Zero Volt's Afternoon

Author’s Note

To kick off this story’s return from its short hiatus, I’m putting up the final part of the three-chapter long look at Zero Volt’s back story. This chapter is going to be a retelling of An Afternoon in Ponyville, only it’s being told from his point of view. I figured it was appropriate since that first chapter never switched to Zero Volt’s perspective, but if you were waiting for Boost, Burst and Void… sorry, next chapter.

Zero Volt had spent a lot of time loitering around this one cottage at the edge of the Everfree Forest. Probably a little too much time. At first, he was about to move on and explore the town, but as he passed by, he heard a high-pitched bark. He turned back toward the cottage and noticed two puppies playing in the yard. A sharp pain pierced his left side and his hind leg, and he started to hear more barking, only louder and more threatening.

Zero Volt quickly shook off the unpleasant thoughts in his mind. He could feel his heart racing and beads of sweat forming around his face. ‘Unbelievable,’ he thought. ‘I can’t even think of puppies without losing it.’ He diverted his gaze away from the two puppies, only to see dozens of other creatures near the cottage. ‘Huh, do all these animals live here? Whoever lives here must hoard them of something, like a crazy cat pony.’ He considered knocking on the front door and talking to whoever lived here. Then he remembered that this pony had gone through the trouble of locking his or herself inside when he showed up.

After that, he took a closer look at all of the creatures. There were plenty of small creatures like squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks and birds. He noticed a falcon and an eagle nearby and silently remarked how well trained they must have been if they weren’t preying on any of the nearby animals.

“Alright, who are you and what’re you doin’ ‘round here?”

Zero Volt turned in the direction of the voice he had heard and saw two mares, both roughly his age if not a little older. As soon as he saw them, he was surprised to see that he recognized them, but managed to somewhat restrain his reaction, showing only a surprised look and opening his mouth a little. ‘Aren’t these the girls that Nightmare mentioned?’ he thought. ‘The ones that defeated her a few years ago?’ On his right stood a lavender unicorn with a pink streak through her otherwise purple mane. She was one of the only two whose phantom hadn’t fought him yesterday, and she was giving her friend a shocked and somewhat disapproving look. The other one was an orange earth pony. She wore a Stetson hat and had her blonde mane and tail tied in a… ponytail. She was probably the one who had just yelled at him, because from the look on her face, she was not happy to see him at all.

“I don’t want yah causing problems ‘round here,” said the orange earth pony, “so why don’t yah just get along now!”

Zero Volt rolled his eyes at the two mares and then turned around to leave. ‘Here I thought the real ones were going to be nicer,’ he thought. ‘Turns out this one’s just as ornery as Nightmare’s copy.’ Looking back, he wondered how much or how little Nightmare tweaked these six ponies when she made copies of them. The orange mare’s phantom had been strong enough to kill him with just one kick of her hind legs, which made him wonder how strong the real one was.

* * * * * * * * * *

At 1:30, Zero Volt was walking down one of Ponyville’s streets. He thought he was either on Mane Street or Stirrup Street, but after a while, he was too bored to really pay attention. Nothing in this town piqued his interest, and he didn’t recognize anything or anypony as he passed by. None of the townsponies seemed to take much interest in him either. Zero Volt stopped in the middle of an intersection to consider moving on to the next town. He was already certain that his previous life was not in this town, and though he had decided that he could abandon that goal and just find a place, he just couldn’t imagine himself living here. Then again, the town wasn’t giving him too much trouble, not yet anyway. Eventually, he decided that he could wait a little longer than an hour before choosing one way or the other. However, his thoughts were interrupted by a stabbing pain in his left shoulder. The pain was accompanied with a forceful push, and he stumbled sideways as a result.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!”

Zero Volt turned and noticed a unicorn sitting on her haunches next to him. Behind her was a cart full of gemstones and some digging tools, but his attention was fixed on the unicorn instead. He quickly recognized the white coat and styled purple mane and realized that this was another one of the ponies that Nightmare was plotting revenge against. ‘I’ve only been here for about an hour and I’ve already seen three of them,’ Zero Volt thought. ‘Do they all live here?’

The white unicorn gave a surprised look at Zero Volt and levitated a hoof mirror in front of her. “Ugh, do you see what you’ve done!” she shouted. “Look at my horn!”

Zero Volt looked at the bloodied tip of the unicorn’s horn and realized where that pain had come from. ‘Seriously?’ he thought, cocking an eyebrow. ‘You just gored me with that thing and you’re going to whine about something that you can easily wipe off?’ The wound was about two inches deep, and the white unicorn had yanked her horn to the side when she bumped into him, something both of them would have felt.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, you’re fine!” she yelled. “What do you have to say for yourself about this?!” The unicorn stepped forward and tilted her head. Zero Volt stepped back, but kept his thoughts to himself. “Don’t you talk? Say something!” the mare continued to glare at Zero Volt, who only returned a startled glare. “Oh never mind, just get out of my way!” The unicorn took her cart and walked around Zero Volt, who just stared at her as she left.

‘Apparently, Equestria’s heroes are a bunch of jerks,’ Zero Volt thought. ‘Oh right, heroines. Not that I’ll remember that distinction in the future.’ Looking back at his wound, he recalled a pre-Equestrian myth about unicorns. Back then, the other pony races thought that any wound caused by a horn was laced with magic. Supposedly, the unicorn’s magic would either aid in the wound’s recovery or stubbornly hinder it, depending on the unicorn’s feelings toward the injured pony. Considering how irritable that white unicorn was, Zero Volt was glad that it was only a myth. Nevertheless, he decided to get his wound disinfected before walking away.

* * * * * * * * * *

Another half-hour passed as Zero Volt continued to explore Ponyville. During that time, the residents of this town were starting to react differently to his presence. At first, some of them were just staring at him or taking a second glance as he passed by. It was almost as if they recognized him, but it didn’t make him feel any more welcome or less unwelcome than he felt earlier. Around that time, his stomach started growling, telling him that he was hungry. He spent the next few minutes looking around for a place to have lunch at, but as time passed, all of the ponies who were staring at him were now glowering.

‘Why are they all looking at me like that?’ Zero Volt thought. ‘I’ve only been here for about an hour and a half. What could I have possibly done wrong in the time I’ve been here?’ He tried to recall everything that he had done since coming to Ponyville. He hadn’t done much other than wander around parts of Ponyville, and he doubted that the three ponies who had confronted him today could have influenced this entire town’s opinion of him so much. ‘Wait a minute…’ He looked at the buildings around him, but couldn’t find anything that resembled a wanted poster. ‘Still, it’s been a week. It’s… possible that news could have traveled here this quickly. But if that’s true, then I’ll never be able to stop moving around and find a place to live. Not if what happened in Fillydelphia is following me around…’

When he looked up again, there was a grinning pink pony standing directly in front of him, her face mere inches away from his. “Hi there!” she said cheerfully. Zero Volt stepped back from this pink earth pony, clearly taken aback by her greeting. Part of him was startled by her, but another part of him recognized her as one of those six young mares. “What’s your name? My name’s Pinkie Pie!” Zero Volt looked down at her outstretched hoof. Though he didn’t make a reply, he eventually lifted his hoof and guardedly accepted the hoofshake she offered. “Not much of a talker, are you? That’s okay! Hey, why don’t you come over to Sugarcube Corner at 3:00 today? I’ll have a surprise there waiting just for you!”

‘Apparently, one of the girls that fought Nightmare is an escaped mental patient,’ Zero Volt thought as he watched the mare trot away. ‘Then again, Nightmare’s version of her attacked me with the same joy and giddiness as a filly in a candy store, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.’ Another thought had crept into his head during his meeting with the strange pink pony. For a split-second, an almost imperceptible split-second, it almost seemed as if she had sniffed him.

Zero Volt shook the thoughts out of his head. After all, there would be plenty of time to find out who that pink pony was later, especially since she had something planned for him in about an hour. In the meantime, he decided to go to the park, thinking that he could use a change of scenery and maybe some open space to gallop through.

* * * * * * * * * *

At 2:25, Zero Volt was sitting underneath a tree. He had spent the last fifteen minutes running through the park, mostly to stretch his legs and clear his mind, though a part of him had hoped that this run would reveal some distant foalhood memory. Despite the lack of success, he had enjoyed the run and was now looking around. He hadn’t planned on paying close attention to anything or anypony in particular, but one pegasus seemed to catch his attention.

In the last two minutes, this one gray pegasus had been flying over the park… or at least trying to. Unfortunately, the poor mare could barely fly in one direction for longer than a second, and she had crashed through nearly every cloud in the area. All the while, Zero Volt found himself unable to take his eyes off of the aerial trainwreck he was witnessing. At every loop, every roll, every sharp turn, he turned his head to follow the erratic flight path of this pegasus. The spectacle finally came to an end when the gray pegasus crashed into a tree branch above him.

Zero Volt stood up and walked toward the branch that the pegasus collided with. From the angle of the crash, the gray pony had managed to wrap her forelegs around the branch to keep from immediately falling off, but she wasn’t going to hang from that position for very long. Fortunately, Zero Volt had walked underneath her and braced himself, giving her a slightly softer landing on his back. Once the pegasus had landed on him, he bent his knees and turned his body to the left, carefully depositing her onto the ground. “Are you alright?” he asked. “You kind of lost control back there.”

“Yeah, I think I’m okay,” the gray pegasus said while holding a hoof to her head. Much to Zero Volt’s surprise, she managed to get back to her hooves fairly quickly afterward. “But I don’t normally lose that much control when I’m flying. I just don’t know what went wrong.”

At that moment, Zero Volt took a much closer look at the dazed pony’s face. “Whoa! I think you might have hurt yourself a bit more than you think,” he said. “You’re eyes are…”

“Oh no, they’ve always been like that, ever since I was a little filly,” the pegasus said, holding her hoof out a few inches to Zero Volt’s right. “My name’s Derpy Doo… I mean Ditzy Hooves…”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Zero Volt chuckled. “Maybe I should take you to a doctor of something.”

“Oh, no, no, I’m fine now,” she said, finally emerging from her dazed state. She realized that her hoof was extended too far to the left and brought it in front of Zero Volt. “Actually, my name is Ditzy Doo, but sometimes my friends call me Derpy.”

‘I’m not so sure that’s a nickname,’ he thought as he extended his own hoof to shake Ditzy’s.

“Anyway, I still have to deliver a few letters,” Ditzy said, motioning toward the mailbags she was carrying. “Still, it was nice meeting you, and thanks for breaking my fall like that.”

“Yeah sure, nice meeting you too,” Zero Volt said as Ditzy prepared to fly off. “Fly safe.” He watched as Ditzy Doo took to the skies again and flew back toward the town.

After Ditzy Doo left, Zero Volt walked away from the tree he had been sitting under and wandered through the park. By now, he had seen enough of Ponyville to know that his old life wasn’t here. He was just about ready to leave and move on to the next town, which would probably be either Cloudsdale or Canterlot. They were both pretty close to Ponyville, and since visibility was good this afternoon, he could probably make it to either one by teleporting a few times as far as he could see. However, there was still one thing that was keeping him here. That seemingly unstable pink pony told him to be at Sugarcube Corner at about 3:00, which according to Zero Volt’s watch was half-an-hour from now.

Since this pink pony’s surprise wasn’t going to be for another half hour, he started wondering what he was going to do to kill time. “I think I’ve explored enough of this town, so that’s out,” he thought out loud. “I could follow Derpy around town for a while. There was something oddly hypnotic about that aerial trainwreck. Maybe I can watch her for a while until I have to get to Sugarcube Corner. Actually, where is Sugarcube Corner?” Zero Volt though back, but couldn’t remember passing such a place at any point during the afternoon. He decided that the next half hour would be better spent trying to find Sugarcube Corner. Along the way, he also started wondering what this surprise was actually going to be. “She did seem very excited about it, so it probably is in my best interest to check it out. Then again, it could be a trap.”

Zero Volt’s thoughts were interrupted when his two-second warning alerted him. His ears perked up, and after a small but deliberate delay, he rolled to his right to avoid a pegasus who was diving toward him. Almost immediately, the pegasus crash-landed into the spot that he had rolled from and slid for a few feet. Now that she was on the ground, Zero Volt was able to get a better look at the cyan pegasus. Her most distinguishing feature was her rainbow mane and tail, with each color separated from the others. The colors in her tail went normally from red to violet, but in her mane, the colors green, blue and violet were in the back while red, orange and yellow were above her head. Zero Volt recognized her as one of the six ponies that defeated Nightmare years ago, and also one of the two whose phantoms he hadn’t fought.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

The cyan pony quickly stood up and turned to face him. “I’d be more worried about myself if I were you,” she said. “What have you done to my friends?”

“What are you talking about?” Zero Volt asked. “I haven’t done anything.”

“I’m talking about my friends, three mares and a baby dragon,” the cyan pegasus said angrily. “They all saw you today and now they’re all gone, and I want to know what you’ve done to them!”

“Your friends are missing?”

“Don’t play dumb with me!” The rainbow maned pony flew at Zero Volt and tackled him into a tree. Her wings kept both of them suspended above the ground while her right hoof pinned him against the tree. She held her left hoof in front of his face, ready to start punching him. “I’ll give you one last chance to start talking before I beat the information out of you.”

“I-I don’t know where they are,” Zero Volt said. “Look, if your friends are in trouble, I want to help you find them, especially if this has anything to do with me.” The cyan pony maintained her glare as she scrutinized him. At the same time, Zero Volt was wondering what was going on and what had gotten into her. He reasoned that she might have been talking about the other five, but he couldn’t figure out anything beyond that.

Eventually, the rainbow maned pegasus let go of him and let him drop back on the ground. “Alright, maybe you’re telling the truth,” she said before starting to turn around. “But I’m not letting you off the hook just yet. If I find out that you’re behind all this, I will come back for you.”

“Hold on, don’t you want my help?” Zero Volt asked.

“Don’t bother,” she said. “You’ve wasted enough of my time already.” Zero Volt watched as the cyan pegasus flew back toward town.

* * * * * * * * * *

Zero Volt sat underneath a tree at the edge of Whitetail Wood. It was almost three-o-clock, and he was listening to his MP3 player with his earbuds on while thinking about what that pegasus had said. At first, he had wanted to help in her search, even if she told him not to. However, he soon realized that he had no idea where to start looking, especially since he didn’t know who exactly was missing.

It was possible that the rainbow maned pegasus was talking about her five other friends. Zero Volt vaguely remembered what each of them looked like, but he figured that he could recognize them if he saw them. With that in mind, he had galloped from the park back into town. He had a lot of ground to cover, but he chose not to teleport. After all, he didn’t want anypony in this town to know what he was capable of. He couldn’t trust anypony in Ponyville. He couldn’t trust Silver Wind, or Bruiser, or any of them either.

First, Zero Volt went back to that cottage, where he had met two of those ponies. After making sure that they weren’t there, he galloped back toward the town proper and searched through the streets. Something had told him to go faster as he galloped, but he wasn’t in too much of a hurry, and he needed to run slowly enough to search around him. He still needed to find Sugarcube Corner at the time, if only to check if the pink one was missing, and he had also decided to keep an eye out for that white unicorn.

It was at that moment that Zero Volt stopped galloping and slid to a complete stop on his hooves. “I ran into four of them today,” he said. “But she only mentioned three when she attacked me. Three mares and… a baby dragon? I definitely didn’t run into one of those today. Then why is she pinning this on me? Her friends go missing and she points a hoof at me when I’ve barely been here two-and-a-half hours. Her friends are all jerks anyway, so why am I even helping them to begin with?” That last thought put an end to his rant, and he stopped to think. “Wait, why am I helping them?”

It was that last thought that he was now contemplating at the edge of Whitetail Wood. The earbuds were there to provide background music, and he was only half-listening to them while thinking about what to do. “They haven’t done anything for me so why should I go out of my way to help them,” he said about loud. “What exactly do I owe them?” Zero Volt was entertaining two courses of action, both of which made compelling arguments. He could either help those ponies with whatever problem they had, or completely ignore them and put Ponyville behind him. “Then again, maybe this isn’t about me owing them anything, not if they really need help. But why should I be the one helping them?”

Zero Volt looked up at the sky, then back down to his right foreleg. The two cities, Cloudsdale and Canterlot, were both nearby, and he still had time to reach one of them before the end of the day. Either one could have had some clues about his previous life, but there was nothing for him in Ponyville, not even a fresh start. He stood up and removed the earbuds from his ears.

“Let them fix whatever mess they’ve made,” he muttered. “I’ve got my own problems to deal with.”

He gave a quick glance to both towns and wondered which one to go to first. Somehow, a pegasus city built around a weather factory seemed more appealing to him than the capital of Equestria, so he decided on Cloudsdale. He turned toward it and started walking. There were only a few scattered clouds above Ponyville, so even though he wanted to, he couldn’t make the trip by cloud hopping. However, the part of him that wanted to help those six ponies was still nagging him. He had successfully convinced himself that this wasn’t his problem, but that didn’t mean that he could walk away from it.

Before long, Zero Volt came to a stop and gave a frustrated sigh. “Maybe they don’t deserve help, and they definitely don't deserve mine,” he said. “But I’m going to help them anyway.” He turned toward Ponyville and started to head back, but before he could take more than a few steps, something else caught his attention. A few hundred feet away, the cyan pegasus from earlier was floating in midair, apparently being held by magic. Not only that, but the pink earth pony, the same pink earth pony that was preparing a surprise for him, was floating next to her. The pink one was clearly unconscious, but the cyan one was straining against the telekinetic grip she was in, trying to break free. But what surprised him even more were the other two ponies that were with them. “Glacier? And Glass?” Zero Volt watched the two of them walk into Whitetail Wood, the other two being carried along by Glass’ magic. “On second thought, screw those girls,” he muttered bitterly. “This just became about revenge.”

Zero Volt went into Whitetail Wood and followed the four ponies from a distance. None of them seemed to notice him yet, but he tried to be careful while following them. He watched the ground carefully, avoiding any twigs or anything else that could give him away. At the same time, he kept a comfortable distance from them, not getting too close, but not letting them get too far ahead either. After all, he needed to find the other two as well, and he didn’t expect his two-second warning to tell him whether or not they’d spot him. Alternatively, he could have attacked Glass and Glacier now, setting the other two free, but all things considered, he wasn’t interested.

Autumn hadn’t yet come in Whitetail Wood. The foliage of the trees above him hadn’t changed color, and the leaves weren’t going to fall for quite some time. Looking up at the trees above him, Zero Volt had an idea. He teleported to one of the branches above and stood on it, being careful not to fall. He held a foreleg against the leaves on a nearby branch and smiled. The color was a bit darker then the green in his coat, but it was close enough that he could camouflage himself amidst the canopy while following those ponies.

Zero Volt didn’t walk along the tree branches to follow Glacier and Glass. The other ponies might have noticed him if the leaves rustled or one of the branches broke. Instead, he teleported from one branch to the next, making sure that each one was sturdy enough to support him and leafy enough to conceal him. Along the way, he paid some attention to the four ponies on the ground. Glacier said nothing during the trip, and Glass said something that sounded racist. As for the other two, the rainbow-maned pegasus was still struggling against Glass’ magic, but the pink one seemed a bit disconnected from the situation they were in. She was chatting with her friend, acting like they hadn’t actually been captured.

“Wait,” Zero Volt said quietly to himself. “Don’t tell me this is where Sugarcube Corner is. No, no it can’t be. I don’t think that surprise involves the two of them being held like this.”

Eventually, the four ponies on the ground made it to a large clearing in the middle of the woods. Silver Wind met them when they reached the clearing, and Bruiser was waiting for them at the other end. On one side of the clearing, Zero Volt saw a row of cages just big enough to each fit a pony in them. A lot of them were already occupied, and the rainbow-maned pony started talking to one of the ponies in them. The voice that responded sounded familiar, and after a second, Zero Volt realized that it was the orange earth pony. From her, he overheard a mention of a plant that was suppressing the magic of the captive unicorns in the clearing.

“Alicorn’s bane,” he whispered. “Known for inhibiting unicorn magic. First cultivated in pre-Equestrian times by earth ponies as a weapon against unicorns. Wait… how do I know all that?” Zero Volt wondered for a moment where this information could have come from, but there were more important things happening on the ground. The pink pony had been placed in one of the nearby cages and Glacier went to speak to Bruiser, apparently about him. “Alright, let’s do this.”

Zero Volt jumped off the tree branch he was on and teleported above Silver Wind, who was hovering in the air just ahead of Glass and the still restrained cyan pegasus. Extending his hooves downward, he landed on Silver Wind’s back and quickly jumped off of her. The landing and immediate jump threw her into the ground as Zero Volt somersaulted back toward Glass. Even though Glass noticed him attacking Silver Wind in midflight, she didn’t react quickly enough before he landed behind her and kicked her across the clearing. His attack abruptly released the cyan pegasus from Glass’ magic, and she fell back on the ground as well. Zero Volt moved back toward Silver Wind, grabbed her tail, and flung her across the clearing and into Glass. Almost nopony had noticed him as he attacked the two, and by the time he was done, he turned his attention back to Bruiser and Glacier. The two of them were still talking about him and wondered why it was taking so long for him to notice their presence in Ponyville.

“That’s funny, you’d think they’d have noticed me following them,” he said, drawing the attention of everypony in the clearing to him. He overheard a snide remark from the white unicorn, who had apparently been captured as well, but chose to ignore it. “Alright, let these ponies go, and leave this town alone.”

“That’s a rude way to make an entrance,” Bruiser said. “You attack two of us and now you’re ordering us to leave. You don’t even know why we’re here.”

“I know who you are, and what you do,” Zero Volt shot back. “What I don’t understand is this whole setup. Normally you just keep a low profile until you find the most valuable thing in town.”

“Like I said, you don’t even know why we’re here. You see, we have found the most valuable thing in this town: you.”

“That’s what this is all about? You’re still trying to recruit me?”

“No, not just that,” Silver Wind said. She and Glass had managed to stand back up and join Bruiser and Glacier. They both look annoyed at him, but they seemed to be swallowing their pride for the time being. “I mean, we want you to join us, but afterward, we’re definitely looting this place. Serves them right for what they’ve put you through today.”

“And you’ve taken it upon yourselves to punish them,” Zero Volt said. “Who gave you that right?”

“You misunderstand,” Glass started. “We’re offering you the chance to punish them. You can join the looting, you can break things, nothing too valuable of course, and if you still want to cause some damage, we have all these ponies lined up just for you.” She pointed toward the cages and all of the townsponies imprisoned within them.

“And what makes you think you’re gonna get away with this?” the cyan pegasus said, now standing next to Zero Volt. Her wings flared out, and she looked like she was ready to attack. “You think nopony’s gonna notice what you’re doing or wonder where everypony is?”

“Well, that’s just it, look at who we’ve captured,” Bruiser said. “We have a few ponies that could’ve actually stopped us, and we have a few that nopony’s going to miss. More importantly, we’ve captured every pony that has had any contact with our little friend today.” As he spoke, he pointed toward the ponies that were trapped in the cages. Zero Volt skimmed the row of imprisoned ponies and recognized a few more familiar faces. The lavender unicorn was also there, but there was also a small purple dragon in the cage with her. He also noticed a scared-looking yellow pegasus with a pink mane, the only one of those six young mares that he hadn’t yet run into today. He turned back to Bruiser in time to hear the end of his speech. “You see, we have been keeping a low profile. You, not so much.”

“So a few ponies that saw me today have vanished,” Zero Volt said. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“I think you’ll find that it does,” Silver Wind said. “You, rainbow girl! When you were out looking for your friends today, how many ponies did you describe him to, seventy maybe?”

“Yeah, about that many, so what?” the cyan pony responded. “And don’t call me ‘rainbow girl’!”

“Think about it,” Glacier said. “Who is everypony in town going to look for, the four ponies they’ve never seen or heard of, or him?”

‘Are you kidding me?’ Zero Volt thought. ‘I’m supposed to start trusting you because this town is out to get me? You’re the ones who turned the town against me to begin with, and you actually admitted it to me just now. As far as manipulative jerks go, you guys are morons!' Because of his inner tirade, he was no longer paying attention to Bruiser's speech. It didn’t matter to him; he knew exactly what Bruiser was saying and he didn’t want to hear it. He turned his attention back to the other ponies in the clearing, specifically to those six mares. 'Still, I'm not letting everypony off the hook just yet. I could probably stall the fight and leave them in those cages long enough for them to get irritated. That could settle things. Or maybe I won’t set them free at all. I could just as easily leave them all here at the end of the fight. I’m sure somepony will find them out here… eventually.’

At the same time, Zero Volt noticed the cyan pegasus still standing next to him and realized the flaw in his plan. Once the fight ended, she was going to free her friends and everyone else in those cages. That meant that he would somehow have to let her get defeated, and from what he had seen earlier, she wasn’t going to lose without putting up a good fight. Either way, Bruiser had just finished his speech, and they were all waiting for a response.

“I told you to let these ponies go and leave this town alone,” Zero Volt said.

“Think about what you’re doing,” Silver Wind said. “You’re really going to choose them over your friends?”

“Friends, huh?” he countered. “From the moment I met you, you’ve done nothing but try to manipulate me. You turned an entire town against me just to get me to join your club. I don't need friends like you.”

“Hey, look,” the cyan pegasus said in a more sympathetic tone.

“Save it,” he said harshly. “Just because I’m siding against them doesn’t mean I’m siding with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Zero Volt looked at the cyan pegasus, who was now floating an inch above the ground. “It means I’m not going out of my way to help you out if those guys overwhelm you.”

“What makes you think I can’t take them?” she said.

“Because you’re three inches off the ground right now, and it’s not because of your wings.”

The rainbow-maned pegasus finally looked down and realized that she was being held by Glass’ magic again. “This wouldn’t be happening if you hadn’t distracted me,” she said just before being flung into the last empty cage. The cage toppled back and landed upside-down when she was thrown into it. In the middle of its roll, the cage's door swung shut and locked itself.

‘Maybe, but you shouldn’t have gotten distracted in the first place,’ Zero Volt thought to himself. ‘Idiot.’ At the other side of the clearing, Silver Wind had stepped forward as his first opponent. ‘Looks like they’re fighting me one at a time. Not that it matters. If they knew half of what I could do or saw half of what I’ve fought in the last two months, they’d know how screwed they actually are. In fact, I could probably take them all without any of my abilities.’ He charged at Silver Wind, but not before preparing himself to ignore anything that his two-second warning tried to show him.

Silver Wind quickly sprung into action and flew at him. Zero Volt ducked underneath her and skidded to a stop. He barely had time to dodge when she turned around and flew back at him. Since he had relied on his two-second warning for so long, he was having trouble dodging Silver Winds attacks. Eventually, she tackled him head on, tossing him several feet across the clearing. Zero Volt landed on his back and bounced off the ground, but managed to slow himself down by reaching for the ground with his foreleg and sliding to a stop.

‘Alright, fine. I guess I still have to pay attention to those warnings I keep getting,’ he thought. ‘Oh well, I can hide that one pretty well, and I could probably still win without teleporting.’

“I thought this was going to be harder,” Silver Wind said. “You should’ve joined us while you had…” She paused in midsentence when she took a closer look at the expression on Zero Volt’s face. Instead of being frustrated or worried, he was actually smirking at her. “Wait, why are you smiling like that?”

“Well I don’t know about you, but this is actually pretty fun,” he said. “Kind of like a game of tag. But can’t you do any better than that. If you don’t pick up the pace, I might just fall asleep.” He briefly glanced at the caged ponies, and while most of them were surprised, he was glad to see that some were also angry.

“We’re all being held prisoner, our town is in danger, and you’re having fun?!” the lavender unicorn shouted.

“Hey, could you maybe get us out of here today?” the cyan pegasus added.

“Sure, no problem,” Zero Volt replied insincerely. Silver Wind started attacking again, but now that he was paying attention to his two-second warning, he wouldn’t have any trouble dodging her. ‘Oh this is going to be so much fun,’ he thought. Silver Wind flew at Zero Volt at high speeds from every direction possible, but he easily avoided her attacks by ducking, rolling to the side, hopping backward, and even jumping right over her as she flew low. Each evasive stunt brought him closer to the caged ponies, which were now behind him.

Silver Wind charged at Zero Volt from the front, but this time, Zero Volt leapt over her, grabbed her tail with his teeth, and flipped in mid-air, pulling her out of her flight path. After flipping 360°, he threw her onto the ground and landed safely on top of one of the cages.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” he said as he jumped off of the cages. “You can attack me as much as you want, but don’t go crashing into the spectators. I mean that’s just rude.”

“We are NOT your spectators!” the orange earth pony shouted.

“Speak for yourself, Applejack.”

Zero Volt looked back at the cages and saw the pink earth pony with a bag of popcorn and a soft drink. ‘Okay…’ He was beginning to wonder if that pink mare actually was crazy. He also took a second to try to remember her name, but was only able to come up with ‘Pinkie-something’ when his two-second warning alerted him about Silver Wind.

“Why… won’t… you… stay… still?” she said, pausing on each word to charge at him. Zero Volt hopped onto her back and jumped off as she flew at him, doing another flip at the peak of his jump. Silver Wind was shoved downward when he jumped off of her, and she almost slid on the ground as a result.

“Let me see if I understand this,” he said, “You’re asking me to stand perfectly still so that you can beat me half to death… How stupid are you?”

Silver Wind screamed in rage as she charged him again, only to fail miserably and hit the ground, sliding in front of Bruiser, Glass and Glacier. The battle had taken its toll on her, and everypony could tell that she was exhausted. “I can’t do it,” she said. “He’s too fast.”

“Oh come on,” Zero Volt mocked, “it can’t be that I’m too fast. You know what, maybe you’re too slow.”

“You take that back!” she yelled. “I am not too slow!” Silver Wind charged again, but Zero Volt jumped aside, spun around, and kicked her with his hind legs. She spun out of control and crashed into a puddle of mud.

“Yeah, too slow,” Zero Volt remarked. He took one last look at Silver Wind before his two-second warning activated again. Behind him, Glacier decided to take over and was now charging at him. Zero Volt jumped aside just before Glacier could tackle him and performed a sweep kick with his hind legs, tripping his opponent. “Do you know how loud you are when you gallop?” he said, making an excuse to cover up his precognitive ability. “I could’ve heard you from a mile away.”

Glacier stood back up and turned around. Zero Volt charged at him, and spun around to deliver a kick with his hind legs. He then jumped onto Glacier and quickly bounded off, making sure to kick off of his opponent’s head in the process. When he landed on the ground, he kicked Glacier in the side and rolled forward to get away. However, when he turned around, he saw Glacier standing in the same spot completely unharmed. “Was that supposed to do anything?” Glacier asked.

“On anypony else it would’ve,” Zero Volt said, looking a bit stunned.

Glacier placed his hoof on a stone on the ground and crushed it. He swept his hoof along the spot, wiping the dust from the pulverized stone around. “How right you are, because this is going to be you in about a minute.”

“Nah, I’m not worried,” Zero Volt said. “I mean sure, you're built like a castle, but you move like one too.”

“What’s your point?” Glacier asked, having already started attacking.

“My point is that you’re going to have the same problem that she did,” Zero Volt said, easily dodging his opponent’s attacks. “It doesn’t matter how powerful you are if you can’t actually hit me.”

“Yeah, I saw that fight, and I also noticed how quickly you tired her out. Maybe I’ll use that same tactic on you. After all those fancy acrobatics, you’ll tire yourself out, and then I’ll finish you off.”

‘Really, that’s the best you’ve got?’ Zero Volt thought. ‘I spent all day and night yesterday chasing down and fighting a god of destruction, and you think you can tire me out? If I weren’t trying to hide my abilities, I’d have sent you skydiving by now. Oh well, at least I get to toy with you for a while.’ He continued dodging Glacier’s attacks until he stopped at the edge of the clearing. “You know, I like that plan!” he said. “It does sound like something that would work on me. But I think my plan is better; it has something that yours doesn’t.”

“What, you being incredibly annoying?”

“Hey what can I say? I love being the center of attention,” Zero Volt said. “It distracts my opponents from more important things. But no, my secret? I’m not dumb enough to tell my opponent how I’m going to beat him.”

Glacier punched at him twice and kicked at him with his hind legs, but only managed to tear into the trunks of four nearby trees. Zero Volt jumped away and galloped a short distance before turning back around. Casting a quick glance at the damage done to those four trees, he thought of an idea and looked back at Glacier. Both stallions charged toward each other, until Zero Volt ran off course and used an outcropping to jump onto a tree branch above. He jumped from one tree to another, making sure to shake the damaged trees once he reached them, before aligning himself with a branch on the last one and running along it.

As soon as he jumped off, Zero Volt turned to face Glacier again. The four trees that he had jolted were starting to lean over, and all he had to do now was get his opponent underneath one of them when they fell. “Hey, I’m over here!” he shouted. “Come and get me!” They both charged toward each other again. Meanwhile, Zero Volt watched the trees behind Glacier, and after a while, he rolled out of their path before they could hit the ground. When he stood back up, he found Glacier pinned underneath two of them and struggling to push them off. “You see these trees on top of you? I’d say they were more important than the pony who couldn’t even lay a scratch on you.” Glacier looked up to glower at him, but stopped struggling once he saw Zero Volt floating above the ground. “What, over already? Oh well.” Zero Volt didn’t notice that he was being lifted off the ground until after he finished gloating. Once he was done, he finally realized that his hooves weren’t firmly on the ground anymore. “Uh-oh.”

Almost immediately, he was thrown into the ground. His body was lifted up again, only to be slammed against one of the fallen trees. Zero Volt was lifted off the ground a third time and tossed to the right and rolled along the ground before finally stopping in front of Glass. “Never send a pegasus and an earth pony to do a unicorn’s job,” she said as she picked him up again using her magic. “If I had done this sooner, we’d have moved on to the rest of the town by now. Oh well, better late than never to teach this little colt a lesson, and to take this treasure off his hooves. I just need to figure out how to remove it.”

“What, this thing?” he asked, holding up his right foreleg and the bracelet on it. “It’s not that hard to get it off. If you ask nicely, it’ll come off on its own.”

Glass’ magic visibly constricted around Zero Volt’s body, and he struggled painfully against it. “You really don’t know when to shut up, do you?” she said. “With my magic I can do whatever I want with you. You can’t break free.”

As much as he enjoyed taunting Glass over his item, he was starting to realize that he couldn’t fight her like this. ‘Great, I guess I can’t hide my teleportation ability from them anymore,’ he thought. He stopped struggling for a moment and focused on another spot in the clearing. In less than a second, he teleported to that spot and escaped from Glass’ magical grip. “Eh, not a bad toy,” he said, drawing everyone’s attention before switching to a more upset tone. “But playtime’s over!”

“Wh-what did you, how is that even…”

“So you’re a teleporter,” Bruiser said. “I guess this explains that Baltimare incident, but I’m not sure why you’re getting so worked up about it.”

“Teleporter or not, you still can’t win,” Glass said. She tried to use her magic, but Zero Volt teleported away every time he felt her magic or foresaw the spell she was about to use.

“I don’t know much about unicorn magic,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure you have to focus on whatever it is you’re trying to change with it.”

“What could something like you know about unicorn magic?”

“I know that it takes longer for you to put a spell together than it does for me to change locations. I know that I can escape any spell you cast by teleporting. And I know that you can’t tell where I’m going when I disappear. As powerful as you think you are, you can’t touch me.” On his last sentence, Zero Volt teleported right next to Glass and spoke right into her ear. “I don’t have that problem.” He then teleported to her other side and kicked her with his hind legs, throwing her across the clearing until she hit a tree and landed on the ground. “Alright everypony, I’m almost done! Just got one last thing to-”

Suddenly, Zero Volt was tackled from the side, throwing him across the clearing. While he was still in the air, Bruiser galloped ahead of him and intercepted him with another kick. Every time Zero Volt flew across the clearing, he would come close to landing on the ground, only for Bruiser to kick him again and keep him airborne. Eventually, he had to teleport elsewhere to break the pattern and land on the ground.

‘Rrrgh, what happened back there?’ he thought. Now that he was back on the ground, he started to get back on his hooves. ‘I didn’t know he could run that fast. And how did he manage to attack me like that? I should’ve been able to see him before that happened. Never mind, it doesn’t matter. He’s the only one left and I have no reason to hold back, so-”

Before Zero Volt could stand up or even finish his thought, Bruiser stepped in front of him slammed his hoof down, breaking his knee. Both ponies knew what had happened, especially Zero Volt. He heard the brief, barely audible crunch in his leg. He felt the bone fracture, the two broken pieces slightly moving against each other. Most of all, he could feel the immense pain in his leg, and clenched his teeth to keep from yelling in agony.

“You know,” Bruiser said. He sped toward the other side of the clearing before continuing his speech. “I am very disappointed in you. I was really hoping you could be a part of our family. Do you know what…”

‘D-damn it!’ Zero Volt thought. He tried to stand back up despite his broken leg. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen! I should have been able to see that before it actually happened. How does he keep doing that?’ After a while, he managed to reach a sitting position. He was tuning out Bruiser’s speech to check his injured leg. ‘Oh no. I-I think it’s actually broken. How did I let this happen? What am I going to do about this now?’

Looking up, he noticed that Bruiser was finishing his speech. He was breathing heavily because of his injury, and he was trying his best not to cry or show any other reaction. He wouldn’t let Bruiser know how much pain he was in or how dire this had just become, not to look tough, but to spite Bruiser. After all, that’s what this was all about: infuriating him, humiliating him, getting revenge.

“You know, that’s too bad,” Zero Volt said. “I was gonna do a little victory dance after all this.” He had a smirk on his face again, and he tried to imitate the mocking tone he had used throughout most of the fight.

“You can’t be serious,” Bruiser said angrily, “I broke your leg and your still cracking jokes?”

“Well let’s face it, you are a joke,” Zero Volt said before teleporting to the edge of the clearing. “But I’m a nice pony, so I’m gonna let you hit me. Come on, free shot.” Bruiser charged at him, only to slam head first into a tree when Zero Volt teleported five feet to the right. “I’m right here! Where are you running?” He teleported to the center of the clearing.

“You think this is funny, don’t you? I going to break every bone in your body, and they’re all going to watch. We’ll see how funny it is then.” Bruiser charged again, but came to a stop when Zero Volt teleported away.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Zero Volt said, now standing right behind his opponent. He looked up and studied the sky above him before teleporting in front of Bruiser. “But now, my turn.” He placed his hoof on Bruiser’s muzzle, teleported both of them two hundred feet above the ground, and teleported himself back down. He would have to wait for gravity to bring Bruiser back down, so for the next few seconds, he tended to his injured leg.

“What did you do with him?” asked the lavender unicorn.

“There’s a saying about things that go up, and…”

“Ooh, I know this one!” Pinkie interrupted, only to be interrupted herself when Bruiser crashed into the ground.

“Turns out it applies to him too.”

“It’s not over yet,” Bruiser seethed, now trying to stand up again. “Just because you’ve-”

“Actually, it is,” Zero Volt said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s been fun fighting the four of you. But I’ve got better things to with the rest of my day, so I think I’m ready to wrap this up now.”

“You arrogant little-”

“Shut up,” Zero Volt said. “I’m not done talking. You were wrong when you said that I was alone. I just showed that I can bring anything I want with me when I teleport. If I wanted to, I could have gone back into town and brought any number of ponies here. Alternatively, I could’ve had my pick from any of them. That reminds me.” He quickly scanned the entire row of cages, wondering which of those ponies he would free. Up until this point, he hadn’t made up his mind about whether or not he’d free them. That changed when his leg was broken. This wasn’t fun anymore, and leaving them in those cells wasn’t going to make him feel any better. Eventually, his eyes reached the pegasus with the rainbow mane, and though he didn’t quite understand why, he decided to release her first. He teleported next to her cage, touched her shoulder with his left foreleg, and teleported both of them back to where he stood before. “You should keep a closer eye on your prisoners. One of them just sprung loose.”

“Really, her?” Bruiser said. “That’s the best you can come up with?”

“Don’t think that I’m a pushover,” said the cyan pegasus. “I’ll show you what happens when you mess with Ponyville.” She was about to take flight, but Zero Volt held his foreleg in front of her to stop her. “Wait, I thought you needed backup.”

“If I wanted your help, I’d have let you out sooner,” Zero Volt said. “In fact, the only reason you’re out now is because I needed an empty cage. After all...” He teleported in front of Bruiser, touched his muzzle, and teleported him into the empty cage. He then teleported back, leaving Bruiser trapped inside one of his own cells. “What else am I gonna do with him?”

“When I get out of here...” Bruiser started, only to have Zero Volt speak over him.

“Is anypony really gonna listen to this?” Zero Volt turned to the cyan pegasus. “His crimes were against your town, so I’ll let you figure out what to do with him. As for the rest of you...” He teleported around the clearing and brought Glass, Glacier and Silver Wind together to address them. “Get out. I’m letting the three of you go for now, but if I find out that any of you are doing something I don’t like, I’ll come after you. When that happens, you’re gonna look back on this day and realize that I went easy on you.”

Glass left without saying a word, but Glacier stood up and glared at Zero Volt. Zero Volt glared back, refusing to be stared down, until Glacier turned and walked away. Silver Wind was the last to go, but before she left, she looked at him with a seemingly remorseful expression. If he had felt any differently about her, he would have thought that the concern was genuine.

Now that those three were gone, Zero Volt signed and turned back to the others. “Is everypony okay? Did any of you get hurt in all of this?”

“We’re all fine!” the lavender unicorn answered. “We still can’t use our magic, but that plant’s effects should wear off in a few hours, and none of us really need any medical attention.”

“Good, only one thing left to do.” Within the next two seconds, Zero Volt teleported everyone except Bruiser out of the cages. As soon as they were free, they walked around and talked to each other, asking each other if they were alright among other things. Before long, they all turned toward him, making him worry. He wasn’t sure what they wanted to do with him after everything that happened, so he decided to try to get rid of them. “Look, I appreciate the gratitude or whatever, but you’ve all been here for at least an hour. I’m pretty sure you’ve all got stuff in town that needs your attention.”

Upon hearing this, several ponies started to realize how long they had been away from town. Some remembered that they had work to do, some had stores to run, while others had friends and acquaintances to visit. A few of them, after having spent over two hours in those cages, could be heard saying that they needed to use the bathroom. Little by little, Ponyville’s residents left Whitetail Wood and went back to their town. Even Bruiser had been taken away. A large red stallion had tied a rope to one of the bars of his cell and hauled him off without saying a single word.

Now that he was alone, Zero Volt turned his attention back to his broken leg. ‘What am I going to do now? What can I do? I can barely stand up right now, much less walk with this leg. I can’t head back to Ponyville and try their hospital. It’s too risky to stay in that town for weeks to let this heal.’

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

Zero Volt recognized the cyan pegasus’ voice and turned around. Behind him were the six young mares he had run into today, including that other yellow pegasus. ‘No! Not now!’ he thought. He teleported several feet back and prepared to fight them. ‘I just fought those four back there. I can’t fight the rest of them like this. Just please, leave me alone. Leave me alone!’

“Take it easy,” said the orange earth pony. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

‘Okay if I drop one of those fallen logs on the two pegasi, maybe I can send the others skydiving without them… Wait, they’re not?’

“Wait, we’re not?” said the white unicorn.

“We just wanted to welcome you back into town and throw you a big party!” Pinkie exclaimed. Her sentence was punctuated with an explosion of confetti as she stood on her hind legs and spread out her forelegs.

“Really,” Zero Volt said bitterly. He teleported behind them and turned his back to them. “I didn’t feel very welcome earlier this afternoon.”

The lavender unicorn turned around and approached him. “Look, I know we all got off on the wrong hoof,” she said. “We just want to make it up to you. Besides, you’re in no condition to go anywhere on that leg. At least come with us to the hospital to get it looked at.”

‘If I go with them and stay at the hospital, I’ll be a sitting duck. Still, it’s not like I have any other options.’ After thinking about it, he decided to agree to her offer. “All right, fine. I guess I can stay in Ponyville until my leg heals, but not a minute longer. As soon as I can walk again, I’m leaving.”

“Good enough,” said the little dragon. “Now we just have to figure out how to get you to the hospital.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said the lavender unicorn. “You can teleport us to Ponyville Hospital, can’t you?”

“I don’t know where it is.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well I can take care of that.” She closed her eyes and started to focus on a spell of her own. Zero Volt watched her carefully, waiting to see if his two-second warning would react to it. Seconds later, the eight of them were all caught in what appeared to be, and sort of felt like, a magenta fireball. After a second, the spell wore off and Zero Volt, though a bit disoriented, noticed that they were in an emergency room. One of the young mares called for some help, bringing a nurse and two paramedics to him. The unicorn spoke to them briefly and then to her friends, but then she turned to speak to him. “Okay, we all have to go now, but we’ll be back later to check on you. Just stay here and take it easy for a while.”

The six ponies turned toward the exit and left the hospital along with their dragon. Zero Volt watched them as they left while the hospital’s staff started to ask him questions and give him medical attention.