It's been four weeks since I was sent here and a lot of weird stuff has been happening lately. First of all there was that ticket fiasco two weeks back, so I might as well tell you about it. Oh, and you'll be glad to here that I've opened up a bit to my friends, so, there's that.

I was on my way to visit Octavia when Derpy came flying towards me. During my time in ponyville Derpy has crashed into me a few times now, so I stepped to the side to avoid contact. When she landed I helped her up. "Ok Derpy, what is it?" She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a letter. It was for me, sent by Celestia. "Strange, if she wanted to tell me something it would be through Spike." I opened the letter to find 6 gold tickets to the upcoming Gala, which I had heard a few ponies talking about in town. Derpy noticed the tickets and her eyes started to glisten, there was also a note to go along with the tickets.

Dear Symbol
I know you are not one for public affairs but I would like you to attend the upcoming Grand Galloping Gala, you may also bring your friends if you wish, who you decide to bring is entirely your choice. Besides, I would like a dance with somebody who can match my height.

Sincerely, Princess Celestia.

I knew there was some kind of catch, and if I declined the invitation she would just bring up my debt to her, there really was no escape from this. I noticed Derpy looking desperately at the tickets. "Derpy, do you want to go to the Gala, because I've got these extra tickets if you wanna come." She tackled me to the ground once more with tears of joy, no matter how many times she did it, it was still adorable. She got up and I handed her the ticket.

"Who else are you thinking about asking Symbol?" I thought about that for a second, I might as well just bring my group of friends.

"Octavia and Lyra are at the top of the list, I'm not sure if Vinyl is up for a mature evening but I might as well ask her, don't know about Bonbon." She nodded her head in approval and started to fly away. "Don't lose that ticket Derpy, and don't let anypony else know about it, otherwise you'd just be asked left and right to give it up." She saluted and flew away. I continued on my way to Octavia's place when I saw Twilight running from her friends. I shrugged it off and headed for Octavia's.

I knocked on her door and patiently waited for her to answer. When she opened the door she was surprised at my presence.

"Oh, Symbol, what a lovely surprise. To what do I owe the visit?" Yep, totally British. I pulled out a ticket and handed it to her.

"Celestia sent me a few tickets to the Gala, I was wondering if you would like to join me." She just stood there with the ticket in her hoof, gawking at the sight, I guessed the Gala must've been bigger than I expected. She just looked at me surprised. "You ok there Octavia?" She nodded and looked back to the ticket. She recomposed herself and cleared her throat.

"Yes, I would like to attend the Gala with you Symbol, you just caught me by surprise." I nodded and bid her farewell, while I was walking away I could have sworn that I heard her squee. I guess she was just excited and didn't want to appear unprofessional in front of me. I headed to Bonbons candy store to look for Lyra. When I entered the store Bonbon was looking bored out of her mind at the counter. Her ears perked up when the door hit the tiny bell as I entered.

"Oh, hi there Symbol, what can I do for you?"

"Hey there Bonbon, I was just looking for Lyra."

"She's in the back making some candy." I nodded and walked past her and into the kitchen where Lyra was making some bonbons, hilarious.

"Hey there Lyra." She jumped in surprise and turned to face me.

"Oh, hey there Symbol, you need something?" I shook my head and pulled out one of the three remaining tickets.

"I was just wondering if you would like to come with me to the Grand Galloping Gala." She dropped a mixing bowl and sat there frozen. I assumed that she was going to say yes so I just placed the ticket on a counter, I placed another one down for Bonbon. "Well it's there if you want it, there's also one there for Bonbon." I walked out of the kitchen and was about to head out the door when I turned to the mare at the counter. "Might want to go check on Lyra, she seems to be frozen with shock." She gave me a confused look and walked into the back room. I was halfway down the street when two mares came charging at me and tackled me to the ground, I looked over to see Lyra and Bonbon hugging me.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou." They both blurted out in unison. I scratched behind their ears to loosen their grip on my torso, a trick I had learned from Vinyl in case a crazy pony ever latched onto me at a party. They let go of me and pouted when I stopped scratching. I dusted myself off and told them not do do anything like that again. I've never been one for being hugged, even as a child if one of my...parents tried to hug me I pushed them away. They apologised and headed home. I just had one more stop before I could head home.

As I was walking to Vinyls night club I felt something bump into my leg, I turned around to see Twilight rubbing her head. I helped her up and she apologised. "Where are you going in such a rush anyway Twi?" She winced and rubbed the back of her neck nervously.

"I'm hiding from the girls." Now that sparked my interest.

"Why would you want to hide from them, did something happen?" She gave a tired sigh.

"I was given some tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala and now my friends are fighting over them."

"Didn't you get enough tickets to go around?" She shook her head. "I wish I could help you Twi but I only have on extra ticket left and I was going to give it to Vinyl." Her ears perked up and she looked at me confused.

"You got tickets to the Gala as well?"

"Yeah, I got a letter this morning about the Gala from Celestia containing six tickets for me and my friends."

"Who have you asked so far?"

"Derpy, Octavia, Lyra and Bonbon. I'm going to ask Vinyl now."

"Do you really think that Vinyl will want to go to the Gala?" I shrugged.

"Never know until I try." She hung her head and started to walk away. "Why don't you just ask Celestia for more tickets?" She turned to look at me with a deadpan expression, she then facehoofed after realising she could have done that all along. She thanked me for the advice and shot off towards the library. "Why do I get the feeling that this will be a reoccurring issue?" I shake the thought out of my head and walk into the club, which was empty aside from Vinyl setting up for the night. "Yo, Vinyl!" She turned to look at me, she lifted her purple glasses and smiled.

"If it isn't the Symbol of music, whatcha doin here?" I walk over to her and we brohoof. I reach for my last ticket but it's gone, I look to her and she was holding it with her magic. "Really?"

"So, I had an extra ticket and was going to ask you to the Gala, so what?"

"I dunno dude, seems a bit to classy for me." Knowing Vinyl there was one way to get her to agree to this.

"Y'know, I bet Octavia would flip if she saw you there." This sparked her interest. "I can't even imagine what her face would be like if she saw you behave at a fancy party." She thought for a moment and sighed.

"Damn, my only weakness."

"That and techno." I pointed out, I let her listen to my IPod a few days ago and she would do anything to play the songs I had on there at one of her parties.

"Fine I'll go to the stupid party with you, who else is going?

"Tavi, Lyra and Bonbon and Derpy. Twilight and the girls are also going." She nods and gets back to her set. "Can't wait to see you in a fancy getup Vinyl, I'll have to get a picture." Her cheeks redden and she huffs.

"If you weren't the coolest guy I knew, I'd have killed you by now."

"I don't think Octavia would like that and Lyra would beat you to near death."

"How can you say those things without smirking?" I shrugged.

"I'll see you later Scratch."

"See ya later Shattered." I still think the name fits me. After I left the club I went to check on Twilight and see how she sorted things out, and sure enough she took my advice and asked Celestia for more tickets, after explaining the situation of course.

There was also an incident that involved Applejack's sister, Applebloom. I won't go into to much detail but I'll give you the basic rundown. Now this is going to involve a lot of talking so bare with me.

I was sitting under one of Applejack's trees reading the daily paper when Applebloom walked up to me, she looked depressed.

"Hey there mister."

"Hey kiddo, what's up?" I got a good look at her and noticed her eyes, she held a look I knew all to well.

"If ah tell ya somethin, do ya promise not ta tell anypony?" I nodded, I knew where this was going. I patted a spot next to me and she sat down.

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Mister, do y..."

"Call me Symbol."

"Right, Symbol, do y'all know what it's like ta be teased bout somethin that wasn't in yer control?" I grabbed my necklace and held it tight.

"All to well kid, all to well." She looked surprised by my response. "It's a bully problem, isn't it." She nodded sadly. "What are they teasing you about?" She pointed to her flank, I then noticed that she didn't have her cutie mark. "Oh."

"I'm the only one in mah class that doesn't have a cutie mark and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon keep teasin me about it." She lowered her head sadly. "They called me a blank flank." This kid didn't know how lucky she was, they could have been doing much worse.

"Kid, I know you hate being treated like this but I'm going to tell you something." She looked at me confused. "You get it easy." She was shocked by these words, she looked into my eyes and must've noticed the pain in them. "On my planet, kids don't get off that easy, take me for example, every day when I walked into the school yard EVERYONE pointed at me, EVERYONE laughed at me and EVERYONE tossed me to the side like a sack of garbage." I was clutching my necklace like no tomorrow with my eyes closed. "My family didn't care, no one cared. To them I was some kind of freak, I didn't fit in anywhere." I opened my eyes to see hers with tears in them.

"Is that why ya don't smile?" It was more than that, so much more. I couldn't tell this kid about her, I couldn't tell any one of these ponies about her.

"yes." That was a lie, but I couldn't tell her anything else, it would just corrupt her. "Now I'm going to give you some advice kid, don't listen to them, they most likely have something going on in their lives." I turned to look her in the eye. "You have a good long life ahead of you and plenty of time to discover what you want to do with it." I placed my hand on her shoulder. "Think of it this way, their adventure ended when they got their cutie marks, your adventure is just beginning." She hugged me tightly for a second and pulled away.

"Thank ya, fer sharin yer story." I nodded and ruffled her mane.

"I gotta go kid, I got stuff to do."

"Ok, bye mister Symbol." I walked away and waved back. The kid has a good family to back her up during this, something I never had. I walked towards town to meet up with Derpy, later on I found out that Applebloom had made some friends and showed Tiara up at her own party, atta girl.

Other than those two events there really isn't anything else worth talking about. So I might as well tell you about what's happening right now. Celestia has sent me on another job, along with Twilight. We were sent into the Everfree Forest to look for an underground temple. Apparently there was some ancient relic that we were supposed to look for, something about long lost magic. I didn't know why I was called in on such an important mission, but I'm sure Celestia had her reasons, and what a reason it was.

When we arrived at the entrance, after dodging a few manticores and Timberwolves, there didn't seem to be any way to open the stone doors.

"Symbol, you go look over there, I'm going to search over here." I nodded and followed her orders. After ten minutes of pushing vines and moss out of the way I came across another door, but something wasn't right, there was a plaque with an handprint carved into it.

"Twilight, you might wanna see this!" She quickly trotted over to my location.

"What is it, did you find something?" I pointed to the plaque. "What the, how can that be here?"

"I don't know Twi." I placed my hand on the carving and it glowed, we heard a few gears turning and the door opened. "Looks like we found the door." We carefully entered the temple and walked down some flights of stairs. We came across a giant door with two statues of ponies on each side. I slowly approached the door to find another hand engraved in the stone. "This is getting weirder by the second." I placed my hand on the print and the door opened. I motioned Twilight to follow, we walked down a long hallway, Twilight was using her magic to keep the area visible.

Along the way I noticed strange carvings on the walls of the cave. There were carvings of two rings everywhere, we reached another door but this one was different, instead of a handprint there was the symbol of a necklace engraved in the stone. I looked down at my necklace and back to the stone, I pulled off my prized possession and held it up to the door. The symbol glowed and the door disappeared, leaving Twilight and I clueless.

"I'm starting to wonder if this is some kind of trick." I heard Twilight mutter behind me.

"If it is a trick it's a damn good one." I walked into the next room and there was one more flight of stairs.

When we reached the bottom we were in a circular chamber with a pedestal in the middle. Twilight shot up a magical flare to brighten up the room. I noticed some more carvings at the back of the room. When I walked over I couldn't believe what I saw, there were pictures of me wearing two rings on my wrists, facing some kind of humanoid creatures. I looked to my left to see me facing a tall pony with insect wings. "What the hell?" I looked to the plaque on my right to see the symbol on my necklace along with the two rings. "Twilight, you need to see this!" I don't know what she did but the carvings started to crumble, then the room started shaking. I looked over to her and she was holding some kind of sceptre. The pedestal was nowhere to be seen. "Don't just stand there, run!"

After dodging many falling pillars and collapsing ceilings we reached the stairs, well, what was left of them. I looked back to see the pathway closed off. "Twilight can you teleport us to the exit?" She nodded and strained her mind to gather enough energy. With a flash of light we appeared outside the temple, she was panting like crazy, then she passed out. I signed and threw her on my shoulder, I then picked up the relic and began the trek back to ponyville.

One thing you should know about me, I have a bit of an anger problem. If something is hidden from me I get really, really mad. "Celestia has some explaining to do."