Vaas Montenegro Learns the Magic of Friendship

Pinkie Pie wasn't talking much, for some reason.

Vaas had tried to make idle small talk with her, to no avail. She just couldn't seen to get over the horrific deaths of her friends. Oh well; better silent than psychotic.

Although, Vaas had observed unsettling aspects of the pink mare. The unbidden gleam in her eye when blood was shed, which Vaas had barely had time to notice, but had definitely been there nonetheless. She was obviously a bit... off, but Vaas had assumed until recently that it was some kind of prolonged sugar high, not buried bloodlust.

Maybe it was both, thought Vaas, letting his mind wander. Unless he was mistaken, he had heard tell that Pinkie worked in a bakery. Perhaps, to satiate her desire for blood- which Vaas was beginning to assume that every pony had deep down, judging by his experience so far- she murdered the occasional client, and baked them into her pastries, Sweeney Todd style... It was a horrific thought, which presented an oddly satisfying mental image. He continued to dwell on this, until Pinkie said softly, "Which way?" Vaas jumped, having just thought of various baking-related torture methods and what they might feel like, and snapped out of his daze.

They were at a fork in the path; to the right was a stony walkway along a sheer rock face, sloping upward, just wide enough for two men to walk abreast. To the left was a darker path, walled in on either side by rough grey rock, stretching straight until it veered off again to the left.

"I have no fucking idea," Vaas said. "But the left path looks a hell of a lot scarier. Let's go left."

So they went left, and soon, after several minutes of walking in a straight line, they turned the corner and found that their path ahead was, in fact, a cave, the mouth of which yawned open before them. It was several hundred feet away, but already Vaas could feel a strange aura emanating from it the darkness. He found it difficult to press on, and after glancing quickly at Pinkie, found that she must be feeling the same. There was a definite gleam of fear in her eyes.

The pair approached the mouth in silence. Vaas inspected the entrance, and with a jolt, noticed weathered carvings in the rock, circling all around the mouth. Some were faded beyond recognition, but as for what the others were, Vaas had no doubt. They were scenes of torture: ponies and other creatures being disemboweled, burned, dismembered, slowly beheaded, flayed, and other things that Vaas didn't even have a name for that involved certain unsightly orifices. Were these merely grotesque hieroglyphics, he wondered, possibly meaning something other than what they looked like at face value?... Or perhaps they were a literal threat, a promise of what awaited for any who entered? Either way, the prospect excited him. He had encountered things like this in his travels in the human world; many of the indigenous peoples that he had conquered had used similar symbols as a means of warding off invaders. It was a taste of the morbidly familiar in what was still a completely unfamiliar world.

Making eye contact with Pinkie, he smiled savagely, before entering the darkness.

The stone floor of the cave was smooth, compared to the rocky, loose terrain of the mountain path. It was also quite slick. Bending down to run his hands across the floor, Vaas found that it was covered in a slick residue, one that stuck to his fingers and stretched upwards when he took his hand away, like mucus or saliva. The thought was unsettling. Any calming familiarity was erased at that moment; there were no places like this in his world. This place was evil. He had always thought that evil was an abstract concept, one that meant different things to different people, with no clear definition. But this place... Vaas could feel the malice radiating from deeper in the darkness. He could feel it in his stomach, in his chest, in his very bones; it clouded his mind and made him shiver. This was an evil greater than himself, than his sister, than even his boss, Hoyt... They all suffered from psychological insanity, but this was malevolence in its purest form. This was hell.

He took another step, then another. His feet felt like they were tied to cinder blocks. His armor felt infinitely heavier now. When he drew his sword, the nerves in his arms screamed at him to stop; it was simply too much. Vaas sank to one knee, his blade falling from his hand, clattering upon the stone.

"Pinkie," he said, his voice sounding muffled, like he was speaking through layers of heavy cloth. "Help me."

Pinkie made no response. After a moment, he felt a presence on his shoulder, one of Pinkie's forelegs. He looked up at her. She stood there in from of him, looking down on him, smiling slightly, reassuringly. She raised her other foreleg, and Vaas prepared to grab it for leverage, opening his mouth to thank her.

Her hoof struck him in the side of his head, sending explosions of pain through his skull, making him see red. He fell to the ground. The red in his vision narrowed, quickly being enclosed by crushing blackness. He felt like he was falling through a dark tunnel. Unconsciousness took him.

Vaas dreamed of Jason Brody. He saw him standing in a dark room, illuminated sporadically by what appeared to be strobe lights. Flames danced around him, roaring and crackling. On the walls were television screens, displaying static. Vaas's own voice blared around Brody, speaking unintelligibly. Jason held in his hand what appeared to be a stone dagger, ancient and ornate, dripping with crimson blood. His arms were covered by the traditional tatau of the Rakyat people, identifying him as a warrior. Brody's face was partially obscured by shadow, but his eyes burned with fury. Vaas's voice was becoming louder, drowning out the roar of the flames. His own words were now becoming clearer. Finally, all other noise ceased, and he heard himself scream: "Take me into your heart! Accept me as your savior! NAIL ME TO A FUCKING CROSS, AND LET ME BE REBORN!"

Darkness followed. He dreamed no more.

Vaas opened his eyes, and saw no change from when they were closed. He took a breath, and inhaled sand. Coughing, he realized that he was lying face-down, and rolled onto his back. There was still not much change in his vision, at least at first; but when his eyes adjusted, he gasped in awe.

The sky above was a sickly green color, swirled with tinges of midnight blue. Lights swirled in the heavens, swirling neon green and red, reminiscent of the aurora australis. There were no stars. The moon, however, was present; it was the biggest moon that Vaas had ever seen. It took up a quarter of the sky. It was unnaturally bright, almost as bright as the sun. Vaas could barely look at it directly. Sitting up, he saw that the white light illuminated the land around him. It was a wasteland, like a desert, with rocky outcroppings dotting the landscape in all directions. The air was unnaturally cold. Vaas shivered in his... wait. His armor was gone. All he had on was his grey linen longsleeved undershirt, linen pants, leather gloves, and and the leather shoes that he'd worn under his sabatons. His sword lay in its scabbard next to him, as did Pipsqueak's jeweled dagger. He felt exposed, naked even. He had no recollection of what the fuck had happened after Pinkie had knocked him unconscious. The fact that he was still alive was mystery enough.

He stood shakily, turning around as he did so. About fifty yard behind him was the cave, the entrance to which bore the same sort of markings, except there were no signs of erosion on this side. The symbols were perfectly identifiable, even from this distance. The mere sight of the blackness made Vaas's muscles twitch spasmodically. He looked away, exhaling sharply. His breath steamed in the air.

He gaze snapped a nearby boulder, on top of which a lone figure sat, facing away from him. The moonlight was bright enough to make out the distinct pink coloration. She was still, like a statue. Her mane, as opposed to its usual cloudlike curliness, had gone straight, sinking down past her neck like a rose-colored waterfall. He took a step towards her, then another, his footsteps making no noise in the sand. His head throbbed every time he put his foot down.

Finally, he reached the rock where Pinkie sat. She did not turn to look at him, but he knew that she sensed his presence. She seemed to stiffen, if it's even possible for a statue to stiffen. She merely gazed into the distance. Minutes passed, and no one spoke. It was Vaas who finally broke the silence: "... You didn't kill me. Why?"

"I wanted to," Pinkie said after half a minute, her voice flat and sad. "But we still have a mission here, you know."

"Why the hell did you knock me out in the first place, then?"

"That cave was the gateway to the Night Lands, which is where we are now, if you haven't figured that out yet," she explained in a monotone. "There was a greater evil in that darkness than I have ever felt before, greater than any terror than my friends and I have faced. When we entered, I'd thought that you'd do alright. You are full of hatred, malice, and your own sort of evil; I didn't even think it would faze you. But I was wrong. It was obviously too much for you. When you fell to your knees, I knew that you wouldn't make it on your own. We were barely thirty feet into the cave, after all, and neither of us knew how far we had to go. If I made you walk, who knows what might have happened? I'm not sure if one can die from exposure to evil, but you sure looked like you were about to. So, I knocked you out. I wasn't sure if you'd still be affected in your sleep; I took a gamble, and it paid off. I had to drag you through. Your armor was too heavy, so I took it off and left it there. I had to go back for your sword and dagger. We've been here for what I guess to be about three hours."

Vaas took all of this in. After a moment, he asked, "... If someone as awful as myself is affected by whatever the hell is in that cave, why weren't you? You're so damn happy all the time, shouldn't that darkness have crushed you?"

Pinkie turned to him and smiled sadly. "Sometimes you just have to giggle at the ghosties, and it makes them go away, you know?"

Vaas made no reply.

"... Oh, forget it," she said, her smile disappearing. A tear rolled down her face.

"Thank you," Vaas said tentatively, "for getting me through there."

"Don't thank me," Pinkie said, an edge to her voice. "I didn't save you out of any affection. I didn't think that I was capable of hating anything, but I'm fairly certain that I hate you. You've taken everyone that I care about from me. I have nothing to live for anymore. When we're done here, if we get back at all, I'm going to get very, very drunk, and then I'm going to hang myself. Or maybe I'll just attack you and have you kill me. That'd probably be easier. But until then, we have a job to do." She climbed down off of the boulder.

"Well, where do we go from here?" Vaas asked, somewhat shocked by the abrupt change in the mare's nature.

"Celestia told us early on that we needed to keep going south indefinitely. So, which way is south?"

Vaas had no compass on him. There were no stars to navigate by. He was lost.

"Well," he said. "The princess said that the gates of Hell are literally at the end of the world... If we entered from the south, as she said we would, then I'd say that we can just go in the direction that the exit of the cave is facing. That's my best guess."

Pinkie nodded. They started walking.

Vaas had no idea how long they walked. He had no way to tell time; the colors didn't shift, nor did the shadows cast by the moon, nor did the moon itself. Everything was constant. Whether time even existed here, Vaas didn't know. They did not talk; after all, what was there to talk about at this point?

Several thousand steps later, Pinkie suddenly stopped. "Wait," she said. "I feel something."

"Like, more of that cave shit?" Vaas asked.

"No," she said. "Well, it's similar. It feels more physical than that. My Pinkie Sense is telling me that there's something watching us."

"Your what?"

"Nothing, just draw your sword. Something's coming."

Vaas drew his blade, the light of the moon gleaming off of the steal.

He listened. There was utter silence; there was no wind, no shifting of the sands anywhere. Vaas swore that he could hear his own blood flowing.

And then, a growl.

It came from somewhere off to his left. It was like a dog, and yet, unlike any dog that Vaas had ever heard. It was deep, guttural, and seemed as loud as thunder. It was accompanied by a sort of gurgling noise, like something exhaling through a thick liquid. A dune shifted some fifty feet to his left, and over the top climbed what Vaas could only describe as a monster. It was like a German shepherd, except three times as big, and black as night. Its eyes glowed a fiery fed. From its jaws dripped thick black sludge. It turned its gaze to Vaas, and roared. The sound was like the detonation of a bomb.

"What the actual fuck is that?" Vaas said, his voice small.

"That," Pinkie answered in an equally timid voice, "is a Hellhound."

"Oh, of course it is."

The beast charged. After several strides, it leaped in the air, arcing over Vaas. Before he could even turn around, it was upon him. It knocked him down facefirst into the sand, placing one paw on his back, making it pop loudly. Vaas wondered if it was going to sever his spine.

He heard the Hellhound grunt, and the pressure was lifted from his back. Vaas rolled over onto one knee, bringing his sword to a defensive position. His eyes widened.

Pinkie was facing off against the monster. It was nearly four times her size. She must have kicked it off of him, an impressive feat for such a small pony. She was going to die. Horribly.

Vaas got to his feet, raised his blade, and charged, screaming. The noise distracted the creature, which turned to look at him, giving Pinkie the opportunity that she was looking for. She charged as well. At the last second, she pivoted one hundred and eighty degrees, and used her momentum to kick the Hellhound square in the jaw with her hind legs. Its head was knocked back, and it staggered... but quickly recovered. All Pinkie accomplished was to piss it off, and now its eyes were locked on her. Vaas was too far away, still. Before Pinkie could get out of the way, the beast swatted her with its front paw, sending her flying some ten feet in the air, landing several yards to the left. She didn't move again.

Vaas continued to charge, but his scream was stifled. The beast turned, and he knew that it was ready for him. He raised his sword to strike, but the Hellhound merely shoved out its paw, which he ran squarely into and fell to the ground in a daze. There was no more that he could do. He closed his eyes, and waited to die.

What he got instead was sudden, agonizing pain in his abdomen, accompanied by enormous pressure. His eyes flew open, and he saw that the world was sideways. He was staring up at the moon. Turning his head, he was met with the crimson eye of the Hellhound. He was literally in the beast's jaws, and somehow not dead. It did not increase the pressure or chew him at all; no, it was running, smoother than Vaas would have thought possible. He barely felt it the movement. For some reason, it wasn't trying to kill him. Not yet, anyway. It was almost as if he was being retrieved in a game of fetch, in which he was the stick.

Then, the pain in his abdomen spiked, and Vaas blacked out. Again.

When he awoke, he found that his hands and feet were bound with chains. He was suspended between two pillars as he had been in the Canterlot dungeon all those days ago, his limbs spread in so that his body formed an x-shape. He began to panic, remembering all the hellishly long days that he had hung there, with only the smell of this own waste to keep him company. Around him was a square courtyard made entirely of black onyx. It wasn't very large, maybe fifty feet to either side. His sword was leaning against a nearby black pillar, but his dagger was nowhere to be seen. He had been stripped of his clothes, and, looking down, he saw the row of shallow puncture wounds from the Hellhound's jaws. The creature, for all its brutality, managed to not hit anything vital. Then again, it was probably instructed to do so.

As if on cue, there was the soft sound of paws on stone, and the beast emerged from behind him. It circled him, snarling. It looked ready to tear out his intestines.

Then, from the far end of the courtyard, there emerged a figure. Tall and regal in posture, wearing black robes. Its face was completely obscured by a hood. Upon hearing the sharp clacking noises of the figure's hooves, the Hellhound whimpered, and retreated to its master's side.

As the figure grew closer, Vaas began to convulse. He felt the same evil that he had felt in the cave. It radiated from this figure like light from the sun, and like the sun, it seemed like it would burn Vaas to a cinder if it got too close. But it continued to advance, and Vaas continued to shake.

"Mephistopheles, I presume," he said through gritted teeth.

The figure halted.

"You know me," it said, its voice a deep, distorted sort of growl.

"Oh, yeah, I fucking know you," Vaas said, trying to muster his courage. "I figured you'd be... Bigger. Maybe a bit more fiery. And if it weren't for your bitch there, I'd be holding your severed head by now."

"Is that so?" it said. "And how did you come to know me?"

"Princess motherfucking Celestia sent me here to kill you," he practically screamed. "And when I get out of these chains, I'm going to tear out your fucking eyes."

It laughed. The sound was surprisingly high compared to its speaking voice; it was an awful noise, painful even, like nails on a chalkboard.

"Well," it said. "You're certainly courageous, I'll give you that. But I don't think that you're prepared to face me, even if you were to get out of those chains... Actually, let me help you with that."

A purple light glowed from under the hood, and the chains dissolved. Vaas fell to the cold stone below.

"How can you possibly be prepared to fight me," it asked mirthfully while advancing, "when you're not even hunting the right target?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Vaas asked, standing. The tears in his abdomen throbbed painfully.

"Mephistopheles?" it asked mockingly. "Please. A legend out of the Canterlot libraries, used by parents to scare their foals into obedience. The fact that Celestia actually believes in such things is one of the reasons why I plan to take the throne for myself, if only to spare the land from having to tolerate such an inept leader for any longer."

Vaas's blood ran cold as the realization dawned on him.

"... Luna," he said weakly.

"Ah, so you actually can think for yourself," it said with false sincerity, its deep voice morphing into that of the Princess of the Night. Her hood lowered, revealing her grinning face. "I'm impressed."

"First off, this was seriously the most predictable thing ever, and frankly I'm ashamed of myself for not guessing sooner," he said, laughing despite the pain. "Second... just... why? Why not just kill me while I was imprisoned? Why go to this great of a length just to kill one man?"

"First off, because I hate you, and I wanted to watch you suffer through journey. I hate you more than I've ever hated any creature, except, perhaps, for my sister. Which brings me to my second reason: because I hate my sister, and this is the first step to achieving what I've desired for thousands of years. I will remove her from the picture, and rule in her stead. And thanks to your killing off the majority of those seven idiots, the only real opposition I that I will have will be my sister, and she will be dead long before she can even realize that it was me who killed her. The people will mourn, but I will comfort them. They will look to me for guidance, for leadership. I will bring Equestria out of this age of oppression, into a new Lunar Age of prosperity. Darkness will reign, after being suppressed for so many millennia. How will I do this, you ask? Come, let me show you."

He was lifted from the ground, surrounded by a field of purple energy. He could not move. Luna brought him to her side, and walked to the edge of the courtyard, which Vaas could now see was on a cliff. She raised him up so that he could see the fields below. As she walked to the edge, a tremendous cheer filled the air. The ground below, which Vaas had assumed was merely black landscape, suddenly began to writhe. Hundreds of thousands of shadowy figures moved, many screaming, some fighting one another, others doing what appeared to be fornicating... They looked like ponies, but they were grotesque, slimy, convulsing, ruined variants. The multitude stretched as far as Vaas could see into the distance. It was the most horrifying thing that he had ever seen.

"This," she screamed, fury and passion in her eyes, "is my army. To the denizens of Equestria- to my sister- it is the army of Mephistopheles. They will march on Equestria, and they will bring my sister to her knees. I will be too late to save her as Mephistopheles himself..." upon mentioning the name of the demon, a great beast rose from the multitude. The monster resembled a Minotaur; it was black, but its skin burned, giving it a texture similar to an ember. It stood at least twenty feet tall. On its head were two curved horns, and in its hand was a flaming sword. It roared, and two great batlike wings spread from its back. "... descends upon the throne room, and slaughters her, along with her entire royal guard. But, when all hope is lost, I will face the Devil himself in what seems a futile endeavor, and I will defeat him, thus defeating his entire army. I will be the savior of Equestria! Me! Not my worthless sister! ME!"

In a rage, she threw Vaas backwards, into one of the stone pillars. The energy around him disappeared, and he sank to ground.

"And I am telling you this," Luna said, "so that you can know, in your last, agonizing moments, just what it was that you failed to stop."

Her horn glowed again, and a field of energy surrounded his own sword. "I think," she said ponderously, "that I'm going to kill you with your own blade. A poetic end, don't you think?" Arsewiper was lifted into the air, and floated to her side. Her horn glowed even brighter, and chains reappeared around both of Vaas's arms, stretching them back and binding him to the pillar. Luna brought the blade down slowly, and placed the tip on his left pectoral muscle, with just enough force to break the skin. Vaas grunted, and a line of blood trailed down his chest. She ran the blade in a straight line down his torso, cutting a line of crimson as she did so. Vaas squeezed his eyes shut and suppressed a groan. After reaching about where his thigh was, she brought the blade to his other pectoral muscle, and did the same. Vaas couldn't help but cry out. His pain seemed to excite Luna, who let out a deep, sensual moan. She traced the contours of his abs with the edge, clearly outlining them with his own blood while he groaned in agony. She was breathing quite heavily. "Maybe I shouldn't kill you quite yet," said Luna. "You are quite the physical specimen, after all. Why not have a little bit of fun with you first?"

Vaas's eyes widened. This cunt was fucking insane, and he told her so. The was nothing he could do to stop it, though. Luna began to laugh at the prospect. "Yes," she said, almost sounding out of breath. "I suppose I may be." She began to straddle him. This was by far the most disturbing thing that had ever happened to him. He closed his eyes, trying to will himself to retreat from reality for a little while. He prepared for the worst.

What he got instead was a faint whistling noise, and a wet thump just above his head. Luna's body, which had been pressed against his, stiffened and twitched. Vaas opened his eyes. Luna's face was merely inches form his, but her eyes were wide and distant. She no longer was looking at him. Instead, her pupils slowly moved to her left, as the bottoms of her eyes filled with tears. Vaas looked to his right as best he could with her on top of him. He could make out a golden hilt with precious jewels embedded in the pommel, protruding from the side of Luna's neck. Tears began to fall from Luna's eyes, cold on his skin, and a trickle of golden blood began to flow from her mouth. He moved his head to the side before any could fall on him. He looked back into Luna's eyes, and found that her pupils were fixed on him once again. "We... don't understand..." she said, and fell off of him.

The chains dissolved, and he rolled away, rising to one knee. He quickly looked for the Hellhound, but it was nowhere to be found. He quickly stood and ran to the edge of the cliff, expecting to see the armies of darkness screaming for his blood. Instead, he saw them melting into pools of blackness. Mephistopheles was screaming, fire shooting from his mouth and nostrils, as his body slowly liquified and sank into the sand, as did the bodies of all of the grotesque shadow demons. They left no stains upon the sand. Within seconds, it was as if they were never there at all. Vaas felt sand between his toes, and looked to see that the courtyard itself was disintegrating into nothingness.

He had wondered, for the first few seconds, who had thrown the dagger, but quickly realized without needing to look. He didn't know how she had survived the encounter with the Hellhound, but he didn't really feel like asking. Turning around, he saw Pinkie Pie extracting the dagger from the jugular of the former Princess of the Night. "Well that was some fucking great timing," he said. She merely looked at him.

After a moment, she said, "You have no idea how much this screws up the world. Celestia loves her sister more than life itself. There's no guarantee that she won't kill us when she learns of what we did, no matter how justified it was. There is now no one to raise the moon, either, unless Celestia wants to undertake that task herself, which I guess she'll have to in order to keep any sort of normality..." she paused. "Well, if we're gonna get back, we'd better start walking."

"Oh, there will be no need for that," said a vaguely British voice.

Both of them whirled around to find the strangest creature that Vaas had ever seen floating above them. It looked like a creation of Dr. Frankenstein, if the mad scientist had decided to recreate his monster with various animal parts. It looked partly bemused, and very, very sad.

"Discord!" Pinkie exclaimed happily, although her expression quickly grew wary. "What are you doing here?"

"I was sent by Princess Celestia to retrieve you," the creature, Discord, said. "When she noticed her sister's absence, she feared the worst..." he looked down at Princess Luna's body. "And I see now that her fears were justified."

"Discord, you have to believe us," Pinkie pleaded, "we had to do it. She'd gone insane." Pinkie turned to Vaas. "Tell him what she told you."

Vaas, dumbfounded by the creature before him, simply moved his jaw up and down in an attempt to speak. Finally, he collected his wits. "... She was going to overthrow Celestia," he explained. "She'd raised an army to march on Equestria... it's gone now, though. It died when she did. She was going to kill me, and then have her the demon 'leader' of her army kill Celestia, so that she herself could stop it and be the savior of the land."

Discord pondered this for a moment. "Well, that's not very original, is it?" he asked rhetorically. "I always suspected that she was never quite reformed from Nightmare Moon..." he paused again, suddenly looking concerned. "Tell me, where are the rest of your friends?"

Pinkie's silence was answer enough.

"Oh," he said simply. "Even Fluttershy?..."

Pinkie nodded slightly.

Discord sighed, his face falling. "Well, there goes my only friend," he said softly. "I think I'm going to go back to being a statue for a few hundred years. Being alive is too painful. But first, let's get you back to Canterlot. I'll make sure that Celestia doesn't punish you, don't worry."

He snapped his fingers- which were like the talons of an eagle- and they all disappeared in a flash of light, including the body of Luna.

Celestia was not angry. She wept for quite some time after ordering Luna's body to be cremated and the ashes scattered in the gardens. She grieved for so long that even after Vaas awoke the next morning, fully healed, fed, and clothed in garments identical to the ones he had worn upon arriving (except cleaner), he still wasn't allowed to see her. A day passed, which he spent in the training rooms, taking his anger out on the training dummies. He had left Arsewhiper in the Night Lands, and he couldn't stand to look at the dagger. None of the swords in the armory felt right in his hands, and, after trying every weapon available, he abandoned the pursuit. The rest of the day he spend staring at his hands, trying to figure out who the hell he was. He hadn't seen Pinkie Pie since he initially got back. He wasn't sure if she'd followed through on her promise of suicide; frankly, he didn't care. He had nothing against the mare who had saved his life. He just felt apathetic towards everything now.

Early the next day, a guard entered his room. Vaas was shaving absentmindedly, and did not react to the door being opened, nor the voice of the guard, telling him that Celestia would see him now. He merely put down the razor, and silently walked past the guard.

He entered the throne room to find Celestia in her usual spot atop her throne. Any trace of grief was gone from her eyes. She looked completely majestic and regal, stoic as a statue.

He stood before her for several moments, waiting for her to speak. When she didn't, he decided to open the conversation himself. "I want to go home," he said simply.

"I know," Celestia replied. "And I will send you home. But before I do, I wanted to thank you."

Vaas raised an eyebrow. He hadn't expected this.

"You may have killed my sister, but you also saved saved Equestria, just as you set out to do. You may have even saved me. I don't know how I would have fared against this Mephistopheles, especially without Luna by my side. So, thank you."

Vaas didn't want acknowledgment for this. It was the worst experience of his life, and all he wanted was to pretend that it didn't happen. He merely nodded his head, and said, "Can I go home now?"

Celestia sighed, and nodded. "I have something for you first."

She nodded to the guard on her right, who walked forth, a sable pillow in his mouth. On it lay Vaas's 1911 pistol, with three magazines next to it, stocked with bullets. Vaas's mouth dropped open.

"I had my smiths working day and night to reconstruct the magazines and ammunition," Celestia said. "I hope it works to your satisfaction."

Vaas picked up the gun, and slid one of the magazines in. The click that it made was like sweet music to him. He slid the other two mags under his belt, and racked the slide, loading a round into the chamber.

"All those days ago, in the training arena, you said that you would be coming to kill me after you killed Mephistopheles," Celestia said. "Are you still planning on doing that?"

Vaas pondered for a moment. "No," he said. "I just want to fucking go home."

"Very well," Celestia said. Her horn glowed white, and a swirling vortex appeared to his left. Looking into it, her could vaguely make out tropical trees and plants, and... what appeared to be one of this men pissing. He smiled. "Step into the portal, and you will be back in your own world. Little time has passed there since you departed; to them, it will be as if you were only away for a few minutes."

"Perfect," he said. "Thank you."

"Until we meet again, Vaas the Human," Celestia said with a smirk.

Vaas smiled back. "I highly doubt that, cunt," Vaas said, before raising his gun and shooting her in the face. The wall behind Celestia was splattered with red, and she slumped forward, falling out of her throne. Vaas dove through the portal before any of the guards could react. He barely had time to get completely through; as soon as his foot exited on the other side, it closed shut noiselessly behind him.

He landed in the grass. Ten feet in front of him was one of his pirates, still taking a piss. The man had taken no notice of Vaas's sudden entrance. Vaas grinned.

Standing up, he strode over to next to the pirate, undid his belt and fly, and began pissing next to him. The man jumped, averting his eyes and standing at attention, then realized that his member was still hanging out and quickly redid his pants. Vaas finished, and rebuttoned his own trousers.

"We, uh, lost Brody, sir," the pirate said. "He fell into the river, but we don't think he's dead."

"Well," Vaas said. "What the fuck are you waiting for, then?! Go fucking find him!"

His man jumped again, hastily uttered a "Yes, sir," and began to run down the forest path.

Oh, yes. This was more fucking like it.