#19

K flipped a Bit up and down, catching it over and over again as he waited for a fresh load of muffins to finish cooking. Derpy and the little pony had settled for some lemonade as they went about waiting for the muffins as well. The scent that escaped through the door made K's mind melt as he waited to fill himself up with another sweet flavor. He admired his luck as he pulled out a small pouch from the inside of his shirt and opened it to study what was inside.

"I still can believe we managed to find this bag full of bits," K said as he dropped the Bit back into the pouch and closed it again. He then pulled out a stone from his pocket, a mixture of green and black swirls tainted over it. He carefully studied it as it glowed green, "And what is this thing?"

"I don't know," both of them answered, K expected such an answer but he did intend on finding out what this thing in his hand was. He placed the stone away as he leaned his head to the wall behind him, "Maybe those two princesses know? I go see them after this."

"Done!" Pinkie pie cheered emerging from the door with a face full of flour and dough and muffins and cupcakes on a huge circular disk.

K lifted up to see what he'd waited for and wasn't disappointed, the colors in front of him impressed him as he inquired what the ones with frosting were about, he didn't expect to find such huge variety of muffins. Pinkie gasped in shock as she instantly flicked her chef's hat off and shook her head in disbelief, "YOU DON'T KNOW!?"

K took a moment to take in her reaction, was it really that important? "No…"

"Well then this will be your lucky day, this is for you!" She proudly said as she picked up one of the cupcakes and neared it to K. He didn't bother in thinking about it, he picked it up and rotated it a bit before placing it into his mouth. K took a few seconds to taste it before instantly turning around to not face the rest as he swallowed the piece instantly, he probably broke his jaw with how wide his smile was from the joy of eating this cupcake. He did his best to mold his face back together with his other hand but the sweet taste lingered around the side of his mouth.

"THESE TASTES EVEN BETTER THAN MUFFINS, WHO CREATED SUCH THINGS!?" He pondered as he inhaled deeply and exhaled, finally getting his face back to normal.

"Are you okay!?" Pinkie asked as she moved up to his side trying to hold on to a fake smile. K looked down at her but in his way was the cupcake that forced him to take another bite, he nodded as he chewed away at the sweet mixture of bread and sweet in his mouth regretting having taken another bite since his happiness was as obvious as his obsession with the pieces bread.

"Yay! You do like them! I knew it!" She said as she waltzed back into the shop, "Woah, a lot of customers today, bye!"

K stared as ponies began to leave and exit the shop with sweets and bread, reminding him of how glad he was to have pre-ordered these muffins. Derpy picked up the bag that let out the warm aroma of freshly made muffins.

"We must find Ben!" Derpy said as she looked inside the bag and counted the muffins, there were five muffins but you can never be too sure.

"I got it! Just give me a sec," K said as he placed his index and middle finger to his forehead and closed his eyes. He focused strongly on Ben's energy, this way he could easily locate him if he's near. He continued searching before he finally got a reading on his location, K tightened his eyes as he felt something coming from Ben's energy and zoomed in on it before finally opening his eyes again but a little disturbed.

"Did you find him?" The little pony asked, K nodded but he still pondered what it was he felt coming from Ben. Ben was on the move and quick, but this feeling of unbalanced energy that seemed to want to break out of Ben worried K.

"Yeah, he's heading…" K hovered off the ground up high and aimed a finger at the direction Ben was headed, "that way, toward that…big castle thing."

K looked at the castle as he remembered from Ben's memory a fight between Ben and some other pony, K saw these memories in faded pieces like a puzzle and did his best to put them together thus explains his lacking in Ben's full understanding. He cautiously looked back down at the ponies and let himself fall to the ground before tightening his fists. The two ponies gave him a strange look as he kneeled down in front of Derpy and the small pony.

"Listen, I can take these muffins to Ben, you two stay here, alright?" K explained as he reached his hand out to the muffin bag but Derpy instantly denied him permission. She looked at him worriedly as she shook her head quickly.

"NO! Please…I want to go!" She replied back, stunning K for a while, he never expected such a change in personality from her considering she was…unique when it comes to comprehending a few things. He stared at her convinced he knew better for them and explained himself.

"I know but something is not right, Ben might be…" K said before quickly stopping as something trotted up behind him, he turned slowly as multiple ponies came into view. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, "DAMN IT!"

"Ben might what…!?" Flutters asked emerging from the group of ponies that consisted of Applejack, Vinyl, three little ones, Lyra and Bonbon. Flutters was worried and cupping her hooves to her chest as she asked again with the biggest eyes she could conjure.

K couldn't deal those eyes Flutters was putting on, he did his best to give her the most serious look he could give her but his most serious look looked like a call for help when she was near. The rest of the group stepped up asking a similar question, "IS BEN OKAY!?"

K didn't respond but instead kept his head down refusing to answer, he wouldn't want to drag anyone with him into whatever Ben was going to do. The ponies became irritated by the silence, they all felt it, the bad vibes that were filling everything around them. After a few seconds of no answer, a blur of rainbow quickly rushed towards K.

"You tell us where Ben is now!"

K felt a tug on his shirt as he was pulled in by Dash to face her eye to eye. She wasn't in the mood to accept any excuses, he knew that well and he was already tired of being asked the same question repeatedly. K sighed deeply as he placed his hand on her hooves.

"He is heading to that castle with the princesses, but something is wrong, I don't know what it is," He said sliding her hooves off him and letting her think about what to do. He knew two things as of right now; One, Ben is about to reach the castle in a few seconds, and Two, he's gonna have a huge crowd of ponies following behind him.

"If that's so, then we must go!" Dash said looking in the direction of the castle.

"Yeah!" they all agreed, even Derpy and the little pony had a say.

K looked down with his eyes closed and a grin softly emerging, he admired the support that Ben got from them. His grin quickly turned into a confused one as he sensed Ben's energy again, but it was accompanied by two others: a huge demonic energy and a pure energy. He opened his eyes again to see that they were all ready to go.

"Let's go…wait a minute…how are we going to get there?" Dash asked stay up high with her hoof above her eyes to avoid sunlight, they all pondered this question, all except K who stared at his hand. He thought about this technique that Ben had hidden in his mind as he folded his fingers down leaving only the middle and index up together. He placed the fingers up to his forehead before concentrating on Dash who was up in the sky getting a view of the castle.

"Here goes…" He whispered as he closed his eyes.

poof*

K slowly opened his eyes and looked around himself, he was up in the sky but where was Dash? He looked around himself before feeling something sharply strike him on the top of his head. He placed his hands on his chest to feel the hind hooves of Dash, she had her hind hooves around his neck. She quickly jolted away from him.

"Don't scare me like that!" Dash yelled at him.

"Geez, I was trying out something new!" K replied rubbing his head before falling to the ground, Dash followed him.

"Alright, I have a way to get to Ben! Every pony, join hands…er…hooves," K demanded as he grabbed Derpy's hoof and Derpy joined the little pony's hoof, the rest watched for a few seconds before doing the same.

"What are we doing exactly?" Dash asked, the rest agreed with her question. K nodded his head before placing his fingers to his head as grinned at them.

"We're going to Ben!"

-Back to Ben now…

I took my first few steps on Canterlot ground, the appearance was the same but the feeling of being back here wasn't pleasing. The area felt hostile and with every pony in this community staring at me as I moved wasn't helping. I walked past many ponies that would give me these inferior looks but I suppose that's their attitude all the time, ignoring all that I managed to walk past everyone until I finally reached my destination. Luna took the lead while I stayed with Rarity by my side as we gained permission into the castle.

We walked past the guards, once we left them about five feet behind us, they whispered something that made my breath run a little quicker.

"Isn't that the one that Celestia was going to challenge?" The one to left asked.

"Yeah, he's the powerful one! Don't you remember what he did to Luna's assistant!?" The other enthusiastically replied.

"Right! But Celestia is easily stronger!"

Their voiced got out of range but now I had more worries; Will I fight against Celestia? Why hasn't Luna told me? Why? We remained silent as I continued to follow Luna but even she seemed to be pondering her own questions. We continued past many more guards who began to fill in even more gaps that just made me more anxious, weren't these guards supposed to be the quiet types?

At last reached the entrance to what I suppose is the throne room since the guards here weren't as easily moved as the ones from before. The guards looked around Luna to me and Rarity, inspecting us briefly with their eyes, Luna gave them a frown as she questions their actions. They glanced at her before getting back and circling me, I didn't move assuming this was probably a routine check or something.

"Excuse us but Celestia has requested a minor identity check," One of the guards spoke up making her lift an eyebrow in confusion. I was thrown off by this, if she didn't know what was going on, then what am I walking into?

"Why?" Luna asked as she turned to the guards. The guards nodded as the returned to their positions on either side of the huge door. They glanced a serious look at each other as the straightened up and replied back to Luna with, "You'll be informed once inside."

Luna nodded cautiously as the doors opened, something began to come from the doors this feeling of fear but not mine, someone else's. I followed Luna through the doors as they shut behind me and my attention was now on Luna who was looking to her left at Twilight. I blinked my eyes a few times and gently shook my head, why is she here?

"Twilight, why are guards speaking of my sister and Ben?!" She exclaimed being a little too serious about it, I was too. Twilight looked at me and at Rarity before getting back to Luna, she twitched her hoof slightly as she raised it up to the ceiling. All of us looked up to the ceiling to quickly catch the glimpse of what looked like a strange ritual circle, Luna immediately turned to me with a look of worry. I looked at her the same way as I took a small step back, she looked like she was about to regret something she was going to do.

"Luna? What's going on?" I asked taking a look back up at the symbol as it glowed slightly before quickly looking back down at her. She held a heavy confusion as she looked at Twilight who looked incredibly shaken up. The symbol on the ceiling began to become brighter by the second as Luna managed to give out a few words and someone else's voice emerge.

"Ben…Prepare yourself!"

"Ben! We're here! What the-?"

The bright light quickly burst into a blinding explosion of light and I closed my eyes immediately with my arms over my face. I stay like this for a few seconds before I fell to my knees and opened my eyes again, my breathing had increased to a rapid rate.

Looking around me, I wasn't in the royal room anymore, I was now in an open field of grass, the sky full of dark gray clouds that gave off an unsettling atmosphere. I studied the area around me cautiously as I lifted myself off my knee and stared into the infinite horizon.

"Woah…where am I?"

"We meet again Ben…"

I looked over my shoulder before turning to her fully, Celestia stood there, her mane and tail were enveloped in fire, while her eyes glowed slightly as she moved up to me. I stared at her as I remembered what every guard was speaking of before I got here and what Luna said to me.

"Celestia…What is this?" I asked looking up at her expecting an answer, she disappeared and spawned to my side making us both stare into different directions. I stood wondering what was happening since she remained silent but silence immediately turned groans of pain as something buried into my stomach. I felt like whatever had struck me was going to go through my stomach but instead my body was thrown about fifty feet by the impact of the blow.

I rolled an extra ten feet before finally using my fingers to grab onto the ground as I stopped myself face first to the ground. My body felt weak after that hit but I still managed to cough away the pain and stand back onto my feet not fully though as I held my stomach as the pain pulsed insanely strong. Saliva escaped my mouth as I continued to feel the pain.

"Gah! Shit…what the fuck what that?!" I groaned as I tried to tighten my body up to not feel the pain anymore, it worked well too, the pain seemed to diminish slowly but questions lingered.

I looked back up from where I was hit and looked at Celestia as she seemed to look at me expecting more. I raised my hand to my side before closing it tightly into a fist as I placed the other over the swords handle, this must be the fight I was hearing about but she just straight up attacked with no warning. Even if she got that hit, I wasn't about to let it happen again, but I still wanted my answer and I was gonna get it.

"CELESTIA?! WHY ARE WE FIGHTING?!" I yelled since she was far away but I should have just kept my mouth shut. She somehow teleported from her place to right in front of me like before. I looked up but this time I quickly drew my sword and met against a fireball that was just inches away from colliding with my face, disappear. I quickly saw another one of the fireballs appear as I instantly began using my sword on the defensive and taking steps back while swiping my sword to block against such a huge number attacks. I finally found myself at a point I could quickly destroy the thousands of fireballs she had spawned, I threw myself back and swiped my hand in front of me unleashing a wave of energy the cause explosions in every direction.

I huffed out my deep breath, but kept my sword up high, I knew I would have to defeat her and maybe then I would get my answer. I set my goal to defeat her as my number one priority and quickly backhanded my sword and bent my knees with my hand to my side.

If those guards were right about Celestia being powerful, then I might be in for it,"

"Oh well…COME AT ME CELESTIA, LET'S SEE WHO IS STRONGER!"