Well, it doesn't look like the world has been destroyed.

As much as I agreed, I couldn't help but wish that the things I had to worry about would be more mundane. 'Did I leave the oven on,' for example. Or, 'did I leave my wallet in my other... pants.' Nevermind. In other news, it was nighttime in Ponyville when I stepped out of the portal, and the sight of a completely untouched and intact moon in the sky was definitely a good sign. The wreckage of Ponyville was a significantly less good sign. I looked around me and it appeared that most buildings had at least some damage done to them, and there was a significant number of ponies setting up tents. And a number of ponies tearing down their tents while giving me the stink eye. Not like I've been living here for the better part of a... year?

Unfortunately, I am just as bad, if not worse, at keeping track of time.

Lets just say a year then. Point being, I thought the ponies would be more used to me at this point. I waved a hand at the closest camper to me to try to get their attention, wanting to ask what happened to the town while I was gone. Fortunately, they turned out to be a friendly face.

"Octavia? You and Vinyl alright? What happened to the town?" She looked at me with her typical level of stoicness as she finished stomping her tents' stakes into the ground, but I would have to blind to not see the bags under her eyes and the general lack of effort she put into her normally immaculate mane and coat.

"Well, apparently something tried to destroy the moon, and once word got out there ended up being a stampede of ponies panicking in the streets. Somehow, this ended with a wrestling match between an adult and full-sized Spike the dragon and Carina." It took me a moment to process the words that came out of her mouth, and then I spent so long time trying to make sense of what she said that I ended up missing the rest of what she tried to tell me.

Uh, Vinyl is fine and is just fetching food for the two of them. Their house is not too bad off but the windows are pretty much gone and they can't live there until they clean up all the glass. And Carina, Swaddle-Dee, The Mane Six (I mean the girls, like the Element Bearers), and the Princesses are all sequestered at Canterlot last Octavia heard. If I had to guess, Spike, Star Vision, Susie, and Magolor are probably with them.

"I'm going to have a lot to catch up on aren't I?" Given I had all the information she tried to give me, I decided to just pretend I was listening the whole time instead of making her repeat herself. "Well I'm glad you two are safe. Here, lemme just-" I tried to push down my annoyance as a few of my portals opened by themselves, depositing a couple stacks of cut lumber, panes of glass, and basic foodstuff. Just another thing I was going to have to pretend I did.

Sorry, I'll just... Be over here. Metaphorically. Respecting boundaries.

I shook off the apology and told Octavia to stay safe and to say hi to Vinyl for me. I wanted to portal to Canterlot Castle right then and there, but instead I started walking through the town. If 'the Voice' was going to be so chatty, then I needed a name to call him. And if he wanted to respect my boundaries, then we needed to set down some quick rules so he knew where the lines he shouldn't cross stood.

A name? Alright... I would argue for Ego, but the evil planet kinda spoils that name for me. Alter would work but it makes me sound like a dark alternate-timeline version of you-

I have thus named the voice in my head 'Alter D. Ego.'

I... Okay. I'm almost afraid to ask what the 'D' stands for, but sure. Alter Ego works. Two negatives make a positive after all.

So long as you know that two wrongs don't make a right. Now, first rule, quiet the fuck down.

Infinite Cosmic Power! Itty bitty living space. Anything else? Want me to, I don't know... Do this?

What?

Lookatmego!

Stop it, my vision is swimming.

Shit, sorry.

Whatever, rule two. Shut up. You don't have to wait until spoken too but I feel like I'm losing myself in a sea of dialogue. You don't need to fill the space with words or drown out the silence. I know you're there. I haven't forgotten.

...

...Cool. Now that my vision has stopped swimming and I can see the ponies either ignoring or glaring at me, I'm going to portal to Canterlot. I would like to see how everyone is doing myself now that I can actually give them the attention they deserve.

I had only taken one step out of the portal and into the throne room when I suddenly had to duck a sword that was sent spinning through the air at me. It still nicked one of my antlers as it flew over me and scared the crap out of some poor pony back in Ponyville as it passed through the closing portal, but I kept both my eyes so that was what I was going to focus on. Said eyes darted around the room as I tried to find who tried to kill me, and what I saw was not what I expected. Not that I was expecting the sword aimed at my skull, but I digress. I expected it to be either empty with the exception of the normal contingent of guards (in which case I would ask them where the Princesses where), or for the throne room to be packed full and hosting everyone I was looking for. What I saw was the unforeseen option three.

First thing I saw was the captain of the royal guard, Shining something, with the most obvious look of 'oh shit' on his face that I didn't even need to look to know that his scabbard was bereft a sword. The next thing I noticed was that I was standing on a table for some reason and that there were servants and staff scrambling every which way, completely ignoring the attempted homicide that just occured in the center of everything.

I think it would be manslaughter, technically. Or ponyslaughter.

Noted.

"Did I do anything to upset you Captain?" I was in shock wasn't I? There was no way I was actually handling everything that happened since I melted with so much grace. Unless Alter Ego was fucking with me again.

"Damn it Shining, get ahold of yourself. You didn't even check your target before you attacked. That sword was a gift from Cadence too, how will you explain this later?" It didn't sound like it on paper, but that was actually the Captain saying that. He was basically muttering and berating himself, but instead of speaking under his breath or whispering he was just... giving himself a dressing down out loud. "How do you make up for that? Maybe you can bribe her, wear the stockings tonight and let her use the strap-"

"Ahem!" The word tore itself from my lips far louder than I intended, but it got his attention. And hopefully let him save some dignity, though it didn't seem like anyone other than myself was listening.

"WELCOME ELFILIS! THE PRINCESS IS EXPECTING YOU! IF YOU WOULD PLEASE FOLLOW ME!?" And now he was screaming himself hoarse with a strained polite expression on his face. Too late man, I already heard you.

"Lead the way Captain."

"WHAT WAS THAT!?" Or, I realized that, given the lack of reaction from the ponies dragging chairs around and rolling potted plants into place, that all the ponies in the castle were hard of hearing for some reason.

Princess Luna was in the castle when she screamed so loud that we heard her from Ponyville. All the ponies in the city are probably hollering over one another to be heard.

"LEAD THE WAY CAPTAIN!" My throat was going to be sore by the end of today, I'm calling it now.

"OKAY!"

We were only a little side-tracked by the two maids who were screaming at each other about what colors the drapes should be. I thought they were just trying to be heard, and I think Shining was of the same mind since he seemed just as surprised when the two mares started kicking and biting and rolling around on the floor. Clearly the drapes needed to be given some respect if ponies were willing to go for the throat over the right to choose the color. The good Captain split them up before rolling them up in their respective choice in curtain and we continued on our way. The event was noteworthy on its own, but it also served to distract me further. It wasn't until we stood in front of its doors that I realized where he was leading me.

The medical wing. Where injured ponies go.

Elfilis, you're still strung up pretty tight. You need to calm down. I'm sure everything is fine. Probably just some light bruises, okay? Take a deep breath-

I tore the door off its hinges.

It says a lot about Susie's day that the door to the medical room holding the comatose bodies of the rulers of the country she currently inhabited turning into splinters and sawdust barely elicited a blink from the genius businesswoman. As it is, she merely dusted off her hair with a limbless hand before turning to see if the intruder was an assassin or another overzealous loved one. So far she counted seven or eight loved ones interupting the healing process and a single assassin, but she figured that just meant the odds of the next one being a murderer got higher as the pool of ponies in the friends and family category got lower.

Turned out to be Elfilis, which kind of screwed up her equation a bit since he was both on friendly terms with the Princesses she found herself in charge of as well as someone who threatened grevious harm upon her person. Susie tentatively put him in the 'worried ~~pony~~ persons' category as he stomped into the room and yelled in shock at her patients, which was severely unhelpful of him.

"What the actual fuck?! What happened?! Shining said they wanted to see me, how the fuck can they do that when their- And- Susie!" And now he's spotted her.

"Hello Elfilis. They have unfortunately slipped into a medical coma since they asked for you, but rest assured they are alive and recovering." She gestured at the massive aquarium-like containers that now filled the room and the royalty within them. It was a little snug but Susie still managed to fit all the equipment they needed to function, with minimal help from Magolor. "My medical tanks are top of the line, with cell regeneration technology and magic power supplementation-" Evidently he wasn't in the mood for the sales pitch, as he threw a table across... wait where did the table come from?

"Will they?! Celestia looks like a rotisserie chicken, Luna looks like a frozen fossil, and Carina-" Who? Oh.

"She's unharmed actually. I just have her sedated for my safety." Susie had mentally labeled her as 'psycho bitch who tried to stab me with a dragon fang' after she tried to stab her with a dragon fang upon telling her that Elfilis was missing. "Look, I know they don't look very pretty, but they're alive. Their resilience is, quite frankly, fucking bogus. Let me put this into perspective for you..." Susie spent a moment gathering her notes while ignoring the peircing look Elfilis focused onto her, as well as the feeling of dread it instilled into her.

Maybe trying to take a position of authority over him wasn't the best way to calm him down...

"A-ahem! So, Celestia and Luna are biologically the same species. Their physiology is physically robust and unnaturally efficient, though their means of reproduction are bizarre to me. Best suited for moderate climates with a short coat of fur and lower sweat capacity. Magic potential is high, probably due to the fact that none of their magic is used subconciously. While they cannot breath fire or shoot instinctually like some specialized magic species can, they can theoretically cast any spell with enough practice."

"I don't need a biology lesson. Get to the point." Susie quickly nodded her head.

"Point being that they shouldn't be able to survive extreme conditions like they are in now without a concious effort on their part. Celestia is cooked well done from her brain to her liver and her bones popped at around the same time all her hair and feathers caught fire, and Luna was frozen so thoroughly that every cell in her body exploded. In spite of this, I held a conversation with them not two hours ago, and they haven't used a lick of magic the entire time. Elfilis, I don't think anything short of pure atomical destabilization can actually kill them. Already Luna is showing a thirty-percent increase in living cells and Celestia is shedding fried pony nuggets while she regenerates raw muscle and organ cells. Both her eyes actually popped put earlier, and then she blinked once and she had a fresh pair. They are totally, one hundred percent-"

"What the fuck..." Susie realized that at some point his wide-eyed stare of promised doom had turned to the princesses and transformed into a wide-eyed stare of shock and horror. And then she realized that she basically told him they were the undead, and that maybe giving him every nitty gritty detail wasn't a good way to calm him down either. But, he wasn't thinking of throwing her into the sun anymore so she'll take what she can get. "What the actual fuck..."

"Er, Elfilis?"

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuck... Starswirl! You necromancing son of a-"

Author's Note

All roads lead to Starswirl. Every path is merely another thread of destiny attached to the chin of the great bearded one.