It is universally accepted that the first meeting between any two individuals will forever shape their opinions of one another, even after they've forgotten the encounter itself. Sunset Shimmer made it her business to have as near to complete control over these instances as she could manage, primarily through the use of her Scan spell, which created for her a dossier on her current target, or merely summoned one if somepony already made a physical version and filled in gaps according to how much mana she felt like pouring into the cast. Which was often quite a lot because she had both plenty of mana to spare and a penchant for holding ponies by their dirty little secrets and squeezing whenever she thought they might be inclined to disobey.

Torque had once shared a neighborhood with Pinkie Pie. The paper dossier on him almost precluded any desire for a magical one, and would have were it not for the fact that the information-seeker was Sunset Shimmer.

"What do you think you're doing? Is subordinate privacy not a thing to you?"

This new bodyguard of hers, Torque, appeared to exist for the express purpose of punishing Sunset for this behavior. For starters, his naturally high resistance to Control magic meant that rather than obeying the Command: Sit spell that facilitated her Scan, he sat of his own volition. It was a very small difference that was nonetheless critical to the two ponies present. Sunset could feel him watching her blunder through more information on him than he had on himself. Information that passed before her eyes without registering in much the same manner as his spoken words did with her ears. She was, after all, far too focused on the sound of his voice to concern herself with something as small and petty as words.

"And you're just ignoring the real me for my stats now, okay... So... you find anything good?"

His eyes were very sad, and very tired. His whole demeanor spoke of resignation to whatever grievance she was about to cause him. And that just bummed Sunset right out. The rich brat just adored breaking strong and good-looking ponies, especially stallions. But a pre-broken stallion was just no fun at all. She could probably beat both him and a dead pony and expect more emotive response from the latter. On the topic of beating this colt, she checked his magic affinities and vulnerabilities. She found the kind of results she should have expected from the pony Celestia chose to accompany her adoptive daughter on various hijinks.

"Let's see... magic specialty: Lensing. Oh you're just precious."

Lensing was a rare magic class that was almost unique to stallions and almost uniquely effective on mares. It granted ponies the ability to enhance or reduce other ponies' abilities, up to and including Special Talents, by variable multiplying factors. All known Lensers were Enhancers, with Reduction existing only as an assumption of necessary opposition. It was rumored that mares in love could serve as Lensers for their partners, but this was unverified to Sunset's knowledge. Torque was unique in that he could Lens other stallions and himself, although he preferred to keep that under wraps because he expected the ability would invite trouble.

"Weaknesses: Fire and Li- oh..." Sunset now realized that if she were to ever enact any plans to forcibly relieve Princess Celestia of the burden of her throne, Torque would be a liability. (Well played, Mom.) Then again, that also meant that he was especially vulnerable to Sunset herself. Which made Sunset feel things she couldn't identify. "Ahem! I know you don't need to be told most of these things, but I like you knowing that I know, so here we go!

Why don't we start with your Kharma Rating? See just how bad... of... a... what. What is this? How could it even be that high? You're supposed to be my Knight in Blood-soaked Armor, what is all this kitten-hugging nonsense?"

Equestrian Kharma ran on a thousand-point system that Celestia insists she didn't create herself, even going so far as to try to use her less than perfect score as proof. But nopony believed her because her score was a solid 777, and nopony had anything higher. Only Shining Armor even approached her with 747. Her transformation into Nightmare Moon had brought Princess Luna's down into the 500s with Princess Cadance, which spoke volumes of the kind of pony Luna was before she turned. Torque's was 666, and Sunset's own Kharma was well into the negatives. Most ponies couldn't even conceive of negative Kharma, but Sunset had an abundance of it. A swami once told her that if she continues down her path, she would be reborn as a demon and somepony would have to stop her, perhaps painfully. She responded by forcing him to literally eat his own hat, using Control when Kinesis wasn't getting the job done.

General Skills include... oh wow... that is a very long list. I can't even read it, the words are blurring together. And I love reading! This is unbelievable. You are unbelievable. Do you not have a life or something? Oh wait, of course you don't. Otherwise you wouldn't have a hope of qualifying for this job.

Your Special Talent is... what? Where is your Special Talent? My Scan gave me Self-Development, but that's basically the opposite of a Special Talent. So what, you're naturally good at getting better? What kind of garbage is that? And how many bad tries do you have to go through before you get your act together? Even basket-weaving sounds like a more useful Special Talent than that! Wait, don't talk. I didn't give you permission to speak.

Now where was I? Oh yes. Your Earth Pony blood is from an old Family (really, your mother was batting as far outside her league as a "Make-A-Wish" filly among pros), and that combined with your abysmally dark foalhood renders you virtually immune to Kinetic assault. That's good to know. You also have absurdly high resistances to Fear, Control, Love, and Dream magic, although that's less relevant because there's basically only one pony with any significant amount of each of those types. Let's see... your blood is, in spite of its fascinating chemistry, still of the most common type in Equestria. You could donate to almost anypony. There's something cute about that. I could have you ripped to pieces and nopony would complain as long as they got one for themselves."

"Well that all sounds just lovely. Any allergies you could potentially exploit?" Torque said from next to her, and Sunset's blood just froze. His tone was still light-hearted and sweet, but now had an edge to it that forced her to stop and listen to what he was saying. She had forgotten about that part where she didn't have control over him. He was reading over her shoulder now, and for reasons she couldn't begin to grasp, Sunset started to feel something she had never felt before. At least not for anything she did to anypony who was not Princess Celestia. That made her angry. Self-consciousness and guilt were for worthy ponies, not sexed-up servants with a terrible misconception of their personal value.

"N-nope! Ha-ha! No allergies..." Sunset moved away from him despite knowing that it wouldn't make a difference.

Looking back, she remembered having seen this stallion once before. The Guard had been throwing some kind of exhibition event where they made big performances out of their combat abilities. The biggest show in that circus was Shining Armor's Siege Barrier reducing Torque Stripe's Leonid Shower to a massive and pretty but otherwise harmless fireworks show to entertain the masses. Harmless, but terrifying for most. Torque didn't have as much power as Shining, but the sounds made by the burning rocks impacting the barrier, each with enough force to have carved through Canterlot like it was made of butter, could not be forgotten.

But for Sunset, that event held much deeper meaning. It was that very display of raw magical power that drove Sunset into her frantic pursuit of her own share of it. After all, both Shining and Torque were still subservient to Celestia, who it was rumored could raze Equestria from coast to coast in a matter of minutes. Sunset was sure that she could get Torque to confess the secrets of his power, which she would then use to propel herself to the level she really wanted. But first she had to make absolutely sure he knew that she owned him.

"Now, for fears..." she began, a wicked smile spreading across her face like a catching fire, and quickly dying as her brain processed the word her invasive spell presented before her eyes. "Wow. You are just made of "Not Fair", aren't you? This... this is sick. Sick and wrong! Nopony should have this kind of fear in Equestria!"

"You know, it's something I've often found funny..." Torque said, relieved that she'd started listening to him. It was hard enough to tell when he'd lapsed back into mumbling when other ponies were actually paying attention. "Mares almost as a rule believe very strongly in the silliest notions. Things like fairness and deserving. Now that's a real doozy, isn't it? This... completely absurd notion that there's some great celestial monitor out there, keeping track of the words, thoughts, and actions of every last living thing and issuing to them according to some arcane system of judgment that nopony understands. Personally, I find the concept of "fairness" utterly disgusting. It pisses in the faces of those who suffer in spite of being decent individuals, and creates vast pools of guilt from insignificant or imaginary wrongs.

I mean, it's up there with the crazy mare notion that 'never backing down' is somehow an admirable trait that one would want to show off to a potential mate. Now that's insanity. A potential mate is a pony who is considering binding their lives to yours. That means their daily lives, and not just when things are dramatic. Presenting yourself as perceiving stubbornness to be a virtue is the kind of red flag that is only superseded by the scent of blood. Actually, I have a friend back home who I wish could be made to see that. She has "cute and competent" down, but she could lose initiative to a jackass in pausing for courtesy. Oh... sorry, I went on a bit of a rant there."

Sunset closed her mouth so hard she was sure that he heard it. She couldn't hurt this stallion without going to an intense war with her conscience. But she needed to erase him, or else sooner or later Mom was going to realize that he was the son she always wanted, and that would be it for Sunset Shimmer's "Princess" title. After all, the ultimate enemy of a royal child was an adopted bastard, even if Sunset was herself adopted. And she was pretty sure that he didn't become an orphan by burning his own house to the ground in a misguided effort to protect Celestia from an assassination plot that had in fact been Celestia's own brainchild. It was one of the universe's small mercies that Sunset never learned that last bit.

"I'm going to bed. You can do whatever. I don't need a bodyguard. I'm an Agent myself." the filly stalked off, acting counter to her own beliefs as though she had absolute control over the situation.

"Well, goodnight then, Miss One-Hundred. And don't worry. I'd make for a terrible bodyguard. Protection isn't really my forte." After she left, Torque breathed a massive sigh of relief, loudly slammed his locker door shut, and trudged over to flop in his surprisingly lush bed. Rolling over onto his back, he passed the time a normal pony would have spent sleeping by fantasizing about the terrible things he'd do to his new charge if he were only free of the burden of a soul. Things that weren't half as terrible as those said charge was touching herself to once she was back in her own disgustingly luxurious chambers.

Well, only one out of several hours went to those fantasies, and the rest went to plans for what he was going to do with that library he bought in Ponyville. He started things off by making sure that it had at least one copy of every book he ever read that came in multiple copies. Then he would expand all series he had only portions of, flesh out the works of notable authors, and add in "cash" aisles full of "pop fiction" books that he would never touch if he could help it, but which he knew would help sustain his business. It killed him to admit it, but those aisles would be vitally important because their lack is what led to the library being something he could afford in the first place.

Torque couldn't wait to get out of all this military nonsense and go live somewhere that was quiet and where he could tell other ponies to be quiet and know he could count on them to do so. And there was something delightfully perverse about having made a small library out of a giant tree that he felt suited him just perfectly.

Next Chapter: An Important Distinction Estimated time remaining: 16 Minutes