I yawn and stretch as I get up, and I see Twilight walking into my room. “Ah good, you’re awake. Did you use the kitchen last night?”

“Nah, I just... went to bed and slept all night.”

“Huh, odd... must’ve gotten lost during a wash... oh well. Do you want to go get Clark, then? We can try asking him questions if he’s up for it, or just try to be friends if he needs that more.” she smiles at me.

“Yeah, that might not be a good idea at the moment. The guy can sleep until noon on an ‘early’ day.”

“Really? He was up and reading when I got up, a couple hours ago.”

“Must be restless. Kinda happens when you are suddenly flung into a whole new world where pretty much everything is different.” I head downstairs after pulling my shirt on and head for the kitchen. I take a pan and fry myself an egg. I gotta say, cooking is a lot easier when you can make your own fire and have it start super hot. I slide the two-second fried egg onto a plate and grab a fork on my way out of the kitchen.

I see that Clark’s sitting with his back to a bookshelf, right arm idly grabbing a book from behind him, while he skims the one in front of him. To his left is a stack of around six books. It’s not even noon.

“Dude, you been up all night? What happened to sleeping?”

“Slept four hours. Got up, didn’t have anything to do. I started reading.” His face is somewhere between dead-serious and utterly impassive. I don’t think he’s actually paying much attention to the conversation.

“So whatcha been reading?” I go over to the stack of books and look at the titles on their bindings.

“Basic Thaumaturgy, Geography of the Continental Nation of Equestria, Myths and Legends of the Northern Territories, Sudden Dive’s Bestiary of Western Equestria, Sudden Dive’s Bestiary of Eastern Equestria, K.A. Yearling’s A Guide to Archeology, and I’m almost finished with A Brief History of Equestria, Second Abridged Edition.”

“Jeez, haven’t lost it, have you? Always been able to burn through a novel in a day... So, learn anything interesting? Oh, one thing, that ‘Yearling’ character isn’t exactly the best author of fiction, so I’d suggest you take a guidebook from her with a bit of trepidation.”

“Dust jacket says she has four degrees, one for hippology, one for geology, one for archeology, and one for sociology.” Damn, guess she’s smarter than I thought. Daring Do still sucks though. He flips the last page of the Brief History book over, then takes the one his right hand had grabbed and opens it. For a brief moment, I saw a picture of a horse’s head in gold leaf on the front. The book was nothing but pictures with tiny subtitles beneath each.

“The heck kinda book is that?”

“Don’t know, just started reading.”

Huh, oooookay then. “Well, uh... Pinkie is probably finished setting up your welcome party by now, just waiting on invitations at this point, I assume...” I say as I go outside to check the mailbox. No bursts of confetti assault me as I open it. Must be going a bit subtler this time around.

I look inside and I look for the usual pink envelopes she uses for her invitations... nope, all normal. Did she run out of construction paper or something?

A quick check and I find that there aren’t any invitations of any kind. Huh, could have sworn she’d-

“Hiya Anthony!” I whirl around and I see Pinkie jumping up and hugging me in a flying tackle.

Or she’s coming by to tell us herself... right.

“Heya Pinkie.” I say, readjusting my hold on her so I’m carrying her rather than having her latched onto me. I just bring her inside and I set her down on the couch next to me, across the room from Clark. “He’s been reading more than Twilight, and faster too.”

“Woooaaah... did he get that as a super-power, or just ‘cuz he’s super-smart already?”

I ponder this for a moment. “From what I know of him, probably a combination of both.”

“So, you all ready for the party today?” Pinkie asks, looking up at me happily. I smile back.

“Yup, guess we’re just waiting on Clark to finish there.” I shift my attention to my friend. “Hey man, wanna see what a Pinkie Party is like?”

“One minute, almost finished.” I see that he’s reading a different book than the one I left him with. Probably because it was a picturebook. Must’ve been from the kid’s section.

It doesn’t take long for him to get finished, and the four of us make our way to Sugarcube Corner. When we get inside the giant gingerbread house, Pinkie sets Clark and I at a table and brings out some baked treats of various sorts, Pinkie handing Clark a rather abnormally-sized cupcake.

He just holds it, staring at the confectionary treat for almost a minute straight. I can see Pinkie’s expression drooping, her ears going down. She doesn’t look like she knows how to react, and I don’t think Clark is doing any better on that front.

“Come on man, she didn’t put any hot sauce in it or anything... at least, I don’t think she did.” Pinkie shakes her head.

“I made it kinda big, but other than that it’s just a cupcake. Do... do you not like cupcakes?”

Clark gulps a little. “I- I haven’t seen anything like it in... I don’t know how long. No watches, no calendars where I was.”

“Yeah... Anne said Earth was kinda... messed up. I’m guessing that a lot of things are different there now, huh?”

“Not really Earth anymore... just a place.” He slowly brings the cupcake to his mouth, and licks the icing. I can’t tell what his emotions are right now, but they seem positive enough, from his facial expressions.

“Well, wherever you were, you aren’t there anymore. Ponyville may be this world’s weirdness magnet, but most of the time it’s pretty safe and happy. Any demons that come through, I kick back to hell. Or wherever they go when I kill them... well okay, it’s only been one demon so far, but you get the point.”

Twilight shifts in her seat a little, and Clark slowly turns to Pinkie. “It’s so... sweet. I haven’t tasted real sweet in a long time.”

I chuckle. “Trust me, spend enough time here at Sugarcube Corner and sweet will be the only flavor you recognize for a while.” I ruffle Pinkie’s mane. “This mare and her landlords can take pretty much anything and turn it into a dessert.”

Clark takes a small bite from the cupcake, and extends it towards Pinkie while chewing. When she looks confused at the gesture, I feel a small spark of recognition. He’s offering food to a provider. Not sure where the intuition comes from, but it makes sense.

Pinkie gets it after I nudge her under the table, and she takes a small bit of the cupcake and eats it, obviously she’s feeling a bit off, because she just eats it like a normal pony. Pinkie eating pastries like a normal person? After she swallows and smiles to him, he looks relieved, and finishes it off, relishing every bite.

I don’t want ponies thinking he’s normally all depressed and... twitchy. He’s clearly on the road to recovery already, but I doubt just giving him cupcakes will do much.

It’s at this moment a few ponies come by, here for the ‘early-party’ as usual for Ponyvillians. I just sit back and let Clark get all the attention, figuring he should be the center of attention. He needs exposure, to realize that even though they’re weird and mildly xenophobic... they are nice. Genuinely friendly.

Clark seems to be taking it well, too, looking more and more comfortable the more ponies are around. I quickly see it’s because there’s fewer paying attention to him as they talk to each other instead. But he’s doing alright, shifty eyes aside.

Progress is progress I guess. I’m gonna get through to you man, and then everything will be like it was before. I promise... you’re gonna be okay, even if you’ve been through what might as well be literal Hell, you’re gonna be okay...

After about an hour of partying later, I can’t find Clark in the crowd anymore. After a moment, I see him follow someone through the swinging doors to the kitchen, which I thought was empty by now. What’s he doing?

I get out of my seat in the corner and head over to the kitchen. Seeing a few lemons on the counter, I think back to the snowcone thing. I wonder how well it went over. Eh, I can ask later. I don’t want to let my friend go off alone. If something happens and he freaks out... he’s gonna need someone to back him up. Otherwise, god knows what Celestia would think of it.

Moving to the kitchen, I carefully peek around the corner. Mostly hidden from my view, all I can see is his legs, as if he’s laying or sitting on the floor, with another pair of legs on top of his. They’re buttery yellow, with a long, pink tai- oh what the hell?!

I walk around the corner expecting the worst and I see Fluttershy on top of Clark and they’re... just laying there. Clark’s laying back and giving Fluttershy scritches behind her ears, leaving the pony a veritable puddle from relaxation. Of course. Goddammit brain, that’s just not cool!

As I pass the corner and all this comes into view, though, Clark’s very suddenly moving. With a single, fluid motion, he standing in what I can only assume is a protective stance, demon arm ready to claw at me. His face is twisted in a  snarl, until he sees who it is. Fluttershy looks up from the floor, seeming utterly confused about the whole thing, which barely took four seconds to resolve.

I raise my arms in the typical way as if I was guilty. “I swear, I was only thinking about stealing it. I mean hi.” I say, grinning at the faked defense.

“Don’t do that, man.” Clark says, slowly sitting down, a bit stiffly. Fluttershy looks back and forth between us, until Clark simply lifts her to his lap again, and starts scratching behind her ears once more. “I almost at... almost had a heart attack.”

His little slip isn’t lost on me, but I appreciate him realizing what should and shouldn’t be said. Especially around Fluttershy. “Sorry. Anyway, I was thinking that it’d be a good idea to practice with your new powers a bit. Having a star core is fun, but only if you know what you’re doing. Otherwise you might blow up... and destroy everything else... you know, how about we get that practice in as soon as possible, huh?”

“The party’s still going.” there’s little tone to his voice, but it sounds vaguely skittish about the thought of leaving early. Which is odd, given that he snuck off with one of the host’s friends for some heavy... scratching. Goddamnit, brain!

“Yeah alright, after the party. Just don’t get too excited, I really can’t remember when I discovered my powers, but I do know that they can be rather dangerous. Just stay calm and have a good time.” With that, I leave for the front room to hang around a bit. I figure I’d chat with a few ponies or whatever. Not gonna stay in the corner the entire time after all.

The party’s winding down, and there’s still sunlight to go around. Pinkie’s parties are usually held closer to the night, but I guess she wanted to make it as non-scary as possible for Clark. Going back to the kitchen, I find that he’s still with Fluttershy, though the pony has fallen asleep completely on his lap.

Fluttershy is so adorable when she sleeps... I go over and pet her a bit. How is she so darn soft anyhow? You’d expect someone who lives by the woods with a bunch of animals around would be more... scruffy.

Still, if I want any part of this day to be productive, rather than just mildly therapeutic, I need to get Clark to stop scratching ‘Shy and come with me to practice, sooner rather than later. Especially since he doesn’t have a friendly constellation to explain stuff to him, and I don’t want to be partially responsible for him blowing Ponyville off the map.

“So, wanna learn how your new powers work, or sit here not knowing how awesome it is to have them?”

“I- I should learn my powers.” He slowly picks up Fluttershy and sets her down as he stands, leaving her in his warm spot. He stands, and I realize that all my problems with being as tall as I am are truly compounded with him. Except for the doors thing.

“Anyway, we should probably find a clear, open area. Come on, I’ll show you a good place.” We walk to the edge of Ponyville past the train station and there’s a pretty large grassy area. It’s almost sunset, but with an open area like this, shadows won’t be a problem so it won’t be that dark.

“So, first up is the basics. You know how you started glowing when you were racing Rainbow?”

He thinks for a moment. He raises his arm, closing his eyes. The eye on the back of the hand opens up, and a series of vents under the chitinous armor on the limb being releasing a large cloud of gas, though it’s more like an amorphous hole into the night. It actually rather reminds me of Luna’s mane, but less blue.

“Uh, not quite... Try just wanting to glow. Like, your body. That’s what works for me.” I demonstrate, the steel-grey color replacing my skin as it turns vaguely translucent. “Now you try.”

Clark clenches his hand, and I can see him gritting his teeth. Something similar happens to him, but the color is more silvery and green-blue like before. Something with a name like seafoam, or teal. He opens his eyes and they’re solidly filled with glimmering specks, but otherwise they’re vacant, black windows. Now, I’ve seen myself in the mirror, and my eyes don’t do that... they just look like someone replaced my eyes with twinkly lights.

“Alright, I guess that works. Now, a few things. You have elemental powers too, but for now, let’s focus on something less potentially destructive. Intangibility.”

I dip my hand into the ground at my feet all the way up to my elbow, and take it back out. “Your turn.”

He looks down, and slams his right arm into the soil, the gaseous cloud of night following the arm like it’s in a bubble. He withdraws his hand, and there’s no soil clinging to it, and no hole in the ground. Good.

“Alright, doing good. As you know, you’re also much faster too. Another cool bit is... well, kinda hard to show you right here, but you’re basically non-dependant on oxygen for, like, ten times longer than normal.”

“Huh. You mentioned elemental powers. Can you show me?”

“Sure. Pinkie already mentioned fire, so let’s start with that.” I summon flames from my fingertips like candles, then they slowly grow and cover my arm, demonstrating slowly so it’s easy to follow. I stay in my typical Spark from, wanting to cover elemental forms later.

Clark responds by holding out his demon arm, and a burst of black-edged flames pour forth in a gout almost fifteen feet long. The heat and fire hurts, even from this distance from me, and I can feel that the fire’s not normal in any sense. Thankfully, he’d been pointing it somewhat up, so there’s only a little bit of grass and such on fire for now, and that’s easy enough for the two of us to stamp out in a short-lived panic.

“Sorry, didn’t know it’d do that. Just felt... natural.”

“Hey, no problem, that’s why we’re practicing, right? Let’s try something a bit more friendly to the landscape.” I switch hands and summon the typical sparks before I end up basically having an orb of electricity at the end of my wrist.

Clark watches for a few moments, before gesturing with his hand. A bolt of lightning arcs suddenly from his hand, and I get ready to enter Dynamo form to take it instead of potentially hitting something valuable or vulnerable. But then, it... stops? Mid-air, it suddenly begins curling back on itself, twisting and crackling as it goes. The electrical arcs coming from it zip to anything nearby, but it’s got a clearly defined end, somewhere around fifteen feet long. With an experimental flick of the wrist, Clark snaps it like a whip, and with far more familiarity with that sort of movement than I’d expected.

“Huh, that’s weird. Oh well, control is difficult sometimes. Let’s focus on something similar. Rather than summon the element, try to be it.” I switch to Dynamo, my steel-blue aura becoming cyan, and my skin becoming an off-white yellow. “It makes it a bit easier to control the respective element, so this might be useful until you get the hang of things.”

He nods, and his starscape colors turns to the hellish red of a red supergiant, dull and sullen. Strangely, the electric whip’s still there, but in his other hand he summons a few dark-red flames.

“Oooookay then. Again, try not using any... you know what, forget it, let’s move on.” I summon coal dust from my pouch at my side and pull the little pile into my hand. “You try.” I say, handing to him. “Think like telekinesis, but having control of all the particles.”

He looks down at the dust, and focuses. The dust stirs a little, and I wait to see what he’s making.

Ten seconds pass, and I see it’s just the wind taking some of the coal dust away.

“I don’t feel anything.” he says, the whip and starfield having dissipated as he concentrated. “The others, I felt different, when using them. Nothing here.”

“Odd, That’s supposed to be part of it, right? Okay, skip that, try this.” I go with my classic size enhancement, though not turning into a giant, just making myself bigger by a rather noticeable amount.

He furrows his brows, but nothing happens. After a moment, he tries making motions, but nothing happens.

“Nothing... Damn, I swear Lyra said that... Oh well, maybe you didn’t get a normal star core or something, but you definitely have one of some kind. Maybe we should go see Twilight. Joking aside, she does have good equipment, and if you can’t just control your powers like I do, we should probably have you contained.” Something flickers across his face as I say this. “But if you start to feel claustrophobic or something, you can always just phase right through the container. Intangibility, nothing can touch you unless you want it to.”

Clark doesn’t look too happy with this. Meanwhile, though, I’m trying to figure out what went wrong with the training. I turn some things over in my head. I came through as a star, and Anne came through as an invisible/unsmellable/etc. bronze harpy, while Myrna came through as a gorgon with the power to control stone. Clark... hmm, Clark did something with plants when he first showed up. Something allowed him to make a shield, and it looked like it was made of wood. He also had some sort of whip he controlled directly then, and I was told they were just something like blackberry vines once he’d been knocked out, wrapped around his demon arm and not quite the normal genus or species.

What am I missing?

I lead us over to the nearby treeline and direct him to a tree. “Make it do something.”

“Like?” He looks a bit confused. “Why don’t you show me, first?”

“You did something with plants when you first showed up before taking some blows to the head. I’m not an herbopath or whatever, but apparently you have something. Idunno, tell the tree to dance or something.”

He gives me an odd look, before gently laying his left hand on the treetrunk. He closes his eyes and... nothing. Damnit.

What am I miss- wait, no, the branches are moving. Slowly, the tree begins to uproot itself, dragging forth huge clumps of dirt as it starts turning more and more humanoid by the second. Clark isn’t touching it anymore, and as I look at the slowly forming tree-person, I realize Clark collapsed, blood dribbling from one nostril.

Eventually, the tree has compacted down to the shape of a humanoid, female, and shorter than me. The gentle fall of branches is tinted a vague copper. The shape, the appearance reminds me strongly of someone, but I’m not sure exactly who. I try to get a face, but other than a few knots for eyes and a gash of a mouth, the ‘face’ is just a slab of bark, no features at all.

The diminutive tree-person just stands there, waiting, but Clark is out cold.

I figure we can look more into this later. I enhance my size once more and, picking up Clark carefully, I take him back to the library. The sun is starting to go down anyways.

The tree-girl doesn’t move as I step away from the clearing, the only moving being its face constantly turning to ‘watch’ Clark. Next Chapter: Chapter 139 Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 33 Minutes