“YOU!” Twilight yelled, pointing her hoof at the human.

“Yes, ME!” Dante replies mockingly. “So, how was your day?”

“What do you think you’re doing here?!” Twilight quickly trots over to Spike, standing next to, but in front of, him.

“Well, I’d say I’m drinking tea and conversing with a dragon. I mean, how many people do you know who can say that? Well, since I’m one of two ‘people’ you know, I guess not many—”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Would you believe me if I said I was genuinely interested in talking with Spike?” Dante asks, sipping a bit of his tea.

“I…uh…” Twilight stammers. She hadn’t quite thought her argument out.

“It’s true!” Spike chimes in. “He came by a little after you left to visit Fluttershy. He wanted to know about my whole life in Ponyville!”

“Yep, yep.” Dante nods in agreement. “It’s all part of my 73-point-plan to gain the trust of everypony here.”

Twilight looks over at Dante incredulously. “And I suppose telling me that was also part of your ‘plan’?”

“But of course! Informing you consists of points seventeen through twenty-five. It’s a very intricate plan.”

“Oh? And what’s the next point in your plan?”

Dante strokes his goatee a few times. “I don’t know. Profit? There hasn’t been much profit in the last few days, so it’s probably time for some. Speaking of earning things, sort of, how do you like my tunic?” He flourishes the light purple sleeves of his blue tunic. “I swiped some of the curtains I burned at the castle while fighting the princesses and magicked them to my tunic. I sort of like the mismatch colors. Makes me look…chaotic!” He finishes with a sneer.

Twilight looks at him in disgust. “Rainbow Dash was right. You’re just crazy!”

“Well, your princesses are discussing whether or not to work with me, so…yeah.” He shrugs.

“Are you implying that the princesses don’t know what they’re doing?”

“Hey now, you just said I was crazy. I’m just connecting the facts here. Far be it from me to judge your commitment to your princesses.”

“I—you—gah!” Twilight turns in place, pacing in the room.

“Calm down.” Dante says, levitating the teapot to pour a cup of tea in one of the empty cups. He then levitates it in front of her path. “Drink this. It’ll help you relax.”

Twilight, not even thinking about it, grabs the cup in her magic and takes a sip. She’s greeted by the sweet taste of jasmine. She looks over at Dante, eyeing him warily before taking another sip.

“Good, huh? It’s weird, I usually hate tea. When Spike offered me some, I only accepted to be polite. Then it turns out this tea is delicious!”

“You? Polite? I find that hard to imagine.”

“Always be sure to show respect to those who may one day become much more powerful than you.”

“Who, me?” Spike asks, pointing a claw at himself.

“Well, I’m not talking about Twilight here.” Twilight pouts at this. “In 1000 years, you should easily be able to rival my power. Another 500 years after that, I’d have to call you ‘master’. The potent spells you’d be casting would be scary!”

“Spells?” Spike asks.

“Yeah. You’re too young to know how to right now, but given a few decades, you’ll learn the ways of magic.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight asks. “Dragons can’t use magic.”

“Huh? Yeah they can. I’ve fought many dragons that have.”

“No, they can’t. While I don’t have many books about dragons, I do know that no dragon in Equestria has ever used magic.”

“Well I…wait.” Dante holds a hand in front of himself, pointing a finger a Spike. “No dragon has been seen using magic?”

“That’s right.” Twilight confirms, feeling a bit giddy knowing she outsmarted Dante.

“And, correct me if I’m wrong, dragons only breathe fire?”

“You’re right.”

Dante cracks a toothy smile. “Spike, lad, you had mentioned something about a dragon living in the Everfree Forest, right?”

“Um, yeah.” Spike replies, scratching the back of his head. “That was when I ran away from home. Why do you ask?”

“How far into the forest was he?”

“I don’t remember. Less than a mile, maybe?”

Dante stands from his seat. “Excellent!” He turns in place and heads for the door.

“Wait!” Twilight calls out, teleporting in front of him. “What are you up to?”

Dante, with a smile still on his face, utters one word. “Profit.” He then disappears from sight, teleporting out of the room.

“Oh no you don’t!” Twilight calls out, lighting her horn and focusing her magic on the spot Dante left from. A moment later, Dante reappears in the same spot, stumbling a little with his eyes spinning.

“Whoa!” Dante takes a few steps to the side, leaning on the nearby bookshelf. “That was weird.”

“Now, what are you up to?!” Twilight steps up to him again.

“How’d you do that? That was some weird magic you pulled there. Reverse teleporting? That’s a pretty neat trick.”

“Don’t avoid the question! What are you planning on doing with that dragon?!” Twilight stands right next to him, inches from his face.

“Awe, why’d you have to go and do that? Did you see how I left here? That would have been really cool, like ‘a lone hero going off to face the evil king’ cool! Hmmm, I should go see a play again. They are pretty entertaining, and the—”

“DANTE!” Twilight yells, pushing Dante on the ground and standing on top of his chest. “WHAT were you going to do with the DRAGON?!”

“Don’t worry about it.” He says in a cheery voice. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“I’m not going to let you up!” Twilight lights her horn again. “I’ll just keep stopping you until you tell me!”

“Well then, I guess I’ll have to use the ancient art of the ninja to escape.”

“What are—” Twilight says right as she is shoved off to the side. Dante quickly charges his hand with magic and slaps the ground. Around Twilight and Dante emerges a veil of darkness. Twilight lights her horn brighter and brighter until her horn hurts, shining light into the darkness and making it vanish. As she dims down her horn, she finds no trace of Dante anywhere. She tries her spell to bring him back again, only for nothing to happen.

“Whoa…” Spike lets out as he looks at where Dante once lay. “Like a ninja.”

~ _ ~ _ ~ _ ~ _ ~

Nearly half an hour passed until Dante emerged from the Everfree forest. His lightly worn cloak flapped as a gust of wind went by, showing a wooden claw embedded in the back of his right shoulder. His amulets hung from his neck, dangling against his exposed chest. The tunic he wore not half an hour ago was gone and the pants he wore were singed and now had a dark blue and light purple pattern, in addition to their original black color. With a roll of his shoulders, the wooden claw fell to the ground, then quickly rose again in a green aura and flew back into the forest.

‘Man,’ He thought to himself, ‘that was an adventure and a half. Iatril wasn’t kidding when she said the forest hated me. I guess I should apologize to it or something. I don’t want to deal with this every time I have to go in there. Still though, I’d say this little expedition was worth it.’

As he entered town, Dante noticed the ponies looking at him curiously; some of them even waved, especially a teal unicorn with a lyre cutie mark. Dante gave a small wave to all the ponies that waved at him and kept on walking.

‘This is weird. Why are they being friendly? Well, I guess this is a nice change of pace from people cowering as I pass by. I don’t even remember the last time people were happy to see me. I don’t…remember…’ Dante stopped for a moment to stare at the ground. ‘Remember…huh. Oh! I wonder if Twilight is freaking out about the whole ‘dragon’ thing. I should probably go check that out.’

Just as he started walking again, a prismatic blur barreled into him from behind, sending him tumbling on the ground. When he stopped spinning, he found a pair of angry magenta eyes staring at him, coupled with a cyan body standing on top of his chest.

“You. Me. Talk. Now!” Rainbow Dash demanded, not moving an inch.

“‘Kay.” Dante replied, still lying on the ground.

“What are you doing with my brother?”

“I’m writing a play and he’s my main source of inspiration. The play is about a lone warrior carving his path in the world. The twist is—”

“Stop lying to me!” She yells, digging her hooves into his chest. “Now tell me what you’re up to or I’ll—”

“Sweetie, there’s nothing you can do to me that’ll be permanent, and I doubt you’d try to kill me over me talking with your brother.”

“You want to bet on that!?” She yells again, pressing her hooves further into his chest.

“Yeah, I do.” They stare at each other for a moment; right up until Rainbow punches Dante in his face. He quickly covers his face, feeling the blood pour of his nose for but a second before it mended itself. “Ow! Why the face?! Why is it always my fucking face?!”

“Now tell me what you’re doing with my brother or I’ll—” She threatened, right before Dante teleported out from under her. With a small thud, Rainbow landed on the ground with Dante standing right in front of her.

“Seriously! Why does everyone punch me in the face first? Is it really so hard to just stab me in the stomach or something? I’m so much more used to that.”

“Just tell me why—”

“Okay!” Dante yells, plopping down on the ground. “Damn. Alright, look, I found him hiding in the caves above Canterlot and I offered him a job working for me. He hasn’t even given me an answer yet, so you’re getting a little ahead of yourself. What’s your problem with him anyway? I can’t tell if you like him or hate him.”

“That’s none of your business!” She says, standing on all fours.

“No, see, that’s exactly my business.” Dante leans towards her. “If you don’t tell me what your problem is, I’ll either have Shade tell me or I’ll extract it right from your mind. I hope it’s one of the former, since that spell is a pain in the ass to cast and it doesn’t always work right. So, what’ll it be?”

Rainbow glares at him angrily, wanting nothing more than to punch his face in again. “Fine.” She says through barred teeth. “I’ll tell you. But not right here.”

Dante looks around and sees several nearby ponies looking on at their little spat. “Right, good point.” Dante quickly charges his hand with the same magic as before and smacks the ground, enveloping them both in darkness. Just as quickly as it came, the darkness disappears with Rainbow and Dante with it.

The two of them stood in Ponyville, albeit on the Plane of Shadow.

“What…What happened?!” Rainbow yells with a small reverb in her voice.

“Don’t worry about it.” Dante responds in a similar pitch. He grabs hold of Rainbow, sprouts his shadowy wings, and zips through the air at incredible speeds. In seconds, they arrive in Rainbow’s home, where Dante releases his magic and Rainbow, bringing them back to the Material Plane. “There, we’re in private. Now, speak.”

“H-How did you…?” She stutters, getting ahold of her bearings.

“Magic.” Dante responds simply, sitting on the floor.

Rainbow nods slowly, sitting down on the floor of her cloud home. She scratches the back of her head, looking around her home.

“Well?” Dante asks impatiently.

“Gimme a second, okay! I’ve only ever told Fluttershy about this.” She takes a breath to calm her nerves before looking back up at Dante. “Okay. When I was a really young, our parents got real sick. At first, we didn’t think it was too bad, but the doctors told Shade it was some terminal disease pegasi get; I didn’t really understand at the time, but when mom and dad didn’t come home, I figured it out. We didn’t have any other family in Cloudsdale and Shade didn’t want to go to an orphanage since he thought we’d get separated, so we lived on the streets for a while. Shade tried finding work, but no pony would hire him since he was still a colt. Every day, he would disappear for an hour or so and come back with food. I never knew where he went. I can’t remember that much from that long ago.

“Eventually, we started living in a house again. Shade told me he found a great job from somepony and he’d been saving up to buy the house. At that time, I started seeing him less and less, but I also started attending flight school, which is where I met Fluttershy. Things weren’t so bad then. I had a home, I had Fluttershy, and I had Shade, but it didn’t last. The year after I got my cutie mark, I found out what Shade had been doing. He’d been stealing from everypony he could: merchants, store owners, he even went to Canterlot to steal from some of the nobles there! I confronted him about it and he tried to defend what he did, saying it was for me! After that, I told him I never wanted to see him again and left for Ponyville. I haven’t seen him since, until he showed up in Canterlot yesterday.”

Dante sat there, absorbing the whole story. When she finished, he continued looking at her for some time before speaking.

“That’s it?” He asks.

“Huh?” Rainbow perks up, looking back at Dante. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, that’s it? He stole for a living. That’s why you’re mad at him?”

“Of course that’s why! He’s a thief! Why wouldn’t I be angry at him!?” She shouts, standing up in front of Dante.

“Maybe because he’s your brother and he gave you a home?” Dante leans on one of his arms, looking bored.

“He should have stopped stealing! He already bought the house, he didn’t need to keep stealing, but when I found out about it he said he would keep doing it! What should I have done, huh?!”

“I don’t know, but wanting him to go against himself probably wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“What are you talking about?!” Rainbow practically roars at him.

“Look, I’ve been observing you ponies for a little over a day, plus everything Iatril’s told me, and I think I have a pretty good idea how you ponies act.”

“Oh really?” Rainbow flaps her wings, bringing herself off the ground and getting right in Dante’s face. “So, how do we act then?”

“You find out what you’re best at, and then you do it. Pure and simple.”

“What, you mean our cutie marks?” She looks at her own cutie mark before turning back towards Dante. “What does that have to do with this?”

“Well, a cutie mark appears when a pony knows what their special talent is, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, if your special talent is, say, going unnoticed in the shadows as you break into a home or store, what would a suitable replacement for that talent be?”

“I…I don’t know.” Rainbow mutters.

“With no alternative in mind, you would have your brother disregard his special talent?”

Rainbow floats down to the floor, speechless. She opens her mouth to argue, but quickly closes it again.

“There are so few things Shade could possibly do with his talent. For goodness sake, his cutie mark is a gray pony that is so similar in color to his coat it’s barely visible. I had to look at it several times before I saw it. The only other option for him would be to work as a spy for the crown, but given his record, that’s not possible now. So, what will you have him do?”

“I don’t know, okay?!” Rainbow yells at the human. “I just…I never really thought about what else he could do…”

“That much is obvious.” Dante says, standing up from the floor. “Look, Shade still likes you. I mean, he dove right into thievery when nothing else seemed good, and he did it for you. You don’t have to forgive him, and I suppose that’s okay, but you should give him a chance, right?”

“I guess…”

“Good. You can tell him that when he comes back in a week to work for me.”

“What?!” Rainbow yells up at him.

“What, you didn’t think I would just not hire him after listening to your story, did you? Look, before you say anything, I’m working on getting him a pardon. After this whole thing with Aselith is over, he’ll be out of a job and you can figure out something then, as a family. Family is really important…not that I would know; I’ve only got Iatril…and Raven…and Flurry, I guess. They’re sort of like a family, I suppose. One really messed up family.” He says with a smile.

“You promise?” Rainbow asks. “About the pardon, you promise you can do that?”

“Nothing is set in stone, but I’ll do my best. I really don’t want someone working for me who’s wanted by a nation. Last time I did that, I had to deal with the emperor who wanted his head. It took a lot of time and dead bodies, and I really don’t want to go through that again.”

Rainbow stares at him slack-jawed. “You’re insane!”

“What, you thought otherwise?” Dante asks, sticking his tongue out. “Don’t worry, no dead bodies this time…except for that manticore! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!"

END CHAPTER

Author's Note

Hello hello. Here's the next chapter, right when I said it would be. I feel so responsible! Not much to say about this chapter. If you're looking for something action-y to occur, don't worry. In a few chapters or so, something's going down, and I don't mean to Funky Town!

(I am such a dork)

See you all in about a week.