The twenty-ninth of August.

I was still extremely confused about the dream I had, but decided to try and forget about it for the time being. There were more important matters to attend to.

Specifically, the fact that there was an earth pony running and jumping along the rooftops.

Son of a changeling...I thought the guards said they got that thing! I grumbled mentally to myself as I galloped down to the front of the hotel, Asylum hot on my heels. (And hot in general, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Back in March, we had gone to Stalliongrad to collect a glove that was forcing ponies to run along roofs and attempt parkour...and made them too good at it. Even pegasus ponies had trouble keeping up. I felt like I was playing a rage-inducing video game chasing after them, especially without my flight.

Eventually, False said that some other guards had caught the pony and retrieved the article, and that they were bringing it to Celestia. That made me relax. Apparently they lost it at some point, because now it was back in the wild.

I bet bits to bagels that this article is from Mirror’s Edge or something.

“FOR THE MOTHERFUCKING LOVE OF LITTLEPIP GOING STRAIGHT AND HAVING KINKY BONDAGE SEX WITH DEADSHOT CALAMITY, WILL YOU JUST STOP RUNNING!”

Yeah, I wasn’t having fun.

I still had yet to learn how to fly again, so I had to chase the parkour pony on foot. Hoof. Whatever.

Risk didn’t have nearly enough stamina to join the chase, False was afraid of heights, Nimble was gone again, and Asylum was having trouble keeping up with me even with her flight. So that left me as the one who had to chase the pony down.

I hated it.

This pony was at least as fast as I was and seemed to instantly know where all the good jumps were, while I was struggling just to keep doing what they were doing. I wasn’t even making any progress catching up to them; all I was really doing was trying to chase them until they were cornered.

They made another jump, and just as I reached the spot where they took off, my adrenaline rush started to wear down. I gasped and made a rather feeble attempt to get across, falling about two feet short and smacking my head against the side of the building for added injury as I plummeted.

Asylum, seeing me fail the jump, quickly turned away from her parkour pony pursuit and dove down after me. She managed to grab me less than ten feet from the ground, stopping me from becoming one of those weird puddles you see in back alleys.

“I quit,” I grumbled as she lowered me to the ground. “I’m not going after that damn thing anymore. We’ll let that pony just jump across buildings until they fall and die.”

As soon as Asylum had put me on the ground, she slapped me. “Don’t talk like that!”

I didn’t react to the slap. “Well, it’s the only way we’ll get it back, because I’m not gonna keep chasing them! My legs are so close to being jelly you could literally throw some peanut butter on me and I’d be delicious!” I gestured down to my wobbly four legs.

She blinked, slowly blushing. “...d-did you have to phrase it like that?”

I started blushing as well when I realized exactly what I said. “...I vote we pretend that never happened.”

“Agreed.”

“Good. My point still stands, though. I’m having trouble just standing up after all that running. I am not continuing the chase.” I sat down defiantly.

“You don’t have to. We’ll figure something out. Now come on, we should go meet up with the others.”

I spent most of the day in Alterspace. It was quiet and serene; just the place I needed to be in order to sit down and cool off.

...okay, that’s bullcrap. It was the perfect place for me to summon a bunch of crap I could destroy to vent my anger. But close enough.

“...Arrell?”

I paused in my tearing down of a giant brick building, turning back to see Asylum looking at me with a raised eyebrow. “...hi.”

“Hi yourself,” she replied. “You’ve been in here for six hours.”

“Really? Felt like no time passed at all.” I kicked the brick building. It turned into a swarm of butterflies that flew away. “I’m feeling much better, by the way.”

She smiled. “Good to know. Some guards are going after the pony with the glove, so you can relax for the time being.” She trotted over and sat beside me. “Pretty sure you earned yourself a break.”

“After all that running and jumping? I’d say I’ve earned myself a vacation that lasts the rest of my life. With pay.”

She tilted her head. “You’re getting paid?”

I idly summoned a couple bits, mostly just to emphasize my point. “Well, I made it pretty clear to Celestia that if I was gonna go around putting my life in danger on a daily basis to do things she could probably do very easily if she wasn’t lazy and/or busy, I wasn’t gonna try holding a part-time job at a restaurant at the same time to keep myself fed.” I folded the cover off of one bit, revealing it to be a chocolate coin. “Speaking of being fed...” I popped it into my mouth, floating the other one over to Asylum.

She giggled, plucking the coin from the air and unwrapping it. “Well, that’s good. Worrying about bits on top of articles would be more stress than I could handle.”

“Same.” I willed the coin wrapped to vanish in puffs of rainbow-coloured smoke. “Wow, I feel like freaking Discord in here.”

“Just don’t end up going crazy and getting trapped in stone.” She bit down on the chocolate and began to munch on it.

I laughed and booped her on the nose. “No promises.”

She giggled again as she finished eating. “So...we’ve got a giant black void that you can do literally anything in...what to use it for...”

I wasn’t sure, but I could swear I heard a purr at the end of her sentence. I decided to try and dodge the potential awkwardness by playing dumb. “Well, I just use it to goof around, really. Because obviously I don’t get to do that enough in Equestria.”

Asylum rolled her eyes. “I think you do plenty of goofing around.” She then leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “In a good way, though.”

I smiled. “Well, I’m glad someone thinks my laziness and stupidity is ‘good’.” I hopped to my hooves. “Wanna head back out now?”

She stood up and nuzzled me. “Sure thing.”

Once again, I was back in the expanse. And once again, I felt cold.

“Hello?” I called. “Styx? Anyone?”

There was no answer.

“Look, if you’re scared about talking to me, don’t be. You did just fine last night.”

Again, no answer. I sighed and sat down to wait until I woke up.

“...s-sorry...”

My ears flicked and I looked up. “Hello?”

“Um...hi...” The voice was definitely the same as the one from previous night. “Y-You’re Arrell...right? J-Just to make sure...”

I nodded, only to realize the possibility that they couldn’t see me. “Yeah...I’m Arrell.”

“O-Oh, good...I thought I might have done something wrong...” The cold breeze intensified, but even though I could still feel it, it didn’t make me any more uncomfortable. “I...I’m sorry I can’t tell you my name yet...I don’t think it’s time...”

“Time? What’s going on?” I stood back up. “Does this have anything to do with Styx?”

“Y-Yes...” The voice started to sound nervous again. “She can tell you more...once she’s done figuring things out...until then, just in case, she...wanted me to learn about you...”

I was, naturally, getting very confused by this point. I resisted the urge to yell, not wanting to scare off someone who was apparently not used to this kind of thing. “Do you want me to tell you about myself, or something?”

“She just said...to watch you for a while…oh!” She sounded startled. I looked around and saw that the expanse was starting to fade. “I-I think you’re waking up...”

Her voice was starting to get quieter, as though she was being dragged away from me. I tried to move, but I was frozen to the rapidly depleting ground. “Wait-!”

“I...I’ll be here again tomorrow night!” she called out…

...just before I woke up.

I gasped as I sat up in bed. A quick glance to the side revealed that Asylum was no longer in bed with me. Looking down at my wristwatch, I saw that it was well past noon.

...I got REALLY tuckered out yesterday, I guess.

Sighing, I hopped out of bed onto aching legs and began making my way for the door, hoping I could find the others and get an update on the article. If I have to go running again, I'm gonna slit some throats.