A True Person

Pushing aside a few small rocks with her telekinesis, Luna stepped into the passage leading into the gloomy sewer. She was followed by a thestral mare with a scattering of stars on her side. Each star was adorned with strange markings that, when viewed from a distance, formed a hoofprint. It was her talent for finding tracks and stalking. Her coworkers didn't understand what the stars on the mark had to do with the mare being a bounty hunter in the first place.

Star Seeker was not going to satisfy the curiosity of her colleagues and mocked them, giving out a lot of philosophical nonsense, which had already become her trademark. There was even a kind of tradition - to send a newcomer to her and compare her explanations with the previous ones. Star Seeker never once repeated herself. But everyone waited for it to happen and placed bets. The mare only snorted at the stupidity of these fools - she was secretly betting too. One day, she would ruin them to the last bit.

She was actually an astronomer, but it turned out there was a much better price on the heads of criminals. When she learned of Princess Luna's return, she traveled to Equestria and joined the Intelligence Corps. And she didn't regret it one bit. She had found the star she had been looking for all her life.

What she didn't like was where her princess was headed now.

The Lady of the Night, soiling herself with the stench of those day ponies' shit? To Star, it was blasphemy and a defilement of the sacred. But she dared not speak of it aloud - her princess knew better what to do. The only thing that reassured her was the presence of a shield around the entrance. The last thing she needed was for those unicorns to start spreading unflattering rumors about her goddess.

Wrinkling her nose at the smell, Star looked around carefully, searching for any non-obvious details that might have been missed earlier.

The passage to the sewers was narrow and dark, the walls lined with rough stone, and the ceiling covered in a layer of dust and cobwebs. A strange odor of rot and dampness hung in the air, creating an atmosphere of pressing mustiness.

"This is where he lost his leg," Luna muttered, examining the bloody stain on the floor of the passageway. "Begin, Star."

Thestral nodded and, after looking over the stain, followed the stretching bloody streaks.

Soon the trail of blood began to break off, which surprised thestral somewhat.

"Did he use a potion or a healing spell?" Star pondered as she continued down the tunnel. "Then why didn't he use it right away? More like his natural regeneration. If that's the case, it's quite good."

These thoughts swirled in her head as they emerged into the main part of the sewers.

There were grates stretching along the corridor, with murky water flowing out from underneath, making squelching sounds. A wide channel ran down the center of the sewer, through which the sewage water flowed leisurely, reflecting the light from the flickering magical lamps hanging on the walls. The light from the lamps was pale and uneven, illuminating only part of the corridor.

But that light was enough - it didn't take a tracker to spot the trail of someone crawling across the stone floor.

Still, Star took the matter seriously and went completely into work mode, even forgetting that the princess was walking behind her.

Luna didn't mind at all. Once they were out of the lamp-lit area, she lit her horn, illuminating Star's path, and silently followed her. Thestral navigated perfectly in the dark, but only because of their innate talent for sound magic. Their night vision wasn't all that impressive.

After about a hundred meters, Star's path was blocked by a side stream of sewage flowing into the main stream. The trail went off to the right, to a stone bridge over the flow. Star crossed the bridge and followed the trail, which curved to the left, returning to the main flow.

After walking a few kilometers, she began to wonder how much longer this was going to go on? Wasn't this creature on its last breath? Just when she thought to fly up and accelerate, she noticed a chaotic scene in front of her.

Many huge five-toed and four-toed footprints could be seen on the floor, and everything around it was splattered with scarlet blood. Here and there were scattered pieces of wood, which Star identified as the fragments of a crate left behind by the workers.

"What happened here?" came Luna's cold voice, causing Star to flinch in surprise.

Bowing quickly to the princess, Star began to look around.

"There are five toes on the back paws and four toes on the front paws," thestral concluded. "And what is that?"

She had tracked and hunted ponies and griffins, sometimes diamond dogs and minotaurs, but not some monsters from the sewers. All her knowledge of magical monsters was limited to which ones she should run away immediately and which ones she shouldn't be afraid of. Well, and the prices for body parts of rare monsters.

Carefully looking over the tracks, she roughly estimated the weight of the creature and its center of gravity. A portrait of the supposed monster began to emerge in her mind. It appeared to be some sort of huge frog or toad. Stark vaguely remembered that toads seemed to live on land. A frog, then?

Walking to the edge, the mare lay on her belly and stretched her wing toward the water. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her senses, and circles followed the surface of the water. After a few seconds, she stood up and, raising her head, screamed. At least that's what it looked like. There was no sound at all. The mare stood like that with her head up, immersed in her thoughts, occasionally shaking her wings as if probing for something invisible in the air.

"Nothing," thestral thought with a frown. "No monster or human within a kilometer."

And as luck would have it, the man's trail ended here. Either he had covered his tracks skillfully, which Star doubted very much, or he had been eaten by that toad. Considering the man's condition, that was the expected outcome.

With a flap of her wings, Star flew further down the corridor, hoping to find some clues. The mare was followed by a sparkling ball of light, illuminating everything around her with a pale blue glow.

A few minutes later, Star returned with empty hooves - there was nothing.

"So?" Luna asked, pulling a red jagged crystal from under her wing.

The princess' horn lit up and the crystal began to emit waves of scarlet light. Reacting to the light, some of the blood on the floor and walls began to glisten. Star easily determined the nature of the spell - blood mages were frequent guests on the wanted flyers. Glancing at the glistening blood spatter on the wall, she immediately realized the effect of the spell - it showed whose blood belonged to the human. Hence, the crystal the spell was applied to was also made of human blood.

"I couldn't find anything, Mother," Star said in an even voice, bowing her head and exposing her neck. "I will accept any punishment."

Luna cast a quick glance at thestral and mentally sighed. Even in ancient times, they didn't punish such things with death. Well, except sometimes.

"That's unnecessary, Star," Luna said as she continued to use one spell after another on the traces of the battle. "Tell me what happened here."

Thestral raised her head, admiration and devotion sparkling in her eyes. Her goddess was generous and merciful. Not only did she not punish Star, but she gave her a chance to show her worth. Even though her princess probably already understood everything, she still asked.

"The beast jumped out of the water here," Star began to recount, pointing to a certain spot. "You can tell from the tracks that it was something like a huge frog weighing about eight hundred kilograms. I am not familiar with this type of beast, Mother, so I..."

"A toad," Luna corrected her, causing thestral to blink in surprise. "They also lay eggs in water and sometimes make their way into the sewers. Go on."

"Beast and human fought here, but the outcome of the fight is unclear," Star continued, trying to deliver dry facts. "There's a lot of blood, but the tracks break off here. There are no bodies in the area."

"Your opinion?" asked Luna, breaking away from the bloody picture.

"The man was in no condition to pose a threat to the beast," thestral began to ponder aloud. "After being wounded - the beast would have been enraged and wouldn't have let him go. Even if he miraculously won - where is the beast's body? Without two limbs, he wouldn't be able to swim away. This whole thing..."

Star faltered when she saw Princess Luna's cold stare. She clearly needed to be more succinct.

"I think the human was devoured," Star said with a gulp.

Luna only shook her head upon hearing that. Even if everything pointed to that - there was no way she would believe the man was dead.

"He's too crafty," Luna thought as she looked at the man's blood on the wall. "They say you can't cheat death, but he probably could."

The man's cunning had been bugging her lately. He understood her too well and played easily on the strings of her soul. She had been somewhat confused since her release from confinement, and his deception could have been blamed on her weakened vigilance. But he had deceived her twice.

She had even considered the possibility that he had been influenced by Nightmare Moon or had gotten a piece of her memory.

Those spheres, one of which had brought him to this world, had been made by her when she was already under Nightmare Moon's influence. They could very well contain echoes of the nightmare. However, after carefully considering this possibility, she realized she was simply looking for an excuse for her naivety.

If he could already interact with mental energy, how did he survive that outburst? If there really were echoes of the nightmare there, why would they stay in the sphere for a thousand years? Most likely, the echoes of Nightmare Moon had immediately gotten out and started affecting the remnants of the cult in an attempt to save the main body.

The princess didn't completely dismiss the possibility, but recognized that it was highly unlikely. Still, the thought was a little unsettling. The echoes of the nightmare didn't frighten her, but a human having a piece of Nightmare Moon's memory...

Luna really wouldn't want them to get to Celestia. Some things were better left in the past. Only after she caught the human and thoroughly searched his entire memory could the matter be put to rest.

If the man had known about Luna's thoughts, he probably would have laughed. Nightmare Moon's memory? If he had even a scrap of knowledge of the powerful nightmare - would he be in this situation right now?

He had considered the question of being affected a long time ago, when he had first made a deal with Saada. The flash of mental energy had definitely affected him, but it had been a tiny change. Back then, he was too foreign to this world. Only after the constant influence of the world, the long interaction with the ghost, and the ritual - he could barely touch the mental energy. Even now, he still felt inferior compared to the other inhabitants of this world. Magical energy wasn't worth talking about - it was all blank there whatsoever.

"I can scour the entire sewers," came Star's voice, noticing that her princess' face was frowning more and more. "There might be some traces to be found."

Hearing that, Luna only shook her head. Star must be kidding. The sewers ran through the entirety of Canterlot. It may have been incomparable to the city's size, but it was very close.

"No need for it. Even with his regeneration - it'll take him a month to recover," Luna replied. "The wedding is in three days and you have enough work to do. We'll continue the search after it."

Thestral bowed silently, accepting her princess's will. Surprisingly, her Mother thought, the human was still alive. Most importantly, she was still going to rely on her skills!

A slight smile slid across Luna's lips - the joy of thestral did not escape her gaze. The princess wasn't actually relying on her. Luna was working on her spell to find the man. And she had a huge advantage. The man was a non-magical being, but now he had a connection to the Dreamworld. Logically, as the self-proclaimed Queen of the Dreamworld, she should have been able to find him easily. Her sister, who had no experience in dream magic, thought that Luna was simply weakened and needed time to recover. That was only part of the truth.

Luna had spent all those thousand years in nightmares, though she didn't remember most of them. At first, Nightmare Moon tried to use her to influence the creatures of Equus through the Dreamworld to break free from her imprisonment. However, she quickly discovered that this was impossible. Even though the power of Harmony couldn't completely cut off their dreams from the rest of the Dreamworld - it was able to suppress any interaction with it, creating strange interference.

When Nightmare Moon's plan failed - she began systematically destroying and distorting Luna's memories, wanting to get rid of potential internal threats. Of course, Luna fought back desperately and Nightmare was only able to destroy bits and pieces of her memory. Realizing that the blunt approach was ineffective - Nightmare changed tactics and began distorting and shuffling her memories. She attacked everything related to dream magic especially fiercely.

In the end, Luna was still trying to unravel the tangle of her memories. She was very glad when a human wanted to learn dream magic. Because she could study with him without arousing her sister's suspicions. She didn't want Celestia to know about it. Not only did it put her in a vulnerable position, there was also the matter of Celestia's reaction if she found out that Nightmare Moon had gotten so deep into her head. Could Celestia be sure that her sister was even in front of her? No, no, all of this should remain forgotten. It was worth it to answer the man's endless questions.

It had to be said, sometimes the human asked such tricky questions that she herself was unsure of her answers. The most important qualities for dream magic were: willpower, imagination, flexible thinking, understanding of psychology and the amount of mental energy. His last point was zero, but in all the others he probably surpassed even her.

"Did he intend all of this originally or was he driven by desperation after hearing my negative answer?" Luna pondered.

It wasn't that there weren't options for the man at all - she could find them or create them personally. Magic was very flexible and there was always a way out. It was just that she realized she would have to experiment on the human as the only suitable test subject, so she turned him down. Who could have known that he would turn out to be so crazy that he would experiment on himself? Surprisingly, he ended up succeeding. Luna wasn't sure if it was pure luck or the man's talent.

"There's no point in thinking about it now," Luna shook her head, beckoning Star to teleport away. "In fact, there's no point in my chasing after him either. Perhaps Sombra really was right."

"Her father is just horrible," the pink pony sighed, tossing the book aside. "How could he do that to them?"

"Well, he had his reasons, Cadance," the white unicorn lounging on the couch next to her stretched out thoughtfully. "The political climate was rather unstable and it could have provoked..."

"So you're on his side, Shiny?" said Cadance in a voice full of disbelief. "He has separated lovers! There is no forgiveness for him! How can you justify him? You trait..."

Snorting, Shining slapped Cadance in the face with a pillow, interrupting her feigned angry tirade. Cadance wasn't timid either and retaliated. The situation was quickly escalating and threatened to spill over into the other half of the huge living room.

Sighing, Celestia watched the local conflict with pillows and some dirty spells that should have been declared illegal.

"I'm actually trying to work," Celestia thought doomfully, lazily batting away a few random projectiles. "Well, it's better than listening to endless talk about love."

The only thing that pleased her was that it was only temporary. Eventually Cadance would calm down. Celestia, back in her day, also chattered nonstop about the sun.

Celestia stretched and decided to take a short walk around the palace, checking on the preparations for the ceremony. With another glance at the heated up local conflict, Celestia smiled and left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind her, a multitude of runes erupted. Adding a few more spells just in case, the princess headed towards the throne room. Her room was one of the most protected places in the castle. Even if Discord showed up in his peak state, it would take him some time to get in.

Cadance's safety and secrecy was her number one priority. Aside from Celestia, Luna, and Shining Armor, no one even knew she was already in the castle. Cadance had spent the last few years in a remote, carefully hidden and shielded part of Equestria. The coordinates of this place were known only to Celestia. She had arrived here through a dimensional gateway placed in the princess's chambers. Celestia had listened to Cadance's complaints a thousand times, but it was necessary.

It wasn't that Cadance was isolated. She had been visited by many teachers, and yes, she had met with Shining often. Of course, the teachers' memories were later edited.

Bumping into one of the maids in the hallway, Celestia remembered it was the end of the day and nonchalantly wished her a pleasant evening.

"Thank you for your kindness, Your Majesty," the maid bowed low.

After waiting for the princess to leave, the maid raised her head and went back to work - she had a few more small errands to finish.

After taking care of the chores, the maid neatly put away her uniform and left the castle.

Upon reaching a certain apartment building in the center of Canterlot, the maid froze at the door. After a moment, the door opened slightly and an orange pegasus peeked out of the house. The pegasus and unicorn looked at each other in silence for a few moments, as if communicating telepathically, and then the pegasus stepped aside, opening the way.

The maid made her way deep into the house and reached the living room, where a large table littered with all sorts of diagrams and blueprints was occupied by a motley group of individuals. Pegasus, thestral, griffin, earth ponies, unicorns, and even one minotaur.

At the head of the table sat a snow-white mare with a light green mane. She was known as Misty Aurora in Canterlot, but here she was referred to exclusively as Queen Chrysalis.

"There you are," Chrysalis nodded in satisfaction. "What kept you?"

"Celestia's nephew made a mistake with a spell, my queen," the maid replied in an even tone, bowing. "I volunteered to help the other maids, following the usual behavior of the original owner of the identity."

"Blueblood? Is it something serious?" Chrysalis asked with a raised eyebrow.

Not that she cared one bit about his health, but she was used to considering the smallest details.

"Localized smoke and light damage to the interior, my queen," the maid reported. "Blueblood himself was unharmed thanks to a defensive artifact. Judging by the distorted parts of the interior - he was trying to learn a teleportation spell."

Chrysalis nodded, brushing aside the unnecessary details - this incident didn't deserve her close attention.

"Screw formalities," Chrysalis waved her hoof, pointing to a vacant seat. "What about the room? You've been near her chambers more often than any of us."

"Impenetrable," the maid replied simply, settling into a chair. "Even if you destroy the entire castle - Celestia's chambers remain untouched. The space is locked, and only she has access - Luna was only able to enter after she was let in."

"Well, nothing new," Chrysalis summarized, not the least bit upset.

Of course, it would be nice if some sort of breach was discovered so they could directly take Cadance and leave Equestria, but that was only a wishful thinking.
They already had a plan ready and the presence or absence of a breach didn't change anything.

However, the wealth of Equestria surprised Chrysalis somewhat. Celestia's chambers alone must be worth as much as the entire castle. The treasury was a separate story altogether. It wasn't their target, so they didn't gather information purposefully, but even the pieces were enough to surprise Chrysalis.

There was no treasury in the castle. There was only a gate that, when activated, led to an isolated piece of space compressed into a point where the treasury was located. The gate itself was made of some alloy unknown to her and reinforced to the highest possible limits. Her subject had been right: even if the entire castle was wiped to dust, the gate and Celestia's chambers would remain unharmed. It wasn't that space-expanded artifacts were that rare, but this was a whole different scale. The treasury was clearly much larger than a room.

But the precautions at Canterlot didn't impress Chrysalis at all. Magical analysis, scanning spells, mental vibration detectors - it all seemed like child's play to her. Equestria had lived in her world for too long without seeing the real threat. The changelings, on the other hand, never stopped refining and improving their methods, under constant external pressure.

No methods available to the unicorns could reveal their disguise. Whether it be scanning spells or blood testing.

Many high ranking changelings even had protection on their souls and minds. Basically their mind had multiple layers. If someone were to go into their memories, all they would stumble upon was a fake identity. It probably wouldn't stop Celestia or Luna, but it would fool any unicorn.

It still wasn't without some unexpected situations, though. Several regular changelings sent to local gangs died and there were some rough patches with getting into the palace. One died due to an accident, two others fell into the clutches of a now dead dark mage. The fourth, however, had died at the hands of a human.

The changelings had only just gotten on the trail of his gang when the man was caught by the royal guards. Chrysalis had known of him before, back when he had arrived in Canterlot and made a fuss. She was even aware that he was not from this world. He didn't really interest her or matter to her plans, but it was still a creature from another world - she wanted to dissect and study him.

However, the timing wasn't right - the man was constantly hanging around the alicorns, and she didn't want to ruin all the preparations with one careless action. Now she could capture him too - the changelings had already infiltrated the beggar gang and were waiting patiently for the man's return. They would leave Canterlot after the wedding, and she didn't care how much noise they made here.

But this human-made poison really surprised Chrysalis. Its effects caused mental confusion and severe damage to internal magical energy. A changeling exposed to this poison must have had a seizure and instinctively dropped its disguise. Such poisons were quite rare. The reason for this was simple: an alchemist creating such a poison would be highly likely to suffer damage himself.

A human with no magical energy didn't care about it, of course. Neither was his subordinates' health.

She was also aware that the man had captured the changeling alive and interrogated him. But the changeling didn't have any important information, and it couldn't shake her plans.

"What about the Elements?" Chrysalis asked the brown earth pony, putting the human out of her mind.

"We're watching their every move," the perturbed pony replied. "We can capture or kill them at any moment. You only need to give the order."

"Happiness is truly in ignorance," Chrysalis mentally grinned, but her face immediately frowned. "If any of the Elements die - that damned thing might wake up."

Chrysalis looked at a certain point on the wall, but her eyes seemed to be looking much farther away. Chrysalis' gaze gradually filled with pure distilled hatred, and the surrounding changelings glanced around, afraid to make an extra movement.

Soon, Chrysalis' rage disappeared, but her gaze expressed deep thoughtfulness. The changelings remained still, unmoving, afraid to interrupt her musings.

"Your rule would lead us into a dead end, foolish mother," Chrysalis thought with some sadness. "By merging with the alicorn of Love, we will transcend Their design. Then we can escape from this shitty world."

Night fell on Canterlot, enveloping the city in its gloom like a blanket of darkness. The narrow streets turned into ominous corridors, and the starry sky shone bright like diamonds on black velvet.

A man's head appeared between the bars hiding the entrance to the sewers. His remaining eye was staring outward, carefully scanning his surroundings. A small puff of smoke crawled out from his body, which instantly turned into a black butterfly that left the hiding place. The man waited patiently inside.

Soon, the butterfly returned and fused with his body. After a moment of thinking, the man began to climb out. Unlike the previous ones, these bars were old type and, albeit with difficulty, the man was still able to squeeze through. Standing on one leg, Alexei jumped up and grabbed the edge of the canal with his hand. Tensing his muscles, the man began to pull his body up. Even though he was in good shape on Earth, he would not have been able to pull himself up with one arm. But that was all on Earth.

After a long life in the forest, endless battles, a lot of strengthening potions and rituals, his body had already risen to the level of professional athletes, and his regeneration had far surpassed human limits.

Following him, several rats appeared from behind the bars and crawled upward, clinging to the stones.

He looked around and crawled toward the abandoned building. Rats were scurrying around him, feeling anxious for their master. Alexei slipped through the trash and made his way inside the building.

After hiding from prying eyes, the man fell on his back - he was very tired. But even now he could not rest - loud music and drunken shouts from the neighboring street disturbed his peace. There was nothing surprising about it - there were tons of entertainment venues around. But he couldn't blame them, he'd chosen this place on purpose - thestrals would get a migraine if they flew here too often.

The rats circled around and rubbed against him, sensing his exhaustion and trying to cheer him up, but he paid no attention to them. His gaze settled on the starry sky through the holey roof, as if searching for answers to his inner questions.

"Fuck!" the man growled suddenly, hitting the floor with force.

Shards of shingles flew in all directions and the rats scattered frightened.

Ignoring this, the man stared fiercely at the night sky as if it were his sworn enemy. His sides rose and fell with suppressed anger, but there was no more action - this punch had drained him of his last strength.

First an escape from the guards, then he'd crawled several kilometers through the sewers, then he'd stumbled upon that damn toad.

Jumping out of the sewers, it had taken him by surprise and judging by the throbbing appendage at the bottom of his abdomen, the toad appeared to be a male. It didn't particularly want to eat the human, but it was interested in getting to know him intimately. The human was not happy with such a relationship. It eventually ended in violence.

After a short fight, the man stuck a piece of wood in the toad's eye and, while the toad was trying to pull it out, he jumped into the canal and retreated. There were a few planks from crates destroyed by the toad's attack floating around, on which he could drift through the flow of sewage.

Such creatures in the water were the reason he had persisted in crawling on land. But now he had no choice - he had lost too much time thanks to the toad.

Apart from a few minor skirmishes nothing else happened and he even met almost all of his rats along the way, but right near his destination some chameleon lizard with a spiky tongue pounced on him.

Five rats sacrificed themselves so he could escape. Given his past losses - he was left with eleven rats. He couldn't subdue them indefinitely. The maximum he could have was twenty rats. Not to mention the fact that it took quite a bit of time to train them.

Now he only had half of them left.

But it wasn't the death of the rats or even the loss of limbs that irritated the man.

Restoring limbs wasn't that big of a problem. He had lost his right arm in the forest after an encounter with a manticore, but had been able to regenerate it in a few months. With his current regeneration, even without potions, his limbs would regrow in a month. There were ways to speed up the process, but a high price would have to be paid.

The reason for Alexei's anger was something else.

He had been chased around Canterlot like a rabid dog, beaten to a pulp, and then crawled through shit for several kilometers. His own weakness was pissing the man off: reality had slapped him in the face again, showing him his place. And it wasn't just about today.

He had been in this world for almost five years now, and all he had been doing was groveling before the powerful and hiding.

He hoped that at least in this world he could be himself, but he constantly had to wear many masks and pretend to be someone else.

He suppressed all these feelings and ignored his pride - it was necessary for survival. But still, he was a man - he couldn't help but feel irritated. His stress was constantly building up.

Celestia was arrogant? The man was even more arrogant.
The alicorns and this whole world in the man's eyes were nothing more than a stepping stone to his goal. And his goal was even higher, and even he recognized that it was hardly even attainable.

But he still intended to keep going towards it. Of course, he was arrogant.

Suddenly, unrestrained laughter erupted throughout the building. History was repeating itself - the man was once again laughing at himself, at life, and at the world.

"I'm really pathetic, huh?" the man asked the sky, still laughing. "But who isn't?"

The starry sky answered nothing.

"Then witness my words," the man's firm voice rang out. "I swear. This is the last time anyone will make me struggle with death for my life. From this day forward, I will be the cause of others' struggles."