“Excuse me. Could you help me by telling me where I can find Fluttershy?” A stallion’s voice spoke up from behind Discord.

“Hm?” Turning from his work, Discord blinked a few times. “Sorry, I was doing some internal logic checks. She’ll be right out, we’re about to start doing the week’s laundry. May I have your name?”

“Tape, Red Tape.” The grey stallion levitated a clipboard in front of him and frowned slightly before looking back up. “Funny, the adoption papers listed you as an ‘occasional visitor,’ which was a factor in the official approval. I’m here because his teacher, Cheerilee, notified us that Alex had missed two days of school in a row, with one being excused due to a visit with the princesses.”

“Ah yes, Alex had a very... private happening yesterday none of us were prepared for,” Discord responded, ignoring the first part. “He wasn’t in a state for school so he stayed home.”

“I see. A private happening, one which resulted in staying home from school, with you around.” Red Tape cleared his throat again while writing a few things down on the clipboard. “You understand my concern, of course. Former enemy of the state living with the adoptive mother of a child we’d gotten an alert about.”

Discord gasped, bringing a paw to his chest. “Why good sir, I am insulted! You stand there making baseless claims of my bad influence when I’ll have you know Alex has declared that I am the best Mom’s boyfriend of all time!”

“Right.” Red’s voice was completely deadpan, and he looked utterly unimpressed. “Sir, it is my job to make sure that Alex has not been hurt by anything outside the normal for a young filly, living as a colt for some reason, in Ponyville. There are already exceptions on the books regarding local oddities of the Everfree border, which you do not count as. Since you are not listed as a guardian, I would appreciate it if you could bring your marefriend out here to talk to me.”

“Discord? Do we have company?” Fluttershy asked, choosing now to exit the cottage. Angel sat on her head, a diligent watchman in case the basket on her back decided to slip. “Oh, hello. What brings you out here today?”

“Red Tape, Ponyville office of Foal Protective Services. Your adopted filly, Alex, missed two days of school in a row, one of which was excused, and this second day was for a ‘personal happening’ according to your coltfriend.” The stallion quirked an eyebrow. “I do hope Alex has managed to make it to school today. Three days absent within the first month would be a horrible way to start your record as a parent.”

“Oh but those absences were very important!” Setting her basket down, Fluttershy set up her clothes line. “Especially yesterday. Don’t worry, I made sure he got to school today.”

“His absence yesterday was more important than the day before, which was due to an audience with the princesses? You’ll excuse me for being skeptical about that. There was no record of hospitalization, or even a visit to a doctor as far as my quick inquiries before coming out here could tell me.”

“It was medical related but, nothing he needed to be hospitalized for.” Lifting into a light hover, she grabbed the top cloth in her basket. “Discord, I’m going to do Alex’s sheets first. Did you remember to get that special soap from Zecora?”

“Right here, dear.” Discord actually lifted it off the ground next to the washtub he’d been setting up, and his head quickly morphed into a copy of Zecora’s. “Not just for blood, but other crud. It is quite mean to things unclean.”

Giggling at his antics, Fluttershy brought the stained sheets over to the tub. “Dissy, we’ve talked about imitating others before. It’s not very flattering to anypony.”

“I was doing it to quote her.” Discord responded defensively, still in Zecora’s voice and with her head. He snapped his talons and began lifting them out of the basket with multiple ghostly hands.

“What is on those sheets?!” Red Tape yelled as he saw the first one lifted up.

“Menstrual blood,” Discord responded rather nonchalantly. “Very specific to humans.” Pausing, Discord looked down at Fluttershy. “I don’t think Alex used any perfume before he left for school.”

“Wait, did you even buy any perfume? Mine’s made to cling to the oils in a pony’s coat, not skin.”

“Now hold on, you two are going to sit down and explain this to me, now, or else I am going to have to remove Alex from your care until a full investigation has taken place!”

Discord glared at the annoying beaurocrat and snapped his fingers to freeze the stallion in place, utterly helpless. “Fluttershy, with your permission, I’m going to educate this stallion... Ludovico-style.”

“I don’t know what that means, but feel free as long as it helps me keep Alex.”

Alex leaned back in his seat, going over the last few pages of his history book again. “Didn’t think a flight team would have a section of a history book...” It was actually quite fascinating, in comparison to something like the Blue Angels.

“Well, they were once a special part of the Unified Royal Guard, and they’re still used as a rapid response defense team due to their speed,” Snails offered helpfully. “I saw them fight a huge purple dragon that turned out to be Spike not too long ago.”

“Miss Cheerilee, Snails and Alex are too loud for me to concentrate, and Alex smells funny.” Diamond Tiara actually yelled, disrupting the entire class. “He smells like... like blood.”

A wash of emotions splashed over Alex, the strongest being mortification. Covering his face, he slid down in his seat. “Please just no, I don’t need this. Not during shark week.”

Cheerilee looked up from her desk and sighed softly. “Diamond Tiara, you have been warned about picking on other students-”

Snips spoke up. “I can smell it too, actually. I-uh, I’ve cut myself by accident enough times to know what it smells like. I thought maybe I’d accidentally cut one of my frogs without noticing, but they’re all fine.”

“I-I brought... note! My note.” Alex whimpered, trying to hide his face as much as he could. “In backpack.”

“Oh, right. Class, we’re all going to have to just do our best to ignore it if Alex smells like blood over the next few days. Due to a quirk with Alex’s species, this is something that will happen every month. Anything more specific than that will have to wait until next semester or later, depending on how fast we cover the sciences.”

“Oh god. Sex ed has never sounded worse...” Groaning, Alex cursed himself for not using any perfume. “Sunset even told you, you moron. How’d you forget overnight?”

“What’s sex?” Snails whispered, leaning over the gap between desks so that he could speak quietly without even Diamond Tiara hearing it.

“No, just no.” Alex shook his head, picking up his book again. “Just read your book and let me forget this whole situation.”

“Oh, okay. Something you know from your world, then.” Snails gave an almost sage nod before returning to looking through his book and noting down a couple things on a spare sheet.

“There’s no way smelling like blood is normal, you freaky predator.” Diamond Tiara turned her head back to look over her shoulder at Alex, her eyes narrowed in a glare.

“As much as I wish it wasn’t, yes; it is normal. It’s normal for humans, even if it sucks hard.” Alex found his spot, resuming his reading. “Beats what happens to ponies though.”

“What are you even talking about, you weirdo?”

“Like Cheerilee said, next semester. If it bothers you that much, ask your parents about heat.”

“What does thermodynamics have to do with you bleeding?”

“Nope.” Alex simply blocked her from his mind and continued reading the assigned history section from yesterday, and today’s section.

“Hey Fluttershy, before I head to bed, can I please traumatize a school bully by telling her every little tiny uncomfortable detail if she keeps pestering me about how I smell? First it was meat, now it’s... well, take a guess.”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes, nudging Alex into his room. “I know Diamond Tiara’s giving you a hard time, but you know better. It might not surprise you to know this but I had a fair share of bullies back when I was in school.”

“Oh god, do not just tell me to ignore her. If you were bullied you know that shit doesn’t work.”

“Alex, language please.” She smiled, but looked down at the floor. “And you’re right, but I also know that if you react without giving them the kind of rise they’re looking for it will make them make mistakes and then they’ll get in trouble instead of you.”

“Okay, that’s not the worst advice,” Alex admitted, sitting on his bed.

“It also helps to have a friend. Whenever I got picked on, Rainbow Dash was there at my side.” Looking between him and the bed, Fluttershy’s smile grew. “Would it be okay if I tucked you in tonight?”

Alex couldn’t help but blush a little as he nodded. The mattress shifting as she moved it to tuck in the blankets was actually an oddly-calming sensation that he enjoyed, and it helped him slip under just a little quicker.

Taking the corner of his blanket into her mouth, she pulled it over his body. Letting it drop from her mouth, she nuzzled his cheek while the tip of one wing carefully pushed that corner just under the mattress. “Goodnight, Alex.” Kissing his head, she blew the candle out and left him to his sleep.

It didn’t take long for Alex to drift off, only a few minutes of calming himself down. What surprised him was ending up with a starfield above his head, with the view dominated by a huge planet. Looking down showed him a field of grey rocks and dust. “What the hell?”

“Ah, Alex!” The voice was one Alex recognized quickly. Princess Luna appeared in front of him, her body forming from a patch of dirt and rocks. “I suppose I should have expected that, it is a school night.”

“Sup, Dream Horse?” he greeted. “Expected what?”

“That you would be the first of my new students to fall asleep.”

“Ah.” Alex kicked a rock, watching it float away. “So... the moon huh? Looks like a nice place, too bad it isn’t made of cheese.”

“How do you know it isn’t? This is a dream, after all. The rules here are much more flexible than reality, especially with me around.” Luna scooped up a small ball of lunar dust and squeezed it together, then lobbed it at Alex.

Catching it, Alex brought it up to eye level. “Huh, wouldya look at that; cheddar.” Taking a bite, he gave a nod. “Damn good cheese, Dream Horse. Remind me to introduce you to the wonders of cheese whiz.”

Luna smirked and gathered up her own ball to compress into a cheesy treat. “Enjoy it while it lasts. When Twilight and her brother fall asleep I will have to draw them in, and then the dream with become much more like reality. The benefit of training in dreams is a lack of bruising or injury.”

Pausing, Alex ran the idea through his head. “I mean yeah, that’d be good for stuff like muscle memory and technique learning, but something tells me you don’t work on Elm Street logic. I’d still have to actually practice and work out and everything.”

“This will be an interesting thing, truly. You are correct in that you will still need to perform practical exercises while awake, but this will still be a good way to show you how different your techniques are from how an alicorn or unicorn fights with a keyblade.”

“Well, I have opposable thumbs. Those instantly put me at the top of the food chain.”

“My old teacher learned quickly that thumbs and arms limiting how you can move is actually a hindrance compared to the magic that unicorns and alicorns can use to remotely manipulate a weapon of any kind.” Luna spoke almost reverently for a moment, then laughed. “That didn’t stop her from beating the snot out of Celly and I back when we were learning, though.”

“Must have happened a lot,” Alex teased, sitting down on the edge of a crater. “You know, humans went to the moon before. Our moon, I mean. Only around a dozen people or so got to say ‘I left Earth and went to the moon’.”

“And you get to say ‘I left Earth, met an entire planet full of aliens, and learned how to perform magic’ if you ever find a way to make it back home. That’s a big ‘if’ by the way.”

Alex shook his head, sighing. “What would I even do if I could? I’m stuck like this, a living trademark violation. I’d have creepy fanboys, lawyers, military, etc on my ass. I might as well just stay here.”

Luna found herself laughing again. “My old master said much the same thing when she finally figured out how to turn her keyblade into a glider, though at the time she had also just spent a good five years teaching us alongside Starswirl.”

“You know, the more I hear about him, the less I like him,” Alex said, looking up at the planet.

“What do you mean? Sure, he may have been a bit fanatical about eradicating darkness, but we were dealing with harsh times and thousands of Heartless after the windigoes had finally been dealt with and all of the snow trapping them melted.”

“You do know that there are ice-based heartless, right?”

“Honestly, it wouldn’t shock me if windigoes were some kind of natural heartless monsters. They just showed up one day and the way the world worked fell apart.”

“Sounds rough.” Letting himself fall back, he peered at Luna. “So, got any cool keychains?”

“Excuse me? I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.”

Alex summoned Aubade and fished one of the keychains out of his pocket. “I found these when Liz and Sarah left. Keychains can give you access to different keyblades.”

“Oh, is that what allowed Lady Aqua to do that? Celestia and I never figured out exactly how to do that. She never explained much of the finer points of her techniques, and we had to more or less figure out our own ways of doing them.” Luna closed her eyes and summoned up Missing Ache. She gave her own keyblade a quick twirl while examining the pommel. “Odd, mine doesn’t have one.”

“Weird.” Upending Aubade, Alex brought one of the new keychains close. He eeped as the keychain vanished from his hand. Aubade shifted in a gleam of light, replaced by an entirely new keyblade, one he had never seen before.

A name imprinted itself into his mind, ‘Widow’s Fang’. This keyblade was gold and black at the hilt, with a splay-legged black widow acting as the guard while the shaft was made to look like thick webbing that visibly pulsed with lines of blue-colored energy every so often. The teeth of the keyblade were nearly-invisible planes of translucent purple crystal, revealed only as the energy pulses from the shaft lit them up. What had been a trinket of a spider wrapped around an amethyst was now dangling from the pommel on a short string of brilliant blue material that glowed in time with the energy pulses.

“Most wondrous. I’ve never seen anything like that keyblade before in all my years, Alex.” Luna’s voice was actually full of awe as she moved closer, and reached out with her foreleg as if to touch it with her hoof. “It is just like when Lady Aqua’s keyblade would change to a different one…”

Holding the new weapon out, he allowed her to take it. “Aqua? There was an Aqua here? What... happened to her?”

“I wish I knew. She vanished shortly after the Sirens were exiled by Starswirl. Starswirl and his friends vanished around the same time. These days they’re just legends of pre-Equestrian civilization.” Luna gripped the keyblade in her magic and swung it around overhead. “Fantastic balance. This would be from the mechanical woman who was here, correct?”

“Yeah, that matches Liz’s style alright.” Standing up, Alex gestured to the weapon. “It should have different abilities from Aubade. If that holds true from the games.”

“How would you know? Other than having an opponent to carve up so you could compare how it feels-” Luna cut herself off and looked up, then closed her eyes and began to channel magic through her horn. “Forgive me, it seems that Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle have fallen asleep at the time I told them to set aside once a week for this. I have to pull them in.”

The glow rapidly spread out from Luna’s horn and encompased the entire surface of the ‘moon’ within a few seconds. In the blink of an eye everything changed around Alex, with what looked like classic Greek architecture made of clouds rapidly replacing the landscape he’d previously experienced. Two other figures quickly faded into view, one of them being Twilight and the other being a white unicorn with a blue mane and tail. His cutie mark was a shield with the same purple starburst as the center of Twilight’s mark.

“Ugh. Nopony told me you could feel nausea from being teleported in dreams. That’s worse than being on an airship!”

“My apologies, Shining Armor. I was not aware you suffered from motion sickness. I will make the transition less abrupt for you in future sessions.”

Alex took Widow’s Fang back, letting it rest at his side. “Sup, guys? Thanks for joining us for our Dream Warriors reenactment. Promise next time we’ll book that Dokken tribute band.”

“Very funny, Alex.” Twilight replied with a yawn. “Is this going to take long, Luna? I spent all afternoon listening to a crying stallion from Ponyville FPS about how he really didn’t want to have to learn some things about Alex’s body.”

“Only you could be tired in a dream, Twily.”

“There’s a difference between being tired and being mentally exhausted, Shiny.”

Luna quickly got things under control, and began explaining the reason this was being done in dreams, as well as splitting the four of them into two one-on-one teaching sessions. Twilight was paired with her brother so he could teach her the basics of telekinetic blade manipulation, including how to only hold one part of a weapon rather than the entire thing. Luna being paired with Alex meant that she was able to try and coach him based on how she remembered Aqua fighting... which used a lot less magic and a lot more of the ‘hit things until they stopped moving’ type of strategy than Alex would have thought.

“Sounds like she didn’t really have a whole lot of technique to any of this,” Alex commented, parrying a thrust from Luna. “I recall Aqua being a magic powerhouse.”

“She was odd indeed. Whenever she was forced to use magic she was powerful enough to quiet Starswirl’s complaints, but she always fell back on physical attacks as her first preference. Kept saying she could never get used to using magic.” Luna tilted her keyblade in midair around the parry, and came in at Alex well inside his guard. Being hit by this dream version of Missing Ache was like being slapped with a fish. Unpleasant, but not particularly painful.

Taking a step back, he shook off the strange feeling. “Right. So, when do I get the magics? I want to set fire to things with my mind and heal wounds like they were nothing.”

Luna actually shuddered briefly, and took a step back away from Alex. “If fire is what you want, I’ll have to have my sister send you a copy of one of our old texts on war magic. For whatever reason, Aqua was the only being who could safely contain such a spell, aside from Celestia with Aubade. Fire spells have since fallen out of common usage aside from the occasional medical cauterization.”

“Right.” Taking advantage of her reaction, Alex struck out, tapping Aubade against her collar bone. “So, you don’t know any of the spells? Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, Aero, Stop, Gravity?”

“You know, I never understood why Lady Aqua was so adamant about how certain elements had to be called by certain names when forming spells with them, or why her imagination was so limited.”

“I think it’s just easier to do that kind of thing,” Alex replied. “Easy to memorize and all that.”

“I suppose that might be true for those who don’t have talents linking them to certain things that just make magic easy. Regolith!” Luna stabbed Missing Ache into the clouds in front of her and the sky around them seemed to growl at him for a moment. The moon above them rotated suddenly and sent down a plume of glittering dust that sprayed against Alex like a blast of freezing cold sand. “I learned to put my own spin on things long ago.”

“Okay, that’s cool,” Alex admitted, shivering slightly. “You actually get to use your magic pocket sand often?”

“Not in over a thousand years.” Sadness crept into Luna’s voice as she spoke, and she stepped back while shaking her head. “Sorry, I’m… Would you mind a substitute sparring partner for a few minutes while I collect my thoughts?”

“Take as much time as you need.” Alex gave a thumbs up. “I’m up for whoever you throw at me, Dream Horse.”

Luna nodded in response and walked away to lay down on a nearby bench. As she moved a cloud of purple smoke emerged from her horn and slowly formed into a tiny black alicorn filly with a mane and tail much like Luna’s own. This filly had a silver helmet and shoes as well as some form of breastplate, and her horn was surrounded in a black aura for a moment before a pink and black keyblade similar in shape to Missing Ache formed in its grasp. “Foalish mortal! Beware da powah of Nightmare Moon!”

Alex snorted, trying to hold in laughter. “Really? I kind of don’t want to hit something that’s adorable.”

The filly glared at him, Pain of Solitude swinging up to point right at him before the tip glowed with a pale light that was immediately shrouded in a cloud of darkness. “Dark Force!” She screamed the name of her spell as the keyblade began to launch a barrage of black spheres at Alex. These began to explode around him, but somehow sapped all of the heat in the air away rather than causing heat as they did.

“Evil Gate!” She shrieked again, not bothering to wait for Alex to even regain a semblance of balance as the keyblade swiped down and everything went pitch black for Alex, rendering him unable to see in order to react. A childish giggle came from behind him before he was hit from the right, and then another came from above his head. “Shadow Dance!” The blackness that had been blinding him shattered into dozens of copies of the filly, each wielding a jet-black version of Pain, and each having glowing yellow eyes.

Stumbling back, he stared at her with wide eyes. “...Jesus Christ. Who are you supposed to be? Gamora? Calm the hell down there, X-23.”

The multitude of shadowy clones giggled in unison and levelled their black keyblades at Alex. “Come play with us, Xion. Be a good little golem.” Each keyblade seemed to gain a layer of frost as they charged another spell.

Alex gripped onto Aubade, gritting his teeth. “I am not Xion!” Drawing his arm back, he hurled Aubade at the closest and tackled the next. “My name is Alex!”

The crowd of heartless-looking fillies laughed even as the one struck by Aubade vanished in a puff of black mist. The one he’d tackled felt like a living snowman against his skin, and she didn’t even try to fight back as the rest of them finished charging their spell. “Absolute Zero.” The incantation was solemn, almost respectful, and the cold that hit Alex from behind was enough to steal his breath away and leave him feeling unable to move, or even blink for a few seconds.

When the cold dissipated, Alex fell to his knees taking in ragged breaths. “The fuck was that, Luna!? That’s a curb stomp, not a sparring match!” Hugging himself, he rubbed his sides in an attempt to warm himself.

“You shouldna made fun!” The demonic filly walked up to Alex, and blew a raspberry right in his face. This was followed by tapping both of his shoulders with Pain and stomping away to take a seat near Luna’s bench.

“Sorry, Tantabus has a bit of a mind of her own lately, and I didn’t create her with the intent of her being a sparring partner originally. That was her version of a form that I once took, and those spells were less than half the power that I could have brought to bear if I ever dared use them again.”

Getting up, Alex kept his frown. “Yeah sure. Utterly knock the newbie around. That totally does wonders for his self confidence.” Recalling Aubade to his hand, Alex stormed off into one of he craters.

“Alex…” Luna’s voice came from right next to him as he settled down in the crater. “There is a lesson in this, despite the fact that I appreciate the way it was delivered just as little as you do.”

“Yeah, and what’s that?” Alex growled, shooting her a glare.

“‘Never underestimate an opponent based on how they look. Even the weakest looking opponent could hand you your ass with both feet shoved in your mouth,’ to directly quote Lady Aqua.”

Alex laid back on the moon dust, looking up at the planet turning overhead. “Y’know, that’s not bad advice.” Placing his hands on his stomach, he sighed. “Sorry, I guess even in magic dreamland I’m still suffering the effects of Shark Week.”

“Shark week?” Luna thought for a moment before wincing. “Oh, so she wasn’t joking about human females being cursed with a monthly pain? Celly and I always thought she was just being dramatic.”

“Nope, unfortunately for me and her, it’s a thing.” Glancing over at Luna, he considered for a moment before speaking. “Hey, wanna hear a story?”

“I see no reason not to listen if it’s something you’re willing to speak about. Aqua was always a rather private person.”

“So, in this place called Egypt, there was a falcon-headed god named Ra, who was one of the deities associated with the sun. Every day, from dawn to dusk, he moved across the sky in his position as the sun. At dusk however, he’d die and enter a mountain. Twelve goddesses guided his body through the underworld, which was filled with lots and lots of snakes, including his evil brother Seth who always tried to eat him. Anyway, he gets reborn with a weird beetle face and bam! Sun’s back for another day as he leaves another mountain.”

Luna mulled the tale over for a while, but finally ended up shaking her head. “Your people have some strange fantasies. It almost reminds me of the diamond dogs.”

“The kicker is that in at least one version of that story, the mountains are actually the mouth and urethra of the sky goddess, Nut.” After a beat, he added. “And that’s why the dawn is red.”

“...” Luna opened her mouth to speak a couple times, then shuddered and shifted subtly. “Yes, well, I can imagine that it would be a bit painful to piss a deity back into existence.”

Alex snorted, finding himself relaxing. “I got a couple of moon related stories too. Pick a number outta four and I’ll tell you one.”

“I choose... thirteen divided by two minus four and a half.” Luna favored Alex with a grin that was nearly as evil as the nightmare filly’s giggling had been disturbing. “Combat isn’t just about waving swords and sticking your enemies with the pointy end.”

Rolling his eyes, Alex spoke again. “Okay fine, you get the legend of Endymion. Okay, so Selene was the Greek goddess of the moon. Every night while she passed over the Earth, she’s always watching his dude named Endymion because he slept out in the fields. At some point her stalkerism got so bad, she went to Zeus, king of the gods. His solution was to put Endymion to sleep forever so he couldn’t age or die. Selene than had fifty kids with him.”

“Wait... if he was asleep, then he…” Luna blushed and stood up quickly. “People on your world had strange notions of romance when these stories were crafted. That’s rape, plain and simple.”

Standing up with her, he pat her side. “Next time, I promise I’ll tell you a better moon story. Like the story of Princess Kaguya or Chang’E and Hou Yi.”

Luna took a few steps away and brought Missing Ache back up in front of her in a guarding position. “Let us hope those stories have fewer criminal acts in them... then again, Lady Aqua did always tell us that she didn’t come from a happy world.”

Something nuzzled against Alex’s ear, then pushed in slowly. “Mmmm, I can smell your dreams, the ones mom’s keeping hidden, they smell...delicious.” The shadowy filly landed on Alex’s shoulder and began... licking.

“Tantabus! Stop that right now. His dreams are not yours to eat.”

“But they smell so good...” The filly whined and pressed against the side of Alex’s head, whimpering softly.

“Uh... what’s going on?” Alex asked, reaching up and pulling the filly away from him. “You at least going to pay me for those dreams, kiddo?”

“Sorry, I created her to help me out with my own dreams and it seems she’s grown fond of how foul ones ‘taste’ to her as a result.” Luna plucked the filly off of Alex’s shoulder with her magic and shook her around until she’d become a vaguely pony-shaped cloud of gas. “None of that tonight. I probably shouldn’t have even brought you in as a free target. Back home, little one.”

The cloud reared up and stomped down as much as a vague shape could, but quickly dissipated into thin air.

Alex looked at the spot the filly had been before looking back at Luna. “Did you... did you create a magic based AI?”

“No, Tantabus is merely an astral golem, albeit an unruly one. She’s no more real than your nightmares of your father, existing only in dreams. In her case, I think I may need to rework the way her animating spell functions. She’s been getting harder to control the last few weeks.”

“Luna, that seemed like an actual, you know, person to me,” Alex pointed out. “Don’t go screwing around with any ‘spells’ you used to create her.”

“Alex, honestly, she’s not alive. She’s never been alive. She’s nothing but the ambient energy of dreams given form by me to help me work through some old issues I still struggle with. She’s a talkative teddy bear.” Luna huffed in exasperation and threw Missing Ache at Alex. “She’s less real than a Nobody.”

Alex rolled out of the way,brandishing Aubade. “You ever consider that what you made grew past how you made it? That it might actually be becoming real?” Dashing forward, he swung Aubade at her front right leg.

Luna backstepped quickly and reared up to menace Alex with her hooves as Missing Ache returned and was brought in to deflect the next blow from Aubade. “Yes, I did, which is why I took steps to make sure she could never take me over like the first version of my ‘imaginary dreamtime friend’ did when I gave in to jealousy.”

“...This place is weird.” Alex groaned, steadying his arms. “Look, just don’t go screwing with her, okay? Just thinking of it gives me the existential heebie jeebies.”

“Hey Alex, Twilight said you were looking for help learning magic stuff?” Sonata approached him in her earth pony guise while he was walking home from class . Her mane and tail were still dripping wet, but she didn’t appear out of breath at all from rushing to meet him.

“Uh... yeah. I mean, I’d love to learn how to fling spells,” he said, making the motion of throwing a fireball. “It’d help a lot, ya know.”

“Uh-huh, I get what you mean.” Sonata nodded while coming closer and leaning against him. “Mmmmm, shame, a hint of loathing, and bitterness. You realise magic’s not going to help with the most common cause of that little emotional cocktail, right? Unless I’m missing my guess based on a couple other things I smell, like perfume on you.”

Alex sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Right. I forgot you’ve been human for centuries. I wasn’t talking about that, Fish Stick.” He flicked her ear. “So, joke’s on you.”

“Watch the flicking unless you want to find out just how heavy ‘maximum absorbance’ can get.” Sonata glared up, then giggled and reared up to boop his nose with her hoof. “Kidding. Wouldn’t want to intentionally irritate you there right now. So, what did you have in mind exactly? I know how to heal and you saw what my sisters and I can do with water.”

“Water magic sounds fun,” Alex responded, continuing his walk back to the cottage. “I’m pretty sure we can pull that off, right?”

“I can think of a few other things we could pull off, but that can wait until you stop looking like a teenager.” Sonata teased playfully while walking with him. “So, want me to ask Aria about free supplies?”

“Uh... sure?” Alex agreed, nodding his head slowly. “She’s not gonna like, call in a favor later and drag me into anything criminal, is she? No offense but your sister comes off as a... uh... thug.”

“Oh, that? Yeah, she’s a bit brutal sometimes but this is something she’d be happy to help you out with. No charge, no favors owed, since I’ll be the one asking for you. She can easily erase a few cases of inventory from the logs, or write them off as damaged during packing and nobody’s going to question the owner. So, you want to learn about water first?” Sonata switched topics quickly and easily, as if the magic was a bigger concern than what she’d said before it.

“Yes. Teach me the art of waterbending. I need to learn all the elements before fighting the Fire Nation,” Alex joked, snickering to himself. “Let me put my backpack up and we can get started, alright?”

“Okay, can do. I’ll just stay out here if you don’t mind. Your dad still freaks me out a little.” Sonata motioned towards the tiny stream flowing near the cottage, and actually lay down at the bank to dip her hoof in the water for a bit. She stayed there, waiting for Alex to come back out, though she did take the time to create a few floating balls of water from the stream that slowly orbited her head.

After a few moments, Alex came running out of the cottage. “Okay! We got a few good hours before I have to do school stuff.” Cracking his fingers, he gave her a bright smile. “Alright, fish-horse, let’s do this!”

“Okay, first things first I’m gonna need you to start channeling your aura.” Sonata idly floats a few balls of water over towards Alex and slowly rotates them in a circle in front of him while another ball stays in front of her eyes between them. “Try to make these spin in the opposite direction, or try to toss them back at me.”

“...I have no idea how to do that,” he pointed out, watching the orbs in awe. “I have no concept of being able to do actual magic, Sonata.”

“Oh? Oh right, I forgot that Twilight said you had no idea how magic worked at all. That’s going to make this a little harder. Can you see anything other than the water? Any color or traces in the air, anything?”

“Uh...?” Alex just stared at her. “I... don’t know?”

“Okay. Huh...so when unicorns do their thing can you see anything? Like a sparkly field or even just some kind of shimmering in the air, maybe some color?” Sonata focused for a few seconds, closing her eyes as one of the water balls formed a crude approximation of a pony shape.

“Whenever anyone uses magic, I see some weird aura appear around their horn.” Alex blinked, rubbing his neck. “Right, guess that was a little obvious.”

“Okay, so you can see unicorn magic on some level, good, that gives me something to work with. Is it colors, a cloud, sparkles, or just a shimmering in the air, like... umm, that fake water on a hot road thing?”

Taking a moment to piece his response together, he gestured with his hands. “You ever watch anime? Where the characters power up, like maybe Dragon Ball Z? Sorta like that.”

“Okay, but do you see colors or just a shimmering in the air like there’s something there that you can’t quite see clearly? It’s important. If I were to dip in the stream and come back out as a unicorn would you see a pink aura or just a shimmer if I were to pick up some grass?”

“Twilight’s magic is purple, Luna’s is blue, Celestia’s is an orangish-yellow. Uh... Rarity’s is tealish? I think?” Alex offers. “That what you’re looking for?”

“Oh good, colors!” Sonata clapped her hooves together a few times, then looked down at them with a frown. “That feels odd without hands. Anyways, that means you can see magic like a pegasus if a unicorn is actively channeling it, but most other magic will be hard for you to see. Unicorns see tiny sparkles in the colored aura, and some powerful ones can even see a slight discoloration around a flying pegasus.” Sonata closed her eyes in concentration and the water balls wobbled slightly, as if she was losing her grip. “Tell me when you see the water start to change colors, okay? I’m going to try to get it attuned to you.”

Alex stared at the orbs, watching for any little detail. Before his eyes, the water shifted into a rainbow of colors, before finally settling on pink. “I see pink. Looks like we’re in business.”

“Pink? That’s odd, I was going for...huh.” Sonata stopped mid-sentence as she opened her eyes and saw what color the water had settled on. “Oh, right, duh. It’s attuned to you, but right now you’re kinda not you. No big deal.” She concentrated a little more, this time groaning as she slowly wrapped two of the water balls around Alex’s hands. “Okay. So... this might sting a little bit, but it shouldn’t hurt. Oh, summon your keyblade, that might make things easier.”

Following her instructions, Alex called Aubade to his hand. “As you requested, big keysword.”

“Okay. Now as long as I’m remembering this correctly... this should work just fine.” Sonata smiled and brought the last ball of pink water down to wrap around the guard of Aubade and extend down the blade. There was a brief flash of heat followed by the sensation of Alex’s hands going to sleep and immediately waking back up with the annoying prickling tingles all over both hands.

The tingling began to intensify as the water started either seeping into his hands or quickly evaporating, with the gentle pink glow travelling up his arms as it began to leave the water.
“Uh... not that I don’t trust you but... what exactly are you doing?”

“Oh, right, you probably haven’t had a magical theory lecture yet. I’m forcing your body to take in some magic energy to awaken your aetheric channels and allow you to ‘breathe’ the ambient magic fields to recharge yourself. Think of it like a deep-tissue massage for your magic muscles to wake them up so you can start using them. Hopefully you won’t have the same issues sirens do when we use too much water magic without being in water.”

“I doubt that, humans are mammals not, uh, fish.” Giving Sonata an appraising look, he continued. “Unless you’re an amphibian? Nah, probably something closer to a lung fish.”

“Magical pony-fish hybrids who can shapeshift from one to the other, easiest when entering or leaving a body of water, but we can float around as flying fish too. Magic is funny like that.” Sonata giggled as she stood up and walked closer. “Okay, got your arms just about done, and your blade’s been imbued so you should be able to channel through it as well as cast without it. I just need to do one last thing to get you fully attuned to the most basic water spell.”

“Okay, what’s that?”

Sonata suddenly threw the water ball she’d been looking at him through right into his face and began running away. “Tag, you’re it!”

“Gah!” Alex shook his head, his hair plastering to his face. “That’s was a cheap shot and you know it!” Unable to keep a smile off his face, he ran after her, feeling better than he had in the last few days.

Alex groaned as he woke up. His arms were throbbing and tingling, and for some reason he could taste raspberries. Sonata had told him his arms would probably feel funny for a few days as his body adjusted, but this was a little beyond a funny feeling.

“Discord..? You up? I don’t feel too great...” he called, reaching clumsily towards his nightstand for his glass of water.

“Oh for…” Discord’s voice was faintly heard from another room, followed by a snap and the appearance of a version of him wearing a facemask and scrubs, but bent over backwards and looking at him upside-down. “Alright, what seems to be the problem my boy?”

“Arms all funny... Taste raspberries, wait, no... it’s changing flavor suddenly.” After a few more blind grabs and a bit of spilled water, Alex brought his cup to his face and took a rather sloppy drink. He made a pitiful sound, wiping the water from his chin.

Discord quirked an eyebrow and rotated his head like an owl as he backed closer, a pair of goggles with a series of layered lenses appearing over his eyes with the layered lenses constantly switching out. “Hmmm, just what did you and that siren get up to yesterday? I’m not going to judge if you decided to indulge yourself with another female-bodied person, since there’s no real risk of unforeseen consequences and you’re both stuck with bodies that look younger than you really are.”

“Fish-horse woke up aethic channels,” Alex grumbled, cracking an eye up to look up at Discord.

“I’m going to assume the fact that you just woke up is keeping you from remembering the right word. Let me just…” With a snap, the goggles grew dozens more lenses, and this time they started switching out in a careful sequence as Discord took his time carefully examining things. Alex’s glass of water was refilled and given a crazy straw after the first few minutes, and for a few seconds all sound simply ceased before suddenly returning. “Alright Alex, I’ll be right back with a special professional consult on matters of magic, but I think I see what the problem is. Your salmon seductress forgot to do something important.”

Discord didn’t really wait for a response before vanishing with a snap. This was accompanied by a gasp from another room that was quickly silenced. A few seconds later a red-faced Twilight appeared next to Alex’s bed, followed by Discord with a towel wrapped around his waist. “It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve seen one, Purplesmart, and Alex’s problem is more important than your opinions on my decency.”

“That doesn’t mean I want you popping into my room with it out!” Twilight snapped, glaring up at him. “You’re lucky Spike has his own room now.” Fluffing her wings, she let out a long sigh. “Now, let’s see what’s going on with Alex.”

“Spike’s a teenage dragon and you waited until you had a castle to give him his own room? For shame, Twilight.” Discord teased gently before his expression turned serious and he held out the pair of odd goggles he’d just been wearing. “I’ll save you the time of calibrating your spells. Put these on and you’ll see the problem. I can correct some of the chaotic bits going on, but I can’t do anything about how fast he’s pulling in the energy other than outright removing his arms.”

“We’re not amputating his arms,” Twilight stated firmly, slipping the goggles on. “And you said Sonata ‘woke up’ his aetheric channels? Whoa...” She simply stared for a minute before speaking again. “Okay, I’m going to have to have a word with her about leaving something like this to a trained professional.”

“S’wrong?” Alex inquired, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

“Quite simply, my boy, your arms feel funny because Sonata either forgot to lower the energy she used to non-immortal levels or didn’t think to account for your body only being able to hold a limited amount of energy at a time. That odd taste in your mouth is because you’re overcharged, like licking a battery.”

“I think we can safely bleed it out,” Twilight spoke, lifting the goggles from her gaze. “We’ll need someplace to put it. I think we’d be in agreement that letting wild magic loose in your home is a bad idea.”

“Well, I wouldn’t complain about a little extra ambient chaos, but just letting wild magic free in a room with someone in Alex’s current condition is simply foolish. If he’s still pulling energy in as quickly as possible he’d just absorb it all again in an instant.” Discord stretched until his back popped and let out a satisfied groan before reaching into Twilight’s mane and pulling out a rack of small empty bottles. “Condense and liquify?”

“I don’t see any better way to deal with it.” Twilight lit her horn up, taking Alex’s arms in her magic. “Alright... whoa... whoa!” She quickly ceased actively channeling for a moment, allowing Alex’s arms to drop to his bed as she reached up to her horn. “Okay, change of plans. He’s still absorbing energy way too fast.”

Alex let out a whimper as the tingle intensified in his arms, and the constantly-shifting flavor in his mouth quickly settled on various grape flavors all mixed together. “C-can you not do that again?”

“Right, give me a minute here to figure out how to correct this oversight. For all we know she forgot to add in a safe limit because she’s a siren and they’re always pulling in spare magic to compensate for their shapeshifting…” Twilight muttered while she looked around the room for a moment and pulled a quill and paper off of Alex’s desk.

“It has to be a reasonable level. Enough that his body can get used to having it while leaving room to grow.” Discord took Alex’s drink, holding it for him. “Aubade should help in that regard, much more for him than it did for Celestia.”

“Right, obviously. Unicorns might generate a fair bit of magic, but we... they still need to take in supplemental ambient magic during periods of heavy exertion.” Twilight sketched out a plan a few times, taking multiple sheets of paper to work everything out. “What about a stackable reductive intake? I can bring him down by fifty percent each time until he’s at a more normal rate of absorbing ambient magic.”

“That sounds like a good place to start.” Discord nodded while looking down at Alex. “I just want to make sure this is all done safely so Fluttershy doesn’t have anything to worry about when I let her leave her room.”

“Jus’ fix it,” Alex groaned, flexing his fingers. “Stop dicking around and make me better.” Grabbing a pillow, he weakly threw it at Discord’s head.

Discord sighed, letting the pillow hit him in the face. “It’s not his fault, not his fault at all. Just an unfortunate mixture of hormones.”

Twilight nodded and quickly got to work shaping the spell she’d written out, creating small glowing lines and runes in the air near Alex’s arms before each casting of the spell sank in slowly. It took six repetitions before some of the tingling sensation in Alex’s arms subsided, and another two before Twilight and Discord moved on to extracting the excess energy and bottling it up. “Just tell us when you stop tasting things that aren’t in your mouth, okay? We only want to get you to the point of comfort rather than draining you completely.”

Draining out the excess energy took the better part of an hour, and left the shelf of bottles half-full of glowing blue liquid. “Okay now Alex, is there still some lingering discomfort?”

“I think he’s a bit more antsy to get downstairs and eat something at this point, Twilight. I’ll take care of keying the rest of these bottles for him to use before bed to collect just enough so that he starts being able to hold the energy in more of his body. Why don’t you scoot on home so you can teach Sonata why we make sure to properly finish things that are only supposed to be done by fully trained authorities rather than cutting things short because it should be ‘good enough.’”

“Discord preaching about acting responsible? Are you sure you didn’t hit your head earlier?”

“Don’t test me, Twilight, or I’ll make sure you see much more than a brief glimpse of me the next time Fluttershy wants to have a special weekend morning.”

Twilight giggled. “I think you’re settling into a parental role pretty well, Discord.”

“Oh get going, and make sure you knock on Spike’s door before opening it if you don’t want your misconceptions of innocence shattered.”

“What’s that supposed to-”

A pop filled the air, whisking Twilight from the room. Grabbing Alex’s pillow, Discord fluffed it and eased it back under Alex’s head. “Feeling better? Thankfully for all of us, it’s a Saturday. So, no need to worry about falling behind.”

“Yeah, I’m feeling a little better now that my hands don’t feel like they’re half-numb. So, you and Fluttershy-”

“Have a healthy relationship, one which will no doubt be causing plenty of gossip over the next couple of years. Now, about those little motes of chaos your body sucked up. It doesn’t look like anything harmful, but I have a feeling you don’t want things to get too unpredictable about your body so I’ll just take those back. Without your body trying to suck up every ounce of available magic constantly you won’t have to worry about any of it again either.”

“Fine with me.” Alex rested his head back, looking up at Discord. Shifting into a more comfortable position, he searched for a few words. “Hey uh... thanks. For putting up with me.”

“Eh, you’re nowhere near as crazy to deal with as my daughter was for the first few months, and you’re a nice kid since you have an adult’s brain in your head, so you’re not an immature little shit like some teenagers can be.” Reaching out, Discord brushed a few strands of hair out of Alex’s face. “I’ll go let Shy know that everything is alright and see about getting breakfast going. You just stay in bed, alright?”

“Yeah, alright.” Alex watched Discord move towards the door before speaking again. “You really are a good dad, just so you know. Best mom’s boyfriend I know of.”

“I should certainly hope so. She was on her twelfth when you woke up and I had to copy myself to help you out too.” Smirking back, Discord winked at him. “You’re not such a bad girlfriend’s kid, Alex.”

“Wait, twelve... before I asked for help? And you’ve been keeping her occupied since then?”

“Well, yes. Did you think I’d just leave her hanging?”

“No, but... damn. Go Discord.”