Ajin

*Ed*

I don't know how I managed to fall asleep, but even in sleep, I could still feel the pain. The headache, the gashes, the phantom pains of my fingers and toes, my eye sockets. In my dream, I sat on the floor, hugging my knees and silently staring into the black void.

"Greetings, human." A familiar, formal voice greeted. I grunted in response.

"I just wanted to check up on you after the unfortunate events of today."

I turned to stare at her with lifeless eyes. When I spoke, there was hardly any life to it, "Check up on me? You didn't notice then."

She tilted her head in confusion, "Notice what?"

"My new scars, and the wounds I had to cauterize. All thanks, to your people. Just... leave me alone, alright? I'm just... tired. I need to be alone."

Luna shook her head, "My subjects would never hurt a prisoner of war, even such as yourself."

As she said that, my face turned from its emotionless mask, to a look of rage, "You think that your interrogators wouldn't hurt me? If you'd only look for yourself, you'd see for yourself how badly I've been treated. After my second recapture, they broke my spirit. They gouged out my eyes, flayed my flesh, cut off my fingers and toes. I'm honestly surprised it didn't kill me. I wish it had, that way the pain would go away."

Luna recoiled in shock, "You would want to die?! Why?!"

"I'm in constant agony, and the only thing that would stop it would be to lie. Which I refuse to do. I will not violate my morals, or else I am nothing."

*Twilight*

It had been a very long month. Settling things with the dragons and the surrounding villages hadn't been the easiest of things to do, especially with how stubborn they were. Now though, they were no longer trying to expand their territory, and had a decent trade deal with the local villages. Still, it had been a very long journey, and they were all very tired.

Then Celestia had asked them to the castle on a matter of state emergency, and they had came as soon as they could. They entered the throne room, like so many other times, and walked up to the throne of Celestia and Luna.

Celestia smiled warmly, like she always did, but it seemed she was tired, and worn down. Maybe even a little sad. Luna, however, seemed deeply disturbed.

"Hello my little ponies. Thank you for coming as soon as you have. Twilight, you remember that human you ran into in the city?"

Twilight nodded, "Yes. I do. Why, did you find out when the invasion is?"

Celestia shook her head, "No. The human, Ed, has revealed nothing to us. He keeps saying that there isn't an invasion, but we highly doubt that. I believe that you 6 are the only ones who would be able to get him to talk."

"Consider it done Princess!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, followed by assurances from the other five that were there.

"Before the guard escorts you down there, we need to tell you some things that may help you with the questioning. Firstly, he was a soldier once in his military, though we don't know much of his actions in his service we do know that it has caused immense trauma to him. He lost many comrades in combat, and blames himself, but Luna couldn't divulge why in his dreams. From what she could tell, though, is that at some point on his world, he had been tortured, but we don't know how severely.

"He's also successfully escaped from his cell twice now, so we believe that something has him scared and wanting to escape. If you can, try to divulge the truth. One last thing, before you go. Twilight, I know your affinity for magic, and I must tell you that he very much hates it. He especially loathes and despises magic that affects the mind in most ways. When I looked through his memories, he had been not only physically hurt through hemorrhaging in the eyes, nose, and ears, but he'd also been deeply mentally distraught to the point where he had to be dragged across the floor to be brought to his cell. Last night, when Luna spoke with him in his dream, he expressed a desire to die." Everypony gasped in shock.

"H-he wants to die?" Fluttershy whimpered.

Pinkie Pies' mane deflated, "Guess a 'Thanks for helping save Equestria' party wouldn't really be helpful then." she said depressingly. "But maybe we could still cheer him up."

"Well, let's get on with it. We ain't doing any good just standing here." Applejack said with somber conviction.

The group were led by a guard to the dungeons where the human was being held. On the way, the group asked the guard what he knew about Ed.

"Not much. I haven't been to his cell before, or in the dungeons in general. Just enough to know the layout."

When they arrived to the humans' cell, they stopped. They smelled something that smelled oddly sweet and metallic. The elements didn't know what the cause was, neither did the guard. The guard used his keys to open the door, and let the girls inside.

When the girls entered, Twilight pulled out a gem enchanted to record their surroundings. Twilight activated it the moment they saw the human hanging in his chains in the middle of the room, slumping forwards, hiding his face and most of his body in the poor lighting. Almost immediately, Twilight cast multiple light spells to the walls to help them see him better.

She regretted it instantly. Surrounding the human, was a massive pool of blood and gore. One could see long strips of skin and unidentifiable pieces of flesh in the puddles.

Rarity and Fluttershy threw up, Applejack stuffed a hand in her mouth and hunched over, trying not to barf. Pinkie was on the brink of tears, while Twilight and Rainbow Dash stared in shock. Gently, Twilight used her magic to lift Ed's body so they could confirm that it was indeed his gore on the floor.

Again, she wished she hadn't. His body was torn apart, massive gashes covered his torso, exposing bone, muscle, and even more horrifying, some of his digestive organs, most of which were pulsating and twitching. His tendons were cut in many places, and much of his body was beginning start forming angry boils. What she didn't know was that these boils were being caused by her. What scared her, was that he was still breathing, if shallowly.

Quickly, she cast another spell, one that would heal his wounds. Immediately, he woke up and started thrashing. Rarity and Fluttershy had just turned to look again, only for them to catch a sight of another horror. His eyes had been gouged out. Fleshy, glistening cords were hanging in empty, bloody sockets.

Ed was thrashing violently, convulsing and trying to scream, giving them a clear view of his cut throat. All that came out was a disturbing whine from his lungs. Finally, when the Elements thought they couldn't watch, he shuddered, and wherever the spell had touched, exploded in a gory mess that reached the Elements.

Everypony but Twilight screamed. Twilight just sank to her haunches, staring in shock and horror at the bloody carcass of Ed, hanging loosely in the chains. Just as she was about to recover enough for the flood of emotions to hit her, Ed's body jerked suddenly as all his wounds vanished, still leaving behind a nasty collection of scars.

The body jerked again, and the head flew up, making a gasping sound. He whinced as the sounds of 5 mares screaming.

"SHUT UP!" He bellowed, silencing them. "Holy shit, you're all louder than a group of banshees screaming." He sighed tiredly, "Thanks for killing me by the way, whoever did it. And I am serious."

Twilight paled, "I really... k-k-killed you?"

He nodded, "Yep. Wait. Your... your that same one who killed me the first time and got me stuck in this hell in the first place!"

"FIRST time? I didn't kill you at all. And what just happened anyways?" Twilight practically shrieked.

"The first time you killed me was when we met, though it wasn't outright. You broke my ribs, and they punctured my lungs. I bled out while I was unconscious from internal bleeding."

"But you're still here! Not dead!"

"Yeah, I'm an Ajin. I can't stay dead. It's more of a curse than a blessing. Trust me."

"I thought you were a human though! If I'd known you weren't a human, then this wouldn't have happened!"

Ed scowled, "Don't ever say I'm not a human. I am. Just a... subspecies of human. A rare one at that."

"I can see why they sent you as a scout to our planet then." Rainbow said, trying to sound intimidating and failing at it.

"Oh for fucks sake! How many times do I have to say this? There is no invasion! My people can barely fly a few men to the moon, much less an army to some unknown place in the galaxy! Hell, I barely even know where I am."

I turned to Applejack, who had recovered, "Applejack, is he being honest?"

"He is. Heck, there wasn't a lie in all he's been saying."

Ed turned to look at Applejack with surprise, "Really? You believe me?"

She nodded, "Course, I'm the Element of honesty. I can see the difference between the truth and a lie like you can tell if there were clouds in the sky. Except with Discord. He's so chaotic that I just can't tell."

Ed just shook his head, "I didn't understand most of that, I just wish you'd been here earlier. Then I wouldn't've had to go through all this shit. Uh, would you mind cutting me down now? This ain't exactly comfortable." Twilight quickly released him, renting the cuffs attached to his wrists in half. He muttered a "thank you" while he rubbed them.

Rarity, swallowing her bile, asked, "Speaking of which, what happened to you? You look absolutely terrible!"

"I was tortured. It started right after I woke up. Most of these scars are from what they've been doing to me. A good number of them are from when I was a soldier. I got real torn up from all that." He pointed to some some of the smallest scars, little holes that looked like they'd scared over badly, "Got these from being shot by an AK. Bullets got stuck inside me, so doctors had to dig them out." He pointed to a nasty scar that looked like a monsterous tumor, "Got this from a grenade. Don't know how I survived that. I got more, but I don't want to make you sick. Or at least sicker. So, when can I leave?"

Twilight cleared her throat, "Well, first we need to deliver this revelation to the Princesses, but I think we can bring you with us for that. I think they need to see this all for themselves."

"Good, let's get out of here."