Chapter 32- Endings and Beginnings

The fight against Brass Button’s cyberponies was almost anti-climactic. With Celestia with us the battle was over in less than an hour. Buttons and Mercy were taken alive, (more or less), to stand public trial for their crimes. They are expected to be released from Luna’s dungeon in about… never.

The minds of the ponies affected by Dr. Double were restored to normal. Unfortunately the ones affected by Buttons machine were not so easily fixed. They are in the institute at Canterlot, Dr. Turing is doing all that he can for them.

Detectives Shooting Star, and Glitter Mane are back on the force, fully recovered. Apparently their forced convalescence was good for them. I recently received a letter asking me if I would be interested in attending a wedding. I told them I would be honored.

Sable Shade did mange to retire despite all the protests from both Luna and Celestia. He then promptly accepted a new job. As head of Johnny One Note Private Investigations. (I hear he is changing the name, despite Ori’s objections).

Ori is doing well. Her sister visits often, and she still corresponds with Celestia, almost daily now. I hear that her, Cherry Tart, Babs, and Chrysalis are all getting together for Oktoberfest next week.

Lyra and Bon Bon decided to stay in Whinnyappleous. They got wrapped up in listening to all those Batmare and Redwing serials on the Ponaudio, and now have it in their heads to be full time superheroes for real. Lindana loves the idea, and Ed will do anything for Lyra, so there’s that. I hear they consult with Sable Shade and Easy Money on a lot of their cases. Being a detective isn’t easy, but I think they’ll get the hang of it eventually.

Luna’s got the city back to normal. Well, as normal as Sin City CAN get. She’s got her spell of Eternal Night back up and running. And after a through purging, Night Industries has once again become number one in producing cutting edge technology to improve the lives of Luna’s ponies. I hear that next year she’s coming out with a device than any pony can use to send messages to one another anywhere in the world, so long as the other pony has one of the devices as well. I heard the Apple family has invested heavily in it due to their large number of relatives. Heck, they may even name it after them. It would only make their sales rise. After all, who doesn’t like an Apple product?

Celestia… well, we are on speaking terms at least. I read the file. I knew most of it already from the soul link. I’m not mad at her… exactly. She had Twilight’s best interest at heart. I did resign however, just as I intended to do.

Moonlight and I had a very awkward conversation. I could tell that she wanted to say something, I could almost guess what it was, but she didn’t ask, and I didn’t have to turn her down. On the subject of the Wendigos that day, she wouldn’t say anything. It made it easier to say goodbye.

Bon Bon on the other hoof, had NO problem saying what she wanted. Loudly and in great detail. It took time for me to make her understand what Twilight meant to me. Then we hugged, and we cried, and she threw me into a fountain… in a good nature’d sort of way… I think.

And then there was my trip to Ponyville.

I had been avoiding this place. After Whinnyappleous it seemed so… small. Pinkie met me as soon as I crossed into town. We had met before when Ori and I went to visit her relatives. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Hmm, considering I had died since then, I guess it was.

Normally Pinkie would be chattering away nonstop, planning a party, talking about every little thing about every little pony. But not that day. Nope. She just sidles up to me with the biggest ‘full of herself’ grin on her face, throws a hoof around my shoulder and asks

“Sooo, come to visit Twilight?”

I replied ‘yes’, in a cautious manner. And then, in the blink of an eye, she’s gone. I mean gone. Like she teleported or something. Dang. That’s impressive.

I made my way through town toward Twilight’s Castle. A lot of ponies turned and looked at me as I went by, not surprising me being a stranger and all. But why were they all grinning at me? Weird.

I had heard about Twilight’s Castle, but never actually seen it before. The first word that came to mind was… ‘tacky’. Very, very, tacky. I mean, I know that she had no choice in the matter, cosmic forces and all that, but sheesh! It look like the Crystal Empire had gotten drunk one night and threw up on Ponyville’s lawn. Oh, well. Like I said, it wasn’t like she was given a choice in the matter. I reached up to knock on the door, but to my surprise it opened up before I could do so.

Suddenly I found myself looking eye to eye with a young adolescent dragon. This must be Spike.

“Lord Duskwind, I presume.” He says, bowing formally.

“Just Duskwind please,” I reply, not for the first time hating the tile Luna forced upon me.

“Of course,” Spike replies. “Right this way please, you’ve been expected.”

“Expected? But I never told Twilight when I was coming. I wanted to surprise her.”

“Surprise her?” Spike says in amusement. “I don’t know how to tell you this buddy, but the whole town’s known you’ve been coming since the day you set out. One day, last week, Pinkie’s ‘Pinkie Sense’ went off bigger than it ever has before. And since she knows Twilight, and had already met you, it didn’t take her long to deduce what was going on. She had a ‘feeling’.”

“Pinkie Sense? Oh yeah, I remember now, the Pie family has all sorts of special earth pony abilities. So, um, Twilight knows I’m here then?”

“You could say that,” Spike says, opening the door to the throne room.

Oh, sweet Celestia! It’s a good thing this room is big, there’s over a dozen ponies in here! Some of them I recognize. Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie (of course),her sister Maud, Fluttershy, her husband Discord, Twilight’s apprentice Starlight Glimmer, three adolescent ponies all bearing similar cutie marks?, how odd, wait, is that Shining Armor and Princess Cadence? Then that must be their foal Flurry Heart playing with Fluttershy’s foal Screwball, and of course there’s… Twilight.

“You look surprised.” She says, trotting slowly up to me, her eyes half lidded, as she closes my open jaw with her hoof. “You really shouldn’t be, there’s no way you could ever out surprise Pinkie Pie.”

“I-I guess not.” I stammer looking around at all the faces staring so expectantly at me. I clear my throat. {Ahem}, “So I guess you already know why I’m here then?” I ask weakly, fumbling a small box in my hooves. I’ve never felt so intimidated in all my life.

“Yes.” She replies, smiling. “Yes I will.”

“Well, in that cas- Wait, you didn’t say ‘Yes I do’, you said ‘yes I WILL’, does that mean?”

“Yes you silly pony, of COURSE I will marry you!” she says, opening the box with her magic, and slipping the chain with her new engagement ring around her neck.

I stare at her, mouth open once more, my eyes beginning to form tears of joy. I can’t believe what I just heard. Words I never thought I would ever hear, not in a millions years.

“Well?” she says expectantly.

“W-well?” I stammer, trying to overcome my shock at what just happened.

“Kiss her you fool!” Discord yells, “it’s really not that hard, it goes like this,” he says, lifting his wife in his arms, and kissing her passionately.

“Oh Discord!” Fluttershy says, blushing.

“Well, I’M not going to be upstaged,” Twilight says, her eyes smoldering, as she grabs me and kisses me for oh… an eternity or so.

That was a very good day.

Eventually we came up for air of course. Then there was the party. By Celestia does that group know how to party. Then after the party was over, came… well, you know, the sex. Quite a lot of ‘the sex’.

Then there was the ‘finding of the Pinkie Pie in the closet’ and the ‘teleporting of the Pinkie Pie to Yakyakistan’. Then there was more of ‘the sex’. Then there was the midnight snack run, then more of ‘the sex’. Followed by the ‘Maud Pie walking in because Boulder was hungry’, which was, in turn, followed by the ‘Maud Pie joining her sister in Yakyakistan’. Followed by more of- but I don’t want to bore anypony.

The following morning (okay afternoon), I told Twilight everything. I mean everything. I showed her the folder, told her about coming back from the dead, about what Junior said, and everything else. I was actually pretty worried about my condition. Am I alive? Am I a zompony? And I wasn’t sure how Twilight would take it all. To be honest, she was more upset about the folder than she was about me.

“Celestia and I need to have a talk,” She said firmly.

“Yeah, I figured as much, and I’ll support you no matter what. Um, but what about the rest of it? My, um, condition?”

“Oh Duskwind, you’ve made me so happy! A brand new state of being to study! Are you immortal, do you need to eat? Do you crave brains? Can you have foals? Oh so many tests to preform! I can’t wait to get started!”

Of course. I should have known. That’s my Twilight!

“So, um what sort of tests did you have in mind first?” I ask, almost dreading the answer.

“Well,” she says lowering her eyes, and casting the remains of a very late breakfast off of the kitchen counter with her magic. I though we might do some work on that ‘foals’ question.”

Okay… THAT’S my Twilight…