Mentally Advanced Twilight's Mundane Life

Chapters

Unexpected Crap
The Usual Crap
Better Crap than Usual
Maybe not Crap anymore
Leaving Crap in the Past
What the Crap!

Unexpected Crap

Author's Note

Ok;

1) This based off of MAS, if you're not familiar with it or its characters, please go watch it before reading, or just don't read *shrug*

2) Initial events are centered around a less tragic version of the events of "Rainbow Dash Presents: Bittersweet"

3) A lot of times my stories on here are heavily dialogue-driven, mainly in fanfics it seems to be because I know readers are already familiar with the visual scenery, so I don't really fluff the story. I assure you my actual (original stories/works) writing is more balanced.

Unexpected Crap

Everypony but Pinkie Pie stood around the Ponyville hospital lobby as Applejack finally walked in.

“Alright now, what’s all this fuss ah heard from Applebloom about Rainbow Dash telling everypony they need to get to the hospital as fast they can?” She asked, walking up to the closest two of her supposed-friends: the typically self-absorbed Rarity, examining one of her own hooves, and a clearly aggravated Twilight pacing around out of boredom.

Twilight stopped herself when to respond to Applejack. “It’s Rainbow Dash being stupid. That’s literally all it is, is her being stupid, and Pinkie being even more stupid. Not that that’s out-of-character for either of them in any way but still.”

“Ah’m aware of our friends’ character flaws, sugarcube,” Applejack responded, “but ah’m asking how exactly they brought us all here?”

Twilight sighed into the requested explanation. “Alright so basically, the Pink schizto evidently has Diabetes. She would be fine if she just took the insulin shots she was prescribed, like every other pony with Diabetes, but instead she decided that she was going to die as some kind of martyr against the establishment. So according to Dash she ate something like three tubs of ice cream, and then the symptoms started coming on, and then I guess she didn’t wanna actually suffer the slow death of ketoacidosis so she told Dash to roll her off a bridge.”

“And she did?” Applejack asked, almost sounding as if she really needed the confirmation.

“This is the same pony who thought it was a brilliant idea to sell tickets to the Gala to get enough money buy dresses to wear to the Gala,” Twilight reminded her, “do you really even need to ask a question that stupid?”

Applejack gave her a half-hearted glare as she answered again. “Yeah, well sometimes Ah like to at least pretend that there might be some kinda hope or prospect for rational thought or somethin, but ah guess that kinda thinkin’s always gonna be naïve on my part.”

“It’s not that that kind of thinking’s comepletely naïve,” Twilight corrected the Earth Pony, “it’s that you’re talking about DASH and PINKIE! One’s the definition of circular idiocy, and the other’s some kind of prodigal incarnation of unhinged insanity!”

“Fools!” A new, and to the both of them, disturbingly familiar voice cried out from somewhere nearby. They both turned themselves about in time to see Pinkie being wheeled through on a hospital stretcher. “How dare you think to mock Pinkie in her absence! Yes, she’s sees how—“ Pinkie’s speech ceased abruptly, replaced by her vocalizing the wave of pain coming over her entire body. “Raaggh, ngh, the Pinkie is . . . in agony! Yes. Agents of the corrupted system of medicinal oppression, give Pinkie Morphine!” She shouted at the medical personnel around her.

“No!” Twilight snapped. “The only thing anypony should be giving you is a dose of Cyanide!”

More than a few of the hospital personnel’s heads were drawn to Twilight after her statement, with the most alert looks coming from the lone security stallion and the stallion behind the drug counter.

“Ugh, seriously Twilight?” Rarity finally began making a contribution the conversation. “I have no idea whatever you said is, but why in your right mind would you want them to waste it on her? We all know she’s just going to end up killing herself somehow eventually; I mean this little Diabetes episode was close enough.”

A cackle of short laughs came out of the incapacitated pink pony nearby, regaining her friends’ direct attention. “Your attempt was WEAK! Yes. The Pinkie has defeated your Diabetes!”

“No,” Twilight still corrected her, even knowing how pointless it was likely to be, “you barely survived this one episode of Ketoacidosis! Diabetes is permanent condition you retarded mudhorse. Even if you actually decided to do something smart for the first time in your life and take treatments for your own condition, you’d just be suppressing something’s still there. I mean you’d be able to still eat whatever you want w— well I’d say within reason but I know you’re about as far from reason as a pony can get without being mentally impaired.”

“Fool!” Pinkie’s hoof erupted from its former position of cradling her stomach, lurching out to point at Twilight. “The Pinkie knows of your collaboration with the yellow one in this futile attempt at her undoing! Yes!”

One of the nurses forced the pink pony’s hoof back down, which only drew her accusatory criticism from the diabetic Pinkie.

Twilight didn’t bother to pay attention to the dialogue, since it had nothing to do with her. She almost wanted to leave, but there was something . . . some aggravating, deep-seated obligation inside her that seemed to keep her there. Maybe it was some obligatory feeling that her presence there somewhat reduced the level of stupid that would otherwise flood the place. Or maybe it was just a coincidental convergence of neural stimuli on her pre-frontal cortex from multiple excitatory Thalmic and Hypothalmic axon pathways . . . or both, since one literally was the other.

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy spoke out for the first time in her pathetic, nasally voice, “I didn’t really know what was going on until I got here, but, I know it’s probably my fault.”

“What are you doing here?” Twilight spun around to face the pathetic yellow Pegasus behind her.

“. . . I don’t know,” Fluttershy answered, “Rainbow Dash came to my house screaming about how I needed to come with her to the hospital, so I followed her here. But, I guess there’s not really a reason for me to be here bec—“

“You know, whatever, it’s a public space so I guess I don’t care.” Twilight dismissed her before she’d even finished speaking. “Just stop butting into things that don’t involve you.”

“Ok.” Fluttershy accepted her predestined defeat and just returned to staring down at her own hooves.

Finally Twilight actually turned to Rainbow Dash, who was all but hyperventilating nearby. “So, ahh, how are you holding up, I guess?” Twilight asked, trying to sound at least mildly concerned.

“This is all my fault! I rolled Pinkie off that bridge when she told me to! I didn’t even stop her from eating all that ice cream before she made me take her out there!” Rainbow spat out through something caught halfway between crying and panicking. “And now she’s gonna die and it’s all because I’m the worst pony! I’m the dumbest horse!”

“Ugh! Seriously? Dash have not gotten the memo by now after you’ve been sitting right here? She’s not gonna die, she’s in a fricking hospital and they’ve literally already stabilized her!” Twilight only ended up snapping at the blue Pegasus.

“Twilight,” Rarity drew Twilight’s attention again, “I’ve had this conversation about the size of Dash’s brain before.”

“Yeah, I know—“

“Excuse me.” A stallion’s voice suddenly cut off Twilight’s response, and they both looked to see a grey Pegasus stallion standing behind her. Twilight turned about with a raised eyebrow, wondering what he wanted, at least for a second until she realized their whole little group was clogging up a decent chunk of the small hospital’s lobby and probably blocking a few convenient paths.

“Ah, sorry.” She said to him, blandly.

“S’fine.” The stallion replied, walking past her and Rarity up to the Pharmacy counter after they’d moved out of the way.

“So wait, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash spoke up again before Rarity and Twilight could resume their own conversation.

“What?” The purple mare’s response was simple.

“So, if she really is gonna be alright then does that mean I’m not gonna get in any kinda trouble?” Dash asked.

Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes slowly as she began answering. “That’s completely up to Pinkie since you did push her off a bridge. But sewing you is a legal process that involves a lot interaction with the court system, and I’m pretty even you know Pinkie’s attitude towards the government.”

“Foolish Pegasus!” Pinkie’s new outburst drew the attention of the entire lobby again, friends and strangers alike. “You think you have fooled us, yes, but Pinkie knows! Yes! She knows you conspire with the yellow one! You are the agent who exalts her will!” The newly-diabetic pony had nearly lurched up from her stretcher to point her hoof about with her accusations, which only left the nurses and EMT ponies wheeling her stretcher to struggle trying to force her back down.

“We need a sedative here!” One of the nurses finally ended up calling out to the Pharmacy department across the lobby.

An aggravated sigh came from the pony behind the drug counter, and he told the grey Pegasus who’d just passed them to wait for a minute while he went to go prep a sedative injection for Pinkie. The Pegasus stallion turned around in the meantime to actually take in the scene with slightly raised eyebrows. Even though the attention from him and everypony else in the lobby wasn’t being directly aimed at her, Twilight was still beginning to feel more than uncomfortable with it.

“Pinkie!” She demanded her supposed friend’s attention. “Everyone in this place is looking at us, for once in your stupid life will either just shut up or drop dead?”

A groan came from the semi-restrained pink pony as an episode of pain visibly set in. “How dare you mock Pinkie in her hour of agony?” Was the response Twilight got.

“I mock you every minute of your existence that we’re forced to interact together,” Twilight answered, “why would you care about me doing it now?”

Pinkie somehow managed to chuckle through her agony. “Pinkie knows you only insult her to bring about sexual tension.” She told Twilight in her semi-sinister voice, painfully laughing it over again.

“YOU . . .” Twilight couldn’t even articulate any kind of response. Truth be told, there wasn’t even any that anypony honestly could have made, not to the functional psychopath lying on that stretcher. She only managed to at least mutter out some of her thoughts as she watched the pharmacy pony pass her by. “Accidental overdose, please . . .” She let out under her breath, watching the pony walk up to the stretcher and inject the sedative into Pinkie Pie’s I.V. line.

“Your vile substances shall be of no avail!” Pinkie shouted as her sedating injection was given. “Pinkie will not succumb to your pathetic attempts to subdue her, yes! And she has marked you ALL for retribution! Yes! You shall all pay for your transgressions, even those who think themselves innocent!” Her explosive threat-ranting ended with her pointing her hoof out at the Pegasus stallion who’d been left waiting at the prescription counter.

Twilight’s hoof smashed into her own face at Pinkie’s threatening of random ponies, ponies that didn’t know she was just full of crap. “Alright that—that’s just enough! Please! Stop! Make your little schitzo threats at me, I don’t care; I know you’re full of crap! Random ponies don’t!” She pointed at the grey Pegasus now, trying drill in her angry, pleading point to pink earth pony, even knowing it was pointless. “They’ve actually been granted the fortune I dream about, and have never had to interact with you, so when they’re seeing how loose you really are in the head and you start making threats, they are GOING to take them SERIOUSLY!”

“Yes . . .” Pinkie’s response started with an intensity that died very quickly the sedative clearly began shutting her down, “fa . . . f-fear the Pinkie . . . yes . . .” And down she went finally, her head someone how making a clunking sound when it hit the pillow beneath it.

Twilight kept watching the scene surrounding that pink thing’s stretcher, waiting for somepony to yell out that she was flat-lining, but her hopes came to no fruition. The science that was always saving and providing the foundation for her sanity was only backfiring on her this time; three milliliters of a benzodiazepine was only going to do what three milliliters was capable of.

“Heartrate’s finally decreasing,” one of the nurses on the side of Pinkie’s stretchers said to the other staff around her, “she’s back under 100 bpm, blood pressure’s down to 125 over 87.” As she was speaking, the one doctor accompanying the stretcher opened each of Pinkie’s eyes and shined a small pocket flashlight over them for a second each. “No reaction,” he said, “she’s out. Wheel her over to I.C.U, and GET the restraints on.” The nurses and EMTs left with their orders and the temporarily unconscious Pinkie Pie.

Twilight was finally able to expel a groaning sigh, fueled by exactly what it sounded like: a perfect, boiling mixture of both relief and lingering frustration.

WHY was everypony around her so STUPID!?

“Well,” Applejack said, “if this little . . . whatever’s all said n done with, Ah’m headin back to the farm.”

“Indeed,” Rarity followed suit, “no that I know that the group psychopath is going to be confined here for what might hopefully be at least a few days, I’m going to go take advantage of time while can before she’s out gets back to her usual ways.”

A few seconds passed by in hospital-silence. Bubble—spritefly or whoever that yellow Pegasus was said something to Dash but then Dash just ended up taking over her. Twilight didn’t honestly care, she’d had her fill of stupid . . . for the month . . . even though she knew living in Ponyville meant practically swimming in it.

“Well, that was interesting.” A stallion’s voice suddenly said from close by.

Twilight turned herself about to see the grey Pegasus from earlier standing pretty much where Rarity had been, a few steps to Twilight’s left. “Huh? Oh, yeah . . .” she started saying, “no, it’s . . . not really. She’s insane. I mean, like, she’s clinically insane.”

“No, really?” The stallion didn’t even add any sarcasm, he actually just spoke completely flat, which in way easily came off much stronger than simple sarcasm would’ve.

“Do you not live here?” Twilight asked, coming off as incredulous as she felt at somepony actually not knowing about the pink cashier that worked at Sugercube Corner. “Have you not like, ever seen her or had to deal with her before?”

“No I live here,” the stallion told her, “I’m just kind of always inside writing, or passed out. I only really go out to either get food or come here for this.” He paused for a second in his speaking to show prescription bottle he held between the feathers of one wing. “So ha-I don’t exactly go around meeting everypony in town. Plus I’m a Pegasus so I can kind of do that thing where, you know, I beat my wings and they push air down and the displacement creates lift so I can fly . . . n’at least feel separate from everything for while.”

“Wait,” Twilight sounded surprised, as she was, “you . . . actually comprehend the physical reason why you can fly? Like you actually get the—at least the basic mechanics of it?”

“Yeah, it’s not hard—oh,” he suddenly shifted his tone, and his next words came out extremely snide, “sorry, I forgot, I’m not a unicorn so I’m not supposed to be smart.”

Twilight hadn’t exactly expected that kind of response. “What?” She said. “No, that’s—that’s not what I’m getting at, or what I meant. Agh, look,” she cringed for instant and shook her head, “I’m surrounded by idiocy. I’m not used, for the most part, to ponies who actually have some kind of legitimate train of cognitive thought.” She suddenly stopped to quickly look around, seeing if Rainbow Dash was still there. Seeing that she was, Twilight went on with the idea that had come to her. “Here, look.” She said to the stallion and then turned in Rainbow’s direction. “Hey! Dash, come here!” She ordered the cyan mare, who stood up and came over right away.

“Hey Twilight! What’s up?” Dash asked a naïve enthusiasm that had apparently already overridden the guilt she’d been wrought with only minutes ago.

“Hey, how do you fly?” Twilight asked. “I mean like what lets you fly, and all pegasi for that matter?”

“Oh,” Dash started answering, and every set of words grew more dimwitted than the last, “well, I always guessed it was cause of some kind’a magic. Like-like yours, except different, you know, for pegasi! It’s like we have feathers instead of horns or something, and-and we have a lot of em! So we have a lot of wing magic, or something like that. And I always figured the reason I fly so fast is because of my mane. I mean, light’s like supposed to be the fastest thing, right? And my mane’s rainbow, and I’m not sure but I think I heard somewhere that rainbows are the fastest kind’a light!”

“Ok, ok Dash that’s good, go . . . go back over and hang out with Bumblefly or whoever the yellow girl was you were talking to.” Twilight dismissed her.

“Oh, her name’s Fluttershy.” Dash tried to say.

“Ok, whatever, now go back over there and make her feel like she has friends or something.” Twilight repeated the dismissal.

“Ok!” Dash obeyed, ever-brimming with the same naïve enthusiasm as always.

“There. See?” Twilight said to the grey stallion after turning back to him.

The stallion was left simply looking hollow, with an unblinking, dead expression. All his motivation for living life might as well have just been drained away by the degree of stupidity he just witnessed.

Twilight recognized the reaction easily, or lack thereof. It was a kind she wished she could see in ponies more often, since it was usually a giveaway of at least some level of intelligence greater than a rock.

“You know, I’m really not good at expressing emotions.” The stallion finally spoke. “So, it’s probably not really obvious right now, but I actually feel a lot of empathy . . . for you . . . that . . .” He couldn’t even finish the sentence, still staring out blankly into space.

“Yeah, I know.” Twilight said, glancing back at Dash for second. “It’s . . . yeah, thanks, I guess. And congratulations on your . . . you know, solitude or whatever. I’m not lucky enough to actually get that kind of choice.”

That statement drew the stallion’s attention, and eye contact, expression somewhat breaking its staleness to show a degree of curiosity.

Twilight rolled her eyes as she began her brief explanation of her immediate life circumstance. “I have royal decree issued about me, ME specifically, dictating that I’m not permitted by the government to live as a shut-in. Celestia’s literally ordered me to be friends with everypony, and I really, just can’t put enough personal stress on the word FRIENDS.”

“Um . . .” The stallion might have said something, or rather asked, but only stopped when Twilight produced a copy of the actual decree from Celestia of which she spoke, at which the pegasus’s eyes slowly inflated.

“Yeah,” Twilight said, drawing the decree back and putting it away, “I don’t even know. She thinks it’s funny or something . . . just like all the other stuff she did—never mind, you don’t wanna here about that. So yeah, I’ve literally been ordered by the government to come live in this stupid little hamlet and make a bunch of friends.” She stopped, at least for a moment, until she realized something she felt compelled to add. “And don’t even try to tell me it’s village! It’s a hamlet!”

“Ahaha-ha—ha, no, please I’m not about to try defend this place or anything.” The stallion actually agreed, much to Twilight’s surprise. “Seriously I—I have to come here to get my prescriptions,” he pointed a hoof at the hospital’s pharmacy counter, “they don’t even have just a regular pharmacy in town.”

Twilight jumped on with her own remarks to add. “Ha, yeah and if there was the pharmacists would probably live there since everypony in Ponyville literally runs their business out of their house.”

“Ahh, if you consider writing a business though, then I’m kind of just as guilty of that.” The stallion admitted with some audible reluctance.

“So?” Twilight’s response was instant. “So am I. I live in the town library. Being guilty of what you’re making a point about doesn’t disprove your point when your point is that everypony is guilty of it. Seriously that only serves as evidence in favor of your argument. Hypocrisy only holds any legitimacy when you’re trying to convince somepony not to do something because it’s either morally wrong or stupid.”

The small bit of guilt that had initially appeared on the stallion’s face began vanishing quickly. “Yeah, but I’m . . . just not used to most ponies not seeing it that way.” He told her.

“Yeah, well most ponies are reactionary idiots.” Twilight responded.

It at actually somehow made him feel more at ease, almost sounding as if she was speaking in his defense. He thought he might have commented on what she’d said previously, but then a question suddenly popped into his mind. “Wait, we have a library here?” He asked.

She raised a single eyebrow back at him, although it dropped after her first words. “You didn’t—you didn’t know that? Oh, wait, yeah-haha, forgot: how could you possibly have heard about it from anypony in a town full literary degenerates who probably haven’t read since they dropped out of school in the 2nd grade.” She said, looking away with a mild, snarky grin.

The stallion’s head tilted a little bit when he answered back this time. “Uh, they did finish school you know. Most of them.”

“Barely.” Twilight remarked. “Ponyville’s schooling system was amended to consider a D to be a passing grade. Or else according to the school board’s statistics the graduation rate for our little hamlet would have been 40% instead the 70% it’s already down at.”

“W-you’re sure it’s that low?” The stallion asked. It didn’t necessarily sound like doubt, more just like a lack of desire to believe.

“What? Yeah,” Twilight confirmed her own point, “it’s—this is actual statistics from the regional school board; I’m not just pulling it outta my ass. Besides, I can’t stand it when ponies do that anyways. I’m . . . one of those . . . annoying, data-driven types. I’m always gonna be citing real statistics.” She ended up explaining herself, her head slowly falling towards the end.

The stallion’s face remained emotionally flat in expression, true to what he’d said earlier. However, the downward tone of Twilight’s partial self-description internally left him feeling a pang of sympathy. He felt the compulsion to try and say something, though he halted himself at first, as the first thing that came to mind was way-to generic and formatted of a response to come off in any way sincere, let alone from him. No, he had to think . . . there!

“Yeah, no real statistics are nice.” The stallion finally said, causing Twilight’s head to lift back up with an expression of mild surprise as he went on. “My fantasies about my book sales are nice, but i—t’s k-hahind of the actual numbers from reality that determine what I get paid.”

Twilight’s very demeanor brightened by the smallest fraction at the positive response she received. Finally, a response to anything math-related that wasn’t a display of stupidity on the part of the other pony, or simply resorting to calling mathematics itself “pointless”.

“Huh, oh yeah, you said you write stuff or something,” Twilight remembered, “I’m assuming fiction?”

A quick nod and a “yeah” from her conversation partner confirmed Twilight’s suspicion.

“Huh,” she pondered out loud, “that’s kind of unusual for pegasi isn’t it?”

A second passed before a hushed, and somewhat dragged-out “yyeeaah,” came from the stallion.

“Ha, how did that cutie mark go over when everybody saw it?” Twilight asked.

“Oh I didn’t get a writing cutie mark.” He answered, to her surprise.

“Huh? Wait, then what was it—or is it?” She asked, instinctively peering around his head to see if she could at least make out a blurred image of it on her own.

“Uh, meteor shower.” He answered, which she also saw, at least to some extent, glimpsing a something of night-ish backdrop with a few pale-yellow streaks crossing it.

“Abstract concept?” She posed the simple end-all-to-be-all, with an expecting expression to match the tone she asked in.

“Yup.” His answer was just as simple. He’d been asked the question more than once.

“Yeah, I got one of those too.” She remarked, turning herself sideways and showing the magic burst and surrounding stars that marked her own flank. “Though, at least mine’s only really half-abstract. I only found out half of the meaning a couple years ago when Celestia made me move here though. Turns out the stars around the magic thing are supposed to represent my best friends,” Twilight strained her voice, quite intentionally, “cause their always gonna be around me . . . it was such a joyous revelation!”

For one normally unexpressive, the stallion still couldn’t avoid at least slightly recoiling at the sheer amount of stress Twilight was clearly venting just by contorting her voice over a single sentence.

Twilight did notice the recoil, and realized quickly just how much she’d vented out through the strain of her voice alone. The sensation of awkwardness and embarrassment followed accordingly. “Uh . . . uh, sorry about all that.” She said, straightening herself back out, then glancing back at her cutie mark before feeling another trickling of embarrassment coming on. “Oh, ha-and uh, sorry for . . . kind of flashing you butt, or the side of my butt or whatever.”

“Um . . .” THAT froze the poor Pegasus, and left the fur on his face growing murky as reddening skin underneath blended with the grey fur above. Neither of them had exactly been aware until just then of what Twilight showing her flank to display her cutie mark could have easily been construed as. Thankfully for him at least, Twilight kept speaking, allowing him to avoid having to formulate anything, as a quick rush of panic had shut his thinking mind down for the moment.

Twilight looked equally embarrassed, but as was somewhat the opposite of him under the influence of panic, not only still able to talk but almost running on a compulsion to keep going. “I—ah, uh-haha, uh, I’m not . . . really usually thinking about that kinda stuff. I’m not-ha, uh, exactly used to . . . having guys check me out or anything like that. I mean—not . . . that, that’s what I’m implying you were doing . . . even if you actually did, I mean I kind of put my flank in front you so, uh-haha ha, it’s kind of on me, I guess.” She held a cracked smile for a moment, while few more nervous laughs managed to escape. “So-haha, since, you know, I’ve never had any kind of interaction even remotely in that area with any guys, I’m not . . . all that familiar with what exactly constitutes like, being provocative, or anything.” She kept stammering about with words and a hopeful mixed of explanations and justifications, until she finally realized aloud the probable irony of the entire situation. “Ha ha-ha, I . . . I probably only made this awkward by bringing it up to begin with.”

The awkwardness at that point was practically making the air itself rigid. The stallion still felt frozen, although the ability to completely think was beginning to settle back in as the internal panic quelled down by a tiny bit. He really needed to say something, at least, anything. It felt intrinsically wrong leaving the purple unicorn in front of him to just stammer about. So he tried. “Uh-I wasn’t looking . . . like that . . .”

“Oh, yeah no I’m not—I’m not saying you were . . . no stallion ever does . . .” Twilight assured him, and then remarked bitterly to herself, the latter causing the stallion to cringe inside out of an induced blasting of sympathy. “But yeah, I’m—I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I’m not Rarity, I don’t go around expecting my butt to be the center of attention for the entire town.”

A slight degree of confusion did manage to escape into expression on the stallion’s face.

It was enough for Twilight to see, and a quick incentive for her to more than gladly change the subject off of her previous stammering. “Oh, Rarity, white unicorn, purple mane, the one I was talking to when you needed to by us.” Twilight both described and explained. “She’s . . . like, basically the town Ho. Everybody’s done her.”

“I haven’t.” For the first time in the lengthy conversation a bit of negative emotion made it into the stallion’s voice. It came off as more than obvious that he was likely repulsed by the idea or accusation, whichever it happened to be.

“Neither have I!” Twilight exclaimed, though still keeping her voice close to a normal volume. “By all means, welcome to an incredibly exclusive club. Apart from you apparently, the only ponies she hasn’t slept with are me and my little circle of friends. And the Cakes, I think,” she added, “well I know Mr Cake’s the faithful husband type and I’m pretty sure Mrs Cake is only into young guys.”

That struck out an uncomfortable memory, which for the sake of conversing the stallion chose to bring up. “Yyeeaaah, she’s . . . why I don’t ever actually go back there: Sugarcube Corner.”

“What? She hit on you?” Twilight asked, almost already amused at what she was expecting to hear.

“She literally told me—I’d ordered one of those, like, spiral donuts, that place calls them twizlers—she literally said, like exact words: “”Well no one else is here. I think we should go glaze your twizler out in the back.”’

“Ah-huh,” Twilight confirmed, as amused as she’d expected to be, “yeah, I’d put her second behind Rarity, I guess, since she only does stallions so she’s probably only done half the town, if that.”

“You know I’ve . . . never been aware any of this was going on?” The stallion remarked.

“Yeah, because you’ve been living my fantasy life of near-complete disconnection.” Twilight said, envy apparent.

“Wait, I don’t want to just never see anypony,” the Stallion briefly explained himself more clearly, “I really do like friends . . . but that kind of implies actually getting along with the pony.”

“Yeah tell me about it.” Twilight easily connected to where he was coming from. “I really can’t stand anypony.” She said, though something crossed her mind at the last second. “Well . . . I mean you seem pretty alright, I guess.”

“. . . uh, thanks.” The stallion was somewhat unsure of how Twilight meant for that to come across, given the past moment.

Twilight was already aware of the potential confusion from what she’d said, mainly given the circumstance. But . . . she wasn’t even honestly sure what she meant by it. A formerly buried desire seized just a small bit of influence over her. It was just enough, by the tiniest bit, to overrule the rational self-condemning part of her that would dismissed what came into her mind. “So,” she found herself saying, “like I said, I live in a library. And, since you write books I’d assume you like quiet places. If you want, you could . . . come over sometime . . .”

There was a pretty solid silence afterward, during which Twilight was rapidly questioning herself as to what she was honestly doing. How much more she should have thought out what she was doing was the most prominent question in line . . . followed immediately by why was she even trying. Her own moderate racism weighed itself in her mind as well, until she reminded herself that in her case it was ultimately nothing more than generalized assumptions she made based on the behavior she witnessed around her, and that unlike Rarity she didn’t truly care. The reason why she was in the midst of exactly what she was doing proved too powerful, even if only overwhelming her self-depressing condemnation by the tiniest degree.

The stallion’s mouth opened too late. He was about to speak, or try to, but anxiety drove Twilight to clarify herself.

“I’m—I’m asking you out . . . basically.” She said, without actually sounding as anxious as she really felt, mostly because her anxiety was mixing with her self-induced pre-apathy . . . readying for the declining response she expected.

“O . . . K?” He hadn’t exactly expected that, ever.

“O—ok? Wha—what?” Twilight’s anxiety gained a foothold over her natural apathy.

The stallion didn’t really know anything else to do but explain. “Well, I . . . wasn’t . . . really expecting that to happen . . . ever.”

“Well it just did,” she responded almost instantly, and more than obviously on edge, “and I’m getting really angsty over it since obviously there’s only two possible outcomes, one of which I have NO IDEA how to respond to, so I kind of just wanna go ahead get this over with already so I just start dealing with whichever one it is!” She spoke incredibly fast, angst and anxiety clearly gaining control. “So . . . just answer the question!”

The stallion was equally as nervous as Twilight, though his clearly manifested in a freezing/stall-out form as opposed to Twilight’s rapid speech and racing thoughts. But, he still managed to speak. “Uh—yeah.”

A few seconds passed before Twilight was able to process and reconfirm the answer her ears had picked up. “Wait, what? Seriously?” She asked.

“W—yeah, that . . . that’s not how I would’ve expected that to happen. I was pretty sure it was never going to.” He said back. “Kind of cause I thought it was always supposed to be the other way around.”

“What? You mean about the guy supposed to be asking the girl?” Twilight somehow even then ended up breaking into somewhat of a ramble. “Yeah, that whole thing’s pointlessly ill-contrived and stupid. It’s all based around the premise of the guy using some kind pick-up line or catch phrase on the girl that’s basically a stupid joke and the punch line is that the girl goes out with him.”

“N—that’s not just it,” the stallion said, “there’s also stuff I just . . . like, don’t really understand. From what everypony always says, there’s like a code, or some unspoken thing that everypony just knows and anypony who doesn’t is just screwed. Like, all that stuff like: if a mare . . . I don’t know—swishes her tail to the right when she walks away that means she wants you, or when one you says this you’re supposed to say in some exactly specific kind of voice and then other pony’s supposed to respond in some really specific way or else it means something’s wrong. I have a hard time being expressive to begin with—“

“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about,” Twilight interrupted, “Rarity tries to educate me on that crap sometimes, when she’s not going on about her exploits. Just . . . just relax, I . . . it’s all a bunch of bullshit and I don’t care.”

If he were more outwardly expressive, the stallion’s face would have visibly brightened up at Twilight’s reassuring revelation.

“Oh,” Twilight only then suddenly realized she should probably fill him in on an extremely important piece of information . . . her name, “uh, I’m Twilight Sparkle by the way. Figured you, you know, should probably know my name.”

“Yeah, kind of.” He was able to say in the same flat, toneless voice he’d substituted for sarcasm earlier, which actually made Twilight grin just a little bit; it wasn’t as if she wanted a clone of herself, but she did like the idea of having someone around who could snark at her level. “Meteor Streak.” He followed up with his own name.

“Ah. Right,” Twilight said, “so yeah, like I said I live in the library. It’s the big . . . dead tree building-house. So . . . you should come hang out sometime. I kind of have to get going though.”

“Alright,” Meteor said, “uh, do you prefer a specific day or something, for company?” He asked.

Twilight had started to walk toward the hospital door, but she stopped to consider the question. “Actually yeah, probably Wednesday would be best. I mean if it’s good with you, I guess?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Meteor assured her.

“Alright then,” Twilight said, “well, I’ll see you Wednesday.” She resumed heading out, and was out through the doorway a moment later. She had every intention of mentally running over and sorting out everything that had just happened along her walk home, but she wasn’t even given a chance to start before an aggravatingly familiar came from beside her.

“Well well Twilight,” Rarity began, suddenly walking beside Twilight, evidently having been waiting just outside the hospital, “that has to be the longest I’ve ever seen you talk to a stallion.”

“Seriously Rarity? What are you still doing here?” Twilight asked. “Isn’t the line outside your bedroom gonna end up going all the way out your front door if you’re away too long?”

“Ha, ha, Twilight. For your information no stallion’s going to be coming into my bedroom until this evening, and YES, only one, before you make any other kind of crude comments about it.”

“Wow,” Twilight responded without ever even glancing at Rarity as they kept walking, “is that like a new record for you or something? You’ll have gone without it for almost half a day.”

“Well excuse me, Twilight, but I’ll have you know it’s been three whole days since the last time.” Rarity demanded her to be corrected.

“Days? I didn’t even think that was possible for you—“ Twilight began, but was interrupted.”

“Well good for you, you’ve learned something brand new today Twilight.” Rarity remarked, and then attempted to force the subject back on track. “Now what about that stallion in there? What exactly were the two of you taking about for so long?”

“What about you lurking around a corner on somepony?” Twilight responded with her own demanding questions. “I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be what Pinkie does. And anyway, what makes you think it’s any of your business?”

“Well we’re supposedly all friends, arent’ we?” Rarity answered. “And I just saw you having a long, and seemingly pleasant conversation with a stallion. And since I’ve always considered you about as likely as Fluttershy to ever attract a stallion. Though he is a Pegasus, so I suppose I’m still two thirds right.”

“No,” Twilight corrected, “you’re still wrong, completely and entirely.”

“So he is interested you then?” Rarity basically confirmed her own suspicion.

“Yes, and has no interest in you whatsoever because he knows that you’re nothing but a wall sock that almost every guy in town has put something into.” Twilight made an attempt to dismiss the white mare.

“You know, on most other occasions I would actually take offense to that,” Rarity said, “but I’m just too interested in this all right now. For one thing I never thought you would go for a Pegasus. I thought you had standards.”

“Yeah,” Twilight responded again, “well if I actually had any real standards of anything I wouldn’t be friends with you now would I?”

“Agh, will you just quit—“ Rarity’s response ceased in a sudden flash of magic.

Twilight had teleported away, since she was just within range of the library, leaving her marshmallow friend alone with a peeved look.

***

Meanwhile, Elsewhere in Ponyville . . . . .

“You know Thrackerzod, ah’ve been wonderin,” Apple Bloom was saying to ( Sweetie Bell ), “why do you want Twilight Sparkle dead so much? Ah know you’ve said before, but yuh always give a different answer every time, and then usually Scootaloo does something that ends up distracting the both of us anyways.”

“There are many reasons for which Twilight Sparkle must be destroyed,” the little unicorn filly answered in a deep, powerful voice, “all of which are absolutely normal, and completely mundane!”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a normal pony.” Apple Bloom said. “Yuh know Thrackerzod, Ah figure it’s probably about time I told yuh Ah know somethin’s really not normal about yuh.”

An alert expression took hold her friend’s face. “What, do you mean?” Thrackerzod asked.

“Well,” Apple Bloom began, “Ah remember Twilight complainin this one time a few months back about wantin us to watch out for some kinda creature of darkness that she thought might possess somepony. Ah ended up meeting you that same day and even though we weren’t friends before Ah still remember hearing yer old voice a few times, enough ta know that yuh don’t normally sound like some deep, resonating voice alternator. And then that time Miss Fluttershy babysat us you literally summoned some kinda Eldritch wizard-thing from another dimension. Ah know Ah’m apparently the only one who really notices, but personally at this point Ah think it’s pretty obvious yer that thing Twilight was looking for back then.”

Thrackerzod was left looking genuinely horrified, and just as fittingly had no initial response to everything Apple Bloom had just said.

Apple Bloom waited a few seconds, but like any other child her patience didn’t slowly decline but instead just ceased abruptly. “Ok, Ah’m assumin yuh wanna keep this whole act up, so howz about Ah agree to keep this whole thing a secret, and you tell me the truth about what’s goin on?”

Thrackerzod’s expression remained the same for another moment, at the end of which it glanced around, making absolute sure that no other ponies were anywhere nearby . . . and then it turned back to Apple Bloom . . . with narrowed eyes. “Very well,” Thrackerzod said, “do you SWEAR by Azozoth’s Hundred Screaming Heads?”

“Uhh . . . sure.” Apple Bloom just went with appeasement.

“I, am THRACKERZOD!” The explanation began. “Agent in service of the forces of Azozoth, The Great Chaos from Beyond the Void. I’ve been sent to this plane of existence to hunt down and destroy Twilight Sparkle.”

“Ok,” Apple Bloom prodded, “why?”

Thrackerzod’s eyes only narrowed further. “SHE is the present leader of the forces opposing us. Over the past year alone she has conquered countless regions of The Broken Worlds, pressing ever forth against us and aiming to seize absolute power of the Tri-Cosmos of the Infinite Causality.”

Just like Thrackerzod’s expression was locked only a minute ago, Apple Bloom’s became frozen in a blank state while she tried to decide whether or not to even try and process the handful of sentences she’d just heard. Ultimately, she had to decide against it; contemplation would only end in more questions than she had originally intended. “Alright, well,” she asked, “are you really sure it’s Twilight Sparkle? Ah mean, Ah don’t think she’s ever actually gone to another dimension except when she went to go see that Wolf therapist guy.”

“Of course I am sure!” Thrackerzod responded, “The being seen leading the enemy forces looks like Twilight Sparkle, therefore it must BE Twilight Sparkle.”

Apple Bloom lifted a single eyebrow at the answer she’d received. “Um, are yuh sure that’s necessarily the right kinda logic train you wanna be ridin on? Ah mean, like Ah said she never goes to any other dimensions, least far as Ah know. And if she was really out there leading some kinda military campaign in wherever it is yer from, how is it she’s here, in Ponyville all day every single day?”

“Perhaps she is casting some kind of an illusion?” Thrackerzod suggested. “Besides, the magic detected when she is active on the battle fields against our forces is of the same kind specific to the ponies of THIS universe.”

“Uh, yuh do realize there’s a whole lotta other ponies out there that’re more powerful than she is, right?” Apple Bloom began using the most deadly conversational weapon: simple logic. “Ah feel like appearance is all yer goin off of and yer not really putting all that much thought into this.”

“What, are you suggesting?” Thrackerzod asked.

“Ah don’t know, maybe somepony else is actually behind all that stuff you were talkin about and’s just usin their magic to make themselves look like Twilight when they’re over in yer dimension.”

"There is no way that can be the case!" Thrackerzod protested.

"Why not?" Apple Bloom asked, of course.

"Because THAT would make sense!"

The Usual Crap

Author's Note

Ok, first off, I'm horribly, horribly sorry for not uploading anything for a month. My laptop got stolen a few days after I uploaded the first chapter of this, so I was without it until I got a new one just a few days ago.
So, for the few of you who've been waiting, here's chapter 2, FINALLY.

(need to knows)
1 - This is based off of and uses the characters and setting from the Mentally Advanced series, if you don't know it go watch before reading . . . yada yada yada . . . ect.
2- Yes, there are intentional "misspellings" and "non-proper grammar" used to isolate and convey the accents and or speaking mannerisms of certain characters.

Other notes ~
I do plan on slowly shifting the story out of just comedy and getting to a point where really serious things are being portrayed alongside the laughs, or sometimes even in place of them. (oddly enough, kind of exactly how Greg progressed as he made the series that has allowed this story to exist). The story's not going to be on a week-by-week timeline, I'll be doing time skips/gaps of inconsistent size between each chapter, however the story will become cohesive with very clear continuity and slowly gain an over-arching storyline.

And don't forget, I do dedicate the larger portion of my writing time and effort to my own actual works of fiction, so any fanfic I produce, including this one, is not going be of any high-level writing quality, as I can't give them the same depth of effort as I give my own stuff.

That it mind, head on down and read away, and by all means tell me what you think. Enjoy :)

The Usual Crap

Twilight’s library was a small display of diversity that early Wednesday afternoon. A unicorn mare, a Pegasus stallion and a little purple dragon comprising its occupants; Twilight, Meteor, and Spike.

“Aye! Late breakfast.” Spike gave a half-efforted announcement as he brought forth two identical plates of pancakes.

Both ponies looked up to see him walking out from the library's narrow kitchen. Twilight was standing in front of some book shelves, reorganizing what she could find that was out of place. Meteor Streak sat at the library’s “reading” table, staring in thought at the manuscript he was working on. The table was supposedly meant for library patrons to sit and read at . . . but since the Ponyville library had no patrons, Twilight and Spike basically just used it as a dining table. Both broke from their near-silent activities when Spike came out however. Meteor gently slid his parchment sheets to the side with a wing and Twilight levitated the dozen or so books she had out down into neat piles before walking over to the table herself.

“So,” Spike broke the silence again as he set both plates down, “two ponies sittin in a library writin n readin? I’m no expert but I don’t think this what a date is supposed to look like.”

“Yeah?” Twilight responded, sitting down at the table. “And what exactly are you basing this off of? Cause I know it’s not personal experience.”

“Oo, burn.” Spike said back with a complete lack of enthusiasm before actually answering. “Lack of dragon-women aside, I was more under the impression that datin was supposed to be something along the lines of eating a fancy dinner, and then going n makin-out or something?”

Meteor looked half-incredulous, though it was still Twilight who responded. “No,” she said, “you might be HALF right about the dinner, but making out with somepony you JUST MET two days ago isn’t date, that’s called being a slut. And the last time I checked, my name wasn’t Rarity!”

“Aye, that makes a lot more sense now that you put it in that context.” Spike admitted. “She’s the only one of your friends who ever does any datin anyway, so she’s kind of all I have to go on for makin assumptions.”

“Well maybe you should try to factor in other things before you make them.” Twilight retorted. “It’s the same thing as using a case study of single patient to gauge a medical treatment. You need to look at a large statistical base of subjects before you can ever make any kind of reasonable judgment.”

“Right,” Spike kept right up, “and Aye don’t exactly have any of that now do I? Like Aye said, all I have to go on is Rarity’s claims and whatever condemning comments about the subject you happen to make. And even if I assume that your own commentary on romance is based on enough observation or whatever, you basically just remark on it like it’s exactly what I was already assumin it is.”

“That’s because that all anypony ever does with it!” Twilight protested it.

“Then doesn’t that mean that’s exactly what it is?” Spike tried to argue a point. “Aye thought the definition of somethin was supposed to be whatever society as a whole agreed it was.”

“What?” Twilight came right back with her part. “Where the hell’d you get a stupid idea like that? Popular opinion has no bearing on the actual reality of a concept. I mean sure, half the ponies in this town are probably dumb enough to believe they could walk through walls if you told them they could! That still doesn’t change the fact that they’re gonna bash their heads against the bricks when they actually decide to try it!”

“Aye know that much, but Aye thought after all the friendship-studying nonsense you said everything havin anything ta do with the social sciences was absurdly ambiguous?” Spike final point in the argument came.

“Well, yeah,” Twilight half-agreed, “but being ambiguous means that something’s hard to discern, not that it has no objective definition that can be discerned at all.”

“Egh,” Spike finally gave into a shrug and a single shake of the head, “whatever, Aye’m not gonna try n push it any further.”

“Good! I don’t even know what you were trying to push anyway.” Twilight said.

“Aye really wasn’t pushin anything,” Spike circled them back to the beginning, “all Aye did was tell you my assumption.”

“And your assumption was stupid!” Twilight declared without any hesitation. “I mean, I know you only that narrow range of data to go off of, but I also know that you know me. Why, would you ever think that I would behave anything like that? Do I really look that much like Rarity to you?”

“Agh, look Aye’m sorry alright? Seriously Twilight, just let it be.” Spike insisted. “Besides, aren’t you kind of ignorin your . . . I guess, not-coltfriend?”

Twilight’s eye shot open for a second at the sudden reminder of Meteor Streak’s physical presence. “Oh, aahhh . . .” She looked off to her side at the grey stallion sitting near her.

Meteor was lowering his fork back down to his plate, now feeling himself at the conjoined center of both Twilight and Spike’s attention. He had been slowly eating, hunger trading strength back and forth with awkwardness, but now the likely expectation for him to speak put a stop to that. He finished chewing and swallowed before he said anything. “Uhhh, I . . . didn’t really think I had any part in this.” He explained his previous silence.

“Nah that’s fine,” Twilight said, “sorry for kinda getting too into that, I guess. I should probably tell you that’s . . . kind of like the standard, usual interaction that goes here.”

“I kinda already figured something like that after the hospital.” Meteor told her.

“Wait,” Spike spoke again, to Meteor this time, “so you’ve already experienced her entire broad spectrum of analytical correctness and condescension, then?” He voiced his curiosity.

"Uh, yeah, kind of . . ." Meteor's answer half as much a guess as it was an actual answer.

Twilight however, clarified for them both with a much clearer certainty. "Yeah don't worry, I'm pretty sure he got the full range and display of everything the other day at the hospital." She said.

"Oh?" Spike remarked. "And what's this then? No retortful quip about me callin out your flaws? No correction?"

"Nah," she replied, "I'm a condescending know-it-all bitch and I know it." Twilight willingly conceded, something rare for Spike to see, but something had been growing more frequent over recent time.

"Aye know you're aware of your own demeanor, Aye'm just a little surprised you didn't snap at me about it like usually would. It used to be pretty normal for you get real edgy whenever Aye called you out on anything?" Spike spelled out the point of his surprise.

"Yeah, well," Twilight began saying, hesitating in consideration for a second before she went on, "maybe you were actually right about something for once."

"Right about what?" Spike asked. "You mellowing out noticeably since we moved here?"

"Mellowed out?" Meteor's voice surfaced into the conversation again.

"Oh yeah," Spike readily explained, "she used to go off the mental deep end on a regular basis. We're talkin full mental breakdowns."

Twilight immediately launched into an explanation when Spike brought up the past. "That's because back then I had literal mountains of reasons to be stressed out. I had an incomprehensible workload of study, practice, homework and assessments forced onto me every minute of my existence without any way out of it, and threatening consequences looming over if I ever failed. Down here I basically don't even have to do anything. The only responsibility I actually have is an aimlessly vague royal decree dictating that have to "study friendship." So apart from occasionally writing up some anecdotal B. S. about something I supposedly learned and sending it to Celestia, I don't necessarily HAVE to do anything. Not on a scheduled regular basis at least. I still have to take on all the responsibility of dealing with and saving Equestria from basically every large-scale problem that ever comes up."

Meteor needed a few seconds to honestly process some of what he'd just heard, mainly one part in particular. ". . . Celestia sends a 24-year-old student to deal with national threats?" His voice and blanked-out expression quite readily gave away his questioning of reality. ". . . She doesn't even . . . use the military for anything? Like, evacuations?"

"Nye," Spike answered, "just Twilight here and her little friendship circle."

"It's actually included in the decree," Twilight added, "but it's implied."

There really wasn't anything to say to that, on Meteor's part. There would have been, for somepony who didn't believe what they'd just been told, or anypony who got enough of an anger rise out of it. Granted, he was dumbfounded at the sheer absurdity of what their nation's supposedly wise leader was apparently doing, but it still wasn't anger, not a flaring kind at least, that wasn't who he was. That was one way stating why he'd never really had anyone grow close to him: he was too calm.

Across from him, Twilight was feeling a rising nervousness at the silence, and the question of whether or not the revelation of her relative life-structure to Meteor had just shattered any hope she had for an actual relationship began to surface. "Yeah," she made herself say, "so that's basically a summation of my life set-up. Ah--ha, ha, ahh . . . I'll uh . . . it's kind of understandable if you want to walk out the front door."

"Nye!" Spike piped up the instant after Twilight had spoken. "Don't you DARE make me have to deal with the breakdown THAT's going ta cause."

"Wait, wha--no," Meteor managed to panic some words up, "I'm literally in the same place as you are, relationship-wise. I'm not going to not even try with the only mare who's ever shown any remote interest in me just because she has problems." He told them both. ". . . I have a lot of problems of my own."

"Great." Spike said, expressing an obvious relief. "Thank the Nocturnal Princess."

"Hey, watch it Spike." Twilight warned.

"What?" The little dragon demanded in return. "Aye ain't about to thank Celestia! That bitch's had me interrogated eleven times already for no other reason than just ta screw with you. Aye ain't thankin her fer anything!"

"Um?" Meteor's confusion managed to escape in an audible form.

"Oh yeah," Spike turned to explain, "she had me dragged into a dark room and some guards threatened to hit my elbows with tiny hammers."

"Yeah," Twilight confirmed the story before berating Spike about it, "and I told you to suck it up because there was nothing threatening about that scenario." She paused just long enough to tap his shin with her hoof. "There, that's more than likely the equivocal force you would've felt from one of your supposedly-horrifying tiny hammers."

Spike's eyebrows fell just a little bit. "You know, despite the sheer amount of snide comments and B.S. attitudes that pass between the two of us, Aye've never actually made fun of any of your childhood traumas?"

"Well gee, Spike," Twilight tried to counter what Spike had said in some way, "I don't know, maybe there's a little bit of a difference between our two experiences. Like, how my traumatic experiences were ACTUALLY traumatic!"

"Um, it doesn't really matter," Meteor's voice suddenly returned to the conversation, "whatever somepony else thinks about what somepo--one went through doesn't retroactively go back and change anything about it. If someone's scared by something then they're scared by it."

Twilight was genuinely stuck, at least inside. Her mind fumbled with the concept of the only stallion who'd ever shown interest in her contradicting her on something . . . and being right about it. Long before she was ever able to settle over it though, awkwardness pulled a response out of her. "What? Well . . . yeah, but . . . wait, didn't you say you felt like you didn't have any part in this just a minute ago?"

"Everypony's a hypocrite." Meteor willingly admitted, much to Twilight's surprise.

"You know he's got a real point there?" Spike said to Twilight. "Aye've got a thirty-foot long list of all the times you were being hypocritical that felt like giving the effort to write down."

That drew looks from both Meteor and Twilight, the Twilight's clearly bore frustration as well. "What is it with you and lists?" She demanded to know. "You'd better not tell me you still keep that stupid list of reasons why you should've been allowed to sing in my school plays."

"Under my pillow with all the others." Spike confirmed exactly what she'd demanded he not. "And Aye'm still stickin by every reason Aye put down."

The level of frustration showing on Twilight's face fluctuated for a few seconds before she gave her head a single shake and lifted up a hoof. "Ok whatever," she attempted to dismiss the entire thing, "look, let's just change the subject or something . . . at least just so everything feels a little less awkward?"

"Eh," Spike shrugged, "it's only awkward if you make it awkward."

The little dragon's words caught Meteor by surprise, enough of a surprise to draw out words where he would have otherwise stayed silent. "I had a friend who used to say that." He said.

"You know that same argument you literally just used easily applies here too right?" Twilight pointed out.

Guilt did flood through the stallion, not that it could be seen through expression though. "Yeah . . . I know. Sorry . . . I get to feel enough of that myself." He briefly showed his lone prescription bottle.

"Oh yeah," Twilight's spark of memory managed to take away enough of the awkwardness she'd felt on its own, "I was meaning to ask you how managed to actually get someone to prescribe you a set of benzodiazepines." She said. "Whatta'ya got there? Alprazolam?" She asked.

"Lorazepam." He corrected with a single head shake. "My . . . stuff's a lot more situational."

"Panic attacks as opposed to generalized anxiety?" Twilight went ahead and made the assumption, recieving a simple, immediate confirmation from Meteor. "Yeah, I'm more one of those eternally-stressed-out ponies . . . for ha-ha, reasons that have already been explained. I've kinda been hoping to finally get on some alprazolam for a while, but I'd even settle for an SSRI at this point. Not that I can actually GET anything since Celestia's really stingy with tax money so my stupid royal insurance only covers therapy sessions with dirt-cheap cognitive therapists who've probably never touched a prescription slip in their life."

"You could just go see somepony at the hospital's walk-in clincic." Meteor suggested his own approach. "Most of the ponies you'd see are either Nurse Practitioners or Physician's Assistants, and usually the lower on the ladder you go the more willing to give you stuff."

"Oh don't get me wrong," Twilight said, "I considered that. But anything, and I mean ANYTHING done to me in a hospital qualifies as emergency treatment under my insurance's specification clauses, so their deductible comes in."

"So, is . . . is it just the money? Or . . . I mean, I could pay . . . if you want." Meteor asked, and tentatively offered.

"What? Ah . . . no, it-it's alright. It's not that I can't afford it, it more that I just don't want to out of spite." Twilight explained. "So, ah, who do you see there?"

"Nurse Redheart." Meteor answered.

"Wait, her? So, what, she's an N.P. then? I thought she was just an R.N?" Twilight asked, but never really stopped to wait for an answer. "Huh . . . yeah alright. I guess I'll have to try seeing her or one of the others sometime soon. Though since I've already gone to five sessions with Dr. Wolf, my insurance's stupid policy says I have to keep going to therapy sessions for a minimum of six months."

Spike raised up a question at that. "Isn't it also their policy that you have to go to five sessions in the first place before they'll start payin anything?" He asked.

"Wait, what?" Meteor asked, though it was more an expression of shock than an actual question.

"Yup!" Twilight confirmed the existence of the circular policy setup. "It's under Article Screw, Subsection Job." She said.

"Uhhh-you . . . really should get out of that coverage and switch to something else." Meteor could only speak the obvious at that point.

"Yeeaahh, normally I'd probably consider that a perfectly rational suggestion," Twilight began, "but you've gotta understand, I've learned more than enough lessons about the outcome of attempting to alter my life circumstances to something more favorable."

"Aye." Spike agreed. "It's the same as me learnin never to even bother tryin to question anything or propose solutions to problems, cause none of it ever gets us anywhere."

"Well I guess I almost fit in then." Meteor said.

"Huh? Almost?" Twilight prompted him to clarify what he was saying.

"Yeah, I feel like that a lot most of the time." He explained. "But I still try at stuff though."

"Aye. Definitely sounds good enough for the Mansion of Misery." Spike said.

Twilight actually laughed, at something Spike had said, but she got drawn into it too quickly to recognize the rareness of it. "Yeah," she said to Meteor, "welcome . . . to the Misery Mansion, I guess, if that's what we're gonna start calling it . . . the group, I mean, not the building."

***

"Alright! Six spaces!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed after seeing her result on the Monopoly dice. "That gets me right to Princess Celestia! And I buy it."

"Wait," Twilight stopped her, "Dash, don't you only have like five hundred left? Celestia costs four-fifty; you're literally going have next to nothing left."

"Yeah, I know," Rainbow said, "but it's worth it though. If one of you guys lands on it I get fifty bits!"

"Dash, you know that the statistical likelihood of any of us landing on that one space is-" Twilight began, but was pretty quickly cut off.

"Oh for," Rarity interrupted, "Twilight, will you please just stop making these pointless attempts to reason with her? You know it's never going to get anywhere."

"Agh, fine, whatever." Twilight conceded. "Hey, Farm-Apple, it's your turn.

At her being prompted, Applejack picked up the pair of dice and rolled, coming out to a six and moving her piece forward onto the Idol of Boreas, one of the two utility pieces. Both of which, Meteor held.

"Ten times the dice." The grey pegasus almost expressed some thrill at the profit he was finally gaining, though his voice still held the same calm as ever.

"Alright," Applejack said, "so sixty. Well that don't put me down too much. Ah still got about seven hundred."

Rarity had, over the last few seconds since the orange earth pony rolled, grew out her identifiable, pre-amusement grin. "I wonder if Twilight her new friend have managed to add nine more yet?" She spoke out what she'd planned to.

Meteor and Twilight instantly both shared the same expression of disgust at Rarity's forty-fifth innuendo of the night, though Meteor's slowly turned into a look of clear discomfort while Twilight's expression only grew more into on of a complete lack of amusement.

Spike responded verbally to Rarity before anyone else, and delivered something that left Twilight feeling something towards him that she honestly didn't believe she ever had, nor ever would: proud. "Nye," Spike said, "about as much as you've managed to have a stallion hold actual feelins fer you other than lust."

If anything Spike did were ever going to make Twilight proud of him, it was this. The look of embittered scorn on Rarity's face was too priceless. "Thankyou, Spike." Twilight said, with gratitude, though somewhat forcefully like she was having to stomp out the words. "Seriously, what is your problem?" She then started on Rarity. "Literally, every single sentence that ever comes out of your mouth has to pertain in some way to sex! I mean seriously, I don't even think ACTUAL prostitutes think about sex as muh as you do!"

"Yes," Pinkie suddenly jumped into the word fray, "the Rarity uses the pleasure between her butt cheeks to distract herself from her inevitable future as a lonely, depressed hag. Yes!"

Twilight looked over to the Pink pony for a second with uneasiness, and then she continued. "Yeah, when I'm actually in complete agreement with something Pinkie says, you should really be able to see that you're backing yourself into a corner." Twilight said to Rarity.

Even Applejack couldn't resist jumping in now. "Personally Ah've always kinda seen Rarity as an actual hooker." She said. "Ah mean, far as Ah know she never just with'em, she always ends up gettin some'a the stallion's money out of it. Either that or like, free stuff she would've had ta pay for otherwise."

Rarity had more than had enough at that point, and her face clearly showed it, along with tone of voice. "Well," she started, "EXCUSE ME, you two! But at least I'm satisfied with what I'm getting out of life, and not desperately trying and hoping toward some stupid goal that I'll NEVER be able to reach like the both of you!"

"What?" Twilight wasn't even sure where Rarity was coming from.

"Huh?" Applejack expressed just as much confusion. "Uh, honestly Ah don't what talkin bout darlin. My only real goal in life is ta take care of my family's farm. And in case y'all hadn't noticed, Ah kinda already do that on an every day basis."

"Yeah," Twilight took her turn responding, "and I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to jab at on my end. I mean, normally I'd assume you meant something about me never having a boyfriend, but, you know, just in case you hadn't noticed," she paused to point out Meteor to the other unicorn, "that's kind of not the case anymore. I mean seriously, he likes peace and quiet, is relatively intelligent, and thinks the whole world's stupid. That's . . . basically, like the entire package for me, if I were going around scanning stallions for criteria or something. What standards do they have to meet for you? Because the only quality you seemed concerned with is just whether or not they have a penis!"

Meteor was by all means staying out of this. Spike was as well, although unlike the stallion, Spike was decently amused by the whole thing. It was Pinkie Pie who seemed to be enjoying it most of all, however, consistently wracked with her hushed, sinister giggles.

"Well," Applejack began, "Ah do got somethin of a set'a criteria for a stallion myself, mostly just about how much he's willin ta help out around the farm. But for the sake of the moment Ah'm gonna go ahead and say the only real factor we should be considering is whether or not the guy agrees Rarity's a slut."

"Oh don't worry," Twilight agreed with Applejack, with more than a small grin, "that's always the top of the priority list." She said.

"Yes, hehehe," Pinkie suddenly spoke up again, "looking down on the marshmellow horse is the only thing that matters."

Rarity was done. Completely and absolutely. "Ugh! Oh that is it!" She fumed, rising up. "I've had it up to here with all of you! Enjoy your stupid little virgin circle-jerk!" She yelled at all them, and went on to stomp her way out of the library.

Everything was quiet for a moment, just a moment, and then Applejack broke the silence by speaking her mind, which happened to fall in line with Twilight's again. "Well," she said, "that takes care'a one problem."

"I don't get it guys," Rainbow Dash spoke for the first time since the entire thing began, "What just happened? Were you guys being mean to Rarity?"

"Dash," Twilight stopped her, "Dash . . . ju-just shut up. Please, don't even ask. It concern you, you wouldn't understand it, and you're probably never going to understand it. Let's just . . . get back to the game. Spike! Take over Rarity's spot." She ended by commanding her dragon.

"Oh yeah," Applejack started again, "speakin'a take-overs, Ah got an angry letter from Braeburn yesterday saying somethin about the government takin over a lotta the land near Appleoosa ta start up some big gold mine, er somethin.

"Eminent Domain . . ." Meteor commented quietly.

"Yeah," Applejack went on, "apparently the area they wanna open up the mine at is technically on Buffalo land, so the Buffalo are being forceably relocated."

"Wait," Twilight said," your cousins angry about the Buffalo getting kicked off their land? I thought they all hated each other?"

"Oh they do," Applejack clarified further, "and that's actually why he's angry. Apparently the government thought the best place to move the Buffalo tribe to . . . was right next ta Appleoosa."

"Oh," Twilight realized what the situation was then, "well, I guess that's a disaster just waiting to happen."

"Yeah," Applejack only confirmed Twilight's assumption, "Braeburn says they were only living next to each for all of half a day before they all started going at each others' throats. Ah'd though we taught them the magic of friendship or marginal tolerance or whatever back when we all went out there. But Ah guess it just goes ta show that friendship can only go so far."

"Yeah," Twilight picked up the subject, "tolerance can usually only go as far as personal space. Then, it's like . . . all bets are off."

"Ah figured that much myself." Applejack said. "Though that ain't exactly the end of it. He says he's gonna try ta contest the mines in court, on account'a the potential damage some'a the runoff might do to the orchard out there. Ah tried tellin him it's pretty much pointless, since there's no way the profit margin of a single apple orchard can possibly compete with a LITERAL gold mine, but he ain't listenin."

"Yeah," Meteor put in a few sentences again, "unless your apples are actually made out of gold themselves, your cousin's screwed." He said.

"Yeah Ah know," Applejack responded, "but y'all don't know Braeburn . . . he ain't gonna listen."

Twilight, of course, couldn't resist the urge to actually run some crude numbers in her head. "Well," she said, "I don't know how much your cousin's orchard pulls in every year, but assuming it's the same as yours then he'd literally have to yield a full-harvest of apples somewhere around 200 times PER DAY just to match the profit of an average full-sized mining operation."

"Well . . . that ain't happenin." Applejack agreed with the obvious reality. "So, who's turn is it?" She asked.

Twilight's eyebrows lowered at the question. "Pinkie's." She answered.

Sinister giggles came from the pink thing sitting across the board from them. "Heheheh, hehehe, yes!"

***

~ Elsewhere, in Ponyvile . . . ~

"By the Great Chaos from which all things stem!" Thrackerzod exclaimed. "You were right!"

"Ahhh," Applebloom had to express her confusion, "ok . . . bout what exactly?

It was Scootaloo, unfortunately, who answered first. "You were right when you knew that no matter how baaad she was grounded, Scootaloo would find her way back to you, baby! Hoo!"

"No!" Thrackerzod took back over. "She was right about the falsehood of Twilight Sparkle! The purple friendship pony is indeed NOT the enemy Hastur and I have been pursuing."

"Rejection's always hard, baby," Scootaloo spoke off of her own interpretation of what was being said, "but you just gotta, Hoo!, keep on movin!"

"Yeah, Ah kinda figured." Applebloom said. "So how'd y'all find out fer sure?"

"I performed an infaliable test yesterday morning upon encountering her in the streets," Thrackerzod explained in detail, "You see, the span of mythical territories I previously reffered to as The Broken Worlds, across which Hastur and I have led the forces of Azozoth against this mysterious being, is a conjuring of elements from many planes and many universes, including the world that is home to the Hairless Monkeys of Technological Advancement. From their world, have been born many evils, from knife-wielding dolls to cone-shaped packages containing the fury of the sun. Anypony who has spent significant time amidst The Broken Worlds, she would have were she actually the being in question, would be aware of these evils and many others from countless worlds. So, I selected one of these, and had Hastur procure it for me. Then, on yesterday's morning, I showed it to Twilight Sparkle to test her reaction."

". . . and what?" Applebloom asked. "She didn't recognize it?"

"Correct," Thrackerzod confirmed the assumption her/it's friend, "However, there is more. In order to be completely sure, I selected an object of such unspeakable evil, that any sane being aware of what it was would destroy it on sight!"

"Ahhh, don't y'all think running around Ponyville with somethin like that might be just a tad bit dangerous?" Applebloom raised up concern.

"Indeed," Thrackerzod agreed, "it was incredibly dangerous. I had to summon Hastur again in order to have him cast several speels on the vile object to temporarily hold back the floodgates of its evil." She explained.

"Don't y'all have ta tell one of Fluttershy's chickens that Santa Claus ain't real ta summon him? Or somethin?" Applebloom asked.

"Normally yes," Thrackerzod kept explaining, "that has been the go-to method I have used. However, Rarity has restricted my freedom to visit Fluttershy's cottage upon discovery of my behavior. So, this time I had to rely on an alternative method."

"Yeah?" Applebloom prompted her to go on. "So what'd y'all do this time?"

Thrackerzod's eyes narrowed, as if she were about to reveal something dark and unspeakably horrifying, but what she said to Applebloom was anything but. "I smothered a butterfly with a pillow!"

"Oh . . . it didn't belong ta nopony did it?" Applebloom asked.

"No." Was the simple response she received.

"Well, I guess that makes it morally condoneable then." She said. "So what all happened?"

"I approached Twilight Sparkle . . ." Thrackerzod began:

: Flashback :

Twilight walked casually along the street, out to buy a few things over the course of the morning. This particular morning, however, she found herself halted by the presence of Rarity's younger sister standing in her way.

"Greetings lavender adult role model and friend of my sister." Thrackerzod said to the now-inconvenienced unicorn. "I am filled with a perfectly normal degree of childish excitement upon encountering you this morning."

A single eyebrow raised on Twilight's face. "Ok. Well, I'm . . . gonna keep going now."

"No! Wait!" Thrackerzod stopped her. "I have a gift for you . . . a birthday present!"

Twilight became caught somewhere between confused and annoyed. "Ahh, kid, I don't really know you. And my birthday was in September, so you kinda missed it by like, half a year."

"Yes, as is normal." Thrackerzod just went on with her plan. "And to atone for this wrong, I bring you a gift now. I've acquired this book, and it bares your name!" She held up a black-cover book in front of Twilight, bearing the unicorn's name on the cover along with an image of two hairless monkey hands holding an apple.

Twilight was lost, at that point. By all means, she knew kids were dumb, and this one was relate to Rarity . . . but still. "Ok . . . what, do you think it must be about me or something just because the title happens to be the same word as my name?" She asked. "Look, kid, just because two things have the same name doesn't mean they're literally the same thing. You-you're really lacking some basic cognitive skills there . . . Seaty Belt or whatever name is."

Thrackerzod had her answer . . . and thus began her withdrawal. "I feel a natural level of embarrassment regarding my ill choice in gifts as would any ordinary pony."

"Yeah," Twilight said, ". . . ok, uh, I don't know . . . run along now . . . or something."

"Yes," Thrackerzod agreed to the suggestion, "I shall depart with the marking of the tenth hour's half."

: End Flashback :

"She did not recognize the object," Thrackerzod said, looking down with slightly narrowed eyes, a mixed look of anger and disappointment, "Hastur and I, are back to square one."

"In your search?" Applebloom stated what was actually obvious, though it could have been taken for an actual question. "Well, Ah don't exactly know anythin bout this extra-dimensional stuff, so Ah'm sure how much help Ah can be. Though if this pony's supposedly as bad you say they are, Ah guess Ah probably should try ta help y'all find'em."

"Thankyou," Thrackerzod said, to something of a delayed shock for Applebloom. The earth pony couldn't really remember ever hearing her possessed unicorn friend say the words: thankyou. "Any assistance you can lend may help us greatly." Thrackerzod said.

Applebloom sat and thought for a moment. "Hmm, well Ah guess we can just start with some basics and try ta narrow it down." She suggested.

Thrackerzod nodded in agreement. "Yes. We know for certain, that the being is indeed a pony from this world."

Applebloom rubbed her hoof along her chin a bit. "Alright," she said, "and you said they're magic, so if it's a pony then that means it's gotta be unicorn. That narrows it down ta a third of the population. Though if they're impersonating Twilight that might also mean changelings. They can look like anypony, though I'm pretty sure they don't really have any other powers."

Thrackerzod interjected with more specifics. "This being has FORMIDABLE powers."

"Formidable powers, huh?" Applebloom rethought things. "Well I guess changelings might be out then, along with probably most of the unicorns. The princesses are the most powerful ponies magic-wise, and aside from them, far as I know powerful unicorns usually end up going through Celestia's special school up in Canterlot at one point or another. From what little Ah've heard about from Twilight, it sounds like their graduating class size is pretty small, only like twenty, maybe twenty-five ponies, n most of em are usually pretty powerful with their magic."

Thrackerzod contemplated the information. It may still mean months of searching again, but at least she and Hastur may a new set of leads to start from. "This, may narrow things . . ." She concluded aloud.

Better Crap than Usual

Author's Note

Based off of the setting and characters of the Mentally Advanced Series (watch before reading).

So, at our third chapter now. I hope this is a decent enough frequency of uploads for everyone. I'll try to keep to the one-two week schedule.
Things are slowly developing, threats are quickly growing, all as the story lengthens.
On the other side, this semester's closing out, my health is slowly ever-deteriorating, and though my passage to BronyCon this summer has already been guaranteed, my finances are growing less and less stable (largely connected to the deteriorating health issue) But I'll keep writing . . . and everything else that I do.

Know that I exist elsewhere:
Patreon
DA
Good Old YouTube

Enjoy your axial rotations everybody! :)

Better Crap than Usual

A very, very irritating clock tocked by each and every second as Twilight waited outside the office of her canine psychiatrist. Ironically though, it probably didn't aggravate her as much as others, especially since it was a rhythmic sound as opposed to random noise. Plus, it was really only stupidity that actually aggravated her to the point of anger.

Not that Twilight had to listen for long. The door opened nearby and a white pegasus mare with a twin-shades of blue mane walked out into the hallway, pulling a small suitcase behind her. "Sorry for bothering you doc," she said, looking back into the office, "I just wanted to drop in before I left. You know, just in case I don't come back down as soon I expect to."

"There's nothing to be sorry for Miss Song," one of the calmest, most docile voices in Equestria responded, "friends are always welcome here, even if my windows may be narrow."

"Right," the pegasus acknowledged, "bye doc. See you in a few weeks." She smiled and hummed a tune she walked past the waiting Twilight and on down the hallway.

Taking her cue, Twilight stood up and stepped into the office.

"Ah," the suited wolf greeted her upon her entering, "welcome back Miss Sparkle. This is pretty unusual, seeing you on our scheduled appointment. I've gotten rather used to you postponing a couple times before actually coming in. So, how are you doing?"

Twilight closed the office door behind herself and went over to take a seat. "Yeah well, I didn't exactly have anything else better to do this afternoon." She said, sitting down. "Plus, I can postpone individual appointments all I want but I'm still legally required to see you at least twice a month until August. If I don't my insurance is gonna demand I pay back everything they've covered so far."

"Oh?" The psychiatrist's eyes went quite wide at that revelation. "That's an . . . interesting policy . . . well, in any case I'm sorry to hear that your present circumstances are leaving you feeling forced here against your will. I am aware of how much you seem to dislike these sessions."

"Seriously?" Twilight responded, "Please, doc, you're making money off of this; don't go trying to play the sympathy card with me."

The canine's ears fell just a little bit at the back-lashing comment. "Yes, well," he began, "while your first point is certainly true, it's not as if I'm exactly fond of earning money when it's to the detriment of others, to say the least. You know that despite whatever you think about me or psychiatric therapists in general, I do want to help you if I can, Miss Sparkle."

"What? Hey, look, you can relax." Twilight said. "Ok I'm not stupid, I'm irritable. I'm going to SAY irritable things, and often enough, I'm going to say irritable things about things that irritate me."

"One of the most prominent being the fact that circumstances have forced you into this present arrangement of therapy sessions." Doctor Wolf concluded.

"Yeah," Twilight confirmed for him, "trust me, this is a lot more of me being pissed off at my insurance than it is anything having to do with you."

"Ah. And, given your remarkable intelligence," the doctor went on to verbalized an assumption, "I'm assuming you've already given some amount of consideration to changing to a different insurance provider?"

Twilight's reaction to the obvious suggestion came out in the usual tone. "Yeah, been there, thought of that," she dismissively replied, "It's a bit too late to go for that option. See, since I was a student at Celestia's school it was mandatory that I fell under Canterlot's royal insurance group like all the other students," she went on to explain, "While granted I'm not actually attending her school anymore, and I could, therefore, switch to a different coverage plan if I wanted to, my coverage is government-run. So, Celestia would notice if I left the royal coverage plan, and I don't know if you've managed to gather from all of these ""sessions"" we've had, but drawing Celestia's attention for ANY reason is never a good thing."

"So I've heard," the psychiatrist acknowledged ominous undertone given to the implication of drawing Celestia's attention before saying anything else, "and I"m sorry to hear now that your prior circumstances seem to have pre-established your current ones as seemingly inescapable. But, I'd like to take our focus off the circumstances surrounding these sessions themselves. So, how have things been going for otherwise? Any new developments since we spoke last month?"

"Well, yeah, apart from getting screwed over by my insurance everything else is actually going pretty great." She answered, much to his very visible surprise.

"Oh?" He prompted for her to continue.

"Yeah," she went on, "and I'm not even flooding that statement with condescending sarcasm. Really, stuff's . . . actually been alright. I mean, I'm not saying my life's like, all cheery smiles now or anything, don't get me wrong."

"Still," he said, "that's certainly pleasant to hear things have been somewhat well for you for a change."

"Oh yeah," Twilight kept right on going, "I mean for starters I can't even remember the last time I got to go this long without Celestia sending me on some random deathtrap assignment to stop a giant monster, or spread the magic of borderline personal tolerance or any of that stuff. If this were any other time of the year I'd actually be a little suspicious but since it's tax season I know she's probably just busy with The April Hunt."

The doc's eyes widened slightly and his head reflexively began a twist to the side. "April . . . Hunt?" He inquired.

"Yup," Twilight confirmed what she'd said, "she takes sadistic pleasure in personally hunting down anypony committing tax evasion. So ah, ha-ha, I hope you remembered to file."

The small wolf's eyes were now wider than ever, left to imagine the consequences that Celestia brought upon those guilty of tax evasion. "Um, yes, I have," he said, eyes slowly returning to normal, "duly noted. But, please Miss Sparkle, continue about yourself as you were."

"Ah right, I forgot you don't like thinking about all the danger and horrors that surround us all." She responded," But, ah, let's see . . . oh yeah, you'll never believe this, even though you're still at least probably gonna act like it since you're sort of supposed to, but I actually met a guy. Or, I mean like, I'm actually WITH a guy now . . . finally."

The canine psychiatrist looked just as surprised as expected, and went on to react with positive belief just as Twilight had expected. "Ah, well, that certainly is a development; in the positive direction I'm assuming?"

Twilight's first line came back with her usual snark, though the rest fell back down into the strange, brightened attitude she seemed to have come in with. "I really love how you phrase that like a question after I literally spent an entire session a while back talking about nothing but the fact that I thought I was never gonna have a boyfriend. Oh! And you should have seen Rarity's reaction! Y-haha, y-you should've seen how pissed she got when she found out. I mean seriously, that's definitely gonna end up being a cherished memory right there on my end."

"She got that excessively upset at the fact that you're in a relationship?" The doctor came off as initially confused. "That . . . is rather unhealthy, you may want to recommend your friend come in for visit." He said.

"Huh? Oh don't worry," she told him, "I'm sure she'll be in here eventually. I mean, you're kind of the only psychiatrist in Ponyville, and only therapist of any kind, actually, so it's not really like she has a choice."

"Well . . . yes, but-" He began to say, but Twilight ended up starting up again.

"Right, so yeah, I know you don't like hearing anypony saying anything negative about other ponies or whatever," she said, "so I'll get off of the subject."

That caught the doctor off guard, leaving more than impressionable amount shock. He took down a note on his writing pad about Twilight's choosing to not go on about a subject because of her belief that it would make him uncomfortable.

"So my boyfriend though," Twilight resumed on in a different direction, "his name's Meteor. I met him at the hospital a little over a month ago, and by all means at the time I kinda just wanted him to buzz off like everypony else who just walks up and starts talking to me. But things started to, like, dawn on me one after the other: like for once, I was ACTUALLY talking to another pony who wasn't stupid, wasn't insane, and whose every thought WASN'T about something sexual. So I had like, just a slight kind of realization that I wasn't alone in the world. Granted he doesn't really know anything about the good stuff like astrophysics and whatnot, but for the most part he actually understand stuff when I explain it to him."

"Ah, so you're finally able to-" Again the doctor didn't even get to finish.

"Finally able to talk about things are actually above the high school level with everything I'm saying just flying over the other pony's head? Yeah, you have NO idea." Twilight said.

The canine took another brief note, while a light smile grew across his face.

Twilight still kept going. "You know he even plays chess? Seriously, no pony else ever wants to play chess; I mean I can force Spike to play, but he just whines about how bored he is and doesn't even try. Plus the few ponies that actually ARE willing to play sometimes are a little to stupid to actually get it. But Meteor actually enjoys it. I mean, he's not necessarily good, but he still likes the game itself, and he's actually been paying attention to some of the stuff I've said about strategy in the game: the general stuff, not the theoretical-formulaic models or anything. Like, at first I used to beat him in about twenty moves or so, but now it's more like around thirty, as opposed to basically beating Spike in single digits most of the time. I'm finally getting to play games that require actual cognitive thought and don't just rely on running around, or blind luck or Rainbow Dash desperately wanting to touch Applejack's hoof."

The very end of her last comment obviously left him with a blank, cautious stare, unsure of whether he even wanted to know the context.

"Don't even ask." She went ahead and just clarified that for him before he even spoke.

"Ok . . . well then," he left that particular question behind, "I will say you seem much more pleasant than I've ever seen you before, and I'm glad to finally see something uplift you to such a degree. And despite your earlier irritable comments, you also seem a fair deal more calm overall than I've come to expect." He remarked.

"Huh? Oh yeah," Twilight fiddled around until she found her Xanax bottle and held it up in front her, "well, I mean I'm not gonna lie, that's kinda because I finally got my Xanax."

"Oh," the doctor took notice, "you've been seeing more than just me then, I presume?"

"Yeah," she answered, "I went to see Nurse Redheart. Turns out Meteor was right: lower-level staff are a lot more willing to give you medications. And since she kinda knows me and knows how I was always flipping out all the time, she didn't have really have a problem with it."

"Ah," he acknowledged, "well I'm glad you ended up taking your own initiative on something you felt would be for your overall betterment. Please do forgive me if my own inclination to not prescribe you something right away myself left you feeling trapped in any sense."

"Oh no, trust me," she said, "like I said earlier that was all for stupid financial reasons."

"Well, that's somewhat relieving at least." His response came. "So, if I may ask Miss Sparkle, how are things otherwise going overall, aside from the new developments you've spoke of?"

"Huh? What do you mean, exactly?" Twilight asked.

Her psychiatrist readily explained. "Well, ever since you first started therapy appointments here they've primarily consisted of you venting out your frustration at the rather large assortment of problems plaguing your life. I'm more than willing to continue trying to help you through them, but I'm also beginning to wonder if there are any positive goals you're striving to achieve. I only ask because I haven't heard any mention of such since you began coming here."

"Uhh, Ok, look doc," Twilight started, "I think you might of gotten a little bit lost there. I don't have any long-term goals in life BECAUSE of all those problems you just vaguely mentioned. Really, my life up to this point has pretty much consisted of studying or just doing whatever while I wait for the next problem to show up." She explained.

"Yes, so I'd gathered." The doctor responded. "But, you have been dealing with less and less it seems. Either that, or you've just learned how cope with everything much more steadily."

"Egh," Twilight just shrugged, "some stuff's gone away but a lot of it's still there; it's just, like . . . dormant, I guess."

"Still," the canine went on with his point, "having something long-term that you're striving towards often can help to distract one from only seeing the negative in their life. So, is there perhaps anything always wanted to achieve?"

Twilight considered the subject off and on for a second or so at a time between gaps in her response, actually finding herself legitimately wondering about it herself. "I mean, the more time dragged on the more I really wanted to find a guy at some point, but that's really more something that was dependent on chance than, say, getting a degree or something. And that's kinda already happened now." She said, and broke for a second before resuming. "I mean mostly I just like studying and learning new stuff and enjoying the fact that I'm not stupid. I have enough of a background to get into medical school, probably, so that option's there, I guess. But the prospect of becoming a doctor isn't exactly that appealing to me given I can barely handle the amount of stress I already have except when I get to take my Xanax."

"I can certainly agree with the truth behind that sentiment." The psychiatrist interjected. "Still, there's certainly less stressful career options, and your choices are definitely broad with the sheer amount of knowledge and schooling you have, not to mention your demonstrated leadership capabilities." He paused for a moment, this time, and then a potential potential idea struck him. "Becoming a professor, perhaps? I don't suppose that's a path you've considered? Less stressful than a doctor or a surgeon, no doubt, and you'd get to spend the better part of your days around other ponies who enjoy gaining knowledge just as much as you do."

"Not really," Twilight answered, "I mean, it would be easy enough, but . . . I don't know, I guess it's kind of like an inhibition about breaking out of this whole little cycle-thing I've gotten used to."

Dr Wolf thought for a second, just long enough for the likely reality behind what Twilight had said to become clear. "A fear that if you spend time building upon something . . . that it will only come crashing down?" He asked.

Twilight didn't say anything . . . for once. At least not at first. Even when she did, all that came out was, "Yeah . . ."

***

"Rarity!" Pinkie Pie's voice intruded into Rarity's boutique from just outside the front door. "Rarity," she called in, "yes! Pinkie has come to alleviate your long-deserved despair! Yes! Let Pinkie in!"

The marshmellow horse looked up from her sewing with an irritated expression. "Oh really?" She called back to the door. "Well, one, if it's not some kind of plan to kill Twilight then I'm not even going to listen. And two, even if it IS, I'm not actually going to go along with because I'm not a schizophrenic psychopath, and I have no desire to spend the rest of my life in one of Celestia's dungeons."

"Hehehe," the Pink ponies notorious giggles echoed back, "silly Rarity, Pinkie has no such plans. Yes!"

"Oh really?" Rarity's lack of belief made no attempt to restrain itself. "And just what sort of plans does Pinkie have then?" She asked . . . with deep, instant regret.

"Hehe-hehehe-hehe," the disturbing laughter came again, "Pinkie comes to offer companionship, that which Rarity seeks but will never again find now that her inner hag has been revealed. Yes!"

"Pinkie, do you remember back I threatened to shove a hot curling iron down your throat?" Rarity asked.

"Pinkie recalls, yes." The pony answered from outside.

"Well," Rarity continued, "that threat still stands if you even so much as try anything."

"Hehe-hehe," chuckles were the first thing to come back, "Oh, Pinkie sees, yes, Rarity is into the kinky things, yes!"

Rarity had to take a moment to collect herself before saying anything in response. "Pinkie," she eventually said, "I want to listen very carefully. If I EVER go to prison for anything, it will be for murder, and the one and only pony that would ever push me over sanity's edge would be YOU!"

"Hehe, do not worry your marshmellow bottom," Pinkie said back, "Pinkie understands, yes, you need to reach the final realization, yes!"

"What are you even talking about?" Rarity snapped. "Pinkie, I know you're insane, we all do, but could you PLEASE at least be consistent with your insanity?"

"No! Yes!" A perfectly non-sensical response from the Pink pony outside began. "PInkie's inconsistency is her ultimate weapon, yes! How else do you think she has eluded the agents of the government all this time, yes! Their spies seek to track her every move, yes, but Pinkie has outwitted them!"

"Pinkie," Rarity managed to calm herself again, "go away."

***

"--just sayin, Aye think it really might be a good idea." Spike said as he Twilight approached Sugarcube Corner. "Aye draw my purpose from you, so as long as your life stay aimless, so does mine. And besides, you already make me do most of the work around the library anyway, so it's not like you couldn't just have me take care of everything that doesn't require your direct attention." He finished his point about the potential for Twilight becoming a professor.

"Yeah," Twilight said as they both walked inside, "I figured that much. I mean, no offense but you're gonna be doing most of the work in any situation." She reminded him.

"Aye. It ain't exactly like experience has taught me anything else." Spike said, just before they noticed Meteor, Applejack and Rainbow Dash sitting around a table in one of the front room's corners.

"Oh, hey." Twilight greeted everypony as she and Spike walked up to join them. "Look's like half of everybody's here. So, what's going on?"

Applejack was the first to say anything out of the seated three. "Well, Dash just found out that yer boyfriend here's an author so she's been tryin ta convince him about why he should write a story about space-ninja-pirate-turtles."

The look that left on Twilight's face ended up being the same she found on Meteor's when she looked over at him, along with seeing something along the lines of "help me" written in his eyes. ". . .Ok then . . ." She said, walking the rest of the way up and taking a seat of her own. "So nothing too far out of line with a typical day then. So, what're you up to?" She asked Meteor. "I thought you didn't come in here?"

"Not normally," Meteor answered, "not as long as Mrs. Cake's in here."

"Sooo, what? She's gone today, I'm guessing?" Twilight asked.

"Yup!" The response that came from her boyfriend was probably one of happiest she'd seen in the month and half they'd been together. "I like watching the trains sometimes," he explained, "so I was out by the tracks earlier today and I saw Mr. Cake saying goodbye to her as she got on one and rode off to go visit her family or something."

"So ya'll figured this was finally yer chance?" Applejack chimed in.

"Oh yes!" Meteor's excitement left Twilight wondering whether he wasn't as withdrawn as he thought he was, and might actually just be one of those ponies who slowly grew more expressive the more he knew somepony. Regardless, Meteor went on, "Finally get a fricking donut without some creepy middle-aged woman telling me that: while she does except bits, she prefers being paid with ""alternative"" means. And then she gets really bitchy when you don't go for it."

"Heh," Twilight remarked, "sounds like somepony else I know."

Applejack, of course, instantly picked up on it. "Yeah, speakin'a Rarity, Ah ain't even seen her around recently. Least, not since last week's Monopoly night, n even then all she did was look real bitter the whole time n ask when we were all got start insultin her."

"You guys don't think she's super depressed again lik that one time do you?" Dash suddenly asked, referencing the time Rarity's fashion mogul boyfriend had blown her off to ""hang out with the guys"". "I don't wanna have to cheer her up again. All she did last time was keep asking if I was looking at her butt."

"I don't know," Twilight answered her, "she's pissed that I actually have a boyfriend now, that's about all I know."

"Wait," Meteor now appeared relatively confused, "that's . . . that's really what this is over? She's been this pissed for over a month just because of that?" He asked.

"Oh yeah," Twilight confirmed, "me being single and miserable was like the one thing she really held over me, and probably wanted to keep holding over me. Though I'm not the only one; she's been holding the single thing over Applejack too, kind of, but she never really got as much out of it as she did with me."

Applejack spoke up again right afterward. "Ah feel like the whole thing just revolves around the fact that even though she, quote-unquote, ""gets"" more guys than anypony else will ever see in their lifetime, she knows in the end she's just gonna end up alone."

"Aye." Spike agreed. "The classical case of the promiscuous lifestyle leads to nowhere."

Meteor gave something of a fake confused look. "No I'm pretty sure it leads to STDs." He said.

"Yeah-haha, both are equally likely outcomes." Twilight said.

"Now come on y'all," Applejack interjected, "you know promiscuity's a three way street . . ."

"Ooh, right," Spike responded, "Aye forgot about the unexpected pregnancy option."

"Yeah," Twilight said, "but even ponies who don't use condoms still take pills, so that one's not really as common as the other two."

"Still more common than NOT sleeping around to begin with." Meteor remarked.

"Actually you'd be surprised . . ." Twilight went to correct, but Meteor actually voiced what she intended too.

"I know," he said, "ponies who do sleep around just run their mouth a lot more . . ."

"Making the statistics seem skewed, yeah." Twilight finished the conclusion.

"So, she's really that upset over it?" He asked again.

"Yeah, well," AJ answered him this time, "she ain't much been one fer actin sensibly, but you know, ""who are we ta judge"" and all that er whatever."

"Aye." Spike took his turn speaking again. "Whatever, move on to somethin else will ya? It's enough we have to hear about her life from her every second she's with us."

"Yeah, I've heard enough about her myself." Twilight agreed, and tried to push the conversation in an alternate direction. "Let's talk about something else, anything else. Like . . . I don't know, AJ how'd your cousin's court case with the mine go?"

"Whatta'ya mean how did it go?" AJ answered. "Wasn't it supposed to be a foregone conclusion? He lost. And he spent three months worth of harvest profit payin for a lawyer too."

"Wait, what?" Twilight found the idea of an apple family member actually acquiring any kind of legal counsel somewhat quesitonable. "He actually got a legitimate lawyer?"

"Yeah, well . . . Ah wouldn't go callin it legitimate," Applejack corrected, "it was just their local Appleoosa lawyer, so . . ."

"So he paid several tens of thousands of bits to be represented in court by some desert hillbilly who's probably never even been inside a courtroom before in his life?" Twilight basically laid out the entire scenario.

"Braeburn don't tend to trust nopony outside'a the family fer anything," Applejack explained, "so it ain't like he was ever gonna get a real one. Plus, since the guy's the only one in Appleoosa he has a monopoly, and kinda gets ta charge whatever he wants."

"Ugh! Seriously, I'm gonna end up dying from over-exposure to stupidity before I ever get anywhere near old age!" Twilight complained.

Applejack let out a sigh, one that actually sounded as if it carried some guilt. "Ah'm sorry . . ." She said.

"Oh no!" Twilight snapped. "Don't you dare start acting like Humble Fly."

"Guys I"m really bored." Dash suddenly spoke again, attracting everyone's attention.

"Ok, and?" Twilight didn't even feel like putting in the effort to entirely ask why they should care.

Dash didn't her to though; she went off on her explanation with the tiny amount of prompting she'd received. "I think I'm gonna go see how many loops I can do before I get sick and throw up on somepony's roof." She decided aloud.

Everyone . . . just stared, like always. Only Twilight actually said anything. "Yeah, ok . . . you do that."

"Alright!" Dash got up and flew out with more than enough enthusiasm.

"So," Twilight instantly turned back to Applejack once the blue pegasus was gone, "does your cousin have any other plans?" She asked.

"Well," AJ started, "Ah ain't sure exactly. Ah just know he's gettin madder since the mining ponies started knockin down parts of the apple orchard to make room for some'a the building they've been putting up."

"Refineries." Meteor assumed.

"Yeah, he's right." Twilight said. "They're probably going to be refining the ores on-sight, since that's the more cost-effective option. I mean it'd be kinda stupid to pay to ship literal tons of unrefined ore that collectively only contain a few ounces of the rare metal you're looking for."

"This is only going to get worse ain't it?" AJ asked after another sigh.

"Yeah, probably." Twilight confirmed . . . though it didn't come out as apathetic as might have in the past.

"Ah'm just hoping his orchard don't go outta business." AJ said. "We're the first relatives he'd probably ask ta live with and, well, let's just say puttin up with Big Mac's enough as is."

***

~Meanwhile, elsewhere in Ponyville~

"Applebloom!" A deep and familiar voice called for the yellow filly's attention.

"Huh?" Applebloom turned around. "Oh hey Thrackerzod."

"The list of potentialities has been narrowed." The possessed unicorn filly told her.

"Oh? What, did y'all do some other kinda test again or somethin?" Applebloom asked.

"Yes. We sent a small contingent of our forces into the Pixarian Plane and after a great battle against the endless hordes of the sentient children's toys, we recovered one of the fabled Magic 8 Balls of Destiny." Thrackerzod explained.

The look on Applebloom's face was as one would easily expect. "Uhhh, ok?"

Thrackerzod, of course, went on to explain further. "It is a mystical artifact from the time of The Elder Beings. Each allows for a single prophetic consultation before imploding upon itself."

"Huh, well alright then. So what did y'all find out?" Applebloom asked.

"Given that this being who threatens us all both disguises themselves as a female, and has been seen by our spies using female bathrooms, we decided to narrow the range of possibilities by half, and thus asked the artifact to confirm the being's gender for sure. And it was indeed confirmed, this mysterious being is in fact, a female pony." Thrackerzod answered what she'd been asked.

"Alright," Applebloom processed everything, "so assumin this ""being"" is one of the ponies that went through Celestia's school, that at least eliminates any male students from the list. Though I don't know what the male/female student ratio at that place is."

"40% to 60!" Scootaloo's voice suddenly reached their ears, as the orange filly entered the clubhouse. She then proceeded to toss a file full of student rosters in front of them.

Thrackerzod investigated the contents in the file, and very quickly found it to be rosters of students at Celestia's school from every educational year since the records began a few decades ago. "How, did you these?" The possessed little filly was entirely bewildered.

"Good old fashioned blackmail, baby! Hoo!" The orange filly answered.

"Wait, but givin you official records could really get somepony into lot's of legal trouble. How much dirt did y'all dig up?" Applebloom questioned.

"Everybody's got a diiirrty history baby! And ponies will go ta all kinds of lengths ta keep that dirt buried. Hoo!" The answer came.

"Regardless," Thrackerzod refocused, "this data shall prove most useful. Not only does this provide the male to female student ratio, but now we also have the precise number of former students, and their assumptive age categories. We must hurry in putting this to use. The being's campaign across the multiverse is quickly gaining momentum. Narnia has already fallen! And our spies report she is making preparations to invade Middle Earth within the next month!"

Maybe not Crap anymore

“So, Meteor comin?” Spike asked just he finished up sweeping the library floor.

“Yeah, he’ll be over this afternoon,” Twilight answered, “I’m helping him proofread his latest stuff before he sends it out to his publisher.”

“You? Helpin other ponies outta the kindness of yur heart?” The little dragon couldn’t help the sense of incredulity that came over him at the very thought of the concept. “Excuse miss,” he went to ask mockingly, “would you happen to know where Twilight went?”

“Ha. Ha.” Twilight responded in her own mocking, impatient tone. “Yes, Spike, I get it; I used to be a self-centered bitch. You know you’ve had that same epiphany like two dozen times already, right?”

“Aye.” Her little brother/slave acknowledged, moving on to dusting the bookshelves. “Aye’m just still tryin to get used to it. And actually yur still a bitch, just to let you know.”

“Eh whatever,” she said, “I’ll be whatever I wanna be. And besides, Meteor doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Aye ain’t trying to stop yuh,” Spike corrected his former statement, “Aye’m just happenin to note massive changes in the demeanor of the pony who controls my life.” He said.

“You know that’s only really a half-truth, right?” Twilight asked after the last part of Spike’s statement. “Literally all the times you’ve actually refused to do stuff, I just ended up doing it myself without making you suffer any kind of consequence. I even threatened to turn you inside out once if you didn’t go to bed, and when you said no, I let walk right past me and go wandering around town all night.”

“Aye know, Twilight.” Spike said. “And what about you? Have you ever noticed that even though it would apparently be so easy, Aye’ve never actually ran away from all this?”

The words drew a somewhat uncomfortable look from the purple unicorn. “What, are you trying to have an emotional sibling bonding moment . . . or something?” She asked.

Spike’s eyes did a slow roll before he spoke. “Ay don’t know, Aye guess not if you’re just gonna react negatively to it.” He answered.

“I’m not reacting negatively.” Twilight attempted to falsely correct him.

It only resulted in a “”really”” look from the dragon, however.

“Ok look,” she responded to the disbelieving glance, “I get that I’m being a lot nicer or whatever, but you’re asking me to steps that just aren’t gonna happen yet. The whole, stupid, half-family thing with us was supposed to be unspoken . . .”

A sigh from Spike preceded his response. “Noted. Relax, Aye’ll leave it alone then.”

Spike went back to dusting, and Twilight attempted to return to reading her textbook, but an irritating worry began grow and eventually show on her face.

“I mean,” she suddenly started up again, “you . . . you do make good pancakes . . . and, you’re like . . . the best at cleaning stuff.” She told him, with an unsureness creeping in her voice.

“Aye though you weren’t ready to take any more steps yet?” Spike reminded her.

“Yeah, but . . . I don’t know.” Twilight’s unsure disposition was still driving her. “I guess that’s just another thing Meteor really was right about.” She said.

“Aye. And what might that be now?” Spike asked.

“That everypony’s a hypocrite.” She answered him.

“You know, Aye thought you would’ve already known that.” Spike admitted.

“Yeah, well, you know how I am about admitting personal faults.” She had to remind him of the obvious.

“Up until recently,” he added a slight correction to the truth, “that kinda just leads back my point: you’re really changing.”

“Yeah?” Twilight seemed to freeze for a moment in contemplation over the exposed truth. “I guess this is just what recovering from lonely, bitter narcissism looks like.” She concluded, in something of an admission.

“Well,” Spike said with a rarer, semi-caring tone that he barely ever felt the situation right to use, “Aye hope you get to go all the way with it then.”

The final words of their conversation, the final statement from the purple-smart unicorn left an implication that Spike would have never, ever expected before. Twilight was silent for another moment before breathing out, “yeah . . . you’re not the only one . . .”

***

~ meanwhile : in Rarity’s shop ~

“So wait, what am I supposed to do again?” Rainbow Dash asked, forgetting the assigned job given to her by the fashionista. She stood up on Rarity’s modelling platform, donned in the base fabric pattern for something that resembled a uniform.

“You are HOLDING STILL,” the unicorn had re-drill into the dimwitted Dash’s head, “so I can adjust this until it fits. I’m not used to making military uniforms, let alone making anything for pegasi since you’re all a bunch of mindless numskulls who don’t care about your appearance, so I need to see how the fabric works with your stupid horsefly body type.” She finally finished her lecture . . . for the dozenth time.

“Ok.” Dash acknowledged at first, but then a light bulb suddenly went off in her head. “Wait did you say military uniforms? Oh oh oh! Are these for the Wonderbolts!?” She all but assaulted her friend with hyper-fan questions.

“No, they’re for the 51st parasprite regiment.” Rarity responded with flat sarcasm. “Of course they’re for the Wonderbolts! Just who else do you think they’d even be for?” She demanded from her idiotic friend.

“Well . . .” Dash tried to think, “uh, I don’t know, aren’t there like pegasi in the royal guard and stuff?”

“Yes, but those are royal guard!” Rarity wasted more effort trying to drill a point in. “Royal guard wear armor! The Wonderbolts are a performing squad of specialized officers. Officers wear uniforms!”

“So, so, like, when are they coming?” Dash asked. “Can I meet’em? Are they gonna be in the shop? Oh oh you gotta let me meet’em! You gotta!” She started demanded with mindless enthusiasm.

“Ah-haha-ha, ha, NO.” Rarity answered her. “And that’s the biggest N. O. you’re ever going to get, Dash. I’m not stupid enough to commit business-suicide, which is exactly what having you in here when I’m speaking to premier clients would be.”

Dash, rather predictably, started going into a childish breakdown. “What? But . . . but I really wanna meet the Wonderbolts! You gotta let me! You have to!” She whined.

“No I don’t, darling.” Rarity maintained her contradiction. “I have no such obligation.”

“No,” Dash just kept whining, “but but, but you gotta!”

“No,” Rarity held her position, “I definitely don’t, and even if I WAS willing, whining certainly wouldn’t be helping your case.” She felt her aggravation growing as she kept attempting to take measurements and fit the fabric Dash was wearing.

Dash actually went silent for a minute, just appearing downed. Then, however, her eyes shot open with another lightbulb that lit off in her mind. “Oh oh, wait I know,” she started up, “What if I wait outside your house, like up on the roof or something, and then I can jump down and catch them when they’re heading away?”

“No,” Rarity began nearing the edge of her patience, “you are NOT waiting on my roof to stalk celebrities. And if I so much as catch you anywhere near my boutique on the day the Wonderbolts are here, I WILL have you arrested for trespassing. AND I will finally take you to court over all the damages you’ve caused to my house over the years.”

“Wha-wha-what? Come on, you know I can’t afford all that stuff!” Rainbow complained in a panic.

“Well,” Rarity responded, “I guess you’d better just gain some self-control for the first time in your life, and stay away from my shop while the Wonderbolts are in town.”

“Bu-but . . . d—n’aaww man!” Dash finally gave up, dropping her gaze mopingly to the floor.

“So,” a new, agonizingly familiar voice prompted Rarity to turn around, only to find Pinkie standing just a few steps away, “Pinkie hears you have finally received attention from worthwhile clients, yes?”

The faint blue aura of Rarity’s magic instantly formulated around a curling iron on a nearby counter, switching it on right away. “What the unlady-like expletive are you doing in my shop?” Rarity demanded to know from the mentally unstable pink horse. “Pinkie, I warned you I would shove a curling iron down your throat; you have to the count of three to get out of my shop before I follow through on that threat!” She ended by levitating the said device into a ready position.

The pink pony jiggled with the snickering that erupted from her before she responded to renewed threat. “You worry your marshmellow bottom too much Rarity.” She said. “Pinkie is not here for you; she is here Rainbow Dash!”

“Huh? Oh, uh, did you want something Pinkie?” Rainbow’s attention only just managed to focus.

“Pinkie desires your final demise!” Pinkie announced. “She has come to put an end to your servitude of the yellow one! Yes!”

“Pinkie!” Rarity snapped. “I am trying to use Dash as a modelling base here. I would appreciate it if you would postpone whatever stupid homicidal plans you have for her until AFTER I’m finished here!”

“Actually,” Dash threw in as well, “I was gonna go get ice cream after I was done helping Rarity. So can you wait ta murder me till later?” She asked.

“What?” Pinkie reacted with obvious frustration. “What is this? You contrive petty excuses to elude Pinkies plans? Yes?”

“Uh, well, not really,” Dash said, “I just want ice cream.”

“And I want you both to shut up and let me finish my work!” Rarity barely kept herself from yelling at them both. “All of the agonizing I’ve been doing over the last few months to promote my business up to this point is NOT going to go to waste because of the idiot or the town psychopath!”

Pinkie broke into another suppressed series of chuckles. “So,” she mused, “Pinkie’s suspicions were correct, yes? You have been fore-slaving yourself to quench the agonizing thirst of your misery. Yes!”

“Yes, Pinkie,” Rarity confirmed for the giggling pink pony, “that is EXCATLY what I’ve been doing. And for the last three months I’ve managed to fill over fifty orders, come up with over a dozen new designs for my own personal line, and attract the attention of a number of high-end clients.” She declared her recent accomplishments.

“The lack of bedsheet distractions has done you well. Yes.” Pinkie concluded.

“Yes,” Rarity agreed, somewhat reluctantly, “so it apparently has. Now get out of my shop!”

“Hehe-hehe-hehe,” Pinkie giggled with a shifty grin, “Pinkie goes, yes. She will be waiting.”

***

~ Back in Twilight’s library ~

“You don’t find it just the slightest bit odd?” Spike was asking Twilight. “It’s supposed to just be a gold mine after all.”

“I don’t know; I mean, it is kinda overkill, but—“ Twilight stopped mid-reply as knocking came from the front door.

“Aye got it.” Spike said, carrying the simple action he’d taken charge of.

No surprise to either of them, it was Meteor Streak, wearing a satchel loaded with his next novel’s manuscript.

“Hey.” The grey stallion greeted spike as he was let in.

“Hey.” Twilight called over her shoulder. “Just a second, let me finish writing this week’s B.S. letter for Celestia.”

“You’re sure you’re not eventually going to end up repeating something at some point?” Meteor voiced what he saw as an inevitable likelihood.

“She already has.” Spike let him know after shutting the door.

“Yeah,” Twilight ended up confirming what Spike said, “believe me, I’ve probably repeated half the supposed “”lessons”” like half a dozen times, but this one’s actually something new though.”

“Sooo, she really just doesn’t care then?” Meteor asked regarding Celestia.

“Ahhh, I wouldn’t put it like that necessarily,” Twilight clarified, “I mean, she cares about what I’m doing, but she’s really selective about it. Besides,” she went on, taking a second to finalize the letter before rolling the parchment up, “I hopefully shouldn’t have to worry about that for that much longer; maybe just a couple more years.” As soon as she’d finished speaking, she passed the letter over to Spike, who proceeded to send it.

“What?” Meteor inquired about Twilight’s anticipation of the near future. “Is she getting bored or something?”

“Sort of.” Twilight said as she walked over.

“Twilight figured out a pattern Celestia usually follows.” Spike explained. “And we’re about comin to the end of one of her little cycles.”

“Yeah,” Twilight took over the explanation, going to further detail, “turns out she follows a pretty observable pattern of selecting a quote-unquote protégé, stalking their every life moment, and making their lives miserable until around their mid or late twenties. Then she gets bored finds a new one.” She said with clear, anticipatory happiness.

Meteor considered for a second, and then went to voice something that arose as a concern.

Spike spoke first, however, adding on to what Twilight had just gone into. “And since Twilight here’s about ready to fit into that boredom age category, we figure it’s probably gettin close to time. Plus Celestia’s been sendin ludacris demands to us less and less, and Aye would know, Aye haven’t had to deal with heartburn for almost two months now.”

“Of course,” Twilight had to muse, “now that you just said that she’s gonna send us a letter any moment now.”

“Screw that bitch!” Spike declared his already well-known disdain for the sun-butt princess. “Aye’ll swallow the damn letter back up.”

“No, you won’t.” Twilight’s voice grew halfway rigid in her response to his little outburst. “I may be nearing the end of my place on her entertainment cycle, but I still have to do whatever she says. Or else she’s gonna do something to the both of us that’ll involve molten silver, and knowing her it’ll probably be sexual.”

Meteor waited a few seconds for his eyes to shrink after Twilight’s last sentence. Finally he spoke up again, after clearing those unnerving images out of his head. “So,” he started, “she’s just gonna start all of this all over again with another filly?”

“Yeah, I can’t fricking wait,” Twilight said, “I’m finally gonna be free from all this crap!”

Meteor quite visibly didn’t share Twilight’s enthusiasm, or at least going by his expression, it wasn’t the most prominent thought in his mind. “But,” he said, tone subtly darkening, “this wasn’t just something centered around you? She’s gonna put another little kid through everything she did to you; she’s gonna destroy some other filly’s childhood.”

A wave of tension came over Twilight, and while it didn’t grip Spike, he still felt it’s presence in the conversation. Meteor felt Twilight’s unease reflect back at him. Flashing memories of himself being socially cornered and breaking down internally as arguments arose, and he saw the same potential progression arising on Twilight’s face. He wasn’t certain it was selfless care for her, selfish desire to avoid tension himself, or a halfway divide between both, but one way or another he realized what was happening and resolved himself not to go any further.

With Meteor saying nothing, while also withdrawing his previous expression, Twilight stood there debating with herself about what to say . . . and on some deeper level, losing the mental battle that she’d consistently fought all her life: the battle to convince herself that she didn’t care about what happened to other ponies. It was clear that Meteor did . . . but Twilight had always told herself that she didn’t. How could somepony so bitchy care about other ponies anyway? But . . . ever since she’d moved here . . . she’d been slowly losing that battle with herself.

Eventually she did speak. “Yeah, but . . . it . . . I—look, I . . . I can’t—it’s not like I can actually do anything.” It came out as what she still thought it was: her defending herself.

“I know.” Meteor said right away, before Twilight could slip any further into a panic. “It’s fine. I wasn’t . . . exactly thinking about it like you were.”

Twilight did show visible signs of returning calm, but entirely right away. “Look, I’m—I just want all of this crap to finally be over. I’m not excited about some kid going through my same childhood or whatever. I’ve been dealing with everything from Celestia for over half my life, and I’m really just a little bit desperate for her to finally shove off.”

“I don’t actually believe you want a little filly to suffer.” Meteor spoke as soon as could again. In his mind, he felt like he was stumbling blindly, but the feeling that he had to say something was consistently overriding the fear that he wouldn’t be able to articulate it correctly. “I wasn’t thinking the same way as you.” He did his best to keep his own distress out of his voice. “. . . I’m coming from a different place.”

The level of calm Twilight felt continued to rise, and in tangent, her former tension fell.

Uneasiness resisted with the words themselves resisted Meteor’s desire to say them, as was the case with more ponies than one would think. “I’m sorry.” He still said. “I can’t really keep my morality from jumping ahead of my thought.”

“Uh—ah, no it . . . it’s—fine . . .” Twilight found herself the one trying to be assuring now, “ah—I guess, sorry you had to deal me starting to go down that road . . . if I didn’t actually have my Xanax that probably would have been a full episode.”

“Yeah, speaking of that . . .” Meteor reached into his satchel, navigating around the papers it carried until he found his own prescription bottle, “uh—can I have some water?” He asked, bringing the bottle out into plain sight, trusting Twilight would obviously get it.

Twilight instantly jumped at the chance to begin shifting everything away from the tense moment that had just occurred. “Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh, Spike—“

“On it.” The dragon agreed to his duties before Twilight even finished, and went straight for the kitchen right away.

“So . . . ah, ha ha, you wanna get started on your manuscript?” Twilight tentatively asked.

“Sure.” Meteor gladly fulfilled Twilight’s hopes of leaving the previous tension behind.

Twilight took the unpublished novel from her boyfriend, while Spike returned with a glass of water. She began reading from the beginning, as Meteor swallowed a Lorazepam in the background. He hesitated for just a moment, but he went on to go and sit down next to her, and they all went on to read the story he had wrote; he and Twilight proofreading first and Spike sitting across the table enjoying the novel page by page as each piece of parchment finished undergoing its error-check.

***

~ Meanwhile : Elsewhere in Ponyville . . . ~

“This has quickly grown tiring!” Thrackerzod was in the midst of complaining to her friends. “And it is getting us nowhere! We must find a more efficient way to go about this!”

“Yeah,” Applebloom followed up, “Ah agree stalkin each one of’em one by one ain’t exactly the easiest quickest way to get stuff done. But, we’re a trio of children, we ain’t really got all that much at our disposal, far as resources go anyway.” She raised the more frustrating point they were all too used to running into.

“What, about Scootaloo’s inexplicable ability to blackmail administrative staff in any organization?” Thrackerzod suddenly considered.

Applebloom thought on that point for a second. “Em, yeah, Ah guess there is that.” She said. “But we already got the list’a students off the dean of Celestia’s school.”

“Yes,” Thrackerzod replied, “but perhaps there is more we can pry if we try Scootaloo’s methods on other targets involved?” She brought up the idea.

Applebloom though for a second again, trying to come up with a possibility. “Huh, well Ah don’t know rightly,” she admitted, “Ah mean, maybe we could get a hold of their grades and test records or . . . something. Ah don’t know what that’ll really get us though.”

Applebloom’s idea, however, did spark a sudden realization in Thrackerzod. “Many unicorn tests focus on assessing a student’s magical aptitude,” she said, “perhaps their academic records could shed light their respective power levels as estimated by their professors?” She finalized.

“Baby,” Scootaloo threw herself into the middle of the conversation, “I may not be completely in on what you need if for, but it sounds like you need Scootaloo to get a hold’a something for you again, hoo!”

“Yes!” Thrackerzod immediately jumped at the possibility. “You must re-infiltrate the Canterlot academia employee lounges and find some means to acquire copies of the students academic records and magical test scores. It is imperative!”

Scootaloo instantly flooded with her own brand of excitement, rising up from her sitting position. “Hoo! It can be done baby!” She declared. “What’s in it for me?”

The question caught Thrackerzod off guard, and consequently left the trio in an awkward silence for a solid moment before Thrackerzod answered with straight face. “I will give you half of my Nightmare Night candy.” She promised.

“Scootaloo don’t go half-way baby,” the orange filly told her, “With Scootaloo it’s go big or go home, hoo!”

“Fine!” Thrackerzod declared. “I will give you ALL of my Nightmare Night candy! Countless worlds are at stake; this job MUST be accomplished!”

“Hoo! It’s a deal baby!” Came the expectable answer from the compacted orange enthusiasm.

“Oh yeah,” Applebloom spoke back up again, “so how’s that middle-place doing that you said she was invadin next?” She asked.

“Middle-Earth,” Thrackerzod corrected her friend on the name, “and they have faired far better than Narnia. Though they still fight a losing a battle. Everything west of the Misty Mountains has been conquered, and even as we speak, Mirkwood burns to the ground. The armies of the west are gathering for a final stand against her. They plan to bottle-neck her forces at the Gap of Rohan. The coming battle will likely be long, and bloody, and may last many days, but the overall chances of them winning are slim. With every world she conquers, another set peoples become enamored with her, and her armies only swell. Some may have better forces, but no force can match her numbers now!” Thrackerzod concluded her rant glaring angrily down at the ground and shaking her hoof in a fist.

“So, do y’all think she’s gonna come here eventually?” Applebloom asked. “Invade Equestria I mean.”

“I do not know.” Thrackerzod answered. “We would have suspected her to have gone for this world first, given that the portal to it is the closest to the point at which her campaign began on the plane between worlds. But she has left this world untouched! It is both suspicious and perplexing.”

It left Applebloom thinking. From the outset, it did indeed make no sense. But, she had no doubt some kind of reason had to reveal itself if they only thought hard enough.

***

Twilight passed the final page of Meteor’s new story over to Spike. “Wow,” she said, “that was actually pretty good.”

The comment no doubt brought a smile to Meteor’s face, a split mix of just the general sense of accomplishment and the fact that the positive regard had come from Twilight.

The purple unicorn went into further detail with what exactly she meant. “I usually only read novels after I’ve been studying too much just so I can keep my mind from going numb. At least, since most of the time the whole premise of whatever the story is stupid or it all revolves around some bullshit mouth-breather romance where the characters just stare at each other for hours.”

“Yeah stupid stories are pretty often what motivate good writers to write good stories.” Meteor said. “What it really is . . .” he had to stop for a few seconds to actually decide how he wanted to explain it, “I like creating stories, not . . . just writing out my own personal fantasies and then throwing them up on advertising boards in front of everypony.”

“Well, I actually . . . liked reading this.” Twilight restated, and then asked. “Do you have any of your other stuff?”

“Uh, not on me.” He answered.

“Well yeah, I meant just like in general, whether you have your own copies of stuff or not.” She clarified herself. “So I could, like ask you for them.”

“Sure. I have some.” Meteor said. “They give you ten free copies of your own work, to give out to friends.”

Spike finally put down the final page. “Aye.” He chimed in. “The whole air-of-mystery thing was pretty good. Aye specially liked that song you threw in near the end, the one about burnin everything.”

“The dragon likes the song about burning everything?” Twilight mockingly asked. “Wow, way to not reinforce your own species’ stereotype.”

“Hey! It’s about revolution, not actually burning everything to the ground.” Spike corrected her, and then neatly stacked the papers back up together and slid the pile back over to Meteor. And while Meteor went about putting the manuscript back into his satchel, both his ears instantly picked up the melody of his own song coming out of the dragon. It was more muttering as opposed to singing, but the words still discernible, or at least more so for Meteor since he knew exactly what they were supposed to be. “Pouring the fuel,” Spike went, “fanning the flames.”

He was surprised, to a good extent, when Meteor joined him. “Breaking the habit and melting the chains.”

Meteor looked nervously at Twilight as he and Spike both went on through the lyrics together. She was wearing a mixed look of mild disapproval and a fair amount of uncertainty.

“Facing your fear, chasing the fight.” Both dragon and Pegasus went.

And then, only at the last second, and to both of their shock, Twilight actually joined in for the final line.

“The glow of the fire will LIGHT UP THE NIGHT!”

Twilight still looked somewhat nervous afterward. She tried her hardest to never sing, despite sudden instinctual bursts song being a natural phenomenon of Equestria.

“And what’s this now?” Spike asked, for the most part rhetorically. “Aye thought you utterly detested singing Twilight?”

“Yeah, and a lot of things have thought recently.” Twilight said, basically waving it off. She then turned over to Meteor again, noticing that he was getting up and putting on his satchel.

“Ah, you’re heading out?” She asked, unknowingly letting disappointment creep into her voice.

“Yeah,” he said back, “it’s nine already.” A yawn added itself after he’d finished speaking.

“Oh . . . uh . . .” Twilight tried to utter the words to match the disappointment she was feeling, but she couldn’t immediately bring herself to admit it.

“What?” Meteor asked.

On the second try Twilight succeeded. “Uh, uh—I actually . . . I don’t know, I was kind of hoping you’d stay, I guess.” She admitted.

Meteor took a few seconds to inquire anything in return. “Wh—you mean . . . for the night, or—“

“Yeah,” Twilight answered, “. . . I . . . don’t know, I guess. I’m just kinda starting to the reach that point of attachment where I end up feeling really lonely after you leave. Even though usually I’d want to be alone most of time.”

“Ok.” Meteor agreed to stay a couple seconds later. He looked around for a second and then put down his satchel on the table again, before another yawn escaped him. “I’m actually pretty tired though, obviously.” He said.

“That’s alright,” Twilight said, “I mean, I could just go to bed early tonight, and we can cuddle . . . I think, it’s called . . . I guess?” She never, ever had honestly believed in any way that she would have ever found herself saying something like that . . . but here she was . . .

Meteor now appeared almost equally embarrassed. “Yeah . . . I’ve . . . kind of always liked the idea of just holding somepony.” He admitted.

“Great,” Twilight oddly found herself saying, “and I guess I probably really like the idea of somepony putting their hooves around me and . . . letting a nice, peaceful moment finally take away all of the stress and bullshit in my life . . .”

. . .

They all ended up asleep less than an hour later. Spike laid in his bed. And Twilight and Meteor both laid on hers, Twilight in his arms . . . and sleeping without nightmares.

***

~ Meanwhile : Far, far away in the desert ~

“All personnel! Report to the viewing line or your designated safe location.” A voice echoed over the entire setup via vocal projection spell.

“Repeat. All personnel! Report to the viewing line or your designated safe location.”

Shining Armor already stood at the viewing line. Chief of operational security, his place on this assignment was beside the scientists it depended on. All of them were there beside him except for one. She was out on the tower; Shining Armor could see it clearly thanks to the lights fixed to it. It stood tall out there, the sole rising structure amidst the flatness of the desert.

It had only been a few months ago that none of this had even been here. The residents of Appleoosa had been surprised as anypony could be when an unexpected train pulled into their tiny station and a handful of unicorns in labcoats hopped out, escorted by an entire contingent of royal guard. No pony had known what they were doing, not at first. All the townsponies saw was the scientists poking and prodding rocks with a weird stick connected to a box that occasionally made a bunch of rapid clicking noises.

Within a few days they’d marked off several areas, and mining equipment started rolling in. The ground was ripped open, the buffalo were kicked off their land, an parts of the apple orchard were even destroyed to clear room for numerous large buildings that massive assembly built with incredible speed. No pony saw, save those who built them and the scientists who operated what was built inside. And inside each of those buildings were rows and rows and endless rows of water-filled metal cylinders, all connected to each other. Each one had filter inside, near the bottom, and from the first through the last in line, pulverized bits of the rocks they sought after were forced through filter after filter. What came out the other side was molded into the scientists desired shape: a hollow sphere, cut in two parts.

That sphere was what was suspended from the top of the tower. It was encased inside of another sphere, one of generic metal, and in the space between them were dozens of explosives. Moondancer was checking over them all: wiring, positioning, everything. They were directional explosives, all pointed inward, meant to make the sphere collapse in on itself, implode. Every one of them had to go off, it had to be a perfectly spherical implosion, and they all had to go off at exactly the same time. If they succeeded, the sphere would implode into a small piece of another special metal. Plutonium would implode in on Iridium . . . and then Celestia would have what she wanted.

Shining looked through his binoculars and saw the lone Pegasus guard hovering next to the tower lift up Moondancer and begin flying her back to the viewing line. They arrived in less than five minutes, and Moondancer took her place next to her colleagues.

No words were exchanged between any of the scientists. Only a simple look of acknowledgement passed between Moondancer and Dr Trottenheimer as he levitated her a key. They both turned to the small mechanism propped up before them. No more than two seconds of pause passed, and they both inserted their arming keys and turned them.

A five minute counter began timing down, and soon a message began broadcasting over the vocal projection spell.

“All personnel! Don safety goggles or face away from the test! DO NOT remove goggles or about-face until at least ten seconds after First Light! Repeat! All personnel! Don safety goggles or face away from the test! DO NOT remove goggles or about-face until at least ten seconds after First Light!” The now more-than-serious voice echoed across the assembly.

Almost in complete sync, every guard and scientist standing at the viewing line donned their goggles. And then they all waited.

“Now at T minus sixty.” The voice began vocalizing the timer’s count down.

“Now at T minus thirty.”

“Now at T minus twenty.”

“T minus ten.”

“Nine.”

“Eight.”

“Seven.”

“Six.”

“Five!”

“Four!”

“Three!”

“TWO!”

“ONE!”

“BURST!”

The explosives went off. The implosion succeeded. And Shining Armor found out just what he’d been called to that desert to guard.

A burst of white erupted from the tower. Blinding radiance flooded all vision. And a terrifying midnight sun rose over the desert.

Author's Note

So, we've made to installment number 4.

We get some interesting revelations this time, and perhaps some interesting development as well?

Let me know what you think. Please :pinkiehappy:

Leaving Crap in the Past

Author's Note

Ok, so first off, I'm really really really sorry for not having anything up sooner. I had to deal with Finals week, and then we had to move all of my stuff out of my regular dorm into the summer-resident dorm, AND I had to take care of shutting down the dorm I work at. So, overall . . . I've been stressed out end-to-end. But now that's done, and I'm free for some time.

Leaving Crap in the Past

A purple hoof shook a trio of ten-sided dice for a brief instant before releasing them to roll across the table.

“Hah!” Twilight exclaimed upon seeing the resulting total. “Twenty-four damage. What happens?” She asked, looking up at Meteor.

“It dies.” Came a simple reply from a face that teetered on the edge of grinning. Meteor’s innate lack of expressiveness still withheld though, but just barely with how much he was finally getting to see Twilight have.

“Aye,” Spike spoke up, “finally! The damn thing’s the most annoying monster in the game.” He complained.

“Why? Just cause everyone but me is useless against them?” Twilight asked, a mix of smugness and mellow happiness filling her voice where snark and aggravation previously would.

“Basically.” Spike answered the question. “Aye’d almost rather have my character get killed by the thing instead of just having it eat all my weapons in two seconds then just walk away and ignore my like Aye ain’t worth its time.”

Meteor did take a slight emotional blow at Spike’s evident frustration over the dungeon encounter he’d just ran them through, though it wasn’t outwardly visible. But he made it a point to take a mental note of it: No more Rust Monsters.

“Yeah, Ah gotta agree with Spike on this one,” Applejack threw her opinion in, though she was meaning it as a comment toward Twilight, “these things basically leave you as the only one who can really do anything. Plus there’s already the fact that me and Spike have to go blow for blow with everything while you get to sit back just cast “”Rip Monster in Half””.

“It’s not like it’s a one-hit kill.” Twilight countered. “I have to roll every turn to see if I can maintain the spell. AND the monster also gets a roll to try to escape it.”

She was making a fair argument, in Meteor’s initial opinion, although he was obviously left to wonder if his own disposition towards Twilight was producing bias. It probably was to an extent, though he preferred not to think it was too much, since the game was something he viewed with deadly seriousness.

“I—in her defense,” he did find himself speaking up, “it’s actually decently balanced. I mean it used to not be. When the game was first created everypony complained that unicorns were way too overpowered.” He explained. “So they put in all the per-turn rolls and spell failure chances. Plus they actually did used to have one-hit kill spells, but they got rid of those.”

“Seriously?” AJ asked.

“Oh yeah,” Twilight followed up what her boyfriend had said, “there were spells like: “”Teleport Monster into Sun””, “”Deoxygenate Monster’s Blood””, and all kinds’a stuff. I mean I enjoy being overpowered and even I think it was pretty messed up.” Twilight might have been surprised to hear herself admitting . . . had she been a former version of herself.

“Well, Ah’m willin ta admit Ah’m a little salty over havin my weapons eaten,” AJ took her turn to admit, “but Ah suppose me n Spike can just get new ones, provided whatever treasure these things were guardin comes out to be enough to afford a new of everything.”

“Oh yeah,” Twilight turned back to Meteor again, prompted by AJ’s comment to ask, “so what’s behind the secret door at the end of the dungeon?”

There was silence for a few seconds, and all the while a semi-nervous grin slowly crept onto Meteor’s face, until he answered . . . “Another dungeon . . .”

AJ’s was the first expression to change, her head tilting and her face immediately plastering itself with confusion.

Spike slapped a hand to face. He knew the reference; loosely, Twilight had used her own version of it on him more than once with, “So you’re done with your chores? That’s great then, cause I got you something today: more chores!” Hearing it from another pony made him groan, but he knew Twilight would most likely love it.

Sure enough, she did. Twilight grew a grin of her own as it sunk in. “Ah, ha-ha-ha, alright, I get it.” She said. “You’ll get points for that.”

Another brief silence followed, over which Meteor’s slight grin turned to an actually noticeable smile at Twilight’s approval of his technically-screwing them over.

And the two of them both burst out laughing. Granted, neither of them were very loud, but still, it was a scene Spike would never have expected to see and certainly one that only left AppleJack more lost than she’d already been. Spike let his hand finally slip from his face and just put on an expression of willingy-accepted defeat. As much as he didn’t exactly find the joke/reference all that clever . . . he couldn’t get around the fact that Twilight was happy, and seeing his life’s guiding signpost so free of stress wasn’t something he was ever going to try and put a stop to.

“Uhhhh,” AJ finally began to voice her confusion, “does anypony mind explaining whatever’s goin on ta me? Cause Ah’m pretty there’s supposed ta be some kinda joke that Ah just ain’t getting.” She asked.

“It’s just a call back to some stupid story.” Spike initially explained, although Twilight quickly followed with a much more detailed version afterward.

“It’s from this thing from a play,” she started, “since I grew up in Canterlot my family went to see plays a lot and one of them about this pony who spends his whole chasing this other pony in mask trying to get revenge for . . . I don’t know, something. And at the end he finally confronts the masked pony and challenges him to a duel. So the masked pony wins and while the protagonist is dying the masked pony asks him if he has any last wishes, so the protagonist demands that his adversary reveal himself and take off his mask. The masked pony agrees and says “”you wanna know what’s underneath this mask?”” and then he takes it off and says “”another mask”” and there legitimately is another mask on underneath the first mask.”

Applejack just blinked.

“It’s one of those things where it’s so stupid it’s funny.” Twilight offered something of a summary.

“Well, yeah Ah can understand that,” AJ said, “Ah’m more just tryin ta wrap mah head around what the point’a that whole story was. Not yer tellin it, Ah mean, but like the play itself?” She then asked.

Twilight offered an explanation for that as well. “I think it’s one of those things where they were trying to teach a lesson about like, how wasting your life chasing after revenge is bad, but they went about it pretty stupidly.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda what it seems like.” AJ agreed, and decided to move on from the subject. “Anyways, so can we just call it here and pick up next time?” She asked, regarding the game. “Ah’ve got a couple things round the farm Ah’d prefer to have done before midnight.”

“Yeah, I guess we’ve gone far enough.” Twilight agreed.

“We’re done?” Meteor asked, just for absolute clarification.

“Yeah,” Twilight said, finally standing up after several hours, “it’s getting close to ten, and it’s not like we’re close to leveling up anytime soon so yeah, pause it.”

At her behest, Meteor went right to putting everything away: dice in the bin, character sheets in the folder, map wiped clean and rolled up. Soon enough the floor was bare again, and Spike was left watching the entire thing, feeling exceptionally out-of-place not being the one cleaning things up. It was nice, mind you, not having to get up until he felt like . . . but it still felt a certain degree of unnatural.

“Oh, hey,” Applejack suddenly turned around halfway to the door, “fore Ah go, Ah was wonderin bout somethin. Since yer more connected’n such or whatever than Ah am, Ah was wonderin if you knew if somethin’s wrong with the mail system lately?” She asked Twilight.

“Uhh, no, not as far as I’m aware. Why?” Twilight said back.

“Well, it’s just that Braeburn’s been sending letter after letter whining and complaining ta us about everything ever since this whole thing with that mine began.” Applejack explained. “But we haven’t gotten so much as one letter in over a month.”

“And you’re complaining about that?” Twilight was initially surprised, given the clear disdain her friend had for her cousin because of their history.

“No, not at all,” Applejack clarified that bit, “it’s just that’s a bit strange on his part.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about the mail system having problems.” Twilight reaffirmed. “I don’t even get mail from anypony anyway, except Celestia, but that’s only been getting rarer and rarer, and even if it wasn’t it come through Spike anyways. So yeah, I got nothing.”

“Alright, then,” Applejack decided to just concede and finally head off, “Ah’ll see ya’ll Wednesday fer Monopoly night, if not before then.”

“See yuh later.” Twilight bid her farewell, and went to close the door. She halted herself at the last moment however, and opened it halfway again. “Hey if you need any help with the harvest again just let me know.” She called out to AJ.

The orange earth pony stopped to look back over her shoulder, another look confusion appearing, though a lesser kind than the last. “Y’all sure?” She asked.

“Yeah, I need something to do Monday anyways.” Twilight pretended to trivialize the fact that she was openly offering to help somepony else.

“Well alright then,” AJ welcomely accepted the potential offer, “Ah’ll let y’all know if Big Mac “”gets injured”” again. See yuh.”

Now, Twilight actually shut the door. And then turned around to a sight of Spike still laying on the floor, and Meteor packing up all of the gaming stuff he’d brought and preparing to go. The newly-instinctual desire to stop him from leaving flared up quickly, but she didn’t say anything. Her medication lessened her overt anxiety by a great deal, but it would always still be there, even if it was severely weakened. This one of the few times it actually managed to grab some kind of hold over her again. She wanted him to stay . . . she wanted to cuddle up with his hooves around her again . . . but, he’d stayed three nights at the library in just the past week at her asking, and her old anxieties were coming through in the new fear that maybe he would become irritated if she asked him to stay with her too many times. Her logical mind was of course trying at the same time to get the clearly recognizable point across to her that Meteor enjoyed being with her just as much as she enjoyed his being there, but the potential consequences she was imagining if her irrational fears turned out to be true were too much to overcome.

“Twilight?” Meteor’s voice suddenly reached her ears.

She blinked out of her spiral of thought to find him staring back at with some concern showing, and Spike staring back as well with a single raised eyebrow.

“Huh? Oh—uh . . . uh—nothing, I just . . . saw you were getting ready to go.” Twilight ended up saying, only realizing in the split-second afterward that she’d basically just given it all away.

But for her, time would not be permitting her nerves to rise, as a semi-nervous voice came from Meteor again before Twilight could internally panic.

“. . . Do you want me to stay again?” He asked.

Twilight hesitated for a minute, of course, but as soon as reality had silenced anxiety she gave her obvious answer. “Uh—yeah . . . yeah I wanted to ask you but I was . . . kinda afraid you’d find it annoying if I kept asking you to stay with me all the time.” She managed to sheepishly admit.

In that moment, both of their fears were assuaged, and Meteor was able to continue, granting her some reassurance. “No, I’m fine,” he said, “I really love getting to spend to spend the night here.”

“Oh,” Twilight finally let the truth she should’ve known sink in, and as she did she felt herself relaxing once more, “ha, well, ha-ha, that really would’ve been a fun internal panic-trip if I wasn’t on Xanax.”

“Aye.” Spike agreed. “Boy can’t Aye attest to that.”

“Just how fun?” Meteor asked while he set his things back down on the table.

“Ah-haha-ha, well,” Twilight began a nervous admission, “one of the worst ones I can recall was this one time I was worried about something terrible happening next Tuesday and I paced in circles around the upstairs table so long that wore a legitimate groove into the floor.”

“Aye,” Spike confirmed the claim, “that she did, and she made me measure it.”

“I’m assuming you’ve had the floor redone or something since then?” Meteor asked. “Since, I’ve never noticed anything.”

“Oh yeah. Yeah we got that taken care of really quick.” She answered.

A vocal exhale suddenly came from Spike as he finally picked himself up off the floor. After brushing himself off, he raised up a point and question to the both of them. “Aye suppose you two are gonna want me to make you something? So what’ll it be? Cookies?” He asked.

“Chocolate Chip!” The excited burst from Meteor caught the two of them off guard, to be sure. That much external enthusiasm was quite rare to see from him. But, after the few seconds of shock wore off, the surprising excitement on her boyfriend’s face did leave Twilight smiling when she answered Spike herself.

“Yeah sure,” she told the little dragon, “chocolate chip cookies sound great I guess.”

“Aye, Aye’m on it then.” Spike agreed to it, and noticeably without the usual amount of undesire he used to always have about him.

Twilight watched him walking away toward the kitchen, and though she did hesitate for a moment, she managed to force words out of herself. “Spike . . .” she called for his attention, discomfort clearly carrying through her voice, “. . . make sure to . . . make an extra dozen for yourself. Alright?”

Spike’s eyebrows were clearly lifted, but they fell after a second or so passed. He was getting somewhat used to situations like this with Twilight, though they still felt slightly out-of-place, so they did still catch him off guard when they happened. “Right,” he said back, “don’t worry Twilight, Aye’ll be sure.”

She turned her head back to Meteor after Spike had gone. She found him already staring back at her. Reading his vaguely-defined expressions had become fairly easy for her over time, and what his face was showing now was . . . pleasant shock.

“Thanks . . . Twilight.” He said before she could start up a thought process.

The shock portion of the expression she’d seen dissipated into just a calm happiness. She knew what he meant, or rather what he was referring to. He’d been able to slowly watch her becoming more and more . . . kindhearted, towards Spike. Nice wasn’t really the proper word, since nice usually carried an implication of an overall pleasant attitude, and by all means Twilight was verbally still her snarky, cynical self . . . but kindhearted referred to actions, and sentiments, even they were difficult for somepony to express.

Twilight’s eyes moved around a bit as she responded, off to the side and then down at the ground. “Yeah . . .” she did her best to say something, “it’s . . . it still kinda . . . feels really awkward saying stuff like that, or doing stuff.” She paused for a second, before feeling the need to say more. “I want to. But I can’t . . . I can’t do it that often, or not yet, maybe, I guess.”

“But you do want to . . . that’s the thing.” Meteor said to her, doing all that he could to come off as reassuring. And it worked, despite him doubting himself in it. Twilight did visibly seem to loosen out of the tension she’d put on herself. He waited a few seconds, thinking she was going to say something else, but after a brief moment of silence he went ahead and just drew her into a cautious hug.

It took Twilight by mild surprise, like every other hug she’d ended up in, but her unspoken desire for the affection it conveyed pushed the usual shock out of the way quickly enough. And she wrapped her own hooves back around him.

***

“Where is she?” Thrackerzod was in the midst of demanding an answer. “She was supposed to be here right after we were released from school!”

“Ah don’t rightly know.” Applebloom told her. “My name ain’t Scootaloo and Ah don’t stalk other ponies around like she does, so Ah ain’t got no clue.”

“Does she not know how serious this whole matter is?” Thrackerzod didn’t stop.

As far as Applebloom had observed, her possessed friend had been growing more and more edgy with each passing week, as she continuously was informed of defeat after defeat at the hands of this mystery conqueror they were trying to help her find.

Thrackerzod kept going after pacing back and forth across the clubhouse for another minute. “Middle Earth is completely lost! Their united forces were annihilated at the Gap of Rohan, and now she’s drawn the Balrogs out from the depths of that world to serve as living siege engines in her endless army! AND she’s already on the verge of moving on to invade Tamriel!”

“The only invadin goin on around here is Scootaloo invadin your heart baby! Hoo!” The overtly-sensual voice of their orange pegasus friend was finally heard, turning both of their heads to the clubhouse door.

Sure enough, there stood Scootaloo, with a set of files in hoof.

“Where, have you been?” Thrackerzod didn’t hesitate to demand.

“Procuring just what you asked for baby! It may of took some time, but Scootaloo found some dirt, and Scootaloo threatened to get dirty! Hoo! So that principal gave the files! Hoo!” She explained herself, tossing the new set of files down in front of Thrackerzod for her to inspect.

“Ah’m still amazed that whoever’s running this special school is so easy to intimidate that they’ll just willingly give all this valuable information to a child.” Applebloom expressed the lingering disbelief at the whole situation.

“Never expect reality to make sense!” Thrackerzod told her in response. “Expecting so will be your undoing!”

Applebloom was left to think on Thrackerzod’s words while the little unicorn sorted through file after file. From Applebloom had heard Applejack say sometimes, Thrackerzod’s statement probably had a pretty decent ring of truth.

After a few minutes of scouring through every sheet of paper in the folder Scootaloo had brought, Thrackerzod’s frustration was becoming more than evident. “None of them!” She suddenly proclaimed.

“What now?” Applebloom instinctively asked.

“None of them are strong enough or could ever have been strong enough!” Her friend answered, and then went into an explanation without any prompting. “Based on some of the absurd feats of magic that we’ve observed from this conqueror of worlds, her power level has to be at least 9,000. None of this school’s pathetic students have ever achieved anything of the sort! The three closest candidates had power levels nearing 8,000 but were unable to breach that ceiling. All these efforts have yielded us nothing!” The little filly’s eyes flashed red for a brief instant as she slammed her hoof down on the floor of the clubhouse.

“Well,” Applebloom offered up what she believed was the only other possibility, qa6“correct me if Ah’m wrong, but it sounds like the only ponies left that might fit are the princesses.”

Thrackerzod’s head lifted back up at the reminder that there was still another set of possibilities. Yes, there were the princesses, and only three of them at that. They could still find the answer to this.

What the Crap!

Author's Note

WELL

Guess who's NOT dead. Nope, I was just in the process of a complete mental/emotional breakdown over the course of late Spring and through a good it of Summer. But, that's over, mostly.

So here's finally the next chapter of this little MAS adventure we're all going on together! :pinkiehappy:
In case anyone was wondering, I've planned it out as a eleven-part series, so this is chapter 6, technically the midpoint of the whole thing. Many secrets have effectively been revealed at this point, and so now it's just story progression from here on in.

Also! I'm have an art piece commissioned for a scene from this story! It should hopefully be epic when it is finally completed! It's being done by the astounding CelebiYoshi over on DeviantArt, so please, PLEASE go check her stuff out, she's one of my favorites ~ Celebi-Yoshi, aka Dawnu!

I'm so so sorry for my lack of content since Springtime.

I have other states of existence where you can also stalk me, and potentially hound me about slacking off if I have another episode again.

YouTube
DeviantArt
Patreon

What the Crap!

The knocking wouldn’t stop. Not knocking on any door, mind you, but rather the knocking that came from Spike rapidly kicking Twilight’s bedpost. “Aye!” He resorted to shouting. “Cuddle-slugs! Mind getting up would’ya?”

It was a pair of soot-grey ears that twitched first, followed by Meteor Streak lifting his head and blinking reflexively in the rays of the gentle morning sun. Only after carefully retracting his hoof from around Twilight did he slip out of bed. He’d spent the night with them again, as he did basically every other night now. It had been about three months since the first time, and it was that frequent of an occurrence now, especially given how much it had ended up reducing Twilight’s nightmares over time.

“What is it?” Meteor asked quietly, coming around the corner of the bed.

“Nye, sorry Tension Tamer,” Spike stopped him, and repeated what he’d assigned Meteor’s nickname to be given his effect on Twilight, “but Aye need the angry purple horse.” He explained.

“Ugh!” Twilight hit her pillow and forced herself up, revealing herself to have been awaken the entire time. “Come on Spike! What the crap? Seriously, we’re tired.”

“Yeah, that kind of tinds to happen when you stay up into the wee hours of the mornin doing Luna knows what.” The little dragon shot off a retort.

“We were stargazing, Spike. You know, watching the start of that whole planetary alignment thing? Seriously, you were there.” She went about thinking she actually had to remind him.

“Yeah, Aye was,” Spike did acknowledge the fact, “but in case you don’t recall, Aye fell asleep sometime BEFORE three in the mornin. You know, like a normal person?”

“Eat a dick, Spike.” Twilight fired away, still hoping to just dismiss whatever Spike was trying to raise her up for.

“Nye.” He responded, expectantly. “Don’t swing that way.”

“Spike, what . . . is it, exactly?” A much calmer, more restrained voice than either of theirs finally interjected, coming from the growing concern of a grey stallion.

“Yeah, what exactly is so urgent that you need to rouse me out of my nice, peaceful, nightmare-less sleep for?” Twilight echoed her boyfriend’s question, only with clear hostility.

Meteor had to turn his attention from Spike to her. What may have begun as concern and a suspicion a few moments ago had made itself a certainty just now: something wasn’t right. Twilight had only ever been growing more mellow, and “”more kind”” to Spike specifically, as much as she tried to pretend that in particular wasn’t really a thing that was happening. She snapped on occasion still, as that was ultimately just an inherent part of her, but something was off now. She seemed so particularly agitated . . . like . . . that was it, or it had to be. It was just like the few times Meteor had seen her act when she was really paranoid about something was going to happen. Like when she was terrified Celestia was going to come to town for her birthday. No doubt whatsoever, there was something deeply troubling her.

“It’s Applejack.” Spike went about explaining things. “She came up poundin on the door askin if you had any kind of brain-washin spells. Aye guess she wants you to use one on her granny or somethin? Guess she finally went off her rocker.”

“She wants me to brainwash her grandmother?” Apparently Twilight’s perplexity at the absurd request was enough to overtake her agitation for the moment. Sure enough, she actually did slide herself out of bed with a groan. “Agh, fine. I’ll go see whatever this B.S. is about.” She said just as she began trotting down the library stairs.

There was a short silence between Meteor and Spike after Twilight left, but the stallion felt he had to break it while the chance was there.

“Something’s wrong.” He said, just to raise the point.

“Yah, Aye know that.” Spike agreed with him readily. “You know you’ve got more of a chance of her tellin you than me, right?” The dragon added on after another few seconds of silence.

“W—are you sure?” Meteor had to ask. It was a natural reaction triggered by the suggestion that Twilight trusted him more than someone she’d known for her entire life.

“Eh, in reality we’re pretty even with her,” Spike admitted his actual view of it, “but I’d only get it out of her by pressing at it until the stress got too much’n she exploded form it. Being around you keeps her calm most of the time, so you’re a lot more likely to just git her to tell you without havin an episode.”

Meteor took in Spike’s words in the quiet that followed, whilst Twilight reached the bottom of the stairs and dragged her hooves over to the door.

The pounding Spike had described continued even as Twilight approached the wooden frame. She opened the top half of the door and immediately restrained the raised hoof of the farm pony on the other side.

“Alright! Enough! I’m here already; what do you want?” Twilight demanded.

Applejack tried to shake her hoof free for a couple seconds, struggling for nothing until Twilight finally released her magic grip on it. “Well,” AJ finally began to answer, now with a little additional frustration on top of what had already been there, “like Ah told Spike, Ah came by really hoping ya’ll have some kinda mind-washing sp—“

“You mean brainwashing.” Positive life changes or not, nothing would ever lessen the purple bookhorse’s instinct to correct others, no matter how important of a statement she was interrupting.

“Look—whatever!” Applejack all but snapped, though still not phasing the unicorn in front of her, “Just . . . Ah need yuh ta do somethin ta make Granny act at least SOMEWHAT normal! She’s gone off it Ah’m telling yuh, like completely gone off it!”

“Ok,” Twilight brought some of her inherent authority into her voice, “let’s get a grip and some kind of actual explanation here. WHY do you want me to brainwash your grandmother? And, I mean, what with? Like you can’t just say you want me to brainwash somepony; that’s literally as vague as just telling somepony to draw a picture. You have to have an actual idea or something you’re trying to get me to force into her head.”

Applejack stopped herself, only just long to take single deep breath in and out. “I need ya’ll ta make her think that Braeburn and all the family out in Appleoosa’s ok. Cause . . . since we got that letter from the government saying they’re all dead and they can’t let us have the bodies for funerals because they’re all contaminated with somethin, Granny’s just completely lost it. She’s been trashing things around the farm, ranting all around the house about how she’s gonna overthrow the government, and a few times already she’s actually started headin down the road with a wheat-scythe. Lucky nough for me she can’t much travel any faster than a mile a day so Ah’ve been able to drag her back inta the house every time, but, Twi this gettin really old already and it’s only been like three days.”

Twilight certainly felt a greater desire to hear what information AJ had now. Her friend snapping at her practically meant nothing, but the few things AJ had just mentioned about Appleoosa . . . that stood out clearly as something out-of-place . . . and Twilight had already just recently become aware of quite a few other things that were so as well.

“Wait,” she stopped Applejack, “everypony in Appleoosa’s dead?”

“Yeah, that’s what Ah said,” AJ answered, “every single one of’em, even the buffalo apparently, cept nopony’s tryin ta get their bodies.”

“So what, like, did some of the gold mine’s processing waste contaminate the ground water supply or something?” Twilight tried to get something more specific. “Cause heavy metals are a toxin you have to ingest; they’re not like a contagion—“

“Ah don’t rightly know!” AJ snapped again, bringing what might have been a lecture to a halt. “We just got a letter from the government sayin all of our relatives in appleoosa had passed away due to sudden illness, and that they can’t release the bodies to us because of the possible threat of contamination.”

“Wait,” the whole premise struck Twilight as off once again, heavy metal poisoning was almost always a delayed process, unless somepony literally just drank a vile of Mercury. Sudden illness didn’t fit any of this at all. “When you got your last letter from Braeburn did he mention anything about anypony in the town feeling sick in any way? Or was it like, everything was normal up until the last second?” She went on to ask.

“No!” AJ’s frustration was passing beyond containable limits. “There wasn’t nothin about feelin sick, or anypony else feelin anything! Seriously Twilight, can you please just make my Granny stop or not?”

“What? Agh, yeah, whatever, just . . . give me all the letters Braeburn sent you since the gold mine opened.” Twilight agreed to it, finally opening the lower half of the door as she put forth her condition.

“What?” AJ finally came off as just confused without simmering with stress and frustration. “Whatta ya’ll want with them?” She asked as Twilight shut the library door and they both headed off toward the farm.

“Well, nothing you’ve said fits anything that a gold mine could cause.” Twilight explained. “Plus I only just remembered some geology textbooks I read a while back, and I’m almost positive I recall them saying that the minerology of the Appleoosa area wasn’t indicative of any rare-metal deposits. So this whole thing’s starting to not really fit together.”

“. . . well,” AJ didn’t exactly seem to know how to take whatever the implications of what Twilight said might be, “just . . . make sure ya’ll don’t actually go sayin none of that around Granny. She thinks enough strange things already, so hearin that there might actually be some kinda real conspiracy involvin her own kin might just send her the rest of the way, if yuh catch my drift.”

“Well that kind of depends on what you consider a conspiracy,” Twilight responded, “cause I don’t know if you’re exactly all that familiar with how a government typically works, but governments lying about things is kind of just standard operating procedure.” She almost went on, almost, but this time Twilight actually stopped herself of her own accord and instead went back on topic. “But anyways, this isn’t going to be some end-all-to-be-all spell. I hope you know that. It’ll usually work for several hours, maybe a day on average ponies. Since your grandmother’s old and senile it should probably last a few days in her case, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

Applejack sighed. “That’s fine, just as long as you CAN make her stop. No matter how long for, it’ll be a decent enough break for me.”

***

Some time later Twilight was walking away from the Apples’ house slowly, a collection of letters floating by magic in front of her. Granny’s brainwashing had proved successful enough. After just a minute of her head being zapped by Twilight’s purple-smart beam Granny had immediately dropped the entire Braeburn subject and started demanding to know where Big Mac was and why hadn’t gotten over his “”gay phase”” and married a nice mare yet. It was effectively just shifting the old earth pony’s eccentric attention back onto Big Mac as opposed to Applejack and “”The Government””. But Twilight didn’t really take any time to concern herself over that. There was something going on that she had to get to the bottom of . . .

“Hey, Twilight,” Applejack suddenly called out from behind, not necessarily yelling as Twilight hadn’t really gotten far from the Apples’ house yet, “uh, ya’ll mind promising ta keep some’a the more . . . personal stuff in those a secret?”

Twilight turned around almost in surprise. She literally couldn’t care less about any personal details the letters might contain, let alone gossiping about it. But for whatever reason AJ looked legitimately worried, and Twilight . . . found herself easily killing her own urge to make a snide retort . . . much more easily suppressing it than she used to. “Uh, sure. I guess, I mean I probably kind of owe you anyway for kicking Rarity in the face last week.”

That, that visibly made the orange pony’s face lighten a bit, a far cry from what it had been most of the morning. “Well if ya’ll wanna view it like that Ah guess ya’ll go ahead,” she replied to what her friend had said, “though Ah did that as much for my own personal gratification as Ah did ta make her shut up about you n yer boyfriend.”

“She’d been asking me for a straight half hour how many times me and Meteor have had sex,” Twilight reminded her, “if you hadn’t happened to show up and smash her teeth, I might have actually ended up magically ripping her in two pieces like you wanted me to do at that stupid slumber part thing we had way back.”

“Oh, well then,” AJ thought about it in a half-serious manner, “Ah guess it’s unfortunate Ah showed up then. The world would’ve been a better place if Ah’d been late.”

“Maybe next time.” Twilight said, finally turning about to resume her path back home, and resuming her scanning of the letters in front of her for hints and details.

***

Ponies in labcoats escorted by royal guards . . . poking rocks and cliffs with what Twilight had to assume were Geiger Counters . . . Buffalo kicked off their land . . . heavy mining equipment brought in . . . huge buildings thrown up and filled with rows of cylinders . . . some ponies heading out to build a tower way out in the desert . . . and . . . now the last letter.

Twilight read. She read, though she should have known from everything beforehand what she would find. But it would seem even she could be susceptible to cognitive dissidence, for however short a time it might be. That state of mind ended when she found the words though . . . “really bright light over the horizon.”

The front door of the library only came open all the way because she’d already given it enough momentum, but her magic grip had released it abruptly upon finding what she had.

. . . radiation sickness . . .

. . . that had been obvious from the first appearance of the Geiger Counters . . .

. . . but . . . the bright flash?

. . . really? But . . . they . . . no, there were royal guards, and the scientists had government insignias on their labcoats . . .

. . . a bright flash seen from miles away! It really was, it was exactly what she thought . . . what else would Celestia ever want with plutonium? The question was rhetorical from the very beginning.

Celestia had nukes.

***

Lack of complete focus kept Twilight from stabilizing her nervous muttering at a whisper. “It’s—it’s ok, it’s all okaaaay, Twilight,” she went on to herself, not loud enough for the words themselves to reach Spike and Meteor’s ears upstairs, but enough so for them to tell she was talking to herself, “it’s all fine! Nothing to worry about! The most evil, terrifying pony who’s ever lived is now in possession of the most powerful feasibly-cheap weapons known to plausible science . . . ha-ha, nooooo worries whatsoever. I mean, Celestia’s such a kindhearted dictator, ha-ha-ha, ha, ha, I’m sure she would never USE them!”

Somehow, subconsciously, she did stop herself when she reached the top of the stairs. She was met of course, by Meteor and Spike both waiting for her, nearly in the exact same positions they’d been standing in when she left to brainwash Granny Smith. Both of them were staring at her, although after a couple seconds of silence Spike glanced sideways at the pegasus next to him and actually went to jab him into action. Only he found at the last second he didn’t have to.

“Something’s wrong.” Meteor just flat-out stated.

Spike had no idea whether that was intentional or not, but if so it might have been a clever tactic. Asking the typical question that would have come as always left the door open for denial. Being affirmative in way boarded that escape hatch shut. But . . . there could still . . .

“Aahh—ah I’m really uh . . .” Twilight went for the option that Spike knew was still there, substituting another plausible reason when one was available, “still really tired. Uh—I kind of just want to . . . go back to bed.” Regardless of the fact that neither of them believed her, her attempt at suppression still failed. She ended up pouring in way too much emphasis on those last words.

“Twilight . . .” Meteor started with his normal, calm and quiet voice, but then did something quite rare: by conscious effort or subconscious emotional override, he actually increased his volume, and actually filled his voice with solidity. “I know, I am just a horsefly, but you really know I’m not stupid, and neither is he.” He pointed to the dragon beside him. His voice went back to what it almost always was when he spoke again, and that was almost certainly a conscious decision. “Both of us know that . . . all three of us know that something’s not right.”

Spike had to look from one of them to the other after that, granted only for the first few seconds after. Twilight’s eyes were of course flickering from one of them to the other, all while her nervously clenching teeth were more than plainly visible. The grey pegasus kept his eyes straight in her direction though, and . . . it was the fact that they were afraid, his eyes, in a completely different way than she was. Meteor’s expression was as flat and placid as ever, but in his eyes he was afraid. Just . . . his kind of afraid was sad.

It was ultimately that that finally made her let go.

“Eh-ha heheh, heh, ah—there’s,” she started up, anxiety forming cracks in the clarity of her explanation as she went, “. . . there’s a few things wrong.” Meteor went to step toward her, but before he really moved she went straight past them both, in the clear beginning of what was likely to be a pacing session. “I mean, I can’t . . . some of them really might just be paranoia. Or I thought they could, but, I . . . you know how Celestia basically hasn’t even communicated with me in any way in the slightest for almost a year? Yeah. Well, at first I kind of thought I had an explanation for that, but now the explanation I thought I had is kind of falling apart. I mean, really I shouldn’t care, because she’s finally not throwing me at every national crisis for her own amusement, but she also hasn’t actually taken on a new student like she usually does whenever one outgrows being fun for her to play mind games with. And if she’s not doing that then that means that she’s breaking her routine, the same routine of ruining ponies’ lives she’s been keeping with for over a thousand years! And Celestia just stopping her routines and suddenly not caring to show up for public events anymore, which by the way, she’s also just so suddenly done recently, means that she’s probably decided to start planning on something big and new, or she’s already doing something big and new.”

Spike went to interject, but Twilight was nowhere near done.

“Then!” She went on. “And then, we have that alignment last night! A complete planetary alignment! You know I actually would’ve been a lot more excited for something like that if it was actually supposed to happen. But it wasn’t! That alignment wasn’t supposed to happen for another thirty-five years! Do you know the kind of combinations of orbital speed and directional velocity changes that would have had to have happened for something that significant to be re-timed? I mean, whatever happened to conservation of momentum? Conservation of momentum!” She suddenly grabbed Meteor and basically shook him as she spoke. “Conservation of momentum!” She rattled his body back and forth. “It’s a thing! It’s a real thing!”

“Twilight.” All the stallion she had ahold of did was say her name, and press a single hoof against her chest. It was enough though, enough to make her ranting abruptly cease, leaving nothing but rapid breathing in its place.

Twilight looked right back into Meteor’s eyes, hers now only a foot from his.

He did the same for what was practically a serene moment compared to the last couple minutes. Only after that moment passed, he reached back with a wing and pulled out his bottle of Lorazepam. “Twilight.” All he said was her name again as he clearly offered her the bottle.

“What? No, you can’t mix that with—“ She started to protest, until she was cut off.

“When was the last time you took Xanax?” He asked, managing to stay solid about it, though still not in any way used to having to correct her.

“. . . three days ago.” She answered him, some clarity returning.

“Then you know nothing will happen.” He both assured and reminded her, as it had been her he’d learned as much from orginally.

“But I could just take my—“ Again, she started . . . but he still managed enough solidarity to cut her off again.

“You know Xanax isn’t situational.” He said.

She continued taking her deep breaths for something of a frozen moment. And then she finally unscrewed the cap with her magic all but teleported a Lorazepam tablet into her mouth and swallowed.

Meteor had the faintest smile as he put the bottle back away. “I would’ve gotten you some water.”

“No, no,” Twilight resumed speaking again, consistently, and without pacing, “no it’s fine. It’s alright. But there’s . . . there’s . . . worse things, more things.”

“She’s right you know.” Spike suddenly interrupted, his voice now coming from across the room where he stood by Twilight’s desk with an open book.

“What?” Meteor asked.

“Aye checked her Astronomical Almanac while you were toning her down,” the dragon explained, “Aye went to the future events section and it’s all plain and laid out: the whole alignment timing and everything. She’s right, not supposed to happen fur another thirty-five years.”

“But that’s not it,” Twilight insisted on going on with what she’d been about to, “I mean, that’s not only it.” She found her mouth open . . . but her mind halted her words where they were. For a second she seemed at a loss, but that appearance ended abruptly when she suddenly threw herself into intense focus, and her horn glowed for a count of five before a pink burst of magic blasted out from her. It damaged nothing. In fact, it didn’t even move anything, but it did feel unnervingly strange as it passed through Meteor and Spike.

“Alright,” Twilight said in the immediate aftermath, “she’s not listening, or scrying.”

“Twilight, what’s—“ Now it was Meteor’s turn to get cut off, though it only made things feel more normal to him.

“Celestia has nukes.” Twilight just stated it outright, only realizing over the next few seconds that neither her pet-slave-brother nor her boyfriend knew what she was saying. “Big . . . really big bombs.” She hoped that much would clarify.

“Um—“ The only bit of response Meteor could put out, apart a slight head twisting made clear to Twilight just how vague she was still being.

“Aye thought her super-sunblast she could do with her horn-laser spell could already vaporize buildings?” Spike asked, in reality offering up a comparison.

“Worse,” Twilight’s response was instant, “a hundred times worse, minimum. Like, city-destroying, with mile-wide craters and . . .” She couldn’t really find anything else to say.

Spike was left with lifted eyebrows and slight nod, more so finding the supposed things impressive than anything else.

Meteor however, a second after hearing the brief description of power, had a look come across his face as if something had clicked in his head. And in the proceeding moments, his face almost seemed to adapt the graveness to match Twilight’s panic.

And then he asked an odd question . . . “Metal bombs?”

Twilight still wasn’t in a clear enough mental state to get exactly what he meant. “What?”

“Metal bombs.” He said again, and tried to go further. “Exploding metal. Metal bricks inside the bombs.”

“Wha—bricks? No,” she corrected, “cylinders or spheres, depending on what . . . wait . . .” She had to stop when she came to a realization of her own about him.

Before he could be asked anything though, Meteor stepped over next to the bed and reached into the satchel he carried all of his writings in. What he pulled out of it was something else, however. What emerged in his wing was a folded letter, a letter which he passed to Twilight with a hazy explanation. “One of my fans is some kind of professor . . . I guess physics. He sent me this one of the times I was open for fanmail. Bottom paragraph . . .”

Twilight took a moment to leave his eyes again. She didn’t want to. But she still looked down at the paper in front of her.

The final paragraph began with: “If you want to write the story with something REALLY scary . . .”

And then it proceeded right on with a thoroughly accurate description of a nuclear weapon. Upon reaching the end of it, she eagerly passed it back in his direction.

“That’s really real?” He asked. Some of his own graveness and fear had apparently left, as he at least sounded halfway back to normal.

Twilight only nodded, before echoing a set of words from a long time ago. “I don’t know what it means . . .”

“You’ll still always know more than I will.” Meteor said a moment later, trying to smile.

Maybe it was her panic that removed her normal hesitancy, but one way or another, Meteor suddenly found Twilight awkwardly hugging him. An embrace he more than willingly returned, at least until Twilight said something that really did catch him by surprise. The remark he’d made must have reminded her of earlier . . . and of her old self.

“I’m sorry . . . for like, all the racist shit I ever said around you—or I mean . . . ever said, or . . .” What she meant was plain enough, even though she felt she was failing to really say it. Regardless, she stopped when Meteor took a small step back . . . just enough to look her in the face again.

Twilight . . .” hesitancy came to his soft voice, even if the coming words had been said before, “. . . I love you.”

And well, that definitely was more than enough to bring an instant stop to her momentary self-hating episode, and at least for a moment, to freeze her anxiety. It took her face a few seconds to let go of the situation, just enough to allow for a nervous smile . . . her nervous smile that might as well have glowed in Meteor’s eyes.

Spike rolled his own eyes at the half-romantic sweet moment, and turned away to make a gagging motion when the kiss came. He wasn’t turned away for long though, as a few seconds after the kiss was over, his name was called.

“Spike!” Twilight shouted over to him, to both his surprise and Meteor’s as well. “Get over here, I’m giving you a hug.” She ordered him, in what was the closest thing to her former bossy voice he’d heard in a while.

“What now?” Spike was . . . a little too taken sideways with the command itself to actually even consider complying. “Have you gone off it now?”

An aura formed around both Twilight’s horn and Spike’s body, and the dragon found himself pulled across the room.

“Aye! What the—“ Spike tried to protest while he was still being dragged, but then also found himself being hugged against his will . . . and within no more than a second of it he could hear Meteor laughing at him. “You’ll pay fur this you know!” The little dragon tried to make a threat, but even he knew neither of them took him seriously. But even worse than the one hug and the laughing, Meteor even joined in on the hug as well.

And so, Spike, who’d grown up and lived the majority of his life under oppression and growing accustomed to receiving nothing but negative emotions from Twilight until just recently, found himself surrounded by sickening affection and caring. So he was left with no choice but to just grit his pointed teeth until the family hug was over.

Surely enough, Meteor stayed there again that night. With what was evidently going on, and the way it was clearly effecting Twilight, there was no way he leaving now.

***

Far away to the north, a train was arriving at the fringe of the Crystal Empire. It’s prominent passenger on this return trip was Shining Armour, finally being given leave time after heading security out at the Trottenheimer experiment for the several months it took.

Although, it wouldn’t exactly be like he was returning to a serene and peaceful life. The Crystal Empire may lack crime, but it had its own problems. Ever since it had reappeared and Celestia had sent him and Cadance to rule over it, effectively annexing it, the crystal ponies weren’t exactly content with their new state of being. They accepted his and Cadance’s rule because of Cadance’s own crystal heritage . . . but they utterly refused Celestia’s. They refused to pay Equestrian taxes, they refused to stop growing their own food and become dependent on Equestrian imports, and they most certainly refused to disband their own Crystal Guard and re-enlist their soldiers, however few, into Celestia’s military. Protesting and legal complaints were something he and Cadance had to manage on a daily basis, and at the moment he wasn’t all that eager to just jump right back into it.

Regardless, he was left with no choice as the train came to a halt.

Shining, and everypony else on board disembarked one by one from their respective passenger cars, hopping out onto the soft dirt road at the Crystal Empire gates. Shining went to wait for the luggage handlers to unload his duffle bag from underneath the traincar, and whilst he stood by he let his eyes drift up toward the clear blue high above. It was boundless, and empty . . . or, actually it wasn’t entirely empty. There was something flying way, way up above.

Squinting his eyes almost wasn’t enough. In fact it actually wasn’t enough to see clearly, but it was enough define vague shapes, enough to pick out four pegasi, royal guards . . . carrying something . . .

. . . the shape in the middle . . . his recent memories from the desert . . .

. . . it was!

But they were . . .

Shining swung his head in their flight path’s direction . . . and it really was. They were about to fly right over the empire!

Never having frozen. Never one to freeze. He ran. He ran for the empire with all that his legs could give him. That was all he had. He wasn’t Twily, he couldn’t teleport.

But . . . there was no way.

. . .

The pegasi far up above let go, and that dark, metal thing began to fall.

Shining’s legs abandoned the commands he’d given them. It was a mile to the outskirts, two to the palace . . . he’d never make it.

That little dot fell and fell, dropping below where the higher clouds would be if there were any.

Shining had stopped. The urge to protect was pulsating . . . but equally, the cold evaluations he’d been drilled through just as well were overwhelming.

It just kept falling, probably barely two miles up.

But wait! No, Shining realized there was something, something he could do. He turned back toward the train station, toward the dozens of ponies gathering their belongings, all oblivious to what was coming.

Falling falling falling.

“Everypony stop!” He shouted as he skidded to a halt in front of the tiny assembly of ponies. “Get around me!” He commanded them all. A sure silence followed the seemingly random order. Some recognized him as prince of the empire, and others recognized his guard commander uniform, and thus, about a third or so began to cautiously do as he said. “Do as I say!” He yelled furiously to the rest of them . . . and it seemed some ominous foreboding managed to come out with his voice, and the rest of them finally obeyed.

Everypony gathered around him, about thirty or so, and once they were all there he spun back around to face the oncoming hand of death. “Look away! And shut your eyes!” He ordered them all, and though he doubted it would help much, “And cover your ears!”

Shining’s eyes and the tiny little falling dot met. It was less than a mile up. He had no time to watch. He shut his own eyes fiercely . . . and poured all but his soul into his shielding spell. A pink barrier quickly surrounded the small group, growing thicker and thicker with all that Shining poured into it. It was meant to be a moderate shield for a small city . . . but maybe if he condensed it this small . . . maybe the compiled strength would be enough.

“I’m sorry Cadance . . .”

“. . . I’m sorry Cadance . . .”

“. . . . . . . I love you!”

And then through his shut eyes, something well beyond daylight shined through. It was sunlight, in fact, in a sense, far closer than it was ever meant to be.

In a few seconds the light was gone . . . and for all there was, so was the Crystal Empire.