The view outside the train was something that Hazama never thought he would be able to experience firsthand. It wasn't the trees, necessarily, or the fact that birds could plainly be seen flying through the air without a worry in the world. It was the picture as a whole. The culmination of all the little elements that never had the chance to survive in his previous world, surviving and thriving in harmony with one another. It would have been fairly pleasant to just keep staring out of the window to see what else this world could offer him, but there was the small matter of the irritating little horse staring holes into the side of his head.

It wasn't unusual. The rest of the Guards had also spent most of their efforts glaring angrily in his direction, and that particular attitude didn't wane in the least once they'd sorted out seats on the train. The trip would take approximately an hour or so from what he could gather by ear, and apparently they would be rotating the one watching over him every ten minutes or so. Thirty minutes had passed since the mare had been shoved into the barren compartment with him, and there was no sign of her getting a reprieve from his extraordinary company. That is to say, he was being completely silent and doing his best to ignore the horse that had seemed utterly resigned to her fate after the twenty minute mark.

Hazama repressed an irritated twitch as the brown horse let out a pathetic sigh for the umpteenth time since boarding the train. If there was one thing he loathed, it was people without any sort of drive. Those who could see themselves mistreated, could see injustices, yet made no move to counteract it. That sort of person was weak, but more importantly was absolutely no fun to defeat. The best kind of victories came from crushing one with resolve, seeing that instant pass through their eyes when they realise just how royally screwed they are. This horse was none of those things. If she was actually annoyed at her 'friends' for what they were doing, then she should actually do something to retaliate. Or so he thought, anyway. Maybe it was a cultural thing. But then from his experience, their culture seemed to be having animals that had more common sense than they themselves, as Angel the Rabbit proved.

Huh. He actually found himself missing the company of the little sadist bastard, and he'd seen him just this morning. Not for the first time, Hazama found himself briefly stunned by the massive overhaul to his life over the past two weeks. It had its moments of being irritating beyond any reasonable measure, but it was a damn sight better than his time spent on Earth as what was essentially a pawn manipulating other pawns while the king and queen had themselves a jolly old time ruining everyone's day, or at least planning to.

At the time, he was able to disguise his bitterness towards Terumi by means of plotting his vengeance in a friendly manner, and while that may sound strange, it was the truth. The ghost knew full well that Hazama wasn't taking his lot in life lying down, and near the end of everything it had almost become a joke. Hazama had thought he'd won after dumping Terumi in the Boundary and leaving him to waste away, but then the Embryo had fucked everything up and then everything just got a little bit complicated.

It was a strange feeling to miss the days when he was unaware of that entire mess, climbing the NOL's Intelligence ladder rung by rung without needing to worry about being controlled by a literal ghost from the past

"He never liked me."

The voice alerted Hazama to the glorious fact that the horse had stopped sighing, and to the not-so-glorious fact that she was now starting to talk to him out of a combination of boredom and nervousness. He didn't know if that was just a thing that these horses did with all of their pets, or just Humans, but it was a very unfortunate deal for him. Regardless, he lazily turned from the scenic view to fix one eye on the Guard sat next to a wall, her helmet placed on the floor as she tapped her hooves together nervously.

"Boulder Dash, I mean. He, ah, never liked me, even when we were foals." the mare spoke, a wobbly undertone to her voice that made it sound as though she was going to start crying at any moment. Hazama really didn't think he could deal with a crying Guard on top of trying to make himself seem sad all the time, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

"He always called me funny names, and my sister, Variable Heart, got it way worse. Things got a little better in high school, y'know? He calmed down, got all stoic, and actually started to be polite to me!"

Hazama felt like groaning. He could already tell precisely where this story was going.

"We even... We even went out together for a f-few months..."

'Oh goody, here it comes...'

The mare definitely had pinpricks of tears appearing at the corners of her eyes, and Hazama chose that moment to look back at the window, finding the scenery far more interesting than dating problems concerning Guards that actually fell for his stupidly simple act.

"T-Then when I... When I put in a good word for him at the Academy and got him training as a Royal Guard h-h-he just... It was all an..."

"You're actually badmouthin' me to that freak?" A low voice interjected whatever the horse was about to say, drawing the attention of both the caboose's current inhabitants.

In the doorway stood one of the Earth Pony stallions from before that had failed to rush Hazama. Clad in the same golden armour as every other Guard, the horse had a coat of cleanly trimmed dark green fur, topped by a head of two-toned brown-black hair. He held a relaxed posture, slouching against the doorframe as he directed a mocking smirk towards the mare, completely ignoring the presence of the chained Human.

The brown horse seemed to shrink in on herself, sitting lower to the ground than before and refusing to look directly at the new arrival in the train carriage.

"Tch. Figures only a dumb beast'd care about your little sob story, eh?" the stallion grinned widely, strutting into the compartment as though he owned the place. With a slight shake of his head, he dislodged his helmet and tucked it under one hoof. Standing tall above the sitting mare, he leaned down and gave her a quick, 'friendly' jab in the side. "C'mon, Remix Heart, even for you... that's pretty pathetic!"

'Oh I can tell this is going to go just greaaaaat.' Hazama sighed, glaring wearily in the two horse's direction as they had their little domestic. At least now he had a name to go with the one that'd been dumping her life's problems on him. Remix Heart. Somehow, the name felt vaguely familiar, like he'd heard it some past life. Or, er, some other past life. Really, it was quite funny how many common phrases got so much more complicated when applied to his existence.

In all honesty, he couldn't care less about a familiar name or whatever problems the two horses had with each other, but the decision of who he felt like spending the last half an hour of the journey with was one that he had to make. And somehow enforce, given his position. He could always get a little bit aggressive towards the male one to give him a reason to leave, but that would mean he would be stuck listening to a ranting woman with nothing else to do, and he'd had more than enough of that to last a lifetime. There was also the option of just letting the situation play out to its conclusion, and it wasn't like he'd ever have to deal with these particular horses ever again.

Idly, he wondered what happened to Fluttershy after his rather dramatic disappearance from town. He wasn't worried about her being worried, that was just a given from what little experience he had with the mare, but he was mildly curious as to how Angel would make the most out of the situation. Probably hogging the beanbag every night, the little shit.

"What was that, Hearty? C'mon, speak up, i'm your superior y'know!" the stallion's cruel guffaws grated against Hazama's ears, dragging him out of his pondering. He had no idea what he had missed, but he really didn't care.

"I... I said... if he's such a dumb beast, why'd he avoid your charge? I thought you were meant to be the best! And you're not allowed to... To call me that anymore!"

'What's this? The horses actually paying attention to logical facts? What sort of crazy alternate world have I entered?' He thought. And wasn't it humorous that it was a totally serious, legitimate question? Two weeks in this world, pretty much, and he still didn't really have any idea about its history, or its nature in general. The little town seemed to be decent enough, when it wasn't being attacked by zombie Humans or patrolled by Guards. If that was the standard for technological and social advancement, then he would have been just dandy, but it wasn't. Somehow they also had large steam-trains as well. Not that the idea of a steam-train was impressive to Hazama in the least, but it was a damn sight more impressive than the thatch roof buildings of the town would belie.

The stallion, however, didn't seem nearly as impressed with the solid fact he'd been presented. "So what? It's not like you and your band of ice-cream-cone heads did any better. Plus, the Human's a freak of nature, that's why we're takin' him to the Princesses. So they can get rid of him, or whatever." he waved a hoof in a disinterested manner until he let out a short, harsh chuckle. "And you hurt my feelings, Hearty, y' really do. What, I can't call my generous marefriend by my nice little pet name?"

"I... You...!" Remix Heart growled, scrambling onto all fours as the correct words seemed to utterly elude her. In lieu of properly formed arguments, angry grunts tore themselves from her throat. Seemingly without intending to, her horn lit up in an angry lime-green aura, sparks flying from the tip as the stallion paused for a moment, temporarily concerned. The hesitation was shaken off within an instant, but Hazama definitely caught it.

"And that ain't even the worst of it, right?" Boulder Dash continued with a malicious, taunting tone to his voice, stepping just a little bit closer, "You miss me, don'tcha? Miss the things I could do to you... Probably the best lay you're ever goin' to get in your life, right? Is that why you were gettin' all close to the freak over he-MPH?!"

He had been interrupted by a bolt of magic square to the blocky chin. It didn't appear to have any special properties, but it had a hell of a concussive force behind it apparently, as the body of the stallion went flying backwards into the steel wall of the train. Upon impact, the armour made a dull clanging noise as the previously cocky stallion fell to the floor on unsteady hooves. Already, he was shooting the mare a dark, satisfied grin.

"Heh. Heheheh!" The stallion began to chuckle as he brought his helmet back on top of his head, fixing it into place. "Didn't, heh, think you had it in you, Hearty! Damn, but I should really get you done in now, shouldn't I? Assaulting a superior officer like that..."

The furious glint immediately left the mare's eyes at those words. Her aura dropped as she scrambled several steps backwards, almost toppling over one of Hazama's outstretched legs.

"N-No..."

"Yep." Boulder Dash nodded, giving his body a quick shudder to shake off the lightly pulsing pain running through his back, "But I'm not goin' to. Because i'm really magnanimous like that. I mean hey, you gave me a lot back in the day. Only fair I give you some concessions too, huh?"

The mare said nothing in response, but continued to quake all over in a mixture of fear and the remnants of fury. Adrenaline still ran through her veins, her heart pumping wildly as a place deep in her mind demanded that she achieve proper vengeance, really hurt him. Years of training, however, allowed her to calm herself down. A slow process, taking a solid twenty seconds before she felt a little better. She paused, taking a deep, shuddering breath before exhaling just as slowly.

"... Thank. You. Sir. I think I can handle watch duty on my own."

The barely-contained anger seemed only to drive the stallion's amusement further than ever before as he turned around, starting to push the door to the secured compartment open again.

"Yeah, yeah, i'll make sure nopony gets in the way of you and your new fuckbuddy or whatever." Were the parting words that echoed through the carriage as Boulder Dash stepped around the corner and out of sight, closing the door behind him with a deceptively calm click.

Hazama was decidedly equal parts impressed and incredibly annoyed, all things considered. From what he could extrapolate from the biting exchange he'd just witnessed, the stallion was a schemer. The kind of person that'd murder somebody to get just a little headway in the world. The kind of person that would gladly break a person apart for personal gain. A man...Horse after his own heart. That was exactly the problem. Types like that couldn't really co-exist with each other, not even themselves. If Hazama found himself in a room with a precise, perfect copy of himself who happened to have the only way out of said room... The copy would probably attack him first, because he'd know what he was like. It was a complicated personality trait.

He turned his gaze towards Remix Heart to gauge her reaction, and at that exact moment, the mare seemed to keel over onto her side, faintly surprising Hazama with the sudden collapse. Her barrel seemed to jolt up and down like she was being electrocuted, but it was something that Hazama easily recognised as somebody silently sobbing, keeping their misery quiet so as to not alert anyone. A fragile silence pervaded the air as he carefully watched the horse wallow in self-pity.

Then the tears started coming, and the silence was broken by quiet sniffles every few seconds.

She didn't stop crying until they reached the station.

Author's Note

This was a much shorter chapter than I intended it to be, but every time I started writing the next scene I just couldn't shake the feeling that the next set of events required their own chapter rather than extending this one.

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That and i'm lazy and wanted a chapter out, but mostly the other thing.

I'm renaming the music section to just 'miscellaneous section' instead.

And on that note, have a short clip from the BlazBlue anime. It was a pretty poor adaptation, but some parts of it are always fun to watch. Like this one.

For a marginally more serious clip, here's the first meeting of Hakumen and Ragna the Bloodedge. They made it a lot better in the game, but in this version you also get to see the aforementioned Kokonoe from the first chapter, as well as Rachel.