Chapter 4: Taming the Heart

Cantor’s recovery, as expected, was considerably faster than anypony predicted. However, being somewhat of a medical miracle had dampened the responses of most of the doctors and nurses at the hospital to gentle smiles and murmurs of congratulations. It had taken the alicorn a little under a week to effectively change his blood until none of the forbidden substance remained in his body. Dr. Stable, though overjoyed that Cantor, one of his ‘regular patients’ who had grown to be somewhat of a good friend, had made such an astounding recovery in such a short time, still seeked justice from the alicorn mare who had poisoned him to begin with. He knew he would never get what he was after; a simple explanation: “How did she get her hooves on such a rare, dangerous and illegal drug, and more to the point, why would she endanger the life of such a close friend?”

For several days, and even after the alicorn had fully recovered and left, the butterscotch unicorn couldn’t remove the thought that Celestia knew a lot more than she was telling, but given the dire circumstances, who could really blame her? He called himself crazy for even thinking such a thing, but Stable’s mind just wouldn’t stop telling him that the princess knew that something bad was going to happen to the stallion that had saved hers – and indeed his life just one year ago. He came to the convenient conclusion that she, like him, hated to see Cantor in harm’s way, even though the legendary pony had proven many times that he would need to be beheaded before he finally went down for good, Celestia still came across really rather heartbroken when she dropped him off at the hospital. Dr. Stable convinced himself that Celestia had shown some good; sending him back to Ponyville so he could be close to his friends and visa versa.

The regal white princess elaborated in great detail what had happened at the laboratory, everything from the violent and bloody end, to what she was doing there in the first place. She explained the magical nature of the Peripharous crystal to Stable, who took the eloquent speech from the large mare as a subliminal compliment to the doctor; respecting his intelligence. He began to like her after that – a lot more than he used to. The chestnut maned unicorn had always seen Celestia in a different light to the rest of the world; whereas they would look to the princess as a wise, caring, strong and brave leader, Stable had the right mindset to see her true colours past the pearlescent mane and practiced smile. There was no being in Equestria who could deny the princess of her loving nature: for this trait was true. However, when one may live for several thousand years, there is a lot of time to play with a lot of power and effectively ruin a lot of lives. If she had been able to put all that negativity behind her, and forgive herself for what she had done, then why was she still up to her experiments, her interests? Was it because she was sorry? If this was honestly the case, then everything would be acceptable in the eyes of the world. Shouldn’t it?

Celestia quickly skimmed over the topic of her power limitations, failing to hide the meekness in her tone as she really put Cantor’s power into perspective: explaining how, when she and her pegasus accomplice held a small test of their own to fully compare the two most powerful living alicorn’s powers, her magical output registered 2.316 at best. Cantor’s on the other hoof… 81.901… And that was before he changed – before the monitors read error and the past month of the stallion’s intensive care took place. All because of an impatient princess with too much power to care, yet not enough of what mattered for control, and twenty millilitres of a lethal poison, the likes of which the stallion shrugged off with no long term side effects other than a mild, lingering pain for a week or so afterwards. Other than that, he had cheated death for the third time, and the good doctor, and needless to say his friends expected nothing less.

One week after he was absolved from hospital, Cantor had become a lot more involved with Celestia’s space programme, an enormous military labyrinth comprised of labs, researchers and scientists which dove several miles into the mountainside where Canterlot castle was situated. It was carved into the solid rock, provided living quarters, numerous canteens and even a breeding programme for the ponies who were serving multi-year stints within the cavernous military base. Some of the ponies down there had not seen the sun for months, or even years – ironic how the pony practically in charge of their lives also happened to be in charge of the thing they had not seen, yet tirelessly relied on for their whole lives for food and sustenance.

Princess Luna had very little say in the matter, not only was she forbidden to come to the laboratories alone, but she did not want to interfere with such important themes. Even as she toured the facility with Cantor, one of her closest friends and an admirable figure, she rarely spoke out to elaborate on a point that had been made, and she never started a conversation and only really answered questions with a two word vocabulary of yes and no. She did not feel comfortable whatsoever underground, so not only having Cantor there with her, but having him walk next to her set the dark blue mare at ease, though only slightly; she still felt uneasy watching ponies live substantial periods of their lives working for her sister in some steel-walled cave underground, away from where they should be: with their families.

Within the facility, there was an unprecedented air of secrecy, and upon questioning, Celestia had told Cantor that the world, sadly, wasn’t as perfect as he would have liked; there was a constant threat from the Griffon Kingdom, though the land of the griffons was generally secluded and aloof, whenever a pony would cross the borders of the Celestial empire, currently the most powerful nation in the world (due to a certain white stallion), to offer kinship and unity to the griffons, they would never be heard from again. Nopony has ever crossed the borders since, after their third party of ponies sent only returned in photograph form; dozens of images displaying horrific scenes of the six-pony team being eviscerated, tortured, disembowelled, raped, set on fire and even eaten alive by the griffons. One heart-wrenching picture showed a decapitated mare’s body being violated by one griffon, while a bound and crying stallion was receiving oral sex from the same mare’s lifeless head whilst a griffon dove spears into his back.

What was most unsettling about the evil pictures was the messages beneath each. All together, the images gave a message from snippets of text which had to be examined closely and arranged into order to become legible. The message spoke of threats of what would happen to the ponies of Equestria if another friendship party was sent. The last picture – the most gruesome of all showed a toothless blue unicorn mare with blood gushing from her wide open and screaming mouth, her eyes had been gouged out and were also lashing copious amounts of blood all down her face and chest. A vicious looking black griffon could be seen at her side, tearing a large strip of flesh all the way from her shoulders to her flank with his razor-sharp beak, exposing her glistening ribs below. A dead stallion lay face down on the ground before the savaged mare, his head split open, spilling pink brain matter onto the dirt floor below. The picture was captioned: “Try again, princess.” As the final nail in the coffin of the griffon’s demonic threat.

Seeing the images again for the first time in years when she showed Cantor, tears began to pool in Celestia’s divine eyes as the memories of the heartbroken looks of the ponies’ families came flooding back to her. She had lied about their unspeakable demise, telling their mothers, fathers and children that they had all fallen from a cliff into the great ocean and drowned. When questioned by the pegasus pony’s family, Celestia explained that he too, had drowned trying to save his friends, deeming him a hero through all of ponykind. Lies can save ponies’ minds from harm, protect their emotions from savagery in scenarios where the truth not only hurts, but could have devastating re-occurring results. It was pictures like this that brought out the demon within Cantor, and Celestia barely talked him out of mass genocide of the griffons.

It chilled the usually demure and overseeing princess to know that there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop Cantor if he started killing the creatures, and chilled her even more to know that it was most likely luck that made Cantor agree not to commit such an atrocity. "No matter how bad something or someone is," Celestia had said to the alicorn stallion. "It does in no way warrant the extinction of a species."

Since Rainbow Dash’s old friend, Gilda had visited Ponyville a long time ago, Celestia was displeased to see that the winged lions had not changed their tyrannical ways. Since then, no more word has come from the griffons, and sending Cantor to see what was going on was far out of the question for Celestia; if he did not destroy the griffons when he visited, surely they would give him an ‘extra special’ treatment. And if Celestia’s eyes would scan those kinds of pictures, she simply would not be able to find a reason to live with herself, even when speaking metaphorically.

Back in the not-so-dismal present, even after the first day within the facility, the alicorn stallion had put forward theories about space and electro-magnetic wavelength phisicalities which were remarkably accurate when introduced to experiments. After three 100% accurate predictions to unknown scientific experiments involving a new concept known as the electro-magnetic spectrum, Cantor, the two princesses and three of the leading scientists held a conference to try and understand Cantor’s unnaturally precise predictions. After three hours, and seriously messed up body-clocks, the ponies in lab coats, and indeed the two alicorn mares were none the wiser as to how Cantor knew so much, where they knew so little, and needless to say, the stallion was becoming a little agitated.

“Oh, fuck me…” Groaned Cantor as he buried his hooves into his face after the fourth lengthy explanation about why rainbows can be ‘made’ in more than one way fell flat on its face like the three before it.

“Hey, don’t get angry with me!” Cried an orange coated stallion with a straight cut navy blue mane which fell neatly around his large horn sat on the opposite side of the table to Cantor. “We’ve never heard anything like this before; how can you possibly expect us to understand something that is so new?”

Cantor slid his hooves down his face, dragging his features downwards and waking him up slightly from the grievous three hours of secluded understanding he was trying to pass on to these other ponies. “I’m sorry.” He said, muffled, his hooves clasped over his mouth. “I’m just getting frustrated that I’m so bad at explaining things.” His eyes fell to the table littered with empty bottles and cardboard boxes which once held food, now were supporting a thin layer of grease.

“That’s quite alright, Cantor.” A very well pronounced deep midnight purple unicorn mare replied, looking sympathetically at Cantor through a pair of semi-circular frameless glasses with very, very dark blue – nearly black eyes. Seeing this mare, her voice was exactly how one would expect it to be; rather dull, dry and droning, the very essence of the heart of Canterlot summed up in her half-lidded stare. “Just, run this… ‘magnetic spectrum’ past us once more.” She added. “And go through it very, very slowly; explain all the basics before moving on.”

A bright red earth pony piped up, carrying his always joyful Australian accent (or whatever the Equestrian equivalent may be) with a great big smile. “Y’know what, Cantor?” He began, pointing to a small opening in the wall at the head of the table, a short rope with a little wooden ball protruding from it. “If ya give that rope a tug, there’s a chalk board.” He shot Cantor a friendly wink. “Ya can use that if ya like, ta do illustrations.” He said with his overly cheery and enlightening voice. From the moment Cantor stepped into the room, he instantly took a liking to the lime maned stallion. His smile, his body language, his brilliant voice all massed to a personification of, what both stallions would call, ‘a good laugh’.

Cantor didn’t hesitate in rising from his chair and pulling out the promised blackboard. With as much effort as it would take to draw a card from an envelope, the board slid out and crossed nearly the entire width of the room until it caught on the latch and stopped abruptly. Thanking the earth pony, who was really rather appropriately named ‘Chester’, Cantor paced around to in front of the huge blackboard, turning to the room to see it from a different perspective. The room was painted pure white, but there were enough health and safety posters and advertisements all over them to prevent someone from really deeming it a particular colour. Standing at the blackboard, looking into the room, on the right hoof side of a cumbersome grey plastic table sat princess Celestia closest to the front, an empty seat where Cantor was sitting and then princess Luna at the back. Behind the two alicorn mares, somewhere near the top of the wall, there resided a cork board, absolutely jammed full of hoof-written notes and scruffily drawn diagrams. It looked as if somepony had just gone round collecting all the tiny scraps of paper they could find and stuffed it onto the board, as with the occasional glance, Cantor could see no correlation with the notes at all. Where one small piece of paper could have hundreds of tiny words scrawled onto it, right next to it could be a much larger sheet of crumpled paper which simply read “Storage freezer out of bounds to grade 2 and lower employees.”

At the rear of the room, a lightly stained pine door lead to Celestia knows where with a sign merely reading “All staff must display grade 7 or above ID when accessing this door.” To the left of the seemingly threatening door, there sat a small potted palm tree that had obviously seen better days. Many leaves were golden brown and drooping, and the few that were green seemed frail and anaemic, like it had not been watered for days. It probably hadn’t.

To the left of the room sat the three scientists; the two unicorns and one earth pony. All of whom had their ideas about particle physics destroyed by Cantor in an instant, yet maybe now he would be able to shed some light on the subject, no pun intended. None of the scientists held a grudge – how could they? Cantor was only trying to help; the more they knew about how the universe worked, the better prepared they could be for the day of the launch, which lied just over one month away from the present. Behind the scientists sat a small window with an unnecicerally thick frame surrounding it, providing observations to a four-storey high shaft. There were four levels of metal observation floors encircling the main shaft, ladled with ponies going busily about their work. In the centre of the shaft, there was the spaceship itself.

It was a leviathan of a craft, nearly one hundred feet long with a cubical body around twelve feet across. It was designed by Canterlot artists as a ‘what if’ kind of fantasy. However, when a certain male alicorn began to speak about ridiculously implausible theories and relativity which, when tested, turned out to be correct, this idea of something going so far from the ground that they won’t actually return seemed quite plausible. Elements of the ship had to be altered to Cantor’s specifications. For example, one of the preposterous things he mentioned was that there was no air to breathe in space. Everypony laughed at him, until he invited two royal guards to fly with him to the edge of space. As well as infinitely beautiful, the theory of intense breathlessness also proved evident. This was the fact that convinced Celestia’s expansive team of scientists to begin this herculean task.

Even now, Cantor still suggested additions and improvements to the vessel. One thing he mentioned was that there was no gravity in space. Now this force was well known, yet rarely researched among ponies, so what Cantor said was really all they had to go by. That was, until he designed and helped build a ridiculously dangerous machine that, as he predicted, would increase Equestria’s gravity, relative to whoever was inside it, he explained. The devise was an enormous motor with one outstretched arm harbouring a large pod at the end of it where a pony would sit and be spun around in an enormous circle by the motor. Cantor was the first to try out this new, curious device. It wasn’t that he was requested to, rather, he volunteered hysterically. The machine, as predicted, made everything seem heavier for the pony in the pod. This evidence only came after Cantor had had his turn; the only information he fed back to the scientists of his experiences were “Faster! Faster!” Until he passed out. When he came to, the first words to pass his lips were: “I want to go again!”

Besides the encroaching details, the spaceship looked astonishing, though only inside in the dark: once it reached the outside world however, it would be as breathtaking as the place in which it was going.

“Right now…” Cantor began, gripping the chalk tightly in his magic, estimating a reasonable place to start his drawings on the smeared black board. “This,” Said the alicorn, drawing a wavy line which began really rather smoothly on the right side of the board and proceeded to become more and more compressed as he neared the left. “Is the electro-magnetic spectrum I was talking about.” He affirmed, turning back to his audience who were making a show about readying themselves for their lecture. The red earth pony stallion slouched down in his dark blue plastic seat and rested a foreleg over the table, staring intently at the board and Cantor. The other two unicorns, the orange male named Test Tube, and the midnight purple mare, who majored in astronomy, called Globe Trotter took a similar stance, yet rather more composed as to one or the other relative to the easy going red stallion sat furthest away from Cantor.

All ponies in the room, spare Cantor, wore vacant expressions. Not the likely expressions of a fool, however, these faces showed a willingness to learn; their minds were focused on nothing else other than gaining knowledge. “Over here we have radio waves-“ He began, drawing a box around the smoothly rolling area of the wavy line as he was interrupted by Test Tube.

“And what, pray tell, are they for?” The orange stallion enquired, brushing a stray strand of navy hair out of his face to get a fraction of a better look.

Cantor stared silently for a minute, remembering how anything like TVs and radios were non-existent in Equestria. “Well, um… they’re uhh…” He stuttered, thinking of some way to explain. “They’re like… an ‘invisible’ piece of string that can carry digital information...” Needless to say, his onlookers were none the wiser. The white stallion dragged a hoof down his face and groaned. “Don’t worry… I… They’re not that important. Basically, this whole thing,” He said, wavering over the entire squiggly line with his hoof. “is what light is made of.” The faces he received were that of, if not before, now completely and utterly bewildered.

“What… light, is… made of?...” Asked Globe Trotter, tilting her head to the side so that her glasses slid down her nose a little.

“Yes.” Cantor simply answered, boxing off a tiny piece of the wavy line somewhere in the centre. “This, is the section of the spectrum where visible light lies. Everything outside of this box is, strictly speaking, invisible.”

“Then how do you know that they are there?” Asked Test tube, a little more aggravated than needed. He could already see the conversation begin to fall back into the same pattern as the previous three.

Cantor sighed briefly in mild frustration, scouring his memory for science lessons years ago. “Now I know we did the spectrum in year ten…” He muttered quietly to himself, before a tidal wave of synapse reactions cascaded through his mind and he practically screamed “Frequencies!”, causing everypony in the room to jump out of their seat a little.

“Frequencies!?” Cried Celestia, more out of shock at Cantor’s outburst than his terminology.

“Yes!” Cantor cried back, locating an eraser and furiously rubbing out the electromagnetic spectrum and drawing two ridiculously crude boxes that were supposed to represent a certain radio transmitter which he remembered fondly his ex-armed forces science teacher explaining in great detail. The alicorn remembered muttering something about never needing to know this in the future, yet right now he found himself blushing at his own naivety.

“These are walkie-talkies…” Cantor said, gesturing to the two stretched boxes with a little circle at the top as well as a little line protruding from the left hoof corner of each.

Once again, but hopefully for the last time, the atmosphere in the room dropped to way below the slightest gesture to understanding, yet Cantor felt ridiculously proud that he remembered a science lesson that he had turned up late to more than two years ago. “They use radio waves to carry somepony’s voice. It’s all to do with…” He trailed off, outstretching his ears, waiting for the so called scientists to answer , but when all who answered him were silent, he began to stutter like a parent would, teaching their foal to speak. “F… Fr…. Frrreee-“

“Frequencies!” A dark blue alicorn cried out with a huge and rather impish grin.

“Very good, Luna…” Cantor humoured the princess, nodding his head slowly with somewhat of a real sense of impression. “Have a gold star.” The younger princess blushed and seemed to shrink a little as everypony chuckled at her expense. “Seriously though,” Cantor began, his tone turning solemn and meaningful. “If everything that emits light emits radio waves, then these things are possible... Ha...” Cantor smirked. "I should teach maths..." He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know the ‘ins and outs’ of walkie-talkies, but I’m just here to give you a push in the right direction, not do your job for you.” The stallion’s eyes widened and his mouth fell ever so slightly agape as the appalled faces of not only the scientists, but also the princesses came into focus.

“Sorry.” Cantor apologised, bowing his head slightly in self-depreciation. “I- I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, I’m… ‘m sorry…” He mumbled, and the ponies in lab coats became somewhat sympathetic.

“It’s alright, Cantor.” Said Test Tube softly. “We know what you mean.” Cantor looked up, and the navy maned stallion shot him a reassuring wink with his kind green eye.

“Thanks…” Replied Cantor with a sheepish little laugh and a slight head dip.

“Please continue, Cantor.” Test Tube insisted, bearing his most placid smile.

Without saying another word on the matter, Cantor quickly turned back to the board. “Frequencies are wavelengths.” He didn’t even need to turn around to feel the lost faces burning into him. “Wavelengths are… well, the length of a wave – like a radio wave.” Cantor explained, drawing another wavy line between the two walkie-talkies. “Let’s say this radio wave has a wavelength of… uhhh… ten metres.” He continued, editing his design to show this information. “And let’s say the frequency is… fifty Herts.” He drew a small ‘50Hz’ below the wave. “Don’t ask me why frequency is measured in Hertz, it’s just named after the guy who studied this kind of stuff.” The alicorn said, shaking his head dismissively at the black board.

“Basically, if this walkie-talkie broadcasts a frequency of fifty Hertz, and this one is programmed to receive a frequency of fifty Hertz, then whatever somepony says into either walkie-talkie, the other one will pick up and replicate what has been said!” Explained Cantor, his tone becoming more and more excited as he realised he was making sense with himself.

“That’s…” Started Globe Trotter, frowning down at the heavily varnished table. “Incredible!” She cried in an almost sensual tone. “Would this really work?” The mare asked, leaning in towards Cantor, nearly knocking her glass half full of water over as she did so, her dark, intelligent eyes sparkled with a little wonderment.

“Yes.” Cantor answered, nodding his head and smiling with pride and a strong sense of accomplishment. “In fact, with all the technology and equipment I don’t understand on board that ship, I‘m surprised you guys haven’t come up with something like this already.”

“Ta be honest…” Chester began, whipping his light green mane to the side as he spoke to clear his vision. “We ‘ain’t really looked into the subject, but with this information you’ve given us; how much it would benefit this entire operation, we’ll definitely git you guys some of these for your expedition.” He said with a cheery as always grin, instilling confidence and kinship in Cantor’s eyes.

“Ah, that reminds me.” Celestia hastily spoke, rising to her hooves and stepping aside, the movement quickly followed by her sister. “Let us pay a visit to your crew.” She spoke, opening the door with her magic – a rare feat to see the princess (especially Celestia) doing something for herself. Not that her habitual ways were a problem, far the opposite in fact, and it wasn’t the fact that she was lazy, not at all, just the sight of Celestia simply open a door for herself made a couple of the ponies present frown briefly. But they thought nothing of it, or at least, they didn’t bother making a mental note of this uncommon sight.

“My… crew?” Cantor asked, following Celestia around the table, past the perishing plant and up to her side before she left the white walled room to step out into the bright blue vastness of the engineering shaft.

“That’s right, Cantor.” The solar princess replied, halting herself and turning to face her smaller subject. “A unique team of eight ponies who are specialists in their own field of work: better than anypony else could ever hope to become.” She turned her gaze skyward, rather, ceiling-ward as she recollected the eight ponies in her head. “There are two paramedics, two scribes, three mercenaries, highly trained in martial arts and relentlessly brave.” She frowned and looked back towards Cantor, who was vaguely listening as she continued, not harbouring an expression of thoughtfulness or remembrance, rather, this particular frown depicted malice concern. “And Faith.” Celestia added, her tone troubled and aphoristic.

“Faith?” Asked Cantor, tilting his head and cocking an eyebrow; the sudden change of atmosphere radiating from the princess captivating his attention. “Who’s that?”

Celestia discovered herself to be short of words. “I… she…” The princess stumbled, her speech tripping over the awesome facts within her brain. “I’ll explain later.” Celestia said, clocking the nosy scientists who were all listening to the conversation adamantly, their ears raised and their eyes perfectly still.

Clearing her throat in an attempt to return a sense of hierarchy to the room, Celestia spoke up again towards the three lab coats. “I trust I can allow you to study these… talking devices Cantor spoke of?” She asked with a smile.

“Of course, your highness.” Test Tube spoke up. Out of the three scientists, he appeared to be in charge, and it was also apparent that he liked it that way. “We’ll get right onto it and could maybe have a prototype ready in… one week.” He replied, his muddy brown eyes scanning the white mare’s form.

“Wonderful.” Celestia simply replied with a content nod. “Carry on, then.” And with that being said, she left, practicing her decorum until she was outside of the room.

“Yes, your majesty.” Test Tube called from inside the room. “Have a pleasant day.” He added, smiling rather contingently.

“Thank you.” Came the regal mare’s reply from outside. “You too.”

Cantor waited for Luna to pass through the door and give her farewell before he turned back to the now larger seeming office and bid good afternoon to his three new acquaintances before he too joined the two celestial mares on the long metal scaffolding that stretched along the side of the wall overlooking the huge space craft. Before he could get too much of an eyeful of the spectacular vehicle, Celestia pulled him back from fantasy.

“Why don’t we take a look at some of the weapons you will be equipped with on your trip?” Celestia proposed, stopping a little less instantly than Cantor did. Craning her head around, she discovered that the stallion appeared a little less than amused.

“Weapons?” He asked with a heavy, scowling frown. “As in… bullets? Guns?” The princess nodded slowly. Then and there, he began to doubt Celestia, question her intentions. He had stressed how much he would hate to see any kind of firearm in Equestria, and now the princess had completely gone against his will and created high-velocity death behind his back. Needless to say, he wasn’t impressed, yet when he stressed his displeasure towards the subject, Celestia had shown the utmost maturity and concern towards Cantor’s queries, quelling the stallion’s accusations to some extent, yet he made it blindingly obvious that he wasn’t the least bit happy about her plans.

“If anything…” Cantor began as the three alicorns continued along their path. “And I mean anything goes wrong-“

“I assure you, everything is fine.” Celestia interrupted as they neared an enormous steel door, a foot thick, and guarded by two masked individuals, their coats and the upper part of their tails wrapped in tight black leather. Cantor looked up at her and burned an evil, hateful glare into her mind with his incinerating amber eyes. At first, Celestia was tempted to back down, but finding her own reason to call about her authority, she spat back at Cantor as harshly as he was staring at her. “Don’t you dare look at me like that.”

Pure hatred flashed across the stallion’s face for a second, wracking Celestia’s body with a painful, icy chill before every ounce of the male alicorn’s anger depleated as hydraulics lifted the immensely heavy door from it’s setting in the floor with a whisperous hiss, granting the three ponies access to a higher level of the facility.

“I’m sorry, princess…” Cantor muttered, obviously mentally kicking himself for being so ruthlessly atrocious. Unable to find the words to justify himself, Cantor merely repeated his apology. “I’m so sorry… I… I don’t know what came over me…” He applied great pressure to his right eye with the base of his hoof, in a fashion as if he were trying to quell a migraine.

“It’s fine, my child.” Celestia replied, stepping from the metal grate of a floor onto the hard enamel coated concrete walkway illuminated by dingy green lights, the walls nearly bare except for signs and jet black arrows at corners, directing ponies to places they really should know their way to. The regal alicorn shared a frail chuckle with herself as she added: “We aren’t going to have any more negativity today, however, are we?”

Trying with all his might to say “No”, Cantor couldn’t win the battle between a new, darker presence within his own mind. “…We’ll see…” He grumbled under his breath. At least, the words came from the stallion’s mouth, even if he did not fully mean them.

At this notion, Celestia remained as silent as the dead, even controlling her breathing. She wouldn’t dare risk provoking Cantor again, and for what she had already done to him, Celestia figured that the male deity needed some rest from his darker side. Braving a sticky swallow, Celestia took a breath to say something else, yet stopped dead in her tracks when Cantor spoke next.

“Hey, thanks for getting me out of there before I had to explain how rainbows aren’t only made with that plasma stuff again…” Cantor spoke, smiling softly to himself as he quickly paced along by the princesses’ side.

Celestia and Luna exchanged puzzled, and maybe even frightened glances before the white one chose to speak next. “What… What do you mean, Cantor?” She asked, her pearlescent mane seeming to flow more slowly out in front of her all of a sudden.

“Don’t worry.” Cantor replied, his smile fading into obscurity behind an unreadable face. “Even I don’t understand.” He had a brief and deathly quiet chuckle with himself before returning to his solemn pacing.

Celestia didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think, even what to feel. All she knew, was that something inside her friend had snapped: made him different, and the omniscient mare had an awful feeling that she knew what it was. She decided to remain silent, after all, saying nothing was the way to ensure she said nothing wrong. That was the right attitude… Wasn’t it? She decided to force the irk thoughts to the back of her mind, and focus on what had happened to her friend, rather, why whatever had happened had indeed happened. Strange how Cantor could go from completely placid and friendly to seething, despicable hatred and back again in an instant nowadays…

…It was as if he were two different ponies…

“Twelve gauge, semi-automatic, wide burst angle, high velocity low – recoil light combat buckshot gun.” Spoke a musky cream stallion with dark green hair, casting his overbearing shadow over Cantor, the eighteen year old alicorn.

“Oh, god…” Cantor whimpered in response.

“With laser sights.” The stallion added, adjusting his eye patch a smidgen before giving a chesty cough into his hoof and raising himself up in front of Cantor so that his face was silhouetted by the blazing afternoon sun. “What do you think?” He asked as the female scientist, wearing some kind of telescopic mask finished strapping the curious piece of metal to his right foreleg and poking a thick needle with a small light at the tip into the alicorn’s shoulder blade. Cantor winced a little, but then cried out in pain as an explosive delta of needles unfurled from the original needle, penetrating deep inside his flesh and probing into his nerves.

“Well, I…” Cantor spoke slowly, rolling his leg around in it’s socket to try and assert the mild scraping pain his bones felt whenever he moved. “I… I think that…” He continued before he was interrupted by the rather large and imposing stallion.

“Give it a try.” He said, smiling something other than happily down at Cantor where he rested on his haunches, the deep scar over his cheek contorting as he did so. “Then you can tell us what you really think.” His smile suggested pride in his work, whereas his chilling lilac eye told a different tale. “All you have to do is tense your leg and the weapon will fire.”

Cantor rose to his hooves, keeping an eerie type of eye-contact with the ruggedly built pony’s one good eye. He now stood outside after following Celestia a very long way down a ridiculously long hallway into some kind of courtyard that overlooked a wide expanse of brush land. As far as Cantor knew, there were no fields of this type anywhere near Canterlot, and so was forced to assume that they were far, far away from the city now. Three of the courtyard’s light brown walls were chiselled into the mountainside, forming an enormous box of rock and stone, the only entry point, a small opening to the excruciatingly endless corridor at the rear. The floor was thick with dust and felt surprisingly comfortable despite the mental pressure it’s whereabouts instilled into it’s visitors.

Celestia and Luna stood behind Cantor and observed along with several more soldiers as the deadly piece of engineering was strapped to his leg. The ten or so soldiers who populated the area were of a higher discipline and skill level than that of the guards one would expect to see around Canterlot castle. Whereas the gold-clad pegasi were merely there for intimidation and décor, these soldiers stood around the alicorn stallion were massively built, each one fully capable of snapping a tree in two and their muscles bulged out from beneath their pelts. You could be forgiven for thinking that one of the stallions present was Big Macintosh: they had the correct build, though in a line up, the huge red farm colt would appear larger, just.

Without dwelling on thoughts about the rugged stallions around him burning his soul with their trained, experienced eyes, Cantor outstretched his arm, now heavy with an extra five kilos of metal wrapped around it and began to get to grips with his supplier of death. The gun felt strange: cold, dense, but at the same time, half the weight it appeared to be from looks alone. There were two large rings at either end of the weapon which fit snugly around the stallion’s leg and another two leather straps which fastened the weapon tight. A long muzzle stretched along the top of the gun and came to an abrupt stop just before Cantor’s hoof, where an inch or so down from the end, a much smaller, thinner piece of metal dowel with a miniscule bulb shot a perfectly straight line of red to wherever Cantor aimed. To aid in accuracy, there was also a little hoop of metal which framed a glass semi-circle with a luminous red dot in the centre. There was an entrance to the chamber of the gun, where ten blood red shells were somehow stored inside, cocked, and ready to fire.

A sturdy control panel resided in the corner of the clearing, seeming to want to become detached from the rest of the ponies there. A young mare, tightly dressed in black, wearing the same uniform as the one who had attached Cantor’s buckshot gun made her way a little less than hastily over to the panel of switches, levers and buttons. Along the left side of the box atop the thin metal podium lay a plethora of tiny red buttons, to the right, there were many, many silver switches and a large red handle with no words to refer to what it's purpose was. As well as a few larger buttons of various colours unlike the ones on the right.

The mare prodded the tip of her hoof onto three of the starfeild of miniscule red buttons, and each lit up bright orange. She then proceeded to tug on the large handle on the device and three wooden cut-outs of ponies rose up from slits in the floor at the edge of the cliff face with a dull electrical hum and juddered to a halt, swaying slightly despite the absence of wind.

“What’s this?” Asked Cantor, holding the gun to the floor as he stood, turning to face Celestia with a bewildered and shocked expression. Luna, who stood intimately close to her sister scooted a little closer, frightful of Cantor’s expression as much as Celestia was beginning to become.

The white princess shuffled nervously in her golden shoes and found it difficult to shift her eyes away from Cantor’s red hot stare. “Um…” She began, speaking a lot quieter than usual. “This- this is a… t- target practice exercise, Cantor.” She said, scared as to what the stallion might say or do next. Hopefully her other subjects wouldn’t pick up on this, however her frightful dialect rang loud and clear through the entire mountainside, and everypony there darted their heads between the two alicorns as they each took a turn to speak.

“But…” Cantor said, peeking at the targets behind him. “Why are the targets ponies?” He turned back to Celestia, his eyes showing an acute sense of sadness and disappointment.

If not before, now princess Celestia appeared mortified. Unable to stop herself, she spoke the words she was trying to hold down, but the white stallion in front of her, with his chillingly hot eyes of fire, forced the lethal sentence from her lips. “So we will know what would be a ‘kill-shot’.” Immediately after saying this, her eyes turned to the size of saucers and she stuffed a hoof into her mouth. Her slightly nervous frown turned upside down in complete and absolute terror as Cantor’s lips curled into the most morbid of smiles.

Shaking his head, and closing his eyes seemingly peacefully, Cantor turned around so that he was facing away from the princess. “No…” He said. “No, no, no…”

“What’s wrong?” Celestia all but whimpered, her fear now unmistakeable as she pulled her sister close with her wing.

“Nothing’s wrong, princess…” Cantor replied in a voice that was nearly demonic, stepping ever closer towards the wooden targets of ponies. “I just think it’s… such a pity to see perfectly good wood go to waste.” He spoke slowly, alluringly, tempting the devil with his tone. “Perfectly good wood which could go to making…” He pouted as he thought, though the only ones who could see his face were the blank pieces of MDF staring back. “…Tables… Chairs… Cabinets…” His face fell from an eerily cheery to that of a grim scowl as he finished. “…Or… Coffins…”

Luna felt her sister’s wing tense around her small, slender body. Peering up with needy eyes, all she saw in her larger sister’s face was unrivalled dread. “Why waste perfectly good wood to see what shot is how - you - so - quaintly - put it: a… ‘kill… shot’…” Cantor continued, spitting his words, caressing the thin face of the wooden pony in the centre of the three before he turned about himself swiftly, raising his gargantuan wings above his head and high into the air, extending his right foreleg towards Celestia so that a small red dot appeared dead in-between her eyes.

Everypony present (except for the lifeless dead trees) gasped in the utmost exasperation, and all who were wearing a weapon of their own thrust it towards Cantor. In an instant, the white stallion’s body grew ablaze with red points of light, trembling ever so slightly, the situation now a show about reactions. “When we can see if the shot will indeed kill?...” Cantor finished, his head twitching once as he spoke.

Celestia pushed Luna away with her wing and sunk to her knees in the dirt, trembling in frightful abhorrence as the laser that would kill her never moved from her face. The dark blue alicorn stepped to the side and observed in horror as her best friend slowly approached her sister, bearing a weapon capable of blasting her head clean off of her shoulders and began to water at the eyes as the impossibly heavy sensation of helplessness consumed her mind.

The once dignified mare who now cowered in the dirt clasped her trembling front hooves together and begged Cantor for sense. “Please.” She whispered frantically, desperately trying to hold back tears of dismay, and failing hard. “Please don’t do this, Cantor, please.” She whimpered, burying her face into her forelegs as her eyes burst with tears.

By now, Cantor was stood directly above Celestia, bearing his steely tool of treason. “Why did you make the targets ponies!?” Cantor growled through clenched teeth.

“I- I thought…” Celestia sobbed into her front legs, trembling like a tiny leaf in a hurricane. “I thought… it would be-“

“Thought it would be WHAT!?” Cantor roared, forcing the muzzle of the gun under the princess’ head and turning her face to his, using the weapon like a crowbar. “Did you think I would like to shoot at ponies for practice!? Kill the things I love for FUN!?”

Celestia sucked in a breath, and building her courage, managed to force her majestic, intelligent, vital words from her lips. “Huh!” She gasped a breath. “Isn’t that what you’re doing now?” She encroached in a voice as trembling as her body, staring straight into that stallion’s troubled eyes past the long tube of metal he was pressing into her forehead, wordlessly pleading for sanity, but with Cantor's next words, she knew that she had won.

Cantor let out a gasp that sounded as if something invisible had just torn itself from his body. He stumbled backwards breathlessly and slowly turned his eyes downwards towards his foreleg, which was now trembling in a manner such as Celestia’s entire being was. “I…” He gasped, his words ragged stabs which caught in his throat. “I’m… so... sorry…” Gritting his teeth, the stallion slashed his head in a wide ark as his horn flared violet. Time stood still for a fleeting moment, then the straps and loops of metal binding the buckshot gun to Cantor’s arm fell apart and slid to the floor, landing with a dampened clunk in the dust. He bit his bottom lip and tears could be seen forming in his eyes as lashings of blood began to seep from a huge gash running the length of his leg where he had sliced the vile, corrupting device from.

“Lower your weapons.” Ordered the beige earth pony, only now getting over the initial shock of the incident. When none of the soldiers complied, he grew something more than agitated. “Drop your weapons, NOW!” He yelled, and a smattering of mutters and nervous coughs reverberated through the mountain as the lasers slowly trailed from Cantor’s body to the floor. The one-eyed stallion turned to the heavily bleeding alicorn and started furiously. “What the hell is wrong with-“

Cantor held up a hoof, therefore silencing a pony three times his weight made of pure muscle. Without making eye contact, merely grimacing over his shoulder, face stricken with pain, none at all physical, focusing on Celestia, who was now resting on her knees, tears still stained upon her cheeks, yet she was able to make coherent eye contact. “Don’t follow me.” He ordered in a hurt, and forbidding tone. And with that, he fizzled away from existence, leaving a scattering of purple and white sparks skipping around in the dust where his hooves once were, along with a tiny pool of blood.

A deadly silence pressed itself over the mountain and the refreshing breeze stopped as if Cantor were the only one keeping it alive, and with his parting, the elements had left with him. Helping her sister upward, Luna probed the solar princess for guidance, and maybe a little reassurance. “I want to go after him, sister.” Luna declared, receiving a foreboding stare from Celestia, her worry evident even past the idle tears.

“Are you quite sure that is wise?” The white mare queried, her brow folded into a concerned frown.

“Tia…” Luna started, completely diminishing the presence of the ponies around her. “You know as well as I do that he would have never done anything to hurt you.” She affirmed with a confident nod.

Celestia merely agreed with a nod of her own. “Correct.” She softly and slowly said. “But he hasn’t been himself at all lately.”

“I know.” Luna admitted, furrowing her brow at the floor momentarily, as if it had done something wrong. “I know it’s him, but…” She broke off, telling this to herself more than anypony else. “…It’s as if he’s two different ponies.”

The Everfree Forest, as always, was dark, dingy and damp - an ambience that was far the opposite to relaxing came in the form of groaning, scratching, and long, distant roars. The branches of the Trappery trees hung low, thick blue vines bore inedible fruit to those who valued their sanity. There lay a clearing upon the forest floor, overlooking a vast lake with a mirror-like appearance, the other side of the expanse of water invisible past the dense clouds of fog which saturated the area, effectively soaking anything and everything it touched until nothing was left dry and warm in this ill forest. Crickets chirped loudly every now and then, usually, one would start the swarm of whistles and screeches off until the air was ablaze with painless screaming, and then, it would die back down, re-alerting a lone white alicorn to the horrors which plagued this land.

He overlooked the perfectly still water after running his stare along his fixed foreleg. The blood, as well as the self-inflicted, (self deserved) laceration had been rid from his body, and now everything appeared in order. Everything except the young stallion’s mind. His head was ablaze with thoughts and accusations which didn't strictly make sense. The intense amount of regret was almost audible within his conscience, but maybe it was just the crickets, or the baying manticores some miles away.

“What the hell did you do?” He asked his reflection, and oddly enough, yet as no huge surprise, his reflection replied.

“It is not so much as what I have done, rather, what it is that you have done…” Cantor’s image replied, his voice gruff and intimidating. “You’re the one who pulled a gun on the princess, somepony you regard as your own mother.”

“But I didn’t mean to!” Cantor argued back, waving his still rather sore foreleg about in the fog before he returned it under his stomach and leaned forward from where he lay for a better view. “At least… I didn’t want to…”

“Why the fuck not?” The reflection spat, his evil grin making up for his lack of volume. “You never loved your real mother, so why should you love Celestia?”

“Because she’s the only one who loved me back!” Cantor snapped, forcing himself to turn away momentarily. “She’s the one who taught me what love could mean; she’s the one who showed Twilight to me.”

“And you thank her by threatening to blow her brains out?”

“No, I didn’t!” The physical alicorn cried, returning his head back to the reflection which stared evilly back up at him in the water. “It was an accident. Given the choice, I’d rather blow my own brains out than Celestia’s.” He sighed, tracing small circles in the moist ground with his hoof. “I just don’t know what came over me…”

“Oh, really?” The apparition of the stallion asked, raising an eyebrow as he talked. “Are you sure?” It asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you sure that you don’t just hate Celestia?”

“N- No… Of course I don’t…”

“You don’t want to see her live if you have to exploit yourself for her own selfish desires?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Maybe you hate Twilight Sparkle even more?” The voice asked demonically, obviously trying to snatch the better of Cantor. "Maybe you wanted to indirectly attack her by killing her mentor - and oldest friend."

“Definitely not.” Answered Cantor swiftly, glaring at his reflection. “Yow could you even propose something like that? I love Twilight more than you could ever know, and nothing you say is going to change that!” He ended up shouting, smiling despite himself, feeling much more within his own mind with his thoughts orientated around the mare he loved.

“What a load of shit.” The reflection spitefully spat, stirring feelings of anger within Cantor.

The alicorn grimaced and scowled with the deepest of hatred towards his imposing reflection. “Hey, shut up!” He barked fiercely. “You don’t know me; you can’t tell me how to live my life!” Cantor stood to attention, bearing over the lake whilst still yelling at his grinning reflection. “Now… Fuck off and leave me alone!” He punched the water, eviscerating the reflection in a flurry of waves and water. The water ‘splooshed’ loudly, and the sound echoed across the enormous expanse as large ripples followed, corrupting the dead flat finish the pool held and replacing it with massive arcing ripples, only noticeable by the shadows they were creating in the absence of light before they slowly disappeared from what might as well have been existence under the thick blanket of fog.

Cantor sobbed, and a tear rolled the length of his face and paused on his chin for a fleeting moment before being washed away into the waters below his hooves. “I’m sorry, princess…” He muttered, not hating himself, nor pitying his awful outbreak, rather, all he wanted to do now was make everything alright. “I’m so, so-“

A rustling caught his ear and he spun around to see where the sound was coming from. Directly behind him, the leaves on the bushes were shaking noisily as something black pushed it’s way through. The entire length of Cantor’s horn flared violet and he braced himself for whatever foul, hideous being would emerge, ready to tear it to shreds if it grew to close. After what seemed like an eternity of hissing leaves and snapping twigs, the figure emerged, it’s body scratched by the probing branches, it’s mane scattered with leaves and it’s wings scruffy, feathers all out of place.

“Princess Luna?” Cantor asked in semi-disbelief, his horn fading until it radiated nothing at all.

The alicorn mare merely cleared the bushes, allowing the huge leaves to clash back together behind her and stared meekly at Cantor, keeping her distance, just in case the stallion was still not himself. She appeared to be in distress, yet not all too exasperated; as if she were frightened, but still had some sense of courage within her profound eyes and reserved physique.

“What are you doing here?” Cantor asked, his eyes reflecting something such as an appeasement of his confusion and distress .

The princess took a step closer, keeping an air of cautiousness around her. “I followed you.” She said, her voice like a guardian angel, protecting the stallion from harming himself further. “I know you said not to. I’m sorry for that, but I couldn’t just let you leave – I’m sorry… And even though you teleported away, I knew you’d be here…” She softly spoke, edging closer still. Cantor merely observed her approach until she was only a few feet away. Both ponies stood perfectly still for a moment, waiting for the other to speak. They both knew what was coming, but Luna knew she would never get answers from Cantor unless she asked questions. “What happened, Cantor?...” She asked, breathing the words with disappointment, her slow shakes of her head made the stallion feel awful; not only had he threatened, scared and felt hatred towards Celestia, but more seriously than that: Luna had lost faith in him, something neither of them would have ever thought could happen.

“I don’t know…” Cantor sighed, finding nothing else to say to justify his actions even slightly. Small tears formed in both corners of his eyes. “I just… ahh…” He sighed, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders, turning around and falling to his haunches, overlooking the water. “I just lost… Something. I didn’t loose control like before; I knew exactly what I was doing, but…” He turned to his left, to where Luna now sat, staring deeply into his eyes, piercing his soul and scanning his thoughts with her lustrous green-blue eyes. “…A part of me – something that isn’t me, but is inside me…” His eyes became huge and the original tears fell down his cheeks. “I really wanted to pull the trigger back then, Luna…” He finished quite darkly, his face showing not so much as a slither of emotion, despite his crying.

The princess’ eyes fell to the moist ground for a moment in a few seconds of intense contemplation. When she looked back up, she wore a seldom seen expression of earnest upon her face. “This lake, Cantor…” She began, nodding to the water, which had now returned to the crystalline surface it held previously. “The waters show us what we fear the most. I’ve come here many, many times whenever I’ve felt as cripplingly down as you do right now.” She turned to Cantor, her usually carefree eyes fraught with a grim truth. “Every time I come here I see the same face looking back at me.” She peered over the water’s edge, seeing a jet black mare with lizard green eyes and sky blue armour staring back. Expecting the inevitable, the princess merely turned away, trying to block out her past.

“What we fear the most is not always monsters, ghouls and pain.” Luna clarified, her mane depicting the night sky wafting dozily in front of her face. “The thing that we fear the most is hurting the ones closest to us. No matter how much they can make us hate them, we would never want to see them in harm’s way. Even now, several years after my return to Equestria after a thousand years of festering hate, heartbreaking loneliness and an unjustifiable act, I still regret ever turning my back on my sister.”

She shuffled closer to Cantor and lied down with him, resting her head on his neck as she poured her heart out to somepony she trusted even more than her own sister. “I hated her…” She said. Cantor could feel her head shaking against his neck. “I hated my sister so much. I wanted her dead, I never wanted to see her ever again. Ever…” Luna choked on her words, as a little of the torturous pain seeped back from her many overbearing memories. “But when that became reality, I… I took it all back in an instant… Every second, for every day, for all of those thousand years, I didn’t hate Celestia, I didn’t hate the sun, nor did I hate the world I was excluded from.” The princess craned her neck around so that she had Cantor locked in a touching emotional embrace, their hearts colliding in their gaze. “I hated myself.” She finished, her eyes streaming with incomprehensive pain and agony which could never make up for her thousand years worth of hurt.

Cantor put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight. It was the best he could do to offer comfort at a time like this. He could tell that Luna was hurting, (who wouldn’t be?) but the worst part of it all was that he had no Idea what to say to cheer her up; this whole episode had spouted because of him, and nothing he could say or do could make up for it. “You have no idea what it’s like.” Luna sniffled over Cantor’s shoulder, tears streaming from closed eyes. “When somepony says to you: ‘A thousand years’, you know that’s a long time.” She continued, tightening her grip around the stallion. Cantor did something he’d always wanted to: to feel one of the princesses’ enchanted, flowing manes. He gently smoothed his hoof over Luna’s neck, in a strange way becoming enthralled by the fluidic sensation of weightless water which ran through every shimmering strand.

“A thousand years…” She muttered, now less pained, rather, she was simply talking, now finally having someone to talk to. More specifically, someone who was willing to listen. “Sometimes it’s easy to loose track of time; become unaware as to what’s important in life because you’re so happy, so content that everything is going perfectly. But when you’re secluded from the only pony you can call family, when you don’t even have a pet to talk to, you feel every single second like a stab straight through the heart.” She pulled back once again to look Cantor in the eyes, tears stained on her cheeks, but she had stopped crying. “It’s a fate worse than death; no matter what anypony has done, no matter what malicious atrocities they have committed, no one deserves to go through what I went through… No one.”

“I’m sorry, Luna.” Cantor sighed, his voice reflecting despair. “I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like.” The princess’ speech had stirred up his emotions, and now he had forgotten why he had ever lashed out at Celestia. Again, he had unearthed the regret in his heart, but now he was reminded exactly why he had befriended Celestia in the first place, and the traits she possessed that made her perfect.

“No.” Luna replied sternly, frowning up at the stallion, his eyes widening with surprise. “I don’t want you to confide with me. I want you to promise me that something like that will never happen to you.” She affirmed, the fire of Cantor's eyes burning within her own as she spoke with the utmost empowerment.

“Okay, Luna.” Cantor replied with a firm nod of agreement. “I promise. No more violence, no more harsh thoughts. From now on, I’m gonna be the old Cantor; the one everypony loves.” He smiled, a kind of smile that showed he cared a great deal about the matter at hoof, and that he had resolved it. With himself, and metaphorically, with Celestia too. "Whatever is making me feel so angry all of a sudden, whatever makes me want to hate my friends, I can keep it locked away." His grin rotated slightly into a smirk. "Mental strength has always been one of my strong points, among other things, like... good looks... creativity... my... natural suavé charm... and, of course... modesty..."

“Perfect." Said Luna cheerily, sharing a little giggle with herself. "It’s great to have the old you back.” She affirmed, her happy smile and sparkling eyes more than content in the indistinctly resolved situation.

Although Cantor’s smile quickly faded, he was still a long way from upset as he re-evaluated his previous memories. “I guess I owe someone an apology…” He muttered, turning to Luna as she nodded her head rapidly in agreement. “Welp…” He grunted, climbing to his hooves and taking a stance to the blue princess’ side as she herself stood. “No time like the present. Come on, Luna!” Quipped the alicorn, grinning foalishly towards the princess, who met his stare with a dumbfounded expression.

“Wh- what do you mean?” She returned, standing stiffly next to Cantor as he encircled her, shooting anticipatory looks her way.

After a lap of the mare, Cantor paused directly in front of her, staring into her eyes with a lopsided grin. “How far away from Canterlot are we now?” He asked. Luna merely stared.

“Uh, we- I don’t know…” She stammered, her eyes flitting about, making rough estimations in her mind. “About… three hundred miles… Why?”

“Have you ever teleported that far in an instant?” Cantor encroached, taking a step closer to Luna, obviously trying to be impressive in a cocky, light-hearted manner.

“No.” The princess replied sharply, her eyes widening a little. “I mean, I probably could, if I tried, but… I don’t… That kind of magic… I-“ Cantor’s hoof came down onto her shoulder and the princess silenced, but it was not the surprise contact that quietened the mare, rather, it was the flash of light and the sound of a strike of thunder which made Luna halt her sentence and tense up from the unexpected sensation of weightlessness.

The pair were instantaneously transported across the few hundred miles of Equestria to Canterlot - the shooting range far away from the castle, to be exact. The dark blue princess barely had time to gasp before her surroundings were changed from the dingy musk of the forest to the blazing sun of the pony-made canyon.

“Now you have.” Cantor quipped cockily, raising his eyebrow to seem as though he was highly impressed with himself. Probably because he was, even though he hated to admit it. But this fact could be debated later.

“Hold it right there!” That gruff voice belonging to the beige stallion with the eye patch cried out from somewhere behind Cantor. Upon turning away from the furiously blinking Luna, who was trying to adapt to the sudden and intense change in light, getting nowhere fast, Cantor saw that everypony who was there before was pretty much in the same position as they were before. However, now they all had their guns pointing towards Cantor again, his body laced with a dozen red dots. Princess Celestia was resting on her haunches at the far wall. Her panic and oppression had long since left her, but she still looked a little shaken.

Desisting in doing anything other than standing up, Celestia shot an icy stare at Cantor, unwilling to provoke him further, yet doing her best to hold her ground.

“Look, princess…” Cantor started, taking several steps closer to the alicorn, completely oblivious to the many marks of death scattered across his body. “I don’t know what’s going on; why I feel so angry all the time lately, but whatever it is, I think it’s going to be alright from now on.” He gave a little smile of encouragement, which Celestia returned weakly whilst signalling for the other ponies to lower their guns. As the lasers dropped, Celestia’s smile broadened and she made up the distance between her and Cantor rather hastily, flinging her long forelegs around him when they met in an 'all too personal for royalty' embrace.

“Don’t worry, Cantor.” The princess said over the stallion’s shoulder in a voice just above a whisper directly next to his ear. “It’s not your fault you feel this way.”

“What?” Cantor replied, his voice somewhat of a whisper as well. “What do you mean?”

“Do you remember the Peripharous crystal?” She asked in her reverent tone.

“How could I not?” Said Cantor in response, cringing a little as he did so.

“Well because you…” She hushed her voice down to barely audible for the next word before returning to her previous dialect. “Because you let your darker side control you, a lot of that negative energy has been forced into the crystal, therefore making you incredibly violent and spiteful towards others since you came into direct contact with it.” Her head became heavier upon Cantor’s shoulder as she continued. “No normal pony can handle the crystal; we had to… put a scientist down because he attempted to murder his fellow lab partners with medical equipment after touching the stone. Even ponies who have meerly seen the crystal have been reported as 'uncharacteristically violent'...”

“Oh….” Cantor sighed downheartedly. “I’m sorry, princess.” He replied with the deepest sense of regret.

“Why in Equestria are you sorry?” Celestia said back, her voice a little louder and more cheerful than before, arousing an ill feeling within her own mind for changing her mood so effortlessly – especially after what she had just said. “I've said it before: if anypony is at fault here, it is me.”

“But I’m the one who lashed out at you for doing your job.” Cantor argued back.

“Well,” Said Celestia with a little chuckle. “Let’s say that we are both to blame for our actions.” She laughed, oblivious to the depth of her words, as she often was.

Cantor laughed a little too, and slid away from the princess, landing in the dust which formed a small cloud around his hooves before slowly dissipating into the air.

With a cumbersome smile of gratitude and peace, the tall, regal mare turned to address her subjects, who had become conspicuous towards the pair’s more than lengthy embrace. “Alright, everypony:” She began, her powerful voice carrying effortlessly across the large group. “We all got off to a very bad start, and this pony-“ She said, motioning a hoof towards Cantor, her golden shoe catching the sun and gleaming gorgeously. “Is an asset to the world, one of the kindest, bravest and friendliest ponies I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and seeing him act the way he did today made me far more upset than scared. You see, knowing Cantor, seeing what he has done, you can’t ever expect something like this to happen. And even though he lashed out like he did, I know it was because he truly cared.” A hubbub of murmurs and confused voices rose up briefly from the ‘crowd’, yet an undisclosed “Shhh!” Silenced them again.

“Cantor merely acted like he did because he has told me how much he was opposed to seeing firearms in Equestria after these types of weapons fuelled so much war in his… Where he’s from…“ Celestia corrected herself, already thinking that she may have said too much. The soldiers around her right now probably would not believe that Cantor was from a different world, let alone a different universe. The story would be regarded as a rumour among the entire base, and disregarded as such. But if the ponies believed her, then, who knows? Maybe they would find some kind of respect for Cantor, or maybe he would be exiled for being different. Who knows? Though whatever would happen, be that good or bad, princess Celestia didn't want to take any chances.

“Where Cantor is from,” The princess continued with her lecture, all eyes upon her. Behind Celestia, princess Luna came to stand by Cantor’s side, listening to her sister’s explanations as adamantly as every other pony there. “There is much war, so much so, that the idea of war in a place like Equestria is so daunting to him that he lashes out at anything that could be used to harm his fellow ponies. But one thing you must realise, Cantor,” Spoke Celestia in a dire tone, turning to face the alicorn beside her sister. “is that ponies… don’t fight other ponies.” She said blatantly, giving her best smile of encouragement. “It is undeniable that there is violence in Equestria between ponies, but nothing like war… These guns…” Celestia sighed, gesturing to an idle weapon perched on a small slab of stone, exactly the same model as the one Cantor had first been introduced to. “Only if used in the wrong hooves can create grief. I doubt I need to tell you, Cantor, that not everything on this good planet enjoys the fact that ponies are the dominant species, and some even try to show their hatred through violence. The weaponry you see here today has never been used in combat, but if the awful atrocity of war rises to become reality, then it will be. It will be used to protect your friends, your lover, and now, it seems, to protect your children as well.”

The solar princess finished slightly out of breath, even trembling a little. Cantor scuffed the floor, kicking up a small cloud of dust that lingered in the air for a moment before resettling. “I…” Cantor said before a heavy sigh of acceptance. “Okay, princess. I see your point and… I’m sorry I scared you, and I promise it won’t happen again.”

For the first time in a long while, Cantor bowed with overbearing respect and forgiveness before Celestia, who returned the welcome gesture with a cordial smile and a trustworthy wink.

“Wonderful.” Celestia said, her voice returning to what could be considered normal after all the deep rooted information she had just explained. “Now, I don’t suppose you would perhaps want to…”

“Give it another go?” Cantor finished her sentence for her as she trailed off awkwardly. Celestia breathed a sigh of relief in the light that Cantor was eager to partake. (Or eager in her eyes at least). She nodded towards the shallow podium with the weapon of choice perched atop it, and in practically no time at all, the lethal device was harnessed tightly to Cantor’s right foreleg once more. Whether it was the same mare as before that tethered the gun to him, Cantor didn’t know; all the mares seemed to be behind the scenes at this operation, pushing buttons and pulling levers whilst behind an anonomising mask protruding microscopic lenses with orange caps. Maybe for some kind of light – enhanced visual aid, it was unclear, not to mention irrelevant.

The PVC wrapped pony halted her activities and seemed to be closely examining Cantor’s foreleg, cradling it, stretching it out and running her rubbery hoof along it. “Is… there a problem?” Cantor asked, making the mare judder a little from her trance – like state.

Her voice, muffled from the mask, sounded fair and sweet, much like a familiar yellow pegasus Cantor knew fondly. “There’s no problem, sir…” She affirmed, continuing to caress the stallion’s leg. “It’s just… I though you had a huge gash in your leg…” Her voice, although quiet, easily reflected bewilderment as she slowly shook her head.

Cantor smiled in partial amusement, like one would after a predictable punch line. “Ah, well.” He said in a bemused voice. “You see, it’s interesting: I have this, uhhh… ‘ability’-“

“What’s taking so long over there!?” A distant and foreseeable voice called out. It was the beige stallion, the forest green hair over his brow was matted with sweat, and not entirely because of the desert heat, though the princess' glaring sun didn't help. The faceless mare gave the lower strap one last tug, ensuring it was fastened tight enough to deal with the kickback before scurrying off back to the control panel in the far corner..

Cantor rose to his hooves as the targets, once again, slid slowly from little slits in the stone floor. Taking a stance in the gangway in front of the three pony-shaped cut-outs, Cantor felt a presence by his side, and the warmth that seemed to constantly radiate from-

“Princess Celestia?” Cantor asked, looking the slender mare in her inquisitive indigo eyes, the feel of the shotgun now strangely… natural.

“Yes, my child?” The tall white mare replied, eyeing the pony-shaped pieces of wood, wondering what in Equestria could have gone wrong before.

“Again, I’m sorry for… You know…” Cantor said, allowing his ears to droop a little. “…sorry…”

The white princess gave a light hum of amusement, smiling all the while, dismissing the event from history. “Think nothing of it, Cantor. After all, I am the one who disregarded your feelings…” She responded somewhat light-heartedly.

Cantor continued talking as if Celestia hadn’t said a word, more notably telling himself he was sorry so maybe he would believe it. “I mean… After all…” He said, raising his foreleg with frightful stability, wielding the high powered weapon as if he had done so for years, the red laser point hovering around the top of the wooden pony’s head. “Guns are just… tools, right?”

Cantor tensed his leg, and a vicious bite shot through his body, making him stumble slightly at the sheer unexpected force behind such an anorexic - looking device. The explosion echoed around the mountain for several seconds, and the initial shock had made all three alicorn’s ears ring. The blast from the gun had effortlessly sailed through the inch-thick wood, and had disintegrated the cranium of the target, scattering tiny shards of wood down the chasmous cliff on the other side. The shock wave which carried the pellets the short distance to their target had excited the dust, forming a large cloud that seemed not to want to leave.

After several seconds of high pitched thunder rattling around the crests of the valley's tips, the dust cloud finally settled, revealing the damage done over the course of less than a second. Cantor shook some of the pain from his foreleg before tenderly applying pressure to it and standing on all fours, all the while, never taking his eyes from the damage he had caused. He knew the pony was only wooden, but if it had been real…

“Just dangerous… deadly tools…”