The Inevitable Prequel Chapter (2/2)

Five weeks into his journey, Zero Volt was walking through the forest. He had gone through several towns and cities that he seemed to remember, but he hadn’t found anything.

“Now wait just a doggone minute here,” Applejack protested. “Why’d yah skip over an entire month of his life?”

“During that entire month, Zero Volt explored several towns that were either indifferent or hostile to him,” Celestia said. “Aside from a hoofful of fights and snubbing those four thieves whenever he found them, that month was relatively uneventful and repetitive. Like I said, we cut out a lot.”

As Zero Volt walked through the forest, a young blue dragon appeared next to him. The dragon, only being a juvenile, was roughly the size of an adult pony and had underdeveloped wings. “This is a dangerous place for ponies,” the dragon said. “What are you doing around here?”

“Just traveling from town to town,” Zero Volt said. “There’s one in this direction, and I’m hoping to reach it in a couple of days.”

“Aren’t there roads in between pony towns?”

“There are, but this looked like a shorter route on the map.”

“I’m sure there’s a reason for that,” the dragon said. “Like I said, this place can get dangerous.” They walked in silence for several seconds. The dragon eyed Zero Volt’s bracelet and licked his lips. “That’s a nice looking bracelet you have.” He held out his claw toward it. “Especially that emerald.”

“I prefer to call it a decorative greave,” Zero Volt said. “And see with your eyes, not with your claws.”

“You misunderstand, I wasn’t asking to see it,” the dragon said. “In fact, I wasn’t asking.” He shot a fireball at Zero Volt, who quickly rolled away from it.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Zero Volt said. “You really want to fight me over this?”

“It’ll be easier for both of us if you just give it to me,” the dragon said. “Especially for you.” He leapt at Zero Volt, and extended his claw. His wings weren’t strong enough to maintain flight, but they gave him enough lift to augment his jump. Zero Volt jumped away, causing the dragon’s claw to punch through a tree. The dragon turned and breathed another fireball, but Zero Volt teleported behind him and kicked his head with both hind legs.

“Sure about that?” Zero Volt said. “It looks like you’re the one having trouble.” The dragon pulled his claw out of the tree and breathed yet another fireball, but Zero Volt decided to get creative by teleporting the dragon into the path of his own fireball. The dragon stumbled back after the blast hit him, and Zero Volt went behind him and grabbed his tail with his mouth. He teleported both of them into the air, flipped, and threw the dragon into an outcropping on the ground.

The dragon slowly stood back up and faced Zero Volt. They stood for a moment, several feet away from each other, before the dragon craned his neck and roared. His roar echoed throughout the forest, and when he was done, he looked back at Zero Volt and gave a smug smile. “You’re gonna get it now,” he said.

“What did you do,” Zero Volt taunted, “cry for your mommy?” Suddenly, he heard the sound of large, powerful wings beating. “Oh wait, that’s actually a bad thing.” The sound became louder until he saw and adult blue dragon flying above the forest canopy. The mother dragon reached their location in the forest, and Zero Volt back away in a mixture of awe and fear. As she landed in front of Zero Volt, the mother dragon knocked down several trees in her path. She used her arms to tear down even more trees to make room. After finding Zero Volt, she bent down and roared at him. Zero Volt’s hooves slid back a few feet and stared at the dragon for a few seconds. “Why does this sort of thing keep happening to me?” he whined.

“Mom, good thing you’re here,” the young dragon said. “This pony won’t let me have his jewel.”

“Lady, you’re kid’s trying to steal it off of my leg,” Zero Volt said.

“I don’t think my son did anything wrong,” the mother said. “It’s in your best interest to just give it to him before we have to do something unpleasant.”

“Ah, bad parenting at its finest,” Zero Volt said.

“So it is true,” Fluttershy said. “You did fight a dragon.”

“Fluttershy, you knew about this?” Rainbow Dash said.

“He told me that he once fought and beat a fully grown dragon, but I didn’t believe him at first,” she said.

“Hey, spoiler alert!” Pinkie Pie said.

“It’s not much of a spoiler, sugarcube,” Applejack said. “He’s here right now, so he must have won.”

“Either that or he ran like a coward,” Rarity said. “I’m sure Zero just told Fluttershy that he won just to impress her.”

The adult dragon swiped at Zero Volt with her claw. Zero Volt sidestepped the claw, but was forced to duck to also avoid a fireball from her son. Her son lunged at Zero Volt, who jumped over him to dodge. Zero Volt’s two-second warning activated, and he teleported to avoid the mother’s fire breath. Seeing Zero Volt in the corner of her vision, she whipped around to hit him with her tail. Zero Volt jumped to avoid it, but had to teleport to dodge another fireball from the son.

The two dragons continued their coordinated attack on Zero Volt, who struggled to dodge their attacks. “Hey… your mother and I…are trying to… have a grownup… conversation,” Zero Volt said, his statement interrupted by their attacks. “Run along… and play somewhere else.” The mother dragon inhaled deeply, getting ready for another fire attack. Zero Volt had an idea, and just as the mother exhaled, he teleported her son in the path of her attack. By the time the mother stopped her exhale, her son was unconscious, his scales scorched by the attack. “Sorry kid, but you had your chance earlier,” Zero Volt said. “Next time, wait your turn at the back of the line.” Suddenly, the mother dragon roared in outrage, spraying fire into the air above them. “Uh-oh, I think I just made a bad situation even worse.”

The dragon breathed a continuous stream of fire at Zero Volt, who tried to run around her to avoid it. She turned around to try to reach him with her flames, but soon stopped and blew another stream ahead of him, blocking his path. Zero Volt slid to a stop and looked around him. He was trapped on both sides by burning vegetation, and an adult dragon was ahead of him. Looking behind him, he noticed a cave at the base of a mountain and ran into it.

Zero Volt reached the end of the cave and found numerous ledges spiraling up the rock wall. These would have allowed him to climb up, but he noticed the dragon poking her head into the mouth of the cave, ready to breathe fire into the cave. “Some other time,” he sighed as he looked up to see how far up the ledges reached. He found the top ledge and teleported to it just before the dragon’s flames could reach him.

Zero Volt looked down and saw the flames rising up and filling the cave. The ledge he was on included a tunnel, and he galloped into it. In front of him, light shone from the end of the tunnel. Behind him, the flames had climbed up the cave and roared toward him. With one final push, he darted toward the exit and rolled to the left just in time to avoid the flames.

Zero Volt was hyperventilating as he looked back at the cave. “I’ve got to get rid of this dragon,” he said. “Watching yourself get burned alive is not fun!”

“What a surprise,” the dragon said as she fell up to Zero Volt’s altitude. “You survived and you can stand on top of clouds.”

Zero Volt’s eyes widened. “Wait, these are clouds?” he said. He looked down at his hooves and saw the familiar, puffy white substance, now up close. This day was cloudy enough that the clouds completely covered the sky at this altitude. He swept his hoof across the cloud cover, dislodging wisps of cloud from its surface. “Huh, so they are.”

Suddenly, Zero Volt’s two-second took effect, and he galloped to avoid a stream of the dragon’s fire breath. The dragon rotated herself to keep her flames on him as he ran around her. Zero Volt realized that the stream of fire was closing in on him, so he decelerated and leapt, allowing it to pass underneath him. He brought his hooves under him to land on the clouds, but fell through a hole in the cloud cover. The dragon’s flames had been close enough to the clouds to dissipate them on contact. Zero Volt quickly teleported back up and landed on the field of clouds again.

“She’s trying to make me fall out of the sky,” Zero Volt said to himself. He stared at her as she hovered in flight and turned his attention to her wings. “Bet I can do the same thing.” He teleported above her and tried to land on one of her wings, but he was struck by it in the middle of its flapping motion. The wing knocked him away, but the impact upset the dragon’s flight, causing that side of her to dip. Despite the initial shock, the dragon managed to stabilize her flight again.

Meanwhile, Zero Volt teleported in midair and managed to land on the dragon’s back. He stood back up and tried to injure the dragon’s wing with stomps and bites, but to no effect. He had to teleport onto the mountain when she tried to brush him off with her claw. “Okay, that didn’t work the way I hoped it would,” he said. “If only I had something stronger or heavier.” He looked around and noticed a sign. “Danger: Avalanche Zone,” he read aloud. With those three words, he knew exactly what he needed to do.

“Oh, that jewel of yours will make a great dessert after we roast you,” the dragon said, having found Zero Volt again.

“You mean the same way you roasted your kid back there?” Zero Volt taunted. “Seriously, what kind of mother cooks her child like that?” His comment pushed the dragon over the edge, and after a deep inhale, she shot a white-hot fireball at him. Zero Volt teleported to a lower point on the mountain, and the fireball hit the mountainside, almost melting the rock and causing the mountain to shake. Zero Volt took a deep breath to calm himself and nodded to himself. The rockslide had started, and he rolled away from every rock that fell toward him. Eventually, he found some rocks that he liked and started teleporting.

Timing and placement were crucial for what he needed to do, and if he wasn’t careful, the tumbling rocks would pull him into the avalanche and break his bones. His two-second warning told him what not to do and where not to go as he teleported the rocks above the dragon’s head and wings. The first two landed on her wings, destabilizing her flight again. Before she could correct herself, a third one landed right on her head, dazing her. The next two rocks hit her wings, and she started to plummet back to the ground. The trees that snapped beneath her weight didn’t break her fall as she hit the ground, causing a tremor in the earth beneath her. Within the next few moments, all of the other rocks that Zero Volt teleported above her piled on top of her.

Meanwhile, Zero Volt teleported back onto the mountain, but when he landed, the ledge crumbled beneath him. He held out his right foreleg and managed to grab the edge with his hoof. Holding onto the edge of the mountainside, he noticed the younger dragon appear above him. The young dragon reached out to push him off, but Zero Volt let go on his own. Seconds later, Zero Volt vanished, but before the young dragon could wonder where he went, something pushed him off of the ledge. Zero Volt stood behind him with his hind legs outstretched, and he turned around to watch the young dragon tumble down the mountainside. The dragon eventually reached the bottom and lay next to his mother. Zero Volt panted as he looked down at the dragons, both unconscious. Moments later, he started cheering and jumping around.

“Ah don’t believe it,” Applejack said. “Yah really did beat a fully grown dragon.”

“Well, gravity did most of the work, and I almost got killed about twenty times, but yeah, that was awesome,” Zero Volt said proudly.

“Yet it never once occurred to you to teleport away and take a safer route,” Twilight said.

Zero Volt stepped back onto the clouds and looked around him. “Whoa, check out the view. From up here, it almost looks like everything’s covered in snow.” He looked at the forest through the gap in the clouds, then at the clear sky above him. “I’ve got to make a habit of getting up here more often. In fact…” Zero Volt broke into a gallop. Since this was a particularly cloudy day, he decided to run above the clouds to the next city. Up ahead, he saw that there were some large gaps in the cloud cover, but he could jump across them. Eventually, he noticed a small, round cloud ahead of him, followed by a much larger one. He jumped onto the small cloud, expecting to use it as a platform to the next one, but was surprised when it bounced him high into the air. He landed on the larger cloud and slid to a halt, dislodging small pieces of cloud as he skidded. “Huh, I didn’t know that clouds were so springy.”

“Ooh, I want to try that too!” Pinkie Pie said. “Why didn’t anypony tell me I could bounce on a cloud like that?”

“It has to do with our pegasus magic,” Fluttershy said, “which lets us, well…”

“Pretty much do whatever we want with clouds,” Rainbow Dash finished. “We don’t really need to bounce off of them once we learn to fly, but Volt seems to be enjoying himself up there.”

“Yeah, this is why I spend a lot of time up in the clouds or on that mountain near Ponyville,” Zero Volt said. “You know, I don’t mind being some imperfect hybrid of two different races, but if I had to choose between one of them, I would definitely pick pegasus over unicorn.”

“Actually, I’d much rather stay on the ground,” Fluttershy said.

“Oh yeah, you don’t really like heights, do you?” he said. "That’s kind of weird. Didn’t you spend your foalhood living up in Cloudsdale.” Fluttershy’s expression changed, and she hid her face behind her mane. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s just that I couldn’t fly very well back then, and I guess I was always worried about falling.”

Zero Volt noticed three small clouds lined up, leading to another large cloud. He bounced off of each cloud to get to the next one, doing a 360° spin on the second bounce and a flip on the third bounce. Once he landed, he looked up and smiled at what he saw. A single thundercloud floated above him with a few regular clouds leading up to it.

“As long as I’m here, maybe I can take a few minutes to learn how to work a thundercloud,” he said. He jumped from cloud to cloud until he was one jump away. He bent his legs and made the leap, only for his two-second warning to take effect in midair. Zero Volt panicked and teleported back down, hitting the large cloud beneath him. “What just happened back there? Th-that cloud almost electrocuted me, and then I would’ve fallen through the clouds and…” He recalled what the two-second warning had shown him. He saw himself getting injured by the thundercloud and he saw himself plummet through the cloud barrier. However, even though he knew he would’ve crashed, he didn’t see himself hit the ground. “I looked away,” he said. “I can look away. If I can learn to control my ability, then maybe I can see what’s attacking me without having to see what it does to me.”

“Biggest mistake of my entire life,” Zero Volt said.

“What do you mean?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“From that day on, whenever my two-second warning activated, I tried to isolate the threats that it told me about and ignore the unpleasant parts of those visions,” he said. “But whenever I do that, I might overlook certain details or suppress the two-second warning entirely. When that happens, I end up getting hurt.”

“So when you said that this ability sometimes doesn’t work,” Twilight said, “that was because you couldn’t get it to work the way you wanted to.”

“Exactly,” he said. “I stopped doing that right around the time I got struck by lightning near Ponyville.”

“So when we had to walk off that mountain in the middle of that storm,” Fluttershy said.

“Yeah, that… that was entirely my fault.”

“Yah see, this is what Ah was askin’ for,” Applejack said. “We’re finally getting’ answers from yah, and you’re even explainin’ stuff along the way.”

“Perhaps we should skip ahead to Fillydelphia,” Luna said. “The next two minutes are just Zero Volt trying to safely touch that thundercloud.”

A few days later, Zero Volt arrived in Fillydelphia at nighttime. As with every other town before it, he galloped through the streets, exploring the city and hoping to run into somepony he recognized. He spent the next half hour running through the city, but didn’t find anything. Zero Volt slowed his pace and yawned. ‘I should find a hotel or something,’ he thought. ‘I’m can explore tomorrow.’

Suddenly, he heard an alarm ringing from several blocks away. Moments later, he saw four familiar ponies galloping away from the sound of the alarm. All four of them were dressed in black, but he recognized Silver Wind flying alongside them. He also noticed that they each wore saddle bags. Zero Volt decided to pursue them, but thought that they might notice him if he followed on the ground. He looked up at the buildings around him and teleported to the roof of one. He ran from rooftop to rooftop before finally catching up to them.

“Alright, change of plans,” Zero Volt said to himself. He leapt off of the roof, teleported in midair to correct himself, and fell toward Silver Wind with hooves extended. He landed on the side of her body and kicked off, throwing her into the ground. Jewelry spilled from her bag when she hit the ground. Zero Volt noticed the spilled contents and redirected his attention to the other three ponies. He leapt toward Glacier, spun around and kicked as hard as he could, only to find that his hind legs were still supported against Glacier’s side. Glacier just stared at Zero Volt, completely unaffected by the kick to his side. Eventually, Glass used her magic to lift Zero Volt off the ground and hold him in place. “Want to explain to me what you’re doing with all those?” he asked.

“You’re lucky we’re in a hurry,” Bruiser said, “but if you get in our way again, we will put you in your place, you little punk. That bracelet of yours will even go nicely with the rest of our loot.” Glass threw Zero Volt across the street and used her magic to return the stolen valuables to Silver Wind’s bags. The four thieves ran in another direction as Zero Volt struggled to stand back up, and when he looked the four of them were already gone.

* * * * * * * * * *

At noon the next day, Zero Volt walked out of a sporting goods store in Fillydelphia. He was still upset after what happened the night before, but he had other things to do today. He still had to search for any sign of his previous life, but he had a lot of ground to cover, and he wanted to keep it interesting. So he spent the morning buying a skate board and an MP3 player. After putting in his earbuds and picking an appropriate song, he got on his skateboard and started exploring. Zero Volt picked up speed as he maneuvered through the busy streets.

A minute later, the street dipped downward. The route that Zero Volt chose was mostly downhill, and it included some of the steepest roads in the city. He skateboarded down the hill, picking up speed as he went. He turned left into another street, which also went downhill, and picked up even more speed. At his speed, it was becoming increasingly difficult to swerve past the other ponies, so he started to jump over them. Nopony seemed to recognize him as he passed by, but he was enjoying this too much to care. Eventually, he arrived at a long, winding staircase with a rail in the middle of it. He jumped onto the rail and staring grinding along it. “Huh, why is this rail here?” Zero Volt said. “I’ve never seen anypony use these when climbing stairs. Oh well, since it’s here.”

Suddenly, Zero Volt’s two-second warning took effect, and he jumped to dodge a pegasus that flew at him. He landed on the ground and braked on his skateboard, only to find that he was surrounded by police, consisting of two pegasi and two earth ponies. “Freeze! We have you surrounded.”

“What’s this all about?” Zero Volt asked.

“You’re under arrest for the theft at the museum last night,” one of the officers said. “We have witnesses that saw you there last night.”

“Museum? Those jewels were part of an exhibit?” Zero Volt said. Only a second later did he realize that he may have said the wrong thing. “Look, I’m not the one you’re looking for. There were four other ponies there-”

“Down on the ground and hooves where we can see them,” the officer said. Zero Volt realized that they weren’t going to listen to him right now. “I said get down on the ground!” Zero Volt picked up his skateboard and threw it at one of the officers. That officer ducked, and Zero Volt used the distraction to jump over him, land on his board and escape. The other ponies chased after him, but because he was going downhill, the earth ponies couldn’t catch up. However, the pegasi easily caught up to him and flew on either side of him.

Zero Volt jumped when one of them lunged at him, but the second pegasus flew toward him and pulled his board out from under his hooves. Not realizing that he didn’t have his board, Zero Volt scraped his legs and body against the ground when he landed. “Stay on the ground,” one of the officers said. Both pegasi hovered on either side of him, and the to earth ponies caught up.

The officers forced Zero Volt to stay on the ground when he tried to stand up. They were about to apprehend him when he suddenly disappeared from under them. They looked around, wondering where he could have possibly gone. Eventually, they saw him running from them, already several blocks away. The officers continued their pursuit, and the pegasi quickly caught up to him. One of them lunged at him, but Zero Volt teleported a hundred feet ahead of them and continued running.

They eventually reached the outskirts of the city, and Zero Volt reached the edge of a cliff. Looking down, he noticed several ledges that led down. He teleported from ledge to ledge, making his way down. Meanwhile, the two pegasi flew down after him while the earth ponies stayed behind. They flew after him faster than he could teleport down, and one of them dove right at him. However, Zero Volt teleported away, and the pegasus slammed into the ledge instead. The resulting impact triggered a rockslide. Zero Volt continued to teleport down the cliff, avoiding any rocks along the way. The pegasi weren’t as lucky, and they got caught by the falling rocks.

Once the rockslide was over and Zero Volt was safely on the ground, he looked at the two pegasi. The male one was lying motionless on the ground. The female one was still conscious, but she was trapped under a pile of rocks. Zero Volt walked over to the male and placed his hoof on his neck. ‘Good, he’s still alive, but unconscious,’ he thought. He looked back at the female pegasus. ‘But with both of them incapacitated like this, who knows what will find them out here.’ He teleported in front of her, but before he could pull her out, his mind backpedaled. She could still attack him once she’s free. He decided to knock her out first, and as he raised his hoof over her head, she shut her eyes and flinched. Zero Volt held his hoof up, but he hesitated to strike her. Eventually, he gently lowered his hoof and teleported her out from under the rocks. ‘I can’t do it,’ he though as he turned and walked away. ‘Besides, there’s no point in freeing her if I going to leave both of them unconscious.’

Suddenly, Zero Volt’s two second warning activated, and he dodge-rolled away when the pegasus attacked him. “You’re in a lot more trouble now,” she said. “Resisting arrest, attacking law enforcement officers.”

“So you’re still going after me,” Zero Volt said, “even if it means leaving your partner out here alone and defenseless?” The female pegasus looked back at her partner. “Why do you think I freed you in the first place?”

The mare wrestled with the decision in her mind, but ultimately went back to the other pegasus. “This doesn’t change anything,” she said. “A thief with a heart of gold is still a thief.”

“I’m not your thief, and I don’t have time to prove it to you,” Zero Volt said. He turned around and walked away while the pegasus stayed with her partner.

The other ponies looked at Zero Volt, who was visibly upset after having watched what happened in Fillydelphia. “Hey, at least you got those guys back when you came here, right Volt?” Rainbow Dash said. “Letting you take the heat for their heist was so not cool.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I find it odd that we never found out about this,” Rarity said. “I would’ve expected news of this to spread from Fillydelphia to Ponyville.”

“It did,” Twilight said. Using her magic, she produced a scroll from thin air and unrolled it for everyone to read. It was a wanted poster with a composite sketch of Zero Volt. “This showed up in Ponyville while Zero Volt was in the hospital. After we talked to him, I thought that those four thieves might have set him up, so I hid this from everypony and did a little investigating. You’re lucky I’m the one who intercepted this, Volt.”

“Yeah, if Rarity found it, she would’ve turned me in almost immediately,” he said.

Hours after escaping Fillydelphia, Zero Volt was still bitter about what had happened. He hadn’t even bothered to check his map since then. Dusk had finally arrived, but because it was a cloudy day, the sun wasn’t visible as it set below the sky. It was going to be a rainy night. In fact, it was already starting to rain, and Zero Volt could feel the first few raindrops. “No shelter down here,” he said as he looked around for a cave or an overhang. “Doesn’t matter. I can sleep above the clouds tonight.” The sound of thunder rolled above him. “Or not.”

Minutes later, he found a mountain nearby with a cave dug into its base. It was already pouring, so he galloped into it as quickly as he could. After entering, Zero Volt walked into the cave as far as he could without it getting too dark. At this point, he didn’t care about Fillydelphia. He didn’t care about his journey. He didn’t even care that he was hungry and didn’t get the chance to restock on food. He just wanted to fall asleep to the sound of rain outside the cave and the soft gleam of the rocks inside the cave.

Zero Volt jolted up and looked at those gleaming rocks again. Those weren’t just rocks; they were gemstones, and considering the size of this cave… “This is a dragon’s den,” he said. “Maybe I should wait outside. Hopefully, this one will show me some hospitality.” He stood up and started to walk outside when he walked into the cave’s owner, an adult dragon with gray scales.

“Can I help you?” the dragon snarled.

Zero Volt sighed. He was still bitter about everything that had happened recently, and he did not want to deal with this. However, he had several reasons not to get this dragon angry. “Look, I’m having a rough day, and I have no place else to go,” he said, trying to sound as pathetic as possible, “so would it be too much trouble if I spent the night in here, out of the rain?” Seconds later, Zero Volt flew out of the cave and landed on the cold, muddy ground. He stood back up and glared back at the cave entrance. “A simple ‘no’ would have been enough! Why the hay do you dragons have to be complete jerks. None of you have earned those massive egos or your vile attitudes.”

The dragon walked out of his cave and stood on all fours in front of Zero Volt. “Believe me when I tell you that I am being nice to you,” he said. “You don’t want to know what vile is like.” His last word was accompanied by a burst of flames.

Zero Volt continued to glower at the dragon. “I just noticed something about you,” he said, looking up at the dragon. “You don’t have any wings!” Zero Volt placed his hoof on the dragon’s snout, and a green glow quickly spread from him. The dragon was too surprised by the green glow to react as it spread throughout his body, and after five seconds, they both vanished. Zero Volt teleported into the cave a split-second later and looked up at the sky. Seconds later, the dragon crashed into the ground, shaking the earth on impact.

“Why did it take so long for you to teleport him?” Twilight asked. “Your ability doesn’t normally have a delay.”

“It does, but it’s actually more of a charge-up time, depending on how much mass I bring with me,” Zero Volt said. “I usually don’t teleport anything heavier than two ponies, so it’s rarely an issue.”

“I think his ability is actually better than your spell, Twilight,” Spike said. “Your spell has a one second delay when you disappear and when you reappear.”

“Not necessarily,” Twilight said. “Both my spell and his ability have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, he can’t teleport anything unless he’s in direct contact with it, which can be a huge liability. I on the other hoof can teleport objects remotely.”

The dragon stood back up and roared at Zero Volt. “That’s it, now I’m angry.”

“I’m not in the mood to deal with you either, so suck it up!” Zero Volt said. “Unless you want to go skydiving again, because I can take you up higher. Much higher.”

“I don’t plan on going again, but since you were so polite before, you get to choose how you’ll end up: rare, medium or well-done.”

Twenty seconds later, Zero Volt stood at the entrance to the cave, looking up at the sky. He jumped off the ground right before the dragon crashed. The dragon’s crash caused the ground to shake violently, and several large rocks rolled down the mountain and buried him. “Thanks for changing your mind,” Zero Volt muttered bitterly as he walked back into the cave. Once inside, he tossed his saddle pack on the ground, lied down and rested his head on it. “Unbelievable, first I get chased out of Fillydelphia and now I can barely find a place to sleep. And even after all that, I haven’t found any sign of my past life. No memories, no familiar faces, not even somepony on the street recognizing me. It’s like they’re not even looking for me…” Those last words echoed in Zero Volt’s mind, and tears welled up in his eyes. “They’re not even looking for me. I’ve been to every town I recognize and nothing. Nopony searching for me, no missing pony report, not even my face on a milk carton. What if I don’t have a life to go back to? What if I’m all alone in the world?” He shook his head. “No, I’ll work through this tomorrow. Right now I need some sleep.”

“This movie’s depressing,” Pinkie Pie said dejectedly. “Why can’t we watch something else?”

“I spent those two months searching for something that didn’t even exist,” Zero Volt said bitterly. “What made you think it would be anything but depressing?” He looked at his watch. “And we’re only halfway through it.”