I’ve got a few drinks in me and yes, I got my tongue back, so don’t sweat that little detail. God… Writing about this is gonna be pretty hard, but then again, writing about Brume was hard. Keep in mind that it’s been some years between the events of the last entry and when I’m writing this now. To be exact, it’s been ten years since I became a slave, though I was freed after five. Yeah, it’s been a full decade since I’ve touched my journal. Talk about slipping, right? In my defense, it… You go five years without something and when you have it back, it’s just not that important, you know? I didn’t want to bother with it when I got back to Equestria, but enough of me making excuses. That shit was probably a bombshell if you’re not me or one of my friends, but fuck you anyway if that’s the case. Dickbag. Fuckin’ kill yourself.

Some days I wish I still could, so appreciate what you fucking have.

To pick up where I left off (And to summarize it because these memories are fucking painful), I had my favourite mouth muscle clipped off, and the scissors cauterized the wound as it happened. That was a small mercy since I didn’t have a mouthful of blood, but I also didn’t have a mouthful of tongue, and that made me sad, terrified, killed my hope a little, and wasn’t as bad as what came next. Once Kali cut off my tongue…

“Yet another toy for my collection!” She said cheerfully before grabbing my lifelong friend. “And this one! You would not mind terribly if I took this took this too, would you not? Please, say something if you object.” Kali smiled in my face as she robbed me of my voice. “Ah, thank you! I will be sure to request your presence whenever I use it!”

Fucking Christ, those words haunt me. They haunt me to this very fucking day...

God, this is going to be a SLOG.

So I’m just… I’m just gonna skip that whole part. I’ve talked to people about this whole thing, I’ve got a therapist/psychiatrist (I generally just say therapist since I won’t let him prescribe me anything) on Earth that knows all about Equus and believes what I’ve shown him, so I’m getting better. You don’t… You just don’t have something like that happen to you and talk about it with just anyone. It’s hard to think about, and I’ve realized, fucking finally realized at thirty-three years old, that if I don’t write about what’s getting to me, then I dance around it with how I write and make somewhat vague comments. I’ll know what I’m talking about. Any halfwit would if they actually pay attention to what they’re reading, and I think that’s why I do it. I beat around the bush like a bitch because I don’t want to relive memories like these a hundred years down the line. I hope that the only reason I remember them is because I read about them at some point in my life, but some shit only fades to a degree. I still remember being raped by Graham and I can still tell you about every detail of those hours. I got that piece of me back, but the piece of me I lost when I became a slave is still working its way back into my system.

SIGH. Imagine a heavy sigh, and pretend that it was said like a British guy.

Anyway, ‘Doctor’ Brookshaw says I need to get what I can on paper so I can take the next step, but he’s mortal and dumb! Stupid dummy head! Bleh!

… I really need to just get on with it. It’s better just to get it over with, but… Fuck… I just don’t know where to start other than the beginning, but the last three times I tried to get this far, I had to erase everything and lie to myself like I didn’t spend three days just getting this shit down. Everyone keeps reminding me that Brookshaw’s in my life to help, but why does help hurt so fucking bad? Why do we have to keep looking for some bullshit kind of closure for something I would happily have someone repress?

Don’t be a fucking bitch, Max, looking for rationalizations like a Goddamn pussy. You are a Goddamn MAN! You WILL NOT BE RULED BY PAIN!!!!!
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Al-fucking-right, we’re diving in. Got castrated, got sent to Kali’s personal slave quarters, and the shithole was full of people like me. I’m not going over how I lost my left arm because no, but it was gone and I was stuck. Thoroughly traumatized, and I do mean fucking thoroughly, I ambled over to a wall and meditated, swallowing the pain. The humiliation. The embarrassment. The shame. I even had time to choke down some leftover disgust and regret from Brume’s horrorshow, but that sweet, sweet anxiety ate me up. I could choke down the emotions. I could deal with being violated in horrible ways (kinda). I couldn’t, however, get over the facts. My wife was now naturally beyond fathomable levels of evil, trying to save Noir cost me… A lot, and now I was missing a fucking arm, and there was no replacement in sight. I could fight with one hand, and I could certainly kill if I wanted to, but I was a most likely some kind of Demi-god and the people in the room around me?

Gods. All of them. Low level gods who’ve been picked on for thousands of years. Those who were almost never worshipped. Those who lusted for any kind of dominion…

I really shouldn’t have slowed down. Fuck it: Getting it over with: I got gangraped mere hours after showing up, and it didn't stop for… Fuck knows, probably days at a time. Maybe weeks since there were just that many gods in the quarters, and being in a lightless hovel fucks with your internal clock but… To make light of it, the fuckers were smelly bad-bad since most of them never bothered to wash.

It's easier for me to talk about the reason Kali made me a slave in the fucking first place, so here goes; it was supposed to happen. Yeah. That's all the justification Cap G had for me. It was supposed to Goddamn happen. There's more to it than that, but I had to have a sit-down, heart-to-heart with him on it and...

I… I can’t… God, I’m… I’m going to talk to Brookshaw. Motherfucker owes me one Hell of an explanation for why he’s making me do this shit.

I want to record the conversation with Doctor Dumbarse, so I’m going to try and avoid muddling things by saying that I went to Earth with one of my nearest and dearest, but I met with Brookshaw alone. He greeted me as I came through the door with a smile. “Ah, Maximus! It’s always-”

“Why. Why would you make me do this, BS?” I asked, getting down to brass tacks.

He kept on smiling. “Was that an abbreviation of my surname or an acronym?”

“Cut the bullshit, BS.” I answered. “You know why I’m here.”

His smile faltered. “The writing isn’t going well I take it.”

“Would I be here if it was?”

“Being rude will get you nowhere, Max. I’m only here to help-”

“So why are you making wish I was fucking dead?” I asked briskly. “Because those memories make me want to blow my fucking brains out.”

“You’re immortal.” He shrugged. “I don’t really have to worry about you being suicidal, but I do have to worry about getting the healing process started again. You really were making such progress-”

“I can kill you and your death will be ruled as a freak accident because I say so.” I said plainly. “You’ve got one chance to get it right. Why do I let you live?”

He rolled his eyes until I pointed my fingers at him. Then he bitched up. “Maximus, please, have I not helped you make strides in your recovery or what!? You’re not going to kill me over trying to help you!”

It was a hard choice. “... No more of this, Brookshaw. Don’t make me go back there.”

“... How opposed to medication were you again?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “What. What are you suggesting?”

“... Maybe some Xanax?” He said, giving me a sheepish smile. “At least it’ll help you with your anxiety-”

“Mate, what did I say when we first started meeting?” I asked, still pinching my nose.

“‘Don’t try to dope me up’. Max. My friend. We’ve tried group therapy. Again. We’ve tried one-on-one. Again. Your entire support system save for that one Pinkie Pie says you need to deal with this in a healthy manner, so what else are we going to try, Max? Tell you what; we’ll try try the Xanax and Haldol on a trial period. Just until you can get every written down, nice and neat, but not feel the ache as badly, okay? We’ll be bending the ever-loving Hell out of regulations,” He said, grimacing, “but the rules don’t really apply to you anyway…” He chuckled awkwardly.

I took a moment to look at the ceiling and let my gaze settle on Brookshaw once I stopped thinking he was an actual mentally handicapped person with the slimmest iotas of seconds where he would have periods of high-functionality. “Alright. Alright, we’ll try it.”

He sighed in relief. “Alright. Any chance I could-”

“Try and put me on Prozac again and I won’t give you an opportunity to save yourself.”

Brookshaw kinda chuckled. “... Isn’t that what Doctor Bradley had you on?”

“Yes, and now Doctor Bradley is no longer with us.” I steepled my fingers and looked at my therapist coolly. “What were you going to say?”

Dude gathered some balls. “... Zoloft has been said to do good things for soldiers with PTSD.”

“Are you willing to risk your life on it.” It wasn’t really a question.

“... Let me get you that script, right?” He said, chuckling some more, sounding every bit as piss-ridden as he needed to be .

The visit ended after that and I got my prescription filled yesterday. I’m going to start a new entry here in a bit and see if the weirdness this shit’s making me feel replaces flashbacks. I mean, I could easily have a chemist make me a sedative or do it my damned self with a ‘friend’, but I really try not to keep making more drugs. If I can actually get on with it, I’ll probably explain how I got mad skilled at making and baking the good shit, addiction free, side-effects irrelevant.

Alright. Deep breath. Here goes nothing.

So the story gets worse. This is probably the worst thing I have to write down, but I was raped as both genders since some of the lower-tier gods could alter my form at will, and sex as a female with gods who are legendarily fertile means that one gets pregnant. I had fourteen miscarriages, two sons that were killed in front of me, and one son who was allowed to grow over the course of six months to maturity and came to be the top dog of the slave quarters. Depending on how you look at it, I might have been lucky that he claimed me as his personal doll for whatever he wanted. Granted, he never beat me, but he wasn’t exactly gentle, though after two years straight of hard labour and daily rape, it didn’t really make much of a difference. Still, it would have been nice to be fucked gently for once.

Wow, this shit really does make the writing easier. Huh. Right, so I’ll pick up the story on the night where the stars aligned since it’s one of my fondest memories. Well, it was the best one I‘d had in about five years, so… Anywho…

I’d carefully plotted for a year after Okthus, my bastard, had been promoted from being a slave to being one of Kali’s Honor Guard due to his diligence in fucking up any slave who started a rebellion. Okthus was born to me, but Kali was his real parent and it showed in how she treated him. Once I’d permanently become female (More holes to fill), Kali assumed that I’d just up and vanished, though she wasn’t terribly concerned about it. Most of the slaves who cared enough to remember that my name was Maximus didn’t want their toy taken away so Kali could waste time with it, so I effectively vanished under the bodies of hundreds of fetid gods.

Up until Okthus made it into the Honor Guard, life was shitty, but alright, although when he actually got into the guard, I was ‘freed’ and was allowed to work as a personal maid for Kali since I was one of the prettiest faces around. A lot had been done to change that, but my healing factor had always brought me back to Roxy over time. It’d been a long while since my face got torn up, but that’s not the important bit. The thing is, I’ve always been a good actor. Always. I can fake loyalty with the best of them, and when I had free reign to do whatever I want, I did what I did best: I snatched things no one would miss because Kali was too arrogant to think that anyone would steal from her.

Maybe I was brave? Maybe I was dumb? All I know is that the night Okthus took me to meet Kali to introduce me as his mother, I struck and I struck fiercely. I remember it, and it makes my blood run rampant through my fucking veins. I’d stolen a small dagger from Kali some weeks before that night and I was well aware of the fact that I would never get close enough to kill her with my normal reach. However, I still had some powers. Okthus lead to me to Kali’s sitting room or whatever the fuck it was and I tried not to piss myself in excitement over the moment.

“Okthus, my subject! You never told me-” I whisked the dagger out from underneath my dress with my psychic tentacle and sent it straight into Kali’s temple before turning to disembowel the filthy thing I was forced to give birth to. For the first time in five years, I allowed myself a true laugh, but only one. When Kali’s powers hit me, I let myself have a couple more in the privacy of my own little bubble before I healed the arm that had been ripped off so long ago. There wasn’t a shred of metal left attached to me when I re-formed my left arm, so I rubbed my face with my left hand for a good long while before shifting out of my female form and getting back to the basics.

“If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?”

And so I did revenge. I committed grave sins in exacting my revenge, but I was worse than Brume. To be honest, what I put those poor fuckers through horrifies me if I think about it too hard, but I fucking guffaw when I mention it in passing, so here goes: I ripped Kali’s soul from the afterlife once I’d healed her body and I forced her back in with True Theft. My shit was still rockin’ hard, and the manic grin I wore during The Cataclysm (I didn’t name it that.) was just icing on the cake. When Kali opened her eyes and realized that she was alive, I laughed at the despair pouring off of her. I rioted at her dread, and I touched her in ways she could never had hoped to touch me. I stroked her anxiety for an hour straight until it was the size of a fucking watermelon, and while I had her restrained on the floor, I made my bastard come back to life and linked the two of them together so that they’d feel what the other was feeling.

Oh Brookshaw, this was a fucking great idea!

Right-o! So now that we’re here at the good part, I actually don't mind going through it! Okthus gave me the same stupid fucking look he’d worn on his face since the time he was born. “Momma? Why you Daddy now?”

Manic smile. That was my expression. If I decide to include anymore dialogue, assume that it was the look on my face, because I smiled for an entire week or so straight because I was batshit, dogshit, elephantshit insane. “Momma turned to Daddy so she can hurt you more, sweetie.” I said kindly. “I’m going to hurt you bad enough that you’ll cry.”

He glared at me. “Daddy stupid! Okthus no-” I smiled at him as I literally set his nerves on fire. I sewed his mouth shut with a needle that probably could have been used for wool, and as he choked on his own vomit, I had myself a little giggle.

“Oh you Down-Syndrome having absolutely worthless piece of fermented placenta,” I took a deep breath, “I hate you.” I sighed dreamily. “I’ve hated you your entire life, and you’ll continue to live in the Hell that I’m going to put you in forever.”

I didn’t care to hear a response from him, so I just forced him to rape Kali and then I let him speak. “No! Mistress! Okthus sorry! Okthus sorry!”

It was priceless. Ah, fuck, I am rock hard right now. No lie. Real shit. Might be the meds for all I know. Maybe I shouldn’t be taking shit if it makes me revel in the sadistic shit I’ve done…

Shit, I couldn’t even keep a straight face for that. Ah, there’s no way in Hell I’m regretting any of this. Let’s continue with the good shit, yeah?

I made sure to set my clone up so that I would experience two sets of senses at the same time, and since I was actually batshit crazy instead of being what I thought was batshit crazy (Brume seriously has nothing on me) it worked just fine. I got to watch The Prime Bastard rape The Empress as I wandered around Kali’s palace, assassinating lower god servants and sapping their strength as I went along. By the time I actually got into the slave quarters, Hephaestus says that I was an upper-high rank God, but when I got down to business? It was game over. The first thing I did upon reaching the slave quarters was send out a Slave Wave, which is slave slang for the round up signal-pulse. It’s not exactly optional and it’s god-specific, but I was willing to bet that I’d be able to pull it off because I was using Kali’s Magic. I was either right, or the two hundred and ninety-eight minor gods I’d magically cannibalized all had different signatures that would have let me round everyone up anyway. Whichever it was, I had all of the swine-born, sibling-fucking, cock-sucking, filth-ridden, spineless, cowardly, mod-mentality having, fetid, rotting, spite/hate/shun/rape/torture/violation worthy, lowly, barbaric, inarguably atrocious excuses for sacks of fucking flesh, let alone gods, right there in front of me.

Game on.

Rapefest was running wild, and I was scarily powerful. I knew the fathers of all seventeen of my bastards, and I made sure that they were each the star of their own little gangrape. Of course, everyone’s sense of touch was linked together, pooled, and then amplified through a creative use of magic, and then I sensitized all of them to the point where breathing on their flesh would feel like being branded. And to think, there wasn’t a drop of lubrication in that writhing mass, and I’d made sure that while none of them had powers anymore, they were all immortal and had some form of healing factor.

The best part was when I accidentally grasped time and sent myself back to the beginning of my massacre so I could relive it all! Oh my fucking God it was good!!! It was so fucking good!!! The feeling was so addictive that I used my newfound ‘Magic’ to break the top law of the Heavens and created life that could reproduce in the form of five little seeds. I dropped one in the middle of Kali’s compound when I was done laughing, and within moments a tree of CRYSTAL. FUCKIN’. WEED sprouted up, reaching at least fifteen meters. The buds were enormous and the thing smelled like straight ambrosia.

What I’d created is something I like to call Arvita; ‘Ar’ comes from Arbor, and ‘Vita’ means life because I’d created a ridiculously magical plant that would probably take care of just about whatever ailed you. I had to try some for myself, and it was fucking great! I’d capture the moment of my rapture with perfection in spades. Perfect spades, mind you, and the disinterest toward Arvita hit right before I was going to get high again, so I’d designed my drug well. Yes, the feeling of true vindication is addictive as fuck, but Mad Max (I’m stealing the name because I’m pretty sure I’m either high or becoming desensitized) was here to do the unexpected in all the right ways.

Those who had wronged me were suffering their punishment, but I wasn’t done. I still remembered the times where Kali made me watch her use the dick she cut off of me to masturbate, or the times she sodomized me with it in front of an audience of the high-rankers. What they didn’t know was that The Cataclysm had begun, and that I had a list of faces that I spent every moment I could memorizing, and the first person on my list was Kali’s husband, Shiva, who should have been on equal terms with me. Well, when I reached the slave quarters we were on par, but when we met face to face? He didn’t have a chance to move before I plunged the Warbling Blade into his skull, which was bad for a lot of people who weren’t me. It was real bad.

After I finished absorbing Shiva’s Magic, I was the strongest thing in the Heavens, bar none. I sent out a pulse to fucking check, and Shiva and I had both been ‘A’ ranks on a tier list, I would have shifted into the lower scales of ‘S’, which meant that there was officially only one being above me. It made slaughtering the gods who watched me be violated so much easier, and every punishment was a thousand times worse because I had the fucking juice to back it up now. Imagine a being second only to the actual Creator of the Universe. Imagine him being beyond furious, filled with hate blacker than sin itself, his humanity stolen from him entirely. For Shiva, I shattered his mind and created a hive-mind of sorts between the pieces of his psyche since I thought it was a good idea, then I waved my hand and everyone in Kali’s personal Palace was officially getting raped by their neighbor, in absolute agony, experiencing the little affair with every little fragment of their mind since I’d turned them into their own little personalities. The hive-mind aspect just made it hurt more, and that made me laugh more.

I wiped out the Hindu Pantheon completely. All their power was mine for the taking, and take did I ever. By the time I slayed Odin, Thor, Horus, Ra, and Shao Lao, I’d already erased the Celtic, Aztec, and Arabian gods from existence to prove my point. I had three targets left, and all of them were attendees at the shows that were put on. I’d already had a conversation with Hephaestus and told him to gather the innocent ones and prepare to run, because when I walked into Olympus, I drained the ambient Magic from the place as I went along. With a body full of more God Magic than any person has the right to possess, I tracked down Zeus, Dionysus, and Athena. I sent Zeus and Dionysus to Rapefest, but I had a special punishment in store for Athena.

“Hullo there!” I greeted sweating syrup, every inch of my covered in ichor that I licked off as I watched Athena's fear mount her from behind.

Athena, being stubborn like bull, glared up at me from the puddle of ichor she was sitting in. “You deserved it. You deserved every second.”

I laughed at her. “I only had five years, sweetie. You’ll have a few thousand, and there’s no saving you.” I said condescendingly. “You’re going to suffer for eternity, and just as an added bonus for you, Athena, I’m going to make multiple of you so everyone can rape you! How’s that sound, ya doomed little cunt? Cuz’ there ain’t no one left ta save ya!” I cackled hard as fuck for like, ten seconds before I stopped cold, snapped my fingers, and then did exactly that to Kali. Do keep in mind that her mental state carried across the clones, and they were all connected anyway. “Got Kali. Now I just need to get you!”

“You’re going to regret this, Maximus! You’re going to rue the day you crossed the gods!” Athena roared.

I blinked at her and laughed at her desperate words before making sure that my laughter was going to be the only thing she heard for the rest of her immortal life. Ah… Fond memories. I’ll be right back.

Eeyup, still just a writhing mass of rotting flesh and undulating bodies weeping in despair. I ended up staying for a little while to grab another baggie of Arvita , but I kept an eye on my little parallel universe-

Oh yeah, as you might have figured out, I’m actually a capital G now. I mean, God himself still dwarfs me beyond comparison, but I might write about him the next time I do one of these entries. God and I actually talk pretty often now since he’s training me to take over his place, but that’s really not important right now. I want to do my homecoming while I’m still riding this high, so let’s get back to work, me!

So to get on with the tale of my freedom, I’d ended up staying in the Heavens for a week during The Cataclysm, and I’d easily cleared half the population, no sweat. When I finished punishing Athena for turning on me after I tried to do her a huge favour so many years ago, I sought out Hephaestus and found him because no one hides from me if I don’t want them to these days. Whether I just go and find them or I force them to come to me, I get shit done, but I actually went to go find Hephaestus since he had some explaining to do.

When I got to his shop, he was already wielding a sword. “Max, I didn’t know ya was in the Heavens, Brother. I swear that to ya.”

“Oh, I believe you. It’s actually impossible for you to lie to me, so I believe you. I’m not even going to punish you for neglecting to save me, so give me a hug, mate! Fucking shite, I could fucking use one!” I sighed happily. “It’d just be the cherry on top of the ambrosia, you know?”

Festus stared at me. “... Lyssa ain’t got shit on you, Max. I know that much just by standin’ here.”

I checked the millions of years worth of memories that I’d stolen in a nanosecond. “Ah, the Goddess of Insanity! True, I could probably show her new depths at this point.”

Festus stared at me for a minute. “... Ya gonna stop smilin’, or…?”

“Mate, there isn’t a thing in this world you could do to wipe this shit off of my face, and I like it that way!” I rushed him and gave him a great hug. “I’ve got business to take care of, but I’ll see you soon, okay Festus?” I tapped his forehead and loaded him with more Magic, leadership, charisma, and fixed his face a little so he wasn’t constantly in pain.

“... Did you just juice me up?” Festus asked blankly.

“Damn straight, mate! You’re taking over the Heavens! Everywhere is yours to build upon! Go mad with power and I’ll kill you!” I clapped him on the shoulder and giggled like a fool.

“... Right. Thanks, Brother, but I ain’t exactly the leadin’ type, ya know?”

“Too bad! I never said I wasn’t going to force you into shit not saving me, I just said I wasn’t going to punish you!” I bobbed my head a bit. “It’s pretty great when I get to be stronger than the gods. Honestly, this entire event has been Awesome”

“Maximus, this is goin’ down in the annals as the biggest tragedy to the gods.” Festus said frankly.

I booped him. “And you’re going to make it so that history remembers this as the most radical party of all time! Seriously, Festus! A week long spree of vindication and vengeance! Who wants ice cream!?” I got pistachio. “You know, revenge has to be either ice cream or some sort of sorbet, right? I mean, it’s best served cold and it’s supposed to be sweet, so it makes sense, right? I love the taste of revenge, but it’s going to go straight to my hips!” I wailed theatrically, though the smile never faded.

“I’ll… I’ll get it done, Max.”

“Thanks buddy! You know, you’re the best god I’ve met so far!”

“Ain’t exactly a big competition now.” He said, mourning the loss of eternal life and the damnation of some of his kin.

His suffering tipped me over the edge and I had to keep a straight face as I came in my pants, which was easy because I couldn't stop smiling. I figured that I didn’t need to be in the Heavens anymore, so I wandered on down to Equus and dropped myself off in the middle of Ponyville before I realized that I was still wearing the Indian maid garb I’d been forced to wear at Kali’s palace. A thought was enough to change my apparel into one of my usual suits, so I continued on along and started heading for Castle Arcadia since the pitch black sky and subdued citizens in town told me that the thing in my wife’s body had made a real mess of things before I came back. A snap of my fingers saw the Magic tinting the sky black fading away to reveal the Sun as it dipped below the horizon. I liked seeing the Sunset so much that I froze time for a couple of days just to stare at it. That, and I still had a bit of Kali’s heart stuck in my teeth from the last time I ripped it out of her through her arse and ate it, so I took the time to floss because I felt like it.

When I was done flossing, I turned the discarded material into bacteria that like to fight the common cold and made it reproduce in the perfect incubator before letting it loose, spreading it all over Ponyville with a wave of my hand. I figured doing the world a little favour by making the ‘virus’ highly communicable was enough to make up for me having a restful gander at a scene I’d missed more than coke over the past half-decade. The Outer Gates held two pictures; one of me laughing, my eyes seeing beyond reality, and then there was my Twilight who was curled up in the fetal position, rocking herself back and forth. As the Prince returned to his Castle-

Shit, pulled a Trixie.

As I came back home, the magical depictions reacted to my presence. The other Max was jumping up and down, hooping and hollering (I assume. Fuckers are silent, after all) while Twilight stared at me. I blew her a kiss and left a mark on her cheek because, and I’m being serious here, but my thought was ‘Kissy face makes her smile every time! Kissy kiss on the face gets smiles!”

Oi, I said I was gone when it came to the mental faculties, and I fucking meant it. The answers to age old questions hit me from all direction as the words flowed, waxing and waning in volume as they saw fit, but the voices in my head told me that God actually could create a rock he couldn’t lift because he could limit his own physical strength if he ever felt like it, women were difficult because of genetics and primal instinct, which was the same reason dudes are dumb, and that you only go to Hell if you didn’t repent the same day that you died. It has to be the same twenty-four hours, so I sent Bea a note while I was thinking about it and continued on onto the Castle grounds.

The stench of death hung on the air, though I knew that it was just my Ethereal perception being ridiculous because I’d stopped by Hel and cannibalized Hel herself. Her realm is mine now too, by the way, and it’s awesome as shit. I take people to go lava-surfing when the tides are good, but I try to keep them away from the one entrance to my parallel dimension. I got off topic, so I’m gonna get back to what I was talking about. Anyway, so I sent the three hundred and fifteen souls that were beginning to swarm me to the Afterlife because I’m merciful like that, I just went ahead and dragged Kurama from the Ether into reality.

“And hullo Kurama! It’s been a Hell of a week, lemme tell ya!” I said jovially.

Kurama’s ears flattened against her skull and she tried to back away from me, yipping pitifully. “Dear Matron, it’s over! Max, please, don’t do this!”

I made her stand up straight and patted her head. “Aw, my sweet widdle foxy! What’s got you all scaredy-catty?”

“... You haven’t come back to hunt me down?” Kurama asked, the fear in her voice mixed with a spoonful of hope.

I patted her head some more. “Of course not, you silly fox! Tell me, what all has my naughty little wife been doing while I was enslaved?”

Kurama stared at me for a moment. “... Where in the sacred name of the First Mother have you been, Maximus?”

“Getting raped in the Heavens above. Well, up until Solday I was getting raped. After that, I was doing a bit of mind-raping, forcing rapists to rape each other, stealing all positive emotions, claiming more than enough Magic to create a second Equus, and overall just doing some shit that would get me executed by Fluttershy!” I had a laugh at the thought of Fluttershy chopping my head off with an oversized axe, which then devolved into hyena-like howls of laughter as I got stuck on my ‘crimes’. I put crimes in parentheses because it’s only a crime if someone can do something about your actions. I was fully convinced that I could do no wrong; that my whim was law.

I’m still not wrong in thinking that, but I don’t actually believe it anymore. Like I said, I’ve made progress.

Kurama whimpered. “Max, what- What have you become, my friend?”

I had a quick conversation with God that did not use words, so I can’t transcribe it. That was when he named me as his successor, however, so I gave Kurama a little more of the pearly whites as I said, “I’m the next Cap G my friend, and I’ve got a feeling that I have work to do! Ya wanna help me find Nashoba and get started on fixin’ shit!?”

“Nashoba was killed by Brume, Maximus. Nashoba, Urana, Aurum, the Matron, The Broodmother, the vast majority of the Zgon in the Everfree, the Dryads entirely, Crimson, Fleur, Fancy, Onyx, Sound Digit, Tender Care and their children, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Blueberry Tart, the Lulamoon, Celestia, Luna, Cadenza, Shining Armour… All of them. Dead.” Kurama said.

“Aww! I was looking forward to seeing those guys! Looks like I’ll have to bring in the lug wrench for this one!” I laughed like she’d just told me that I had to screw in an extra light bulb instead of mowing a lawn with a pair of scissors. "You know? It's a shame Brume didn't keep her promise!"

“... I... “ She stared at me, her maw open.

I patted her head one last time. “I’d tell you to take care, but since I’ve gotta make myself a good fixin’ right here, there’s no point!” I sighed cheerfully. “I’m gonna go find Pinkie since she's not dead. You can do whatever you want, so go wild, okay? Just know that if you hurt someone for no reason, then I’m kil~ling you~!” I said playfully, though I was dead serious.

Kurama made a poo and dashed off into the Ether. I was tempted to fuck with her and actually kill her just for shits and giggles, so I did, but it only made me chuckle for a few minutes. I still feel fucking terrible about that and have apologized to Kurama multiple time over the years for putting her down like a dog for a laugh, but she maintains that since it never happened, it’s okay. It doesn't stop me from feeling guilty about it, but that should tell you about how lost in the madness I was.

After I made Kurama explode into a champagne supernova, I pulled Pinkie to my side and she immediately started struggling. “No! No! No! Stop, Max, please!” Pinkie wailed.

I tossed her up in the air and gave her a rather great hug, if I do say so myself. “Pinks! I’m so happy to see you, love!”

Pinkie shifted out of my arms with the Pink Menace Magic, breaking a few rules of the Magic to keep herself safe. Our eyes met when she landed and Pinkie’s face lit up and she rushed me for a hug of her own. “Maxxy! You’re just like me now, but stronger!”

“Hell yeah!” I gave her some even better squishums. “Ah, I missed you so, so much!”

“Oh Max, I missed you too! I missed you enough to be terrified that you were going to going to hunt me down and finish what Brume started!” Pinkie waved her right stub excitedly while I helped her balance on her peg leg.

“Oh no, we had a deal, Pinks! Don’t be such a silly head!” I kissed her passionately and blessed her through the contact.

When Pinkie was whole again, she rubbed her right arm and stomped the formerly wooden leg a couple of times to get used to having the limbs again again. Her hair deflated as she held her silence until it was completely straight. “... She killed everypony, Max.”

“Oh, faff! It’ll all be fine, love, just trust in your old mate Max and we’ll keep calm and carry on, yeah!?” I clapped her on the shoulder.

Pinkamena took a shaky breath. “I don’t know why you were gone so long, and I don’t know why it made you like me like this, but you have to fix this, Max. Everything’s… Equestria… The whole world... “

I gave her a calming kiss. “Wanna have some cray-cray consensual Magic sex?” I asked hopefully. "It'll blow your mind!

“Not right now, but thank you. Please fix this, Max. Before the awesome, super-duper, amazing sex that I’ve been waiting almost ten years for, I want my friends back. I want my life back.”

“And I want my wife back, so I’m gonna go do that! Wanna come with; make it a date?”

Her hair poofed back up and she offered me her hand, so we literally skipped through the Main Hall of the Castle and sang drinking songs as we went along. I knew exactly where Brume was, and I was looking forward to seeing her again more than anything else in the world. My heart sang with joyous cries for my freedom and my love, and some stupid song Magic got started because of it. The song was absolute madness since it was made up of over a dozen languages in hundreds of dialects with thousands of elder slang terms mixed in. It was a long fucking song, but as I sang the last four words, Brume came into view from down a hall and shifted to me after laying eyes on me, both of us embracing each other without regard for Pinkie.

“Maximus!!” She cried, beyond elated .”My husband, you’ve finally come back to me!” She half shouted, half sobbed.

I rocked her back and forth. “Max is back, Brume, and he’s madder than the hatter!”

She let me go, giving me a confused look before her pupils shrank to pinpricks. “M-M-Max, wh-what are you doing?”

Her Magic was already mine, and it was a little bitter. “Taking back what’s rightfully mine, Syrah~! And you, my dear, have been a bad, bad filly.” My smile, the week-long smile, dropped into a face of absolute rage. “You retarded fucking cunt. By no means will you escape damnation for your crimes against my people.”

It hit her. “... You don’t love me.” She breathed. “You don’t love me.”

The smile I gave her painted the emotion perfectly, but the beast behind the mask was chomping at the bit. Mad Maximus Percussor Fulminata was in full force, and the platinum ambrosia in my veins felt like opium's greatest grandson, refined through the generations to bring more pleasure than what was mortally conceivable as I said, “A little birdy told me that you killed my family and my friends while I was off being horribly, horribly mistreated! I decided to break off my half of the Covenant because fuck you!” I chuckled.

“... Dear Heavens above, mercy take me now.” Brume du Brume pleaded breathlessly.

“Oh, that’s where I’ve been the past five years! What a coincidence, because I just got done slaughtering thousands of gods for their power!” I slapped the fuck out of Brume and laughed my arse off.

She tried to run, but I turned the bones of her legs into ceramic shards of varying sizes. Needless to say, she fell and hit the ground hard, but I thought it was the funniest fucking thing since Kali getting the tables turned on her in the span of ten minutes. I let Pinkie Pie do her worst until she passed out from exhaustion, and then I took my turn with her. You see, there’s this saying about a woman scorned, right? Well, I consider myself to be a woman as well as a man since I can literally occupy both forms at the same time whenever I want, but my point is that Brume had scorned me all those years ago by refusing to give up sadism for the sake of our love. She’d let me go solo to go help Noir, so Hell found a new fury and left it on the fucking table where I put it because I said that it was going to stay there. A woman’s scorn would be bad enough, but most women aren’t enthusiastically blood-thirsty, most women don’t go to the Heavens, and most women don’t go through seventeen fucking pregnancies. I blamed THE FUCK out of Brume for my Hell, so I made her experience it. Over and over and over, never letting her go mad. Never letting her feel pleasure. Never letting her get used to the feeling of being used like a bog roll.

She shed normal tears at first, then when her brain started hemorrhaging because her own fucking body was trying to kill itself to escape torment, I started from the beginning with Kali, breaking reality and creating Parallels that existed in tandem to bring even more pain. I let Pinkie rest in peace since I was sure that the Afterlife was a nicer place than Brume’s Equestria, and over the course of a month, I fit a full trillion years of suffering into her memory. I literally tortured her for the duration of Earth’s existence, but what’s even better is that by now no one in my pocket-universe remembers what life was like before I came along. At least, they don’t have the time to recall. After I spent my month with Brume, I separated her and Twilight, forcing the two personalities into separate bodies. My wife was asleep when she landed in my arms, but she woke up when I bonded myself to her.

“Wh-Where am I?” My wife, the only woman I need in my life, asked spacily.

“Welcome to Tartarus in Equestria!” I said chipperly, giving her some squishums. “All our friends were killed by the insane version of you along with our families!”

Twilight spazzed the fuck out and there were a couple of things written on her face. Panic, dread, anger, fear, and horror all took their turns. “Who are you!?”

I gave her a loving smile. “I’m your husband, silly! I know your memory is perfectly fine, so don’t be daft!”

My wife shook in her shoes, backing away from me. “You look like him, but you’re not him. You’re not my Max.”

“Oh, no, I’ve got to get past this bout of insanity before I can go back to being the guy you married!” I took a few steps toward her and she fell over Pinkie's body since I’d left her on the floor of Brume’s dungeon. In fairness, she was dead, so how many fucks could she really give about it?

... Before I say anything else, and this will never leave these pages, but I might have done something unforgivable while insane. I won't say what, and I've had my memory wiped so I don't remember doing it anymore... Pinkie forgave me for it, but I still wish I could blow my brains out. Fucking disgusting. Aside over. Weight not lifted from my shoulders. At-fucking-all.

Twilight glanced at what had tripped her up and paled at the sight of her friend’s limp form. “... Pinkie? Pinkamena?” She ignored me for a moment and shook her friend. “Pinkie?”

“Ah, it’s sad that she passed, but she died doing what she loved.” I said soothingly. “If you want to hurt the person who technically killed her, she’s right there.” I pointed at Brume’s equally limp body.

“... You can’t be serious.” Twilight breathed.

I smiled at her. “I’m not.” I raised my hand and prepared to snap. “I’ll see you on the other side, Cherry.”

My middle finger met my palm and time rewound, bending itself to my will. I stood around and watched as the years ticked backward on Equus, and when I went to do the same on Earth, all was well. It was easy as shit to alter reality however the fuck I wanted, and creating new and unusual things was on my list of shit to do when I got back to the exact moment Brume and I came back to Equus. If this was some story, then the last five years worth of chapters about Equestria would have been retconned with a new danger looming overhead.

Brume looked at me “... So we could have been back last night?”

I put a hand on her shoulder. “You know, I’m not going to torture you.” I gave her a kind smile. “I mean, you technically haven’t done anything yet!”

Her irritated look turned into one of concern. “Amour, I’m not going to do anything-”

“Oh, the fuck you aren’t you lying little whore!” I said brightly. “Any last words?”

Brume stared at me. “Max, have you actually lost your mind this time?”

I winked at her. “I’ve been in the future, filth, and you turn it into a Hellscape! Shit ain’t happenin’ this time around!”

I felt her probe my power with her God Magic and I stole it from her with a smile. She fell to her knees and started gasping for air. “Amour!? What in Heavens name are you doing!?”

I got serious for a moment, clarity striking me for the first time in a good while. “I’m making the world a better place. It was awful knowing you, Brume. Rest in Smileton.” Smileton is the name of my parallel universe. Should have mentioned that earlier to be honest, but it didn’t come up until just then as far as saying the name went. It’s not like it really matters in the end.

I pointed at Brume and snapped my fingers, stripping Twilight of the veneer surrounding the woman I truly loved. Like she’d done before, my wife was asleep when she came back to me, but this time I let her stay asleep while I altered the little spark that had started a good amount of my troubles. Turns out, Twilight’s Dark Magic was actually a fragment of Nightmare Moon’s soul, and that fragment went unchecked for some time. While I wasn’t able to run my daily diagnostic on Twilight, the fragment bonded not with Twilight’s soul, but with one of the Voices in her head. Together, Nightmare Twilight (The Voice) and Nightmare Moon fused into Brume du Brume: A worse match made may not exist, to be honest, though if you think about it, having me take over for Cap G sounds like a far worse idea. To me, at least.

When my wife came to, she stirred in my arms for a moment before laying her head on my shoulders. I heard her eyes snap open and she teleported away from me, “Who- Who are you!?”

I gave her another loving smile. “The name’s Maximus, though you can call me Mad Max right now.” I said. I would have just repeated the conversation I’d had with her, but that would have been insane.

Twilight stared at me for a good while. It would have been awkward or rude if I cared. “... You’re not my husband.”

“Well, not right now! I’ll be back to normal, everyday Max when I feel like it.”

“... Can you do that now, please?”

I pouted. “You asked nicely. Rather nicely, I must say, but that doesn't mean you get what you want. I’ve got trauma to escape for a few more days, so why don’t we start getting Castle Arcadia sorted out, then we can start preparing for the coming maelstrom!” I beamed at her.

Twilight hugged herself. “... When will I get Max back?”

“Oh, that’s gonna take a couple years unless someone does me a really nice favour! I know you and Celestia won’t, so I might need to ask Luna.” I tapped my chin thoughtfully.

My wife ran a hand through her hair and froze when she felt the texture. She grabbed a lock of her hair and stared at it. “... What the fuck?”

“Oh! So, like, you’re totally gonna hate the story I have to tell you. Like, seriously. You might not wanna hear it.” I scratched my cheek.

“Does it explain why you’ve actually gone completely insane instead of just being nutty slash occasionally violent?”

“EEYUP!” I said proudly.

“... I might need to hear that story sooner rather than later.” Twilight said foolishly.

I didn’t want to be bothered with explaining it multiple times to a bunch of different people, so I just shifted everyone I liked into the same room and made some grand stands. “Oi! Everyone get seated, I’ve got some horrible news!” I announced blithely.

I got a lot of weird looks since pretty much everyone I cared for while I was sane was present. There were some quadrupeds missing, but Nashoba was present and came to talk to me while everyone else was getting seated. “Maximus. I sense you’ve lost your mind.”

She growled at the smile I gave her. “Oh, be nice, will you? I’ll be back to normal soon enough, or at least, I’ll be sane! Well, kinda!”

“I hope your news explains your insanity.” Nashoba said darkly.

“Oh, bitch, don’t you take that fucking tone with me!” I chuckled. “I like you, but right now your life is in mortal peril! Walk away my four-legged friend!”

Nashoba tucked her tail between her legs. “... You are not our Max.”

“Go sit the fuck down and I’ll start explaining, shit brain!” I replied, an edge creeping into my tone.

She backed away slowly and Twilight put her hand on my arm, having been silent next to me the entire time. “Max, that was mean.”

“Ah, oh well. She’s got thick fur! She can handle it!” I gave her a smile. “Why don’t I get on with my story, yeah?”

My wife gave me another worried look, so I started my tale from the beginning with God sending Twilight and I to Equis, the rebellion, then Twilight’s Alicorn insanity and its subsequent domination of Equestria, and then I moved onto my life after I’d tried to go save Noir from Kali. Mutterings were heard as I summarized my experiences, and Twilight clung to me like never before, which was really nice. Her sympathy tasted like white grape juice, and I really like white grape juice, so I hugged her back and soaked it in for a little bit. I got a mass hug from a lot of people, but when I sent everyone who I didn’t feel like talking to home, I left one person out of that group, and that includes Twilight.

Noir and I met each other and I gave her a goofy grin. “I tried to save you!”

Noir brought me in for a hug. “I can cure you, my dearest friend. Let me help you in your time of need.”

I hugged her back. “My time of need passed when I woke up to someone making a vagina out of the ruins of my crotch.”

She held me tighter. “Like it never happened. Like nothing ever happened.” She whispered.

I flooded Noir with pure God Magic and brought her up to a mid-high rank because I wanted her in my pantheon. She held me at arm’s length and stared at me as I said, “It’s not bothering me right now, but if you want to check back with me when-”

“Jericho.” Noir said, utilizing the last promise I’d asked her to make.

“... Fuckin’ oi, bruv. That’s not cool.” I said softly.

“Jericho.”

“Noir, no-” I said, panicking.

“Jericho.”

I blacked the fuck out then and there and snapped in and out of consciousness for seven weeks, seven days, seven hours, and seven seconds into the seventh minute of said hour. Every time I woke up, I was screaming about something or other, but I mostly just drifted through my worst memories and hoped for a decently paced death. I would have take death by drowning, burning, smoke inhalation, being buried alive with a year of oxygen… A lot of shit could go on that list, but I’d kicked myself in the balls by creating a trigger that would snap me out of true blue insanity in the first place. I’d given the code to Noir so she could ‘break down the walls’ since she was probably the only person that could keep me contained, and when I woke up after seven weeks of straight turmoil, I lay in a blue room with blue trinkets everywhere.

I didn’t know where I was or who I was for a minute before the memories came back and gave me a panic attack. Well, it might have been a fusion of an anxiety attack and a psychotic episode. It would explain why there were gouges in my arms when I clocked back in, but I just healed them on sight because I could. Sadly, I can’t alter my own mind since that’s a no-no from Cap G and it’s been a rule for a good while, and he shot the thought down before I could let it tempt me by telling me that he would throw me into Smileton and hit me with the same curses I’d laid on my victims. Shit was a potent ward against any manner of tomfoolery, so I picked up the pieces of me that were left and dropped them all over the place, sobbing my eyes out.

No one came to visit me during my first day awake, but I can’t say that I was upset that no one came. I wanted to be alone and safe, but I wanted Twilight. I didn’t want her to get her hands dirty by touching me, but I needed her shoulder to cry on, because sobbing into my own hands wasn’t really doing much for me. I was at rock bottom, much like Twilight had been when she turned into Brume. Don’t get me wrong, I feel for Twilight, and I appreciate her struggle, I really do, but she’s weak as fuck. Not physically, just… In spirit, or willpower, I should say. It only took two years of loneliness to bring her down, to make her finally crumble, to turn her over to what was waiting for its chance. It took more than twice that amount of time for me to give in, and that’s not mentioning the difference in the struggle. Plus, I kinda had to be forced into breaking down by some… Well, I hesitate to call it bullshit Magic because it was for the best, but I would have preferred to stay insane for a little while longer.

To say it kindly, Twilight performs best when she has her loved ones near by, and when you take them away, she loses heart. She only held on so long because I put in immeasurable amounts of work in terms of encouragement, distractions, and positivity. It sucks that she knew she was eventually going to go see her friends when they hadn’t aged more than a few days, whereas my little adventure across worlds had held no God-Given-Guarantees. If you haven’t guessed it by now, that’s just how the life of a Chosen is in comparison to the Favoured.

It’s a load of fuckin’ bollocks is what it is.

I just needed to bitch for a moment. I’m good now. If you misread that, then I’ll clarify it right here: I wouldn’t have traded Twilight roles for a God. Damned. Thing. You could take our love from us and I’d still tell you to kill yourself before you could finish talking. However, I lost my status when I reached the echelons of true Godhood, so it doesn’t matter anymore. I need to get on from my little aside and get back to ‘Expressive Therapy’.

I’ve been writing for awhile now. It’s time for a break, though I rather wish that I was allowed to bend time whenever I wanted like I used to be. It really would have saved me a shit tonne of time on this entry considering that shaky start. I’d just wipe it and rewrite it since I feel like I could handle adding a little more detail, but I don’t know how long this dose is supposed to last and I’m not taking another one. Fucking benzos are too dangerous to be taking willy nilly.

Alright, I kinda sound like a narc… Never did mess with pills, so I’m wary of shit that’s not grown by me. Twilight asked me to try and wean myself off of non-addictive fucking Magic herbs a couple months ago, which Is why I got the first therapist. Bradley was cool when you weren’t her patient, but she was awfully eager to try and hit me with what-the-fuck-ever. We tried Lexapro first, but that ended with me shutting down daily. We tried Paxil, and that shit sent me into mood swings that had to be resolved the same day they started. I’ll probably write about that when I do the anthology of the years I’ve missed since it was a pretty fucking wild day, but Prozac was the one that got Bradley killed.

Just because I don’t want to wrap up quite yet and now that I’ve gotten back into the swing of things, it’s time for the Prozac story since it’s a pretty recent event. During the first day of my second week on that poison, I started having more frequent flashbacks than usual, noticeably so since I’d had twice the amount of near misses and one actual shut down before fucking lunch. Twilight coaxed me out of the Nip Nook after half an hour of gentle assurances that I was safe and that she was really her, but when my wife tried to give me a comforting kiss to blow away a little more of the fog over my eyes, I got hit with my Hell all over again, but it was painfully vivid. Instead of flashes, visions of what I’d witnessed happen to me, I was there all over again. While I was lost in anguish, I’d electrocuted Twilight to the point where she was a hair’s breadth away from death. When I could finally free myself from the terror, my wife was hanging on by a thread, and I was holding a hand of nothing but pure, blanched bone.

After I healed Twilight, Mrs. Bradley was located and was nearly sent to Smileton before mercy took my hand. It was a literal act of God that I didn’t make her live on in eternal torment since I’m kinda that guy. Or at least, I will be that guy. Looking back on it, I know I was wrong in putting her down, but she got Twilight hurt and sent me to a circle of Hell. I don’t really regret it, Twilight supports it readily; I’ve got all the justification I need.

Prozac story over.

Alright, back in action. So after I woke up in the blue room and cooled my heels for a day, I summoned Twilight with God Magic, though it was up to her whether or not she’d reply. I was worried that she wasn’t going to come for a minute, but when Twilight teleported into the room and laid eyes on me, I felt better about a lot of things. I could see the truth of her identity just by looking at her, and I could see the strings of fate that bound her to me, so I wasted no time in shakily rising to my feet to greet my wife.

“Twilight?” I asked, my voice weak, though not hoarse. “... It’s… It’s been so long.”

She walked up to me and held my arms. “Hello, Max.” She said, a ghost of a smile on her face. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m going to wake up at any moment and go back to the Compound.” I breathed fearfully. "God told me... He todl me that I had to go- That..."

My wife gave me a tight, worried smile. “There’s no one in Kali’s compound, Max. Festus stopped by to confirm your story…”

I seized up and started shaking. “No more of it no more no more of it no more no more no more no more of it no more no no, no, no more no no more of it-” Twilight silenced me with a much needed kiss, and for the first time in five long years, I was safe in my lover’s arms, had a ragged, cock-shaped hole in my heart be plugged by the woman who was willing to soil her lips with the mouth of a piece of meat on legs.

“Max, there’s never going to be anymore. No more.” She confirmed assuredly. “Festus cleaned up the rest of The Heavens, and things on Equus have been quiet. There is peace everywhere, my dear Amour.”

I clung to her desperately. “No more… Good God, I’m finally free… I’m finally free…” I sobbed into her shoulder.
Twilight held me, and with the added height that she’d gotten from her Alicorn Insanity, that meant I didn’t have to stoop quite so low to let her do so. My wife rocked me and murmured assurances to me while stroking my hair, which was ridiculously long at this point. As a female, my hair had spanned the entire way down my back, past my thighs, and to my ankles, but as Max, my hair was just to my shoulder blades. It was nice to have Twilight run her fingers through my hair because her touch was unique. It didn’t blend in with the rest of the filthy hands that had scoured every inch of me, and when I pulled away from her, she gave me a warm smile that melted the biggest pieces of my heart back down into a puddle.

“I couldn’t be there for you when you needed me most, but I can help you pick up the pieces left behind, Max. Say what you need for a little healing-”

“I need you. I need you, and I need you and bourbon. I want a lot of bourbon.” I interrupted.

“I’m not going to let you drink this away.” Twilight reprimanded softly.

“Please.” I asked pitifully.

“... You’ve never begged for a drink, and you’re not going to start.”

“I don’t care.” I breathed. “Anything that makes it stop. Anything stops it stop stop it stops it it stops stops now stop stop STOP! STOP! STOP!” I bellowed, trapped in my memories again.

Twilight slapped me to bring me out of the hole, but the look on her face when I came back made me want to go back in so I wouldn’t have to see it. “... They broke you so bad.”

Tears streamed from my eyes. “Just make it stop, Twilight.”

She brought me into her embrace once more and I shuddered in her arms, the cognitive dissonance striking me hard. I didn’t want her touching me now more than ever because as I was dirtier than I’d ever been, bar none, but I needed her love and support to make it through, so I chose the selfish option from the get go and just apologized for getting my filth on her. Twilight let me know that she thought I was as clean as a whistle, but as I’ve said before, whistle’s only appear clean, dammit. I might have looked fine, but my actions and mannerisms spoke of a man haunted by his past and things beyond Human levels of madness.

Twilight let me go and it took me a good little while to be coerced into letting her go, but when she finally got me off of her, Twilight offered to go have a word with Applejack and see if she wanted to come and share a bottle of Zap Apple Jack with me. I pleaded with Twilight for her to stay by my side, nearing tears before she could even reply to my rapid string of words that ended with more flashbacks, which meant that my wife was going nowhere slowly. She eventually teleported Noir to the Blue Room (I should have capitalized it last time, but it’s too late to fix it now... It's not, but I'm lazy. Fuck you.) and since my mentor was pretty damned close to exactly what I needed, Twilight was able to get away and continue with Castle Arcadia’s affairs while Noir kept me company.

“You once told me of the walls of Jericho, how shouting once brought them down.” Noir said softly while we were cuddling on an extra large bean-bag that we’d made together.

My head was resting on her breast as I spat the verse from a memeory that should have been long faded. “Then the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in. Joshua six, verses two through five.”

“I suppose you could call me a one woman army, and I am a god now, so I may as well be my own priest.”

I chuckled at that. “Within the walls of Jericho lie the most precious of things, a center for healing…”

“You asked me to bring the walls down when you reached true insanity… I had to stop you before you hurt someone, Maximus.”

“I reset time, Noir.” I reminded.

“I was not aware of the depth of your damage… For this, I am most sincerely sorry. For failing you, I am far, far more aggrieved.”

“You never failed me, Noir. You were either taken over or influenced both times, and neither of those times allowed you to pitch in and give me the hand I needed. We couldn’t have done anything against Kali anyway. Not at that point in time.”

“Tell me, you said you punished those who wronged you, but you neglected to mention what you’ve done. I assumed that you were sparing Twilight’s ears from the evil you committed.”

“I’ve slain more eternal beings than anything other than God, and the ones…” Noir held me tightly as I choked up.

She eased a little of her Magic into my mind and quieted the storm. She wasn’t powerful enough t alter my mind in any manner of speaking, but she could influence my emotions to a degree, and when she pushed, so I let her, so our method for getting me to calm down usually went alright. “Maximus…”

“They’re all either dead, wiped from existence itself, or they’re raping each other.”

“So… Are their names stricken from the history books?”

“Only beings of a certain power-level will know that they existed in the first place. I made them gone.”

Noir stroked my hair and hummed me a lullaby while she thought of something to say. “Did you let them off easy?”

“I had five years to work up the worst punishment I could think of, and a week to add more to it as I went along. The last time I checked on them, flesh was being stripped off thrust by thrust and those sick fucks sick sick fucks sick fuckers sick fucking fucks sick FUCKING SICKOS SICK SICK-” Noir silenced me with a little push on the right part of the brain, so I helped her push and relaxed, snuggling up a little closer to her.

“This unbalance is going to be troublesome.” Noir said, her voice steely. “However, there have been greater beasts to be broken. We will heal your mind, my dearest friend, and we will truly bring you back home.”

“Home… Noir, if I asked you-” She handed me a bottle of bourbon that would get me to where I needed to be in a few glasses. “... Thank you.”

“If I had not been where you are right now, I would have denied you this. Twilight knows nothing of what must be done to make it manageable. She knows nothing of what it takes to feel clean again… As far as that goes, I have few ideas myself, but we must first numb the area we wish to operate on, as is common with modern medicine from Earth. Once we can have you stand on your own two feet, then we will start truly helping you heal. For now, we let you have your moments of peace.”

I took a sip from the small bottle and sighed at the flavour. “I missed you, Noir. I also missed you too, bourbon. You ladies are some of my favourite things.” Objectifying women? Check.

“Did you just compare me to liquor?” Noir asked amusedly.

“You’re both intoxicating,” I took another sip, “so I think it’s a fair comparison. The only difference is that you’re a lovely shade of dark blue and bourbon is a nice shade of brown.”

“I dare you to put your penis in bourbon.” Noir said drily.

“Are you inviting me to put my penis in you?” I asked, starting to get a little tipsy.

Noir chuckled and stroked my hair. “Would it count as belated make-up sex if I was?”

“Make-up sex, reunion sex, comfort sex, pity sex-”

“I do not pity you, fool. I empathize with your feelings and experiences.”

“Empathy sex. That’s a new one in my books.” I took another sip, stoppered the bottle, and put it in my liquor closet.

Noir rubbed my arm. “A little more to take the edge off?”

“The edge is dulled enough as is. There’s something I want you to try, while we’re on the topic of mind-altering substances.”

“I trust that it is safe in moderation?” She asked.

“It’s safe in excess too, but it won’t let you get addicted, nor will it actually let you get more than a dose at a time. Arvita is a special plant.” I said pleasantly, pulling a handful of my crystalline bud from the first tree I’d planted. I still had two more seeds waiting on a home at that point, since I’d planted the first three in The Heavens.

Noir let me go and took the herb from me. “This… This is odd.”

“Take a bite! It’s delicious, I assure you.” I gave her a weak smile.

She gave me a longsuffering smile before doing as I’d suggested and getting a good nibble of out my creation. Noir’s eyes shot open as she chewed and she beamed, a bit of crystal leaf stuck on her front teeth. “This is marvelous! It’s like vengeance in physical form! I’ve never tasted anything so deliciously sweet!”

I took a bite for myself and rode the high when it came. “I could make something that gives people the sensation I get from kissing Twilight too. That would sell like wildfire.”

Noir gave me a look, but she was still high, so it didn’t last long. “Do not make more drugs.”

“I’m making one as we speak. I’m calling it Calitu. It’s a combination of ‘safe’ and ‘warm’ in Alicin.” I finished up with the seeds to the berry bush and conjured up a pot of soil so I could drop it in and watch it grow.

Noir and I tried to pass the time together and we ended up talking about various kinds of cheese, dogs, clouds, and our favourite berries. Mine was the cherry while hers had gone from Nightshade to blackberries. Noir could actually eat Nightshade since she was resistant to its effects from her training to be a super-soldier, and she actually grew to love the taste. There was a difference in Black Nightshade and straight Atropa Belladonna, and the latter was what Noir ate when she wanted to make tarts, if she felt like taking the time to make the crusts, that is. Noir and I chatted and snacked on our berries of choice in varied berried forms until Applejack and Twilight showed up, both of them a little apprehensive until they heard me laughing and cutting up with Noir.

I didn’t get up from the bean bag, but I did make it a bit bigger so that everyone could sit since I wasn’t going to move. “Firefly! Cherry! It’s good to see you two!”

Twilight gave me a pleasant smile and Applejack breathed a sigh of relief. “Whew! Glad to see you too, Twinkle! Twilight told me that ya were having a pretty rough time of it, so I made sure to bring a couple bottles of the good stuff.”

I beamed at her from Noir’s side. “We’ll be drinking for fun rather than for effect. I’ve made some stuff that makes it better, so have a seat on the sack and prepare to kick back!”

My wife sat beside me while Applejack felt like being goofy and did a front flip onto the massive bean bag, chilling out when she landed. “Ooh, this is nice! I gotta get me one a’ these.”

“Isn’t your birthday next month?” Twilight chipped in.

“It sure is! Which reminds me, ya ain’t exactly gettin’ any younger, Twi.” Applejack chuckled.

“Well it’s not like I’m getting any older.” My wife huffed playfully. “I already got my birthday present, so everything’s looking better from where I’m standing.

I held her hand and gave her a questioning smile. “What did you ask for as your present?”

Twilight lifted my hand to her mouth and pressed my knuckles to her lips. “I asked for my husband back. Even if you’re not whole, you’re mine again.”

I stole our hands from her side of the line and brought them over to my side so I could kiss her knuckles. “I never stopped being yours. Even when Brume took over, my heart still belonged to Twilight Sparkle, just like it always has.”

“And before you were flying?” Noir asked, using metaphors to lessen the chance of me flipping out.

“I escaped from my daily torment in the memories we made.” I said softly, rolling a bittersweet Calitu in my fingers.

“That’s as deep as we need to go,” Twilight said quickly, “so let’s move on to drinking, no? Does anyone object?”

“Eenope.” Farm girl.

“Nah.” Me.

“That was a silly question.” Noir stated.

My wife blushed, though she just giggled the embarrassment away since Noir had been playing around. “It’s like I’m surrounded by alcoholics!”

“Oi! Applejack’s the only alcoholic around here!” I laughed.

“I don’t know what that is, so I guess iffin’ the shoe fits.” Applejack righted herself leaned around Twilight to look at us. “I’m guessin’ it means I like to drink more than I should though.”

“What’s the longest you’ve gone without a drink? Since you hit the Apple Family drinking age of fifteen, that is?” Twilight asked.

Applejack blinked. “Uh…”

“Days, weeks, months?” Noir pressed.

“Uh…”

“Hours?” I asked.

She snapped and pointed at me. “There we go! Longest I went was twenty hours, not twenty days! I knew that didn't’ seem right.”

Twilight stared at her. “Holy moly, Applejack, you actually are an alcoholic.”

I snapped my fingers. “Dependency gone.”

My wife looked at me. “... Didn’t you say you weren’t going to play God when you first got Discord’s powers?”

I gave her a look. “I am God.”

Twilight’s face started to fall before I said, “No, Cherry, I’m not actually in charge yet, but I’m slated to be.”

There was silence around the room until Applejack asked, “Didn't ya say that God was the one who created the universe? Ya know, All-Powerful, All-Knowing?”

“I’m powerful beyond comprehension and I can tell you what’s going on with about a hundred different planets right now. I’ve only got a fraction of God’s outright might, but when you’re talking about beings who can create new forms of life on a whim, it’s not really that important unless you’re matching strength.” I explained.

Twilight kissed my hand again. “... So… What does that mean?”

“It means that I’ve got to take an active role in making people’s lives easier or something like that.” I said. My wife looked like she had a question, so I said, “Ask, Twilight.”

She smiled sadly and waited a little bit to say, “It’s a terrible time for it, but if you can create life on a whim…”

I didn’t need her to finish the sentence to completely meltdown, not even having time to stop myself from crushing the big, juicy, grape sized berries in my hand. Noir got me to have one and I came back from the flashbacks, but it took a few more for me to get back to some semblance of normalcy. They were too sweet for me to eat, but I forced them down anyway, and every berry took more and more of the edge off until I could actually breathe and relax for a moment. Noir and Twilight held me while Applejack rubbed my back, and I owed them an explanation.

“I had seventeen children.” I confessed softly once my mind was where it was supposed to be. “All dead. I didn’t love any of them.”

“Amour…”

“Sugarcube…”

“... I once had a son.” Noir said softly. “His name was Nut.”

“... My longest-lived bastard was Okthus.”

“A name fitting for a beast.” Noir commented gently.

“That he was… That he was…” I closed my eyes and saw his stupid, ugly fucking face, so I imagined ripping his eye out and skull fucking him with a cylindrical cheese grater. As was thought in mind, so was done in life. I gave Kali the same treatment.

“... They weren’t your children, Max. They weren’t… You…” Twilight trailed off, her voice too thick to continue. I knew that she was beyond livid that my sense of safety was gone, but she was so much further with her emotion when it came to the fact that my first child wasn’t going to be with her. We’d had the chance, but I’d let it slip away, and she blamed me for it, though she hated herself for feeling that way.

It was my fault, but Twilight was my rock, and I was hers. I was standing on a boulder in comparison to the sand my wife was shuffling through, but even madness and pain can’t take away what I feel for Twilight. “I’m-”

“If you say you’re sorry, I’m going to hit you so hard!” Twilight shouted. “It’s not your fault!”

I stroked her cheek and went to respond, but Applejack said, “You learn best when someone’s whackin’ ya over the head. If Twilight don't’ get it through to ya, then I will. Ya know good an’ damned well that I’ll eat the flank-whoopin’ Twilight’s gonna hand me for the sake a’ gettin’ my point across too.”

Noir pinched me. “I will stop hugging you if you continue to blame yourself. Your tormentors made their choices while you were powerless, and there is little you could do to convince me that you never fought for your freedom.”

“I fought for awhile until… Until the stuff we talked about happened. I stopped fighting after the first half-formed stillborn, but I never stopped plotting. Never.” I allowed myself a little smile as I added in another little punishment to Smileton’s laws. I reset time there and gave everyone a year of freedom to do whatever they wanted. I made it seem like they were free and clear, back in the Heavens with the remaining Gods before I snapped them straight back into their Hell.

Do you know what it’s like-

How do you describe-

I felt such a feeling of…

Rapturous, orgasmic ecstasy. When I tasted the suffering of my maggots, I came in my sleeping trousers and laid back in the bean bag with a smile on my face. “Ah~”

Twilight shook me, her face bright red. “M-M-Max, did you just-”

“I sure did, and it was great.” I sighed. “I wouldn’t say much more than that.”

“What’d he do?” Applejack asked.

“N-Nothing! It was nothing at all!” Twilight laughed awkwardly.

“Maximus took care of business in a different universe and the result was him having an orgasm.” Noir clarified.

“... What the buck.”

Twilight covered her face. “I don’t even know what you did, but you’re in a room with-”

“Three women who’ve let me cum inside.” I interrupted.

She pinched me and gave me a stern look that was ruined by the cherry tint to her cheeks. “Max!”

I laughed and Twilight pinched me again, but Applejack started laughing and Noir had been snickering since she’d exposed me, so she was infected by our good mood, and that was when we started getting drinks poured and I learned that Applejack just wasn’t that fond of Noir. They had nothing against each other, but Applejack thought Noir needed to be taken down a peg, and Noir thought Applejack could use a little more finesse in general instead of being a glorified mallet in Pony form. Eventually, Twilight tried to get me to leave the Blue Room, but I was pretty tense about the matter until we actually stepped outside. Of course, I had a sword in one and and a knife in the other when we got out into the hall, but once we were out, I recognized the place since I’d seen it everyday since Twilight and I had moved into Castle Arcadia. Well, I’m missing seven years, but I digress.

“... If this is a cruel joke, I’m killing everyone. Everything.” I said softly.

Twilight held my arm, her breasts feelings like God’s own hands against my fleshy left arm. Did I mention how good it felt to have my natural arm back? Hell, having an arm period was nice, but the flesh was definitely the best. Anyway, Twilight said, “It’s a good thing that there aren’t any comedians around.”

I felt Pinkie try to wrinkle reality nearby, so I just shifted her in front of us so she wouldn’t miss her cue. “Did someone ask for a comedian!?”

I gave her a hug and she hugged me in turn. “Wotcher, Pinks.”

“Wotcher to you too, Max! Say, when are you gonna go mad again?” She asked hopefully.

“Pinkie,” Twilight chided. “that’s quite the-”

“I have a few days until I get taken over again, so I’ll need you to help me keep an eye on things while Mad Max goofs off.” I cut Twilight off, answering with the truth.

Twilight stared at me. “... You know that you’re going to go insane again?”

“We’re in the eye of the storm right now. Once this next bout of insanity passes, which should only take a day or two if I handle it right, then I’ll be back to this level when it’s over.”

“... So we can’t even try to glue the pieces back together yet?” Twilight asked, sounding a little too hopeless for my tastes.

I gave her a meaningful kiss. “Just because it’s too early for the healing doesn’t mean it’s too late. The starting line just got moved up a bit, the finish line is still in the same place, Cherry.”

She gave me a weary smile. “Then I guess I’ll just enjoy my time with you while I have it.”

“Hey, you can have fun with Mad Max too!” Pinkie objected. “Just think of the fantastic sex you can have with a crazy person! Things your normal husband would never think of to get you off just boom! Insane orgasms!”

I gave Pinkie and odd look. “Did Mad Max sleep with you, or is my memory just warped?”

“Nope! I finally got a piece of you, but I died shortly after! The dick sent me to Heaven!” Pinkie giggled.

“Ah, that sucks. At least you got what you wanted.” I said casually.

“Eeyup! Don't worry, M&M used a different willy for it, so you don’t have to worry about being a footophile!”

“It’s fine because I had to be insane to sleep with you. How were the kisses?”

“They were really scary! It was nice and warm at first, like being at a campfire, but then it got hot and I thought I tasted the ashes of civilization and the anguish of thousands of eternal souls!”

“So don’t let M&M kiss my wife. Gotcha.” I nodded.

“I dunno, maybe Twilight and Brume both have a fetish for death and destruction!” Pinkie joked.

I wasn’t smiling. “Which reminds me, there’s a person I have to add to Smileton.”

“Your parallel universe? Where you’re keeping those… things?” Twilight asked.

“Yup.”

“... Who do you know that deserves a fate like that?”

I stared her in her eyes. “There was a man who raped his wife, his son, and his daughter. His entire family. His wife went berserk and nearly killed him while his daughter went insane and gave him a fate worse than death before I reset time,” I gave each citizen of Smileton seven extra holes to fuck and added barbed cocks to everyone’s hands so they could start tearing those apart too, “but he’s free right now, and he’s going away for a long time.”

My wife stared at me. “... What kind of monster does that to their own family!?”

Applejack shuddered hard. “What in tarnation is wrong with some ponies?”

Pinkie smiled .”Can I help you break his legs?”

I handed her a billy club and offered one to Twilight, but she gave me a fucked up look. “Max, you know me too well to think that I’d actually want to hurt someone who didn’t hurt you.”

Noir gasped. “You cannot be serious”

My wife jolted hard. “N-Noir! You know I’m a pacifist!”

“No, you poor soul this is your fight”

“Uh, I don’t see how some random stallion committin’ terrible crimes is really in Twilight’s jurisdiction, tall, dark, and pretty. Punishin’ people is kinda Max’s thing.” Applejack said uneasily.

I was still holding the club out to Twilight. “It’s your right.”

“Max, I would need a really good reason to hit someone with that.”

I just looked at her. “You have a fantastic reason. Multiple, actually, depending on how much you love Shining and Velvet.”

My wife blinked before blanching. “... That was just a nightmare.”

“It was a memory.”

“No… No, Max, no!” Twilight shook her head, trying to deny the truth I’d laid out before her.

“This ain’t funny, bud. I know you’re hurtin’, but comin’ up with stuff like this...” Applejack said, not even convincing herself.

“Nope! It’s all true, which is why I’m going with him! Night Light is going to get real familiar with suffering.” Pinkamena replaced Pinkie Pie, her tone rivaling Mad Max's whenever he got serious.

I let the billy club disappear and took Twilight into my arms. “... I’m sorry that my words are true, but I’m glad that there will be justice for you. I didn’t mean to rhyme… Kinda takes away some of the meaning of my words, but-”

“Max, how do you know this?” Twilight asked softly.

“You don’t want to hear this.” I said, divinity ringing through in my voice, marking it as a Truth.

My wife gave me a look. “How many times have I ignored those words in one way or another? Do you think some Magic is going to keep me off of your page?”

God Magic < Wife Magic apparently.

Luckily, man’s got tactics. Besides smoke trees on the block and not being hot. “How many times has ignoring those words brought you absolute misery for days on end?”

“Do I need to withhold kisses?” Twilight warned.

“It started with an event that disgusts me on many levels that ended with Brume confessing that you’d repressed a memory of your father raping you.” I spat like Krayzie Bone. Syllables flew like I manning a fucking ShKAS for Christ’s sake. “Don’t just take her word for it, but take mine since I checked your memories with one of your Others to confirm, and I know it to be true as a God anyway, so, like, yo, don’t worry or anything because it’s totally legit please don’t take kisses away from me.”

Twilight rubbed her ears.

“Max, my world; was that… Was that Equuish? I saw your lips move and sounds came out that kind of sounded like Equuish.”

“English.” I murmured.

“Right. I got the last part, so I’ll just… The truth spell didn’t go off or anything, and I’m assuming you just explained the whole thing… Would you mind slowing that down for me?”

I flicked my middle and index fingers upward and my voice came forth out of the Ether, slowed down and actually audible this time. Twilight was nodding by the time it finished, so that wasn't a bad thing, at least. “... Well, fuck.” She said darkly, stepping away from me. “Dear Love, where’s the club? The large, heavy looking object?”

El Boop was present, and thus Twilight became an upper-high rank goddess with his powerful love tappy goodness. “Make one for yourself, lazybones.”

“How many people are you planning to turn, Maximus?” Noir asked.

I just smiled, though the mania was long gone. I’d saved a pea, a single green pea under my platter while sewage was being pumping into the dining room, threatening to drown me at any moment. I had to hold the platter down instead of covering my face, but in the end, when the waste was gone and my will to hold that platter shone through, that little pea was as clean as the day as it was cooked.

Noir didn’t get verbal response, but the smile was enough for her anyway. “I see. I do approve.”

“Right?” I sighed. “Oi, can we go see Blue? It’s been seven years since I’ve seen my Mum, after all.”

Twilight was still reeling from the sudden increase in power since she wasn’t used to perceiving multiple things at the same time. Simultaneously, yes, but not literally in unison. Noir had previous experience with it through her time in the mindscape since she could feel her altered physical body at all times, and I’d felt it with my left arm, so we’d done pretty alright. My wife, however, was a little narrow minded in how she tended to see things sometimes, and I didn’t doubt that it was doing her any favours, so when no one objected to my suggestion, I rifted us to Blue’s house later on in the day when she was actually home and wasn’t busy. I’d made sure it wouldn’t fuck with the timeline, so don’t bitch at me, you temporally nitpicky nitwit.

Applejack was fucking lost as to how it went from six when the Sun was still high to eight or so during sunset, Twilight was moseying along numbly, and Noir was touching my hair because she said it felt nice. I knocked on Blue’s door and she took her time in answering it, but I smelled the cookies that had probably made her rump so round before she even opened the door and just smiled when I saw her.

Blue rushed me. “Baby! Can you hear me this time? Are you okay?” She held me at arm’s length and studied my response.

I gave her a little smile and sighed. “It’s been seven years, Blue… I missed you. I missed you a lot.”

“... The last time you were here you begged me to help you… I held you for hours, baby, and… Seeing your eyes right now makes my heart feel so much lighter. They really do.” She gave me a watery smile.

“I don’t remember that, but thank you.” I said softly.

“If there’s anything else, some way I can take this burden off your back-”

“I wouldn’t do that to you.” El Boop made a return. “However, I would do this to you. You are my official Goddess of Motherhood.”

“What am I the goddess of?” Noir asked curiously.

“Anal.” I said, Truth ringing through.

“I swear to the being above you that I will stomp on your testicles if you do not stop your nonsense.” My mentor threatened.

“Nah, you’re the Goddess of Time, Matron of Mentors.” Add in a sprinkle of Truth and ta-da!

“Much better.” Noir sniffed.

“Piss me off and you’ll be the Goddess of Anal though.” I warned. “Every time someone hopes for a good experience, you’d have to approve or deny, and you’ll get something out of it either way.”

I received a womanly look for my words. “To quote one of your most powerful phrases, ‘I’ll stick my finger in your butt.’.”

Fear struck me when I thought of how many times I’d told myself that it was just a finger, but I just popped another Calitu and things were okay. “Yeah, don't quote that one anymore.”

She nodded. “My apologies.”

“You didn’t know, and there are going to be a lot of little reminders that I’m going to have to learn to live with. God forbid my path have another rapist waiting in its wings.” I shook my head.

“... Do you not know the future?” Noir asked, interested.

“At my level? No, I know of the separate streams, but I haven’t managed to suss out which one we’re swimming down. I’ve been cleaning up house with the ones that ended with Earth continuing to be a shit-hole and Equestria getting taken over one way or another without being saved, but that’s only trillions out of googolplexes. There’s not much of a chance of me getting our stream any time soon unless I happen to get lucky.”

“Odd. One would think that as you rise in power further than what you have placed me at, you would see further into the future.”

I gave her a fake stern look. “Did you mix your God Magic with your Alicorn Magic?”

She returned it with a questioning look of her own. “Yes. Just a bit to see if I could handle the fusion since not all of us can conduct Magic like yourself.”

“You realize that’s probably why you’re seeing twenty minutes into the future all the time, right?”

“Ah. Passive effects that have little to no drain on the user. Interesting.”

“Right? I can turn you into a conduit if you want to get freaky-deaky with the wiki-tiki.”

“What is a wiki-tiki?” Noir asked.

I held out my hand and created one on the spot. It was essentially a little metal gyroscope that you were going to have to stop at some point if you didn’t want it to keep going, but it had a few gears, cogs, and a little infiniwheel that would keep it going for a full year. Perpetual motion is within my grasp, but I can only make so many infiniwheels before I start getting restless.

“This,” I flicked the thing and set it going, “Is a wiki-tiki, but I was referring to Magic when I was talking about it.”

Noir took it from me gently and marveled at the image the spinning rings displayed, but when she found out that it was full of different moments if you looked at it from different angles, she was sure to look at all of them before stopping it. “... Do you know what was-”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen.” I apologized.

“Uh… Hey y’all?” Applejack waved. “What the buck’s goin’ on?”

“I’m doing cool shit and we’re probably gonna have cookies here in a few minutes, so Noir and I are blowing time by talking. Sorry we didn’t think to include you in the conversation, Firefly.” I said.

“Ah. Yeah, so why are ya doin’ all this boopin’ anyway?” Applejack asked.

I reached out with my True Theft and El Boop was back in action, guns ablazing.

I shifted everyone into Blue’s house after checking if it would have been okay with her later on in the timeline, which contradicts what i just told Noir. I probably need to write down that I can physically go to the future, ask, then delete my presence from that timeline and return, but I can’t actively or passively see the future. Yes, when I pause time and do that it’s effectively what I’m doing, but there are fucking semantics, and sometimes they are important. They tend to be in terms of Magic and science anyway.

Anyway, so I let Twilight and Blue catch a nap while Applejack was taking her time in waking up, which meant that I was telling Noir about how Kali was currently being raped by her husband, but didn’t even know it, how Okthus was being gouged out by cock thicker than my thigh, and how Athena was having every hole filled with twelve inches or more with an eight inch circumference minimum. I didn’t offer to show her the live feeds that I had going in the Overwatch Room since I knew that she would be sickened if she knew that I reveled in actually watching them be raped, but she was fine with the assumption that I just knew.

When Applejack woke up, the two other women rose along with her on the couch. “What the hay?” She moaned. “Someone get me a shot of somethin’ strong.”

“Whoa…” Twilight said, blinking the last of the temporary insanity from her eyes.

“Twilight, if you were the Princess of something, what would you say that it would be?” I asked.

“Uh… Friendship?” She said blearily.

“Do you really want to be the Goddess of Friendship”

That got her attention. “Hey! Friendship is very important!”

“You can be the Goddess of Learning-” I started, Truth sounding out.

“No! Stop it! Goddess of Friendship, Mister! If you’re going to rope me into some harebrained whatever-you’re-doing, then I’m at least going to be the best at what I like!” Twilight folded her arms and pouted at me so hard.

In the adequate words of a guy with great hair, “Oh, have mercy!”

Twilight’s pout went from adorably upset to heartbreakingly sad. “I just wanna hewp peopwe make fwends...”

I clutched my heart. “Goddess of Friendship, just stop with the look!”

My wife giggled and shifted over to give me a kiss. “Thank you, but why did you make me a goddess?”

“Wait, did ya make me a goddess too!?” Applejack asked.

“What the hay is going on here!? Momma gets her answers first, alright? Alright.” Blue announced.

I chuckled and shook my head at the kind of goddess Blue had decided to be. “Alright Mum, so I turned you into an immortal being called a goddess. You’re officially magical as fuck.”

She took a deep breath, let it out slow, then took another one and said, “You just gave me the greatest gift known to Ponykind.”

Applejack coughed. “Uh, yeah, no, I’m not sure I wanna be one a’ those.”

I snapped and she was mortal once more, the transition smoove as milton with the ladies. That is to say, she blinked glared at me. “Thanks for the headache.” One more snap. “Okay, now a real thank you.”

I figured Applejack was about to leave, so I paused time and took a break to go fuck with Kali and Athena. I took a few years to let their scars heal as they lived in a humble home with each other. Eventually, as the centuries rolled by, they began to leave little gifts for each other when I gave either of them extra supplies. It was a lovely little token of affection that warmed my heart, so I watched on for another millennium or so until they talked to each other for the first time since they inhabited the house. They exchanged names hesitantly, not recognizing each other right away, but after a moment, they came together and hugged it out, but broke the contact before too long. It was to escape some form of persecution for possibly breaking an unknown rule, but nothing happened.

Watching as things carried on from there was a rewarding experience. I watched as two broken souls who couldn’t even remember what their lives once were found solace in each other’s arms, day after day for fifteen seconds on the dot every time. That carried on for fifteen years before they started cuddling, but after all the time I’d given them of peace, I figured a little strike would do the trick. All I did was toss a thought in Athena’s head one day, but that was all it took. Centuries passed and that thought ate away at her, and Kali knew something was wrong, which was why they’d begun spending most of their time touching in one way or the other. However, Kali didn’t expect for something so simple to be nibbling away at Athena’s tenuous bond with sanity.

All she wanted was a single kiss, and when she got it, that was all it was.

The moment they realize that nothing was going to happen, they returned to cuddling, and the sweetness of the moment made me cure thirty people of diabetes before they could lose a limb from being dumb with their diet. They allowed themselves a kiss a day for a long time, though the duration was often considerable, which I found absolutely thrilling for all the wrong reasons, of course. Seven thousand, seven hundred, and seventy-seven years into their Pax Maximus, Kali made a go for second base and I made my move.

It was some good shit, lemme fuckin’ tell ya. The look on Kali’s face when her hand wrapped around Athena’s throat was priceless, but the absolute betrayal torrenting from Athena was… Oh my… Where’s the lotion when you need it, dammit?

"Max." Iry-Hor called through the hundredth or so dimension.

This is that heart to heart I was talking about earlier. I cast a piece of my being to his side. "Sup, G?"

"This is some good shit." He chuckled mercilessly. "I did something similar when I was first becoming a Six-Sixty-Sixer."

"Ah, so you're inducting me into your little club. Let me take a fuckin' wild one." I snarled.

He gave me a sad smile. "... It's just time for you to take over, Max. You did it all in your own way, faced every obstacle I put in front of you, came back from the brink-"

"You fuckin' broke me ya Goddamn piece a' rubbish!"

"I had to. You're taking over."

"You're an ass." I growled. "Fucking bear your burden-"

"I've been doing it longer than you'll ever know." Iry-Hor chucked. "Get over yourself. I was a slave for my entire life, and trust me when I say that being a slave was considerably worse than-"

I decked him straight in the gob like I'd wanted to for ten years. "Don't you fuckin' dare, ya uppity cunt! Don't you fuckin' dare!"

He rubbed his jaw, wincing. "Ow."

"Fuck off. I know that barely stings." I said, my tone frosty as fuck.

He raised his hands in defeat. "I see your side, Maximus. Still; no one can claim dominion over you. Not even me anymore." A gentle smile graced his lips.

"I'm erasing your atrocities from existence, you know that, right?" I asked testily.

God shrugged. "As is your right as Six-Two-Six's next Creator. Just stop screwing with time so much, okay? You might be able to keep it straight fore now, but soon enough you'll have enough on your plate, and you'll see why I tend to send time-travelers to Hell."

"Whatever, dickfuck. So sad. Much impress. Big fuck. Scram." I glowered at him.

"I just gave you the universe. Be grateful."

I leveled an equivalent glare at him, one that probably would have gotten me killed when I was still immortal instead of eternal. There's a difference, and it's fucked marked on a chalkboard with white spray-paint. As obvious as it sounds, it's even more obvious when you live through the difference. "Trust me when I saw I'd rather kick your fucking teeth in than talk to you right now. Let me handle this side of the universe and you can have yo widdle bweak. Bitch.

He rolled his eyes. "Lunatic."

"Scum."

God looked a little hurt by that. "... After all I've given you?"

"And after all you've put me through." I glowered, my eyes changing, both being swallowed by the iris' completely instead of the pupil. It's an eternal thing. Trust me on that one.

"... I suppose I should talk to Sh' Ara about this... We'll..." God frowned heavily, his form changing too rapidly for any advanced immortal, let alone mortal, to follow.

I paid close attention because one form popped up more often than most, and it was a Middle-Eastern-looking guy who had a brown eye and a red eye. When he passed that one for the forty-nineth time, I stopped him. "There. That's the one you're looking for." I said softly.

God allowed himself to cry and confessed something that I'll never write down with my own hands. Or Magic, for that matter. There was a reason he was asking me to fill his shoes; a reason that he let me be raped to what would have been certain death for most creatures many times over. That confession squeezed acceptance out of me when God placed his hands on my head and showed me to explain why he'd put me through Hell before my time, and after that I asked him to leave me alone for awhile. Of course, I had him purge the memories from my mind because they sucked, but still. I understood a lot in that moment, and it wasn't because Iry-Hor had altered my mind.

I finished with my little aside and unpaused time back in Equestria, feeling pretty chipper about things, situation notwithstanding. Applejack just shook her head and said, “Look, y’all some strange puppies, alright? I’m gonna go before y’all rub off on me.”

“Can I rub off in you?” I asked. “Lemme pop the tip in and I’ll just-” Blue socked the shit out of my arm.

“Maximus!” She shouted. “Would you learn some respect!?”

I rubbed my fleshy left arm, a little bitter about not having the metal one now. “Ow. Why you gotta hit so hard?”

She put her hands on her hips. “You’ve got three seconds to get started on a decent apology.”

I played along. “Applejack, I’m sorry I threatened you with the mess, but with none of the fun.”

Blue went to hit me again and I made myself into a jelly-like substance, so her hand went through me and I just reformed as she went along. “... Eww!”

“Max, that was amazing!” Twilight cried.

My Mum shook her hand like there was something on it. “Oh my stars, oh my stars, oh my stars-” I made some instant Clitu jam and shot it into Blue’s mouth with a glorified paint gun. At least it was accurate. She made a face at the taste at first, but then she warmed up to it. “Not terrible. Little sweet, but not bad.”

“You feel that feeling, Mum?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s rather nice.” She gave me a little smile. “It reminds me a little of my first kiss.”

“That’s what kissing Twilight feels like.” I grinned evilly.

“Max what the fuck!?” Twilight cried, lighting up like a Christmas tree. “I don’t want your Mom to know what kissing me is like!”

“It’s not the sensation, baby, it’s the emotion behind it.” Blue explained calmly.

Twilight’s brows raised and her embarrassment was left behind. “Really? So what does it feel like to you?”

“Well, I feel… Safe, I suppose. And warm. Like I’m being held by somepony during winter.” Blue smiled and conjured up a cup of cocoa to make the moment a little sweeter. “I might have to ask you for a kiss if the taboo is this rewarding.” She teased.

Twilight was still a little rosy from before. “Sorry, but I’m not into geriatrics.”

The record scratched and the whole country bar looked at the black guy.

“Oh shite.” I breathed.

Noir hid behind me and Blue rose, coming over to stand rather close, a little near, just a teensy bit too into Twilight’s personal space. The two locked horns and Twilight asked, “ So… are you going to kiss me, because I’d like to know so I can-”

Blue shocked the shit out of her and Twilight coughed out a puff of smoke. “Now you listen here, young filly. This mare might be past her prime, but she is not and will never be some old fogey tottering around some nursing home. Do you hear me?”

I shocked the shit out of Blue. “Oi! Just make yourself younger, Mum. Sorry for shocking you, but don’t shock my wife.”

Mum glared at me. “Don’t shock your mother, you naughty colt!” She tried to shock me back, but I just looked at her. “Play fair!”

“I can always make you the Goddess of Pranks. Just think, every prank pulled will be in your honor, and mothers across the world are going to be cursing your name.” I smirked.

She narrowed her eyes a little further. “Do you want to be grounded? Because I understand Divine Grounding.”

I would have rolled my eyes, but I just blew her a kiss. “Love you, Mum.”

She stole my sweet- Eye roll. “I love you too sweetie, but I don’t like that G-word. I don’t like it at all. I used to work in a nursing home when I was young. Saw a pony that was two hundred and thirty years old, but… You couldn’t call it living at that point. Magic can only fix so much, after all.”

I shrugged. “That fear is forever assuaged now. You’re good to go, Mummy dearest.”

“Ah. That’s great!” She smiled. “And I just remembered that I made new cookies!”

“If you made them, then they must be delightful.” Noir said

My stomach filled with dread. “Shite.” I said under my breath.

“Dammit.” Twilight cursed.

Noir gave me some side-eye since she was unaware of the danger she’d put us in for no discernible reason as Blue said, “Let me go grab them. They should be done cooling with how long its been since I’ve taken them out of the oven.”

Blue hurried of and It used my True Theft to punch Noir in the left buttcheek, making her take a step forward. “You fool! You've ruined us!”

Noir hit me back. “What exactly have I done?”

“Blue can’t cook more than two types of cookies! Almond chocolate chip and brookie walnut! Everything else she makes will give you a tummy ache!” Twilight whispered fiercely.

“You are both a pair of ninnies.“ Noir huffed. “Brought down by ‘tummy aches’.”

Noir was talking mad shit until Blue brought out the cookies. They had pearlescent white chucks in them that tasted like a skunks arse when you bit into them, but Blue happily munched along like they were perfectly fine. My mother was a psychopath and she needed serious help, but after the trio of Alicorns finished their mandatory cookies, we headed out to go purge at Castle Arcadia and I rewound our day so that we’d just exited the Blue Room after we were done being ill. That took a few hours.

I decided that we would only fit one more visit in before calling it a day at sunset, and with my pouch of berries tied to one of my belt loops, I was feeling pretty confident that I was going to be just fine as we went to Fluttershy’s cottage, and when she let us in, I was feeling pretty good. I asked Fluttershy to bring out her favourite tea and she was delighted to do so if it meant offering me a little comfort. I thought that it was touching, and when she poured the tea, it just made the moment that much sweeter.

“Thank you, Poppet. You know you’ve got the best tea in town.” I said charmingly.

Fluttershy tittered. “Oh, I’m just well connected. You know how it is.”

“Not with your supply of leaves, I don’t You must keep twenty different types on hand!”

She grinned. “Twenty-three, but who’s counting?”

“You, apparently.” Noir jested before sipping her tea because her tongue is actually leather. “Pleasant citrus note. I like it.”

Fluttershy gave her a worried look. “... It’s still steaming.”

Noir returned her look with a nonplussed one of her own. “What is the point of a hot beverage if it is not hot?”

“W-Well, there are varying degrees of hotness that should f-factor in.” Fluttershy replied nervously.

“Ah, sweet Fluttershy. You are a very pretty Pony, did you know that?”

“... Some ponies say that, I guess.” Fluttershy said awkwardly.

“Very pretty.” Noir flashed her a wink.

She must have forgotten that Ponyvillians are retardeded when it comes to social cues. “... Thank you?”

“You are quite welcome.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “If you’re done hitting on Fluttershy, we could always catch Max up on what’s been going on since he’s been in the Blue Room.”

“How did you guys manage to get me to stay in there, anyway?” I asked. “Blue said that I escaped and went to her for something.”

“Well, when you weren’t screaming or disappearing to either the Comfort Corner or Blue, you stayed where we put you.” My wife explained.

“Huh. So how’s running the Castle been?”

Twilight sighed. “It would be a lot easier if you were back. I know it’s going to be awhile before you get back to your duties-”

“Oi, hold up-” I said.

“I must disagree-” Noir said at the same time

I carried on because my poo doesn’t smell. “What am I supposed to do all day if I’m not getting back into the swing of things? I might be taking it slow for awhile, but staying busy is going to be a good thing.”

“... Fine, but when it comes time for Court, I don’t want you to feel like you have to weigh in on every matter, okay?” Twilight said, implying that I shouldn't do that. She was wary of me saying something mean is what it was.

I gave her a nod because I understood her motive. “No problem. I’ll probably just let you handle it, if anything.”

She gave me a little smile. “Thank you, Amour. Other than dealing with the paperwork from your side of things that has to be done by royalty, it hasn’t been that bad. Like I told you when you first woke up; it’s been peaceful.”

“Good to hear.” I blew on my tea and gave it a sip. “Is that an undertone of jasmine I detect?”

Fluttershy beamed. “It’s simply lovely, isn’t it? I didn’t think I was liking it at first since the first thing I noticed was the Crystal Empire Etheria and that’s just so played out in the hybrids, but then I noticed how well it paired with the classic Zhongguo Ni Ni and the lemon blossom and I just fell in love!”

Twilight giggled. “With your tongue for tea, I really wish you could get into the different kinds of coffee Max and I keep on hand. We have some Baazililan beans that have a coconut note, and it’s just wonderful!”

I nodded my agreeance. “It really is a fantastic roast. If you ever develop the taste-buds for it, we’d love to share.”

Noir snorted. “Please. The mudwater you drink is nearly poison to a sane person.”

“We started making it stronger while we were on Equis.” Twilight commented neutrally.

My mentor rolled her eyes. “Then it actually is poison.”

“Maybe so, maybe not. Take a sip and take a shot.” I smiled.

She gave me a look before rolling her eyes the other way, but harder. “That was good, but I have little interest in downing your death juice.”

“Aww, come on! Be a big girl and just have a shots.” I passed her a shot-glass full of opaque brown liquid. It seemed to draw in light with its depths

Noir hit me with the ‘I’ll hit you’ look. “I will hit you.”

It disappeared. “I like how you don’t give a shit about how strong I am. I really do.” I flashed her a warm smile.

My mentor smirked. “No matter how strong you get, you will always be my pupil, Maximus.”

“Aww, that’s so touching!” Twilight said happily.

Fluttershy giggled. “I think Max is just a little happy that someone cares about power and status as much as he does.”

“You mean not at all?” Noir asked.

Buttery Flutterby nodded shyly since Noir scares her sometimes. “Y-Yes.”

I nudged Noir, so she gave Fluttershy the most tender smile she had. “It is tempered by an understood, unspoken respect that we have for each other.”

“I-I can understand that. It’s kind of like how Luna and I get along.” Fluttershy said, brushing her hair out of her face.

She got looks from around the table, but it was Twilight who asked, “When did you get familiar with Luna on a personal basis?”

Fluttershy tapped her chin and looked off into the distance. “Oh, I don’t know… I suppose it was not too long ago. I sent her a letter thanking her for giving me a good dream and she wrote back. We just kept up the correspondence as pen pals.”

“... Huh.” Twilight, Noir and I said at the same time, ellipses and all.

“I never thought to thank Luna for giving me good dreams.” Twilight said thoughtfully.

Noir shrugged. “I often police them since my own dreams are practically bait at this point.”

“I used to beat my meat with peanut butter, HEE, and it was thicker than a mother fucker.” I said, citing a dream I’d once had shortly after watching a retarded music video. I made a Gogurt and tried it, but it was a bit shit, truthfully.

Twilight gave me a funny look. “Max, if that’s peanut butter in a colourful tube, then I’m going to have to remind you of how Discord was.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “This is an American snack that’s basically fruity yogurt. It kinda sucks. Have a nip, Cherry.” I held it out to her.

My wife gave me a funnier look, but then she added a spoonful of an unfamiliar emotion that mixed appreciation with irritation, “If it sucks, why would I want it?”

“I think daisies suck and you like those.” I pointed out.

“He’s right, you know.” Noir chimed in helpfully.

“I’ll try it if you do.” Fluttershy said, seizing her opportunity to get into the conversation.

Twilight rolled her eyes and teleported the iffy snack into her hands so she could have a slurp. When she got a taste, she made the blankest face I’d seen from her as she passed it to Fluttershy who seemed to notice nothing. Fluttershy herself slurped to the loo and when she tasted the yogurt, she made a horrible face like she’d just gotten more than she bargained for while eating a bit of bum. My fucking wife opened her mouth to reveal that her dose of disgusting was in the form of a little ball that was evidently flavourless, so Noir and I had a giggle at Fluttershy’s expense.

Miss Smarty Pants spat the ball into her hand and flashed Fluttershy a winning smile. “So? How is it?”

Fluttershy stomped her hoof and thrust the Gogurt at Twilight. “That was a dirty, dirty trick, Twilight! You should be ashamed of yourself!”

My wife raised her brows and gave Fluttershy a look. “I used my brain to avoid doing something I didn’t want to do in the first place. You offered to do it of your own free will, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy stomped her hoof again. “Ooh! You know who you remind me of right now!?”

Twilight looked rather nonplussed. “Applejack?”

The buttery one cooled. “Well, yes, but...” She got a look to her and the heat was on. “You’re acting just Max used to before he started trying to be nice!”

I poked my wife and smiled. “Sounds like you’re starting to get prickly and sarcastic.”

Twilight gave me a dull look, but Noir spoke for her. “If I may, as a being with skills consisting of psychological observation, evaluation, and analysis-”

“Stop bragging and start getting on with it, you minger.” I scoffed.

Noir hit me with a half-hearted glare. “You gloat when you feel like it.”

“I stop when people tell me.” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’re thinking of being irritating.”

“You never stop doing that.” All three women chorused in various tones simultaneously expressing boredom, Hard Fax™, and a few other things.

I looked at all of them in turn. “And yet you stick around. When I’m at my worst and I’m being a fucking Hell of a lot more than just irritating, you’re still there. Thank you.”

That got ‘em good.

Noir was the first to recover, but it still took her a moment. “... You are welcome, Maximus, but where did that come from?”

“The heart.” I said truthfully, but mostly just so I could say it. I knew what Noir really meant.

She opened her mouth to elaborate, but I forestalled her with a raised hand. “I know. I just want to seize more opportunities to tell the ones I love that I love them. You never know when the last time is going to be.”

Twilight squeezed my hand. “Not to be ‘that person’, but don’t you know when exactly the last time is going to be?”

I shrugged. “I can count the breaths and the beats of the heart, but the water muddies unless I take a bite out of someone’s Anima to get a real taste.” I tapped my chest and three fragments popped out before coalescing into one.

Lavender, Sugar Plum, and Dusk had all been waiting patiently for their time to come since my Others no longer needed them to live without going insane, and they had come to the consensus that it would be nice to be a part of the whole again. “Oi, I’ve got something to give back to you while it’s on my mind.”

Twilight looked at the little ball of purple, pink, and… well… dark purple light. “That looks like Magic. I think I have plenty of that now, Max.”

I raised a brow at her. “It’s the pieces of your soul that I borrowed for the Others.”

“Oh…” Her face fell slightly.

Souls tend to float away if they’re not in a host, so I stashed the amalgamated piece inside of myself and felt a small pang of happiness from Twilight, so I stole the last tides of the emotion and injected it into the soul, essentially fertilizing the embryo. I had to pop a Calitu when I did, but Twilight thought I was just snacking at that point in time, so she thought nothing of it.

“I like having a piece of your soul stuck to mine. It makes me be nicer more often.” And it helps teach me lessons, like don’t go into a Rescue Op without sufficient back-up.

“Would it hurt you at all if I asked for a piece of yours in turn?” Twilight asked hopefully.

I gave her a sorrowful smile. “I need a new name for God’s Magic, so I’m going to call it Medeis. Medeis is the only reason I came out of that coma, Twilight. I don’t really have the soul to spare at the moment.”

“Are you alright?” She asked worriedly. She was about to continue when I answered her question and a few more.

“I’m fine for the time being, but like I said, I’ve got that period of insanity coming up that will last a relatively brief while. That shit’s because an Anima needs time to reform, and even then, depending on the depth of the damage, it might not come back whole. I’ve got the Covenant and Medeis helping me fill the holes right now, but as Anima refills those holes, so to speak, then little ‘pockets’ of pure Magic and/or love are going to flood me and Mad Max will make a return when the excess becomes too much to handle.” I informed.

“... That just makes me more worried, Max.”

“It should, to be honest with you. I was fucked up after Gryphonia, and I was a fucking wreck After Esteril, but this just isn’t something the mind was built to handle.” I said calmly. “I mean, I would happily repress the memories myself if I could, but it’s officially my job to remember everything that happens to everyone, and that includes myself so I can have one on ones with people who need it from time to time.” I planned on being a bit more active than Cap G when I took over. I was already answering some of the more reasonable prayers and working miracles when the need arose. I mean, I was letting dumbfucks die left and right when they were doing dumb shit, but I guess some people don’t understand that YOLO means don’t kill yourself doing idiotic bullshit.

“... So are you trying to more on, OR…?”

I looked Twilight in the eye. “Do you think I would have come out of the Blue Room if I wasn’t trying to get back to my life?”

“That wasn’t a very smart question.” She grimaced.

“It was one you felt was necessary, so don’t feel bad.” I gave her a gentle smile.

My wife smiled back. “Thank you, but it really-” Straight fear ruled Twilight’s face, ending her sentence.

I gave her an odd look and glanced behind me, but I knew for a fact that nothing was there. “You okay, Cherry? You look like you just walked through my haunted house.”

She covered her mouth with her hands and saw that Fluttershy was staring at her lap, shaking fiercely, so I glanced at Noir and her eyes were on me. At least, I thought they were. They were pitch black, but her head was turned toward me, so I thought that she was about to make a fuck up. “... Noir, the eyes are sketching me out. Please don’t sketch me out.”

Her eyes returned to normal and she looked at me strangely. “On a scale of one to ten, where would you say your mood lies?”

I raised a brow at her. “Besides the torrential current raging under the sea, the sailing’s good. Why, what’s up?”

“I believe we saw a bit of the current.” Noir said softly. “Just as Twilight was about to deny your words and call her question foolish, your expression changed into one I’ve never seen from you.”

I winced. “I didn’t even notice anything.”

She nodded. “I figured that you did not since your voice sounded as it usually does, but I did not want to take a risk when it comes to you.”

That hurt, and I’m sure it showed on my face, but I tried to let the ache bother my foot instead of my heart. It didn’t work, but then my foot started hurting too, so I fucked myself. “I know I’m on edge, point blank, but so far I’ve done little more than cry and curl up into a ball. I don’t think-”

“Max, you have misunderstood my words.” Noir said, waving a hand. “With your power, any mistake you make is erasable with a wave of your hand; a snap of your fingers. However, you would remember if you had hurt someone, regardless of whether or not you decided that they needed to retain the memories of an event you may have reversed time to stop from happening in the first place. I would not be willing to risk adding more scars to your heart, which is the point I was trying to get across.” Noir explained factually, yet kindly.

I pursed my lips. “You’re still waiting for me to start killing people.”

“Can you say that you won’t?” Twilight asked softly.

I gave her a look. “Dammit.”

“I preferred ‘Whatever’.”

“Kiss me.” I said bitterly.

She gave me an odd look. “I’d like to, but the way you said it made it sound like you wanted to say something else.”

“I wanted to say ‘Bite me’, but present company might not appreciate it too much if we ended our merry time together early just so we could pick up from there.” I said, the last part sounding incredibly hollow. It was kind of like how the Earth is actually hollow at its core where Noah and his inbred family live. Yes, I do mean the guy with the Ark, and yes, his family is made of fucking mongoloids, but God likes them, so live they shall. Not my problem.

Twilight gave me a sad grin and nodded a couple of times. “It’s not a must for our relationship, Max.”

I smirked at her. “You think I’m just going to let Doctor Lowe go to waste?”

Twilight gave me a weird look. “Who’s Doctor Lowe?”

I ramped up my smile as Noir put it together, groaning. “Doctor Lowe is my new phallus, and he’d very much like to meat you.”

My wife lit up, but Fluttershy asked, “What does phallus mean?”

Twilight sighed. “He’s talking about Mr. Wiggles.”

“No, Mr. Wiggles died five years ago. Rest in peace, my lifelong friend.” I prayed for a moment and crossed myself, gaining a bit of comfort from the motion.

“... Did you just pray for something that is still attached to you?” Noir asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it beyond the information I’ve already given you. You, personally, were there when it happened.”

Noir’s reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, which should have dredged up terribad memories since we were on the topic, but the Calitu was still working its Magic. “... This tea has been lovely, hasn’t it?”

“It’s been beyond fantastic.” I gave her a smile and turned to Fluttershy. “Now that I have your tea, I shall have the world! The first thing I’m going to do is steal all of your stores and start growing them for myself! Mwahaha!”

She huffed out a little laugh, but her heart wasn’t behind it. “I really wish you wouldn’t.”

I gave her a pouty look. “Can I have a little? Like, nine-tenths?”

“You can have as much as you want as long as you don’t steal it.” Fluttershy said, smiling a little more.

“Have you not met me? Stealing is like, my thing, dude! I take watches, rings, necklaces, hearts, the occasional bum that usually happens to belong to Twilight, the hope of the damned, cookies-”

Fluttershy raised her hands to stop me. “... You slipped something in there, didn’t you?”

“I’ll slip something in you if you’d like.” I gave her a wink and an empty smile.

Fluttershy looked at Twilight, so I looked at my wife and saw that she looked like she was really trying not to cry. “... Okay, me do a fuck up here somehow.”

Noir sighed. “It is not your fault, Maximus. You are trying to go through the motions, but the damage runs deep, and it is visible to those who know you. I doubt that you have noticed that you grimace before trying one of your usual lines.”

I made a face. “Well ain’t this just the shits. I can’t even fake it ‘til I make it for the people I need to do that for.”

“Have you ever thought about just letting yourself be free?” Fluttershy asked simply.

I stared at her because they were the right words at the wrong moment. I exhaled a shaky breath before inhaling just enough to murmur, “Explain, because I might have to turn back time depending on your answer.”

Twilight graped my forearm, anger jabbing me through our connection. “Max! Did you seriously just threaten Fluttershy over a minor misunderstanding?”

I took a deep breath and folded my hands over my mouth so I wouldn’t hyperventilate. “I-I’m sorry, I-I…” I trailed off, unable to look Fluttershy in the eye as I buried my face in my hands.

“I-I don’t think I understand what happened, so I can’t really be offended.” Fluttershy said uneasily. “It’s okay, Max… You’re… You’re going to slip up and do things you wouldn’t normally do from time to time. Luna’s been very forthcoming with little tips on how to help you, and she says that-”

“Fluttershy, there’s no need to make excuses.” I said evenly. “I fucked up and I need to identify the problem. Now, while I have the wisdom of three of the craftiest women I know, I’d like to buckle down and-”

“No-no-no, no.” Noir said firmly. “Identifying the problem is easy; you are unstable, even while cognizant. If you would like another, it is that you are going to break yourself down further from the rubble we are already working with whenever you make a single misstep. I can see it in your eyes, Maximus, and I would like to think that I have known you long enough to say this with accuracy: You are the biggest obstacle in the path of your recovery.”

“Stop fuckin’ bein’ right, init?” I grumbled disgustingly. Just remembering that makes my mouth feel dirty. Fucking Chav words.

Noir rolled her eyes. “It’s time for us to start from the beginning, Maximus. I’d like to help you remove the thorns of your past so that you may begin healing in earnest.”

I gave her a look because of the damn contractions she’d used uncharacteristically. Shit was weird.“You wanna dive into my brain and root around some more. That’s not a good idea right now, Noir. You’re going to-”

“Maximus, when will you learn that I would walk my way to the Moon for you?

“When you let me suck 'em both at the same time.” I tried.

There were sighs around the table. “More empty words. I look forward to the day when they mean something-” Noir began, stopping when I started fondling her with my True Theft. Yes, I can just do it with Medeis, but I like doing things the hard way sometimes.

I smiled at her. “Go on.”

Noir’s cheeks lightened ever so slightly as I phased my hand through her undergarment and found the tip of her breast. “You have proved your point, Maximus.”

“I’m just doing it because I haven't touched boobs other than my own in five years at this point.” I said casually, enjoying the sumptuous grace of a warm, soft boob.

She cut me a stern glare. “If your desire lean towards that kind of intimacy, your wife and somewhat frequent partner are that way.” My mentor pointed at them.

My eyes landed on Fluttershy first since she was directly across from me, so I let my right hand slip through the dimensions so I could molest her too. The only thing out of Fluttershy’s mouth was an adorable, ‘Eeep!’ and a blush. When I looked at my wife, I had a brain game on my hands. Well, I actually had breasts in my hands, which was nice, but the problem was currently hanging onto Doctor Lowe, and his problems are my problems. Twilight was giving me a wifely look (Two steps above a womanly look) up until I used Psychokinesis to grab one of her breasts as well. I grinned like a fucking fool because the day had turned fucking great.

“Ah! This has got to be one of the best moments of my life!” I cried joyously, halfway waiting for God to take the experience away from me.

God didn’t do shit, but Noir threw an actual breezeblock at my head, though she knew I wasn’t going to obliterate her because me 2 stronk 4 that. “Remove your hand!”

I had to remove my hand to get some dust out of my hair from when the breezeblock hit me. “You kinda suck, you know that? Let a man cop a feel, will you?”

Noir rolled her eyes and Twilight put her hand over mine. “Can you please stop?” She asked in a flat voice. “That includes Fluttershy.”

“Aww... “ I looked at my empty cup of tea dejectedly.

“... Max, seriously. Stop.” Twilight said after a moment.

I sighed and collected my hands before placing them in my lap. “T’is a sad day in Equestria indeed. T’is a sad, sad day.”

‘I’ll let you play with mine all you want when we get home~’ Twilight thought to me.

‘I should’ve started with you. Your Marshmallow Mounds are copacetic.’ I thought back.

My wife giggled out loud, blushing, while Noir and Fluttershy just looked at her. “... I think Max might be rubbing off on you, Twilight.” Fluttershy said carefully.

“No, we were having a telepathic conversation and Max thought something funny.” Twilight explained.

Noir shook her head. “No, Twilight is simply an Alicorn who has had time to mature. She is a little crazy.”

“Hey!” My wife objected.

I raised a brow at her. “Name an Alicorn who isn’t Shining Armour that happens to be completely sane.”

She pointed at herself. “Exhibit A!”

I looked off to a wall while Fluttershy refilled her cup with tea and took a quiet sip. Noir, being the twat that she be sometimes said, “We asked for apples and you showed us a bottle of wine.”

“Max! You tell her I’m not crazy!” Twilight ordered.

I shuddered. “She’s not crazy.”

At Twilight’s heartbroken expression, I immediately felt terrible. “Amour, you didn’t have to say that.”

“I know, I know, I just…” I rubbed my face and stared at the table, wide-eyed for a solid fifteen seconds. “... Fuck.”

“The damage runs deep.” Noir said solemnly. "We will begin diving into you memories to heal the old wounds when you can hear the word ‘Castra-” I shut her mouth for her.

“Really don’t want to hear that one. Don’t want to think about it.” I said softly, bidding Mr. Wiggles one more fond farewell.

“Wait, what?” Twilight asked.

“We’re not going into it.” I said way back then, and I still tend to avoid the topic if someone ever brings it up.

Sadly, Twilight makes me do things I don’t wanna do. “Maybe talking about it will help?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I refilled my berry pouch and munched on a couple.

“Even with your aliments in effect?” Noir asked, raising a brow.

I gave her a weary smile. “They help in the moment, but I can’t stave off the flashbacks forever. They’ll break through, one way or the other.”

“It is three words, Maximus. The third depends on what you want to say, but I will explain for you either way-”

“And I’ll be here to hold you down.” Twilight said encouragingly, teleporting to my side.

To tell it straight, I could have fast forwarded through time after committing to the decision, thus skipping the part where i myself actually said the words until the last bit of the healing happened. However, I knew Twilight and Noir would rip me a new one for being such a little bitch, so I sighed and looked at my wife, hoping that she would see that there was nothing but humiliation and pain on the route she was shepherding me down. The warm, inviting smile she was giving me at the time didn’t help anything since I was desperate to keep it on her face. I wanted to give everyone what they wanted, but they were just asking for too much.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “It’s not happening. Maybe in the future, but not right now.”

There were sighs around the table. “Well, it is the first day since you’ve been back…” Fluttershy pointed out.

Noir shook her head. “I see too much of myself within you, Maximus. I assume that your mental fortitude is that of a six thousand year-old being.”

She left a few things unsaid there, like that she’d been trying to give Twilight a measure of hope by goading me into sharing some of my burden, but I let it be as my wife said, “We just want the healing to start, Max, and seeing that you’re better than you were after Esteril in some ways and worse in others is hard. It’s like-”

I let Stone Temple Pilot’s Creep play because it summed up the situation. When it finished, Noir chuckled. “Are you saying that you are half the man you once were, or that you think you are? Because I may or may not shove my hoof up your ass if you say the former.” She gave me a red-eyed smile.

“The latter. It’s the state-of-mind I’m stuck in right now.” I said darkly, not taking kindly to the idle threat.

Noir blinked and her eyes held amusement. “We will cure you of this, Maximus. If love can melt even my heart, then by no means will it fail for yours.”

“That’s cheesy as fuck.” I groaned.

“But it’s true!” Twilight cried, clinging to me. “We’ll bring you back to the Max you were!”

I hugged her because letting Twilight do all the hugging made me feel lazy. It wasn’t because I loved her or anything. “Feeling the love here. While you fill me with your love, can I fill you with love and affection?”

She gave me a kiss and a smile, but I pouted. “Aww, do you want another kiss my soon-to-be rehabilitated husband?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, my lips are a bit lonely.” I puckered up.

She licked my face with her freaky, flat tongue, which could have went way south, very fast. A lot of the maggots from Smileton were fond of licking their prey for some odd reason. That is, when they washed it so it wouldn’t reek of semen and death. Instead of another flashback, I had a warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest that made me wipe my face off with Wifey’s arm. I just read over that first part and realized that it implied that there were other slaves in my position, but to my knowledge, I was the only one with my particular problem. Then again, I basically just picked a new place…

Yeah, no. I think I was about to write a fucking flashback down. God no. I don’t need that shit on paper. At least, not shit I intend on rereading. I don’t know if the shit’s wearing off or if it’s fucking me up in a different way, but…

I have all the time in the world to write. Literally: All time stops if I tell it to. I flow through time like a Maxdamn fish through water, but this is it for today. It’s time to talk to Twilight for the Daily Reset and get some cuddles n’ shit…

I’m totally forgetting something… I mean, I haven’t really said about how my life is currently since that wasn’t really the point, but there was a key factor in there somewhere…

How the fuck does God Two forget something? It’s like going from Windows Seven to Windowns Eight. I know damn well how I spelled that, and I hope you still get the joke, future me. Wink.

Author's Notes:

Broke 'im.