Recurring Nightmare

A light snowfall blanketed the mountain outside of Ponyville. After a few days of this weather, the town and the areas surrounding it were all covered in snow. At the same time, Zero Volt was now standing at the top of a mountain with a snowboard at his hooves. On his right, Fluttershy was anxiously looking down the side of the mountain. On his left, Rainbow Dash was impatiently waiting for Zero Volt. “Are you going to go down already?” she said. “I don’t have all day.”

“Easy, Dash,” Zero Volt said. “I’ve been waiting for this for about a year. You’ve been waiting only two minutes.” A second later, he pushed forward and started snowboarding down the mountain. The two pegasi flew down after him, flying just above him with one on either side. Zero Volt boarded down the mountain, turning to avoid snow banks and various obstacles while gaining speed. He loved every second of it, the acceleration, the wind blowing past him as he swerved past rocks and trees. He almost dared to mountain to try and throw him off the board.

Zero Volt leapt off of a snow bank and flipped in midair. At the end of his flip, he landed and continued down the mountain with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash on either side. He kept a steady speed at this point, though he felt himself wanting to go faster, maybe even going into a Shinespark. ‘No, that wouldn’t work. I need to be running to pull off one of those,’ he thought. ‘Besides, even if I can use gravity to trigger a Shinespark, I couldn’t reach those speeds right now. Too much friction against the board. Besides, this is awesome enough as it is.’

Zero Volt leapt off of another snow bank and grabbed the snowboard with his right foreleg. He spun 360° before repositioning the board under his hooves and landing on the ground. “Woohoo!” Zero Volt’s shout echoed throughout the mountainside, and seconds later, the three of them heard a loud rumbling above them. “Uh-oh,” he said, realizing that he had just triggered an avalanche. He swerved away from more obstacles, hoping to gain more speed. Meanwhile, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were still flying next to him. “Girls, you do realize that you can fly up, right?”

“Not yet, Volt,” Rainbow Dash said. “We’re not leaving you here to get buried under an avalanche.”

“If that happens, I can just teleport out,” he said. “I’ll be fine, so you two just fly up.”

Fluttershy tried to say “If you insist,” but her muted voice was drowned out by the roar of the avalanche overhead. Both pegasi flew far above to escape the rushing snow. Zero Volt continued down the mountain, but the avalanche was quickly gaining on him. Noticing a tree in his path, he jumped toward it, caught one of its branches with his board, and catapulted over the rushing snow. He spun wildly in the air before landing on top of the snow. Zero Volt rode the avalanche with his snowboard, trying to slow himself down so that he wouldn’t go over the edge.

Eventually, the avalanche reached the bottom of the mountain, tossing Zero Volt into the air and sending him crashing into the snow without his board. He stood up and shook the snow off of him, then looked up to see Rainbow Dash holding up a sign with 6.3 written on it. “Did I really do that poorly?” he asked.

“You could’ve done a few more tricks,” Rainbow Dash said. “You let a lot of hang time go to waste back there.”

“I don’t know about that,” Fluttershy said, holding a sign with 7.8 written on it. “I thought you did a great job, Zero… until you crashed in the end.”

“Yeah, too bad you didn’t stick the landing,” Rainbow said, “but I did give you a few points for surfing that avalanche. I surprised you didn’t just sink through it. That snow should’ve been too loose to support you.”

After a while, the three of them agreed to return to Ponyville, and Zero Volt teleported them to Sugarcube Corner. Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity were also in the bakery when they arrived. Applejack looked up and noticed Zero Volt’s snowboard. “So yah finally got around to that, huh?” she said.

“Yeah, and I can see you’re, well, not doing much at all,” Zero Volt said.

“That’s ‘cause it’s winter,” Applejack said. “Too cold to grow anythin’, so there’s a mite less work on the farm. It does give a pony lots of time to think ‘bout stuff, like everythin’ you’ve been tellin’ us.” Applejack walked toward Zero Volt, meeting his confused look with a stern, confrontational expression. “Ever since that party a couple months back, Ah’ve noticed all the secrets yah keep and all the lies yah tell us. Ah don’t like it when anypony lies to me, and Ah want to know what you’re hidin’.”

“He doesn’t keep everything from us,” Fluttershy said. “He told us about his fear of dogs, and I’m sure he didn’t want us to know about that.”

“That’s mah point,” Applejack said. “Everythin’ we do know ‘bout ‘em had to be forced out. He never woulda told us ‘bout Baltimare if we didn’t make ‘em and the same goes for his fear of dogs.” She angrily turned back to Zero Volt. “Tell me, Zero Volt, what else have yah been keepin’ from us?”

“Okay, but first let me ask you something,” Zero Volt said. “What took you so long to bring this up? You’d think that with a job as repetitive as yours, you would’ve started thinking about this sooner.”

“Quit dodgin’ the question and give me a straight answer!” Applejack said.

“AJ, you’re dealing with Zero Volt,” Twilight said. “He’ll give you a straight answer only after distracting everypony, himself included, with some shiny object.”

“Nopony move!” Pinkie Pie said. She ran toward Twilight and stopped right in front of her. “You said something about a shiny, now where is it? Actually, your eyes are kinda shiny.” Pinkie lost herself in Twilight’s eyes as she continued talking. “More like sparkly. Is that how you got your name?”

Twilight pressed her hoof onto Pinkie’s head and shoved her back. “And then there’s Pinkie Pie, who will give a nonsensical answer before getting distracted by every shiny object in the room,” she said. At that moment, Spike belched out a scroll along with some green flames. Using her magic, Twilight took the letter and read it quietly. “Princess Celestia is inviting us to the castle. She says that she has some information about Zero Volt that we might want to know.”

“Alright then, you, take us there,” Applejack said, pointing at Zero Volt. “Ah want to know what she’s found out.”

Zero Volt sighed, and as soon as the others gathered around him, he teleported all of them in front of the castle. They turned toward the castle entrance and started walking toward it. “The clouds are still there,” Zero Volt said, looking up at the sky.

“What clouds?” Twilight said. She looked up in the same direction that he was gazing. Among the gray clouds that hung above Canterlot was a patch of thunderclouds. “Oh, those clouds.” These clouds were similar to the ones they saw above the castle when Nightmare returned. They may have even been the same clouds. ‘Why did the princess put them up there?’ Twilight thought.

They entered the castle and found Celestia waiting for them. “Evenin’ Princess Celestia,” Applejack said. “Yah said yah had somethin’ to show us ‘bout Zero Volt?”

“Yes, I did,” Celestia said. “Follow me. I’ll explain everything along the way.” She led them up a set of stairs and through a hallway.

“So, what did you find out about Volt?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“A lot, actually,” Celestia said. “I don’t have to explain how embarrassing the changeling invasion was for us. In particular, the fact that their queen was able to infiltrate Canterlot so easily. With that in mind, Luna and I have been using our connection to the sun and moon to establish a surveillance system over Equestria. They are like eyes watching over Equestria, and in case one of us needs to look back at a certain day, they record everything that they see.”

“Do you hear that, everypony?” Pinkie Pie whispered. “Big Sister is watching!” Though the others were confused by her comment, Rainbow Dash and Zero Volt laughed at it.

“Anyway, after Nightmare’s most recent attack, Luna and I decided to look over the footage of the two months before Zero Volt’s arrival in Ponyville,” Celestia said. “I asked you to come here to look at what we’ve found.”

“Wait a minute, I’m actually getting my own movie?” Zero Volt said. “Huh, and I thought the Cutie Mark Crusaders got too much attention.”

Celestia led them in to a large windowless room in the castle. Luna was already in the room, and there was a row of pillows on the floor for them to lie on. Zero Volt lied down on the pillow in the center, with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash on either side of him. To Fluttershy’s left were Rarity and Applejack. Pinkie Pie sat at the far right, with Twilight lying between her and Rainbow Dash.

“Alright everypony, it’s about to start,” Luna said. “We shall pause it if any of you wish to add commentary.” The movie was projected onto a wall in front of them. Everyone started to watch as the first scene appeared.

Zero Volt woke up and slowly opened his eyes. As soon as his vision cleared up, he looked at his surroundings. He was in a room, dull, white, yet very clean. He looked down around him and realized that he was lying in a bed. His right foreleg had a tube in it that extended to a red bag. A blood transfusion and an IV line…

‘I’m in a hospital,’ Zero Volt thought. ‘I remember now. Those dogs… did I escape?’ He looked down at the rest of his body. He was covered in small scratches and bite wounds. Those would probably heal in a few days, but then he noticed a row of stitches on his left side. This must have been his most severe wound; none of the others were quite as large or received any stitches. As he stared at them, he vividly remembered the attack. Too vividly. The sound of dogs barking, the sight of blood, his blood, the pain as his flesh was torn apart.

Zero Volt shook his head, trying to wrench his mind for those flashbacks. Sweat poured down his face, and he found himself breathing heaving. There was a button on the wall nearby. Zero Volt pushed it. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but after a while, he heard hoofsteps out in the hallway. The hoofsteps reached the doorway to his room, and a doctor, a unicorn mare walked in.

“Oh, you’re finally awake,” she said. “We found you out in the woods a few hours ago. You were in pretty bad shape, with all the lost blood and everything. How are you feeling now?”

“Okay, I guess,” Zero Volt said.

“That’s good,” the doctor said. “It looked like you were attacked by an animal, so we sutured you up and gave you a small blood transfusion. We even gave you a rabies vaccination, just in case. While we’re on the subject, can you tell me who you are? We need to notify any loved ones that you’re here, and it would help if we had your medical records.”

Zero Volt hadn’t thought about it yet, but that was a very good question. “I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t know?” the doctor asked. “You can’t give a name or anything?” Zero Volt shook his head.

“You didn’t know what your name was?” Twilight said.

“Course not, his “parents” didn’t give ‘em one before tryin’ to kill ‘em,” Applejack said. “Makes me wonder how yah came up with your name to begin with.”

“That comes later, but I’m curious about something myself,” Zero Volt said. “How are you getting that camera angle?” If you’re using the sun and moon to get all this, shouldn’t you be getting a view of the hospital’s roof instead?”

“Reflected light, and some very powerful magic,” Celestia said.

“Can you at least tell me what happened?” the doctor said. “Do you know where you were attacked?”

“I think it was… Baltimare.”

“That’s impossible,” she said. “Baltimare is thirty miles away, and you’re wounds were fresh when we found you”

Zero Volt looked around the room, then back at his bed. “Do I still need this?” he asked, pointing to his IV line. “I want to try something.”

“No, we can take that out now,” the doctor said. She used her magic to pull the needle out of his foreleg. She then placed some cotton on his leg and wrapped a bandage around it. Zero Volt closed his eyes and thought of the bed on the side of the room. The doctor saw him disappear in a green flash and reappear on the other bed. “Whoa, that must how you escaped from that animal attack. I’ll check back on you tomorrow morning, so try to get some rest. Oh and don’t move around too much. You don’t want those sutures to tear open. You should also stay on you back until that wound heals.”

“Wait a minute, you always sleep on your left side,” Rainbow Dash said. “What about your nightmares?”

“What nightmares?” Fluttershy asked.

“At night, I always sleep so that my left side isn’t out in the open,” Zero Volt said. “Otherwise, I’ll have nightmares about that dog attack, which is exactly what happened that night, and the nights after that. I didn’t get very much sleep, maybe ten hours out of seven days.”

“Twelve, actually,” Luna said. “Since you’ve elaborated on that, we can move past the next scene.”

“Next scene?” Twilight said.

“You didn’t expect to sit through two months of this did you?” Celestia said. “We had to cut out a lot of scenes that we decided weren’t particularly important. You know, sleeping, bathroom breaks, et cetera. What was initially two months of material was cut down to about two hours.”

One week later, Zero Volt’s wounds had healed, and he was ready to be discharged. His doctor was walking with him toward the hospital’s entrance. “I’ve packed a few things for your journey,” she said, motioning toward a saddle pack on his back. “Write back to me once you’ve found your home, okay kid?” Zero Volt nodded absentmindedly. He hadn’t slept well during that entire week, and it was almost impossible to him to focus on anything around him. The doctor gave him a quick hug. “Be safe out there, and good luck.”

“Hold on just a second,” Rarity said. “Look at his flank. He doesn’t have a cutie mark.”

“It looks like he doesn’t have his Shinespark either,” Fluttershy added. “He doesn’t have any white in his mane or coat.”

“Those also come later,” Zero Volt said.

Throughout the afternoon, Zero Volt sluggishly stumbled through the forest. He stopped to place his hoof over his mouth and yawn. Putting his hoof back on the ground, he held an unsteady gait and glanced up at the sky. Though he couldn’t see the sun through the trees, the orange sky told him that it was already dusk. It was going to be dark soon, and he needed a place to rest for the night, or at least try to rest.

He looked ahead and saw a stone building up ahead. Vines and other vegetation grew around the aged edifice, giving it the look of an ancient temple. Nevertheless, the structure looked stable enough, and Zero Volt decided to take shelter inside for the night. Despite the dilapidated exterior, the building’s interior showed no signs of decay. On either side there were three lit torches, and at the other end there was a limestone carving with a green jewel embedded in it.

Zero Volt yawned and removed his saddle pack. He placed it in the middle of the floor to use as a pillow and lied down on his back. He closed his eyes and tried to ease into his sleep, only to hear the gnashing of teeth and see the dogs again. His eyes popped open and he felt his heartbeat rise. “Looks like it’s going to be another one of those nights,” Zero Volt said wearily. The building was drafty, and before long, a cold wind blew through it and brushed against his left side. The feeling against his side made him wince, and he rolled onto it to protect it against the wind. As soon as the floor covered his stitches and side, the painful, uncomfortable feeling left that part of his body. “That feels… better,” he yawned, quickly falling asleep.

The hard stone floor didn’t bother him, nor did the cold air inside the structure, or the fact that he hadn’t eaten since he left the hospital. Zero Volt was getting some much needed rest, and at that moment, not even a powerful earthquake could wake him up, much less the grinding sound of a stone block moving into place over the entrance.

“That doesn’t look good,” Rainbow Dash said.

“I’m not surprised,” Twilight said. “You should’ve known that an abandoned building with lit torches clearly isn’t abandoned.”

“That’s not quite as obvious after a whole week of sleep deprivation,” Zero Volt retorted. “And how are you seeing what’s inside if the building has been sealed off?”

“It wasn’t easy, but we found a few sections of the walls and ceiling that had crumbled,” Luna said.

Zero Volt slept peacefully inside the aged building for hours. After the stone door had fallen into place, nothing else happened inside. But minutes before dawn, the green jewel at the end of the room started glowing. The light from the six torches only illuminated part of the room, and from the shadows emerged six wolves. The wolves growled hungrily as they surrounded Zero Volt. One wolf lunged at him, ready to tear into his body. It was mere inches from Zero Volt’s body, but collided with the ground instead. It stood up and shook itself off, but saw that its prey wasn’t there anymore.

The six wolves were confused, but eventually they found Zero Volt lying in a corner of the room. Two wolves ran toward him, only to slam into the walls when he teleported away. The two wolves were knocked out by their impact, and two of the torches on the walls changed from yellow-orange flames to green flames.

“That is classic Volt right there,” Rainbow Dash said in laughter.

“My two-second warning may have its problems, Zero Volt said, “but it keeps me well protected in my sleep, and I take pride in that.”

At another corner of the room, Zero Volt woke up. “That’s it, I need to see a therapist,” he said. “First the flashbacks to that dog attack, now I’m dreaming about…” Zero Volt stopped when he noticed the eight wolves that were slowly closing in on him. “Oh… uh-oh.”

One wolf leapt at him, but hit the wall when Zero Volt teleported. Zero Volt teleported only two few feet away and kicked the wolf into the wall with both hind legs, knocking it out. He then teleported across the room, kicked another wolf to the ground, and slammed his hoof into its throat. Two more torches lit up with green flames. Zero Volt turned to face the rest of them, but found that there were now ten. He started hyperventilating, and tried to back away from them. He was getting flashbacks to that day again: the two dogs that tore into his side, the one that chewed on his left hind leg, the feeling of helplessness as he was held down by unicorn magic. The wolves attacked him, but Zero Volt’s two-second warning allowed him to teleport away. He grabbed one wolf by the tail, jumped and threw it at the ground. He then grabbed another wolf by its tail and flailed it around, slamming it into the ground twice.

After the fifth and sixth wolves were knocked out, green flames lit up on the last two torches. “Wait, why’s everything so green now?” Zero Volt said, noticing the green light flickering across the walls. He turned his attention back to the wolves, but found that there were now twelve of them surrounding him. He fearfully tried to step away from them, but they were all closing in on him. “Where are these things coming from?”

Zero Volt eyed each of the wolves anxiously as they advanced on him. Once they were all about five feet away, he teleported behind one of them and grabbed its tail with his teeth. Lifting it in the air, he slammed its body down on one wolf, and then lifted its body in the air to slam it into another one. Then he tossed its body into a nearby wall. As he knocked out each wolf, one of the torches went out, and only three torches remained lit.

Another wolf tried to bite Zero Volt, but he teleported and kicked it into yet another wolf, knocking both out and extinguishing two more torches. “Is it getting darker in here too?” Zero Volt said quietly. If he looked up, he would have noticed that there was only one lit torch remaining, but there was still enough light to see. He teleported to one of the seven remaining wolves, knocked it down and stomped its neck with his hoof. Suddenly, the last torch went out and the entire room was dark. “Hey, who turned out the lights?!” Zero Volt tried to find the six remaining wolves, but he couldn’t see them. The wolves advanced quietly toward him. They didn’t bark, snarl or even take loud steps, making sure that their prey wouldn’t be able to hear them.

“It doesn’t look that dark in there.” Rainbow Dash said. “I can see everything just fine.”

“That’s because we adjusted the brightness of the video,” Celestia said. “For Zero Volt, this stage of the fight was in total darkness.”

“But those wolves could hear and smell him,” Fluttershy said. “They knew exactly where he was while Zero was a sitting duck.”

“He still had his two-second warning, right?” Twilight said. “He could’ve used that to locate them and counterattack.”

“Ah reckon that’s what he’s doin’ here,” Applejack said. Looking back at the picture, the saw Zero Volt teleporting to dodge the wolves and then fighting back. “This is pretty nasty, even for a trap.”

“You don’t read a lot of Daring Do, do you?” Rainbow said. “Daring gets past worse traps than this in almost every book.”

“I do not think that this was a trap,” Luna said. “Look upon the once lit torches on the walls.” They looked back at the walls in the video and noticed that three torches each had a sphere of light above them. None of the spheres radiated enough light to illuminate the chamber, maintaining the difficulty of Zero Volt’s ordeal. Another sphere appeared over a fourth torch after another wolf was knocked out. “This was a test for Zero Volt, a trial perhaps.”

“Well of course you know that, you’ve already seen this movie,” Zero Volt said.

“And you’ve lived through it, so stop talking before you mention any spoilers,” Spike said.

Zero Volt knocked out the last of the wolves, causing a sphere of light to appear over the last torch. Suddenly, all six spheres glowed more brightly, illuminating the entire chamber. The unconscious wolves vanished once the light shone over them. Zero Volt was now alone in the chamber, but his heart was still racing and he was panting heavily. Despite how well he had apparently done, this wasn’t easy for him. The wolves reminded him of the dogs that had nearly killed him, and they would’ve been just as vicious if he hadn’t been able to fight back.

Zero Volt looked toward the green jewel at the end of the chamber. Cracks formed in the carving it had been embedded in, and a beam of bright green light shone on him from the jewel. Zero Volt held up his right foreleg to shield his face, only to find that the beam was aiming itself at his foreleg. The light was somehow molding itself around his foreleg and transformed into a gold bracelet with an emerald in the center. Black wings sprouted on either side of the emerald and wrapped securely around the bracelet. A horn materialized above the emerald, and the green light faded away. The jewel at the end of the chamber decayed into a dull, brittle rock, and the entire carving it was embedded in crumbled onto the ground.

“Whoa,” Zero Volt said, admiring the bracelet that had just formed around his leg. He had finally calmed down now that the fight was over. “What is this?” Behind him, the stone slab that sealed the entrance crumbled, and the spheres of light floating above him vanished. “Huh, I didn’t realize I was under lockdown.” Zero Volt walked toward the entrance and looked outside. It was now dawn, and Celestia’s sun was rising in the sky. “Sunrise,” Zero Volt yawned, “perfect time to go to sleep. I’ll sort through everything when I wake up.” He found his saddle pack and brought it to a corner of the chamber that the daylight had not reached. He lied down on his left side, remembering how well that worked before, and placed his head on his makeshift pillow.

“So that’s when you got that bracelet,” Twilight said.

“I’d prefer to call it a decorative greave,” Zero Volt said.

“Whatever makes you feel more masculine, darling,” Rarity snarked.

“Yah know, this is when Ah normally wake up, and you’re goin’ right to sleep,” Applejack said.

“Hey, I managed to get a ton of rest, so that was a good morning for me,” Zero Volt said. “What about you? How was your morning that day?”

“Daylight is overrated,” Rainbow Dash said. “Any time of day is a good time to take a nap. Uh, no offense, Princess Celestia.”

Zero Volt woke up again hours later. He rubbed his eyes, stretched out his legs and walked over to the entrance of the building. “Noon… that was a good seven and a half hours,” he said.

“Actually, that was thirty-one and a half hours,” Celestia said. “You slept through an entire day and then some.”

“I did?” Zero Volt said. “Huh, that really was a good sleep.”

Zero Volt brought his saddle pack to the entrance and opened it. “Now let’s see what’s in here.” He pulled out several sandwiches, pieces of fruit and two bottles of water. “There’s enough food in here to last me two days,” he said. He then picked up and ate all of the food at once. “Or five seconds.” He drank half of the water in one bottle and placed both bottles back in the bag.

Zero Volt opened the other bag and found a note inside it. The note was from the doctor, and it simply reiterated what she told him when he left, in case he was too dazed to hear her. She had also left him bits for his journey. A lot of bits.

“Oh my, there must have been a few hundred bits in that bag,” Rarity said.

Yeah, I’ve actually been writing letters to her and paying her back ever since I started living here,” Zero Volt said. “I even told her about you girls.”

“Really, did you say anything nice?” she asked.

“About you?” he said, pointing at Rarity. “Not a chance.”

“Didn’t I expose your façade months ago?” Celestia said. “Why are you two still trading snide remarks?”

“We’ve must have grown accustomed to it after so many months,” Rarity said.

“Celestia, my relationships with these girls each have their own nuances,” Zero Volt said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Zero Volt pulled one last item out of the bag, a map. “Let’s see,” he said staring at the map, “I’m somewhere… over here and I’m going… I’m not exactly sure. How can I find out where I used to be if I don’t even know where to start?” He looked over the names of certain towns and cities. “Wait, some of these places seem familiar.” He was starting to remember places, but not memories or ponies. ‘If I remember anything about these places, then they’re a good place to start looking,’ he thought. He used a marker to draw circles around those towns. The last one that he circled was Baltimare, but even though he felt most familiar with that city, he had no intention of setting hoof there again. “Let’s see, the closest town that I’m familiar with is… Hoofington. Sounds like as good a place to start as any.”

Zero Volt shifted the contents of his saddle pack to even out the weight of both bags and placed it on his back. He left the ancient building and headed toward Hoofington. He started at a walking pace, but he was feeling energetic and impatient. His gait quickly shifted to a trot, then a canter, and eventually reached a gallop. He was enjoying this run, and a smile spread across his face as he ran through the forest, sidestepping rocks and tree trunks in his path. Minutes later, Zero Volt found a ravine in his path. Noticing a rock wall extending across the ravine, he continued his pace. Once he reached the ravine, he leapt halfway across it and performed a wall run to reach the other end. Having made it across, Zero Volt continued running through the forest.

As he ran, Zero Volt noticed that he was heading for the edge of a cliff. He slid his hooves to try to stop, but when he reached the edge, the ground collapsed around his hooves. “Whoa!” he shouted as he fell, but he didn’t fall very far before his hooves touched something solid. Zero Volt looked down and saw that his hooves were sliding on two parallel tree branches. The branches were long, straight, sturdy, and supported on top of other tree branches that ran perpendicular to them. The branches that his hooves slid on were also very smooth, and were on just enough of an incline to compensate for friction. “Huh, this could work,” Zero Volt said as he let the branches carry him.

“I’ve never seen you do that before,” Rainbow Dash said.

“That’s because there aren’t any grind rails in Ponyville,” Zero Volt said. “Believe me, I’ve checked… thoroughly.”

“Sounds like you want to do that again,” Pinkie Pie said. “Actually, I want to do that too. Is it anything like ice skating or sliding on a soapy road?”

“Maybe a little, but you’re restricted in where you can go when you’re rail grinding,” he said.

Zero Volt grinded along the rail-like branches until he reached the tree that they were attached to. Seeing another pair of parallel branches next to him, he hopped onto them and continued along. He saw several pairs of branches suitable for grinding that were going in the same direction and decided that he could switch between them when necessary. “Hah, I’ll just let gravity do the work for me,” he said. “At least now I have a chance to think about everything that’s happened.” He looked at the bracelet he had recently acquired. “I went through way too much trouble to get this thing, but it feels like I was meant to have it. Good thing I have these weird powers, especially that teleportation ability.” There were various hazards in his path, but Zero Volt absentmindedly switched rails to avoid them. “And then there are these visions I keep having whenever something’s about to attack me. Those are really going to come in handy, but I wish they didn’t have to be so detailed.”

“What did you mean by that, Volt?” Twilight said.

Zero Volt sighed. This was one of those things that he didn’t want anyone to ever know about. He had never told anyone about it, but his friends were asking about it and they wouldn’t appreciate him being less than honest with them now, least of all Applejack. He stalled for a few seconds before opening his mouth. “My two-second warning doesn’t just tell me if something's about to hurt me,” he said. “Whenever it activates, it forces me to experience whatever it is that it’s alerting me to. I have to see myself getting hurt and actually feel that pain right before it’s about to happen.”

“So even though you have a chance to avoid something harmful, you still have to go through it?” Twilight said. Zero Volt looked back at her without giving a response. “Still, without your ability, all of those things would have actually hit you and caused real, lasting damage.”

“The worst experience I’ve ever had with it is that dog attack in Baltimare,” he said. “My two-second warning activated for every single bite from those dogs. Every time, I saw those dogs tear into my flesh, I saw my blood all over the ground, I felt them ripping into me, and I went through all that a second time when it actually happened.”

Fluttershy placed a hoof on Zero Volt’s withers. “It’s okay, Zero,” she said. “Let’s just keep watching.”

Zero Volt was still grinding on the rail-like branches through the forest. Eventually the other sets of branches disappeared, leaving him with only one pair of branches. He looked ahead and saw that the branches bent upward and formed a large loop-the-loop. “These are easily the most bizarre and most awesome trees I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Still, I have to do this just right.” Zero Volt bent his legs and braced himself as he approached the loop. He reached the bottom of the loop and hopped to the left, jumping through the loop and landing on the end of it. He continued to grind along the branches, having never gone around the loop-the-loop.

“Aw, come on!” Rainbow Dash protested. “Missed opportunity!”

“You need at least a certain amount of speed to go around a loop-the-loop,” Zero Volt said. “If I had tried to go around, I would’ve fallen off at the top and fallen down into the forest.”

Shortly afterward the branches dipped downward, producing a steep incline. Zero Volt saw another loop-the-loop at the bottom of them, and at the rate he was accelerating, he would have enough speed for this one. The branches tilted up and terminated at the end of the loop, allowing him to use them as a ramp. He reached the bottom of the loop, went around it, and flew off at the ends of the branches. The jump carried him to the edge of another cliff, and when he touched the ground, he slid on his hooves until he came to a stop.

“That was fun!” Zero Volt said as he broke into a gallop. “Now how close am I to Hoofington? Let’s see, it’s one in the afternoon, the sun is up there in the sky, and Equestria doesn’t have any sort of global positioning system.” Moments later, the trees cleared up and Zero Volt started to see buildings. He came to a stop when he found himself on a street near the edge of a town. “Oh wait, here it is.” He started walking aimlessly through the street, looking at the buildings and ponies as he passed them. Eventually he broke into a gallop again while still looking around.

“Volt, if you were familiar with any of these towns, why didn’t you teleport to them?” Twilight asked. “What’s the point of getting lost in the woods?”

“Because parkour and rail grinding are awesome,” Zero Volt said, “and nopony with 20/20 hindsight is going to take that away from me.”

“Zero, what were you doing here?” Rarity said. “What exactly was your plan when you arrived at each town?”

“Mostly to run around town until somepony that I passed recognized me,” he said. “Needless to say, it never worked.”

“Hey, haven’t I seen you before?” Zero Volt’s ears perked and he turned to the direction the voice had come from. He saw two earth pony stallions in front of him. One was blue with a white mane and the other one was black with a white mane.

“You know who I am?” Zero Volt said enthusiastically. He had only been in town for an hour, and it looked like he had already found somepony who recognized him.

“Oh yes, I know who you are,” the black pony said. “You’re that kid who pulled off that Baltimare escape.”

Zero Volt’s ears drooped slightly, and he stopped smiling. “Wait, you heard about that?”

“Of course we did,” the black pony said. “It happened over a week ago, and news travels fast. They say that you were being chased by a couple of ponies and a pack of dogs when you just vanished. My associate and I are very interested in your abilities, and we are very curious to know how you managed that escape.”

“Uh, thanks I guess.”

“Oh wait, I forgot about introductions,” the black pony said. “My name is Bruiser, and this is my associate, Glacier. I’d be very interested in putting your abilities to good use, if you’re willing to join us.”

“Uh… maybe later,” Zero Volt said. “I’ve got something I need to do first.”

“I can live with that, for now,” Bruiser said. “Just let us know eventually.”

“Volt, those were…” Rainbow Dash started.

“Yeah, they were,” Zero Volt said, “and the other two must have been somewhere close by.”

Zero Volt was still wandering through town a half hour later. A unicorn that passed by him glanced back and took another look at him. “Aren’t you the pony who escaped from an attack in Baltimare a week ago?”

Zero Volt looked back at her. “Yeah, that’s me,” he said. “Apparently, I’m famous for it too.”

“Of course you are,” she said. “From what I’ve heard, that sort of escape puts you significantly above all the other earth pony cretins.”

“What did she just say?” Applejack said angrily.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You must realize that most earth ponies aren’t particularly useful or competent, especially compared to us magic-wielding unicorns,” she said. “Although I can tell that you’re something else entirely.”

“I wouldn’t agree with that,” Zero Volt said. “All ponies have something to offer, regardless of race.”

“Look, you can drop the ridiculous cutie mark lecture they give to all the schoolfoals,” she said. “Only the strong and smart survive in this world, and earth ponies just don’t make the cut.”

“That’s not true, earth ponies are responsible for maintaining the land and growing all the food in Equestria, and we’d starve without them,” he said. “A lot of unicorns can’t even cook their own food, much less grow it.”

“That’s not to say we can’t simply enslave them,” the unicorn said.

“I’m not sure about that,” he said. “That sounds like the fastest way to get hemlock in your apple juice and nightshade in your salad.”

“Are you sure that’s Zero Volt we’re looking at?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Isn’t he supposed to be a lot more sarcastic?”

“See the whole movie for yourself, and then ask what he is supposed to be like,” Luna said.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” the unicorn asked.

“I’m not interested in talking social Darwhinnism with anypony, so I’m leaving,” Zero Volt said as he walked away. He spent the next few hours exploring Hoofington, but found nothing. He decided to move on to the next town, but first he went to the marketplace to buy supplies that he would need for his journey. The sun was starting to set by the time he was done when a pegasus started walking next to him.

“Hey,” the pegasus said, smiling at him.

“Uh, hey,” he said, smiling back at her.

“Haven’t seen you in town before,” she said. “Are you new here?”

“Just passing by. You live here?”

“Nah, I’m also passing by. My name’s Silver Wind.” She offered a hoof to him. Zero Volt said nothing, but accepted her hoof. “Don’t you have a name too?”

“Uh… not that I can think of,” Zero Volt said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hoof.

“You don’t have a cutie mark either.” The two of them walked through the market together. Silver Wind picked up a newspaper and skimmed through it. “Hold on” she said, “green coat, black mane. Aren’t you the pony from Baltimare?”

“I guess so,” he said. “You know, you’re the fourth pony who’s asked me that today. Well, technically third; the second one didn’t talk much.”

“I know the type,” Silver Wind said. “You’re getting a lot of attention because of it aren’t you?”

“I wish I wasn’t,” he said. “The first one seemed like a shady salesman with a bodyguard next to him. I had to tune out the other one because she wouldn’t shut up about her unicorn supremacy message.”

“Sorry about that,” she said, putting a hoof on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s getting kind of late, and I’d better get going. Next time we run into each other, maybe you can tell me how you escaped.” Silver Wind turned and walked in a different direction. Zero Volt smiled as he watched her leave.

“You like her, don’t you?” Pinkie Pie said teasingly.

“I liked her,” Zero Volt said bitterly. “Past tense.”

Zero Volt had just left the marketplace after buying one last item, a brush for his coat. He was definitely going to need this from now on. It was already too dark for him to leave town, so he went to find the nearest hotel. “Hey,” he said, looking down a different street, “is that Silver Wind?” He trotted toward her, only to stop when he found three other ponies with her. “Wait, what’s she doing with them?” He hid in an alleyway close enough to hear the four of them.

“So how did it go?” Bruiser asked.

“Pretty well, the guy really opened up to me,” Silver Wind said. “Turns out he doesn’t even know his own name.”

“No name, no cutie mark, that kid must be all alone and lost in this world,” Bruiser said.

“Then it’ll be that much easier to recruit him,” Glacier said.

“You’d better let me handle him for now,” Silver Wind said. “You guys really put him off when you talked to him. You especially, Glass. You’ve really got to tone down the racism.” Even though the four of them didn’t see him, Zero Volt glowered at them and walked away.

“And now you hate her,” Rainbow Dash said.

Half an hour later, Zero Volt had checked in to a hotel for the night and was almost ready to go to sleep. He placed his saddle pack on a table and jumped onto the bed. Lying in bed, he looked at the mysterious bracelet on his foreleg. “I don’t see any sort of clamp or switch or anything on this,” he said. “How do I take this off?” As if to answer his question, the wings started to open on their own. Before long, the wings were completely outstretched, and the button on the gold bracelet was revealed. He pressed the button and the bracelet opened. “Whoa, so that’s how. Still, it feels like I shouldn’t be taking this off.” He closed the gold bracelet again and looked at the wings, wondering if they would also close on their own. Immediately after, the wings folded around his foreleg again. The wings opened up again and then closed a second time.

“Having fun with your little toy, Zero?” Rarity said.

“So this thing opens and closes whenever I want it too? Cool, maybe I can play around with it tomorrow.” Zero Volt stretched his forelegs and lied down on the bed, quickly falling asleep.