Sunset Knight

____________________Third person Perspective_________________

Sitting back in a chair, passed out from staying up too late sat a slightly overweight man wearing a lab coat. His shoulder length salt and pepper hair, greasy from not having showered in two days hung back from his face. A face that was covered by a well worn Naruto manga. The desk in front of him was covered in wrappers from food, multiple monitors having been fastened to the desk, displayed various data spreadsheets. On Top of the worksheets, small pixel sprites of colorful ponies prance around.

The tv in the corner had the menu from a Bleach blu ray playing quietly in the back. The wall of the lab plastered with Star Wars posters. This was “The Tomb” the place where Black Mesa put its dead-end projects. And their dead-end research staff. AKA Mr. passed out stinky guy, Dr. Green. He had been with Black Mesa since the beginning when he was an assistant to Dr. Wallace Breen.

Due to his seniority and friendship with the head of the entire facility, he got away with mooching off of the company. He had never been the top end of anything, the endless number 2. Little did he know that he was about to get a rude awakening, and maybe, finally a chance to come out on top.

____________Perspective shift to Dr. Green______________________

As I took a deep breath, my snore rattling the test tubes in the stand, I was rudely awoken by a blaring siren. My chair tipped back, and I found myself flat on my back. After rubbing my head and getting myself back up into a standing position, I ran over to the phone to call up to the security office to see what was happening.

The phone rang three times before it was picked up. “Security office, this is Barney speaking.”

I grumbled, Barney was Dr. Freeman’s best friend, and I really didn’t like Dr. Freeman. He was ten years younger than me but was in the same courses at MIT. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be second in the class to someone ten years younger than you. It was humiliating. I swallowed my pride and spoke, “this is Dr. Green, Why in bloody hell were the sirens going off?!”

I could practically hear him roll his eyes at me “Sorry about that Dr. Green, we just had a system crash and it must have tripped the alarm system. We have the alarms shut off now and… hold on a minute” he pulled his head away from the phone to speak “Hey Gordan, you running late again? We just had a system crash, but they are waiting for you down in the tank for today's experiment.” He must have turned his head back to the phone because his voice was louder now. “Like I was saying Dr. Green, it was just a system crash. Nothing bad happened.” He unceremoniously hung up.

I ground my teeth “Damn young bastards think they can do whatever they want. I have things that are sensitive down here.” I shrugged it off before I realized something, I had been waiting to do my test on my newest teleporter until today so that I could prove it wasn’t just a waste of time and completely blow those morons in Anomalous Materials department out of the water. Those smug bastards had been pulling all of the funding out of the entire facility for the last two years now. Walking over to my teleporter unit I started to boot it up.

Little did I know what this day would hold for me. As I worked to get my computers up and running, Dr. Gordon Freeman made his way down to the floor just above my own. After I got everything set and ready, I placed a lab rat on the teleporter pad. I fired up the teleporter and waited with bated breath. One floor above Dr. Freeman passes a group of men looking at a wall of readouts when one panel suddenly blows out. They turn to each other and ask allowed “Who could be drawing enough power to blow this out? I hope it doesn’t affect the experiment today.”

I watched the receiving pad while holding my breath. As the system powered down, I looked at the receiving pad to see a completely unharmed, very much so alive lab rat. I whooped for joy, it worked like a dream. I was ecstatic, if it can transport this, then I was ready to make the next leap. I knew what I was doing was stupid and extremely dangerous, but I really didn’t care at this point. I was going to succeed where so many before me had failed. I would teleport a human.

I started all the systems and set a timer for the teleporter to go after thirty seconds. I hit the go button and quickly ran to the pad. Above me, Dr. Freeman slowly pushed a cart to the energy beam. At the instant that my teleporter began to engage, the cart hit the beam. It happened in almost an instant, I felt my body begin to tear apart, pain like nothing I had ever encountered ripped through my mind as the feeling of being broken apart on an atomic level crashed in the depths of my mind. In the end, as my vision faded, I could swear that I saw a man in a blue suit looking into my lab through the glass, a sour look on his face.

I have no Idea when I registered that I still existed, but once I realized that I still had a consciousness, I quickly discovered, that it was all I had. My entire physical form had been wholly scattered, for all intent and purpose I was dead. I drifted through that void for an unknowable amount of time. That is until I felt myself being pulled in a single direction. I can’t even begin to describe what I brought to. All I can say is that I remember a vast eye, something that pierced all of time. It spoke to me, well not so much spoke as impressed upon me that it was board. I was shocked and a bit intimidated at this, it further impressed that it had discovered me floating through the either and decided to have a little fun. From its impression, I gathered that it wanted me to design a new physical form for myself and a destination. My mind flew at this opportunity, I had no doubt in my mind that this entity would be able to give me what I asked for. I decided to combine some of my favorite things together. For my physical body, I chose to look very similar to Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach. Though changed to have Black hair and bright green eyes.

For abilities, I imagined myself as a grey Jedi, with the powers of a Shinigami from the Bleach mythos, and to top it off I wanted the powers from Naruto including the Rinnegan. I could only imagine what it would look like to have bright green Rinnegan. But fuck it I wanted to be a sage of the six paths. And to be a badass. I was a 37-year-old man, and I was already going grey. I was overweight and lived in the office. I had always been number two to everything. For once in my life, I wanted to be number one.

I gave all the details to the entity. I felt that it was amused at the idea and agreed to what I had asked for. As for a destination, I asked to go to Equestria. A magical world of ponies and friendship, why the fuck not. As I began to feel its power hit me, I felt myself be pushed back in a new direction. The entity's final impression was this. “I will give you what you ask for in time, you must earn it first, but you will end up where you asked to go, eventually. Have fun starting over.”

I wasn’t sure what it meant by that ‘I will end up where I asked to go eventually?’ That sounds ominous. My mind slammed back into a new body. I opened my eyes and looked up, expecting to see the sky, or at least the ceiling of a room. Instead, I saw massive metal pillars reaching up into blackness. As I looked around, I noticed a blade in my left hand. I looked enormous to me at first before I saw that I was a small child. I ran over to find something reflective. When I found something, I looked into my reflection to see that the face of a nine-year-old looked back at me.

At that moment I felt like someone had smashed a hammer right into the center of my brain. My memories of my entire life began to melt away. My years at MIT, my rivalry with Dr. Freeman, my break up with my ex after she dumped me for being a workaholic otaku. I began to blank out. I could remember nothing. As I peered into my own reflection all I noticed was that I had a necklace around my neck.

I looked at it and found that it has strange markings written on it. I couldn’t read it. I don’t know where I am and I have no idea who I am. I am lost and alone. I feel as though I should move and do so. Just where I was standing only moments before landed a smoking vehicle of some kind. I stared at it with wonder. As I looked at it, a hand on my shoulder snapped me back to reality.

I jumped and looked back to see a tall red woman with weird fins on the sides of her head looking down at me with a curious expression on her face. Her blue eyes seemed to see through me, into my soul. I was a bit mystified by what appeared to be a white mist flowing from her. It’s tendrils spreading out into the area around us. She pulled her hand back and crouched down to look at me at my eye level. “Are you injured young one?”

Still being wary I didn’t say anything “I’m sorry if I scared you young one, if you are injured I can heal you. My name is Tiplee. I am a Jedi Knight.” She pulled out a strange metal tube and held it in her palm toward me.

I let out a breath that I didn’t know I had kept in “I don’t know what a Jedi is. I don’t even know who I am. All I have is this sword and this necklace. I can’t even read it.”

The red woman seemed perplexed at this “Would you mind if I took a look at it?” I shrugged and handed her the necklace. She examined it for a moment before speaking “This is written in galactic common. It says ‘Vash Terrek’ I am guessing that is your name.” I shrugged, not really sure what to do with this information, she handed me back my necklace before continuing “I am glad that you are not hurt, though it is strange to see a young child down here on level 1325. What is the last thing you remember?”

I thought back and tried to remember. But nothing came to mind “all I remember is looking into that shiny thing and seeing my eyes.”

She looked carefully at my eyes and had an intrigued expression “They are rather interesting, I have never seen eyes that look like that before, but I could swear that you are human, curious. I also noticed that you seemed to jump out of the way of that crashing spreader without looking or hearing it coming.”

I shrugged “I dunno… I just had this strong feeling like I should move. So I jumped to the side. Is there something wrong with that?”

Her eyes looked deep into my own before she spoke: “I think you may be force sensitive, can you truly not remember anything from your past?” I shook my head “I sense no falsehood in you.” she began to mutter to herself “the council would never allow him to be trained, he is too old, but on the other hand, he can’t remember his past… what to do.” she muttered to herself for a few moments as I watched her.

After a few minutes, I figured that this was going nowhere and decided to try to get out of the situation “well I’m not sure where I came from, but I wouldn’t want to bother you. Thank you for checking up on me, but I figure I should get going.”

I turned to leave, but before I could get far I felt that gentle hand on my shoulder again “Wait, Vash!” I stopped and turned to her “Don’t leave, I sense a great amount of the force in you. What I am about to ask you, goes against the council, but I believe it to be the correct course of action. The Force leads me to you, and you to me. I wish to see if I can train you to use the ways of the Force.”

I was curious to see what she meant by that. And besides, as far as I could tell, this wasn’t a safe place for me to be right now. I shrugged “If you want to. It’s better than staying here right. I kinda figure it's between going with you, or stay here alone, I choose you. And for some reason, my gut tells me this is the best choice to make.”

She smiled and placed her hand on my shoulder “then let us walk from this place together, my young padawan.”

That was the first steps that I took with my master.

___________Fast forward seven years____________________

I’m sitting in the cockpit in a small ship, finally decked out in my new robes. Master Tiplee had just told me yesterday that she felt I was ready to be a knight. Not that I was official or anything. Master Tiplee has been training me in secret for the past seven years now. The Jedi council would never have let me be taught at the age of nine, but I thought that they were stupid for passing up on the opportunity. I mean come on, I was a blank slate, and now I’m a badass. I bobbed my head to the music on the sat feed as I waited for a response from my master. I had a blindfold over my eyes as part of my personal force training.

I had wrapped the blindfold over my eyes three years ago to force me to use the force to act as my eyes. I would remove it every now and again, but for the most part, it stayed in place. This was partly due to my training, and partly due to people being freaked out by my weird eyes. Seven years now and I still had no idea what they were, or even where they came from. I could hear the fighting deeper in the outpost. Master Tiplee had brought me along with her on this mission as a quick escape if necessary. I thought it was pointless. No one would be able to take her team on. She was somewhere inside the base with Generals Kenobi, Windu, and Secura.

I mean come on, four Jedi masters was a little overkill to bring against an old man and a tin can. I lazily sat back when my communicator came on. “Vash!!! Get out of here now!!! I can’t hold them back, they found out about you. I don’t know how but they found out about you. Grievous is hot on my tail, and Dooku is after you too. Please run!!! You can com…*BZZZZZZZZZZ*.” I felt my heart stop in that moment, the crushing weight of the force hit me like a blaster bolt, the pain almost took me there. I knew that sound. It was the sound of a saber going through something organic.

I waited for a moment before I tentatively spoke “M-master?”

What I heard next scared me to my core, a fit of coughing followed by the half mechanized voice of General grievous himself “your master is dead young one, I have claimed her saber for my own. But Count Dooku will find a better use for you; I think.” the audio cut out as the com was crushed.

I felt my entire world fracture in that instance. My master was dead, and they were after me now. I didn’t care anymore, I needed to leave now. I slammed the power on my ship and rocketed out of the hanger. I flew as fast as I could, having ripped the blindfold from my face. I can’t read monitors with the Force. I was broken at this point, everything in my world had just been killed. My master was dead. I had no one left now. After jumping to a different quadrant of the galaxy at random, I let myself drift. I didn’t want to feel anything anymore.

I felt myself slipping away when suddenly the old game table in the corner flickered to life, but instead of the last game that we had played together booting up, I saw my masters head. “Vash, if you are watching this, then I am dead. I’m sorry that it had to happen like this. I expect that I was killed during the mission to try to capture Dooku and Grievous. This war has torn this galaxy apart at the seems. You already know my views on the council and how they let this happen. But this is not the time for that. I just wanted to say that I am proud of you. When I found you, you were just a skinny child lost in one the lower levels of Coruscant. Scared and alone, but you chose to believe in the force and followed me.”

I smiled at the memory as she continued “we have been together for seven years now, and I am proud to say that you have earned the title of knight, but it is unfortunate that you can not receive this in earnest. I have taught you everything that I can, but I know that you have much still to learn. What I am about to ask you to do will take you farther away than anyone has gone in recorded history.”

I was curious about this and continued to listen. “Three years ago, just before this war began I found something. You never knew, but I have been looking to find the source of your eyes since I found you. In an ancient Holocron, I found mention of a being of great power that had made themselves known. They hailed from across a vast span of space looking for a new world to call home.”

“They found a home on Coruscant before it grew to the size that it is now. Not much was said about them other than their ability to see energy and the mysterious look of their eyes. But what caught my attention were the coordinates tattoo that were left in the Holocron.”

The table then lit up and displayed a star chart. It was vast, and I could see from the star chart that the ending destination would take some time to reach. I gripped the hilts of my sword and saber as I gazed at it. Speaking to myself “this is quite a distance. Even at hyper speed, it will still take a year to get there.” I thought about it and decided that it would be worth it. There was nothing left for me in the current galaxy, My master was dead, I was technically an illegal Jedi, and the sith were looking for me. As far as I could tell, this was my best option. This ship had all the necessities that I would need, food/water/air/bacta recyclers, plenty to read. I could deal with this. Again speaking allowed “Guess that this is it. I’m leaving everything behind to start this new chapter.”

As I turned to leave the sitting area master, Tiplee came back “There is a final thing I want to give you Vash. A new code to live by. I have taught you the Jedi code all your life with me. But after seeing so much death caused by inaction, I had decided to move down a new path after this mission. But with me dead, I can’t do so. So I leave it to you.

There is no Light, without the dark
Passion rules them both

Through passion,
I gain Strength

There is no Ignorance,
There is Knowledge

Through Knowledge,
I gain Power

There is no Chaos,
There is Harmony

There is no death,
There is only the Force.

You will notice that there are tenants in this code that directly contradict the Jedi code, and there is a reason for this. I have become a Grey Jedi over time, much like master Qui-Gon Jinn before his death. I am sick of the inaction and irrational fear that the Jedi have bread. I ask that you continue this legacy on. Do not let yourself be held back from helping when you have the power to do so. Do not be afraid of finding love. It can destroy you yes. But it can save you as well. Live your life for yourself as much as you live it for others. And please, my dearest pupil, be happy.”

Her visage disappeared from the projection, and the table turned off. I stood there in awe, my master had just revealed that if she had survived that she was going to abandon the Jedi order with me to discover the source of my eyes with me. I tightly gripped my sword again. I knew that it was an outdated piece of equipment. A lightsaber would have been able to cut through it with ease, even a vibroblade could destroy it. But it was one of the two things that I was left with when my master found me. I strode to the cockpit and plugged in the new coordinates. “It’s time for a new adventure. Where will it take me I wonder?”

The ship powered up for the jump to hyperspace, and I moved back to the living area to meditate on what I had learned. I had a year to eat up, so I accessed every bit of info that we had on grey jedi and what they were. It turns out that Master Tiplee had collected quite a bit of information on them, and so I studied.

___________Time jump one year latter____________________________

I finally exit Hyperspace, and I look down at an abandoned planet. My computer does a general scan and can’t find any form of sentient life on the surface. Not to say that no life was there. It looked like nature had taken this world back from the sentient life that once held power here. Vast forests had grown over everything. I decided to leave my scanners on and let my astromech droid pilot for a bit while the ship scanned the surface of the planet. I sat down in the living area and began to meditate on the force. It’s true nature, rather than the one that my master had previously taught me.

As my mind drifted, an alert went off in the cockpit. I rushed forward and looked to see that it had detected some kind of massive structure under an old mountain face. I flew to it, only to see a massive cliff face, into which were many stone faces. The largest of them was the first seven. But I could see countless others having been added over time. At the base of the last of the seven, was a door. I landed my ship just outside the doorway. Taking a cautious step forward I placed my hand on the door. A burst of blue light hit me, and I was almost blown away from the power, but it felt as if my hand was glued to the door.

As the power subsided, I felt my hand released from the door. I gazed at it with wonder in my eyes. As I looked at the glowing door, it began to creak open. I stretched out with the Force to see if something was waiting for me inside. Finding nothing, I moved into the hallway. The air was stale, showing that nothing had made it inside in a very long time. As I moved deeper inside, torches began to ignite along the walls. But rather than a red flame, they burned blue.

I kept moving deeper into the mountain before I entered a vast room. There sitting in the center of the room was a chair. And sitting on the chair was a helmet. I approached the chair and found that the helmet had a bundle of wires coming out of it into the chair itself. Looking around I couldn’t see anything else. I closed my eyes and left my decision to the force. As I stood there, I was drawn to the chair and felt a deep-seated need to put the helmet on my head.

I moved without thinking and gave myself over to what the force directed me to do. Approaching the chair, I lifted the helmet up and placed it on my head as I sat down. At first, nothing happened, but after a few moments of waiting, I began to feel a drain of stamina and spirit. It was only barely noticeable but still there. Moments after I felt it begin, massive amounts of information began to fill my mind. It felt like it was going to break from the input of data. And just as I felt my mind would shatter, it stopped.

Breathing hard I opened my eyes and looked forward to behold a spectral image standing in front of me. “He-Hello?”

The image raised an eyebrow “well this is unexpected, half a million years pass and now you arrive. Guess the rinnegan don’t like staying away.” the image chuckled.

I was still nervous, so I asked: “W-who are you?”

He, as I could now realize that I was speaking to a man, smiled with warm eyes “My name is Naruto. I was the seventh Hokage of the hidden leaf village and the last sage of the six paths. I died over 500,000 years ago. You could say that this is my greatest and last technique, but to be honest, I kind of copied my father. He left me a similar message when I was a very young man. I left this here just in case another sage was ever born. Took a lot longer than I expected. How are things outside?”

I wasn’t sure how to say it, so I just blurted it out “Completely destroyed, it looks like this planet was abandoned eons ago. Besides, what did you do to me when I sat down here?!”

The projection seemed to be lost in thought before it looked back at me “I downloaded the compendium of Jutsu knowledge into your mind. Everything I ever collected from my entire life. I placed a seal on the door so that only one that would be worthy would be able to open it. So I guess that’s you. What do you mean the planet is abandoned?”

I sighed “Exactly what I said, I would guess that the inhabitants of this world left some time ago. Galactic travel is prevalent in this day and age. That is how I got here”

Naruto was troubled by this but got over it quickly. “I am guessing it’s for the best then.” he turned to me, Will you take this knowledge and use it for the betterment of life?” I nodded, and he smiled “that is good to hear, but my time grows short. I have given you the knowledge, but you lack the skill. In the drawers around this vault, you will find my collection. Please, use it to train yourself to grow stronger, to protect others who can’t protect themselves is the way of the ninja. I beg you to continue this going forward.”

The blue spectral image disappeared, and I began to search the room and uncovered many artifacts that could be used. I had made up my mind, I would take this knowledge and learn, I would train and master this part of myself. I now had the info to do so, all I need to do is work on the skill.

_____________________Time jump 15 years_________________________

I walked through the forest with my blindfold on. I hadn’t had to use my eyes in six months, my force awareness had grown so much that I could feel everything going on around me within 50 meters. It had been a long journey, and I had come to the highest understanding possible of the techniques that I had been given. But even now I felt like I was missing something. Like I remained incomplete. Over my time here I had noticed that I had seemed frozen in time from the point that I had hit 23. My hair still grew out, but I didn’t seem to age anymore. When I was younger, my master had conducted tests on my cells to see what was causing me to heal so quickly. From what she had been able to discover, my cells regenerated at the same pace that they died, each new cell genetically identical to the one previously, with zero deviations. There was just no cellular degradation.

Beyond this were my regenerative abilities, two years ago while I was training in the “Forest of death” as it was classified by my downloaded memories, I had been sleeping on a branch when I was awoken by something biting my left arm off. As you can imagine, this wasn’t the way that I was hoping to be woken up. After getting up, I managed to kill the creature off rather quickly, but I was still in trouble. As I sat there, thinking that I was going to bleed out before I could make it back to my ship, something wondrous happened. My arm began to grow back. It was slow at first, but after a few minutes I had my entire right arm back at full strength.

To say that I was blown away would be an understatement, Nowhere in any of the knowledge that I possess was there any mention of an ability like this. I couldn’t explain it, so I ignored it. Not like anyone was going to find me out here anyway. I had run off on this tangent for some time now before I felt that nagging sensation in the back of my mind again about not being complete yet.

Deciding to meditate on this, I sat on top of Naruto’s stone head as I looked out at the world in front of me. The vast beauty seemed to drown me. As I let my mind drift through the force, I was drawn back to my Katana, I had discovered what this type of sword was called a few years ago in my research and decided to use it as a focal point of my meditation. I used the force to bring it to me. As I placed it across my lap and focused on it, I felt as if something had hit me in the center of my mind. A loud roar knocked me from my meditation when my eyes slammed open, I was no longer sitting on the mountain, I sat in front of a massive creature, as I gazed into its eyes it spoke. “So you finally decide to listen after 18 years together, did you?”

I was shocked to silence “Um… what do you mean after 18 years together, I’ve never met you before in my life.”

My voice seemed off to me. After so many years of only ever speaking to a clone of yourself and droids, you run out of practice talking. it responded, “I’m your Zanpakuto, the blade that you have carried since you met Master Tiplee.”

I was still confused “my what?”

Its eyes narrowed, “so you know nothing of what you have held?” I shook my head “Then I shall have to teach you. I’m sick of you just letting me sit and waste away. I may not like fighting myself, but there is no excuse to just leave me to the side.”

I looked at him incredulously “Why would I need a sword, I have a lightsaber, wouldn’t one destroy you?”

I had made it mad apparently “as if a measly lightsaber could hurt me. I am made up of you Reiasu, your spirit pressure, If I break, it is because you did not make me strong enough, with time and training, I will never break. But let me introduce myself. I am Bendu.”

I looked up at this beast and made a decision, I will make myself whole. and I will embrace all parts of myself to move forward. “very well Bendu, I am Vash, and I will learn.”

________________time jump ? years__________________

I woke up to find that something felt different. Looking around my cave, I tried to figure out what it was. As I did every day I went through my routine of stretching and working out, I created a few clones to tidy up the cave and make some food before my day began in earnest as I felt a shockwave of the force hit me. I felt compelled to move, to leave this world. I have no idea how long I have been here. I haven’t stepped foot into my ship in at least a few… days? Weeks? years maybe? I couldn’t remember. But the force was telling me it was time to leave.

Not speaking a word, I began to pack up. I collected everything I thought I would need. My data packets had all of the information that I needed from this world with me. The various weapons that I had found and made loaded. It took another three days after I felt that first impression before I was ready to head out. As I sat down in the cockpit, I moved to grab something before I remembered to remove my blindfold. My eyes cracked open from such a long time without use. They were sensitive and extremely sharp. I could see the very grain in the polished metal of my console. “It’s finally time, maybe this will be my last trip, but perhaps it's for the best. I looked back and noticed the case I had left on the game table. I thought back to what lies inside. Two items, two crystals. One was made from compressed Yin chakra, black as the depths of space. The other made from compressed Yan chakra, a brilliant white that seemed to give off its own light.

Turning back from them I looked out into the void of space. I stretched out with force to determine where it was that I was supposed to go. Finding my direction I made my way into space. As I launched I took note that my console had changed it date quite drastically, and I was left to admit to the reality, according to my console, I had been on that planet for over two hundred years. But I still looked like a 23-year-old. I had somehow achieved what many had sought out their entire lives.

I flew for two months before I found what the force was directing me to, a wormhole. I looked down to Bendu “what do you think? should I press forward?” I got the feeling of contentment from my blade and pressed to ship forward. Over the apparent few hundred years that I had spent with him, we had come to a deep understanding of each other. Bendu had once been true neutrality in the cosmos. A being neither light nor dark, but something in the middle. Due to this, he had grown a great apathy toward life and others.

He had realized that he was eternal, and determined that it was his fate to let the rest of the galaxy go on without him. To be grey in all things. However, by speaking with him over decades of time, I had managed to change his perspective, to realize that there were many shades of grey. While I considered myself to be a grey Jedi, I felt that I was a light grey in that example, not to say that the Force is inherently evil or good, it’s not. The Force simply is. The emotions and ideas of sentient life are what directs how the force is used. Be it for good or evil.

I consider myself to be a grey, but not in the strictest definition of the term. From my findings, from everything my past master had collected for me, may grey Jedi were cowards that used apathy to hide from taking responsibility for their actions. I would not let myself fall into apathy.

As I was about to pass through the vortex of the wormhole, a single name came to my mind “Equestria” the word tasted strange on my tongue, almost as if it had sat there once before, in a time before time. Like a favorite dish you had forgotten you loved. I found myself excited for the first time in over a century, “Equestria, here I come.”