It was a Saturday afternoon, and Maud was driving Klaus and me to a shopping mall, a shopping mall that was quite a ways away from the school.

“Tell me again why we’re going all the way out here?” Klaus asked.

“There’s a specific part for my telescope that I need to get, and none of the stores near the school carry it,” I clarified.

“Think of this as a fun road trip,” Maud droned, trying to lighten the mood.

“Your tone doesn’t help much,” Klaus grumbled.

“And this is why you sit in the back seat when we go driving,” I commented, earning another grumble from the disgruntled griffon. “Okay, look. We’ll get something to eat while we’re there. How’s that sound?”

“Less shitty.”

“Alright, then.”

“We’re almost there, guys,” Maud said just as the mall came into view. It didn’t take long for us to find a parking space, and we were inside the mall in a matter of minutes.

“Okay, so I’m gonna go for the telescope part. Where are you guys headed?” I asked.

Maud shrugged “I dunno. I guess I’ll see if I can find something to entertain the grumpy griffon while you’re getting your part. It’s a big mall, so I’m sure there’s an arcade somewhere around here.”

“In that case, I’ll call you when I’m done taking care of business and then we’ll meet at the food court.”

“Alright then.”

I turned to leave, but then I quickly snapped back around. “Oh, and thanks for the ride, Maud.”

“No problem,” she nodded, but then she gave me a stare, “but you’re gonna come up on that gas money, right?”

Her sudden (yet unnoticeable to the untrained ear) change in attitude threw me off for a second, but then the mare eased her stare. “Relax, Noah. I was just kidding,” she told me.

“Really? You could’ve fooled me!” I thought as I let out an uneasy sigh. “Oh, okay then. Well, I do have gas money if you-”

“No, it’s okay. Now go on. We don’t want to keep Klaus here longer than he needs to be,” she said as she looked at him.

“Don’t patronize me, lady,” the griffon mumbled.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at them. The way they always went back and forth with each other made them seem like they were husband and wife.

“I’ll see you guys later, okay,” I laughed as I walked away from them, but I caught Klaus giving me a dirty look before I turned around.

“What’re you laughing at?” he asked with an irritated tone.

“Don’t worry about it,” I snickered. I practically felt the griffon’s glare hitting me.

I sighed as I walked through the mall to get to the store I was looking for. According to the directory, it was going to be quite a walk, and my mind began to wander as I trekked on.

It had been a week and three days since Maud and I made up, and almost two weeks since Nightmare and I broke up. For the most part, things were pretty normal, reminiscent of the days before Nightmare showed up and it was just Klaus, Maud, and me. We were still hanging out, and while I could tell that they (Maud especially) were worried about Nightshade, they didn’t ask me about her. Honestly, I didn’t get as agitated by the mention of her anymore…

but whenever I visit Jade, I’m reminded of why I broke up with Nightmare in the first place.

In the past week I’ve gone to see her about three or four times so that it wouldn’t be just her and her grandmother. She needed someone her own age to chat with, after all. She always brightened up when I came by, but I knew that she couldn’t be that happy, not in the crippled state she was in. Just thinking about her, about seeing her the day that she was attacked, was enough to remind me why I couldn’t take Moon back.

Why I wouldn’t take Moon back.

Speaking of Moon, though, I hadn’t heard from her since she wrote me that last letter. Knowing how obsessive she was over me, I expected to get another one, and the lack of contact from her was relieving, yet worrisome. On one hand, she could be planning some kind of insane attempt at getting back together with me, but on the other hand, this could just mean that she’s finally gotten the message and realized that I no longer wanted anything to do with her.

For my sake, I hoped that it was the latter.

I finally reached the store and got the part that I needed for my telescope, and once that was taken care of, I called Maud.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Hey, Maud. I got what I needed. Where are you and Klaus at?” I asked.

“We’re in a comic book shop, we’ll be out in a second.”

“Sure. See ya at the food court,” I said as I hung up the phone.

The three of us met up several minutes later, with me being the last to arrive. When I got there, I saw Klaus and Maud sitting at a table with Klaus reading one of several comics that he apparently bought when he was at the comic shop.

“I see you’ve found a way to lighten his sour mood.” I chuckled as I stood beside Maud.

“Thank Celestia,” she smirked, and then she looked at the griffon. “You might want to save some of those comics for the ride home,” she told him.

“And spare us the bitching,” I added.

“Aaaaand you’ve officially ruined my mood again,” Klaus spat, but then his eyes widened as he saw… something behind Maud and me. “Hey, guys. Check it out. Isn’t that Austin Perry over there?”

Maud and I raised our eyebrows and glanced over our shoulders to see a familiar looking human walking across the food court. He was a tan-skinned guy with jet-black hair and an athletic build.

“That’s Playboy Perry, alright,” said the earth mare. “Wasn’t he in the hospital two days ago?”

“Yeah, unless we were all having the same hallucination,” I commented.

“Well, he’s coming this way, so we’ll have a chance to ask him,” Klaus said as we all turned back to our table and pretended like we were never looking at Austin. Not a moment later, though, we heard him call out to us.

“Hey, guys!” he said as he waved to us, and we looked at him with nervous smiles on our faces.

Well… except Maud, of course.

“Heeeeeeey, Austin,” I drawled as he reached us.

“What brings you all the way out here?” Klaus asked.

“Oh, I’m meeting a girl,” Austin explained. “She’s from out of town, so we’re meeting up here.”

“Another girl? Didn’t you just break up with your last girlfriend a week ago?”

“Yeah, she was the reason why you ended up in the hospital,” Maud reminded him.

“Okay, so maybe it was a bad call to cheat on a girl that was a black belt in Taekwondo, and maybe she did mess me up a little, but it wasn’t that bad,” Austin shrugged his shoulders in an attempt to make his short stint in the hospital a little less serious.

“’Wasn’t that bad?’” I questioned. “She broke both your arms and three of your ribs!”

“She fucked your shit up, down, left, and right,” Klaus added as he read one of his comics.

“And yet here you are, less than a week later, and you’re fully recovered,” Maud finished.

“Like I said, guys. It was no big deal. It’ll take more than some broken bones to keep Playboy Perry down!” the cocky athlete boasted as he puffed up his chest. Klaus, Maud, and I rolled our eyes at his bravado, wondering how long it would be before his head exploded from how much it was swelling up. “Oh! There she is! I’ll catch you guys later!” he suddenly exclaimed as he rushed off to greet the lucky, or rather, unlucky lady that he was meeting up with. The three of us looked and saw that this time, his victim was a diamond dog.

“That poor, poor girl,” Maud sighed. “Just another unfortunate soul.”

“Yeesh, in the last year, that guy has dated an earth pony, a unicorn, a pegasus, a crystal pony, a griffon, a minotaur, a human, and now a diamond dog,” I said, amazed at the number of significant others he’s had. “Say what you want about Austin, but he sure doesn’t discriminate.”

Maud looked up at him and watched as he wooed the diamond dog. “Eh, I never really liked the guy.”

“Yeah, I think everyone just tolerates him,” I nodded.

“Can we get something to eat now?” Klaus whined as his stomach growled.

The earth mare looked at him with a slightly annoyed face. Well… annoyed by Maud standards. “You really are acting like a spoiled child, you know that?”

I let out a sigh and stood up. “C’mon, let’s go before you two start bickering again.”

The three of us stopped by a nearby fast food restaurant, where we got a cheap meal to sedate our hunger. “You guys wanna eat on the ride home?” Maud asked. “I don’t mind as long as you don’t make a mess.”

Klaus shrugged. “It’ll give me something to do instead of sitting in the car bored, so why not?”

We all got into the car and started on our way back to the school, eating our food along the way. “You guys hyped for Mary’s Comet, or what?” I asked in-between sips of my soda.

“Are you kidding? Of course!” Klaus cheered as he gulped down some fries.

“I’m so excited I could burst,” Maud said, her tone of voice once again betraying her.

“Just think, in less than three weeks we’ll be on the beach, the cool nighttime breeze and the calm waves setting the perfect atmosphere for seeing the comet!” I sighed, imagining the three of us watching the comet together. Oh, and Klaus’s sister. I almost forgot that she’d be coming, too.

“It just sucks that Nightshade won’t be able to go with us,” Klaus lamented, but then Maud shot him a look through the rearview mirror. “Oh, sorry.”

“Meh, it’s whatever,” I said dismissively. “I figured one of you guys would mention that eventually.”

“Still, forget that I said anything.”

“Sure,” I told him as I continued to eat, and the car fell silent for an awkward amount of time.

Maud was the one to finally break the silence. “So, either of you two think it was weird how Austin got out of the hospital so fast?”

Klaus scoffed. “Hey, you heard him: ‘it takes more than some broken bones to keep Playboy Perry down!’” he said, puffing up his chest and imitating Austin’s voice, eliciting several laughs from me.

“I’m serious you guys,” the mare asserted. “It just doesn’t seem… natural for a human to heal that quickly.”

“What are you trying to say?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… weird that he got better in such a short amount of time, even with the integration of magic with human medicine.”

“Ah, what do we care? Doesn’t matter to us either way,” Klaus said as he took out one of his comics.

I nodded my head. “He’s got a point.”

Maud pondered the thought for a moment before finally letting it go. “Yeah, you’re right. As long as he doesn’t try to add me to the list of unlucky girls that he’s had sex with.”

“He already did, remember? It was about a year ago, and you lied and told him that you were a lesbian.”

“Oh yeah! I remember that,” Klaus said, laughing at the memory.

“Well, knowing him, he’ll probably forget that I said that and try again eventually,” the mare told us with what I assumed was a dreadful tone.

Klaus shook his head in disagreement. “I dunno. I heard that he has a log of every chick he’s hit on and has them all categorized: the ones he’s hit on, the ones he’s slept with, the ones he wants to sleep with again, the ones that hate his guts, the ones that aren’t into guys, and so on and so on."

“Well, at least he’s… organized…” I cringed.

I kicked off my shoes as I finally walked into my apartment and sprawled out on my couch with a relaxed sigh and took a nice power nap. When I woke up a few hours later, I tiredly looked at my TV. “Okay, now where’s the remote?” I asked myself, looking at the coffee table. As I searched through the clutter, I found the DVD that I had rented from the library. “I still didn’t return this?” I thought aloud as I opened the case to check the due date on the receipt.

Wait… the due date was… today!?

“FUCK!” I yelled, shooting up from the couch. My head practically swung to my left to look at the wall clock. It was six-thirty, and the school library closed at seven. I scampered to put my shoes back on, took the disc out of the DVD player, and rushed out the door as I clumsily put the disc back in the case.

Thankfully, the shuttle to the school was still running, and I was able to catch one without waiting for too long. My leg nervously twitched as I waited for the shuttle to reach the school. Fortunately for me, it didn’t stop very often as it was a Saturday evening, and not as many students were heading to the school. When the shuttle pulled up to the main entrance, I practically jumped out the door and ran to the library, making it to the door with mere minutes to spare. The air-conditioned facility did well to ease my exhaustion, cooling me off with a pleasant wintery breeze as I dropped the DVD into the returns bin.

I took my sweet time walking back to the school’s front entrance, and all that running left me a little parched, so I went to the convenience store across the street and bought a bottle of water to quench my thirst.

“This is just what I needed,” I thought to myself as I took a swig. “The shuttle should be here any minute now. What time is it?” I took out my phone to check the time, but the first thing that popped up was a missed call alert.

My eyes widened in confusion. “Was my phone on silent all day?” I thought, and then my eyes widened even further, if that was even possible.

The missed call was from Nightmare, and she had left a voicemail.

I apprehensively touched the icon and brought the phone to my ear, wondering what she could possibly have to say to me.

“Hey, Noah. It’s Moon. You probably still don’t want to hear from me, and I honestly don’t know why I’m even trying, but it’s worth a shot, I guess.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I wanted to ask if you maybe wanted to meet up, because there is something that I need to show you, and you wouldn’t believe me if I just told you. I am aware that you’ll most likely refuse, but I just want to put the offer on the table. If you ever change your mind, however-”

THWACK!

I felt a strong impact on my right cheek, staggering my balance and knocking the phone out of my hand.

“Agh! What the hell!?” I yelled in pain, rubbing my aching cheek and picking up my phone off of the concrete.

“What’s up, fucker?” a familiar voice asked me. I turned to my right to see a large, angry earth stallion glaring at me while cracking his knuckles.

“Brickstone?” I said in disbelief.

“What? You thought I forgot about you? You humiliated me at that party!”

I gave the stallion an incredulous look. “That was a whole fucking month ago! Get over it!” I yelled back at him, but then I had to duck when he swung another punch at me.

“You’d better watch your mouth, runt!” he warned.

“Okay, Noah. Think,” I thought to myself as I slowly backed away. “I definitely can’t take this guy. He’ll pummel me in a heartbeat. The police station isn’t too far from here. If I make a break for it and try to lose him in the shortcuts, I might have a chance.”

Without another thought, I turned on my heel and ran as fast as I could. As I expected, Brickstone was running after me.

“Get back here, you little shit!” he roared as his hooves hit the ground, stomp after intimidating stomp.

“C’mon! Run, dammit! Run!” I thought as I pushed my legs to their limit, the pain of my aching muscles overshadowed by my desire to live.

Unfortunately, my desire wasn’t strong enough.

I found myself grabbed by the back of my collar and flung into an alley, landing on my front with a thud and tumbling on the ground. The first impact was enough to knock the wind out of me and render me immobile. I struggled as I tried to move something, anything, so that I could get away from this psychopath, but it was to no avail. Brickstone’s hoofsteps became louder and louder as her got closer to me, and I shut my eyes tightly in fear as he cracked his knuckles again. I lied there helplessly as I waited for him to reach me, feeling nothing but exhaustion, pain…

and a cool breeze?

I felt a strong wind swirl around me, the pain racking my body suddenly and gradually subsiding to the point where I felt none at all. I got onto my knees and picked myself up, all the while wondering how I was able to do so after being way too weak a moment ago. I still felt the cool wind surrounding me as Brickstone ignorantly continued to approach me.

“Haven’t had enough, huh?” he taunted. “I oughta teach you how to stay down and take a beating!”

“YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!”

All of a sudden, the wind surrounding me became much stronger, a dark blue mist beginning to swirl around my feet before rising up in front of me like a pseudo-shield.

“What the hell!?” the stallion exclaimed in a mixture of shock and fear.

The shield of mist soon formed the head of an angry mare with bright blue-filled eyes. “I WILL ONLY WARN YOU ONCE, FOAL!” she bellowed. “LEAVE THIS PERSON BE, OR ELSE YOU SHALL SUFFER DIRE CONSEQUENCES!” Brickstone was practically speechless as he stared at the smoky figure before him, and seeing that he wasn’t saying anything, the figure continued to speak. “NOW BEGONE BEFORE I OBLITERATE YOU!!!” she said with one final ghostly yell, and the stallion ran off in a frightened panic.

Meanwhile, I stood behind the smoky mass in front of me, thinking only one thing:

I recognized that voice.

“Nightmare?” I asked as I reached out to touch the smoke. The figured turned to look at me, her eyes widening when she saw me looking at her. In a split second, the figure regressed back into a wisp of dark blue mist and flew off, leaving a trail behind. Without even thinking, I raced after her, hoping to catch her. Even as I chased her, I wondered why I was even bothering myself with her, but I kept on going, pursuing her through the dimly lit streets, not even paying attention to where I was going.

After what felt like an eternity of running, I finally cornered her at an old house, where she flew in to hide. I had to take a moment to catch my breath before standing upright and observing my surroundings.

”Wait a sec…” I thought. “This is that street with all the run-down houses.” I looked at the house I was standing in front of and saw that it was the same place where Nightmare first revealed her true self to me. Despite my better judgment, I slowly approached the front door and gingerly pushed it open, the hinges letting out a small squeak. The first thing I saw was Nightmare’s misty form reforming into her flesh and blood self, and the squeaky hinges alerted her to my presence.

The alicorn’s ears perked up as she swished around and looked at me in disbelief. “N-Noah?” she asked, and I nodded my head in response.

“Nightmare, we need to talk.”

Author's Notes:

Well, I did say that a character that's sorely missed will finally return in this chapter, and I obviously meant Brickstone. I mean, who doesn't miss that piece of shit?

Oh yeah, and Nightmare's back, too.

I know you guys were aching to see Moon for a long time, but now she's finally returned! How is this talk between her and Noah gonna go down? You'll have to wait until next chapter to find out. Thankfully, because of my new writing pattern, you won't have to wait for very long.

Until then, keep it sketchy, folks!