing didn’t mean it as a challenge as fear filled his voice. All that mattered was that this griffin had challenged him as he even told Harold to come after him. It would be simply insulting and unsporting to simply let the guard take him out if this foe went through all this trouble of issuing a challenge.

Harold held his axe with his beak as he raced on all fours catching up to the unknown foe far faster than his opponent had expected. Most griffins preferred a simple tactics of either flying or running. But, Harold on the other claw, preferred using his wings to help give himself a quick boost as he leapt forward and used his talon to grasp his axe once again.

“Challenge accepted!” He yelled with glee, only to catch the griffin looked back and noticing that he was about to be attacked.

********

Lockheart

I ran as I could hear the psychotic griffin laugh as he chased after me! How the flying fuck did he find me! I was nowhere near the throne room to warrant the crazy bastard to chase after me… or did he decide that a near death experience warranted grabbing the cockatrice so he could turn his would be assailant to stone and show his beaten and battered body to his adoring/terrified populace?

To my horror, I could feel a rush of joy mixed with his bloodlust… the griffin king apparently was one of those people who just loved to fight. There was no reason or purpose it, other than just the thrill of the main… and impromptu to killing.

I turned the corner and spotted half a dozen griffins who were just in the middle of their own fight, just abruptly pause as they turned to face me “Oh, come on!”

“Challenge accepted!” The nut job behind me yelled as six other heavily armored griffins panicked and jumped out of the way.

A spear struck the ground beside my face, as I turned my head only to see the mad griffin king racing forward on all four limbs. He only paused just long enough to kick one of the guards down to the ground as he tore the spear from the griffin’s grasp. The mad king smiled as he prepared to throw the next spear.

“Oh quick time events.” Discord replied in annoyance “I hate quick time events. It’s like a cut scene you can’t enjoy or skip because you have to spot the pesky button they want you to press.”

A flashing arrow pointed to my left as I ran to the right. A spear landed just right where I would have been if I had went left.

Discord made a ‘tisk’ sound as he continued “You never know if those arrows are pointing towards where you need to dodge or where the attack is coming from, unless you use a retry or looking it up online.”

“Not helping!” I hissed through my mouth as I jumped to the left dogging an axe.

The alicorn filly shouted “Look out! He’s got his special! Hit the brakes!”

I didn’t have any time to react as something tackled me to the ground. I felt something plant their feet on my back as I saw a glint of metal to my right. I heard Harold’s triumphant laughter as his shadow on the wall showed he was getting ready to hack my head off.

I pulled myself deeper into the griffin armor as what looked like the pointy end of a pick axe smashed into where my neck was supposed to have been, if this armor actually fit me, as the griffin king’s grip loosened as he didn’t expect the complete lack of resistance from my helmet… since my head wasn’t inside it.

I swore as I heard the spidery like voice come out of my mouth, as a burst of green flames turned the stone floor into a almost Play-doh like substance, throwing the griffin king’s balance off even more, allowing me to turn about throwing him off me.

********

Harold

Harold landed on the back of his rival, as he brought his full weight. and slammed his axe against the armored neck. Without even thinking, he had prepared for the axe blade to catch as he moved to pull his axe back, getting ready to choke his rival, or slowly tear the armor around his opponent’s neck off before cutting into his throat. Instead of a grunt of pain or a spray of blood, he saw the helmet fly across the hallway.

The lack of blood caught him by surprise as the armored suit suddenly slipped out of his grasp.

Harold landed on the ground and chuckled, as he saw the eyes of something in the armor’s chest causing him to laugh “And here I thought the two sizes part was a joke!” The assailant blinked as he tried to prepare to defend himself with the sword. Harold grinned as he joked about “You know the one… It’s always a size too large or a size too small… lucky for you it was the former instead of the latter!”

********

Lockheart

The griffin king stood in front of me taunting while I struggled to pull out a weapon, only to grab hold of my gun, as the makeshift bayonet on it pointed outside of my armor. The griffin king grinned as he planted one foot on the helmet that had been impaled by his latest weapon, as he pulled his weapon free from it.

He chuckled as he joked about to himself “You know the joke… There are only two sizes of armor. One size too large or one size too small… lucky for you it was the former instead of the latter!”

“What’s he doing?” The filly whispered loudly.

Discord chuckled “The griffin is monologuing. The ‘not an alicorn’ is breaking a tradition.”

“Surviving is a valid strategy.” I harshly whispered back as I took aim with my gun.

With the crack of the rifle the griffin king moved to the side, but not before the weapon went off. Being shot is different from being stabbed by a sword, especially when you aren’t expecting it. He dropped his axe, as I took a few steps and prepared for the next shot.

Instead of running back, the mad griffin pulled a sword out from behind his shoulders, and closed the distance between us far faster than I could react. His metal blade struck my rifle knocking it aside as it hit the back of the armor.

After nearly being run through by a sword, I cursed out loud as a burst of green flames shot out of my mouth causing the griffin to jump back in terror as his sword transformed before his eyes. Not waiting to take any chances, he threw the blade back at me as the green flames finished consuming the blade and transformed it into a novelty sized candy cane that smashed against my left shoulder, as bits and pieces fell onto the floor.

Apparently, seeing his weapon turn into a candy cane didn’t stop, or even cause him to pause for a second, as he already spring towards me, before I could recover and grabbed hold of my armor. With one talon clenched onto my neck guard, I pulled out my dagger and plunged it towards the area of exposed flesh I could see.

I was swiftly rewarded with a shoulder ram to my side, and a punch to my armor’s stomach area, as he somehow had flipped me over his body, and tossed my onto my back. He grunted in pain, as he pulled the dagger out of his shoulder, as I grabbed a bottle of ale from my pouches.

He rushed for me getting ready to plunge the dagger where he thought my head would have been and I spewed forth the alcohol, and used my magic to ignite it. The griffin king managed to dodged the attack as he ran past me, while I struggled to get back up.

Staggering myself up, as I couldn’t run away from him. Still, maybe I could beat him? I watched him toss aside part of his more flammable leather parts of his armor only to see that underneath his ‘kingly vest’ was a small armory of weapons hanging on his armor.

He had even more weapons on his body that I did… and I’m the one trying to kill him! “Oh, come on! Why do you even have that many weapons?”

The griffin king just pointed a talon at me “To be fair…”

Fuck it! Grenade time!

I took out my makeshift explosive in a can and hurled it at him. The griffin immediately unclipped an axe from his side and swung it like a ping pong paddle, knocking the grenade out the window with ease, as it exploded outside the castle.

The moment he stumbled a little, surprised by the explosion, was the moment I decided to turn tail and run.

I could hear him shout in frustration as he tried to catch up “To be fair, you also have quite the arsenal yourself too!”

“Didn’t you say you were going to stop him and stop the big bad birdy from doing big bad things?” Discord openly mocked me.

“Quick Mister Lock, find Mister Boulder Dash, and see if he can help you!” The filly shouted trying to help

I grabbed the next two improvised grenades and chucked them behind my head not caring what they were just as long as they slowed down that crazy griffin. I could hear him start coughing, I think I had stunned him for just a moment…

“Magic door to your left!” The filly shouted

I turned to the left and slowed down my steps, as I saw a lot of armed griffins currently in the middle of fighting one another. I used my magic to summon up an illusion of my griffin helmet, and tried to reach the door only for all the griffins to freeze in mid sword swing, as they stared at me in horror as they must have seen my headless armor, before I had summoned my fake helmet; at least until I heard a noise behind me.

I slowly turned my head around only to see another griffin, that had been trying to stab the downed an other griffin holding the head of a statue with a sword. Behind those two, was of course a bloodshot teary eyes griffin, and that was growling as he was clenching his teeth.

********

Herald

Tears ran down his face, as he searched the room only to see a dozen other guards staring at him oddly.

Harold felt his feathers starting to puff out, as his body started to hug the ground. His eyes focused on the griffins who had been apparently been in a middle of a fight of their own stopped in mid-fight as they stared in befuddlement at their (still living) king in confusion, or possibly dread as they slowly tried to pretend everything was normal, pating on each other’s back, and trading small jokes.

Plenty of armored griffins who looked exactly the same as his current opponent was hiding within the crowd trying to blend in. A small smile appeared on his face as every griffin stepped back against the walls with their weapons by their side in ‘display’ mode.

The griffin king cleared his throat as he watched for any odd movements as he berated them “Why were you all fighting?” No griffin spoke as the silence continued while he walked “Was it because the bell was rung? Did you ‘perhaps’ thought that something happened to me and now was the time to start fighting each other because I was supposedly killed?”

To his displeasure, all the guards in the room started shaking in their armor. If there was just a single guard shaking in fear than it would be simple enough to pick him out as the imposter. He could hear quite a few shivering forms trapped within their armor, as he could tell these were not just illusions, or some sort of trick being played on his mind. His guards had shown that they were incompetent enough now, to think that the ringing of a bell was enough to descend into chaos.

In fact he was frustrated that they didn’t even have the decency to confirm he was dead before breaking out into a brawl. They should be better than this! He trained them to be better than this!

His eyes scanned the guards as spoke once again “Remove your helmets.” He ordered with no room to question

Every griffin in the room promptly dropped their weapons and removed their helmets not wanting to risk their lord’s wrath. Harold tried not to roll his eyes as he wished some of them had kept a talon on their blades if only to be ready to cut down or block off the intruder he was after. To his surprise all of the guards had head on their shoulders instead of hiding in their chest.

Harold rubbed his side as he took a moment to glance at his own armor. The left pauldron was damaged as there was a fairly large dent in it. The bullet wasn’t strong enough to punch through either due to the poor quality of the pistol or his new armor that he had made after hearing about the penetration power of a riffle was a lot better than he had expected.

The important thing was that his opponent was still hiding and trying to get some distance in-between them, before taking another shot at him.

Harold scratched his chin as he slowly walked past his guards trying to spot which one of the heads were fake. He never had a suit of armor try to kill him so it obviously must have been enchanted. The easiest test he could do would be to simply hold his axe up and have it brush up against each griffin’s head to see which head didn’t actually exist.

He felt a something brush up against his mind for a moment as he glanced at the odd decoration up on the wall. Harold had to admit he was a simple griffin. He preferred solid sturdy walls built to withstand sieges than sparkling floors to show off to guests. His statues had actual weapons that his guards could use if needed, instead of paintings or flower arrangements adorning his walls.

That is why he found the oddly placed gem embedded into the wall rather strange. Any idiot that had decided to decorate his walls with gems should have given it to the forge masters to buy new equipment, or possibly trade for soldiers, or help build relations with the diamond dogs that Brass seemed to have following her.

His beak curled up into a smile as he felt the nagging thought trying to nudge him into a certain direction. It was a pesky thing mostly because it wouldn’t have been the first time some rival lord had tried getting a third rate mage or unicorn to cast a spell to distract him. He could also see the unnatural light that seemed to glimmer around the gem on the wall, which helped narrow things down by quite a bit.

“You tricky little…” Harold began to say only for the sound of a rifle to go off.

His back screamed in pain as every griffin suddenly turned their heads in shock as the assailant. The griffin king had to admit that he didn’t expect his prey to shoot him in the back the first chance he got! His guards quickly moved to grab their weapons as Harold turned around only to see a griffin sized hole in the floor suddenly sealing itself up.

********

Lockheart

His eyes scanned the room as all the other griffins started lining up against the walls, pretending that they hadn’t been trying to kill each other just a few seconds ago. I fell into place because I knew I couldn’t make it to my hidden doorway without Harold or one of the other griffins tackling me to the ground.

The griffin king cleared his throat as he watched for any odd movements “Why were you all fighting?”

No one spoke as the uncomfortable silence continued, as I tried to catch my breath. I needed to retrieve my gun from my armor. Harold had knocked it out of my magic grip, making me lose sight of it during the fight.

I felt my own heart beat begin to quicken as the griffin king’s gaze passed over us. He was angry, hateful, and disappointed at his soldiers attempt to celebrate the supposed passing of their king.

The griffin spoke in a clear tone like a chastising teacher lecturing in front of a class “Was it because the bell was rung? Did you think that something happened to me and now was the time to start fighting because I was killed?”

I could feel his displeasure just, as the guards started shaking in their armor. The look of annoyance on his face grew, as I couldn’t tell if it was from the fear his guards were displaying, as they then realized their king was still alive… or if he thought that I had already escaped.

All I had to do was just stand still and don’t bring any attention to my…

“Remove your helmets.” The feathered bastard ordered out loud.

Every griffin in the room promptly dropped their weapons and removed their helmets, not wanting to risk their lord’s wrath. I did the same, as I struggled trying to keep an illusionary griffin head and an illusionary helmet in my hands.

The griffin king frowned, as he obviously wasn’t expecting this. I clenched my teeth as I heard the cockatrice start to wake up again. The moment the bird started clucking, Harold would know which one us was fake. I had to act soon!

There was a loud gulp as all the griffins tried not to stare at him. I could even hear one faintly whisper “Please don’t be a changeling test. Please don’t be a changeling test.”

The psychotic griffin rubbed his side as he took a moment to glance at his own armor. His left pauldron was damaged as there was a fairly sizable dent in it. The bullet hadn’t been strong enough to punch through, which meant I needed to focus on the chest.

I felt myself start to sweat, as the feathered fiend scratched his chin taking his sweet time. I felt the gun barrel brush up aside my as a soft cluck came down near my feet. I found my rifle, but I didn’t know if the bird would keep quiet…

Harold turned to look at the gem embedded in the wall, as I made a silent curse in the back of my mind.

“He found the exit.” Discord openly mocked “He found out where you’ve been hiding your exits.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know? Maybe he’s just trying to figure out where you ran to?” the filly replied

“Take the shot.” Discord whispered “Just look at him. He’s like a duck at a carnival game. Hit the bulls eye and win a prize.”

I pointed the barrel of the gun at his back.

“Don’t do anything.” The filly whispered “If he doesn’t spot you then he can’t find you!”

He looked up at the gem that hung right above the doorway to one of my hiding spots.

“He finds the doorways and you’ll never have a second chance.” Discord replied “You won’t have the chance of surprise the next time you encounter him.”[i/]

“Go out the window.” The filly countered “If you fly out the window he’ll lose track of you.”

“Until he turned his head and sees that you flew outside. Then it’s just a whistle call and a dog pile before he catches you.” Discord countered

The griffin king lifted up his claw towards the gem “You tricky little…”

The gun went off as the griffin king screamed in pain. The other griffins turned towards me, as I stomped the ground summoning my magic. In a burst of green flames, the floor gave away dropping me off a floor below me as I summoned my magic to close the hole.

********

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” He screamed in fury as he jumped out the nearest window and flew one floor down. His back felt like he had been hit by a sledge hammer as he was pretty sure one of those bullets hit flesh. Still, he was lucky enough that his opponent wasn’t able to line up a shot at his head… though apparently, the carrion bird had a gun much bigger than a pistol in his suit of armor!

The headless griffin armor ran down the hallway as it spotted Harold moving to intercept. He grabbed one of the nearby guards, and tried to use him as a shield. But, the griffin king didn’t care as he charged swinging his axe into the captured guard, knocking him aside before pulled out a one handed hammer and slamming it against the assailant’s armor, making it ring like a gong.

Harold moved out of the way, as a metal spike shot out nearly stabbing him, only to see a hole crack open in the side of the armor. To his surprise he saw that a pony was residing within the armor.

The strange black pony had a predatory look to it, with the pony’s slitted eyes and fangs twisted into a scowl, along with an unnatural jagged horn with an eerie green aura… that was currently had a gun at point blank to this face. No longer caring about being stabbed by the seemingly random spikes that came out of the pony’s armor the griffin king kicked the armor knocking off the pony’s aim before the weapon took off his head.

Harold couldn’t help but laugh as he threw his axe near the opening, causing the pony to shout “Why won’t you die already!”

“Because I’m having too much fun!” the griffin king shouted, as he snatched a nearby bottle of booze off the ground and threw his hammer at the pony’s armor, as he looked for a torch.

The pony quickly snatched the hand axe with the suit’s talons before sealing up the hole. He didn’t know how the pony was able to pull of his tricks, but that was a question for later.

“Torch now!” Harold shouted as the guards in the room, who were terrified at their king’s survival, quickly forked over the light torch they had used as an improvised weapon.

The pony was preparing for his next attack as, Harold quickly poured some of the alcohol into his mouth as it had just the right amount of pure alcohol, instead of one of those lighter drinks that couldn’t get a griffin drunk.

As soon as the pony aimed the open part of his suit at Harold, he spewed the alcohol at his torch giving the pony a taste of his own medicine. The pony quickly backed away, right in time for Harold to hurl the bottle at the suit of armor, drenching it in flammable liquid as he charged with his torch. He laughed, getting ready to set the pony’s armor ablaze, only to miss as the pony managed to open another hole into the floor, escaping one floor down. This time, Harold didn’t waste a moment as he dove straight through the hole, before his opponent could seal it back up.

A mad grin was plastered over his face, as he never thought his own castle would be used to his opponent’s advantage, as he shouted in frustration “Stop running and fight me!”

He scanned the room, trying to figure out where his foe had run off to. His opponent wasn’t allowed to run away just when he was having so much fun!

********

Lockheart

I summoned what was left of my magical strength, fueled by my own desperation to live, as I used my magic to create a hole in the floor along with an illusion of myself jumped straight through it.

A mad grin was plastered over his face, as he jumped down the hole shouting “Stop running and fight me!”

I tried to catch my breath as I heard the mad griffin rampaging down stairs trying to find me. How long would it take him to realize that he was chasing an illusion down the hole? What would it take to kill the crazy griffin!

I felt the glow of my horn die down as I mentally cursed myself for not having him try to chase an illusion sooner. Yes, I was trying to escape and I was more focused on trying to keep him away from me than trying to distract him.

My body ached, not so much from the rush of adrenaline dying down, (I was too frightened to calm down) but because of the amount of magic I had burned through trying to escape.

Okay, deep breaths… I looked outside the window, and saw a courtyard full of griffins trying to kill each other. There was fear, chaos, confusion, and thrill… if not ambition as each ‘faction’ was going out of their way to cut down their competition.

I lept out the window and glided down to the courtyard as I expected to go unnoticed in the scene of chaos. As soon as I landed on the courtyard, an axe landed at my feet as two griffins were stuck in a death brawl trying to claw each other’s eyes out.

I stepped around them, only for an arrow to embedded itself in my armor, as a griffin shouted “House Thornwood shall prevail!”

What looked like the end of a pickaxe tore into my armor as I shouted in panic. With a quick burst of my magic, I slipped out of my armor with the cockatrice squawking madly on my back. Instead of back off or shouting back in surprise, the griffin tackled me to the ground as a mad grin was plastered all over his face.

“Your one of the usurper's servants aren’t you!” The griffin shouted as he raised his axe “We deserve the crown more than some…”

I unleashed a magic blast right underneath the griffin’s chin as he fell off me. The cockatrice hissed as it crawled out from underneath my chest plate.

“Wait, don’t!” I shouted at the lizard bird, only for it to turn around and leap at me.

Instead of claws tearing through my flesh, I felt feathers and scales rubbing against my coat as my jacket started to strangle me. I felt the cockatrice’s head pop up from inside my coat as it screeched.

I stared down at it in disbelief “What?”

The bird looked at me with the cowl still covering it’s eyes, before it pecked me and screeched once again as a dead griffin fell in front of me. His killer stared at me in confusion for just a moment before turning his bloodlust at me.

Without a second thought, I used my magic to tear away the cockatrice’s cowl as the griffin was about to stab me with his pike, only to fall to the ground as a statue.

“Peanut Butter saved you!” The filly shouted.

An arrow stuck near my feet, as the cockatrice buried itself deeper into my jacket again. I picked up my rifle with my magic, and started running straight to the castle gates. Most of the griffins were focused on killing each other, but any that stood in front of me didn’t stand too well against a rifle up close.

I started pulling the trigger, as the griffins shouted in pain usually clenching their side, or their leg as I didn’t care where the bullets hit them, just as long as I could escape the griffin’s grasp. My heart continued to race, as my legs began to feel the burn from my attempt to escape from Harold.

I nearly laughed, once I made it through the gates, as I could hear them slam shut behind me. Of course, that’s when I saw the civil war spilling out into the streets as armored griffins started attacking each other. There were some that were more focused on moving the civilians to the houses and protecting them, but there were a few griffins just simply stealing the weapons and armor off the dead and using it to join the brawl.

I ran behind one of the houses as I muttered to myself “What happened? Who tried to kill Harold? Who ran the bell? Who was the idiot who failed to kill Harold!”

An arrow stuck the side of the house, as a griffin shouted “Death to the ground walkers!”

I turned to face the griffin, who was charging at me with the pitchfork, and unleashed a round from my rifle causing him to fall down to the ground. Behind him, were two more griffins were having trouble trying to reload their crossbows.

The cockatrice screeched fighting the other two griffins as one of them shouted “Devil bird!”

The cockatrice fell onto the ground, as I took a quick look at my jacket. It was beaten up, torn, and I had just noticed the various cuts and scrapes on my body. I closed my eyes as the cockatrice clawed it’s way up my back to settle itself between my shoulder blades.

Apparently it didn’t want to stay in Iron Claw anymore than I did.

I ran through the streets, trying to avoid as much of the chaos as possible, until I reached the edge of the town. Just like Equestria, the city lacked any ramparts, since all of the griffins could simply fly over the them, which left me a very long drop to the bottom of the mountain.

I took a few steps back, while the cockatrice dug itself deeper in between my shoulder blades, as I ran off the edge of the town opening up my wings. I felt the wind underneath my wings as I tried to fly down as fast as I could... until I felt a pain scream throughout my left wing, as an arrow had struck it.

I felt the cockatrice’s tail wrapped around my stomach, as it’s claws dug into my back in terror. I tried to use my magic to protect myself… The Necromancy Remedy taught me could mend flesh even if it hurt like hell as I braced myself for the pain only for the spell to fail. I tried pull out the arrow that was stuck in my wing with my magic, and when that failed I tried causing a bright light to blind everyone, but instead all that came out was a screaming headache as my horn didn’t even flicker.

My magic reserves had just hint their limits. I closed my eyes and tried to stabilize my flight despite the growing pain in my body, only for another arrow to strike my left leg. I could feel the blood dripping from my body as it grew heavier with each passing second, as the upcoming line of trees grew closer with each passing second.

I tried to steady my wings in a vain attempt to soften my landing, while the cockatrice that had a death grip on my waist seemed to loosen its grip on my back. I turned my head to see that the little lizard bird had passed out, just as something tore through the branches and smashed into my side. My body couldn’t take it anymore, as I felt myself start to pass out from the pain.

The griffin pinning me to the ground spoke in a rough voice “What should we do with him?”

Another griffin landed on the forest ground, far more gracefully than I did, as I heard Boulder Dash’s voice speak up “Get a cowl for the cockatrice, before it wakes up.”

I saw the earth pony look at me as he shook his head “This may complicate a few things.”

“Or it may be just what we were looking for love.” Replied a female griffin.

Author's Note

This chapter took a bit longer than expected, but I hope you will enjoy it.

And for those who don't know what Jingo meant...

Jingo or Jingoism --> Jingoism also refers to a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests. Colloquially, it refers to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others—an extreme type of nationalism.

:twilightsmile: The More You Know If You Didn't Already Know! :twilightsmile:

ch23 One long day

Celestia

It was in the middle of the afternoon at Canterlot Castle, as Celestia was looking over the last part of her daily minutiae of paperwork in her private desk room making sure as usual that nothing went through her. After having spent the better part of the last few days establishing what exactly happened with New Terra’s diplomatic fiasco, and having to deal with the aftermath… it still all left a lingering bad taste in her mouth. But unfortunately… somepony had to take the fall for this cart wreck of a diplomatic mission, and as much as she was reluctant having to dismiss Regal Script from his duties, it had to be, which was quite a shame really. Despite the noble pony’s nearly spotless record up until then, his series of blunders in his dealings with the settlers of New Terra was in the end absolutely inexcusable, and he had to be made an example of for his gross incompetence on the matter.

She was aware that his family was already preparing to drop him off in some backwater settlement to be left forgotten as he squandered away the rest of his days in obscurity in an attempt to remove the black stain he had left on their family’s name.

Hopefully, she would one day spot his name in the papers and that he had found some settlement that could greatly benefit from his talents, enough so to get noticed again in the slim hopes that he would have some chance at redemption in the eyes of Canterlot’s nobility to make up for his mistakes, instead of letting this one blunder ruin everything he had worked for…

Celestia glanced at the map marking New Terra as she thought about the nation. In truth, she was hopeful that they would at least accept her official letter apology towards the ‘very’ unfortunate series of accidents and misunderstandings that had transpired during their official visit. Namely, the accidental death of the as of yet unidentified chimeric ‘bird’ creature that her envoy, Regal Script, had killed from the magical backlash of a spell scanning scroll, where at that point relations started to spiral out of control leading to the eventual expulsion of her little ponies.

It was her hope that this letter could go a long way to start mend Equestria’s relationship with them, before it started to break down into a deep sense of mistrust and paranoia like it did with the Yaks all those centuries ago...

Celestia shook her head to clear her thoughts, as she tried to avoid the trappings of the endless cycles of ‘what should have been done’ out of her head, as that would lead to nowhere in the end, especially with what had happened with her recent private life. That instead she should try to forge on and not dwell in her past regrets… or to put it more bluntly... focus on the more pressing matters at the moment, like the upcoming Cultural Fair.

The ever popular event, at least to the general public, was the event held once every five years. It was done to help bring all of the different nations together in the spirit of joy, sharing and understanding, in spreading harmony between cultures in all it’s vast myriads of forms. It was also a good chance for nations to show off its traditions, or the latest popular trends, as well as showcasing the latest magical discoveries or wondrous inventions.

But, If anypony looked past the colorful parades, open stands, and various races or cultures intermingling with one another… they would see the leaders or delegates of those nations gathering together behind closed doors and discuss about the various state of affairs or issues that concern all of them together…

Normally, it would always be the same song and dance, in which each nations would in turn just grumbling to her about their own internal problems, whether it be a trading tax was considered too high, or two nations butting heads over territories. Despite all the boasting, posturing and a lot of sharp quips, there was very little in the way of actual animosity between representatives. But for this year, it was going to be very different, because there were even more of the same concerning issues plaguing every nations this time around. Instead of just having to deal with the usual informal negotiation agreements, over meals and parties, it was now going to be mostly revolving around either monster or bandit attacks that were now in levels that haven’t been seen in decades. There would also be the raised questions about the numerous Adventures’ activities, and how most of these unusually increase of natural or magical disasters, encroaching monsters, and skirmishes with bandits or otherwise that were cropping up everywhere, which eerily seemed to coincide with their sudden arrival.

Celestia bit her lip, as she had drawn the same unhealthy conclusion a long time ago… but claiming that the adventures themselves were behind it all would be (to her at least) just like blaming one of the other pony tribes for the freezing winter that the Windegoes had brought in ancient times. From her own personal experience, she knows better than to simply blaming any one group for all their woes and that it rarely, if ever, ended well. So, she would rather wait to gather all the facts before casting any decisions on the matter in question.

Still, their fears weren’t completely unjustified, but there was the more pressing concern about the ‘feral’ changelings infestation that the adventures had unwittingly discovered in their activities. The very existence of those same creatures used to be the stuff of fantasies and legends up until half a year ago, as she personally wished the feral bugs had stayed as myths, as they were a nightmare to deal with in reality.

If it wasn’t the fears or concerns dealing with the almost feral if not alien like minds of the twisted bugs, then it was dealing with their twisted queen. The horror stories alone produced around the tales of these monsters made it difficult for the supposedly ‘friendly’ changelings to be trusted by the common pony. Which was hard to differentiate the two, being that they both induce fear and mistrust with their natural abilities alone.

Of course, some of the other nations didn’t prefer or care to make the distinction between the two factions of changelings… and speaking of factions… Celestia grimaced as she found the latest reports of about the centaurs in the Netherlands preparing for their civil war, which was a complicated affair each time that it happened. She knew that they wouldn’t start until spring came, but personally she hoped that the faction calling themselves the Thunder Axes would come out on top…

And speaking of factions and confrontations, Celestia saw the list of growing worries or concerns about the troop movements in Iron Claw and how their warmongering king seemed to be preparing for a major offensive. She didn’t know what they were aiming at, but Troop movements of any kind with Iron Claw tended to be bad news for their neighbors.
Celestia lifted the documents up and placed them in their own separate pile, as she needed a quick break before delving into that can of worms, and she still had the other stacks of papers she needed to go over before finish any last minute preparations for the upcoming Cultural fair.

Celestia rubbed her aching head as she muttered to herself “Just look at the bright side Celestia. The first day of the event is a free day, meaning you won’t have to deal with any paperwork for that entire time.”

A soft smile formed on her lips, as she tried to focus on that mere thought. One entire day that she could allowed herself to have, just so that she could look around and explore the more public venues of the festival and enjoy herself. She could try and relax as she went to any of the events that interested her, or sample from any of the fine restaurants stance that would open up.

On the mere thought of those food had reminded her need to take a short break, as the gaze of the Solar Princess wandered to one of her desk’s drawers where her hidden stash of sweets were, not before she made sure that a certain unicorn mare wasn’t about to walk into the room to stop her.

Only through the use of very careful subterfuge honed from a lifetime of experience, Celestia had managed to smuggle so many wonderfully delicious treats right from underneath Inknote’s muzzle, thanks to the use of elaborate concealing spells, to avoid the detection of her nitpicky, but otherwise very helpful, secretary and her thoroughly unnecessary restrictive pastry diet that she imposed upon her some years back.

Okay ‘technically’, Celestia could always order the unicorn to stop her persnicketyness and be done with it once and for all, but she couldn’t bring herself to get angry with the mare for looking over her well being. That, and it was always so much fun for her to see how long she could get away with her little deception, and indulging in forbidden foods always tasted all the more sweeter for her.

Celestia’ mind started to drifted over the thought of all the various new kinds of pastries that have recently appeared, along with other delights that she had the chance to sample from the culinary talents of some of the ‘adventures’ that they had brought to Equestria. This of course lead her to also wonder about what other Adventurers inspired sweet treats would be served in the local pastry shops would create, along with all the other various nations new concessions stands that would attend to the event.

There would be so many different types of pastries, drinks, desserts, meals, candy, and of course cakes that would be available to her to sample (and gorge herself into) without Inkwell’s rebuking gaze to stop her. Not to mention that it wouldn’t be the only thing she could do, She might even try sneaking a peek at one of the plays, or visiting all of the museum’s special exhibits and just taking a look at all the various paintings, art, music or other various bits of culture on display.

Just thinking about it made her a little bit peckish, so she decided to give herself a small reward as she opened up the hidden secret compartment in her desk and grab… Celestia’s hoof felt the odd and almost unnatural emptiness inside the drawers.

There was almost a faint giggling sound as if fate was laughing that she could almost hear. Surely Inknote hadn’t discovered her hidden stash! She would have already given her an ear full by now. With a bright golden light from Celestia’s horn she searched the hidden compartment only to reveal that all of her snacks were currently missing!

“Is there something wrong?” a small high pitched mocking voice shouted out catching the princess’s attention and away from the pastry theft that had struck her.

Above her, Celestia could see the tiny hoof size silhouette of what she recognized to be a Breezie, with their typically cute tiny body, large head, huge eyes, with antennas as well as their four spindly legs that was hovering over her with its large butterfly wings.

To your average ponies, Breezies are generally considered as being cute and just adorable creatures to look at… While for other more cynical ponies, they are just seen as parasites that Equestria finding itself having to look after just because they looked ‘cute’, with no real redeemable skills of their own, and are incapable of looking after themselves, since they would be scattered off course at the tiniest of drafts. But for Celestia, she knew better than that. In actuality, these creatures had their own skills and expertise that most ponies wouldn't even suspect.

But in this case, Celestia was able to recognize this particular little Breezie as it was her long time friend Cloud Puff. Sporting her usual light blue coat and puffy silvery mane, fluttering down in front of her stack of paperwork, with the most widest of mischievous grins on her face that the princess had an inkling suspicion of what her presence actually meant.

For a great many years that the two of them have known each other, they have been good friends and, most especially of all, a great co-prank conspirator. Most ponies that Celestia had known didn’t appreciate a mild prank or joke, (especially at their expense), as they preferred just to stick with business or seem offended at the mere suggestion that one of their status would demean themselves in such lowly petty acts… But Cloud Puff was different, as she had proven that not only could she take a good prank, but that she could payback with pranks of her own; all in the spirit of fun and laughs of course.

It wasn’t often that the solar princess was allowed to forgo politeness as well as formalities, and just talk to somepony, much less come up with crazy wild plans for some outrageous pranks. Of course, the two regularly played pranks against one another, as the tiny Breezie was quite devious and competitive, and didn’t let her small stature ever stop her from creating and executing the most wicked of plans, as she did her best to keep Celestia on her hooves and try not to become too dull and predictable.

In fact, there are still lingering rumors of the ‘spirit of mischief’ running around the castle, leftovers from their secret spree of prank they had done against each other a few years ago... So naturally, the sudden loss of her sweets and the sudden arrival of a giggling rival prankster made the solar princess a little bit suspicious about Cloud Puff’s sudden appearance.

Celestia raised an eyebrow in doubt at the self-invited little pixie pony glanced at the empty hidden compartment, as she inquired in a gentle, if strained, tone “Why hello there Cloud Puff. Would you know by any chance know what happened to the items within this compartment?”

The breezie did her best to try and whistle innocently, before saying in a singsong voice “No…”

Doubting her answer, she was given Celestia slowly nodded her head and smiled serenely, if you discounted the slight twitches it had “You wouldn’t happen to know where they are wouldn’t you?”

Cloud Puff lifted her to her chin in mocking deep thought before finally suggesting “Oooooh, no I don’t sorry. Maybe Inknote found them?”

The solar princess furrowed her eyebrows at the obvious lie “Are you sure?” giving her one last chance to admit the truth.

“No” she chirped out, still keeping her air of sweet syrup innocence to her.

Celestia’s eyes narrowed into slits at the act and dispensing all pleasant pretences, said in a burgeoning imperious tone “You do realize that the treaty of Neighton could be applied to this situation, right? That the act of tampering with Equestrian royal property and pilfering the royal pastries meant for the sovereign,could in fact be considered an act of war against the nation of Equestria itself?” Celestia countered while straightening up her posture to tower over the tiny breezie as an all powerful imposing figure, completed with a stern face.

“Oh that could sure sound very scary” she said in derisive tone not intimidated in the least by her theatrics. Then pressing her hoof on her chin a mock deep thought “If I am not mistaken... wouldn’t you have to admit to Inkwell that you ‘had’ a hidden stash of sweets in the first place? And last time I checked, she was still hard on your case on that matter.” she ended her words with a smug self satisfied smile.

‘Curses’, Celestia thought to herself her eyebrow twitching in frustration as the little minx’s saw straight through the bluff, and she knew just as well as she did that it would bring Inkwell’s wrath down on her before ever hoping to bring to bear her threat. She bit her lip, trying to think as quickly as possible to at least manage a slight leg up on Cloud Puff, if she ever hoped to see her stash again.

Celestia just looked down at her desk as a wicked idea crossed her mind, giving her a slightly twisted smile as she surreptitiously said “Of course, there is also a ‘slight chance’ that there could be a crackdown on certain items like candy sticks from Inknote as she checks certain areas during her weekly searches.”

Now Cloud Puff stared at the princess with a hint of horror “You wouldn’t. I mean, such an idea would lead to…”

Celestia smirked while leaning toward her “I believe the term that you’re looking for is Mutually Assured Destruction.” daring the little pastry pilferer to see if she would actually act on her desperate ultimatum or not.

The little breezie hung her head, as she conceded to her strong hoof negotiating skills “Truce?”

“Truce.” Celestia accepted with the same calm ease as before “Now where are they?”

In a zip, the small breezie flew up to the ceiling and tapped against one of the stones. In a blaze of golden light, the stone slide from it’s spot as she could now spot her missing stash as it was gently brought back to their hiding place, as a crepe was placed in front of her.

The breezie on the other hoof, just waited there until a small paper wrapped tube containing sugar was floated down over to her, as she quickly hugged the peace offering with great joy while she tried to tear it open, and feast upon the sugary goodness that rested inside it’s humble cover.

Celestia couldn’t help but stare at Cloud Puff’s little scene, as she knew the tiny breezie could have easily just snuck in without anypony’s notice and get away with her pastry heist. But, she had decided to stick around and make it her duty to interfere in her endless drudgery of paperwork, and try to cheer up Celestia in her own unique mischievous way, which always brought a small smile to the solar princess for her effort.

With the previous standoff over and forgotten, the two of started to feast upon their small snacks until Celestia glanced over more of the documents that had yet to be finished. Her mind slowly started to focus back on the boring spreadsheets, as she saw more concerning reports starting to crop up.

All the drudgery of the facts and figures in front of her all seemed to meld together into one massive series of interwoven threads of tapestries where the slightest of tugs could affect the whole and unravel it entirely, at the slightest careless pull. Which she should deal with first, and in what order, or who to pass it though and with which funds to use it with? ‘Do I have enough of Item A to solve Problem B or were the problems from Disaster C interfering with Solution B that was needed to fix Problem A, but only after solving Problem C, or was it using Disaster C as an excuse to also solve Problem B, along with strengthening relations Group D by making it a joint effort of Item A and E? Or maybe if I used the Factor K instead too... or maybe instead of that…’

“Are you okay Sunny?” Cloud Puff asked, with a hint of concern in her voice breaking Celestia from her mind going into another one of her extended bureaucratic tangents.

Celestia took a weary deep breath as she lied “I’m doing okay Cloud Puff, I am just a little tired at the moment.”

The breezie glanced at the large plate with the crêpes in skepticisms as she replied with an uncharacteristic concern in her tone “And yet you still haven’t finished your little snack yet, and that isn’t normal for you Celestia. So what is it bothering you anyway?”

Celestia glanced at her mostly intact crêpes, and frowned as there were only a few bites into the top of the pastry. When did the paperwork become bad enough to prevent her from forgetting about her own meal?

In fact when was the last time she just enjoyed herself and live in the moment? Or, could she let her worries subsuming her life again... She could remember even finding time to rest when Canterlot was about to be under siege by a diamond dog army!

Celestia closed her eyes and took a couple more bites, letting the sweet sugary goodness wash over her body and push aside her recent tide worries and fears for the next few moments, as a tear of relief came to her eye. If there was one truth in this life she could follow than it was the importance of pastries… for without them a nation would surely be unable to take a step back and focus as they could see the good in the world instead of worrying about the next disaster that may unfold.

Cloud Puff fluttered over at Celestia’s side, and looked down at some of the various documents to skim over their contents, as she more or less dragged her sugary treat along, leaving a small trail of sugary powder in her wake. Her attention narrowed on a certain detail “Wait Griffinstone is being invited to the Cultural Festival? Aren’t they a bunch of greedy, selfish, birds unable to lead their way out of a paper bag?”

Celestia glanced at the document in question as she nodded her head “That was true, at least until Archibald the White managed to make his claim to the throne, and unlike his would be predecessors, he is actually trying to share the wealth of his nation with his subjects.”

The Breezie stared at the sheet in disbelief “You mean he isn’t greedy like those other birdbrains?”

“I wouldn’t go that far…” Celestia amended as she remembered her deal with the new griffin king, and her attempt to recover the missing Element of Harmony that was found in Griffin Stone. “But. he is at least trying to replace or fix most of the outdated infrastructure instead of lining his own pockets, while trying to improve the quality of lives of his citizens, instead of wasting the bits on building a new opulent palace for himself.”

If it wasn’t for the fact he held an Element of Harmony hostage in order to get the funds needed to ensure his rule, than Celestia wouldn’t have had any complaints about that crafty buzzard, which was a far cry from the previous old birds that barely managed to hold the throne before him.

Of course the real trick would be convincing the other nations about the change of leadership, while ensuring to give the new king enough support to keep their kingdom on the right track instead of letting one of the old vultures from ruining everything.

The Breezie glanced at the one of the other documents “Okay... and why are the Yaks being invited? Aren’t they more likely to tear apart the stands than to set one up?” she quirked an eyebrow in skepticism.

Celestia glanced tentatively at the sheet in question and then she sighed “That’s just a suggestion from one of my advisors Miss Cotton Hoof, as she seems to think that the Yaks might be freed fast enough to send a delegation to help and start mending their strained relationship with Equestria… Of course, it’s more likely in my opinion that they would just send an envoy just to hire more mercenaries to assist them.

The venue reserved for them was just a friendly courtesy offered, I wouldn’t expect them to have anything ready to show on such short notice.”

As a recently invaded nation, she didn’t expect the yaks to be able to recover so quickly from the Feral Changeling attacks, as they would probably use that time to reinforce their settlements, take care of the wounded, and try to find some means of paying the mercenaries they had hired. Trying to ensure the very survival of your own nation, stubbornly on their own, would seemed more important than what they would see as wasting time politicking in over elaborate meals with their neighbors in their eyes.

On a more personal note… Celestia highly doubted that the xenophobic, isolationist country full of thick headed paranoid brutes would ever want to try their hoof at dealing with trade negotiations, or politics with foreign nations.

Of course, that might have been just her own slight personal prejudices against them. To be fair, the only reason why the Yaks even went to Equestria in the first place was because they were losing the battle against the feral bugs, and that was only to hire ponies to fight for them instead of simply asking Celestia for her nation’s assistance.

She placed the documents away and switched to a more diplomatic pragmatism “But that’s highly unlikely, as the expedition force will have a lot of ground to cover in the restless cold weather up north, in their efforts to locate the feral changelings nests that are currently plaguing the yaks. There isn’t any real chance that the campaign will progress fast enough to allow the yaks to shift their attention from defending their citizens, fixing, and of course fortifying their settlements against future changeling attacks.”

The Breezie continued gazing down over the list of the various groups that were going that were likely to attend, and of course those that had the possibility to join the conference. A part of her couldn’t help but wonder what was with the sudden interest with her on the matter. But then again, the little Breezie’s interests tend to shift constantly from one topic to another for no apparently reasons other than her own.

“So, Why aren’t we on the list?” the breezie asked much to Celestia’s own unexpected surprise.

On those words, Celestia’s mind halted for a moment, as she certainly didn’t expect the look of annoyance from Cloud Puff’s face. Much less for having to dash her dream by simply stating… for a lack of a better term… her body was really, really, fragile.

Grinding the internal gears in her mind, the solar princess prepare a speech to not offend her friend’s feelings as she replied “Well, the first reason is that most of you never asked on previous occasions.”

The Breezie nodded her head “Well, I am asking now.” She stomped her dainty hoof on the desk.

Celestia winced at her friend’s displeasure and she did felt a little bit cruel for having to say it … but there was no other way then explaining the obvious to her “The second reason… As you should know, most of you have enough trouble dealing safely moving about in Equestria even with our assistance in calming the winds, or creating flight paths that you can safely move through…”

The Breezie slowly nodded her head obviously unhappy at the reminder, but still seemed undeterred from her goal for some reason. Celestia on the other hoof, felt no enjoyment in giving a reason to exclude somepony for an event, even if it was for perfectly legitimate concerns.

Reluctantly, The Solar Princess continued on in a pained grimace “Maybe if I was giving enough time before hoof would have been able to find some means to help, but not on such short notice.”

Needless to say, it would be nearly impossible to implement half of those safeguards for the upcoming event much less in such short notice. Why simply ensuring the right weather or safe flight paths for the breezies to follow to avoid the gusts created by the other winged races would take more than a week of planning much more for an event of this size.

Just a simple careless beat of somepony’s wings and suddenly the breezies would be helpless, as they could crash into other buildings or fall to the ground and trying to avoid the countless unaware pedestrians massive hooves nearly stepping on them.

Celestia looked down at Cloud Puff thoughtfully, as she watched the down trodden breezie seem hurt at being excluded from the festivities. The solar princess couldn’t help but wonder why she seemed so interested now, since she didn’t seem to care about the previous Cultural Festivals “So... what is it with your new sudden interest in this?”

At the reminder, Cloud Puff spirit lifted up again, and raced across the papers, leaving a small trail of sugar with each wing beat. She spoke with rapid interest “Because, this year is suppose to be interesting for once, with lots of fun and new exciting events that weren’t there before! Some of them I didn’t even know could exist!”

“Did you know they are trying to get a bouncy house set up?” Cloud Puff shouted in a mixture of cheer and surprise “A Bouncy house! There wasn’t a bouncy house last time or a UFO!”

Celestia quirked an eyebrow at her for a few seconds, as she didn’t know anything about a ‘bouncy house’, nor whatever a UFO stand for “Did you confirm that they were having this or were you just listening to rumors again?”

The Breezie huffed in mild annoyance at her incredulity as Celestia held up a hoof “Are you even sure that they will have any of these events being able to accommodate for your size?”

The Breezie paused for a second as that minor detail (notwithstanding how fragile they were) hadn’t cross her mind just yet. Still, she shook her head, apparently not letting a tiny detail like that stop here “Well, there will also be the a lot of other events like…”

Just then, there was a knock on the door causing Cloud Puff to zip back down to the stacks of papers in fright, either to prepare herself for the breeze created when the door opened… or that she had once again snuck out of her room without Inknote’s notice. Celestia’s aid had always insisted on the breezie on being bored, but safe in her room, instead of wondering about the castle and possibly injuring herself, not that the stubborn little sprite would ever listen her of course.

Cloud Puff looked up at Celestia in surprise. “Does somepony has an appointment with you?”

Celestia moved her plate back into the desk’s hidden compartment, in an attempt to hide the few remaining crumbs of her ‘break’, as she prepared herself for the possibility of Inknote’s untimely arrival… and thankful reprieve from Cloud Puff’s instant questions.

The Solar Princess pushed aside one of the stacks of papers, and glanced at her schedule only to smirk at the convenient timely interruption, and the reassurance of the belief that she knew who was at the door. As for Cloud Puff, she was doing her best to hide her sugary prize from Inknote’s possible arrival.

With a glow of her golden aura horn Celestia moved the remains of the pixie stick from her desk and into a safe hiding place to Cloud Puff’s relief as the solar Princess replied “Come in.”

Gently, the handle turned and the door opening up, caused the slightest of breezes that unfortunately was just strong enough to knock Cloud Puff off the stack of papers that she was standing on, and fall in between the dreaded piles of paperwork. Then, from the doorway, hesitantly poking in the study room, was the head of a familiar tan coated earth pony with a black chocolate brown mane that Celestia immediately recognized as Maxwell.

His amber eyes scanned the room looking like he wasn’t sure if he was even in the right room in the first place, until he had finally noticed the princess at the other end, and to his obvious surprise, seeing the tiny breezie trying to recover as she was left spiraling through the air like a large dust bunny.

Looking back at the breezie rendered useless by the door, Celestia tried not to laugh while the Breezie replied in a rather un-breezie like growl “Not. One. Word.”

Celestia nodded her head with a self satisfied smirk as she let the unexpected demonstration speak for itself. After all, if Cloud Puff found it difficult to deal with just this minor inconvenience, like a door suddenly, then it would nearly be impossible for her to go to the cultural fair without any safety guards.

The earth pony standing by the doorway just kept staring at the little floating puff ball in a mixture of awe and disbelief at what he was looking at, as Celestia broke him from his stupor gently “ Pardon me Maxwell, but could you please close the door behind you?”

Maxwell stepped into the room as he casually closed the door, but once again the force of the breeze it created was a bit too much for the small breezie as she fought to stay steady against the ‘seemingly strong’ gale force winds as those same ‘wings’ were in fact largely unnoticed by her pony colleague.

Maxwell seemed a little bit nervous being in the room as he spoke awkwardly “If this is a bad time for you?”

The Breezie flew back down to the stack of papers, trying to take cover as Maxwell’s voice was a little slightly bit too loud for the Breezie, when compared to Celestia’s soft and more, importantly, cultivated tone. It took a bit of effort to ensure that other ponies wouldn’t have a problem hearing her, while ensuring that it wouldn’t send a breezie flying out the window due to the volume or the strength of their own voice.

“No, it’s okay. We were just finishing up a discussion.” Celestia replied with a smirk “So, how are you doing today Maxwell?”

“I’m doing fine ...huh Princess.” Maxwell replied awkwardly with a hint of confusion, as he looked as if he wasn’t sure if he should have been more formal or not with her.

Celestia knew that he always had an awkward time talking to her at first, as he needed some a moment to stop being nervous around her, and start treating her as more like a normal pony or client. As much as she appreciated and respected the stallion, she did just sometimes wished he could speed up the process.

Cloud Puff, on the other hoof, just stared intensely at Celestia, as she seemed to be in deep thought about something in the back of her mind.

Seeing there wasn’t any interruptions, Maxwell cleared her throat, as he continued on “Uh… the letter that your highness had summoned me with…” he revealed an opened letter with her waxed seal on it.

Celestia rolled her eyes at the unnecessary stiff formalities, as she calmly replied “Please, You do not need to be that formal with me Maxwell. You are a friend after all, and you are always welcomed with me.” She noticed the slight relief he showed as she continued “And yes, I was actually just asking about how you were as we both can talk casually to each other.”

Maxwell slowly nodded his head in understanding “Sorry prin...huh… I mean I just got a letter today that said that you wanted me to come as soon as possible, so I came here the first chance I got; is it something important that you can only talk about in private or…” he rambled on.

Celestia pressed a gilded hoof on her lips and made a slight ‘shush’ as she gestured towards the breezie could Puff next to her nearby “Maxwell, could you please try to speak a bit softer?”

The earth pony looking at the wincing breezie next to her hesitantly nodded, understanding the meaning of the Princess’s request, as he cautiously walked closer toward the desk, all the while being careful with the clopping of his hoof steps.

She noticed how he still seemed nervous especially when he glanced at her. Was he trying to make sure he didn’t embarrassed himself before her, or was he trying to make sure he didn’t upset Cloud Puff? Come to think of it, she hadn’t really seen how he interacted with other clients or ponies. All the times she talked to him it was always one on one.

Cloud Puff on the other hoof seemed more interested in staring at Celestia with intent for some odd reason, causing Celestia to give a soft tap of her hoof against the desk letting the breezie know that this was to be a more private discussion.

Maxwell obviously wasn’t used to having the proper level of volume control, and she didn’t want Cloud Puff or Maxwell to feel uneasy with each other. The Breezie simply nodded her head as she flew off into the ceiling, and left through the same unseen means she had used to enter the room in the first place.

She glanced back at Maxwell who seemed to be fidgeting as he seemed unsure if he should be standing, or sitting. Celestia opened her mouth only for Maxwell to reply “Do you need any help with the Breezies taking part in the Cultural Fair?”

Celestia rose an eyebrow as she prepared to speak as it wasn’t the reason why she asked here, only for Maxwell to interrupt as he spoke with a nervous tone thoughtful gaze “I mean, I might be able to assist, though it would be on short notice.”

“You can!” a rather loud and slightly obnoxious voice replied as it descended down from the ceiling again.

The solar princess looked at the small breezie in slight annoyance by the interruption, as neither the Breezie or the earth pony apparently notice it. Maxwell rubbed the back of his head nervously while Celestia could tell that he was unsure about what he was about to say “Well, I’m not sure if you’d be comfortable with the idea.”

Undeterred, The Breezie flew around in circles zipping from one corner to another of the room as she shouted in unbridled joy “Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”

Maxwell seemingly stared at awe as he watched the fluttering acrobatic dance of Cloud Puff before shaking himself out of it, and explained with unease “Well… it’s sort of huh… it’s short notice… but we could put you in a specially custom made stage.”

Cloud Puff glanced back at at Celestia miffed “You have a specially made stage and you didn’t tell me?”

Maxwell, thankfully, coughed catching the breezie’s attention back at him, which only slightly knocked her off balance. Celestia on the other hoof was a little bit surprised at Maxwell’s seemingly simple solution, and annoyed at Cloud Puff’s interference at not taking the hint to leave. Sadly, it went completely unnoticed by the breezie, who was solely focused in on the nervous pony’s solution.

He glanced back at Celestia causing her to quickly switch back to her all knowing and caring composure, as she tried not to pressure Maxwell into making a hasty decision.

Maxwell, on the other hoof, just seemed to start sweating bullets under the close attention until he finally gave his reply “Because it would look like we put you into a glass butterfly cage.”

“A butterfly cage…” Cloud Puff repeated tilting her head in the process as she seemed unsure of what he meant by that.

Maxwell slowly nodded his head as he tried to carefully explain it “Well, it’s similar to it, as in we put them in glass jars to see them, in with wholes on the lid, as the holes are big enough for oxygen to flow through, so they won’t asphyxiate. The glass would prevent most of the noise or outside forces from bothering you and it would help protect you… we could also build a backdoor that you could use to enter or exit the stage. All though, I’m not sure where you’ll be resting or how to deal with transportation issues…”

Celestia continued to nod her head as Maxwell had finally stopped being so shy around her while he continued talking about his solution for the Breezies. A small part of her felt like chuckling as this was where he was at his best. He just tried to find what the problem was, figure out the easiest solution, and then try to double check or explain it so that his client would understand.

In fact, if he was a normal pony born in Equestria he would have probably been hired as one of her aids… yes, she could picture him wearing a finely tailored Canterlot suit that helped show off more of his flank than… no she had to focus on the speech. She couldn’t let herself be distracted by such frivolous thoughts.

Cloud Puff zipped back to Celestia muzzle, and stared back at her scrunching her face at her “Why didn’t we try that before?” She squeaked out in wondrous joy.

Celestia flinched at the munchkin’s rebuke as Maxwell chipped in “Huh, because… you might feel insulted as some might compare it be being trapped like zoo animals inside a glass cage.” he sheepishly added.

The Breezie looked intently back at Maxwell, then at Celestia, before back at Maxwell. While the solar princess had to admit that she hadn’t thought of Maxwell’s idea before… though she could see why he was hesitant in bring up that solution in the first place.

Maxwell rubbed the back of his head “I mean I have some ponies that can help build the stage for you, and help set it up… but this is kind of going to be a rushed job, and I’m also not sure where accommodations could be made for where you would eat or sleep, or even what you will be presenting to the cultural festival.”

Celestia glanced back at Cloud Buff as the princess chipped in “I’m sure you would also need to check if any of the other breezies would want to participate before signing them up for this. Otherwise, I believe that the rest could he dealt with easily enough once the essentials are done.” she interjected in with her typical conciliator tone, wanting to get this discussion to just be over with now.

The Breezie finally noticed the subtle glare Celestia was giving her, as it was the same expression she had used when the princess couldn’t find her missing snacks, letting the breezie know that it was time for her to leave. “I’m sure they’d go along…” she sheepishly smiled backing up in the process “just as soon as I tell them about it. Of course, some of them might want to insist of the story with Erlking.” she chirped that last part with an air of mischievousness to it.

Before they knew it the breezie flew away as they waited a few moments to finally speak privately together. Just two fully grown ponies, alone, talking about whatever came to mind, instead of having a third wheel constantly interrupt them at every inopportune moments. She didn’t know why Cloud Puff couldn’t take a hint to leave, or why it had annoyed her more than it should have?

As she began to ponder about it’s meaning, Maxwell finally asked “Is that it?” he quirked an eyebrow tentatively, with maybe some unease in it.

Celestia shook her head break out of her musings “Actually, I had invited you here for an entirely different issue.”

She noticed Maxwell’s ears fold as Celestia felt a little bit guilty for her phrasing. Then again, she had felt a little bit uneasy about meeting him after their last encounter. Sure, nothing bad had happened and he had given her his full consent… but the spell that Celestia had casted back then could sometimes had… brought unintended results.

Not that there was anything wrong with Maxwell. He was a very healthy earth pony stallion with a good head on his shoulders and a very kind personality. Though she did find it a little bit odd at how he managed to be so skeptical and yet so utterly naïve about when it came to certain things… which was kind of cute in it’s own way.

So maybe she might have enjoyed teasing him a little bit more than most ponies, but there wasn’t anything that special about it… right?

She looked back at Maxwell as she tried to hide the slight blush she was feeling, as the earth pony looked so adorably nervous… “There is a small social event being hosted by Miss Azura and I managed to help get you invited to it, as thanks for your great services with dealing with the yaks.”

Maxwell looked up at Celestia in stupefied surprise as he could only ask “Why?”

The Solar Princess smiled a demure smile as she felt a small hint of embarrassment as she tried to casually explained “You helped many other ponies find jobs while finding help for others in their hour of need and, I thought this could help you out.” she added coyly.

Maxwell sighed in relief, apparently happy that it was just an event were rich nobles gathering together, which would be for him the perfect place for him to get some networking done and hopefully have the chance to enjoy some fine food and wine while he’s at it. It would also give her a chance to see how effective he was at mingling with the nobility of Canterlot, and how they in turn reacted to Maxwell.

Celestia pulled out the letter of invitation to the event “Remember there is also a dress code, so you may want to pick out your best suit for the evening.”

There was an audible gulp as Maxwell replied “Huh, what kind of suit?”

The solar princess smirked as she knew all too well about some of the odd cultural quirks the adventures had and how some of them would clash against Equestrians “Well, for one cutie marks are traditionally exposed…” She casually whispered in his ear, knowing full well that it would get a rise out of him as he always looked cute when she talked about it.

Upon hearing Maxwell’s face turned a slight shade of red from embarrassment, but quickly regained his composure. Smirking, Celestia had a good feeling that he currently lacked a suit that matched the dress code… though a part of her couldn’t help but wonder what he would pick out.

She tried not to smirk as the thought of flirting a little when he finally wore the suit to the party just to fluster him up… come to think of it she hadn’t really flirted with anypony in a long time.

Celestia took a quick glance around the room, making sure that there were no prying eyes or hidden guards, spells, or ponies as she prepared to ask the big question. She was fairly certain Maxwell hadn’t mentioned the spell she had used on him to check him out… but the odd(?) implications… surely he had to have asked somepony about it, given the significance of the spell.

“Maxwell…” Celestia slowly replied “I know that in some circles that spell can be seen as…” she just had to play it down a little.

Maxwell spoke in an almost booming voice “What was that breezie here for?”

Celestia looked back up at Maxwell as he hesitated for a moment “I mean if it’s not too much trouble.” she rose an eyebrow at that comment as he continued “I mean, I’m sorry if you were about to go back to work, but…”

She didn’t hear what he had said as she just realized that he hadn’t heard her question. In fact now that she realized she didn’t even notice that she was looking down at the table and speaking in such a low voice that the stallion in front of her hadn’t even heard what she was saying!

Okay, maybe she was a bit better at teasing him than speaking about something that was a little bit embarrassing, but surely he must have some questions about the spell she had cast a few nights ago on him!

“You don’t have any questions about the spell that I used to check your condition?” Celestia asked out loud in disbelief.

Maxwell stared at her in confusion “Uh… is there anything wrong? I mean I was a bit nervous, since I thought you might have found something wrong with my health, especially after not going into detail what the reason you wanted me to come to Canterlot Castle today… or is it because you find some way to deal with the curse…” he kept rambling on, working himself in a panic in the process.

Celestia placed a hoof to her forehead and tried not to sigh… He apparently was under the false impression that she had ‘discovered’ something wrong with his physical health… Of course, the real issue was that Maxwell didn’t understand the deeper implication of that particular scanning spell… as it was sometimes referred to as ‘soul gaze’ or ‘lover’s sight’ too some circles, as the spell could be used as…This spell could be used as a relationship compatibility test between two ponies, and she had gotten a slight inkling of what was the level of compatibility between the two of them…

Of course, she didn’t pay too much attention to that part of the spell. It wasn’t like she was one of those ponies who believed that magic would find their one true love and such. She certainly wasn’t pretending to be somepony with a lovers matching cutie mark, simply deciding the fates of couples all on the scores of some random spell she cast on their without their consent or understanding.

Okay… ‘maybe’ she did try checking a little bit more into his background afterwards, and maybe there was a possibility that she…

Celestia quickly discarded these thoughts, as she focused back to Maxwell “No there’s nothing wrong, but the question you wanted to ask me about was for the Breezies?”

Celestia was torn between the happy change of subject, or the slight annoyance that she had yet to inform him about the implications of the scanning spell.

Maxwell slowly nodded his head “Well I know that Equestria helps the Breezies, but I was kind of wondering what exactly they do…”

Besides playing pranks on each other, having a good laugh, or just being somepony to help remind her to take it easy when the level of paperwork and problems threatened to consume entire rooms of the castle…

“Oh, they usually help Equestria deal with anything that involves other dimensions. That would including summoning or closing dimensional portal, stopping dimensional bleeding, or tracing magical portals back to their origins.” Celestia replied with ease, as that was a far easier question to answer than the issue she was trying to ask Maxwell.

The earth pony of course was staring at her in disbelief “What?”

“Well, the Breezies were shortly discovered after Star Swirl the Bearded had tried casting away dangerous threats from Equestria into other realities.” She replied with a hint of regret “It sounded good at the time until what the Breezies refer to as ‘dimensional bleed’ started to take effect. It’s how the portal to the Breezie’s home dimension first appeared in Equestria.”

Maxwell’s eyes widen in disbelief “Wait… so the little fluttery pixie ponies…”

“They are Equestria’s top experts in portal and dimensional magic spells.” Celestia replied without skipping a beat.

She loved watching ponies wide eyed expressions when they realized just how important Breezies really were. Still, this was a race that stood with a magical portal that opened up to a different reality on a clockwork like schedule. Was it any surprise that they were able to know so much about it?

Maxwell coughed as he looked slightly embarrassed as he asked “Uh… do you think they could…”

Celestia nodded her head “Actually, Cloud Puff needs Star Swirl’s Planar Alignment Amulet in order to help send any of you back home. Or, wait until Spring for the portal to open back up for her colleagues to help her be able to find, open, and safely transport all of you back to your homes by the same method you had arrived in Equestria.”

He stared at her in disbelief “That’s it?”

Apparently he hadn’t expected that she had already found a possible solution to their displacement problem, and was still searching for other means as well. Of course, they were probably looking for something along a faster time schedule than what she currently had.

Still, she couldn’t help but smirk as she cheerfully replied “You didn’t think that I would just sit on my hooves when so many displaced ponies landed on my doorstep would you?”

He shook his head as he looked a little bit more embarrassed “So… why doesn’t Cloud Puff have the Amulet?”

Celestia felt that smirk die on her lips, as she remembered the main reason why she couldn’t just send them all home with just a wave of her horn. It also sadly made her look to not nearly be as all knowing, or as smart as she tried to project to her subjects, as even she could still make mistakes or be tricked by somepony else.

“Because…” Celestia saw the look of pleading hope in his eyes as she felt bad for dashing his hopes “It was in route to Canterlot, but was stolen during the attack on Timberton. Right now, the pony calling herself Brass Balls, or one of her allies are most likely in possession of the amulet.”

It was a safe bet that this was true. The members of the Royal Guard reported a similar description to the portal that matched Star Swirl’s amulet when used correctly, and the almost sudden, or instant escape from the jail did match with her theory… unless there’s just so happened to be another powerful magical artifact that just happened to coincidentally had the same abilities as Star Swirl’s amulet.

He just stared at her in disbelief with his mouth a gasp and she felt sorry for him and slightly ashamed at herself. He had just found out that there was a possible simple way to send him back home… and it was missing because the great and all powerful Princess Celestia ruler of the sun… was outwitted by a mere bandit, who had only stolen it to use as a ‘get out of jail’ free card whenever she was captured.

To make matters worse… even with the bounty, the backing of the royal guard, and some of Canterlot’s best minds… That simple highway bandit had not only managed to escape every attempt to capture her… but when they had finally caught her… she escaped and caused a major diplomatic incident between Equestria and New Terra.

Maxwell just stared off into the distance as he replied with a hint of disbelief “The one item that could fix it all… is in the hands of a thief?”

Celestia tried not to flinch as she felt the guilt grow. In retrospect she probably should have started the chase after Brass before she caused the Tartarus breakout. In fact, she could have probably solved a lot of problems by just using the amulet, and showing it to the public that she had a possible method for the wayward souls to get back home.

Sure, there might been some disbelief, since it was more of a one way trip, and even then it would still take some time to properly align the portal, along with the assistance of Cloud Puff and the other breezies to make sure they were all sent back to their proper homes…

But right now, the only chance they had to make that solution work without the amulet, they would need some of the best experts the Breezie’s had and that would have to at least wait until the spring. Beside that who knew how long it would take to properly create a magical spell or artifact that could be used to send everypony home?

She glanced at Maxwell with his drooping ears and sulking look as she could hear him muttering underneath his breath… most likely trying to figure out a way he could help or beating himself up for not realizing that a quick and simple way home had slipped out of all their hooves.

She knew how frustrating it could be to look at a problem in hindsight, even more so beating oneself up with what could have been, or what should have been done, and how trying to focus on solving a problem in that mindset tended to be counterproductive… or painful.

All she had to do was come up with something other to say… just the first thing that came to mind to switch the topic to something else like the original is… the second thing to come to mind quick!

“Have you ever heard of the history of Erlking?” Maxwell perked up at her as Celestia wished she had picked a different topic.

“Who?” Maxwell queried with a hint of curiosity.

“You asked about the Breezies…” Celestia slowly replied “And one of the stories they might pick is the story of Erlking.”

Maxwell nodded his head forcing the solar princess to continue with the story… and she’d need to be careful since part of the story involved Luna. Oh why did she bring it up?

Oh that’s right… stressed under pressure and a sufficient lack of sweets.

With a deep breath Celestia resigned herself to her fate as she said “Before the Breezie portal opened up in Equestria they were facing against an evil breezie overlord named Erlking who had tried to conquer Equestria.”

“That must have been an easy villain.” Maxwell snorted.

There was a small silence as Celestia could feel her cheeks starting to turn red. She started to notice the growing look of confusion on his face from her prolonged pause before continuing again“This was before the Elements of Harmony were found which really would have made our job easier back then.”

“He was bad enough to warrant the Elements of Harmony?” He spoke in disbelief and shock “What did he do? Raise an army of zombies? Summon portals sending ponies into far off lands?”

Celestia flinched as she only wished he was that…well… competent? Dangerous? Deadly?… “He flew around and broke stuff… by bumping into them.”

“How big was he?” Maxwell asked as he tried to picture of just how big this villain possibly was, probably coming up blank.

He was probably imagining something like a giant or possibly a breezie that was the same size as a pony… not a tiny puff ball that even Cloud Puff would refer to as small. Still, there was a good chance that Cloud Puff would pick this story just because of how embarrassing it was to Celestia, so it would be better if he heard it from her.

Swallowing her pride, she spoke trying not to let her embarrassment show through “He was actually even tinier than Cloud Puff… he would have come up to her neck to be precise.”

She could see the look in Maxwell’s eyes… the same questioning look that all of her subjects had when they tried to picture the tiny terror that would have been so much easier to have dealt with if she had the Elements of Harmony back then. Oh, she had no idea what they would do to the tiny evil... but it would have saved her a lot of time, effort, and embarrassment.

Celestia closed her eyes, as she tried to hide her embarrassment as she continued “At the time, we heard reports about a warlord trying to conquer the lands so we rushed out to stop him.”

Like a foal, he just nodded his head hanging on to every word as she continued on “When we had arrived he had a hundred breezies at his command. At first, we thought he wasn’t a threat, as we were willing to hear out his demands, as we thought back then that one of the town ponies had accidently chopped down a tree that they were living in.”

“What did he do?” Maxwell asked just like everypony did.

Celestia cleared her throat as she tried her best breezie voice “We be de evil army come to conquer ye lands! Bow down or face the might of Erlking ze Mighty an’ Furious!”

She shook her head suppressing a smile “We had a hard time not laughing. His accent was horrible, not to mention the fact that all of the previous threats facing Equestria didn’t have a high squeaky voice that sounded as if it belonged to a foal toy instead of an evil overlord. Of course, it didn’t help their image when… one of us flapped our wings during the laughter scattering their army formation, and even sending their ‘king’ falling into a ill placed mug.”

She smiled fondly as she remembered Luna back then. How the two of them had stared at the oddity in confusion, before her sister started ‘gushing’ about how cutie the tiny army of invaders were, and if they could place them in the royal gardens.

Celestia let herself enjoy the memory for a few moments before she continued “We prepared to offer them an alternative from trying to ‘conquer’ Equestria since we didn’t see them as a real threat, but then of course, that’s when they decided to attack.”

Maxwell stared at her in disbelief as Celestia felt her embarrassment grow. This was always part of the story that she hated having to say. Mostly because it showed how inexperienced she was back then… and how embarrassing it was to admit what happened after that.

She closed her eyes and muttered “They attacked us and won.”

“Uh…” Maxwell tried to figure out what to say. Celestia knew that look… that moment of confusion… how her various deeds, titles, and victories against countless foes that could have even threatened the world… could conceivably lose to a Breezie.

“We tried to take them out with non lethal force but…” Celestia swallowed the lump in her throat as she explained her… defeat “Breezies are tiny and while their weapons were closer to pin pricks… their tiny swarm didn’t fight fair, and by fair… I mean they swarmed us and started pulling hairs out of our manes and coats. They tried ramming our faces… it was like being attacked by a swarm of gnats except they were slightly bigger and could throw insults.”

Of course, that wasn’t the worst part of it all… the part she always hated “Then of course, Erlking tried to ram us… but it didn’t work, as he bounced off my body and managed to hit an old sign’s rusty hinge… causing the tavern sign to fall on my head knocking me out.”

“What about the other guards?” Maxwell asked in confusion.

Celestia bit her lip before she slowly replied “He had managed to somehow accidently break a lamp post, which fell on them rendering them unconscious. The townsponies of course surrendered because they saw them take us out, but the tiny warlord didn’t take much, mostly because he was too tiny to take anything of real value.”

Still, she could remember Luna ranting profusely about trying to track them down to get revenge. In fact, Celestia still felt the same mixture of embarrassment mixed with her own bruised ego from so long ago. How it felt when she woke up only to realize that the tiny breezies had knocked her out and forced the town to surrender just because they managed to defeat two alicorns.

Trying to show you were a competent leader, and that you could protect your own subjects, was kind of difficult if word got out you lost to a creature that struggled against a gentle breeze or a few rogue rain drops.

“For the next two months we tried to hunt them down…” Celestia replied as she tried not to remember the chain of humiliating defeats that in retrospect… probably had Discord’s claw in making them possible. Otherwise, she could not explain how the breezies somehow managed to knock her out in full plate armor, or those same breezie were able to steal the armor and leave her tied upside down to a tree.

Of course, Luna didn’t stop laughing at her until she ended up in a much more embarrassing defeat against the little pest, that somehow involved a couple of eggs, chicken feathers, and of course tree sap. It was something which Celestia would always bring up whenever Luna mocked her older sister, after her latest epic failure to capture the tiny demons.

Maxwell coughed “How bad was it?”

“We kept running into similar disasters just like when he had ‘defeated’ us the first time. He would fly about, while the breezies would try yanking out hairs, before he accidently cause a branch to break, or something heavy to fall on our heads, or hit our sides…” Celestia glanced at the papers in her desk “It was like one of those cartoon strips in the newspapers.”

Maxwell winced at the mental image as it probably involved a comically small breezie hitting Celestia in the face with a frying pan “So, What was the worst thing that he did?”

His face looked simultaneously incredulous and wondered, which she thought he always looked cute when he did that. It may have in fact been the reason why she was still continuing to tell this cringe worthy story despite the rising desire to hide her face under a layer of pillows.

Thankfully the one small saving grace of the story had finally arrived... well saving grace or disaster, depending on your point of view. After all, before that disaster, he was ranked somewhere in the ranks of highway bandit… before he actually became a threat to Equestria.

“He managed to steal Star Swirl’s Amulet and started randomly summoning wild creatures.” Celestia slowly replied “Star Swirl’s Planar Alignment Amulet was used before to banish threats, but it was now being used to summon them.”

The look of horror on Maxwell’s face said it all. Fighting a tiny breezie that was lucky was one thing… fighting whatever monsters that came from beyond the veil, or dealing with random creatures suddenly torn away from their worlds was a disaster.

Celestia remembered how difficult it was tracking down the little tyrant, and stopping his trail of destruction “Near the end he tried to summon his ‘kingdom’ in an attempt to bring enough forces to ‘fully conquer’ the lands, and the amount of chaos he caused was only second to Discord himself.”

A small smile appeared on her face “Though without his iron hoof hovering over his subjects, they had decided to rebel against his tyranny back home, so when he finally managed to figure out how to open a portal back to his kingdom he was meet with a small army of his own breezes that attacked him. They helped us capture Erlking, and fix all the damage that he had caused, which eventually lead to the treaty of Neighton .”

Maxwell seemed to chuckle at that, seemingly forgotten his previous sorrows as she did have to admit it was rather humorous that his plan did work… only to lead for his own subjects to capture him and put him on trial, since he certainly didn’t endeared himself to them as a beloved ruler.

Maxwell smirked “So everything worked out in the end?”

Celestia continued on “The Breezies did try to help Equestria deal with the crisis left by their former king’s actions, and help seal any dimensional breaches, in certain areas as some parts of Equestria were being warped to fit or fall into line of the dimension they were being affected by.” Celestia shook her head “Of course the tiny tyrant’s actions had likely attracted Discord’s attention, as we then had to deal with him shortly afterwards.”

She glanced out the window towards the gardens “That’s why Erlking’s actions barely left an impact in Equestria’s history books. It’s harder to separate the disasters he caused with Star Swirl’s amulet from the chaos unleashed by Discord himself…”

Celestia thought back to their first fight against Discord. How they lost and then searched for a way to beat him… how they found the Elements of Harmony and started to secure their roles… and how the two sisters had started to drift apart in the aftermath.

“Were you thinking about your sister Luna?” Maxwell asked out of concern as Celestia froze and stared back at him “I’m sorry if I offended you…”

Celestia shook her head “No… it’s just…”

‘How do you know about her?’ she felt like asking out loud

Maxwell took a few steps back as Celestia finally realized the answer “Oh right… the Everfree forest.”

He stared at her in confusion as the solar princess remembered about all the items, documents, and pictures and banners of the two royal sisters inside the old castle. If there was anywhere in Equestria that would have information about her sister, then it would be there.

“I was just wondering how you knew about her.” Celestia finally replied “Still I do miss her from time to time…”

Maxwell nodded his head “I know what you mean.”

She noticed the look on his face as she remembered that he was separated from his own family. In some ways, Celestia was luckier because she had a chance to right the mistakes she had made all those years ago. Maxwell, on the other hoof, was just left on the vague hope that some unknown magical artifact that he couldn’t find would be able to help him out.

“What about your family?” Celestia asked in turn “I mean…”

She paused as she recognized the crestfallen look on his face as it was one she was rather familiar with. In fact she had seen in many times in these past few days on her own face when somepony talked about her sister. How her memories would bring back to mind all the good and bad times she had experienced with her sister… how she lost her… and how it would be a long time before she would even see her once again.

It took a little while, but Maxwell finally spoke with a hint of joy in his voice “Well my sister... she was kind of a little twerp…”

He slowly began talking more and more as the floodgates finally opened up. Celestia watched him speak about his family, as a part of her was even surprised that she had asked him about them. Still, that look on his face made her happy, as she continued listening on to the stallion eagerly describing his family to her.

*****

Maxwell

I had talked with Princess Celestia for over an hour about my family, until I finally left her office feeling a little bit better. It felt nice talking about them with her, even if my memories of them were a little bit fuzzy on some of the details at times… It was still nice touching those old memories again. It was nice... talking about them with her.

I shook my head as I tried not to get too caught up in the past as I focused on the present. I was kind of excited that Celestia just wanted to invite me to a party… and a little bit confused about the gesture at the same time. I mean, I’m happy that I am being invited to a high class party full of important figures as it would be a decent place to mingle, maybe enjoy some good food, and of course try to get the tavern a couple more contracts for the future… But if I have to be honest... meandering in a crowded room for hours on end isn’t exactly a thing that I’m looking forward to and I really don’t know how ‘high class’ it will be.

I chuckled as I remembered that I had originally started this side business by just listening to other people’s problems and asking what they needed help with and just matching them up with adventurers trying to find work. What started off as a joke of simply nailing a request onto a board had actually become a viable job that… Before I knew it, everyone was coming for me for work, or giving me contracts to hand out, with a small finder’s fee of course.

Somehow, along they way, it started to expand to finding adventures including all of the needed supplies and material that were required as no one wanted to go through the hassle of going through each supplier themselves… nobody said it would be easy to run an adventurer’s guild and I really should hire some more help mostly with accounting and record keeping.

Especially when it comes to writing out the contracts. Some Equestrians don’t know how to negotiate with adventures or simply try paying as little as possible… and some adventures try to overcharge or don’t know or even try to haggle with prices.

I glanced at the doorway towards Celestia’s office, as a part of me still thinks that half of the reason why she invited me was because she just enjoyed teasing me. Still, with a gentle tap against my saddlebags, I felt the reassuring sound of a bag full of bits.

Yes, the job with the yaks was hectic… and the one with trying to explain or pick some of the art for the Cultural fair was kind of sudden… but that was mostly because the previous pony in charge kind of had a mental breakdown. In fact, come to think of it, more of my stressful or chaotic jobs also were linked to Celestia…

I’m probably over thinking it, as the last sudden work that fell on my lap I had from her was modifying a large diorama, so that a bunch of pixie ponies could use it for a show. Of course, she’ll probably use it to tease me about what suit I was going to wear to the party… I’m really going to need to get a new suit.

“Hey, you listen!” a small voice shouted, that I couldn’t see where around me it came from, until I looked above me.

When I looked up, and saw that it was the same tiny blue breezie from Celestia’s office as I felt tempted to making a Legend of Zelda joke, but held off on that, she probably wouldn’t get it anyway.

The Breezie floated down in front of my muzzle, as she had what some might call a devilish grin. Of course, on a breezie it looked ridiculous “Your job is helping ponies out right?”

I nodded my head not sure what that little talking mayfly would want “Uh, is there something else you want with the stage, maybe?” I asked

The Breezie flinched as I had apparently spoken too loud for her tiny ears again. Her head stiffen up and cleared her throat as if making a royal declaration; well as much as it can be from a pint sized fairy “The Great Klok Magiker Cloud Puff, Ambassador of the Great Caleidoscope Horde has a special job that she needs help with!”

I stared at her all cross eyed with her stomping, but I was kind of curious about what a Breezie could needed help with or how they could pay… wait Celestia said they could get us home with the missing Star Swirl amulet. I did my best to look presentable as it wouldn’t hurt to have them owe me a favor in the future.

“I’d be happy to help.” I softly replied.

The Breezie tried to straighten herself out before flying around me. I patiently waited as she seemed to be looking me over… or probably trying to get a peek at my cutie mark since cutie mark and job placement seemed to go hand and hand with ponies.

Eventually the small breezie stooped in front of my face as she replied in a hush tone “Well… my friend needs some help.”

“What does she need help with?” I asked preparing myself for a sudden pollen hunt, or maybe a request for tiny blankets or dolls…

“She’s a pony, not a breezie.” Cloud Puff replied as if reading my thoughts “She has also been helping us out a lot and it would be nice if she could enjoy the cultural festival.”

I couldn’t help but smile as this would be an easy job. I mean I’ve helped set up some of the events and helped give out a few job contracts, so it would be easy to show a pony around the event.

“So you just need someone to help escort her around?” I calmly asked making sure I knew all the details.

The tiny breezie landed on the end of my nose, as I tried not to shake her off or sneeze, as she wore the same devious smile as before “It would be great if you could show her around as she would probably normally just stick to the sweets shops.” she started walked across my nose trying to find a better spot to stand “And, she’s also kind of a bit overworked and she doesn’t get a lot of days off.”

I tried to keep my head still, as I felt her hooves dance across my nose. It was a very odd feeling… almost like having a butterfly in boots resting on top of your nose.

“Also, she’s kind of fragile… I mean she’s not a pushover, but without a schedule she doesn’t exactly know what to do with herself so you’d need a little bit of planning.” Cloud Puff added.

Fragile, schedule oriented, a bit nervous and shy… it almost sounds like she is describing Twilight Sparkle. “That won’t be too difficult. Any places in particular she would want to visit?”

“Museums, art shows, libraries…” Cloud Puff replied as she didn’t sound that interested “That sort of stuff.”

Now I was curious about what this mystery pony looked like. Maybe this was Twilight’s mother or somewhere along the Twilight family tree, or could this be a former human that took a Twilight build?

“Well she’s a bit nervous…” Cloud Puff said with a hint of embarrassment “Especially about her name and how some of the Adventures react around it. Something about her and the Brave and Beautiful NutMeg and looking for rainbows or something like that?”

My brain froze as that name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember a pony named Nutmeg in My Little Pony. Still, the line about rainbows sounded more like an advertisement than a…

“What does she look like?” I asked out loud.

I know some G1 jokes or references like Radiance, Gigor, or whoever else came from the first version of my little pony, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the old shows, much less had access to the internet.

Cloud Puff of course seemed delighted as she replied “Oh she has a pink mane, white coat and a cutie mark of four hearts in a circle with four triangles in-between them.”

My brain slowly started putting the puzzle pieces together. Nutmeg, rainbows, pink mane…

“Uh…” It couldn’t be “Does she have a blue bow tied to her tail” The breezie nodded her head as I spoke in disbelief “Is she called Sundance by any chance?”

“You know her?” Cloud Puff shouted out in joy.

Oh this wasn’t good. I mean it was good, but it wasn’t good because it involved a G1 pony who didn’t get all the references, or jokes being thrown at her as she was probably getting tired of them.

“I’ve heard of a similar pony from a bedtime story…” I meekly replied

That’d would be a good enough explanation for her. I mean even if this pony looked exactly like Sundance from Generation One she wouldn’t be the exact same pony. After all, Applejack G1 and G4 are different ponies.

“Anywho!” Cloud Puff replied apparently unphased by my answer “I need help finding somepony that can help. Somepony who knows how to deal with crowds, somepony smart who can help point things out, or help explain some of the fancy artsy stuff or cultural thingies.”

“You mean someone to help guide her around and know enough about the new art pieces that’s going to be exposed.” I stated, as I was drawing up a list of candidates in my mind.

“Yes, and he’ll have to have to be nice. Not nice as in he looks nice, or is a nice pony…” Cloud Puff added quickly “He’ll need to be able to talk with those fancy upper stiff ponies.”

“Someone who can deal with other ponies and knowledgeable enough to not cause a scene or embarrass her in front of nobles.” That would limit some of the options “Do they need to be upper class nobility or…”

“Oh just somepony who won’t look like a complete foal.” Cloud Puff countered “I mean there’s the whole Nutmeg gag and there’s the fact she’s really curious, but doesn’t want to offend anypony’s feelings.”

She just needed someone as a guide and wouldn’t offend anypony, but still be able to prevent any of the former humans from asking any G1 references or questions. Someone who would be able to deal with a pony similar to Moondancer instead of Twilight.

“Okay is there anything else?” I asked out loud.

“Oh and he’d have to be brave. I mean some ponies think Sunny is a strong pony, but she kind of caves under pressure.” Cloud Puff replied “I mean she’s good, but you get enough ponies to tell her to do something else and…”

“You want to make sure she isn’t pressured into do anything she isn’t comfortable with?” I summarized.

Cloud Puff nodded her head as she sat down on the end of my nose. I tried not to scratch the growing itch on my nose, and still leave a good impression on the tiny breezie, as I recited “So you’ll need someone to have the crowds back off…”

She quickly nodded her head as that seemed to be a major requirement for this job.

“Someone to help show her around the Cultural Fair, who knows enough about all the details of all the different expositions to explain it to her, all the while pulling her away of anything that would constitute as work and make sure she is in fact be relaxing and having fun.” I finished stating.

“And she does help Celestia so having a pony who isn’t afraid of her status would be important.” Cloud Puff emphasized “After all that is kind of a big name drop that’s hard to go up against.”

Knowing most of the adventures who visited the Tavern, they probably wouldn’t notice, or would be excited for the chance to meet Celestia even if it was because they were in trouble.

“And of course someone stubborn enough to help her go through with her day off. I think I can manage finding someone for that.” I said with a smirk as I already had a few people in mind for the job.

Cloud Puff shouted in joy “You’ll do it! I’ll let Sunny know that you’re taking her through the fair!”

She did her best Rainbow Dash impression and flew away, before I realized what had just happened “Wait, I meant…”

I face hoofed, as the tiny Breezie was nowhere to be seen. Okay, deep breaths… deep breaths… I could just simply ask one of the guards where the Breezies were in the castle. Of course, they would probably want to know why, and they would probably send me back to Celestia, thinking it was related to the Cultural Festival with them or just berate me like they did last time I asked for directions.

I could just try asking or explaining my situation to Celestia and have her clear it up, but she would probably pay me for my service and I would rather have the Breezies owe me a favor…

Okay, first I need to find a suit for the party. Then I need to figure out what I was going to do now. I walked down one of the corridors, as a regular bat pony stood in front of me, smiling as she replied “I heard you were looking for ponies to hunt the creepy feral bugs?”

Scratch that. Next time I need to have Princess Celestia visit me. Every time I went to Canterlot Castle everything things seem to always become needlessly complicated for me.

******

Steel Halberd

Steel Halberd took a deep breath as he stood outside the reinforced entrance door. He felt somewhat nervous having Valkyrie talking him into this, but she had adamantly insisted that she wanted to make sure her ‘friend’ was okay. And if anything, he was as stallion of honor and would make sure he could protect her as best he could, despite his misgivings at the given situation.

The mad griffin prisoner that they had brought back from New Terra had been placed within one of the specially made high security medical wards building of Canterlot’s Hospital. This was something of a mix between a hospital and a jail, where either the ponies in charge were trying to ensure the safety of the doctors or medical staffs or for patients from themselves, while they dealt with all the recent dark magic maladies that have been affecting Equestria these days, the rare infectious disease or plague, or whatever else that could be studied carefully by the finest medical and magical experts of Canterlot in a safe (and confined) location.

Valkyrie herself had been admitted within this very building for her own treatment, during the final day when Celestia was getting ready to cast the spell that freed her from her petrification curse. So, Steel felt a little bit of unease walking down the hallway once again due to those bad memories associated with the place… and the sense of powerlessness he had felt then.

“Are you ready?” He asked with a hint of reluctance in his voice.

It wasn’t because he didn’t agree with her decision… after all he knew how putting emotionally difficult situations could eat away at a pony. When Valkyrie was a statue all he could think about back then was tracking down Brass and dragging her back to Canterlot kicking and screaming in order to in-petrify her. He couldn’t stand the idea her spending the rest of her life in stone, if there was still a way to free her from that fate.

She just wanted to make sure her friend from her homeland was okay… even if he might still be a mindless raging bloodthirsty berserker who could tear through armor like tin foil, and toss him around like a rag doll before ripping out his throat with his beak…

“Don’t think that. Steel.” he thought to himself “Just put on a strong face and be brave for her. She needs you to be strong right now! She is relying on you for this, you can’t let her down like this! Besides you beat him once, so surely you can beat him again if anything should happen in there!”

Nevermind that it was only due to Valkyrie’s assistance that he survived that one sided fight against that hulking monster of a griffin named Steel Tide. In fact, the victory was more hers, as he just did his best to distract him…

No the important thing was that he won and that he could do this… he could no he would do this for her. With a deep breath, he placed his hoof on the entrance door and made a soft knock against the ancient wooden frame.

The door swung wide open as a bespectacled red and blue unicorn with a medical jacket stared back at them. Steel quickly remembered the unicorns name as he replied “Doctor Patches?”

The medical unicorn glanced at them with a hint of disinterest as said “Hello Mr. Steel Halberd and Miss Valkyrie. Are you here for personal reasons or for official business?”

Valkyrie rubbed the back of her head “It’s mostly personal… but it could also be counted as business?”

The unicorn frowned “Explain.”

“Well I knew him before he went crazy and he’s a nice guy…” Doctor patch rose an eyebrow as he watched Valkyrie start to panic “I mean I know did something or probably did something bad and I want to know what happened. I mean he attacked me, and I’m trying to figure out why he was trying to go after me…”

“Miss Valkyrie wants to make sure that the griffin known as Steel Tide is doing okay.” Steel Halberd explained as he should have clarified before that this was a personal visit. Not an interrogation from the Royal Guard, as apparently the doctors didn’t get the full memo.

Doctor Patch nodded his head as he let them inside “He’s doing alright for now.”

Steel tried not to groan at how unhelpful that information was as Valkyrie didn’t look any better. If anything she seemed a little bit worse at the news as that could range anywhere to being cured of his madness, or that they had simply filled him with enough drugs to be a happy drooling mess that isn’t trying to murder anypony.

Valkyrie she fidgeted with her hooves as fear crept into her voice “You mean he’s doing alright as in he’s fine… or he’s restrained or asleep?”

Doctor Patch nodded his head with what looked like a somewhat grim smile as he lead them down the corridors “He is doing fine... as in he is well and lucid, but he still needs time to recover. After the Everfree Forest incident, we had to check, look over, compare, and study the countless medical and magical symptoms of various ponies, Griffins and other various inmates that were involved in that event, to check to see if their actions were their own or under the influence of somepony or something else.”

The doctor sighed at the painful memory “The only ‘blessing’ brought about by that disaster is that we learned enough about various magical maladies to attempt a… treatment course to help your friend.”

Valkyrie looked a little bit uneasy as she heard the delay in his response. Steel felt a bit nervous as he heard treatment instead of cure, which could mean medication to keep the griffin’s insanity from or that they were starting to get an idea on how to cure him.

A part of Steel Halberd felt nervous, as he watched Doctor Patch motion them to enter the hallway as he felt scared. He was a little bit terrified to be standing face to face with the griffin who had tossed him aside so easily.

Sure he was frightened going up against Emberess… but he could taunt the old infernal tyrant, trick her into a trap. Yet, there was something about the mindless drive… the blood thirsty gaze… how he focused purely on Valkyrie ignoring everything else in his path. If the mad griffin broke out, then he wasn’t sure if he would even be able to slow the beast down before it went after her.

“Deep breaths.” He reminded himself “The cells are strong, the doctors are skilled, and a wing of Canterlot’s finest can be signaled at the ring of a bell. You can’t let a little thing like fear keep you from helping Valkyrie out. She’s had a lot of problems ever since she came to Equestria, and right now you're the only pony that can help fix one of them!”

.With that boost of self confidence, he followed the good doctor down the hallway as the unicorn spoke out loud “Physically… his body could use some work, and maybe a little bit of physical rehabilitation. Emotionally, he’s upset and possibly in a slight depression spiral. Though, mentally… he’s seems to have regained most of his mind.”

Valkyrie seemed to cheer up a little “You mean that he’s himself?”

Doctor Patch smiled “If you mean that he has regained his sanity... and is now feeling regret for his actions than yes.”

She smiled happy that her friend had regained his senses again, as Steel prepared himself to meet face to face with the monstrous griffin once again. He couldn’t let himself to hold any hatred or fear towards her griffin friend, as Steel Tide had been the victim of dark magic, and his actions weren’t of his own free will back then.

“Is there anything we should be worried about?” Steel replied as he wanted to be prepared for anything.

Sadly the doctor stopped, as he seemed to be a little bit uneasy. Valkyrie looked at him with a hint of concern, as Steel waited for the other horse shoe to drop, or in this case… come smashing through the window.

“Well you see our treatment was…” Doctor Patch took a deep breath as he glanced at Steel “It wasn’t tested before. The Griffin was the only patient that we had tested it on, mostly due to the large… discrepancy detected between the individual he should have been and the individual he currently was.”

“What do you mean?” Valkyrie spoke with a hint of fear.

Steel, on the other hoof, was more focused on if the mad griffin was still a threat, and if he should prepare for the worst…

The unicorn shrugged “He previously was a raging berserker screaming about how he wanted to face somepony named ‘Steel Wings’ who, according to our records, does not exist. Our attempt was to restore some semblance of his mind...”

There was a long pause as he took a deep breath. He watched them waiting for them to fill in the blank or because right now it seemed as if the canterlot unicorn was preparing to give them the bad news.

“We tested a spell on him mostly curing him of his affliction. Right now, he’s in a weakened state as his armor is being kept under lock and key.” He slowly replied.

Steel clenched his teeth “Why is it being kept under lock and key?”

The doctor hung his head in regret as he continued “ We… we somehow accidently created a dark magical artifact imbued with an unnatural hatred and a lust for combat. In the process of using the spell... we turned an affliction into a dark magical artifact. Naturally, we informed Celestia about it as we’ve locked away the cursed suit of armor.”

“But he’s okay… the Griffin is okay.” Valkyrie firmly replied as she didn’t care about some suit of armor, just as long as her friend was okay.

The unicorn sighed in relief apparently happy that the royal guard was more interested in the condition of the Griffin than in the accidental creation of a dark magical artifact, not that Steel Halberd could blame the pony. Besides, if they came out clean and reported their actions to Celestia than obviously she had taken care of the issue.

Doctor Patch opened up one of the doors in the hallway to reveal a Griffin lying down on a bed. Steel stared at the Griffin in confusion as this Griffin… didn’t look anything like the raging monster that had nearly killed him. The massive predatory giant that stalked them through the streets trying to kill them.

For one, this this Griffin was skinny… really skinny and no where near as big as the hulking giant that they had faced in New Terra! Steel rubbed his eyes as he couldn’t believe that this was the same griffin!

He took a look at the griffins feathers thinking that he had tried making himself look bigger… but the feathers were an almost sickly white and they seemed to be in the middle of molting. His chest and wings were more of a sandstone brown if a little bit lighter than normal…

Steel Halberd stopped staring at the Griffin as he finally notice the rest of the room or to be more precise... the crutches that were resting near the edge of the bed. This wasn’t a griffin that was going to tear through the walls. This was a individual that had enough trouble trying to walk, much less holding an axe.

“Is he okay?” Valkyrie asked as her eyes were on the crutches.

The doctor nodded his head “Like I had said before… there were a few side effects. When our spell managed to… well remove the madness or the ‘cursed’ aspect from him… his body took some damage or perhaps suffered some sort of withdrawal or rebound.”

The unicorn actually looked at the griffin in pity as he said “It’s hard to say, since we don’t have any idea what he looked like before he was cursed. Maybe he was naturally in such a weakened state, or this was a side effect of our methods to heal him.”

Steel felt a little bit guilty for feeling relieved at this moment. Oh sure, he was happy that the griffin and been cured of his madness… The pegasus just didn’t like how he was glad that the griffin couldn’t harm Valkyrie.

In fact the griffin would be hard pressed as stopping a foal much less a fresh recruit of the Royal Guard. Still Valkyrie didn’t seem that happy as she looked at the former berserker in pity.

The Griffin finally looked up at them as he stared at Valkyrie in confusion “Wait… is that you Steel?” Steel Halberd prepared himself for the worst. Just because the griffin couldn’t break out of his cell, it didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt Valkyrie emotionally.

The Griffin spotted him and chuckled “Who’s the stallion with you?”

Steel Halberd stared at the griffin in confusion as Valkyrie smirked “His name is Steel… Steel Halberd and yes that is his real name.”

The Griffin smirked with his large beak “With a name like that he would have fit just fine in our gaming group.”

There was something a little bit off with how the griffin said it that as Valkyrie seemed taken back a little. Still he didn’t seem hostile or that he was insulting Steel… which was good enough for him.

Doctor Patches, on the other hoof, stared at Valkyrie then back at the Griffin before saying “How were you able to figure out who she was so quickly when you said you didn’t know anyone?”

The Griffin rolled his eyes “No cutie mark.”

Steel face hoofed as that should have been obvious. Valkyrie didn’t have a cutie mark so naturally the Griffin who knew her would have realized who Valkyrie was.

She glanced back at the “So… how are you?”

The Griffin looked away as he meekly replied “I’m doing better… heh… so how’s it going?”

Valkyrie shrugged “You know… it’s Equestria…”

Both of them looked away from each other, as they didn’t seemed to know what to say. Steel Halberd glanced at the two, as he had been expecting arguing… or maybe both of them being happy. Instead, Valkyrie just scuffed her hoof across the ground as the griffin glanced at the walls.

Steel Halberd took a deep breath as they were acting a lot more… reserved than he would have expected. It was never good when friends tried to bottle up their fears or worries… which meant he need some way to break the ice between them.

“Uh… what is your name?” Steel Halberd asked out loud.

“Real smooth Steel.” he thought to himself in slight annoyance “Real smooth…”

The Griffin looked at Valkyrie for a moment before looking sheepish with embarrassment “Uh… I kind of lost my memory of what my name was… uh… do you remember it?” There was a pleading tone under it.

Valkyrie shook her head “No… we actually just referred to our character names.”

Doctor Patches looked at them both in confusion “How long have you two known each other?”

The Griffin shrugged “Two… maybe three years? I mean we spent more time referring to each other’s screen name or character name.”

“Gusty…” Valkyrie replied with a chuckle

The Griffin shrugged again but with a small smirk “Meh… it’s better than John Doe.”

“John Doe?” Doctor Patches asked out of curiosity.

Gusty shook his head “It’s a fancy term for unidentified male corpse… and it’s beats being called griffin all the time.”

The doctor seemed a little bit repulsed by the morbid subject as it felt… wrong to name oneself ‘dead’ or maybe it had to do with the fact that Boston had dead ponies and griffins that were never identified… just forgotten.

Steel shivered at the thought before glancing back at Valkyrie and the now apparently named griffin call Gusty. He knew there were some strange cultural norms in other nations… but talking to somepony for over a year and not knowing their name? Boston was a very strange place to live in.

He looked back at Valkyrie as she seemed a little bit nervous as she replied “So… what happened to you? I mean when you first arrived.”

The Griffin frowned as he didn’t sound that happy “Well if I had to start from somewhere… it would be around when I landed or well fell to Equestria. Nobody knew what was going on and everything was chaotic. I had armor, bulk, and… well I guess you could say a voice that promised me power.”

Steel frowned “A voice?”

Gusty shook his head “Not exactly a voice… but more like a sound.”

Steel Halberd looked at the griffin oddly as he tried to figure out what the griffin had said, as none of it made any sense to him. After a brief glance at Valkyrie, he could see her simply nodding her head as she either understood… or most likely pretending to understand so that the griffin could continue his tale.

Gusty rubbed his forehead “I guess it’s harder to describe than I thought… anyway when I fell to Equestria I was a little bit more stronger than I was back home, but… not by much.”

He hung his head as sorrow entered his voice “I ran into a few fights and I lost. Then I just kept giving more and more of myself to the… well voice. Back home I was a nobody. I spent my weekends pretending to be someone else. Now that I’m off having an adventure, I realized that I wasn’t well… heroic.”

Valkyrie nodded her head as she apparently understand what he meant “You didn’t want to be you. You wanted to be Steel Tide?”

A sad smile appeared on his face as he spoke “It started off so simple. I just gave a part of myself up to it and then it helped remove my fears and make me brave. I held my own opinions back and followed others, but soon I became more outspoken…” He chuckled “It was like magic… or a blessing. I changed. I stopped being a coward, and I became better with each piece that I gave up in exchange for power.”

Gusty looked up at the ceiling as he spoke fondly of the memories “I took on bandits, wild beasts, or anything a client needed killed for the right amount of coin. I had people telling tales of my strength and jealous of my talents… so what if I lost a few memories or couldn’t remember why I was a coward in the past? All that matter was that I… that Steel Tide was strong, powerful… that he was much ‘better’ than the weakling I was in the past or that’s what I had thought.”

Steel frowned as he didn’t like the sound of this. A voice promising power as it prey on someone with self esteem issues, as it stole his memories in exchange for a bit of power? That practically screamed ‘do not trust’ to him.

Then he took a look at the nearly crippled griffin… how he was away from everypony he knew… being weak, alone, and afraid with no one else to turn to… Steel started to feel pity for the griffin.

Gusty hung his head low as his eyes started to water “I don't’ know when it happened, but eventually, I stopped caring about things… thinks like morals or lives didn’t matter, just as long as I was being paid… how my last client had even hired me to fight you.”

The griffin looked sickly as he continued “How Steel Tide… How he… He wasn’t trying to murder you because he hated or despised you. You were his rival and he wanted to beat you. He wanted to win.”

Gusty caught Steel Halberd’s shocked expression, as the griffin chuckled bitterly at the memory. The pegasus felt a weight drop into his gut, as he tried not to imagine how horrifying it would be to remember trying to killing a friend, with a smile of all things.

Gusty spoke in a soft tone, as the guilt flowed into his voice “Even here you end up being the one to save me.” Valkyrie shook her head but he continued in a frustrated tone “No listen to me. I couldn’t stand living as myself. You’re still you! You didn’t fall! I let myself be consumed by the promise of power and became a mindless berserker in the process! You joined the Royal Guard as yourself, instead of pretending to be a character we made during our weekly gaming session!”

“So you made a bad mistake!” Valkyrie shouted “Now that you’re okay…”

Gusty held a hand over his mouth “I… I remember what he did. How he felt… and… Steel Tide wasn’t the brains of the group. He was the brawn who loved to brawl. That idiot didn’t even think twice about some of those jobs…”

Steel watched the griffin start to fall back into repeating his regrets. He saw the doctor prepare to intervene, as the unicorn wanted to prevent from going into a destructive spiral of self loathing from forming, or getting out of control.

Valkyrie simply walked up to the glass dividing them as she said “You did something that you regret?”

Gusty slowly nodded his head “I know it sounds silly… it was Steel Tide who did it, but… looking back I can’t believe how stupid I was for letting it grow this badly, and as punishment for it all… I can’t hear it anymore. I can’t see it…”

Valkyrie's eyes widened “You can’t see it?”

The doctor stopped, as he looked at Valkyrie trying to understand what he meant by that. Steel also was confused, as it seemed like eyesight would be an easy thing for the doctors to check up on… or was he referring to a dream or a memory the two of them shared?

Gusty looked up at her with haunted eyes, as he said “I’m stuck like this… just being able to remember fragments of my past in exchange for nightmares. I lost so much in exchange for that power I had… and now I don’t even have that anymore.”

Silence filled the room as Valkyrie looked at him in pity. The griffin seemed upset, but Steel Halberd couldn’t tell if it was about what he did as a mindless berserker… or if he was upset at losing his power. The Gusty wasn’t a fighter and if he came from the same place Valkyrie came from… than a griffin without a talent for fighting might not have counted as much.

Anything a member of the Royal Guard would say about him not needing to be strong or to fight in order to help… might sound a bit hollow to the griffin.

So Steel tried to change the subject as he said “I’m sorry to ask this but… what was the cursed trader doing in New Terra?”

The griffin looked up at Steel Halberd before shrugging “I… don’t know all the details, but he was experimenting. Avian was sent to watch him and well… capture a mare named Remedy Cross.”

“Avian?” Steel asked out loud.

The griffin shrugged “The sort of weird bird… she kind of liked an owl with a horse and made by a mad scientist…” He felt their stares continue begging for an answer “I never knew what is was called, and I wasn’t in a mindset to ask either alright?”

He cleared his throat, as he tried to figure out what the griffin did know “What was the cursed trader doing in New Terra?”

Gusty chuckled bitterly as he shook his head “I don’t know the full details, but he was talking about trying to reclaim what he had lost. Whatever it was, he wasn’t talking about memories… or pieces of himself.”

The griffin rubbed his forehead as he seemed to be struggling with his words “Each… experiment? Each ‘curse’ he had placed upon the inhabitants of New Terra was an attempt to reclaim or figure out if he was doing it right?” He shook his head “It’s hard to explain, but he was talking about recreating something… and the avian was keeping an eye on him… or she was trying to make sure he would turn her back to normal?”

He sighed “Steel Tide wasn’t paying much attention, as he was only focusing on playing guard duty and getting ready to fight Steel Wings.” He glanced at Steel Tide “I had already told everything I knew to Celestia just to be safe.”

Steel sighed, as asking anymore question would be pointless since Celestia already knew about it. Still Valkyrie seemed to have straightened herself up as she took a step forward. Steel took a few steps back, as he let her take the stage.

Valkyrie nodded her head in appreciation before she asked Gusty “So… what are with the crutches?”

Gusty glanced over at them as he rested a talon over them “Turns out that crazy black magic is just like drugs… so don’t do them no matter how fancy the advertising ad is. I mean, sure it sucks that my legs seem to be as fragile as cannery instead of a turkey, but at least the wings still work.”

The doctor sighed as he stepped in “You do realize that you need to stay off your wings for a while.”

Valkyrie glanced at him only for Gusty to sigh in annoyance “I know… landing and taking off puts stress on the legs. Too bad they don’t have any clouds to make for super soft landings.”

The unicorn spoke in a slightly more jolly tone “We need to make sure your magic is working in full order… and aren’t you from Boston where clouds are not suppose to hold up fully grown griffins.”

Gusty stuck his tongue out as he snarked back “I’m in a land full of magical unicorns with a big white pony who uses the sun as a yo-yo. Surely you can’t grab some pillow cases and stuff them full of clouds?”

“And you’d be stuck with mostly flat and moist pillows.” The unicorn countered “While clouds may be soft to griffins and unicorns, cotton still absorbs water and clouds are made out of water.”

“Bah… curse you and your perfectly good reasoning skills.” He mockingly cried “Now only if there was some sort of item that could contain water for the water to be held in!”

Valkyrie chuckled as Steel watched the unicorn continue their banter while the griffin tried to opt for feeling the ‘forbidden’ touch of the cloud , as the unicorn kept stating why each plan would fail. The scene was only made more ridiculous by the fact that he knew the griffin had never touched a cloud before arriving in Equestria, and how Valkyrie’s first reactions to her cloud training went.

Gusty spoke out loud like a bad opera actor “So there you have it my good friend. I am trapped by this fiendish fiend to be forced to rest upon silk and cotton, forever waiting upon hand and foot to see what shall fall before my fate.”

A small smile appeared on his face as he spoke in a softer tone “But… thanks… thanks for visiting me Valkyrie.”

She sighed in relief as she said “It’s good to see you're okay… but would you mind doing something for me?”

Gusty looked up at her with doubt… and a hint of hope in his eyes “Sure… what is it?”

Valkyrie pulled out a rulebook, a few sheets of paper, one of those fountain pens and a bag full of dice. The cover of the book was labeled ‘Super Foals’ as it had a rather cartoonish depiction of popular Equestrian superheroes… but as foals.

He started to chuckle as Valkyrie said “The quest it to take down Diaper Rasher who has concocted a fiendish scheme to take down Happytopia with his terrifying itching powder ray.”

“You can’t be serious!” The griffin spoke aloud as he tried not to burst out laughing.

Valkyrie smirked “We can either sit around letting our friends figure out what to say… or we can make fools out of ourselves and try to have a little bit of fun?”

Gusty rubbed his chin “Only if I get to be Captain Underpants.”

“Deal.” Valkyrie replied as the unicorn sent the items over to Gusty.

Steel shook his head as he said “I’m going to get us something to eat. Want anything?

“I’m good for anything.” Valkyrie half heartedly replied as she looked into her RPG book.

The doctor and Steel Halberd left the two as they both hoped for the best. While there were a few ups and down… mostly guilt being passed around between the two adventurers… what was important was that Valkyrie was able to get her answers, after Gusty was cured of his insanity. The griffin in turn was forgiven by a friend he had deeply hurt while he was under the effects of that twisted curse.

Steel took a deep breath, as there was one last thing he needed to take care of as he whispered “And where is the armor and the diamond dog?”

The doctor frowned as he glanced back at the griffin and pegasus “I’ll take you to it… do you think that he might want it back?”

Steel looked back at the crippled griffin… and shook his head “Does that look like somepony who wants to give up a friendship for a cursed suit of armor?”

The unicorn shook his head “I hope not.”

******

Valkyrie

Gusty looked at the childish RPG for a few moments before saying “So what did you really want to say to me Valkyrie?”

I bit my lip as I made sure we were alone “So… how did you really know it was me? I mean what if I had actually gained a cutie mark?”

Gusty shook his head as he mumbled “I remember going after you. That so called cursed trader… he told me you would be there. Steel Halberd just focused on dodging and you…” he rubbed his jaw “That wasn’t a normal pony punch.”

I couldn’t help but smirk as I countered “What if I was someone else?”

Gusty snorted at that comment “Then you wouldn’t have come here in the first place! I mean I wouldn’t want to come and meet me after what I did… besides I can’t think of anyone else who would come and visit me.”

He looked at me as he tried to smile “So how exactly did you join the Royal Guard? I heard you were involved fighting some monster before you even arrived in Canterlot.”

Oh yes… I used the menu to stop being frightened, after Lock and Stardust were stuck protecting me against the creepy monster made out of swarm of insects. Before, I used the menu I was hiding in a cloud unable to fight. After I used it I was calling down lightning bolts.

I looked down at my own hooves “At first, I was planning on pleading to Celestia to send us back… and when that didn’t work out I kind of needed a paycheck. As for the whole monster story… the Royal Guard were the ones who took care of it.”

Gusty didn’t seem to believe me as He continued “So why join the Royal Guard instead of taking off?”

I nodded my head, as the Royal Guard did seem like a joke in MLP. Maybe it was because everything was so peaceful, or maybe it was because most of the threats they faced were completely out of their league, in the same way Japan kept losing to Godzilla when he marched across tokyo?

“Because I barely knew how to use my own body, as Steel had to give me a crash course in being a pegasus, and Lock was kind of thrown in jail because of my plan…” I slowly replied as Gusty looked at me in disbelief “Long story short, I tried shortening a line to talk to Celestia through a crazy plan and Lock was thrown in jail because of it. It would have been a jerk move to just leave him.”
“Didn’t he become a prince or something?” Gusty spoke in disbelief.
I could feel a small hint of bile in the back of my throat, as I remembered how I acted back then. I didn’t know what was going on and after the disaster with Discord… I had let Lockheart take the fall, while I got free room and board in the meantime.

I mean sure Steel Halberd was looking after me, but that was more like getting free training lessons for selling someone out. I felt my ears droop as Gusty realized that had said something wrong.

I wonder how Lockheart is doing?

“How was your training? I mean it couldn’t have been that hard…” Gusty replied as he was referring to the gifts given to us by the menu

I couldn’t help but smirk “It was mostly mixed results. Sure I could fight, but Steel had to personally teach me how to make a raincloud drizzle… help assure me that it wouldn’t collapse underneath my own weight.” I groaned as I remembered how silly some of it was “Mostly little things that most pegasi in Equestria are naturally able to do.”

“So why did you stick around?” Gusty asked as he started writing up his character “After that incident in the Everfree, I’m sure you could have used that fame of yours to go off on countless other adventures.” Gusty replied as he tentatively watched me.

“I can see your point, but…” I took a deep breath as I tried to explain it to him “Despite any of the stories you may have heard, we didn’t go in guns blazing and smashing through an army of changelings. We knocked out a group of scouts… pretended that we were apart of their group and just walked straight through their front doors.”

Gusty looked at me in disbelief “You're kidding me.”

I shook my head “Getting in was rather easy… getting out was the hard part. My first battle…” I remembered feeling sick… the taste of the bile in the back of my throat, as I watched the horrors of that theater play out before me. I remembered using the menu to give me an edge in the fight “It didn’t go as well I would have liked.”

I bit my lip, as I remembered nearly being defeated by the pegasus with a fake australian accent “After we managed to free everyone we tried to make a break for it… only to get caught in a trap. Lock ended up distracting everyone by summoning up an illusion and pretending to be Discord. Most of them fled after seeing him.”

Gusty chuckled as he shook his head “He tried to impersonate Discord and it worked?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle along, remembering just how big of a gamble that stunt actually was “It worked long enough for Maxwell to free us, and I did try trading a few blows with the ‘huge flank’ adventurer changeling queen. I got my flank handed to me and we would have loss if Celestia hadn’t came in to save us at the last minute.”

I looked back up at him and sighed “So after nearly being beaten up and having to be rescued… I decided to stick with the Royal Guard instead of going off to be the next Mane Six or ‘savior’ of Equestria.”

Gusty rolled his eyes “On the first few weeks you stormed an evil villain’s lair, rescued the prisoners, and managed to repel most of the enemy’s forces before the Royal Guard could sweep in. How bad would it have been if the enemy hadn’t distracted, beaten up, or frightened off by you and your party?”

I rubbed my eyes as I didn’t see it like that. I had rushed out trying to play adventurer without waiting for everyone else as I took Lock with me because he was the only other human around… just to realize that I wasn’t the invincible maiden of justice I thought I was.

“Point is I need training. I mean I knew a few tricks and I knew how to make clouds shoot thunderbolts, but I didn’t know much of the basics of being a pegasus… and it was a lot easier learning from Steel Halberd than trying to cash in a few of my memories.” I openly admitted to myself as that was one of the reasons why I stayed within the royal guard.

That paycheck also helped me keep place to stay in Canterlot, and I got to help Lily recover from her nightmarish encounter with the Everfree disaster.

Gusty shrugged “Well what about when you were going about taking care of dark curses or disasters left behind by my former employer?”

I frowned “I was a part of the Royal Guard and I had them backing me up the entire time.”

Besides the one time when the chips were really down… I got beaten up and turned to stone by a highway bandit. Okay sure, Brass was a lot smarter than I was expecting, but she traded blow for blow before pulling out that damn bird and turning me into a lawn ornament.”

“When it really came down to it… Steel Halberd was the one to save the day. Again… if it wasn’t for everyone else I would have blew it.” I replied with growing regret.

Gusty now looked hurt “You can’t be serious! Look at yourself! Your a respected member of the Royal Guard. You didn’t lose yourself to the menu like I had! You even managed to defeat Steel Tide…”

“I didn’t defeat him!” I nearly shouted back “When he attacked… I froze up. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about using the menu when you knocked me out of the sky. I would have used the menu if I had recovered from the shock of you attacking me.”

I hung my head as I meekly replied “It was Steel Halberd who came up with the plan to distract you while I wrapped you up in that big cloud ball.”

It was Steel Halberd who had ultimately rescued my friend while once again… I was a hindrance to everyone else when the chips were down.

Now the griffin was no longer looking at me with respect. Honestly I was expecting to see annoyance, hatred, or the look of dashed dreams when you realize your hero wasn’t who you thought they were.

Instead, he looked at me in pity as he said “So… could you tell me about him?”

I looked back up at him “You mean Steel?”

Gusty nodded his head “I figure I might as well know who this adventurer you're talking about is.”

I shook my head “No he’s an equestrian.”

Now I heard him chuckle as he shook his head “Quit with the BS. I mean sure I lost my menu, but there’s no way…”

“He is an Equestrian…” I quickly replied “And he’s been hilariously outmatched every single time we faced a disaster.”

I held out one of my wings and held out a primary wing feather making it look like I had hands “For the Everfree forest… he took down an adventurer by knocking him out. Sure he had attacked during the confusion, but that was the only way he could safely take him down.”

I held out a second feather as I continued “For the freaking flaming ancient beasty that threatened to take revenge against Equestria, and worthy of a season finally… Steel came up with the plan to defeat her while he played bait.”

I chuckled as I realized just how absurd it was “He went out and played the role of bait… against a giant flaming ancient lizard all by himself. I would have had a hard time, and I have warrior princess super powers! He just had a tin foil suit tried leading her into some sort of a giant muddy pit trap.”

I shook my head, as I remembered his latest fight “Steel was the one who decided to wear my ‘iron coffin’ armor to distract a psycho griffin, who could cleave through armor, while I grabbed as many clouds as I could to restrain you.”

I placed a hoof against my forehead as I shouted “Do you have any idea how insane that was? He hard a hard enough time moving, much less dodging your attacks! No matter just how absurdly dangerous it is… how he should be the one standing back while I protect him…”

I took a deep breath and sighed “He’s one of the bravest people I know. He doesn’t have a master crafted suit of armor, a menu to instantly grant him a power boost, or a special cutie mark or magical artifact to take down titans.”

Gusty smiled “He’s just a pony doing his job.”

I nodded my head “Yah…”

Gusty smirked as he replied “Yet he couldn’t land a blow on me. He couldn’t stop an ancient evil by himself. He could barely stand his own against a single person…”

“Hey!” I snapped back.

Gusty held up a talon as he continued “So… why does he get a pass when you don’t? You could have easily hid in that crowd instead of standing up for those ponies trapped on that stage. You could have left those tunnels, but you decided to stay fighting as hard as you could, to buy the rest of your team to collapse the tunnels trapping an ancient evil. You fought your hardest not to fight or slay a mad griffin trying to kill you… but worked even harder to safely restrain him so that he could be treated by professionals.”

He smiled as I looked up at him “You may have beaten yourself up at what you haven’t done… but I’d said you did a good job for just one person. We are not heroes or an army of the chosen sent to stand against the darkness. We are just ordinary people sent to deal with an impossible situation… and I’d say you’ve done a pretty good job staying true to yourself.”

He held up his character sheet showing an earth pony wearing a comically oversized diaper that could double as body armor “So how about we take a break from this chat and just have some silly stupid fun?”

I sniffed as I rubbed my eyes as my fur felt matted for some reason “That sounds like a good idea.”

Maybe I’m not the hero that I thought I should be… but that doesn’t mean that I can’t change, or that I can’t get better. I caught a glance of the menu in the corner of my eye… how all the countless number of points taunted me… beckoned to me to help give myself a little boost.

I closed the menu and looked back at the pen and paper sheet and smirked. I just had to take a page from Steel Halberd and try to earn the respect Gusty had given me, but right now… I just needed to come up with a good character name.

******

Steel Halberd

Steel Halberd followed Doctor Patch towards the restricted section of the building, where some of the patients were kept away from the general public either due to the severity of their disease, symptoms… or in cases like Rover the splice dragon pup… Because they were flank holes.

Doctor Patches looked at the diamond dog as the nurse kept apologizing “I’m sorry for having to interrupt, but Rover was being a little bit rough today.”

“No temperature! No stick! No blood!” the screaming diamond dog shouted as he tried to bat away the thermometer from his mouth.

Doctor Patches sighed as he said “We still need to check on your condition… now we can either stick this in your mouth or…”

Rover growled “You wouldn’t.”

Patches nodded his head “I can restrain you while Nurse Good Cheer uses the thermometer.”

The diamond dog glared at Steel “Why is he here?”

Steel rolled his eyes, as doctor patch used his magic to gently place a table down into the cell, with lots of belt straps. Nurse Good Cheer was looking for which thermometer would work best for the odd diamond dog dragon with hybrid biology, and exactly how large of a needle should be used for the patient.

Normally, Steel might have called her out but the white unicorn mare was dripping wet as the smell from soup, and had a few bits of wood stuck in her mane… mostly broken pieces of feeding utensils and tongue depressors, as she apparently made the mistake of entering the room with the diamond dog instead of simply using her magic to treat/restrain him.

Once the diamond dog was trying to chew off the straps that had come to life and held the raging beast down, did Doctor Patches focus on Steel “Sorry about this. At first we thought he was under the influence of a curse, or possibly some sort of mind control.”

He sighed, as the diamond dog was trying to snap at the large needle that was floating into the room “But as it turns out, his only real regret was that he was caught, as he actively tried stopping us from trying to treat him, when he found out we were trying to turn him back into a diamond dog.” The doctor glowered at the rowdy patient.

Steel rubbed his chin “Then what did he think your were trying to do?”

Doctor Patch shook his head as he muttered “Trying to turn him back into a dragon, or trying to figure out how to turn ponies into one of those flaming reptiles. It didn’t help that he had tried to develop a hoarding habit, in an attempt to turn back into a one, or grow big enough to break out of the room.”

The pegasus stared impassively at the diamond dog now howling, as the needle was plunged into his arm “What do you mean by ‘trying’ to develop a hoarding habit?”

The doctor glanced at the room full of food trays “He kept trying to convince himself that the food trays were gems, and that if he had enough of them, he could break out of the cell, and force all the little ponies to pay him massive gem tributes. We heard him mumble it a lot when he was sleeping.” The doctor casually added.

Steel sighed, as apparently this diamond dog probably didn’t realize the difficulties dragons had in growing sizes… or that even if he was big enough to break out of this hospital Celestia would beat him up long before he tried to conquer Canterlot.

“What have you found out about him?” Steel asked out loud.

Doctor Patch shrugged “ For what we could figure out, The magic used to ‘splice’ him was a few odd combinations. Some of it similar to a mimic spell where one could copy the traits of another race onto another… a bit of what looks like changeling magic… and something else. I’d say something more akin to the magic of the Everfree or chaos magic, but it’s a bit… too orderly.”

Steel rose an eyebrow at that “Could you explain that?”

The doctor nodded his head “Well normally different species have different forms of biology. A simple version would be difference between a cold blooded animal and a warm blooded animal. Sure dragons have been able to get around some aspect with the use of internal magic and their own method of temperature regulation in relation to their fire breathing capabilities…”

“Smaller words doctor.” Steel reiterated.

He nodded his head again “Well Rover’s biology is mostly a composition of dragon and diamond dog, but the ‘fixer’ magic is used to help even out the balance between the two by ensuing just the right amount interaction between the two biologic systems to stabilize his condition. I’d say that he was used as a science experiment to test the difference between the volatility of two vastly different species, in an attempt to bind them together.”

Steel frowned “He was a dragon when he attacked the mayor of New Terra.”

Doctor Patch bit his lip as he muttered “Most likely, it was a copy species spell slowly falling apart, as the ‘fixer magic’ slowly took notice of the changes, and tried keeping or retaining certain aspects of his draconic nature as he slowly reverted back into a diamond dog.”

The doctor pulled out a clip board “In fact, this seemed like the case with many of the other subjects that Miss Cross had dealt with. The only reason why she didn’t notice the additions to the magic, is because she hasn’t had the same extensive records as I do.”

Steel looked back at the diamond dog “You mean somepony else in Canterlot was trying to make dragon hybrids?”

Rover roared out loud as flames shoot from his mouth. The pegasus took a step back as he prepared for trouble… only to see the diamond dog howling as he smoke drifted out of his mouth.

The nurse groaned “I’ll get the bucket” as she levitated a bucket full of water, and dumped it over the diamond dog’s head.

The unicorn doctor groaned “We warned you Mr. Rover, that while yes you can breath fire, your mouth, or to be more precise your tongue lacks the full mucus coating a dragon has, so you will be more likely to burn your own tongue than burn through the restrains next to your flammable fur.” He chided the quarrelsome patient

Steel shook his head as he tried to get back on topic “About the dragon pony hybrids… “

Doctor Patches shook his head “Oh no… Some foolish noble unicorns gives birth to a pegasus or earth pony and then gets the ‘brilliant’ idea of trying to ‘fix’ the mistake. Some try change the foal into a unicorn, but fail to realize that temporary alteration quickly fade away once the natural magic of the foal rejects the foreign change… or they try making the next ‘prince’ or ‘princess’ to grace the land. Naturally their attempts fail and Celestia has a few choice words with the parents involved.”

Steel looked back at the doctor “So you mean this cursed trader…”

“Probably isn’t a griffin.” Doctor Patch replied “If anything, they are trying to work their new form of magical alteration and are testing it on random ponies or races, to see just how much of a deviation they can create before their bodies reject the unnatural changes.”

Steel smirked as he stared at the diamond dog “Meaning, he’ll never turn into a great big dragon and go on a rampage?”

The unicorn chuckled “No, more likely he’s gained a habit of munch on gems and going into hibernation. Not exactly the key traits he is looking for.”

Steel nodded his head as the diamond dog shouted in rage “I will burn this kingdom to a…” and suddenly fell asleep in mid sentence.

Steel looked at the doctor as the nurse replied “He’s also gained the unfortunate habit of falling asleep the moment he works himself too much, though I don’t know if that’s a curse or a blessing to the rest of the staff.”

Doctor Patch nodded his head “Do you think you’ll be alright Miss Good Cheer?”

The nurse nodded her head “I’ll be sure to let you know if anything changes.”

Steel followed the doctor out of the room as he felt a little more uneasy about this cursed trader now. At first he thought it was another random cursed item causing havoc… but the fact this individual was experimenting on his own allies?

He shivered, as not even Brass was that low.

They walked deeper into the hallway as he looked at some of the various rooms. Most of the ponies were off doing their best to treat their patients, but some of them were muttering curses and praying to Celestia to just skip the healing process and find a nice cold jail cell for the offending convict.

It didn’t take them long until they reached one of the doorways, with hazard warnings of dark magic and a couple of locks. The unicorn slowly worked his magic to undo the locks and open up the door, while Steel began to question why there weren’t that many guards around until the doors swung open.

A blast of cold air hit him, as he felt an unnatural chill shiver him down to his bones. He stared into the seemingly empty room that seemed to gnaw at his soul. He felt like taking a few steps back and slamming the doors shut, as this was feeling like the first chapter of a horror novel where the monster was lurking just around the corner.

That was, of course, when he saw the monsters of this horror novel, as he looked upon the cursed armor and felt ill. The dark twisted metal that screamed evil artifact stood in the center of the room. The tips of the gauntlets seemed to be stained in dried blood while the empty eye holes were able to stare at him in a predatory leer.

This should have been what bothered him or rather terrified him of the object… but there was something in the wind that tickled in his ears. He could hear sounds… voices…tiny whispers that seemed to accompany the armor, as he drew closer. How each fragment seemed to whisper promises of power… or curses against his very being. There was an almost literal aura of violence surrounding the armor, as he thought he could see… words… a floating box full of countless words and numbers just right out of his eyesight, that would make itself known if he just went a little bit…

“Are you okay?” The unicorn asked beside him.

Steel Halberd stared at the metal blockade and the various warning labels written across it. He hadn’t even noticed that he had walked into the blockade. He glanced back at the armor as it continued staring at him… almost longing for a new owner… no… a new host to dig itself into like some malevolent parasite.

He may have had a hard time believing that Gusty was the griffin that tried to kill him… but there was no mistaking that this… object had tried to kill him. Hopefully Celestia was finding someplace safe to dispose of it, and hopefully it involved an active volcano.

After one last glance at the cursed item Steel tried to figure out just how it was made or if he even wanted to know how they did it?

“So where exactly did you get the idea for this… treatment?” Steel hesitantly asked out loud

Doctor Patch frowned as he lead him to another door “That would be from one of the victims of the Timberton case.”

The doctor paused “I wanted to get the opinion of the Royal Guard, before I submitted my proposal to Celestia about trying to recreate the spell again.”

Steel shivered as he spoke in a soft tone “You mean there is another berserker being kept locked up here?”

Doctor Patch shook his head “Not exactly… but Steel Tide or Gusty as he is now referred to as… he had a friend, a known associate, who knew who he was before the madness took hold of him.”

The unicorn opened up the door revealing an earth pony in one of the medical rooms, similar to Rover the hybrid and Gusty the griffin. The earth pony had a dark brown coat and soft tan mane as he walked from one side of the room to another. Steel Halberd couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease, as he watched the pony slowly walked around in his jail cell.

Noticing his flank, Steel squinted his eyes as there seemed to be something off about the cutie mark… at first he thought it was just the light, but the cutie mark the earth pony had actually looked as if it was smeared onto his flank. The guard pony tried to make out the cutie mark which he first mistook it as a paint stain… until he could make out teeth.

Slowly but surely, like one of those odd ink blot tests he could now start to make out the shape of the smeared wolf as it seemed to be baring it’s fangs out at the world, instead of invoking something cheery or virtuous like most other cutie mark, which blatantly looked vicious and remorseless.

Doctor Patch cleared his throat “From what I’ve been able to gather, his name was Colton. He was an adventurer hired to help guard a caravan and he apparently enjoyed painting and wanted to see the world… right up until one of the caravans he was guarding was attacked by Sanguine Point.”

Steel looked at the earth pony’s strikingly focused blue eyes. In fact, despite the fact the floor was made out of stone, the pony was being very careful making sure his hooves didn’t make any sounds as he walked from one end of the room to the other.

Doctor Patch sighed as he hung his head “Of course, that was before he joined Sanguine Point’s gang. After his encounter with the crazed unicorn... Colton then started calling himself Throat Ripper as he helped lead the assaults on the other caravans.”

Steel Halberd shook his head “Did he have a cutie mark before he became violent?” after all, most adventures didn’t had one and getting one in those circumstances was worrying.

Doctor Patch shook his head as he bitterly muttered “Of course not… but I refuse to believe that his natural talent or ‘purpose’ is hurting other ponies. I’ve seen some of the extreme cases of the Everfree Incident. I’ve dealt with various medical ailments were sane ponies acted far radically differently than they would normally act, and this is like nothing that I have seen before.”

Steel wasn’t an expert on cutie marks as symbols could often have different meaning depending on each pony… but wolves tended to be a simple cutie mark and could often representing teamwork, or standing together… maybe look out for one another. He couldn’t picture a cutie mark being actually be the cause for violence in a pony, much less that the unicorn was even suggesting that it was the cutie mark’s fault!

Steel nodded his head but there was a clear difference here. The ponies from the Everfree incident were victims of mind control… lots of varieties of mind control, and possibly influenced by dark magical artifacts… but none of those were saying that cutie marks were the problem!

The Canterlot unicorn must have noticed something as looked at Steel and firmly stated “We both saw the vast difference between Steel Tide and Gusty, just a few moments ago. Whatever happened to him it’s twisted him to his very core, to the point that it turned him into... this.”

Steel glanced back at the earth pony in the cell “Is he stable?”

The unicorn hesitated for a second to answering him, before the earth pony spoke “Hello Doctor Patch, Did you bring somepony else with you doctor?” The words spoken were cordial, but was monotone devoid of any of the expected warmth.

The doctor sighed “It's nothing important Mr. Colton, Just somepony who was curious about your work… your art work to be precise.”

Steel felt a little bit off, as he didn’t know what the unicorn was talking about, but the earth pony just simply nodded in understanding as he took a few steps back, allowing him to get a better look at the room. Now that he had stopped focusing on the earth pony did he actually spot all the various canvases, drawings and paintings strewn about all over the walls.

The royal guard wasn’t much of an artist, but he was surprised at the level of detail given to each painting as vast forests merged with open lakes, as the image of a bright and sunny sky rested on the ceiling above the earth pony. As detailed and beautiful the paintings seemed, there was an underlying feeling of sinisterness or macabre while the earth pony stood by them as various paints brushes and cans littering the floor around him as he looked at them with disinterest.

Doctor Patches cleared his throat “He just has a few questions for you Mr. Colton…”

The earth pony nodded going along with the doctor’s act, as Steel looked up at the ceiling “Uh…” all eyes were on him and he needed to say something “How did you paint the ceiling? I mean you don’t have any wings or a horn…”

Personally, the pegasus felt that was a legitimate question. After all, how could the earth pony manage to do that without at least a ladder?

The earth pony just shrugged “I had plenty time to work on it and I was bored. I had also used the bed sheets to help secure a harness to keep me safe.”

Steel glanced at the ceiling as the second question that came to mind was where did he manage to secure the bed sheets or better yet… how did he secure them? Was this one of those adventurer things that only raised more questions than answers?

The doctor gave a less than friendly jab with his elbow into the royal guard’s side as he said “And how do you feel today, Mr. Colton?”

The earth pony just shrugged once again “Bored.”

Steel kept staring at the level of detail in his work “You mean you're bored because you finished the paintings?”

The earth pony sighed “No I’m just… there’s no spark. No flare… I just don’t feel it anymore.”

Steel slowly nodded his head, as he pretended to understand “So why are you locked up?”

“Because I’m in fact a danger to society.” He replied in a board monotone voice “I mean… sure, I had a drive or talent for it before, until Sanguine taught me better. After he gave me my cutie mark.”

There was something about that statement that just didn’t… sound right to Steel. Oh he had heard of cutie mark stories were a pony learned their destiny with another pony’s help… but for some reason that didn’t seem to match the earth pony’s remark.

The unicorn wasn’t much help, as he simply seemed to nodded his head in confirmation, which was ridiculous. You can’t just give out cutie marks as if they were postcards or fruit baskets to be given out on a whim!

The earth pony continued as a smile started to appear “I mean first it was the little stuff… the right punch on the body… the right kick to dislocate or break a bone…” The smile grew further as a hint of joy filled his voice “The little sounds they make when they're frightened. The look in their eyes when you twist the limb or cut into the flesh…”

His eyes had that same growing glee a pony would had when they talked about earning their cutie mark or how they talked about doing what they loved as he continued “Each new attack, but on new inspiration… ideas… right up until that jerk named Brass betrayed us all.”

Steel felt a hint of bile in his throat by the worrying implications as he said “Did you kill any ponies?”

The earth pony just casually rubbed his chin not bothered at all by the nature of the question “It’s odd, but I haven’t killed anyone...yet. I mean sure, I was a little squeamish at first, but Sanguine was always there for me and encouraging me every step of the way.”

The unicorn nodded his head “You mean he taught you your technique?”

The earth pony nodded as he talked fondly about the memory “Each trick I learned came from him. I mean the talent he had… just watching how he did it… you just had to see it to believe it and when you did… I just felt a driving urge to copy it… to hone that trick until I could do it with the same grace and skill that he had.”

He rubbed his chin “He had even talked about showing me something for the ages that he was going to pull off in Timberton… something he was sure that would have caught my inspiration, but as you know it didn’t work out. There was a sudden squadron of guards and we were told to regroup since we weren’t close enough to reinforce Sanguine’s position.”

Steel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He heard about it. He didn’t know what Sanguine had done there, but it was bad enough to actually enrage Celestia even after the battle was over. He could still remember over hearing some of the guards on how Celestia had treated the petrified statue in her wrath.

The earth pony sighed as he hung his head “Nobody even told me what happened to him…”

Steel shook his head “So why do you still paint?”

The earth pony glanced at the walls as he replied in boredom “Because I’m bored and gray walls are dull. Doctor Patch was nice enough to give me paint to pass the time a little. I mean with a little bit of red paint I might be able to draw something else, but the Doc is only keeping me supplies all the other sunny colors except red. I mean sure he did give me white paint for the clouds that I could have used for bone marrow, but if I just left them as that dull gray… “

He shuddered “Having to look up at that glaring gap each day would have driven me insane.”

Doctor Patches nodded his head “Thank you for your time and I’ll try and see if my supervisor will allow me to get a larger variety, but no promises…”

The earth pony nodded his head as he went back to walking around his cell as the two of them left the room. Steel waited until they were far out of earshot before he finally casually asked him about it “Aren’t you in charge of this wing?”

The doctor nodded his head “And he’s sticking with the ‘sunny’ colors for now. Still you’ve seen how he is… his talent for painting and you can’t tell me that there’s something wrong with him. In each case were he increased his threshold for violence this Sanguine character was there.” He spat out, as if he had taken a bit out of a really rotten prune “ Each drive towards more violences only heightened with each forced encounter with that rotten bonehead and somehow, in twisting Colton, a cutie mark appeared and developed a talent and taste at inflicting pain on to other ponies in the process.”

The pegasus rose an eyebrow “Just what did happen to Sanguine Point by the way?”

The unicorn rolled his eyes “Oh Stone Mortar was experimenting with some sticky substance that harden into rock and there was a minor ‘accident’ where the petrified bone head was dropped into a tub full of it.”

Steel Halberd flinched as it would be difficult enough curing a petrification case without the cockatrice… but only Celestia would know just how hard it would be to slowly chisel out a petrified body from inside a block of stone without damaging the body.

Doctor Patch glanced at Steel as he continued “But do you think you could suggest my proposal after seeing him. I mean after removing the taint that was afflicting Gusty I’m sure we could modify the spell for it to help treat…”

“Have you tried other spells before?” Steel interrupted “I mean there were victims from the Everfree Incident…”

“Yes we tried those.” The unicorn bitterly replied “Those were more easy to deal with, especially if they already had cutie marks. In fact those ponies had a faster time recovering from the mad changeling’s corruption than those who didn’t have cutie marks.”

He pointed a hoof at the door “We’ve tried a cure for cutie pox even, but that thing on his flank it’s real.. but… it’s… it’s incomplete. It’s like somepony made half a cutie mark. Part curse, part cutie pox, and part eldritch madness because none of it makes sense!”

Steel took a deep breath as he tried to calm the doctor down “Well what do you know about it?”

Doctor Patch glared at the floor as if it was the culprit behind it all “Nothing. I mean we have learned that ‘adventures’ are more susceptible to dark magic, mind control, or what would qualify as a ‘curse’ more than the average Equestrian…”

He rubbed his chin “Which probably helps explain their rapid or almost vicious paranoia towards anything close to those topics. In fact, some of us believe the Cursed Trader probably targeted New Terra for this very reason.”

The good doctor continued “Still, I’m sure with the proper modifications and safety procedures we could replicate the spell that we used on Gusty and use it to cure Colton…”

Steel held up a hoof and took a deep breath “Doctor… why are you telling me all of this?”

He knew he was a member of the Royal Guard, and while he was here on official (but mostly unofficial) business some of it felt like something a pony higher up on the food chain would be informed about. Yes the armor was related to the mishap in New Terra and the treatment of Valkyrie’s friend… and information about the diamond dog’s condition could be related as important to him since he was trying to track down the cursed trader… but the earth pony wasn’t even related to anything he was working on.

The unicorn hesitated until they finally reached the door where Valkyrie and Gusty were residing in. They could hear the mare’s laughter mingled with the griffins as a sad look appeared on the unicorn’s face.

With a heavy sigh he gestured towards the door “You and that mare already went through this, seeing somegriffin who you knew was being afflicted by a curse and not recognizing him anymore. She worked hard trying to tell Celestia who Gusty was before that curse warped his mind, and it was thanks to her efforts in convincing Celestia did we try the spell.”

Steel bit the inside of his cheek as he didn’t really count himself as part of the effort to cure the griffin. If anything he was expecting to comfort Valkyrie if anything went wrong, even though he was terrified of the griffin before he was cured.

The doctor looked at the pegasus and griffin inside the room with sad eyes as he continued “You two probably have seen the worst that could happen and yet the ‘Valiant Valkyrie’ and her ‘Shining Knight’ always save the day.”

Steel blinked as that seemed to come out of nowhere… especially the shining knight part. Oh he could certainly see Valiant being added to Valkyrie’s name, but Steel Halberd couldn’t remember anything that would earn him the nickname Shining Knight!

Still, the unicorn continued in praises “Your friends with a changeling that you saved who had been forced to act like a puppet on a stage in the Everfree for the amusement of a mad queen. You worked to stop an ancient evil before she could threaten anypony… saved a friend who lost his mind.” He ended with silent acclaim.

Steel’s brain tried to comprehend the sudden list of accomplishments. He didn’t ‘save’ anypony. He was more or less dragged along by Valkyrie to stop two fillynappers. He didn’t know that there was a whole castle full of crazed adventures and one insane changeling queen. As for the ancient evil… that was with the backup of an entire Royal Guard regiment and they probably had help by finding and gathering any local pegasi for that pitfall trap!

He almost felt like laughing about having ‘saved’ Gusty. All he could remember was trying to dodge the killer griffin’s blows while he relied on Valkyrie to save the day!

There was a look of pleading hope in the unicorn’s eyes as he stared at Steel Halberd “If anything you are the only person who I could freely trust with this decision, after everything you’ve been through.”

There was a lump in Steel’s throat as he suddenly felt uneasy. Passing on a request was simple, as all he had to do was fill out a few papers and maybe it might reach Celestia’s desk, if he was lucky… and yet the unicorn seemed to stare at him as if Steel held the very judgement in his own hooves… that by some strange twist of logic if Doctor Patches could convince Steel Halberd of his case… then Princess Celestia would grant his request without a second thought!

“I’ll let Princess Celestia know about your request.” Steel slowly replied as he saw the pony’s eyes widened with hope “But I can’t promise anything as it will be the Princess’s decision.”

The pony quickly bowed in gratitude as he said “Thank you! That’s all I ask. Just a chance.”

Steel felt the twist in his stomach as he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want the unicorn’s praise or gratitude, because he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. In fact, he had no idea what Celestia’s reaction to the request might be, yet the unicorn seemed to be acting as if the request had already been approved and all that was left was the paperwork to be finalized.

With a deep breath he hoped that Valkyrie had a better time than he had.

******

Celestia

The sun slowly moved across the sky, as Celestia more or less crawled to her favorite chair as she tried to relax. This was her moment of respite after having finished the remaining paperwork and vanquish the vile demon called bureaucracy and it’s insidious minions until tomorrow.

Her gaze caught a hold of a book resting on an old chair as she felt a small tug on her heart as she lifted it up. The book itself wasn’t that special… but due to circumstances it was now one of the few remaining books from the Crystal Kingdom and another bitter reminder that she could still make mistakes.

She could still remember when she gave the book to Lockheart and how he was surprised at her gift to him. She remembered how for just one brief moment they had discarded all pretenses and just simply talked as one pony to another. The princess closed her eyes as she could recall the fear on his face… the fear that never truly went away as he eventually fled in fear of her.

With a deep breath she sighed as she couldn’t help but wonder how he was doing… and if he would ever come back.

“It’s best not to dwell on the mistakes of the past Celestia.” she reminded herself.

Right now, she just needed to relax and maybe look and see how the rest of her little ponies were doing. That always had cheered her up as she prepared to gaze out the window… only to notice on the window sill what should have been a small journal, no bigger than a clipboard, was now for some odd reason was the size of a small journal book.

Celestia lifted up the book which was rather costly or inefficient to produce in large quantities due to the various magic, spells, materials and time needed to craft those, but it was something that helped her stay in contact with her ‘slightly’ extended family.

Sure, certain members of the Blueblood Family were similar to unwanted in-laws, but sometimes (once every few generation or so) one would manages to surprise her… or it was nice trying to catch up on the day to day activities like Bell’s gossips. The current heir Blueblood (formally named Glint) as he tried to ‘restore’ their family honor and secure his claim to the Blueblood name… And of course, Leo (the youngest son) was also trying to claim the Blueblood name before their father ‘retired’ in a quaint settlement far from Canterlot where his blunders would go unnoticed.

She rubbed her hoof over the book as a part of her thought about Lockheart… maybe she should have tried giving him one of these instead of letting their strained (almost non-existent) relationship fall apart. In fact, maybe she should try coming up with a way to keep in contact with some of her more favorite students. She could even test certain methods of communication like dragon fire or mirror script…

Celestia’s thoughts paused for a second, while she felt the weight of the book as her nephew seemed had written a lot more than she had expected in the past few days, making her feel a little bit guilty at not noticing it sooner. Still, it was probably about some minor issue.

Did she really want to open up the book and listen to more of Prince Leo’s constant whining(?)… but she was rather curious at how he had managed to write so much in order to fill up all of these pages within the book without her notice!

In the end, her curiosity won out as she decided to skip to the complaints and see what her nephew Prince Leo had written, as she read the first page “Dear Aunty. I am doing fine. Sure you may have a few misgivings in the regards of what the role an Equestrian Commissar, but I will prove to you that this position can still benefit Equestria.”

Celestia rolled her eyes at that statement as the position still sounded useless. Her nephew had found some unfinished notes left by Lockheart while rummaging through what was left behind from the (possible) alicorn’s escape. The job of a commissar sounded like a political officer which was kind of useless, since anypony who joined the royal guard knew what they were fighting for.

In fact it was the officers, generals, and the higher ranking ponies who were in charge of guiding the lower ranks or to help ensure that they didn’t cause a diplomatic incident.

At best, all she would expect from her nephew would accomplish would be creating some sort of gentlecolts club within the Royal guard (that he will of course indulge himself in) as they would most likely just end up spending more time enjoying parties in Canterlot than being anywhere near the front line… or anything of importance.

Her nephew tried to make a case for his ‘exclusive’ club and how they would help Equestria (which he never explained) and Celestia decided to give him a chance…. by sending him along with the rest of the expedition sent to the north to deal with the feral changeling menace.

Of course, the plan was to have him stay in Frozen Hill to fill out reports and requisition forms which was just a small settlement near the edge of Equestria and see how ‘successful’ the job would be out near the frozen wastelands. At the very least he might be helpful in ferrying back reports to Canterlot on the success of the Yakyakestan mission and teach her nephew a small lesson in humility and toughening up him more while living in more spartan conditions at the same time.

She smirked as she thought it might be fun to see how her nephew was faring outside of Canterlot as she continued reading “There maybe be a few errors… well mistakes or would it count as a misunderstanding? Apparently, Commissar doesn’t translate well to the other rash adventurers types. Some were talking about not wanting to take orders from me, while some threatened me about what they would do if I pulled a ‘commissar’, since they weren’t in the Royal Guard. Still, the other commanders of the mission don’t have any problem with my presence… through I am a little bit upset that the griffin named Verrat laughed at my face when she heard the job of what an Equestrian Commissar is supposed to be.”

Celestia nodded her head as she flipped the page “Day four… Frozen hill is creepy, but it’s a ‘quaint’ town in the fact that it looks like it was built in the homage to a horror novel. The houses have a sinister post classical art style that look as if they could fall over at any moment and the local ponies don’t say anything as they just keep forlornly staring at us. I mean we’ve tried talking to some of them, but each time we do they just shut their doors in our faces. But most disturbing of all, is their Mayor who is a creepy pony calling himself Sunny Days. He’s a practically bleached white pony in a white suit with a purple bowl of punch for a cutie mark and he always has this creepy wide smile on his face. Do you know him? Do you know why the creepy happy pony is in charge of this town?

No aunty, I am not attempting to subvert his mayorship or have him thrown out of town just because I don’t like him. I just honestly find that pony creepy… Not creepy like the old groundskeeper at the castle ground garden, but creepy in the sense that he frightens me more than this whole town does in his own twisted way.

Still, the rest of the common ponies think I should ‘suck it up’ as they say and just stay here in the creepy town and help manage supply runs. It was there idea. Not mine. So, as my noble duties demand I shall do my best to help warm up the townsponies and help setup the outpost as we try to establish a secure supply line for the rest of the other ponies on the expedition.”

Celestia took a deep breath as she turned the next page, fully expecting a mindless rant about the inferior lodging given to him, and how he whines about wanting to go back to Canterlot or have stuff from Canterlot sent over to Frozen Hill.

To her surprise and horror the pages had green splashes over them. There were a few bits of red blood stained onto the pages along with water stains, possibly from somepony crying.

“Changelings! Demon bugs! Locust! This place is filled with the evil bugs!” Prince Leo had written in a panic as the words as Celestia tried to make sense of some of the more unstained legible words “Send help! Send Help! Send help!”

Celestia stared at the page in horror ready to call the royal guard to come sweeping into the settlement until she remembered that there were more pages… obviously this must be some sort of prank… or something bad had happened, but he made it out alright.

With those thoughts in mind she turned the page as the writing was less of frenzied than the last entry, to her momentary relief, but it was nowhere near as neat as it should have been to be reassuring for her as she continued to read “Good news, found some ponies. Bad news the town is under attack by the monster bug ponies and their leader is the creepy cult pony of a mayor! He doesn’t use mind control… oh no he just grabs ponies and shove them into a steam room blasting his messages and speeches to them until they finally break and submit to his will!”

“He believes the vile bug ponies are the ‘chosen race of the planet’ because they feed on love instead of eating the plants or it’s creatures! Oh and that cutie mark? Turns out he was some sort of cultist before he came to Equestria. Not the normal trying to summon an eldritch being cultists… no apparently there is a league far more insane than trying to summon monsters from beyond the stars that doesn’t require the darkest tombs of black magic known to sentient life.

Oh and apparently the punch bowl is a reference too…

The page stopped there as Celestia quickly turned the page. A part of her was still hoping that this was a badly written prank from her nephew, but the sinking feeling in her gut said otherwise.

“Okay good news (indecipherable handwriting with various crossed out words) … evil cult pony is knocked out and tied up. Really wishing the Equestrian Commissar had the right to shoot ponies right now, as even unconscious he’s still really creepy.

The twisted mockeries of life in the shape of bugs has been PURGED with holy wonderful blessed fire. I mean a lot of fire, and a bit of explosives, with a dash of insecticide, but mostly fire and toxic death to Tartarus spawned monsters!

Oh, and I gained an aid. Her name is Emerald Shimmer. She is a helpful pony who had helped me take out the evil bugs while I was in need of a helping hoof in helping find a helpful amount of ways to remove the demon bugs.
Oh did I mention how helpful your advice was on the job of an Equestrian Commissar and how you were right along?

If she didn’t know any better there was something wrong about this emerald pony… and she didn’t like how much… emphasis he had used when writing or talking about the ‘holy purge’ of the feral changelings or the fact that these pages seemed to have been rewritten several times, mostly due to indecipherable hoofwriting or various words continuing to be crossed out throughout the passage.

Celestia looked over the pages, as she tried to make out some of the passages or get a clearer idea on what was going on, At least, until she head a knock on the window glass outside, causing her to jump out of her seat, and then spot a pegsus mailpony flying right outside her window.

Celestia opened the windows sashes up, feeling slightly embarrassed as the package pony cheerfully replied “Package delivery to Princess Celestia.”

A small box full of papers was placed onto her desk. Celestia looked at the seal recognizing it as reports from the team sent to deal with the yak problem… and noticed a request to move Prince Leo to the expedition force.

Celestia looked back at the papers and then at the notebook… obviously she had missed something in Prince Leo’s short hoof letters sent back to her… and that there were far too many letters for this to be some sort of elaborate prank being played on her for not immediately responding to her nephew’s letters.

Celestia skimmed over the first few after action reports. Most of it consisted of minor details like how many ponies were injured, saved, which thankfully none of them were killed or grievously wounded.

A few reports seemed out of place or built more on hearsay and rumor, but she managed to find one stack of papers with… a business portfolio?

Lifting the stack out of the box she glanced at the first document “Dear Princess Celestia. Due to the current actions that I have committed it was suggested that I give a stately report on how this situation had devolved into the untimely regret that has formed before you your grace.”

Celestia turned the page to see what looked like a cover letter to a job application. Normally she would have tossed it aside since it wasn’t related to the incident in Frozen Hill… but when she saw the pony’s name she hesitated.

Apparently the pony called Sunny Day had left his prior work experience… including being a former cult leader for Sunny Dale Camp, Sunny Harmony Group, Sanguine Point, Cult of Nulcotiska, Sect of Harmony, Anointed Blessing and a formal request to start or join the Cult of Dawn Breaker.

She bit her lip, as the ‘Anointed Blessing’ cult seemed to be the worship of Changelings, since they feed on love instead of eating plants or meat… and the Cult of Dawn Breaker was a formal request for him to start to worship her.

Celestia quickly set aside the document and began to wonder just how hot a fireplace must be to utterly reduce the ashes to a point they could no longer be recovered by any form of magic. Still this cultist in transition had left her a short hoof version of the events that had taken place in Frozen hill.

It was rather… unsettling. Almost like a short hoof version of one of those horror novels, except written from the perspective of the villain, in an almost delightful cheery tone, and one that made the solar princess start to worry for her nephew’s condition. She looked for another more detailed version of the events that had transpired.

In her search, she had managed to find an odd picture of an emerald unicorn mare with light blue mane. She was wearing a vest similar to the garb Prince Leo was wearing, with leather armor covering her body including her cutie mark.

Attached to the artist rendition of her, was the rather well written report that seemed to involve her nephew… as apparently this mare was his new aid along with another report… which sadly wasn’t that helpful as most of it seemed to be an attempt in heavily embellishing the events to make Prince Leo out to be some sort of heroic dashing white knight who saved the day.

She now had three rather troubling reports all detailing the same event, but none of them gave her a clear idea besides the fact that her nephew was attached by Duran’s forces and that he had managed to make it out alive.

Celestia forces her magic as she lifted all the papers out of the box and with her years of countless experience looking over paperwork, she glanced through them all trying to find the exact report she needed to fully explain what had happen.

Countless papers flashed by her face, revealing drawings of dead ferals, recused towns ponies, injured guards, and her nephew looking rather uncomfortable about the praising crowd surrounding him of the expedition force seemed to be giving him now, while his new aide always seemed to be hiding in the background.

It took her a little while until finally she found the report she was looking for. The hoof writing was decent, as she also recognized the seal on the report from her spy Right Hoof who was sent to give a detailed report of her nephew’s actions and how his ‘project’ was actually turning out.

The town of Frozen Hill was quiet. None of the ponies talked as we thought they were being paranoid or cold to outsiders. It turns out that they were actually ferals, having long replaced the town’s population.

Prince Leo wanted to rest in a building other than the rough barracks or resting areas set aside for the troops. So Prince Leo, Verrat, and I had went to the Mayor’s house to inform him of our presence, while Prince Leo was looking for alternative lodging.

Sunny Day didn’t set off any bells as he had claimed that the previous mayor was out gather supplies with a few of his ponies, but he had promised he would be able to have us meet with the mayor in the morning when he came back. After Prince Leo had asked about better accommodations, Sunny Day had offered for us to rest inside the manor so that we could be ready to meet with him as soon as possible.

Prince Leo seemed more eager to rest with the common soldiers than stay in the same building with Sunny Day… but to be fair the pony didn’t blink and there was something unsettling about him. Still, we were all invited to stay, and refusing would have been insulting the mayor and this Sunny Day.

At that point I wished I had chosen to stay with Razor Wing and slept with the troops. When we had retired to the room the three of us were left in the same hallway… but Verrat and Prince Leo had started coming to blows with each other. Prince Leo was upset with the lack of apparent respect she was giving him and she was rather angry at the fact that a political officer was being assigned to the group.

Apparently the term Commissar roughly translate to trouble as in the best case is someone who reports back to the Princess about the behavior and punishment for the army… and at worst executing on the spot those who defy their orders.

Looking back it may have been a blessing, as at that moment the feral locusts had decided to attack, breaking up the fight before it spiraled out of control. I wish to say that we didn’t panic but that would be lying. Verrat braced the door. Prince Leo used his magic to shoot any of the changelings that started clawing their way through the walls, and I had accidently tossed a lamp at one of them.

The fire quickly spread across the room forcing us to work together and try to find a way out. After a hasty plan Prince Leo agreed to try to teleport us all out onto the streets, while Verrat threw a stick of dynamite.

Apparently she was saving some of the explosives she had for when they found the nest. Needless to say, the resulting explosion and the awoken the rest of the expedition force before the ferals could finish their attack.

Celestia looked back at the other two letters, as apparently Prince Leo didn’t want to include blowing up a manor in his report, while Sunny Day and Emerald didn’t notice the explosion, but the ashes of the manor.

The Spell worked for the most part as we were able to escape the manor before it exploded. Unfortunately, it failed in killing all the feral changelings that soon set upon us. We fought our way to one of the buildings and tried hiding in one of the basements in the attempt to narrow the areas where the feral bugs could attack, only to discover the tunnels hidden underneath the house.

Celestia skimmed over some of the details as she was at least happy that Prince Leo had explained that what his idea was, also that he was trying to clarify that he was just a glorified cleric in charge of requisition, and trying to get the towns ponies to like them.

Apparently, they had gotten separated during one of the fights underground and captured by Sunny Day who apparently was preparing to re-educate them until Prince Leo showed up with Emerald Shimmer.

Prince Leo looked nervous, scared, and quite honestly confused, but not that I could blame him. The ferals moved into position to capture him as Sunny Day admitted his plan and that he was not brainwashed or a changeling. He then added that he had in fact used non-magical means to break the minds of the townsponies and twist them to his will.

Emerald Shimmer unleashed a blast of magic destroying one of the pipes to the steam room, blanketing the room in a burning mist. We managed to take them by surprise, and in a sudden bout of convenient luck for us Emerald Shimmer conveniently informed us where the important volatile supplies were being kept in the town and where the Locust hive was.

Celestia rubbed her chin as she looked at Emerald Shimmer’s report and Right Hoof’s report as she glanced at his summary of Emerald Shimmer. I do not know of why she decided to follow Prince Leo’s commands after the battle, but it seemed that she was operating under the assumption that he was in charge… and the prince didn’t exactly seem overly fond of the mare‘s seemingly more capableness then his or her groundless high reverence toward him. If anything, the prince seemed ready to admit to being a nobody if not a coward if that would remove her from his service.

Still, it was thank to her fortuitous assistance that we were able to find the much needed supplies¸and the easy access to heart location of the hive. While we were unable to make contact with the main forces, we had no other choice but to carry the impromptu requisitioned cart full of very volatile insecticide tanks down into the lightly defended tunnels to burn the hive and smoke the feral bugs out of their dens.

In the course of path to the center of the underground hive Prince Leo had actually proven himself to have a decent knack in hacking though the enemies with his sword, while Emerald Shimmer helped provide him assistance by blasting away any feral that got too close to him or managed to avoided one of his deadly strikes. Verrat had helped take care of most of them while we made it down to the source of the locusts.

We had found the rest of the missing villagers and worked fast to free the ponies to strong for Sunny Day’s harsh recruitment tactics and set the spawning tree on fire, along with the insecticide.

I have never seen Prince Leo laugh with such a gleeful expression at the sight of all those burning ferals around us Princess. Of course, this might have been due to the stress of the night’s events as he was probably starting to break down from the stress.

Still, the rest of the soldiers and mercenaries were able to finish off the remaining ferals driven out by the insecticide and helped place the town under equine control once again. Emerald Shimmer had made it her proud duty to help report Prince Leo’s actions to the commanders… albeit with some embellishments to them.

Verrat didn’t seem to stop her as apparently she had admitted that he had managed quite well considering the circumstances and seemed to have a much better opinion of the prince after fighting side by side with him. Apparently, the seemingly heroic achievements were somewhat a bit too praiseworthy for the prince’s liking as it impressed commander Razor Wind enough to have Prince Leo continue along with them in the journey, reassigning him from Requisition duty behind army lines… to Requisition duty in the front line and to help assist the Equestrian and mercenary forces to work together.

Emerald quickly volunteered herself to be his aid and Prince Leo seemed as if he was about to cry in despair at that moment. Sadly, the rest of the army took the sight as tears of joy instead of tears of sorrow.

To finish up this report, Sunny Day has agreed to take punishment for his actions and accept any verdict the Equestrian courts will give him… though he has started talking about how he was wrong for refusing Day Breaker’s divinity.

On a side note, I have not seen him blink for three days straight, so I’m not even sure if he had even slept, or exactly what he means by the gaze of the sun goddess, but I believe that he may be working on his insanity plea.

Celestia took a deep breath as she rubbed her head and tried to think of a nice quite place she could send Sunny Day to, and if that place should be a jail cell or a mental ward? She also made a mental note to check the journal more often as apparently her nephew had gotten way over his head… which actually might be a good thing depending on how things work out.

Celestia levitated the box over her desk as she figured out the perfect solution for it… she removed her nephew’s journal and placed the rest of the box in our OUT PILE, or to be more specific… it was being sent to both divisions of the Royal Guard.

They were the ones helping deal with the Feral Changelings in Equestria, and they were the ones who could make sense of this mess, send the necessary ponies to help the town. And of course, try to get a much more clear and summarized version of the events that had transpired over at Frozen Hill.

Celestia sat back down in her chair ready to ship it off… only for the sound of a rather loud and almost comical sound erupted from her seat. Without even having to look she pulled out the deflated whoopee cushion that had been placed underneath her seat pillow.

She could also hear the faint giggling sound of one tiny breezie coming from inside her desk. A faint glow from her horn appeared as she used her magic to open up the hidden compartment of her desk and retrieved the breezie.

“This is for getting back at me from this morning isn’t it.” Celestia replied in a deadpan tone.

“Maybe… ” Cloud Puff replied with a guilty smirk “But I do have good news for you.”

Celestia nodded her head as she placed the breezie on her desk before wrapping up the box full of letters and reports from the newly dubbed ‘Frozen Hill’ Incident “What is it?”

Hopefully, it would be better than this unexpected mess that landed on her desk. She also made note to make sure to send a letter to the expedition force to make their reports a bit… more collected than the random collection of reports written by seemingly everypony that was a part of the group.

“Oh, I had been talking to that one pony who visited your office today.” She replied in a sing song voice

Celestia rose an eyebrow as she stared at the tiny breezie “Really?”

Cloud Puff nodded her head “I was curious about who he was.”

Celestia made a soft chuckle “He was just a pony who was helping me out with the Yaks. As for his job… he’s a sort of middle pony who helps ponies find jobs and other ponies that just so happen to need important jobs to be done.”

Cloud Puff smirked as she repeated “Oh I was just curious about who he was… after all it’s not anypony you tell the story of Erlking to.” She said surreptitiously

The solar princess now gave Cloud Puff her full attention as she firmly stated “He was just curious about the Breezies…” Cloud Puff nodded as her grin continued to grow “And it’s not like that Cloud Puff!”

The implied suggestion that there was something ‘between’ her and Maxwell was silly of course, as she doesn’t seem really see him in that light anyway. Oh sure, the spell had shown a positive reaction, especially in terms of compatibility between them, and he had been rather very helpful in dealing with some of her own quandaries, all the while being able to help act as a middle pony between many Equestrians and Adventures.

The tiny Breezie’s smirk continued to grow like one of the castle maids who just found a juicy bit of gossip, much to Celestia’ annoyance.

“It’s not like that.” Celestia denied in her firm voice “and you fully know as well I…”

“Oh, don’t start with another of your ‘I don’t have time’ speeches, or that it wouldn’t work out…” Cloud Puff replied in irritation as she tried to rest on Celestia’s right shoulder.

Celestia of course shrugged the tiny breezie off her “That is usually the case. Running a kingdom is a tough job, and there isn’t a lot of time where I can just go and try going on a date or…”

There was an awkward silence as the breezie waited petulantly for Celestia to finish her usual rehearsed answers for not going on a date. In fact, it had become more of a routine to dismiss any notions of romance for herself, or that the princess didn’t care about dating anymore. In fact, she never thought much of it until…

Cloud Puff chuckled “When ponies started asking about if the newest alicorn, what’s his name…” as the breezie hadn’t really meet Lockheart “... was in the castle might be your foal? Is this about dating or not dating, because you haven’t went on a date since the paleoponies invented the wheeled cart?”

Celestia shook her head as she spoke with a hint of annoyance in her voice “Cloud Puff…”

The Breezie rolled her eyes “I mean, you won’t ask because having a stable tradition of your public image as the ever maternal ruler that you crafted around yourself. In fact you’ve been wearing that mask for so long that getting you outside of your usual comfort zone is difficult these days for you? Then of course, there is the whole grandma effect where you known all the nobles sense they were diapered foals kind of makes the whole romantic entanglement difficult.”

The Solar Princess felt her face started to turn red, as she muttered “I have a lot of work and…”

“One day off during the Cultural Festival.” Cloud Puff cheerfully stressed.

Celestia looked down at the tiny breezie as she couldn’t tell where the little pony was going with that, but she had worked very hard that she would get one day off where she wouldn’t have to deal with any work of her job.

The Tiny Breezie shook her head in exasperation as she flew back to the table “Oh, it’s just that Maxwell had agreed to help show a pony around the Cultural Fair…”

Celestia let a soft chuckle out of her mouth as she said “So Maxwell is finding a guide for somepony.”

“Actually, he is personally acting as the guide for this pony!” Cloud Puff add in a sing song voice much to Celestia’s annoyance. “You know… visiting places, eating in restaurants, exploring the sights…”

Celestia tried her best to ignore Cloud Puff as she knew her friend was trying to get a rise out of her. If anything this was just a harmless tour guide job where he was helping escort somepony or more likely helping somepony out with some various task during the Cultural Festival.

Cloud Puff hung over her shoulder as she continued “He seemed really interested in her too. It was kind of cute seeing how flustered he got when I was talking about her.”

Maxwell was probably trying to make sure he got everything right in order to help her out. After all this was a job being given to him by a breezie envoy. Most ponies would be nervous and would want to leave a good impression to somepony of Cloud Puff’s importance.

Cloud Puff floated right in between her eyes as she rested on Celestia’s noise “He heard about how Sundancer was an overworked pony who was getting to have a day off. He seemed really interested when I explained that she wanted somepony to help her look around the fair, see the sights, and that she was a bit shy.” She grinned as if the implication was as clear as day

Celestia just gave a slight huff knocking the breezie off balance and hopefully teaching her a lesson about trying to stand on somepony’s nose. Besides trying to confirm or deny anything would just encourage the little pest.

“Oh there more to it than that.” the Breezie replied as she tried to regain her balance “She is used to having ponies pile problems on her, rushing or working on extra problems because she fell under the pressure of ponies around her, and to top it all off… Maxwell has heard wonderful stories about this sunny little pony!”

Celestia tried not to roll her eyes as it sounded more and more like Maxwell wasn’t able to get a date with the pony because work got in the way. It almost sounded as if Cloud Puff was playing matchmaker and was now either making sure Celestia was okay… or more likely rubbing it into her face.

Cloud Puff held her hooves together and smiled “So what do you think?”

Celestia looked at the little breezie at the end of her nose “You are asking me what I think of Maxwell ‘escorting’ Sundancer around on the one day off I have during the Cultural fair?”

Cloud Puff nodded her head as she seemed to be slowly creeping forward.

The solar princess pretended to be deep in thought as she explained “He is going to be with a lovely young mare which he has shown a slight interest in, but otherwise has been unable to spend time with her in an informal setting…”

“Yep!” She added cheerfully “A very nice and friendly, cute mare who hasn’t been able to get a day off in a long time.”

“Well good for him.” Celestia replied as she was happy that he found some special pony… even though this was probably a lot less romantic than Cloud Puff was hinting at. “I hope everything turns out alright for them.”

There was a silence as the solar princess watched the Breezie’s smile nearly threatening to consume her tiny little face “Really? I mean really, really?”

“Really.” Celestia finished as she had her own plans to think about.

“So you're completely fine with it Sunny Jelly Belly?” The breezie replied

Celestia frowned as she certainly was not getting a ‘jelly belly’ as she was in good shape… until she noticed that Cloud Puff was still smiling and was trying her best not to burst out laughing. It was at that moment did it finally click together in her mind “There is no pony named Sundancer is there.”

The Breezie whistled nonchalantly as she whimsically replied “Not a real pony, but there’s enough of a description about her from the other adventures so none of them would raise an eyebrow… and Maxwell did agree to help her out.”

Now Celestia realized just who the tiny little trickster had been describing “I’m not overworked.”

Cloud Puff nodded her head “Oh, I’m sure it’s perfectly normal to have enough papers stand taller than a pony setting at her desk.”

Celestia looked at the pile of reports that she just dumped and frowned as she tried to deny it “There were two ponies taking care of the major work, and after Lock’s sudden departure it’s just taking a little while for me to sort the workload of some of the papers again.”

She pulled herself straight up as she wasn’t about to be put on a blind date “Besides I’m going to have to now explain to Maxwell…”

“That the Breezie delegate had lied to him?” Cloud Puff replied in fake shock “Oh, how he will not know that the completely normal pony, who works as one of Celestia’s aids was, in fact a vile prank pulled by an insidiously evil and twisted Breezie who thought nothing more than to have him help a pony, only to pull the rug right out from underneath his hooves!”

Celestia rolled her eyes as that was laying it on a bit thick as the Breezie continued “Why… Why I would have to find someway to redeem myself! I would have to confess to Inknote about my crimes. I would have to tell her about the secret underground sweet railroad in an attempt to redeem myself and restore the integrity and honor of the Breezie nation!”

Celestia froze at the sudden piece of blackmail tossed in with her theatrics. Surely Cloud Puff wouldn’t risk her own secret stash of sweets just to trick Celestia into a blind date with Maxwell…

The Breezie smirked as she replied “Mutually Assured Destruction.”

Celestia face hoofed “What does ‘Sundance’ look like?”

Cloud Puff squealed as she started describing how the fake pony looked as Celestia resigned herself to her fate. Still it wouldn’t be completely horrible as she would still get to have a day off for the most part. All that really changed was that ‘Sundance’ would have a pony guide her around for a day. All things considering this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

Besides she would get to see which suit Maxwell was going to wear.

Author's Note

Long story short real life got in the way and this chapter ended up being a bit longer than originally expected.

ch 24 No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Lockheart

I couldn’t see anything, I could barely breathe, my head ached, I had no idea where I was or where I was going. I could feel the rough cloth of a burlap sack that reeked of onions, as apparently nobody bothered to have the decency to clean this thing before shoving it over my head. I could hear a crowd muttering in the background as faint flickers of light managed to bleed through the cloth. The cold steel wrapped around my legs, chafing me, restricting my movement, while I could also feel the undeniably heavy chain collar wrapped around my neck.

In the haze of pain and confusion all around me, the last thing I could faintly recall in my state of delirium was trying to escape before something hit my wings, as I could feel the occasional jolt of pain with each and every pondering steps I took. The cacophony of voices in the background began to grow ever louder, as I could feel all the foul intent being intensely directed towards me.

“Traitor, deceiver, usurper.” the voices kept spat in my general direction with cries of hatred.

I felt a tug on my chains pulling me in a specific direction, nearly causing me to trip on my wobbly hooves, as I tried to clumsily keep myself steady, only to feel the unceremonious strike to the back of my legs forcing me to fall on all four knees. While my body screamed in agony, the suffocating burlap sack was torn from my head, accompanied by the roaring screams of joys from the surrounding crowd nearly deafened me, along with the sudden glare of sunlight blinded my sight,.

My ears screamed in pain, while it felt like a dozen needles were poking into my eyes, as I tried to recover some of my senses, only to feel a sharp clawed hand grab me by my throat and forcibly tilting my head up in a painful position, I could barely make out the shape of a very tragically familiar griffin staring down at me.

“So this is the fool that thought he could kill me.” The mad king Harold’s loud booming voice spoke out loud in a mocking yet triumphant tone, more for the benefit of the crowd to hear rather than my own.

He stood two feet taller than me as his armor shined under the bright sun. One might have been able to ignore the dents in the armor or the blood stains that covered his robes. To my surprise he wore a golden crown, but this wasn’t your typical ‘royal’ golden crown, but more like one of those sharp jagged crowns you see on villains in cartoons.

He finally, (and not very gently) let go of my head which just limp down my shoulders as he tensely walked in circles preparing his rousing theatrics for the crowd around us, clamoring out for blood; my blood to be specific. Personally, the sight of a wooden tree stump with his wretched nephew, Swift Wing, holding a basket next to it and the ever menacing axe lodged in the bloody puddle on wooden tree stump, didn’t fill me with any confidence. I felt another harsh tug on my chains as I turned toward the offender, only to see a familiar dapper looking brown earth pony holding them in his mouth, and staring at me with a sense of smug superiority towards me… It was Boulder Dash, that same stupid ‘noble’ earth pony who just happened to be one of the same annoying ponies that Celestia sent to me as an instructor to assess my ‘latent’ Earth Pony magic talents and, like everyone else did, to see just how well my lies could hold up to his scrutiny. The same pony that I stumble upon freely strutting about in Equestria’s enemy stronghold, and the same one who had griffins under his orders to shoot me and bring me to him. And now, finding out that ‘my teacher’ was also selling out Equestria in the meanwhile to that bloody mad griffin didn’t leave me any room for doubt in his true loyalties lie; that traitor.

He scuffed in annoyance as he dragged my aching body towards the executioner's block. “ Oh, don’t be so surprised of all of this ‘you filthy load of horse apples’ It’s just like Canterlot ‘your highness’.” he lampooned at me “You find the rulers and then you manage to twist them up so tight until they finally snap. It’s almost magical how you manage to make everyone around you hate you, so that you can justify all the spiteful deeds you commit against them just to satiate your need to sew chaos everywhere. So Lockheart, how many griffins died due to your machinations, how many had to suffer from your constant schemings?” He said sneering at me in contempt, with no pity in his eyes as he made sure it was loud enough to be heard by the crowd.

The worst part of it was that the bastard is being just as much a fucking hypocrite and he is being praised for it of all things!

On those accusations, I struggled against my bindings, shaking my head in desperate denial, I couldn’t let that bastard keep talking bulshit about me like that while lying down. “I didn’t kill anyone…”

“Important?” the earth pony cut me off in jeer “Just a few soldiers or random griffins that Nopony would care about, when you set each noble houses to stab each other in the back? Do you actually just dismiss all of those deaths as a few ‘statistical figures’ on a sheet when you riled up every griffin against one another and then set them up for another bloody civil war?”

He kept dragged me forward as I desperately snapped back “They were going to go to war anyway! I didn’t push them so much as they just jumped for the chance. Hell, they were already at each other’s throats before I even got here!” I defended, after all I did was just gave them a nudge.

I was tossed on the ground, as Harold shouted to the clamoring crowd in triumph “This coward you see here was sent to kill me. He failed, believing that mere words and trickery would be enough to stop me, your one true king! To stop us from achieving our great destiny!”

Struggling against my binds, I looked up and glared at the crazy griffin who I had conspired to have him killed and had actually tried to kill, since the nobles couldn’t do it right on their own, and for some odd incomprehensible reasons he just wouldn’t die! Even with every single one of my tricks, cheats, and low blows that I had, I couldn’t beat that cursed monster if a ‘fair’ fight, as my only real option left that I could really do back then was run.

I felt my frustration growing as I hated and despised my lot in life. If it had been Twilight and the gang, they would have found some random griffin and starting some friendship speech for everyone to hear, as they sudden would all just fall in line in caring for everything and fix everything with a musical dance number to boot! If this was a ‘normal’ story, then a ‘hero’ would have been able to stand in front of Harold and defeat him in some PG-Y7 epic duel. Hell, if it had been Maxwell, I’m pretty sure he would suddenly luck his way into victory by stabbing the griffin head honcho himself through the heart, or suddenly having his companions just pop in at the last moment to save him just as the axe was about to swing down upon his head.

Yet here I was, without friends, without allies, and without any fucking god given luck as the crazy griffin berserker somehow found me before I could even properly try to assassinate him!

Glancing at the self serving earth pony, Harold smirked as he watched the pony bow down to him in fealty to him, before going into a proclamation “Bolder Dash, for your act of loyalty toward me, and delivering me my would be murderer. You have earned yourself a seat in my court, and a part of the spoils I shall take, when my army ravages the countryside of Equestria and it’s subjugation in retaliation for their cowardly attempt on my life!”

On those words, I felt my blood drained. Equestria was getting dragged along with my due to my, stupid, disastrous failure to get rid of that bloodthirsty lunatic, to try and protect all of them in the first place, only to all backfire at me. “It was me, all me! “ I pleaded, I didn’t want the ponies or Celestia to pay for my mistakes. Yeah, I was sore with them, but I didn’t want them to die because of me. “I was the only one who tried to have you killed, all on my own, Equestria has already disowned me and condemned me.”

A cruel smile adorned his lips as he whispered gently into my ear, like some smug old school disney villain “Here’s a little saged advice to you, from yours truly. It matters not what you thought you did, but what the public shall see. They shall take witness to the vile deceiver trying to usurp our fair nation and leave it weakened to outside forces.”

The mad griffin king stood up raising a talon high into the air in a grandiose gesture catching the mob’s attention. He ignored me as the roar of the crowd filled his ego as he stood over me like some wild game animal he had slain “With your failure, I will be able to rally the nation together to unleash a war that Equestria has yet to see since the birth of it’s nation!”

With contemptuous ease, he grabbed me by the throat lifting and lifted me off the ground with his inhuman strength and slamming me against the blood soaked wood grinning. I struggled to break free, but he stomped his foot down on my stomach, knocking the wind out of my lungs as he took the axe with his talons slowly drawing out the moment. I could feel my head being pushed forward, near the edge with the basket rested just underneath my head.

“You know, It would have taken years for me to come up with the proper pretext for me to invade Equestria” He shouted in glee at me as he raised the axe. “And now I can freely invade their weak pony lands, and it is all thanks to you!”

He laughed out loud in triumph, as the crowd screamed in joy. I closed my eyes trying to summon any strength I had left to escape, as the axe’s blade was ready to take it’s final swing at me before a screaming pain erupted through my body...

******

I groaned in pain, as I wearily opened my eyes as my body felt like it had been run over by a truck. I was laying on what felt like a soft velvety cushion (which was also very comfy) placed on some marble floor, I could make out faint whispers all around me, but nothing that I could actually make out. My neck stung when I tried to move it, but at least I didn’t feel the pressing of chains wrapped around my throat or weights tied to my legs like last time. Yes, my body might have felt more beaten and battered before, but at least there was nothing painfully holding me down at the moment, while I tried to make sense of my current situation.

“I brought him your grace. It wasn’t easy, The King of Iron Claw very adamantly didn’t want to let go of him, seeing how he was about to claim his head when I reached him. But, I managed to negotiate Lockheart as part of the treaty for you, despite his impromptu... scene he created over there” A voice, a very familiar smug voice, the same traitorous stallion voice said.

I blink confusedly, as it felt as if I had missed something. What just happened to me, was it all real, didn’t Bolder Dash sell me and Equestria out to Herald? Wasn’t I about to die? How did he got me out of that mess? Was it all just a fever filled hallucination?

I looked up, trying to see through the pouring light, piercing through all the enumerable multicolor stained glass windows around me, drowning everything in light, except that large silhouette right above me sitting on an altar. I could vaguely define it with a billowing rainbow in a breeze I couldn’t feel, which somehow felt alarmingly familiar, a long spire on top of it and very large... wings!?

It was Celestia, the solar princess, the freaking dawn bringer herself, it was the (supposed) embodiment of kindness, maternal love, the epitome of good itself, and...it was also the last pony I ever wanted to see again! She was there, right in front of me, in all her typical regal glory, with her ethereal mane flowing in a stupid non-existent gust of wind, sitting upon her golden throne, with that stupid public smile that everyone is familiar with, pretending that everything will be alright.

She was also the one who put me in a cell, when I was first found out; She was the one who thrusted me into the role of an alicorn royal, power that I didn’t want or even understood; she was the one who exposed me to the entire world, to be under the crowd’s in uncalled worship and adoration of me.

One would say that I was wrong to even doubt her in the first place… but she was also the same pony who sent me to do the dirty jobs for her, to seek out the countless liars and the cheaters; she was the one who made me take those stupides tests to see if I was a real alicorn, to be in the crosshairs of the nobles’ scrutiny; she was the one who peered into my very mind without my consent, and saw through everything about me.

She knew the truth about me, she saw the lies, the secrets, the deals I made, the truth of what I really am, the threat I represented to her and all her little ponies. She chased me, she tried to hunt me down herself, she wanted to open me up, she wanted to kill me, and worst of all... and everyone would claim that she had every right to do so considering what I was hiding from her.

Beside me, basking in her radiance majesty, was Boulder Dash. who stood facing me, in a ramrod straight posture, looking at me in boredom, seemingly indifferent about me, then turning to face Celestia presence with a kind smile and, kneeling, bowing to her, waiting for her to render her supreme judgment upon me. Celestia’s on the other hand, while she slowly descended the steps from her throne pedestal, looked down at me in heart wrenching disappointment on her face, that you couldn’t help but feel ashamed at yourself even if you didn’t know why, like a parent who saw the truth of what their child did and still couldn’t accept it, or bring themselves to be angry to them. (Seeing every questionable act I did, while in Iron Claw, it might not be wholly unjustified).

Celestia stopped her descent two lengths in front of me peering down at me, while I was laying down on on the floor of the opulent wide throneroom. Her chin raised up and faced Boulder Dash and in a clear auspicious soft voice reverberated throughout the echoing throne room, adding to her already unwavering and absolute authority that she exuded. “Thank you Bolder Dash, for the great deeds you have done these past few days for Equestria’s continued safety of this realm and its subjects. The crown and all its ponies who resides are all deeply indebted to you for your show of great skills for managing to swiftly negotiate a peace terms before with Iron Claw’s ‘temperamental’ King Harold himself, while its leadership had torn itself apart and couldn’t effectively lead its own forces for any large scale engagements with Equestria, as well as force an armistice before any blood could be shed by any Equestrians.”

Wait, what!? Boulder Dash was sent to Iron Claw to try and save Equestria!? That didn’t make sense, wasn’t the griffins who shot me were under his orders? Wasn’t he the one holding my shackles to the executioner's block? Wasn’t he like all the other selfish nobles that I met before? Wasn’t I right about what I saw? Wasn’t any of all this real? Could he actually be the hero of all this. Could I be wrong about him this whole time…?

Celestia droned on with her speech to what I now realized to be droves upon droves of ponies, standing behind me, and was where I heard those hushed whispers early before. “And now, after seizing of part of its treasury, and a large portion of their weapons stock confiscated, as well as forcing the king of Iron Claw’s abdication, Iron Claw will no longer be a threat to Equestria for the feasible future and maybe, we can hope, that it’s new leadership will be more wiser in leading its subjects.”

‘In other words, do what Equestria says and pay lip service to Equestria.’ I thought in the back of my mind before realizing that there was something wrong with this scene.

How did Bolder Dash ever managed to convince Herald off the throne and surrender in the first place? Must have been a hell of a standoff if Bolder Dash actually held his ground with Herald alone, Wait, how many forces did Equestria have already and how were they all ready for all of what happened? I mean I didn’t see a lot of ponies in Iron Claw.

A faint hope filled my heart as I couldn’t help but wonder if my stupid stunt actually might have saved lives in the end? Could I dare hope to get out of this situation alive? I mean if they didn’t let Harold kill me than that had to mean something right?

“And most importantly of all Bolder Dash, you have managed to find and retrieve my dear and cherished wayward prince Lockheart. Who thanks to you, has come back amongst us again.”

Wait, she is calling me a prince now!? Granted, she just showed me to the press and presented me as an alicorn, with none of that pretentious title that goes along with it, where at the time, I was just meant for show to shift the attention away from at what happen in the Everfree Castle. And, I never thought that I was ever in her good books, even before I ran away.

I looked back at the crowd as they fell into cheers, with stomping, nickers and whinnies, at Boulder Dash, who stood there proudly with a small smile pursing his lips, basking in all the praising he was getting in that moment.

The dread that rested deeply in my heart slowly started to fade with the present jubilations. There was no resentment, hatred, or ill will. They were happy, cheerful, in fact this scene felt more like the return of a hero from the MLP show. I almost felt like joining them in that... at least until I saw the none of them were actually looking at me.

The small gnawing dread began to resurface as I took full notice of the situation. I could feel their joy, their happiness, their respect towards the earth pony standing nearby Celestia herself… but none of it was directed towards me. This celebration wasn’t about my return, but the fall of Iron Claw’s brutal regime.

I was just the excess baggage that I was dragged along… or the one sour point of their festive jubilations, as some of the crowd started to acknowledge my presence with withering gazes. I was once again, unwanted, hated, and despised.

As the cheers began to die down, I could hear a few of them whisper ‘The traitor of Canterlot’ in hushed tones as the room began to grow colder. Glancing back at the golden throne with a wave of her snow white wing Celestia dismiss Bolder Dash, which he silently bowed again to her and aqueous, not even sparing a glance toward me, followed the path leading to the tall main exit.

The room stayed silent except for the few hushed whispers, as some began to whisper about what Celestia was about to prepare for my ill fated return. Of course, ‘ill fated’ being the fact I had the audacity to return even if it wasn’t by my own free will.

Celestia stared down from ontop her golden throne, as I was once again reminded of my crimes… Discord’s bargain, and of course my own attempt to flee from Canterlot when she discovered the truth that I had so carefully hidden from her.

I felt my body start to curl up trying to make myself as small of a target as possible, as the sunlight from the windows grew harsher. Her shadow slowly started to cast over me, as the blinding sun somehow was making the room darker… almost as if the very light itself was being syphoned away from the room, and was being gathered for something else as Celestia’s foreboding presence loomed over me.

Normally, I would have ran away from her in a heartbeat, but my body felt as if it was trapped in cement as her gaze focused on me. My own fear of her soon squashed any attempt to muster up any will, or strength, to break me from her gaze, that I was left helpless upon the floor as the angered goddess made flesh locked eyes with me.

I had little choice but to face her judgement and wish… no pray for mercy even despite knowing that none would be spared for me. I could feel the dreaded awe of silence from the crowd drown out every other sound in the room as they had been waiting for this moment… for the punishment of my transgressions to have finally come.

“You have committed many misdeeds Lockheart.” she spoke forgoing any of her usual warm welcoming greetings expected of her.

I frowned at the unusually blunt statement coming from Celestia, as I tried to struggle to stand up, as I tried to defend, if not at least explain myself to her “No, you don’t understand... I did what I could in order to survive.”

Celestia shook her head dismissing my flimsy protests, as she seemed further saddened by what she must have perceived as my continued denial of any responsibility towards my actions before continuing “The theft of the Elements of Harmony… blaming Duran as the soul responsible culprit of the theft when it really was you all along. If you had told me sooner, if you hadn’t hid the truth from me all this time we could have tried reasoning with the changeling Duran instead of letting all of this situation spiral out of control like it did.” Probably referring to the fact that the mad changeling is wreaking havoc elsewhere, after the subsequent stunt I pulled back then.

I bit my lip as I bitterly retort to this load of bullshit “ He was an immoral monster that was a threat to Equestria. You saw what he did to all those people and what he was going to do! You know as well as I do, that if he had found the Elements of Harmony, nothing would have ever changed with him! Only this time, he would have had six new shiny gems to support his mad delusions of power instead of being hunted down like the monster he truly was!”

“Or, maybe it was my fault for pushing such a position onto a pony ill suited for it.” Celestia spread her wings dismissing everything out of hand of what I just said “I thought you would be more like me…or at least all your other predecessors that you would have rose up to the role of a royal prince, or perhaps that you would learn to better use your new position, to gather your own court and staff in order, to look out for others if you were given a position of power, instead of shunning them away at hooves length and isolating yourself from the rest of the world.”

I gritted my teeth, as I noticed the growing crowd of nobles in the royal courtroom standing at the edge of the room whispering watching me, judging me, criticizing me, accusing me of everything I did! Those same lying jerks who were not so long ago smooching at me, those turn two face jerks, now saying that they always knew that I would turn out like this. I could imagine in my mind how some of the other ‘adventurers’ already turning their backs on me, since I wasn’t the ‘true alicorn’ that they desperately wanted, needed, no, demanded me to be, so that I would solve all their problems. But instead, I was the false alicorn set up by someone else to mislead and trick them. Never mind that I never claimed to be one in the first place and that I had always denied it when someone brought it up!

Celestia rubbed her face with her right hoof as she walked down her throne over to me “If we had reached the Elements of Harmony sooner, we could have solved everything. If Duran’s followers had seen us in possession of the Elements, and promised to send all his followers back home, they would have surrendered in droves and he would have lost all his credibility as their leader, sense it rested on possessing them in the first place and would have had no other choice but to surrender and comply. I could have convinced him to work with me, instead of having to rely on drastic means due to his followers fears and panic of being lost in this strange world.”

Looking back on it all, and seeing it from Celestia’s point of view, maybe I had made a few mistakes.

Should I have just left the Elements of Harmony in their shiny cage and just hope that Duran didn’t find them as easily as I had? Probably, considering the fact that I screwed up and we were only saved because Celestia arrived saving us just in the nick of time. Maybe if I had relied on Celestia’s forgiving nature, she might have been able to help out sooner, with the loss of the Elements of Harmony, or at least buy some time for her to come up with a solution to help me out with my Discord problem, while everybody tried to find the rest of the Elements of Harmony.

I bit the inside of my cheek, as I remembered that hated night… the night were Celestia just suddenly came and saw me practicing that one stupid spell. That night, were the truth was revealed… she did have every right to be angry, to suspect me of some greater crime than being tricked by Discord himself. Maybe if I hadn’t suddenly been possessed by the sudden urge to flee, than maybe I could have talked things out with her and found some sort of compromise…

And maybe Duran would have been an outstanding member of society, instead of some prick who took full advantage of a frightned mass of people, and expertly kicked out or surgically removed all opposition by turning them into puppets for his own amusement. While in the meantime, I placed my trust in the one person who threw me in jail ‘just because I looked odd’, before subsequently dumping me off to anyone she could find, rather than spend a single moment of her time in my presence while she tried to find anypony who could expose me as some misbegotten pretender to the throne!

How dare she make light of my actions, my judgement as if they were nothing!

“You would have just excused all of his crimes, just like that?” I incredulously replied “What about the brainwashing, the inhuman acts like turning people into dolls for their own amusement, the insanity of, of turning everyone into mindless violent thugs to serve as soldiers…” I could feel the bile rising in my throat as I continued to snap back at her “And yet here you are, saying that it was my fault, because I didn’t want to find out what you would do to me if you found out my secret?”

Yes, I made a deal with Discord of all people for immortality, in exchange of getting one of the elements for him? That for all this time, I was hiding one inside of me, and to get it back that royal hypocrite would have to rip it out of my chest! Was it wrong? Of course it was. Did I fear death? Of course I did, but could you tell me that no one else would even be slightly tempted by the offer, much less terrorised of the fact that people already wanted to kill you in the first place for being arbitrarily designated ‘villain’ by that same mad god from the future?

How many people would honestly admit that they would need to die or would be willing to die when presented with a situation like that!

I throw my hoof out at her and shouted “I was thrown in jail for simply looking like a freak? Or was my misdemeanor in trespassing in the hedge garden on the day a monster attack was justification for me being thrown in jail without a trial? “ I managed to point my painfully aching hoof at her in my indignation“Oh how justified you must feel that an admitted psychopath of countless crimes is the one that get’s a free pass because he didn’t get to steal the Elements of Harmony!”

Celestia’s imposing stature stock-still towered over me as her shadow cast over me like a monolithic figure of divine retribution “And what have your actions and your choices caused to us? Humanity is fractured and lost. Equestria resources are stretched to it’s very limit, while countless threats attack us from all sides. You act without consideration for others. You follow Discord’s schemes and deceptions instead of looking out for everypony around you and doing what is right instead of what is conveniently beneficial for you.”

I felt my body start to hug the ground as my wings clenched tightly to my side at the weight of the allegations she just heap up on me. I was dreading of what she was about to do to me. I knew I couldn’t ever hope to stand up to her in my injured state.

(not that it would ever actually change anything at the outcome as she is freaking Celestia!)

I could feel the frantic beating of my heart start to quicken, due to the gnaw quenching dread that filled my body… any moment that solar tyrant was going to rip my heart out of my chest for the wretched ‘greater good’ while the rest of those hypocrites would cheer for her.

Celestia looked down at me as she spoke in sorrow “Is it so hard for you to place your trust in somepony instead of preparing for them moment when they fail you? That, even when I found out the truth about your misdeed… that you chose to fled Canterlot instead of trusting in me that I would understand, or that I wouldn’t ever want any harm to you? How could you even think so ill of me!?” Her eyes moistened, really to fall in tears.

I stared at her in shock, at the sudden display of actually caring for me coming from her just caught me off guard. Her wings spread out then wrapped around my battered limp body and pulled me closer as she wrapped her hooves around me pulling me into her embrace. I could feel how soft her feathers were… how her own heart seemed to quickened its pace as she held my head against her chest.

I could even feel a few tears drip onto my head as she continued “I know, I was fooling myself thinking that you could become my nephew, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t care about you. What’s more important is that I forgive you.”

My mind stuttered on hearing that word, actually daring to hope. I mean sure I was confused about her calling me her nephew… but that was probably something similar to the Blueblood’s position as a prince. Did this mean she wasn’t going to kill me or try to force me to be something that I just wasn’t?

I tried to crane my head up as I spoke with a faint spark of hope “You forgive me?”

She looked down at me in pity as a soft smile appeared on her face, while a soft golden light emitted from her horn “I forgive you… after you pay for your crimes.”

Before I knew it, I felt a screaming pain tear through my chest as I saw a large inert Element of Harmony drifting above my head dripping in some red liquid as my body was feeling numb.

Celestia let go of me as my limp body hit the floor “It was wrong of me to think of you as one of my little ponies… after all…” she turned her back on me “In the end, you're only human after all.”

******

I gasped for air as I placed a hoof over my chest. My body ached in pain as my chest hurt like heck and relief, as there gratefully wasn’t one great big Element shape cavity hole there. I struggled to breathe, as it felt like my lungs were on fire and my eyes started to sting, while smoke was drifting in the air.

Okay think… first I was in Iron Claw about to have my head hacked off. Then I was in Canterlot about to have my heart ripped out. I slowly opened my eyes fully expecting to be back home just in time to be shot by the police for some vague ‘justified’ reason… only to see buildings… lots and lots of buildings from Iron Claw in a blazing symphony of death and fire.

I looked back at my own body just to realize I was lying in a bed with countless other dead bodies judging from the sickening amount of blood of the various weapons sticking out of the more healthy looking corpses.

Either I had been left for dead when the survivors of this place fled, or the attackers had simply left me to die since I had looked to be dead or dying… which was kind of a mixed blessing really. On the bright side there were no guards and the missing wall beside my bed would make it easy for me to escape this place.

******

I continued meandering down the deserted streets, trying of making sense of what was happening around me, I saw a pair of griffins tearing down a wall with axes laughing as they took anything that was of value. I saw the streets bathed in blood with various avian corpses of all ages laid dead on the streets, or left hanging, beaten, and brutally mutilated in such a manner...

I felt my stomach lurch as I looked away from the scene as it was one thing to look at drawings, pictures, or movies about out… but something completely different about seeing it in person as I could feel the bile and whatever was left in my stomaching trying to escape.

This was not a scene one would see in MLP… maybe the nature channel, but not anything on any scale that held PG in it’s rating!

I might not know much about the local customs, but generally mutilated bodies were the universe’s warning sign to people… to tell them to be anywhere but here as I quickly turned around and ran inside the only ‘safe’ building I could see.

I spotted the familiar hanging sign of the Gilded Claw… the building was missing one of it’s walls and the fires had yet to reach it, but unlike the others there seemed to have been an attempt to defend the building, judging from the positions of the corpses either trying to defend or storm the building.

More importantly it wasn’t on fire, or threatening to lean over and fall down crushing me to death as I ran past the line of dead bodies, and nearly kicking open one of the doors while I tried to find the room that I had been hiding in. I didn’t have anything to protect myself and I was placing my hope that some lucky griffin didn’t discover my hidden stash of goods.

Which was fate, like the insufferable bitch that she was, in this universe had just decided to have the one mare that I had been chasing after before everything hit the fan to just be standing there, right next to the hidden stash in the floor staring at me in surprise… with my hidden shotgun pointed at me.

I flinched as I bitterly muttered to life itself “Of course the thief is the one who finds it.”

The brass colored fiend that I had been hunting for months, just stood there with a smirk as she had somehow managed to fit my shotgun into an impromptu battle saddle which wouldn’t have been a problem… if she didn’t have a shotgun. She was also covered in some sort of leather armor and a small white cloth near her mouth as a makeshift breathing mask, to avoid breathing in smoke or the rotting decay of the corpses around us.

Her eyes focused on me at first in hostility, before switching back into slight relief, even while I prepared for the two of us to come to blows “Oh, you’re still alive.”

“That’s my gun…” I slowly replied (half growling at the bitch) as I tried to position myself by the exit if only to use the door as a shield if she tried to shoot me “And what is going on here?”

She chuckled for just a moment before she smiled as if entertaining my question “Well since you gave me this weapon, I guess I’ll tell you then.” Her hoof slowly went to gather up the remaining gems, and place them in her saddlebags, as she watched me “Okay here is how it went for the most part; the fighting started off with all the clans fighting against clan as every griffin, as you probably guessed by now, since they were already prepared themselves to turn on each other at the drop of a hat.”

I was discreetly making my way to the door, as I kept my eyes on her while she kept taking my hard stolen items for herself “What happened to the city?”

An almost sadistic smile appeared across her face as she replied “Well that’s a funny thing actually, as there were no alliances, no allegiances, no plan other than to get revenge on each other as they were only looking out for themselves…” She chuckled nearly shaking her head as she continued “Is it any wonder that a city left to violent idiots ended up like this?”

One of the buildings behind me collapsed, as I could feel the mistreated and mutilated foundation come crashing down and shaking the world around us. I turned my head, only to see the previous two looters broken bodies, as the building had it’s final revenge against the robbers that had come to tear what little it had left.

“Shouldn’t they have stopped after their leaders died?” I asked out loud “I mean, shouldn’t they have had to go and retreat or something, at least try to figure out who would be next down the line to be in charge?”

Yes my plan was to cut off the head of their clans, but I was also expecting them to retreat, fall back, go home to get reinforcement or at the very least get their paychecks since their boss kicked the bucket!

Brass just looked to me as if I was an idiot “You do realize that these are Iron Claw Griffins here right?” she rolled her eyes “Of course, they wouldn’t let a little detail like ‘leadership’ or ‘planing’ bother them from bashing each other brains in. They just kept fighting each other, trying to claim they were the new king of their own clan before trying to kill the other new leaders of the surviving fraction until they descended into a mad ‘king of the hill’ free for all trying to claim the throne for themselves. Before you knew it, all their coffers ran out with shiny bits to pay their fighters with. And guess what those sword and axe wielding thugs did as recompense for all the hard fighting they been doing for them” She left the fate of those clans and nobles unsaid, with the plain obvious outcome with that insufferable smirk.

I shook my head in relief “So that’s when the fighting stopped.”

To my surprise and horror Brass laughed out loud “Of course not! That’s when the fighters decided to take over!”

“You can’t be serious.” I spoke out in sheer disbelief as I couldn’t believe that anyone would be that foolish…

Until I realized what the throne of Iron Claw meant to them. This wasn’t a chair to them, but the seat of power. Whoever was sitting in the chair was in charge of their nation because it had yet to fall into complete anarchy. They were slaughtering each other because they believed that the victory would be in charge of the rest of the nation.

It was like King Arthur's sword only without having to pull the damn thing out of the stone!

“Of course, not everyone decided to join in on the fight.” She cheerfully replied with a new necklace of sapphires around her neck “Some just skipped the fight and went straight for the looting.”

I could hear the pain grasped moans as I looked back at the fallen building only to realize the looters were still alive. They were already dead, but they were just enough alive to feel the fires start to consume their bodies as… there was no words for describing the sound I heard.

It wasn’t so much of a scream as a painful release of air before the fires consumed them.

It was a reminder that things could still get worse.

“Now, it’s mostly mindless violence, lootings, and chaos without any thought, plan, or plans of order left.” Brass and somehow snuck up on me and wrapped a hoof around my shoulder “Shame really since I had plans for them. Still your plan succeeded and mine had failed. You had valiantly slain the big evil empire.”

I placed a hoof to my mouth as I felt a bit of upchuck before shaking out of her gasp “How can you be so cheerful about all of this!” I shouted motioning towards the death, fire and madness that surrounded us.

That twisted bandit just shrugged “You win some, or lose some and loot some nation’s national treasury. Honestly it’s nice that I have to do a treasure hunt inside the city since most of the other contenders died killing each other for a room full of glass diamonds.”

My eye twitched as I tried to figure out where she was keeping my shotgun bullets. Just one small fire spell and I might be able to turn this around.

Brass just rose an eyebrow as she didn’t seem that concerned “You do realize that I’m the one who still has an army nearby who will come running and shooting if I so much as scream right?”

I needed one quick takedown before she could scream. It complicates matters a little, but that was life in a nutshell. Besides I needed to buy time and figure out where those highly explosive shotgun shells were located for my spell to work.

“Why are you still here since most of this place devolved into a warzone?” I ‘kindly’ asked the witch “After all I wouldn’t peg you as the type to be running around burning buildings about to collapse in on itself.”

Brass just smirked as she cheerfully gloated “Man you really are out of current events aren’t you!? I’ve already fled back to Equestria and ‘begged’ Celestia for her forgiveness…” She must've noticed that I didn’t believe her as she shrugged “Alright, Swift Wing went to her and and begged for forgiveness, namelly in the form of a few magical artifacts that I managed to find, which she gladly accepted for a royal pardon.”

“Swift Wing? The griffin who works for you!” I snapped back mostly in disbelief.

“Who worked for Luke.” Brass ‘clarified’ for me “I mean sure ‘we’ had to sell out most my former associates, where they were hiding the big baddies and so forth, but they were useless to us anyway.”

I tried not to frown as I had no idea who ‘luke’ and it probably didn’t matter anymore.

“Then why are you here?” I bitterly asked, as I took a few steps back from the burning smell of flesh, while I tried to find something to cover my nose.

“Because Celestia sent aid and left them in Swift Wing’s command.” Brass cheerfully replied “She couldn’t risk letting the chaos spill into Equestria and the citizens need some semblance of order, if only to stop this senseless chaos.”

The ground shook again, as two more buildings collapsed, revealing equestrians tossing griffin corpses onto one of the burning piles of bodies. Most of them were, as far as I could tell, wearing the armor of the Night Guard as two of the former humans (a hippogriff and diamond dog) were taking down some of the cadavers from a hangman’s noose.

Brass chuckled “By any means necessary of course.”

That was when I noticed they weren’t taking the corpses down. The bodies were still kicking. The Night Guard were placing the ropes around their neck. To my new found horror, two bat ponies had just appeared bringing a barrel and a griffin child before placing the child on top of the barrel so that they could have an easier time placing the noose around their neck.

“Why are they hanging children!” I snapped back at her in a mixture of fear and disgust.

Brass just shook her head as she did seem sorry to see it happen “Looting is punishable by death by hanging. No exceptions.”

“No exceptions…” I bitterly replied “No exceptions! I worked, trained, reorganized the entire forgotten branch only to have them do this! There is no way that Equestrians would…”

“You taught them war. You taught them vigilance. You showed them that they needed to be prepared for the worst and took in any and all newcomers.” Brass simply stated “Some just want to impress Swift to rise up the ranks, since the Solar Guard wasn’t admitting any humans. Some thought that you having personally caused the destruction of Iron Claw as divine judgement meaning that these lowly savages don’t deserve mercy. Of course, there probably are a few that simply don’t care.” she added as an afterthought.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing right in front of me. Did I screw up by not looking close enough at some of recruits records, or did the change in standards allow common thugs, criminals or opportunist to take advantage of this situation here?

Was this all really because of me?

I watched in horror as one of the bat ponies kick the barrel, while the resounding snap ringed across the land, as the child’s body now hung limp from the rope. I watched on with disbelief as the other ropes fell before snapping the neck of the ‘savage’ griffins as the two former humans started to mumble, removing the ropes before tossing the corpses onto the ever growing piles.

“Still I have to say, I’m impressed.” Brass commented as she watched the ruthless efficiency as they prepared to hang another group of prisoners. “You managed to nearly single handedly destroy Iron Claw, and subsequently place it underneath Equestria’s rule without too much hassle.”

I turned away from the horrible scene, as I tried to walk away. I could feel my hooves splashing against the blood soaked ground as I tried to sidestep around the bodies. My own magic just barely managed to pick up one of the rusted swords, that a looter had yet to spot, as I tried to get out of here.

Brass ran after me shouting “What’s wrong?”

I turned around and snapped at her “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” as I gestured to the madness around us “Can you not see what is wrong with all of this?”

Brass removed her breathing mask revealing a faint smirk “If you're so upset about it then how about you work for me?” I glared at her which only caused her to chuckle “You plan worked… it went off without a hitch and you succeed as everything went horribly right.”

I felt the dread in those words hang in the air, on hearing those words, not because they were false but because she was right. And, it didn’t helped that she didn’t make any attempt to harm me, which was the only thing that was holding me back from turning on her, which would have really been convenient for me if only to shut her up from the ugly truth. No, she was getting ready to make me an offer and, damn me, I was listening to it. “You saw what I was able to do? You saw how I was able escape Celestia’s grasp, gather allies when Equestria was out for my head, and always come out on top…”

I paused as I couldn’t help but think about her offer for a moment. I had tried keeping up with Celestia’s countless tests only to fail in the end. My attempt to rough it alone or survive on my only really just involved relying on a bet and following someone… and that ended in a city on fire.

“Or would you rather be on the run for the rest of your life always hiding in fear of the day when she finds you?” Brass finished as she let her words hang in the air.

That’s when I felt the horror of it all. Could I always be on the run from a semi-immortal princess? Heck I know for a fact that she is patient as she prepared for her sister’s return one thousand years later and possibly for King Sombra’s unknown return! It would be like being hunted by Inspector Javert!

There would always be someone searching for me. Someone issuing new search warrants or trying to conjure up some new sort of spell to track and locate me. It wasn’t a matter of if Celestia would find me on my own, but rather when she would capture me.

She held her hoof out at me, offering her help and services to me, as she was promised implicitly that she would protect me from Celestia and by extension Equestria’s wrath; at least until I am no longer useful to her like her former associates. Instinctively, I felt my hoof slowly moving towards her’s, to reacher to her all so tempting offer, only suddenly realize what I was doing and snapped it away.

I wasn’t like her. She already was a highway bandit before she was press ganged into an even worse group. I didn’t cause any ‘major’ crimes besides impersonating Cadance in Canterlot. She willingly joined a group to break criminals out of Tartarus, and laid a trap for the first response team with the express intention of burying them alive and get valkyrie petrify which is why I was after her in the first place. I tried to turn the Night Guard that was undermanned under equipped under budgeted, under staffed, under performing, into an efficient and competent force. She was gathering a group for no other pursues then to steal precious rare artifacts, and would cut them loose the moment she didn’t need them anymore. As for me, I was stuck playing mediary between business ponies on new ideas, inventions, or concepts brought over by other humans with the random self serving noble scheme thrown into the mix.

She aligned herself to a nation that thrived on conquest that planned to invade Equestria! All I did was kidnap a person and follow that rat back to his nest, so that I could smoke out the rest of the vermin before fully escaping Equestria’s grasp!”

To my surprise she battered her eyes and gave an almost… flirtish glance at me as she replied “We could have had a lot of fun Lock… but sadly for you…”

“Lockheart” I heard what was Maxwell’s voice snapped out loud.

I turned around and spotted the earth pony as Brass slipped away “She has other plans for you.”

Before I knew it, Maxwell stood there in front of me along with four other ponies, on guard and rearing for a fight. I couldn’t recognize them at first as the smoke started to blind me, but I recognized them from my dreams… no… my nightmares.

Another earth pony that wasn’t Maxwell stood near the front of the group almost protecting them behind him. I could hear a female voice from one of the pegasi wearing something like a dress complaining about the smoke, soot, and ash in the air.

A second pegasus spoke with a hint of fear “Warped horn, black feathers… He looks like a MLP villain.” she firmly stated as she moved towards the back of the group.

“Is this the one?” the unicorn spoke in an arrogant all knowing tone “He certainly looks like the usurper.”

Maxwell nodded his head as he glared at me “Lockheart… no… Grim Tale” he spoke with a voice full of hatred “I should have known I’d find you in a place like this.”

I gritted my teeth as that I hadn’t expected to hear that wretched screen name again… and to make things worse it was five against one wasn’t normally good odds… especially when my body felt like shit “What do you want Maxwell.”

“You need to answer for your crimes Grim Tale.” Maxwell bitterly replied as if just speaking to me left a bitter taste in his mouth “We are here to bring you back to Equestria to serve your punishment.”

I felt the faint memory of Celestia ripping out my goddamn heart as I glared at him. I wasn’t planning on reliving that ill fated nightmare again, as I pulled forth my rusty sword, only for a golden blast of light to knock it out of my magical grasp and send it flying into the streets behind me.

A sixth figure appeared as it stood clearly taller than the rest. At first, I thought it was Celestia as the mare had the same large slender body, white coat, long horn, and of course wings… the full alicorn package.

“Ah yes…” the new alicorn spoke revealing her full displeasure “The usurper.”

“My name is Lockheart.” I bitterly reminded both of them as I wished I could see the mare if only to who was insulting me.

“No it isn’t.” The larger alicorn quickly snapped back “Your name is Grim Tale. That was the name you were given. The fate you were assigned instead of the unrightful theft of what should have been mine!” She nearly spat at me.

The other ponies moved to either protect her or share her discontent towards me. Personally, I had no clue who she was!

She looked down at me as her horn blazed an golden light… not the same golden light Celestia had. This light burned not light the morning ray of the sun, but the harsh cold glare of an interrogator's light as she spoke “You stole the Elements of Harmony. Worked in hand and hand with known criminals like that despicable mare you were just speaking with earlier.”

I opened my mouth only for her magic to slam it shut as she continued “You weren’t in Cloudsdale during the jailbreak of Tartarus.”

I felt the force of her magic increase clenching my mouth shut to a painful degree as she rose her voice “You escaped your judgement having taken advantage of Celestia’s kindness…” She glared at me with her full hatred “You are a thief, liar, imposter, and a threat to everything good in this world!” she motioned towards the burning scenery.

Her wings shifted pulling out a sword… a real sword… a large shiny sharp scary sword and placed it in front of Maxwell as she said “You need to kill him Maxwell. If he escapes who know how many lives Grim Tale will take. Who knows how much destruction he’ll cause once again.”

“But weren’t we supposed to bring him back to Celestia... you know, to bring him back for justice!?” Maxwell spoke up in confusion while staring at the blade.

The alicorn figure pressed the sword on to him “You must, you are the one who must slay that monster”

Maxwell still seemed uncertain, while her magic enveloped and overpowered me as she dragged me helplessly closer towards them “Duran, Brass, Harold, Luke… He’s all connected to them. He allowed all of them to come into power. He’s the one holding the last element of harmony for himself.”

With his tail, Maxwell lifted up the sword, as there was still just the hint of doubt in his eyes, while I tried to break free of that other alicorn’s magic that was holding me.

The second earth pony walked closer as he spoke up “You know she is telling the truth Maxwell. Think of how Sombra was slain, or Tirek. Some villains just don’t change as they need to be slain.”

“It’s just like he said.” The large mare reassured him “It’s for the good of Equestria.”

Maxwell, with a gaze of resolve, lifted up the sword and charged at me, plunging it straight into my chest.

******

I awoke with a jolt, groggily realizing that I was just conscious now, and not dreaming this time around. My senses were rushing to boot up, I was still trying to come to grip that I was still alive, again. I slowly opened my eyes as the meager sunlight there was still blinded me. Wherever I was, it lacked smoke, fire and the cold feel of stone underneath my body, so it was a step up from the last nightmare I had. My body still hurt, my wings had the ever lingering jabbing pains, reminding me that yes, arrows had been shot through them, and to top it all off there was a faint bitter taste of cotton in my mouth. I could feel bandages tightly wrapped around most of my body, while I was trying to make out the blurry figure right next to me to my left starting to come into focus.

The first thing that come to my mind was swearing… not because I had any grand plan to use it to my benefit, but because I was tired of all of this. I was tired of waking up to every new nightmare that my subconscious kept coming up with, trying to deeply remind me just how badly I have screwed up at everything. I… I was tired of being chased, hunted, tested, and just one breath away from another failure at every moment.

“Are you okay?” a soft masculine figure near me tried to whisper, but in all intensive purposes, it just sounded as if doing it with a loudspeaker right next to my ear.

I turned my focused on that shapeless blur, as a few bits of color were slowly starting become clearer. A few flicks of green of my mane told me that I was still in my ‘actual alicorn’ color scheme. I strained my head to look down at myself, at whatever of my bear skin I could make out. I saw the flicker of black fur of my fake alicorn form, instead of the glossy Changeling chitin hide riddled with holes that I was expecting to revert back into, to my own surprise. Apparently, keeping up this form wasn’t as straining as I had originally thought.

“Is there any pain on your sides?” The soft voice asked in concern “are the bandages too tight around your wings?”

I glanced at my wings as they looked almost mummified. I could feel the slight sting of pain when I moved them, letting me know they were alright… but it would still hurt to move them. I focused on my own magic as it felt like I was on empty… yet this disguise didn’t seem to be using up any of my magic to maintain.

“You might also want to drink some water…” A glass was placed near my hooves “I can try getting some soup or something light…”

“How long have I been out?” I weakly muttered as I tried to get up.

Instead of rising out of bed, my body groaned and protested as it refused to get with the program. When I had managed to lift myself slightly off the bed all it took was one hoof gently pressed against my chest to cause me to collapse back into the bed.

“You’ve been out for a week.” The pony shaped blur replied “We found you lying in the middle of the forest.” The figure placed a hoof on my forehead “Were you caught in the middle of the fighting in Iron Claw? Did they hurt you?”

I groaned as that felt like a stupid question to ask “Just.. some random griffins started attacking out of nowhere. Something about a bell being rung.” I groggily replied.

The hoof was removed from my forehead that felt damp “Apparently, they thought their king was killed.” My vision was getting back into focus as I tried to remove the damp cloth “Sorry about your horn…”

“What’s wrong with my horn?” I asked as I felt a small bit of panic at the potential implication that could mean.

Was it cracked? Did it get damaged during the crash or perhaps some griffins simply snapped it off to keep as a trophy or to show their king that I was dead!

“Well, it has a few…” The pony looked queasy with as he spoke with a hint of concern “Well it looks a bit… mangled. Did something happened to you recently?”

I exhaled a breath of relief, there wasn’t anything unusual about that… besides it just being creepy overall, but at least my horn was safe and more importantly intact, which meant I should still be able to cast magic… I just needed to collect some more love (or something close enough to it) and I would be able use my magic again… well I should be able to. Still, I had a pony tending for me right in front, and a bit of pity or sympathy my way could help speed up my recovery. Still, I didn’t had any fever, so I went and reached my forehead and removed the damp cloth… why was Bolder Dash in front of me?

With how unusually soft spoken and ‘concern’ he sounded, I just didn’t recognized the usual annoying loud, so cock sure of himself demeanor that bastard always seems exude around him. The earth pony had just completely caught me off guard without his usual act. But, thinking back on it, it was him all along.

I stared at him in hatred, attempting getting ready to see whatever this new nightmare scenario had cooked up this time around, as he was trying to casually asked “So, what were you doing before...”

“Cut the…” I felt my throat burn as the cursed flames was about to shot out of my mouth, cutting off whatever swear I was about to say and reminding me of my bitter reality at the moment.

I was badly hurt, trapped, and currently held hostage by the one earth pony who was probably a traitor to Equestria, who likely had Griffin guards right outside ready to storm in and restrain me at a moment's notice. And the last time I ‘actually’ saw that bastard, was when he was nonchalantly heading to greet the local psychopathic tyrant of Iron Claw who wanted to invade Equestria for the sheer fun of it.

Boulder Dash kept his smile as he attempted to calm me down, but I now could see cracks behind his mask “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you could tell me what happened, I could...”

“I saw you talking to Herald… Boulder Dash” I bitterly spat out.

The cheerful innocent smile still stayed on his face, albeit it now looked plastered on now. Despite that, I could feel the turbulent mixture of rage and fear from him with my Changeling senses. He knew that I knew he was a traitor, and he wanted to hide the fact he was a traitor until he would betray me as the ‘real traitor’ before I could tell anyone he is a traitor.

“Oh, so I see that you already know my name, for alas you have me at a disadvantage as I don’t know yours, could you…” the earth pony calmly replied with his sweet honeyed words.

I didn’t pay much attention, as I realized that this could be my chance to escape. I could either pretend to be some random pony, or changeling, pretending to impersonate myself instead of claiming to be the real deal. Oh sure, an imposter held less worth than an exiled prince, but it would make escaping easier… at least once I figure out how to escape.

Or at least, that’s what my thoughts were until I felt something smashing up against my horn, causing me to curse out loud in surprise, as the chaotic green flames consumed the offending object and turned it into... a fruitcake!?

Boulder Dash looked at me with a mixture of confusion and surprise before recovering “Green flame, swearing…” He glanced at my horn and the inedible cake on the bed “Honestly, I thought that was just a baseless rumor running about you, Lockheart.”

I glared at him, as he muttered underneath his breath “So I did in fact found the real Lockheart instead of just some imposter. Honestly, the fact that you happened to have stable chaos magic running around in your system should have been obvious in the first place…”

I gritted my teeth, as I could see the fear in his eyes at the revelation, while personally, I was annoyed about my ‘feign’ ignorance to have been removed. Though, a part of me was wondering what he meant by stable chaos magic? Here’s an oxymoron if I hear any?

“That’s because most creatures infected with chaos magic either live short lives or the magic dissipates shortly after the encounter with it.” Mini Discord spoke as he appeared right beside me “They don’t call it chaos magic because of how neat, orderly and safe it is.”

He pulled out a small red dog house and sat on it, while wearing an old War World One pilot uniform. Boulder Dash seemed oblivious to the miniature Discord flying around him as if nothing was wrong.

“What do you want?” I hissed in anger towards Discord, as the earth pony raised an eyebrow at the straightforwardness of the question.

“Didn’t you try to kill the king of Iron Claw?” the earth pony spoke in a serious tone

I chuckled betterly “Of course not.”

Boulder Dash frowned as he rose his voice “You were caught fighting Harold, after the failed assassination attempt.”

“Yes I fought him, but that’s because he was trying to kill me!” I snapped back with growing frustration at the bitter memory of that particular one sided encounter “What was I supposed to do? Just kneel down to him and let him hack my head off?”

“I just want to know why you were in Iron Claw.” Boulder Dash firmly replied.

Discord chuckled, as he started doing more barrel rolls “Oh you know, the usual. Take revenge against all those who have slighted you, plan to cast an overly complex ritual spell, all the while gathering the necessary ingredients to help tip the odds into your favor before you unleash chaos upon the world.”

I snorted replied derisively“ Oh, just simply taking notice of an Equestrian who just happened to be talking with a ruthless warmongering dictator.”

Now the earth pony frowned while I smirked. Yes it was stupid, but then again being captured was a death sentence right now. The mad griffin king Harold wanted my head and Celestia was preparing to do something equally as nasty to me, but for more ‘noble’ reasons.

Pretending to be ignorant was useless if I didn’t know what he wanted. If Harold promised money, than I could reveal every dirty secret I knew, so that he could blackmail the other nobles of Iron Claw, or help direct him towards some of the places I squirreled away some of Iron Claw’s missing treasury.

If it was for nobility or status with Celestia… that would be a bit trickier, but I knew enough secrets to promise him power, as the other nobles would grant him prestige… and probably plot his demise behind their false smiles in the meanwhile.

Boulder Dash tried to laugh it off, while I senes otherwise, as he said “I was there on Celestia’s orders, to investigate what was going on in Iron Claw. Look, you know me as I had been your teacher…”

“Oh yes, one of your ‘teachers’ he was.” Discord replied as he was now adopting a cheesy Yoda accent “Teach you and lie he did. Stare at rocks while he write reports. Test again before finding flaw or new teacher he was.”

I know that listening to the tiny devil resting on my shoulder wasn’t the best idea, but I could feel my hatred towards him growing. I could tell he was lying through his teeth as Canterlot taught me how to spot nobles lying through their teeth on almost daily bases.

“No, you were just another noble picked by Celestia to make me run through another series of jumps and loops.” I snapped back in hatred “You didn’t give a damn about me, just as long as it elevated you from your previous station! If I was a not an alicorn, then you would have provided the proof that I was a fraud. If I was a real deal than you were the earth pony that had the privilege to personally trained him.”

I glared at him in his silence as I nearly spat “What’s the matter? Are you upset that I decided to leave Canterlot before you got your claim to fame?”

Boulder Dash was un-phased by my comment. So if he wasn’t focusing on raising his rank then it had to be money. Canterlot had a lot of Unicorn ‘Elitist’ making rank more trouble than it was worth, but if he was anything like a Cloudsdale pony, than money was worth more to him.

To my surprise he replied “I went to Iron Claw because it is good to know the intentions of a warmongering nation that lies so close to Equestria’s borders. I would find it more surprising that you would take refuge in such a dangerous a nation out of all places to hide in.”

“Ooo” Discord whispered with glee “He thinks you did something naughty!”

“Maybe he was just worried about you?” A third voice replied “That place is full of nasty griffins and he found you really, really big boo boos!”

“Cause by his own griffins.” Discord cheerfully added.

I glanced at the tiny pesky gray filly, who was now blowing a big raspberry at Discord while trying to play the angel on my shoulder again, as Boulder Dash rubbing his chin trying to figure out what heck I was looking at. I was both grateful and annoyed that he couldn’t see the tiny alicorn filly beside me… though mostly annoyed, at the fact these dam hallucinations were still here and they were getting out of control!

I could deal with them when I was on my own! I did not need them to start distracting me or doubting myself in a moment like this! I needed to focus on the back stabbing traitor in front of me instead of second guessing myself!

“What can I say?” I bitterly snapped back “I needed food, water, and a map that lead me away from Equestria and Celestia’s bounty hunters.”

Boulder Dash stared at me in mock confusion as he pretended not to know “You think Celestia has placed a bounty on your head?”

I huffed in bitter annoyance, as I could spot Discord waving around that damn newspaper “The fact they are publically denouncing me as a monster or a traitor to the crown in less than a day after I left Canterlot, is kind of hard to ignore.”

I held onto my hatred, reminding myself just how easily these dam Equestrians could turn traitor when it became convenient for them. Though, that could be used for my advantage if I knew what this traitor wanted!

Boulder Dash frowned “It wasn’t like that?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of that statement “One night, I tell Celestia I’ve had enough and left. Before the sun even hits the sky everypony for miles are denouncing me as a back stabbing traitor who tried to murder Celestia before…” The words were lost as I started swearing up a storm.

Struggling, I tried to calm myself down, as I had let my rage get the best of me “So, I find it a little bit strange that they were so ‘ready’ for my sudden departure especially the ones with torches and pitchforks.” I bitterly added, much to his apparent surprise.

I wasn’t going to be fooled by the pony’s nice and innocent ruse. Yes, the ponies could seem so damn innocent, but all one had to do was remember how the ponies from the Hearth’s warming eve story were before the sudden turn about… and of course there was Sombra the tyrant of the Crystal Empire.

“Can you blame us considering your possible heritage?” the Earth Pony replied sorely with what seemed like a hint of regret.

I glared at him as I had grown sick of hearing that question day in and day out “You mean, if I want the job I was forced into, while I had repeated for the umpteenthn times that I’m not an alicorn? In fact, I’ve denied every single damn time when some random pony called me an alicorn, as I was never an alicorn in the first place!”

The green flames danced out as Boulder Dash jumped back narrowly avoiding the flames as I noticed something hidden behind a curtain that his body had been blocking from my sight.

I tried raising a hoof to point at him “But what about you? What do you want? What did Harold promise you?”

Boulder Dash frowned as he tried to counter “This isn’t about me…”

“Of course it’s about you!” I snapped back “I overheard what you were talking about with that warmongering tyrant. I know that he plans to invade Equestria as he hasn’t been all that subtle about it.”

I could feel his fear starting to grow, as I didn’t know what the Earth Pony traitor had been discussing with Harold or even how their conversation ended. What mattered was that he thought that I knew what he had been desperately trying to hide.

I focused on his fear as I tried to use it to refuel my magic. The feeling or rather ‘taste’ was unpleasant like eating rotting vegetables type of unpleasant, but I needed strength, I need magic, I needed to throw him off his game as I gathered my strength to escape even if I felt like throwing up.

“You need to press him for information.” Discord whispered “Ask him what he wanted. Start simple and slowly needle him for what he betrayed everyone for? Let that fear mix with his own self-loathing to get a small taste of what you felt since your exile.”

I nodded my head as I continued to press on “And yet you are the one to question me, when I’ve only spoken the truth while you have only lied? What did Harold promise you? Was it Money, gold, jewels, status, power or a claim of high nobility?”

He stood at me, un-phased at my shouting, as I dug even deeper “Or, maybe he promised you Celestia… Is that it? After he burns Canterlot to the ground you’ll come in and ‘rescue’ her, so that you can claim her as your prize and…”

I felt a hoof smash into the side of my face, possibly knocking a tooth out, as he stood over me glaring at me in hatred. His breathing was more erratic, as his expression looked more like a wild horse about to trample someone rather than the usual suave and dandy pony.

I could taste the blood on my tongue as he shouted in naked rage “You think that is my reason to betray Equestria!”

“Don’t do it…” The alicorn filly cried out in despair.

Discord grinned as he rubbed his hands “Do it…”

“I’ve seen people do far worse for far less.” I coldly replied.

“Do you have any idea what would happen if Iron Claw attacks! They would go after us first!” Boulder Dash shouted in outrage“They would tear Thunder Peak down from the mountain and burn my own village to the ground!”

“Why does some random place matter?” I snapped back.

“Because my wife lives there, you featherbrain!!!” Boulder Dash shouted at the top of his voice “That is her home, the griffin city, which also lies near the small city I look after! That is where Equestria isn’t just ponies, but griffin and ponies, where Equestria isn’t the sole power to safely look after everypony!”

With the damn finally broken, leaving him in a naked fury, I pointed a hoof at me as hatred filled his eyes “So do not think that I am simply betraying my nation, unlike you, over some petty grudge my parents had!”

I clenched my teeth, as I felt the rage surge through me as he thought I had left Equestria over some ‘petty grudge’ instead of actually running for my life. Oh, I was in the wrong for wanting to live, instead of dying for the ‘greater good’ like some hapless martyr!

Boulder Dash walked over to the curtain as if it held some dark secret. I prepared myself for the worse as it could be guards, possibly Brass or maybe even Harold or Celestia who had been waiting for this exact moment to reveal themselves.

He tore down the curtains as the alicorn filly gasped in shock, as I saw all too familiar lanky dark silhouette of alicorn reared on her hind legs chomping the bit to strike me, which I was in no shape to even try to move. I couldn’t help but to look into the cold hard gaze of Celestia bore down on me in hatred… until I heard Discord’s laughter as he held his sides laughing. It was only then that I realized that it wasn’t actually Celestia, or even moving for that matter. On closer inspection, I realized that sure it was an alicorn, but not just any alicorn either… it was an obsidian statue of Nightmare Moon? Why was a statue of Nightmare Moon staring down at me, as Boulder Dash acted as if this was some sort of grand reveal?

“He can’t be serious!” The alicorn filly spoke out in fear.

Discord held his sides as he wiped away his tears “Oh he really does think he is? Oh this is hilarious!”

“What is it?” I asked out loud.

It was kind of creepy how the statue of Nightmare Moon’s gaze seemed to focus on me… and the level of detail on it. It felt more like one of those objects crafted by a mad man that saw something from beyond the stars. Creepy… but it was rather pointless.

Boulder Dash spoke in the same tone of an inquisitor getting ready to sign a death sentence “It’s a statue of Nightmare Moon. We thought it would be the perfect gift to give Harold since it showed just how insane we truly think he is.”

I stared at the statue, as I still didn’t get it, until Discord whispered into my ear “He thinks your Nightmare Moon’s foal Locky.” Mini Discord must have noticed my shock of disbelief as he continued “You’re both alicorns, you both have have ebony coats, you both have slitted eyes, you both have fanged filled mouths, you both are shapeshifters, you both have low opinions about everypony around them, you’re both like to hide from everyone in dark dank places, you both like using others for your own ends, as well as spread fear and mistrust between people, all the while feared and hated by the general public. And to top it all off, your good looks radically changed after getting into an argument with Celestia.”

He rubbed his chin “Though to be fair your previous Canterlot color scheme is completely different from your current color pallet. Also the evil gnarly horn design doesn’t win you any favors”

I stared back up at Boulder Dash as he seemed dead certain to think that I was the unholy son of Nightmare Moon… heh… the threats, the hatred, how quickly they denounced my name… heh, heh…. This was the reason?

I started to chuckle as it wasn’t fair. No matter what I did I was already slotted for the villain role without trying. I was always fated to fail because everyone wanted me to fail. I was the false alicorn to humans and the Nightmare’s foal to Equestrians.

Boulder Dash looked so sure of himself as if nothing I could say would convince him otherwise. I could feel myself starting to break down “Is that what you think? That I’m just some random magical alicorn that pulled itself out of existence just to satisfy everyone’s crazed delusions!”

I could feel the smile growing on my mouth as my body began to shiver “With Celestia, it’s another alicorn fit to rule a bunch of self entitled jerks. With you, I’m the evil child of Nightmare Moon who Celestia had banished when her sister Luna when crazy from grief. With Discord, I’m just the random human he pulled out of existence and dumped me on this rock just for shits and giggles.”

My teeth began to chatter, as I could feel my face starting to hurt from the smile, and the stinging feeling around my eyes isn’t helping either “So I’m the magical human, impersonating a changeling, impersonating an alicorn, impersonating a missing royal blood line, all because some hack job of a writer couldn’t figure out what the blazing fuck I’m supposed to be. Hell, for all I know I could secretly be an alicorn who’ll be turned into a foal by some random wizard in hopes of making a sane love happy alicorn be possible in the future!”

I looked up at Boulder Dash, who seemed aback, like things weren’t going the way that he was expecting to go at all, as he kept taking steps backwards “You’d like that wouldn’t you? All that crazy mumble jumble madness finally stretching itself so far, it makes the truth! I was torn away from my home and dumped in this god forsaken land as a villain, only to shake hands with Discord himself who thought it would be more funny for Celestia to think I’m Royalty material. If I screw up, I’m a villain, if I succeed then I’m a fucking cardboard cutout Alicorn on a pedestal!”

My face really began to hurt, as Boulder Dash seemed frightened of me “I took on a crazed fucked up changeling, who wanted to turn people into cheap knock offs of other ponies, in the hopes that one of his screw ups would be able to use the Elements of Harmony, which I had in fact lost to, and made a deal with Discord, because that crazy nutjob tricked me with twisting his words to screw me over.”

I started tapping my chest to where that stupid chest scar was “I don’t even know if he shoved one of those things into my own damn heart, or if it was all one big twisted mind game to keep me guessing! I don’t even know what element he was even taunting me with, but that’s okay… I spent my time playing politics while my friends got turned to stone.”

My green flames from the swear I just made danced onto the ground, twisting some of the bricks apart until black flames now stood between me and Boulder Dash. The statue of Nightmare Moon seemed to smirk, as I could feel the damn of my emotions finally break down at the absurdity of everything.

I laughed out loud, I just couldn’t hold all my frustration in anymore “I had the entire power of a prince, where I’m damn certain that I could have tried using the Night Guard to start a ‘holy’ crusade against Brass and hunt her down. Instead, I waste my time trying to gather all the necessary ingredients in order to complete one really long and complicated spell, that I’m not even sure I can cast!”

Boulder Dash opened his mouth before I cut him off “But don’t worry, Celestia just suddenly woke up, for some odd reason, and suddenly had a pressing need to visit the Royal Garden at the exact moment I happened to be preparing the spell. The spell I needed to protect me from her peaking in one specific memory, that I absolutely didn’t want her to see. It’s almost as if somebody woke her up at that exact moment, and made sure that this had to happen!”

I could feel a sudden jerk in my neck, as I wasn’t sure if it was from me… or the shear stress that I had been expressing for the past months finally making themselves known to me “So, I kidnapped a griffin noble who had worked with Brass in the past on a twisted hunch, then hired a griffin to take him back home, while I followed them long enough for the hired griffin to figure out where the kidnapped one was going.”

“Oh, then of course Discord and the tiny alicorn filly started talking to me.” I cheerfully added “Discord kept telling me how everyone were jerks, and the tiny alicorn kept talking about how I needed to believe in others, or how harmony was the way to stop the axe wielding psychopaths, and greedy selfish humans who didn’t give a fuck about anyone, just as long as they got to sit on the throne even if it meant overthrowing an entire nation.”

I could feel another snap, as I smiled “Then I went out and helped the traitors rotten eggs of Iron Claw to be more efficient in their murders against one another before I would go out and utterly murder their king! Maybe even break up a few alliances and destroy such a corrupt nation that wouldn’t last another hundred years because of how messed up the country is!”

Boulder Dash throw a hoof out “You were behind the disaster in Iron Claw! You tried to assassinate the king of Iron Claw with a bomb!”

“No! No, no, no that was much too inefficient as not only did it fail, but it wasn’t cost effective.” I chided him “All those random shipments of black powder being bought, only to be wasted by a bomb that didn’t even go off when the king sat in his chair? There should have been plenty of fucking explosives hidden there to either kill the monster or blow up the entire room!”

The flames started to lick the walls, as the light from the sun outside began to dim. The windows were slowly growing smaller as the evil black flames turned purple setting the room into a more sinister tone.

I kept shaking my head in frustration, as I couldn’t believe that someone tried to kill that bird with explosives and actually failed. “My plan was to go to his room and make a small spot to hid in his ceiling. Then, when he went to sleep in his bed, I would unleash round after round of screaming hot lead down into his gullet riddling his body with bullets until he died. Then, everyone would start pointing fingers about who could have done it, just long enough to run away and start sending their armies to tear apart their remaining rivals!”

I laughed out loud at the absurdity of everything “And yet, I messed that up! I finally played the role of a villain only for some asshole to jump the gun and screw up! He wasn’t even hurt and he ran exactly to where I was, which I might add was fucking bullshit! How the hell did he even find me so fast when I hadn’t even tried to kill him yet!”

Mini Discord and the tiny alicorn filly looked around in fear at hearing what sounded like twisted whispers that seemed to come out of nowhere, it almost sounded like a song, a… demented song, that, that seemed so familiar to me, somehow; like I heard it somewhere before. Boulder Dash was now looking at me in open terror, as every hair on his body was standing on end. The air grew colder, as it almost felt as if some dark presence was gazing down upon my helpless form.

My hoof slowly rose up to my face, as I could feel my sharp teeth grinding against each other “Oh sure, I tried to kill Brass… well more like steal the magic portal necklace and the Cockatrice, before they suddenly summon whatever they were trying to summon, but that was more out of panicked theft and most of the guards fired blindly into my smoke screen.”

I stared at Boulder Dash “And now I’m beaten up, tied up, and about to be gift wrapped to whatever fate this god forsaken twisted joke of a world has in store for me. Because no matter what I fucking do, I am apparently fated to fail because life loves to watch me suffer!”

Suddenly my body felt cold… and funny… not my face hurt and everything hates me and wants to hurt me… but happy calm relaxing funny. Oh look the Earth Pony is making funny faces. How did his nose get as big as a bus…

******

Boulder Dash

The flames died out instantly as only the faint trickle of light left from the windows and from the door that was left opened behind him. In the shining light of the sun stood a large female griffin who stood as confident as Celestia herself when she raised the sun each morning… and raised his spirits each time he saw his beloved Gavenia.

Though Boulder Dash was kind of surprised to see her with a blow dart gun… and the now sleeping alicorn who was snoozing away. The earth pony and Griffin looked at each other before looking back at the alicorn, as they tried to figure out what in sweet Celestia’s name had just happened!

The earth pony slapped his own face as he tried to snap himself awake “Did he… Did he just have a mental breakdown and call on dark powers from it?” he asked unsure of what had just happened.

His beloved looked down at the blow dart gun “Was that batch a bit too strong… I mean the potion not the blow dart as I think that was just strong enough.” She looked back at him “Did you find anything useful out of him?

He stared at the unconscious alicorn as he didn’t know what to think. He was expecting Lockheart to deny any claims to Nightmare Moon, or start ranting about how Celestia was wrong to banish her only sister.

He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he had slowly began to believe that Lockheart was in fact Nightmare Moon’s foal during the discussion with how he spoke. How the alicorn seemed to just love to watch him squirm… how he just seemed to know the exact word to accused with make him feel guilty, angry, or just plain miserable... how he seemed to be feeding on his anger to grow stronger… the venom in his voice when he talked about Celestia.

Gazing back at the mocking joyous expression of the Nightmare Moon statue, he couldn’t help but feel a chill down his spine as he was sure the statue didn’t look like that before he revealed it to Lockheart. Looking at the statue he just couldn’t help but notice the many eerie similarities between the small alicorn and the larger one.

The first were just surface level ones light the coat, the teeth… the fangs… especially the fangs. But it went deeper than that. There was the denial, the resentment, the burning hatred, and sadly the fact that he was just as much of a fruitcake as the original Nightmare Moon was in the records.

He could still hear that creepy whispering from the walls… thankfully the creepy flames were gone now, leaving the room darker than normal, instead of terrifying to stand in. The moments near the end of his rant, felt like one of those horror stories some of the rumors in Canterlot whispered about Lockheart.

Confronting him about his possible heritage with Nightmare Moon was foolish… but he didn’t expect the alicorn to simply snap… maybe spiral into rage or trying to strike a bargain, but not…

Boulder Dash face hoofed as he remembered the tears running down the alicorn's eyes. Those weren’t the eyes of a monster born of nightmares. Those were the eyes of a helpless pony trapped, persecuted, and terrified. It was then he remembered the small speech Remedy Cross had given to him once.

“One Princess. One Alicorn. One ruler. Where does that leave one who looks like an Alicorn… without all the regal bearings. What is one to do if they look like an alicorn with the talent of an alicorn?” Remedy voice seemed to whisper in the back of his mind.

Boulder Dash didn’t feel like a hero… or even a pony trying to protect his home. At that moment, he truly felt like a villain that Lockheart was accusing him to be, as he just saw a pony who wanted to be left alone by the world only to be constantly persecuted again and again.

All because… he wasn’t what they wanted him to be.

“He saw us in Iron Claw and knew we were talking with Harold.” He slowly replied.

His beloved frowned “This isn’t good. Why did we try and save him again?”

Boulder Dash bit the inside of his cheek as he thought back to finding Lockheart lying in the middle of the forest beaten, battered, and bruised. He remembered the arrows sticking out of the alicorn’s wings… his arrows… the arrows used by the guards sent to protect him were used to bring the alicorn crashing down to the ground.

There were many reasons that he could come up with… knowledge of what happened, to interrogate him, to trade him in to Harold for good grace.

Though the truth was that the unconscious pony was an alicorn. Maybe he was an imposter instead of the runaway alicorn, but on the off chance that he was… Equestria respected alicorns. Equestria was founded by Alicorns, ruled by an Alicorn… It would have just felt wrong to have left him there.

But somepony or some griffin who wasn’t an Equestrian might not understand.

“Because we needed to know.” Boulder Dash lied to her “What if he he sent a message to Celestia about our meeting with King Harold?”

Gavenia face palmed as she muttered “Fair point… but this is still a disaster. We have Nightmare Moon’s…”

“He said he wasn’t related to Nightmare Moon.” Boulder Dash cut in.

She rolled her eyes “Maybe he’s lying or maybe he doesn’t actually know he’s related to Nightmare Moon. Either way to doesn’t matter.” her feathers started to puff out as her body grew more tense “The real question is how do we keep him restrained? Better yet what do we do with him now that we know who he is? Do we give him over to Celestia and hope that he doesn’t tell her what we were doing?”

“No, he would most likely keep it to himself.” The earth pony replied as he tried to calm her down “When I was… teaching him he was cold… guarded. He was the type of pony who preferred to keep secrets from everypony.”

That, and all attempts to get the alicorn to open up or even lighten up with him a little failed. In the back of that alicorn’s mind, he truly didn’t believe Boulder Dash’s sincere attempt at friendship… which may have sadly been proven it to him in that moment.

He looked at his beloved as he remembered how easy it was to connect with her. It seemed odd that a ground bound earth pony would try to date a griffin that loved to soar in the sky… and it wasn’t easy since he was a representative of Equestria and her the daughter of the ruler of Thunder Peek.

Though he had, against anypony and griffin’s expectations, managed to impress her, as his own self confidence had surprised her, even more so the lengths he went in his attempts to seduce her. As the two got to know each other more she knew that she could count on his support, but also to not be shy (or surprised) at accepting his affection for her.

While they did have their little spats every now and then they didn’t always see eye to eye (like now). Both of them knew that they were far better and far happier together than they were apart from one another.

Boulder Dash placed a foreleg around her neck “More importantly we didn’t promise Harold anything and he won’t ask for an answer until things settle down back in Iron Claw, as he wouldn’t want to look weak to us.”

Gavenia rubbed her neck into his shoulder “So even if he told Celestia it wouldn’t matter… or would she...”

The earth pony leaned his head closer to her’s as he continued “Do what? Be concerned that a foreign nation tried to threaten us, but we managed to weasel our way out without giving him a definite answer?”

She couldn’t help but chuckle “I guess we really lucky when that bomb went off when it just did.”

He nodded his head in agreement as he glanced at Lockheart… as a small unsettling feeling filled his stomach… did Lockheart know what they were going to do? Did he set off the explosion early, so that they could leave without giving Harold and answer, or being forced to pledge their allegiance to one of the other griffins that would have tried to claim the throne at that moment? Though, his self incriminating statement said otherwise, he would like to believe that maybe...

He felt a pit in his stomach, as he already knew what their answer was going to be, before the failed assassination attempt went off, giving them an excuse to flee Iron Claw. Personally, he was just happy that he wasn’t forced to betray Equestria right now… even if they were… foalnapping an Alicorn prince.

“Heh… we might have been in trouble if Brass didn’t suddenly point out where the assassin had fled to.” Gavenia said out loud as she tried to calm down.

Boulder Dash blinked as he thought about this mare Brass. How did she spot the assassin so quickly? As soon as the bomb nearly killed their king the mare had warned Harold were the assassin was running off to before the bell started to ring. The other nobles of Iron Claw were not in the room and Swift Wing was suddenly left with the protection of Iron Claw’s best guards, right along with a few of his own, right when a the failed coup turned into general anarchy broke out in all of Iron Claw.

“So…” Gavenia said as she looked at the unconscious alicorn “What do we do now?”

******

Celestia

Celestia took a deep breath as she prepared herself for the coming trip and looked at her reflection in the mirror once again. Her white coat was well groomed (with her now shrunken half sized stature) and her now long pink mane rested across her shoulders as a light blue ribbon had been tied around her tale. The illusion of the fake cutie mark rested along her side of what looked like four pink hearts in a circle with for pink triangles (or were they smaller hearts?) that were resting in-between them.

She could feel her cheeks start to turn red from the sheer embarrassment of the situation she had found herself in as she walked out of the room. It didn’t sound that difficult at first… after all she had to just let Maxwell show her around Manehatten, since that was where the Cultural Festival would be taking place.

Of course, that plan was slightly delayed due to the fact that ‘Sundance’ needed to help escort the Breezies delegation to Manehatten. For that to happen, the Breezies, along with the culprit behind all of this whole mess, were being transported to Manehatten by regular passenger train. Granted, this was done by ‘borrowing’ one of the noble’s train carts to help ensure a safe and smooth ride for the Breezies.

Celestia looked back at her long time aid, Ink Note, with a slight hint of desperation in her eyes “I’m sure Maxwell will be perfectly able to take care of the transportation of the Breezies.” She said more to reassure herself more than anything else.

Ink Note the white unicorn, with dark almost inky black mane as her cutie mark was that of a simple quill in an ink bottle… the same canterlot aid, who had helped Celestia navigate through countless long tedious schedule, fight side by side against the ever growing power of the Bureaucratic legion of papers, and of course traverse the boundless ever changing landscape of Canterlot Politics and the nobility’s court games. Out of all the ponies she could have picked in her long centuries, she was certain that this one mare would be the hard never budging rock she could rely upon in this endeavor.

Instead, the heartless fiend replied “I think we should add a light blue aquamarine scarf. What about you Cloud Puff?”

The tiny breezie stared at Celestia as if she was analyzing a rare painting “Maybe one of those wide brim sunhats, with the same ribbon as her tail tied around it?”

Celestia frowned “This was supposed to be one day off instead…”

Ink Note held up a hoof “Canterlot will be perfectly fine during the time it takes for you to arrive to Manehatten. I’ve already set up the apologies for your absence , along with the accompanied lame reasons as to why, make the proper rescheduling, and more importantly find assistance for the piles of paperwork that will need to be looked over, double checked, and authorized by the crown itself.”

Celestia shook her head as she didn’t believe that Ink Note was already prepared for this sudden event… or that she had already made plans for something like this “You know how much paperwork accumulates in just one day.”

“And I have already obtained Lockheart’s former aid to assist me.” Ink Note firmly stated “And besides… after all the times you had hinted, toyed with, or suggested that I find a nice young stallion to spend some quality time with, I think it would be just fitting that this be now your turn now to get a taste of your own advice.”

Celestia’s mind raced in grasping for any excuse to get out of this “What about my talks, speeches, the moments where I have to go to a dinner invitation or…”

“All of your public meetings that require your presence are not until the day after you little get together with Maxwell.” Ink Note stated as a cold hard fact as she had personally made Celestia’s schedule to ensure that it was possible “The paper work is also being taken care of… unless you want to spend some time bonding over paperwork with Maxwell. I’m sure I could acquire a second train cart to ensure all the last minute request paperwork will be able to join you on your ride.”

Celestia opened her mouth ready to counter that statement… until her brain froze for a second… did Ink Note actually make a slight bit of innuendo towards her? The two of them stared at each other as slowly Ink Note’s face turned a slight shade of red realizing how that could have been interpreted as.

“Just to be clear…” The mare replied trying to regain her dignity “I mean wall to wall papers where a slight bump on the track could literally drown you in paperwork.”

Celestia couldn’t help but shiver at the mental image as there was always last minute paperwork that would suddenly spring into existence before the festival began.

“Are you sure you can handle it?” The solar princess asked one last desperate time.

Ink Note sighed as she stood up straight “Most of the paperwork will be simple, mindless and boring, but ultimately easy and harmless work. I was planning on using it as a opportunity to see if we could find a third pony to help assist as an alicorn’s aid if needed. Anything that is of any actual importance will be saved until your return.”

Celestia felt a little bit guilty about dumping all of her paperwork upon a bunch of hapless ponies, but she reassured herself that it was anything too bad… and most of it was rather dull and repetitive. Besides she could surely trust her aid to take care of Canterlot until then.

Ink Note wore a soft smile as she tried to ease the princess’s worries “Unless a sudden invasion attempt by the feral roaches happens to attack Canterlot than we’ll be just fine…” Celestia raised a hoof as Ink Note cut her off “And yes I’ll be ready to send you a warning if such an unlikely event just happens to take place.”

Cloud Puff chuckled as she spoke out loud “Is she always like this when she leaves Canterlot?”

Ink Note nodded her head “She likes to claim she is spontaneous, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she made schedules to make check sheets for planning her entire future when she was a foal.”

Celestia quirked an eyebrow “You do realize I’m still in the room right?”

The unicorn just looked at Celestia with an odd glance “Really? All I see is just a young mare getting cold hooves about her upcoming date.” She went over to Celestia and helped gently push her out towards the door “I know you're nervous about making sure everything turns out alright, or the fact that this will be your first date in a long time…”

Celestia opened her mouth only for Ink Note to cut in “I’ve been working for you for how many years and I have yet to even see you go out on a date with anypony… unless there’s been a few nightly excursions that I have not been informed about?”

The solar princess kept her mouth shut as there was no right answer to that question. Cloud Puff laughed in joy as she was carried on top of a large sunhat as it was gently placed over Celestia’s head.

Celestia tried to look back at her aid “Are you sure everything will be fine… especially with the other nobles?”

There was an almost sort of twisted grin on Ink Note’s face as she spoke with the same ease as a Las Pegasus dealer “They’ll be taken care of.”

Then the door was shut before Celestia could ask what she meant… or question why she had a sudden moment of déjà vu as that grin had reminded her of Lockheart when he dealt with some of the nobles…

“No… I’m just imagining things.” She told herself “I have known Ink Note for countless years and I am quite sure she won’t abuse her position while I’m gone.”

“Besides what’s the worst that could happen!” Cloud Puff replied with far too much cheer for Celestia’s liking.

With a deep sigh Celes… no… Sundance prepared to help transport the breezies who actually wanted to attend this year’s cultural festival. Now all she had to do was see how Maxwell was doing on his end.

******

Celestia held onto her sun hat as she felt the cold breeze past by her. Some of the breezies shouted in glee as they used the edges of the hat to keep them from being blown off. She had insisted on them trying to keep a low profile, or possibly getting a few guards for extra security to help ensure their safety, while she escorted them to the train station, but Cloud Puff, as she should have expected from that bundle of mischievous trouble, had made things constantly more difficult than it had to be.

“Is everypony alright?” she asked out loud.

“We’re fine Sundance” The tiny terror replied with glee “Now onward to the tracks of destiny!”

The other breezes were quickly swept up in Cloud Puff’s enthusiasm as Celestia sighed to herself as she should have taken those extra guards with her. She didn’t want to bring any attention to herself so she just stuck with keeping the same amount of guards her aids, before her sudden addition to the trip.

The problem was that she didn’t currently had any guards with her, since they were all inspecting the train carts and the accommodations for the breezies. The solar princess caught the wayward glances of a few ponies as she felt odd.

While she was perfectly capable of flying or arriving to her intended destination by herself she had always been accompanied by the Royal Guard. It felt odd not to see them nearby, as she heard some of the ponies in the background whispering.

She shook her head as they were probably surprised to see so many breezies out in the open. Celestia was certain that her disguise was holding up and that nopony was asking why their beloved princess looked like a small mare setting out for a date.

“Oh this would have been so much easier if I get ready in a cart or a carriage.” she muttered to herself.

She towards the train station as her fears started to grow. Why were there so many ponies staring at her? Where they buying train tickets or did they hear a rumor? Did that pony just point and whisper something about her? Where in the wide wide world of Equestria was Maxwell?

She placed a hoof over her eyes as she tried to spot him. Could he wearing his new suit for the party or was he wearing his normal white shirt and brown jerkin combo? Would she even be able to find him in this…

“We did make sure that the vault to the cursed artifacts was sealed before we left... right Cloud Puff?” Celestia asked outloud.

The tiny breeze poked her head out and sighed “Yes we did Sundance so you have nothing to worry abou…”

Celestia glanced at her the awful… no horrible crime against fashion as it stood out like a beacon against everything that was holy and tasteful “Did that suit attach itself to him… is it cursed?”

Cloud Puff coughed “No… I think... he picked it on purpose.”

“Why would anypony ever want to wear something so tacky like that on purpose!?” Celestia nearly shouted out loud.

“Hmm, well the collar is a bit too tight, waistcoat was somehow too loose, as the blue orange tangent undershirt horribly clashes with the mustard gold… and yet it’s sewed on as part of the suit.” Cloud puff analized out loud, demonstrating her unexpected in depth critique. “And what made him think that purple bow tie and pointed bowler cap combo was a good idea in the first place?”

Celestia glanced up at the breezie in surprise “I didn’t know you had a passion for fashion.”

The tiny breezie chuckled “Oh, I have to pay attention to detail since most of you ponies look the same.” Celestia frowned at the bad joke much to the tiny terror’s pleasure as she continued “We have to ask him where he got the suit!”

“If only to burn the offending shop down to the ground afterwards.” Celestia whispered underneath her breath as she walked towards the bright ugly mustard yellow suit that stood as a stain against reality itself.

******

Maxwell

I looked back at the moving ponies and then at the train ponies as I tried to keep everything in order. I had a few last minute requests for supplies to be transported, a few items to help re-ensure the safety of the breezies.

I felt a lump in my throat as I looked at the method of transportation we were using for the breezies in Manehatten… it looked almost like a glass zoo cage expect this one looked as if the creator was debating between build houses for the smurfs… or gingerbread houses. Hopefully all I would need is a fresh paint of coat if these ‘houses’ weren’t up to their standards.

“Okay…” I muttered under my breath “I just need to leave a good impression on one of the most fragile races in existence in hopes of having them owe me a favor in the future.”

Yes, that’s what I needed to focus on. Not any of my self doubts that has plaguing me about sending all those people up north to fight a battle that I skipped out on… or how the suit had somehow managed to tug on me in all the wrong places. Seriously how does a shirt manage to do that?

Pocket Ace said this was the perfect suit for him to wear because it always caught a mare’s attention and helped lighten them up when he took them on a date. Of course this wasn’t a date, and I need something that would look good in front of a bunch of nobles hosting a party.

I have no idea what was deemed ‘fashionable’ for ponies muchless pre-twilight era noble ponies… and looking at ‘upper class’ ponies didn’t help either. Half of the suits looked like they came from the late 19th century or straight out of Harry Potter’s wizarding world.

I could feel my butt freezing out in the open wind, as I would have rather went with the wizard robes, if the dress code didn’t require my flank to be exposed.

‘Is this what you’ve come down to?’ I heard Ivan’s voice whisper in the back of my mind ‘Playing dress up and playing pretend instead of doing something important?’

I tried to push out the venomous thoughts as I reminded myself why I was doing this. Breezies were Equestria’s experts of magic involving other realities and dimensions. That meant helping them out helped everyone find a way home that much quicker.

I heard a few shouts snapping my out of my thoughts as I turned my head only to see four members of the royal guard shouting orders and trying to make space. Two of the smaller or less vocal ponies came over to me. One green unicorn holding a spear and a… pegasus that seemed to be copying a griffin color scheme.

The pegasus glanced at the breezie container and started to gush all over it “Oh my goodness! They even have tiny little seats and beds inside them!”

The unicorn rolled her eyes “They were built for the breezies Sparrow.”

The pegasus spoke with a hint of glee “But it was last minute stuff! This whole train ride is last minute and they managed to make enough beds for all those tiny ponies!”

I coughed as I tried to catch their attention “Uh who are you?”

The pegasus quickly saluted out of reflex as she stated “Cadet Private Sparrow reporting for duty!”

Emerald stood straight as she added “Cadet Private Emerald Spear also reporting for duty and the safe transfer of the breezies from Canterlot Castle to Manehatten.”

The pegasus smirked “We’re here to make sure that Nopony on the trains tries to bother those cute little fussy things, or cause any impromptu disaster by suddenly opening up the door while the train is moving.”

I remembered how much trouble Cloud Puff had when I was speaking normally… trying to picture a breezie dealing with the wind from an open door or worse… a breezie being sucked out of the train cart…

“I look forward to working with you both.” I replied with full sincerity.

Sparrow nodded her head “I’m going to take a look at the train cart now.”

I took a good look back at the breezie container, as I prayed that the breezies would also like the small furniture that was made for the diorama. It was a little bit funny to think that this was just made as an art piece… and now it was being used to catering breezies.

‘Okay one last check.’ I thought to myself ‘I finished the paperwork for the rest of the event, I managed to find a place for the breezes to rest and do their part in the cultural festival, I signed off the last of the papers needed to send the next shipment of supplies to the expedition up north so they should be doing okay.’

I spotted my reflection in one of the windows as I looked ridiculous… I looked ridiculous while giving tour guides and attending parties in the safety of Manehatten, while others were trudging through the snow trying to find Duran and help save the yaks up north.

I saw my cutie mark in the reflection of one of the windows as Ivan’s voice whispered in the back of my mind “You were the one who was chosen to fight against the darkness… instead of sending others to fight your battles for you.”

I tried to ignore the venomous thoughts in my head as I continued look over the small diorama for any flaw… or any additions I might need to make until I noticed just how quiet things had become. All it took was one quick glance to spot the small swarm of breezies being lead by a single mare.

I could hear a few whispers amongst the crowd and I’ll admit I was kind of shocked to see what I guessed to be Sundance as the only clothing she was wearing was a ribbon around her tail along with a sunhat… which some of the breezies seemed to be resting on.

So this was the mare I was suppose to be with for the entire train ride to Manehatten... and then escort around town for one day!? Celestia’s dinner party invite was for the day after so that meant if I screwed up there was a good chance Celestia would hear of it right away and chew me out or worse...

Okay deep breaths, speak softly, and…

“You wouldn’t happen to know anyone named megan would you?” one idiot in the crowd asked loud enough for me to hear.

I face hoofed at the sheer idiocy of that question as thankfully the mare in question didn’t seem offended as she replied “I don’t know anypony named Nutmeg?”

“She doesn’t sound like Laura Dean.” A second idiot replied “So pay up.”

Sundance seemed a little bit confused at the statement, but otherwise alright as she finally made it over to me “Is there somepony else that is supposed to be here or…”

“Long story short you look very close to a famous pony back home.” I sheepishly replied as I really didn’t want to explain it to her.

Sundance chuckled nervously as she seemed a little bit uneasy at my comment. Maybe she isn’t that thrilled about the sudden popularity or suddenly being compared to another pony she never even heard of. The breezies on the other hoof flew off her hat and started exploring the tiny town that was left for them as I patiently waited for the final verdict.

I glanced back at her as she seemed a little bit nervous so I tried to give her my best smile as I said “My name is Maxwell and I’m here to help…”

“Escort me.” She quickly replied “I mean you're here to escort Sundance who is me I mean. Just an average and very ordinary earth pony.”

A nervous chuckle escaped her lips as she also tried to smile, but I could tell she was nervous. How many rumors had she heard about the ‘other sundance’ to make her so nervous? Then again Cloud Puff did say she would be nervous and that she was in need of a day off.

The pegasus from the royal guard came back and saluted “Cart is clear and safe…” she stared at sundance oddly for a moment.

The mare seemed a little bit nervous as she replied “Is there anything wrong?”

Sparrow shook her head for a moment apparently dismissing whatever she was thinking about “Sorry about that. Thought you were somepony else.”

“Huh, Nutmeg?” Sundance asked nervously asked.

Sparrow chuckled “I don’t know who that is, but it’s nothing…”

The pegasus walked away as the unicorn whispered “I told you she was an earth pony!”

Sundance seemed to smirk as she whispered “How many ponies did you tell?”

I opened my mouth to answer only for Cloud Puff to interrupt “Only a few of the royal guards… and the ones who were just joining the royal guard… and the maids… maybe told one of the messenger ponies to tell the other adventurer ponies that a certain pony was going to be here today.”

Sundance seemed to be blushing in embarrassment as I tried to think of something to say “How about we go inside and make sure everything is ready?”

******

Sparrow and Emerald stood outside making sure nopony bothered the breezies. Normally I would commend them for their efforts, but at this point I could use a distraction from this air of awkwardness. Sundance for the most part looked like the old G1 pony that I had expected… only mixed with a bit of Moondancer and fluttershy… shyness for a lack of a better word and sitting with nothing to do didn’t help either as she just stayed quiet.

The Breezie responsible for this whole mess was off playing/exploring their new accommodations leaving us with nothing to talk about as neither of us really knew what to say to one another… beside very forced, but short attempts at small talk, which had always fell dead in the water.

That just left me with making sure that the only table with chairs in the room was secure to the floor. I was a bit surprised to see that they were padded, and rather comfortable to sit in after hearing about some of the rumors between the remodeled trains and their previous versions.

Still all in all, there wasn’t much to do except sit and wait as the breezies explored the room or checked how well the diorama held up to living guests.

“How long did it take to build this?” Cloud Puff shouted in excitement.

I shrugged “The base model took a few days… the renovations needed took two days to complete.”

Yep… two rather mind dulling days trying to build and paint tiny chairs with everyone else. I glanced at Sundance… a day or two depending on luck until we arrived in Manehatten… This felt like it was going to be a really dull trip.

I looked up at Sundance as she seemed nervous “Are you alright?”
She stopped fidgeting in her seat for a moment as she stared at me oddly “You know what’s going on right? I mean…”

There was a small pause as she just stared at me waiting for me to say something.

“Cloud Puff told me that you needed help finding a guide.” I was starting to feel nervous as her eyes just kept drilling into me… as if she was expecting some sort of hint or clue about something I knew nothing about.

We just sat there for a few more minutes, as the train began to move as I looked out the window and watched the landscape roll by. The room was silent except for the random comment made by a breezie or how some of them were quite content with watching the landscape race past us.

“So… how is your job?” Sundance asked out loud “How is the tavern you work at?” I looked back up at her as she sort of panicked “I mean I heard you were working at a Tavern from C… Princess Celestia!”

I shrugged “It’s doing well.”

She continued staring at me as I didn’t know what she wanted. I told her it was doing fine so that should be it… or was she expecting more?

“Just well?” she finally asked.

I just nodded my head, as I didn’t know what to say “Sure there is the usual customer wanting a drink or a bite, but there wasn’t much in the way of Adventure’s jobs at present, since most of them are away at the moment... But the tavern is still doing fine.”

“I get a feeling there’s a but…” the mare calmly replied.

“There isn’t anything wrong with it.” I quickly replied as I was happy that Pocket Ace took me in. I was proud about the work I had been doing… but looking outside… feeling the train hit the train tracks and just feeling it carrying me along.

I couldn’t help but wonder what I was doing… or if I should have gone along with everyone else to the frozen north. I glanced at my cutie mark of a shield… the destiny calling card of this world claiming my role to be a protector… and I’m not protecting anyone… heck I’m not even going to make a final confrontation with Duran and I know that traitor is currently up north attacking the yaks.

She kept staring at me as I tried to change the subject “So what about you? I tried asking around beforehand… I mean before hoof and no one seemed to know who you were.”

It looked as if she was starting to sweat as she quickly replied “I don’t get out a lot. Breezies aren’t normally seen outside spring so it would be normal if Nopony knew about me.”

I glanced at the other breezies as it felt… kind of sad “Doesn’t it bother you that none of them realize the hard work you're doing? I mean it can’t be easy doing your job.”

Sundance sighed as she glanced out the window “Mostly it’s just smile and fill out the paperwork… maybe listen to a few complaints.” A soft chuckle escaped her throat “Nopony realizes how hard you work when everything's going alright, but they know when something goes wrong.”

“Still, I just take a look and see what I have done and I know… that no matter how hard it gets… that everything will be alright.” She spoke with complete sincerity as she looked out the window smiling… before quickly becoming flustered “I mean that’s what I feel at least when I’m doing my job and trying to help them out!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as she made it sound so simple “I wish I had the same faith you had. It must be easy following your cutie mark.”

She stared at me oddly for a moment before replying “Wait… is this about your job… or your cutie mark?”

Suddenly the room became rather quiet as I felt like I was under a spotlight. I was suppose to help show Sundance a good time… not make her feel as if I was upset at playing tour guide for the mare, especially when I needed this job to get a favor from the breezies!

“No!” I jerkily answered, as the white mare face hoofed, while I tried amend myself “I mean I took the job, this job…”

To my utter surprise and confusion she had placed a hoof over my mouth as she spoke in a calm almost… motherly voice “You have a cutie mark of a shield and you are ‘guarding’ this mare.” she said teasingly with a smirk “Is it that difficult for you?”

“No… I mean…” I felt like grabbing my hair and tugging on it “It’s not your fault, but…” How do I say it? How can I be able to explain what I’m feeling right now, and why do Humans have to have a hard time saying these things, while ponies don’t have any problems expressing their feelings? “I just feel a little bit useless right now.”

She looked at me in surprise “Useless… you think that…”

“No…” I sighed in frustration, with how I kept fumbling with my words as I didn’t mean for her to think that she was the problem “It’s just being on this train made me think about one of the jobs I helped… that I’m helping out with… there were reports of where… where a bad pony is.”

“You mean Duran.” Sundance clarified which came to me as a surprise that she nailed it so perfectly “The evil changeling that caused a mess in the Everfree.”

I sighed though I wasn’t sure if it was from relief as Sundance was easily able to figure it out… or frustration at how difficult it was for me to explain what was bothering me right now.

I absently nodded my head “Yes that person.” I moaned “Here I am trying to make a festival go off without any problems… and…” I kept stuttering in my words, that just couldn’t find them and I kept waving my hooves until I just… I just couldn’t get the words I needed to say and just motioned to my cutie mark “Everything in Equestria seems to say that I should be going up North to deal with her, instead of sitting in here where it’s safe while the others are fighting to protect. I mean I wasn’t worried about it before, but these days…”

Sundance smirked “I think you’re getting a little bit confused about this. Tell me Maxwell… are you good at your job? Do you enjoy what you’re doing? Do you feel that your job is important?”

I rolled my eyes as that answer was kind of obvious “Well, yes… but it isn’t related to my cutie mark. I just go out finding random odd jobs for other people to do. I mean sure there is the random town with a timberwolf problem, or the sudden odd job that Celestia… I mean Princess Celestia needs help with.”

“What kind of jobs?” Sundance asked with a hint of curiosity.

“I’m not allowed to say.” I meekly replied.

She shook her head as a soft chuckle escaped her lips “Not the ones from Princess Celestia. I mean those other ones, like the timberwolves and such.” There was a small bit of mischief in her eyes as she said “Do you really have work rated as Adventurer grade babysitter?”

I hung my head and tried not to laugh, as they always seemed to ask about that one “Well, some ponies think that’s it’s better for foals to naturally go through their magical surges naturally… instead of keeping a pegasi in a crib, an earth pony in a foal pen, or to limit a unicorn’s magical outbursts.”

Sundance rubbed her chin “Still that could be done by a babysitter… and for much cheaper prices.”

Now I couldn’t help but smirk as I explained “Not when the nobles want to make sure none of their priceless furniture gets broken during one of those outbursts… or when some random combination or fusion of spells turn a pile of dirty laundry into ‘Socko’... that of course shoots rapid fire socks at everything nearby.”

“I guess you hear a lot of stories then.” She cheerfully replied in good humor.

I couldn’t help but smirk as I went on “Well somepony has to go out and explain why the dryer was wrapped in chains or where the new set of apple trees in their backyard came from!”

That seemed to make her chuckle, as I felt my cheeks redden as she said “Sorry, sorry, it might seem so silly coming from me, but you sound like one of those foals worried about their new cutie marks. They often get so caught up in searching for their symbolic meaning that they often forget that Cutie Marks don’t define a pony. Ponies define their cutie marks.”

“Yes I know.” I rolled my eyes that the obviousness statement coming from a native “A cutie mark about gems is vague as it could mean a talent in jewelry or a talent in mining.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Sundance replied in that same calm all knowing manner a teacher (which can be very annoying) had when explaining something to a student “It would be closer to say that one should ‘Trust in yourself’ than try to define them by what their talent is supposed to be.”

I huffed in slight annoyance at her “That sounds much easier when you’ve had years to figure it out. I got my cutie mark this year.”Couldn’t she have better stuff to preach with? At least other ponies came with a ‘how I got my cutie mark’ story.

The mare smirked as she pointed outside “Here’s an easy example to compare yourself to.” steering my head at where she was pointing, I looked outside trying to find whatever she was pointing, as I didn’t see any ponies outside just empty fields and skies. “I was pointing at the sun Maxwell… you know… Celestia?”

I looked back at her skeptically to see if she was joking… and oddly enough she seemed to be completely genuine “Uh… you mean Celestia… the big white pony that rules over Equestria?” Sundance nodded as if that was supposed to make sense to me before I replied in a deadpan tone “No offence, but there is a big difference between running a tavern than looking after an entire nation.”

“But it’s essentially the same when you look at it from the perspective of a pony’s cutie mark.” Sundance countered… or tried to counter at least since that was all just... ridiculous.

“She has a cutie mark of the Sun and she rules a nation.” I slowly replied scenes she nodded her head, as if happy that I made that connection “That… doesn’t really help since that cutie mark is linked to being in charge of Equestria.”

Now Sundance looked at me as if I was being crazy “Her cutie mark is the sun… you know… raising the sun which last time I checked doesn’t have any relationship to ruling over countless subjects. I mean, yes it’s a mark of magical talent, since moving the sun and moon is a very difficult feat to accomplish… but casting arch mage’s spells doesn’t have any relationship with public management, legislation, accounting writing laws, negotiations, public speaking or the countless other tasks she does on a daily bases for her little ponies.”

“and yet countless rulers have been able to link their claim to the throne by relationship to their connection with the sun.” I countered, I don’t know how this turned into talking about Celestia’s butt mark but I wasn’t about to lose this argument for that.

Her tail twitched and flicked about as I could tell she was annoyed, but there was also a hint of amusement in her eyes “Unless you mean they're pretending to be Celestia’s illegitimate foals I still don’t see it.”

“Not every nation knows about Equestria.” I quickly clarified.

“So, they don’t have any control or connection with the sun.” Sundance stated with a hint of smugness.

“But it is a strong argument as those who claimed to raise and lower the sun each day were able to guide the masses through their claim of such power.” I replied as I started to draw upon the history of my own world “In the past claims of divinity were linked with the crown or the rulers of nations. Even after the truth that they were mortal men had died away, the sun was still kept as a symbol of power and used by rulers marking their status as those above the common yolk to help cement their claim to the crown or ruler ship of the lands they controlled.”

Sundance seemed a little bit surprised at this revelation, before she switched back to the offensive again with a burning focus in her eyes “But, relating the symbols of status and power of other nations foreign to Equestria wouldn’t count, especially in the founding years of when the cutie mark manifested itself!”

“And yet that same very mark literally marks them and lays bare who they are out to the rest of the world.” I interrupted

“Of course, there are ponies with nearly the same cutie mark, but have two very different meanings to the ponies bearing them and that their special talent that manifest in themselves can be wildly different in nature or intensity.” Celestia countered “Cutie Marks appear as symbolism commonly understood or has a special meaning to the pony themself... it happens in a moment of clarity when she knows what she must do in that moment or, no... When they appeared!” she spoke out loud nearly slamming her hoof down on the table in an ‘eureka’ moment.

“Ah trying to dance around the issue without bring about Equestria’s how claim and dominance of ruler ship before Celestia even reached the throne!” I mockingly replied.

“Ah that’s where you're wrong!” Sundance shouted in triumph as she raised one hoof in the air for emphasis “The rotation, movements, shifts, and schedule of the sun and moon were not seen as ‘claims of power’ in the era of the division between the three tribes, were seen no more than manipulating the weather for a pegasi or growing a tree for an earth pony. Back then, it was an important feat, but one that stood on the same level as the other tribes so ergo… the cultural significance of the symbol was not in fact linked to a claim to the crown, rulership, or a position of political power no more than an earth pony farmer or a weather pony pegasus. It didn’t matter that if the unicorns could rise the sun if the weather didn’t allow the light to help grow the food or the gift earth ponies had to cultivate it during the freezing cold blizzards!”

She looked so smug at shooting down my argument and I have to admit that I didn’t expect her to bring up that point… then again different cultural, different values, different perspectives… but this was not the ‘magic bullet’ that would bring me down.

“Ah… but before Celestia took over the shift of moving the sun about… what happened to the unicorns who did the job before her?” I slowly countered as I started drawing her out.

Sundance didn’t seem impressed as she replied “Yes, there were a few nobles or power wizards, but having Celestia take the burden off them after her cutie mark appeared doesn’t support your claim.”

“I’m not talking about what happened to them after Celestia took over…” I smirked as she seemed puzzled at my question “I’m talking about what happened before when they burned out their magic. I had also took some time to look at a few bits of Equestria’s history since I’ve been in Canterlot.”

The mare seemed to be chewing her lip as she wasn’t sure where I was going with this line of thought, but she was preparing herself against one last assault before she could declare victory “Some lost their ability to use magic, but that didn’t mean those who could still use magic lorded over those who didn’t.”

“Ah, but they still had their knowledge didn’t they?” I asked with a cheerful smirk that made her stand on the defensive as I continued talking and driving it home “They became teachers, rule makers, leaders of government as one needed talent and skill to look over the nation, while those who still had their magic continued their craft. Burning their magic out wasn’t seen as a weakness, but it simply made them move onto looking to contribute in other important duties of the kingdom, since they still had a vast amount of knowledge and talent taught to them and help impart all of it to the next generation would be needed in order to help move the sun in the first place.”

I held my head up tall “So in fact… the symbol of the sun was in relationship to the crown and that of a leadership position within the kingdom. Ergo… Celestia’s cutie mark of the sun was also a clear marking of defining her capability and capacity as a ruler of a nation, and that’s without even saying that it was a ‘ray of sunlight’ onto a kingdom that had just become free of an endless winter.”

“Actually, it was the tree that was closer seen as a symbol of power and rulership, since providing healthy crops were at an all time low and those who held a position of power over food supported their claim to power.” Cloud Puff interjected “And while the earth ponies did have to give up their food, the best farmer were left as the leaders, the unicorn in charge of food shipment and gardening held more power than those with gifts or feats of magic as not even their mastery over magic could stop them from starving along with the other tribes.

She rubbed her chin “Even pegasi for all their mastery over the skies and the clouds tried finding other ways to grow crops to survive which had also coined the term for ‘cloud farmer’ which came from the myth or attempt to sow seeds into the clouds and grow food to help support those who lived up above in their cloud cities instead of relying on the earth ponies down below.”

I looked down in surprise as I saw a small row of breezies sitting back and watching us… some of them even had tiny bowls filled with some sort of powder as one breezie seemed to give an elbow jab into Cloud Puff’s side, as she was upset at him for interrupting the show.

I glanced back up at Sundance who seemed to be radiating smugness as she replied “Ergo… that’s my point for the win.” There was a slight pause of silence as her cheeks seemed to start to turn red as Cloud Puff smirked and was about to say something until Sundance interrupted “Not one word.”

She looked back at me with one last smirk “Also just to let you know, a cutie mark doesn’t ‘drive’ a pony to master a skill or trade. For example, some ponies with a cutie mark related to music, don’t necessarily want to become consumed in trying to become a musical maestro in a particular field, they could just do it for recreation instead, or use it while applying it in their trade. So to just assuming their cutie mark is related to their job is an incorrect assumption to make anyway.”

I shook my head as I honestly didn’t expect to get into a debate with her… or to have so much fun having a debating against her. I will admit that I find it odd that a symbol for an apple tree could have been the sign for nobility and power, instead of ‘humble’ beginnings.

The white mare tried to compose herself as she spoke in a lecturing tone “So there you have it… Celestia’s cutie mark has nothing to do with ruling, but her hard work, dedication, and talent is the reason why she is the Princess of Celestia instead of arch-mage or wise scholar of Equestria.”

She looked at me and smirked “And yet most ponies have a hard time trying to imagine her as somepony other than Princess Celestia.” She placed a hoof on my shoulder “And if you continue to ask if what you're doing is right… sometimes the most important job of being a good leader is not rushing into the battlefield, but getting other ponies to talk and have them work together towards a common goal.”

She held her head up high and apparently was trying her best ‘Celestia’ impression “Plenty of ponies can grab a sword and charge straight forward without thinking of tomorrow. The toughest ponies are those who remember to plow the field the day after, rebuild the wall the next week, and look out for one another the year after that!”

She cleared her throat before continuing in her normal voice “Defending ponies can be seen more than holding a shield and charging face into danger. It is also helping out behind the lines, providing supplies, helping others find work, or just simply helping the community out.”

“Who was that quote from?” I asked as I was ready to hear ‘Celestia’ as the answer.

Sundance to my surprise giggle as she replied “Star Swirl’s formal complaint to the royal court after they refused Princess Platinum’s idea to move to Equestria with the other two tribes and instead go to war for the new land found.”

She glanced at my cutie mark “Then again… I guess that could look as a good sign for a tavern. So mystery solved.”

I frowned a little as she chuckled… but I couldn’t help but get caught along with her good cheer as I knew she wasn’t trying to insult me. A part of me couldn’t help but think of what my cutie mark would look on a sign… or if it really mattered what my cutie mark looked like just as long as I tried to stay ‘true to myself’’ if that was the real secret to happiness in Equestria.

“So just stay true to myself?” I muttered out loud.

Sundance rubbed her chin as she thought about it for a moment “Well, I actually meant was something closer to ‘Be where you think you’ll do the most good’ since you were questioning what you should be doing.” She chuckled a little as she shook her head “I mean does running around in the snow chasing after an old grudge help more ponies out than what you're doing now?”

That… I guess I hadn’t considered it like that… but she does have a point. I may not be running after any escaped convicts or criminals, but with helping with the logistics of supplies and contracts I have been able to help more people out right now than I would be if I had just went up north. I looked back at my cutie mark hoping for some sort of confirmation or sign… only to have it just sit there as an otherwise odd,but unassuming patch of fuzz on my butt.

“This cutie mark would be better than the previous one to put on a sign.” I half heartedly replied.

“Other what?” Sundance asked out of curiosity “I mean I’ve heard about a helix fossil for a sign… and I am curious about how that was the first idea for a tavern sign you came up with.”

“Oh no, I meant the previous cutie mark I had…” I tried to clarify as I wasn’t going to try to explain the inside joke about the helix fossil

“Other cutie mark?” Sundance interrupted as she stared at me in confusion “Last time I checked, ponies have one cutie mark and don’t you dare say they have ‘one on each side’ Maxwell.”

I shook my head half in good humor… and half in sorrow as I remembered my ‘first’ cutie mark “When I had escaped from Duran… I was leading as many people who didn’t want to go along with his crazy scheme out of the castle. There was a fight and… I ended up getting a cutie mark of a smirking half mask.”

I sighed as the bitter memory slowly came back “Well, you see, I was a bit of a joker… tried to use humor to lighten the mood of a really bad situation that we were all in and I felt that I had to at least try make everyone feel a little better, heh… I was desperately to try in clinging the bright side of things.”

It was hard to explain both in how I was… and how ignorant I was back then “So, I guess it kind of made sense at the time, but then everyone else… nobody had a cutie mark, and suddenly I got one with how it looked like it was sneering which some of them though it meant I was a two faced liar or backstabber. They started having arguments over what it meant. They just left me behind as they didn’t feel safe traveling with me anymore.”

Sundance looked at me in pity “They left you behind because you stood out? Didn’t they try to help or…”

“You have to understand that I was the one who had invited Duran to join our group in the first place, they weren’t very happy with me to begin with.” I tried to explain their side of things as I felt the old sting of the memory of the betrayal “I made a bad decision… when it came to leave, Duran had caught onto our attempt to escape and we lost a few members… I stood up to him and he tried to do to me…” I lowered my head as I remembered that bitter moment “What he did to the others and then I got my first mark” I got lost in the Everfree Forest, then caught in a giant spider web and a whole bunch of other things... and if it wasn’t for Lockheart and the others finding me there in that forest and helping rescue everyone… I…”

I looked down at the table as I remembered that horrible moment of dread. I was too afraid to make anymore decisions. I just kept trying to make jokes… trying to brighten up the situation, or find someone else who could save everybody. Heck, it feels so odd that I hadn’t stopped looking at the Equestrians as people as I saw them as… things back then.

I saw Steel Halberd and Remedy Cross as nothing more than mindless NPCs or mere ‘background characters’ that couldn’t do anything. I followed Lockheart almost blindly like a lost puppy because he was the pony with wings and a horn, while I was the screw up who only managed to rescue some of the humans before they abandoned me in turn.

I took a deep breath as I looked back up at Sundance “I know that Lockheart has received a lot of flack in Canterlot, but if he wasn’t there that day. If he didn’t stand up… show me that it didn’t matter who you were, as he stood up against Duran all by himself fully knowing that he couldn’t win.” I sighed, as I remembered the fear and horror I felt when I saw them struggling to save everyone “I just… I just rushed forward trying to follow their example.”

I glanced down at my cutie mark “And then that’s when this thing appeared. Suddenly I stopped trying to make jokes. I started looking at others in a different light… I stood up for myself and saw not an alicorn standing against an evil that I couldn’t face… but a normal guy struggling to do his best against something he didn’t believe he could stop, but he hoped to delay that threat just long enough for the rest of us to escape.”

Sundance looked at me as she seemed to be proud at what I had just said “I’m not sure what that thing on your flank was before you came to Canterlot… but it sounds like your true cutie mark came to you when you stopped being somepony else and started being yourself.”

“Yah!” Cloud Puff shouted “It didn’t come because you fought an evil pony! It came because you did what you thought was right in that moment! Do you think you need to walk around in a suit of armor, swinging a sword, or do you think you need to help ponies out all over Equestria, even if it isn’t punching that jerk in the snout!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the image of a pony in shining armor giving an upper cup to Duran. Sundance started to join in as she must have pictured something similar as the rest of the breezies joined in.

Sundance was the first to calm down as she looked at me “So… what is the real reason you wanted to go to the cultural festival? I mean it wouldn’t have been that hard to go up north and I’m sure you could have found something else to do than escort a random pony around Manehatten.”

I suddenly felt a twinge of guilt as escorting a mare around Manehatten for a ticket home was kind of on the top of my list. It also reminded me of a small… minor… thought that I had started to dwell on today.

“Well…” I looked at her as she stared at me in that damned kind and caring way that Equestria seemed to have. That one little look that made you spill everything out on the floor instead of finding someway to avoid the issue “… The ones who I had escaped with from the Everfree Forest the first time… they are having a small get together.”

“And you feel nervous about meeting them again.” Sundance replied with a hint of sorrow.

I looked back up at her as she didn’t seem sad that I would be leaving her… it was more of a look of sympathy or perhaps a similar feeling of regret or unease.

“I mean, I’ve managed kep get in contact with everyone else from the Everfree incident, but…” Sundance cut me off as she placed a hoof over my mouth. There was a soft kind smile that reminded me of Celestia as she looked at me and smiled.

She removed her hoof from my mouth as she said “I understand… but I’m coming along with you.”

I tried to talk her out of it “You don’t have to as I can still…”

Sundance frowned as she continued “Oh no. You agreed to show me around I’m kind of curious about this event. You need to go over there and get over your regrets and if any of those ponies try to complain about you being in Manehatten instead of going up north to fight a changeling than I’ll give them a piece of my mind!” She replied with both her hooves on the table helping her stand up tall.

I opened my mouth and tried to say something… but the look in her eye told me that it wasn’t up for discussion. I glanced back at Cloud Puff waiting to see if she would say anything only to see her shrug.

“Besides…” Sundance replied offhand “We can visit some of the clothing shops in Manehattan and get you a better suit.”

“What’s wrong with my suit?” I asked only to see her shock.

She placed a hoof over her mouth and made a polite cough “Maybe we should find you something that was made in… this century?” She pulled out a small book out from somewhere as she continued “Maybe Jade Boutique might have something that could fit you… or would Gentle Colt’s Stand have a better selection of suits…”

I stared at her as she continued checking her book for where we would go... when did Sundance become my guide and escort for the Cultural Fair?

******

???

In the dead of night, at the Canterlot high security wing, Colton looked up at the barbed glass door, separating him from any visitors, as some unfamiliar pony shrouded in a black cloak walked into the medical corridor. The figure seemed to somehow blend into the darkness and didn’t seem hindered by the lack of light in the least as he walked towards the glass wall.

Colton starred in almost seeming indifference at the present sinister looking pony addressing him “What are you doing here?”

The cloaked figured chuckled as two black wings popped out of the back of the cloak, as it turned to face him. Colton felt odd staring at the pony as the hood did much to cover the pony’s face in shadows, which seemed to lead to an endless void, but he could make out the rough outline of a pony and judging from the placement of the wings he could tell this was a pegasus.

The odd pegasus stared at him in silence for a few moments before finally saying with a raspy voice “Would you like to see Sanguine once again?”

Colton’s ears perked to attention of the name, but then immediately shook his head “It would be pointless. I’m trapped in here and I doubt Sanguine would even be allowed in this building.” If it wasn’t told in such a cold indifferent tone it would have almost sounded like disappointment from the earth pony.

The odd pegasus nodded his head in understanding, before casually pulling a book from out of his cloak and presenting it to Colton “Right now, I’m in a bit of a bind. My current client is getting upset on how his plans aren’t going according to schedule and he decided to… ease up on the reigns.”

There was a slight chuckle that reminded Colton of the time when a group of adventurers were caught by Sanguine when they were trying to escape from his group. Colton could remembered how Sanguine made that same chuckle, just before he made them turn on each other before welcoming back the last one standing.

The shrouded pegasus casually dropped the book on to the floor and used his wings to flip through the pages “Though the current restrictions are a little bit troubling, as I find myself in the need of a good sculptor at the moment. Someone who can chisel through just the right amount of stone instead of just blindly carving in hope of getting it right.”

Colton felt a small chill from the pegasus, as he didn’t sound like one of the doctors. In fact, he sounded like someone the doctors would very likely keep away from him, just for good measure. ‘Could he be planning to break him out of here?’ He mused to himself. Was he going to be allowed to go outside to work his talents… his art… his cutie mark?

The pegasus plucked a feather from his wing and placed the blackened makeshift quill onto an open page of the book “You have a wish that will never be made… and I can give you the chance that you would never have.”

Colton felt a small thrill as he remembered the joy he working with Sanguine… and then a small bit of doubt and sorrow as he knew Doctor Patches wouldn’t be happy with him going back to his old habits again. Colton would be breaking his promise to the nice doctor and ‘breaking a promise would is the fastest way to lose a friend’ after all, and he of all people knew why he wasn’t allowed outside anymore.

Still, he stared back at the mysterious pony “What’s the catch?”

The pegasus chuckled as he grinned revealing his pearly white teeth “Oh nothing much… Just a chance to grab the dice and roll your fate for yourself. I can promise you that you will get your wish… but you’ll only get one wish, so it’s best to make it a good one.”

Colton looked down at the book and stumbled back in surprise, as the book was now on his side of the room. He felt the chill run down his spine once again… and a new growing thrill… no… joy at the possibility the book seemed to promise him now.

He wanted to be with Sanguine again, but he also didn’t want to upset Doctor Patches, as he was a good friend, which unlike the other doctors in the ward, he actually tried to reach out and help him. If this book made wishes possible… then couldn’t it make it so that he could be with Sanguine and have the good doctor join him? After all, maybe he will stop holding him to his promise anymore if he also knew the joy that is Sanguine.

Without wasting any time, he fervently took the quill and started scribbling down his wish.

‘I wish to be united with Sanguine again, and for Doctor Patches to join me. I wish that he would be just as happy as I am at that moment and for him to stay my friend.’

The pegasus moved to grab the book as Colton placed his hoof on it “This will make my wish happen. All of it?”

The pegasus chuckled once again, as he spoke in understanding tone “Yes. It is not limited by trying to keep a wish as one sentence. You will be given the chance to be united with Sanguine as well as your good doctor friend will stay your friend and be just as happy as your are when you are with him once again.”

Colton stepped closer to the glass “When will this happen?”

The pegasus snapped the book right in front of Colton’s face as he said “Sooner than you think.”

He turned away walking out of the room as Colton looked at the floor in surprise. His hoof hadn’t moved from it’s position, but the book was gone… almost as if it was never there as his hoof wasn’t even wet from the ink that should have still been drying on the page.

Yet he looked back at the empty room with a hint of joy in his heart as for some reason… he knew he was about to have his wish granted.

“I can’t wait to see his face when they meet.” Colton said to himself as he walked back to bed happy.

Author's Note

Yes I apologize for the odd ending, but it will be resolved shortly instead of having to wait a few dozen chapters in the future.

Prolog (updated 12/2/2017)

Prolog (updated 12/2/2017)

Warning... this prologue contains large amounts of randomness and other crazy actions. You may skip to the main chapter if you want or read this to understand a few points.

******

I took a look over my old desktop and started it up. Apparently they finally made a licensed MLP game that actually looks decent, given the previews online, and… I figured I would give it a shot! It was either a cheap attempt to squeeze out more money from the fanbase or it might actually be a good game that gives the fans (more commonly known as Bronies) something fun to play with.

I looked over my gaming equipment just to make sure everything was there.

Headset? Check!

Mouse? Check!

Keyboard working? No? Replaced old one with new one? Check!

Time till I have to go to work at my lousy job? Far enough away for some gaming time!

Game downloaded? Still downloading.

Check to see if there any bills that I need to pay or groceries I need to pick up before I lose myself in this game? Meh… I’ll be alright for now.

Manual? Check! Bored reading while waiting for the game? Sigh… Check.

I opened up a small colorful pamphlet. I was surprised they even put one out with the game; most of the time it's just ads, since this kind of game always forces you to run through the tutorial anyways. Most of the time, the manual is just there so you can type down that one code to prove you didn’t steal the game.

For such a colorful game about ponies… the manual disappointingly doesn't have a lot of illustrations.

Welcome to the magical land of Equestria! A land inhabited by multi colored ponies and a host of other magical creatures. Not to step on any toes (or “hooves” in this case), the game is set about two hundred years in the future of Equestria, from the setting of the popular television show! The 'Mane Six' have passed away, leaving a new land for the players to explore and possibly form their own 'Mane Six' so to speak. Some of whom may be lucky enough to encompass one of the individual six elements of Harmony that they represent; that are as followed: Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter and, last but not least, Magic.

I groaned at the joke. I was willing to bet that I would see half a dozen copies of the Mane Six, the Princesses, and all the fan favorite ponies from Ponyville. As for the comment about the Elements of Harmony… and I’m willing to bet ten to one that the ‘Elements of Harmony’ are collector items or an event quest pickup.

But all is not what it seems. Darkness lurks back into peaceful lands. Fear is growing as all of the princesses have suddenly disappeared leaving the ponies without their guidance.

Translation. Princess Celestia, Luna, Cadance and Princess Twilight (aka the one that normally saves Equestria) have gone missing including any other pony princesses, with horn and wings, we may add for a future attempt at selling more merchandise.

The kingdom is slowly falling into chaos and it is up to YOU (and the other players) to restore Harmony and save the day!

Right up until the next expansion where “insert evil” unleashes their villainy for the all mighty low price of your entire wallet! Shipping and taxes not included of course.

With a rich and versatile player driven market and a variety of races, this latest entry into the MMO genre will see how far you will go in the wonderful land of Equestria! So, sit back and relax with a nice glass of chocolate milk to settle down those nervous jitters, before you start your new adventure...

For some reason a shiver went up my spine when I read that passage… I probably just had the fan turned up too high. I turned down the fan and tried to ignore the bad joke meant to pander to fans as I continued reading on.

Races available are , , , , , . The Deluxe Edition provides access to the race. Upgrade today!

I couldn’t help but reply/snark back outloud, “Future expansions will offer owl, baby dragon, and for another chunk of your wallet the 'exclusive Alicorn skin' for your character. Skills and Prince’s or Princess's title not included.”

How will you save Equestria?

Well, at least my game finally loaded.

The screen flashed. It was showing a small cartoon version of Pinkie Pie hopping up and down on the loading bar, only for the bar to snap under her jump when it finished. The Pinky Pie cartoon giggled as she landed on the “Click Start To Go” icon.

After one click, the screen displayed all the various races walking about Ponyville with the same cartoonish style the show was known for. I rolled my mouse over the “Create A Character” icon and clicked on it only for nothing to happen. A few more clicks later, still nothing happened, forcing me to check if the mouse was working.

I frowned as I checked to make sure my mouse was functioning properly… and then I sighed just realizing that the servers must have been flooded with hundreds of thousands of brony fans and players were already logging on just as I was, ready to make their own characters. I just tapped the mouse again as I waited for the lag to die down long enough for me to at least make my own character.

To my surprise, a cartoonish griffon claw grabbed the mouse icon as a Cheshire grin appeared on screen. Then, a very familiar draconequus appeared in the middle of the scene, in all his usual chauvinistic and chaotic glory, Discord.

The self-proclaimed Lord of Chaos, or Trickster god, was floating around with his long serpentine undulating like a flying asian dragon, held aloft by his two mismatched wings on his back. His horse like head was sporting his patented bushy eyebrows and a goat’s beards, along with a gazelle and deer antler. His red eyed pupils with a mischievous glint while staring at me, and his singular fang protruding out of his self satisfied grin.

Discord had a ominous smile to him as he was lying on the “Create A Character” icon; using the mouse icon to pick his teeths no less.

Instead of waiting while this weird loading screen took it’s sweet time, I moved my mouse to pull something up to mess with… only for the mouse icon to not move at all. I tried dragging the mouse icon out of the window as I thought it was just being hidden by the loading screen. When that didn’t work I tried wildly moving the mouse around trying to make it appear outside the loading screen… and nothing changed.

Did the game glitch or something? Was I going to have to manually turn the computer off and turn it back on to make it work?

“Hey you there?” The icon of Discord on the loading screen spoke out loud in a similar manner like Q from Star Trek. “Isn’t this all terribly drab? You spent all that money for a copy of Equestria to play out all your little “fantasies” in, yet we both know nothing of the sort is going to happen.”

I blinked at the… rather odd intro. I mean, they seriously made him say that? I can understand pandering to the fans… but wouldn’t this hurt sales?

“Sales, wales. Does it really matter in the end, as long as you've have a good laugh?” Discord chuckled, taking up more of the screen. “Besides! Isn’t the real question not what you think you would do, but what you would end up doing?”

I shivered as the creepiness factor of the intro just went up as that oddly precise comment… it was probably an guess or a prank to mess with the more skeptic customers who bought this game. I pulled out my mobile device and decided to check the internet for any comments on the very weird intro they had for this game.

“Weird? Personally I prefer Eccentric.” Discord laughed back at me. It's as almost as if he was reading my mind which was impossible. “And to answer your latest non-question: Yes! Yes, I am; but that doesn’t matter right now. You see, me and little Princess Sparkles took a bet over our latest game. I was to find some new pieces and she was to set up the board, but... It's all so boring: watching clumps of wood stomp about with all those pesky rules interfering with the fun parts of the game!”

With a snap of his fingers a small image of a chess board filled up the screen. On the right was a white chess piece modeled to depict the ivory alicorn Princess Celestia sitting upon her golden throne… and on the left was a black chess piece modeled after Discord’s villain throne as the cartoon's version of him sat in it smirking as he looked over the chessboard. The odd part was that neither side had any pawns, or any of the other assorted chess pieces a chess game was supposed to have.

Suddenly dozens of regular chess pawns appeared on screen with each second, each one flying towards the center of the chess board in every possible color except black and white. They smashed into each other with convincing physicality, creating a central pawn pile that grew until the board spontaneously broke in half, bursting into flame.

Discord walked off of his throne. “So I thought to make it a little more interesting! The strongest pieces of each side would have no control over their own pieces. All the power, and yet…” He moved to another square as all the pieces changed again “Only able to make the smallest of moves, while everyone else gets to make bigger moves! And you, my dear boy...”

He grinned, then disappeared with a puff of smoke. “...Get to see which one of us is right.” Discord voice now echoed behind my chair. I stared at the computer screen, as I saw Discord's reflection appear right behind me before he shoved me forward into the computer.

[c]******[/c]

I closed my eyes and tried to take deep, calm breaths. My head stung a little; I probably had fallen backwards from my chair and banged my head up. I took another deep breath as I tried to let the pain subside, before checking to see if I was late for work.

I noticed something odd. The ceiling to the house was gone as it was replaced by clear blue skies, and I was flat on the ground. The chair, desk, and computer that should have been in front of me had suddenly disappeared… including the walls to the room.

Now that I was left out in the open with no clue how I got here, a nagging sense of something wrong filled my every thought, as I muttered to myself in fear “Oh dear god I’ve just been kidnapped.”

“What are you doing slowpoke?” a raspy voice shouted above me. “Come on! Get to flapping for your flight training!”

“What!” I screamed, looking up.

Rainbow Dash was flying above me… I mean she wasn’t on a computer screen or in the standard MLP cartoony format; I saw a large real life flying pony flapping its wings above me!

The loud mouth competitive cyan pegasus with a rainbow colored mane was looking down at me. One of the main characters of the My Little Pony Magic is Friendship tv show was looking down at me!

She slammed her hoof on my head, making it ache even more as she shouted in my face like a drill sergeant, “Just flap your wings and follow me, will you!”

I groaned as I felt something strange across my back… I turned my head to see that I was now sporting two large black pegasus wings on my sides that started to move waking up the limbs as I felt them stir to life on their own. A green bang of hair fell across my face as I tried to push it away with my hands… only to see a pair of hooves. As soon as I saw them, I realized I couldn’t even feel my fingers; they had now been replaced with large stumps! I had been turned into a freaking pony!

So then, just like any sane and rational person would do in this insane situation, I screamed my head off and started scooting backwards in complete panic! I mean, one moment I was sitting in front of a computer screen, and the next minute I had been turned into a goddamned furry after bumping my head!

“What the fuck is happening!” I screamed out loud

“Oh come on now.” Discord’s voice rang out from behind me, “Just take a leap, or a fall if you like!”

Without warning, Discord kicked me, with is right cloven hind hoof, in the butt like a cartoon character! His kick sent me flying head-over-heels, past the edge of the cloud that I had apparently been standing on, and I started my fall with an uncontrolled tumble as the wind whipped across my face. When I was facing upwards, I could see clouds with happy smiling faces filling the sky.

For a brief moment, I thought I would be safe as I tried to think of toon logic, or how Rainbow Dash always crashed into the ground and always managed to walk away without so much as a limp. I slowly whirled in the air, at least until my face was looking at the ground below me. On the surface, to my horror I could see a large pit of over-sized Mario-themed spikes covering every inch of the ground that I was rushing towards my doom. I kept screaming my lungs out as I felt the rushing wind against my face while I trying to figure out how to move these stupid wings!

Move damn you! Move! Just think of them as back arms and flap! Flap damn you! Flap!

“Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck!” I frantically screamed as my wings finally snapped open, transforming my uncontrolled tumble into an uncontrolled glide, aimed directly down into the Spiky Pit of Death! “Fuck!”

I quickly pushed my arms and legs out as far as I could, slamming them into some nearby spikes just before I was impaled by one! I could feel my limbs straining from the pressure to keep me up; as my face came to a hair's length away from one of the pointed spike tips. I tried not to hyperventilate as I stared at the spike, but then a small stab of pain from my stomach revealed another spike immediately below me… and the small trickle of blood from the prick on my stomach.

Any desperate hopes of this being a dream quickly disappeared as I struggled to save myself. I tried flapping my wings and blowing down underneath me as if I was a cartoon character trying to slow his descent. I could hear Discord laughing uproariously, even as my wings slowly lifted me upwards into the sky. I continued my wobbly descent until I managed to land face first on one of the near by clouds as my wings gave out from exhaustion.

I felt my panicked gasps for air struggle to fill my lungs with air. Sweat covered my face as each panic filled wheezes only made the dread horror of my near death experience fill my body with dread as this definitely didn’t feel like a dream at all.

“Bravo!” Discord shouted from right beside me, making me nearly fall off the cloud again. “Judges?”

I looked in the direction that he was talking, to see three more Discords appeared behind a marked judges table, waving score signs as I frowned. A Two, A Four… and one was the letter Q.

Discord shook his head. “Tough crowd.”

“Fuck you Discord.” I muttered, trying to make sure I didn’t fall off the edge of the cloud to my doom once again.

Personally, I felt like screaming at someone or something, but I managed to rein myself in, seeing that I was either dealing with an almost-all-powerful god who could end my existence with a snap of His fingers… or this was a very vivid dream that I had no control over; I did not want to test out the ‘Die in a dream! Die in real life!’ theory right now!

Discord pretended to look shocked. “Language! We can have Manticores nearly tear apart ponies, have emotion vampires tear apart a kingdom, have a perfectly handsome gentleman turned to stone for a thousand years, and have inappropriately realistic debates about the psychological effects that it may or not may have caused... But swearing?!”

Two ponies in corporate uniforms appeared out of nowhere beside me on the cloud as they stared at me from behind their black sunglasses.

“That’s just going too far.” Discord mockingly replied as a pair of handcuffs appeared on my hooves. “Just use safer terms like Buck, Horse Apples, or my favorite: Curly Fries!”

A unicorn in robes also appeared, blinking in confusion until Discord snapped his fingers again, making the ponies all disappear… and the cloud… and my wings.

“FUCK!” I screamed out loud, before falling to my doom, again...

******

When I opened my eyes again, I saw that right in front of me was a lavender unicorn with a purple mane standing in front of a chalkboard with a teacher’s smile. It was none other than Twilight Sparkle (pre-alicorn ascension) from My Little Pony Magic is Friendship.

To quickly sum it up, Twilight Sparkle was the adorkable bookwork of the main characters. Smart, skilled in magic, and Princess Celestia’s personal student. And one of the wielders of the Elements of Harmony. To be more precise the Element of Magic/Friendship.

Looking around at my surroundings, as I realized that we were inside the old tree-library from the cartoon, reconfirming that this was before she was turned into an alicorn, or had the building burn down/vaporised and replaced with a crystal tree castle.

My back was sore, and I felt a new pain on my head. I groaned at seeing my hooves once again as I went to provide relief for this new pain on my forehead, but I realized that the nightmare had yet to end as I felt the unfamiliar presence of a unicorn horn.

I tried to get back up, and noticed the lack of wings on my side. Just freaking great. First I was a Pegasus; now I’m a Unicorn? Was Earth Pony up next, or am I going to get turned into every damned race the game had to offer?

Twilight smiled at me, oblivious to my pain as she spoke in a classical lecturing tone “Thank you for joining me in Magic 101. Now, please pull out your paper and quills as we get ready to take some notes.”

I glanced down to realize I was stuck in one of those cheap public school desks; the ones where the seat and the desk were all one welded piece of uncomfortable metal riveted with plasticized 'wood'. I found the aforementioned sheet of paper resting by my hooves, sitting under an ink jar with a white quill inserted through the top.

The lavender unicorn cheerfully replied “As we all know, unicorns are special in Equestria as our horns allow us to create great feats of magic.”

“Deep breaths.” I muttered to myself “Just go through the fucking tutorial and take the written test…”

At the same time, Twilight’s horn glowed as her magical aura levitated up a piece of chalk, then pressed it onto the chalkboard behind her as she spoke to me. “Now for this test, all you need to do is…”

The room flickered for a moment like a glitch in a program. The old Ponyville tree-library that I was in, had now been replaced with a large wrestling arena that had a steel cage over it with a large crowd of whooping and hollering pony spectators sat in their seats which were surrounded the cage. Twilight was now standing far above the arena, dressed in one of those sport announcer outfits. On the other side of the caged arena, a fully grown manticore was growling at me from behind a set of steel bars, clawing at the floor and ready to attack.

The piece of chalk Twilight was just using had now been turned into a microphone. She spoke in a sports announcer’s voice as she said, “Simply take the key and escape, before the manticore is released!”

The manticore growled in rage as I tried my best to scampered back to the far end of the cage as the thrice damned desk chair was still stuck to me. I fiddled with my hooves trying to free myself from the desk until a key suddenly shined brightly in front of me, only to slip through the bars and hang just outside of the caged arena to rest on a simple key rack. I stared at the key in horror as I didn’t have even a single idea of how I could physically pick up the key with my hooves, much less magic up a solution!

The manticore smashed against the bars, snarling rabidly while two business-suit unicorns enveloped the bars in their magic and started to free the terrible beast that would surely kill me! I wiggled my body out of the cursed desk chair as I stared at the keys that laid out of my reach.

“How am I supposed to get the key!?” I screamed out loud while trying to somehow slip through the steel bars that kept me trapped with a hungry monster!

Maybe the hoof trick would be easy! Like magnets or something? I stretched my arm out as far as I could, trying to just at least touch the key with my hoof; it was almost in my grasp. I still had no idea how I could open up the caged arena, but I didn’t want to be mauled to death by a mythical creature!

Twilight chuckled and looked at me as if I was joking. “Why, with magic, silly!”

If it wasn’t for the fact she was completely out of my reach, I would have tried to strangle her.

Discord appeared right beside me, wearing a white shirt with a towel over his shoulder, before promptly shoving a water bottle into my face. “Now I know he's bigger, stronger, faster, and a better fighter all around.”

He tried massaging my shoulders like some cheap Rocky knockoff movie as I turned around and shouted at him “You’ve got to be kidding me! There’s no way I can beat him!”

“But he has one thing you don’t have, boy!” Discord replied in mocking support. I watched him as I waited to hear how I could escape this disaster “Guts, and lots of them!” Pointing his lion’s paw on my belly for emphasis.

The manticore roared as I screamed in terror, “I’d rather they stay inside my body than on the floor!”

Discord laughed. “So maybe the network producers were a little angry and swapped the intro tutorials. Just remember: flap those back wings, and grab with your noggin!”

He laughed again, fading away like the Cheshire Cat before I could hit him. A bell rang out the start of the match, as the cage keeping the manticore back was now open, and the savage beast walked out of the cage and into the arena. He prowled across the padded floor, like a lion getting ready to lunge for the kill.

According to the first episode of MLP, all I had to do was find the splinter hurting the beast and pull it out to calm it down.

My brain, on the other hand, told me to run as if the Manticore was wearing a bib that said “Brony taste like chicken!” with fresh blood on it.

I bolted from the manticore's advance, and focused on the key as I tried Discord’s crazy advice; thinking of grabbing it somehow with my mind. The key flickered green for a moment before I was slammed against the cage bars by the manticore as the beast had me pinned to the wall with his paws as he slowly opened his mouth revealing dozens of sharp and pointy teeth.

“Fuck!” I screamed in pain, and instantly thought about knocking the manticore back.

As if answering my pleas of desperation, a burst of green magic erupted from my horn hitting the manticore right in the eye, making it roar in pain as it dropped me. I rolled out of the manticore's range, then shoved my horn against the floor while desperately focusing on trying to repeat the same trick on the floor of the arena. Finally, two bursts of green magic struck the floor, managing to blast open a hole through the arena platform just large enough for me to escape through.

The manticore roared in fury, the wild swiping of its claws forcing me to bolt away again to escape an immediate painful death. The manticore snorted in rage and clawed the ground like a bull, before coiling itself inwards in a cat-like fashion as if to charge me. I stared at the manticore, not daring to move, as I spotted my path to freedom resting just behind it.

Without much of a plan, I charged at the manticore like a battering ram, as he prepared to lunge at me, as I tried to counter back by lining up its face with my blunt unicorn horn . It was stupid, stupid idea that would probably kill me, but it was the only plan I had at the moment, as I focused on my horn.

Trying to summon all my strength, my horn glowed green for just a moment as I screamed, “Pew Pew Pew!”

Everybody always makes sound effects when shooting imaginary magic energy beams, so why not do it myself with real magic energy beams anyway? I’d rather look foolish and have it work, than not look foolish and be torn apart into mincemeat.

Thankfully, each shot fired off a new burst of green light, knocking the manticore back a little with each shot. This made the manticore hesitate at my charge, just enough to buy me the time to lunge down the hole and slide underneath the broken stage supports; a pair of claws shot through the bars and scraped against my back, as I completely left the arena behind.

I collapsed on the ground right outside the cage, panting in terror as I placed a hoof across my painfully beating chest. The nondescript crowd suddenly started booing me and throwing popcorn or empty soda bottles at me.

A yellow pegasus with a long pink wavy mane and tail flew down from the stand and into the caged arena as the manticore was sobbing like an overgrown baby, crying as he started sucking his thumb.

It took a few moments for me to recognize her as I stared at the Yellow Pegasus, otherwise known as Fluttershy, aka the Element of Harmony.

The yellow pegasus had an almost comically sized medical bag as she used a ton of bandages to wrap his ‘boo boo’ while muttering about what a horrible person I was to harm a defenseless animal.

The manticore even whined like an injured animal as he pointed a finger at me, as if I was the bad guy. I didn’t see anyone complaining when he threw me up against the wall and tried biting my head off!

I gritted my teeth as I felt a surge of anger flow through my body. I could just about picture what Discord’s next task would be: Apple bucking with Applejack while a Hydra tried to eat me? Trying to tame a dragon with Fluttershy? How about baking a cake with Pinkie Pie... With half the ingredients replaced with actual explosives!

Surely, there must be a few ‘wonderful’ ideas on how to make the rest of the main characters from MLP try to create unique and colorful death traps as they tried to kill me!

Out of thin air, Discord appeared right beside me and snapped his fingers, turning off all the lights and leaving us seemingly in an empty void alone on a giant white circle, as he berated me “You do realize the reason for a tutorial, right?” He queried his bushy eyebrow.

I snapped. I have had enough of these games, and have almost nearly died twice now!

“Why are you doing this to me! Why do you keep threatening my life!” I nearly shouted out loud as I could feel my own frustration growing with each passing second.

Discord huffed in indignation. “Sorry, but some people, or ponies in your case, would love spending this time with me.” He pointed his left griffin claw at himself as he grinned in some vain attempt to be ‘endearing’ to me or something along those lines.

“No, seriously!” I screamed out loud as I let my anger get the better of me, “First spikes! Then manticores! What’s next?! Hydras? Dragons!?”

“Zebras, oh my!” I heard the voice that I recognized as Pinkie Pie’s shouted from behind. Both of us briefly turned around, trying to find the notorious fourth wall breaking pink earth pony, only to find more dark nothingness.

Did we just hear or… or was she hiding somewhere? All I could see was the big black empty void surrounding us as the only source of light was the lighted circle on the ground.

“How...?” I started to ask, but shook my head as it was useless trying to figure it out.

Pinkie Pie, aka Element of Laughter, aka Loony Toon Logic pony, was the pony friendly equivalent of deadpool. You don’t ask how they do it or how they know. They just do.

Besides I focused on the real problem as I glared at Discord “No… why are you doing this to me?” I rasped in sieving resentment

Discord cleared his throat, as he then spoke in a more serious tone now “Because, it’s about to get a lot rougher. Do you know what the difference is between an individual, and a group?” He kept staring at me with his mischievous mismatched eyes, uncharacteristically attentive as he waited for a reply, all the while stroking his goats beard, and tapping his lizard's leg.

I rolled my eyes as I stated the obvious answer “One’s an intelligent being that you can reason with; a group is a mass of confusion and madness without a brain?”

He kept stared his red eyes at me waiting for me to continue.

I continued my ranting, much to my annoyance, “It’s the most common line out there. Individual their not that bad, but get a group and (insert group) tend to be a jerk. You get one person to make an educated guess. You get one group to shout at each other until the loudest voice drowns out the others pointing out everyone else’s flaws, but never offering any solutions.”

I groaned as I said out loud “Do you want any more examples or are you going to tell me the real reason why you brought me here!”

Discord chuckled, “Oh, Someone’s a pessimist, but perfect for the job!”

“I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist.” I replied as I tried to defend myself “There’s a difference… and what job are you talking about?”

Once again, He snapped his fingers, except this time it was with his bushy end of his dragon’s tail. We were now in the middle of a movie theater… which was built with humans in mind as the seat didn’t agree with my new pony spine… and the seats in front of me nearly blocked my view of the screen, until a booster seat appeared underneath me.

I glanced around the empty theater room, trying to find any lurking dangers or anything else, as Discord sat in the chair next to mine, holding a large bucket of popcorn as a large soda sat resting in his drink holder. The silver screen counted down to 0 slowly as Discord sucked loudly on his large soda.

A voice with a familiar southern accent shouted from the theater seats “Apples! Get your fresh apples!”

I glared at Discord as he just shrugged “Well, I had to get her in all of this someway.”

The food vender heading for us was an orange pony, with a blond mane and a cowboy hat, that smiled at us. With to no great surprise, it turned out to be the one and only Applejack, the Element of Honesty, and family farmer of the Sweet Apple Acres.

I promptly ignored her, less to attract more harm on to me, as Twilight Sparkle appeared on the screen, only this time she was in her ascended alicorn form, complete with her princess-y outfit.

Twilight shook her head and spoke in a cheerful and enthusiastic speech “A group is a connection of friends united in friendship. Together they can conquer any trials that stands before them.”

My first reaction was to say ‘what a load of tripe’ as that was even cheesier than some of James T. Kirk’s lines from the original Star Trek series. Then, I realized who was sitting beside me, as Discord… the supposed ‘reformed’ Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony.

I started at the screen in confusion. It couldn’t be that simple… all of Discord’s antics had been because of… this?!

I blinked, then I tried rubbing my eyes with my hooves… which felt weird. Really, really weird. Yet the pieces of information clicked together logically, in some strange twisted way. This was all one big bet. No, more like a... 'game' between Twilight Sparkle the Princess of Friendship and Discord the Avatar of Chaos. Madness vs Friendship was clearly the theme… yet where did I fit in?

Discord smiled in self-satisfaction. “And here I thought this would take longer, but you've passed the test!”

He snapped his fingers again.

*****

When the blinding light cleared up, we were both now found ourselves in what looked liked Rarity’s boutique from the show. The room was filled with various fancy dresses and suits in display made by the very same fashion obsess pony. I was now standing on a platform as Rarity herself was right beside me, focused on taking measurements of my body as if I was just another client in her ‘quaint’ little shop.

Of course Rarity would be the last pony to be shown, as she was the Element of Generosity… and also the most greedy and materialistic of the group. She ran a store selling clothing to a race that rarely wore anything more than a hat or a scarf.

I looked away from the focused alabaster unicorn, as I was standing in front of a set of three mirrors. I stared at the mirrors in renewed confusion as I examined the new form Discord had seen fit to give me. I wasn’t back in my old human body, of course, but Discord hadn’t turned me into an earth pony as I was expecting, since he had already previously tried to kill me as a pegasus and a unicorn.

I wasn’t even one of the previous forms, as this was was much worse.

What I got instead was this: a matte black fur covering my entire body, two equally matte black Pegasus wings resting against my sides, ~~my hair~~… my mane was dark green with a short ~~hair~~mane-cut, emerald green eyes, a sharp jagged horn on my forehead, and... a mouth of sawed teeth? I clench my teeth into a toothy grin, seeing and feeling how the teeth mesh together into a comfortable seal; I guess I have "sharp teeth" more akin to Nightmare Moon then the standard set of teeth the ponies of MLP had.

I looked like an alicorn… to be more precise I looked like a villain version of an alicorn.

“No need to thank me.” Discord cheerfully replied in self adulation “I heard this style is all the rage these days!”

My eyes caught sight of something floating above my head… it was a title… like the ones you normally saw in MMORPGs as cosmetic faction rewards... What worried me was that the title resting above my head was , and it was written in on a black ground with white cursive letters.

I took a step back from the mirror, as my body spontaneously burst into green flames, instinctively flinching my eyes shut. Only, when I didn’t feel a horrible burning sensation, or any other source of intense agony, did I open them again, only to see a changeling in the mirror staring back at me.

That’s was just great, I was now one of those generic evil villains/monsters from the show, that were essentially emotional sucking vampires. Apparently, they can literally drained the love, joy, and happiness out of their victims in order to feed themselves.

I looked down at my hands in fear. I was still stuck with hooves, but they no longer had fur…they were covered with black chitin, and now sported a few sets of holes going through the inside of my legs. I looked back at the mirror in fear and saw that I stood taller than Rarity, as she was now also up on the modeling stand, standing right next to me for easy comparison while taking measurements of my new size.

I stared into the mirrors to spot what other changes existed. I kept my green and black color scheme. Instead of pupiless eyes, like those of the smaller changelings from MLP, I had similar pupils to Queen Chrysalis that were still green. I stared at the thin bug like wings that rested against my side, as I couldn’t help but wonder just how fragile they could be, or if they could even be healed if they were damaged… It was also rather strange how they felt somehow even stranger, than the feathery wings I had owned before.

I looked back up at Discord, who was grinning in sadistic joy. “Like I said before. We needed some pieces… and you, are now one of my pieces.”

I closed my eyes, trying to picture my old human body. As the same flash of green flames danced across my body, it revealed… the black and green Alicorn pony that I saw before. Discord simply shook one of his fingers in front of my face, making a “tisk tisk” sound with his voice.

I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm… tried being the keyword here! I mean, I couldn’t (easily) turn back into a human… and I was now kidnapped by a powerful… no, a crazy, and possibly insane, but very powerful magical creature who had turned me into a changeling without any consideration for my consent… just for a stupid bet.

“Now I know how Picard must have felt whenever he saw Q.” I muttered underneath my breath.
Still this wasn’t too bad… I mean, all I had to do was avoid getting into trouble, then simply just let the Mane Six sort it all out… right? I mean, how hard could it be?

Discord handed me the manual to the game, a conveniently misplaced claw pointing out how the words "two hundred years" was in bold. I shivered in genuine horror when I also saw that MMO and other players were also in bold.

It wasn’t just me that Discord had roped into his twisted little game. He had to have done it to a couple of other people… a lot of other people… and I wasn’t his only piece in this twisted game. Of course, I couldn’t take anything he said at face value… I mean, he never even told me the rules of the game… or he purposefully skipped on most of the major key points.

“I need a jacket.” I spoke out loud, trying to recover from what just happened. “One to cover my wings.”

‘And my dignity.’ I added in the back of my mind. I was not about to run about without any clothing on! MLP rules be damned I’m having clothing!

Discord shook his head as he taunted me “Trying to hide your charming looks, so you don’t have to break the hearts of every mare you meet?”

I shook my head; I was trying to ignore the pony in the mirror and the changeling hiding underneath that disguise. I’ll be the first to admit that I really didn’t know a lot about changelings, and one of those facts I was certain I didn't know anything about was just how exactly they made their disguises.

It would also be a safe bet to say that I've accidentally skipped the tutorial on how to do that trick, but considering the fact the tutorial was trying to kill me, I think it was perfectly understandable! So, I at least needed to have a jacket to hide my wings, until I figured out a more… permanent solution.

Besides, Discord had made the design for this new body… and I highly doubt I could fix the glaring problem with a simple snap of my fingers… if I had had any fingers left.

So I answered Discord’s question, “Hiding. I doubt I’m allowed to pick what I look like.”

Discord frowned like a child told he had to go to bed early as he whined. “Well, maybe if you hadn’t skipped the tutorial...”

“So how do I do it?” I quickly snapped back.

Discord rolled eye in exasperation and then snapped his fingers, summoning a large transparent screen displaying… what looked almost like an... MMO talent tree??? Reading the names underneath all the currently unlocked talent nodes, showed that Craft disguise was just two points away from my current position. It was just in my sight, but just out of my reach! I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

It wasn’t that bad… I mean, it was that bad, but surely all I had to do was just a kill a few slimes, right? Then once I gained a few levels, I could grab the skill and then find a form that won’t get me burnt at the stake by crazed ponies, or worse, crazed bronies.

Rarity came back to the modeling stand with a new suit for me to wear. Should I be happy she was running MMO style shop considering she had a suit that could fit me right away… or be annoyed that it was a comfortable fit… that it was the equivalent of a mass produced jacket from a regular clothing store.

Of course, he could have had Rarity sew me a jacket, and pricking me constantly with a rather large sharp sewing needle instead.

Discord chuckled; while my new blue jacket did fit snugly over my wings, I now wore a red shirt underneath the jacket… yes, the meaning of the red shirt was not lost on me. The more important question now was: how would I survive this mess? I mean dying in the game wouldn’t kill you… would it? Most all MMO's had some sort of respawn option always available in game, and the ones that didn't usually had resurrection items or spells, right?

One of the mirrors flashed brightly for a moment before it dimmed to show me a scene: I was screaming at the top of my lungs in terror. The mirror version of me had been tied to a large wooden stake. Various ponies lacking cutie marks, chanted something eerie out of their mouths, as they tossed logs of wood around me. The ponies continued to chant their weird song, until one pony with a fire cutie mark gleefully tossed a can of gasoline over the logs. The wings underneath my coat press themselves more tightly on my sides, as I saw the pyro pony toss the torch underneath my doppelganger's feet.

The sight of seeing myself being emulated alive made me want to puke, but I manage to hold myself down… welI I held most of it down.

‘Does this ‘game’ have a respawn function?’ I asked myself in the back of my head ‘Do I want to see if this game has a respawn function?’

Okay maybe Discord was just messing with my head. I mean everyone wouldn’t automatically try their best to kill me on sight just because I was looked like your standard cartoon villain,right!? I mean, surely dozens of people torn away from their homes, with no idea how they got here, wouldn’t just lash out at the first oddity/‘thing that looked evil’ they see and…

Oh who am I kidding? I’ve seen/read plenty of moments in my life where people would do exactly that! People lash out in a blind panic when they are frightened, and looking like a villain from the cartoon show, akin to Nightmare Moon and/or Chrysalis, will certainly have them hang me on sight. Looking like an alicorn would just have everyone watch and judge my every movements, until the one moment where I screwed up... that would be the moment they would switch back to witch hunt mode.

I took another deep breath, and tried to calm down… because all I have to do, is just survive. I wouldn’t try to mess with anyone, or try some sort of evil uprising. I'll just try to hide in some secluded place until someone else fixes the problem.

Besides, how dangerous could a world full of ponies be?

I face palmed at the sheer stupidity of my question, as I already knew just the place Discord would almost certainly dump me in: The Everfree Forest, home to most of Equestria’s full-on weirdest, if not also deadliest, magical plants, animals, and monsters.

“Shit…” I muttered to myself

Discord snapped his fingers as I prepared for the worst…

ch 1 Log in and start the day!

ch 1 Log in and start the day!

Lockheart

I groggily opened my eyes as the sunlight annoyingly danced across my face, while my brain tried to reboot itself despite the throbbing pain in my head. When my vision finally started clearing up, I wondered why I was seeing a forest scenery that was right in front of me. Just then, slews of sparse memories flashed through my mind. Ponies, video game, chessboard, clouds, fall, spikes, desk, manticore, hole, darkness, theater seats, apples, harmony, chaos, bet, measurements, Alicorn, Changeling, burning... and Discord...

Oh fuck. Now everything started to make sense again. Discord the ‘mad god’ of Equestria had created a game pitting ‘good against evil’ scenario, and I was apparently drafted onto the villain team. I had no idea what it meant for me, but I most certainly didn’t want to find out the conclusion of this insane nightmare.

With the sharp reminder of my situation my head jolted up, the haze of my mind was now clearer, still had a nasty headache, and surveyed my new pony body that Discord oh so ‘graciously’ gifted me with. Awkwardly, I tried pushing away the dark green bangs that were obscuring my eyes with my new stubby hooves…

To my stark relief, I saw that I was still wearing the blue jacket that kept my wings safely hidden underneath, away from any prying eyes. Sure, the black fur might look a little bit sinister…but it can at least pass any casual scrutiny. I clenched my fanged filled teeth as I rubbed a hoof against the gnarly horn that now adorned my forehead.

Like a rabbit, my body tensed up when my flickering pony ears started toon in on noises around, and then I turned my attention at the source... and my eyes widen at what I was seeing.

Oh this wasn’t good… I could hear people panic all around me, some were screaming, a few of them were staring out into the distance, while others were jibbering in shock, but honestly… who could blame them?

Just a few moments ago, they had been humans sitting somewhere comfortably within their homes only to get Discord’s invite, and then suddenly tossed into the heart of Equestria [like a rabbit tossed before a pack of wolves]. Hundreds of ponies, griffons, and other playable races stood around the forest clearing, shouting, or running around in panic. To make things worse, even more people kept on coming… no falling to Equestria as I tried to drag myself away from this place.

Right near the center of the clearing in the forest, people were literally falling from the fucking sky of all things! There was even a small dog pile of people who had yet to get out of the way, as more and more of them that kept joining the madness by either freaking out, or demanding answers from the closest person next to them, regardless of what they knew.

I glanced back at the horde of humans turned into Equestrian creatures, as I felt a shiver up my spine. It was all just one big mass of chaos and madness that was just waiting for some fool to lead them into a bigger disaster!

It wouldn’t take much. I mean all it would take was someone with a loud voice to point a finger so that everyone could have something to focus their rage and confusion on… sort of like an angry mob… an angry mob that has yet to notice me. It wouldn't take long for them to spot the seemingly ‘only’ alicorn in this mess... or how they would quickly turn on me once they found out that I was actually stuck as an evil emotion sucking Changeling.

So, I did what any sane person would do. I brushed the dirt off my coat and bolted to the tree line… only to trip. I tried not to curse as I pushed myself back up again. Whatever magic the Tutorial had that had let me use my new body must have now worn off.

Now that I was left on driving manually, I was stuck trying to get used to the fact that I had went from a two legged species to a four legged one, which was jarring to say the least. My body couldn’t figure out how to run just yet… but I could walk or at least attempt to awkwardly walk/trot quickly, until my body/brain learned how to work these stupid new legs.

I tried clumsily going as fast as I could into the forest, and to be as far away possible from everyone else. I didn’t have an exact idea on where I was going, but it would probably be a lot safer than staying with the rest of this hysterical crowd. The people back there were not good happy carefree ponies who solved their problems with rainbows and magic.

No… they were living breathing human beings who had just been teared away from their lives and dumped in the middle of an unfamiliar forest looking for the first convenient person to blame or vent their frustrations at the first chance they get. I don’t know much about the Everfree forest… but I certainly ‘know’ what would happen to me if I stayed with them.

Discord had previously been so kind to show me a lovely scene of me being roasted over a fire. He might have just been lying to me just for kicks, but the cynic in me very much believed that it would happen if I didn’t listen to Discord’s warning.

I opened up my menu screen and tried to keep my mind occupied as I stumbled… well I crawled through the forest like a toddler.

First things first, I was in a body I didn’t know on how to use it. So, the highest priority on the list was that I needed to do was assess what skills or abilities that I had access to. With a quick click on the skill icon, which I could will it to move somehow. The important thing was that I was able to know what exactly my character overview was.

I was surprised at how many skills were not only available, but also put into this new equine body. I mean flight, telekinesis, magic blast or “magic missile”, changeling disguised (aka fake alicorn disguise) and emotion feed… all set to level one.

While I was passing through the mass of panicking people, I realized as I passed by each one of them... I could actually ‘feel’ their fear, their wrath, and their despair emanating from them. It felt really bizarre being able to discern the emotions all around me, as it fell somewhere in-between being able to sense… and have a scent or ‘taste’ in the air. Sort of like how you can ‘feel’ the odor of a dirty object when you place your hand near it. There are plenty of other terms that could be used, or ‘reasons’ why you can feel the change of air around it, but that’s the best way I could describe it.

Also, you didn’t need super magic emotion sensing bug powers to see that everyone else was either frightened, terrified, or screaming in rage after being torn away from their homes.

Come to think of it, I couldn’t help but wander my attention to my other defining Changeling abilities in my menu, Changeling Disguise. I wondered to myself of what exactly constituted as a ‘disguise’, as I wasn’t entirely sure if it was an actual physical transformation, or just an illusion. My fake alicorn wings under my jacket certainly felt real to me, rubbing on my sides, touching the fabric and everything around it. But then again, it could just be some sort phantom feedback, or something; to make the illusion more complete? If it was actually real, then could it also include clothing or better yet, armor? In the show at least, Changelings somehow seemed to be able to do both...

And, the description in the menu system wasn’t helpful much either, as it just said ‘Changeling Disguise, magical disguise unique to Changelings that allow the user to mimic the shape of a creature of similar size and mass. Can change appearance to blend in a crowd or to impersonate a specific individual. Level 1 currently limits user to only one alternate form.’

Oh Crap! Discord had already used that slot for my current disguise; I need to learn how to do more, fast!

These thoughts continued to dance in my head until I heard the sound of a person screaming, filling my body with dreading terror. I turned towards the source of the screaming, as I was expecting to see an angry mob staring down at me, or someone being chased by a rampaging bloodthirsty monster… Instead, I saw an orange unicorn screaming various curses, as they had just fired off a burst of flames from its horn at one of the nearby trees, and catching it on fire. My wings tensed up under my jacket as I watched the flames consume the nearby leaves and branches as smoke drifted up towards the sky.

At the sight of the scene, I couldn’t help but remember the twisted image Discord showed of me being tied to a post and being set on fire, as I watched more bursts of flames fly forth from the panicking unicorn’s horn, burning everything in it’s path.

I got to fucking go away from here, NOW!!!

I turned back trying to get as far away from the unicorn arsonist, as I opened my menu back open, and examined the rest of my talent tree. Sure, I had a couple of skills… but nothing really fancy… I mean other people might have less skills available, but theirs were more… specialized.

For me, fireball was marked a high level skill, which probably meant that technique was a low level skill available for unicorns… or that the pony in question was allowed to dump a lot of points into their skill tree to let them get that ability early.

I chuckled at the absurdity of it all. I mean… was I going to be burned at the stake or would they tie me up to a tree and just use me for target practice?

I tried to smile as I walked as quickly as I could to go deeper into the forest, as I wondered to myself “Is it cynical to to expect the worst out of everyone, or do I simply just value my own life more than attempting to trust them?”

On those words, I tripped over one of the roots and came crashing down to the ground, with a mouth full of dirt. That’s what I fucking get for paying too much attention to the menu system, and not enough attention to my environment. I awkwardly manage to slowly push myself up, and continued to go forward, albeit more mindful of my surroundings. In the end, it really didn’t matter. All I had to do was just keep running and focus on my own survival. Let someone else try to figure out if we had a re-spawn option.

My wings, for some reason, started to itch as if begging for me to take open them up and take flight. Personally, I didn’t want that as I still didn’t feel like I was far away enough… and in all honesty I didn’t even know how to fly, which kind of rendered them next to useless to me. Besides, I had to stick with the plan.

The plan… the plan… I just had to find a village and then feed on a pony or two. Then, I would just simply keep hiding, or simply move on to another town. Maybe I could find some old people and make them think I was their grandson or something, at least until someone else figured out how to send us all home!

I chuckled nervously as I said to myself “After all… if I’m one of Discord’s pieces, than if I really don’t do anything to get noticed, then that’s one less foe for everyone else to fight!”

Screams erupted in the woods, as I tried to ignore them while I kept on running forward. This was a starter zone anyway, so there shouldn’t be any big nasty monsters trying to rip them apart, if this place follows an RPG level designs, right?. They didn’t have anything to worry about… except each other that is.

“Besides…” I heard myself mutter in dismissal “It’s probably just another person freaking out about accidentally shooting another fireball without any aiming assistance.”

Or, at least I hoped so...

******

The moon was now shining above me, as I kept walking around the dark forest, cringing in fear at every branch I broke underneath my new feet. My stomach growled in complaint, letting me know that it was hungry, as I struggled to keep up the Alicorn disguise whenever I thought I saw a light coming from someone else near me.

There were two thoughts that kept lingering in the back of my mind while I walked through these blasted woods and keeping my faint hopes of getting out of this hellhole in one piece. The first possibility was that the people back home might, hopefully, noticed that I was late to work, and just maybe decide to check up on me at my home. Who knows… maybe someone actually noticed that I had suddenly gone missing, or something.

...

A part of me held some hope that this was all just a crazy dream… but that hope had nearly died out by now , since I was still not waking out of this living nightmare after all these hours. I was cold, hungry, and completely lost in these stupid woods, as I hadn’t figured out how to get out of here.

The second slightly more useful fact that I had learn, was that my Alicorn disguise apparently used some magic… or MP and that being undisguised helped me slowly replenish my strength. Also, using the spell made my stomach growl even louder, making me wonder if I actually had regained any strength or magical power back at all.

I tried to choke down a few berries I had found on a bush I had stumbled across. Apparently emotions were not only used for their primary source of food… but also it was used to fuel their magic. An empty stomach didn’t help my spell casting at all. I forced myself to swallow another few very sour berries, and hoped that those would at least help my stomach a little.

At a distance, I heard someone screamed. I groaned in annoyance as my brain tried to figure out what was going on. Was this bush a trap, had someone found me undisguised, or did I just end up walking in around in a circle, only to end up back in the starting zone again?

Once again, with a wave of green flames passing over me, I managed to summon my Alicorn disguise, and ripped out as many berries from the bush as I could, before getting ready to run. Instead, to both my surprise and horror, I found that the players running towards me weren’t actually after me. No… they were running from a rather large and particularly vicious looking manticore, that was chasing after them, and it was catching up too.

In a split decision, I snapped my wings wide open, flipping open up my jacket and making a small mess in the process, and I tried flying up to a large tree branch. I desperately flapped my wings as hard as I could, acting like an old cartoon character, as I took a deep breath and blew towards the ground trying to will myself go up. Lo and behold, I actually managed to fly under my own power on my first try!

Okay, I was barely managing to rise upward, as I flew like a blind drunk duck into a rather large tree, but I was making some form of progress! My wings ran into a few random branches, before I grabbed onto the closest one that would hopefully support my weight.

I sighed in relief from the harrowing experience, as I tried to calm down as my heart pounded in my head. The tree branch was at least thick enough for me to lie down on my stomach, and hopefully the manticore wouldn’t notice me… they can’t climb up trees and Manticores couldn’t fly… right?

I watched them run towards me, as I was ready to leave this situation all alone. Sure, it was cowardly hiding up in a tree, while they were running for their lives, but I barely knew how to work this strange new body I was stuck with! Besides I wouldn’t be of much help to them anyway.

The Manticore drew closer to them, as a part of me began to wonder if I was about to actually see a re-spawn in action or not.

Would they simply disappear in a flicker of light, or have some pony in a cloak drag their bodies back to the re-spawn point? When I heard them scream in panic again... actually I began to wonder if this would end in a permanent death. The thought send shivers down my spine at just the thought.

Death.

I mean… this was all one big twisted game made by Discord, right? There was no way they would just simply… die?

Say’s the human who magically transformed into a changeling, and is now fleeing for his life?

I flinched at my own retort, as the human turned ponies just came into sight, with the manticore closing in on them. I could hear their feminine voice screaming out in terror, as they tried to outrun the manticore. They were about to die, and I was sitting in a tree, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening.

“Fuck it.” I muttered under my breath, and then screamed as loud as I could “Pew Pew Pew!”

Small bursts of green light flashed down to the manticore, causing it to slow down from either shock of my voice... or the poorly aimed glowing green attacks that nearly hit it. The other two players stood still staring at me in confusion, while the Manticore tried to recover from my sudden clumsy attack.

“What are you waiting for?” I screamed down at them from the top of my perch “Get in the freaking trees already!”

I fired a few more magical blast, as my stomach felt like it was being drained dry, and it was growing with aching in pain of hunger. The Manticore charged at me, forgetting about the other two people, and tried climbing up the tree. Instead, his sharp claws and massive weight only dragged him back down, leaving large claw marks in the base of the tree. I guess those bat wings on their back don’t grant them flight.

Not wanting to find out if the manticore could actually climb the tree, I fired a few more shots at his face. The branches shook form the recoil from my attack , as I kept unleashing my magical barrage at the manticore while he tried to climb up, only for fallen branches, pinecones, and other assorted objects to fall on the manticore’s face, forcing him to retreat, and hopefully find something less annoying to eat.

I tried not to hyperventilate, as I could barely hear anything over the sound of my own beating heart. In just a few moments, the rush of adrenaline would die out, as my body started to feel like crap.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, as something whispered “Thanks.”

So naturally, I screamed nearly falling out of the branch at the sudden shock only to latch onto it, with a rather painful death grip. One of the players helped pulled me back up where I then promptly latched onto the branch, and didn’t dare let go. After all… there was a rather hungry manticore that I had just recently pissed off down there.

I managed to glance upwards, and see two humans turned ponies, as they were staring at me in relief. Without even thinking, my horn started to glow, as I felt my strength returned to my bone-weary body. I could feel the subtle soothing flow of energy flowing into me, then I glanced back at the other two who seemed to start faltering or lose their balance on the tree branch.

I only realized then that I was feeding on them, with the feeling of my stomach was filling up and I no longer felt as dead-tired as before. They on the other hand, didn’t seem to be feeling too good, as I quickly turned it off, before one of them fell out of the tree like I nearly had.

“Sorry!” I quickly shouted “I thought you were about to eat me, or something.”

The first one sighed, as she didn’t seem to have realized what I had just accidently done. “Nervous much?” I simply nodded, then looked what she was wearing and asked “And what kind of armor is that?”

I glanced at her in confusion and tried to will my horn to give us some more light. My horn glowed softly in a green aura, barely illuminating our surroundings. It was a strange feeling, as the spell didn’t seem to drain that much energy… or my horn was on some sort of subtle feed feature that I didn’t know about.

The person in front of me was a Pegasus… a Pegasus wearing something, sort of like a knight's suit of armor, as bits of leather could be seen in between the joints. The boots on seemed to have a griffon theme styled claws. I looked up and saw what looked like tan fur covering her face, as she had a ponytail that dangled from the back of her head.

“What?” I stuttered in confusion “What happened to you? I mean you are a…”

“Human?” She answered back quickly. I could feel her start to worry as she stared at my horn “I mean you’re a…”

“Human turned unicorn” I promptly answered to her lest she start thinking otherwise “Or, did the lack of a cutie mark give that away?”

She turned around staring at her… flank. Hey! Don’t judge me for also staring, I had the only source of light, and she needed to see something so obviously I had to look!

I also just started to notice… that… I could start to notice certain… aspects.

I banished those thoughts from my mind, as that path only lead to madness and possibly my own doom.

To my surprise, she simply groaned in annoyance “There goes my bonuses! What kind of twisted book did that GM dig up!”

“Book?” I muttered back, as I wasn’t sure I had heard that correctly.

I mean, I started up a game only to fall inside a computer. She apparently landed in Equestria from a book? If so then what the heck did she, or her GM, grabbed? Jumanji the pony RPG, or the Necronomicon for beginners?

She turned her head and stared back at me “Uh… it was an rpg game. Story was about some time in the present. Ponies in panic. Adventures being set up… standard stuff. You?”

I tried to smile “Message boards and a flash game. Your friend?”

She blushed for a moment, before slapping her hoof into her face trying to keep calm. She was an earth pony… well to be more precise she looked like a Rarity rip off with a few small edits. Right, no half of her purple hair had been combed over her left eye, and she seemed kind of nervous, which was to be expected after nearly being eaten by a wild animal.

“I’m… a guy.” She slowly replied confusedly … as if even he/she wasn’t sure if he/she was saying it to us or to herself.

It took a few seconds for my brain to comprehend what I had just heard.

“WHAT!” I screamed out loud, nearly causing us all to fall out of the tree.

Hooves were not meant to be used for climbing trees… or without experience in said use of hooves. Wait… how did they managed to get up here in the first place? Did the pegasus fly them both up here, or did they figure out how to climb with hooves? No, focus on what the stallion, who you mistook for a mare is saying!

Rarity rip-off closed her eyes hard “MMO Game. I just made a character to test out the game mechanics, before I made my real avatar, you know? Sort of a just for laughs… now, I’m stuck in the wrong gender.”

I stared at the person in question, as it was official. Apparently I did not have the worst luck in the group so far. Hopefully, I could keep it that way and not be killed by miss Overkill (aka the only ones with weapons and armor) standing right beside her.

Overkill caught me staring at her as she rolled her eyes “Yes, I’m a girl.” She was now staring back at me trying to size me up or something “Message boards?”

I tried smiling, trying my best to make sure that I do not blow my cover as I replied “Ever play mafia? Long story short, I was waiting for night to end, as I read a message board talking about Individuals vs Groups. Then crazy laugh and I’m…” I shrugged as a motioned to myself “now I look like this.”

Overkill shook her head “There has to be more to it than that.”

I noticed the suspicion that emanated from her, as she kept glancing at my non-standard unicorn horn or stare at my mouth… possibly the teeth, since I could feel the hints of doubts; she probably wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light or if they were actually real.

Oh, and in case you haven’t realized, there was no way in hell was I going to tell her that I was ‘apparently’ one of the villains in the game.

So, I simply lied through my teeth “It was a crazy discussion board about some argument, or bet, between the group mindset of Equestria vs Reality, including the psychological or social differences between humanity and MLP.”

It’s sad to say that comment sounded a lot saner than the actual truth.

I continued my spiel “Some people say a group is governed by the same madness, no matter what group or race they might be. In a panic, we simply follow whoever shouts the loudest, but in MLP “friendship” and their group unity would prevent them from making the same blunders as we would.”

Overkill nodded “And the game?”

I hung my head low and slowly muttered “Survivor… I was playing a survivor trying to hold out, until one of the sides won. Then before I knew it, I was suddenly stuck in a field full of… other people, and I just thought about the stories based off of those games like Mafia.”

Rarity fake shook his/her head as an apparent sign that (s)he didn’t believe me “And what is that Mafia game?” she asked out loud

I took a deep breath, as I prepared to explain it to them “Mafia is a game where a group of players that are trying to figure out who in their party is the ‘villain’, while the villains are trying to eliminate enough players, until there are as many mafi players as there are villagers. Each night, the mafia tries to kill someone. Each day, the entire town picks one person to prosecute… debate if they are a mafia member or a villager. Then depending on the votes, the person picked is either killed or gets to go free… until the next vote to prosecute someone.”

I shook my head “Of course, in stories similar to the game… The real villain is never hiding with everyone else. That leaves all the ‘villagers’ panicking, shouting accusations, and blaming each other… so running away at the time sounded like a good plan… until I got lost. What about you two?”

Overkill rubbed the back of her head “Pony in armor and people panicking? I ran trying to find the rest of my friends… only to run into a manticore. My character, Steel Wings, could solo a manticore with ease…. The real me, not so much.”

I face palmed…hoofed myself. I just saved two people who didn’t need to be saved. Still, at least I got a meal and some information out of it, so it wasn’t a complete waste. Now, I just needed to figure out a better story for the next group I run into, after I ditched these two.

Rarity rip off stood up “I think I got it!” only to nearly fell off the branch (s)he was on “It’s all a game.” Both me and Overkill groaned at her comment “I mean… we all were given clues. She was told about the situation of the land… and you were told about the situation we are in … and I was told about what happened to the land.”

We both stared at her with attention, as I already knew what she was going to say after all… I also bought the mmo game so she probably got the same speech/manual as I did.

“Equestria two hundred years in the past. Princess Celestia disappeared as darkness is slowly returning to the land.” She smiled and pointed at us “We are the heroes who are supposed to fix it which then… leads us home… I hope.”

Wait a minute! Two hundred years in the past? Discord told me it was in the future! Does that mean (s)he is lying or (s)he is actually telling the truth, but if that’s true then does that mean the information given to me was wrong?

Then again I’m trying to apply logic to the fact I was transformed into a magical pony/changeling.

“Brilliant thinking there.” Overkill replied sarcastically “Only question is how? My RPG game says kill, while the TV shows says McGuffin the foe to peace…. Or death, if you’re Sombra.”

Rarity rip off shouted “Hey! You got armor and your gender! I’m still trying to keep mind in balance as I used to have a…”

Her face brightened as she couldn’t finish the line “Stardust wasn’t a… crass pony. Have any of you experienced any… changes?”

I wasn’t the worst one in a long shot.

“Head hurts.” I winced putting my hoof on my temple for emphasis “And, I can’t seem figure out on how to use magic without shouting pew pew. Which probably makes me crappiest unicorn out of everyone who came here.”

Overkill sighed in defeat “Re… Steel Wing. I’m still myself, but now I suddenly know how to fight. I mean… I know how to use my wings and fly, but it’s just that… I don’t fly.” She looked down at the ground trying not to look us in the face “I became the character that I made… but I'm a bit… too much like me… which hinders me.”

Overkill coughed or tried not to cry “I mean, Steel Wings would have charged that manticore, and won… but I was so frightened, I forgot I could fly.”

No one spoke for a couple of minutes, as we tried to sort out everything that had just happened. Before, we could simply push it to the back of our minds, but now... that we were forced to think about it...

Each one of us had a different backstory to how we ended up here, and each story barely made any sense. I have no idea what they went through, or if they even had some sort of tutorial to help them adjust to this place, while I was stuck with Discord’s crazy version.

Of course, that’s where part of the difference between me and them. They actually knew how to use their abilities, while I was struggling to figure out how my own body worked. Then again, the Rarity copy seemed a bit… off, while Overkill seemed more annoyed at herself?

I rubbed my aching head, as none of it made any sense, while I reached into my pocket… only to find it empty. I glanced down at the ground where my fallen berries had landed, and sighed in defeat. At least my stomach wasn’t grumbling anymore.

“Anyone else try to eat any leaves?” I asked out loud and out of curiosity “I had a sandwich and some berries… which I already ate a while ago.”

Both of them shook their head and then stared at the tree branches, as their stomachs started to grumble. Rarity rip off sort of blushed and tried not to make eye contact, as Overkill didn’t exactly seem happy about the prospect of eating leaves.

I felt like groaning, as it seemed like I was apparently the only sane person here, and I was a freaking evil changeling!

I swear, I can hear Discord laughing in the back of my mind!

“Alright then…” I tried figuring out what to do next “Names? I mean we can’t exactly use our old ones… when stuck in a land full of ponies.”

Overkill stared at me in confusion “What’s wrong with our current ones?”

I tried not to face palm “Because currently I don’t know either of your names. Heck my “pony name” was just a random name from the game…” I opened my menu and then face hoofed “And it’s Grim Tale.” I groaned “Apparently a very bad pun at my current fate Miss Overkill.”

Overkill shook her head “It’s Steel Wing! I’m… Does it look like I’m?”

Rarity rip off nodded “You’re the only one in armor that could feasibly kill a manticore. I’m a medic build with herbs and potions. Earth ponies tend to be tanks or medics, and I’m not exactly a fan of tank position. Heck, even the other DPS (Damage Per Second) builds couldn’t solo a manticore at level one.”

Overkill groaned “It’s already stuck didn’t it?”

Both of us glanced at the new title that floated above her head… and I quickly glanced back at my menu, and removed my own title, before anyone saw it. I can’t believe I nearly forgot about it! It was like walking around with a bullseye floating right above my head! Especially with a title like usurper, that just screamed bad guy to any bloodthirsty wanna be do gooders around.

Overkill glanced back to Rarity rip off “And what about you Frank?”

I stared at Overkill “The name is Frank?”

Overkill rolled her eyes “He’s a guy. What else am I supposed to call him?”

“Stardust?” Rarity rip blurted out of nowhere before she off shook her head “No… frank is good… but... talking to other ponies…” She rubbed her temples with a hoof as she raised her voice in frustration “I’m stuck as Stardust now, okay! I hate being stuck as a shy pony who can’t stop blushing, or too shy to swear about how messed up her situation is!”

Both of us shook our head as it was just plain weird. How exactly did you refer to someone who got their gender swapped… and apparently a part of their mind along with it? Well for now, I’ll just have to make sure not to judge a pony by their looks, as Stardust might not be the only gender swapped pony that used to be a human.

Of course, they shouldn’t judge me by my villainish looks either… but it’s also going to be weird trying to remember to refer to him as a ‘him’ since he looks and sounds like a girl...

That’s going to leave a few awkward questions, and probably a few embarrassing conversations in the future. This was simply another reason why I should ditch these two, and continue looking out for myself. I mean they didn’t even really need my help in the first place… so let someone else play hero next time and let's just focus on surviving.

Overkill opened her mouth only to pause for a moment “uh… what is your real name?”

I could feel the hint of suspicion growing once again as I tried not to glare at her “It’s Yadrell, but if you call me Yaddy, or make any jokes about it, I will push you off the branch you’re on.” Of course I was lying, but she didn’t need to know that “What about you?”

Overkill frowned for a moment “I… can’t remember.” We stared at her waiting for her to answer “No really… I’m born in Boston Massachusetts. I have a sister and when I try to remember some of the details… I’m certain “Fillydelphia High” isn’t in the real world.”

Stardust sighed “Better than mine. My father served in the British Navy while my mother worked as a noble’s assistant in Canterlot. My brother is five foot six and my sister is just the cutest pegasus you have ever seen. I know how to field strip a MK47 like the back of my hand, and I know Canterlot like the back of my hoof.”

We both stared at her. I knew Overkill was lying as she didn’t say her real name, for the same reason I didn’t, but Star Dust? She said all of that truthfully, without any hesitation, or lies thrown into the mix, making her the most honest, if confused person in the group right now.

“I…” Know I’m going to regret this. “Did any of you… swear or… get…”

I motioned my hoof across my neck, as they both stared at me.

I shook my head “I swore in the tutorial with “learning magic with Twilight” only to have it changed into a cage match vs a manticore. Yes, I cheated and escaped the cage, before the manticore could kill me… but still.”

Overkill shook her head rapidly “No… I mean… We would know. We almost died, but…”

I sighed and tried to make it clear for her “Hundreds of people were suddenly dumped into strange bodies, that they didn’t understand. Last time I checked, they were panicking and they had no idea what they were doing.”

I closed my eyes “It would easy to be trampled… or picked off by some wild creature and die, almost like what had happened with the manticore with you two a short while ago. I don’t have any memory problems like you seem to have and I haven’t been ‘nearly killed’ since I’ve been here.”

I couldn’t help but glance at the ground beneath us, as I almost expected the manticore to be lurking underneath us “If just swearing normally summons danger than what would an area full of panicking people do? I ran because I didn’t want to know. You stayed to find your friends… I didn’t. I remember my life… but both of you have gaps.”

Overkill shouted “What exactly makes you think that ‘swearing’ summons danger?”

I rose an eyebrow as I said “Really? I swore in the tutorial and each time I did, Discord decided to make the tutorial even more dangerous for me. I saw a unicorn who kept swearing as flames danced wildly about consuming everything around him. I see little reason to believe that Discord wouldn’t pull the same trick outside the tutorial.”

Stardust began to shiver… I really need a term for him/her. Overkill looked worried… and slightly happy. I have no idea why she would be happy, but, then again, I could be wrong.

I tried to smile, hopefully calming them down a little “Then again… we all had different circumstances, which may have possibly given us different results. Tell me… did any of you get asked a question?” They stared at me, as they didn’t understand what I was getting at “I mean… before this all happened… I was asked… What’s the difference between an individual and a group?”

Overkill seemed to stare at me oddly as I stopped smiling. I felt my tongue unconsciously lick my teeth, reminding me that the standard flat pony teeth had been replaced with sharp pointy ones. I’ll need to remember to smile showing less teeth next time.

Overkill shrugged “I’ll bite. I said it’s a matter of perspective. An individual only has to look after one person and focus on their own needs. A group has to look at the group as a whole, and focus on the needs of everyone, instead of just themselves.”

Stardust blinked “Mine was an Individual is a useful perk, but they’re not needed. A group is a requirement in order for life to advance. You can say how “Special” somepony is all day, but without others they will never get far in life.”

We both glanced at eachother, as she didn’t seem to catch the verbal mix up.

I hung my head and replied “I just laugh at the comments.” They stared at me “No really… That was the answer I typed in.”

Alright, it seemed that I wasn’t the only one who was asked that question. My bitter answer gave me a different… the villain team answer came complete with functioning memory and a crazy leader, while the non-cynical or bitter answers gave various degrees of memory loss.

Overkill groaned “So either we “died” and lost a chunk of our memory… or our answers got to pick how fucked up our memories are!”

‘Snape’

She screeched as the branch suddenly, inexplicably, broke underneath her. I reached out to grabbed her hoof… well tried as best as I could, as she grabbed my arm nearly dragging me down with her. Just then, two timberwolves had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, growling and snarling underneath us.

Stardust, for her part, helped me lift Overkill back up, making a note that she was a lot stronger then her delicate figure would suggest, as I tried to find another tree branch big enough for the heavily armored pegasus to be on.

Overkill screamed at me “Why didn’t you grab my arm, and help pull me up!”

I held my hooves up at her “I tried, but I don’t know how to grab things with these stumps.”
Stardust sunk her head into my back as she sounded exhausted “Okay… new Rule… No pony swears.”

Overkill rolled her eyes “You can’t possibly be fucking...”

‘Snape’

We both lunged forward grabbing Overkill before she fell, again, as even more Timberwolves suddenly came out of the woods, just waiting for one of us to fall from the tree. Overkill was now firmly holding me as tightly as she could. I felt my face burn red and I will admit... I never had two girls so close to me like this before. No, I’m not gay… I just never really cared about relationships and so forth.

“New rule…” I tried to move out of their grasp, only to feel a hoof on my back “No… sh… Frigdy Frag.”

I quickly caught myself before I actually swore, and caused something worse to happen, which was kind of hard to picture at the moment. Right now, Overkill was staring at my wings which had popped out of my jacket, as Stardust had her face buried in my back muttering in shock or something.

I will kill whoever made this ‘swear curse’ when I find them, even if I have to beat them to death with my bare hands!

“Grim?” Overkill spoke in confusion as a disconcerting silent pause settle around us, as even the Timberwolves growls seemed to have faded from the background. No one was uttering a word in that brief moment as time just seemed to had stop dead.

I could feel Stardust’s confusion spiraling out as she didn’t know what was going on. I could feel Overkill’s emotions erupt in a blaze of shock, confusion, and doubt. The entire world seemed to disappear from my sense, except for my throbbing heartbeat and for the two people that stood right beside myself, as they realized that something was off about me.

“Don’t kill me with fire...” Was all I could reply, before everything suddenly went dark for me.

******

I yawned opening my eyes as a throbbing pain came from the back of my head. My back felt sore as something heavy was on my chest. I was just starting to prepare myself to tell my cat to get off me before I had to get up… only to see a sleeping face… a pony face instead. In a sudden wave of panic, I quickly scooted away nearly falling out of the tree, as I grabbed the branches before I fell.

I looked up at the skies as the faint trickle of the sun broke through the canopy, telling me it was day time. The soft sounds of birds chirping in the air made me realize just how far away from home I was. The alien sensation of my new limps reinforced themselves, along with the all gnawing fear that came with them.

The memories of the past twenty four hours rushed to me. I had started up that MLP game. The confusion and terror that stuck as my entire world had turned upside down. To make things even worse, I had just managed to blow half of my secret in just one day to two complete strangers!

Maybe I could run away before they woke up.

“Don’t move so suddenly Yadrell.” Overkill yawned as she stared at me.

“Oh…Fu…” I bit on my lip forcing myself not to finish “ffff… It wasn’t a dream. How much did I say last night?”

Stardust pulled a brush out of her saddlebag and replied “Not much. You tried to explain. Overkill freaked out. You got hit in the head, and we just…” She blushed and then quickly glared at the brush she was somehow holding, before she shoved it in the bag “… I hate this!”

I didn’t know what she meant by that as I rubbed the back of my head “Why did someone hit me in the back of my head?”

Overkill closed her eyes as she muttered in embarrassment “I panicked alright.” she looked down, as she obviously felt bad about it in hindsight. Once she looked up and locked eyes with me, she tried to get a good footing on the tree branches, as if preparing for a fight “Now, you better answer our questions right now.”

Keeping an eye on the hoof blades, I smiled nervously at her trying to make sure I didn’t show my teeth. I wanted to make sure that they didn’t try to use me to test the re-spawn theory “I have no idea!”

Overkill nodded her head “Okay then, let's start with this, what’s with the jagged horn, the pointed teeth and to top it off why didn’t you tell us you were an alicorn of all things!”

I felt the nagging sense of her emotions slowly trickle over to me. She was tired… she was uneasy about me… and oddly enough I could feel a sense of fear coming from her. I stared at her face as I could see the damp matted fur and the bags underneath her eyes. She wasn’t staring at me with conviction… but fear.

“Do you realize how insane that sounds?” I snapped back “I just heard a crazy laugh before I got sucked into this mess! I nearly died during the tutorial.”

That glare she was giving me… She wasn’t buying it. I could feel the combination of fear and uncertainty mixing together as she glared at me. She thought I was hiding something and she wasn’t about to let go.

“So the teeth and horn are just part if some sort of cosmetic pack. ” she spoke with dripping sarcasm “You are just your ordinary run of the mill alicorn who just so happens not to have any missing memory problems either!”

She raised one of her clawed boot, was raised against my neck as I began to sweat. If just having a set of wings and a horn got me this much trouble, then just how bad would the Changeling package give me?

I spoke up in a panic, trying to save my own skin “ I… I... started out as a pegasus, who got kicked off a cloud, into a pit full of spikes! Then, after nearly dying, I was turned into a unicorn, just before they threw me into a cage match against a fucking manticore!”

‘Snape’

The branch broke, as I fell to the ground before they could catch me. Lo and behold, the manticore from last night had come back… complete with drooling teeth and pissed off attitude. I wasted no time and screamed at the top of my lungs, as I unleashed my magic shot. I tried to slow my descent, by flapping my wings as the manticore charged at me.

Instead of being torn apart, or being mauled by an overgrown cat, I landed safely on the ground. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Overkill had come crashing down on the Manticore’s back. Overkill had slammed her clawed boots, leaving a bloody gash across its shoulder, as I personally didn’t question why she came down to help me.

The manticore roared, as it managed to dislodge Overkill off itself. The manticore turned around and prepared to maim her, as it now marked her as the biggest threat. Just then, Stardust came falling down from the tree landing on the Manticore’s wounds, causing it to scream in pain, as I tried firing off a few more magic attacks at its face, as I could feel a increasing knot in my stomach.

The manticore ran towards the forest, throwing Stardust from it’s back before it fled from us. Overkill and Stardust cheered in joy, having beat the manticore that had tried to eat them last night. In the middle of their celebration I felt my horn suddenly switch to feeding mode, as it just latched onto the rush of joy both of them were feeling right now. I quickly tried to cut it off, as they turned to face me again, as my body felt a lot better.

Planting my feets into the ground to take a firm stance, I prepared myself for a fight if needed. I didn’t know how my feeding ability worked, but I was now a lot more energised while they probably weren’t feeling any better fighting a manticore, after not having anything to eat.

“Alright…” Overkill huffed slightly in exhaustion “Apparently, fighting is a lot more tiring in real life.”

Stardust grumbled for a moment “It’s worse when the body doesn’t like to fight.”

Overkill glared back at me and roared “Answers. Now!”

“I don’t know anything!” I replied with strength in my voice, taking a ready stance and with magic prepped for back me up if needed it. “I didn’t get to pick anything. Heck, I could have ended up as a freaking breezie! The better question is why you two know more about this whole mess than I do!”

“What?” Overkill shouted, baffle “We know more?”

“You got the intro that tells you what’s happening to us.” I quickly countered as I tried to place her on the defensive “You have equipment. You know how your body works and all the tricks to it. You know a hell of a lot more than I do!”

They stared at me in disbelief. I was loud, angry, and mostly honest with them. Overkill prepared to charge at me, only for Stardust to suddenly stand in between us, holding us off from coming to blows. She stared back at Overkill with a steely gaze not flinching for a moment, but Overkill didn’t stop glaring back at me.

Then, Stardust turned her attention on to me and tried to smile as she attempted to be as nonthreatening as possible “Look… messed up situations aside. Why did you run?”

“From you?” I yelled back, as I motioned towards Overkill’s bloody boots.

Stardust shook her head “No, From the other po..., heh, I mean people. You were alone in that tree and there are a ton of people walking around in these woods. Why were you out here all by yourself of all things?” her eyes looked weary but sharp, why the hell didn’t I see that before?

I chuckled in slight disbelief that they weren’t trying to kill me right then and there “Hello, didn’t you just hear me? Mafia? Stories like this?” I pointed at my gnarled horn and a sharp fanged smile, as well stretching out my wings “The odd one gets the bloody axe first. I don’t know the full story, but I know a death call when I see it.” I yelled that last part out, with my wings completely flared up at its full span reflecting how strung up I was.

Stardust, to her credit didn’t flinch at the display, and waved her hooves at me in a placating gesture, getting me to calm down to be reason with.

Overkill sighed, as she still looked at me bitterly “And the rest? I mean… you’re not tired.”

“And it’s currently keeping you two from killing me.” I quickly countered “Besides, I actually ate something last night!”

Stardust looked back at Overkill firmly but placating “Look, He’s panicked and exhausted, and quite frankly, so are we all.” (S)he then looked back at me with a calming soothing smile, as if trying to reassure me that she didn’t mean any harm “Now, you just keep your wings hidden, until we find a better way to hide them.” hearing that from her, I was stunned in surprise that she was willing to help keep my secret for me instead of getting ready to nail me to a stake like Overkill was.

I blinked in disbelief as Overkill shouted “What?”

Stardust glared back at the human turned pegasus again “Okay then, we are all got the raw end here. I’m stuck with a confused identity. He’s stuck in a body he can’t use. Until we get some real answers, we can’t jump to conclusions!”

Overkill shouted “But he’s hiding something!” Pointing a hoof claw at me for emphasis.

Stardust kept blocking her way again, forehooves stretch out, in case she was at it again. I felt a little bit confused, as just a few moments ago she was acting more like meek Fluttershy than just planting her hoof down and straight up standing up to someone as literally intimidating as Overkill. This wasn’t fluttershy protectiveness, but something you would see closer to Rainbow Dash or maybe Applejack protectiveness.

Seeing that there were no other choices available, I sighed and relented to her question “Alright… When I was asked the question I replied… individuals are smart caring people who can see reason. Groups are just a mass of madness and stupidity. It maybe a pessimistic answer, but one I stand by. How do you think I would have lasted if everyone else saw me as the only alicorn?”

Overkill winced “Alright… I see your point… but why lie to us or not tell us that you got an alicorn package?”

“Because, I didn’t trust you!” I shrieked back at them “I didn’t want to see you two die, but that doesn’t mean I’ll share my life story with you… and yes Yadrell really is my real name.” Which was of course a big fat lie. “What about your stories? Wouldn’t it have been easy to find a someone else wearing armor, when no one else started with any of the fancy gear you're wearing?” I quirked an eyebrow on that last part.

Overkill flinched at getting a taste of her own medicine, as she sheepishly replied “I panicked. I didn’t believe this was happening… I…” She hung her head in defeat “Alright… fresh start.” She held out her hoof “My name is Steel Wing, but my friends call me Overkill.”

I grabbed the hoof… or tried to “How do you even?” She huffed, as I shook my head “Sorry. My name’s Yadrell. Currently I’m trying to stay alive.”

Stardust wore an honest smile “My name is Stardust. I’m from Canterlot…” and then slapped herself in the face “And I should be locked in an insane asylum until I stop going crazy.” She glanced back at me “Personally, I’d give up being able to hold stuff, if it meant being able to talk normally.”

I nodded back to the crazy pegasus and the gender confused earth pony as I replied “Alright. It’s official. We are all crazy people stuck together searching for the insane idiot to beat up, once we figure out who’s responsible for this mess!” I was trying to be serious, but I couldn’t stop a smile from creeping up my face.

Overkill smiled, as Stardust chuckled for a moment, a brief moment.

“Now what about…” Overkill slowly stared until she saw something nearby.
I turned my head and groaned, as the manticore we had previously beaten just came back growling, apparently ready for round two.

“Oh come fucking on!” I screamed out loud “I just got out of a fucking mess, and saved my fucking ass, only to just keep being fucked around by all the bullshit that fills this insane world! Now, get the fuck out of here, you piece of shit, unless you want me to magically skull ript your eyes out with my god damned fucking magic horn!”

The manticore whimpered as it ran away. Stardust and Overkill stared at me in shock for a moment, as they heard my rather long list of swears. I tried to smile, as I felt the ground shake underneath my feet.

“What’s normally found in starter zones?” I asked not even bothered to looking behind me. “I’m going to guess that dragons aren’t part of the course.”

They both nodded.

I smiled “And that’s why I’m stuck as an Alicorn. I broke the system by cheating and swearing… a lot.”

With a roar that would make Godzilla proud, I ran before I could see the dragon as my two new insane partners bolted with me. Sometimes… just sometimes… you have to summon the bigger fish just to avoid being eaten by the smaller ones.

I highly doubt they will ask me any sensitive questions after all this… if we survive that is.

Author's Note

Rewrite has been done. Prolog has been placed as a separate chapter before this one.

Let me know if there are any mistakes or any other problems that need to be fixed.

Celestial Tears

Celestia

Celestia sat outside on one of the lawn patio chairs and tried to relax as everything seemed to be okay. A nice slice of regular chocolate cake rested beside her. She used her magic to take a small sip of the wonderful new hot cocoa with chock full with the fluffy white bits that had been introduced to Equestria.

Luna was resting on her own Lawn patio chair with an umbrella over her head to block out some of the harsh glare of the sun. She was reading a book as the sound of a foal playing could be heard in the background. Normally the sounds of foals playing about would bring a smile to Celestia’s face as she had been thinking about getting an apprentice, but Star Swirl told her that she wasn’t ready to take on an apprentice. Something about the difference between teaching a group was different than teaching an individual.

Wasn't the difference focusing more on the student and adjusting the lessons to deal with one foal instead of a group of foals?

“Is everything alright dear sister?” Luna asked sensing her sister’s unease.

Celestia smiled as she tried to banish her unease “Just was thinking about taking up an apprentice.”

Luna simply nodded as she let Celestia take a sip of her hot coco before saying “If you wish to take care of a foal then why don’t you simply have one?”

Celestia managed to take an impressive spit take as she sprayed most of it at her sister… who already had a magic shield spell ready. Celestia hit her own chest a few times as she tried to recover from Luna’s sudden and rather confusing statement.

“You know I can’t have foals.” Celestia replied with a mixture of fear and sorrow.

“More hot chocolate?” a robbed figure replied standing taller than Celestia. Where he came from she didn't know as she pushed the thought away as he poured another cup of hot coco for her.

Celestia took a small sip from it as she couldn’t help but feel unease about the figure. Still diamond dogs were becoming more common along with Griffins these days. She didn’t want to accidently offend the… whatever he was.

Luna stared back at her book “Why not? You haven’t found a stallion you liked?”

Celestia felt her check blush as she tried to change the topic “It’s because we rule as equals… if I suddenly had a foal than the other nobles would start asking about succession issues… or if they had the same status as we do or if they are placed somewhere else on the social hierarchy.”

The robed figure chuckled “She’s just afraid that her foal will not be blessed with the same lifespan as she does. If the foal is not born an alicorn than the foal then Celestia would be forced to watch her children and possible her grandchildren grow older and slowly wither and die from the curse of old age while she retained her youth.”

“The curse of immortality is not the life you live, but the lives you leave behind…” The robed figure pulled out a silver tray and presented it to Luna “Pancakes?”

Luna clapped her hooves together “Thank you.”

“I live to grant your heart’s desire Princess.” The robed figure chuckled as black feathers fell from his robes.

Celestia coughed as she tried to change the subject… and get her mind off the strange robbed figure. It would not be befitting of a princess to feel unease around one of her subjects. Besides the fact it could bring up some of the unease and resentment the three tribes still had with each other… it would be cruel to the pony… creature that wasn’t causing any problems.

Celestia took a deep sip of her hot cocoa and finally said “I never thought you would tell me to try having a foal.”

Luna smiled as she pulled out a small set of foal’s pajamas from somewhere “I made them for my own foal.” Celestia felt a shiver down her spine “I told my husband we wouldn’t have to keep our marriage a secret and if our subjects could handle us then why not one of our foals?”

Celestia gulped as the gray pajamas had a small cutie mark on it’s side in the shape of a heart. Why should she… Princess Celestia be afraid of a little foal?

The robbed figure chuckled “Princess Celestia is just worried how the public might react. You have to admit that a pregnant alicorn isn’t a common sight in Equestria.”

Luna shrugged “Much less giving birth to the foal.” Luna slouched back in her seat “Earth pony foals never calm down as they are constantly kicking and waking you up at odd hours of the night. Pegasus foals tend to be a nightmare trying to give birth to… and as long as the Midwife make’s sure the unicorn’s head goes out first to deal with the horn…" Luna shivered at the thought "but none of them have anything on alicorn foals.”

Celestia coughed as a piece of cake went down her windpipe instead of going to her stomach. The robed servant produced a handkerchief and a glass of water as Celestia slowly managed to recover.

Luna glanced at her sister “Are you alright dear sister?”

Celestia nodded as she said “I was just… surprised that you are putting so much thought into this.”

Luna nodded as she folded up the pajamas “I’ll admit the first few months were rough and… I did look a little foolish wearing all those dresses to hide the changes, but I wouldn’t trade my foal for anything in the world.”

Celestia started to sweat as the sound of a foal’s joyful laughter grew closer “You had a foal without my knowledge? How…”

The robbed figure sighed “Well you never really gave her much attention. You never really spoke with her. In fact lately you weren’t so much “sisters” as… ruler and servant as you keep the ponies happy while your sister deals with the dirty work.”

Celestia shook her head as she tried to defend herself “It isn’t like that! We both share equal responsibility!”

The robbed figure nodded “Yes 'equal responsibility'… you take care of meetings while Luna watches over them at night. You shake hooves with the ponies and make them happy before dumping the issues of protection and dealing with the monsters that attack at night to your sister. When she’s in charge everypony knows it’s bad because that’s when the predators attack, but when you’re in charge everything is alright.”

Luna shrugged “You had your reasons just like you always do Celestia. You claim to be the all compassionate teacher, but in truth you’re a statue. You bask in the praise of your ponies giving them new heights to strive towards, but anypony close to you knows you have that your heart is also made out of stone.”

Luna’s eyes changed as her fur grew darker as Celestia shouted “What’s happening Luna!”

The servant chuckled as he stood back “Why she is getting her wish dear Princess. You wished for the love and adoration of your subjects as you would prove that you are not some puppet or prop for the masses to look up at. That you are an actual princess while Luna… she simply wished for her dear beloved sister to notice her.”

Celestia shouted at the servant “Stop this!”

“But why Celestia?” came the dreaded voice of Nightmare Moon replied before her “Why do you wish to not notice me anymore? Do you prefer nopony to notice me… to see me or even care about me!”

Nightmare Moon leaped forth at Celestia as the Elements of Harmony protected her. Celestia heard her sister scream before a flash of light blinded her. When she finally opened up her eyes it was nighttime as the dreaded image of The Mare in the Moon could be seen now. Even more disheartening she could hear the sound of a ball dropping on the ground.

Celestia turned around and saw a small black or dark blue foal staring up at Celestia as his green mane drifted down to his shoulders. The small foal stared up at her with large eyes and had such an innocent smile… a smile that had yet to encounter despair.

The foal replied in such a happy cheerful voice Celestia couldn’t help but feel sick as he said “Aunty Celly! Aunty Celly! Have you seen Mommy?”

Celestia opened her mouth as words refused to come out as the small foal crawled onto Luna’s patio seat as he stared at the pajamas in confusion. The robed figure lifted the foal up by the scruff of his neck and just sighed not in sorrow, but in slight irritation.

The servant turned to face Celestia as a beak managed to emerge from the hood of the robes “Looks like Luna left you a mess. Want me to toss him out?”

The servant didn't care about the foal. He didn't try to help ease the pony's fears or try to comfort him. No he simply viewed the little foal as garbage to be taken out and tossed away. The foal was simply a mess left by somepony else that he was stuck having to clean up.

The foal struggled in panic “What happened to Mommy! Where’s Mommy!”

Celestia felt tears starting to form around her eyes as her mouth felt like somepony had used sandpaper on her throat. The foal stared up into the sky and simply stared at the moon in confusion as the foal couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. Why would he as just a few hours ago he was playing around and having a fun like any little foal his age. He shouldn't be forced to grow up so suddenly and face the harsh reality of this cruel new world.

Celestia coughed “Mommy… Mommy just left for a little while.” She gulped as her unease grew “She loves you very much, but… Mommy’s work just… she’ll be back soon.”

It was a lie of course. A big fat lie ass Celestia had no idea when Luna would return, but she could deal with breaking that news later to him. She just had to get him to calm down and try to explain what happened. That he was going to be okay...

The servant sighed “What was that bit about the old tale again? One wish spoken to be twisted about… One truth told to shatter their faith… One pact made to start their death… So beware the Raven Nevermore for he shall bring ruin to your kingdom once more.”

He smiled as his yellow eyes glowed from underneath the hood. His beak twisted into a grin as he taunted the little foal “Little Lock… Your mother didn’t leave to fight and defend Equestria or to help other ponies out there… Aunty Celly banished your mother because she became a threat to her rule.”

The foal now looked at Celestia in terror as the monster continued to whisper “And now… she wonders if you’re worth the trouble of having around. What do you wish for little foal?”

The foal started to cry “I just wanted to be loved!”

Raven Nevermore laughed out loud “Should have went for World domination! At least you would have a better shot at that happening!”

Celestia swung her hoof at Raven Nevermore only for the world to vanish. With a deep breath she realized that she was dreaming… that it was all a dream… Lockeart now stood in front of her with his standard illusion altering the colors of his natural coat.

What was different about him this time was that he was smiling instead of the constant look of disinterest or “meh” he normally wore. Still there was a hint of sorrow in his eyes as the smile just filled Celestia with a sense of unspoken dread.

“I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused.” He apologized to her “I never blamed you as I understood that you had your reasons, but it’s time for me to go.”

Celestia opened her mouth and tried to say something only for her voice to be silent.

Lockheart blew a stand of hair that fell in front of his face “I guess it’s time to finally tell the truth. I’m a liar, a thief… I’m someone who only looked out for himself and…” he chuckled “I could never be the pony you thought I could be.”

The ground shook as Celestia saw Tirek’s looming form behind him “It’s funny… I knew I could never be a hero, but…” He wore a foolish grin on his face “I think I could be a martyr after all it’s not such a bad thing to die for honor instead of living in shame right?”

Lockheart turned his back on her and laughed “Oh if anyone asks… just tell them I was some crazy pony you once ran into!”

Celestia screamed in frustration as her voice was still silent. She tried to move to stop him only for a crowd of ponies to hold her back. She could see the fear in their eyes as they didn’t want to risk losing their princess. They let Lockheart sacrifice himself as they prevented her from stopping him.

Lockheart paused for one second and turned around “And about that bit with Luna… Don’t worry… She’ll forgive you as you are her beloved big sister.”

“But what about you!” Celestia finally managed to shout.

Lockheart just grinned “I’m just some crazy stallion you once ran into...” He turned to face Tirek “Nobody wants to die… but sometimes you don’t get to decide.”

Lockheart disappeared from her sight as a cruel laughter filled the air. A unicorn large skull now stood in front of her. Icy winds howled around her as a castle frozen in ice stood in the distance as Windegoes swarmed in the air as the very air itself was filled with an ancient hatred towards the world.

The skull stared at Celestia as it said “You took my General. I killed your puppet.”

Celestia slammed her hoof on the ground and screamed “He wasn’t a puppet!”

The skull laughed “What other use is there for an unknown you can’t control? You ponies claim to believe in peace and tolerance, but it was your kind that the ice sprits were drawn to… your kind that had festered a hatred great enough to freeze your own kingdoms into ruin.”

The skull glared at her “I see everything you worthless mortal. This land is mine! These souls are mine! The very world belongs to me!”

The wind stopped howling as Celestia looked upon in horror at the thousands of bodies from every race known were frozen in ice.

Celestia closed her eyes before opening them again as the air was unbearably humid. The frozen dead world was now replaced with a swamp as vines covered an abandoned village. Celestia saw a Yak coughing as he had been reduced to a withered husk.

The yak stared at Celestia “The sun princess?”

Celestia nodded “My name is Princess Celestia… what happened here?”

A voice chuckled from behind her as Celestia turned around only to see the large changeling from the Everfree Castle. Behind her stood dozens of changelings… no… that wasn’t right as these changelings didn’t look anything like the ones residing in Canterlot as they tried to make better lives for themselves.

These changelings were more… savage… feral… they looked more like wolves or trained attack dogs than actual equines. If they held any spark of intelligence it was only how to harm others instead of trying to build a better world. These were the creatures that mothers told to frighten their foals.

The large changeling from the Everfree forest suddenly appeared as she held the dying Yak close to her “Why should you care? After your incident you decided to bury the past and set up walls. They denied you access to their libraries when you searched the lands trying to figure out what happened to your sister as you refused to believe that she wanted to kill you. It had to be some sort of outside influence that manipulated her."

The changeling queen was mocking her "The Yaks feared you would end up becoming just like your sister… they called her a monster right in front of your face… don’t you remember how your kingdoms cut off all contact from each other after that incident? How you two refuse to still talk to each other after all these long years... you must have left quite the impression Princess.”

Celestia slammed her hoof down “Let go of him.”

The changeling ran her hoof down the Yak’s neck as he shivered in fear “You lost the Crystal Empire. You lost your own sister.”

Her mouth opened up as she turned the Yak into a withered corpse leaving his body to hit the ground. Then she pulled out a small napkin and wiped her mouth as the building fell behind her revealing the Yakyakastan in ruins.

The changeling smiled “But don’t worry Celestia. I respect you because you’re just like me.”

Celestia shook her head “You’re a monster.”

The changeling held a hoof to her chest “A monster? I just told a few lies to help guide my little subjects towards the greater good. I focused on the big picture as I knew that the Elements of Harmony were worth a few sacrifices. It’s not like you haven’t told a lie or two during your reign. I’m just doing what you do.”

Celestia pointed at the ruined city around them “You destroyed an entire nation!”

The changeling laughed “What’s a few lives when compared to the bigger picture? You’re just annoyed that I thought ahead while you’re still playing catch up.”

The changeling continued to laugh until everything disappeared again. Celestia grabbed her head as it started to hurt.

The world around her now changed as now she stood back in the halls of Canterlot Castle as a small unicorn stood before her shouting “Make me an Alicorn!”

Tears ran down her eyes as the small unicorn stood in front of Celestia in defiance… no… sorrow, betrayal, the pony before her was upset.

“Cadance is an Alicorn!” the unicorn shouted in heartbroken sorrow “So why can’t I be an alicorn? She wasn’t even born an alicorn.”

The world shifted around one last time as she was now standing in the Everfree Castle. Luna stood next to her as both of their thrones were being built before them.

Luna stared at them in slight confusion “Do you really think we can do this sister?”

Celestia felt herself smile as her mouth said “Of course dear sister. The time of war is over as we are no longer need to take lives on the battlefields or stopping enemies that wish to destroy our kingdom. We have finally achieved peace in our lands dear sister.”

Luna tilted her head a little as she stared at the thrones “Still two of them side by side? Since you will work during the day and I work at night… wouldn’t it make more sense for there to be one throne?”

Celestia shook her head “It’s so that our subjects will see us rule side by side. So that they will always know that even if one of us are resting or sent to deal with problems far away… Both of us are looking after them as we rule together.”

Luna chuckled a little “And what if one of us were to have foals? Would you have us make smaller thrones for them so they too could sit with us while we dealt with our respective courts?”

Celestia couldn’t help but share in her sister’s laughter “That would be a lovely sight to see wouldn’t it? We would have our husbands standing beside our thrones looking after our foals as we spoke to our subjects.”

Would it matter in the end?

“What?” Celestia spoke out loud in confusion.

Luna glanced at her sister “Would it matter who gave birth first? I mean in the end the foal would be of our blood.” Luna had a soft smile appear of her face as she spoke with joy “If one of us grew tired or had to deal with some problem away from the castle… then we would be safe with the knowledge that our little one was still being taken care of by our sister.”

Celestia sighed as she glanced at the thrones.

Luna wrapped a wing around Celestia “Do me a favor sister… and wake up.”

******

Celestia woke up as it felt like she was waking up with a migraine. She always woke up with a migraine when her own nightmares mixed with her gift of foresight especially when the two possibly blended together… something that was becoming more frequent these past few days.

With a deep sigh Celestia went to grab her dream journal nearby only to find one of the books that she had moved from the Everfree Castle to the Canterlot archives. The dust covered book was actually an old diary from her youth.

The journal was shared with her sister Luna as the two would write down what they would name their foals… or what their “prince charming” would look like and of course… some of the old foal tales that had been told to scare them.

Raven Nevermore… the enigmatic being that searched for lost souls granting them their deepest wishes… only to twist the wish around or used the innocent wish to destroy their kingdom. Raven Nevermore was a story that had frightened Celestia when she was young as the purpose of each tale spun about the creature always ended with how the enigmatic creature could destroy a kingdom by letting slip a small truth that should never be spoken or by granting a wish that would lead to their destruction.

The creature itself always seemed to change from story to story as the monster was just a metaphor or a disaster given physical form to help drive the story forward… a villain to hate and place blame upon and yet a creature that didn’t exist in real life.

Thankfully the “Raven Tales” eventually died out as time passed… but it had been a while since she had a nightmare involving the enigmatic creature taunting her of her weakness before speaking one twisted but true statement that would harm Celestia or turn her kingdom to ash.

While the nightmares involving the strange creature always bothered Celestia she knew that it wasn’t just a sign of ill omen… but the nightmare involving the creature always appeared when something deeply bothered Celestia. Raven Nevermore would appear in her dreams taunting her about the problem that weighed heavily on her mind before saying something that would trouble her. In a sense the evil creature was a physical/metaphorical representation of Celestia's own nightmare.

She sighed as she pulled out her dream journal… something she had to keep close to her these days as it was getting harder to tell the difference between her nightmares and possible glimpses of the future that kept randomly popping up. The journal was also one of the few things she could vent her problems to.

A part of her began to wonder if she should pull out one of her old aliases and try finding somepony to talk to or just to help simply... vent. The constant nightmares were certainly not helping her sleep at night... and the frequency of the nightmares seemed to only be growing.

Celestia slowly wrote down the details involving the frozen fields and the Changeling that were attacking the yaks. She made note of the unicorn that talked about… Cadance… the pony Lockheart had pretended to be. Was that small pony important… or was she just a part of the nightmare that Celestia was having? The easiest thing to do would be to simply ask Lockheart of when he knew about Cadance and then take it from there.

Of course that would mean she would have to talk to Lockheart again and try to figure out what to say to him. Ever since he asked his question a week ago it had been hard to talk to him. Lockheart would find ways to avoid talking to Celestia. He spent most of his time in the Star Swirl the Bearded section of the Canterlot library trying to find something. The few times they did manage to speak…

Celestia sighed as they didn’t really talk. All they really did talk about was work or how his progress or lack of progress with earth pony magic was progressing. He would update her on the work he was doing and Celestia would then get the final say on what would happen next.

Celestia stared at the dream journal as she didn’t know if she should write about the parts involving Lockheart as they bothered her the most. The parts involving Luna only filled Celestia with a sense of guilt and unease especially when she thought about Lockheart. Then there was the part with Tirek which didn’t make much sense. Why would Lockheart be the one sent to fight Tirek instead of the Canterlot Royal Guard?

Celestia shook her head as she didn’t have anything against Lockheart… it was just… he struggled to fly in a straight line and Celestia had not only fought Tirek before but she had also won. If Tirek had regained his full strength Celestia would know and in his current weakened state the Royal Guard would be more than enough to take him down.

Hopefully it was just a nightmare as Lockheart in those final moments… that wasn’t a stallion getting ready to fight for glory, fame, or honor. That dreadful expression she had seen on countless ponies in the battlefield. That was the look of a pony who knew there was no chance of survival, but they did their job not in hopes of living… but to buy time so that everypony else could live.

Celestia felt a lump in her throat as she glanced at the moon outside her window. It was clear that she wasn’t going to get anymore sleep tonight.

******

The sun drifted into Celestia’s work office. The troubles of last night were soon forgotten with the rush of work and the complaints left by day to day ponies. Quick Note her helpful assistant was already trying to prepare Celestia for the coming day and the problems that she would soon face.

Quick Note poured Celestia a cup of tea and said “Leaving Golden Brand who wishes to discuss about the issues involving the Night Guard.”

Celestia nodded “What exactly is his complaint?”

Quick Note put a lump of sugar into the tea “Apparently some of the changes involve deviation from the old Equestiran doctrine of war. Since the Night Guard lacks earth ponies and unicorns who are normally transferred back into the Solar Guard or left with the same shift as the Night Guard as punishment… Lockheart has also lessened the requirements for applying for a position in the Night Guard.”

Celestia rubbed her chin “He was allowing it so that ponies not native to Equestria could join the Night Guard.”

Quick Note coughed “And apparently allowed it so that non-equine groups could also join as a couple of changelings have applied for positions in the guard… as changelings.”

Celestia simply closed her eyes as she prepared for the bad news “The issue is with the changelings isn’t it?”

Quick Note nodded “Apparently the changelings that join are doing so to secure their… identify for a lack of a better word. They want to be seen as themselves… but they also want to ensure that the guard protects them in case of any backlash involving the feral looking ones. Golden Brand on the other hoof sees it as a threat due to the previous changes allowed with the Night Guard and Solar Guard. He wants to ensure that a member of nobility does not have to take orders from a non-equine… of course his exact words I’m not allowed to repeat.”

Celestia hung her head in both annoyance at Golden Brand’s actions… and at the fact this was going to be another action forcing Celestia to look over one of Lockheart’s actions before applying her judgment. In the past when a new alicorn was added to Canterlot it was meet with praise or hidden concern. They knew the alicorn had been ascended into an important position and very few ponies would argue against them.

Lockheart? If they had a complaint they would bring it straight to Celestia and complain loudly. Maybe it was the unrest or lack of sleep caused by her nightmare last night that might have been clouding her judgment, but Celestia had a rather strong urge to simply tell Golden Brand to “Stuff a sock in it! If the Changelings wanted to try to join the Night Guard to be accepted by Equestrian Society then let them! If they go up in the ranks then tell your brat to work harder instead of complaining to daddy!”

Celestia couldn’t help but smile as she could picture Golden Brand’s face right before she grabbed that stupid frilly shirt he always wore and simply tossed him out the window and right into a nearby garbage can.

Quick Note cleared her throat “Rough night?”

Celestia shook her head “Is it that easy to tell?”

Quick Note blushed a little as she replied “You had you’re… Tossing a pesky noble outside the window… smile on your face… you were even chuckling a little.”

Celestia took a large sip of tea as she tried to wake herself. Today was going to be a simple day. She would deal with the complaints in morning court… then the complaints involving the nobles… after that she would finish up her paper work and finding Lockheart and simply asking him who his parents were or if he was adopted.

Once Celestia knew about his heritage everything would be fine.

******

Some days were easy days while others felt like pushing a boulder up a mountain with your wings tied behind your back. Some days made Celestia wish she had simply replaced all the wood, mortar, and stone in her room with cotton so she could freely bang her head up against the wall.

Brown Muzzle continued talking as he suffered from a rare medical condition that even surprised other nobles in Canterlot. Some ponies could simply block out or ignore certain comments they didn’t like to hear, but Brown Muzzle was unique. Celestia could right out tell him NO and yet his brain would find some way to ignore her comment and then pull some obscure fact, comment, or law that allowed him to say yes.

It was times like these that made Celestia wish she could simply pass a law making it so that nopony could say no to her.

“As set by Brown Nose the Third this legally allows me to take control of the trains in my territories to do with what I see fit.” Brown Nose stated

Celestia took another sip of her tea as the back of her mind wanted to skip formalities and simply toss him out the window as Golden Brand could at least be reasoned with! Brown Muzzle on the other hoof somehow managed to find the unique position to be required to have Equestria deal with him. Mostly this was because of his numerous backroom deals or certain key pieces of Equestria economy that were owned by his family.

He was the type of pony that made Celestia wish she was some twisted tyrant that hired assassins who exterminated subjects she didn’t like. It was a shame that she preferred being seen as the kind and caring pony as she actually cared about her subjects… of course Brown Muzzle was closer to a zit or a scab that one merely tolerated as they couldn’t wait for the day they suddenly disappeared. Poking at it only made it worse.

Celestia tried to stay calm as she replied “But as you must have realized the trains have gone through a couple of changes and are being used to transporting items instead of nobles.”

Brown Muzzle nodded “And the law issued and passed allows the noble or the one in charge of the train or territory in which the train runs on to use the items aboard to the situation needed despite use, cost, or ownership of materials being carried to alleviate the situation.”

Celestia’s smile now started to hurt as she replied “Yes, but using all the items just to throw yourself a party is not required, needed or count as a life threatening emergency Brown Muzzle.”

Brown Muzzle had a small chuckle as if Celestia had made a joke as he replied “And while the unruly complaints are directed towards my establishment I must remind you that these are biased rumors sent against me only because they have no physical proof stating me for their loss. One must simply assume that they are trying to recoup their losses by launching this war of misinformation in an attempt to damage my reputation for their lack of resources.”

Brown Muzzle straightened his back as he firmly stated “As one cannot bring complaints to a messenger or blame a package delivery pony when a shipment had been delayed or claim that the postal service had “lost” a package that had never been sent. One cannot blame me for their own problems on the trains that run through my territory unless I have complete ownership of the trains. Otherwise the trains themselves should be counted in much the same way a package delivery pony is which still solely places the blame on the establishment instead of the local area.”

Celestia hated when he started twisting things about as she replied “Yes, but some concern may be warranted when the loss continues to happen in your territory.”

Brown Muzzle shrugged “Then I shall do my best to give notice to the current train system or threaten their removal from my area. If a method of transportation is to be blamed for the situation than the demolishment of the establishment must be made so that a new and proper method of transportation can be made.”

Celestia openly blamed him. The ponies sent to investigate him were always the same ponies who took his bribes. Every time when a problem without any physical proof was brought to attention the problem would be dismissed… or “fixed” as another group would suddenly appear right when the Royal Guard came to throw somepony in jail.

It was always “amazing” how a group of bandits or criminals would be captured who had just enough physical proof on them to make them the responsible for the mess as Brown Muzzle would leave with his hooves clean of the whole affair.

“I could taste the deceit.” Lockheat’s voice whispered in the back of her mind.

Celestia stared at Brown Muzzle for a moment as she debated on sending him over to have Lockheart “help” with the train situation just like he "helped" Silk Scarf. Maybe he could even…

No! She was trying to help Lockheart and try to show that she cared about him. She was not going to simply shove an unsavory pony to him simply because Celestia wanted him to clean up the mess. One simply did not give another pony trash when they wanted to help improve relations.

Brown Muzzle simply smiled at Celestia as she wanted to hit him across the face with Discord’s statue and hope that he turned into a newt or some sort of small creature she could accidently step on after the incident.

For now she just had to figure out a way to catch Brown Muzzle in the act. Hopefully sending a small group from the Night Guard for… training exercises near Brown Muzzle’s territory would help.

******

It was late in the afternoon as Celestia discarded her illusion of “Bright Smile” the cheerful Canterlot unicorn as she walked into the building hidden just a couple of hooves away from Canterlot Mountain. The guards quickly checked to make sure Celestia wasn’t a changeling before allowing Celestia deeper into the hidden complex.

Celestia couldn’t help but shiver a little as she hated this place. The ancient hidden laboratory of the unicorn tribe was a place that refused to die. Before Equestria was founded this was the sanctum where unicorns would cast some of their more secretive magic or experimented in less than moral ways.

It was in these chambers that many gifts and curses of the unicorn tribe had been created as every experiment made was always for what was claimed for the Greater Good of Equestria. Sometimes ponies infected with a plague would be brought down here away from the general public where they would try experimental cures as the sick ponies would be safely quarantined from the general public… other times a group of ponies would get together and try to create some new type of magic.

Celestia stared at disgust as the stained walls of one of the rooms… one of the times she tried closing this place down only for a group of nobles discover it and start trying to experiment on a way to ensure they would always have the unicorn foal they wanted… by experimenting on pregnant mares.

Of course currently the purpose of this place was back on it's morally gray point of view again. What exactly was it with secret underground facilities that made ponies suddenly lose grasp of their morals?

“How are you doing Celestia?” Remedy Cross spoke out loud

Celestia relaxed a little as she said “I just came to check up on your report.”

Remedy nodded as she motioned her to follow “We found two things that you might want to see… it’s easier to show than explain.”

Celestia followed Remedy down the hallways as their hooves clicked against the stone floors. Celestia didn’t like what they were doing down here, but at the same time she couldn’t discount the value of their work. She didn’t mind keeping secrets, but she preferred to know what she was doing.

The twisted tree growing in the middle of the basement room did little to ease her mind nor the fact that earth ponies were tending to the tree instead of letting it wither and die.

“What exactly is it that you wanted me to see?” Celestia asked out loud. She already had a fire spell prepared in the back of her mind.

Remedy shook her head “They moved it around again…” she glanced at the tree “Well this is the second tree we found.”

Celestia didn’t like the sound off that “Where did you find it?”

“Near the edges of Hayseed Swamp.” Remedy reported “But the odd thing about it is… the changelings in the area were fighting each other. The… demon bugs were trying to defend the tree while the other changelings were trying to destroy it. They left when the Royal Guard went to secure the area.”

Celestia glanced at Remedy “Can you clarify on why you mean by other changelings?”

Remedy rubbed the back of her head “That’s sort of the problem… according to the ones who discovered the tree… the other changelings did not match the reports of the adventure or the “normal” changelings that arrived in Equestria.”

Celestia stared at the new tree with mixed feelings now. There were more of the feral changelings being spawned... or grown. To make things worse the new group of changelings were acting odd. Were they a new foreign group or gad some of the Adventure changelings started a scorch and burn campaign against their feral cousins?

“Of course that’s not the biggest issue here.” Remedy replied with a hint of interest in her voice “It’s what has happened to the tree itself.”

One of the ponies nearby was carting over a corpse… a corpse of a changeling like creature except it was even further removed from Equine form.

The body stretched across two tables as it took an almost dragon fly like form. The eyes were still the solid green color. The wings were now almost dragon like but still made out of the gossamer like wings except with small bat like barbs at the end. The two most terrifying aspects about the creature was the large barbed tail that seemed that was dripping some type of liquid… and the almost python like mouth.

One of the ponies pushing the tables stopped for a moment as he stared at Celestia in fear until Remedy sighed in relief “This is one of the things I wanted to show you… what was the current name?”

The Pegasus stallion coughed “Uh… I believe they called it the Infester…”

Celestia stared at the abomination against nature “I take it the barb at the end does something.”

The Pegasus Stallion coughed again as he nervously replied “The creature grabs its prey and wraps around their body pulling them tight to their body with their wings… sort of like a fruit bat holding an apple… then it either swallows the prey alive to carry back to it’s hive and release it… or the creature injects them with the barb.”

Celestia glanced at the barb as she said “The barb injects them with it’s eggs.”

“Not exactly…” the Pegasus nervously replied “… it injects them with parasites that grow in under one day. The parasite then burrow out of the host’s skin and start attacking everypony else before wrapping them up in cocoons… these smaller parasites are then filled with the stolen emotion or magic before being feed to the rest of the demon bug hive.”

Celestia stared at the creature “How does it reproduce then?”

“It doesn’t.” Remedy Cross flatly replied “This creature was made as a weapon of war and lacks higher intelligence. I'd say this creature is about as an intelligence as a trained animal except they lack a self preservation instinct. The good news is that they can only be made from the tree itself so that if they lose track of it… the creature won’t be able to reproduce.”

Celestia understood the implication. The tree before had been modified to create monsters to be used for war… The changeling from the Everfree forest was making monsters.

Remedy motioned for Celestia to leave the room “As a precaution we have set around one of Stardust’s incendiary mixtures and planted them around the base of the tree… if anything should happen then we are prepared to incinerate the entire room at a moment’s notice.”

A pony whispered something to Remedy “Ah… the real topic of concern has just been found.”

******

The second room that Celestia had been brought to confused her a little. An Amber colored mare with chestnut mane was currently reading a story to a bright eyed changeling foal. The main difference between this changeling foal and the other changelings that had been seen before was it’s body.

Instead of a black chitin body it had a soft or almost “cheerful” dark gray chitin body. The wings now resembled more like butterfly wings as the changeling lacked any holes in it’s body. Even the mane seemed fluffy as it was aqua green. The fangs on the changeling were also less pronounced as they were more like canine teeth than actual fangs.

The room was full of toys for little foals as they had somehow managed to paint the walls to a respectable white right up until the little changeling found some of the paint as foal like drawings now covered the room.

Remedy stared though the window and said “Amber made a… discovery. The changeling foal inside the room… it came from the first tree.”

Celestia stared at the foal who hugged Amber with the same enthusiasm of a normal foal… no… that of a foal hugging his mother. The thought pained Celestia for a small moment as she tried to push the thought away.

Remedy scratched the back of her head as she was a little bit uneasy “Turns out during the process of… experimenting on the tree from the Everfree Forest… one of the pods had yet to fully grow.”

Celestia glanced at the changeling foal “Give me the short version.”

Remedy shrugged “Amber took the most care out of the tree and changed it from something out of a horror novel and into something more… normal. Then just a few days ago the foal just popped out. We have currently dubbed her… Azalea for now and while she hasn’t figured out how to speak… she’s intelligent.”

Celestia watched the changeling foal suddenly turned into a miniature version of Amber before being tucked into her crib as Amber smiled making it clear that the earth pony also cared for the little changeling.

“Is the changeling a threat?” Celestia couldn’t help but ask in regret.

Remedy shook her head “No… in fact if it wasn’t for the fact one of the moving attempts broke open her pod she would have continued maturing at an accelerated rate.”

Celestia braced herself for the bad news “There’s other pods?”

Remedy took a deep breath “No… but one of the earth ponies did claim that the tree might start to ‘bud’ during the spring. Nopony knew what to do since Azalea is just a carefree foal, but… changelings have a reproductive system so technically they don’t need… the tree and medically speaking… the changeling foal is healthy.”

Celestia hung her head as she understood the real issue “You want to know how to proceed with the tree.”

Remedy nodded “In the Everfree Castle the changeling queen dubbed ‘Gaichu’ had made the tree create the ‘demon bugs’ that are trying to fillynap ponies in Equestria. The Hayseed Swamp Tree is a modified version that breeds monsters. The new modified Tree under the care of earth pony specialists and Amber… well you can see the results in that room.”

Remedy motioned towards the next room which revealed what looked like a large willow tree, but not one that came out of a swamp filled with monsters. No this tree looked like an old ancient tree that withstood storms and created a nice spot of shelter for foals to rest underneath as some of the vines hanging down from the branches almost resembled a swing.

This was an experiment to study the tree and see how it reacted to Equestrian magic. Now they had one tree that was currently being prepared to be incinerated as they studied the monsters it spawned… and another one that gave birth to a changeling foal that mistook one of the tree’s caretakers as her mother.

Celestia remembered her nightmare “How many of these… trees would you say there were?”

Remedy scrunched her face for a moment “The changeling called… Cuddle Bug claimed Gaichui only had access to three seeds.”

Celestia nodded “And…”

Remedy shook her head “Their rare… but there has been reports of certain changelings being chased by demon bugs. It would be safe to say that she is trying to acquire more seeds to experiment on so the actual number of seeds is unknown.”

Celestia nodded as she made a mental note to send a scout party to see how the yaks were currently doing.

******

It was late at night as Celestia woke up. A few papers thatwere stuck on her face fell back onto her desk. She yawned as she couldn’t figure out what exactly woke her up… but thankfully she didn’t have any nightmares or warnings of the future.

Then again she did feel a little bit proud of herself as she had finally found one of the books that held a method to cure Cockatrice petrifaction… sadly this method also required a live Cockatrice meaning she would have to either send some guards or procure a Cockatrice from the Everfree Forest herself.

It wasn’t much of a solution, but it did not require the use of the original cockatrice that turned Valkyrie to stone. Still a small smile came to Celestia’s face as she at least had some form of good news to inform Lockheart about current condition of his friend. In fact she could take this opportunity to lead a group into the Everfree Forest and simply unwind a little.

Celestia knew enough spells to stop the creatures in the Everfree Forest without harming them… It would be seen as a sign of good faith that Celestia had personally went out of her way to secure the cure for Valkyrie when she could have simply hired or ordered somepony else to do it… and it might be fun to release some of her pent up stress fighting one of the Everfree Forest creatures.

Celestia glanced at her stomach and poked her belly with a hoof for a moment… it was true that she wasn’t as… fit as she was back in Equestria’s founding. Then again it wasn’t her fault that kind words, combined with skilled politics were better at stopping wars and creating peace. Even then with all the paper works, treaties, reports… It was hard to stay in top fighting shape when you were almost chained to a desk.

Maybe she could find some way to set aside some time to do some exercises… or find a pony willing to spar with her. She could always try cutting down on her sweets…

The sound of hoof steps outside broke Celestia’s sleep deprived train of thought as she opened up her balcony doors and noticed Lockheart lying on his back on the ground outside. He wasn’t wearing hid disguise anymore as his black coat blended with the dark night as his green mane almost shinned like morning dew.

When he got up his horn glowed for a second as said “Come on work…” A small flash of light covered his body as he chuckled “Memories… just one stupid spell to remember…"

His horn started to flare as he dug his feet into the ground “One spell to… Just play everything back and find the part that doesn’t fit!”

Celestia stepped flew down from her perch and landed on the ground without making a sound. She could see him struggling with his magic as he stopped the spell for a moment before glancing at the scroll again. Lockheart was attempting to modify a spell built to work on two ponies. The caster would cast the spell allowing the second pony to remember moments they had shared together.

“Just one memory. Just one moment…” He replied to himself in frustration.

Celestia did her best to stand tall and smile as she said “Need a helping hoof?”

Lockheart turned around as he stared at her in surprise and horror as his horn flared.

******

Celestia’s vision returned as she saw the Elements of Harmony standing before her.

“One, two, three, four, five” Lockheart’s voice counted out loud “Where is the sixth… oh right. Magic BS machina.” The room tilted a little “Or possibly just on the other side of this thing.”

It took a few seconds before Celestia realized what was going on as she was experience one of Lockheart’s memories!

“When you say it like that it doesn’t seem that bad.” He chuckled to himself from some random thought he had “To bad she’s off somewhere else.”

His horn glowed as he brought the Element of Harmony over to him. Celestia could sense his unease as he was actually frightened of them. Magic washed over his forelegs giving him dragon like claws.

She could feel his unease as he said “I’m just going to borrow you. Evil Villain. Friends in danger. Celestia should be alerted by your theft letting her save everyone else… I mean everypony.”

Celestia could feel the hesitation he felt as if he expected the Element of Harmony to sudden attack him. His mouth was dry as he carefully brought the Element of Harmony to his claws and touched it. Then to both her and Lockheart’s surprise pain shot through his entire body as he screamed in agony. She could feel the doubt and confusion rushing to his mind as terror filled his entire being.

Then to both their unspoken horror Discord’s voice rang in his ears “Just take an Element of Harmony.”

Green flames danced around the Element of Harmony as Lockheart stared at it in fear. A large rectangle appeared before him as Discord was dancing in joy.

“It was never about giving him an Element of Harmony or even keeping one… just taking one.” Lockheart cried out in a mixture of sorrow and pain.

Celestia could feel a burning pain across his chest as the Element of Harmony drew closer before his body screamed in agony.

Celestia closed her eyes as she tried to block it out. While she could make it so she couldn’t feel his pain anymore… she couldn’t block out the feeling of him trying to scream as his voice no longer worked.

“The Element of Honesty for one who always lies. Nice Pick!” Discord’s voice replied in mocking laughter.

Celestia opened her eyes as Lockheart muttered in pain “You suck.”

Discord was still in the small floating box as he grinned “You shouldn’t care about a few tiny scrapes considering you have your whole life ahead of you now! Oh and one last thing…”

With a snap of his fingers Lockheart was forced to watch the entire stand holding the other Elements of Harmony disappear as she could feel the sense of dread that washed over Lockheart.

“Now you don’t have to worry your head wondering if it’s an Element of Magic, Honesty, or any of the others from the collector’s set.” Discord’s voice sang cheerfully as he taunted Lockheart “Oh and the guards properly noticed that. If you want you can tell Celestia that you have one of the Elements locked away inside your heart… and just hope that she doesn’t try ripping it out.”

“Cover your heart Indy!” a voice shouted

Discord laughed out loud wiping a tear from his eyes “Come to think of it… Lockheart really does suit you now. Is it referring to the locked away piece of magic trapped in your heart? Maybe it’s some two bit tale of destiny about somepony opening up the heart you locked away from the world? Which let’s face it… it’s going to hurt. Have Fun!”

******

Celestia now stood in front of Lockheart as the memory had ended. He was staring at her in wide eyed terror now. The scar on his chest was now clear to see as the memories she had seen were fresh in her mind… yet the last thing she remembered was banishing Luna…
He saw her banish Luna and she saw his memory involving the Elements of Harmony.

“Lockheart!” Celestia shouted in panic.

Green flames flared in between them as a stone wall separated the two of them. Celestia quickly opened her wings and took flight as she had to explain yet… he knew Discord and he had even talked to him. The Scar on his chest… he stole an Element of Harmony...

Celestia shook her head reminding herself that Lockheart had been tricked by Discord. Memories of the betrayal still burned in her mind along with the painful memories of Celestia seeing Luna turn against her and transform into the monster called Nightmare Moon. The pain of banishing her sister was made fresh again as it felt like it had just happened yesterday.

Celestia spotted Lockheart flying through the sky as green flames danced across his body making him look like a comet in the night sky. Each beat of his wings slowly made him go faster as she could practically feel the amount of magic he was burning through trying to escape her. Still Celestia was a much better flier than he was as she started to catch up.

“Lockheart stop!” Celestia shouted in frustration.

Lockheart turned his head for a moment as he saw her. Instead of stopping he suddenly dove towards the ground. Celestia mentally cursed herself as he mistook it as rage, hatred… he thought he was going to suffer the same fate as Luna... or worse.

Lights flared on as the ponies beneath them tried to figure out what was going on. Celestia felt panic as the ground came closer as Lockheart had yet to pull up. Celestia opened her wings as she slowed her descent only to watch Lockheart try to pull up only to be too late. She couldn’t help but wince in pain as she saw his body slam into the ground. She heard the sound of his body skipping across the ground as he left a trail of blood, fur, and feathers.

Celestia landed on the ground preparing to treat his injuries and explain her actions only for green flames to cover his body. Patches of fur and feather fell from his body as his beaten form turned to stare at her. The flames slowly flickered about his body as she couldn't tell if it was an attempt to protect him from the fall... or to fix his broken body.

Celestia couldn’t help but take a step back as Lockheart no longer looked like the pony she knew. A mixture of black chitin and fur covered his body while his cuite mark stood out against the darkness as if somepony had etched it onto his body. More than that was his eyes… they had the same unearthly gaze Nightmare Moon had.

Lockheart wasn’t seeing Celestia standing before him. Instead of the blind hatred and furry that replaced her sister’s eyes now stood terror. He saw her as the terrifying monster that stood before him. His wings stretched out for a moment almost giving him a therstal like appearance as his horn flared to life.

A green light washed over the streets as Celestia held her ground and struggled against the spell he had cast. She recognized it as one of the spells from the Crystal Empire… except instead of being fueled by the love of two ponies and helping bringing them together it was using the terror of the ponies around them.

Ponies rushed out into the streets shouting in panic “Protect the Princess! She’s injured!”

Lockheart took off to the skies as Celestia tried to chase after him only for the ponies of Canterlot to stop her. The unicorns held her with their magic as the earth ponies grabbed hold of her. Pegasi flew in defensive formation as they blocked Lockheart from her view as they tried to defend their princess against the monster before them. The nightmare that she had was playing out before her eyes…

Her own ponies were preventing her from going after Lockheart… tears fell across her face as she remembered her nightmare.

One truth to shatter their faith.

I killed your puppet.

Author's Note

Let me know if I missed anything.