Well, shit. Hmm... It's either Discord trying to take over again, the demons or something new. This is why I shouldn't have let them in, now I have to deal with this bullshit.

Suddenly, my horn went haywire, blasting magic without any input from me. Oh shit! I quickly summoned a Shield Circle at the tip of it, roughly blocking and absorbing my own energy output.

"Cloud!" Cried Twilight. "What are you doing?!"

"MY HORNY BODY PART IS SHOOTING STUFF EVERYWHERE!" I replied, yelling for some reason. Oh! I know! "GIMME A SECOND!" I struggled over to my bedside cabinet, pulled it open, grabbed the magic damping ring I'd kept from a while ago and rammed it onto my head. My horn immediately calmed down. I dismissed my Shield Circle and turned back to Twilight and Violent.

"What just-?" Twilight was cut off by a spiky, black vine bursting through the floorboards. Dammit! I threw a Sharp Razer which severed it immediately before smashing the rest of it back with a downward Shield Bash. Oh, for bucks sake! I can't fix the floor until I get my magic back! I sighed, opened the window and threw the dismembered tendril.

"They're appearing all over the town!" Cried Violent, looking out of the window. I looked and, sure enough, they were popping out of the ground all over Ponyville.

"Oh, so they are," I replied. I turned back to Violent and away from the window. "Well anyway, thanks for checking up on me but I'm not depressed. I shut myself away so I wouldn't get distracted by anyone."

"Why would you think anypony would want to distract you?" Asked Twilight, looking confused. "And why did you say 'anyone'?"

"Just using 'anyone' and 'anybody' is easier than getting confused by terminology when talking to non-Ponies. I'd appreciate it if you two could leave my room now, I wanna get back to my research." I looked to Violent. "You can stay in the library for a while until Twilight's done fixing whatever this is," I motioned to the window, "but please be quiet."

"Wait!" Shouted Twilight. I rolled my eyes and looked back to her. "What do you mean when I've fixed this?! Don't you normally fix this sort of thing?!" I shook my head.

"Not my job anymore. You've got the Elements now." Twilight groaned angrily.

"Cloud, you've got to pull yourself together! It's terrible that Vesper's dead, but-!"

"For the millionth time, she's not dead."

"Yes she is! And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can recover!"

"Don't you have jewelry to be throwing around, Princess?" She stomped on the ground. As apposed to stomping on the ceiling? Well, she can fly now...

"Screw you, Cloud!" She teleported out of the room. Bitch... I turned to Violent once more.

"Are you... Okay?" She asked. I sighed.

"Yeah, but it'd be nice if my friends believed me for once."

"I believe you." I smiled.

"Thanks. Anyway, you can stay here until this is all cleared up if you want. I'm gonna trap the library in a Shield Cube." She looked confused.

"A what?"

"It's basically just five or six Shield Circles surrounding something in a cube-ish way. Sometimes five are enough if one side is being blocked by something else like the ground."

"What's a Shield Circle?" I suddenly realised something.

"Oh, I never explained to you about Arcane Circles, did I?" She shook her head, still looking confused. "Well, now's as good as ever. We may as well go downstairs and sit down, this'll take a little while to explain."

"Okay." We started heading downstairs.

"To explain them properly, I'm gonna have to tell you the whole story. Exactly one year ago..."

"...And so, I'm just waiting for Luna to send me the books I need." We were sitting on the sofa in the library's main room, sipping on cider. I'd just finished telling Violent about my time in Equestria. It had taken much longer than when I told Nerdy due to the fact that I hadn't made things purposely dramatic and had gone into much simpler (but still very informative) explanations. I'd summoned a Shield Cube around the building early on to stop any more vines breaking in.

"Wow..." Breathed Violent. "That was an amazing story..." I grinned.

"Yep," I replied. "Any questions?"

"Just one, surprisingly."

"Go for it."

"When Vesper was turned into a phoenix, why didn't you just collect a few hairs from her bed?" There was a long silence.

"Because I'm a bucking dumbass." Violent chuckled.

"The new Arcane Circle you're working on sounds very interesting."

"Yeah, it should help me in pretty much any situation when I don't have Unicorn magic."

"But why don't you make a Circle that calms Ponies down? You could reach diplomatic solutions in any situation."

"Diplomacy is good, but sometimes fighting is the best way."

"I have to disagree. I think that violence is never the way. Which is kind of ironic with my name..." I laughed.

"Yeah, it kinda is. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree with violent and diplomatic solutions; I wouldn't be able to calm down an army or a strong enemy, and my diplomacy skills aren't great in the first place." I looked at her butt for completely legitimate and not at all perverse reasons and noticed her cutie mark was a censor bar. "Hey, what does your cutie mark mean?" She looked confused for a second before realising what I was talking about. She smiled coyly.

"...You'll find out after the third date!" Hng...! I shifted around to hide absolutely nothing between my legs. Right then, I felt something pressing against one of my Shield Circles, specifically the one at the front of the library.

"Hang on, I think something's trying to get in." I stood up in a way that still hid absolutely nothing and walked over to the door. I looked out the door-window thing to see agent Steak waiting outside. Probably here to nag me about dealing with the vines... I mentally sighed. I may have to deal with it after all. I dismissed the Shield Cube and opened the door. "Hey, Steak, what's there at you?" Steak looked at me as if I'd just drank piss.

"What the ever loving buck are you talking about?" She asked. Dammit.

"I was making a bad pun." Shouldn't I explain the joke to her? Buck no! Jokes aren't as funny if you explain them! My jokes aren't funny in the place. Steak looked confused, probably worried that I'd been standing still and unblinking for about a minute.

"Uh..."

"Anyway, what do you want?"

"Princess Luna had these books sent for you." She reached into the saddlebags I just realised she was wearing and pulled out the three books I'd asked for.

"Thanks." I took them, placed them on a Support Circle and made it fly to my room before dismissing it. Steak frowned.

"Why didn't you just use your Unicorn magic?" I pointed at the magic damping ring.

"My horn was going haywire, so I'm not using it until Twilight deals with whatever problem we're having."

"Wait, why didn't you deal with the problem?"

"Oh, is it done?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Good." I took off the ring and felt my magic be restored.

"But why didn't you deal with it?"

"Not my job anymore, Elements are restored. So what was it? Discord bucking around again?"

"Pretty much, but-"

"Where is he now?"

"The Elements turned him back to stone. He's being taken to Canterlot so Princess Celestia can try to reform him, but-"

"Well, it's good that he's finally been recaptured. Took nearly a year, but the Elements should petrify him much longer than a spell of mine could anyway. So-"

"You have a duty to protect Magi!" Shouted Steak.

"You have the power to deliver books, why aren't you a mailmare?"

"I am a mailmare!" Oh.

"Shit, really? I never noticed."

"You have the ability to protect the Ponies, Griffons, Minotaurs and other variations thereof of this world, so you should be trying to!" Why are so many mares pissed off with me today?!

"Oh yeah? Why? Why do I have to?"

"Because it's what Vesper would want!"

"No it's not. She'd wanna kill everyone and take their stuff."

"That-! Is sadly true..." There was an awkward silence. "Well I'm gonna think of a reason later! And then I'll shout about it!" She slammed the door closed (I re-hinged it to open outwards for fire safety) and stormed off. I sighed and went back to the sofa.

"Where were we?" I asked.

"I think you were about to ask me to go on another date with you," Violent replied.

"Actually, no, I kinda can't." She looked disappointed.

"Oh..."

"I need to do research and find Vesper, so I'm not gonna have time to spend with you. But, if you want, we could start mailing each other so we could find out when would be good?" She smiled.

"Sure, I'd like that." Suddenly, the door exploded. Twilight stomped in through the dust, wearing her crown.

"Cloud!" She yelled angrily. "Buck you! I'm moving back into the library!"

"Great..." I sighed.

"Well, I'm going to head back to Canterlot," said Violent, ignoring the angry Alicorn.

"Okay. Do you want me to walk you there?" She shook her head.

"No, you should get back to researching and find your daughter. She's- Well, actually she's kind of a bitch, but she's important to you so she should come first." She stood up and so did I.

"Okay. See you later, Violent."

"Goodbye, Cloud." Violent walked through where the door used to be and headed towards the train station.

"It isn't that hard, you know," said Twilight.

"SHIT, YOU CAN SEE-?! Oh! Oh, you meant... Something else." Twilight looked confused.

"Yeah, I meant accepting that somepony you care about is dead. What did you think I meant?"

"That's... Not important." There was a short awkward silence. "Well, I've got research to do." I teleported back to my room and, after fixing things up and recasting my privacy spells, got back to my research.

Author's Notes:

"When Vesper was turned into a phoenix, why didn't you just collect a few hairs from her bed?"

Because it wouldn't be fun to end it that quickly and simply.

"Because I'm a bucking dumbass."

YEAH IT'S CLOUD'S FAULT FOR BEING DUMB AND EVERYONE ELSE'S FAULT FOR BEING DUMB AND NOT MY FAULT FOR NOT GIVING THEM A BETTER EXCUSE TO NOT THINK OF THAT SO I COULD KEEP IGNORING IT AND HAVE BIRD FUN COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY.
Runs away, screaming with laughter.

---

"Hey, Steak, what's there at you?"

You = Steak
What's there at Steak.
What's there at stake.
What's at stake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mnxqmAA0TI