“What is that thing on your head, Steve?”

In the house’s large car garage, Sombra was staring at me. The garage doors were open and the early morning sun had already warmed the floor beneath us. Stored inside the garage were three cars, one Jeep, two motorcycles, two jet skis hitched up to a small trailer, and an old fashioned ice cream truck I’d bought on a whim once. Needless to say, that bad decision was already gathering dust.

“Why are you not answering me?” Sombra asked.

I shook my head. “Sorry. Haven’t been in the garage for a while and forgot all the crap we’ve bought over the years. What was the question again?”

“What’s on your head?”

“What? My hair?”

Sombra grumbled. “No! On top of your hair!”

I yanked off the baseball cap I had on and glanced at it. I rarely watched sports, but had still needed a hat, so I settled on a Red Sox cap. “It’s a hat. And I’m wearing it to try and keep a low profile while we’re in Vegas.”

“Why?”

“Well…” I drew the word out so Sombra could try to put the pieces together himself. Only he never did. “In case you’ve forgotten, Sombra, I’m sort of… well known amongst people. You are too, most likely. Remember our little trip to Equestria? Remember that book I wrote after we got back that affords you all those nice hooficures every other week?”

He glanced away from me. “I thought we agreed never to speak of that.”

“Doesn’t matter. The only good news is that I never included an author’s photo on the back, or did all that many public appearances. You on the other hand…”

Sombra’s upper lip curled. “You’re referring to my appearance on Give Me Money, aren’t you?”

“Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.”

He exhaled sharply. “Whatever. I did fine. Better than fine.”

“No, you didn’t,” I corrected. “You were stumped by the first question and stalled for an entire fifteen minutes. It was barely even a question: what computer company is named after a fruit? What did you pick?”

“How was I to know it would be all Earth-related trivia?” Sombra spat back.

“You picked ‘carrot’! That’s not even a fruit.”

Sombra brought a single well-groomed hoof up to admire. “Didn’t matter in the slightest; like I needed that million anyways.” He paused to look at me. “Still, lose the hat. You’re not a hat human, Steve. Only bald or about-to-be bald humans wear hats. It’s a fact.”

The door leading to the house opened up and Vicky took a step outside to toss out the trash. She gave us both a double-take. “You both still here? Let me guess: still bantering?”

“Maybe,” I answered.

“Yes,” Sombra said.

Vicky didn’t dare add anything more and whirled back into the house.

I slapped my barely touched hat back on. “I don’t care what you say, I’m wearing the hat. Less notoriety that way.”

The moment I set my hat back on, Sombra’s hooves began anxiously tapping against the ground. Soon he started shuffling back and forth. “Steve! Steve!” he yelled. “Where did you go? You were here only a minute ago and now you’re gone! Steve? Steve!?”

He ran all the way to the end of the garage and back (visibly winded on the return trip), colliding with my leg as if I were completely invisible to him.

He leapt up and started pawing at my midsection. “You! Man with hat! You must’ve seen my friend Steve around here, yes? It was only a minute ago that I saw him! In fact, he looks just like you! The only difference is that he doesn’t wear hats! I repeat: he’s completely hatless. I think he might be dead! Or worse… dead and currently being used as a living room throw rug! I just hope they don’t spill coffee or grape juice on him! That’ll never get out!”

I couldn’t believe it. Tears were actually streaming down his face. He’d always been an expert at forming crocodile tears at the drop of a hat. Or… you know what I mean.

“Please! Mr. Hat Man! Help me find Steve before it’s too late and he’s eaten alive by wild hippos! No one thinks it’ll be a gang of hippos until it’s too late! They’re hungry, Mr. Hat Man! Always hungry! And now those hungry, hungry hippos ate my friend Steve and it’s all my fault!”

I had to use one hand to shove him away and another to grab my hat and fling it across the room. “Fine. No hat. Happy now?”

Sombra recoiled from me in alarm. “Wait. The man with the hat was Steve all along? How can this be? What type of sorcery was inside of that hat, Steve? Some cloaking device?”

Hanging my head low, I strolled toward the mouth of the garage. “I get it, Sombra. Joke’s over. A single baseball cap doesn’t make that much of a difference on a person. Got it.”

As Sombra trailed behind me, he finally broke character and burst into a laugh. “And here I almost forgot how much fun it was annoying you. You know, Steve, you could’ve worn the hat. It was only making me jealous, is all. You get a road trip hat while I do not? Preposterous. King Sombra should get everything that’s coming to him. And more.”

I smiled. Since he wants it so bad…

“Ow! Owwwww!” Sombra whined, pulling at the sides of the Yankees hat I’d smashed over his head after getting seated in the car. After a short back-and-forth, I’d decided on the red Corvette to serve as our car. Considering I’d only driven it the once (from the dealer’s to home), it only seemed right to give it another spin. Now I had to make sure I didn’t smash the expensive bastard during the five hours it took to get to Vegas from there. It had been some time since I’d last sat behind a steering wheel.

“My ears, Steve! My ears!”

Always with the damn ears, I thought.

I looked at him in the passenger seat. “But you said you wanted a hat like mine, buddy.”

“Not when its sole purpose is to cause me writhing pain!” He continued to struggle against the hat over his head. Near impossible, it looked, given how his horn had cleanly pierced through its top.

Removing the keys from the ignition, I grumbled like Joe Pesci in Home Alone and pulled the hat off Sombra’s head before stabbing my keys into it. Three sizeable holes later, I handed it back. Now Sombra’s ears and horn stuck through it with ease.

“Better?” I asked.

“Better,” he replied and (someone up above, please help me) he actually looked a bit cute in that moment, like a dog wearing a sweater for some reason, or any animal that didn’t wear clothes normally.

I stuck the keys back where they belonged and flipped open the small notepad I’d brought along. My checklist for the trip. “Got your snacks?”

Sombra opened the glove compartment, currently stuffed with various crackers, chips, cheese, and the like.

“Need to use the bathroom before we go?”

Sombra rolled his eyes. “What am I? A toddler?”

I repeated the question.

Sombra sighed and exited the vehicle, marching into a nearby row of trees to relieve himself. I looked away and tried to recall how much migraine medicine I’d packed in my suitcase.

Sombra reentered the car. I asked him, “Couldn’t use the toilet in the house?”

He smirked. “No squirrels to piss off in the house, Steve. Or should I say… piss on?”

“No, you shouldn’t. And what did I say to you about trying to tell jokes?”

 Shrugging, he crossed both forelegs over his chest. “Can we get a move on already? I brought along some driving tunes if that would make things better.”

“500 Miles?”

“Not exactly.”

“Intestines exposed by violent thrusts… the innards removed, dissecting the guts… to rip through the skin, tissue, and muscle… cartilage shredding, draining blood vessels…”

And here I had no idea Sombra could sing so well. The term ‘sing’ still up for debate.

Like a small hairy child fueled by far too much sugar, Sombra bounced around in his seat and sung along to his tunes. “Cannibal Corpse,” I was happily informed before he started the CD. “I find their lyrics and themes oddly relatable. This one’s called ‘Frantic Disembowelment.’”

Before the merry tune known as ‘Frantic Disembowelment’ were ‘Decency Defiled’, ‘Psychotic Precision,’ and the all-time classic ‘Severed Head Stoning.’ I truly had no idea what was coming next, although the idea of a song titled ‘Shin Hit With Coffee Table’ or ‘You Didn’t Hold The Elevator For Me’ seemed unlikely.

“How many more songs are there on here?” I asked with a grimace.

Sombra stopped his frantic sing-along to settle down for a bit. “Songs? More like CDs, Steve. And… twelve more, I think?” His eyes expanded in a way I didn’t like. “You think they’d let me go on tour with them? I know all their songs by heart! I could… I could even be their mascot one day!”

The notion was oddly tempting: Sombra out of the house and on the road year round. But what were the odds of Cannibal Corpse stuffing their tour bus with an ratty old couch or stepping in front of thousands of fuming fans to announce the arrival of their newest member: a small talking pony with an intense love for cheese in a can?

I decided to change the subject instead.

“Why aren’t you wearing your seatbelt?”

“Hmm?” Sombra spun down the volume dial. “What was that?”

“Seatbelt. Now.” I glared in his direction. “My car. My rules.”

Sombra nodded once. “And what silly rules they are. We crash, so what? I fly through the windshield and splatter spectacularly on the ground and five minutes later I shoot out of that old toaster you keep tucked away in the linen closet.”

“Just because it happened twice doesn’t mean it’ll happen again. And you tend to screw around with reality quite a bit when you die. I’d rather avoid that.”

He said nothing in return; merely cocked his head at me with the faintest of smirks.

“Last time you came back one-third your normal size. Want to come back the size of a Lego brick next time?”

“I’m willing to risk it,” he replied coolly. “Seatbelts are for dorks, anyways.”

I slammed on the brakes and didn’t see what happened next. I definitely heard it, though.

“You imbecile!” Sombra screamed at me from the floor of the car. By the thud and scrape noise, I was sure his horn collided with the dashboard first before the rest of him did. “That hurt!”

“That was the point.” I started driving again, keeping an eye on him.

He sluggishly climbed back to his seat with a scowl. “I’m still not wearing my—”

I slammed on the brakes again, with the exact same result.

Following that, Sombra reluctantly agreed to wear his seatbelt. A minute later, he yelped, “Gas station, Steve! Pull over!”

I shot him a look. “Why? We’ve been on the road less than an hour.”

“For snacks, obviously!”

“I already gave you—” snacks, I was about to say, before glimpsing the mound of plastic wrappers already littering the floor of the car. In all reality, Sombra shouldn’t have been able to eat as much as he did, which led me to believe that he was somehow hollow on the inside, and any food ingested sat in his empty legs before being dissolved by pure hate later on. It would explain a lot, actually.

I was planning on arguing more, but noticed my gas tank near empty. Probably something I should’ve thought about before putting it on the road after so many years of being in storage.

“Fine. But don’t buy anything messy,” I warned him with a single finger wag. “Even if I never drive this car, I still happen to like it quite a bit. That means no meatball subs.”

“Yes, whatever. Understood.” Sombra stuck his head to the glass like some excited puppy. Then he made a loud Ohhhh sound at some fellow travelers standing outside the station, all holding drinks or ice cream cones.

“What was that for?” I asked him.

“Nothing,” he answered, climbing out of the car once I’d parked it alongside one of the pumps.

Four women stood in a row outside the building. I had to lift myself up in my seat to get a good look at the last one in the row, who wasn’t a human at all, but rather a unicorn mare. Sky blue coat with a green-colored mane mixed with streaks of cream. From the distance I couldn’t make out her cutie mark, but around her middle was a purse and around her neck was a thin, cheap-looking necklace.

As I went to the pump to fill up the gas tank, I raised a cautious brow. Had Sombra actually been checking her out? Could he actually be working towards his own goals as well as my own? It seemed too good to be true… because it was exactly that. In my mild excitement, I’d failed to take into full account the shady looking guy leaned against the shadowy side of the building, donned in a coat far too thick and long for Arizona’s ridiculous humidity. Sombra must’ve thought he looked near perfect for what activities he had planned that day. Too bad this was something I wouldn’t discover for myself until it was far too late.

The pump made a bring! noise and I went inside to pay. Before I did, though, I joined Sombra in the candy aisle.

Sombra huffed out breathlessly. “So… many… ten cent candies…”

“Remember when we did away with the nickel?” I asked, as I lightly browsed around. “Everyone thought we would miss it, but… not so much.”

“Stop yammering, Steve!” Sombra barked, his eyes never departing the several rows of small sticky and colorful delights. “I’m trying to concentrate here!” His tongue popped out of his head like a panting dog. “You’re a millionaire, right? So… a thousand dollars… divided by ten cents would be…”

“Too much candy, Sombra,” I answered for him. “Even for you.”

“Never underestimate my abilities, frail human! There’s a reason there’s a burger named after me at Applebee’s! Oh, how the serving staff trembled when I ordered that burger with all other burgers inside of it. The Burger of Shame, it was to be known!”

I nodded. “I recall that incident, sadly. Remember when they turned off the lights above our table so other guests wouldn’t have to see?” I turned to him. “Have I ever told you how proud I am of you?”

“No.”

“That’s because I’m not. Anyways…” As casually as I could, I snagged a plastic bag off the rack and handed it to him. Without pause, he took it and levitated dozens of pieces of gummy candies and chocolate sweets inside of it. Twenty seconds later the first bag was fit to burst, so he quickly moved on to the second. I didn’t mind, though. I wanted him as docile as I could get him before asking him some… personal questions.

“What is it you want out of life?” I asked, as blunt as could be. “Once upon a time you were a King; a terrible King, no doubt, but a King nonetheless. And now?”

I let the question dangle hopelessly in the air.

“I’m retired.” Sombra didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. He actually looked more concerned about his third candy bag bursting onto the floor.

“Okay…” I had to think on which way to proceed. “So you’re retired! Swell! But being retired doesn’t mean you need to lie around all day doing nothing, does it? I mean… when was the last time you even left the house?”

“This morning, Steve. You were there and everything. How could you forget so soon?”

My palm hit my forehead. “That’s not what I…” I started again. “Look, do you really want to spend the rest of your life on the same old couch?”

Sombra’s candy collecting stopped for a moment. “No, not really. I was thinking every ten years or so, you’d get me a new couch.”

My palm hit my forehead harder than before. “Back in your Crystal Empire days, you had… partners sometimes, correct?”

His ears twitched on top of his hat. “You mean partners in war? Sure, but they were all equally terrible… once I turned on them, that is.”

“No, no. I mean…” This was becoming a lot harder than I thought it would be. For years I’d only thought of Sombra in two very basic ways: lazy and mean. Now I was forced to picture him in a completely different and terrifyingly new way. A romantic way.

In the middle of the aisle, I shuddered as if struck with a blast of icy wind. It had only been a single day after my book’s release that the Internet officially became ruined for me. Images, stories, blog posts… anything involving Sombra and I brought to horrible life right on my glowing computer screen. Had any of these so-called ‘artists’ even read that blasted book of mine? What alternate universe was it where Sombra and I somehow wound up together?

Then I was reminded there actually were infinite alternate universes and that I’d even visited one of them for a small period of time. Damn, I thought morosely. That means there probably is a universe somewhere in time and space where we’re together. But that’s still ridiculous. I doubt Sombra would even remember my birthday or our anniversary, and I wouldn’t stand for that, would I? I wonder who’d wear the pants in that relationship. I guess that would be a given, being human and all. More pertinent question, though: why am I putting so much damn thought into this non-existent scenario?

Sombra was nudging me. “I’m done, Steve. Now give me your magic card of infinite cash so I can purchase this and we can—”

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life alone?” I hadn’t known what I was about to say until the words simply tumbled out. “You and a couch? You and some videogames? Stuffing yourself silly until the sun crashes into the Earth or until James Cameron dives too deep into the ocean and releases Cthulhu by accident?”

I had that James Cameron line on standby for weeks. I was clever sometimes, but not that clever.

Sombra’s muzzle looked split somewhere between a laugh and a pout. Only his eyes told me what I’d honestly wanted to see in him: uncertainty.

“But I won’t be alone,” he told me earnestly, “because you’ll be there, Steve.”

I shook my head. “But I won’t always be there.” He opened his mouth to say more, but I cut him off. “You’ll need to learn how to make friends on your own someday. Perhaps someone that could even become more than a friend to you; someone willing to spend time with you and accept you for who you are—faults and all. I found Vicky and I’ve never been happier. We have kids and now we’re doing that whole ‘life’ thing that so many people do. And perhaps it’s time that you gave it a try.”

Sombra’s jaw opened and closed as if on a broken mechanism. No words tumbled out. Eventually he retrieved a piece of candy from one of his bags to chew on. “You’re talking about sex, aren’t you?”

I groaned. “Well… yes, I guess sex is a part of most relationships, if you want to be so blunt about it. Do you have an interest in relationships anymore? Or simple sex for that matter?”

A sly smirk touched his lips. “I’d have sex with most anything as long it came alongside a land deal. Ponies are well and good, but property is always better. Did you know I was once engaged to a Prince for over a month, all so I could claim his summer home following our divorce?”

“Wait. You’re gay?”

“Gay for summer homes with breathtaking views of the countryside.” He snorted and rolled his eyes. “I’m not gay, you fool. Only willing to do what is necessary to claim more power and wealth. I managed to put up with you to get at those deep pockets of yours, did I not?”

He waved a hoof. “If you want a solid answer, Steve, then let it be known that I enjoy the company of mares most of all. Ones that don’t talk too much. Or make eye contact. Or breathe too loudly. Bonus points if they make pancakes. You know, the ones with chocolate chips in them?”

“Listen, I’ll give you a thousand dollars to have a conversation with that mare outside. Doesn’t matter how long, but it needs to be civil. Think you can do that for me?”

Sombra pursed his lips. “A thousand dollars? That’s it? I spend more on hair products in a single week.”

“Ten thousand.”

No comment.

“Twenty thousand.” I’d like to believe I would’ve stopped there, but I’m not sure if that’s true. It was basically like taking money out of my left pocket and sticking it in my right. At least in this scenario it was Sombra that would be spending his own money on himself and not him simply asking me for more.

“Whatever.” Sombra strolled around me with his floating bags of candy in tow. At the end of the aisle, he did a little spin toward the beverage section. “Buy me a Slushy first, Steve! I can’t very well talk with a dry throat, you know!”

I was momentarily amazed. I truly was.

After I’d paid for the gas and all the snacks, Sombra had shooed me away as he went to the group of girls near the entrance to the store. As I entered the car, the three human females shuffled a few feet away from the one lone unicorn mare. If I had to guess, they also thought it cute when two ponies made simple pleasantries.

“Sixteen… fifteen…” I counted down from twenty out loud. Ever since introducing ponies to the human world a decade back, I’d been secretly timing Sombra whenever he happened to meet someone new. The average time before he said something wrong had been twenty seconds, give or take if he had some form of food in his mouth. “Eleven… ten…”

Sombra turned to the three human females and said something that made them all laugh. Then he broke open his bag of candy and offered them all a piece. I’m pretty sure this was how all those episodes of The First 48 start, I thought, in the driver’s seat of my stifling car. Lastly, he offered a piece to the lone mare, who accepted it with a blush.

“Two… one…”

I reached the end of my countdown and held onto my breath. Any moment now, I expected him to declare something outlandish. (“You’d look lovely in chains” had always been a trademark.) Only nothing like that happened at all.

The mare said something and pointed up the road with a hoof. Sombra nodded along and said something back, smiling gently as he did. That was when the mare asked one of her human friends for a strip of paper to write on and hoof over to Sombra.

“He got her number?” Spittle hit the dashboard in my surprise and I wiped it away with a hand.

Should I really be that taken back, though? Sombra had been a King at some point in his life. Important. Cocky. Arrogant. Ruthless. He always did get his way when he wanted it. Plus he was rich. That always helped when picking up girls.

Still deep in my pondering, I jolted as Sombra opened the passenger door and entered the car. He held his Slushy out to me. “Want it? I forgot about my cooler under the seat, so I really don’t need it.”

“Sure, why not.” The heat in the car had made me so thirsty, I drank some of it without hesitation. “So… how’d it go?”

“How’d what go?”

I poked his shoulder. “You know what. That unicorn you were chatting up. I had no idea you could be so…” I was at a loss for words. “What’s the opposite of repulsive?”

Sombra barked out a laugh. “I can be charming when I wish to be, Steve. I merely told her she looked nice.”

“You must’ve done more than that,” I said, putting the car into drive and swinging back out onto the highway. “She gave you her number and all.”

“Oh, that.” Sombra glanced at the strip of paper on his lap and tossed it aside. “Yes, she did. Once I told her we were heading to Vegas and that she and her friends were heading there, too. For some wedding party or something. I kept on giving her the stickiest candy I had in hopes of sealing her mouth shut, but somehow she just kept on going. I should’ve asked her what type of toothpaste she uses that keeps her teeth so strong.”

I took another gulp of the large Slushy. “You could always look her up while we’re in Vegas.”

“I’d rather not.” He tapped his hooves together in an oddly calculating manner. “How’s the Slushy, Steve? Good?”

“It’s fine, I guess.” Out of the corner of my vision, I could see him still tapping his hooves together like some James Bond villain perched in a spinning chair. “You spit in it, didn’t you?”

“Nope.” He laughed regardless.

“Then what did you do to it?”

“Ever see the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?”

I didn’t like where this was going. “Yes,” I said slowly.

Sombra continued to giggle. “Well, those characters seemed to have a good time in Vegas, so why not follow suit?”

“That was only a movie, Sombra.”

“Is twenty dollars too much for drugs?” he asked, finally halting his tapping hooves. “I honestly have no idea, but that’s what the guy at the gas station was asking for before I put them in that Slushy you’re drinking now. You must’ve not been paying all that much attention after I spoke with that mare.”

“You drugged me!?” I screamed, staring at the steering wheel and my hands all at once, waiting for them to go blurry or start vibrating or something. “Just when I think I can’t possibly hate you any more than I do!”

Sombra leaned back in his seat like the smug bastard he was. “Relax, Steve. I took the same stuff you did. What good friends don’t go on extreme drug trips together from time to time?”

“I have to stop the car,” I said more to myself. “Stop the car and get my head on straight.”

As I lifted my foot off the gas, Sombra used his magic to push it to the floor.

Sombra laughed as he was pushed further into his seat.

“You can’t stop here, Steve! This is Sombra country!”

Then he laughed and laughed and laughed. And ate some candy in-between. Next Chapter: Chapter 3: The Arrival Estimated time remaining: 16 Minutes