“I’m not entirely certain if it was bravery or stupidity that lead you to come here.” A haughty brown pegasus strutted in like he owned the place…oh right. He was fairly young, Barrier noted. The son of Clavier’s former rival, perhaps? Had Clavier succeeded? This pony had only begun his adult life.

“Neither of the above.” Barrier wasn’t sitting down in the provided chair when the pegasus walked in. Rather, he stood up perfectly straight, his eyes narrowed into a stare that would make Nightmare Moon nervous.

The pegasus backed up in surprise as the unicorn’s eyes fixated on him, a frown fixating on his face.

With a burst of magic, the door slammed shut, startling the two ponies standing outside of it and causing both of them to try and force it open - the barrier around the inside of the door wasn’t going anywhere.

“Do you know who I am? I’ll have you kil-” The pegasus was shut up by arguably the hardest right hook Magic Barrier had ever thrown. The pegasus went down like a sack of potatoes, eyes wide in surprise.

The unicorn’s horn grew even brighter and a magenta glow wrapped itself around the pegasus’s throat, lifting him bodily.

“Funny huh? Most unicorns these days can’t manipulate other ponies with magic. Takes too much raw energy to bypass natural resistance.” It was uncommon one-thousand years ago, and Barrier’s horn clearly explained why - it had four layers of magic and was blindingly bright to look at.

The pegasus struggled uselessly with his hooves and wings, trying to break the magical hold. The moment he flapped his wings, the glow surrounded them as well, pulling them taut. Barrier’s mane had begun to flow violently as the waves of energy ran through it, taking on a near-ethereal appearance for a moment. With a burst of magic, the pegasus was flung into the solitary bookcase in the room.

Chaconne hit the bookcase with a meaty thud, books crashing down on top of him. Shooting to his feet, he cried out in pain as his right wing stayed tethered to the ground, Barrier’s hoof holding it there. Angrily, he began to lash out at the unicorn, his hoof bouncing off a thin layer of energy that had coated the stallion.

“Now, I’m going to say some things and you’re going to listen, are we clear?”

The magically reinforced door broke and the ponies began to pound away on the barrier behind it.

All the pegasus could do was nod in fear as it dawned on him that he was effectively defenseless.

“You tried to kill the single most important pony in my life. By all rights, I should kill you; luckily for you, Octavia wouldn’t like that.” With a flare of magic, the barrier around the door formed several particularly vicious spikes, causing the ponies to back away and stop bucking it, save for one unfortunate pony who had been mid-buck and skewered his leg before the spike dissipated. They were all frantic and quite clearly very angry at their inability to break the shield.

“So, instead, I’ve settled on putting the fear of Tartarus into you.”

Barrier applied more weight to the pegasus, the thin bones audibly crunching and causing the pegasus to squeal out in pain, tears forming in the young stallion’s eyes.

“Octavia has exempted herself from her father’s will, she has no interest in any of his former affairs, and if I ever so much as suspect that you’re going to make another attempt at her life or mine, I will break you, and not every hired hoof in this city will be able to stop me.” Barrier punctuated the statement with a stomp of his hoof, shattering more of the thin bones in the wing. Not enough to cripple the young pegasus, but it would certainly drive the point home.

“Are we clear on this?” Barrier’s hard gaze continued to bore into Chaconne’s soul.

“Y-yes!” The pegasus managed to stammer out.

“Yes what?!” Barrier all but shouted.

“Yes sir, I promise I’ll not attempt to harm you or Miss Melody, please don’t kill me!”

With a grunt, Barrier gripped the pegasus in his hooves and lifted him bodily, standing upright as he slammed him into the wall viciously. “And you better bucking remember it, because if you don’t, I’ll gut you like a trout.” There was no mercy in the stallion’s voice.

The pegasus lost all bladder control and soiled himself.

“Pathetic.” Barrier all but spat, throwing the pegasus across the room with a heave.

Turning to the door, Barrier glanced at the ponies all attacking it with makeshift weapons and multiple unicorns with their horns aglow.

I should be way more tired than I am… Barrier mentally noted. He had always been a capable mage, but he didn’t recall having access to this much magic. He could feel the drain of the recent activities, but it was nowhere near what he had expected. With a brutal flare of magic, the barrier burst outward, sending a powerful wave of telekinetic force, shoving the multitude of ponies backwards, but causing little damage due to the natural magic resistance ponies shared. With a pointless flourish of his head, the unicorn disappeared in a burst of teleportation.

“That should take care of that.” Barrier glanced at the mansion behind him, having teleported right to the edge of the grounds. As he expected, all of the guards had been called to try and gain access to the room.

As he made his way back towards the street a sad frown worked it’s way onto his countenance. He couldn’t say he was terribly fond of terrorizing a pony that young, but it was necessary, he reasoned. Nobody would hurt Octavia if he could help it.

“Are you out of your mind?!” An all-too-familiar voice broke the unicorn’s concentration.

With a flick of his magic, Barrier slowed the treadmill to a halt.

“You just got out of the hospital and you’re already doing exactly what the doctor told you not to!” The purple mare huffed angrily.

“Relax, Twilight, it’s just light exercise.” The unicorn waved at several other patrons of the gym, causing them to nod and go back to their business. “And lower your voice, you’ll get us thrown out of here.”

Twilight blushed as she realized she’d been yelling and followed the advice. “What the hay are you thinking, Barrier? You should be in bed resting, not exercising.”

“I could ask you the same thing. Not too many ponies come to Manehattan for vacation.” Barrier didn’t meet the mare’s eyes as he trotted over to a set of bars and jumped slightly, grabbing the topmost bar and beginning chin-ups while the mare responded.

The lavender mare gave him her flattest stare. ”I don’t have a patched hole in my lung. You.” Twilight enunciated the word. “Are going to end up doing irreparable damage to yourself at this rate.”

“First of all,” Barrier replied in-between the chin-ups. “we both know I won’t stay in bed and rest. It’s way too boring. Secondly, I’ve already finished my errands for the day and had nothing else to do, since I can’t really bug Octavia at work, so I am doing some light exercising. As long as I’m not overworking my lungs, I’ll be fine, and believe me, I’m not working near hard enough to worry about that.” Barrier dropped down from the bar and gazed at Twilight softly. “Relax, Twi. I know my body’s limits and I don’t plan on going back to the hospital any time soon.”

“I can’t believe Octavia let you even leave the house.” Twilight sighed and shook her head in resignation.

“Yeah, if you could not tell her I was at the gym, that’d be swell.” The stallion chuckled nervously as he slowly made his way over to the leg-press. He didn’t use his hind-legs all that often in a fight, but better to have them and not need them than the alternative, he reasoned. “So, what brings you to a Manehattan gym?” The unicorn once more began his work.

“I was on my way to the library to pick up some books that were mistakenly delivered here instead of Ponyville, but my darned map is wrong. Nothing matches!” The unicorn fumed and held up the map in question in her magic.

Barrier took the map in his own magic.

“Anyways, while I was looking around for somepony to ask directions, I saw you through the windows, and so here we are.”

A muffled chuckle escaped him as soon as he looked at it. “Twilight, this isn’t a map of Manehattan, it’s Canterlot.” Barrier pointed out several fairly obvious landmarks on the map, one of which was labeled “To Canterlot Castle” and climbed off of his machine still laughing.

“But that’s impossible! I double and triple-checked my saddlebags, just like the checklist said! It shou…” The mare trailed off as her eye twitched involuntarily. “Rainbow Dash.” A weary sigh escaped the mare as she tucked the map back into her saddlebags.

“Come on, I’ll walk you to the library. In exchange, if we could keep the whole gym bit from Octavia, that’d be great.”

“So, how are you liking Manehattan, Barrier?” Twilight tried to spark a conversation as the pair departed the gym.

“Eh it’s okay. Sucks that I’m out of work, but that’s life. Hopefully that ad in the paper will turn something up. Other than that, it’s been fine. Oh, Octavia and I are going to be moving out of our apartment for a house soon. How’ve things been in Ponyville?”

Barrier was really glad that he hadn’t stayed in Ponyville. The ponies in that town were crazy, if Twilight’s stories were to be believed.

“Sure you don’t wanna crash at our place tonight? Overnight train-rides suck.” The charcoal-coated unicorn asked as he trotted towards the Manehattan Train Station, over a half-dozen crates packed to the brim with books floating behind him and Twilight.

“Wish I could, but I can’t leave Spike in charge of the library for that long.” Twilight smiled apologetically at her grandfather, who simply shrugged in response.

“Ah well, here we are.” The aura around the crates swapped to purple. “Have a safe trip kiddo, I’ll see you soon.” The pair hugged briefly and separated.

With a sigh, Barrier turned and departed the train station. The mare had been well over two-hours from the library the first time and refused to take a carriage, as such, he had walked through lunch, and then another two-and-a-half hours to the train station. Though he knew she wouldn’t have objected to going to the train station herself, he simply couldn’t bring himself to do it. His stomach was not happy with that little tidbit.

Glancing up at the soft sound of wings, Barrier chuckled slightly as Aloysius landed neatly on his back, a dead mouse held firmly in his back.

“Caught yourself some dinner, huh?”

“Hoo.” The owl responded, setting the carcass on Barrier’s withers and moving up to his head.

“Oh come on now.” The unicorn shook the carcass off of his withers, much to Aloysius’s irritation. “Ow, hey!” Barrier lowered his head instinctively as the owl pecked it, despite that the owl was perched on his head and only pecked again.

“Come on, cut that out or I won’t cook you dinner.”

The owl stopped mid-peck. “Hoo?”

“What, you thought I’d make you fend for yourself? Hay, I planned on feeding you for the rest of your life, but if you wanna feed yourself, I won’t complain.”

The owl tilted his head back almost as if he’d been struck. “Hoo.”

“Oh, now you’re nice.” Barrier chuckled slightly. “Come on, let’s get home and get something to eat while we wait for Octavia.”

“Barrier, I’m home!”

“Barrier?” The mare called out once more, poking her head in the kitchen. A single solitary pot sat on the stove, warming.

“Barrier?” Octavia trotted out of the kitchen and into the living room. At first glance, it was empty, but as she made it further in, she chuckled quietly. The unicorn was stomach-up on the couch, his legs scrunched up neatly, with his tongue lolling out slightly.

Leaving the stallion, the mare went into the kitchen and checked the stove, finding a rich vegetable stew still in the pan at a fairly comfortable temperature.

After depositing her cello in her room and eating a quick meal, she found herself back in the living room, glancing at the sleeping stallion. “Very well, come on you.” The mare snaked her head underneath the sleeping stallion and heaved him onto her back. Much to her surprise, Barrier didn’t so much as twitch at the shift. “Off to bed.” The mare carefully carried him to his room, which she suspected at this point was more their room.

A soft smile on her face, she pulled the covers over the sleeping stallion and crawled in neatly beside him. Feeling the stallion’s arms wrap around her and pull her in close like a teddy bear, the mare closed her eyes and went out like a light.

Author's Notes:

So Izanagi got his friggin' cheerios. Managed to haggle down the half-can of pepsi to a full cup of ice, so at least there's that. I think I might have to put my editors down soon. Alticron is starting armor made from chicken-bone. No psychiatrist is going to go anywhere near the guy.

So, thanks to them for editing again I suppose. Still think I should start clubbing them, but concussions don't go well with editing. Sad days. Also, additional thanks to ChasingResonance for pointing out a huge mistake I made with this chapter. Can't believe I broke my bb-code that badly.