Snowflake Bastion stood outside a large set of double doors. On each side was a guard, dressed head to toe in white armor with gold inlays so that no part of the ponies’ bodies could be seen. Bastion herself wore similar armor, though with silver instead of gold. She had also removed her helm. Because of this the worry on her face was clear as her wings twitch with anticipation.

Finally the doors in front of her opened, a calm voice somehow managing to be heard over the sound of hinges that really needed oiling. “Come in.”

Bastion took a deep breath before walking in. The room was completely different from the bland hallway she had been in. The entire room was a spring of sorts, with water so clear you could see everything that lived below the surface. On top of a wide assortment of fish there were various colors of birds flying around, using the trees that had grown out of the stone as perches. There was only one pathway that wound its way to the center of the spring and there sat an earth pony whose coat was white as marble. His back was turned to Bastion as she made her way through the misty spring toward her.

“I trust you know why you are here Snowflake.”

Despite everything Bastion told herself she could not shake her fear of the stallion in front of her. “I do not know your excellence, and this is my fault.”

The stallion sighed a moment before getting up and turning, showing his most obvious feature: his eyes were as white as his coat. “No Snowflake. The mistake you made is your fault. Not being able to realize that mistake as your teacher is my burden to bear. Allow me to open your eyes so that you may be put on the true path once more.”

The stallion began walking around Bastion slowly. “What you did in Murky Bottom goes against the tenants you were taught. I know that your talent is combat, but seeking it out is the road to damnation.” Though he said this with no amount of force, Bastion still winced at that last word. “Instead, you must learn to temper yourself. It is why I have endeavored to teach you because I knew that your path would not be easy. To have a mark rooted in violence but be expected to act peacefully is no small feat. I felt you were quite capable of accomplishing this but it seems you have not mastered your pride in the talent Faust has given you.” The stallion ended up sitting in front Bastion once more as she found interest in the floor. “Think on what I’ve said in your free time. Now, tell me what you’ve learned on the dark one.”

This perked Bastion right up. “Of course, your excellence. My troops and I managed to figure out what happened based on the words of a few of the locals. It seems the creature entered the town around mid morning. After entering the inn and defeating the scouting team, he walked about the town asking the ponies questions under the guise of an investigator for the royal guard. The locals believed him without much of a second thought, and a day later he left. As he left so too did the magical anomalies the town had been experiencing confirming our fears.”

The stallion nodded at this. “So it’s true. He has the first nest. We will have to double our efforts to locate the others before he does.”

“Pardon me, your excellence, but if I may ask, why haven’t we been keeping track of these things since the creature was sealed away?”

“That is our ancestors’ faults unfortunately. After a thousand years or so they stopped caring, believing that the dark one was gone forever. It wasn’t until I was shown that vision a year ago that we began to search once more.” The stallion pondered this with eyes shut for a few moments. “Snowflake, I want you to go out and locate the dark one. Should I get word that we found another nest I will send for you but until than we can not sit idly. Even with only one of his artifacts he is still a force of corruption on the world. When you find him, do not attack him up front. Do not give him the honorable death you would give another. He must be put down before the world is unbalanced any further.”

Bastion bowed. “Yes, your excellence.”

“Good. Now, go and begin your search. You will not have troops to aid you in the search but you will have them available wherever you should need them to defeat the dark one. Our hearts go with you Snowflake.” With a final nod Bastion turned and left. Though her pace was deliberate she was giddy with anticipation inside.

Yes. A chance to show my worth to the faith! There is a lot to prepare for. I’ll need supplies so that I can live out in the wilderness. I will need to make sure that the branch of Evermore in the region I’m searching is ready to give troops should I locate the creature. Bastion shook her head before flashing a cocky grin. No, I don’t need other troops. As a matter of fact, I don’t even need to use tricks to defeat it. I will find it, I will face it head on, and I will be victorious!

* * *

The following month or so can be described in two words.

So… boring…

I couldn’t do anything in my state without causing myself some amount of discomfort. At the same time I wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere with only one leg. Most of my time awake was just spent opening small holes in the multiverse for practice. Just hours and hours of open, close, open, close, open, close. The only thing that broke the monotony was how every once and awhile something would fall out of it. A few were similar to the same object I sent out in that they could be used to call people across the multiverse. Other than that there was some weird junk that I wasn’t really sure what it was for. I just had one of the brothers throw it out whenever I got something of that nature.

Anytime I slept I spent the time training with Nightmare, though things weren’t as brutal as they were originally. I wasn’t sure if I was getting faster or if Nightmare was taking it easy on me (not likely) but my movements in battle were beginning to become instinctual rather than requiring conscious thought. I certainly felt more capable of fighting off any would be attackers and I even got something of a compliment from her which was a first.

Anyway, at the end of the month I was for the most part capable of moving around with ease, though I still had a missing leg. A month’s worth of objects from the portals I’ve been opening now sat in my bag. I only had a few bandages remaining, primarily around my leg stump. Flim and Flam came in to the room, interrupting the rhythm I had going with the the portals.

“Well, now that you’re feeling better, we think this would be the perfect time to commence with the surgery for your new leg. Don’t you agree m’lord?”

I shrugged. “If you think so. I’ll just be glad to get out of here before I go stir crazy.” I was picked up in Flam’s magic and brought back out to the table I had woken up on originally. As Flim began setting things up, Flam went about explaining it.

“In order for you to move this leg in a similar fashion to the one you lost we will need to build a dock of sorts for it to mount to. This dock will be directly connected to the nerves in your leg, and magic will translate the signals it receives as motion. It will take some getting used to but this way we can replace your leg easily should it ever be damaged or we build something better.” Flim came back in sight, the sound of a unoiled cart following him.

“Now, this is quite painful as we will be essentially sticking needles into each of the nerves in the stump so it would be best if you were put under some anesthesia for the time.”

“Don’t.” I stated as bluntly as possible. “I can handle the pain.” The brothers both looked at each other with shock and doubt before preparing the procedure.

Nightmare, I need you to dull as much pain as possible.

“If you didn’t want to feel pain you should have been put under.”

Do you want to be put into a forced sleep with no way to wake us up forcefully? Nightmare didn’t answer. That’s what I thought. Besides, I trust you are capable of keeping the pain back for as long as possible. You have gotten notably better over the past month so you should have no problems with this.

“Alright, lets begin.”

* * *

“Now m’lord,” Flim instructed “It will take you some time to get used to the new leg. We predict it will take you about a week or so but until than you shouldn’t push yourself.”

I nodded as I sat on the edge of the table, Flam working intently on attaching the leg to the dock they had just so painfully added. My new leg was shaped similarly to the old one, just it was made of metal plating instead of flesh. To anyone else it would just appear as if I was wearing armor on that one leg as weird as that would seem.

Once he was done I felt a magical shock go through my nervous system. I assumed that was a sign that the leg was now moveable and decided to tested it. I told my leg to extend fully, only to have it not move.

Come on you piece of junk!

Nothing happened.

“Perhaps you should try putting weight on it?” With nothing else to go on I pushed myself off the table, only to fall flat on my face when the leg slipped out from under me.

I swear, if I ever find that watch-wielding bastard, I’ll destroy him!

“You won’t be doing any destroying until you get that leg working properly.” I groaned in response as I felt myself be picked up by magic.

“This is going to take a while.” I heard one of the brothers mutter. As they righted me back up I tried standing again, only to be met with similar results.

Nightmare, keep track of how many times I fall.

“Why?”

Because for every time I fall, Jason is going to watch someone he loves die. And if I run out of people to kill before that happens then I’ll just start chopping off his limbs. Nightmare didn’t respond, though I did feel her give a toothy grin at the thought.

Now, let’s try this again.

* * *

It took about a week like the brothers said to adjust to the leg. The to-be-killed count ended up being twenty-six.

I do hope Jason is having a peaceful time back in his world. It’ll be such a lovely contrast for what is to come.

Vendettas aside, I was now mobile so my first mission was the figure out “Just where are we exactly?” Flim walked over to the door of the warehouse and opened it for me as I walked through, the sunlight blinding me until I had managed to blink it away. Outside was a city on the scale of something I never thought would exist in a magical world like Equestria. Though there were still some differences, such as the lack of electrical lighting and the use of carriages instead of cars.

“Welcome to Manehattan m’lord.” My eye twitched a bit as I heard the ridiculous pun of a name. Nightmare, please add this city to my list of “towns to burn down because their names are horrible puns”.

“At this rate there won’t be any towns left to rule over.” I pulled my hood over my head as I realized I was beginning to get a few stares. Being the only one of your species in existence tends to do that. Thankfully the city seemed to get its share of visitors other than ponies so it was easy to fake being some other bipedal creature.

“What do think m’lord?” I looked down to see Flam with a big smile on his face.

“It’s a nice city to say the least. I’m going to walk around the block, stretch my legs a bit after being stuck inside for over a month. For now I have nothing for you to do so feel free to spend your time however you see fit.” The brothers watched me as I walked down the street and turned the corner. Once out of sight I brought up the real reason for wanting to walk.

Nightmare, we have a problem we need to deal with.

“We have many problems at the moment. Care to narrow it down?”

I’m talking about the fight. We were fighting as two separate people despite being in one body and that got us nearly killed. Next time we might not be so lucky as to be taken in by ponies who were more focused on greed than helping people.

“As I said, you should have been able to adapt to my fighting style.”

It’s not all about you Nightmare! Maybe if you realized that we wouldn’t have lost a leg. We both need to compromise if we are to ever win against the sisters and that means meeting in the middle.

Nightmare was silent until I had rounded another corner. “I suppose you are right. I thought that things would be similar to the way Luna and I had done it but I forgot that we are not simply two halves of the same being. We have different experiences and both must be brought into consideration.”

I’m glad you realized this. Now than, do you have any ideas on how we should learn to sync our movements?

“Perhaps we should start as an infant does learning to walk. Hold still for a moment.” I stopped and leaned against the wall of a building so as to keep out of the way of the pushy denizens of the city. After a moment I felt myself lose control of one of my legs. “There, I will control one, you will control the other. We will learn to walk together, than we will learn to run. Only than will we learn to fight.”

I suppose that will do for the physical aspect. I still feel we should address the mental one.

“Than perhaps we should spend some of our time in the dreamscape learning about one another. This will gives each of us an understanding of how we think and react.”

Haven’t you already been scanning my memories to adapt to the modern world?

“Searching through memory for information and experiencing it are two separate things. The latter will obviously take much more time than the former but I believe it will be crucial if we are to fight as one.”

Alright than. Let’s at least try to get back to the warehouse. Walking with only one leg to control was awkward to say the least. There was always a pause between each step, turning what would have normally been fluid walking into a rather rigid experience. Still, there was some kind of progress overall. It was obvious we had a long way to go.