Your Loyal Subject

In spite of Aversion wanting to explain what happened in his past, Luna insisted that she had a better way of knowing for herself. They went to her old bedroom in the tower of the Castle of the Two Sisters, where they would be alone long enough for it to work, based on what the alicorn intended to do.

"In order for this to work," Luna said, "I would need your full cooperation, Avey."

"Well..." Aversion began, "...alright."

With that, Luna's horn began to glow as she closed her eyes. She angled her head down to the point where her horn touched Aversion on the forehead. The room dissolved into a bright blue vortex, which continued for several seconds until it yielded an actual environment. She tipped her head back up as the glow of her horn went out. Aversion noticed that she had become translucent, with a blue halo surrounding her. Looking at his legs, he saw that the same happened to him as well.

"Uh, Lulu..." Aversion spoke, "…what happened? Where are we?"

They appeared to be on the outskirts of Ponyville, but there seemed to be less infrastructure.

"We are in your hometown, Avey," Luna said. "However, we are projecting our minds to a different point in time."

Aversion then realized the property they were on. "Wait... this is my childhood home!"

He did indeed recognize the old, one-story rancher that he lived in until moving out. It brought back quite a surge of nostalgia for him, including some memories he'd rather forget.

"Let's go investigate," Luna said.

The two went around to the back side of the house, peering in through the sliding glass back door into the living room. There they saw...

"...M-my mother...!" Aversion stammered.

His eyes were wide and jaw agape as he stared at the mare sitting on the couch, holding a blanketed thing to her chest, gently rocking it. When she held it at an angle where they could see, that was when the realization hit him.

"And... that's me!" Aversion said.

The baby pony in the bundle was indeed him as a colt no more than a few months old. He hardly had much of a mane, his muzzle was short, and his eyes were of quite smaller proportion to an adult pony.

"Awww..." Luna uttered, "...oh, Avey! You were so cute as a baby!"

Aversion blushed, his eyes falling to the floor as his mouth went narrow, humming in bemusement.

Evasion held her child down near her pelvic region, and she seemed to be centering his face around it. Luna and Aversion both wondered what exactly she was doing, up until the former caught on after a few seconds.

"Uh, Avey... you might wanna look away," Luna said, covering her coltfriend's eyes with her wing. "Your mother is... nursing you."

It continued for a bit, with Aversion getting a bit impatient about not getting to look at his mother, for the first time in years. Eventually, though, Evasion stopped feeding her baby and held him up to her barrel again, and Luna let Aversion look again. The infant colt hiccuped once after swallowing the last little bit of his mother's milk.

"If only you could've known your father..." Evasion said, "...and if only I wasn't so cruel as to reject him. I just felt... like I wasn't ready."

"Eh-neh-wuh-deh," the infant Aversion spoke incoherently.

Evasion sighed, rubbing her son's head gently. "I submitted a formal request to the court that he not pay for child support. I just don't want to make him suffer any more than I already have. But still, even after that mistake I made with Lorn that one night..."

She trailed off, looking at up the ceiling for a few moments, before returning her attention to her child.

"D'neh," the infant Aversion spoke up, trying to get his mother's attention.

"Oh, my dear little Avey..." Evasion said, hugging the bundled colt. "...you are the most precious thing I have ever been blessed with. I will do everything I can to make sure you live a good life."

"Ub-bub," the infant Aversion babbled.

A warm smile filled Luna's face as she watched this. "Oh, your mother truly cared for you."

Aversion nodded. "...She was one of the few in my life."

"Well, so far, everything seems fine here," Luna said. "Shall we skip forward a few years?"

"Go for it," Aversion said.

Luna then focused her magic to her horn again, and the surroundings dissolved into a glowing blue vortex again, continuing for a few seconds before it came back into view, but it was slightly different this time. There were more buildings in Ponyville, and the house had some minor alterations in appearance, as well as some additional lawn decorations.

"We jumped forward a couple of years," Luna said.

Immediately after she spoke, the pair heard some hoofsteps approaching, and saw a stallion with a dark-gray hide, along with a very messed-up looking, dirty-blonde mane and tail. Aversion nearly lost his balance at the mere sight of this stallion.

"Sledge Hammer!" he uttered. "Oh, I swear, if I wasn't in ethereal form right now... with my new muscles, I'd..."

"Settle down, Avey," Luna said. "You simply cannot change the past."

Aversion sighed. "If only..."

Sledge Hammer trudged inside the house, where he sat at the table, Evasion trying her best not to acknowledge his presence immediately, as she had her back turned while she was preparing dinner.

"Hey!" Sledge spoke up. "Where's my beer?"

"There's some in the fridge," Evasion said.

Sledge narrowed his eyes. "...So it's just supposed to magically float from the fridge into my hoof? Why don't you make yourself useful and be the good wife you're supposed to be?"

Evasion sighed, trudging over to the refrigerator just behind Sledge. The stallion smirked as she walked by.

"Hey, babe," he said, "don't get so down, now. Y'know how I like when my partner's glad to help out her husband."

He playfully slapped Evasion's plot as she walked by, and the mare tried her best to suppress her recoil at his intrusive act. Aversion's eyes went narrow as he bunched his lips together.

"How dare he treat my mother like that..." he muttered, "...no respect for her whatsoever!"

As Evasion got a beer bottle out of the fridge to bring to Sledge, the stallion himself reviewed the mail that came in. Among them, however, he happened to find an envelope from Evasion's employer that had already been opened. Inside was a note, which he pulled out to read. Evasion took note of this, and in a panic, rushed over to try and snatch the note away.

"Sledge, dear..." she said, "...please! That's private!"

"I'll be the judge of that!" Sledge said.

Holding back Evasion with one hoof, Sledge looked over the note, and after a moment, pushing back the struggling mare, his eyes lit up.

"A family assistance grant?" He said. "And you didn't tell me about it?"

"Why should I?" Evasion asked. "I know you would just spend it all on drinking and gambling!"

"You are going to tell me right now..." Sledge said, scrapping his hoof impatiently across the tile, "...what did you do with that check?!"

"It's none of your concern, Sledge!" Evasion said.

In a fit of rage, Sledge Hammer knocked a chair out of his way, forcing Evasion back, and pinning her against the wall. Aversion gasped as he watched this unfold.

"Oh, dear Celestia..." he said, "...this brings back... horrible memories..."

"Tell me right now... where's the check?!" Sledge Hammer growled.

"...I put it in a nontaxable indexed account, will yield substantial return!" Evasion said. "And all of it, I wrote in legal paperwork, will be going to my son when he is of proper age!"

Sledge gritted his teeth. "...You did what?!"

"It's because I love my son!" Evasion said. "And I want him to be able to lead a good life! It's literally no change to our current income, since we won a drawing!"

Sledge shoved his wife to the floor, his nostrils flaring as he heavily exhaled. "...You sneaky bitch... you go behind my back... AND HIDE MY MONEY FROM ME?!"

"It's not your money!" Evasion said. "It belongs to the family!"

"And I'm not family?" Sledge asked harshly.

He trudged over to Evasion, grabbing her by the mane and making her yelp.

"...You just made a big mistake, tramp!" He said.

"...U-uh..." Aversion said as he nudged Luna.

The Princess looked at him to see that he was quite upset.

"...Lulu, l-listen..." he said, "...this is the night... wh-when... my mother..."

Luna suddenly realized what he meant, and her heart sank. "Yes, you're right, Avey. I won't keep us here any longer."

So, she used her magic to jump them forward a few years in Aversion's life. The environment had subtly changed again, but was still familiar enough to identify as the same house in the same location. Yet again, it was nighttime. Immediately after they arrived, Luna and Aversion saw the door open, and out came an adolescent Aversion, who pulled a flier out, skimming over it.

"So..." the teenage Aversion said, "...these ponies say they'll help?"

He looked ahead at the lights of the small community.

"...At this point, it's all or nothing," he said.

The adult Aversion's eyes lit up. "Wait... I remember this!"

"Really?" Luna asked.

Aversion nodded, pursing his lips. "...You'll see soon what happened. And I think... it triggered what you've been seeing in my unconscious mind, Lulu..."

So, the younger Aversion set off into the night, and the two spectral ponies followed after him. After walking along the outskirts of the town for a little while, the adolescent Aversion arrived at what appeared to be a makeshift camp, inhabited by a group of black-cloaked ponies. One approached upon arrival of the teen earth pony.

"Halt!" the cloaked pony said. "Who goes there?"

"...Silence, my Brother," the younger Aversion responded.

The cloaked pony's face lit up. "Hmmm, so you remembered the passphrase? Very good, we shall do our service to you!"

"So..." young Aversion said, "...you're sure this will work? It'll make my life better?"

"Oh, positive!" the cloaked pony said. "This will yield some... unique effects on your livelihood."

"Great!" young Aversion said.

So, he followed the cloaked pony to a group of more ponies in identical black cloaks, sitting in a circle around... a pentagram. Luna's eyes went wide as she saw this. She turned to the spectral, present-day Aversion.

"Avey..." she spoke, "...who exactly did you get involved with that led up to this?"

Aversion shuffled his hooves nervously. "Well... when I was hiding in the woods, crying after being bullied at school all day, coming home to be abused by Sledge Hammer, that was when one of those cloaked ponies approached me. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him. Then, he told me 'All these misfortunes happen in the light of the day, does it not?'

"Of course, when I thought about it, and since I was still fairly naive at the time, I concluded that it was logical. Then he said 'You find most bliss in the dark, which we are experts of. You must completely surrender yourself, mind, body, and soul, to darkness. For it shall yield the most positive influence in your life! It will give you power and control!'

"At first, I was a bit sketched out, but after some coaxing... he convinced me that he was telling the truth. It sounded so promising, and with nowhere else to turn, I wanted things to get better based on what he had to say. And well... there I was at the campsite," Aversion said.

They returned their attention to the past, where the pony escorting Aversion took his seat in the one open spot of the ring of other cloaked ponies, and Aversion, following verbal instruction, stood in the middle of the pentagram. Then, the cloaked ponies started reciting an incantation, over and over, in unison. Young Aversion closed his eyes and tipped his head forward.

This continued for several minutes, and a blood-red glow outlined Aversion's body as he began to hover a few feet above the pentagram. The cloaked ponies all began reciting faster, gradually increasing speed as the red halo surrounding Aversion became more intense. It eventually led up to the young earth pony's tipping his head straight up with his mouth falling open. As this happened, the silhouette of a phantom pony with piercing white eyes manifested above him for a brief moment.

It was this apparition that got Luna's attention. "...The shadow pony! So this is where it came from!"

Immediately, Luna used her magic, and the landscape dissolved completely, fading to white.

Aversion and Luna opened their eyes. They were back in the Castle of the Two Sisters, in the present.

"Woah..." Aversion uttered, "...that was intense!"

"So, now we know," Luna said. "It was that ritual. That's what introduced that entity to your psyche."

Aversion hung his head. "...And to think I thought they were just a bunch of pranksters trying to waste my time."

"Avey..." Luna spoke, "...you should never participate in anything demonic! Nothing good comes of it!"

"Sorry, Lulu," Aversion said. "But I didn't know any better! I didn't think demons existed!"

"Well... it's alright, Avey," Luna said. "I don't blame you for going through with it, especially given your circumstances, and how they manipulated you with your still-developing brain. Besides, now that we know what we are dealing with, I believe I could do some research to know for sure what must be done to get rid of it for good. Since it's free in the Dream Void, I fear the stakes have been raised drastically, possibly to affect all ponykind!"

"...N-ngh..." Aversion said, clasping his forelegs around himself. "...h-have I put everypony in danger...?"

"Avey, it's not your fault," Luna said. "You were lied to by these... cultists. Beating yourself up won't solve the matter. But if you can help me in dealing with this matter, I think you shall be able to overcome this burden you've carried since that fateful day. Not only that, but... I believe you are the only one who can do it."

Aversion pondered this thought for a moment. He unwittingly made the mistake of trusting some questionable ponies... but he definitely had the chance to rectify it, if Luna knew for sure what she was talking about.

"...You're right, Lulu," he responded.

"Now that's the 'New Avey' I know!" Luna said, standing. "Now, I may need to pay a visit to the restricted wing of Canterlot Library. There will definitely be something about a demonic entity such as the shadow pony archived there. They will most certainly not allow you in, Avey."

"Okay," Aversion said. "Do what you need to do. I just want the answers to this big mystery."