Shadow of a Sword

by MayhemsLement

Chapters

Yep Thats It
Prologue
Harmony Displaced
Silent Cauldron
Wha...
Now What
What in a name
Pinkies frown
School Daze
Extropy
Anti-hero
Echoes
Brothers

Yep Thats It

Author's Note

well the fic is not dead. Hopefully the next chapter will come out a bit faster then this one.

Yep Thats It

Ugh

This headache is worse than the time I downed a whole keg of moonshine…

G-478972 opened his eyes to find that he could actually see with his eyes now. Well, that was a good start. First step preform recon. The first thing G-478972 did was look for the giant squirrels that ruled this world. There were no squirrels, that he could see, only what he could believe to be one of their pet horses. It had the weirdest color palette he had ever come across being a purplish-pink fur with a mane and tail of dark purple with a pair of light blue strips. It was weirdest thing G-478972 had ever seen. How could anything evolve with such poor camouflage?

It must be a product of selective breeding. Probably a show animal…

These casts are wrapped far too tight I can’t feel my fingers, thought G-478972 as he looked at his “arms” But they are rather solid and heavy they would make good clubs… Lets see, if this world follows normal biological function then hitting something at the nap of the neck should knock it out.

G-478972 moved with as much speed as his bandaged body would allow bringing down both casts right where the skull meets that long neck. The strange creature went down way too easily.

Yep definitely a show animal, the family pet would put up more of a fight.

What the hell is this bed made of, I feel like I’m going to sink in and be lost forever. How could anything sleep on something so soft? Makes me miss my metal bunk, and I’ve been sleeping on the ground for the last few years. These were G-478972’s thoughts as it climbed off the mattress. Finally off the bed, G-478972 found that every inch of his body was covered in medical gauze. “What was I wrap by a vet?”

This is ridiculous. There’s so much that I can barely move, and my fingers and toes are numb from a lack of blood flow. Trying to stand on two legs did not go as well as could have been hoped for by G-478972, and after ten minutes of trying to stand, the pet began to stir.

Ok, time to abandon all dignity. Time to do as his Grandpa would say and Sonic Roll out of here. G-478972 was not quite sure where that saying came from. His Grandpa had been weird. For heaven’s sake, he had something called the Naruto run, which had never made sense.

Rolling down the hall knocked pretty much everything over as he slammed into crystal vase then painting of melting horse continue on down the long all ruining millions bits in art. I guess either the squirrels build with crystal or this just an important building… G-478972 did not see another living creature as he rolled around that gigantic cold crystalline nightmare. He couldn’t help but wonder who needs all this sovereign darn space. Even the one percent didn’t need this many supply closets. He had seen enough janitorial closets to clean the Imperial capital with enough left over to clean to sorry mouth of Gazer himself.

Finally he came across a giant set of double doors that just screamed “Main Entrance”. Pounding on the doors with his head succeeded, eventually, in opening them.

At this point, Shining Armor, Prince of Equestria “and all that junk” as he himself would say whenever he got a few ciders in him, decided it was far beyond the time to get some air. And so, he stood outside the castle, dreading the current situation.

Twily, her friends and the Princesses, including his wife, for once, were talking themselves in circles. None of them were willing to do anything rash to a child that was clearly in need of a great deal of help. Yet, he had shown enough open hostility that anyone with sense would say that he needed to keep it under guard. Luna just wanted to lock him in the dungeons. Princess Celestia wanted to leave him in bed and wait till he woke up to get a better idea of what was going on. Twily wanted to hook him up to all of her machines so that she could find out what allowed him to create such a cloud of negative energy. Cadence, always the defender of the children, made it very clear that if any of them harmed a single hair on his head before they confirm that he is a danger she would let all of them have it.

All in all, the truth of the matter was they did not have a darn clue what to do because the colt hadn’t even said a single word yet. From what they could tell, he showed up without even the ability to see, confused and in pain. Of course he lashed out. That does make him hostile, it was more important to see if it was just his fear.

It was at that moment a cacophony began pouring out of the castle. It was the sound of thunks, crashes, and glass breaking that made it sound like Rainbow had been tasting the cider early this year, or had snuck some of Granny Smith’s Special Reserves. Not that he could have blamed her if she had. It was bad. At this point Shining’s forward-most thought was if she would be willing to share.

All thoughts of getting smashed left his mind with sound of loud couple of thunks against the great crystal door as is opened. They need to get an auto door spell for that thing... What followed was the clear sound of someone falling down the stairs behind him.

Shining turned to see that the very colt he had been musing on was falling end over end down the stairs. He ran to the staircase to see if the colt was hurt.

G-478972 was honestly not expecting to find that the door was unlocked. Who leaves a door to such a large structure with this much formerly nice pottery completely unprotected?

((Well, probably someone that being stolen from probably wouldn’t even be noticed. I took U’le’tek shit all the time and they never noticed...))

G-478972 falling down the stairs only hurt his pride. At the bottom, he looked up to find another one the squirrels’ pets. This time wearing Armored plate of all things. It’s face was more square and angular then the other one so it was probably a male. As it moved right over him, he could see it’s underside. Yeah, it was definitely male.

((Mmm~ Definitely male~))

G-478972 still could not get over the colors. Even though this horse was far more likely to have guard dog status, given the armor, it’s white coat with blue mane and tail would stand out in the dark like hiding behind a sheet of glass. And polished armor? Guess they don’t mind losing a few hundred of them a year or whatever.

Trying to stand was still not working. G-478972 was getting tired of not being able to walk. Every time he tried to get on his own two legs he would fall forward. The problem was his back. It just would not support his weight.

That was when something happened that would change G-478972’s entire view of everything that had happened since he had awoken just a few minutes ago.

The horse spoke.

Shining Armor was relieved to see that the strange colt had not been hurt tumbling down all those stairs. Twily really should see about putting up a guard rail. The Colt could have fallen off the sides! While we’re on the topic, Why is the door all the way up on the side of the castle? Why have basement rooms inside the tree trunk with no windows and the only door high up on the side of the tree? Why even make it tree shaped without giving it any leaves?! Piss poor design all around.

It was at this moment that Shining Armor realized the colt was staring at his most prized possession. Shining was not shy, Ponies in general tended to flaunt what humans would consider a private matter. Yet, having a colt known for summoning lots of sharp objects sitting that close, staring that intently at his “Royal Jewels”, made Shining worried for Flurry’s chances for future siblings. So Shining did what any none brain-dead stallion would do. He backed up and spoke up,

“Hey, don’t do anything we’ll both regret…”

This is wrong!

Why is the pet talking?

And why is it so eloquent?!

It was not that pets couldn’t talk, he’d been one after all, it was just weird that they could.

That means the one I knocked out is going hold a grudge. Just what I need, more people that hate my guts. Let’s just hope she’s not the type to drag everyone into their revenge plots… Ok, now, what going on? He runs over here like his tail is on fire and now he’s backing away like he’s worried I’m going to cut his junk off.

((Maybe because that’s something you would totally do?))

Wait. The horse has a horn, and it was glowing purple.

I don’t know what that is, but my guts telling me that letting a guard dog get the drop on me is a bad idea. Time to fall back on old rules, If it seems dangerous, beat it till it stops.

G-478972 summoned blades to attach to each of his limbs using space to Countereach around the cast. To get the blades off of him you would have to rip off his arms.

If this guard dog wants me to teach him how to beg, it will be my pleasure.

Shining Armor regretted his last choice of action. It seemed the colt took lighting his horn as a threat.

For someone not in complete control of his body he moves rather well standing on those swords... Ohh horseapples!

Duck!

I wonder were my husband got to? He does know as Captain of the Guard he can’t get out these meetings, right? I love him with all my heart, but sometimes he’s such a colt. Now, lets find out why all pottery is smashed? The others were still too focused on the pointless topic of where to house this colt to notice all the noise.

“Everypon—"

“I know it sounds cruel Twilight, but I have my reasons for believing the dungeons would be safer for him and everyone else!” yelled Luna,

“I know he hurt somepony,” shouted Fluttershy at a volume that was almost an outside speaking voice, “but he was hurt in a way I can’t understand. When I found him he didn’t even look like a pony!”

Twilight locked onto that fact. “Fluttershy this may be important, what did he look like?” she asked,

“He looked… he looked…” Fluttershy seemed to flinch trying to remember this event. “The only way I can think to describe it is that he reminded me of Zecora’s cauldron…” Everypony in the room looked very confused at this description. “When I entered the storm I felt so much pain. A lifetime of it. When I finally broke through it, it was a world of silence where I was the loudest thing there. It was as if the that world itself rejected all noise. He was laying on the ground, but he was more like soup than then a pony. There was a claw, then a hoof, then a paw of some kind… It was scary, and it looked so painful… Then there was this rainbow light that seemed to attack him! When it did that, the storm got even larger. I think that he lost control in those moments, and that’s why the storm was getting bigger. I don’t think he meant to do any of it.”

Celestia sat still, looking right at her, “That’s important information, Fluttershy. That would indicate that the storms growth was a side effect, and might be a result of Equestria’s involvement. That grants him some leeway in the damage. If he was only just trying to defend himsel-“

Fluttershy injected, “Celestia, he needs all the love that we can give! He can’t even stand to feel his own emotions, he’s so banged up inside. He needed more than anything to cry, but he could not even conceive of it until I helped him do it, like he didn’t even consider it as an option! I think he’s forgotten that he’s a living being.”

Cadence had slipped back inside after not finding anything in the halls. Decide that now was good to interrupt. She reached over and put a hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Well Fluttershy, while I can’t think of a place in all of Equestria where he could get more love and care than amongst the citizens of Ponyville, maybe we should ask him I think the patient is awake. If the noise of all the breaking pottery in the hallway was any sign.”

Twilight was the first to respond. “That’s. Not. Possible. He should barely be able to move, and Starlight would have called if he had woken up.” With that Twilight Sparkle teleported from the room. An instant later, she returned carrying an unconscious Starlight across her back. “You have got to be kidding me, he knocked her out! How is he even moving around right now?! We need to find him before he makes his injuries worse!”

Oh dear oh dear oh dear! How is he moving? Did he wake up because the bed was uncomfortable? I knew I should have fluffed the pillows! If we don’t stop them Shining Armor might hurt him! Oh wait, I think Shining Armor might be in trouble…

Hmm… Part of me thinks that I should stop this, but the is colt smiling and Shiny’s laughing. I know Shiny won’t hurt him too bad and they seem to be having fun at this point… Ah, colts will be colts. Maybe I should go get them some tea to help calm them down.

What in the world is Shiny thinking?!?! That colt was on death’s door! He can’t be running around! Wait, where did he get those swords?! Does he have some sort of conjuring spell for them? I know the Royal Guard have a spell like that… How is he standing on the handles though? The balance required must be crazy. I’m going to have to document all of this, then figure out how to ask all of these questions.

OOOOOHHHHH! He’s so PRETTY! It looks like he’s dancing with those swords he’s using! Oh oh oh! That’s IT!!! I’ll call him Blade Dancer!

G-478972 had decided that he liked this horse. He did not just look like it could fight he was actually really good at it. He moved and dodged his blades like he was fluid, then pushing back with barriers. The joy of finding someone that could keep up that was not an Esper was thrilling. The best part? He was clearly holding back. He had not done a single offensive attack yet. If G-478972 dared use his full power it would be over in an instant, but hey, he always believed in giving a sporting chance.

Eventually, his hearts were ready to come out of his chest and the horse looked about to call it quits. So, it was time to end the fun.

Shattering his blades and allowing himself to fall on his stomach, limbs splayed, G-478972 would have to tell the giant squirrel rulers that they had very well-trained warriors.

Emitting a trill that sounded more like a bird anything else, he was happier was normally possible to be able to fight in a non-life-or-death situation. It was then that he saw something that was stranger than the fairy tale unicorn. It was a group of the horses at the foot of the stairs.

G-478972 was smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for. When he saw the quartet of horses with both the wings of a bloody Pegasus and Unicorn horns that where clearly wearing tiaras, he realized that the giant squirrels must not rule this place after all. Then… where were they?

A butter yellow Pegasus rushed over to him. He immediately followed his instincts and summoned a blade between them and hissed like his life depended on it. For all he knew, it might.

The Pegasus looked hurt seeing the angry in him Tears filled her eyes, she trotted back to the group, followed by “the fun one”. He’d miss the fun one.

He heard them all talking but had no idea what was being said.

Fluttershy was very hurt. After the storm, why was he acting so hostile? They had shared a moment.

Twilight placed a hoof on her shoulder, offering comfort. “It’s alright. After everything that happened since his arrival in Equestria, it’s likely that he is unable to remember anything clearly. He probably doesn’t even know who you are.” This actually helped Fluttershy, knowing he did not know her.

“Thanks, Twilight,” Fluttershy responded, drying her eyes “it’s nice to know that it’s most likely nothing I did.”

Celestia felt the need to speak. “Captain Shining Armor, I need a report on just how strong you believe this colt is, and what you believe needs to be done.”

Shining Armor saluted as he rattled off his report. His service giving him more than enough experience to make one up on the fly. “Well, Princess, he clearly has training. So far, he seems to react to anything that could even be a minuscule threat. I can only imagine that he’s scared out of his mind. Yet… I don’t think he wanted to hurt me”

Twilight interjected “Shiny, I know that you have the whole ‘Soldier thing’ going for you, but how can you know that?! It just threated Fluttershy, and it clearly attacked you! Everything I’ve seen suggest a colt that has a great deal of emotional volatility and- “

“Twilight!” Shining yelled, cutting her off. This scared Fluttershy, causing her to shuffle a bit closer to Rainbow Dash.

“Military matters fall to me, Twilight.” His tone was stern, before quickly changing back to a more professional tone to continue his report. “As I was saying, Princess Celestia, I don’t think he is hostile.

“At no point during the fight did I feel either of us going out of our way to kill each other. And if what I had seen with him earlier gives any clarity to his level of skill, he could have easily killed Fluttershy. I think she approached him far too quickly and without showing she had positive intent. So, he did what any soldier would do prevent an issue by keeping her away.

“If you have any more questions, I suggest you come look for yourself. If you approach with no clear hostile intent and avoid getting close enough to touch, I think he will let you.”

As they moved towards the young colt, Fluttershy hoped that he would be more willing to allow her to go over his injures. After all that rouge housing, his wounds could get infected. The colt looked nervous to see them all come towards him at once. Yet, he did not try to get away. It seemed he was ready to face any threat in that moment, but there did not seem to be any anger or preparation to attack so that had to be a good sign

His ears kept twitching. He was clearly listening to them all talk, but the look in his eyes lacked any understanding. He did not move, yet looked right at the mouth of each person as the spoke. The strangeness of it quickly silenced all conversation.

This seemed to bother the colt, causing him to getting antsy. He looked at Twilight in the eye and spoke one word, “Talk!”

Twilight looked towards Celestia, surprised. “Um… ok? What to talk about? Well, um… if laying a spell matrix, it grows more powerful the number of layers you place out from the center more commonly called layered dimensional equations or LDE. Though it can also self-destruct if you place a spell with inverse type rune equation over each other regardless of the number of spells involved the spell always collapses and the number of layers will result in larger feedback.

Ah. It seemed like he was having a fit now. He was banging his head on the ground, rubbing it into the dirt. He hissed like a cat with it’s tail stepped on, before beginning letting off in a language that sounded more like musical notes than actual words. After taking a moment to refocus, he looked around and focused on Applejack. “Talk!” he yelled again!

“Well, seems someone needs a new crop of manners! But ah suppose given the circumstances it would be rather odd if ya had any to begin with. But, if ah’m going to talk then ah’d like ya to explain a few things back.” Applejack responded,

The colt’s face made it clear that he either did not understand or did not like what he was hearing. He began to beat his head on the ground again and screaming as Applejack spoke.

He looked around angrily. It was Shining that spoke next. “Wait, I think I know what’s going on! Twilight, if he were running something akin to a translation spell, it would need a lot of simple common words in order to make it work, right?”

Twilight looked at Shining Armor. “Yes, it would. Most translation spells use formula to find similarities between two languages. But if those sounds he was making before were his language then there’s nothing to use as a basis for comparing the two!”

“Yet he has somehow learned the word talk during his time here, Twilight.” He closed his eyes and seemed to focus. “Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple.” He spoke each time in and even, measured, tone.

Applejack was looking on. “Ah like apples more then anything, but ah don’t think this is the time…”

The colt though was looking rather intently at Shining Armor, unlike before he did not seem mind what he was doing.

Shining smiled “I knew it.” He said out loud, much to everyone’s surprise. He brought out an apple from Applejack’s saddle bags. The colt smirked then broadly pointed a hoof at it and declared “Apple!” As if he knew what it was his whole life.

“I knew it! He’s using some sort of spell with a mind reading component! That’s why he didn’t like you girls! Twilight was talking about things way too advanced for someone his age to understand, and Applejack’s way of talking uses a lot of metaphor which has a lot of subtext in it’s structure. Twilight bring me your spare dictionary, I know you have one to check if your main dictionary is accurate.”

At this, Twilight blushed, before bringing out her third dictionary. Shining Armor knew her a little too well sometimes… Levitating the book over, Twilight noticed the colt was looking from her horn to the book as if trying to understand it. Shining opened to the first page and said the word aloud a few times. The colt snapped his attention back the stallion and seemed to try and make himself comfortable.

Prologue

Prologue:

Darkness that all I he could see. The Creature in front of him was made of it. Eyes more than could be counted that did not seem shine amongst the dark. He only had one left, one memory. His best memory. He had a choice to make use it to stop It or die with at least one thing worth living for.

He decided. A bright light appeared in his hands. A blade made love, happiness and what life was worth living for. Running the blade through the darkness, giving him a grip of something that had no form. It rage washed over him, bathing him in with anger, but it knew he was empty; this would hold It for a little while, then it would escape. Looking to his left he saw the Void. There was no way to describe in just words. Darker then the darkest black, yet with more colors then even the brightest rainbow. Grabbing the blade in hand as tight as he could, he jumped take them both to a place no life belongs.

The Void was cold as liquid nitrogen and hot as lava; it was all pains and it was nothing. The Void tore at them trying to erase them, remove them from this place. It, knowing the end was nie pulled on the young man’s life force and launched them forward. They slammed into something. It was like a sheet of rubber and jelly together. It drilled it way into this substance trying escape the void. Hate burned in his eyes, It could not be allowed to getting away. He follows, digging after It into this strange thing.

Just when he thought he was gone in the Void he was falling; there was light and he slammed into the ground with enough force to take his breath away. He looked up into a sun. The color where brighter and there was a strange energy about.

Memories started running through his head , all the memories that he had. His mind was looking for something to hold on to. Yet all there was, was pain. Darkness, Darkness like the very thing that he tried destroy. A storm like no other burst from his skin with a howl of rage….

In a place far from where he entered, four princesses of this land were startled from their slumber. Something had happened that sent reverberations into the core of Equis, unlike anything before. One had more than just a simple feeling for she had had a most curious dream. Such dreams were not a rare occurrence for her, they often helped her in a myriad of ways. This one though, she did not understand what the danger it warned her of even was or how she was supposed to respond to it. A letter came into being above her in a burst of green fire, a message from one of the others. Another of the princesses burst into the room, her navy form hard to see in the dark room.

“Sister, what must we do? This thing has managed to send us bodily out of the dreamscape.” The princess of the night trusted her sister and had found that she always knew what to do, so the next words to leave her sister’s lips shook her to her core.

“I do not know.”

Author's Note

Hello folks. Please don't tear me apart. First time publishing anything I have written. In future chapters I going to be using the authors note to answer any questions about the home universe of the Espers. It was originally a two book story that I was never able to bring myself to publish. So there a lot to it. If it's not spoilers then I can answer questions on it.

Harmony Displaced

Fear was that all that passed through her. The horn on her head ached and her insides were wound as tight as a spring about to snap. As the real world around her finally came into focus as the fog of sleep lifted, a new feeling joined the fray. A sense of dread as deep and profound as the fear of those final moments when Tirek held her friends. Something was nearby, and it hurt.

Climbing slowing out of her bed and putting on her slippers, so as to not make a great deal of noise. Sounds tended to travel in the castle, and she did not want to wake Spike. As she left the bedroom and walked out into the night air of her balcony, she could begin to feel the pain transform into something darker. She could not place the emotion, yet he made her clinched insides freeze as if the ice winds of the Windgo had gone through her.

That is when the sun began to rise. As the sun came up something caught her attention in the periphery of her vision, a black dot between Sweet Apple Acres and the rock quarry. As she focused her eyes on it every feeling grew until she was forced to look away. This was bad, she needed help, she needed her friends! But they no long carried the Elements of Harmony. She needed to bring Celestia and Luna in on this. Her heart told her that she would not be able to handle this alone.

“Spike wake up I need you to send a letter for me!”

Spike rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Twilight had woken him up early to send letters before, it rarely happened these days, but it still felt familiar. Reaching up to his night stand to grab a quill and paper he kept handy in case he needed to take note of a thought. Spike looked up to see that Twilight had already written the letter and that the words looked rushed with none of twilight normal precise writing. Looking more like a school filly’s scrawling. All of the drowsiness that normally came with Spike’s wake up process banished itself in a strange feeling fear.

“Twilight what wrong? Whatever it is, I’m sure we can fix it.”

Twilight looked away from him. He knew in that moment she was going to lie to try and avoid telling him something that she believed would scare him.

“It nothing Spike. Celestia raised to sun early this morning I’m sending a letter to find out if its something I need to bring the girls to Canterlot for.” The smile that she gave him felt false. “You can send it and just go back to bed.”

He hated how she still treated him this way. He followed the dragon migration, won the dragon heart staff, and even was the hero of the crystal empire. She needed to stop treating him like a little kid that couldn’t handle the truth. He set the letter aflame and watched it disappear into the ash. He made to act like he was going to curl up and go back to sleep, watching Twilight quickly leave his room.

Spike climbed out of his bed and made to follow, knowing whatever could make Twilight this upset was important enough to miss his sleep. He looked at the already risen sun and then looked to hi his clock. It read 4 am.

He looked up at the sound of beating wings and saw Twilight flying off in the direction of Rainbow's cloud house. Then something wrong caught his eyes. It looked like a storm made of the darkness from the deepest reaches of Tartarus. It felt like the feeling that stirred in him when he had woken up saw Twilight.

“If Twilight is going to Rainbow’s I’ll go to Sugar cube Corner and Carousel Boutique. It’s pretty clear where they’re going to have to meet up.”

Rainbow was actual a morning pony. She got up early, long before the sun rose in the warmer months to do her less fun exercises such as wing lifts and endurance training. Those where not fun for her fans to watch. It allowed her to get them done in the cool air of the pre-sunrise. When the sun rose earlier than in the even the earliest spring mornings. She was up even earlier then normally because she had felt something wrong was going to happen today. She saw something dark in the corner of her eye. over the nearby edge of Sweet Apple Acres, it felt even worse than moment before a crash she knew she might not walk away from so easily.

She lost herself in a desperate attempt to not give into the fear, she was barely able to keep herself in the air. Rainbow did not give in she held her gaze and refused to allow it to bully her. She didn’t know how long she was staring at it, when suddenly someone was shouting in her ear. “Rainbow Dash!” Turning to the source of the sound, Rainbow found herself looking at Twilight. The first thing that she noticed was that Twilight flight form was still poor. She never seemed to be able to sense the world around her. The next was Twilight overall state. That nearly lock Rainbow wings together. She had the look that reminded Rainbow far too much of the time that she enchanted her Smarty Pants doll.

Seeing that she finally had Rainbow attention, “Rainbow I need you to go to Applejack’s house and Fluttershy’s cottage and bring them to the storm, I sure that you can feel it by just look that it bad news.”

Rainbow knew that Twilight probably was going to go on one of long spiels and sped off before she could begin. Twilight did not react the way that she excepted and instead just started flying back towards town.

Fluttershy did not know why she woke up at first. It felt like she had not gotten enough sleep. Yet some instinct told her that going back to bed was a bad idea. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Fluttershy listened. Her short life she had learned that often she got a lot more out of listening then by talking. What she did hear was far worse then anything she could have imagined. Nothing. There was not a single sound of any of her animal friends. She had bobcat resting in the living room, it breathing should have been loud enough to hear it because it snored.

Rushing down her stairs, she found herself in her cottage’s main living area to find that there was not a single animal anywhere. Listening, she finally found Angel Bunny hiding under the couch that Discord sat on during their tea parties. He was curled up, openly revealing fear that he would never have even shown her. He openly jumped into her forehooves upon seeing her.

The sun began to rise in the window bringing light into the living room. To Fluttershy that felt wrong. Looking at the clock that that was barely ticking in the corner in the kitchen and saw that it was far too early, it was only 4 am!
Fluttershy then heard a scared squeak of an animal that she knew very well. It was the first sound Angle her loyal pet had made this whole time. Fear came off him in waves almost visible in a dark halo. Angel Bunny looked at Fluttershy. What most people do not understand is that Fluttershy did not so much talk to her animal friends she actual was able to just understanding the emotions and hearts of her friends. Angel Bunny related to her that he could feel a Predator that scared him in a way that he could not even begin to understand. It was something that could not be matched or questioned. The other animals had fled the moment they had felt it. They knew that it they met this creature it would be beyond them.

Lifting Angel up in a hug. "Its alright Angel, I’m going to go and see the girls. Maybe we can figure out what’s going on and stop things from going so bad.” Setting him down on the couch, she turned to leave. She had a little trouble keeping up the tough act in front of Angel, but she had grown a lot braver from her adventures as the Elements of Harmony and as member of the Friendship council.

As she opened the door and looking into the rising sun, she felt more scared then she looked. Looking back to find some courage in Angel normal obstinate nature. She found that he had crawled back under the couch and was no longer in view.

Applejack was making some morning Coffee before she and her brother got started on chores for the day. It was 4 am, still too early for the sun to rise, but she had to get some of the work done before it did and it started getting hot. Big Mac was sitting across from her to drinking from his own cup. Granny was outside trying to work the kinks out of her body before the day started. Applebloom was still asleep. It was important for the filly to get as much rest as possible at this stage in her life so that she could grow up into a fine mare.

Setting the cup down. “Well ah guess it’s time to start getting that hay into the loft.”

They always did the hay early in the day because hay trapped heat inside of the barn and made it warm up to dangerous levels if done in Celestia’s sun. That when she saw the sun rising up in the window.

Running into the sitting room to look at the Grandfather clock, she saw that it was exactly the time that she believed it was. 4 am. The sun did not rise at 4 am. Celestia had followed strict schedule for as long as even Granny could remember. The sun, no matter the time of year did not rise at 4 am. Big Mac had come up next to hear and was staring at the sun. He knew just as well as her this was wrong.

“Big Mac ahm going into town to meet the girls, this aint righ”. Big Mac looked at her. Eeyup. ah’ll take care of chores.” Applejack was shocked. It was rare for Big Mac to speak more than a word. She knew that this had unnerved him enough for him to feel the need to speak.

Applejack leaped off the porch and galloped towards town.

Pinkie pie was setting up the kitchen for the day. Most people did not know that her day started very early. Many of the Sugar Cube Corner desserts needed to sit so that the yeast and other rising agents could get to work. As a result, most of the baked goods they sold on the regular had a basic batter premade in the morning, before the day begins and left in the walk-in freezer. They just added the remaining ingredients needed for any specialties then they just had to bake them. It allowed them to get food out faster to people. That was the real secret to why food seemed to get done so quick. That, and Pinkie. Speaking of…

Her sense flooded her with a full body shake that she almost never experienced. Left ear, Right ear, Tail twitch, Back right leg, Back right leg, left front leg, Head shake, Tail twitch, Shiver. The moment the feelings hit her, her mane and tail fell flat. A sheen of grey began to leach the color from her. Normally, this came only when something began make her really truly super-duper sad. But this was different. This. Was. Different. This was another pony’s feelings. Whoever this pony was, they were confused and lost and in more emotional pain than Pinkie could understand. She was not able to actually feel the emotions herself, but she was well aware of them.

The Cakes would be disappointed in her for not finishing her chores before she left, but it was to important. She HAD to help this pony. Whoever it was, was in trouble. She felt like a dark void was going to swallow this pony whole and then they would be lost forever and ever!

Pinkie dashed out of Sugar Cub Corner. Normally she’d bounce where ever she was supposed to go, but her heart just wasn’t in it. She felt the darkness nearby and headed in that direction.

Rarity was able and ready to stich some eyes closed, though she was not sure who yet. The sun a had just risen and she had been woken up be the sound of knocking pounding on her door. Most people knew that Rarity was not a morning person, like most true artist she had a bad habit of working long into the night. As a result, she preferred to sleep till at least 10 am in order to have had gotten at least some sleep. She’d been up till around 2 am that night working on a series of dresses for a order out of Manehatten.

So, when she had been woke up at the crack of dawn by someone, she had not been happy. Taking off her sleeping mask and wiping off her mud mask had taken just a moment. Yet whoever it was had not relented for a second in the pounding on her door. She knew who ever was, if they kept this up, it was going to annoy the neighbors.

Opening the door, she was surprised to see Spike! This was not at all like the little dragon. He was polite, almost to a fault to her and most other ponies.

“Rarity! Twilight needs you!” Spike shouted at her!

That was not like Spike either. Spike, as a result of the cutest little crush he had always tried to show his braver, more gentlemanly, side to Rarity. She knew the odds of them every being together were slim; He was far too young, having not even gained most of his more dragon like features yet, and most likely would not begin to get most of them until she had returned to the earth.

Yet she knew what it was like to have your love dreams crushed, thanks to a certain prince. And she would not do that to her Spike-wikey! She had hoped that he would move on if she just waited and played into that crush for small favors now and again. It was a soft way of letting him move on in his love life. She had really hoped that that Dragon Lord Ember might become a place for those feelings to go but so far not much of that had accorded. Why was it that almost of her friends love life was as dry as a bone? By Tartarus, Twilight had a possible stallion lined up, but instead had just let him go only exchanging a letter as a apology for running into him.

Finally snapping out of the mental tangent that may have seemed long, but in reality, had only taken a second, she looked at Spike, the true level of his destress began to clearly show. The poor dear’s pupils had shrunk to the size of one her needles and the poor thing was quaking on her steps.

“Alright, do we need to grab any of the other girls are we all going to meet at Twilights castle?”

A voice answers that was neither one of theirs and it surprised them both. “No, I think the others will met us there.”

Turning to look, they saw a washed-out Pinkie. The effect of seeing her like that shocked them both, Spike actually jump right behind Rarity! Pinkie continued, “I think the rest would have seen or noticed something wrong by now” she looked at the sun.

“Whatever do you mean dearie? The day seems a bit quiet, but with the sun just coming up. Not every pony is as early a bird as you girls.” Rarity questioned.

“You really should look at the time Rarity.” Pinkie said, giving Rarity a strange look.

Looking over at her clock on the wall of her shop, she froze upon seeing the time. Though Rarity was not much of a morning pony by nature she was well aware of how the day and night cycle worked, have stayed up through a few of them in her exhaustive years of rising to the top. The clock read a cold 4:20 am. Celestia did not raise the sun that early, ever. If she had, her sister would have lost her temper, and they would have needed the elements to break up that fight.

Levitating a brush out of the shop she stepped out the door and locked it. “Alright darlings, let’s go. If this is bad enough Celestia and Luna agreed to raise the sun early, then it must be worth getting ready on the go.”

Rainbow met with Fluttershy on the way to Applejack and found Applejack already heading up the road towards town. They redirected her towards her towards the storm. They girls all waited for the others to show before they decided to enter. The last group to arrive was Spike, Rarity, and Pinkie.

“Spike what are you doing here?! I thought I told you to go back to bed!” Twilight exclaimed,

“I saw the storm, Twilight. How was a supposed to sleep after seeing that?! I would gotten nightmares and doubt Luna has time to deal with anything like that today.” The drake glared at her in a way Twilight could not remember seeing before.

Applejack butted in, “ Y’all stop that now, ah don’t think Celestia woulda raised the sun early if we had time ta argue. Let’s go look at this storm then we can make a report to the princess. Spike being here will just make it easier, Twi.”

Twilight couldn’t argue with that logic. “Fine, just stay to the back Spike. If you get hurt, I won’t know what to do with myself. Let’s go take a look at this thing, then sooner we know what we’re dealing with the sooner we can stop it.”

Twilight reviewed her friends and notice all of them seemed out of sorts. It was strange they had been through so much, yet this small black storm seemed to have hit them harder than sombra. Pinkie was a hair’s breath from losing all her color; Rainbow seemed to be in a bad way as well, she had not made a single over confident remark since she had arrived; Rarity was not up to usual standards of beauty; Fluttershy look more like the time that she had been taking classes with Iron Will and Applejack and Spike looked like they gearing themselves up for a fight.

They saw something upon entering the clearing in which the storm was seeming to materialize. A form; grey, black, and white. In the air before it, a book made of plastic sheets as white was freshly fallen snow. The cover was the same; no title or info on it, yet it looked like it been through war. Scratched and dented with a corner cut off. The pages looked like they had melted once upon a time. Despite all this, the book was a perfect white that felt unreal. No object outside of snow had a right to be that white.

It bugged Twilight. If the storm’s presence was not filling up her mind with such a feeling of wrongness, she would have gone right over to figure out who would make a book out of plastic. She didn’t know who the colorless figure who was standing with the book. Till Fluttershy ran ahead of the group and placed a hoof on it.

“Discord! Whats wrong?” Discord did not move expect to turn the page of the book. He was as stiff as a board and his eyes scanned the page where pinpricks. Twilight turned back to the storm. Discord was hear he only ever showed up when there was trouble. She turned to Spike to have take a letter to the princess, telling them they had found the storm that she believed was the source of the feelings she had wrote to them about earlier. She found that Spike was already burning a letter.

“I sent a letter telling Celestia we’re here with the storm and that were going to try to do something about it.” This close to the storm he had to yell to be heard, as the winds whipping around made it harder to hear. Yet it was also strangely quiet for a storm. The winds sounded more like a blustery day then those of the clear tornado that seemed to be in the middle of the clearing. What was even more unnerving was that it was not shaped like any storm had a right to be. Instead of beginning shaped like a funnel, it was a perfect dome, a half sphere. Though, she would not have been surprised to find that it went underground as well.

Just then, behind her, she heard the distinctive popping of a teleport spell. Standing behind her were the other three other princess and prince of equestia. Celestia spoke not in greeting but in a clear straight to business way that was rarely seen from her.

“Shining Armor, I want a barrier around the storm. Try to keep it contained, we do not want it expanding towards Ponyville. Cadance I want to fly up and scout around, make sure this force has not broken out anywhere else nearby. Luna and I will use the spell with the element bearers to disperse this storm and get rid of whatever evil is the source of it.
As Candance and Shining went to do as Celestia bid, she and Luna walked over to Twilight. “Twilight Sparkle, it nice to see you again. Thank you for your letter, it would take us a great deal of time to find the source of this darkness if you not found it in Ponyville first. The rest of the us felt it arrival in Equestia the moment it arrived, but where not able to locate it. Without your quick action we don’t know how large this storm may have gotten and how powerful the evil within may have grown.

“Twilight, I have a spell Luna and myself have been working on ever since the events with Tirek. It will allow to draw fourth the power of the elements again for just a moment in the Rainbow forms you used. It will damage your connection to the elements slightly, but if this works we should be able to remove this evil without too much heartache.”
Celestia finished by describing the spell formulae and Twilight was amazed at the level power and complexity involved. “If Luna and I are right that should allow you to draw and your connection to the element even without them being present. I only wish it had not taken Tirek for us to get the last bits of information we needed in order to complete this spell."

Twilight could not help but feel like all of this was far far too fast. They still did not understand anything about this storm, and they were just going to blast it with the power of the Harmony. Then she heard something that changed her mind in a single moment.

“Ahhh!” Looking behind her the storm and grown by 50% in a single large surge and in doing so, had shattered the shield that Shiny Armour had placed around it. He was laying on the ground in shock from the magical rebound of having his shield broken. Running over to Shiny Armor she knelt by his side.

“Shiny! What happened, how was it able to break your shield?”

"Twily, it didn’t break it, in unraveled the moment my shield came in contact with the storm. I don’t think I am going to be able to contain it. I don’t think magic can even touch it.” He was gasping for breath every few words.

"That proves that we need the Elements of Harmony.” Celestia said as she walked over. “My magic unraveled the moment it touched it as well. I don’t think anything but the Elements with their power over reality that can affect this. Twilight, get the girls in formation. I will add my magic with Luna’s so that it will last longer against this force. We must act quickly Twilight, we may not have much time.”

Luna and Celestia had created a simmering shield that covered the storm, the barrier constantly flickering in and out as they tried to make a barrier that did not unravel. Twilight memorized the spell and gathered the girls. Discord still seemed to be returned to stone. Candance was with Shinnying trying to understand how his magic was completely exhausted.

“Alright girls, I think we’re ready.” Twilight looked around to discover that her friends did not seem so sure. Fluttershy, having become braver then when she had first met, spoke up.

“Twilight, I know Celestia wants us to use the magic of the elements on it, do we even know what it is? When we used this power before we at least knew what we were using it against.

Twilight’s resolve showed on her face “If Celestia did not know that this needed to be banished she would not have asked us to do this. She always knows what’s best.” She stared up at the storm. “Plus if this thing unwinds all equestrian magic it will destroy everything.” Channeling the magic through her horn she then connected it to her friends. The spell reached out like invisible strands to the Tree of Harmony deep in the Everfree. The flood gates opened. The power of the elements filled them and began to roar forth from them the rainbow power bloomed like a morning rose. Focusing on the storm they unleashed the energy. The energy seemed to pass through the storm without a fight. Twilight was surprised she expected it to disperse the storm not pass through it.

Pain, pain it felt as if the my mind and body had been torn to ribbons. I hoped that I would be able to die and ended it. But I can’t allow he is alive that monster is alive I must kill It, I must hold together. Feeling my very flesh squirm I dragged my flesh back into myself. I could feel my powers leaking from my body. Time seemed to become fluid I could not tell how long I was there, but my energy seem to be leaking from me at near constant rate. I could feel something working against the power. It must be some energy in this universe.

That when I felt it a power great enough to crush even me. It was a glow of light the colors of a rainbow. Then the power turned on me. The energy ripped through my world made of energy. But I could feel the energy it was powerful but wielded by a child that never smelled blood. Grabbing the space around me I twisted it until I had a tunnel a wormhole as it know in the in earths old tongue. I allowed the energy to enter the tunnel and poured everything I could bring to bear into the blast and returned the attack.

Twilight was surprised to see that the storm just seemed to allow the power of the Elements to enter it without a fight. A few seconds pass and the power of the Rainbow did not seem to be able to dissipate they were still in those forms. In the past when they banished things using the power it would return everything of normal. Then She heard a scream. It was not the scream that any mortal could have made. It sounded more like the world itself seemed to be screaming. Then it came out of the storm it was the rainbow. Yet the colors where darker and the whole thing was covered in darkness that was deeper then even the midnight on a moonless night. It was a terrifying, it was the first time that she had been on the receiving end of the of the Elements of Harmony. She hoped that after this that Celestia would take care of her statue for the thousand years? She hoped Celestia would be able to undo the damage? But what about the darkness did that mean that for the first time the Elements could kill?

As the blacked rainbow drew closer, I could hear Celestia scream for us to get out of there. There was no time for that. Twilight closed her eyes ready for a thousand years of pain. Yet the blast hit and seem to travel through them. It passed into the tree of harmony trying to protect the it’s bearers. Then the elements of Harmony shattered, and Harmony itself was absent.

Author's Note

Well no answers in this author's note because chapter one and the prologue where a package set.

Silent Cauldron

Twilight screamed as she felt the Elements of Harmony shatter. It was something in all her life she would never have expected. She could not move her body, everything hurt. Turning her head was like the grinding of stone. The others were all unconscious, but coming around. She heard a voice roaring over the storm.

“Fluttershy!” It was Discord, but she had never seen that look in his eyes before. He was glaring at Celestia with a level of anger and hate she had never imagined coming form him. He always seemed to be the type that never took anything seriously. Yet, there was no humor in his eyes, he was as serious as the grave, something that seemed more wrong from him then even the dark rainbow.

“Celestia, you are a damn whorse! You had the girls fire the Elements with no idea what they were up against! It’s not like you ever even actually taught them how to use the damnable things! Though, I suppose I should not be surprised given you could barely use them yourself.” Each word carried enough venom that it could fell a dragon.

Cadence and Shinny Armor picked up Twilight and were looking in her eyes now. Twilight did not know where they had come from.

“Twilly, are you alright? Can you hear me?” Shining asked his sister.

Twilight tried to respond but talking felt like her throat was full of gravel. “ I-I’m fine, but… the Elements…. they’re gone.”

Celestia who had taken to ignoring Discord heard those words and turned to Twilight, fear in her eyes. “Discord, if you cannot say something useful then you are to be quiet. Twilight, are you telling me that that attack launched by the storm destroyed the Elements of Harmony?”

To Twilight, this did not sound like Celestia. Her language seemed panicked and with none of her usual grace. Though she and Luna were pouring their strength into the barrier blocking the storm, Celestia’s eyes were glowing and her mane seemed to be smoking.

Discord interrupted before Twilight could responded. “Do you not even recognize the attack? The storm did not attack them, it sent the attack back at them with its own energy mixed in. And it was able to do that because the girls just launch their power without a proper focus at a target that Element themselves did not want to attack!” He pointed at the storm. “You think just because it’s dark and a bit destructive that it’s evil. Well, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, missy, but you called it wrong. We are looking at another world’s broken antihero. He was the savior of another world! The Elements would! The Elements would not focus their power on someone they felt they should have been protecting.

He glared at Celestia even as she glared back at him, her hooves sliding back in the dirt as the storm expanded again. She was drawing more and more power, yet it felt as if the storm was just eating it up. Unsure of what to do, she just glared.

“If that was true then why would they be destroying our home?! Rainbow Dash yelled, as the other girls rose to their hooves around her.

“Fair point” Twilight thought. “Discord, what reason does a hero have to destroy Equestria? Why not just come to the Princess and ask for help?”

Discord just looked at Twilight, his anger turning into something closer to disappointment. For some reason, that look on him hurt her heart. Discord laugh at everything, yet today there was no humor in him at all.

“Twilight, you I expect better of. Celly has always been a quick to pass judgement and apology later. You always seemed to be more curious. Did you even try to and figure out what this storm is? Discord reached through the sister’s barrier and touched the storm.

Twilight heard a sizzling of something cooking. Yet, as soon as his claw touched the storm images began playing across the barrier, moving too fast to see anything in them. In that moment, Twilight understood, and a feeling of horror passed through her.

“What you are seeing is the leaking of their pain and suffering. The reason it destroys is because their pain is so pure it’s corrosive to everything, even themselves most likely.”

Fluttershy spoke up, upset by the news “What can we do Discord? How can we help him? If we can fix their pain then the storm will go away, won’t it?”

Discord looked at Fluttershy. “Oohh Fluttershy, you are truly a kind pony. If only these others would listen to you more, they could have avoided so much trouble. But I don’t think this CAN be fixed now. I think we just have to wait for his life force to run out at this point.” He paused, “ Here, listen, his mind is gone I think.” Saying this, Discord pulled out an ear horn with a gramophone like listening end from behind his head and pointed one end towards the storm.

A voice began to sound from the horn, so quite that to all of the ears turned towards it, it was as if it was spoken by a mouse. “I don’t know fear. I don’t know loss…. I don’t know fear. I don’t know loss… I don’t know fear. I don’t know loss.” The voice constantly repeated those phrases as if it all it had in the world.

What caught Fluttershy’s attention was what was missing from the what she was hearing. There no sadness, no pain, it was as if it held everything so close that nothing escape. And she knew it was wrong. Where was the crying? The pleading for it all to stop? The amount of pain that was needed to make such a thing as this storm had to be huge, yet she could hear none of it in that voice.

She looked at the storm and for the first-time, things made since. Twilight was talking to Discord, trying to interrogate him on whether it was possible for him to banish the storm to another dimension. Fluttershy remembered that Rainbow always said the best way to fly into a cyclone was from above. Gravity would give you a boost and it was easier to enter the eye of a storm that way.

Launching herself high into the air, she hoped to keep enough speed to move forward with her plan before the others could get involved, before they could stop her.

She dived fast as a hawk into the storm.

It burned. Fluttershy wanted to scream, but she knew that it would only burn her insides as well. Time stretched one and one as she felt the need to breath as the storm raged on , burning around her.

Then, her world went dark.

When Fluttershy awoke, everything hurt. Her breath sound loud to even her ears. Raising herself to her hooves, she looked past her singed mane to see the storm raging around them. Yes, them. She saw a strange roiling shape ahead of her, hard to make out in the grayscale of this world inside the storm. Her first hoof fall sounded less like a clop and more a echoing boom.

It was in that moment the true silence here hit Fluttershy. Her breath was loud enough to be followed effortlessly, and her heart could be heard by anyone that would have been there. Yet for all the silence, she had to focus her ears to hear it. The whispering. The voice from before. It came from the roiling mass at the center of the clearing.

Those words, the words that sounded so wrong to hear, they came from the mass. She walked with quiet steps, learned from her years working with animals, yet each step seemed far too loud for her own ears. The mass did not react in any way though, it didn’t seem to even notice her. It bothered her with ever shifting form, making her stomach churn.

Sometimes it seemed almost pony like with fur that should be there before it was pulled back into the mass. Other times it had patches of naked skin like some shaved animal, yet that too would be pulled into the mass. It seemed less like flesh and bone, and more a like a boiling cauldron from Zecora’s hut with how fast the old and new seemed to rise and sink. Sometimes there was even a hoof or something akin to a talon come out of the body, only to be pull back in a moment later. Yet, one feature never changed the mouth that spoke without an ounce of pain.

A rainbow sheen gathered around the form in the air and surged inwards and for a moment faster than Fluttershy could glimpse the form solidified. The energy was then repulsed, broken like chains in a fit of rage. Darkness surged out of the mass in the moment to join the storm above them. She was barely able to tell from inside, but the storm grew in that moment.

As the rainbow’s remains touched Fluttershy she felt what it was made from. It was love, hope, and compassion. It was those forces that made up their world, their home, the forces that made Equestria. It was her world trying to help in the only way it knew how.

The mass returned to its shifting state, completely its constant changing.

The rainbow’s was trying to force the issue, but that would not help here. Fluttershy knew what she had to do. She trotted forward and hugged the mass.

“I know you needed to be strong, but it’s ok to let it out sometimes. If you hold it in all it does is hurt.” She spoke quietly into where she hoped the ear would be.

The mass ceased writhing for a moment. “I̸ ̸can̴’̸t . ͟I w͝i͜ļl ͡break i̕f͡ ̷ I ͜f͝ęe͢l.”

Fluttershy whispered softly, “You will break if you don’t. I know it hard to let go, but I will be here.”

With that the mass seem to leak a liquid showing a moment of weakness. Then the rainbow broke through.

Twilight had looked on for twenty minutes now, as Discord glared at the barrier after Fluttershy went in. He was sitting on top of Rainbow Dash, saying that Fluttershy would never forgive him for allowing her to follow.

Suddenly Discord spoke, “The poor guy never stood a chance.”

Then the storm, which had doubled in size despite the Princesses’ best efforts, collapsed. Sitting in the middle of the new clearing the storm had created was Fluttershy and a sobbing Earth Pony colt.

Author's Note

first person to ask a question, about the source story will get it answer.

Wha...

Chapter 3(Wha...)

Twilight was not sure what to make of this. That storm could not have come from Fluttershy, so the source of all of this had to be the colt. Just looking at him, he did not seem all that special. His color was interesting though, like chromed steel. His mane and tail were the color of obsidian, polished smooth. The eyes, what little she could see past the tears, were a mirror-like silver that reflected the colors around them.

“I was trying to kill a foal…” She turned to see her teacher, crying. Bringing a hoof to her mouth, it was clear she was trying to come to grips with what she had been ready to do.

Luna looked more suspicious of what she was seeing.

Discord seemed to be unsure of what to do. He seemed to decide that it was better to leave it to Fluttershy.

Looking to her other friends, they looked lost, like this was so far out of anything they had expected that they just did not have a real reaction. The area of dead and stripped land around Fluttershy and the Colt was as large as Canterlot castle was wide. She could not even begin to imagine what would have happened if things had kept going. With the Elements gone, nothing could have stopped that storm. In the end, it was Fluttershy, and Fluttershy alone, that had saved the day.

My senses were all wrong.

The only thing I knew for sure is that the Void energy was still ripping me apart. I had gathered what was left into a ball to slow the damage, but I needed matter to heal.

My ears were ringing with the sound of light, I could smell something yellow and I was seeing the swirling colors of various sound.

In short, I had no idea what was going on.

My body was even weirder than the pile of flesh I had been moments before, and my sense of internal function was basically shot. I could not even tell if my hearts were currently beating. For a product of evolution, that would mean death, but Espers did not evolve. We can live three minutes without a heartbeat.

I could not tell if it had actually stopped or not though. To summarize, what little I could sense makes no sense. I do know that, for some reason, I was breaking Rule Five. I was crying. Which is total bullshit. That’s when I finally realized that the Yellow was talking.

So, time to panic.

It was almost a minute before the colt stiffened and pushed against Fluttershy, throwing himself back and pushing her away. “Hey!” Rainbow shouted at him.

It was clear almost immediately that the colt was not aware of what was happening. His eyes couldn’t focus on anything. A snarl on his face, he roared out something that sounded like a song. He then collapsed, as if he couldn’t support his own weight.

Fluttershy tried to rush in to help only to be pulled back just in time by Rainbow as sword blades the size of Celestia sprung from the ground and would have sliced her to ribbons.

“How in Tartus did he do that THAT?! He could have killed you!”, Rainbow shouted.

Fluttershy looked at the confused and aggressive look on his face. “Rainbow, I don’t think he knows what’s going on. He’s clearly really confused. I don’t think he’s aware of anything other than that we’re trying to get close.”

Twilight came up behind Fluttershy. “The sword could be formed from metal in the soil one of Shining soldiers does something similar, yet nothing on this scale. But I have to agree with Fluttershy, look at his eyes. See how unfocused they are? His ears don’t even twitch when we talk, so I don’t think he can hear us either. I’m not even sure how he knew that Fluttershy was getting closer. If he can’t see, then he might think anything that gets close is a threat. So, everyone, stay back.”

Twilight took a bit of the blade in her magic and levitated it over to her. The colt showed no reaction to Twilights actions. “Well, that answers one question. However he’s sensing us, it’s not magic. Since he didn’t react to me grabbing this.”

Bringing the metal over to her eyes, she noticed that it had dissolved into nothing, not even dust. Her magical scan made it clear that there had been no matter in the metal at all. Yet, it was not a magic construct either, she had made a great many of those and this had none of the hallmarks. She had no idea what it was.

The colt was on the move now, despite walking like his legs were made of wet noodles. Fluttershy seemed to have understood that she should not get close, but followed the snail paced child at a distance. The rest of the group followed as well. Anytime anyone got too close, a blade would spring up from the soil.

This sucks.

The only one of my senses that worked in a way that I could understand was my ability to detect life force. I was not even able to tell the strength of them either, so it was like being blind, deaf, and dumb.

So far, only one of the lights had tried to get close. I put my swords between us, but it could be on the other side of the planet for all I knew. I pointed myself away from the life forces and tried to crawl forward. All I could smell was green, the color of grass, and I could hear the light filtering in the “tree” leaves in front of me. My limbs were so weak that it felt like they were made of gelatin.

Time seemed strange with my senses all over the place, so I had no idea if this world even has a regular chronomatry. I was moving towards the “trees” that I could hear. The sun seemed to be higher in the sky when I finally got to it. I stuck my tongue out and tasted the concept of an apple tree.

I could not not believe it.

Apple trees.

In this dimension.

I’d hate my luck if I believed in it.

It took the colt five hours to make it to Sweet Apple Acres. The colt seemed to be helpless to move, yet far too stubborn to stop doing so. Twilight kept hoping that he would just PASS OUT so they could help him already.

All the while, Pinkie was handing out snacks that Rainbow had grabbed while returning from a trip to alleviate boredom, and she fetched, cupcakes and other desserts from Sugar Cube Corner for them all; Celestia was drinking green tea and eating a slice of cake; Fluttershy sharing Earl Grey with Discord. It was like they had all forgotten how serious this was. The only one still following the colt with Twilight properly was Luna. Thank the moon…

"It really is a beautiful day now that that icky storm is over! We should go on a picnic! Oh, wait, we need to watch that poor colt..." She paused and tilted her head as she looked to him, "He really is persistent, huh?"

When he finally reached a tree, he stuck his tongue out and tasted it. And after a few minutes of that, he began to slam into the tree. After a couple sad attempts, he searched for apples. Many bruised ones had been lying there for a few days and despite this state were consumed with great gusto.

Applejack turned a very odd color of green at this sight. Discord noted that little Ms. Apple no longer appeared quite ripe.

A squirrel was crawling by, and as it walked in front of the colt he snapped out like a striking cobra. The squirrel vanished leaving only a tail hanging out of his mouth.

Fluttershy was upon him faster than a blink, leaving Rainbow Dash speechless. She was already holding the squirrel as the swords sprang up from the dirt. She barely managed to get out of their way.

“Are you alright little one? Why was he trying to eat you…? Can you do me a favor little one?” The squirrel nodded.

“I need you to warn all the other animals to go back into hiding. I don’t think the danger from the storm is over yet.”

The squirrel ran up a nearby tree. Presumably, to tell the other animals.

After the squirrel was taken from him, the colt stumbled away as if nothing that had happened mattered.

Only to trip.

Over a shovel.

I not sure who took my squirrel… all I know is that it smelled yellow.

When I sensed that small life force get close, I had thought I had finally hit the jackpot. Some food that would solve most of my needs. Then someone pulls it right out of my mouth and gets out of my reach with it.

I’m beginning to wonder what sort of universe I’m in. Was that squirrel sentient or something? Don’t tell I am in some Disney world and its ruled by talking squirrels. The idea of yellow squirrel passed through my mind.

No.

No way.

There is no way I can be in a world of talking animals, I would go insane.

Ok, back on to more important topics. I’d eaten something that was supposedly apples. I needed to find something with iron and protein that the giant squirrels are not going to take from me. Wandering into what I could only assume is the shade of the apple tree because the headache induced sunlight had gotten quieter, I could pay attention to the sounds that I’m seeing and… Realize…. that some of those look like conversations.

Guess the squirrels can talk after all. Hope they don’t sound like they’re on helium. Hard to tell the pitch of the voices when you are seeing the sounds.

That is when I tasted the concept of ground. Best guess? I tripped again. One thing that was different this time was that when I tripped there was the sense of a metal clanging. Wait. Metal? that could work…

Trying to grab it with none functioning hands was not working. So, I wrapped my arms around it and brought it to my mouth, tasting the concepts of digging and metal on my tongue. So, I guess I was going to be eating a shovel. That was going be a new experience, even for me.

Clang.

“What in tarnation is he doing!? Why is he eating my brand new shovel? I payed good bits for that!” Applejack exclaimed,

Pinkie chimed in, “I don’t think that could taste very good... I Should go get him a pie! And biting on metal cant be good for his teeth. I mean, Colgate is always warning me about my teeth. Wonder what she would say about this?”

Celestia stared at them, deadpan. In this moment she couldn’t help but wonder about two things. First Is this colt really responsible for the nightmare this morning that she had to deal with? Second, Please tell me Twilight’s friends have better priorities then a new shovel and whether the colt was going damage his teeth. This is the middle of national emergency, is it too much to ask that someone besides her takes this seriously? Wait, please tell me that we’re not getting desensitized to national emergencies! Because this the third time this year the world has almost ended. Then, Celestia remember not a minute ago she was drinking tea and eating cake. Mental note; Get back in the groove of things and stop being so reliant on Twilight…

A very loud “Clang” followed by a long rending noise sounded out as small piece of the shovel tore off.

Well, I suppose I owe Applejack a new shovel then, add that to the repair budget for Ponyville this month...And… he MUST have good teeth, maybe Pinkie was right after all.

At the sound of ripping metal, Twilight was left staring at him, her mouth agape. He was rolling it around in his mouth and chewing like he was going to actually eat it! At this, her mind went into overdrive. What do the apples, squirrel, and shovel all mean? The only thing he had eaten that makes sense is the apples… after all, sugar is the base of any metabolism. The squirrel and the shovel, what do those mean? What did they have in common? Squirrel, shovel, squirrel, shovel. “Wait, IRON!” Twilight exclaimed. “He must need iron!” But, what could we give him that has both iron and probably protein? “Applejack, does your family grow any beans?” Twilight called out,

“Uhhhhh… No, but Mr. Lima Bean does his small farm not too far from ours.” Applejack replied.

“Well, I need you to go there and buy a bag of kidney beans, as fresh as possible. That should solve his trying to eat any small animals that get close, and maybe if we offer him something he wants, he will let us get close enough to help him. Please hurry too, before he succeeds at eating that metal and ruins his stomach.”

Rainbow popped up, “If you want it quick then I should be the one to go.” She dashed off towards what Twilight hoped was Mr. Lima Bean’s farm.

“Rainbow, you don’t even know him! Ahm more likely to be able to get what we need!” yelled Applejack, chasing after her.

Twilight turned back to the colt to see him still chewing on the metal, finally trying to swallow. In that moment, Twilight used her magic to teleport it right out of his mouth. The colt looked around, growled, and went go back to ripping off another piece of the shovel.

I was pissed.

Someone stole the piece of shovel I was eating, right out of my mouth. So, either these squirrels don’t want to share the shovel, or they have higher level empathy and are messing with my business. Well, they hadn’t taken my shovel from me, so I was still going to eat it. I started chewing on the shovel in order to rip off another piece. That was when one of them began to cautiously approach me.

Should I kill the stupid thing? I thought, No that would be rude. I allowed the dumb squirrel to get close. That was when, somehow the piece of the shovel I was eating was ripped out of my mouth without being touched, AGAIN! That’s it, I’m going to kill …!

A kidney bean. I love kidney beans. They remind me of his Abuela. Somehow, they had shoved a Kidney bean in my mouth without getting close. The squirrel seemed to bend down and leave something behind several feet away. This left me with a few decisions to make.

One, Is it worth getting up? Two, Should I let go of the shovel? Three, Did she leave me more kidney beans? Four, Is it worth risking getting poisoned to eat said kidney beans?

Yes. No. Maybe…. Yes.

I dragged myself over while keeping the shovel in one arm to discover there was in fact a large pile of said beans. I scarfed them down as fast as possible, not knowing if there was poison or a trap.

I felt at least a little better now that the little terror was eating actual food instead of anything he could get his hooves on. AJ and RD had brought an entire sack of beans, and he was scarfing them down like he believed we were going to steal them.

Though, maybe he did. The way he still held the shovel did indicate a lack of trust. If we hadn’t taken the shovel yet, I think it should be obvious that we were not planning on taking it.

Now, we just needed to figure out how get him somewhere where we could give him a proper medical scan. I looked back over at the ragamuffin colt only to see that he had already finished the beans. He was standing straight, stiff as a board. I hoped we did not get those beans just for him to puke them all up from eating too fast.

That was when he passed out. Just… Flopped over with no fanfare. I slowly walked up to find that he was indeed unconscious. So much for all that defensive behavior I thought, as I floated him onto my back.

“Girls he’s actually unconscious now, let’s get him back to my castle so we can have a doctor look at him.”

Author's Note

well here it is. Me and editor final have a system down that works for both of us. So hopefully the next one won't take as long.

Now What

Author's Note

Yep it took almost a year the editor and I had to settle this with swords.

Now What

Shining Armor had been sitting on the hard ground reading from a dictionary for over two hours and had just finished the H section. Everyone else but Twilight had wandered off at this point. Each time one left, the colt had opened his eyes for just a moment to watch them go.

“Twilight!”, Celestia called

Wandering over to them, Twilight finally deciding that the colt had done nothing but pull a Rainbow Dash, and was not about to attack Shining now. Twilight looked over the Princess. Celestia looked tired. She had very rarely seen the Princess like this.

“Twilight, as much as I don’t want to do this, I am afraid that if we remain any longer things may spiral out of control back in Canterlot. I can only guess that my guards are losing their collective minds right now”. Twilight could not place why Luna had a bit of a smirk at those words.

“Don’t worry Princess, I know he’s been a bit of trouble, but he’s nothing I can’t handle.” Twilight smiled up at her mentor. Celestia did not look too sure, but nodded.

With that exchange over, Celestia and Luna flew off back towards Canterlot and Twilight returned to her brother’s side to see if the colt had decided he knew enough to start talking yet. “So, Shiny, has he said anything else? I never seen a colt sit still for this long before.”

“No, nothing. It would not be surprising if he fell sleep. I am reading him a dictionary for-“

“Continue.” the colt suddenly spoke. Both ponies turned and saw that the colt was staring at them with a glare that reminded Shining far too much of the one from when he had push his guards to the breaking point in basic.

“Faster.” the colt spoke again.

Shining sighed and began to read again knowing that he was in for a long afternoon.

Three hours with very short drink breaks later, Shining Armor had actually finished the Dictionary. The colt on several occasions had seemed asleep but had immediately responded if Shining had stopped reading. With the final word, he waited for the colt to stir and demand more. Yet, the Colt’s breathing stayed steady. It seemed to be over and he was finally sleeping peacefully.

“It’s finally over?” Twilight said trotting over from where she had been relaxing with a book. “Every time I thought we could stop he reacted. So, Shining, any more thoughts? You seem to understand him better than anyone else.”

“Twilight, I can’t say for certain, but Discords right. This colt has been through a lot. His gaze was as cold as a Windigo’s ice. Me and Cadance are going to be staying until I have had a chance to talk to this colt properly. I have questions.”

At this point, most of the girls and Cadance had gathered back around from their nearby card game. In which, somehow Pinkie had come out with an unquestionable victory. Rainbow Dash now owed Pinkie a gallon of liquid rainbow.

“Ask.” Spoke a almost cold clinical tone. All of them turned to the colt they had believed deep asleep. “Question, ask.”

Twilight in her infinite curiosity was the first to respond. “You can understand us?” The colt only response was to look to in deep thought then nod. “Shining, I think you were right, he must have some sort of translation spell… Well, first things first, I am Twilight Sparkle. What’s your name little guy?”

The colt seemed to be very deep thought again as if he were unsure how to even respond to the question. Twilight wondered if his name was something that the spell had trouble with or if it involved concepts she could not even comprehend.

“G-478972”

She could understand a strange name, or if it were in another language, but every bit of that had been Equestrian and it sounded like no name like she had ever heard.

Shining spoke up. “That’s a designation. Similar to one that we receive in the guard. Are you a soldier of some kind?”

The colt’s ears almost twitch at those words. He turned to Shining Armor. Again, putting on a face of deep thought. Twilight realized this appeared to be a face that he wore when putting words to the ideas in his head. “Heavy Infantry Combat Equipment: Esper” The last word was clearly not Equestrian yet that was the closest thing that Equestrian mouth could sound out. It reminded her of ancient languages.

“I think there must be an issue with the translations, even without that last word he called himself combat equipment.”

“Esper, combat equipment. Understood.” The colt was glaring at Twilight. Even if he could not communicate, he seemed to understand.

What was wrong with these creatures? Even if they were not familiar with the strange human term for Esper’s, He was using their words, what was so hard to understand? It was like they thought he was some normal human. Of course, he might have an easier time convincing them if his internal system were working. “Esper, Modified… human… Weapon.” Hopefully, the purple one could understand that. It was a clear his matrix understood their words, but not how to place them. He would need a lot more Data to form sentences. Why did they seem to be overly attached to humanizing him?

Twitch.

G-478972 was confused, he had no way to process that sensory information within his preconceptions of his own body. Up until this point he could just brush off anything that did not match with rationalization, but he could not rationalize his ears twitching. He shouldn’t have the muscles to do that…

Twilight had been talking to herself for almost a minute when the colt had used the word “Human”. That had halted her train of thought. Hopefully, he was just from the world on the other side of the mirror then. It was in this moment the colt began to have a fit. He made sounds like a screeching cat or the brakes of a train. He was holding his hooves, still covered in bandages, up to the only unbandaged part of him, his ears. Shining rushed over and tried to grab a hold of his hooves but could not get a grip.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy yelled in a surprising loud voice. “I don’t he came through as a pony! He’s confused! If we’re not careful, he’s going to hurt himself!” Twilight finally refocused on the situation. It had been very confusing switching forms herself, and she had PLANNED to travel to another world. But, she had come to her senses quickly when she saw her own reflection.

Twilight then made one of the poorest choices she had made in her life and teleported a mirror in front of the colt.

G-478972 looked at the mirror and froze. He could not quite grasp what he was looking at. The thing in the mirror was not him, but one of the creatures of this world, swaddled in bandages like a mummy. This was not him. This was NOT his casing.
G-478972.EXE has stopped working.
G-478972 screamed bloody murder and the mirror shattered. Shining Armor, if that was what his name was, tried to grab hold of him. But he could not, he would not get through the Blunt. G-478972’s mind had fled from his casing.

The scream let loose was way too loud to come from something that small. When it finally ended, a good fifteen seconds past two minutes over passed. His eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out.

“Twilight, what were you thinking? He was clearly in shock because of the change in form and you just drop a mirror in front of him?! Of course, that would push him over the edge!” Fluttershy scolded.

“I’m sorry! I panicked! I just thought to get it over with…” Twilight responded while Shining was putting G-478972 on his back.

Shining did not like holding this colt. Every time he tried to touch him it was like he was covered in slime. Yet, he couldn’t see anything on his fur that would cause such a feeling. “When he wakes up, I’ve got a lot more questions. I don’t think we know anything yet.” Shining trotted off back to the Castle.

“I just hope it’s that easy, Shiny”, said Twilight “I get the feeling that we’re in for a longer ride then any of us are ready for. Spike? Could you do me a favor and read to him? I don’t even care if you read him those silly comics, I think it would be better if he heard as many full sentences as possible at this point…”

When G-478972 awoke next the world felt different. The steady hum of emotions that a human or pony would feel were gone. G-478972’s mind was clear and as cold as a clear winter morning. The storm of panic that had been all too real before was now just a strange dream. His mind began to run like the cold silicon of a computer it was supposed emulate.

Ok, strange body, that was not a problem. It was no different than the neural interface control of a recon drone. First step, find all of the muscle groups. Through a process of starting at the feet and moving up, working through every possible muscle, he learned each muscles movements. G-478972 did not have names for most of these parts, but he at least knew how to use them. Working at the muscles around the strange set up of the legs was weird, but not that different from a hound recon unit. At least this form mostly had the same amount of limbs.

The really strange part of this was that nothing felt unnatural. It was like he was born like this. It had to be some sort of mental programing that was built into the form change. How had G-478972 failed to notice this while stumbling around like an idiot? The tail and ears where the parts that would be a problem. Most of those muscles were built like they were designed for auto movement. Now noticing that his body was covered in bandages, G-478972 gathered the space on his skin and flexed it, causing the bandages to be rendered to shreds.

Looking down his legs G-478972 thought, I think that these things if I remember horses right are called hooves, correct? I hope I can get them under me without too much work. Moving off to the edge of the mattress he had been sleeping on, he spotted a creature of clearly different design. It appeared to be some sort of lizard like creature a little bigger than himself. It had hands though, so some sort of slave race to make up for the lack of hands in the ruling species. Sitting in the creature’s lap was a comic book, similar to what his source used to enjoy.

Putting four hooves to the floor proved to be less trouble than expected. The body had the programming to run he just had to avoid allowing his own ideas to influence the process. Moving out into the hall, he reviewed his Translation matrix. It was much more comprehensive then it had been after that combat horse had helped. If he had to guess, they assigned the lizard slave to read to him while he was asleep.

Pain ripped through him, causing his legs to buckle under him. It was the leftover void material still scattered throughout his body. Focusing his powers, he gathered all of it into his large intestine, where it would stop destroying his muscles and instead destroy less important things, like his intestines. His regeneration would take care of the rest.

Well, time to find the strange pastel horses.

G-478972 knew that if he was going to find his enemy and finish his task before his final rest, he would need help from these horses. He braced himself and stepped through the nearest door where he heard voices.

“Cadance, I know we need to get back to the Empire, but with everything happening I want to at least talk to this colt before I am willing to just trust him and leave!”

“Shiny, I know that. That’s why we’re going to leave some guards behind on a more permanent basis. You and I have an empire to run!”

G-478972 decided to immediately head in the other direction, lover’s quarrels were not something he enjoyed. His ears suddenly moved, tracking a new sound down the hallway. “What does Sunset mean that there no such things as Espers, that they’re just from television?! If he didn’t come from her world, then where did he come from?” Some of the words were hard to place in the matrix, but it was clear someone had questions about him. He entered without knocking.

Inside. he found a damned Round Table. Around which were seated six of these colorful horses. Each was sitting on something like a highbacked chair with a larger seat then you would find on a human chair. They all turned to him as he spoke up, “You…have… questions?”

The purple one with wings and horn was just staring open mouthed at him. It was the pink one that made the first move, appearing in front of G-478972 like a Teleporter.
“Oh no no no no NO! Are you okay?! You sure had a lotta fun playing with Shiny yesterday, but you should really REALLY still be in bed, Bladey!” The pink one prattled on abou-

Wait… What did she just call me?!

Ignoring that, “You do not have to concern yourself. The emotions you were aware of were the result of malfunctions in this unit. During my rest periods that has been repaired. As a result, no more emotional issues should be expected.”

“HUH?!”, The pink one responded, tilting her head in confusion.

“I don’t understand, you have to have emotions. Everyone has them.” The winged unicorn tried to point out.

“That would only be true for organic lifeforms as you know them, I am an Esper… The closest idea that I can understand from your language is a Golem created from Necromancy. The corpse of a former person is used and then programing is installed to make it function. The emotions you sensed were leftovers from the former owner of this body. On a day-to-day basis I do not experience such things.”

Twilight decided not to press the issue but made a note to call the therapist for the poor colt. “I understand you feel that way, and I am going to try to respect that.”

Suddenly feeling lightheaded, G-478972 collapsed down onto his belly. “I am sorry, my mind is back in working order, but my body is tired. So, I will lay.” G-478972 could not help but feel that something was wrong with his sentences.

“If you don’t mind me asking darling, you have not given us a name. It’s just manners after all.” The white unicorn chimed in.

Putting on an expression that seemed to be his thinking face, he spoke again. “G-478972. That is my name.”

Twilight looked at G-478972 like he had just slapped her.

The combat horse entered the room behind G-478972 and said, “That’s not a name, that’s a designation. That confirms my theory. In whatever twisted place he’s from, he’s military.”

“You understood that nonsense, Shining?” The winged unicorn asked, clearly hoping that like everything else up to this point the combat horse could give clarity.

“In the Guard, we are given a number to give to enemies so that when they give it to our allies in ransom demands so they know who we are; yet tells them no personal information that can be used to pressure us. If he does not feel comfortable telling us his name, he’s just going to keep giving us his designation.”

“Idiot.” G-478972 responded. “I am not a soldier. Esper. G model. 478,972nd off the line.” Shining Armor seemed unsure as to how to respond to that statement. “Please do not patronize me. I am an organic weapon.”

“If you are an organic weapon, what is you activation code.” Shining Armor countered.

“I am on assignment.” G-478972 quickly responded,

“Requesting relevant details?” Shining asked.

“Classified. I need information. You give, I answer.” G-478972 offered,

“Ok, what do you want to know?” answered Cadence, having followed her husband into the Map room,

“I am looking for the other that fell with me. Is dangerous. Must find. Must kill.”

Twilight looked slightly taken back at the idea of a second entity and that they wanted to kill each other. “I am willing to discuss finding this… ‘other’, but Equestria is a place for second chances, you must give this person a chance to seek redemption.”

“Stupid. You will kill us all.” G-478972 sneered at what Twilight said. “I will not be stupid.” The level of stupidity that this purple creature was exhibiting was a sight to behold, the idea that you could reform any creature. Something will always be what it is, nothing changes. Even if something seems to change, it is just showing a different part of its nature.

Though he had not said anything, it seemed Twilight understood his thoughts. “You will find that Equestria is a place where things you probably can’t imagine are common.” G-478972 at this moment decided that the purple one was useless and should be dumped wherever trash is placed. He turned to the only one in the room he knew had common sense.

Shining Armor was trying to keep a stone walled soldier’s face. “I will help you. If nothing else to prevent an enemy of Equestria from running loose. Additionally, I am willing to treat you as a citizen as long as you don’t break any of our laws. So, you are to remain in whatever form of inactive mode you possess and are not to engage combat protocols.”

“I agree”, G-478972 responded. “I will return my quarters, give information when you have what I need.”

“Going back to your room already?! Didn’t you just get out of bed? Don’t you want to eat something first? I can make you some of the best pancakes you’ve ever had!” Pinkie said as she invaded G-478972 face a large smile on her face.

“Back away!” With that G-478972 shoved Pinkie right into the table.

“You know, it would be easier for everyone if we had a real name to call you by. Maybe we could use the one Pinkie came up with.” said Shining Armor, interrupting. G-478972 glared at him. Clearly deciding that nothing this “Pinkie” said was worth listening to, he aligned himself towards Shining and would pretend that Pinkie did not exist.

“You still want that rematch?” Shining asked. This was the first point in the conversation were G-478972 showed any reaction, his ears twitching in Shining’s direction.

“Rematch?” G-478972 pondered, his tone conveying no interest. His ears, however, showed that the idea had captured his attention.

Shining smiled knowingly. “I am willing to have a rematch. In the Guard we always add stakes though.” Shining noticed that colt became agitated.

“I want to place a bet.” G-478972 narrow his eyes. “If you win, I will stand against the Princess’ on you being allowed to kill your enemy. As the Captain of the Guard, I have authority in this matter even above the Princess’. If I win, you take Pinkie’s nickname for you as your own, Blade Dancer.”

“I teach you”, G-478972 growled.

With that, G-478972 strode out of the room, everyone followed him right out of the castle yard.

“He must really want that match. I was hoping he would be willing to wait ‘til we had given him a medical checkup…”

G-478972 was pissed. His matrix was still giving him trouble with sentence structure. The Pink one was clearly mentally handicapped, but she must serve some function since they have not put her down. When she called him something so childish as that nickname he had been ignore it. Now it seemed that even the competent one was beginning to join in on the idea that he was like them.

It was time to put a stop to that. A match against him now that he was in proper control of this flesh suit would show these fools the difference between them.

The white one took a stance that reminded G-478972 of a dog with its front lowered to the ground and front legs spread. Its horn began glowing with that strange energy he still couldn’t identify.

Gathering his space to form a sword, he couldn’t help but admire it. He always liked how it looks. Like sand appearing out of the aether, swirling together until it compresses into the form of a blade. The space around his body was weak, but one sword should be more than enough. He waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Well, that answered his first question. His normal methodology was to wait for his opponent to make the first move. A person’s first move tells you a lot. Complete frontal attack; Power Fighter. Grabbing; A Tactics Fighter. A feint; You’ve got someone with brains. Mr. Competent had not made any moves and seemed to be trying to beat him with boredom; A Defensive. Someone who turns people’s own power against them.

Only one way to deal someone like with him.

Rushing forward with his sword in his left hoof, he made a broad swipe designed for power in order to force him to show G-478972 his method of fighting. A translucent pink wall formed between him and his target in an instant. Then the strangest thing happened, instead of cutting through it, his sword bounced off.

Allowing the recoil to spin him around, he went to strike from the other side. Switching the blade to his right, he used the bounce to bring it back down in a left downward strike, but the barrier did not yield in the slightest.

Ok, so the colt clearly did not show everything that he can bring to the table the other day. Nearly ten minutes in, and the attacks had not paused for even an instant. It was like a face off against a whole unit of his guards. At any one time only one of the kid’s hooves was touching the ground. He constantly attacked with his sword and made jabs with his legs at any place I was not looking.

What was scary was how he was handling the recoil. Whenever his sword or blow bounced off his shield; instead of trying to push back, he would spin with it and add the energy onto the next strike. So instead of running out of steam, each blow seemed to continue on with the same energy as the first. Even his most heavily trained guards would have been exhausted after hitting his shield this many times. The amount of precise calculation needed for that is inequine. Yet despite his failure the colt was not even showing the mental stress of repeated failure.

How was this possible?

Even as G-478972 allowed his sequence of attacks to continue it became clear that there was a problem.

1: The energy level of his sword was too weak to pierce this barrier.

2: There had been a leak.

The void energy was leaking out of his intestines and was eating his kidneys and lungs. He would be fine to continue this fight without his kidneys, but he was still healing from the rest of the damage. He couldn’t go that long without oxygen.

Well, nothing he could do about it right now.

Damn! Does this colt have no limit?! Thirteen minutes in and not a single break between attacks. Wait is that blood?

“Pony-feathers your still injured! That’s it! We can pick this up later.”

Crack!

The shift in focus had caused a crack to appear in Shining’s shield. Refocusing his efforts, he had realized that the colt was coughing up blood but seemed to be ignoring the life threating moment. It was scary to see the way he had not even slowed down. He was ignoring his own injures and focusing entirely on the part of Shining’s shield that had been damaged.

“Stop the battle you brat, you’re bleeding out! You’re already covered in your own blood!” In that moment the girls began to see what Shining was seeing.

He did not seem to allow his momentum to slow, however. His movements were amazingly smooth, yet each blow held a level of precision that only a Master should possess. His lack of concern for his own wellbeing was starting scare them as well. He was changing color as his fur was quickly becoming ashen and losing its sheen.

Twilight was running a basic health scan. Shining could tell as he felt himself getting scanned as well.

Twilight was about to have a heart attack.

Thank Celestia, Shining was alright, his magic was far from exhausted. It was the colt that she was having a panic attack over. Even with her level of skill in this type of magic, she had no idea what was causing the damage, but he was missing a kidney and most of a lung. It was no wonder he was bleeding out of his mouth.

“Girls, that colt completely out of his mind! He started this fight with Shiny when he is clearly in no shape to fight. He’s missing some of his internal organs for pony’s sake!”

“What?! Twilight what are you talking about?” Whimpered Fluttershy.

“From the scan that I was running; He is missing a section of his intestines, one of his kidneys, and the bottom half of his left lung. I don’t know how he is even standing! Let alone pulling off all those complicated combat moves. “

“Girls, Shining has been trying to convince him to stop the fight for the last couple of minutes. I don’t think that colt is going to listen. I am not sure if he is even capable of fear at this point! He does not seem to mind the fact he is covering himself in his own blood.” Rarity cut in,

“Ah hate to agree with Rarity on this, but ah know what it’s like to have just a bruised kidney. To have one missing must be on a whole different level of pain!” answered Applejack.

Pinkie gulped as her hair deflated and worry crossed her face.

“There is no way I am going to try and get between them. That colt moves like a blender! You see how there’s no break in the speed of the blade when switches hooves? I don’t even think Windblade could do that, and he was considered one of the greatest blade masters in the modern era!” Rainbow explained,

“That’s it! I don’t have any other choice. I’m going to have to knock him out with sleep spell. I just hope that I don’t kill him.” Twilight said grimly.

G-478972 had just decided that he was going to that have to pull out all the stops that he knew of. His regular sword could cut through steel like butter, Hell, it could cut through most Earth-made materials without him even noticing. Yet, whatever this shield was made of seemed to ignore all the powers his sword was made with. It had to have something to do with how the powers of this universe work.

The damage had spread from his lung and onto the very edge of the heart. He was having to spend more and more of his focus on just keeping the damage where it already had eaten. If it got to even one of his hearts, he would not have the strength to win this fight.

He had failed to take proper advantage of the crack in that shield. Well, never let it be said that he was not ready to die. He began to gather more power into his hands hooves in order to layer his sword.

Wait. Why did he suddenly feel weak? His legs gave out under him. Was this body weaker than a normal Espers body? He should have been able to keep fighting for longer. His healing factor alone should have allowed him to keep fighting well into the point in which he had entered the valley of death. He had been there before,

it.

did not.

scare.

him…

Twilight watched the colt stumble. She had hit him with a sleep spell powerful enough to take down a greed grown dragon. She knew that because she had learned this spell for the sole purpose of if Spike had another one of his greed attacks.

Yet the colt was clearly only unbalanced by such a powerful spell.

She powered up the spell for a second shot.

It was all he could do to remain standing but he needed medical attention.

She fired again.

What in a name

Author's Note

Fast I know, but the hands are healed.

What in a name

Twilight was sitting on a pillow in a hospital waiting room. After the second spell, he had collapsed. “Finally!” Twilight teleported them both straight into the hospital.

Shining Armor and Cadance trotted into the room and sat down on either side of Twilight. After a moment of awkward silence, Shining spoke up. “…I’m sorry Twilight, I never should have allowed that fight.”

“It’s alright, Shining. Just from the way he withstood my spell alone makes it clear that he has a stronger will then anything I have ever seen before.”

“Miss Sparkle?” Doctor Hoarse called out as he trotted into the waiting area. He had the most particular look, the look of someone that had decided that someone had rutted up and it was his time to teach them a lesson.

“Yes Doctor? What is it?” Twilight looked up,

“Miss Sparkle, Where did you say this child is from again?” Doctor Hoarse posited,

“I didn’t. He had only just learned to speak Ponish. We had yet to get down to asking those sorts of questions. Doctor, from the sounds of it he’s not going to make it, is he?” She cut straight to what she believed was the heart of the matter.

The Doctor seemed surprised at this question. “Actually, I’m not sure we could kill him if we wanted to.” Everyone seemed completely surprised and unsure of how to respond to that. “He was regrowing his organs even as this strange energy was trying to destroy them, and I’m am afraid that’s not even the strangest part. He is covered in a field that we can’t seem to get through with our magic and it’s preventing us from removing the energy that’s killing him. So, we did the only thing we could think to do. We’re pumping him full of nutrient fluids to fuel his own regeneration abilities. That seems to have had the added benefit of allowing him to heal his organs without even the traditional scarring that we would have seen at this point.”

Cadance was completely focused on one simple fact compared to her two fellows. “So, breaking this down. He’s not going to die?”

Doctor Hoarse was surprised that that was the point that she had chosen to lock onto. “Yes, I believe the reason that his health deteriorated was because of the fact he pushed himself so far that his body was unable to keep up against this destructive force. I believe that we should place him under an extremely high caloric diet until we can find a way through the shield around him and remove that mass of destructive energy that seems to be mostly focused in the area of the large intestine. We are keeping him on a powerful sedative in order to make sure he does not wake up and cause these problems to resurface.”

There was then a crash, followed by the very loud scream of a nurse who was having just about the worst day of her life.

Shining Armor, following his training, sprang into action. Quickly finding himself in a hospital room with none other than “G-478972” himself.

G-478972 was waking up. He had been running analysis on his body and realized that he was being fed a highly caloric sugar and protein mixer combined with sedatives. He followed his training and began producing a compound to bind to the sedative and negate it effects.

The next thing that he realized is that somehow his Language Matrix had finally finished its initial translations. He had expected this to take far longer. The only thing that he could think of for it to have finished so soon is that it had some similar idea in structure, if not in the vocabulary, to something that he had already known.

Opening his eyes, he found one of these strange horse creatures adjusting his sheets. She then saw him looking at her. “Well, if it isn’t our cute little patient.”

Well, time to finally end this farce of ponifying me. “Your attempt to comfort this organic weapon is pointless. Please inform whoever is in charge here that all medical procedures done to this unit without consent will result in immediate termination.”

Talk about easily spooked. All it took was one small death threat and she screamed her head off and fainted. He couldn’t help but feel slightly pleased that he can produce such a reaction. The emotion was strangely nice to have before he felt it being removed. “I think I could wipe them out even in my weakened state.” Just then, the white competent stallion breaks into the room.

“G-478972.” The stallion said surprising clearly given that he been the one to issue their duel with the premise of changing his title.

“I believe you won our bet, so you have chosen a new name for this unit as it currently exists.” Shining was unsure of this. He seemed to feel guilty about the bet. “You do not have to feel guilty for my current damage, it is my own fault for failing to control the remaining void energy within me.”

Shining locked on to the fact that he knew the source of his damage as Twilight walked into the room. “You said that what destroyed your organs is called void energy? My sister and the doctors are going to have to ask you some questions about that. Secondly, Twi interfered with our battle so it’s more like a tie then a victory for me. So how about you help me come up with a better name for you.”

Turning towards Twilight, G-478972, responded, “It does not matter, the problem will resolve itself in time. Till then, it is not an issue”.

Doctor Hoarse was the one to respond. “I’m sorry son, as a doctor it is my issue given that you are my patient. I tried to remove this “energy” when you were unconscious but I could not get to it.”

G-478972 turned his attention to the presumed doctor. “The energy is secure in my large intestines because if it were to get out… allow me to demonstrate.” G-478972 hoped that this was not going to destroy the floor they were standing on. Lucky for these easily scared ponies, he had measured it correctly. Bringing a hoof over to the bed side table and bringing a small amount of the energy into the area in front of his hoof, the side table and most of the lamp simple disappeared as the atoms that made them up ceased to exist. G-478972 never broke his stare during the demonstration. “That was just a small amount, if I were to release the amount that is stored in my body it would do a great deal more damage.”

The ponies fell into a state of shock. The purple one that seemed to be called Twilight, she trotted over to exam the zone in which the table had been mere moments before.

“It’s not some form of dematerializing… It seems to be that the atoms are slipped or in layman’s terms removed from reality like they never existed… That not possible.” Twilight’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, an impressive sight given that her eyes were already large enough that they took up far more of her head then seemed biologically sound. “So, you really are from another world. But… There’s no trace of portal magic! The only other way to get from one world to another without a portal is to travel without protection through the void. That’s just not possible! Every experiment run by ponies has had the test material disappear without time to even gathering any data!”

“Hush! I did travel through the void. My spatial defenses were able to keep me alive long enough for my enemy to drag us to this world. Yet a great deal of damage is left behind.”

Shining again proved he was the smart one by asking the important questions. “Why were you in the void if you knew the dangers?”

“I was trying to kill us both.”

“Why?”

“My enemy is a destroyer of worlds. He was trying to destroy mine, so I fought him to get revenge for all of the problems he has caused me. I had brought him inside my personal world. Then, I set it on fire to destroy us both. He was going to escape, so I threw both of us into the void, believing that we would both be lost.”

Shining was the only one not shocked by the clearly clever planning. “I see... If you have done all that, I imagine that you don’t have the dimensional coordinates that would be needed to open a portal back to your home universe…” He trailed off as the hope of sending the colt home faded. “Well, I think it’s time to switch to something happier. If you say that you have this “void energy” under control, I’m willing to trust you on that.”

“Shiny!” Cadance yelled indignantly “He’s got energy that could simply erase him stored inside of him! We have to get it out and contain it!”

“Cadance!” Shining yelled at his wife for what might have been the first time in his life, “I know you’re worried, but we don’t have the authority or knowledge to handle this stuff correctly. He also seems to have a plan in place to deal with the Void energy?” He said, eyeing G-478972 quizzically

G-478972 responded, “Yes. I have a plan. I plan to feed all of the chyme from my large intestines into it. It might take a while, during which I won’t produce waste, but it is the safest method that I could think of in the moment. As for names, I do have other titles which I have been called during my functioning years. Perhaps one of those would be more suited to your ideas of identity?”

“Sure, try a couple of them on me.” Shining smiled.

“The most common of the titles that I am know by is The Butcher of Taiwan” The name made most of the ponies pale, so No. “There was also The Slaughter of Berlin, Carver of Yankee-land…” With each name the whole group had gotten paler until they were all the same color as Shining. Which was impressive for the doctor had started out the color of stained hardwood.

Cadance was the next to speak. “Those are great titles, but they’re not names. I think it might be better to go with Pinkies suggestion.”

“…Where did those names come from? If you don’t mind me asking.” Twilight seemed to be more scared of him in that moment then of the energy within him.

“They are from the major battles that I fought in for my former masters.” G-478972 stated matter-of-factly,

“Former masters?”

“Yes. This unit is defective and is no longer taking orders from them due to the fact that they destroyed something this unit was programed to protect. The logical breakdown of my masters destroying something that I was made to protect labeled them as my enemy. As a result, this unit has developed faults.”

“Those titles… did you earn them before or after you left your masters.”

“Before. I earned them on my missions to put down rogue humans.”

“Rogue humans? It makes it sound like your masters weren’t human themselves.” Cadance was clearly confused by this.

“You know what humans are?”

Twilight answered wearing a face that reminded him far too much of lectures at the compound. “Equestria is at the center of a universal nexus. With our magic, we can travel to several different realms if we have something that leads us back to them across the void. But answer the question, were your masters human?”

“No. My masters were the U’le’tek, an alien race that served my enemy. They conquered Earth and made it a farm world.”

“I see...”

“One more question,” Shining interjected, “then we will leave you to eat and sleep. You’re still healing from the organ damage after all. Do you plan to hurt any of the ponies that I am charged with protecting?”

G-478972 didn’t understand what he meant by that. He was a piece of equipment. He killed based on commands and goals, not on a whim or out of desire to do so. “I am an Esper combat unit, I fight based on orders and objectives. I will only kill a pony if they in some way prevent me from completing my mission to destroy my enemy. As long as you don’t allow your naive morals to try and move for some idea of sparring him, I will comply with all commands that do not challenge programmed protocols.”

Twilight seemed put off by choice of words. “So that means if I give you orders, you will follow them?”

“As long as they don’t break any of the protocols which are written directly into my neural make up or interfere with my mission.”

“Is there any way that I can get a list of those protocols? It would be helpful to understand the general information that we have to play into.” Twilight requested.

“I can give you the ones that I am aware off.” G-478972 answered begrudgingly, confusing Twilight again. Why would he not be aware of orders he is supposed to follow?

Far away, in a castle as large as some towns on the edge of an even larger city built right onto the edge of a cliff, shining in the noon day sun, standing on the balcony outside her personal chambers, a pony stared off into the Kingdom that she loved so much. Her fur as white as freshly fallen snow, and a mane and tail of pastel rainbow paradoxically blowing in the opposite direction of the wind coming from the city below, her white wings tucked in to make her slender form all the more so, she fretted over recent events.

“So sister, how were the nobles? I felt sorry leaving them to you, but I was busy handling the bureaucrats who worried that we were going to throw off the entire planet because we were a bit early with the sun.” Princess Luna explained with a bitter sarcastic tone as she walked onto the balcony with her sibling.

“It was fine, Luna. They were the same as they always are. I think a great many of them were mostly complaining that we could throw off the fall harvest if we give the plants too much sunlight this time of year. They wanted assurances that we were not going to make a habit of this and to keep to the schedule their ancestors put in place back during the days of Unicornia.” Celestia was distant as she told Luna of her day, her mind elsewhere.

“You’re still thinking about that colt.”, Luna stated matter-of-factly.

Celestia hesitated. Still clearly unsure of her response only forming her thoughts as she said them.

“Yes, Luna. How could I not? …I had a vision last night. Before you ask, it was far too confusing for me to give you clear details.” She paused briefly between each statement, and sighed, “What I can tell you is that it was bad. I saw Equestria at war with something more powerful than all of us.”

Luna’s face became a mask of pure terror. “Tia! If this is true, then all is lost! We have just lost the Elements of Harmony, the only thing that would have been strong enough to stop just such a threat!”

“I know, Luna!” Celestia snapped, “There was a hope though, I saw a pair of Alicorns I did not recognize, who had the strength we needed to defeat this great threat. I hoped the storm had been the source of the threat and acted far more aggressively than I should have. I should have known better. I had thought I could cut off the cause of my vision at the source and prevent events from unfolding the way I saw before.”

“Then, Tia, I am afraid that I may bring far worse news that I at first believed. Cadance has sent us a report of everything that happened since we left this morning. The colt has woken up twice and with the information he has given, along with your dream, I fear for the future.” At this, Luna passed over the scroll carrying the information that Cadance had sent.

Celestia skimmed the scroll before grimacing, “I see. It appears that I used the Elements on the wrong force. A destroyer of worlds? That would certainly explain the powerful force I saw in my dream… Luna, speak with the Captain of Squad Nine. I want him to put every one of his agents on this. If we can find this threat and eliminate it before it gathers its strength, then all the better.”

As Luna left to speak to one of the Captains of the Guard, Celestia’s eyes returned to looking out at her kingdom, fearing the worst and plotting to help make the best of the current situation.

Pinkies frown

Author's Note

well I hope your already and pay attention to the little details.
Mischief: This chapter believe it or not took the most amount of passing back and forth to get to a postable state.

Pinkies frown

Spike was not a happy dragon. They had brought that colt home from the hospital yesterday and he ate an entire bushel of apples before going to bed to “process” them, in his own words, and Spike had woken up that morning with the intent of going down to make everyone breakfast.

Spike was not a happy dragon. He found the kitchen a complete mess. He was used to waking up to find the Library a mess, sure, but the kitchen was his domain. No one went in there without telling him about it first. Poor Twilight, she couldn’t even make a proper cup of tea without his help. The only person who’s cooking was on par with hers was Sweetie Belle’s. The worst part was that someone had emptied out a large section of the food stores and had not eaten any of it. A basket of daisies he had in the fridge for making sandwiches for everyone had been unceremoniously tossed onto the floor and stomped on!

Spike was not a happy dragon. He was used to being thrown a lot of work, he only wished that Twilight would do like Celestia said and start hiring a staff. The castle was huge and thankfully cleaned itself from dust, but it didn’t pick up knocked over furniture. Spike knew that Celestia planned to start handing off parts of the Kingdom to Twilight, or something along those lines, if she did not have at least some staff then those might become a bit more then she can handle.

Of course, it was that moment Twilight decided to gallop in. “Spike! He’s gone!”

Spike sighed internally and wished for not the first time that Twilight didn’t like to play the pronoun game. “Who’s gone, Twilight?”

“The colt! He’s not in his room! Wait, what happened in here? You usually keep everything pretty clean in here” Twilight looked around the room, her anxious look turning to one of confusion.

“I don’t know, Twilight. I woke up to this! Someone was clearly looking for something, and despite going through all of the food they didn’t eat a single thing!”

“It’s possible the colt came in here looking for something to eat and could not find something that worked for his taste buds…”

“If that’s the case, then it’s possible he left the castle looking for something to eat, right?”

“Twilight! Get your flank down here!!!” The two froze at the sudden shouting and Spike jumped onto Twilight’s back as she galloped out of the room, finding the voice to be Applejack in the main entryway, and she was almost as red as Big Mac. “Do you know what that colt that you’re watching was up to? Ah found him, thankfully before Fluttershy did. That colt was sick as anyone ah had ever seen after he killed a manticore, butchered it, cooked and ate the dang thing.”

Twilight was so shocked that she was not sure what she was feeling. “Ok… I knew he might be out looking for something to eat, but I never expected him to go hunt a manticore…”

“Yeah… but you know as well as ah do that ponies lost the ability to eat meat long ago. He’s sicker than a dying dog and his body is in all out rejection. He refused to go back to the hospital, so ah have him resting out on my property. Ah decided to fill him up on apples after his body finished puking all of the stupid meat he tried eating.”

Twilight collected her thoughts before deciding what to say next, “Don’t be too mad, Applejack. Humans are omnivores, so it’s possible he thought he would not have been pony all the way through. He probably believed that he would still have a human digestive system.”

“Well, you’re going to have to lay down some ground rules. Ponies are gonna talk if you can’t keep him under control, Twi. You’re lucky as a pig in a fresh mud pie that this happened on the edge of Sweet Apple Acres.”

Twilight had made a decision. She had spent most of the night reviewing everything the colt had told her about his programing. It was a surprisingly short list, nearly all of it was about maximizing the chance of surviving battle. She had only one ploy.

The colt was lying next to a puddle of vomit and another bushel of apples. It was not a good thing that his diet had been mostly apples and beans since he came out of that black cloud. He needed hay in his diet in order to balance it.

Twilight braced herself and tried to take up the persona of a teacher or a disappointed guardian, “So, have you learned something?”

G-478972 grunted, “That this body is one of the purest herbivores that I have ever seen. Even the herbivores of my world would not have had such a strong reaction.”

Twilight nodded, “I think there are some things that we need to talk about. So, I am going to tell you some things that are going to be the rules that you will follow if you want to stay in Equestria to fight your enemy. First, none of the names you suggested are going to accepted by ponies, so from this point forward you are going to be called by Blade Dancer. Second, you don’t know enough of the basic facts about our world, and combine that with the fact you are now a child, I am going to enroll you in Ponyville public elementary school. You are going to learn how to blend in with other ponies by practicing with other foals. Third, you are going to have to let me run tests to determine what about you is pony and what isn’t, you’re going to have to switch your lifestyle to adapt to that body of yours.”

~~G-478972~~Blade Dancer scowled, “Are you done?” Twilight nodded, “I am willing to agree to your terms if you agree to aid me in finding my enemy and not interfering in any of the actions I have to take.”

Twilight was upset, but she had expected this answer. “Fine. I will stay out of your way. I can only hope that you will learn to see the world differently after you have seen the way we live.”

“Well students, Ms. Twilight Sparkle has seen fit to help enroll a new student. He will be joining our class as of today.” The plum-colored teacher announced to the class before muttering, “Although, I think he is a little younger than you and should be moved to next class down…” ~~G-478972~~ No Blade thought to himself that this teacher would do well to remember how good ponies hearing was.

Getting used to a new name would take a while. Twilight had made it clear that it was in fact a name, more so it was to be his name. If he could feel embarrassed, he would dying of it by now. Why did these creatures have to have such an asinine form of identification? All of the foals were clearly excited to have a new member of their class. Blade only hoped that he would be able to slide through without dealing with these foals. The adults were childish enough in their innocence.

“Blade Dancer?”

Blade turned towards the plum-colored earth mare. “What?”, he croaked

The teacher, he thought her name was Cheerilee? God, pay attention “Blade”, continued “Blade, sweetheart, I was asking if you would be willing to do an introduction so the rest of the class can you get to know you?”

“No.” He replied flatly. With that Blade walked to the back of the class to an empty desk. He was already tired of this, and the foals were all looking at him, open mouthed with shock. Thinking, “What a tool!”

It was clear looking back that Cheerilee was not really suggesting and more telling politely. She had not expected Blade to simply shrug off her request. “Blade, I know you might be feeling a bit shy, but I think it would be a good idea for you to introduce yourself.”

Time to lie through my teeth. If only the Translation Matrix did the written word. Blade thought, instead tapping his chest to indicate himself. “My lungs are still healing”. Not to mention being sick last night…

Letting control of his body slip, he began hacking up blood. He decided to wave whatever this front leg thing is called at the teacher. Her eyes going wide. “O-oh!” Cheerilee exclaimed, taken aback. “Yes, Twilight wrote a note saying that you were just back from the hospital. I suppose it hurts when you try and talk. Are you sure you’re well enough to actually be here?” She asked, anxiously

Blade nodded and smiled, Well the dumb bitch bought it. Not that it was actually a lie, Blade still was missing about the third of that lung. The level of pain was nothing to write home about though. She should leave me alone for at least a month now.

Sitting in this class was weird as Blade could not read anything she was writing on the board, and he was not willing to put in the effort to learn the written form of the language. It was a strange block format, reminding him of some earth languages. Yet, after watching the board for almost two hours he realized something, they had far more letters in their language than English. He decided to spend the next couple of hours going through all the sounds this language actually had.

He was surprised to find that there was a much wider range of sounds they could make, even including several kinds of snorts and whinnies. This body had an extremely wide ability to express itself. It was almost like this body was designed to be as expressive as possible.

“Blade, you are not taking any notes.” He looked up at the teacher and rolled his eyes. She had been mostly writing and not doing a lot of talking.

Blade saw that instead of continuing the lesson, she had focused on him. He had seen most of the students were using their mouth to write. It was weird, but he picked up his pen and wrote some letters in basic U’le’tek. He then flipped the paper and showed the class.

They stared at the paper. “That’s not Ponish!” one of the colt yelled. Cheerilee was staring at the paper trying to see if it was one the ten languages she knew. “Blade, can you read Ponish at all?” He simply shook his head. “I see. I was told that you understood the language. So, while you clearly understand what I am saying, you don’t understand any of what I’ve been writing all class, do you?” He shook his head again, “In that case, I am willing to simply say what I am writing aloud. In exchange, I expect you to take notes. I will also wish to speak to you after class.”

It was almost three o’clock when the class let out. Cheerilee was exhausted and annoyed. Exhausted was normal dealing with a classroom of foals. The annoyance, well… Twilight was in for an earache when she received her letter tonight. She had said the colt was hurt, not that he was coughing up blood. Cheerilee also felt that she should have been told he COULD NOT READ.

To cap it all off, he was creepy. During the hour of lunch and recess in the middle of the day, Blade had simply waited in his seat while the rest of the class left, all the while Cheerilee watched him from her desk as she graded papers. Most foals who remained in the classroom did it to do schoolwork or to play a game that required the use of tables, yet this colt simply waited at his desk staring ahead like his time meant nothing.

And finally, the day was over. After some time, the colt walked right up to her desk and plopped his flank down on the floor in front of it. Cheerilee cleared her throat, “I would like you to stay with me after school today to learn the Ponish alphabet, if nothing else for the mere value that it will give you later in life.” Blade just shook his head. “Are you telling me that you don’t want to learn or are you implying that it holds no value to your life?” Blade simply nodded. “Well, I am afraid that your Guardian disagrees. She has told me that it should not take long for someone as intelligent as you to learn.” Blade responded by sighing and jumping up on to the seat that she had set up earlier, the one he was supposed to have been sitting in all along.

She spent the next hour reviewing the letters in the complex language with him. They had a total of one hundred and eleven letters, though that did not include the sounds that were not actually used in words themselves, but used to give context. It was not too hard to learn. It was simple to put all of the information that he already knew about to the letters and link them to the sounds that he already knew.

When Blade finally got back to the castle, he found that he was about ready to murder Twilight. Finding her in the map room, the colt began to rant, “You feed me to a class of weaklings that are of no interest to me! Please tell me that you have at least learned something about my enemy that makes all of my patience worth it!”

“I don’t have anything other than that the second ‘star’ that fell with you landed in the griffon lands. Nothing was found at the site when the griffons went to investigate. I sent a group of Squad 2 guards to scan the area. Hopefully, they pick up a trail. Until then I don’t have anything to give you.” Twilight sighed, as this was all he had asked of her since their conversation that morning.

“You could give me the location in which you are sending your guards. I would be far more likely to pick up the trail than them.” Blade offered,

“I thought about that, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. You are still healing. In which case, you’re not in any shape to go chasing after this enemy. When you’re healed enough to behave normally in class it might be possible.” Twilight chided,

Blade spent several seconds debating whether to simply impale parts of her until she handed over the information. In a way it was his own fault. She was using his own behavior against him.

The problem was that while he might be able to beat her, taking on the other pair of Alicorns was a different matter. Twilight had power, but clearly no idea how to use it. He was not so sure of the other two, they moved like true warriors with careful control.

“I will not wait forever.” With that, Blade decided to go to bed. The quicker he healed, the sooner he could get a real grasp of the resources available to him for the fights to come. “Stubborn much? You finally have time for some R&R and you just get straight to snooping. Typical.”

Entering the room that Twilight had told him was going to be his space for the duration of his stay, he plopped himself down on the floor in the sunlight cast through the window. Cheerilee had said in one of the books that she was teaching him to read with that the sun was controlled by the White One. Blade was convinced that was a translation error, yet one thing that was positive about this world was that their UV radiation levels where much lower than on earth. Since the U’le’tek’s arrival, much of the repair done to the ozone layer had been undone. The sun could do serious damage if exposure was more than the amount given on the daily broadcast. As a Esper, he would naturally begin to block all the Radiation if it reached above a threshold, this resulted in many of the whiter skinned Espers ending up as pale as a ghost. It never made him happier that his flesh donor had been of mostly Native Mexican descent. “I preferred the chocolate-colored ones.”

This body though seemed to have a love of the sun that was strange to him. He immediately felt more relaxed laying down in the sun. Back home, this would been seen as foolish no matter what because he was exposing himself to potential enemies nearby. Never mattered which one.

This world felt like a sick joke. It was clear that these creatures knew nothing of blood and fire. Finally, after letting his thoughts slide home it was possible for him get some rest.

It was the second day of this. Twilight had promised that if he behaved and tried to blend in with the other students, that when all the other royal family members gather back at her castle in a two weeks’ time, he could have another go at her brother.

Blade hated to admit it, but he was looking forward to it. By that point, his physical healing should be done and a fight would kick his Blade Esper instincts into overdrive. It was the only way to know how much of his power was lost in the transformation.

“Muscle head…”

Blade had avoided telling Twilight about his possible power loss. He knew that no matter how much these ponies acted stupid, they would not use a rusted sword. If his powers no longer worked, they would not put in the effort to fix him. Or a fate worse than that he could be forced to live the way these ponies wanted him to. To be as some foal growing to be a stupid as them. Allowed to rust away into nothingness.

School Daze

Author's Note

things have been really rough this summer. The busy season for us. So to publish something I split a chapter in half hope you enjoy.

School Daze

Chapter 8

Blade was bored again the other foals were listening to a lecture on mathematics. It was taking a far too much work to place the new symbols to the ideas as he knew them. The Ponies plus sign looked like a multiplication sign, the minus was something out of science-fiction, but the constants of math were everywhere, even though it seemed that they were just on the basics of Algebra. Though, during a reading section he began to think they either had very weird calendars or were dumb as rocks. Their years were twelve hundred days long, yet a filly was talking about her great-grandmare’s hundred and fortieth birthday.

"Or, you know, they live as long as the Masters?"

The afternoon lesson was something that Blade actually cared about though, though it was in clearly incomplete in terms of detail. According the Cheerilee the ponies had come from some other land once upon a time, fleeing an ice age, but after that they blamed the ice age on something called Windigos. Creatures that fed on the negative emotions produced by their civil war. Which made no sense, you could not feed on emotions. Maybe you could feed of bio-current of the brain, but any creature fed on like that would be left brain dead.[AY1] You could not get just the emotional section. It had to be some sort of mythology.

Then again, he was in a different universe. It was possible that despite the similar appearance of things that the very laws of physics were different here. He would have to remember to ask Twilight later as he was still playing the mute so that the other inmates would leave him alone. Though, a trio of them seemed to have failed to understand that coming to his desk during lunch break just to stare at him.

“You going to stay in the classroom?” The yellow one, clearly the leader, asked him. Blade just nodded. That was when a voice appeared behind him.

“No, I think not. I know you won’t be able to play most of the games with the other students, but it would be good for you to at least be around them, and possibly make a friend?” Cheerilee added with a sweet smile “Girls? Do you mind taking Blade out with you?”

“Not at all, Ms. Cheerilee!” With that the yellow one with a red mane tried to grabbed him. It was funny, watching her grip slip right off, she having built up so much force that she flipped herself right onto her back.

Blade wished that he could feel enough to actually laugh at that. The sensation for an esper is as if the emotion rises out of the depths and just never leaves the darker regions so that you can express it. The pale one tries to grab me much more carefully as her hoof slides right off as well. [AY2] “Whoa, Blade, I think you need to take a bath. Your coat being full of oil that can’t be good for you.” She remarked as she wiped her hoof on the ground

Blade did not bother to respond as he simply walked outside. Instead of joining the others, he walked right to a sunny spot and plopped himself in the sun, then just stared up into the sky. Blade had decided since he had a hour to kill that he would review his memory files for corruption. As a esper, that was not normally a concern for him, but with all the damage that he took to his space, it might be possible for him to have had some memories leak.

“Ugh! Why is that colt so weird Diamond?” A grey filly nearby complained, “All he does is sit there, even if he can’t talk he could at least join in on games. Its creepy!”

“Silvy, you really need to not say stuff like that, we are trying to turn over a new leaf! Unless you want to turn out like my mom? Someone no pony likes?” Her pink companion chided,

“No, of course not, but I think Cheerilee is being too nice to him. I bet you he can talk just fine and is just lying to her so that he can get out of answering questions.” She pouted,

“Well then, I’m just going to have to put on some charm and see if that’s true then.” With that, Diamond Tiara decided that it was a good idea to bother a WMD. “Well hello, Blade, at least, I think that’s your name. The class has a little bet going for how long Ms. Cheerilee keeps believing the line that you can’t talk because your injured. I personally believe that you actually have an issue that is long term.” As she prattled on, Blade, who was reviewing information within his mind’s eye, did not seem to care that he was being spoke to.

“Pay attention you mass murdering bastard. She’s not going to go away, answer her.”

That was when the Diamond Tiara made her worst mistake in years. She pulled her head up so that she could look directly into Blade’s eyes. Though it is not a commonly know fact is that ponies possess empathic powers, Espers use their memories and emotions to create their inner space’s form. This is why they always seem to be so cold, their emotions never leave this space.[AY3] Yet, because of this they all have natural psychic abilities. One of which causes them to unconsciously project information to any of the advanced races. As a result, Espers have learned to code their thought process. Blade had not bothered to do this as he did not believe that these ponies would have powerful abilities like the races back home. After all, they were a pathetic purely herbivore species. As a result, Diamond was able to catch a small glimpse of the thoughts that passed through his minds eye in during his review.

To Blade, these were the tame events in his everyday life. To Diamond, these were nightmares the likes of which even Luna could never have even believed to exist. She collapsed into herself, bringing her mind to its deepest points, allowing the information to flow along the surface without reaching her. In layman’s terms, she went into a deep state of shock. As such, all control of her bodily functions failed her.

“Great now we’re scaring idiots in two worlds.”

Applebloom was the first to approach Diamond, noticing that she had gone stiff. Many of the other colts and fillies had not totally forgiven Diamond for her past bullying behavior, but being an Apple, she felt that she couldn't leave someone in that state. After shaking Diamond’s shoulder hard enough to leave her head falling to one side, and getting no response, Applebloom realized they needed a Teacher.

“Scootaloo, fetch Cheeerilee! Something ain’t right with Diamond Tiara!” Silver Spoon at this point barreled past her to reach Diamond's side to receive no response as well. Scootaloo was quick to return with their teacher, her head pressed against Cheerilee’s flank as she tried to push her to move faster.

“Ok Scootaloo, what is that I need to...” She trailed off as she saw the scene her student had brought her to.

“Ms. Cheerilee! Something’s wrong, Diamond Tiaras just frozen!” Cheerilee ran over her medical knowledge, while not equal to a medical pony, it covered any basic issue that might happen with foals at play, especially in Equestria where strange things could happen at any given time. She was clammy, her breath was shallow, and her eyes had shrunken to the size of pinpricks.

“Scootaloo! I need you go to the Hospital now and tell them I am bringing Diamond there. I think she’s goneinto shock. Appleboom, run into town and find her father. He's going to want to be there for his daughter.” As the two fillies ran off to complete their respective tasks, she turned to the filly fretting over her friend and the similarly colored colt. “Silver, Blade, how exactly did this happen?”

Silver dived right into a panicked tirade. “I don’t know! Diamond was just trying to get this colts attention since most of the students don’t think it's true he can’t talk. She looked him in the eyes and next thing I knew she was frozen and became all stiff!”

“Its called Shock, sweetheart, and I hope you’re not attached, she might die”

“Class! I don’t want anyone else to bother Blade! I don’t know what happened, but I don’t want it to happen again while I’m gone. Matter of fact, I want all of you to go home now. Pipsqueak, I want you to go tell the other teachers what happened so that none of their students try this.” With that, Cheerilee placed Diamond on her back and ran off towards Ponyville General Hospital.

“You think that something would happen if we poked him with a stick?” A colt from the class spoke up.

“You dumbie! He broke Diamond Tiara just by looking her in the eyes! If you poke him with a stick we'll be scraping what's left of you off the side of the school!” Someone else calls out.

“You overestimate yourselves if you think there would be that much left.”

With that, the lanky unicorn that had suggested it turned a darker shade and says, “Yeeeeeaaaahhhh, not worth it...”

Over the next five minutes the entire class left the school, looking for more interesting activities to perform. About thirty minutes later, the other teachers had decided to allow their classes to go stand around the colt, though none of them were willing to look him in his eyes. To the more discerning eyes of adults, it was clear that he was allowing his thoughts to flow right out. They knew that if they were to meet those eyes they might see the private memories of the colt. They thought it was strange, most ponies could not simply project themselves this way. The other teachers decided to call Twilight Sparkle to respond to her charges actions.

It was at this point, while the ten teachers of Ponyville Elementary and their students gathered around him, that Blade came out of his self-induced trance. “What's with all of you? Lunch is over, you all should be going back to your classes, should you not?”, Blade said in a very raspy voice.

“Your name is Blade Dancer, right? Do you not even realize what just happened? You managed to hurt another student.” One of the teachers spoke,

“Actually, I would like to help figure out what happened!” Everyone turned to see none other than Princess Sparkle. “If anyone could tell me what happened, I will talk to Blade and see if we can understand what we can do to fix it, I doubt he would even talk to any of you.” Twilight cautiously approached the colt. “Blade, can you tell me what’s going on?”

Blade himself chimed in, “I would also like to know what happened. I have been working on some of my own issues and have not paid one ounce of attention to the world around me in a half hour.”

“You don’t know!?” Came another distant voice, a brown stallion with a black mane, wearing a necktie of all things, marched up to him. “I want to know what happened to my daughter, and I want to know now!” he snarled,

It was Applebloom that spoke up next, having followed Filthy Rich back, “It was strange. You were staring up towards the clouds. Me and the girls weren’t able to get your attention, Diamond was trying to play it up so that you would pay attention to her, but you didn’t move. So… she decided that it was important to meet your eyes that she finally was able to get you to pay attention. She finally managed to look into your eyes, fell back on her haunches, and just froze. It was after that we went and got Cheerilee.

It was Twilight who Blade looked at next, “Twilight, I think you have failed to mention something important. Do ponies have any sort of psychic ability?”

“Huh? They don’t seemed evolved enough for that.”

Twilight was taken back by the question, “Well… Yes, in a manner of speaking. Ponies have an empathic ability that helps us sense the emotions of others. Its why ponies are known as the kindest creatures in all of Equis.” She explained hesitantly.

“…Really?”

Blade nodded, “Ah, so that’s what happened.”

Filthy Rich, Diamond Tiaras father, was quick to snap at that. “Tell me then! What happened? I demand to know what you did to my daughter!”

Blade did not seem to react in any way to the clear anger in his voice, “She saw my memories. Twilight failed to mention that your race had psychic abilities, so I did not encode my thoughts so that they could not be read. I was reviewing the memories from before I came here.”

“That doesn’t make a lick of sense! Even if you could show your memories to other ponies, which I doubt, there is no way you could have a bloody memory that could hurt my daughter!” Screamed Filthy Rich.

“Oh? You believe that? I am not a pony. I am a Esper, our minds have a much stronger effect on the world. Second, you think I am innocent, so here, something mild.” With that Blade reviewed the memory of his materials’ Grandparents going away ceremony. Though he kept most of the images away he allowed the feeling of the memory to pass right into Filthy Rich, who immediately retched and all four legs collapsed underneath him.

“What in the world was that?! Filthy Rich felt as if he simply had no hope like the best thing he could do for himself and all of pony kind was to slit his own throat and save someone else the trouble. It was the emptiest that he had ever felt.

“Heh, well Mr. Rich, you just got to see what it is like inside my head for second. Though, you got a very censored version. I am sorry, but I think your daughter got a much clearer vision. Twilight, I hope your world has drugs to destroy short term memory.” He looked over at Twilight, who was troubled at what was happening to Filthy Rich.

After a moment, she answered, “…Yes, a simple snap spell will clear her memory of everything that happened today. Ill inform the hospital that that may be necessary”

Blade stretched out and began to trot off. “It won’t happen again. Now that I know ponies are empathic, I will spend the night recoding my mind so that no one can read my thoughts. ”

Twilight immediately followed after him, “Blade, we need to talk about this. Discord showed me that, yes, you’re hurting, but if you don’t allow these memories and feelings to be dealt with they will eventually destroy you.”

“That not really a issue.”

Extropy

“I really REALLY hope Bladey likes his welcome to Ponyville party, guys! I hope Twilight isn’t going to ground him from the party for getting in trouble at school, though.” Pinkie Pie lamented as she bounced around the castles entry hall.

“Pinkie, I know you throw everyone a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party, but I don’t think you should this time. And that’s coming from me! I love your parties!” Rainbow Dash interrupted, Pinkie turning to her with a slightly hurt look in your eyes.

“Raiiiinbow! Why would you want to hurt the colt like that?” Pinkie whined,

“It’s not that, Pinkie! I just think that he might not like your type of parties. He seems like the type to prefer parties where someone ends up crying at the end.”

Thats when they heard the Castle doors open. Twilight was still trying to convince Blade to talk about his memories and emotions, but when Blade entered through the doors and saw all of the party supplies, he simply kept walking through the room.

“Twilight! Why did you bring him back? We’re not ready yet. None of the guest have arrived! I’m sorry, Bladey, your parties not ready yet, but if you just leave for a while you can come back and pretend to be surprised!” Pinkie offered,

“Why?” Blade asked flatly,

“What?” Pinkie stopped bouncing, tilting her head quizzically.

“Why should I return later? If you have some sort of government function planned, the castle is easily large enough that if you lock me in my room no one will notice.” Blade explained, unaware of just how disturbing the solution he offered was.

“Silly, Bladey! This party is your ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party! It would be really strange if the guest of honor wasn’t here! Well, I guess if you don’t feel like being surprised, then you can wait till everyone arrives. Here, have a cupcake!” Pinkie squee’d as she held out a hoof with a green frosted cupcake on it.

Before Blade could truly understand how, Pinkie had grabbed his hoof and set the cupcake in it. “This is food, I assume?” Blade asked, unsure of a lot in this moment. This “cupcake” was like nothing he had every smelled.

The idea of a surprise was not new, he knew a few surprises; attack, injury, sickness. Parties though that was something that he could not help but feel raised the level of stupid in the room by several degrees. Back home, everyone knew that parties were a waste of resources. You might have a small family get together for special events, but all these wasteful accruements; balloons, paper ribbons, and a massive amount of chaff from a missile blocking system though? Blade decided, it might be worth eating this strange thing. His lunch had not been large, and any food might help with the healing of his internal organs. He shrugged internally and took a bite.

The first bite out of the cupcake created an immediate reaction. He vomited. In Blade’s entire life he had never tasted anything so vile. It reminded him of the one time he been lucky enough to get fresh strawberries. It cost him a friend’s life for that reward… but this was so much sweeter. It was as if someone had taken sweetness itself and made it a form. To Blade, those strawberries had been the sweetest thing he had ever eaten and had made him sick to his stomach later. He had sworn off them ever again. He could not help but retch and vomit. His body was going into full rejection of this very strange item.

“Ok, now I am curious what could be so horrible that it made you, the one that ate out garbage, throw up.”

“Poison.” Blade snarled, dropping the other half of the cupcake and summoning a blade to keep Pinkie well out of hoofs range.

“That’s a leap, don’t you think?”

Rainbow Dash got between them. “Hey! I don’t know who you think you are kid, but Pinkie is the nicest pony you could ever meet, she would never poison anyone!”

Blade was thinking it through now. Pinkie was clearly not capable of planning an assassination attempt, yet there was no denying that the food was clearly poisoned.

“See Bladey? It’s perfectly safe!” She babbled as she took the dirty fallen cupcake and ate it in a single bite. Blade allowed the sword to vanish; No one ate a poisoned food after trying to poison someone. Twilight had gotten used to Blades seemingly random reactions to mundane things and trotted over to the desert table and picked up a cupcake of her own. Taking a bite, she made a happy content face. “I don’t know what you’re taking about, Blade Dancer. These taste amazing, as usual.”

“They taste vile.” Blade said with force.

“Blade, do you know what the word sugar means?” Twilight said thinking about possible reason Blade might think of poison.

Blade eyes narrowed. “Of course, sugar is a highly controlled substance by the Ultick on my world. It is a Class 1 offense to be caught with even less than a gram of it. Punishment is the torture and death of everyone in the suspects family. It not really surprising, since it is worth several times its weight in rare metals.” This seemed to cause all the girls to be taken aback.

“Oh! What about honey?” Pinkie interjected,

Blade looked at her with even more shock. “That’s even more valuable! All known forms of sweeteners are Class 1 controlled substances. They have satellites that track every gram of it globally, and if even a single bit is used in used in an area by anyone besides a Master, it would be a justifiable reason to have the total population eliminated.”

At this, the girls all seemed reacted with revulsion. After a moment to clear her head, Twilight spoke up again, “Pinkie, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the cupcakes… I think Blade has had so little experience with sweet foods that he can’t handle something so sweet so he reads it poison, that’s why he had a bad reaction.”

Blade was now staring at the dessert table as Twilight turned to speak to him, “What would you say if I said that each of those cupcakes had about eleven grams of sugar in them?”

Blade head snapped around to the alicorn. “I would say that you’re mad. That would mean that there is enough wealth on that table to get an entire family off-world and out of Ultick controlled space. A massive amount of money.”

“You left out the part about having enough money left over to buy enough Blow to keep me going for the rest of my life”

“In your universe, but here in Equestria, it is considered a very cheap substance. I could get you a whole pound of sugar for just five bits.”

Blade seemed to think about this for a moment before accepting it. “Still tastes horrible.”

“Well, Bladey,” Pinkie chimed backed in, “I guess you’re not going to enjoy that part of the party, but I still have lots of games and music!” At this point Pinkie inserted a small crystal into a gramophone-like device that seemed to be playing from a crystal placed in the device.

“It sounds like someone tried to make music for a bunny rabbit but went way too cute.” It’s sound grated on all music teaching that his fleshes mother had woven in. At this point a sword came up out of the ground and knocked the Gramophone over.

Pinkie stopped and looked hurt for just a moment, “Well… how about games? I have Pin the tail on the pony… or how about hide and seek?” She asked with asked with strained excitement. Blade’s face seemed to answer all of Pinkie’s questions. “I guess that’s a no then?”

Blade let out an aggressive sigh, “What is the purpose of engaging in such useless behavior? I had not made a great deal of progress in understanding the strange things you ponies do, but most of them seem to have some sort of purpose in the world in which you live in. You on the other hand, seem to be a waste of air. I wonder if that why as a filly your parents sent you to live somewhere else. I suggest you find something actually useful to do with your life.” The others gasped as Pinkie’s mane deflated her smiled collapsed and she seemed to be on the verge of crying.

“I just wanted to make you happy…” She sniffled as her voice became a whine that was at a volume one would more expect from Fluttershy. Of course, Blade left the room as most of the other mares in the room seemed to go through a few different emotions. Shock was first, the very idea of saying things like that to Pinkie of all ponies. It was followed by disgust, as they all felt that it was simply unnatural and wrong for him to even feel that way, they had pit so much work into this, it was supposed to be a celebration! Lastly, came anger.

Rainbow was the first to speak up, “Twilight we should just get rid of this colt! Throw his keister right out on the street! We’ve been trying to help him and make him comfortable since he got here, especially Pinkie! What gives him the right to talk to her like that!?” She screamed.

That broke Applejack out of her shock, “Hold on just a cotton-picking minute, Rainbow. He is entailed to his opinion even if it wrong. Yet the way he said that made me think there more to the apple then the skin.”
“Pinkie, I’m sorry, but you should probably cancel the party. I don’t think he’s in the mood and I’m not sure anyone else is either…” Twilight remarked.

Pinkie was already taking down her party supplies, sniffling. “It’s alright, Twilight. I kinda knew before I started what was gonna happen. My Pinkie sense told be even before the storm that he needed help. I guess I got ahead of myself. I can’t start with a party, I’ve gotta work him up to it.”, Her voice was low, and her eyes would not meet any of the others.

“What in Tartarus was that, Blade!?” Twilight exclaimed.

Blade was sitting in the library, reviewing books on the basics of reading that Cheerilee had given him the day before as Twilight barged in, glaring at him.

“What, Twilight?” Blade asked, not even looking up from his children’s book.

“Is it not obvious? She talking about your total lack of diplomacy you rage-ass.”

“What? What!? What about what you just did to Pinkie? What about how you insulted her entire life’s work and even went after the strange connection she has to her family?! That was not ok. She provides an important service, the way that all party planners do in Equestria. She helps ponies be happy!”

“Party Planner? That sounds like a very dangerous thing to have.” Blade stated nonchalantly, finally looking up from his book.

“What?” Twilight muttered, still not accustomed to Blade’s monotone

“Parties are something done by the wealthy and powerful in a show of wealth and torturing resources. Wasting resources by the non-powerful is a good way to leave a large portion of your entire countries population hungry and starved. The fact you have entire job classes whose purpose is to waste limited resources and lead to the greater scarcity is strange.”

“Ugh, there he goes rambling about our world again.”

Twilight collected herself and tried to approach the situation more calmly before continuing, “That, at least, seems to put some perspective on things, but I going to have to ask for some clarification on a few things. First, why would a Pinkie party be such a drain on resources?”

“The amount of food a country can produce is limited by land and limiting factors of the planet’s seasonal growth cycle. In Pinkie’s party, a large amount of food existed with empty calories that would not maximize caloric resources. Those ingredients could have been used for more efficient foods. Secondly, time that is the most important resource at all. Wasting it on things like those silly games is taking time away from resource gathering that could better your countries standing against the other nations on your planet.”

This new information had Twilight put her thinking face on. “I think I am beginning to understand. Let me show you something.” Twilight decided to take this moment and to make it a lesson for the colt, walking over to a small plant that was growing in a hoof sized pot, it was not even far enough along to tell what it was going to grow into. She placed a hoof on the pot and focused as much earth pony magic as she could. It suddenly began to grow as fast as the eye could see. It was something that Blade could not even begin to understand, only the most powerful Gardener Esper could make a plant grow so fast and they needed far more soil. Within a second, it was clear that the plant was a sunflower. It grew five full flowers over the course of thirty seconds, almost knocking the pot over.

Blade stared, “That’s… not possible. That pot does not have enough material to produce the amount of matter that exist in those flowers.” Though Blade face had not changed, it was very obvious he was confused, the flower was far outside his world view.

Twilight smiled, “Actually, by using Earth Pony magic it is possible. The inherent magic of an Earth Pony can replace the energy from sunlight and the nutrients from the soil. Creating matter is common side effect of Earth Pony magic but normally it’s a process of years. Being a Alicorn, I have far more magic in any field then most ponies, it’s possible for me to make things grow much faster than most earth ponies. Though, growing this fast reduces the flowers health and nutritional value. Most earth ponies would have made this grow over the course of about two weeks to produce the healthiest results the fastest.”

Blade was staring at the flower. “This is not possible… the amount of energy needed… the rules of entropy would make such a system impossible unless you were… No. That violates one of the most basic rules of physics. Energy cannot be created or destroyed.”

“Ohhh… Hoofstein’s theorem. That was disproven hundreds of years ago. It’s been proven that Magic is created from combining emotion, which is ethereal, and life energy, which is material. As a result, energy can be created infinitely, but it is nearly impossible to destroy energy.”

“No. That is not possible. Do you live in Exotropic universe? No. Those destroy life, nothing can live in a Exotropic universe. They are just not possible!” Blade said with a slightly raised voice, the most emotion he had shown so far.

“That’s not true. Our universe is Exotropic and we have a thriving universe.”

“If that true, then your entire planet should be burning. If you keep adding energy to a system, then everything would just spiral out of control. The only functional system is in which everything passes into the cold as the universe runs out.” With that Blade seemed to go into a daze as he tried to process this impossibility. “We’ve examined other universes, hundreds of them. All of them are Entropic, there is just not another way for a universe to be stably run.”

“I know you’re not used to it, but it’s true.” She became more sterner as she remembered why she had followed after him. “I also think that that you owe some apologies to Pinkie. You made a great deal of assumptions today and hurt her feelings. You need to understand that what you did was wrong.”

Blade snapped out of his daze. “I still disagree with her existence. My opinion of her has not changed. She with her strange powers could be useful for a great deal more. She is a waste of talent.”

“What? That makes no sense given everything you just learned. How is Pinkie a waste?”

“Happiness is dangerous. The first lesson that I was taught as a child is that for one person to have happiness someone has to pay with an even greater amount of pain and despair. Someone like Pinkie who spreads happiness with no thought to the Despair she can also bring is reckless.”

Twilight shook her head in exasperation, “Ok, that’s it, you clearly come from the craziest ideology I have ever seen.”

Now it was Blade’s turn to be confused again. “What do you mean? That is not an ideology, it is a proven fact of existence. Everyone knows this.”

Twilight was beginning to understand Blade. He was, according to Discord, a hero. Yet, in his universe, the very act of being happy could bring forth despair in others. He’d chosen to live a life of misery in order to allow others to have some small measure of happiness.

“Blade…” She hesitated, “I can’t really be mad at you for what happened with Diamond Tiara, you did not understand because I failed to inform you about pony biology. Yet, what you did with Pinkie is not acceptable. You must respect that this world is different. If you want to have that fight with my brother when he comes back here with the other Princesses, you will apologize to Pinkie and you will make a point of becoming more accepting of views different than yours.”

“Wish you luck with that one, Royal horse. He didn’t even get along with his fellow bastards.”

Blade narrowed his eyes. “I might have a child’s body in this world, but I am far more mature than you. I have seen and done things you can’t imagine.” He let out a exhale, which Twilight almost misinterpreted as a sigh, “I will agree to apologize for no other reason than to prevent tensions with you, but do not believe that I have changed anything. If you want me to find a more balanced way of living in your world then I suggest allowing me to do as I please instead of treating me like a toy that you are interested in. I am a weapon. If you wish to use me, then you must use me as such. This nonsense of you placing your beliefs of my personal existence on mine is going to continue to cause trouble.

“Well, I don’t think that will get you anywhere”

“School is so that you have a basic understanding of how our world works so you can blend in, you ignorant colt. Think bigger picture. If you want to live in Equestria you must be able to convince those you interact with that you are not a threat!” Twilight explained, exasperated.

Blade answered as coldly as ever. “I am a threat. I am a weapon that has no other purpose other than to kill en masse. The knowledge of how this world works is only going to distract from my functions and prevent from completing my mission.” He shook his head, “I am going to my room, I need to do far more mental repair then I first believed and after what happened to Diamond Tiara it would be best if I am left alone.”

With that, Blade left, closing his door right as Twilight was about make a retort. Twilight was unsure. Yes, Blade had agreed to apologize, yet, despite how heated the argument had gotten Blade’s voice had barely risen. His face had not so much as twitched. Perhaps Blade was telling the true and that for his species he had been far older than her and had a higher level of maturity for his kind. His world’s adults did seem to act cruel just for the sake of being cruel in order to earn their own happiness. Yet why did nothing fit?

Anti-hero

The apology with Pinkie had been a threadbare thing. He had said that he was sorry that the realities they came from were incompatible and stated for both of their mental health they should never allow themselves to see or hear each other again. Pinkie had simply put on a smile and said ok. Much to everyone’s surprise.

It had been four days since Blade made Pinkie cry and Blade Dancer was not getting in any better in his behaviors. He spent most of his time wondering around. Twilight had given him some of the local currency, something called “Bits”. They were made of gold. Given what he knew about metal it was problem for their easy of work and lack of rust more than value given the Earth Pony powers.

He mostly spent the money on extra food. Blade would not believe it if he had not seen for himself that a Dragon cooked meals for him, but what he made was for a normal pony’s sweet tooth in mind. Twilight said they had very strong metabolisms and needed more raw sugar to fuel everything.

He so far had found that he could just not build up any strength. He was keeping his belly full whenever he could and his body was already building up its reserves of every form of matter needed. He discovered that this world had two foods that he was more pleased to see, Siracha and Jalapenos. They were something that he used to warm his body whenever he developed hypothermia back home. He had started adding them to all the meals that Spike was making.

You know that those only made think you were warm and did not actually help, right?

Blade walked around town. As he walked, he noticed a group of the non-special ponies he had heard were called “Earth” Ponies moving a wagon full of glowing rods which they were pulling up a hill to a construction site. According to what Twilight was saying it was going to be a holding cell for dangerous magical beasts that sometimes came out of the Everfree. It was also going to function as a guard station and house an increased guard unit that Celestia was hoping to put in place.

It was in that moment that it became a Ponyville day.

Derpy Hooves was one of the local mail ponies. The poor mare had a horrible lazy eye that just would not let her focus. She heard but failed to see as the straps holding the two stallions to the wagon of metal rods broke, causing the cart to roll down the hill towards the market square. This caused ponies to flee in all directions. Derpy could not run as she was knocked over by the mare she had been giving mail to. With already poor balance, she had not recovered. Worse yet, as it neared the bottom of the hill the wagon hit a fence. It stopped the wagon, but the already damaged bands broke unleashing a flurry of rods like a cannon blast. It was about to be the end for Miss Hooves.

Derpy had just managed to get her awareness back to see the rods coming at her. At once, several things passed through her mind. Her daughter, Dinky, would become an orphan. She would never see Dinky’s father again even after waiting all this time. She would never pay of her overdue library charge.

“Out my way, you wall eyed freak.” someone said, pushing Derpy and saying some very mean things. She went flying, hitting a stall and nearly breaking her foreleg.

Shluk!

Derpy’s first thought was that she was alive. She turned to thank the pony that had saved her and immediately she regretted being alive. A colt the color of silver was impaled by no less than six of the rods, the rest scattered around him. One was through his right forehoof, three were scattered throughout his barrel, one had pinned his tail down by its hair, most likely not hitting the tail itself, and the last was going through his flank until it was under him.

Most people did not know this about Derpy Hooves, but she loved children. The idea that one had just given his life for her broke her. This young colt her daughters age… It was more than her heart could take. “SOMEPONY, ANYPONY, HELP!” Derpy screamed. She turned to see some of the other townsponies coming out of their hiding spots.

“Stop your whining.” The colt was speaking, that should not have been possible with the rods through his barrel. Nurse Redheart, who had been off duty and grocery shopping for her food for the week was already overlooking the wounds. Ponies were strong, yet Redheart knew that with this many deep all the way through wounds if she did not get him to Ponyville General, he would be dead in minutes. “I need a strong stallion, now!”

Shlup.

Derpy turned from trying to call out to Noteworthy, as an earth pony he should be able to at least lift this much, to find the colt, who should have passed out from blood loss, was pulling out the first of the rods from his foreleg.

Nurse Redheart responded, “Don’t you dare pull that out! You will bleed to death before you get to the hospital, young stallion!”

“I’ll be fine. I am not sure how they even got past my blunt in the first place. Some rest and I will regen from this level of damage in no time.” The colt then proceeded to shove off Redheart and rip all of the remaining rods out. What left Redheart unsure was that with each rod pulled out instead of the gush of blood there was an oozing of white glue-like gunk. She had never seen anything like it. Noteworthy tried to force the colt to go the hospital but he showed amazing strength and shoved him off each time.

They followed him home only for him to lead them to Twilights Castle. Noteworthy could not help but hate the building. It ruined all of the small-town décor, which was the sole reason he liked this place. Noteworthy was the next to speak up. “Guys, if he lives with Twilight then that means she can handle it. We should go find her. I don’t feel comfortable shoving my muzzle in ‘Royal Business’.”

Derpy glared at Noteworthy. “How can you say that? He saved my life! He’s going to die!”

Redheart spoke next, “Twilights castle is also used as the town public library, so we’re allowed to go in there. I am going to fight anyone that says I can’t save a life.” With that, Redheart ran off inside the castle at a full gallop. Derpy followed after her. Noteworthy was unsure of what to do. It was dangerous to just allow them to follow this mad colt. Yet, Redheart was a member of his herd. As the stallion it was his job to defend her with his life. He followed the trail of white goo.

He found the colt being fussed over by the two mares. Derpy had somehow found a loaf of bread and was force feeding the colt. The colt, surprisingly, did not seem to mind and was eating as fast as the crazy mare could feed him. Redheart had somehow managed to find bandages and was trying to wrap him as he was pushing her off and trying to focus on eating the bread.

Noteworthy was unsure of what to make of this. “Redheart, how crazy is this foal?”

“Well, somehow, he’s healing at an incredible rate. This white stuff seems to be a byproduct. Yet it seems that he’s using everything his body has just to heal. Noteworthy, go get more food from the kitchens. He’s going to need more than a loaf of bread to heal.”

Noteworthy did not bother arguing with her. He knew better than trying to change Redhearts mind when she was with a patient. He turned around and trotted off. It took all of ten minutes to find the kitchen in the labyrinth that was the castle. Inside was a massive amount of sandwich material and breakfast food. Clearly, Twilight Sparkle was in need of someone to teach her how to make proper dinner food. Not a single mushroom steak, rice pilaf, or even a squash to be seen. He would have to have a talk with Spike during the next guys night…

Twilight was looking down at the bandaged colt. He was sleeping after eating two loafs of bread given to him by Derpy. “Thank you Redheart, how soon till we can take off the bandages?”

“They’re ready to come off now. His healing abilities are scary. I mostly wrapped him to prevent his body from wasting so much of that healing gunk. I have no idea what that stuff is made of. The big thing will be making sure he sleeps as much as possible, then feeding him again.”

“Derpy are you sure he saved you? It just does not seem like him.”

Noteworthy spoke instead, “Yeah, he walked right up when he saw the wagon rolling then shoved her so hard I was worried he hurt Derpy. The whole square was empty because every pony was trying to avoid getting hit. Yet, he pushed her instead of just going around. The only reason to do any of that was to save Derpy.”

Twilight was clearly unsure. “Noteworthy, that does not make sense. Everything he’s said and I’ve seen… he’s not the type to do this.”

The Girls had who had come to hear the story had gathered around after hearing what happened in the market square. “Actually Twi, I might think he not been telling you everything. The other day Applebloom… Well, she was making me so proud, practicing her applebucking, she bucked a tree that had been sick early this spring. It scared me half to death when a whole third of the tree fell nearly on top of her. Suddenly, the whole branch turned into sawdust! It spooked me something fresh. The only clue as to what happened is that walking by on the road was Blade, it’s hard to miss that shiny coat of his.”

“Well, maybe he does not mean to lie. It could his just doesn’t know the truth.” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Whats that, sugarcube?” Applejack tilted her head.

“Well, maybe he does not mean to lie. It could his just doesn’t know the truth,” Fluttershy repeated. “You all seemed to know that I was braver than I thought I was back when we first met, maybe he is the same. He thinks he is one thing and really he is another person entirely.” She explained,

“You may be right Fluttershy. Everything about this makes what Discord said about him being an anti-hero makes a little more sense…”

Echoes

Blade had begun to get the basics of the written language down. It was taking far longer because he did not have any system that would provide a shortcut. In the end what had gotten Blade to truly try learning was Twilight telling him that she was not going to review the reports from Shining for him anymore, instead he would have to read them himself.

Blade was in as close to a good mood as he was capable of. He was finally going to get a chance to push this body after the physical damaged had been healed. With this, he would finally be able to tell how much of his powers were active. He expected to simply wipe the floor with Shining Armor even if he was only at half strength.

Twilight said that his behavior did not qualify for a free match. Blade would be required to go over all his powers and what information he had for all the Princesses. She said it was important to understand how exactly they could use him in the battles that would be coming with his old enemy.

The Princesses had all arrived this morning, but Twilight had insisted that he go to this waste of time school. They reviewed music and manners today. Neither of which he cared about. He made a point to sleep through them as Cheerilee had simply said that his injures must be bothering him more today.

After school, three fillies had chosen to try and engage him in something called getting a “Cutie Mark.” Blade believed this was an adulthood ritual where they tattoo something onto each of their flanks. After telling them that Esper skin regenerative abilities prevent tattooing and scaring. The three fillies began to back up mumbling something about how he was in for a surprise. I think

As Blade approached the castle, he saw a pony that had been absent since the first time that I had awoken. She was a very light purple with a darker purple mane with a light blue strip in it. If he remembered it correctly Twilight called her Starlight. Which was weird because that was just a different way of saying the same thing.

“So, you’re the colt that got the jump on me. I hate to say it but I thought I was better than that.” She spoke up as Blade approached,

“You should have been facing my direction instead of looking away. Even if you were still reading the book you could have looked up.” Blade countered,

“Ahh thanks, I will try and remember that for next time I have to watch a murderous colt.” She said derisively, her words dripping of sarcasm.

Blade just continued walking and ignored her. It was clear Starlight did not even register on his list of concerns.

Earlier that day

Celestia was reading the reports, handing them to Luna, who passed them to Candance and Shining Armor who were reading them together at the head of the dinner like table. Fluttershy was sitting with Twilight at the other end of the square table. With Discord floating above them staring at the ceiling.

“So, Twilight is there anything else that’s not in your reports that you feel like we should be aware of?“ Celestia says with her personal smile that she saves for those she cares about.

“No, my report is very complete.”

“Yes, I see that.” Luna says lifting the twenty-page report that covered a nearly minute by minute synopsis of the last week. “Though I feel that I must request that I be allowed to enter his dream realm. If his memories were damaging enough that merely glimpsing them resulted in us having to erase the memories of a small filly, then it’s clear that he is just a ticking time bomb.”

“I’m surprised to say that I find that I agree with my sister. He keeps talking about his enemy. Yet, everything that we have seen shows that he is as dangerous as this enemy could be. He did not react at all when he heard how he had hurt that filly and his next action was to go after the Element of Laughter.” Celestia intoned solemnly,

“I’m sorry Princess. If you read to the end of my report, you begin to see how harsh the world that he came from. I think he has been avoiding telling anything about himself. Yet, the clear way he always shows no emotion and calls himself a living weapon. That shows a level of trauma, yet he is not even remotely open to beginning helped. I don’t think he is going to allow Luna into his mind.” Twilight insisted,

“If I may,” interrupts Shining, “I think that if anyone can learn the answers to the questions you needed answered, it’s me.”

“Shiny, I don’t mean to question honey, but why are you going to be able to do better than Luna? Her dream magic is all about the mind.” Cadence questioned,

“Respect. His way of reacting to Pinkie tells me he is a solider down to his bones. I learned more about him from how he moves than from Twilight’s entire report.”

Twilight seemed to get a little annoyed at this, “Like what?”

“First, he is not just saying that he views himself as a tool. During our little match he ignored his own condition. I’ve seen true soldiers like that. Captain of Squad Four, Iron Wall, is a lot like that. He would destroy himself without a moment’s hesitation. It was a trait that he had to beat out of me and himself. A soldier can throw his life away, but a commander must remember that he needs to lead and must be willing to let others die for them.” At this, Luna and Celestia both flinched. During their long lives both of them have had to relearn that lesson numerous times.

“I know that most of you still have a hard time trusting me,” Discord spoke up, “but I have read all of the memories that were exposed in that storm. I have never lied to you all even before my reformation. Misdirected maybe, but never lied. I am telling you that he was an anti-hero in his world. I also have bad news.”

“Discord is this what you been upset about? You missed this week’s tea party.” That seemed to shock everyone. Discord cared more about Fluttershy then anyone. He never missed a tea party with her.

“Yes, Fluttershy. Celestia, Luna, I can’t tell you much, but whatever this enemy of his is, it will have a direct impact on Equus. It’s still too weak for you to notice now with your lack of experience. No, whatever this thing is its effect is spread thinly instead of focused so I can’t locate it. This is likely the last time that you will see me until this is dealt with. I must remain somewhere else to prevent him from leaving a permanent stain. Goodbye.” With that Discord snaps and disappears.

“That did not seem like Discord” Fluttershy mutters.

The room seemed colder. The fact that Discord, the powerhouse that they had hoped to use as their last resort, was gone. He had been serious. Something that had become far too common since Blade had appeared. It had been several moments of silence before anyone spoke.

“Sister, I think that we need to redouble our efforts. This is not like another one of the evils we faced, for it to make Discord focus on just it…. Not even Sombra had this sort of power.” Luna said ominously,

“Twilight, how long before Blade gets out of school? I want to create a list of questions ready before he gets here.” Celestia says calmly,

Blade entered the Map room to find everyone sitting around it looking at him. “Lets get these questions over with, I have my own reasons I need to stretch my powers.”

The whole group felt that he was being very rude.

“First I want to know exactly what this enemy of yours is. You just call him the enemy, you have yet to explain in detail.” Celestia, of course being the first to talk,

“That because I don’t really know that much. He called himself LOST I know that he was the force behind the Ultick and the Surgeon. All I really know that he was invulnerable to everything that anyone else could throw at him. I developed a unique technique that could hurt him. So I did. He feeds on pain and suffering. He spreads it so that he can feed.”

“That not a lot, young colt. You don’t even know what he is?”

“No.”

“Ok, second question, you called yourself a weapon. What details can you give on that? Maybe we could replicate your powers.”

“I am a class zero Esper. I use space pulled through my body from an artificial space created by the Doctor. I then form it into a Blade that cuts the space between the atoms. Yet, that would not help defeat LOST. The technique that defeated him was based on concepts that I don’t even understand myself. Until I truly understand what’s left of my powers and if it’s possible to regain them, I will not even be able to show it to you.”

The sound of Shining Armor’s head hitting the table was the loudest sound in the room. “So. You can’t even begin to show us anything until you get what you want?”

Cadence put a hoof on her husband’s shoulder. “Ok, my question. You call yourself an organic weapon. How did that happen and just how close are you to a true life form?”

“I was created through the sacrifice of a human organism, I do not know his name. He was disposable. I was then built from the parts after they had been modified. The Surgeon would then review the body using the energy from the artificial space that is instilled and the body would then be heavily modified. The mind of Esper is very different as well. We lack the emotions of a human and are not capable defying the programing instilled by the Surgeon.”

“You said that the Surgeon worked for this enemy of yours. That should mean that you serve Lost, yet you call him your enemy how does that work?”

“The Surgeon miscalculated.”

Twilight seemed to think that through. “One last question. Why are you the way you are.”

“I am a Berserker-Class Esper, built with a class four emotion suppression system.”

“Wait emotion suppression system? So you do have emotions just suppressed? That’s not what you just said.” Candance seemed to pick that point to focus on.

“Esper’s were built with suppression system because emotions are useful in tactical planning yet experiencing them would be a hindrance. So, we are aware of what emotions that we should feel, but we don’t experience them.” With that Blade turned right and trotted out the door.

Blade was waiting outside when the everyone caught up to them. He was stretching. “I have answered your questions, now we will serve my testing needs.”

“Well, I would not say you answered all our questions. But I think it will be more valuable to see you in action rather than waste time trying to get more answers out of you” Shining Armor sighs.

In the next instant everything changed. Blade’s sword was already coming down on towards Shining Armor. He reacted with his trademark shield, it flickering to life faster than the blink of an eye. The blade bounced off the shield.

“I had forgotten that your shield is one of those things that can stop a single blade.” With that, a heat haze of swords seemed to stack on top of the original making the sword to seem to vibrate. “Well then lets try ten then.” He swung his sword again and instead of bouncing off it took a chip out of the shield, surprising everyone.

“Please tell me that you did not think I was that weak.” More hazes of swords seemed to appear, but the sword did not vibrate more. An air of power began to grow off it. This time, when he swung it, it cut right into the shield nearly taking Shining Armor’s head off.

At this point the blade got stuck. Blade made a look to focus as sweat began to pour down his fur, matting his mane. At this point, his eyes shrunk to the size of pinpricks. “Thats not possible. Thirty? I can’t only have thirty. I am a Class Zero.” His muscles bulged and he ripped the sword out as the shield regenerated. Blade focused all of his power and sliced through the shield, forcing Shining to retreat. Blade face began to take on the look of someone giving into the rage.

“Enough! Shining Armor, I think I will take over this fight. Blade, you don’t have any problem with that?” Celestia called as she stepped onto the battlefield,

“Ooo. You have the aura of a warrior.” With those words Blade switched targets. Celestia’s shield was not as strong as Shining’s, but she made up for it with the ability to give it a more bouncing effect. Her shield absorbed the momentum of the swing as a result the blows bent her shield instead of being cut.

“Huh. I never thought to use my shield that way. Though it would have a clear advantage against someone like Blade.” Shining Armor mused as he joined the onlookers,

Celestia was feeling confident, she made the shield far larger than it needed to be, but her mana pool was large enough she could keep this up for days.

“Heh.” Blade laughed, “You would so be worth drawing him for.”

Yes! Yes!!! Draw me!

“Oh, do you think you have a way to beat my shield? I don’t think you’re as powerful as you think.” Celestia chided,

The look of fury that passed Blade face surprised Celestia. “I will show you the true power of a Esper, that conquered life.” His hoof hit the ground with enough force to leave cracks. “Come, Immortal Blade.” As he lifted his hoof of the ground a hilt followed. Then, hate fell like a blanket. A wash of red and black aura flowed from the spot on the ground and it was as if the doors to Tartarus itself opened. The guard of the sword was wider than Big Macs shoulders, the blade that flowed from that guard was lager then any blade had any right to be, as long as Celestia was tall. Worse was the face that was on the center of the guard, cast into the metal of the blade, screaming in pure anguish. A face that reminded both Celestia and Twilight far too much of the humans they had seen in their travels to the human realm. The repressive aura of hate pressed down like the depth of the ocean. There was one thing that pressed into everyones mind, this blade, was alive.

Yes! Freedom! Battle! Bloodshed!!! Finally!

“What is that sword colt?” Celestia demanded coldly,

“This is the Immortal Blade. It will regenerate from any damage and contains the ability to hold my power without end. It is the greatest weapon in my arsenal. I forged this blade in battle against an enemy that should have taken my life, instead he became this sword. It is also the blade that will crush you, Princess.” Blade answered with what sounded almost like real emotion.

In this moment, Princess Celestia was disgusted by this colt. Did he not realize that there was a soul trapped within that blade? That he had performed the most evil art that existed, Necromancy? He had bound a living soul to that claymore in order to grant it greater powers. This broke every rule that Equestria had! After a second though, She remembered that the rules were different where he came from. Yet, things would have to be made clear, that soul needed release.

“Blade! That soul you have trapped within that sword must be released! Here, in Equestria, we have strict laws against the manipulation of souls!” She shouted,

Blade just laughed. “I don’t even know how I made this sword, and even if I were willing to give up my greatest weapon on your command, I would not have a clue how.”

Well, that settled it for Celestia, it sounded like he both was unwilling and unable to release the soul so Celestia would have to do it for him.

“Then I will release it. For no soul shall be enslaved in my kingdom.” Firing up her horn she channeled a spell that she had not used in hundreds of years. Blade turned the sword sideways to use the massive sword as a shield. Yet this just showed Celestia the target that she was looking for. As the spell slammed into the sword Blade dug into ground to absorb the blow. Instead of blowing him back though, Blade found the energy absorbed with no recoil into the Immortal Blade.

“Ha! your spells are not as impressive as you think! They did not even manage to move me!” Blade taunted,

“I was not aiming for you.”

CRACK!

The sound was like a whip right next to the ear.

CRACK!

Blade Dancer turned to find his great unbeatable sword now had cracks spread throughout the entirety of its form. “ Tha- thats not possible! This sword repairs itself from damage!” Still cold without the panic that was to be expected.

With that, the sword shattered, and the red aura spilled forth to form a fog which seemed to eat into the souls of everyone there.

“I am going to Kill You!” screamed a new voice.

Still surrounded in the ever-increasing red fog, which everyone realized was eating away at its surroundings like acid, where there was once one colt, there now stood two. A second had appeared from nowhere!

The new colt was bright. His fur was like spun gold and shined as bright as Blades did in the light. It was a very uncommon color. His mane was the color of beaten gold which was several shades darker than his coat. This coloration would have made him look like a statue if it were not for his quick aggressive movements as he was grappling Blade. His eyes, filled to the brim with hate, were the color of amber.

It was at that moment things took a turn for the worse. Blade cut the other colts head off.

The colts body kept moving with grace, though clearly off balance, as it picked up its head and placed it back on its shoulders. At this point, everyone else was lost as to what was happening. "Did you really think that would work?!" The colt shouted, "You couldn’t kill me before, that’s why you had to turn me into a sword!" he screamed as he bit down onto Blades ear.

“Ok girls, I’m not sure what we should do.” Twilight said rapidly, “I mean, we should stop them, right?!”

Celestia was marching forward to get between the two of them. “I don’t know what you two are doing, but I am sure you can come up with a more peaceful solution then trying to kill each other.”

With this, both colts both turned and punched Celestia simultaneously with force to knock Celestia out cold. Everyone was shocked, the fact was that no one had ever punched Celestia. Her personal guard were trying to tackle the two colts. Yet, even with six full grown stallions pressing down with full force, two of which were earth ponies, they were still fighting back. It was honestly impressive. Then all the Guards were thrown off as the two colts went back at each other.

The amount of red fog had grown, becoming a full grown storm, a maelstrom that was reaching ever higher. The Guard was forced to retreat as the fog was now scraping away at the enchantments that protected them and their armor. As they retreated out of the red storm their personal coat colors had shown through in spots as the enchantments began to break down.

“What is with these colts and storms?!” screamed Rainbow Dash.

It was at this Fluttershy stepped forward. “Boys!” With this, both colts, now shadowed in the storm, turned towards the stern mare, surprising everyone. “I’m well aware that you two must hate each other with a fiery passion, but look at the damage you’re causing. Assaulting the Princess! You two should be ashamed of yourselves! If you want to fight to the death, then do it properly in a setting that is not going to drag lots of ponies into the middle of it. Just look at all this red fog! Did you even think about how to clean this up?”

“BU-!”

“No buts out of either of you! You will calm down and we will settle this like the grown ponies you think you are.” Normally this sort of tactic would not have worked, yet for reasons not clearly understood by either one they could not look away from the mare as she gave them the lecture. Blade was also noticing the red fog. This universe was getting annoying, it seemed any small amount of perfectly normal killing intent was ruining the world.

They both seemly had one last thing to say in their defense,

“He started it!”

That’s when both colts passed right out. In Blade Dancer’s case, for the second time.

“Wait do they have horns?” Twilight was noticing that after the storm both of them were unicorns. “Why? How?! Blade was an earth pony not even a hour ago!”

“It possible for him to have changed. We know that his form was in flux when he arrived. It could be when he went through the release of the other colt from himself he opened himself up to Equis altering him to a form that the world felt fit better for him”, Luna says with interest.

“Well, alright, does anyone have any ideas how we can prevent these two from killing each other the moment that they wake up?” asks Princess Luna.

“Why don’t we simple split them up and move them to opposite sides of the country?” suggests Applejack.

“No.” interjects Celestia,

“What? Sister! What do you mean no?” asks Luna, confused

“I can’t explain why, but we must help bridge the hate between them and form some sort of understanding so that we can make a move have them fight together in the battles that are to come.” Celestia says. Luna knew immediately that this was about Celestias dream that first morning. The arrival of this second colt had made it clear that something bigger was going on. “The enemy that came from their world is something only they can fight. Don’t any of you remember what Blade said when fighting Shining Armor? “That’s not possible. Thirty? I can’t only have thirty. I am Class Zero”. It’s clear that he is not as powerful as when he last fought this great evil. He is going to need the power of a second one of his kind. I want ideas, now. Is there any magical solution that could help weaken the hate or forge a bond between these two so that when the time come they are not standing alone?”

“I…… might have an idea” Cadence said concerned. “But it’s not something I am sure I feel comfortable doing” Candance speaks up from the back of the group. “Its a spell that I created back during my days of watching foals. It makes siblings get along. I’ve only done it before with an actual parent’s permission”

“Candence how is that going to make them get along? They’re not siblings.” Twilight said, trying to reveal what feels like a clear flaw in the plan. “At least, I assume they aren’t…”

“The spell was to make foster siblings learn to get along. It works by making a parent a center of the spell. They are the source for the magic. I bind them to their parent and create bonds through that.” Cadence explained,

“I don’t know how I feel about this,” Twilight says. “I mean what are we even talking about. Trying to force a relationship?”

Luna spoke next “I know Twilight, but the situation makes it necessary. We know that their powers will be needed. Besides, you saw what happened with that one colts head. I don’t think its even possible to control something that ignores things that are supposed to kill you.”

“Then I will cast the spell Aunties. But we need to know who is going to be the parent for them. I suggest one of us. I don’t think anyone else would have enough magic to affect them through whatever defense these strange powers give them.” Cadence confirmed,

“I will do it.” Twilight spoke up, “The rest of you are so interested in controlling them, but someone needs to think about their future. Blade is so damaged and this new colt is most likely going to be just as bad. Someone needs to focus on their mental health.”

Brothers

This had to be a bucking joke. Blade once again found himself in that uncomfortable wooden bed. Weird, since everything else was crystal. It was so soft that no matter what he did he sank into it, and he could stand on water. As Blade turned over, he saw that there was another bed now in his room. Laying awake on the other bed, staring at him, was the golden colt.

“So, Blade Dancer, is it now? Fits your style.” He laughed a loud, hollow, laugh,

“Why don’t you go jump in a meat grinder? At least then I won’t have to listen to you for a few minutes.” Blade retorted,

“Unfortunately, it would be more than a few minutes. You burned both of our worlds. I’ve seen the inside of yours. I think you really underestimated the damage.” The golden colt said, more seriously.

“Class damage level?” Blade asked,

“Seven.”

Blade eyes narrowed as he thought about that. “Well, that’s not good. That means we are at pretty much Class Six instead of Zero.”

“Yep.”

Both colts were still angry at each other, but not at the level of hatred that everyone had seen during the combat..

“Possibility to repair?” Blade inquired,

“Low.”

Blade was looking at his long-time enemy. “I know that I have enslaved you for years. How much is it going to cost me for you to move past that and help me kill LOST?”

“I am willing to work with you. You may not know this, but I saw everything. Even when I was stored away. I saw what happened to your brother.” Blade’s body stiffened and his eyes flashed a shining crimson. “I also saw that you killed the Surgeon. Simple logic says that I should kill you for turning me into a sword, yet the Surgeon’s death weighs more in my mind. The Surgeon killed a pure boy, someone beautiful, to make me. For that I am still in your debt. So, I will try and help you contain your beast. I just hope I can contain mine.” With this, his amber eyes flashed a brilliant purple. He then rolled over to go back to sleep.

“Well, that went better than expected.” said Spike. He and Twilight had been watching, waiting to see if Cadence’s spell had taken. Spike and them both thought that it was a huge risk, but the other Princesses had believed it was a good idea. Fluttershy and Rainbow agreed as well. In the end, the only ones that supported not putting them together was Pinkie and Applejack, both of whom were known for avoiding their problems.

“Ok Twilight, they’re getting along. What are we going to do with them?” Spike asked,

“We can hear, you know? These ears really do have amazing hearing. If you have questions then just ask.” Blade responded,

“Well, we have questions for the other colt. If you’re willing to follow me, we can get everything sorted out”, Twilight asked.

Walking into map room, Twilight had Blade and the gold colt following her. All of the ponies from earlier were sitting around the crystal table, eating waffles. Surprisingly it was not Spike who had made the waffles, it was Celestia. Who, it turns out, enjoys making breakfast.

“Ok, if there is not at least a stack of those for us, I’m going to have to-“ Cough “What the f-“ Cough Cough. “I can’t swear!” Yelled the golden one.

“I figured that out a little while ago. It seems this world does not want our idea of swears.” Blade says with a straight somehow rude tone, almost as if he were offended. “Well, he is right. We’re growing espers, I hope you saved us food.” Celestia, in response, levitated over two very large plates of waffles. Both were covered in butter. She had skipped whipped cream, having heard they did not like sweets. The two dug in while sitting on the floor.

“Well, for the first question to our new guest. Who are you?, Celestia asks.”

“Well, if I saw correctly from inside Blade, your kind think names are important. Based on all of your names, call me Immortal.” He replied, after a moment of thought.

“Why that name?” asked Pinkie.

Immortal just smiled before grabbing a butter knife between two hooves and stabbing himself right in the head through the eye socket.

“Oh, sweet Celestia.”, mumbled Rarity as everyone began to freak.

“Oh, get a hold of yourselves…” Blade, having gotten used to this trick a while back pulls the blade out. “He is a Regenerator. They are not like your normal healers in stories, though. Esper Regenerators restore themselves into the conditions that they were by returning all of the atoms of their body back to the body. Watch the blood.” As the group looked up at the butterknife the blood slowing was slipping down the blade and flying right back to the body.

The ‘corpse’ lifted his head up and looked around. “Well that’s not as fast as it used to be. I’m going to have to work on that.” Immortal noted,

“Whoa! That would make you a true immortal! Someone that can never die.” exclaimed Candance.

“Not quite true. I still experience biological aging. Even if my atoms all return, the body can still fall apart. One day I will leave behind a very nice-looking corpse. For future information about my powers, I am a Class Zero like Blade, type: Lolita. Designation G-102372. Next question.” Immortal corrected and explained.

“Classes?” Shinning Armor questioned,

“Espers are not broken down in groups based on powers, as those are as infinite as the stars. We are broken down into three main groups; Berserkers, Lolita, and Machines. This is based on how we fight. Blade is a Berserker because he goes in with no concern for anything. Lolita are more playful and tend to try and enjoy their fights. Machines are logical and tend to focus on just the strategy to win. There is an old saying amongst Espers. Send a Lolita to fight a Berserker, send a Berserker to a Machine, and a Machine to a Lolita.” Immortal chuckled,

“Ok then, what is your plan?” Shinning Armor asked

“I don’t have one. I’ve always been a more roll with the punches type. We must kill LOST. Other than that? I’m just going to follow Blade. He is the one that always seems to think things through.” Immortal said passively,

“Blade Dancer has clearly stated that his powers are weaker than they were back home, are yours up to snuff?” Asked Luna, clearly thinking military strategy

“No. Blade gave everything both of us had to kill that monster. It’s going to take a little while of rest and food just to get us to fighting condition. If that is all, I have eaten and now I think it time for us to return to bed.” With this Blade Dancer performed a classic sarcastic earth military salute and smacked his horn. It was not extremely painful as it was not active, but he did manage to hit with enough force to knock his own head askew.

“What in the world is that? How did it end up on my head?” He asked, bewildered.

“You grew a horn after Celestia broke Immortal out. I think your body was still in flux. After all, with your powers, as they are closer to a Unicorn’s then to an Earth Pony’s.”, Twilight answers.

“Whatever, I am going to bed” Blade said in a monotone.

“Well class, it appears that Blade somehow had another colt inside of him, apparently. Celestia brought him out, of course why not, so now we have two new students in class. Why did I not listen to my dad and take the job in Manehatten. No, Dad, I like the countryside, small town living is where it’s at. Ponyville will be a quiet town. Never have I ever been so wrong.”Cheerilee was not the type of pony to hold this against her students. Even though both of them seemed to be the difficult type. Blade took notes but did not seem to care about anything she was teaching. Immortal had chosen to sit next to Blade. According to Twilight, she had legally adopted the young colts so that made them brothers after a fashion. “Well, Immortal? If you don’t mind I would like you to introduce yourself to the class.” She said, a smile returning to her face.

“Hello everyone, One: my name is Immortal. I am here because Twilight wrongfully thinks that anything this school can teach will hold meaning to me, a debauchery of an existence. Though, I would be willing to trade info on any illegal markets that you are aware of. I am an Esper, so don’t be afraid that I can’t handle it. Second, I am what you call Blade opposite, so I am a bit more friendly.” Yet, as this entire speech went on the whole class got more and more uncomfortable. Immortal’s smile did not reach his eyes. It was like he wore a mask, and all the happiness was just a lie so that they would not act scared of him. It felt even more unnatural than Blade. At least Blade seemed honest with feelings, or his lack thereof.

The two for the most part spent the entire class ignoring everyone. It seemed that the world could implode and they would not have reacted. Cheerilee caught them passing notes. Yet, it was some sort of art rather than letters. It came in the form of layered geometric shapes. She just told them not to do it again, not knowing the code but willing to spend the energy to learn.

“So, what are we going to do? LOST is here in this sad little world. He’s going to eat it for breakfast.” the first note read.

“No, he’s not. When he came through, he was so weak that another few seconds in the void would have finished him. I don’t think he has the power to even turn one of these ponies to despair. He’s going to need to find a major food sources to make himself powerful enough to even get his powers back.” came the responding note.

“So you think he’s helpless? Come on, Blade. You know that’s not true. Don’t tell me you’re afraid.”

Blade rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not possible. I am wounded. You may not have been paying attention, but there are creatures on this plane that rivaled our power in our prime. Celestia was toying with us. Even that blasted Shining Armor was not taking our fight seriously. Twilight told me that he can cover a city in a shield for over a week. If he had put all of his might into that shield thirty swords never would have cracked it.”

(Back in the Crystal Empire)

Shining Armor wished he could quit. As he headed for his Crystal Empire office, he lamented that being both the Prince of the Crystal Empire and Captain of the Royal Guard was way too much work. Yet, funnily enough, it would be easier to get out of being the Prince of the Empire. All he had to do is to divorce Cadence. That was still the easy option. In order to stop being the Captain, he would have to find a replacement that the other squad captains agree to, or get them to go back to having to make these decision themselves. Which would mean taking all the work back and those lazy bastards would never do that. Which is not surprising since each and every one was as crazy as Discord on his worst day.

The only reason that he allowed himself to take the job was a secret to Cadence. Celestia held Shining’s ability to marry her niece over his head to get him in the chair. Not surprising, since she lost all control of the captains without the last Captain to help her keep them reined in. He loved his wife enough to die for her and some days he still considered running away and joining a travelling show group. He always did love to act.

Well, at least their in Caterl- he thought as he opened the door to his office.

Shining Armor stepped back out of his office and spoke to the Crystal guard outside his door. “Why did you let these clearly crazy ponies into my office?”

The guard smelled of piss. He had clearly wet himself and Shining was sure that he was unconscious. He was sure if he pushed him he would fall right over. Well, time to go face to the madness. Standing in his office were an assortment of ponies, all of whom were known for being Shining’s problems, the cause of all his headaches, the Captains of the Equestrian Royal Guard Squads.

“It’s not ok to leave an old lady waiting Shiny.” Said the mare nearest the door,

“If there was a lady here maybe I would have hurried.” He snarked,

The Hag cackled. She was the Captain of Squad 2 the “Spell Squad” the only group amongst the Guard that was purely unicorns. They specialized in unicorn martial arts and in peace acted as the heads of the magical research and development division. Their Captains original name had been forgotten. At almost eight hundred years old everyone just called the slightly middle aged looking unicorn “The Hag”. She is the only living unicorn known to have mastered Star Swirls life extension spell.

Next to her was the Captain of Squad Three, the Wonderbolts, everyone knew Spitfire. She tended to give him the least trouble. Yet, she was also the weakest of the three tribal squads. Her whole squad was the weakest. Because of their long history of mistakes they had become more show than fight. Spitfire was trying to fix that, yet it was going to take almost as long as it had taken to cause the problem.

Squad Four, the Castle Breakers. Never get in anything physical with these ponies. Made up of all Earth Ponies that learned many Earth Pony magics that have not been practiced in ages. Many times, Shining Armor wondered how many of those powers could be really useful if learned in small doses. Their Captain was a Stallion named Iron Wall who put Big Mac to shame in every way. He was as tall as Celestia and built so solid that he looked like he could haul a mountain. Many joked that he must have Saddle Arabian blood.

Squad Five, the Castle Builders. They had literally been made because Squad Four broke too many Castles. They oversaw building anything ordered by the government. They built only the best and they did not skimp a single corner. Their Captain was a well-built Earth Pony mare named Silver Nail. She had been part of Squad four and had left after her foals were born. She was the only one of the Captains who did not make him pull his mane out. She was currently working on his desk. It had gotten scraped up when he had brought it from Canterlot. She felt now was the time to lacquer it and the whole room smelled like wood varnish. “Captain, you need to take better care of this desk. It’s older than the Hag. If you don’t fix these scratches the whole thing is going to develop off color.” Funny enough she had a whole unit that now lived in Ponyville full-time. Due to the towns habit of being leveled on a semiregular basis.

Squad Six was named “What Were You Doing”. Yeah, I know. If you could not guess from name, they were the medical squad. They had formed after some of the biggest wars before the fall of Luna. Its Captain, Water Lily, was a rather petite Pegasus mare. A master herbalist. She had spent a large portion of her life in the Zebrican lands. She wore a series of neck rings that had been a gift from her master and she was not a mare to underestimate. Her pale blue coat was surprisingly well maintained, her forest green mane tied up in a bun. It was surprising how much such a kind smile could hide. She was just as dangerous as the captains of the combat squads. Her squad was also in charge of regulating all of the hospitals and veterinarians in Equestria.

Squad Seven was the smallest of the squads, “Your Turn”. They were Equestia special forces unit. Their job was simple go in hit a target get out without being noticed. They were called “You First” was formed as result of a gathering together of members of the three tribe squads who always worked together on missions deep inside enemy territory. They petition the Princess to be allow to make their own unit. They had a very long history of always leaving more work when they make mistakes. Their Captain was sitting on his haunches in the corner, his brown coat showing off his straw colored mane. The unicorn was famous because he was good at using a combination of hoof to hoof and magic to break bones.

Squad Eight had been formed to help maintain supply lines. They were masters at moving anything that the Princess could want. Tartarus, they had been the ones that somehow managed to create a giant chariot that got Shining, Cadence, and a whole guard unit to the Crystal Empire in less than twenty four hours. Their Capitan was a Pegasus mare named Hope Seer. She was one of the greatest long distance flyers and runners in all of Equestria. She had used that knowledge to train the next generation. They also had the largest Civilian presence of all of the units, given that a portion that had grow out of them had formed the Equestrian Postal Service. It had been a small idea nine hundred years ago, but now it was how all mail and packages were delivered. She was reading a book waiting for everything to start.

Squad Nine was affectionately named by Celestia “You Saw Nothing” more commonly known by themselves as YSN. Shining had no idea who their Captain was. They had the most unique method of selecting a new Capitan was and that was for someone to assassinate and get away with killing the guy in charge. So, their Capitan just left him reports that he had no idea how they got there. The only thing that he knew about the pony was that they were captured by the changelings before the wedding and were the reason their entire intel network fell apart.

Squad Ten, and most think the Princess was having a bad day when she came up with the name and it just stuck, It was called “The Dump”. It was the largest of all the units. It is made up of the Town guards and all the record keeping guards who were basically security guards. It was where the largest number of Royal guards end up. Those who pass through squad one and don’t make it into any of the others, end up there. They were still required to wear the uniform though. The only way to tell them apart from other units is that each squad armor has a slightly different design that you would have to know to recognize. The fact of the matter was that to most ponies they were all just “The Royal Guard”. It had been a surprise to Shining himself to find out there was actually more than just the Royal and Town guards. It had taken him three weeks just to tell them apart. The Captain of this squad embodies this ideal with a light Brown coat and darker mane that he, somehow, even with those uncommon colors, remained plain as an Earth pony.

All in all, it was an annoying group of eight ponies in his office. He remembered that the reason that they had all chosen him was because he had done what almost no pony ever thought of doing, training under all of them. He had even succeeded in all the units that were not tribe specific. Both Iron Wall and Spitfire had even thought he had done well in not giving up. The Hag, well, he still had nightmares. She had almost decided not to give him back.

“You know Shiny, you still have not come by. I really think you should get down to learning Star Swirls life extension spell while you still lack wrinkles.” The Hag cackled,

“That’s nice” Shining Armor stated, ignoring the old mare.

Shining Armor found that she had yanked his head and was staring him right in the eye. “Listen to me when I am talking, colt. You have placed yourself in a very dangerous place. Three of the four known Alicorns in existence consider you to be irreplaceable. Luna fell from a weakened Heart, I would rather not see what happens if three Alicorns fall off the deep end.”

“I will consider it, but I think your underestimating my family.”

Iron Wall’s deep voice broke through the nonsense. “I hope you are not just here to talk about him trying to cheat death. We have this very incomplete report on the hostile inter-dimensional interlopers. You don’t expect me to believe that everything you know fits on a single page.” A series of nods show that the others had all agreed to come for the same reason.

“Yes, let’s start with where are they and when can I dissect them?” the Hag said with a gleeful grin.

“One, they’re in the capable hoofs of my sister and two, no. Just no. I was going to write another report today actually. When I wrote the first one, they had not even woken up from falling unconscious. Things you want to know, short and sweet of it. These two came here while fighting something that has even Discord worried. They seemed to have non magic based powers. Seem to be naturally sociopathic. Worst, the powers they have are the only shot we have at fighting this enemy. They don’t believe our magic will even work against this entity they call “LOST”.”

“Buck” said Hope Seer, “Well, then let’s hope you have some plan, Shining.”

“Yes, let’s not have a repeat of the Wedding, with all of us at the borders waiting for an enemy while they’re attacking our Capital. When we ended up getting back just in time to dance at the recital instead of crushing some bugs.” said Iron Hoof.

Shining Armor cleared his throat, “Well, I would like to start with you, Hope. The Princess sent ponies from squad two to the location where the other entity fell. They found nothing. The only thing we know for sure is it leaves a taint where it goes. I want you to help squad nine start looking. You have ponies everywhere with the Equestrian Postal Service. I know its not normal, but tell your post-masters to start asking all of their ponies to keep an ear to the ground. I would rather not rely on just squad nine for this.”

“I can do that, but you better be ready for enough gossip to drown in.” Hope Seer, said in what seemed to be in a sarcastic southern Swamp cant. [something]ed

Shining could not help but sigh at that, more work. Whatever could scare Discord was worth it though. “Fine. Water Lily, both of the colts say they’re hurt. They seem convinced that all they need is food and time. Doctors at Ponyville Hospital seemed lost on what their condition was, I was hoping you have your best unicorn take a look at it. If not, take those herbalist tricks of yours and try some potion efforts.”

“I have a unicorn mare that specializes in cellular examination magic. She should be more than enough to learn what their cells look like. I will call her to meet me up in Ponyville the moment I’m done here.” Water Lily nodded,

“Hag, I want you to go visit the damaged area from Blade’s storm.”

“Wait. Who?” The Hag tilted her head,

“Ah, yes, almost forgot. Pinkie Pie, the element of Laughter, named one of the colts Blade Dancer and the other wishing to avoid that fate named itself Immortal.”

It was Silver Nail that interrupted first. “You said that their powers are not magic based. Then what are they?” The others except the Hag all turned as the thought just occurred to them.

“I don’t know everything, but it seems to have similar properties to dark magic in that it cancels and erases magic. Blade’s storm took all the magic right out of my body. Blade’s power when he uses it seems to be similar to spatial conjuration. He compresses some foreign space into a sword and then uses it to cut with a level of sharpness I’ve never seen. They have limited amount of stress before they break. Thats not the scary thing. The colts only had this body for a couple of days, yet his fighting styles on the level on someone from my investigation squad.” That took everyone back.

“He has that much skill level despite his unfamiliarity with the body?” Spitfire was the one to ask.

Shining nodded. “I have not seen Immortal fight. I doubt he has that level of skill, but he more than makes up for it with his power.”

“You’re scared of it, Shining.” the Hag said.

“He’s a true immortal. Not just unaging like with the Princesses. I watched him lobotomize himself yet the pieces of the skull turned to dust and returned to him. It looked like he had done nothing. It was like injury meant nothing. According to Blade, both of them were stronger before. I’m not sure how you could make such terrifying ability stronger. How do you beat an opponent that never stops coming to kill you?” Shining asked himself more than anyone,

“Oh, I can’t wait to see this!” the Hag exclaimed.