To the Library

Little D was enjoying the sunshine as he sat on the grand balcony. He took a sip from his cup of tea and sighed contentedly. “This is nice,” he said aloud. “Beautiful weather, nice tea, fresh air, and my favorite princess next to me. After all this is over I think I’m gonna spend the rest of my life on my back porch just drinkin’ tea and watchin’ the clouds roll on by.”

“When what is over?” Luna asked.

“You know. The great big battle between Steel and I.”

“You’ll also be fighting Tear Drop, won’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but I figure she’ll be in too much shock that I defeated Steel. So I can come in quick and easy and take her out too.”

“You’ll also be fighting an entire army trained under the student of War.”

“Bah, Steel has been gathering and training troops for, what, a decade or two?”

“It’s been nearly fifteen hundred years.”

“Woah, what, really?” D said with a hint of nervousness. He shook his head and smiled again, “Ah, whatever, a trooper is a mortal, and when a mortal faces a near-immortal the mortal loses.”

“But you could be facing hundreds of thousands of highly trained soldiers,” Luna insisted as she angled herself in her chair so she could see his face. “You’ve never faced more than one enemy at a time before.”

“Luna I’ll be fine. For all we know, Steel could just be bluffing and he has, like, fifty guys and a goat.”

“A goat?”

“Point is, I don’t know what I’m going up against, but I’ve been training long enough and hard enough to be able to take on anything anyone throws at me,” be beamed confidently and took another sip of his tea. The two sat quietly for a moment before Luna broke the silence.

“Have you ever killed anyone, big brother?”

“What kind of question is that?” he asked quizzically.

“Earlier you said that you would merely defeat Steel and Tear Drop. You never said that you would kill them.”

“I’ve taken plenty of lives, Luna,” D replied, slightly irritated.

“No, you’ve escorted souls to the afterlife.”

“I’ve defeated thousands of demons and banished them into Tartarus!”

“But you haven’t killed anyone before, have you?”

“Well, no, but it can’t be that hard, right? Just make em’ bleed until theres no more blood to bleed.”

“Are you telling me that in over four thousand years, you’ve never once killed anybody?”

“Yes! Alright!” D snapped. “I’ve never killed anyone, wanna know why? Death isn’t about killing people, ok? It’s about balance, judgment, and escorting the souls of the dead to the afterlife. Uncle doesn’t show up until after the person is dead anyway and why should I force souls to be reaped early? It would just make him work harder.” he dropped his voice and his expression turned sad. “Besides, if I killed anyone, it would just be confirming what people already think about Death.”

“Little D, I know your main mission is to spread the word about what your uncle and the others are really like, but sometimes people just need to die. I know it sounds callous but isn’t that your uncle’s motto? ‘Destroy the bad and replace it with the good,’ right?” Luna reached out and gave D’s shoulder a squeeze.

“It’s; ‘remove the old and make way for the new,’ Lu.” D shrugged off Luna’s hand and got off of his chair. “I thought I told you that at least a hundred times, regardless I guess the principle still applies.” he sighed and began scanning the sky. “Violence sucks,” he grumbled as he continued searching. “Where is she anyway, I’ve been waiting here for, like, five minutes.”

“Where’s who, brother?” Luna asked curiously.

“I was havin’ a race with Rainbow Dash and now she’s nowhere to be seen. I thought she was the fastest flyer in all of Equestria.”

“Didn’t you teleport here?” luna asked accusingly.

“Nope,” D said quickly. “I’m just too fast for the likes of Miss. I-can-break-the-sound-
barrier-in-ten-seconds-flat.”

“Someday you’ll have to race her for real you know,” Luna rolled her eyes as she got out of her chair.

“Doubt it,” he said casually. He pointed to a dot in the sky with a faint rainbow trail behind it. “There she is.” he turned his palm up to the sun and shot out a single bolt of dark purple magic, signaling his location. “Bout time you showed up!” D shouted as Rainbow flew in closer. Rainbow Dash grit her teeth in frustration.

“Whatever! I wasn’t even going full speed. Now that I know how fast you are I won’t pull any stops next time we race.”

“Yeah you say that now but what happens next time I beat you? You gonna make more excuses?” D grinned smugly.

“Keep talkin’ like that D and I’ll have to kick your a-” she landed next to Little D and dropped whatever threat she was about when she noticed the Princess of the Night was present. “Princess Luna,” she quickly dropped to a bow. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” she said simply and motioned for Rainbow Dash to stand.

“Well, yeah, I know that, but what are you doing here with D?”

"Little D and I have been friends for ages. I know the second he steps foot in the castle and he always tries hiding from me."

“It’s like hide and seek,” D smiled. “Only, when she finds me, she chews out the guards for letting me slip past.”

“Yes, that reminds me, who was the soldier on duty? Skipper, was it?” Luna asked aloud.

“Nah that wasn’t him,” Little D said quickly. “It was, uh,” he snapped his fingers and thought for a moment. “Flash Sentry, er, something.”

“Hmm, I believe I need to have a word with this soldier, if you’ll both excuse me for a moment,” Princess Luna nodded and left D and Rainbow alone in the small garden.

"Don't get me wrong Rainbow, I love Luna, but I can practically tell her anything and she'll believe it. I mean, what kind of stupid name is Flash Sentry?" he chuckled and shook his head. "Anyway, what do you wanna do next? Race back to Ponyvill? Push up competition? Help me save the world from damnation? Long-jump?”

“What was that second from last one?”

“Saving the world.”

“Oh, yeah, that one sounds pretty important.”

“That’s cuz it is.”

“Well, what do we gotta do then?”

“Just gotta find out where I used to live. I know the name of the island, but just not where it is.

“How are you going to figure out where you used to live?” D was quiet before he answered.

“Well, I think theres a vague map in the book I found in the archives,” D said as he pulled the old book bound in green leather from behind his back. He flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for. “Yeah, right here is a map of Epona’s isle,” he said as he showed Rainbow Dash a hand drawn map of an island on one page. On the other page was a smaller picture of the island with the water around it labeled in a language Rainbow couldn’t read. A jagged coastline was drawn out far to the left and right of the island, but even Rainbow could tell that the labeling was smudged beyond recognition

“Obviously the first thing one would think to do with a map like this would be to look at a larger map to find where these areas correspond, longitude and latitude and all that. Unfortunately this is a non-scaled guess map of the island.” he sighed and put the book back behind his back where Rainbow presumed it just simply disappeared.

“So basically I have a hot lead but nothing to do with it yet. It’s like that weird extra button you get with a new jacket or something. I see it and I know what it’s supposed to do, but, I mean where does it go, right? What do I do with this extra button, why would you give me this?” he looked over at Rainbow Dash who was giving him an odd look. “Oh, sorry, sometimes I start rambling when I get frustrated.”

“It’s...fine.” Rainbow said hesitantly. “So, where do you think we should go next?”

“Uh, I think the palace’s library is still open, if you don’t mind going there with me.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “As long as you don’t expect me to read anything too nerdy.”

“Rainbow, if I’m right, we’ll just need to look and hundreds of maps. Not to hard, right?”

“Not hard, but it sounds super boring.”

“How about this then, when we find the island on the map, we’ll race to it, sound good?”

“Hmph, only if you're ready to go down, D,” Rainbow said confidently. Little D just smiled in return.

“Down in history maybe.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Meanwhile in a field somewhere between Ponyvill and Manehattan

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Ugh,” Johnny groaned as he struggled to sit up. “I feel like I got hit by a train.”

“That’s because you did.” Reason replied boredly.

“Wait, really?” John looked at the blood covered train next to him. “Well I’ll be damned. Why the hell would I do something that stupid?”

“Somethin’ about a train robbery,” Numb Nuts said.

“Wait, was I the one robbing the train, or-”

“How the hell are you still alive?” the gruff voice of a train robber demanded.

“Oh yeah, now I remember.” Johnny lept to his feet and immediately punched the would-be thief in front of him square in the jaw. “Gotta take these dudes down. Nobody but nobody kills me and gets away with it.” he tore the train’s door off it’s hinges without any effort and tossed it behind him. “Gonna make ‘em bleed.”

“Hey, dude, you might wanna calm down,” Numb Nuts said hesitantly. “There’s still people on board.”

“Let ‘em watch.” he spat bitterly as he stormed through the cars.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Reason said, his usual calm voice losing it’s edge. “Remember last time something like this happened? Manehatten was on fire for days.”

“I’ll be gentle with the humans,” John said as he casually sent his fist through the belly of a train robber. He let him drop to the floor as blood rushed out of the robber’s wound, quickly painting the flooring a deep crimson red. “I promise.”

“Did you just rip that dude’s stomach out?” Numb Nuts asked in horror.

“Probably, hey pal, what does this look like to you?” John threw the bloody organ in his left hand directly at the face of the robber standing in front of him. The thief barely had time to scream in horror as John effortlessly crushed his head between his hands, splashing his face with blood. “Guess he didn’t know. Hey, is it getting dark, or is it just me?”

“It is you, you idiot!” Reason shouted. “You’re entering you feral state! Calm down or everybody on board is going to die!” But John couldn’t hear the warning. All he could hear was the screaming of passengers around him.

The few robbers Johnny ran into were quickly and violently cut down as he made his way to the caboose.They begged to be spared but he wouldn’t listen. He couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t hear anything anymore except for the blood rushing in his ears. He blacked out shortly after tearing out the last train robber’s spine.

When the train finally arrived in Manehatten there were no survivors, only blood and mutilated corpses strewn about the train cars madly.

In the front of the train there was a note hastily scrawled out in blood that read; You probably forgot that I’m a dangerous sociopath with a long history of violence.

Author's Note

Don't forget to check the trains for anything suspicious!