Back on Earth,
Two hours earlier...

The perpetuating sound of a fist banging against the bathroom door continued to batter against the ear drums of a woman who frantically took her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen, searching desperately for the name of someone who would help her. As she read the first name she saw on her 'recent calls' list, she pressed against the screen as she looked back to the door that protected her. She remained as quiet as possible as a stream of insults continued to spew from behind the wooden barrier.

"Get your ass out of the goddamn bathroom!"

"I'm using it!" She falsely cried out, knowing that she was trying to find a means to get some help.

Melanie planted the phone against her ear as she quietly chanted to herself. "Please pick up. Please pick up. Come on, please pick up."

After a few seconds of silence, a click was heard on the other end.

"Hey, this is Nondis. Can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message."

She sighed heavily while she heard the sound of her boyfriend... rather ex-boyfriend, banging against the door. She cupped her hand around the receiver as she whispered in a distressed manner.

"Nondis, it's Mel. Hey, give me a call as soon as you get this message."

As she finished her sentence, the sound of his fist became exponentially louder as she looked back to the door with a frightened expression. She continued her message, shaking a bit as she backed into her shower. "Gotta go, PLEASE call me soon."

As she was hanging up, her ex battered both fists against the door to get her attention. "Melanie, open up this goddamn door! I said I was sorry!"

As she looked into the contacts of her phone, she had noticed that the battery icon in the corner was blinking, indicating that her phone was on her last leg. She wouldn't be able to make anymore calls from this point forward. Her only option was to cut off her phone and save some of the battery for future text messages. As the screen bade farewell and the phone deactivated, the sound of the banging ceased for a brief moment. All that could be heard was the sounds of his heavy breathing against the crack of the door.

"Mel... Please open this door. I didn't mean to do what I did. I was wrong. Just come back out here so we can talk about this."

She wasn't willing to hear anything he was saying. The only thing of his that resonated with her was the pain she felt from his fist making contact with the side of her face. She didn't want anything else to do with him from that point forward. The only thing she wanted was a way out of her own bathroom, her small sanctuary, her realm of safety, her makeshift prison.

With eyes closed and fist balled, she hugged against herself as she hid inside of the shower, hoping that it would somehow offer some protection from any future blows her ex would throw her way. She kept herself locked inside of that small space as he continued to plead with her.

"I said I was sorry. Now open this door, Melanie. You know I don't like it when you ignore me. Open the door."

She refused to speak as he started to knock again.

"Mel, you know I don't like it when you don't listen to me. Please open this door before I get angry."

She refused to comply.

"Mel, just open the fucking-" He cut his statement short as he leaned from off of the door and gave it a swift kick.

Melanie jumped from the sound of the impact, causing her to yelp and shake violently. The fear began to take from her silence as she began to whimper and pant while desperately hugging her phone, chanting to the man she wanted to hear from.

"Nondis... please be home."

Currently at Canterlot...

My heart was caught between a sputter and a complete stop. My mind stayed trying to comprehend the words that had miraculously left her mouth. I could've sworn that what she said was nothing more than a figment of my imagination.

"Say what?"

"No, I'm serious."

"Get out. You're lying."

"No I'm not. I meant what I said."

Yeah... she said it alright. But I know damn-well that this couldn't be Twilight speaking. This had to be a changeling or something, Twilight wouldn't agree to something like this lying down. She's perturbed whenever it comes to me simply conversing with other mares while she's present. My spending time with other mares would drive her to complete insanity. She is the epitome of jealousy when it comes to me. She growled down Spitfire just to say that I was hers, she was on the verge of explosion when she saw me and Melanie hugging, she lost all of her shit when Pinkie had told her that she had an interest in me. She even held a grudge against me after I came clean.

There had to be a catch.

"So, you mean to tell me that you actually DON'T mind if I did anything with Rarity?"

"Of course not. I mean, what happened between you two was in the past, and it was prior to our relationship being solidified. So of course I wouldn't mind."

Figures. I knew that I wasn't dreaming that one up. But I still had my suspicions, based solely on the fact that she exploded when I told her the truth about Pinkie. She could be lying, trying to project an image of her being civil about the situation. Only one way to tell... "Okay. So you don't care if anything happened between us while we're on break?"

"Well of course I do!" She answered hysterically. "Rarity is my friend, and she wouldn't want to get into a relationship with you, not now! She's already seen what you would do for me, that I think would kinda put her off of you! She's just that kind of mare."

Yup, that's the jealous Twilight I know. "But who's to say that what I did for you wouldn't encourage her to be on the receiving end of that same treatment? Wouldn't you feel the same way if I was with her and you still liked me the way you do now?"

Twilight sat up and turned to me. "Nondis, she wouldn't be anything like me. She's beautiful, she's really generous, she catches the eyes of every stallion in every town, she's a wonderful designer who's aspirations require her to travel across the world. But what does that leave you with? I'd know that I would be left with an uncertain sense of security when it comes to the solidarity and trust of our relationship, especially if they were out of town."

...Okay, now I'm concerned... and confused. I knew that Twilight was jealous, but I didn't think that she was somewhat envious of Rarity too. Could it be that Spike's words kinda jolted her to this? "What are you-"

"Look, I don't mean to downplay her, cause she is a wonderful pony. I've already heard from Sweetie Belle that she's a very talented cook. She can draw, she can create dresses, she can sing, she knows the inner-workings of practically everything there is when it comes to dating, she's experienced in the art of pleasing stallions where I'm not, she can..." She paused for a moment, looking back at her still recovering wings. I had gotten the hint of what she wanted to say next, but she kept it quietly to herself. "...She could be a wonderful housewife. But her occupation would take her away from you far too much. And she doesn't tend to stay on a particular stallion for very long. I just don't want you to get hurt."

Uh-huh... "So you're saying that you wouldn't want me to 'get hurt' by her?"

"Okay, let's talk about Spike for a moment." Let not. "Spike and her were really hitting it off when she first started getting to know him, but she didn't really see him as anything more than a younger cousin, or something like that. Meanwhile, Spike has been relentlessly trying to get her to see that he was the only thing she needed. So when she brought up the subject of Blueblood to him, he really trailed off for a while."

"Depression?" I assumed, knowing from experience.

"She gave him small hints that she wasn't really looking to have him that way, but he just kept fighting for her. And overtime, she had more crushes and he-"

I already knew where she was going with this. "Stop right there." I said, beginning to massage my forehead. Well fuck... This is like high school all over again.

Let's pause and reflect for a minute.

My high school romantic experience was played out the exact same way. I met Melanie, we became close friends, we chilled, I crushed on her, she crushed on someone else, I exploded while voicing my disapproval, she ignored me, I waited, she got burned and broke up with the guy, I was the emotional rebound for her, she feels better about life, and then the cycle repeats from 'fond of someone else', a.k.a. Step Five. Eventually I just completely broke and screamed at her, cussing her out, hurting her feelings and pushing away the only friend I knew. And from that point on, I did nothing but harm what little reputation I had by surrendering myself to drugs and suicidal thoughts.

Hell, I wouldn't even be surprised to find that I had made a conscious decision when I had drove my car into the gulf, with me in it.

Here I am dealing with the one thing, the one psyche that continues to irk me; myself. Not really myself, but Spike was running this same path I ran on before I had completely decided to abandon reality and live in La-La Land. The primary difference between the two of us is that he's a lot more outgoing with his advances and a lot less argumentative with Rarity, which means that his breakdown could be a lot more violent. And with him holding it in for every crush she had, he will get to the point... or have already gotten to the point where he has nearly lost his grip on reality.

He's dangerous to not only himself, but everyone else in this state.

"Nondis?" Twilight gave me a brief nudge to get my attention, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Huh, what?"

"Weren't you listening to anything I was saying just now?"

I didn't even know that she was talking. "Wait, what?"

She let out a disgruntled groan while she scooted closer to me. "I was going into further details on how Rarity wouldn't be a very good choice for you, given both of your professions. You're a guard, which would pretty much take you away from her. And she's a designer that would take her talents throughout the world. You would be confined here mainly because of your role while she goes out and explore the world."

"Are you trying to justify yourself as my only choice here?" I questioned. "In case you haven't noticed, you're no different when it comes to the 'job taking you around the world' thing."

Twilight folded her ears back as she looked away with sadness in her eyes. She eased off of me slightly as she spoke. "Nondis... I don't want you with anyone else. Even on this break, I just don't want you to lose focus on what we have."

"There you go trying to rush us back together again." I scooted back from her and towards the edge of the bed.

"I'm not trying to push anything." She argued. "I'm just merely stating the statistics and the probabilities of how each relationship would play out. I've even calculated your-"

"Twilight, this is why we're on a break. You focus too much on analytics and fail to take into account the unknown variables of reality. Quit. Trying. To force it. If I make my decision to move on, then I will and would do my best to remain friends with you. And I hope that you would do the same."

"I don't wanna be 'just friends' with you..." She confessed, clenching her forelegs around my lower chest. "I'm sorry. I just can't anymore. I want us to-"

"Hurry things along. I've already heard your conversation from earlier about your 'two-week deadline'. And I can tell you, with the way you're acting now, we're looking at a month, no less than twenty-one days."

"Now that's just not fair! Don't treat me like that! Why are you so insistent on punishing me!? I've done nothing wrong to you! And if this is for me yelling at you before you left to your world, I already said that I was sorry."

"...You punished me, and I didn't deserve it." I stated as I raised up from the bed to speak with her.

"How did I punish you?" She asked with a look of complete disbelief.

"Oh, did you think that I forgot about you kicking me out of the castle and your constant ignoring me for over six weeks? The only thing I've ever gotten out of you in that time period was severe headaches, nosebleeds, a cold shoulder, and a hoofprint on my cheek. So this seems fair to me, especially considering that you had gotten off with a warning and decided to shove me away from you."

Twilight released her hooves from around me as she offered me her rebuttal. "Nondis, you know why I did that! I told you why!"

"Yeah, but did you know how I felt about it, especially after what was said and done? Here, let me show you."

I raised out of the bed and walked towards the doors. As I reached out for the handle, she used her magic to pull me back to the bed. While she was tugging against my arm, I began to pull against the door for leverage. Twilight frowned as she struggled to pull me back over. I continued to hold onto the door when suddenly...

As that sound came through the wood, Twilight released my arm and allowed me to answer the door. When I had pulled the door open, I could see a very tired and angry Celestia standing in the doorway. Her mane flowed a lot less than usual but she was still wearing her regalia. Instead of remaining silent, I acknowledged her presence. "Uh... your highness?"

"What is going on?" The alabaster princess asked. "I hear voices coming from down the hall while I'm trying to enjoy a peaceful night's sleep."

"Princess," Twilight answered as she straightened up in the bed. "I-"

"And what are you doing in here? I instructed you that the two of you were not to share a room."

"Well I was having some issues with-"

"It is three-forty in the morning and I have to raise the sun in two hours. Twilight, I am well aware of your situation and have remedied you of your disturbances. Spike has been moved to my chambers, so return to your room and leave Nondis alone."

"But-"

"Now." Celestia frowned intensely as she looked to her former student.

Twilight climbed out of the bed and walked past me. Just as she did, she gave me a sad glance before walking off. I couldn't seem to understand why she looked at me so sadly. Was it because she had gotten caught or was it because she was leaving me alone? Either way, I was left to the silence that once filled the air. And after walking back to my bed, I had found that my body was a little more willing to send me off to the realm of dreams. Unfortunately for me, I had wake up at about six-thirty. I pulled out my phone to check the time.

...Three forty-two? Fuck I need some goddamn rest.

The next morning...

It went without saying that I had a bit of an attitude this morning. Waking up at about seven did give me like an extra thirty minutes, but what good would that do behind only four hours of sleep? Not much in terms of preventing me from being grouchy and uncooperative. But as I was making my way to breakfast, I did overhear Twilight getting a serious chewing-out from Cadance. Spike was then assigned to assist one of the senators with some important documents.

It makes me wonder just how well-acquainted are these politicians are with Spike. But that didn't matter.

Later, I walked down the busy halls, noticing that one of the areas had a very pungent odor floating about. If I wasn't mistaken, it smelled like something akin to a burning bin of junk mail and something else I couldn't exactly distinguish. Upon a brief investigation of the matter, though it wasn't really an investigation per se, I found that a politician was in his office burning some documents.

Perhaps he was trying to rid himself of some evidence of wrong-doing?

Unfortunately, my train would leave within an hour and I was left with very little time to look into it further. I had to also grab my stuff and set out for Ponyville. And despite my discomfort of riding the train, I figured to myself that the ride down the mountain would be a lot easier considering that I didn't have to fight on the way down. And the ravine was my biggest trigger... for lack of a better word.

Getting that out of the way first eliminated all the build-up of nervousness and tension that would be present should I be coming into the city rather instead. So after a few more conversations with a few of the guards in charge of finding the assassin, I took my leave and made it back down to Ponyville.

But that doesn't mean that I wasn't eagerly wearing my battery down on my phone listening to music on the way down. I needed some other sound in my ears aside from the perpetual clanking of the train bouncing on the track. I wasn't even intending to look outside until I had known for myself that this train had come to a complete stop.

A few hours later and I was back on the level ground of Ponyville. While I was carting my box to the apartment, I couldn't have felt any more satisfied of my being away from Canterlot. Honestly, that place placed more stress on me than anything, and I don't even have to be there in order for that to happen. But for right now, I had a long list of things to do throughout the day and my apartment was calling my name...

...And not the one in Ponyville either.

As usual upon my arrival, my phone went off and notified me of all of the messages I had missed out on. But this time, my phone was blowing up like crazy. And I wasn't going to just breeze through all of them either. I had a total of eighteen texts and two voice-mails. Without much consideration, I decided that voice messages would take precedent over texts. With a quick dial, I was brought to my messages.

"Hello? Yeah you know who it is, big bro! What the hell, you just disappear for nine months and now you wanna show up and not even give me a call? You already know that Alex is pretty pissed at you too, so you might wanna hit him up sometime soon, but after you talk to me first. Oh, and feel free to get on this: SECOND STRING WIDE-RECEIVER! I'm a red-shirt freshman at Texas A&M! Give me two years, three tops, and I'll be in the NFL Draft! Johnny Manziel ain't gonna have shit on me! Love you bro, peace!"

Stanton, you idiot. Well, he seems to be doing fine.

"Nondis, it's Mel. Hey, give me a call as soon as you get this message. *BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG* Gotta go, PLEASE call me soon." "Melanie, open up this goddamn-"

...I didn't like that last message. Not only did it sound as if Melanie was stressed, but with the banging and screaming going on in the background, I could tell that she wasn't exactly in a safe position. Almost instantly, I had thought about the absurd amount of texts I had received and the probability that it could all be from her. I pulled up my screen and saw a long list of messages from mostly her, and maybe one or two from Cliff and Rickey. I started from the bottom of the list and worked my way on up for sequence.

Sender: Melanie
Hey wyd?

Sender: Melanie
Hey fkr get on stick lets play sum CoD :D

Sender: Melanie
R u busy?

Of course a sound majority of the earlier messages were nothing short of requests to hang out. But when I had gotten to the ninth one, I had noticed that there was something disturbing about how she started asking me to hang out.

Sender: Melanie
Can I come over? BF annoying af DX

Sender: Rickey
You seen Mel? She didn't show for class.

Sender: Melanie
R u doin anything rite now?

Sender: Melanie
I can't stand it here, plz let me come over. I need to talk 2 u. T_T

Sender: Cliff
bruh ol gurl mel been off l8ly u kno wats up?

Sender: Melanie
He and I got n2 it 2day. Done up wit him. You busy? ;P

Sender: Melanie
Tried 2 break, didnt work. We got n2 it again :c

Sender: Melanie
Plz open the door. Been knockin 4 a while. I need 2 talk wit u.

Sender: Melanie
plz b home. I need u.

Sender: Rickey
Dude, answer your damn phone for once! Mel needs our help!

The most recent message was dated just this morning at about three thirty.

The night I was having trouble sleeping would be the night something had gone down in this world. Unfortunately, I was in a completely different city from where the portal was, and the trains don't run between ten at night and six the next morning. If anything, I would have to give Melanie a call before something bad would happen. I needed to get on that asap.

"Hello? What do you want?"

That was not Melanie. I slowly spoke to the man on the other side of the line. "Excuse me, I'm looking for a Melanie Brewer, is she-"

"Hey look fuckboy, don't call this phone again, don't talk to Melanie again! You need to stop talking to her and getting her into all this trouble before I come and find your ass. And trust me, it won't take no nine months for me to do it!" *click*

Nope... not Melanie at all. Guess I should hit up Rickey to see what was going on. Obviously I wasn't going to have time to sit down and relax this go around.

"Hello?"

"Hey Rick, my phone was out. I'm just now getting your message. What happened with Melanie?"

"Dude, she was knocking on your door for an hour! Where the fuck were you!? After she chilled out for about an hour, she went back home to get her car and her boyfriend snatched her into the apartment and beat her ass! Where the fuck were you then?"

"WHAT!?" And my day just got significantly longer. My mood was already off when I had got here, but this just completely turned me inside out. Melanie getting abused? I draw the line there. "Where is she now?"

"She's with us. We're at the frat house. So what about you, you finished with your 'out of town' trip with your girlfriend?"

I bolted out of the room and started walking towards the front door. "I'm on my way over! Right now! Is she okay?"

"You know, that's a dumb-ass question for you to be asking. Of course she's not okay, she just got her head bashed in by some guy who's probably fucking some other girl right now."

Sounds like Caramel. "I'm going over to her apartment to meet this guy."

"He ain't there. He's out getting him some. Cliff saw him talking to some girl on campus, they were headed towards the dorms. You need to come over here and help us with Mel. She's the one who could really use the support from you."

"She could need me to cram my fist into this asshole's skull."

"Nondis, we know you can't fight this dude. He's a criminal justice major with some degree of training. You might wanna save it for later."

"Fine then, shoot his ass!" I said loudly and angrily.

"I want to, bad. But Mel asked me not to. She wants to 'work things out' with ol dude."

For a moment, I could do nothing but stutter and stammer in response before I could finally ask. "W-WHY?"

"Because he threatened to report the frat for illegal arms possession. Not me, the frat, as in ALL of our asses will be kicked off the campus."

Great, so he's trying to get us all expelled. What kind of bitch does this guy have to be for him to ruin the lives of everyone around him for the sake of his personal indulgence? I already dealt with this shit with Caramel, I have to deal with this all over with the politicians, and here in my world, I have to do it with Melanie's boyfriend? I've had enough. "Shit. Well I'm on my way over then. Tell Melanie that I'm coming."

"Yeah. We'll be here." *click*

After hanging up, I burst into a jog as I quickly made my way to the frat house. Thankfully, the place wasn't anywhere over two miles from where I was, but it was still an inconvenience to run and worry about someone's health on top of all of that. I just came here to buy a rifle and some suppressors for a weapons demonstration, but now I get this. What a way to start a fucked-up day.

After about twenty minutes of running and dodging traffic, I found myself back on fraternity row, pacing myself as I ran up to the Delta Phi house. But as I approached, I could see both Melanie's car as well as an open moving truck. I also saw a guy who appeared to be a light-skinned Rastafarian walking from out of the back of the truck. I started to do the math and assumed that she would be moving in rather than staying at her apartment. I could see that happening, as many of the frat members respect her and consider her as like a little sister... or so I've been told.

When I had arrived on the front porch, I glanced back into the truck to see a bunch of Tupperware bins stacked from butt to lid throughout the back of the storage space. I walked up to see what was being unpacked, but as soon as I had gotten closer to one of the bins that had a hole in it, I could clearly see that no one was moving in. Instead, it seemed like Rickey was moving his stuff out.

I wonder why he was trying to move all of his guns for?

With a tiresome shrug, I went back to the front door and knocked. And as usual, Cliff came up to the door with his baseball bat. Thankfully, when he saw that it was me, he didn't have any intentions of using it. "Oh. What up, fam."

"Is Melanie in?" I questioned while out of breath.

"Damn, did you literally just run your ass over here?" He asked as he moved out the way to let me inside.

"I ain't got a car. What else am I supposed to do, wait on a bus?"

Cliff shook his head as he closed the door behind me. "Bruh, we've been trying to call you since last night. She was calling us to see if you were in town and if we knew where you would be at. You gotta keep your phone on!"

Again, I'm not in a position to actually answer my phone, especially if I was in another world. "I was out of town. I couldn't get a signal for shit."

"Didn't you say your girl was from UT-Arlington? Last I checked, they have a pretty decent amount of reception out there, as well as students. If anything, yo ass is gonna have to find someplace where there ain't no reception, and that's way out in the middle of woods somewhere." He stated while looking at me with suspicion.

How did he know that much? Did Melanie fill the guys in on who I was dating while I was gone? Well that isn't too much of a bad thing, it only solidifies the fact that I'm often leaving town with her. And no one knows who she is or what she looks like. I can still sell the lie. "Well, we do a lot of outdoor stuff so-"

"And now that I'm on that, how is it that there's is literally no one who sees you when you leave the apartment? You don't send out any word or text that you're leaving, you don't tell nobody that you goin' out of town or nothin'. Hell, a courtesy 'I'm goin' out to get me some fuck, don't text back' wouldn't be a bad thing. Instead, it's like yo ass just stay locked up in that damn apartment with yo phone on airplane mode. Either that, or you just runnin' some shit somewhere, which would help explain why you came over to buy some shit."

Run shit? The only thing I'm running is the security of a nation not even on this earth. And I'm not going to be able to explain that to him without coming off as completely in-fucking-sane. Hell, the first time I came out directly and told them, they thought I was tripping balls. Obviously, I have been managing my time between the two worlds poorly. And in this case, I'm on the defensive due to my desire not to disclose Equestria's existence.

The only way I would be able to do that is if I desperately needed to do so.

But I still had to come up with another excuse to cover the lie I just told. "We usually do go out camping. She's an outdoors person, so-"

"Nondis, is that you!?" I heard a somewhat disgruntled Rickey call out from upstairs. A few footsteps impacted the floor, indicating that he was in a rush to see me. As he peered from the top of the stairs, he came running down to stare me down.

"Rickey, is she doing okay?"

He shook his head as he angrily pressed his lips against his teeth. With a quick breath, he calmly spoke to me. "You know, I would wonder how it would feel if I had gotten my head and shoulders bashed in and my phone taken away, just after I knocked endlessly on a certain someone's door for an hour. I mean, it can't be that hard if you were capable of saving her, or if you were able to talk to her and let her know that she was in trouble. She wouldn't dare come to us until she got hurt! But when it comes to you... Oh she'll come knocking as if you have the cure to fucking cancer."

Yeah, he's pissed. "Sorry, I was out of town. I got here as quick-"

"YOU NEEDED TO BE THERE FOR HER! WHY THE FUCK CAN'T YOU GET THAT THROUGH YOUR THICK-ASS SKULL!?" He shouted, banging his fist against the wall.

"Okay, I get it. It's my fault for not responding to something I was out of town for. And I didn't have a signal until I had just got back into town. So sorry if I-"

Rickey grabbed the collar of my shirt as he snarled at me. He obviously took exception to my sarcasm. "You better not say some stupid shit or else I will make sure it takes another nine months to find you-"

The next thing I felt was a hand shoving against my chest as Cliff stepped in between the two of us. "Yo, y'all need to chill for like a hot minute. This ain't about you, it's about the girl we got upstairs in the bed crying over her boyfriend doin' her bad." He turned to Rickey. "And yeah, I know you mad because he threatened all of us and did yo ex dirty. But that don't mean you take that shit out on Nondis." He then turned to me. "And like I said to you, you gotta keep your phone on. Everybody in this bitch tryin' to hit you up and make sure you decent, and we can't even get in touch. It's startin' feel like we went out searchin' for nine months for someone that didn't wanna be found in the first place."

"That's not true and you know it." That is the furthest from the truth. If anything, I was trying to find my way back for a good six months, and got enlisted for another two-and-a-half. None of this is my fault, and I wish I could just explain it to these guys that I was trapped in an alternate world for that long, but again, I would be called bat-shit crazy. There is no truth for me to tell without me being sent to a mental institution.

Ugh... Where do I even begin?

"That's why I'm so mad!" Rickey said, cosigning with Cliff's previous point. "Mel's been hard at work, trying to find you. We've all helped in trying to find you. You come back and it's like fuck it, I'm gonna ghost. Do you know how fucked up that is, especially to Mel? It's like you don't show appreciation for what she's had to go through just to find you. And it hurts me because I was with her while her mind was on you the entire time! Do you know how fucking hard that is, to maintain a relationship when she's thinking about someone else? I wish you would just come strolling in as if nothing serious had happened."

Again, not my fault. "Look, I'm here to help with whatever. I'm mainly here to check up on Melanie. I just want to see her, I didn't come here for no fights, I didn't come here to be accused of some shit I have no control over. My phone stays on at all times and I just don't get shit. And I'm sorry that it happens to be that way, but I'm... I just wanna see Melanie."

Rickey scoffed at me as he started to walk back up the stairs. "Well, she doesn't wanna be seen by you. She said that she didn't want you to see her because of her scars."

I started to get a little upset as I attempted to climb upstairs. "So none of you didn't think to call the police?"

Rickey turned back around to stop me. "Yeah, we did. But then Mel stated that her dude Jasper would have reservations against that. He actually called me and threatened to call the police on my shit if I was to ever report him on this. And you know what the deal is from there."

"Didn't you think that a threat of our enrollment status would be a lot less important than the safety of another human being?"

"I don't think you remember, but we're all going down here. You're going to jail for buying, Mel's going to jail for buying, I'm going to jail for selling illegally, Cliff's going down for being an 'asset', and then our whole chapter goes down with us. He got us in a place where I can't do shit but try to move as much of my stuff out of here should he decide to report us for it, which I'm sure he will at this point."

"What makes you so sure?" I questioned.

"Who the hell's upstairs?" He asked, pointing to the top of the staircase.

"Oh yeah." Yeah, he might be a little peeved that we took her in. I could see that happening. So I guess I would have to do a lot of reconstruction with my to-do list, starting with giving this Jasper-guy a piece of my mind, and then helping Rick get rid of all of these guns... I've got an idea.

We all can't go under if only one of us has all the weapons, especially if they're hidden someplace where the cops can't find them or have access to. I have knowledge of such a place, and I could benefit from it in more ways than one. Hell, if I was going to be booked for possession of illegal firearms, then I might as well make it a charge worth booking.

"Hey, this goes in the truck too, right?" Asked the Rastafarian I saw from earlier carrying a turquoise tub.

"Yeah." Cliff confirmed as he walked off to help with the packing.

Finding a place to store all these arms would be hell to get away with. I guess I was going to have to make Rick an offer. "Hey, you're on a clearance sale, right?"

It took us up to forty-five minutes to clean out the house and make sure there wasn't a single bullet, shell, accessory, arrow, or weapon hiding throughout the house. The only thing lethal that remained was the baseball bat sitting in the corner next to the front door. After I had explained to Rickey what my plan was, he was in complete disbelief.

I offered him thirty grand for the entire stash. And though I would be broke in this world, it wouldn't last for very long. As soon as my next payday rolls around, I'll be just as rich as I was before... if not richer.

But his main concern wasn't the money, it was the amount of space that was in my apartment and how I would be able to hide everything from anyone who would come searching with a warrant. Again, I remained reluctant to tell him all of the details, but I did assure that even he wouldn't be able to find anything, even if he had brought in a K-9 unit.

Again, he was skeptical of my offer. But when I had mentioned that I was off campus, specifying that I would be the only one taking the fall due to that sole fact alone, he leaned slightly in favor for it.

Truth be told, I was going to dump everything I purchased across the mirror. More weapons to use and demonstrate with come tomorrow, I guess. But either way, I was going to have to keep them hidden from mostly everypony else as well. Thankfully, that won't be too hard considering my job and rank.

But with all of the packing aside, I was left with some free time to check in on Melanie. It took Rickey that full forty-five minutes to cool off and let me speak with her.

As I entered one of the bedrooms upstairs, I had noticed a body laying quietly underneath the sheets. The figure sniffled and gasped for air as they cocooned themselves in the sheets, facing away from the door. Gathering from the feminine sounds that were produced, I concluded that it was Melanie hiding in those blankets.

"Hey, Mel. It's me." I whispered quietly, feeling compelled to just outwardly hug her. But at the same time, I felt like she didn't want to see me after everything that had happened. So rather than walking inside, I kept my distance. "I heard about what happened. I didn't get in until sometime this morning. I'm sorry."

She didn't respond, making me feel all the more nervous to even speak with her.

"I know you're mad at me. And I can't help but to feel like you want me to leave you alone. So, if you want me to just leave, that's fine. If you don't, then that's cool too. But..."

I can't even finish that sentence. The main thing that's preventing me from doing so is the substantial amount of guilt that came with the words I was initially going to speak. I wanted to say that if she needed anyone to talk to, that I would be there for her. But I know just how well that turned out today. Eventually, I couldn't even look at her lying in that bed. I just walked out and paced up and down the hall. I wasn't shy, I was pissed and ashamed. I was pissed that all of this happened without my knowledge, and ashamed that I wasn't here to respond to it as soon as I would have liked to.

But at the same time, I knew that it couldn't have been helped. I was as far away from the portal as possible. So there was no possible way I could've even came through for her. The trains don't run after a certain period of time, the chariots were under lock-down to prevent midnight joyrides, and working through that mountain would take me days on my own.

And yet, that knowledge didn't help me feel any better. It made me feel worse because I failed to live up to that promise the first time. Hell, Rickey's pissed because I didn't respond nor was I able to keep in touch. And I agree, that is a dangerous problem to have. And inside of that room was the primary example of why it was.

I was more conflicted than ever at that point.

"Nondis..." I heard a mumble from inside of the room. I walked back to see her sitting up on the bed, half of her face covered in the sheets she used to wrap her body with. I slowly walked over as she scooted over and patted against the bed. As I sit down, I could see some of the blue-ish marks across her neck and left cheek. She had a bit of swelling on her right eye as well. As she tried to look to me, she kept her eyes squinted.

"Sorry if it looks like I don't wanna look at you. The light kinda hurts my eyes."

"Oh... I get it." I started to turn away, unable to bear with the sight of the abuse she took. She reached out from under the covers and grabbed my hand as she leaned against me.

"Can I lean on you for a sec?" She asked weakly.

"Sure. Do your thing."

As she leaned against me I could feel a cold emptiness fill my chest, almost causing me to produce tears as I tried my best not to look at her. I feared that in doing so would cause me to cry in front of her. I kept demanding myself not to show any kind of emotion, but the feeling of her going limp against me doesn't help me much.

"I'm gonna be okay." She tried to assure me, only provoking a bit of rage.

"How the hell does this constitute you 'being okay'? If anything, you should be angry... Scream or something." I said while turning back to her, unwittingly getting a full view of her battered smile. She opened her mouth to let out a small squeak. She produced a light chuckle as she looked at me.

"Sorry, that's all I can do for now. Maybe later."

"How are you even smiling? This dude just beat the..." I stopped myself, realizing that I was about to display a poor choice in words. "...He hurt you. And now you're trying to reconcile with him to save us? Why, no how? Explain that to me."

Melanie grabbed my hand as she spoke. "I'm smiling because I know that you'd be here. I'm smiling because I know it's over. I'm smiling because I know that no matter what happens to me, you guys are going to be okay."

"That's stupid, you know that?"

"Can you make me a promise?"

I couldn't believe what she was saying. It was nonsensical and completely bizarre. I can't believe she was literally beaten and she comes out smiling as if she's... completely lost it. "...Don't make me promise something I can't do."

"Look, I just don't want you to get involved. You're my friend and I love you, so I can't let you get beat up over something that has nothing to do with you."

It has everything to do with me. That's why I'm here, Melanie. First you message me to tell me that you need me and now you just so miraculously want me to stay out of it? I can understand if you're frustrated with my response, but please don't ask me to butt out if I'm the root of the situation. Unless you have some miracle cure-all hidden within your purse, I'm gonna need you to tell me what's going on. "Hello? I'm the cause of this problem. If anything, I should try to be something similar to a solution, or maybe I should at least help you get there."

"Nondis, I don't need you-"

Both our heads turned to the window. As I leaned out to peer outside I could see a man dressed in black baggy jeans, a v-neck shirt, some white Jordans and a Cincinnati Reds cap on his head. He kept shouting at the house as he stood on our lawn. As I looked back over, I could see Melanie getting out of the bed and slowly making her way to the door. "Who's this guy?" I asked before she walked into the hall.

"That's Jasper. He's my ex. Probably here to make me drive him someplace."

"Wait, he rides in your car and he does this shit to you?"

"Nondis, just stay in here and chill. I got him-"

"No you don't!" I argued as I quickly paced out of the room and down the stairs. Melanie continued to try and convince me to leave him alone, but I wasn't hearing any of it. I looked to the side of the door to see if the bat was there. But since it wasn't, I could already assume that Cliff had already grabbed it. When I walked outside, I saw Reggie standing by the truck. Both Rickey and Cliff standing before the front porch while this Jasper guy was screaming at the both of them.

"Just tell me where Mel is, and you might see graduation. How about that?"

"How about you get yo sorry-ass on somewhere before you get yo ass bopped, how's that sound?" Cliff retorted angrily as he pointed the bat directly at him.

"Oooh, a scary black man with a bat. I just don't know what to do." Jasper said with sarcasm. "Look, I know the cops don't like you. I don't like you-"

"Why, cause my dick bigger than yours? You a pussy-ass bitch who can't even fight a man, let alone swing on one. But you got the nerve to swing on a chick, huh? Okay then, Imma swing with this bat and we gon' see how you feel about it."

Jasper backed away a bit as Cliff brought the bat to his body for a wind-up. "Look, I've been trained by officers to deal with thugs like you and Rick. I can easily disarm you and then beat you with the same bat. You don't know me, so why don't you get Mel so I can leave."

"Fuck that shit, you gotta get through us before you even so much as look at her!" Rickey said as he stepped forward.

"She's right there, you know?" Jasper pointed to the front door at Melanie, who stood right beside me. Rickey turned back around to confront her.

"Mel, get back in the house-"

"Melanie, babe, let's go." The guy said as if he was trying to command her to heed to his every order. At that point, I completely snapped. As I walked up, I kindly pushed both Rick and Cliff aside. Melanie called for me to get back, but again, I wasn't listening.

"Dude, can we talk? Just a quick come-to-Jesus meeting. That's all I'm asking for."

"Whoever you are, fuck you. I don't have to talk to you." He said as he tried to walk past me to Melanie.

I kept up with him, cutting him off as he tried to reach for her. "My name's Nondis. And you don't have to treat her like that."

"Bitch, fuck off! I'm her boyfriend, I can do what I want!"

As he reached for her a second time, I made a simple observation. "I can tell, your eyebrows is a dead giveaway."

He stopped short of her arm and turned back to me, leaving me with mere inches of breathing room. "What the fuck you just say to me?" He whispered in my face, allowing me to catch the smell of sex and Tic-Tacs.

I responded calmly and quietly. "Well, to me it seems you're confused. You got one with slashes in it and the other is a fucked-up chevron. It looks like you don't know whether you want endorsements from Addidas or Nike."

I got a snort from Cliff as he turned away, holding his fist against his mouth. Obviously, Jasper took exception to my joke. "I bet your mom has fucked up eyebrows!"

Ooh, the 'your mom' joke. Two can play that game. "I bet I fucked your mom six ways from five minutes ago."

"What you talking about? That doesn't make any sense!"

"You know, after choking on my dick, your sister and your cousin said the same shit."

"Nondis!" Melanie called out, trying to get me to back off.

He grabbed my shirt as if he wanted to throw me into the wall, I just calmly allowed him to make himself look bad. "You wanna go!? We'll fucking go in! I can beat your sorry ass right here."

I raised my palms and politely separated him from my shirt, not wanting to hear any complaints from the pony who made it. "What's your mantra? Float like a rock, sting like a feather? I don't care if you're trained or not, but if you think that putting your hands on Melanie won't grant you a ticket to the first-class cabin of the ass-whopping express, then I suggest you get a fucking clue. Get your retard-a-dum-dum ass out and leave Melanie alone. And in the end of all of it, you don't get hurt... much. Sounds like a fair idea to me."

He nodded as he pursed his lips, acting as if he was agreeing to my proposal. "I got an even better one-"

The next thing I had noticed as a fist coming into contact with the side of my jaw. "NONDIS!" Melanie screamed as she watched me take the hit. As I was holding myself, I noticed that he had backed up like he was going to come in swinging.

"Uh-huh. You know, you talk a lot of shit! Get hit on, motherfucker!"

I shuffled my jaw as I faked as if I was going to turn away, but I darted right after him, blind to whatever hits was coming in at me. As I took another to the shoulder, I cocked my right fist back to give him a blow to the chest. I also threw in a left to the side of his neck. He tried to go for another blow for my face, but he hit only the air as I backed away. Jumping back, I allowed myself some decent cock-back room and ample space for a haymaker. Without warning, he ran at me and threw his arms around my shoulder trying to hug me down. As he did, he tried to kick at me. Instead of remaining locked in, I used my foot to shove him off.

As we were fighting, Rickey kept holding Melanie as she screamed for us to stop. Cliff kept trying to tell Jasper to 'fight like a man' and to stop hugging me every time I wanted to throw a decent punch. But I had something for that the next time. As I skipped around him, remaining nimble, he rushed for me, rearing his right fist back. But instead of him getting his hit in, I took a step forward and gave him a swing from right. Upon impact, the sound was reminiscent of a folded belt snapping closed. He tried to come back towards me, but he stumbled towards his left, allowing a clear opening for another hit. With one final wind and release, he dropped to the lawn as limpidly as a crash-test dummy. As I finished, I could hear Cliff cheering. Both Reggie and Rickey came running over to scream in his face.

"You got knocked the fuck out!" They both said in unison.

This fight was beyond done. I walked over to him to speak to the 'sleeping' Jasper. "You know... you talk a lot of shit."

Cliff walked over and saw him staring blankly at the sky. His chest didn't indicate that he was breathing, nor did he blink at all. Cliff grew concerned. "Damn, is he dead?"

Melanie walked over and just stared at him. "No, I think he's just out of it."

Immediately after she said something, we could hear an unsettling snorting noise coming from him as he lied motionless.

Reggie gave him a light slap to the face. "Nondis, did you just seriously put this guy to sleep?"

Melanie immediately got up in a panic. "Oh no. We gotta get him to a hospital. That's sound is bad news."

"Wait, what's bad news?" Cliff asked.

As I listened in closely, I had become familiar to the sound he was producing. It was a similar sound that the changelings made just moments before expiring. Not a good thing to hear. "That's not's snoring, that's a death rattle." I clarified.

"Death rattle?" Cliff asked.

Melanie explained it further. "When fluids get into the bronchial tube or the trachea, they tend to be unable to swallow that extra fluid. So in short, they choke and die."

The five of us looked at each other with panic on our faces. We did not need a dying person on our front lawn.

About an hour after our scramble, we sent Reggie and Melanie to the hospital so that they could take Jasper in for treatment. Thankfully, he came to by the time he got there. As she finished getting him signed in, Reggie had her call the police and let them know what all had happened with her. Ultimately, as soon as he was given outpatient care, the police were there to take him in. Melanie also had to go with them to submit a report as well as let them take pictures of her bruises.

Meanwhile, Rickey, Cliff and I took the U-Haul to my apartment and unloaded all of the bins full of weapons. As soon as we had finished unloading, Rickey came to realize that my apartment was just too small to hide all of his weapons out of plain sight. I tried to explain to him how I would go about hiding the weapons, but sadly I couldn't make up a story that would sound logical.

"Dude, that's not gonna work." Rickey stated as all three of us stared at the stacked bins of guns filling up my living room.

"Just trust me, it'll work. You won't even know where to look."

"Unless you're going to be breaking the walls and using them as some sort of facade, I don't see this happening. Plus we're on the second floor, so hiding them in the floor won't work either."

Cliff groaned as he stood up from where he sat. "Man, while y'all keep talking about this shit, I'm bout to go use the bathroom."

"Go to my room, all the way to the end of the hall, make a left and you should run right into it."

As he walked in, he started talking about the lack of a bed. "Do you sleep on the floor or somethin?"

"Nah, getting a new bed. Mine got squeaky so I just dumped it."

As the door closed in the back, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. As I pulled it out, I had noticed a text from Reggie saying that Mel was getting a case and was more than likely going to call for witnesses. Great... this again. And knowing our justice system, this shit was going to take a full three to five months to even process.

At least I would be finished with most of my work on the other end. But there's still the matter of how the hell I'm going to explain where all of these weapons will be carted off to.

"AHHHHHH!"

...That didn't sound good.

"What? What's wrong?" Rickey shouted to the bathroom.

"Nondis' mirror tried to eat my ass!"

...Yeah, busted.

Rickey and I came running in and saw that he was laying on the floor, staring back at the mirror. I immediately went on damage control. "What did you do?"

"I saw something black on the mirror, so when I tried to wipe it off, that shit just wrapped around my hand and tried to eat me on some alien-type shit!" I sure wish he wasn't the curious type.

"What? Psssh, nah!" Rickey said as he tried to touch the mirror. I immediately stepped in the way, holding him back with one arm.

"Hey look, can we get back to weapons real quick. I'm pretty sure he's just making shit up."

Unfortunately, neither Cliff nor Rickey seemed to take that idea into mind as the pointed at me. "Um... We can do that, but uh... let's talk about your arm."

As I looked back, I could see the mirror's surface wrapping around my arm as it was partially buried into the surface. I grimaced as I had realize that this couldn't go on unexplained. And any reason would sound logical to them at this point. I was going to have to tell them the truth about it at some point, since my communication skills were severely lacking. But now I had to tell them based off of the sole fact that they had already seen for themselves what the mirror was.

It would also help me explain to Rickey how I would hide all of these weapons.

"Oh... that. The mirror is-"

"Some alien shit?" Cliff finished.

Well, no point in trying to hide it now. "Yeah, I was gonna say magical, but if that's what you wanna go by." Both of them started to back away as I let my arm phase through the mirror. They both stared at me crazy as they saw me pull it back out as if nothing had happened. "But as you can tell, it's perfectly harmless. And in short, this was were I was gonna hide everything."

The two guys just stared at me, then stared at each other. Afterwards, Cliff got off of the floor and started to put his arm through. Nothing happened as he pulled it out. But he went a step further and stuck his head through to look inside. When he pulled back out, his expression was locked in a state of amazement. "Bruh, there's like a huge-ass room."

"Let me see." Rick said as he pushed me and Cliff out of the way. But as he approached, he tripped over Cliff's foot and fell inside completely. Cliff went in to get him, but they stayed for a few seconds. After a while I decided to walk in after them.

When I walked through, I had caught the two staring directly at the purple alicorn standing before them. She stood in awkward silence as she stared back, her mouth agape. Rickey turned to me and pointed to her. "Dude... that."

Cliff stared pinching himself as he tried to assure himself that this was all just a dream. He even slapped himself, thinking that would wake him up. Of course, his efforts were to no avail. He looked back at me with a dumbfounded look. "What the hell?"

"You remember when I was talking about a magical land of talking ponies and snarky dragons that all came in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes?"

They both nodded simultaneously.

"Well, you're in it."

CRAWLING IN MY SKIN

Yeah, as you can tell I finally added the [Dark] tag. I only did it now because this chapter was going to be dealing with the issue of abuse in greater detail, even to the point where the results were graphically described. But keep your eyes open for next chapter, as it will be significantly lighter. I was supposed to add it upon a few chapters back when dealing with the changelings in Ponyville, but I had gotten sidetracked.

So yeah, hindsight is a bitch. *looks back to chapter 6*

This tag will be implemented for future chapters (yet I will try to keep them as sparse as possible). The other tags (namely [Comedy]) are still there for the sake of the chapters to come.

I am aware that I will lose readers due to that tag, but I am more than prepared to face that consequence for the sake of storytelling.