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.