As Blueblood stood alone in his silent home, empty of any other life after dismissing his entire platoon of servants, he spoke to himself in the silence, "Dawn is almost here, and I have no plan on what to say to these people."

He began to walk around his living room, surrounded by the statues of past knights like empty husks that once held brave souls, he scanned the tall paintings of his heroic portraits. The fantastic paintings of his acts of bravery, courage, and sacrifice to become the hero that Canterlot knows of. To him, these were all mockeries of his true self, lies that he created to claim the fame he once desired. His mouth filled with a bitter taste, the idea of the public coming to him as the only one with a solution scared him for he had no plan. In his eyes, the ponies of Canterlot might be without a hero, Lyra might be without a hero.

He approached a mirror, while others may see themselves, Blueblood stared at the god from the paintings. He looked into the fake eyes of bravery, his soul crushed more with every second he thought of his eventual blunder, as he spoke to the mirror, "What are you going to do, Blueblood."

"You must face them," said the reflection, "you must amount to what you have portrayed yourself as or become the enemy from within."

Blueblood turned his head, breaking eye contact with his reflection, "They can't see me, I'm just as scared as they'll be."

"The true hero is not the one who fights bravely," the reflection spoke slowly, the voice seemingly echoing through the empty house eternally, "the hero is the one who waits and thinks of a solution. The real victor is the one who knows what move to make at the last second."

Suddenly, the sound of the kitchen door being barged through rang into Blueblood's skull, ripping him from the conversation and to once again see his reflection as he truly was. Blueblood turned his head towards the large doors to the kitchen at the opposite end of the dining room, the sound of pots and pans tumbling and crashing caused slight panic and curiosity in the prince as he slowly crept towards the large wooden doors. His heart raced with anticipation at what may lie beyond, maybe it was the answer to his dilemma.

Blueblood pushed one of the tall doors open to see Anthro sitting on the large marble counter, collecting pans and pots that hung from the overhead vent. By his side was a pile of sticks and muddy prints from his tracks, leading from the kitchen's exit to the garden and traversing nearly the entire floor.

Blueblood shouted in confusion, "Anthro," to which caused the hairless creature to freeze with their eyes locked on each other, "what are you doing tracking mud in the house? I thought I specifically asked you to remain outside."

The creature's attention quickly switched to the muddy prints, and looking like a foal caught stealing cookies he sheepishly climbed back down onto the ground as he said in his slow tone, "Helping you."

Blueblood rushed over to the pile of cooking items and began to put them away with his magic as he sighed, "You aren't helping by making a mess, Anthro. You would be helping me by cleaning up the mess you made, filthy thing."

It was unclear wether Anthro disregarded that remark, or did not understand it, the creature pointed outside as he replied, "I… want… ables."

Blueblood followed the direction of Anthro's pointing, following it to the number of blooming zap apples. Blueblood shook his head as he exclaimed, "No! Those are very rare apples and tampering with them could damage them. It's hard to come by trees like that outside the everfree forest, you need to be experienced with picking those."

Anthro motioned his pointing in a firm manner once again as he said with furrowed brows and pursed lips, "I… need it."

Blueblood had a look of confusion on his face, he had never seen Anthro act so strangely before, then again there wasn't a confirmed norm for this creature's behaviour yet. Confused, he asked Anthro, "What are you going to do with these pans and pots?"

Anthro lowered his hand, not needing to point anywhere he looked the confused unicorn in the eyes as he spoke with a look of 100% certainty and confidence, "Cooking."

Now Blueblood was curious, apparently Anthro, who probably has no experience in any sort of sophisticated practises, wanted to cook premature zap apples. He quickly gave into his curiosity and said to his companion, "Okay… fine. You can cook only one zap apple as long as you can get it off the tree at this stage in development. Only because of my morbid curiosity to what you're planning."

Anthro smiled from ear to ear in excitement and rushed out the door. He ran to the base of the trunk, staring at the leaves that surrounded the colourless apples.

Blueblood chuckled as he watched, he knew Anthro was going to hurt himself doing this but it was the only way to learn. Besides, after all he had been through in recent times he wasn't going to put up a fight over apples.

He watched as Anthro began to climb the tree, the magical electricity coursing through his body but only enough to cause his hair to stand up, and Anthro pressed on. Blueblood watched as the creature climbed the tree with ease until he had reached the closes branch with apples. What the prince expected was for Anthro to grab the apple and receive a hilarious shock, but what he witnessed somewhat shocked him instead. He watched, to his surprise, as Anthro plucked a leaf from the tree and begin to use it as though it were a knife against the apple's stem. In a few short seconds, the apple tumbled off the tree and landed on the ground before Anthro jumped the distance back on the ground as well.

He watched in awe as Anthro rushed his freshly plucked zap apple back into the house as he exclaimed, "Move please, move, move, move."

Blueblood's eyes were wide with awe, he had never seen anyone use the leaves to pluck the apples early, let alone without being electrocuted. To him, Anthro had done something impressive.

The hairless creature grabbed one of the smaller ceramic soup-bowls from the counter and placed the grey apple in it, making sure it was in the direct centre as he instructed Blueblood to move back a step, "Not sure this work properly."

Anthro watched the apple closely as it began to harden, losing its moisture and turning hard like a golf-ball. After about thirty seconds, the transformation was complete and Anthro picked it up, quickly beginning to juggle it in his hands as he exclaimed, "Pass pan!"

Blueblood quickly obeyed orders, and used his magic to float a pan to Anthro's side to which the creature said while retaining the juggling act, "Watch…"

Anthro placed the dehydrated zap apple in the pan, and nothing happened. Blueblood waited a few seconds, switching his attention from the pan to Anthro as he asked him, "What's uh… what am I looking at?"

The creature had a smirk on his face as he said, "Touch it…"

Blueblood's confusion didn't let up as he quickly brought his hoof towards the apple, then he felt it. He hadn't even made contact yet and he could already feel heat of the magical apple, hot like a fire as Anthro put it under the sink and poured water on it with a quick, "Hold breath."

As soon as the water made contact with the zap apple, steam filled the room. Blueblood backed away quickly and watched from a distance as the situation unfolded, the sound of boiling water was loud and his face already hurt from the intense heat of the water-vapor.

Anthro continued his work, letting all the steam escape through the window until he was left with a slightly soggy and bubbling zap-apple. Anthro took the bowl and poured the liquid and apple into a tray before placing it in the oven and turning it on, the creature's eyes were locked on the window of the humming machine. As the situation unfolded, and once the steam had gone completely, Blueblood approached Anthro's side as he asked him, "What exactly are you doing?"

Anthro shrugged, "Cooking," was all he said in return.

After a few minutes, Anthro put on some protective gloves he found in the kitchen and opened the oven's door. The heat of the machine caused a knee-jerk reaction in the poor creature as he whipped his head away from the direction of the heat to take a deep breath. In one quick sweep, Anthro thrusted his hands into the oven and quickly pulled out the tray with a pile of bubbling goo and placed it on the elements on top. Once he had closed the oven doors, he turned to the prince and asked him to pass a pot to pour it into. Blueblood quickly came to his aid and began passing him what he needed before returning to watch on the sidelines. He watched as Anthro poured the goo into the pot, it had the viscosity of tomato soup and smelled awful. The creature took the leaves from the stem that he had collected and began to crumple them up in his hand until they were small flakes before pouring them in and stirring it up.

Over following few hours that this happened, it didn't occur to Blueblood to check the time as dawn began to approach and change the colour of the sky. He turned to Anthro as he said, "How much longer will this be, you can't be here with this freaky project when my staff returns."

Anthro raised his hand to signal that he only needed a few more moments as he said, "Almost… done." As soon as he said that, the mixing spoon that Anthro was using became stuck in the mix and would no longer move. With one strong tug, the sound of cracking was heard and the alien chef pulled out and tossed the spoon away before dumping the final product on the table. It was flakes and crusty pieces similar to a failed delicacy, Blueblood was not impressed as he raised an eyebrow in impatience.

Blueblood had a bitter taste in his mouth, he had just wasted a few precious hours of his life watching as Anthro wasted a precious zap apple on this failure of a home-economics project. The prince looked the sham-chef in the eyes and grumbled, "Is this what you wanted me to see? That you can almost cook something similar to a meal?"

Anthro had a smile on his face as he said, "No… it good. I cooked." He began to crush up the crusty pieces onto a plate and filled it with yellowish-grey crumbs until it formed a small pile on it, a look of pride was on the creature's face which was even more confusing to the prince.

The prince had enough, he gently ushered Anthro out the door as he said with impatience, "I'm really sorry this didn't work out, maybe next time you'll get better results. You better hide that… stuff… with you before my employees get here." With no chance for Anthro to respond, Blueblood frustratingly pushed Anthro out the doors and slammed them behind him. Once alone to himself again, Blueblood growled to himself in frustration, "I can't believe I wasted my time thinking that he had a solution."

*****

After Hunter was pushed out by the prince, he stumbled a little in the grass before having the door slammed on him. One second Hunter was showing his masterpiece to the prince and the next he was getting tossed out while being told something he didn't quite catch, leaving him and his plate of small crumbs to himself as he said, "Dick… oh well more for me."

Hunter placed the plate on a nearby rock and kneeled beside it, bending his torso over to get his face close to the plate. He then began to inhale it into his nose with a loud snort, closing the other nostril to make sure he remains safe as he says to himself, "Here goes."

The reaction was immediate, once the powder had been snorted, Hunter threw his head back and clutched his skull tightly as the pounding headache began to take effect. During this intense pain and throbbing he managed to grunt out a, "Oh yeah… here we go." He could feel it in his head, going down his throat and into his lungs numbing his chest with pins and needles sensation. The migraine headache was quickly over and he could feel the dust in his lungs seeping into his blood, he could feel it inside him now.

"Hopefully this works with the premature apples too." He quickly realized that he was correct, for as he exhaled a large cloud of purple and grey smoke billowed out of his mouth and nose and twinkled in the rising sunlight. Taking no time to pause and enjoy the sensations, Hunter spoke to himself as he got up, "Note to self, effects wear off instantly when you sniff it early."

Author's Note

I've been writing this entire chapter drunk.

Also, yeah I have no idea what I was thinking when I added that, but I feel like it could be badass.