It has been approximately a day since Slender had his meeting with Celestia, and we agreed that I should be next to answer. Right now, I'm looking for my, for lack of a better term, 'contact' in Manehattan, outside of his home, seeing if I could have his help in- there he is. I look to a familiar earth pony stallion and noticed that he will be walking by an alleyway soon, so I moved, quickly, to get there. Once I appeared there, I waited for him to pass by, and once I saw him just outside the alley, I took a quick glance outside the alley to see if anypony was looking this direction before I grabbed him with one hand and put the other over his muzzle.

"MH?!" he attempted to shout through my hand, "MMMH!"

"Shhh..." I said calmly, letting him have a good look at me before continuing, "it's just me."

His ears went flat against his head, and glared daggers at me.

"I going to let go of your muzzle now," I stated, "no freaking out or leaving this place just yet."

He replaced his glare with interested, yet curious suspicion, and nodded, to which I let go of his muzzle.

He rubbed the part of his muzzle where I had grabbed and asked, "What do you need from me this time?"

I gestured to wards him with a hand, "I would like you to accompany me to Canterlot," I stated, "and besides, I can't really pay for a train to get there, and walking there would be exhausting."

The stallions eyes widened and was about to say something but I stopped him before he even said anything.

"You don't have to accept this if you don't want to," I reassured, with my hand held up in defense, "I won't force you to take me there, only if you are willing."

The stallion smiled and nodded, "Of course," he stated, matter-of-factually, "but I still owe you my life, so I will help again."

"Thank you," I said, then gestured towards the street, "after you."

He smiled more and nodded, then proceeded to walk back onto the street as I followed behind.

He stopped just short of the street and turned towards me, about to say something before I started.

"Your wife?" I asked, he nodded, "I left her a note on her mail that she should be picking up soon letting her know the situation, in case you did agree."

His eyes widen in surprise for a moment, then turn into an expression of being impressed, then turn back towards the street and continued walking with me in tow.

The looks we got hysterical, from most of the adults we got varied types of shock, alarm, worry, surprise, horrifying, and terrifying. From some nearby foals we got looks of curiosity, awe, amazement, and... whatever you call that extremely wide grin when you see something really cool... it'll come to me... eventually.

While looking around at the expressions that each pony gave us, I hadn't noticed that we had arrived at the train station until I heard a stuttered, "A-ALL AB-BOARD!"

I looked back to the stallion and noticed he had gotten two tickets, though if I read the expression right of his and the ticket giver's faces, I think we just got a discount on account of me.

"Well," the stallion said, catching my attention, "we have an hour to kill before we can get on the train we need to get on for Canterlot."

I nodded my head in understanding, then had an idea, "Well," I started, "how about you tell me a bit about yourself, I never really got to know you very much other than that you have a family, what species each of the three of you are, and you color scheme."

He had a thoughtful look for a moment, which then turned into a smile as he nodded.

"Well," he said, looking for somewhere to begin, then offered, "my name is Puzzle Solver..."

"ALL ABOARD!" the train conductor announced, "Next stops: Canterlot, Vanhoover, and the Crystal Empire!"

I stood stock still for a second, then relaxed, 'The Crystal Empire is back?' I thought to myself, 'We weren't told it was back... unless it maybe came back with Sombra.'

"Hello?" Puzzle Solver asked waving his hoof in front of my face, breaking my trance, "hey we gotta go if we're going to catch the train to Canterlot."

Regaining my composure, "Right," I said in agreement then gestured for him to take the lead.

We walked up to the train conductor, a unicorn stallion, whose eyes widened and ears fell flat against his head, and handed... er... hoofed?... him our tickets.

He used a hole-punch and, if you couldn't guess punched a hole in each of our tickets and gave them back to us.

"E-enjoy your t-trip," he said with a wavering smile, with a hint of a fear as he looked to me.

"Thank you," Puzzle said grabbing his ticket with his mouth, and walked on board as I nodded, grabbed my ticket, and followed him on board, as the train conductor wiped his brow with a napkin and let out a breath continued to work.

As I followed Puzzle through the train every step I took made the floor under me groan a bit in protest, which in turn attracted everypony that wasn't looking already, and also made me worry that I would fall through the floor. After passing though two train cars, Puzzle and I take a seat (or in my case almost two full seats) next to some other ponies who only just glanced my way, shrugged, and continued as though everything is normal.

I tilted my head at this and Puzzle must have noticed, because he said, "Those ponies are from Ponyville, anything weird that happens in Equestria is mainly focused there for some reason or another, so all the ponies from that town maybe suspicious at first, but are used to strange things happening."

"...Huh..." was all I could say to that, then decided to sleep on the trip. I nudged Puzzle, to which he looked at me.

"I'm going to take a nap," I said, pointing to myself, the pointed to him, "make sure to wake me up when we arrive in Canterlot."

He nodded, and I leaned back, closed my unseen eyes and drifted to sleep for the first time in, literally, a thousand years.

I was running towards the house, with my partner, (????), not far behind me, both of have our guns out, Colt 1911 9mm pistols, and get to the door I check the knob, locked. I look to (????) and nodded towards the door, he nodded then kicked the door down both of us moving in, guns aimed in front of us.

Then we hear it, the scream of fear and pain, we started moving, quickly, towards the scream that came from behind another door connected to the side of a set of stairs. Checking this one as well, we find it is also locked this time I kicked it open with just one kick, unlike how (????) needed to do (???) kicks, and ran down the set of stairs on the other side. (????) and I get down to the final door as the screaming started to lower in volume, we open the door, and go in with our guns aimed at the culprit we had known as 'The (????)'. He was holding a chainsaw, dripping with fresh blood, as he turned from his latest victim, I looked to see if the victim was still alive, then froze when I noticed it was her.

It was my baby girl, my daughter, my spark of hope, my everything... my sunshine... I was shaken from my trance as I heard a shout of pain from my left, where (????) was and felt something warm and sticky splatter onto my face. I felt my face and looked at my hand to find blood, looked over and saw (????) almost completely cut in half.

"NoRmAlLy," The (????) started as he grinned wildly, starring at me through a hockey mask, "I WoUlDn't iNsTaNtLy kIlL My vIcTiMs... BuT, tHiS Is A SpEcIaL OcCaSiOn..."

I pulled up my gun, and started to unload my clip into him before he could react and with each shot I said, "BURN. IN. HELL. YOU. SON. OF. A. BITCH!"

The (????), then groaned and fell to his knees, I walked around to the front of his vision, aimed the gun between his eyes, and said, "Fuck, you," and pulled the trigger, firing my last bullet.

Then all faded to black.

I groan as I'm being shaken by some... hooves, and a voice calling out to me... I think... what was the last thing I was doing again...? Oh, right, Celestia.

"Come on," said... Puzzle, right, as he shook me, "we just pulled into Canterlot."

"I"m up, I'm up," I stated groggily, "I had... a nightmare I think?"

"What was it about?" Puzzle asked.

"You probably wouldn't want to know," I stated, then put my hand to the chin of my safe, "Nor am I comfortable talking about it... it was one of the darkest days of my life."

"Oh," Puzzle said somberly, "I'm sorry."

"It is OK," I said in a forgiving tone, "you didn't know."

"This is Canterlot!" the train conductor announced, "Next stop, Vanhoover, and the Crystal Empire!"

Puzzle and I get up and walk off of the train, to which the ponies of Canterlot watch us warily as we walk by, and hand (and hoof) our tickets to the frightened train conductor who took them and watched us walk away.

As we walk through the city of Canterlot, I look around and notice some of the ponies here looking at me while whispering to others, some glancing and looking away, and others just watching with a sneer.

"Hmph," I huffed calmly and quietly, "seems that no matter where or when I am, there are always rich pricks."

Puzzle didn't respond, but had an expression of annoyance while walking forward, though why he did, I couldn't say, but if he thought the same thing, then it would just be his way of dealing with these ponies.

I continue to look around and while I looked around, distracted, we had arrived at the castle, to which I nearly ran over Puzzle when I became aware.

In front of us was a large door, for a building in Equestria to have anyway, with a guard in front of it, I walk over to him with a, suddenly nervous, Puzzle following behind.

"Halt," the guard ordered, causing me and Puzzle to stop, "state your name and business, or leave."

"I wish to speak to Princess Celestia in reply to her summons," I told the guard.

The guard nodded, "One moment," he stated, and disappeared behind the doors for a few moments.

The doors opened to reveal the guard, who waved me over, "You may come in," the guard stated, then looked to Puzzle, "you, however, must stay out here until further notice."

I looked over to Puzzle, who looked a bit down at that statement, and sighed, "I'm sorry," I told Puzzle, who looked up to me, "I thought this might happen, but wasn't entirely sure. If there is anything-"

"Nope," Puzzle said suddenly, cutting me off, "I already owe you my life, I do not need to owe you anything more."

I tilted my head as I shrugged, "Very well," I said and walked towards the door, and stopped just before I closed the door, "by the way," I looked at him with an unseen knowing smile, "look in your bag."

"What bag-" he started to ask as I closed the door, but noticed he was carrying a bag he was sure he wasn't holding a moment before.

I walked forward after entering, looking around, seeing the stain-glass windows that Slender told us about, 'And he was right,' I thought, looking around, 'words wouldn't do the justice of describing their beauty, even if they are to just tell a story.'

I continued walking for a while and noticed Celestia setting up a table with a tea set on it, and she poured some tea into one of the cups, while facing away from me. I had a mischievous idea, but I was nice enough and waited until she was putting down the tea kettle.

I calmly and quietly walk over to her, and place my hand on her shoulder, startling her a bit, "Hello Celestia," I greeted with a soft voice, "it has been a while, has it not?"

"Keeper," she said, letting out a breath of relief, "you scared me there, I kind of forgot that you can walk quietly while on a floor made of stone."

"Heh heh heh," I laughed heartily, "ah, I couldn't help myself, it was just he perfect moment, and it has been a while since I had a laugh like that."

"I'd say," Celestia said with a playful smile, "I'm glad your humor hasn't changed much, by the way," she gains a slight blush on her face, "I can still call you Mr. Safe, right?"

"Of course," I stated happily, land a rough pat on her back, causing her to go wide-eyed for a moment, "the only ponies who aren't allowed to call me that are those that aren't a friend of mine."

"So, we are still friends?" Celestia asked, sounding hopeful.

"I'm shocked Celestia," I said a bit dramatically, holding my chest, "that you think that a magical mishap would end our friendship?... well... only if it ended one of us... then that would be saddening for one of us..." I whispered the last part to myself.

"What was that?" Celestia asked, confused.

"Oh, nothing important," I said, waving it off, "So, about this Equestria?"

"Well," she said, rubbing the back of her head with her hoof, "there are... a few things that have been adjusted over the last thousand years."

"I would certainly hope so," I stated, a hint of humor in my voice, "otherwise, nothing would've gotten better."

We both got a chuckle out of that one and we continued to talk like that for a while, talking as friends, co-workers, maybe even as family, nothing too professional.

I walked into a out-of-the-way corner of the hallway and walked into a portion of the wall that started to ripple, and walked back to Manehattan, which in my realm is rather quick, it took a few minutes sure, but I took a few minutes to walk several miles instead of about a half hour to get half that distance.

I looked around and found my cracked-mirror, walked towards it until I re-emerged in the void-like realm.

I looked around and noticed Nightmare walking over.

"Your turn," I stated as I patted his back, nearly knocking him over.

Author's Notes:

So, Slender Man and The Keeper have met with Celestia, now Nightmare is up next, how will it go down? Also, why do they take normal transportation when they could simply teleport there themselves? Future chapters may answer these questions, maybe not.

Edit: Someone has finally won the competition, if you don't know what I'm refering to read the Author's Notes back in chapter 3.