Author's Notes:

Hey everyone. I'm back at it. I am sorry for the long time between chapter updates. Life comes at full speed sometimes and I've been stoned out with writer's block lately. Finally managed to get this out in a way that I like it, and should help start out a new mini-arc. Hope you enjoy it.

After dropping Scoots and Spike off at AJ’s place, we made our way to the mountain. As we proceed to the base, Twilight spoke up. “From this point forward we need to be extra careful.” pulling the map out of her bag, as she held it up with her magic.

I chuckled at her “You have hands you know. You don’t need to use your magic for everything.” She pouted, and I leaned forward to kiss her forehead “I’m just teasing Twi, are you using Mana or Magic?”

She snorted to hide a smirk “Magic, once you get used to it, it lets you do a lot more with a lot less effort.” Now she smirked with genuine pride.

As we started to move up the trail, I looked back and noticed that Shy wasn’t with them “Hey Shy, you okay?” She didn’t react, and I started to observe her body language to determine if I could figure out what was going on with the mare. She was tense, her arms wrapped around herself tightly, a woman at war with herself. Her eyes held a deep fear, but she seemed to be muttering under her breath.

Looking up from her mouth, I noticed that her eyes were still frozen with fear. Walking over I knelt down in front of her, facing forward and put my hands behind me, giving her the signal to climb on. Looking over my shoulder at her I smiled “Climb on Shy, I will get us up there safe and sound.”

She still looked worried, but walked over and climbed on my back. As she sat down, I made sure to focus on moving up the mountain, and not on the pillowy softness of her breasts pressing into my back, nor the firmness of her ass in my hands as I held her up. Although Pinkie must have noticed my light blush at some point because she managed to maneuver her way around the group right next to Shy. I just managed to overhear her whisper to the butter yellow mare “I haven't tried it yet, but Rainbow says that Maggie gives the best rides ever. What do you think Shy.”

The comment was followed by an adorable ‘mep’ that ended with Shy burying her face into my back. Blushing I shot back to Pinkie “Pinkie! That is not something that we talk about in polite company. Especially around Butters!”

Pinkie rolled her eyes “Don’t be such a spoilsport Maggie, it’s not like she won’t get her turn later in the story anyway.”

This froze the group for a moment before I managed to collect myself enough to form a coherent thought “Pinks, This isn’t a story.” She smirked, leaned over to kiss me, then looked into the distance, winked, then skipped away. “I… but,” Looking back to Twilight “Did… I… Buh?”

Twilight just shrugged “Don’t think about it too hard, it’s better for you if you don’t.” Shaking my head, I just followed along. Shy shifted around a bit on my back but stayed quiet. The trip up the mountain wasn’t terribly eventful, we passed a rockslide area, but managed to get past without triggering anything. Which was good because it helped us to avoid having to jump over a ravine. As we moved up to the top, Twilight held us back.

“Okay everypony” I shot her a stink eye, and she responded by rolling her eyes “Sorry! Okay, everybody, We are just about at the mouth of the cave. My first plan is to try to speak to the dragon one on one and see if we can convince it to move. Failing that, we can each try a different tactic when it comes to getting rid of the thing.” We all nodded.

I was worried, but I knew that they would be able to handle this. I just had to have faith. Twilight managed to wake the dragon up, but it wasn’t about to leave and just cleared her out of the cave with smoke. Rarity then tried to charm the dragon out. She almost got it to listen before slipped up and decided to walk out with some gems, yea. Not a good idea, but the worse she got was getting yelled at.

The enormous red dragon roar shook the mountain as Rarity rushed out of the cave. She came out pouting about not getting the diamond. I gave her a deadpan “Really?! We are here to ask him to move, not steal his stuff.” she wasn’t amused, but neither was I. The fastest way to get killed by a dragon, is to piss it off by stealing its stuff.

No idea why Pinkie thought her getup was going to make it want to leave, but she did look rather adorable wearing the present. Though my opinion might have been skewed a little when she commented about me being able to unwrap it later. Now I will admit, while the sex with Skittles has been fantastic, I have been curious about being with Twi and Pinks as well. Twi has the whole, good little student thing going for her and Pinkie is just Pinkie.

While we were discussing different options Skittles must have been getting impatient “Screw this noise, I’m going to go kick him in the snout and tell him to vamoose.”

I realized that she was serious as she shot off into the mouth of the cave “SKITTLES!!! NO!!!!” We then heard a rather loud roar as she darted out of the cave a few moments later.

“That was a bad idea!!!” she screamed as she flew as fast as she could away from the cave. In an instant, I saw the beast extend it’s head as it made to chomp her. Moving before I could think, I jumped up and shoved her out of the way as the jaws of the massive dragon began to close. All I knew next, was the pain.

___________________Perspective shift to Fluttershy_______________________

I heard Magos cry out to Rainbow just before she flew into the cave. The next thing that we all knew Rainbow was flying out of the cave as fast as she could. I could tell that she hadn’t had enough time to build up speed to get away. I held my hands to my mouth as tears began to fill my eyes. As I thought I was about to see my oldest friend die in front of me, Magos jumped up and shoved her at the last moment.

I heard him scream as the dragon bit down on his left arm. It jerked him hard before sending him flying across the plateau, coming to rest next to the cliff. The world seemed to slow to a crawl as he flew past me. A stream of blood trailing behind him from where his arm used to be. I felt the bile rise in my throat for a moment before the wall of rage hit me. I have always tried to be soft spoken. The thought in the back of my head that if I spoke up to much, nopony would like me. That as long as I was quiet and minded my own business, nopony would do anything to hurt me.

As Magos flew in front of me, I saw the pain in his eyes from his injury. But he still wore a smirk. Cocky about being able to protect Rainbow. Even now, heavily injured he was always willing to fight. After a few moments on the ground, he groaned and rolled over. Looking over at what was left of his left arm he swore: “GODS FUCKING DAMN IT, THIS IS GONNA FUCKING HURT!” My ears burned at his language, but what almost made me vomit was when his right hand seemed to ignite. He slammed his palm against the open wound and started to scream as black oily smoke began to pour from his side.

My anger at him being hurt boiled over and I wound up right in the dragon's face. My stare in full effect as I laid into the brute “YOU! DO! NOT! HURT! MY! FRIENDS! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!” it’s pupils seemed to shrink, and its mouth quivered.

“B-but the rainbow one kicked me.” The entire group had frozen, even Magos had stopped screaming and was so shocked that not even the pain could garner a response from him.

Its winey excuse wasn’t going to cut it for me “SHE KICKS YOU, SO YOU ATTEMPT TO MURDER HER!!!! YOU HAVE MAIMED ONE OF THE ONLY STALLIONS THAT HAS EVER BEEN GENUINELY NICE TO ME WITHOUT WANTING TO SLEEP WITH ME! AND YOUR EXCUSE IS ‘the rainbow one kicked me’” I said to him in the most condescending voice I could muster. I don’t think I have ever been this angry before.

I have to admit, cutting loose like this would have felt right if it weren’t for Magos’ injuries. I glared at the beast “Here is what is going to happen. You are going to leave. You’re not taking anything with you either.” at this the dragon tired to get upset with me, my glare forced it to pause just long enough to continue “think of it this way, you leave everything here to Magos, and we convince the Princesses, not to declare war on the dragon kingdom for the injury of their knight.”

The Dragon apparently understood what this would mean because it cleared off after a few seconds of thinking about it, grumbling the entire time. I must not have realized how terrified I was due to the adrenaline, because as soon as it was a few thousand feet away from us, I collapsed.

_________________Perspective shift, Twilight__________________

I wasn’t sure what had just happened with Fluttershy, but Rainbow and Pinkie ran over to her as she fell, being the closest to her at the time. Rarity, AJ and I ran to Magos. As we got close to him, my nose wrinkled at the smell of burning flesh, but that couldn’t stop me from going to my stallion. As I got closer, I finally got to see the extent of the damage. His entire left arm had been ripped off. From the looks of the wound, the flesh had been cut through cleanly, but the dragon must have stopped at the bone. If not for the charing from where he had burned it closed, I imagine I would have been able to see the open ball socket that makes up the shoulder.

I dropped down to my knees and lit my horn, pulling magic from within myself and the air around me, just as he had taught me to do. When I had started to learn from him, his methods of using magic were strange, almost kooky in practice. All my life, magic had been an exact science. Use the correct amount of magic, imagine or drawn the right formula, focus it in the proper pathways, maybe chant an incantation, and the described effect would happen. With Magos’ kind of magic, it was more of a spiritual experience. His kind of magic made me peer deeper into myself than I ever had before.

As I cast the healing spell, Magos pulled some golden squares out of his pack and nibbled on the corner of one. As he did so, I was amazed to see that his wound started closing even faster than before. There was no way to give him his arm back though. Maybe if we had been able to retrieve it, but the dragon likely had swallowed it before Fluttershy started yelling at the thing. “M-magos, it’s going to be okay. We can… We can make sure you get better okay. Please.” I felt the tears start to well up in my eyes. I’ve been so scared of letting him in, and now I will never be able to feel him wrap me in his warm embrace fully again. He’s still Magos, but now. There is this massive part of him that is gone forever.

As I started to sniffle, Magos lifted my head with his remaining hand. He then pressed his lips to my forehead. “Don’t cry, I’m still alive, and so is everyone else. The dragon is gone, and it’s not going to come back.” he hissed in pain “This really fucking sucks right now, but I think I may know of a way to fix this situation. But I need to heal up first for a while. I really hate to ask you this, but do you think you could get us down to the bottom of the mountain with a teleport? I kinda want a Doctor to look at this.”

I didn’t know what to say, here he was, missing an arm and he was trying to make me feel better. I swallowed and nodded. “I think I can. From up here, I can see where I’m going, and I can focus enough magic to get the job done, I just need a few minutes to prep.” He nodded and sat back down on the ground, before lying on his back and propping his feet up on a rock. I realized he was trying to treat himself for shock and got to work.

________________Perspective shift Rainbow___________________

I looked over at Twilight, AJ, and Rarity as they took care of Magos. I was sitting with Fluttershy’s head in my lap. I was in shock. Magos just lost his arm, and it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t rushed into that cave and kicked that giant lizard, none of this would have happened. He might die because of me. One of the best things to ever happen to me might be lost forever, all because I was too hot-headed and rushed in without thinking about consequences. It was the running of the leaves all over again, but this was a million times worse.

I tore my eyes away from them, I couldn’t bear to look at what I had caused. Even if he lived, he was missing his arm. I ruined his life, why would he ever want to be with me. He probably hated me for this. I completely destroyed his life.

My mind began to spiral, the same thoughts circling around and around compacting and building on each other. There was no forgiveness for this. I would never be able to face him again after this. Tears began to flow down my cheeks before a soft pair of lips hit mine. My eyes shot open as I looked forward and was greeted by a wall of pink. I lost myself in the kiss. She tasted like the best strawberry frosting. Just the right amount of sweet and tart. All of my negative thoughts started to drift away, not forgotten, but not overwhelming either.

She pulled away from me and looked me right in the eyes “Don’t you ever do something like that to us ever again Rainbow.” My heart did a flip as I noticed the tears begin to flow down her cheeks “Don’t you ever scare us like that again. Please Dashie, my heart can’t take seeing you in that kind of situation. You’re in my herd, I can’t bear to lose you. Please, you have to know that we love you. Maggie did that because he loves you. I don’t think he would have been able to live with himself if he had let you get hurt. He’ll be just fine. Give him six months, and he will be right back at it. But if you had died… Dashie, please don’t do that ever again.”

She pressed her head into my shoulder as she hugged me and by extension Shy, whose head was still in my lap. Started to stir “W-what happened, where did the dragon go?” she lifted herself up to her knees next to me. She wavered a bit before coming to rest against me.

I pulled her close to Pinkie and me “It’s okay Shy. You scared the dragon off. It’s not going to come back any time soon. You were pretty awesome there Shy, guess your mom’s lessons for being a drill sergeant paid off.”

She blushed for a moment “oh no. I don’t think I could ever do the same job as my mother, you have to be so mean when you are doing training. I could never be like that.” She seemed to be feeling better before she face fell and she asked “Did I dream what happened to Magos? Or did he get hurt?”

I took a shaky breath “Yea Shy, that really happened, Magos got hurt pretty bad. Looks like Twi is doing some kind of magic. It looks like he is doing okay though.” I had snuck a peek at him while he was talking to Twi. At least he was doing well enough that he could be up.

I started to break down again and held Shy close to me. “I’m so sorry Shy, this is all my fault.”

I was about to continue before a Deep voice that held a lot of pain stopped me “Don’t you dare try to take the blame for this Skittles.”

______________Perspective shift Magos_______________

Twilight’s spell had taken a lot of the pain off, but it still hurt like a bitch. “I am the one at fault for this. Had I remembered to equip my armor, this wouldn’t have happened. My oversite lost me my arm.” I leaned down and wrapped my remaining arm around her, pulling her in close as I pressed my lips to her. She seemed to fight a bit at first but quickly melted into the kiss. As we parted, I looked into her eyes “As long as I can keep doing that, I don’t think I’ve lost anything. Besides, I may have a way to fix this. But I need to make a call.”

Twilight had managed to finish her calculations and called us over to stand in the circle that she had drawn out. She charged her horn for a moment, and in a big flash, we found ourselves in front of Ponyville General Hospital. As soon as I entered the main lobby, I found myself swarmed by doctors. I was loaded onto a gurney, and shot will a pain spell faster than I could even attempt to tell them what had happened.

The next few days were a blur to me. I faded in and out of conscience a few times, but when I finally came back to full awareness, I found my room packed. Twi, Pinkie, and Skittles were sitting in the corner of the room with my mother. Sitting in the opposite corner at a small table, were Scoots and Spike. It looked like he was helping her do some kind of homework. I smiled with pride at that. I looked back at the group with my mother and noticed that she had a photo album that she was showing them. I had no idea what it could contain, seeing as she wasn’t allowed to interact with me when I was a small child, but for some reason, I could feel a chill travel down my spine. The fact that the princesses were standing behind them didn’t fill me with confidence either.

Rarity and Applejack were sitting together next to Fluttershy, who appeared to be knitting something and would occasionally nibble a small cookie on the plate next to her. Somehow none of them had noticed that I had woken up yet. I had to admit, seeing that they were all checking on me at the same time felt nice. They were interacting with each other and seemed to be doing well, which made me feel better. Deciding to break the silence, I spoke up “Hey mom, what is in that photo album.”

All chatting ceased. They all looked over at me in the bed for a moment before my trio rushed up to my bed and started to pepper my face with kisses and nuzzles. However, the sudden rush of purple and orange beat them to it. The cry of ‘Daddy!’ kicked me in the chest. She jumped into the air and lept onto my chest, it seemed that she had used her wings to lessen the impact though. Pressing her face into my chest she started to cry, repeating ‘you’re okay’ over and over again.

I wrapped my remaining arm around her and gave her the best hug I could. “Yea Scoots, I’m okay. I’m sorry that I got hurt and had to leave you alone for a bit.” She was still shaking, her face pressed into my chest. “Tell ya what. How does going for a trip sound? I can introduce you to an old friend back where I came from.”

She looked up at me and nodded, a small smile began to spread across her face. “That’s my girl” I rubbed the back of her head, then looked over at the mares that had gathered around my bed. “How long was I out?”

Twi gave me my answer “It’s been just over a week now. The doctors did all they could, but the couldn’t give you your arm back. Though they said that you could leave as soon as you woke up.”

I smiled up at her. “Cool, as soon as we get out of here, I need to use your hose.”

They all looked at me confused. Except for my mother. “Need to make a call?”

“yep, I need to see if Frank has made any progress on that project over the last few months.”

For some reason, my mom flinched “Well, the thing is Magos dear, there is a bit of a time dilation between Equis and Earth.”

I felt the blood in my face drain. “H-how much of a dilation?”

“Well son, it’s been a few years over there. Around 5 in fact. A lot has happened.”

I nodded “damn, that is a lot of time. Guess hearing from me is going to trip a few people out. Though this does help out when it comes to school. Now we can stay longer and miss less. Best yet, with Twi, she won’t fall behind. One of her moms is a teacher.” I chuckled just as a doctor walked in. After answering a few questions and doing some simple tests, I was cleared to go. Apparently, they had prevented atrophy with some very clever spells. Gods I love magic.

As we left; Pinkie, Twi, and Rainbow cornered me. All with a serious look to them. Pinkie spoke up first “Maggie, what did you mean when you said that Scoots has moms? We all want to know.”

I rubbed the back of my head “Just what I said. Scoots have three great moms.” Pointing to each “The teacher, the coach, and the one that can make all her sad days happy. I know it was kind of sudden, but when you face death. Well, it puts things in perspective. I love all of you, and I see us as a family.” Chuckling I added “Spike calls me dad, and now so does Scoots. I have to admit that I never thought I was going to have kids. Now I have two that are already teens. I’m scared that I’m going to screw something up, but I know that you three are going to be there to help out.”

I gave each of them a kiss, and we continued on to the Library, we walked around back to the garden hose. I turned it on and handed it to Pinkie. “Pinkie, Could you spray this to make a big rainbow please?”

She saluted and gigglesnorted before taking the hose and spraying it so that it made a large rainbow. As I went to grab a Bit or a Drachma, whichever could find first, my mom flicked a large Drachma into the rainbow “Isis dear, we need to make a call.”

A voice echoed out from the rainbow where the Drachma had disappeared “Who do you need to talk to?”

I mouthed ‘thank you’ to my mom before saying “I need to talk to Leo at Camp Half-Blood, He’s one of Hephaestus’ kids.

the voice confirmed, “Connecting call now.”

The rainbow shimmered before the image glowed. What was once just a rainbow, now showed the picture of a well built Mexican man, sweat pouring down his arms and face as he hit a glowing piece of metal. He dunked the item into a quench next to him as he turned to look at the Isis message. Once he saw who was calling him, he dropped the massive hammer he was holding and spoke in a whisper “M-Magos? Is that really you?”

I chuckled “Yeah man It’s me. How you been doing?”

“I-I don’t know how to answer that man. You disappeared five years ago after that meeting. We all thought you were dead. How are you still alive?!” He had managed to find a chair and sat down.

“It’s a crazy story dude, and I will go into it later, but for now, I need to ask. Did you ever finish Project FMAB?” I gave him a severe look.

He shook himself and nodded “Yeah man, Finalized that thing like two years ago. Why?” He started to try to get a better look at me.

“I ended up in a situation that left me without my left arm. Bad end of a pissed off dragon’s mouth. I will be coming over in a while. Do you think you could handle putting something together for me? It will likely be around ten or fifteen days from now. I have some stuff to take care of here first.”

He nodded “No problem man. I can get some stuff together. You need to be here first before I can start to put anything together.”

I smiled, I had a plan to get my arm back. Well, at least a kind of an arm back. I just needed two or three days on this side to prep, then we could go. I did still need to ask Luna or Princess Celestia if they would be willing to guide us through Tartarus though. But I had the makings of a plan.