I ended up cooling my heels for about three more days before Beige returned to tell me that I had a mission. I got to see Twilight twice over that period of time and filled her in on everything I could, though she didn't like the fact that I was going to be doing Romulus’ dirty work instead of letting the bastard get his own hands bloody. I told her that it was deep in his American blood to rebel against the system and make a right mess of everything, which got me called a racist, but I didn’t really care all that much since the fucker was trying to take over, like, a quarter of the fucking planet.

It rattled me to no end that Romulus was holding all of the cards at the moment, though I did have one in my back pocket that I couldn’t pull out while we were still playing the game. I didn’t know how it would affect whatever spells he had, but then again, I wasn’t exactly expecting him to slip up or anything. Sure, I was waiting for it, but I had a feeling that Jeremy was a cautious guy and that he wouldn’t make too many mistakes for me to capitalize on. It sucked that I didn’t have anyone that I could take hostage so I could work him like he was working me, but that’s what happens when you don’t make many friends… Maybe I need to make less friends?

Speaking of making fewer friends, the girls were released earlier today and they’ve all been returned to their families, happy and healthy. I was allowed to go and check up on them, and now that I’ve seen for myself that they’re okay I’m feeling much better about the proceedings, even if they are sketchy as fuck. I know Fluttershy is appreciating being home, and that Applejack is glad to be back on her farm, but Rarity is afraid for her business, Rainbow is worried about the Wonderbolts, and Pinkie’s doing some groundwork for me since I managed to rope her into it. Well, I say that, but it’s more like she was ready to jump into the fray and just needed someone to point her in the right direction.

I know that QT must have been going crazy since she and Spike had to leave their library empty for the entire time that they were imprisoned, but they played it off well enough while they were still in their bubble. I’d hated to leave them alone while I went to go talk to Twilight, but it was either them or her, and I chose her every time. Don’t blame me, blame love. That being said, Romulus allowed me to have more time with Twilight than the hour I was promised since I didn’t make any moves to escape or pull any bullshit and he said that I would continue to be able to spend more time with my wife as long as I kept playing nice, so that’s what I did.

The events of the last three or so days haven’t been terribly important other than my friends being released and getting on with their lives. That’s really about all that’s happened that’s worthy of note, to be completely honest. Other than that, I’ve just been talking to Beige when she’s available and reading now more than ever. The Others still want me to stay the course since it seems like a good time to do that, though Prime is hating the fact that we’re being played hard. It sucks, but it is what it is. For the time being, we play along and hope that we get out of this with just physical pain instead of heavy emotional scarring or some shit.

Here’s hoping, yeah?

Beige stopped by shortly after I got my thoughts written out, and from the clock that she brought me, I could see that it was nine in the evening. “Well thanks, love. I appreciate the clock.”

“It’s often frustrating to not know the time. I thought that it would be a kind gesture.” Beige droned.

“It’s definitely appreciated, as I said. Makes me feel like less of a prisoner, you know?”

“Oh, I do know. That’s why I brought it.”

“Right. So is there any other reason you’ve come along, or are you here to fuck around and relax for a little bit?”

Beige looked around my room and started heading toward the center of it. “I suppose it would not hurt to have a seat for a moment.”

I followed her at a sedate pace. “That’s the ticket, love. I see that the girls got released today.”

“It was far too late for that in my opinion, but at least they are home safe and sound. I do not like keeping prisoners for no reason.”

“You say that like you’d rather have them be dead.” I stated evenly.

“I would not. I find death to be an unfortunate fact of life. I do not take pleasure in killing, nor do I wish for your friends to be hurt for simply having connections to you.”

“Should have figured as much. It’s weird to think that they came so close to dying before I even knew that they were in trouble.” I sighed.

Beige had a seat on one of my sofas, so I took a chair nearby. “Worrying over the past will do the present no favours.”

“Trust me, I know that better than most people, even soldiers.” I sighed again. “It just sucks that everyone who gets close to me is being put in harm’s way one way or the other. I mean, back on Equus it was pretty much inevitable since there was a war going on for nearly two years, but here? Things were peaceful until I showed up. I know that was just because Romulus hadn’t shown his hand yet, but I still feel terrible for getting innocent civilians and my own fucking wife involved in something they had no business being involved in.”

“Knowing the future is for Seers and The Creator, Maximus. I would not worry over the matter.” Beige said.

“Wise words that will be ignored. Not by choice, of course, but by emotion.”

“Beating yourself up over mistakes you did not make is pointless.” Beige said blandly.

“You don’t know me that well.” I chuckled. “This is a natural part of the process.”

“Make it an unnatural part and then get rid of it.” Beige commanded.

“Nah, go fuck yourself a duck.”

“Is that slang of some kind?”

“No, I just wanna see you fuck a water fowl. They have crazy corkscrew penises.” I informed helpfully.

“That information was useless.”

“You never know when someone might ask you what a duck's dick looks like. You should probably know that they’re as long as their bodies in some cases. Ducks also rape each other like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I did not need to know any of this.” Beige said drolly.

“But now you do and knowing is half the battle. What if we have to fight some ducks? Now you’ll know to protect your arse if you ever get captured.” I gave her a smarmy grin.

“You are a strange person to say the least.”

“What can I say? It comes with the territory.”

“Indeed. Now that we have engaged in polite, though odd, conversation, I feel that now is the time to give you the bad news.”

“As long as Twilight isn’t hurt, the news can’t be that bad.”

“Then you may actually find this to be good news. You will be deployed tomorrow.”

“Lovely. So what all do I have to look forward to during the excursion?”

“A long train ride full of soldiers and a battle or three at the end of it. If you can manage to cow the Mexicoltians, then that will be good enough.”

“Good enough isn’t good enough when you’re trying to set up an Empire. The guy’s going to over-extend and fuck it all up before he can see his goal come to fruition.” I said matter-of-factly.

“I’m starting to believe that you are right. The more I think about the matter, the more it seems like we are growing at an exponential rate. My parent’s militia once experienced a similar scenario and we lost half of our expanded number in one night because we just grew too large too quickly. The rest of the world is going to strike out at us and try to restore the balance, one way or another. Whether that means finding a new balance with Equestria taken apart and cordoned off into different countries or the reintroduction of Celestia and Luna onto their thrones, I do not know. However, I do know that things will be going downhill soon and that we’d better be prepared. My inner circle is prepared for the fall, but I worry for the odd mercenaries we have.”

“The scales are definitely going to tip, and they’re going to spill hard, but your mercs know what they’re getting into. They might not have thought this far ahead, but I don’t doubt that they’ll save their own arses before they get rolled.” I assured her.

“And Romulus would hunt them all down for deserting.” Beige said flatly.

“As they should expect. Dude’s brutal.”

“That he is. Then again, in our line of work, it’s hard not to be.”

“Nah, I’ve actually met a woman who can do what we do and function somewhat in daily life. It was kinda crazy, and she’s kinda crazy, but she makes more people feel good than she does bad.”

“She sounds like quite the character. I assume she is at large and is working against us?”

“She might be, but I don’t know. The version of her on this world isn’t quite the same as the her on my world.” I shrugged. “It’ll work itself out.”

“I’m sure it will. Don’t get your friend killed, Maximus.” Beige warned, her voice still decidedly neutral.

“If you can actually put her down, I’ll eat your arse with a spoon.” I chuckled.

“So she rivals your power?”

“Yup. Scary little fucker, she is.”

“Quite. I will return in the morning to lead you to Romulus so he may teleport us and our battalion to Mexicolt. We already have forces waiting, hiding in some border towns as settlers looking to purchase land and build a life. We will rendezvous with them and then the show shall start.” Beige got up from the sofa.

I patted her shoulder. “Take care, Beige. Have some naughty thoughts of me tonight, will you? It’ll do my ego a much needed boost.”

She rolled her eyes. “If I thought of you in such a way I would actively flirt with you. No, you seem like a comrade to me, and if we were on the same side, I could see us doing great things… I suppose you seem like a natural leader.”

I smirked at her. “You are talking to a Prince, Beige. I rule my own city-state after all.”

“I forgot that you were royalty. You do not have much of a regal aura.”

“Well, I’ve been called the ‘Blue-Collar’ Prince by a lot of people. It’s because I do a lot of swearing and I came up from fucking nothing, to be straight with you.”

“So you are self-made?”

“Ever since the age of thirteen.” I nodded.

“I’ll have to ask your life story on the ride to Mexicolt. We can trade tales.”

“That’d be cool. The life of an Operative slash Prince compared to the life of a mercenary
slash rebel sounds like shades of grey on opposite ends of the spectrum. Establishment versus Anarchy.” I had myself a chuckle at that.

“We are not anarchists, but I find your comparison humourous anyway. I have been friends with a few Operatives and I know a Prince of Gryphonia, but never before have I befriended both in the same person.” Beige drawled.

“Who says we’re friends? I’m just nice to you because you’re nice to me.” I teased.

“... Is that not what friendship is?” Beige asked after a moment.

“I was fucking with you, but yeah, it kinda is. I mean, some people are dicks to each other because they find it funny, but friendship is kinda just based off of whatever two people like in each other.” I scratched my head.

“What is it that you like about me?” Beige asked.

I raised a brow. “You’re easy to talk to. I know when you’re lying and the only lie you’ve told me so far was that Nasty Night wasn’t supposed to lead me to this room. You either wanted to justify me doing what I did or you wanted him out of the way. I also get to fuck with you and it seems like you barely react to it, but you usually have something amusing or funny to say in response.”

“As far as Nasty goes, I wanted to justify your actions and giving you that information was crucial just in case someone came asking questions. As far as your reasons for our friendship, I find them acceptable and reciprocate those feelings in a slightly different though similar manner.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer.” I said drily.

“It was the best was to get my feelings across honestly.” She said drearily.

“It was the best way to sound disingenuous as fuck. Get over here and kiss me to show me you meant it.” I huffed.

“Good night, Maximus. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She started heading for the door.

“Night, Beige.”

With her gone, I started exercising to keep myself sharp and moved through the forms of Flowing Water. When I was finished with my fifth repetition of the full set, I started on the third form, recent-ishly named ‘Storm at Sea’. With the quick incantation, I was prepared to start going through my third set of considerably longer combos, though I practiced sliding kicks and sweeps more than anything. Without someone to help me with my ground game, it was going to be hit or miss, but if I could keep an opponent on their arse, they’d have a harder time of catching my arse napping. With stone walls, I could practice with lightning as long as I kept it relatively weak, though I was mostly concerned with learning how to curve my bolts. I managed to get them to deviate from their course slightly, but it was hard to tell when I got it right since the bolts weren’t exactly solid streams of plasma.

Still, I gave myself some time to learn how to ride the lightning for considerably shorter distances, though I still hit the walls every once in awhile and had to meditate to heal up once. It wasn’t anything too bad, but I’d cracked a finger and that shit hurt. After I was confident that I was still in top form, I did some more meditating, but didn’t go into the mindscape and instead tapped into my surroundings. I felt for the aura of the mountain and found it to be a dark one, though not necessarily malevolent. It was definitely a place where the strong survived, if the aura was anything to go by, but I didn’t know how much of that was the environment or the community within. I didn’t want to try drawing in any of that bad juju hoodoo, so I focused on sensing more of the structure since I’d gotten a decent start a few days ago but just hadn’t felt like doing it again.

The hard stone walls were comprised of different minerals in different pockets around the mountain. If I knew what the different minerals felt like, I probably could have figured out what a few of them were, but I’m not exactly a geologist, nor do I ever plan on becoming one. However, through my continued search of the mountain’s natural ebb and flow, I discerned that the mountain had Magic to it. The room I was in was actually full of ambient Magic for some odd reason, so I tried drawing some of it in through my breathing, using the little bit of Nasty’s Magic I had left to roughly manhandle a siphon into the ether so I could draw in the Aether. Sadly, it just wasn’t in me to get it done right, so I called Kaid in to handle the fine tuning and he ended up wasting less Magic than I did. He even figured out how to filter the mountain’s ‘negative’ energies by using Sombra’s Dark Magic as a magnet, which meant that we had a fucktonne of energy being stored in one vessel while the other one was being drained. However, once I had a pretty decent supply of Aether to work with, I started stealing it from the mountain itself with my True Theft now that I was familiar with how it felt. I couldn’t drain the mountain of what it was constantly pumping out due to the geothermic tunnels underneath it, but I did manage to build a well of Aether that was incredibly deep for no real fucking reason. There was just one thing.

I didn’t know how to use Aether…

I could feel where it resided inside of me, however, so I tried tapping into it and immediately recognized the ‘flavour’ of the Magic as being that which surrounded Castle Arcadia, though it had different undertones to it. Whatever it was that I had, I was most likely going to be making runes or enchanting things with it, but what could I possibly enchant that isn’t already enchanted to Hellenbach and back? The Warbling Blade is fucking loaded with enchantments that I don’t know of, Ol’ Harmless is made to do what it needs to, and my arm already hits like it has the weight of a fucking lorry behind it, so what could I possibly enchant further? My train of thought stayed on enchantments for all of five minutes before I realized that I was doing the same thing to the Aether that I was doing to my Telekinesis: I was putting it in a box when I didn’t know exactly what it could do.

With that in mind, I decided to start experimenting. As I continuously used Nasty’s horn as a conduit for more Aether, I tried forming the energy into a ball in my hand, swirling the energy around in a spiral as I summoned more of it. After a few seconds, a faint glow coalesced from the Ether and I could see my efforts paying off as the Aether took physical form. The more I focused, the faster it grew. I split my focus between making the ball stronger and channeling more energy, though the deep reservoir I’d already dug for myself didn’t really need to be aided anymore. When the ball finally filled my hand, the color in the center of the glowing mass of patterns and runic whorls was a pale slate, like the stone in most of the halls. I figured that I’d probably just sapped a lot of Magic from the mountain, so I tried throwing the ball at a wall and quickly realized that I done did a fuck up.

The entire base shook for a solid eight seconds, but nothing broke in my quarters. There were a lot of things that needed to be adjusted or fixed, but nothing that couldn’t just be put back in it’s proper place, so I got to work since I like to keep my living quarters tidy. After a few hours of getting things right and proper all over again, Beige and some female Gryphon came into my room, neither of them being nice enough to knock. I offered them some tea before I realized that I didn’t have any and apologized for that.

“Maximus, were you the reason the base shook?” Beige asked flatly.

“Yeah, sorry about that. It was a bit of an accident. Dropped some Aether and it got real shaky around these bits.” I scratched my head.

She blinked at me slowly. “So you can also form the Aether?”

“Yeah. I know Romulus can too.” I guessed.

The Gryphon chick yawned. “I still don’t see how you powerful types manage such feats, but then again, my tastes lean towards those of the dogs of war.”

Beige spared her a glance. “Maximus, this is Chartreuse, my long time Lieutenant.”

I extended a hand. “Warmonger or tactician?”

Chartreuse took it and shook it. “Tactician. Chess is my pastime when I’m not planning an assault or a defense. I assume you have another name that you go by other than Maximus? It seems like such a beakful, and I’ve always been fond of codenames.”

“My most common nickname is Max, and my old team used to call me Grey when we were in combat.”

“Call Me Char, most people do. I’ll be calling you Grey while we’re on assignment, so be paying attention when I call that name.” Char ‘requested’.

“You’ll have no problems for me. You might even find me to be a half decent source of information regarding tactics.” I shrugged. “It’s up to you whether or not you want my input though.”

Char raised a brow at me. “And you think I would let a former enemy turned tenuous ally direct a battle?”

“Maximus is a veteran of a worldwide war and lead thousands in a charge against far more enemies than we’ve ever faced,” Beige droned, “so his information may prove useful. It would unwise to count him out just yet.”

“And what has he done to earn your trust?” The Lieutenant asked sharply.

Beige gave her some side-eye. “He wishes for his wife to remain unharmed and has been vehement about freeing her. Maximus has also told me that he sees no other path to freeing his wife other than helping the cause, so he will not be eager to stall our progress.”

Char sniffed. “And you haven’t detected a hint of a lie?”

“He once told me that he was out of moves to make, but we both know that he is only in this situation because he chooses to stay faithful to his wife.”

“It’s not really a choice. It’s kinda just what feels natural when it comes to Twilight. I mean, the sooner I have her back, the sooner we can go back to snuggling.” I chimed in.

The mare and the Gryphoness stared at me. “... Snuggling?” Char asked.

I nodded. “It’s pretty great.”

“He is weird.” Beige said.

“I’m getting that vibe, but all the powerful types are, aren’t they?” Char said drily.

I shrugged. “We either start getting murderous or weird, and weird is the good option.”

“Right. It’s weird to think that someone who rivals Romulus is my equal.”

Beige nodded. “Is that an issue, Chartreuse?”

She raised a brow. “Not at all. Just means I get to fuck with him and he gets in trouble if he fucks me up.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ll just fuck that tight little arse of yours and we’ll see who fucks with who.” I gave her a predatory grin.

Char gave me a look. “Touch my rear and I’ll peck your eyes out.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, hot stuff.” I winked.

“Fucking weird.” Char muttered. She looked to Beige and asked, “So what are we doing, Captain? Are we waiting on this joker to get the last of it out before we go?”

“No, we need him to gather his clothes. And any weapons he may wish to bring, I suppose.” Beige looked to me. “I assume you’ve hidden your weapons around your new domicile?”

I raised a brow. “I have my weapons whenever I need them. I’ll grab my clothes and meet you over there.” I gestured toward the center of the room.

“At least you have manners, unlike some of the savages we’re keeping on retainer.” Char drawled, already going toward the seating arrangements.

Beige followed her after giving me a meaningful look, though I didn’t quite know what that was supposed to mean. I figured it would be better to come out with my weapons strapped onto me, even if I didn’t really need them all that much, all things considered. After grabbing some clothes from my room, I grabbed Ol’ Harmless and his sheath, placing it opposite the Warbling Blade. The hunting knife still doesn’t leave my hip if I’m not sleeping, showering, sexing, or shitting, just for the record. When I came back out with my bag slung over my shoulder, Char and Beige got a move on and we started walking through the carved out halls of the base until we came to an antechamber of some kind.

The pillars supporting the roof were carved from the same stone as the rest of the room, but they were fucking massive and squared off to a fine polish. Everything gleamed in the low magical light, granting the room a cold, arcane feel to it, and standing against one of the pillars was Romulus, accompanied by a dark red Dragon and a medium grey Naga. Char, Beige, and I walked up to join them and Romulus pushed himself off the wall.

“I see you three finally decided to join us.” He said, his voice slightly muted. I blamed the shape of the chamber.

“I see you three have been talking about the orgy again. Shame no females are going to be invited, because I’m not going otherwise.” I called back.

The Dragon snorted. “This guy’s got jokes.”

“I do not find them amusing.” The Naga hissed.

“That’s odd considering the Naga Full-Moon mating ritual. Thought you’d be more open to the idea out of everyone present.” I replied as we drew closer.

The Naga started slithering toward me, but then Romulus grabbed his arm. “Easy, Cadrut. That guy’s got enough power to level the damn mountain if he feels like it. If you attack him and he defends himself, then I can’t do a damned thing about it.”

Cadrut ‘stood’ up straighter. “Without your petty little Magic, what are you, meatbag?” He snarled.

I chuckled at him. “A seasoned veteran who’s still taken more lives than everyone in this room combined, mate. When you start slaying battalions by yourself with a sword, a dagger, and your own wits, then let me know. Otherwise you’re just being really cute right now.”

The Dragon cracked up. “You got some serious stones on you, dude. I like you.”

Cadrut bore his fangs at me, but didn’t say anything. However, Chartreuse said, “If you’re done pissing off one of our team mates, then I’m sure Romulus has our mission specs.”

“I’m kinda curious as to whether or not Max can back up his claims.” Beige commented.

I raised a brow at her. “So who exactly are you trying to get killed? Because it sure as shit isn’t going to end with me.”

The Dragon snorted again. “Beige just likes seeing people fight. Name’s Ciddronien.” He spelled it for me. “Most people just call me Cid.”

“And Cid you shall be. Nice to meet you, mate. Let’s hope I don’t get you killed.” I said cordially.

“I’m harder to kill then you might think.” Cid scoffed.

“Mate, I’ve seen Dragons go down from wounds just like anyone else. Just because you’re tough doesn’t mean you’re invincible. That’s a lesson even I had to learn, and I’m pretty sure I’m stronger than Romulus.”

The guy in question nodded. “You’re fucking weird, so yeah, you’re a lot stronger than me. Doesn’t mean I can’t get you in the right circumstances.”

“But you’ve learned the lesson too, right?” I asked, knowing the answer.

Romulus smirked at me. “Guess I’m working on it. It’s been awhile since I’ve been taken down a notch.”

“Let me do it and I won’t even make you bleed.” Externally, that is.

“I have a funny feeling that you’d be all too happy to start breaking shit if I let you have a round with me, so we’re just going to not do that, say we did, and announce that I won.”

“Don’t be a pussy.” Cid said critically.

Romulus raised a brow at him. “Dude, you can’t feel the magical vibe this guy puts off. And I’m pretty sure that he was holding back while he was brutalizing Sombra, so no, not exactly eager to get wrecked.”

“Is your vagina leaking or something?” Cid asked.

“I take offense to that.” Char said bitterly.

“You know what I mean, Char. You can’t tell me that the guy who dropped three of the Generals in one go when Celestia and fucking Luna got their shit pushed in doesn’t interest you. I mean, Tartarus! The guy only got put down by Stygian because he slipped a cheap shot in while the Changeling doubles kept his attention.”

“It was pretty shitty, but we’re getting off track.” Romulus cut in. “Everyone knows that you’re heading to Mexicolt, but you don’t know where. You’ll be going to a little place called Shoefly Junction, and from there, you’ll be travelling by wagon to the Mexicolt border. The Mexicoltian Army is already positioned at the border since they’re expecting us, but what they aren’t expecting is for us to have Stygian and Max on our side.”

He waited for a moment and I raised a hand. “Shoot.”

“Mate, I’m not using large-scale kills to drop enemies. Moral compass on me points North-West to be frank, but I’m not killing soldiers for protecting their country.” I said firmly.

Romulus raised a brow. “I have your wife.”

“And I have her heart, which would break if she knew that I was laying down the slaughter for you. I’ll take as many prisoners as you want, but killing is off the table until you want me to put down another one of your Generals. Not because it weakens your positions, but because they’re all evil as shit as far as I know save for Stygian.”

He shrugged. “As long as you’re taking people out of the fight, I don’t really care. If you’re Mr. No Kill, that just means that you’re going to need a sweeper.”

I nodded. “Tag me up with your fastest assassin and I’ll get the job done. My pace is ridiculous, but I can keep whoever my partner is safe as long as I need to.”

Cid raised a hand. “I’m down. Besides Cadrut, I’m the fastest we’ve got.”

“Rather not get stabbed in the back anyway.” I commented idly.

“I would stab you from the front, as with all honorable Naga.” Cadrut sneered.

“If you stab him, I’ll kick you.” Beige said in a bored tone.

Cadrut actually flinched. “As you say, Captain.”

Romulus and Cid looked surprised. “Going soft for the new guy, are we, Cap?” Cid asked.

“The ‘new guy’ is a kindred spirit. The wisecracking is not something I do, but I sense a similar warrior spirit within him.” Beige droned.

Romulus frowned. “Don’t tell me you already respect this guy.”

Beige looked at him. “What you want to hear and what is the truth differ. It is better to let this topic die.”

“Hey, everyone else here had to prove themselves on the battlefield to earn your respect! What’s this guy got that we don’t have?” He asked irritably.

“Natural leadership. A sense of humour. Good taste in women.” I’m pretty sure she was joking with the last part.

Romulus rolled his eyes. “So instinct?”

“Yes.”

“Then I guess we’ll all have to trust him.” Char grumbled. “Fucking weird.”

“So what? Beige says I’m cool and I’m cool? Just like that?” I chuckled.

“Beige doesn't do ‘wrong’.” Cadrut said proudly. “It is the reason I follow her, despite her being a female.”

“Mmm, blatant sexism. Tasty.” I commented.

“Sexism?” Cadrut asked.

“Don't worry about it too hard.” Romulus sighed. “Still. Max, I need you to take down a thousand soldiers and that’s not exactly going to be an easy feat.”

“That’s a lot of people, mate.” I said aloofly.

“You say that like you don’t really care.”

I shrugged. “Point me at the problem and I’ll take care of it. If that means cutting people down and letting Cid roast them, then so be it.”

“You really are a soldier, aren’t you.” He said casually.

“It’s not who I am, it’s just another facet of the jewel that is me.” I replied arrogantly.

“Cocky little fucker, aren’t you.” Char stated.

“Bravado before a battle inspires confidence in the soldiers around you and bolsters your mind. It is not an unwise tactic, if it is a tactic.” Beige defended.

“Nah, I’m just full of shit half the time.” I said, shrugging.

“Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to fixing it.” Romulus said condescendingly.

“I’ll piss on your foot, mate.”

“I’ll piss on your leg.”

“I’ll piss on your dick.”

“I’ll piss on your balls.”

“Holy fucking Tartarus, who cares who has a bigger dick!? We have things to do!” Char groaned loudly.

“Just for the record, I have the bigger dong.” I said childishly.

Romulus rolled his eyes. “Bet my loads are bigger than yours.”

“That was not an invitation to continue on a separate path. Chartreuse is right; we need to get moving.” Beige announced drearily.

“I’m just waiting for them to start throwing punches.” Cid chuckled.

“I would pay good shekels to see this battle.” Cadrut nodded.

Romulus and I looked at each other. “Should an endangered species really be trying to kill itself off?” I asked.

“Unless we get back to Earth somehow, I don’t see us procreating.” He shook his head.

“You know I can send you back, right?” I said matter-of-factly.

The air grew warmer and Romulus’ hands started glowing. “Don't you fucking dare, Kaid. Don’t you fucking taunt me like that.”

I raised a brow at him. “Since when have I fucked you around, mate? I don’t believe I’ve told you a lie quite yet.”

His hands curled into fists and he set his jaw. “Show me. Fuck the mission for right now: take me back to Earth.”

“Ah, and so the leverage shifts!” I chuckled. “Ah fuck, this is some good shit!”

Romulus stormed over to me and stopped about fifteen centimeters away from me, him being slightly taller than me. “What do you want?”

“My wife. I’ll even show you that I can send you back right now if you want.” I gave him a smile.

“Do it.” He commanded.

“As you wish.” I put my hand on his chest and shoved him through the dimensions back to Earth. “And just like that, my problems are taken care of. Whew!” I smiled.

“Maximus.” Beige said, her voice gaining some kind of edge to it. “Where is my savior?”

I turned and looked at her. “Earth. Imma bring him back here in a second.” I grabbed the clock Beige had given me earlier. “I’m just gonna give him about five more minutes before I end his little vacation from Equis.”

“Bring him back now.” Beige demanded.

“He’ll upset about that.” I informed.

“I am not asking.”

I shrugged. “Alright.” I pulled Romulus back to my side.

He looked around and said, “Fuck! Why did you bring me back so fast!?”

I pointed to Beige. “Ask her.”

He whipped around to face her and she stared at him impassively. “What the Hell, Beige!? I finally get to go home and you can’t let me have two fucking minutes!?”

“I had to know that you were safe.” She droned.

Jeremy ran a hand through his messy brown hair. “Man, fuck!” He whirled around and looked at me again. “Whatever it is you want, I’ll give it to you. You want Twilight? I can have her in your arms in seconds. You want the last three Generals gone? I’ll do ‘em in my-fucking-self if you want me to. Just let me go home, Kaid.” His facade cracked, but he got it back into place in time.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got no ties here? None at all?” I asked carefully.

“... You could bring me back if I gave you a time limit, right? Just enough time to go and find my family?”

I bobbed my head from side to side as if listening to a song, and the melody that was playing was the sound of the bargaining chips falling to my feet. All I needed to do now was pick them up and cash them in, and then I’d have what I wanted out of the experience. However, I had an inkling that sending Jeremy Clarkson home wasn’t necessarily how I was supposed to solve this problem. It wasn’t the proper way God probably intended for me to do things, but as I raced through my thoughts and options, I came to an agreement that would let me get the best of the deal and do a little something extra that I was liking more and more as I went along with my plan.

“Kaid? Max? Man, talk to me here? I know I’ve pulled some serious shit, but you know what it’s like to be stuck here, don’t you? You know what it’s like to be the outsider, to belong somewhere else. You know what it’s like to be a pariah-” Romulus started.

“Actually, I really don’t. The closest I got to being an outcast on Equus was early on, and then the Celestia on that planet started wiping the minds of the people in the town I was living in. Hell, I had nothing on Earth, mate. I’m an orphan and have been since I became a teenager, so I built a life for myself in Equestria. With Twilight, who just so happens to be the one thing that keeps my humanity intact. The only reason I’m even considering sending you back is because of her, so let’s hash out a deal.” I said.

“I’m listening, dude.” He said impatiently.

I smiled. “Oh, I know. What I want from you is to finish the Mexicolt excursion. I’ll even lead the Goddamn charge if you want me to, but I want you to take over Mexicolt.”

“So what? You can take my spot and rule the lands?” Jeremy asked.

“Sounds like someone’s been spending too much time around the Generals.” Char added in drily.

Jeremy and I stared at her. “... Shutting up.”

We turned back toward each other and I continued. “No, I have no interest in ruling, despite being a Prince on Equus. What I want is for you to build the biggest Empire on the face of the planet, and then let it collapse.” My smile came back.

The room fell silent for a minute. “Maximus, what you are proposing is complete and total anarchy.” Beige said slowly, as if exasperated that she even had to speak.

“Oh, don’t think I don’t know that, Beige.” I chuckled. “It’s going to be Tartarus on Equus until someone rises from the ashes and takes over, and I already have an inkling of who I want that person to be. The best part is, I know you guys don’t know her because at this point in time, I don’t think I’d even met her yet.”

“... So you want us to leave ruling the world’s biggest Empire, possibly the most volatile thing on the planet, to someone no one knows?” Cid asked, making sure he’d heard me right.

“She can rule a country, she just doesn't have one to take over quite yet.” I rolled my neck. “The thing is, you wanted a paradigm shift, right, Romulus?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

I spread my arms. “And the person I’m suggesting we make our figurehead is the kind of woman who can get the dirty work done through extension while still genuinely believing in the Equestrian morals. Who I’m proposing we allow to try and clean up the anarchy is practically Celestia, but not evil. Like, at all. Seriously, the woman is one of the best people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. At least, her alternate on Equus was. I’m sure her alternate here will suit the task just fine.”

“Who is it?” Romulus asked.

“You wouldn't recognize the name, but I’ve got to get with Chrysalis on finding her. It’ll actually be important once we get Mexicolt taken care of, but that’s all in the future right now.”

He nodded. “So you’re basically still helping me achieve my goal?”

“You haven’t hurt Twilight to date, and you could’ve been dickier about the whole situation. It seriously would’ve been better if you’d just left me alone, but I’ll get to that in a moment.” I gave him a carnivorous smile.

Romulus raised his chin. “I still have the upper hand here.”

“Kinda. The third thing I want is my wife. I’ll send you back to Earth for seventy-two hours, and if I can get the go ahead from Capital G, I’ll even tote your sorry arse around myself. I’ve got some funds available to me from some of my more recent activities back on that polluted ball of dirt and water, so I can get you home. However, when we come back or when you come back, whichever, I want Twilight. I’d actually like to have her right now, but the only thing you’ll have as security is my word.”

Romulus gave me a long, hard, throbbing look before turning to Beige. “You believe him?”

“He is not deceiving you. I would know.” She replied.

“I know, that’s why I asked, goofball.” He shook his head. “I’ll take you to Twilight here after you give your demands and I’ll drop the shield.”

“Good news. The last thing I want is a fair fight. No Magic, no weapons, just fists. If you want to use weapons, I can loan you all sorts of shit from my armory back home, but I don’t think a Magic match would end with more than one of us walking away.”

Romulus smirked at me. “What, you think I’m some slouch who can’t sling a sword the right way because I let other people handle the grunt work now?”

I smirked right back at him. “No, I think you might need a weapon seeing as how I’ve killed over two thousand people with a sword in one hand and a knife in the other. I’m willing to just use my fighting gloves to avoid permanently scarring you.”

“And what? Do they have spikes on them or something?” He snorted.

I grabbed them from my back pocket and handed them to him. “There they are.”

He ran his fingers over the set of leather gloves I’d had made so long ago. I never told the guy who made the gloves what the material was, but he was good with leather anyway, though he’d fucked up the dyeing process and we’d had to make them black. I should mention that the leather was only on the palm, knuckles, and the back of the hand. Underneath those pads were pieces of Dwarf Ore that I’d had Coffee Cream make for me. Have I ever mentioned how fond I am of them? They’re practically gauntlets, after all, and even though there’s padding in place of Dwarf Ore on my left gloves, it’s not like I need that hand to be any more damaging.

“Armoured gloves?” Romulus passed them back to me.

“They’re all I’ll need.” I said calmly.

“If you say so, dude. I should probably let you know that I’ve beaten everyone here in a straight fight. Quality over quantity.”

I gave him a cheeky little grin. “So who taught you how to fight?”

He smirked again. “Few veteran Naga, a handful of century old Dragons. You know, just the toughest people on the fucking planet.”

I chuckled. “I was taught by a six thousand year-old Warrior Queen who conquered most of Equestria’s lands herself. Then I was honed by Luna herself.”

Romulus laughed in my face. “Dude, Luna’s weak as shit compared to us.”

I grinned. “Not my Luna. She was bipedal.”

“And?”

“Hand-to-hand, she was the third best I’ve ever seen.”

“Well you’re about to meet the first all over again.” He said confidently.

“While you’re busy measuring your dick, I’ll be busy with sharpening the cleaver.” I shook my head. “Those are all of my demands. We should probably wait to do the fight until after I bring you back from Earth so you don’t go back looking like a beat-up mess.”

“Or so I don’t go back with a barely recognizable person leaning on me for support.” He shot back.

“Oh, I’m so looking forward to this. I haven’t gotten to fight another Human in years!”

“Same here. I’d rather fuck one, but fighting is good too.” Jeremy shrugged.

“Eh, you get used to fur after awhile. Maybe you just need a woman from Equus instead of Equis. They’re still crazy, but estrus is fun.” I sighed.

Char coughed. “Got two women right here.” We stared at her. “Alright, whatever. Keep being sexist, see if I care.”

I nodded at her. “The less you care, the less offended you’ll be.”

She gave me a look and I turned back to Romulus. “So that’s it for the ‘demands’. Where’s my wife?”

He started making his weird hand gestures again, but before he teleported us, Cid asked, “So did you marry another Human, or did you marry a Pony or something?”

“I married a bipedal Pony. Have you not seen her yet?” I inquired.

“No one besides myself, Beige, and Chrysalis know what your wife looks like. Figured it’d be for the best if I kept the eyes on her to a minimum.” Romulus clarified.

“Thanks for that. I’d hate for people to be gawking at her whenever they felt like it.”

“I figured.” We teleported as he was saying that, so it came out a bit distorted. “I just dropped the shield, so she should-” I pulled her to my side and kissed her while he was talking. “Or you could do that. It’s whatever. Not like I was talking.”

I passed him an absent two finger salute and I’m pretty sure Twilight flipped him off, but I was mostly just enjoying having my wife back. She wrapped her arms around my neck after a moment and I held her close as I tried to soak in the flavour of her lips, but after a few minutes, everyone had coughed at least twice, so I let her go.

“Dear God, do I ever prefer it when you’re free.” I cupped Twilight’s face in my hand.

“I love you so much, it actually tickles.” She sighed.

“That’s weird. You’re weird.” I kissed her nose.

“But I’m the right kind of weird for you and that’s what matters.” My wife said.

“The truth in so few words.” I kissed her again.

Twilight laid her head on my chest and I just held her for a few more moments. “Alright, so I’ve got my Twilight. What were we going to do again?”

“Dude, don't tell me you already forgot.” Romulus deadpanned.

“Simply fucking with you, dear Watson. Let me get Twilight situated in my room and we’ll get the Mexicolt business started.”

“Good, got nervous there for a second. I don’t like being nervous.” Romulus said.

Twilight winced and I shot him a black look. “I don’t like it when you hurt my wife. Don’t hurt my wife.”

“It’s just uncomfortable, Max. It doesn't actually hurt.” Twilight assured me.

I didn’t take my eyes off of Romulus as he looked at me coolly. “Earth first, Mexicolt later.”

I glared at him for a few more seconds. “God. Capital G.”

Twilight raised her head from my chest and looked up at me, her irises golden. “Well hello to you too, Maximus. What a lovely little turn of events, if I do say so myself. I can honestly say that I was not expecting you to pull this from nowhere.”

I nodded. “It’s a compromise that leaves the powerful people happy, but I doubt you’re terribly interested in that at the moment since you heard everything.”

“Some things don’t bear being repeated, no. So I’m assuming you’re asking permission to take another Chosen back to Earth?” Capital G asked.

“I sure am. Give the guy a chance to square things away with the family you ripped him from.” I said evenly.

God smiled with Twilight’s lips and turned to look at Romulus. “Well, I suppose I could grant you a little boon since I’ve never actually sat down and talked to you. I’m sorry about that, by the way, but Max is a special case.” God swirled a finger around Twilight’s temple.

“I’d be offended if I didn’t tend toward genocide whenever I spend too long away from Twilight.” I commented casually.

“That you do, Maximus, that you do.” He sighed, shaking my wife’s head. I’d seen her do it a thousand times before, so it was only a little weird.

Romulus gaped. “... Are you seriously God? Like, Capital G?”

“I’m borrowing a Vessel at the moment, but yes. Yes I am.” God said.

“Why’d you send me here?” Romulus asked. “Why did you take me from Earth?”

“Because I felt like it.” God answered simply. “Please realize that you’re a pawn of mine, though I daresay that you’re more of a Rook, but the terminology isn’t important. Max came to the realization that his life exists for my entertainment, so do yourself a favour and accept that without becoming too distraught.”

Romulus’ face melted into fury, but I shook my head. “Don’t do it, mate. You hurt my wife, I have to hurt you. Besides, neither of us could put a scratch on him if we wanted to.”

I’m sure God smiled. “I would listen to Max. There’s no point in being upset over an act of me. It’s my will after all.”

“You’re one arrogant mother fucker, you know that.” Romulus seethed.

“Ah, ah, ah! I’ll take away your Earth privileges!” God wagged a finger and Jeremy shut up. “Good! I see you learn fast.” Capital G turned to me. “You have my permission, but if I catch you trying to sneak off to Equus…” She trailed off, shrugging.

“Bad things happen, I got it.” I said stonily.

“Good! I’m going to let Twilight go now. Is there anything you’d like to say before I let you go on your little trip?”

“Make Twilight less susceptible to getting caught.” I requested flatly.

“Ah, but then who would have a hold on you?” God asked. “No, every ‘check’ needs a ‘balance’, and Twilight is a good balance for you.”

“Bricks.” I muttered.

“I don’t understand why you said that, but I’m leaving now. Take care, Kaid, Jeremy.” God closed Twilight’s eyes and she swooned, leaving me to catch her before she could fall.

“Dear Heavens, that’s always a weird feeling.” Twilight murmured.

“I’d bet on it.” I said flatly. “You okay, Cherry?”

She gave me a reassuring smile. “I’ll be even better when you let me stand on my own.”

I held her a little closer. “I have to leave when Romulus gets his shit ready, so let me hold you a little while longer.”

“No need. We’ll leave tomorrow. Beige, I still want you to head to Mexicolt and start the engagement, but take Tirek with you in Max’s place.” Beige nodded. “Char, when you touch down, start drawing up plans and send them to me with Dragon Fire for review, and make sure the topography on the map is triple checked this time around.” Char saluted. ”Cid, Cadrut, I want you two to check the muster and do another head count before we get the train on the way. You’ll be taking the main force, so expect Shoefly Junction to struggle to hold so many soldiers.” They both saluted as Romulus finished with his orders.

“Savior, what will you be doing in the meantime?” Beige asked.

He rubbed his head. “Most likely I’ll be pacing a hole in my floor from trying to calm down. It’s been… It’s been a long time since I’ve been back home…” He bit his lip and wrung his hands.

“... Will you-” She started.

“I’ll be back, Beige. I… I need to see my parents again, to let them know that I’m still alive. To let them know that their son is healthy and alive.” Jeremy shook his head, tears forming in his eyes. “I-I can’t believe it. After half a fucking decade, I finally saw my people again, Beige. I… I saw more than just Max, and… Wouldn’t you want to see your own kind again? After being away so long that they’ve forgotten your face, wouldn’t you want to be there again?”

Beige nodded slowly. “I understand, Romulus. I know it is selfish of me, but I ask that you do return. At least to say goodbye.”

He looked at her, confused. “You say that like I’m just going to up and desert everything we’ve built-”

“Romulus.” Beige said softly.

“Yeah?”

“I can feel your heart wavering as you speak. You do not have a concrete answer for me, so please stop spouting false hopes.” She requested, her voice gaining a slight chill to it.

Jeremy’s eye twitched. “I might miss Earth, but-”

“Your home is where you make it, mate. That was a lesson I learned pretty quickly.” I said kindly, squeezing my wife. I earned myself a peck on the cheek for the gesture. “I imagine it was easier for me since my Ponies look pretty close to Humans, but your Ponies look like tiny small horses.”

“I am no whorse.” Beige said blandly.

“A horse is an animal to the Humans. They’re like you, but taller and probably a lot stronger and faster.” Twilight explained.

“Didn’t I already tell you that?” Romulus asked Beige.

“I forgot.” She said blankly. “It was unimportant.”

“My feelings.” He rubbed his chest.

“Don’t worry, she forgets the things we talk about all the time.” I chimed in.

“I do not.” Beige deadpanned. She really does need to work some inflection into her voice.

“Uh, Beige? You’re a little forgetful when it doesn't come to the company.” Char said.

“Shut up before I kick you.” Beige monotoned.

“Shutting up.” Char replied quickly.

“What’s so bad about being kicked by Beige?” I asked.

“She’s better at it than any other Pony I’ve ever met. She takes down Dragons, dude.” Romulus said.

I gave her some golf-claps. “Impressive for someone so beige.”

She rolled her eyes. “My coloration does not affect my ability to fight.”

“No but it apparently does affect how you talk. You sound like you’re bored. All the time. No matter what.” I responded.

“It is how I am. Do not bully me.” Beige requested.

“It’s not bullying until I tie your mane to your tail and push you onto your side.” I grinned.

She rolled her eyes again and looked to Romulus. “I believe we are ready to depart, sir.”

He nodded and started with the hand gestures again. “Keep me on the up and up when you touch down, alright? I kinda need to keep this shitshow together if I’m going to hold up my end of the bargain.”

She nodded. “As you wish, Savior.”

Beige, Cid, Char, and Cadrut were all gone moments later, leaving me with another Human and the prettiest Pony between the three worlds I’d been on so far. “So. Who’s down for a threesome?” I asked.

Twilight gave me a look. “Not happening.”

“I wouldn’t do it anyway. I’d rather stick to my own species. No offense though, Twilight, you’re still nice to look at, you’re just… Purple.” Jeremy said awkwardly.

She gave him a look too. “Don’t think we’re okay now, asshole.”

“Yeah, figured you’d still be mad.” He sighed.

“In fairness, I asked to fight you because I’m still mad.” I added.

“Great, now I have two Alicorns who want to cause me harm. How ever do I save myself.” He droned, much like Beige. A bubble popped up around Twilight and I, so that kinda sucked.

I tried reaching through space and found that my hand would go out of the bubble, just not into it, which was bad for Jeremy because I cold-cocked the fuck out of him. Twilight giggled before she gasped and clutched her neck, her heart picking up speed rapidly. The moment passed quickly enough, but my wife was still making a face and rubbing her neck, which would’ve pissed me off more if I hadn’t hit Romulus first. Fair was ‘fair’, though going after my fucking wife is still cheap as shit. Still he dropped the bubble around us, rubbing his face.

“Fucking ow.” He grunted.

“I know the feeling.” Twilight said coldly.

“Hey, that shit’s automatic. It’s just the way the spell is set up until I have to go and wreck your husband. Wouldn’t be fair to keep the spell at that point.” Jeremy worked his jaw.

“So I can penetrate your barriers from the inside. Fun fax.” I said neutrally. Not like Beige, though. I actually sound like I give a shit about things most of the time.

“Just means all I have to do is set one up around myself and cast spells at you if I wanna play with those cards.” He said, rolling his eyes.

I set my hands in front of me. “Boi. MaTe. I will ThRoW you, and the ground you stand on, into the Sun.”

“He’s done it before.” Twilight said drily. “Broke a promise to do it, but… You know. Had to end a war.”

“Right. Like I’m going to let you get close enough to do that.” He just gave me a smarmy look.

I sighed. “I don’t even know why I’m pressing this so hard. Maybe it’s because I’m used to people recognizing my strength and then downplaying it for the sake of being humble, or maybe I just wanna brag about being stronger than a teenager’s libido. Or a cougar’s libido. Or an old man’s libido with a prescription for Viagra while he’s buying Cialis from his friend.”

“Is there any way for you to prove anything you say? I mean, I’m open to actually see you back up this talk, and we’ve basically got another hour before we have to do fuck all. I don’t usually start doing my leader thing until eleven anyway.” Romulus said casually.

“Lucky wanker.” I said bitterly. “We can go outside for a quick demonstration.”

“Did you seriously just call me a wanker? Dude, I haven’t gotten laid in three years. Of course I wank!”

“Haven’t you been here for five?” I asked politely.

He lit up and said, “If you don’t shut the Hell your mouth I’ll boot my ass your foot.”

“What fuck?” I asked, trying to speak American.

Jeremy covered his eyes and walked away. “Fuck! I can’t believe this shit keeps happening!”

“Is it tourettes?” I asked, only half joking.

“Fucking no, I just get all muddle-mouthed and shit when I get stressed out. I haven’t had my morning flask since I was expecting to have it when I got back.” He pulled one out of his pocket and took a long draught from it. “Feel the burn, live the burn.”

“Definitely tourettes. Now say ‘Bob Saget’ for me.” I gave him a smile.

He glared at me and took a swig from the aforementioned liquid containment device. “Fuck off. I’m fucking off. You should fuck off too.”

“Alcoholism is a terrible thing.” Twilight said softly.

“And I need to be fucking off faster.” He deadpanned, already doing the jazz hand thing.

“Max went through it too. It sounds like you could use some help.” My awesome wife said. I still wanted to beat the guy, but it was so incredibly sweet that she saw the opportunity to share some kindness and took it.

He lifted a brow shortly before disappearing, so I said, “That was a tad rude. Just a tad.”

“He does give us nearly ten seconds of warning before he teleports, unlike some people.” Twilight said evenly, her tone not indicative of any hidden meanings.

“I feel like you’re taking a shot at me, but I know you’re not.” I mused.

“Maybe it’s just that I verbally attack you every chance I get in between sweet nothings and affirmations?” Twilight said matter-of-factly.

I gave her a look. “You don’t honestly think that, do you?”

“No, not anymore.” She smiled. “So are we going to stay here and stand around, or are we going somewhere?”

I looked around. “It’s a nice place to stand in. Pretty white marble everywhere, nice columns, temperature isn’t too bad-”

Twilight licked my chin and that made me giggle. “If you’re done being silly, It’s been a week and a half, and we have business to attend to, Mister. And Mr. Wiggles should be included.”

My face split into the goofiest grin. “I’ll tell you how hard it’s been to abstain from treating Roxy like an Onahole later. For now, it’s time to waltz.” I wrapped my right arm around Twilight and pulled us to my room.

Four and a half hours later, Twilight’s out cold and I have some time to myself, so I used some Aether as a nightlight and got this shitten written. I’ve gotta say, dangling Earth over Jeremy’s head was a dirty move since I’ve been in his position at one point. There was a time where I just wanted to go back to Wiltshire so I could hurt people who deserved it instead of the people who were usually trying to help me, but that moment faded. I don’t know if Jeremy’s going to drop his Equestria entirely and just go home, but I can’t really let him keep his powers if he wants to stay there. I’ll either have to break it to him some way or I’ll have to rip them from him, but either way, I can’t let a super-powered Human actually live on Earth. I mean, it’s not really my place to decide, but…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I see where Celestia’s been coming from for the past thousand years. I want my world, my original home, to be a safe place where everyone can pursue their own happiness. As long as it falls in line with my morals, is what I never say. It’s what I’ve always left out. Yeah, I kept things a little vague for the SIAC videos, but they were still my morals, my version of 'good'. Hell, at this level of power, there are few things that can tell me that my word isn’t law. I had to make a little scratch on the back of my hand to check, but I still bleed golden blood. I’m still technically a god, and I think this newfound arrogance is a result of me becoming so damn powerful so quickly, and I really don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. The cocky people are the ones who fuck up. The cocky ones are always the ones who get noticed and put down. Shit, if Jeremy was a worse guy, he could’ve had everyone except me, and that being said, I dodged a fucking bullet with him. Sure, the situation was still bad, but it could’ve been far, far worse.

I think this power is starting to make me get comfortable, and from what I remember, comfortable gets you killed. Maybe this was God giving me one Hell of a fucking wake up call, or maybe this was just a bad encounter that could’ve gone a completely different way, but I need to be on my fucking toes from now on. No more of this safe and sound bullshit. My silly arse was thinking that I was in the clear after the war, fucking thought I could get away with more than a month of quietude, but I was wrong. Can’t really afford to be wrong again here, and that’s why I’m starting a second little journal. One to keep in my glove-pocket, but one to write down plans for all the ways to save Twilight out of ridiculous, contrived scenarios. In fairness, I figured it was best to prepare for the unexpected since this whole load of bullshit had been unexpected, however, I do realize that I’m paranoid as fuck.

Its time to cap the day off, though it’s a little early for that. Oh well, I might as well see what Twilight’s dreaming about.

Turns out Twilight was dreaming about fishing with Spike. I didn’t want to bother her, so I went a-wandering around the dreamscape for a little while, just like I was banned from doing back on Equus. I may or may not have gotten back into it after some time and started giving people sex dreams about a male Luna, which she hit me for. I totally deserved it, but Celestia thought both things were quite funny until I gave half of the tweenage population of Canterlot dreams about jumping up and down on her breasts like a trampoline over the course of two nights. That's what got me banned from dreamwalking, but it was fun while it lasted. I really should have recorded those little occurrences when they happened, but I didn’t want there to be a paper trail leading back to me, just in case. The only reason I even got caught was because I accidentally went into one of my Mum’s dreams and did an instinctual thing that may or may not have turns the grass in her calm meadow into meter tall, extremely thin screaming penises. I got caught because I was heard laughing while Mum tried to get out of the meadow, but it was the greatest thing until I realized that it was her.

Anecdote over. So while in the dreamscape, I found few enough people to fuck with. There were a few people who were having dreams of being threatened by soldiers, so I turned those nightmares into decent enough normal dreams. They weren’t anything worthy of talking about, but they were better than just straight nightmares. I hadn’t actually policed dreams in awhile, but doing so made me feel better about myself. I think helping people fuels the altruism that tends to wave opportunities by as they come along. It was relaxing in it’s own right; finding problems and correcting them in new ways. It was an interesting way to spend my night, but I did manage to get some actual sleep while I wasn’t conscious.

My clock told me that it was seven in the morning, so I rolled over and snuggled up to Twilight because she was warm and I was feeling a little chilly. It wasn’t particularly cold or anything, but then I remembered to take Sombra’s Magic out of myself and let the Aether warm me up. I felt considerably better after that, but I still stayed close to Twilight because Mr. Wiggles found a nice spot to hide. A few minutes later when Twilight backed into me, he was quite snug.

“Good morning.” I murmured.

“Good morning. Twilight-bot shutting down.” My wife replied dreamily.

“You know I’ve gotta go do stuff for the next three days, right?”

“Why don’t you stuff me for three days? Twilight answered, still half asleep.

“I’d like to, but you stop talking and start grunting after four hours.”

“Mmm.” She smacked her lips.

I chuckled and draped an arm over her, surrendering before the battle even started. I dozed off for about ten more minutes before Twilight woke up and put me inside of her, which was a great way to restart the day, if you ask me. If you’re not asking me, then you can go fuck yourself anyway. After a quick-ish round of bible study and respecting Jesus or something, Twilight and I bathed in my tub, though her water-warming spell was much more efficient at getting the bath up to temperature than my attempts had been. We rinsed and had time to get up to the loft before Romulus let himself in after three curt knocks.

“Hey Max, you up dude?” He called out.

“Check the loft, My body’s still warm!” I answered.

“Funny.” He muttered.

“I thought so.” I yelled back.

“How the fuck did you hear that?” He asked at normal volume.

“Boosted Perception, mate.”

“Fucking weirdo.”

“Says the magma guy.”

“This from the lightning dude?”

“Mr. Ota-kun gonna get his own comebacks sometime soon?”

“What the fuck does Ota-kun mean?”

“Otaku boy, dumbass. If you’re gonna be a weeb, at least be smart about it.”

“Dude, I just like the weapons. I don’t know shit about anime or manga.” He said unconvincingly.

“Let me guess, you’re in the closet?”

“Remind me why I didn’t just kill you when I had the chance?” Jeremy asked.

“Because I’m immortal and I’d come back to kill you slower.” I responded honestly.

“... Seriously?” He asked. As he came up the final step. “You still haven’t proven that.”

I waved him over and while I was still holding that hand up, I cut it and showed him the ichor. “I’m made from different stuff, mate.”

He leaned in and looked intently. “Ho-ly shit. What the fuck are you?”

“Technically? Human. Really technically? An Alicorn. Extremely technically? A god. Lowercase ‘G’ kinda god, but still one nonetheless.” I shrugged. “It actually kinda sucks.”

“... Okay, why am I fighting you again?”

“Don’t bitch out now after all that tough talk.” I scoffed.

“Not bitching out, just asking why a fucking God wants to fight a puny semi-mortal.”

“Because you fucked with me. I’m guessing from that bag on your shoulder that you're ready to go?”

He shrugged the over-the-shoulder bag he was sporting. It looked pretty old, but made on Earth. “I’d like to go back in the same clothes I was wearing the day I got lost in that damn forest, but they kinda got torn off of me. Long story.”

“Got a few of those myself. I figure they might be something to talk about during whatever bus or plane we end up on.”

Twilight sighed. “I wish I could go with you.”

I raised a brow. “Who said you couldn’t? Hell, you can just go stay with Will and Bea for a little bit if you don’t want to wear your Human suit.”

My wife perked up and gave me a little smile. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to stay by you. The last time we split up, I got kidnapped.” She finished with a pointed glare at Jeremy.

He gave her a weird look. “Weren’t you just offering to help me with my chronic alcoholism?”

“I can help you and hit you at the same time.” Twilight said icily. “For example: if I hit you over the head with a full bottle of whatever you prefer to drink, you can’t drink it anymore.”

Romulus looked at me. “She’s mean.”

“You fucked with her, man. Don't fuck with her, man.” I shrugged.

He looked back to Twilight. “Is a sorry going to cut it?”

“You’ve already apologized.” She reminded.

“Am I gonna have to mean it or something?” He asked.

“You tell me, genius.”

“I’m gonna go with yes, and I’ll withhold that until I’m actually sorry. I mean, I kinda get to go home because of it, so…” He made a ‘what can you do?’ kinda face.

Twilight levitated him about a foot of the ground and dropped him on his arse. “You’re a butthead.”

He got up and gave her a look. “You realize I have a glorified shock collar on you right now, right?”

“Shut up and let me grab my satchel so you can stop threatening my wife.” I said, shaking my head.

“She started it!” He protested. I gave him a bored look. “Okay, so I started it, but she’s continuing it! Why can’t we just be all nicey-nice and shit like Equestrians? You guys are Equestrian, right?”

“No, we’re Arcadian, and Arcadians tend to duel when they have a grievance.” I said crisply.

“The fuck? Where the Hell is Arcadia on the map?”

“Next to the Everfree, currently underground.” Twilight answered.

“It actually includes the Everfree, but I’m the only person who actually likes going in there.” I chimed in.

“... So what, you live in a different part of Equestria?”

“No, Arcadia is a separate city-state. It has its own laws and is governed by its own Prince and Princess.” Twilight said proudly.

Romulus rolled his eyes. “Let me guess, you two are the Royal Couple?”

I raised a brow at him. “We’re both Alicorns. Makes sense.”

“And yet I still don’t see a horn or-”

“Maximus Fulminata.” I muttered. And then there were wings, though I still couldn’t feel the horn.

Jeremy just blinked for a few seconds. “... That’s actually epic as fuck.”

“Exxus.” And the wings went away. “Now that I have her, I don’t mind showing you what I’m talking about.”

“So you really are an Alicorn. Are you the strongest one?”

“At my current level? Probably. I mean, if I didn’t have one of my powers, I’d be kinda fucked, but it’s mostly just that one. I’m not going to tell you which one it is because that would be stupid, but it’s pretty dope. Technically you could say that Celestia and Luna are stronger since they can stop the fucking planet if they want to-”

“Wait, they can what?” He asked.

“Yeah, they turn the planet to keep the days on time. Haven't you noticed that your clocks have been getting further and further off the mark as the days go by?”

“Who the fuck pays attention to that? Not me.”

“I can’t say whether or not I would’ve, but whatever.” I grabbed my satchel from downstairs with some handy dandy True Theft because he probably thought I was just teleporting it to myself. “You ready?”

“I’ve been waiting on you to get this social visit over.”

“Wait! I need to grab some of my things and I don’t even have a suitcase!” Twilight cried.

I stared at her and grabbed one of her many travel bags from the rooms where we’d stored all of our wedding gifts. Seriously, so many appliances, so many travel bags. So many condoms, oddly enough. Eh, anyway, Twilight teleported her shit to her and I stood in front of Jeremy so he wouldn’t see my wife’s delicates while she was folding them. She got changed into her human suit while we talked about sports and our mutual lack of interest in them. I discovered that he was actually a bit of a painter while I was a writer and we agreed to trade our trilogies since we both had copies of the things. After Twilight was all packed up, I asked what state Jeremy was from and he told me Georgia, so I took us to Atlanta, where I knew that I had a SIAC building. I’d yet to actually go to it, but I knew I had one there and I figured that I could get us there easily enough.

When we touched down in Atlanta, we ended up in the bathroom of a little burger joint that Guy Fieri had once visited, which I knew because on the way to the Atlanta airport, I’d watched it on some old lady’s tablet with her and she mentioned that she was going to go there as one of her last stops during her visit. I’d decided to go there during the layover and coincidentally had three glasses of Doctor Pepper before my bladder told me that enough was enough. My kidneys also beat my arse over it, but I’d never had Doctor Pepper before and the shit was pretty fucking good. I liked the Mount Vernon’s ginger ale better, but the brown pop was still good.

After wiping the mind of one very confused little boy, I checked to see if the coast was clear and got Twilight out of the restroom first before shuttling Jeremy out. As we were heading toward the door, a waitress caught us and asked if we’d paid our bill yet, but when I told her that we’d only come in for a quick restroom break on our walk to the SIAC building, she told me to sit down and order something because the bathroom wasn’t free. Luckily I could steal my wallet from anywhere, and I still had the debit card Stephano had given me. I would have preferred to pay with cash since I didn’t want to leave a digital footprint, but all all of my pieces of paper were pound notes and I doubted that they were willing to exchange for it.

Twilight ended up with a sketchy salad, but Jeremy and I both got monster burgers and a basket of fries that we wolfed down in a matter of minutes. Twilight just looked at me with a mixture of amusement and horror on her face, but I’ve seen that look from her a few times at this point in our relationship. To top it all off, the refills were free, so I had to make another bathroom break and encouraged the others to do so too before we go to moving. Twilight wisely followed my advice, but Jeremy, on his third cup of coffee, didn’t quite do the smart thing. However, it wasn’t really my problem.

After we paid our bill and left the waitress a twenty-five cent tip (I know I’m petty), we started heading toward literally the building across the street from the diner. It was some sort of legal building that Jeremy didn’t really understand, but we figured we’d at least be able to get some polite directions. We were wrong, but the lady did give us directions, though we’d ended up on the wrong side of town. It was going to be a three hour walk to and through a notoriously dangerous neighborhood, but I figured that with a merc, a wizard, and a veteran that we should be fine for the time being. Shit, there probably wasn’t much on Earth that could have stopped us from doing what we wanted to, but that was a dangerous way of thinking and I steered my mind way clear of it.

It quickly became apparent that Jeremy had a great sense of direction, Twilight had a good memory for directions, and that I could still do a Hell of a cab whistle. Once we got to a busier part of town, getting a cab was easy since Twilight was hot as fuck and she stood out pretty well with her purple hair. Our cab driver even commented on it, but when Twilight told him that it was natural, he laughed at her until he realized that no one else was laughing and I played it off as a genetic mutation that affected a minimal amount of the population, but could be seen more commonly with grey and white in children and teens. He bought it because I showed him a bogus article about it online, but we still got to our agreed place without any kerfuffle, so I wasn’t terribly worried about it.

Walking into the SIAC building was fucking weird. I didn’t expect there to be metal detectors when we first walked through the door, but when the Warbling Blade didn’t set it off, I figured that it was defective until it went off on Jeremy. A security guard pointed a fucking taser at him. “Son, open the bag real careful like and show me what you got in there. Don’t nobody want no trouble in here, so be easy.”

“Ain’t here to hurt nobody, sir. This guy just lead me here and told me he could help me.” Jeremy held his hands up and put his bag on the ground.

I waved at the security officer. “Hullo, friend.”

The old black dude looked at me. “... Do I know you? Because I think I know you, and I don’t know no British folk.”

I gave him a warm smile. “What? You don’t recognize the founder of the company you work for anymore? I know I’ve been gone for awhile, but to think my face would be forgotten.”

The older fellow point the taser at me. “Everybody knows the founder guy lives in England, went into hiding.”

“We’ll head back out of the door when you want to look up my face. Come get us once you’re either sure of who I am or you get someone who’s a little less taser-happy to deal with us. Like Jeremy said, we’re not here to hurt anyone. We’re here to ask for help.”

Security Guy let his right hand drop toward his pocket and grabbed his phone before looking me up. “Holy shit. Sir, I am so sorry-”

“Oi,” I raised both of my hands. “Thank you.”

“... I beg your pardon?” The dude asked.

“Kinda with him on that one, dude. Why ‘thank you’?” Jeremy asked.

I gave ‘Romulus’ a look. “Because he’s defending one of my safe places. In a town like this, these little bastions of goodness help a lot of people, if the SIAC is performing as I told it to do that is.” I looked to the guy. “What’s your name, friend?”

“Uh, Robert. Robert Lee, Sir.”

“Well, Mr. Lee, can you tell me if the Atlanta branch is still taking in homeless people and prostitutes and setting them up with jobs?”

He smiled and nodded. “Yes sir! Just got four of our long-termers back out into the world, hooked up and ready to get their lives back on track, and it’s all thanks to you, Rev.”

I gave him a crooked smile and shook my head. “I just got the ball rolling, Mr. Lee. People like you are the ones who keep it rolling, so thank you.”

“Just doin’ my part, Sir. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“I need to speak to the branch manager. I’m afraid we’re going to need to use some resources to get my new friend here back to his home in Northern Georgia.”

“Uh… I’m sorry, but I don’t think I have that kind of clearance, Reverend.”

I narrowed my eyes. “The modesty clause in the edict should take care of that. Times like this when someone on a lower tier needs to catch a higher-ups attention are why the modesty clause exists.”

Robert scratched his head. “Well, it kinda don’t work like that. The higher-ups and all them are usually busy and most of us Average Joes just try an’ stay out their way, ya know? I mean, I’ll go tell ‘em that you’re here, but don’t expect them to be listenin’ to me all that soon.”

“Any effort that you make will be greatly appreciated, Mr. Lee.” I assured him. “Though, I must ask, how many times has someone tried to slip a gun in here?”

“More times ‘n I can count, Rev. Some people just don’t like to see others doin’ good, so we get psychotic n*ggas in here comin’ for one of ‘their’ women.” He scoffed. “Get some gangbangers who cain’t give that shit up, exes with a score to settle. Hell, even seen a couple parents come after one o’ their kids with a knife in here. Tased ‘em all.” He sighed.

I felt a muscle in my jaw twitch. “That’s a damn shame.”

Robert’s eyes opened wide. “You cuss?”

“Not often. Not these days, but some things deserve a proper damning.” I sighed. “I rather wish I could offer you more help Mr. Lee. Is the SIAC under-funded, or-”

“Oh no, The Safe In Arms Coalition still brings in tonnes a’ donations, but nobody wants to risk they life to help people. Me? I’m a retired cop. I been protectin’ and servin’ my whole adult life, so I hear that the SIAC needs a hand? I pitch in. We do real good for the community here, and that’s worth riskin’ my life over. It’s a shame other people don’t feel that way, but that’s just how the world is sometimes.”

“Do you at least get paid well for doing this?” Jeremy asked. “I mean, you should be earning a fucking cop’s salary if this is what you’re dealing with.”

“I get enough, son, so don’t you worry about me.” Robert chuckled. “Let me go and see if I can get Mr. Dawson down here so he can greet y’all properly.”

We watched as Robert walked away and I lead my little trio over to a sitting area that was modern and not terribly comfortable. I mean, it was alright, but there had been better things under my arse in the last couple days. “Kaid, what the fuck.” Jeremy said in a low voice.

“Yeah, I’m with Romulus on this one: Max, what the fuck?” Twilight asked.

I looked at both of them. “So I lead the world’s biggest charity slash safe space slash daycare slash rehab slash mental clinic slash-”

“No, stop.” Jeremy said. “What the bloody fuck is this place?”

“Don't say ‘bloody’. It makes the word dirty when it comes out of your American lips.” I jested.

“Dude.” He stared at me.

I rolled my eyes. “What? You thought I was only influential on one planet?”

“Max, that guy just had to see your face and he practically started kissing your tail!” Twilight hissed, keeping it quiet.

“I don’t have a tail, but I get what you’re saying. Twilight, what you need to understand is that I’m kinda Earth’s Celestia. The SIAC’s edict is my version of the Elements of Harmony.” I shrugged. “Whatcha gonna do?”

“Dude, you realize Celestia’s evil as shit, right?” Jeremy asked. “Like, not conventionally evil, but like, government evil, and that’s almost worse!”

I raised a brow at him. “You and I had the same goal for different planets. You wanted Equis to live peacefully outside of Celestia’s grasp, and I wanted Earth to smooth out and drop a few crimes. The only difference is that no one had to die for me to achieve my goal.”

Jeremy set his jaw and went to speak, but I cut him off. “You can’t deny that there’s a body count on your Operation, and the thing’s going to keep collecting bodies until it’s done. With my Operation? Less than twenty people got sent to hospital, and all of them lived. What you’re doing is evil too, but this evil?” I waved my finger around in a circle above my head. “This was getting things done, getting them done right, and getting them done quick. Call me evil all you want, I still say the greater is good is even greater because I pitched in when I had the power to do so.”

“Tch. I can’t really say that Celestia’ing the world to make it a better place was a bad thing, but what the fuck did you even do?”

“Made a Youtube video with Dark Magic commands.” I replied casually.

“... And that worked?” He asked incredulously.

“The last time we were here, it beat out Oppa Gangnam Style for the most viewed video.” Twilight said, pursing her lips.

“That shit’s still relevant?” He asked equally staggered.

“Hell no, it just gets views from Asians or some shit. Anyway, my SIAC pals can get us to your fucking doorstep, mate. All we need is an address and we can have you back with your parents in no time.” I leaned back in my shitty chair.

Jeremy took a shaky breath. “I can’t believe this is seriously happening. I mean… This is Huge! I’m going to see my fucking family again!” He ended loudly.

“Volume, mate. It’s pretty quiet in here.” I subtly checked him.

“Oh come on, dude. I know you must’ve been stoked to come back to Earth when you got to.”

I stared him in the eyes. “All of my family was dead, I had no true friends, and I was a street thief who was good at what he did. I didn’t have much going for me here.”

He gave me an odd look. “You were a thief? In this day and age?”

“Never said that the shit was easy. Cameras everywhere on the good spots, a few in the bad ones. Cops have your face on file for easy access. Never had a charge stick, but I got caught a few too many times.”

“So how’d your family pass? Was it some tragic car accident or something?”

“Birth-giver killed my Dad, later died of AIDs. Found a brother in a fellow thief and thought he died of cancer only to learn that he faked his death to escape a hit, though he really did have cancer. It was benign, but he still went through chemo to seal the deal.”

“Kaid, that is some The Young and The Restless shit if I’ve ever heard it.”

“I’m assuming that’s something American.”

“It’s a soap opera. My mom loves that shit.” Jeremy clarified.

“Ah. Cool. So are you going to tell your parents about your powers, or what?”

“Well, I can show them the mind-reading easily enough, but the magma shit is a no go. I guess I can do the shield and levitation though.”

I nodded. “Psychokinesis is how I showed people that I was the real deal.” That and my raw strength.

Twilight’s eyes popped open. “Max! We haven’t Sealed Romulus yet!” She looked at him. “We need to weaken you so you don’t accidentally start killing people.”

“Fucking what?” He asked.

“Did God make you as sturdy as a Pony?” I asked.

“Apparently. I can take a hit.”

“Then we need to soften you up because your strength will kill someone.” I unbuttoned the top buttons on my shirt and showed him my Seal. “I’ve made mine so that I can turn it on or off depending on what I want to do, and I’ll do the same for yours, if you want.”

Romulus gave me a look. “And how do I know that you’re not setting me up?”

“I can steal your powers from you. All I have to do is knock you out and take them. I’m not going to because I told you that I would get you home and give you seventy two hours. We’re running on sixty-nine right now, which is awesome, but you still have that many hours before I consider rolling.”

“God, I wish Beige was here. She’d know for sure whether or not you were lying.”

I shrugged. “How far does your trust go?”

“It made me bring a dagger with me, so you tell me.” He murmured.

I rolled my eyes. “Are you going to enchant it so it doesn’t keep setting off metal detectors?”

“I can’t enchant shit.” He lied through his teeth.

“Cut the shit.” I parroted.

“Okay, so what makes you think I’m lying?”

“Advanced. Perception. I can literally hear your heart right now, and it sped up when you told me that you can’t enchant.”

“Fucking heart, betraying me and shit.”

“Don’t I know the feeling.” I shook my head.

“Hey!” Twilight objected.

“I was reminiscing about the days when I had to share myself between, Fluttershy, Rarity, and yourself, so don’t take offense to that.”

She gave me a look. “Right.”

“You’d know if I was lying.” I said, amused.

“Were those the good old days?” My wife asked.

“The middle bits were. The beginning was a little rough, but after the Roxy event things were pretty nice. They were simpler, I’ll say that much.”

“Wait, so you dated three aliens at the same time?” Jeremy asked.

“Yes, and three of those aliens were past a C-Cup.” I smirked.

He glanced at Twilight who raised a brow at him. “I know herds are pretty common in Equestria, but didn’t you feel kinda slutty? Sleeping around with a bunch of different women?”

I spread my hands. “It was an opportunity to see who I was compatible with. If it may surprise you, Twilight and I dated for a year or so before we decided to get married. We actually had a two year temporal rift that occurred when I went back to Earth the first time, so instead of being two years older than me, Twilight’s four years older than me.”

“It was terrible. Max was just gone from the face of the planet for two years and two months, but he only spent five weeks on Earth. I’m not upset about the difference in time since it means that Max didn’t have to suffer as long as I did, but those years without him were long…” Twilight looked at the table and I put my hand on her arm.

Jeremy nodded along. “I’m assuming you guys were already married then.”

“No. At that point in time, I think I was ready to propose to Twilight, but then the trip to Earth came up and God screwed me. I proposed shortly after coming back and a few days before I became a Prince.” I explained.

He made a face. “Wait, so you didn’t marry into the Royal Family?”

“No, Celestia offered to make Max a Prince because he defeated Prince Blueblood twice during two separate Honor Duels in which that sack of scum cheated. That, and he showed good leadership qualities or something. No one really knows the full reason why Celestia chose Max.” Twilight answered.

“Did she choose you?” He asked.

“Yes,” I replied for her. “Celestia saw something in Twilight and groomed her toward being another Princess from an early age. It might have been the Element of Magic, or it might have been the eye of a four thousand year-old Princess, but Twilight was slated to be a Princess even before I was slated to be a Prince.”

Twilight stared at me. “How do you know that?”

“I put the pieces together. Celestia trains you from the age of eight after you hatch a Dragon. You spent a decade under her tutelage, and then you’re shipped off to the exact town the Elements are closest to, which just so happens to be connected to the women you were supposed to go and see for the Summer Sun Celebration. You defeat Nightmare Moon, and the next big thing she has you do is go defeat Sombra, which again, sorry for fucking that one up-”

“Don't worry about it, Amour.” Twilight said sweetly.

“I’ll try not to, but my point is that Celestia has been urging you to find the Magic of Friendship, right?”

“Right.” Twilight said slowly.

“And what’s your Alicorn Magic based off of?” I asked.

My wife blinked at me. “... That tricky bitch!”

I spread my hands again. “It was for your benefit, so I just didn’t say anything. The real cincher was when you laid out your first couple of days in Ponyville for me when we first moved into the Castle.”

I saw something click behind Twilight’s eyes. “You knew since then and you’re only telling me now!?”

I raised a brow. “Did you really need to know? It’s not like I was hiding it from you, and since I haven’t actually asked Celestia about it, I can only make educated guesses.”

“How about we go ask her when we get back to Equis?” Jeremy asked, amused.

“Cram it, poop eye.” Twilight said. “What about the Celestia from Equis? She has to have a similar plan for QT if it’s true.”

I pointed at Jeremy. “Did you just call him poop eye?”

He pointed at himself. “Me? Poop eye?”

Twilight coloured. “One of your eyes is brown. It’s a common insult for brown-eyed people on Equus.”

“That’s stupid.” Jeremy and I chorused.

“Well I didn’t make it up!” She defended meagerly.

“But you used it to hurt my feelings, and though the word itself didn’t hurt, the fact that you meant to hurt hurts me. Do you understand where I’m coming from?” Jeremy said in a silly voice.

Twilight actually looked ashamed. “Well you can’t just expect me to be nice to you now! I mean, it’s nice that you let me go, but you’re still making Max do stuff for you.”

“Actually, without you as a bargaining chip, I’d have to go and kidnap your friends again if I wanted leverage on him, but I might just give the whole thing up, honestly. I mean, if Max, the evil guy, says that he knows someone who can take over who has the Equestrian ideals without Celestia’s evil, then I say it’s a good idea.” Jeremy said too easily.

Twilight glanced at me. “... Who did you have in mind?”

“Cadance.” I answered simply.

“Oh. Then yeah, Equestria will be in good hands… Er, well, hooves I guess.”

“So you know her too?” Jeremy asked.

“Yes. Cadance is one of the best Ponies I know, but she’s still a tough one when she needs to be.” Twilight answered with a small smile.

“The best women are.” Jeremy nodded his agreeance.

We chatted a bit about Jeremy’s life in Equestria after that, but he wasn’t really willing to give up much information. It was a lot of repetition and circling, so I’m just going to summarize it. Jeremy landed in Equestria after skipping school one day to go hit up one of his older buddies when he got lost in the woods. He eventually popped out, but instead of showing up in Ponyville like I had, he ended up in Gryphonia near a mercenary camp. A Dragon with the company taught him how to fight, and after a couple of months, he had to earn the food he’d eaten and meals in the future, so for a year he was a soldier for food.

He didn’t say how he got his powers, but he did mention that he’d gone to Hell as well, but had drank the remnants of the memories away. His story basically went into a void of no answers until we asked about him meeting up with Beige’s cadre, which he was a little more open about. Beige’s group accepted him and he started working for them instead of the rebellion, but before he knew it, he was the leader and he had a group of hardened soldiers following him. He eventually took over the Gryphonian Rebellion by knocking down anyone who came into his path, and when he got into the inner circle, he just had fresh ideas and good plans. In other words, he was a natural leader like myself.

Jeremy lead the conversation to where I assassinated King Adolf, though he’d just assumed that Equestria had managed to get an Operative in under the Rebellion’s nose. He didn’t know that I was the one who caught Adolf until I told him, and he thanked me for saving him a little bit of work. Apparently Jeremy seized the moment and used his connections to the Rebellion to siege Otterwa Castle and take it over, but when he had it under his control, he left Elfriede in charge and told her to fall in line or be killed like her husband. She fell in line, but how long she plans on staying there is an unknown. He mentioned that Elfriede warned him against fucking with Equestria, but she didn’t realize his strength at the time until he steamrolled his way through Equestria and landed in the Capital with the biggest baddies the world had ever seen. When we’d left, he’d had Equestria subdued, though whispers of a short-order long-shot rebellion were on the rise.

Robert eventually came back with a guy wearing a business suit who seemed like he didn’t really want to be bothered at the moment, but when I got out of my chair to greet him, his eyes went wide. “M-Mr. Reverend! I-I- We weren't expecting you!”

I gave him a warm smile. “You’re Mr. Dawson, correct?”

“Yes Sir.” He nodded along.

“Are you the branch manager, Mr. Dawson?”

“No Sir, but I can get you to her in less than five minutes, just say the word.”

I nodded. “Thank you for your time. If you wouldn’t mind leading the way, then.”

He gave me a crooked, coffee-stained smile. “Right this way, Sir.”

As we were walking, Jeremy pulled me back and whispered, “Yo, you sure we can trust this sleazeball?”

“If he’s really one of mine, then he’s no sleazeball. No one works for the SIAC without watching the instructional video, so he’s kosher.” I whispered back.

“Got a lot riding on this, Kaid.”

“I know, Jeremy. I know.”

And so we walked on. The elevator ride was fun, but that’s because I like elevators for some odd reason. Don’t know why, I just always have. Anyway, after our short trip in a fun little box was over, Dawson lead the way past cubicles and a few offices to a stairwell on the other side of the floor, which took us up to the area where the high-ranking officials did their side of business. Everything seemed quite neat and orderly, which made me smile since I liked having things be neat and orderly. We continued following our guide until he reached the last door at the end of the hall, though the glass walls didn't really leave much room for privacy. I’d made sure that I was standing behind Dawson when he opened the door.

“Mrs. Osbourne? You have a very important guest.” Dawson said quietly from the door.

“I see two people standing off to your sides and neither of them are dressed for any sort of business.” Mrs. Osbourne said critically.

“They’re not-” I tapped Dawson’s shoulder and he stepped aside to allow me through the door.

“Hullo, Mrs. Osbourne. I must say, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” I smiled pleasantly.

She gaped. “Mr. Reverend?”

“Yes, Mrs. Osbourne. That’s the moniker.” I gave her a patient smile.

“R-Right. Of course, um, please, please, have a seat! Come in, come in! Is there anything I can get you? Coffee? Tea? Water? I imagine you’re not much of a drinker-”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Twilight sighed.

“I drink a few shots every couple of days!” I objected.

“You don't need to be drinking at all.” She maintained.

I rolled my eyes and looked at Mrs. Osbourne. “I apologize for my wife interrupting you, but she can be a bit of a handful at times.”

Twilight pinched me, so I gestured toward Jeremy. “This is a friend of mine. I found him while trying to root out an underground fighting circuit, and I got him out before it was too late. Now I need to get him home to his family, and I was hoping that our resources would stretch far enough to help him. We can make the journey on foot, but this isn’t my home country and I’d rather not leg it.”

Mrs Osbourne waved her hands. “Of course not, Reverend! No, I’ll have transport arranged as soon as possible! Where does your friend live?”

I looked to Jeremy and he said, “[Omitted] Fort Oglethorpe, not far from the Georgia-Tennessee line.” Hope shone through in his voice.

Mrs. Osbourne gave him a tender smile. “Then it should be no issue at all to find you a driver, Mr…?”

“Jeremy Clarkson, ma’am. And thank you for this. Thank you so much.” He said shakily.

Her smile stayed on her face. “This is what the Safe In Arms Coalition is all about, Jeremy. Whether we find people a new home or bring them back to the old one, we do our best to help people like you, and I daresay we’re good at what we do.”

He nodded a few times. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’ll be saying the same thing when I see my parents again. God, it’s been so long…”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you can leave some of your story out, yeah?”

His whipped around to face me. “No. I’m telling them everything, regardless of whether or not they believe me.”

I shook my head. “It’s up to you. It’s your tale, only you can tell it right.”

“Would you mind if I asked about your recent history, Mr. Clarkson?” Mrs. Osbourne asked as she was dialing. “Ah, yes. Yes, this is Theresa Osbourne. Yes, I would like to have a car sent to the Atlanta branch. No, something a little more secure. The destination is [Omitted]. Yes, I’m well aware that it is a two hour drive, but the Reverend himself is asking you to make it.” She said, emphasizing my pseudonym. She glanced at us before whispering, “What do you mean, ‘Am I sure’!? He’s looking at me right now!” Louder, she said, “Yes, thank you.”

“I assume we’re in business?” I asked.

“That we are, Reverend. Now, Jeremy, do you mind telling me about some of your experiences? The SIAC does have ties to law enforcement, so if you need protection-”

Jeremy shook his head. “No, no one’s going to come looking for me. What do you want to hear?”

“How did you get roped into underground fighting?” She asked frankly.

He shook his head slowly. “I was younger. Dumber. Thought I could make some quick money because I was good in a fight, but when I started winning too often, I started making enemies. Fuckers who ran the ring I started out in ganged up and sold me off to the highest bidder. Though I was going to be an organ ‘donor’ for a little bit, but when they told me that I’d been bought to fight, I thought I actually stood a chance at making it to the other side. My first three fights were hard losses that took months to come back from, but I held on until I started winning. When I started earning Mas-” He grimaced and took a deep breath. “When I started making the fucker who ‘owned me’ some money, I started getting better fights with bigger pay offs. Kaid caught me at my last fight, bowled through dozens of dudes like a fucking dervish or something, and the next thing I know, he has me on the floor and he’s asking me what the Hell I’m doing running with Yakuza and Mafia.” Jeremy shrugged. “I didn’t really have answers for him, so we fought our way out, stole a car and drove until we were safe.”

Mrs. Osbourne’s jaw would’ve hit the floor if it wasn’t hinged onto her face.

I gave her a tight smile. “Sometimes we get in deeper than we ever planned on going. That’s why I disappear for months, years at a time. I’ve got to help where the law can’t reach.”

“... You’re a vigilante?” She asked slowly.

“Well, I’m more like Spiderman than the Punisher if that’s what you’re trying to imply. I don’t just go around killing people because they do bad things.” I said dismissively.

“Oh, Sir, I never meant to imply that you did, it’s just… It’s strange to hear of someone so composed, someone who preaches peace going and defeating dozens of lethal fighters. It’s a little much.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’ve never seen this guy move.” Jeremy said in awe. “He makes Bruce Lee look like some kid with a white belt in Karate.”

I shook my head. “Bruce Lee was cooler than me.”

“So now you get modest.” He jibed.

I smiled sheepishly. “I was just telling you stories of past fights. I thought it would help us connect.”

He touched my shoulder with his knuckles. “I think bringing me back to my family is gonna do a lot more than talking.”

“I would have to agree, but you’re serious about this? Your story is true?” Mrs. Osbourne asked.

“Every word.” I confirmed. “Except the part where I ‘swoop in’. I didn’t do all of that.”

“Don't let him lie to you, this guy is dangerous with his hands.” Jeremy said.

“I still find it hard to believe that our founder is some sort of martial arts master.” Osbourne said, shaking her head.

“You don’t have to believe it. In fact, if you’d prefer to not believe it, that would suit me perfectly.” I gave her a smile. “It’s hard to ask people to be kind to each other when I seek out those that kindness won’t reach.”

“Hey, you got to me, dude. That’s what really matters, to me at least.” Jeremy chimed in.

I turned my smile to him. “It matters to me too, but there could have been others I could have saved. We have no idea what happened in the wake of our departure.”

“I do.” He said softly.

“How would you have that information?” I asked slowly.

He looked me in the eye. “It’s best that you don’t know.”

“I don’t like being kept in the dark, Jeremy.”

“Why don’t you just let it go, Kaid? It’s not that big a deal, right?” Twilight added in, selling my part of the act.

“If only you felt the same way toward me and my dealings.” I said wryly, smiling. “Alright, Jeremy, you can have a pass.”

“Thanks…?” He said weirdly.

We spent a little while longer talking about nothing in particular, then Mrs. Osbourne kept asking Jeremy about his past and the guy came up with stuff that fit into a consistent story while subtly hinting that he’d had to kill people to survive. Osbourne took it all in stride and told him that she wasn’t there to pass judgement. I eventually started telling a few of my own tales, though they were doctored to have had taken place on Earth. I remembered a few places and mentioned that I’d taken a job or two in India as far as tracking down smuggling rings, which made Osbourne ask me how I got past guns and security so easily. I just gave her a smile and said that I had a lot of resources at my disposal, most of them Human Capital, but none of it based on other people. I said that there were times where I needed to work with rebel groups, law enforcement, and good-minded militia to get my job done, but that they would all be in danger if I started listing off everyone I’d worked with.

Before too long, we were alerted that our car had arrived and were lead down to it. Twilight had never gotten to ride in an actual car before, so she was excited to see what is was all about. When we were climbing into the obviously armoured black SUV, she had comments about the color and the softness of the seats, continuously talking about the various different things she noticed until I gave her a good kiss to quiet her down a bit. Twilight’s rapid-fire questioning slowed down after that, so I actually had a hope of answering what she asked for once. Thankfully the leather seats escaped her notice long enough for me to come up with a decent load of bullshit for her when she asked. I told her that I didn’t know the exact process of making leather, but I did tell her that it was a process she didn’t want to learn about and that was good enough for her to not dig any deeper.

The trip to Fort Oglethorpe took some time since Atlanta traffic was brutal, but once we got out of the bigger city, we were good to go as far as getting toward our target. It was still a two hour drive, but our chauffeur was a pretty cool guy and had quite the history behind him. Apparently he’d worked security detail for years and was fond of the work, though he mentioned that I was the highest-value person he’d ever had the ‘honor’ of transporting. I asked just how big my name was and he mentioned that I was still revered as a saint and that got Jeremy sent into a coughing fit

We pulled over for a refill and James, our driver, told us to stay in the car. I ignored him completely and asked if anyone wanted any snacks, and once I had my list, I went into the petrol station to grab the good shit. Twilight got a couple bags of crisps, Jeremy got a Zero bar, I grabbed a Red Bull and a Snickers, and James told me that I was trying to get everyone killed. I told him that we were actually a minimal security detail, but he maintained that I would still have enemies for changing the world with my message. There were entire groups of people Hell-bent on hunting me down and juicing me for information according to James Potter, which I found to be ironic and glorious until he called me out for thinking of him as Harry’s Dad. It was just so oddly fitting because I was kind of like a wizard, and probably could be called a wizard by most Humans.

After our little stop, we got to Fort Oglethorpe soon enough that no one fell asleep during the last part of the journey, and when we got to the decently sized town, I looked out of the window and checked out a K-Mart that we were passing by. It was a K-Mart, I don’t know what they actually sell, but I saw a Wendy’s, a Steak n Shake, and a Waffle House that I requested that we stop for a bite at some time during our visit. Jeremy asked me how I knew that particular Waffle House was the best in the area and I replied with the truth: I didn’t. I just wanted a waffle, and maybe some scones with sausage gravy, to which Jeremy told me that the Waffle House had the best gravy, though he doubted that they had scones. I reminded him that scones were biscuits and he lauded their biscuits as we drove on to another part of town, but when we finally breached a decent enough looking neighborhood, his heartbeat picked up and he started panicking.

“Fucking Hell dude, what do I do if they don’t recognize me? I mean, when I left, I didn’t have a scar and I couldn’t even grow a beard, but here I am now, and I know I’ve changed over the past five years, but-” Jeremy rambled.

“Mate. They’ll remember their son, okay? Just take a few deep breaths and steel your resolve. You’ll make it through, Jeremy, just relax as much as you can and get your hugging arms ready, yeah?” I said softly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I just need to chill and prepare… It’s been six years here though, Max. It’s-”

“Don’t worry about it and focus, Jeremy. Just take it as it comes and we’ll be… Well, we won’t stick around if you don’t want us to, but we can grab you a phone here shortly and you can call me whenever you need to. How this goes is all up to you.”

“... I’d like to have some support going into this, but I’ve done harder things before solo. Hell, I’ve fought off a whole group of fucking mercs, dude. This shouldn’t be stressing me out this much.”

“It’s different when you’re dealing with estranged family. Even if you were on good terms before you left, there’s always a bit of hesitation when you meet again.” I sighed. “It’s how it was with my brother.”

“Rev’s right. I remember coming back from the Gulf War over in Saudi Arabia and my family only missed me for eighteen months. When you’re spending your time fighting for your life, you just change, and your family notices. They still love you all the same, but they do notice. Just fair warning, brother.” James said kindly.

“Right. I’ve heard similar enough stuff from a few of my veteran buddies.” Jeremy replied.

James spared him a glance since he was sitting in the passenger seat. “You got vet friends?”

“Some are ex-military, some are mercs. If you ask me, war’s war.” Jeremy sighed. “Whether you’re fighting for your livelihood or for your country, you’re still killing in the end.”

“I kinda resent that.” James said, his tone clipped.

“I fought for my country as well, so I do understand where you’re coming from, Mr. Potter.” I said from the back seat.

“Wait, The Reverend Revenant is a veteran?” James asked, surprised.

“I was a soldier of a different order. Semper Occultus and all that, I suppose.” I sighed.

“... Always Secret?” Jeremy asked.

“Got a buddy with MI6. Wouldn’t surprise me to find out that you knew him. Name’s Salvatore Sagiano, recently met him while he was doing some stuff for a friend.” James said.

“You know Savage?” I asked, surprised myself.

“So you do know him!” James said cheerfully as we turned a corner. “Yeah, he’s a great guy. I’ll have to tell him that I met you.”

“If you wouldn’t mind playing a bit of telephone for me, could you ask him to carry a message for his brother?” I requested.

“Sure thing, Rev. Just need to know what it is.”

“I need you to tell him that I’m sorry for disappearing, but that I’ve got my own work to do with Arcadia, and that it doesn’t mean that I’m based in Greece.” I said cryptically. “He’ll know what it means. Kind of.”

“What, you told Stephano about our home?” Twilight asked, shocked.

“Like I said; kind of. He knows that I spend most of my time there when I’m not tracking someone down.” I replied.

“Bro, what is the life you lead?” Jeremy asked.

“Weird.” I chuckled as we came to a stop. “Very weird. I believe we’re here, Jeremy.”

He turned in his seat and looked. “Oh. We’re at my house.”

“Don’t make me drag you out, mate. I will if I have to.” I warned.

James chuckled. “The sooner you get the first part over with, the sooner you can get back with your family, Jeremy. When I came back from the Gulf, I was a little scared myself, but you know what won out in the end?”

Jeremy looked at him. “Are you gonna tell me anyway?”

“Yep. My love for my family got me moving. You love your family, right?”

“Well, no shit dude.”

He chuckled. “Then get out of the Land Rover, onto the land, and get to roving.”

Jeremy gave him a look. “I’m getting out because you said that gross ass sentence. Thanks though, James. I know it’s your job, but this really does mean a lot to me.”

James shook his head. “Go and have your reunion, kid.”

Jeremy nodded and stepped out of the vehicle, walking up the driveway we were parked in as the front door opened. A Caucasian woman who appeared to be in her mid to late forties stepped out and gave the car a long look before she switched her attention to Jeremy, who must have been standing just outside of her line of sight. When they locked eyes, he started walking toward her and she toward him until they met on the walkway from the driveway to the front door. Jeremy’s mother put her hands on his arms, looking down at him because she was actually kinda tall before she swept him up in a hug. I could hear every word between them, but it wasn’t my moment. I’d had my moment with my own mother and some prick had ruined it, so I was content to let Jeremy take her in while he could.

They parted and Jeremy’s Mom started dragging him into the house, but he stopped her and pointed toward the car, gesturing for Twilight and I to come on out. I hopped to it and came around the right side of the car while Twilight had a straight shot over to them. “Oi! What’s with the sudden inclusion?”

“Mom? That’s the guy who brought me back. He’s the reason I was able to come back home.” Jeremy said quietly.

“... He looks awfully familiar, Jerms.” She replied, matching his tone.

Twilight and I walked up to them and I offered the older woman my hand. “Kaid Gadai, but you might know me as the Revered Revenant. It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Clarkson.”

Jeremy’s Mom stared at me. “You’re the Reverend?” She breathed.

“Yes ma’am, I am.” I gave her a pleasant smile.

“... Stars above, my son was saved by the SIAC.” She shook her head. “Jeremy, your father is never going to believe this.”

“He’ll believe it when I show him what I can do now. When I show both of you.” Jeremy murmured.

She gave him a quizzical look. “What does that mean, Jerms? Where have you been for all these years?”

Jeremy looked at me. “I’ve been somewhere special. You wouldn’t believe me right now, but you will. Do you mind if we bring Kaid and Twilight inside? They’re kind of friends to me at this point.”

“I’m still going to deck you, but yeah, I can deal with being friends.” I said casually.

“I still want to hit you, but friends.” Twilight confirmed.

“How many times do I have to apologize? Seriously?” Jeremy grumbled.

“Until you go back in time and un-kidnap my wife.” I said drily. I turned to Jeremy’s mother who was staring at me in shock. “It’s a long story that we’ll start telling inside, if you’ll allow us a seat in a non-moving thing.”

“Um… Yes, yes, please come inside.” Mrs. Clarkson said numbly.

I gave her a warm smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Clarkson. Let me tell our driver that he’s free to go and we’ll get to talking.”

“Your driver is with the Coalition, isn’t he?” She asked.

“Well, he’s an affiliate that works with us from time to time. When we have people that need to be safely transported, we have the means to take them home through a few friends we’ve made. Helping people often forms bonds in odd places.” I chuckled and shook my head.

“You can say that again.” Mrs. Clarkson shook her head. “You’ve done great work, Mr. Revenant-”

“Please, call me Rev, Max, or Kaid. I answer to all three, and they’re all less of a mouthful.” I said kindly.

“Which one is your real name?” She asked.

“Kaid is the name I was born with, but Max is the name I’m most commonly known by in Equestria. I’m known as Reverend Revenant here on Earth, but I don’t visit that often.”

Mrs. Clarkson chuckled. “I suppose that when you go around the world helping people that the different countries start seeming like different worlds.”

I raised a brow at her. “If that’s what you think, then Jeremy’s tale is going to be the strangest truth you’ve ever heard.”

She blinked at me and looked to Jeremy, who pursed his lips. “He’s really not wrong. I’ve been on a different planet.”

“... Are you high?” She asked.

“No, but I do need a drink.” He pulled out his third flask from his bag and took a swig from it. “I always thought coming home would be stressful if I ever managed to do it, but man, I’ve been blowing through my flasks.”

Mrs. Clarkson looked concerned. “Jerms, don’t tell me you started drinking.”

“I’ve been a mercenary for five years, Mom. It helps.” He said quietly.

Twilight put a hand on his arm and I went off to go tell James that he was awesome and gave him a twenty pound note for being cool. He gave me a weird look when I handed him cash from the UK, but he said that he would keep it and pass it down for generations to come, which struck me as weird until I realized that I was pretty much the Gandhi or Dalai Lama. of my time, which was odd in and of itself. When I came back, I followed Jeremy and his mother inside along with Twilight. The medium sized house was pretty nice and the furniture all looked like it had been taken care of, but lived in. The decorations on the walls and the piano chilling in the corner of the room told me that Jeremy’s presence had been sorely missed. We waited in the living room while Jeremy’s Mom went into the kitchen to grab Mr. Clarkson, so Twilight and I had a seat on the couch with Jeremy.

When Mr. Clarkson rushed into the room, he and Jeremy met closer to the kitchen because Jeremy was faster. “Dad! I thought you were going to be on a trip or something!”

“No, son. When you left, I had to be here for your mother, but… Where did you go, Jerms? Where have you been all these years?” Mr. Clarkson asked, gripping his son tightly.

“I’ve been on a planet called Equis, a world full of different sentient races.” Jeremy said, his voice full of doubt like he couldn’t really believe it himself.

His Dad held him at arm’s length. “... Did you seriously come home high?”

Jeremy sighed. “I’ll prove it to you, Dad. I can show you things you’d never believe.”

I coughed. “Actually, Twilight could help out here.”

“It wouldn’t be an issue. That is, unless you want to show off for your parents.” My wife offered.

Mr. Clarkson looked at us. “Who are y’all?”

I waved. “My name is Kaid, but you might know me as the Reverend. I’m with the Safe In Arms Coalition.”

“... You’re the Reverend Revenant?” He asked blankly.

“Yes, and this is my wife, Twilight. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I gave him a warm smile.

“... Brother, you’re not with the SIAC, you are the SIAC!” Mr Clarkson exclaimed.

“Please, one man can’t do himself what hundreds of thousands of others can accomplish. It’s just not possible.” I smiled sadly.

Jeremy’s Dad just shook his head. “Boy, what did you get yourself into that you needed the leader of the biggest organization on Earth to pull you out of?”

Jeremy sighed. “Dad, I got taken to another planet.”

He just looked at his son in frustration. “You can’t expect me to accept that like it’s just a normal everyday thing, Jerms.”

“Dad, I’ve never been able to lie to you. I looked you in the eyes and everything!” Jeremy said.

His Mom placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s just too fantastical, Jeremy. If you-”

Twilight flashed and changed into her Pony form after taking her shoes off. “Do you believe him now?” She asked.

“She’s purple.” Jeremy’s Mom said numbly.

“... What the Hell are you?” His Dad asked.

“I’m a Pony from a planet called Equus. It’s different from Equis, where Jeremy got sent to, but it’s similar in a lot of ways.” Twilight gave them a smile. “My full name is Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Arcadia, a member of the Equestrian Royal Family, and foalnap-ee of your asshole of a son.”

“I’m sorry, okay? God, I know it’s only been a couple days, but I could’ve kept you in the dungeon!” Jeremy protested.

“You could’ve just left Max and I alone too, but here we are.” Twilight replied crisply.

He sighed. “Look, I really am sorry, but it got me back to Earth, so I’m not that sorry. Can you really blame me? I mean, it’s been years since I’ve seen my parents!”

I nodded. “Ease up, Cherry. We’ve already agreed to settle it, so getting worked up over it isn’t helping anyone.”

“What does ‘foalnap’ mean?” Mr. Clarkson asked.

“It means he kidnapped us.” I stated plainly. “While toppling multiple governments, your son decided that I was the biggest threat on Equis, which I was, but I would have happily let him do whatever he wanted as long as he was nice about it. Instead of leaving my wife and I to enjoy our honeymoon, he set a trap for me in the capital of a country called Equestria and kidnapped Twilight and our friends while I was busy being baited and attacked from behind.”

Jeremy’s Dad turned to stare at his furiously blushing son. “... There’s an alien in my living room, a royal alien, and my son kidnapped it-”

“Her.” Jeremy, Twilight, and I chorused.

“Just because she’s an alien doesn't mean she isn’t a person, Dad.”

“Right. Sorry about that, Twilight, but you see where I’m coming from here, right? I mean, my son walks into my house after being gone for six years and he brings the leader of the bloody Safe In Arms Coalition with him along with a woman who had purple hair, but changed into a thing with hooves and horse ears before my very eyes. I’m…” Mr. Clarkson rubbed his receding hairline.

Mrs. Clarkson took over. “You said that you had another way to show us that you’ve been away from this world, didn’t you? What are you talking about?”

Jeremy looked at me and I shrugged. “I can show them a few of my tricks as long as they keep them quiet. No one needs to know about me having powers.”

“Powers?” His parents chorused.

Jeremy nodded. “All three of us are magically powerful. I’m one of the strongest being on my planet because I’m such a defensive tank.” He crossed the living room and stood on the opposite end as his parents. “Can you guys come over here for a second?”

Jeremy waited until they were halfway there to erect a bubble, and when he did, his parents practically leapt out of their skin. “Holy shit! What the Hell is this!?” His Dad cried.

“This is a shield. It’s impenetrable. Even Kaid can’t breach it from the outside.” Jeremy said.

“... Is this Magic? Or is this just science we don’t understand?” His Mom asked, prodding the bubble with her fingers.

“Well, they’re pretty much one in the same, but I’ve noticed that Earth seems to be devoid of pretty much any Aetherial Magic. There’s a little bit here and there, but I think that Earth’s Stonehenge is probably one of the places where it’s more concentrated.” Twilight said quickly. “Magic and science really do go hand in hand, but I don’t believe that too many Humans can use Magic for anything other than basic things, like charms or minor divination.”

“You sound like you know a lot about Magic and science.” Mrs. Clarkson commented as she continued to test the bubble.

“Well, I’ve been studying Magic for about eighteen years at this point, and I’ve been a scientist for eight of them.” My wife blushed.

“So you’re a smart woman? Nice to know that not all royalty are vapid, vainglorious assholes.” Jeremy’s Dad said.

“Oi, I’m vapid and vainglorious!” I jested.

Twilight pinched me. “He’s not most of the time, but why don’t you show them some teleportation while you’re going on about showing off?”

I teleported to Jeremy’s Dad and the fellow stared at me. “Hullo there.”

“Holy shit.”

I held up a hand and let some electricity arc between my fingers. “You get used to it.”

I walked back over to the couch and sat next to Twilight while Jeremy dropped his shield. “I can also read minds, make things float, conjure up magma, fly, and utilize Aetherial Magic in a lot of ways.”

His parents didn’t say anything to that, so he came over and hugged them both. “I’m different now, Mom, Dad, but I’m still the same Jeremy you guys raised. It’s been a while, but I still love you. I’m still your son.” He said desperately.

They hugged him back. “It’s so good to have you back, Jeremy.” His Mom said. “I just... I can’t believe that you’re here! We thought you were dead!”

“Son, we spent years looking for you,” Mr. Clarkson said shakily. “And now you’re back with all these new superpowers and scars… What happened? What’s your life been that you had to get like this?” He asked.

Jeremy’s heart throbbed. He faced his parents as he spoke to Twilight and I. “Hey. Can you royals take a hike? Not trying to be rude, but I’m planning on telling them things I’ve never said before.”

“I understand the feeling better than you could ever know. We’ll be making a quick trip to Walmart to get you a phone, drop it off along with my number, and we’ll be in England. Good luck, mate, and don’t let the hurt stop you from getting it out. It’s worth the relief that comes later.” I advised.

“Didn’t you say your parents died before you were even in high school?”

“I think so? I don’t know how old you have to be to go to high school, but they’ve been gone awhile. I found other people to love and trust, mate, and coming clean about homicide, genocide, regicide, suicide, self-harm, alcoholism, former drug abuse, being raped, and a few other smaller things was fucking hard. Shit sucks. It really does, but it’s worth it.”

“... Dude, I actually feel sorry for you now. What the fuck is your life?” Jeremy asked.

I looked at Twilight. “Better now. A lot better than it used to be.”

Jeremy didn’t have anything to say to that, so I offered Twilight my hand and we teleported to a remote corner of the Walmart parking lot. I was digging the blue on the building, likening it to Tesco back home. I figured they’d be the same thing, so Twilight and I went inside, found the electronics, and bought four phones. Twilight got one, Jeremy got one, and I got two, one for personal use between friends and one for the SIAC, which I planned on filling with the names of as many of my followers as I could. It would be handy to have connections all around the world, and with how deep my ‘little’ organization ran, I could probably have a legal passport and photo ID in every unshitty country on the fucking planet, and that shit was beyond dope.

Sadly, or should I say fortunately, I remembered that I was supposed to be humble and not revel in having power, but it seemed stupid to not utilize the connections I had as long as I was using them for a good person. I told myself that I’d do a good deed for every time I used the SIAC to get somewhere or do something so I wouldn’t feel as guilty. It was set in stone, but I gave myself a little leniency and called the thing I was doing for Jeremy as my good deed since I’d used them to reconnect him with his family in the first place. Still, I was annoyed that I’d let myself slip up, but glad that I’d caught it. Or vice versa. Whicher reality you choose to face, I guess.

Twilight and I popped out of Walmart from a deserted aisle after paying for our shit and went to Will’s attic. I dropped off Jeremy’s phone shortly before Twilight and I started getting our new phones set up. My personal phone and Twilight’s phone were both LG since I trusted the brand pretty well, and the G-Stylo had good reviews when I looked it up, even if it was a little old at this point, so it wasn’t all that hard for me to teach Twilight how to properly use a smartphone. It was actually easy as fuck once she fully grasped the concept of a touch screen since she’d never really played around with my phone. Once I got my shit set up and transferred like, four people’s numbers over, I watched as Twilight explored the possibilities of ‘modern’ technology. The phone’s been badly out of date since the LG G8 was released, but it was still a good beginning phone and there wasn’t a contract, so that was nice.

Once my wife got far too entranced with her phone for it to be healthy anymore, I dragged her away from it and knocked on the hatch that lead down to the house. Will opened it after some persistent knocking and gave me a look. “Mate, do you know what time it is?”

“No clue. I’m coming in from America, actually. Lovely little place in Georgia, I’ll have to take you with me for some waffles. Bring your passport.” I said cheerily.

“Imma choke you next time you do wake me up.” Will grumbled bitterly.

“Would it be better if I changed into Roxy and gave you a kiss?” I teased.

“Let me arse-fuck you and we’ll talk.”

“Why are you two always talking about rough sex?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Why don’t you sound tired of it like usual?” Will inquired.

“Because I don’t feel like it. Can you answer my question, or should Max?”

We looked at each other and shrugged. “Uh, we probably talk about it because we’re secretly gay for each other or something.” Will said.

“Twinks, the both of you.” Bea growled from nearby. She came into view and glared at Twilight and I. “Get your arses down here and go to sleep. It’s too late for this shit.”

“Won’t hear me complaining.” I said loftily.

“Sorry, Bea. We didn’t take the time difference into account.” Twilight said apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it, Twi. Max, however, fucking knows better.” Bea grunted.

I scratched my face. “Nah, I actually forgot. It’s been awhile since I’ve travelled across the world in the blink of an eye.”

“Yeah right, Mr. Prince. I’m going back to bed, Will’s coming with me, and your arses are going to be under dirt if I’m not asleep within the next thirty minutes.” Bea grumbled saltily.

“You remember how I’m an Alicorn, right?” Twilight deadpanned.

“... Alright, Twilight’s coming too, but Max, you’re going to the guest room. Do not steal my last Coke, you fuck. I saw you grab one from your bullshit planet the other day!”

I cracked up. “Aw fuck, I can’t believe I got caught from a different fucking planet! I can’t get away with shit anymore!”

“Fuck off, tosser.” Bea grumbled, walking away.

Twilight teleported down and I wasn’t far behind her. She followed Bea, so I stuck around with Will. “It’s four in the morning, Max. I wish I could punch you so bad right now.”

“Grumpy, aren’t we?”

“Fuck off, dick cheese.”

“Is that your way of saying you wanna eat me?”

“Go to bed, you waffle.”

I tapped his shoulder with my fist. “See you in a few, mate.”

“You’re making breakfast.” He declared gallantly, as if he were challenging me to a duel.

“K.”

“Mate, did you just ‘Kay’ me, or did you just ‘K’ me?”

I gave him a shit eating grin. “Betcher wonderin’ why ya let me in yer house righta ‘bout now, aintcha?”

I let Will poke my eye because I was being a dick at this point, but Twilight was fixing the problem anyway, so I didn’t feel too bad. I headed off to the guest room and changed into my night clothes before I texted Stephano Sagiano my request. Apparently he was awake because he texted me back immediately and asked me if I was okay and a bunch of other questions that weren’t really important enough to right down. I told him that I was fine and that I’d made it back to England already, though he asked how I’d been in America less than four hours ago and already made it across the pond. I asked that he not worry about it too hard and focus on getting me numbers from branch heads in the major cities and getting my number to them so I could get started on Operation Skypeportation. The name was stupid, but I figured that it was going to be dope as shit to be able to get anywhere I needed to within hours by teleporting between countries.

He immediately sent me dozens of numbers and names to go along with them, so I started creating contacts and getting in touch with everyone, starting with the first name; Stefan Lofven. I recognized the name, but the ‘P.M. of SWE’ didn’t mean much to me. Still, I gave the guy a text and told him that Stephano had put me in contact with him and that I looked forward to possibly meeting him if our paths were to ever cross. I basically just copied and pasted the same message to people to had the ‘P.M.’ in their short description given by Stephano, but I had a fucktonne of names to through. There ended up being HUNDREDS and they all required me to send a specialized message to the different groups. I figured out that ‘B.M. meant ‘Branch Manager’ and that a few other acronyms meant ‘Section leader’, or Division Head’, but I was pretty concerned with figuring out what ‘PRE’, ‘P.M.’, and ‘CHAN’ meant. Sadly, I’d told Stephano to go to sleep after he sent me his contacts, otherwise I would have asked him.

Twilight was in bed and asleep by the time I got done contacting everyone I need to get to, and my phone was constantly buzzing as I went and finished shit up. I learned what ‘PRE’ ‘P.M’ and ‘CHAN’ meant, sadly. President, Prime Minister, and Chancellor respectively. I wasn’t really expecting for government officials to be members of the SIAC, but I was kinda glad that I could count on world leaders to dig me out of any trouble I might be in. I figured I’d hide this fact from just about everyone because it really just wouldn’t do for me to put it out there. I mean, having pretty much every major country’s leader in your pocket?

KINDA EVIL SOUNDIN’.

I really wasn’t fond of where this seemed to be taking me, but I had my contacts now, so I enchanted my phone with a Seal and doubled down with some Aetherial Runes that were in Alicin or Latin, whichever you like. Celestia had actually given me a basic understanding of Alicin when we’d trained in Canterlot, which is how she doubled her voice to teach me two things at once. Noir herself actually took the time to teach me a fair amount, but other than for magical oaths, serious curses, or apparently enchanting, I didn’t really know what it could be used for. I spent some time enchanting my other phone and Twilight’s phone because I could, though I figured I’d let her put her own Seal on hers because obvious reasons.

The Sun rose quickly enough, so I got to making breakfast as agreed and had everything hot and ready when I began the wake-up call. I could hear Will and Bea in the shower, so I went and got Twilight up and moving. It took a few kisses and a completely necessary hornjob, but she still got out of bed. The mouthful of wine flavoured Magic was nice, but when I swallowed it, I integrated it into my Aetherial Magic supply and it started fluctuating. I figured it would balance out since it wasn’t going wild per se, but throughout breakfast it was acting up. I somehow turned a glass cup into a sandy substance while drinking from it, but at least Twilight was able to clean me up. Once she had the sandy shit put together, I poured some of the unstable Magic into it and it turned back into a cup, but instead of being a normal, round glass, it was ornate and alien. It also held considerably less water, which sucked, but at least it was pretty now.

I had a piece of toast turn back to bread in my mouth, and when I told everyone about that, they had a giggle, but Twilight was a little concerned. “Are you sure you can control it, Max? Unstable Magic can be pretty dangerous.”

“I’ll see if I can get it to quiet down after some meditation or something. I mean, if I can get it to level out, but still use it like I am, I see real potential for this kind of Magic.” I mused.

“Just do it after breakfast, okay? I’m not too sure it’s a good thing.” My wife said.

I nodded. “Will do, Cherry.”

“What the Hell is your life, mate? You just get new Magic all the time or something?” Will asked, chuckling.

I shrugged. “Kinda feels like it sometimes. Apparently I’m just a great magical conduit of some kind.”

“It’s weird, but true. Max can hold most kinds of Magic, it’s just that he doesn’t innately know how to use it.” Twilight informed.

“Well that would make him overpowered, Twilight.” Will scoffed.

“Like he isn’t already?” Bea droned.

I couldn’t really say shit, so I ate some bacon. Luckily I managed to get two more bites before the meat turned raw in my hand. “Well that sucks.”

“Let’s hope it’s not doing that in your stomach.” Will said uneasily.

“Ew.” Twilight made a face.

And thus breakfast was over.

I took a little time to meditate in the guest room and centered myself on the Aetherial Magic since it was still warbling and wobbling about. As I focused on it, the mass of Magic began to still and I felt it calm, having been mixed well enough to change the way it worked. I thought about how the Magic had worked and how it reverted things back to their base nature, or rather, the form they had previously been stable in. I found it to be quite curious, but as I delved deeper into it, I considered that I might have been altering time on some minor scale and held onto the idea instead of dismissing it shortly before going into the mindscape.

I touched down on the Central Platform and shifted over to Kaid’s door without double checking to see if anyone was around. After ringing the bell, I was elated to find that Kaid himself had answered the door so I wouldn’t have to see Blue. “Oi, mate, you got a mo’?”

He stepped out and closed the door behind him. “Yeah, man. I got time. What’s up?”

“Aetherial Magic. What do you know about it?” I asked.

He raised a brow. “That’s a lot of ground to cover, Max.”

“So we have Aetherial Magic now. I took a swing at soaking some in and did it with the siphon you made.” I reminded.

“Oh, that’s what you needed that for. I was wondering if you were doing prep work for a fight or something.” Kaid scratched his cheek..

I made a face. “Little on the cheap side there, but that’s not the thing though. So I think I can alter time with Aetherial Magic.”

“It would make sense. You could argue that Aetherial Magic is time itself.”

I tilted my head at him. “You what, mate?”

“Yeah, some Unicorn theorists have come up with hypotheses saying that Aether is time. I can get real technical with you if you want.” He offered.

“Oh, buddy, we’re getting fucking technical here, because I think this might be the last piece to the True Theft puzzle.” I gave him a devious grin.

He stared at me. “... Fucking coincidence because I’ve making hypotheses about methods to unlock that part of the power. Let’s get some chairs and tea in this bitch because this is about to be good. I never get to get technical since Sugar Plum thinks I’m an ass, Dusk doesn’t do much Magic-based research these days, and Lavender doesn’t care about anything that doesn’t come out of Prince’s mouth.”

I conjured up a couple of comfy leather chairs, a chimney, and an inn table a few meters away. “Then let’s get started. I’m feeling a citrus tea today, what about you?”

“I’m down for whatever, but I’m trying to smoke one while Blue’s busy with her embroidery.” The younger me said. It’s going to get weird here when I start calling him Kaid since I had other people already call me Kaid in this entry, but oh well, I suppose.

“You roll it, then.” I had a seat and he pulled out a bag of herb before sitting down.

As he prepared the stuffs and things, I conjured up Sinbad because it was time to pass him down. “Dude, that bong is sick.” Kaid beamed.

“He’s yours now, mate. It’s time I passed Sinbad onto the next generation of arseholes.” I smirked.

Kaid packed the bowl and hit it. Of course he held it in like a champ before I got my turn, but that wasn’t important. “Dude, it’s so smooth!”

“Sinbad was the best, Kaid. I miss him.” I sighed “Whatever though. Give me the rundown on Aetherial Magic.”

“Alright, so the Aether is a substance unlike gas or plasma that exists all around us at any given moment, and I guarantee you that it’s on Earth too, it’s just weaker in the cities because there’s less nature, which the Aether either feeds off of or grows from. Starswirl himself once documented an Aetherial Magic experiment in which he altered time and sent himself into a time loop before he slingshotted himself out of it by recasting the spell after mixing his Magic with the Aetherial Magic, which is damned difficult for a Unicorn to do, if my reading is anything to go by. So far I’ve only heard of about three Ponies making it through the turbulence that comes with mixing Unicorn and Aetherial Magic, but if you can get it mixed, you apparently have something that has ties to temporality. It’s just that there aren’t any concrete answers.” Kaid mini-lectured.

I took a deep breath. “So basically we’re handling something we know nothing about.”

“Look, Max, you can breathe in the Aether, right?” Kaid asked before hitting the bong.

“Yeah. What about it?”

“So you know what it feels like?” He said, holding his breath.

“Are you telling me to just search for it in something and take it out?” I asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Huh. But Aether feels different from time. Time felt cold and gooey when I was using True Theft the first time around. I mean, I could almost poke through it with my…” We stared at each other.

“Sanity on Equus determines how much you can warp reality.” Kaid said numbly.

“You don’t even need to use Magic, you just have to have the mindset.” I replied blankly.

“Huh.” We said.

“So what else is there about Aether? Why did it cause and earthquake back at Romulus’ base?”

“I guess it depends on where you get it from. Starswirl said he got his Aether from the Everfree, so it wasn’t much of a surprise to find that it turned on him.” Kaid replied.

“I’ll see if I can skim through a few new books for you so we can read up on what the Equis Ponies have come up with on the subject. They might have a different take on it after all.”

“Right. Well,” I conjured up the tea and biscuits. “I guess we could just talk about whatever for a little while.”

“Or we could get super stoned and smash a fucktonne of cookies becuse we can’t get fat.” Kaid suggested.

“... Pass Sinbad, kid.”

Kaid and I blew through an ounce before he let me stop. Shit was fucking ridiculous and my lungs hurt, but I still managed to get over to the rune circle to get out of the mindscape and back into my body. It was disconcerting, being high as fuck and then not being high as fuck, but it was cool. I didn’t know what to do with the answer I had gotten from Kaid, but I did try to reach through time and space with my right hand again. My hand met no resistance as it went through the air, but it just didn’t do anything else either. I just moved my arm back and forth like a loon for a minute before giving up. Once I was done with that, I joined Twilight in Will and Bea’s living room since the other two had gone off to work. Fucking weekdays. Anyway, I just cuddled with my wife while she was in Human form for a little while before we went out to go grab some food.

We got back and I started writing this out. I’ll probably switch over to the book of paranoia soon enough, but Will and Bea will be getting home soon enough. From my pocket-watch (Which was still set to Arcadia’s time) I can see that Jeremy still has about sixty hours left, so I’m hoping to have a good time while I’m here. Might just chill with Will and Bea during the stay on Earth while Jeremy gets his shit settled. We’ll see what do.

That’s all for now. I have games to download and Northernlion videos to catch up on. You know, for a Canadian, he’s actually funny as fuck. I assumed that they were just friendly loggers with a hard-on for maple syrup, but dude’s actually Dad as fuck. Now I’m just getting off topic, talking about the Egglord and shit.

When Jeremy had forty-eight hours left, I quieted the alarm I’d set and let him know that he had two more days before we were supposed to go back to Equis. He texted back and asked if I was still in the States and I told him that I wasn’t, so he asked where the bloody fuck I’d gone. I told him England and left it at that, but then we started talking about how his parents had taken the news of his return only being temporary until he sorted out what he wanted to do. He let me know that they’d strongly advocated for him staying and coming back to live a normal life whereas he was feeling torn between worlds, but I didn’t quite get that feeling. I’d experienced it before, yes, but my choice had been clear. Jeremy’s, on the other hand, was an answer he’d have to find for himself.

I lay awake and played some Delta Sleep to help me relax, but I really wished that I had an answer for Jeremy, even if I still wanted to deck the guy. I knew that his position was a hard one to be in, but I also knew what my duty was, so I sent him a text and let him know the score. Much to my surprise, Jeremy was fine with being stripped of most of his powers if he decided to live on Earth since he doubted that he’d ever need anything other than the shields or mind reading. I was there with him on that one, but I did warn him that I could probably take the powers he wasn’t telling me about too, but he was still fine with it since they were pretty combat-oriented powers anyway.

At five in the morning, I decided to go for a jog around the block to clear my head and get some cardio in, and at six thirty, I was back and ready for Friday to be over since the shitty Earth air still hurt my lungs when I exerted myself. It was fine, it just sucked that I should have been able to run longer and faster, but had been cut down by air quality. I suppose I just got too used to Equestria’s clean air. I didn’t let it bother me when I got back and started making pancakes, being sure not to actually touch any of the food since I’d been out sweating for an hour and a half. I made sure to rouse everyone before the food got cold, and even when it did, Will and Bea just popped their food into the convenience box, also known as a microwave.

“So what are your plans for the day? You gonna go see that American Jeremy guy?” Bea asked around a bite of eggs.

“Wasn’t planning on it. The only thing I had to do was get him here. It’s up to him what he decides to do.” I said noncommittally.

“I’m surprised you haven’t fucked him up yet. I mean, he kinda kidnapped your wife, mate.” Will said.

“Oh, trust me, I plan on getting his arse good. It’s just that it doesn’t suit me to do that right now.” I replied.

Twilight giggled. “I would love to be there when you actually fight him. I’m usually not a woman for violence, but that asshole deserves a good punch or two.”

“Sucks for you; I specialize in kicks and nerve strikes, not punching.” I smiled.

“I can settle for a proper kick.” Twilight nodded.

“I like this side of Twilight when it’s not being directed at me.” Beatrix said cheekily.

“I’m fond of it too, but I just don’t want her to switch targets.” Will chuckled.

“Don’t kidnap me or my Max and we’ll be fine.” Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Your Max?” Bea asked, smiling. “Don’t you share him from time to time.”

“Everyone at the table knows who holds the leash, regardless of who’s petting my puppy.” Twilight tickled my chin.

I gave her a look. “I’ll stick a finger in your bum. I really will.”

“Aww, look at your widdle nose! Can I have kisses?” Twilight asked patronizingly.

I surprised her by giving her one, but as I pulled away, I bit her lip. “Grr.”

She leaned away when I let her go. “Only naughty puppies bite during kisses!”

“Oh my God, you two need to stop.” Will groaned.

“No! Keep going, keep going! This is better than the Hallmark Channel!” Bea gushed.

Twilight grinned at me. “Are you going to give me good kisses or are you going to keep being a naughty puppy?”

“I’ll bite you for real this time.” I deadpanned.

She pinched my cheek. “Who’s a good boy? You are! You are!”

Bea laughed and Will snickered, so I made good on my promise and Twilight turned cherry red. “That’s what I thought.” I wiggled my finger around.

“P-P-Point made M-Max.” Twilight stammered.

I took my finger back. “Naughty puppy my arse.”

“What’d he do?” Will asked.

“Don’t ask.” Twilight requested.

He beamed. “Wish I could do that to Bea. It’d be great to finger-” Bea fish-hooked him before he could continue.

“Get your mind out of the gutter and finish breakfast before you’re late for work, oaf.” She scolded.

He rubbed his cheek and glared at her. “Yes mother.”

Bea gave him a look. “Don’t you take that tone with me.”

“Add ‘young man’ onto that and you still sound like his Mum.” I teased.

“I’ll choke you with a sea urchin.” Bea threatened.

“I’ll sell it as a delicacy and make five pounds.” I smirked.

She rolled her eyes and tucked into breakfast. “At least you can cook.”

“It’s one of his better tricks.” Twilight said, sneaking me a shit-eating grin.

I gave her a look. “Do you want it to happen again? Because it can happen again.”

“It wouldn’t be as bad if we weren’t in front of people.” My wife murmured, blushing.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I chuckled.

“... I forgot that you’d hear that.” Twilight sighed and went back to breakfast.

“Hear what?” Will asked, chewing some toast.

“Don’t worry about it. Super-Human knowledge and all that.” I thumbed my nose.

“Shut up, you arrogant fuck.” Will chortled.

“You shut up and eat.” Bea admonished.

He sent a look her way. “You suck sometimes, you know that?”

“Yes, but I keep you on track and you love me for it.” Bea said smugly.

“Tch. Cocky, aren’t we?” He said foolishly.

She gave him a withering look. “I’ll bite you during the next time, you know that, right?”

“I can bite you too-”

“But I’ll enjoy it.” Bea said, wearing a smarmy grin.

“Not on those lips.” He grinned.

“... Bit me down there and I’ll cut it off.”

“Not so funny now, is it?”

“No. Guess it’s not.” She replied.

Will beamed and did a little fistpump, though I didn’t miss the look Bea and Twilight traded. The natural Human took an L for the sake of keeping her man happy, which would have impressed me more if she hadn't started the shit in the first place. At least she was backing down on occasion instead of being on Will’s case for every little thing like she used to be. Better is better I suppose.

Twilight and I decided to go out and catch a movie while our Human friends were at work, so I suggested that we go see Avengers: Infinity War because I was actually hype as fuck to go see that Movie. Will had told me about it the night before while Twilight and Bea were talking about the joys of being kidnapped, and it sounded like a dope thing to go and watch. We caught a matinee and ended up getting pretty decent seats, though. Shit was good, that’s all I have to say on the matter. I’ll probably come back to Earth soon enough so I can download it (Illegally because I’m a rebel at heart), but what was important was the fact that Twilight and I caught the My Little Pony Movie, and that shit was a trip. We had to leave. It was too fucking uncanny to see the Ponies we’d been talking to not even two weeks on the big screen, looking pretty damned similar to how they did in life. Shit was just unnatural and it bothered me to no end.

Twilight took it better, but she still didn’t like the movie. She just didn’t like how it put her friend’s lives on display for everyone to see, and she personally thought that it was a huge invasion of privacy, but I was busy having an existential crisis due to a vague memory that I had regarding a conversation with Pinkie Pie. She’d once told me that she was the comedic relief in the story and I thought she’d just been… Well, acting like her normal self, but I remembered her talking about an ‘Author’ or something a few times in passing. I mean, is my life just a story too? Do I spend all of my time writing these journals in between cuts in the movie? I mean, yeah, my life is fucking weird, but is it like, TV show kind of weird? I couldn’t imagine someone wanting to watch a show about my life, nor could I fathom someone other than a person who knows me actually wanting to read a story about me. The thief thing is kinda cool in my books, but could someone really write a story about just me being a thief alone, or would they have to extend into my life in Equestria? Hell, where would my story even start?

Twilight and I are sitting in Will and Bea’s house and I asked her how she would write my story if she was given all the information and she said that she’d probably just let my journals speak for themselves since I keep them pretty detailed anyway. I mean, they do kind of read like a story up to a certain point, but this shit couldn’t possibly be like, fun to read, right? I mean, I’ve died, been tortured, killed a fucktonne of people, done a shittonne of swearing… I mean, it’d take a certain kind of person with a dark sense of humour to like reading through my shit as more than just trying to get to know more about me and my life, unless that’s the point.

I suppose that when you start reading a book, or even a journal for conversation’s sake, that you get attached, like whoever so happens to be reading this now. Except the ‘Magic’ of being drawn into a story isn’t literally Magic like I’ve done, but still. My point is that I tend to get attached to characters in stories, so if people were to read my ‘story’, would they get attached to me? Would they feel for my pain? Revel in my happiness? Jerk it to the times I had sex? I mean, it’s a weird thought, but having that movie show my friends from Equis on the silver screen was a real wake up call to the possibility that I’m not in control of my life. Sure, it might seem like it at face value, but God’s will dictates where I go, and who’s to say that there’s not someone pulling his strings? There might just be some ‘Almighty Author’ who makes shit happen, but I don’t think I can ever confirm that. Even if I could, I doubt the guy would actually be able to talk to me? What the fuck is he going to do? Insert himself into the story like some shitty fanfiction?

oh my god. what if my life is fanfiction? I’m going to fucking kill myself if that shit’s true.

… I really fucking hope my life isn’t fanfiction if it is just a story.

We were at the twenty-four hour mark when I woke up this morning and I haven’t really done shit besides talk to world leaders. Apparently some faggot named Ajit Pai wanted to monetize internet speeds, so I asked Trump to stop that nonsense before it spread to England or some shit. I got a late reply, but Trump said that he’d move to repeal that nonsense. Apparently even Klanbois can get decent after seeing my video, but it’s not like I really care about America. I guess I just wanted to impose my will some more or some shit, but I don’t think that was the case there. It’s just that Net Neutrality is some important shit, and if you disagree, suck a couple pimple covered dicks. I prefer to watch my porn with little to no buffering, thank you very much, and I believe that even the most ann.

I contacted Theresa May because I was interested in how she viewed the SIAC and she told me that we’d helped her husband open a burn ward in a hospital some time in the last few months, which I thought was a pretty cool thing. She liked us rather well and I asked if she’d had any legal trouble with us in the past, but she asked me if my phone was secure and I told her that it was not. Theresa offered to get me a safe one and I told her to just send me a picture of one and leave it in a desk somewhere. She did as I asked within the hour, and when I texted her from that phone, she was fucking thunderstruck, but the ‘How!?’ text I got was pretty much the only thing I had to go on. I imagine she was thunderstruck or something similar, because it’s not everyday you put something somewhere and it’s- Well, actually, that shit does happen everyday. Never mind.

We continued our conversation after I told her that I was Magic, but she tried to beleaguer the point until I told her that I just wasn’t going to answer her questions. I got Prime Minister May to move on to some of the troubles the SIAC has had, like the time my secret strike force had been caught clearing out a drug den, but MI6 had taken care of the event to save face since a charity had beaten them to the punch. She also mentioned that a lot of people who passed through the doors of my centers were criminals and that some of my employees were criminals as well, but I shrugged it off and suggested that she do the same since those people were either in the process of turning their lives around or had already done it.

Prime Minister May asked if she could meet me in person, just to say that she was one of the few people that had and I asked that I be allowed to bring my wife along, and she agreed to a dinner date later in the day. After we arranged some transport, Theresa let me know that she knew exactly where I was and that I was currently in the home of a small time cyber-criminal and I told her that he was a work in progress. She warned me that he wasn’t as sneaky as he thought he was, but I asked her to just have a hacker send him a clear message to knock it off since I couldn’t convince him to do so. However, Mrs. Prime Minister had a better idea and said that she was willing to "...‘re-allocate such an asset to MI6 where Mr. Treaty’s skills can be put to use for the greater good’.” I figured it was better than accidentally getting him arrested, so I told her to spring it on him without bringing my name up, just in case he got salty.

With my dinner taken care of, I figured I’d wait to make breakfast since it was the weekend. I figured I’d spend some time with Twilight as she snoozed on and let the soft sound of her resting heartbeat lull me back and forth between scattered dreams and the waking world. When I heard that heartbeat pick up, I assumed that Twilight was waking up, meaning that I should too. However, we were both quite comfortable where we were, so we weren’t in any hurry to get up.

“Good morning, beautiful.” I breathed into Twilight’s ear. It flicked adorably.

“Mmm~ Good morning, handsome. Is this compliment going to be complemented by a kiss, or am I going to have to steal one?” She asked enticingly.

I kissed her neck and she murmured her approval. “Kisses upon your word, a little more upon request.”

Twilight held the arm that I had draped over her. “Not in your brother’s house.”

“He’d do it in mine.” I said flatly.

“Your morals are better than his.”

“So you say, Cherry.” I traced my lips up her neck to her jaw. “We both know I could tempt you.”

“Yes, but using my love for you to sleep with me against my previously stated wishes would be dirty.” Twilight rolled over and snuggled up to my chest.

“Damn, I was hoping you’d overlook that. Oh well. I’ll settle for some snuggles.” I stroked her thigh.

“That’s nice.” Twilight sighed.

I kissed the top of her head, though her horn rubbed against my neck in a weird way. It was a little unpleasant, but I got to show some affection, so I’m not exactly complaining. Twilight and I stayed in bed for another thirty minutes before we alighted to the shower and got our day started. I borrowed a little bit of Twilight’s Unicorn Magic to do her hair since we hadn't done it in a while and I grabbed her enchanted makeup kit from Equis so we could get her beautified in her Human form. She was honestly drop-dead fucking gorgeous when we finished up, and when Will saw her at breakfast, he interrupted Bea while she was talking to him to snog her passionately. Bea kind of tried to push him away at first, but then she just went and enjoyed the moment, probably not knowing that Will thought his marriage was about to be in danger.

When Will pulled away, Bea was a little out of breath. “Will, what was that?”

“I love you, even if you do ride my arse like I’m a mule sometimes.” Will said sweetly.

Bea glanced at Twilight and I before she did a double take and looked at Twilight. “... Fucking Hell. Twilight, you’re a stunner!”

My wife smiled sheepishly. “Thank you.”

Will didn’t turn away from Bea. “Max, I respect you as my brother.”

“Thanks, mate. I’d hate to have to drop you.” I said casually.

“Same here.” Will nodded sagaciously.

“The fuck are you guys talking about?” Bea asked.

“Nothing.” We answered simultaneously.

“Boys are weird.” Twilight commented.

“Good thing we’re men, otherwise that might have been offensive.” I said haughtily.

“Not with Mr. Wiggles.” My evil wife said savagely.

“You want me to make a comment about your weight?” I shot back.

“Hey! You know I’m sensitive about that!” Twilight protested.

“I’m pretty sure you were calling his dick small. That really pisses guys off, Twilight.” Bea said. “You basically called him fat.”

“He knows I’m kidding though!” My wife maintained.

I sniffed. “I’d be lying if I made a negative comment about your weight, just like you’d be lying if you called my Gentleman’s Sausage small. Just because it’s said as a joke doesn’t mean it’s going to be taken as one.”

“You offend more people than I do.” Twilight huffed.

“I don’t tell them that they're poorly endowed.”

“If you apologize, I’ll apologize.”

“You started it.” I pointed out.

“And I apologize for that.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t make a comment on your fantastic physique.” I complimented.

Twilight cleared her throat. “That wasn’t necessary, but thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome, Cherry. Can I expect a kiss in the next ten seconds?”

“I’ll have to loan it to you, I’m running low on kisses at the moment.” She said thoughtfully. “Maybe I should just steal some from Bea.”

“Let’s not and tell people we didn’t while we’re at it.” Beatrix said flatly.

“You don’t think I’m pretty enough to kiss?” Twilight asked coyly.

Bea gave her a dead look. “I don’t swing that way, Princess.”

“Don’t knock it til you try it.” Will said, smiling. “This could be the beginning of something great.”

“You just wanna see lesbian porn in person.” Bea scoffed.

“Is that so wrong?” He asked.

“It is when the other woman is your brother’s wife.”

Will rubbed his buzzcut. “Huh. Guess I’m just used to Twilight being purple.”

“Why does every Human comment on me being purple?” Twilight asked.

“It’s the most noticeable thing about you, in fairness.” I answered.

“Yes, but it’s not the hooves or the horn; it’s always the purple!” She huffed irritably.

“Yeah, but you’re literally purple Twilight. People on Earth don’t come in purple. We come in white, black, brown, yellow, tan, and red, but we don’t come in purple.” Bea explained.

“It’s not like I comment on you guys all being a pinkish off-white. Well, Will’s always red, but the parts of him that aren’t red are the pinkish color.” Twilight said.

“Fucking Irish blood, always making me look like I’m six pints in.” He grumbled.

“Maybe if you weren’t usually six pints in, you wouldn’t look like it.” Bea grumbled.

“I don’t even drink that much on the occasions I do drink!” He objected.

“I’ve been telling Twilight the same thing for months and she still thinks I’m an alcoholic.” I said drily.

“Uh, Max? You kind of were for a little while.” Twilight reminded.

“Yes, but that was before getting drunk became less of an option.” I groused darkly.

She poked my side and I gave her a look. “Why don’t we just switch to smoking? I mean, it’s been a little while, but we can just roll a cigar-”

“Not in my house.” Bea snapped.

“No grass in the house.” Will sighed.

“It’s not like MI6 is watching you or anything.” I deadpanned.

Will shrugged. “They are, but they’re not going to do anything. As long as I don’t get too wild, they’re happy enough to ignore me.”

“You knew that they had an eye on you?” I asked.

He raised a brow. “Someone had to be behind the counter-hack, and when I traced them, it took me to a place with more security than a fucking bank. Figured I had the government’s attention at that point, but how did you know?”

“I talked to Theresa May and she let me know that you were a documented cyber-criminal. I actually talked her down from arresting you to recruiting you, so say hello to your ethical hacking days!” I gave him a smile.

Will sighed. “I figured this would happen. Oh well, might as well do some good with the skills I got.”

“Been saying that all along~” Bea said in a singsong voice.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your Mom still hates me.” He muttered.

“She’ll like you more when I tell her that you’ll be working for the law instead of against it.” Bea beamed.

He grumbled some unpleasant things about old people under his breath and we finished up with breakfast before heading out for a walk around town. We just wanted to get out of the house and do something, so we strolled the neighborhood and downtown before heading to Longleat to show Twilight the Safari Park. On the way, we learned that Bea had never been and she lied about why she’d neglected to go, but I didn’t dig into it. I later found out while we were strolling the ground that Bea was deathly afraid of wallabies for some odd reason. I don’t know why, she doesn’t know why, but when she got touched by one, she jumped into Twilight’s arms and refused to get down until they were all a decent distance away from her. Twilight got to pet one, though I don’t know if we were allowed to do that. They seemed like friendly enough creatures, and the tortoises we saw were pretty cool.

We blew some time taking a tour of the Longleat house itself, but Will and I already knew the layout by heart. There were a few displays with plaques that had been replaced, and we’d necessitated that a couple of times by stealing what they’d held. We’d also been back for an antique or two, but those had fenced poorly and had been a bitch to get off of the property in the first place. It was probably a good story to tell, just not while we were on a tour of a place we’d cased. Will and I let out eyes wander over the pricey knick-knacks, despite our grounding wires being right next to us. Old habits die hard, and marking targets was one of my oldest habits.

Will and I let Twilight and Bea walk ahead of us for a little bit and did some reminiscing. “Remember how we slipped past the cameras by feeding them a loop?” He asked, barely above Human audibility.

“Remember having to fuck up one of our picks to get past some of these old-fashioned locks?” I inquired, guessing a decent volume.

“Remember dropping that guard with a brick?”

“That one was all you.” I whispered.

“It was your idea.” He shot back.

“Doesn’t mean you had to go through with it. At least I had the presence of mind to go and get the brick.”

“At least I didn't kill the guy. Could’ve made shit real ugly.”

“Real ugly.” I shook my head. “Still, we got lucky and it kept us fed for a couple months.”

“Damn straight.” Will picked up the pace and I followed suit.

Twilight looked back when we caught up to the group. “Did you guys get left behind or something?”

“Or something.” We said in unison.

Bea turned around and gave us both a stern look. “Put it back.”

I made my face the perfect picture of offense being taken and Will crossed his arms. “We didn’t pick anything up in the first place.” Yeah, this time around.

“Right. Keep it that way, buster, or your arse is on the couch.” Bea warned.

“Like we’d try something in broad daylight.” I said derisively. Not after the bullshit Oscar had me pull.

“I don’t know, you seem pretty brave when it comes to stupid things.” Twilight said skeptically.

I gave her a look. “If I wanted something from here, I’d just memorize what it looked like and take it when we got home.”

Bea blinked. “Don’t do that.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” I scoffed.

“You guys really gotta have start having more faith in us.” Will said, sounding hurt.

“We have faith in you, it’s just that you’re not smart.” Bea said soothingly.

“I’m being recruited by the government because I’m smart.” Will deadpanned.

“He’s got you there.” I chimed in.

Bea rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t being serious anyway. It’s just that you two have a track record, and the only reason you don’t have a rap sheet is because you were lucky.”

“Lucky and smart.” I replied, inspecting my nails. “You don’t do our kind of business for long if you’re not.”

“How long did you two live on the opposite side of the law?” Bea asked dismissively.

“Eight years.” I said flatly.

“To present day.” Will said.

“And both of you got caught.” Bea pointed out.

“Uh, I got set up by a dirty cop. I didn’t get caught, I got fucked.” I said.

“You were still under arrest-”

“But I wasn’t charged with anything. At least, nothing that stuck after I ‘died’.” I used some air quotes.

“Alright ,whatever. You may not have been charged, but you were still stuck.” She maintained.

“And I got away, just like I always do.” I said, smirking.

Bea rolled her eyes, but the group was already moving again, so her response was delayed. “Will still got caught, and there’s nothing you can say on that one. You’ve both admitted it.”

“But he’s not being charged with anything.” I said casually.

She rolled her eyes again. “Are charges the only thing you care about?”

“They’re the only thing that matter. They end up on your record and mark you in your field if you do get caught, so we stayed off the books by playing it smart.” Will replied.

“I’m right on this one, boys.” She declared.

“Not from our point of view.” Will said. “By law, if we’re not charged and indicted, we’re innocent. We weren't caught.”

Bea worked her jaw. “That’s a load of bullshit.”

“But it’s accurate bullshit.” I said smugly.

“Just let them have it, Bea. They’re not going to back down, and it’s pointless to keep talking yourself around in a circle.” Twilight reasoned.

Bea looked at Will. “I’m going to bite your nipples off.”

“Kinky.” He replied.

“I think I’m wet.” I said.

“Grown children, the both of you.” Bea grumbled bitterly.

Will and I just smiled at that because we had a point on the board, and for the rest of the tour, we pointed out paintings that were simply replicas instead of the real deal, and a few other things that were fake and had originally been stolen or replaced over the years. The tour was nice and all, but having seen the house before, I didn’t really care to have another look until I considered that I could use it as a base for a mission with Kaid and Prime. I started paying more attention after that and hoped that I’d been through enough of the rooms on my first pass through to get the best image of the place that I could.

After the tour, we went back home and I let Jeremy know that I would give him until nightfall the next day to get his business in order. Nightfall in Georgia, that is. I was tempted to start on my journals, but then my ride for London came and I had to explain to Twilight why I was having her put on one of her nicer dresses while I was putting on a suit. Will and Bea asked what the bloody fuck we were doing and asked why there was a black Range Rover with tinted windows sitting in their driveway. I told them that I’d taken Mrs. May up on her offer to have dinner and Bea called me a liar, but then I showed her the text and she went to have a seat. Will asked me to get him a raise, but I told him to stop being one of those guys.

Once Twilight was ready, I fixed her hair and makeup before we stepped outside because she thought she'd messed it up. I get it, but I don't get it. The driver guy opened Twilight’s door for her and tried to open mine for me, but I’m a fucking man dammit, and I open my own doors! After we were properly buckled in and ready to ride, we were off to London, which was a two hour drive, but it would be worth it to meet the Prime Minister of my fucking country. I mean, it was beyond dope as fuck that I could just up and see her within a day of texting her, but I did wonder if I just so happened to be walking into a trap. Nothing about the situation told me that it was, although one can never be too sure about what is and what isn't a ploy, especially not when you’re dealing with politicians.

Still, the ride was nice and the driver was a quiet guy, so I basically just briefed Twilight on how to act with Prime Minister May. “So we’re going into this as royalty, just don't say that we actually are. It’ll bring up questions we don’t really want to answer.” I said quietly, hoping the partition would block the majority of the sound.

“I figured as much. Wouldn’t it be great to have Earth and Equus within visiting distance of each other?” Twilight asked with a little smile.

“For the time being, they’re as close as I want them.” I said solemnly.

“But wouldn’t it be nice for you to have your homes-”

“No. There’s a host of problems that would come along with it, which is why I haven’t popularized Earth tech on Equus. It just wouldn’t do us any favours, and I’d hate to see the Ponies start having a rough time of it because we wanted to make friends or some shit.” I shook my head. “No, there would be a lot riding on that than just a meet and greet.”

“Like what?” Twilight asked.

“The Terrans might get a little envious of Equus and start making a move on it, for all we know. Equus has the resources, but Earth has nukes.” I shivered at the thought of Equus being blown away.

The partition slid open from the driver’s side. “The only countries with nukes these days are The States, us, Russia, and North Korea. Everyone’s got an eye on North Korea right now.” He slid it shut and we just stared at him for a moment.

“... Okay, so I’m still worried about that.” I said softly.

“You say that like we don’t have you, Mr. Slippery.” Twilight gave me a smile.

I made a face. “I don’t like the idea of being our sole nuclear deterrent.”

“You said that nukes are projectiles, right?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah. They tend to be, at least. They’re either missiles or bombs in my experience.”

“Then why not have Noir reset time if a bomb does go off?”

“Because her power doesn’t work like that. She’s the only one who can travel through time, and even then she’s relegated to a five minute mark on the dot.” I sighed.

“So what if we set up an alarm system-”

“Terrans still have guns, and they work for everyone who can hold one. We’ve had many more years to practice with them than Equestrians and Equuisians in general, so Earth can still pull out a victory. I just don't want to take that chance, Cherry.” I said soberly.

She rubbed my arm and gave me a mild smile. “I understand. So what time of year is it right now?”

“Well, here on Earth, it’s May-”

“So your birthday could be coming up sometime and you wouldn’t even know!” Twilight exclaimed.

I checked my phone. “It’s the twenty-fifth, so we’ve already missed it, I think.”

“Aww, but either way, happy twenty-second birthday, Max!” Twilight said happily, squeezing my hand because she couldn’t hug me.

I gave her a little smile that probably showed more than I was willing to. “Thank you, Cherry, but your birthday is coming up soon too.”

“And I want the same thing I’m getting you for your birthday.” She said lasciviously.

I turned to the driver and slid the partition. “Oi, mate, could you do me a quick favour?”

“Depends on what it is, Mr. Reverend.” He said casually.

“I’ve got a song in my ear I’ve been hearing for years, and somehow it always appears.” I said cryptically.

He pressed a button on the steering wheel and actually turned to face me. “You know Sondre Lerche?”

“Bootlegs was a pretty decent album.” I said noncommittally.

The guy turned back to the road, chuckling and shaking his head. “Dear Lord, the messiah is a hipster.”

“Oi! I don’t have a bushy beard or fake glasses! Nor do I have an androgynous haircut or suspenders.” I said, offended.

“No offense, Sir, but your taste in music might be a little odd. The Bluetooth is on, so feel free to jack in whenever.”

“Radical. It was going to be a long drive otherwise.”

“Oh! Oh! Can you play that one Frank Sinatra song? The one he did with his wife?” Twilight asked.

“Something Stupid?” The driver asked.

“Mate, how old are you?” I asked, amused.

“Old enough, Mr. Reverend. I actually have that album on hand. The World We Knew, that is.”

“Give her a play then, mate. After we get the Missus’ request out of the way, we can start over.”

“Sounds good to me. You know, you’ve gotta be one of the most pleasant people I’ve driven around.” He said.

“Well, thanks mate, but I kinda try to be pleasant. I’m the leader of the SIAC, so I need to set an example for my people. Can’t really ask them to show love to each other if I go around being an arse to everyone I meet.” I chuckled.

“You’re a butt anyway.” Twilight said drily.

“Ooh, the wife called you out!” The driver cackled.

“Shut up before I stick a finger in your ear.” I grumbled.

“That’s just rude! I know you Humans don’t hate it as much as Ponies, but it’s still gross.” Twilight said.

I gave her a look. “You say that like you’re not Human, Twilight.”

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. You don’t know what you married.” She said haughtily.

“Ain’t that the truth.” The driver muttered.

“Right there with you, mate.” I said.

“How the Hell did you hear that?” He asked as he popped the CD into the disc player.

“Sensitive hearing. My eyesight is also phenomenal and my palate is stupid. It sucks when I can’t enjoy junk food because it tastes too fake.” I sighed.

“You don’t need all that sugar anyway, you’ll turn into Pinkie Pie if you keep it up.” Twilight warned.

“You won’t catch me snorting confectioners sugar anytime soon.” I scoffed.

“My granddaughter watches that show.” The driver guy said flatly.

“What show?” Twilight asked.

“My Little Pony.” He said. “Wouldn’t expect an international icon and his wife to watch it too.”

“Right. We watch the show.” Twilight chuckled nervously.

“See? Stuff like this is why people think you really do come from a different planet.” I said playfully.

“But Max, I do come from a different planet.” Twilight replied seriously.

“Venus maybe.” The driver chuckled.

“No, Equus.” She corrected.

“I’m assuming you have the story behind your planet completely set up too?” He asked rudely.

Twilight missed his tone, but I didn’t. “Don't forget who you’re talking to, mate. I won’t use my influence to fuck with your life, but I will cost you your job.”

“No offense meant, Mr. Reverend, but when people start saying that they’re from a different planet with as much conviction as your wife, isn’t it natural to want to shoot them down so they don’t come off as crazy?” He asked.

“No, it’s natural to scoff and say ‘Yeah, right’, but-”

“Can I start telling the history of Equus now, or was he kidding?” Twilight asked.

“He was kidding and being rather rude about it.” I informed.

“Oh. Well that’s not nice.”

I sighed. “I don’t know how you manage to activate fucking radium, but still can’t tell when someone’s being a prick to you.”

“I guess it just doesn’t matter that much. As long as you’re not beating anyone up, it’s just not that important to me.” She said, brushing her hair behind her ear.

“Wise woman, you are. No point in being offended if the intent isn’t there.” The driver guy said.

“Still, that’s my wife we’re talking about here.” I reminded.

“And I’m sure she appreciates you sticking up for her, even when she doesn’t realize you’re doing it.” He said.

“I do. It’s just another thing that makes Max the best husband I could ask for.” Twilight squeezed my hand again.

The driver chuckled. “I’m sure the wealth and power have nothing to do with it.”

“Um… Actually, Max and I don’t even own a house on Earth. When we do visit this planet, we stay with his brother and leave from there too.” She stated.

“Again, you sound like an alien, Cherry.” I said softly.

“Am I not allowed to be an alien? What if I want to be a little green person?” She challenged.

“Fuckin’ Tumblr.” The older guy grumbled.

“What’s Tumblr?” Twilight asked.

“It’s a website that a lot of annoying people use. He thinks you’re one of them because you don’t identify as a Hoomun and your hair’s not a normal colour.” I explained.

“It’s normal for an Equestrian!” My wife objected.

“You ride horses, but you don’t have a place to call your own?” The driver asked. "What are you? Modern nomads?"

“Not that kind of Equestrian.” I sighed.

“Can I explain the history of Equus now?” Twilight asked eagerly.

“Go for it, sweetheart.” The old guy chuckled.

I sat back and closed my eyes as Twilight went over the extremely censored history of Equestria, but I filled in a few of the gaps in the time periods that Twilight didn't know about because they were turbulent times. She asked how I knew about them and I told her that Celestia had taught me about the Equestrian Civil War and a few other minor nation-building wars that had gone on because that’s what I was being geared toward as a Prince. The driver guy found our story to be amusing and asked questions about certain things like who the Princesses were and how they managed to stay alive so long, why the Elements of Harmony were important, and why the fuck Discord wanted to take over the planet. Twilight and I answered his questions readily and he asked that Twilight send him the book she ‘obviously’ planned on writing and she told him that she’d just given him a crash course on about three thousand years of a country’s history: It was going to be more than just one book.

We eventually got to our destination, which was a place called The Fat Duck. I’d heard about it years ago on some cooking show and had immediately dismissed the idea of ever being allowed through it’s doors due to my standing in life at that point in time, but as I was standing in front of its doors, I thought about how it cost damn near three hundred pounds per person to book a Goddamn reservation at the fucking place. Twilight stood next to me and we went inside after I had a moment to clear my head, strolling in to talk to the Maitre ‘De so we could go and get seated. There were subtly armed guards posted around the building and I had no doubts that we were being watched as the host fellow lead Twilight and I to Prime Minister May since we’d been followed by three different similarly armoured cars on the way there, but I wondered what all the security was for since it didn’t seem like it was all that that important.

When Theresa May came into view, she gave me a politician’s smile and waved, so I gave her a pleasant smile and returned her wave. Once we were within earshot, which isn’t saying much because The Fat Duck isn’t very large, she said, “It’s so good to see you, Mr. Reverend! I must say, you’re even more handsome in person! And your wife! Simply enchanting!”

I chuckled and pulled Twilight’s seat out for her. “While you’re busy inflating our egos, I’m going to have to say that it’s an honor to meet the leader of my homeland, Mrs. Prime Minister. It truly is astounding that I’m in your presence right now.”

Twilight gave me an odd look as I sat down. “Since when do you show deference to authority figures?”

I gave her a cheeky smile. “Prime Minister May runs the country I was born and raised in. It’d be stranger if I just spoke as if I was talking to a slightly more experienced friend of mine.”

My wife changed her odd look to a womanly one. “You’re so full of hot air.”

Theresa May chuckled. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Gadai. My husband is the same way, though he lacks the certain spark the Reverend has.”

“Please, call me Max or Kaid. If you’d like to address me by my moniker, just call me ‘Rev’ so it’s less of a mouthful.” I requested.

Theresa extended a hand over the table. “Then call me Theresa or Mrs. May. Either one will do just fine, though I have to ask about why you call yourself Max.”

I raised a brow. “From you calling Twilight Mrs. Gadai, I assume that you know my real name?”

“That’s what I implied.” Theresa said, smiling.

I nodded. “I call myself Max because I borrowed my brother’s abbreviated name when I first met Twilight. His name was Maxwell, but I like Latin enough to choose Maximus for myself.”

“There are a lot of translations for Maximus. All of them rather arrogant out of context.” Theresa sipped a glass of wine.

I rubbed my cheek. “I didn’t think about the implications when I chose that as my new name, but in a manner of speaking, I kind of do possess the influence to deserve the title.” I made a face.

She raised a brow. “You don’t seem to happy about that.”

I shook my head. “I’m not. I consider myself a humble man, and I try my hardest to stay that way. That being said, I never asked for this level of power, but as long as I have it, I’ve got to continue using it to help people. It’s nice to just drop off the face of the planet when I want to so I can help those who can’t help themselves, and it’s even better that those who can help themselves get aid when they need it, but I’d rather not be the face of the Coalition. If I could just pass the torch to Stephano and let people revere him like they do me, I’d consider it. Not for very long, but it would be considered.” And dealt with. He’d be the guy holding the bag in a heartbeat.

Theresa seemed surprised. “You know, I’ve heard of mysterious happenings around the world. Entire gangs falling apart, drug dens and processing plants being destroyed, fields of coca being set ablaze… Wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with that, would you?”

I drummed my fingers on the table and raised a brow at her. “Hard question, soft answer: I couldn’t tell you about those incidences if I even knew what you were talking about.”

Theresa gave me a little smile and swirled her wine around in her glass. “I can’t say that I like being beaten to the punch when it comes to SOCA Operations, but as long as it’s you’re doing it, I can’t really complain. Everyone who’s seen your video knows that there’s something special about you.”

I folded my hands on the table and gave her a pleasant little smile. “Oh, come on. Harmless little old me?”

Twilight scoffed. “Harmless! Ha!”

I gave her a look. “Aren’t you supposed to agree with me?”

“I’m supposed to keep you honest, Amour, and you are not harmless.” My wife said firmly.

Theresa looked entirely too interested about that, so I switched tactics. “I try to be harmless most of the time, but there are always situations that prevent me from handling things peacefully.” I said calmly, placing my napkin on my lap.

“And when you do have to resort to violence?” The Prime Minister asked.

“I try to keep it quick and painless.” I said softly. “However, there are few people who I find that don't deserve to live these days. My message gets across to the vast majority of people, but there are always those who refuse to see that there’s another way.” I shook my head.

“A man of action behind the scenes, are we?” Theresa asked conversationally.

“Max has always been the kind of man to take an active role in the lives of his loved ones. Even if someone isn’t a friend, he’s still willing to help them as long as they’re not outright evil.” Twilight smiled warmly.

“Are we just going to talk about me all night, or are we going to make me not feel like I’m being watched from every angle?” I asked, only half joking.

Theresa raised a brow. “You know that we have guards in here. Their job is to keep us safe, Mr. Gadai, so my advice is to relax and check out the menu. It doesn't have any items on it, but you’ll be pleased with my recommendations, I’m sure.”

I frowned. “Twilight is a vegetarian.”

Twilight looked at me. “Vegetarian?”

“You don’t eat meat, but you drink milk and eat eggs. Stuff like that.” I explained quickly.

“Oh. I should have figured that one out for myself.” She smiled sheepishly.

Theresa gave her an odd look. “You didn’t know that you were a vegetarian?”

“I’ve always thought of myself as an herbivore. I mean, I eat flowers, after all.”

The Prime Minister looked to me, smiling like it was the most humorous thing. “I must say, you two are quite the pair.”

“You’re telling me.” I said good-naturedly. “You’re talking to a former petty thief and a quirky librarian.”

Mrs. May smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You know, I’ve read your file, Mr. Gadai. You’ve been charged with petty larceny, grand theft auto, and two counts of burglary, but nothing stuck. However, Mrs. Gadai seems to be a ghost.”

I pursed my lips. “That’s because she-”

“No, Mr. Gadai, you’re misunderstanding: There is no record of this woman ever having existed. There is no registry for your marriage, no hint of her on the internet, and no phone number for her that can be traced. Your wife is a walking myth.” Theresa said before sipping her wine. “It doesn’t surprise me that she’s… Shall we say, hard to find, but somehow you managed to find a woman who seems to not exist.”

I gave her a little smile. “A lot of the people I deal with don’t exist, Mrs. May. That’s just the nature of my work.”

Theresa narrowed her eyes, her lips still smiling. "We could take care of that little issue. That is, unless you want your wife to be deported back to America.”

“But I’m not from America.” Twilight said blankly.

“She’s really not. You’ve never heard of the country she’s from.” I explained.

“Try me.” Theresa said.

“Equestria.” I replied easily.

“I’ll look it up. Everything is on the Internet these days.” Theresa chuckled.

“You won’t find what you’re expecting. Trust me, you’ll think we’re trying to mess with you.” I warned.

“I don’t think that you would mess with me, but I do find that to be a little suspicious, Mr. Gadai.”

“Mrs. May, I assure you that I only have the world’s best interests at heart. There may be something about me that doesn’t add up, but I assure you that I just want to be left alone for the most part while I do what I can to help people live better lives.”

She gave me an odd look. “I believe we were talking about your wife. I would like to set her up with English citizenship, though I must ask why you’re so eager to change the topic.”

I gave her a wan smile. “I’m somewhat used to those with authority trying to cow me with leverage one way or another. I should know better since you’re one of those who have heard my message, I’m sure, but I can’t help how I feel.”

“Ah, I understand. You certainly have seen a fair amount of the constabulary, haven't you? At least, the last time you were arrested seemed to be the beginning of a good streak for you until you returned to have Alexander Graham for a chat.” Mrs. May said.

“The man did some unforgivable things to me that I’ll not expound upon here. What happened to him was well deserved.”

“And just how did he end up so wrought with pain that he can’t even speak? The man is kept on a constant morphine drip, but all he ever does is confess to numerous horrible crimes when he does speak. How did you manage to break a man so completely in less than half an hour, Mr. Gadai? I really must know.”

Twilight stared at me and I didn’t take my eyes off of Theresa May. “It’s a lovely night for dinner and a show, isn’t it?”

“Ah, tight lipped I see. Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you.” The Prime Minister smiled.

“Thank you. Tell me, what’s it like to sit at the top of the political food chain?” I asked, curious as to how Earth politics differed from Equestrian politics.

Mrs. May gave me a look. “If you so chose, you could most likely learn what it feels like for yourself. It’s not as if you’re not one of the most famous people on the planet, young man. You’re only twenty four, and it would frankly be a waste for someone with your gift for reaching people to keep their hands out of politics.”

I gave her a tight smile. “I’ve got hands full with the politics of another planet, sadly-”

“Oh, so you really are an extra-terrestrial? How did you manage to get past Earth’s defenses?” Theresa May asked with a straight face.

I traded a look with Twilight and scratched my head. “Uh… You’re kidding, right?”

She raised a brow. “You were serious when you said that you were more concerned with another planet than with Earth, Kaid. I didn’t get to where I am today by not being able to capitalize on little slip ups like that.”

A waiter in a costume brought us some food, and it looked weird. I’m not really into the culinary scene besides for a few Italian and Chinese dishes, so I couldn’t really say what was in front of me. I was pretty sure that it was an appetizer of some sort, so I poked the round thing on the plate with my fork.

“I’m assuming that you’re not exactly used to fine dining?” Mrs. May asked politely.

I shrugged. “Since the secret’s out, then I should agree with you. I’m royalty on Equus, so I have to have manners, but I’ve never been to a Michelin starred restaurant in my life.”

“... What is it?” Twilight asked, staring at the food on her plate.

“I don’t know the name of the dish myself, but you could call it an Amuse Bouche of sorts. Please, give it a try. I’ve never had a bad experience from The Fat Duck, and I daresay their track record is spotless.” Mrs. May took a bite of her food, so Twilight and I followed suit.

Everything on the relatively small plate had a weird texture, but fine taste that I couldn’t really complain about. I’d had better in my own home, but I do live in a literal Castle, so take my words with a grain of salt. Twilight ended up telling the Prime Minister about Equestria and its history, but as censored as it was, it was still an earful for every Human involved. Mrs. May asked questions that kept the conversation going for far longer than I thought necessary, but we were at The Fat Duck until long after our dessert was served because Twilight’s a fucking nerd and she loves talking about nerdy shit. Still, dinner was pleasant and we got to leave without the army chasing after us or something, so that was especially nice.

During the trip back to Will’s house, Prime Minister May requested that she be able to send the selfie she’d taken with Twilight and I to Trump so she could lord it over his head and I told her it was cool since I’d do the same thing if put in her position. When we got back to Will’s house, Bea was in bed and Will was waiting to ask how dinner with the Prime Minister had went. I told him that I hadn’t even had to threaten to buttfuck her and he told me to quit being a shit head and just tell him what the deal was. I explained that it really was just a meet and greet, but that Theresa May had a lot more information on me than I was comfortable with her having.

Will didn’t like it much either, but he still gave me a man-hug before going to bed since I was slated to head back to Equis with Jeremy and Twilight later in the night. Twilight wanted to get a few hours of sleep, so I let her have a nap while I dozed off and on with her in my arms. During my last ten minute nod, I had a faint feeling of impatience and woke up early to check my watch. It was time to go, oddly enough, so I roused Twilight and got her moving before teleporting us to America, specifically into Jeremy’s living room. We startled the fuck out of his parents, but Jeremy was pretty nonplussed about it.

“Guessing it’s that time?” He asked brusquely.

I nodded. “Time to finish what you started.”

Jeremy’s Dad didn’t like that idea. “You’ll come back, right Jerms? We talked about it-”

Jeremy sighed. “I know Dad, I know, but… I’ll figure it out. Unlike Max, I can’t just go back and forth between the worlds like it’s nothing.”

His Dad gave me a pleading look. “Is there anything we can do? Can you bring our boy back to us, just every once in awhile?”

I shook my head sadly. “I’m not slated to be on Equis forever, mate. It’s not really up to me.”

The poor man looked like he wanted to cry and his wife was already doing so. “Just… Whatever choice you make, you know we love you, son.”

Jeremy nodded. “I love you too, Dad. And you Mom. Don’t either of you forget that.”

He turned to me and nodded, so I grabbed Twilight and bid him to come over. When he was touching me, I brought us back to my room in the mountain base and Jeremy sighed. “I hate this.”

“Sure looks like it sucks.” I said softly.

“... Is there anything we can do?” Twilight asked kindly.

Jeremy looked at me. “Why did you stay on Equus?”

I pointed at Twilight.

“... So you fell in love?” He asked.

I nodded. “I was fully prepared to give up my world to be with Twilight. She’s more important to me than seeing another Human face.”

He gave me a look. “She already looks pretty close to a Human, dude, but whatever. What I’m trying to say is what would make you go back to Earth?”

“Having family there.” I said bluntly. “I was alone before I was dropped off in Equestria, but you have at least two people that are beyond glad to see you. It’s a hard choice, but all I know is that I wish I had a set of parents like yours and I’m finding it kinda hard to sympathize with you right now because of that.”

“The quote unquote most powerful being on the planet is jealous of me?” He asked with a bored expression.

“Yeah. You go back to Earth, you know what you have to do to get success. You can read the minds of anyone and figure out how to manipulate them to your advantage, you just have to put in the footwork for it. You can either make a name for yourself on Earth or you can take over and deal with all the bullshit that comes with being a ruler. Take it from a Prince, mate, that ruling is a shitty job. I would give nearly anything just to go back to my boring, day to day Operative life.” He pursed his lips and I shrugged. “Take my word or don’t, mate. It’s all up to you in the end. Would you rather stay on the battlefield, or do you want to retire from active duty and live the life of a civilian?”

“... I think I’m going to join the military.” Jeremy said softly.

“The American military?” I asked redundantly.

He nodded. “I don’t know how, but I think I can help serve my country. Something might happen and I could be of use to my own country instead of someone else’s for once. I mean, I’ve killed people before, so I’m not exactly going to come home with PTSD or anything, and I’ve been on the receiving end of a couple of blades in my life, so I’d like to think I know what I’m doing. Either way, I can still be a soldier for change, but now I can do it from the ranks of the military instead of from a rebel group.”

“Radical. How are you breaking the news to Beige and your team?” I asked.

“With a going away party.” He said firmly. “I’ll bring out my best booze and everyone’s going to get fucking hammered if I have anything to say about it.”

Twilight pinched my right arm. “I don’t want you attending that party.”

“Yo, he’s like the guest of honor! Kaid is the reason all of this is possible in the first place!” Romulus reasoned.

“Too much booze is too much, and I’m assuming you’ve got that exact amount on hand.” Twilight said critically.

“You act like I can get drunk easily, Twilight. Have some faith in your husband for once.” I huffed in a manly manner.

She gave me a look. “I’ll make you sleep on a couch.”

“I’ll make you sleep on the Moon.” I countered, having none of her shit.

My wife made an adorably frustrated face. “It’s not fair that you can hold that over my head like some trophy.”

I reached for her hand and she let me have it. “It’s not fair that we’ve talked about this and you’re still convinced that I’m some sort of alcoholic. I like to drink, but I’m not dependent on it, Cherry. If it makes you feel any better, you can monitor my intake the entire time, okay?”

She pouted. “And if I tell you to stop?”

“Then I’ll either slow down or stop.”

“Man, no matter how strong you get, pussy is still stronger.” Jeremy chuckled.

I gave him a black look. “Trivialize love all you want, mate, but until you have the real deal, you don’t know what you’re missing.”

Twilight kissed my cheek. “It really is nice most of the time.”

He shook his head. “I’ll take your word on it for the time being. Now that we’re back, I have shit to do and I need to see if we’ve taken Tenochtitlan yet.”

“Glad to hear that my plan is still the one we’re on.” I sighed in relief.

“Once we clear Mexicolt and get your puppet in place, I want to head back to Earth.” He replied flatly. “The faster that happens, the faster I can tell my parents that I love them again.”

Twilight squeezed my arm, and I just nodded. “Right.”

His misstep dawned on him after a moment. “Wasn't trying to rub it in, Kaid.”

“Don’t sweat it, mate. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got some cuddling to do and it’s not with you. No offense, but your boobs don’t look soft enough for a good time.”

Romulus rolled his eyes. “Don’t let me stop you. Though that reminds me that I didn’t get to get laid while I was back on Earth.”

“Sucks to be you. Shoo.” I waved him off.

He rolled his eyes again and fucked off properly that time. Twilight pressed her cheek against my chest and asked, “So about that cuddling… ?”

“Let’s get to it.” I sighed.

And so we did. I didn’t want to do any reflecting on the events that had occurred while I’d been on Earth, so I just got to writing this little tidbit out and here were are. Now seems like a good time to comment on the fact that Jeremy seems to be a little unstable to me. I think the guy’s just lost right now, and has it in his head that the military will give him the structure he needs to get his head right. I highly doubt that since the dude has been on a different fucking planet for half a decade, but I don’t know what the right choice for him is. I hope he’s satisfied with the final result, though I don’t want to be the guy who helps him make the worst decision of his life. I’ve been in tougher spots before, but I still don’t want Jeremy to end up miserable in the long run, asking himself what he could have done to alter his future so that he would have come out on top.

Oh well. It’s not really my problem. If Jeremy wants to forsake his loving parents, then fucking let him. Doesn’t make a difference to me

Author's Notes:

And here we have ourselves a chapter. It's shiny, new, and has that dank new chapter smell, doesn't it? It's heady and thick; fills your nose it does.

Smell my bullshit.

As Always, Take a Slice

Stay Cool, Kids.