The days blended together in Grogar’s pocket dimension, but even as I lost my grip on what time was, I learned more about the most forbidden arts imaginable. Anything I wanted to learn, any sacrifice I wanted to make, Grogar was all too happy to help me along with. After a few days of nonstop research and training, Grogar introduced me to the woman I’d be feeding off of for the foreseeable future so I didn’t have to eat the shitty food that Tartarus had to offer. Grogar himself didn’t need to eat and hadn’t in the past thousand or so years, but Trisha the Satyr was happy to eat just about anything she could get her hands on. It made her blood taste funny more often than not, but she was literally a slave owned by me with legal documentation, so I made sure to give her the freedoms I could since my morals still exist. Grogar found it amusing that I was willing to take a life, but not willing to own a sentient being.

Dude’s just dumb sometimes, but he is old as shit.

Anyway, I didn’t bother to meet many of the residents of the pocket dimension since most of them couldn’t speak due to not really having the brains for it, meaning that I had a fucktonne of time to decide what I wanted to study. Teacher Man was a little disappointed that I wanted to start with Alchemy, but when I mentioned to him that I wanted to see The Source, he beamed like I’d told him that I was going to take over Moudar so he could enjoy a peaceful retirement. Grogar helped me set the circle up, of course, but creating the Homunculus was all up to me. I was assured over and over that whatever I lost could be replaced, and with that in mind, I sliced my palms and activated the Alchemical Circle.

As luck would have it, I got to lose my dominant arm. Fuckin’ lovely. In exchange, however, I learned how to transmute from a distance via a little Rune Circle. The bitch of the situation was finding out what to do with my non-arm since I considered it a valuable part of stress relief and back-rubs. Whatever was a Blood Magic using Thrall to do? Who better to answer that question than one of the oldest beings on the planet? The moment I stepped away from the One Truth, Grogar jammed a piece of wood into my exposed shoulder-socket like an asshole, but that wasn’t the suckiest part. No, there were Magic nails made of Conduce Crystal, Blood Emerald, and Bane Steel in the wood, and when Grogar ever so kindly fucked my arm-hole with the glorified two-by-four, the nails sank further into the wood before sinking into me.

The end result was a pretty, flesh-like wooden arm that had a nice polish to it, but I made sure Grogar was well aware of the fact that I’d be replacing it with something even better when I had time to get into my shop. The way the crystals, gems, and steel all showed their colors in my arm was nice, but I was kinda salty that all I’d gotten from losing my arm was the ability to snap at a nonliving thing and alter it slightly. Grogar encouraged me to try doing more stuff with the Transmutation Circle I had, so I carved it into the back of my new right hand and found that I could alter a weapon mid-swing if I really wanted to. It wouldn’t serve me much good while in his pocket dimension, but at least it was a handy thing to have. It also boosted the range of my ‘Fling’, as I decided to name it, but not the speed at which I could transmute something.

The next big thing I wanted to learn about was Umbral Manipulation, but Grogar told me to go find some guy named Stygian if I really wanted to work with shadows like that. Instead, he taught me some bits and pieces about Necromancy, like how to talk to the dead, which I could already do by looking into the Ether. I did have him teach me how to do the trick with the lights though, so that was pretty cool. After a few weeks of learning and burning the candle at both ends, Grogar admitted that I should probably attend to my worldly matters while they still mattered to me and I found that ominous, but that’s probably because I was working with dark shit that made a habit of fucking people up when they weren’t careful with it.

Instead of being dragged into another briefcase, Grogar had me go down a fucking slide to get back to reality, which was like, fun and all, but I felt like a jackass for sliding down a playground toy-thing. I slid out of the briefcase feet first, which made my landing awkward as fuck because I’d had the thing on a table before I’d been dragged in. When I say awkward, I mean I landed in a heap on the floor and had to pick myself up and dust myself off. My left eye tingled as I saw through to the Nether and looked at the Heartless that wandered around my shop, and a few of the hideous bastards looked right back at me. I made three hand gestures; a gun-like gesture, the Spiderman thing, and I finished by pointing straight up with my right index finger, my thumb pressed firmly against the base of the longer digit. The one I was looking for, the one I’d summoned in Grogar’s BriefcaseLand Adventure, shuffled forward through the crowd.

Master and Servant met for the first time, so in my darkened shop, I took off my shades so I could fully inspect the being I’d lent a piece of my soul to. Instead of being a hideous, red-skinned humanoid thing that looked like it severely needed beeswax and Carmex on its entire body like most of the Demons that were milling about, my Familiar turned out to be a hulking green orc-like being, its body crossed with razor-wire. The Heartless one had a fuckin’ stalagmite made of sulfur in one eye, but the parts of it that were covered in bloody animal hides at least looked well protected. I thought it was a male, but the Heartless didn’t always represent what they looked like since they never stay in one place very long, but this particular legitimate literal fuckin’ Demon from ‘H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks’ just so happened to have a name, so I was pretty sure it was a male.

“Okthus.” I said authoritatively.

His lip curled. “You. Mom-my. Smell.”

“Yeah, Max and I are friends.”
Okthus the Bastard bore his tusks at me. “Okthus rape soul!”

I smirked and reached into my overcoat. What, you think I wore the same clothes for weeks at a time while losing limbs and doing Devil shit? Nah, I was lookin’ spiffy as the fuck in some modernized Mage robes, decked out in maroon since I kinda had a theme going on, and the flask I pulled out of my black coat was stoppered by maroon-dyed cork. Call me obsessive.

“Do you know what this is, Buddy?” I asked, knowing Max’s disowned piece of filth was too dumb to see it for what it was. “This is your soul, and your Anima. Do you know what that means, Buddy?”

Okthus growled. “Kill you, be free!”

“Kill me, go straight back to Smileton.” I said with a winsome smile.

He fell to his knees and prostrated. “Okthus sorry! Okthus beg!”

“Okthus forgiven.” I replied as patronizingly as I could. “Now you know you’re being released from Hell Duty for the sole purpose of serving me, right?” He nodded, his head tapping the ground as he did so. “Alright, here’s the first thing I need you to do: I want you to go to Mammon and get me an audience with him. If he won’t play ball, then go to Belphegor and try with him. If neither of them work… Well, if things go good, you’ll at least die quickly and never have to worry about suffering again.”

He sat back on his heels but the mother fucker was still taller than me by at least three feet. “Okthus follow orders good. Okthus come back soon.”

“Great. Don’t bug me if I’m around a yellow Pony, alright?”

“Okthus underknow.” He grunted.

“Imma assume that means we’re clear, so go do the things please.”

He nodded and wandered away, so I scratched my chin and tried to think of what I should’ve been doing all along until I remembered that I had to go back to Fluttershy. Then I remembered that I had a fake arm, a benevolently cursed eye, Demons that actually came from Hell, not Tartarus, dogging my heels, and more than a few dark tricks up my sleeves. However, on the plus side, I could totally tell her about my new Rune Cipher and she’d probably ignore it and ask me what happened to Ol’ Righty, but I could deal with it for the time being. Either way, I figured I’d just go on home and face the music since Fluttershy was probably awake by then, but as I walked, I wondered what the FUCK I’d been thinking. It suddenly hit me that I’d delved deeper into Black Magic than I’d ever intended to go. I’d been amassing power, acting according to some admittedly well thought-out plan to start the largest Coven in Equestria. I’d sacrificed my arm, a piece of my soul, a bit of my Humanity, and probably more that I’d just casually thrown away in the pursuit of power.

I’ve never really been addicted to anything. Coffee, maybe. I like weed, but I can go without it. Never did like tobacco that much. Thought I had a penchant for power back when I was younger and wanted to join a big set, but that wasn’t the real shit. What Shade Rose showed me? That was a taste. What Grogar fed me spoonful by spoonful was enough, but in the core of my being I wanted more, which is why I nearly went after Cain and tried to harness his ridiculously evil, immensely deep wells of power. Prolly almost destroyed Equestria since I would have tried to do it without Teacher Man, but let’s just forget about the near collapse of the entire free world and move onto me getting tackled out of reality by my favourite Pinkie Pie.

I was a little less sure of that when she started hitting me. “Are! You! Done! Being! Dumb! Yet!?” She ask, whacking me pretty hard.

“Ow-ow-ow-stop-stop-stop!” I replied bravely.

“That’s! Not! An! An-swer! Butt! Head!”

“I’m done, I’m done! No more Black Magic!”

She kept hitting me. “No! More! Cutting! Stuff! Off!”

“I get it, alright!?”

Hug Bunny stopped hitting me and took shaky breaths. “Is it just the Y Chromosome that makes insane guys do evil shit!? There’s an entire Collective of insane women who do nothing but make people smile, but insane guys commit genocide throughout history!”

“Skip the sexist lecture and get off, fat ass!”

She sat on me and I wasn’t exactly pissed about it. Hug Bunny had fuckin’ curves. “That was mean!”

“Can’t breathe.”

She scooted back to sit on my hips and sat right on my dick, making eye contact as she did so. “Jay, I’m glad you snapped out of it before you got any deeper into it, but why would you let it get so far in the first place? You’re moving the timeline up too fast.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s just confusing! The prep phase slipped into the rising action and I didn’t know what to do, so I went with it!” I said, freaking out a little bit.

Pinkie slapped my shit before I could fully panic. “Hey! I need you to think your way out of this, Jay. I know you can do it, but you have to actually do something, right? “

I held my cheek and took a deep breath. “I can tell Fluttershy that I’ve been learning Blood Magic and ask her forgiveness or I can tell her that I traded my arm for more time with her, which is technically true. I could sugarcoat the fuck out of it or be real.”

“What do you think Fluttershy would appreciate more?” Pinkie asked curiously, like she
wasn’t really involved.

“The sugar-coating followed by the heavy news, then followed by a Pinkie Promise with both pinkies to only go looking for more strength with her blessing.” I blinked. “... And I guess I could do a little sum-sum with a nice chain and a bracelet… Hmm…”

“You’re going to let Fluttershy weigh in on your use of Black Magicks?” Pinkie asked. “You’ll never get to use it.”

“That’s not what the jewelry is for. The chain is to keep me honest with her and the bracelet is to let her know what kind of Magic I’m using. Trust me, it’s fuckin’ brilliant!” I gave Pinklie a big smile.

“... You’re sacrificing your privacy to assure her that you’re being good?” Pinkie asked.

“If it makes Fluttershy feel better, then it’ll make me feel better about screwing the pooch so bad.” I nodded sharply.

Pinkie raised a brow and gave me a scrutinous look. “You’re not doing this just to assuage your guilt, are you?”

I raised my own brow. “I love Fluttershy and I want to give her assurances that I’m not going to keep making the same mistake, so no.”

She nodded sharply. “Good! I’d pummel ya some more until you did what you honestly thought would make Fluttershy happy!”

I gave her a look. “You just wanna beat up a black guy.”

“You’re only half black.”

“You’re only half sane!” I shot back, sticking my tongue out.

“That’s still more sane than you, Butthead!” Pinkie countered haughtily.

“Yeah, but my pussy’s softer.” I scoffed.

“My dick is longer!”

“My tits are bigger!”

“My balls are heavier!”

“My eggs are more fertile!”

Pinkie giggled. “My sperm swims straighter!”

I smirked at her. “I taste better.”

She frowned. “That’s not fair. You get to taste like caramel!”
“Perks of being swagical.” I shrugged. “I’m off to face the music. Do you wanna tag along?”

Pinkie gave me a sad smile. “You know I’m not even supposed to be talking to you, right? You’re supposed to be going to the Equis Pinkie for guidance.”

I gave her a warm smile in turn. “Does that mean you’re not gonna visit anymore?”

“I’ll still keep in touch.” She said softly.

The weight of her words struck me. “... This is the last time I’ll see you, isn’t it?”

Pinkie gave me a tight, vapory smile that seemed like it would fade in the slightest breeze. “I can’t hide it any longer, Jay. Tartarus, I think I might have got caught this time.”

I nodded slowly a few times. “I’m gonna miss you, Pinks. Thank you for coming when you could.”

She raced forward and gave me a hug. “Remember to write back, okay Jay? I wanna know how you’re doing and how you’re getting along with Fluttershy and how you’re doing without Ty and how you miss your Moms and if you’re still m-missing me and if you like it on Equis and- and-” Pinkie choked up and I held her that much tighter.

“I’ll never forget you, Pinkie Pie. In my entire life, there’s never been someone who’s been so consistently there for me when I needed them most. You’ve saved my life, you did your best to save my brother, and you’ve tried your damnedest to keep me on a decent path. I owe you more than I can repay, and if all you can ask right now is that I write you, then I’ll write millions of notes about whatever little event I think might interest you. Or bore you to tears. Anything to keep in touch with one of the most-”

Pinkie let me go and cupped my face. “Jameson.”

I held her hips. “Pinkamena.”

“Stop me now before we both regret it.”

“You’ve been my best friend since I met you on Arkaid. Even Max couldn’t convince me not to do this.”

That was all Pinkie needed to hear before she drew me closer, the moment lasting as long as we needed it to until our lips met. I don’t know how long the kiss was, but I do know that I opened my eyes to find that I was sitting in my shop with the familiar weight of loss on my heart. I took a deep breath, air whistling through holes on the inside. I exhaled and it felt like the holes grew just a little larger, but I compartmentalized as I always do and exited my shop, tears I didn’t want to shed streaming down my face while I appeared to be fine other than for the crying. A few people asked me if I was okay as I walked along back to Fluttershy’s house, but I honestly didn’t have much of an answer. I knew that I felt like I was slowly losing everything that mattered to me, sanity included, and the more I tried to avoid the dark thoughts, the more they came to prey on my mind.

I was pretty much just lurking through the shadows as I passed through town since I’d left my glasses in the shop. My left eye was the only one I could see out of, and luckily Ponyville wasn’t exactly a hotspot for Nether activity, otherwise I might have seen a lot more rape and torture than I’d have cared to at the moment. I did see someone get flagellated for a little while so that was bad, but I wasn’t blind by the time I got to Fluttershy’s, and that was nice. It didn’t really matter to me all that much since I’d just lost one of the nicest people I’d ever met in my life, but I still had Fluttershy to lean on for the time being. However, I didn’t want to lean on her when I got inside and instead settled for lying down on the cold stone hearth and just trying to deal with it for a little while.

Shit still sucked.

“Garrison?” Celestia asked softly, light spilling into my room.

It had to be somewhere in the wee hours of the morning since I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. Ever since Celestia brought me to her castle, I’d been on edge and more than a little jumpy. However, I felt more than a little justified since getting a personal wakeup call from a Princess was quite unusual. “Heya.”

“Ah, the ever lovely morning grunt.” Celestia chuckled. “Come along, Garrison. We have a day to begin, you know.”

I didn’t answer her and instead chose to roll in a direction until I fell out of the bed. With my plan going exactly how I wanted it to, I pushed myself up to my feet, threw the blankets I’d taken with me onto the floor onto the bed, and started stretching. “Bwaaah!”

Celestia gave me an amused look. “Do you require help getting changed, or are you a big boy now?”

I gave her a look. “I only need help with pee-pee time and three syllable words, thank you very much.”

She giggled at that. “You pronounced ‘syllable’ quite well for needing help with words that long.”

“Well, how else am I supposed to tell people what I have trouble with if I can’t say what it is?”

“You could always write it down.” Celestia countered airily.

“I only re-learned the language not too long ago. I think I’d butcher the spelling pretty badly.”

“Pure hyperbole. Now get prepared and meet me in the Dining Hall when you’re finished for breakfast. We’ll first gauge your skills and then we’ll see about scouting for possible partners for you to work with in Minosia since our plans fell through last night.”

“Sweet. I’ll be sure to bathe, as you requested.”

Celestia gave me a look and pointed at me. “Wash behind your ears, young man!”

“You wash ‘em! In fact, why don’t you hop in the tub too? I’m sure you’re smelly. You look smelly.” I said disdainfully.

She gave me a more womanly look. “I bathed before I came here, unlike some people who haven’t bathed for a thousand years.”

I shrugged. “What can ya do?”

“Take a bath, you hooligan.” She scoffed.

“You’re not my real Mum! Not that I’d know, but still!” I argued.

She pointed toward the bathroom. “Clothes, bathroom, shower! Now, Garrison!”

I pouted at her and she gave me a smug smirk. “I’m not taking a shower because you told me to, I’m doing it because I like the way water feels when it slides between my-”

“Bath.”

“Arse-cheeks.”

Celestia rolled her eyes and gave me an amused smile. “Just be sure to use the soap provided, okay? I assure you that it smells phenomenal.”

“Can I have a bite of it?”

“If you please.”

“Victus.” I started towards the wardrobe and grabbed some clothes and my armour before heading to the bathroom to do the thing with the water and the soap and the lathering, rinsing, and repeating. It was pretty good.

A cute maid met me outside of my room once I’d finished with my shower stuff and smiled. “Mr. Garrison, I presume?”

“That’d be me, Lover. And you are?”

“I’m Cheese Danish and I’m here to take you to the Dining Hall! Do you have any questions before we start our walk? Not that you can’t ask them as we go along, it’s just that I like to give ponies the option, you know?”

I tilted my head. “I’m not a Pony.”

“No, but you’re in Equestria and you have a Trial Citizenship Ring on, so you’re one of us! Just be careful not to mess up and break a law or something!”

“I hope I don’t break them by not knowing what they are.” I said idly. “I don’t believe I have any questions at the moment, other than where is the Dining Hall?”

“It’s near the center of the castle, so let’s be on our way!” Danish gave me a sweet smile and started leading the way, her tail bouncing and swaying as she went along. She didn’t have much in the way of an arse for having such nice hips, but she was definitely pleasant enough to be around for a little while without needing a distraction from her actions or words. As we strolled the halls of the castle, Danish told me about some of its history and informed me of a few interesting things happening around the palace, such as who was sleeping with who, where the best place to catch a nap un-assailed was, and when the best time was to sneak out and have a salt cube. I didn’t give a shit about when I could go get sick off of salt, but I did care about Cheese Danish’s sense of duty. She was a very diligent maid and showed it by stopping to fix things unnecessarily from time to time while we were on our way, and I could appreciate that about her. I’d always liked to see work ethic in a person, seeing as how I believe that idle hands lead to an idle mind. It didn’t matter that much in the moment, but I was hoping to get to the Dining Hall without Cheese Danish asking me any particularly hard questions.

My luck held out and she didn’t ask me about anything I wasn’t willing to tell her about, though I did have to bring up the fact that I was a little more than forgetful a few times, and she doubted that I was over a thousand years old. She could believe whatever she wanted, but I knew that my time spent in Hell was well worth the trip, even if I’d forgotten about a lot of things, if not just about everything. It would be all well and good whenever it decided to sort itself out, but for the time being, I just wanted to get a meal, though I doubted that Hellbeast hearts would be on the menu. Much to my chagrin, there were no hearts on the table when I entered the room, and there was a blue person giving me the Evil Eye from the other end of the table. I didn’t like that look very much, so I looked around for Celestia and found her shortly after searching for her in the first place.

After taking a seat a decent distance away from her, I asked, “So how’s the morning treating you so far, Your Majesty?”

“It’s going well, and I see that you’ve decided to make your bath quick.” She said, narrowing her eyes at me.

“I smell fantastic.” I nodded a few times, still able to smell the soap on my skin.

Celestia gave me a look. “You know that ten minutes for a shower is paltry, right? And you didn’t even comb your mane! It’s going to be a mess if you don’t do it while it’s still damp!”

I blinked at her.

“... You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” She asked.

“Nope.”

“That’s what I though. Come here, Garrison.” She magicked a thing with a lot of prongs in a row on it into her hand.

“Sister, let the urchin groom himself.” The blue one said irritably.

Celestia gave her a look. “Garrison has a name and I doubt that he’d know what to do with a comb at the moment, Luna. Eat your breakfast in peace.”

‘Luna’ rolled her eyes and started slicing into a piece of fruit while Celestia beckoned me over once more with a smile and a patient look. I considered not going over there since her comb looked like it might hurt, and I didn’t know what a mane was, so I didn’t want her to randomly poke me with the thing. I also wasn’t too fond of the idea of not getting food, but Celestia had been nothing but nice to me, so I figured that whatever she had in mind wouldn’t be too bad. I got up and walked over to her before she gesture for me to kneel, so I did and she immediately started making her ‘comb’ go through my tangled, knotted hair. After a few minutes (And a snagged comb), Celestia just cast a spell on my ‘mane’ and made it loosen and unfurl. It went past my shoulders after her spell, and my face-mane went down to my solar plexus.

“Well.” Celestia said, her brows raised. “Can you cut the fur of of your face without actually cutting yourself?”

“Probably. I dunno.”

Celestia’s forehead gem lit up and she cast another spell, most of the fur on my face falling off all at once. One snap of her fingers later and the hair was gone. “Well, now you don’t have to know. I think we can have breakfast now that you’re a little more presentable.”

I shrugged and walked back over to where I’d been sitting and started filling my plate with brown things that looked tasty and multi-coloured things that also looked tasty. I didn’t know how I was supposed to eat the brown things, so I just pulled them apart to see what was inside. It struck me that I was probably playing with ‘bread’, so I started putting the morsels in my mouth, and much to my surprise it wasn’t actually all that good. I was expecting my first real meal in a millenium to taste like a mouth orgasm, but I was a little let down by the spread that was available. The only thing I took particular interest in were these little red berries that often came in pairs and had seeds in the middle of them. They were the perfect mixture of tart and sweet, and I can’t say that I would have left any behind if Celestia hadn’t said that we needed to get to the Rangers’ Quarters.

We chatted about stuff as we walked, but something about Celestia made me doubt that she was being nice to me out of her own accord. I felt like she was gaining something by keeping me in a good mood for the time being, but I was pretty sure that she just really wanted me to go to Minosia and start killing people or something to sate her sadistic desires. She could have been a madwoman for all I knew, but then again she could have been Dissida’s sister and I wouldn’t have remembered whether or not they were related. Either way, whether Celestia was to be trusted or not, the only way I was going to find out what I’d been doing previously on Equis was to stay with her and do as she asked for the time being. Besides, assassinating someone didn’t seem like that hard a task to me since I was pretty sure that I’d done it before. As long as it was at least a little like hunting, I could probably pull it off without too many problems.

Celestia eventually brought me to a corridor with few torches and a lot of people wearing mottled cloaks that seemed to shimmer and fade walking about. Looking at the people too long usually made me want to look at someone else, so I let my gaze slide around as it pleased until it found itself on Celestia’s tail, which was flowing gently in a breeze I didn’t think I was making. To counteract her tail because it wasn’t blowing the way I’d expected it to be blowing, I forced a breeze into the hall and let it make Celestia’s tail swirl and cloaks billow in the wind. A lot of people stopped and started looking around, but Celestia paid them no mind, instead giving me a mildly amused look over her shoulder.

“I wonder where all this wind is coming from.” She murmured playfully.

I tilted my head at her. “Is Wind Magic common?”

“Few people are strong enough to do more than blow very hard. Enough to make a bale of hay topple over, but little else. Actively controlling the wind might be more commonly known of than the Wind Breath technique, but there are fewer people who could actually do it without murmuring an incantation.”

“Does that mean I get a sweet for being excellent?”

“It doesn’t mean anything other than that you have natural talent. A talent that can be honed, I assure you.” She said, still walking along.

Celestia suddenly turned down a hall and stopped at the first door on the left, knocking on it sharply three times before looking toward me. I was within arm’s reach since I hadn’t been expecting her to stop so soon, so I took a half-step back and raised a brow. “Did the door hurt your feelings?”

“No. What makes you ask that?”

“You hit him rather hard.”

She rolled her eyes. “Wood is thicker than fur. It’s harder to hurt wood than you or me.”

“Did you ask Mr. Door that before you started hitting him?” I asked, setting my hands on my hips.

“As a matter of fact, I asked Mr. Door just this morning about the strength of my knocks and he actually asked that I kick him from time to time.”

“And you would be an enabler to such masochistic deviancy?”

She gave me a womanly look I remembered well from my days with Dissida. “You have a comeback for everything, don’t you?”

I smiled at her. “It might not be the correct answer, but an answer it is.”

Celestia rolled her eyes again and opened the door, walking in. I began to follow before it shut, thus leaving me to relax on a wall for a while. I dozed off and on for a bit until Celestia shook me awake, making me smack my lips to get my jaw working again. “Heya.”

“I see you can sleep just about anywhere.” She commented playfully.

“I sleep, I walk. I sleep, I walk. Let’s walk.”

“Let’s get you acquainted with you new boss, shall we?”

“Sounds like a thing we could do, yeah.” I replied. “Is the boss person in the door?”

“No, he’s in the room behind the door.”

“I’ll pinch your clitoris.”

Celestia stared at me. “... That was on add turn. Erm, an odd turn, I should say.”

I nodded and walked around her to open the door to reveal a vividly yellow fellow that seemed to be a little over middle age sitting behind a desk. He gave me a half smile and waved me in. “Just gonna wait all day, kid?”

I smirked at him and walked in before hard-stopping on my left foot. “Tricky bastard, aren’t you?”

He looked over his desk to see that I was teasing the tripwire with my right foot. “Ah, so you’re not gonna die right away. You have promise.”

“Traps are common in your line of work?”

“More common than in most, I’ll say that much.” He replied drily. “So, Garrison. How does it feel to be freshly drafted into the Ranger Corps for one mission?”

“Feels like I want to shoot the guy I have to shoot so I can take a nice nap.” I answered flippantly.

“Killing makes you feel nothing?”

“I’ve spent a thousand years in the afterlife hunting beasts that would tear you apart limb from limb, day after day, never ceasing until they found you after you came back to life. I’ve died enough that killing someone once doesn’t amount to much.”

The Yellow Fellow blinked slowly. “... Right. How are you with a bow?”

“I’m better with a crossbow.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I’m even better with a pistol.”

“Again, that’s not what I asked.” He said flatly.

I shrugged. “I can hit a target from a decent enough distance.”

“So can most fillies and colts. What I need to know is the range and accuracy.”

I pointed at myself. “The last time I shot a bow was over three hundred years ago. I don’t know.”
“So you’re sticking to this ‘Thousand years old’ story?” He asked dubiously.

“We could check his memories to see if they correlate with what he’s saying.” Celestia said from behind me.

The Head Ranger guy nodded. “We could do that, or we could ignore it and put a bow in his hands to see if he’s actually worth a damn. I trust your word, Princess, but you haven’t said anything about whether or not this guy is actually capable of doing basic Ranger duties.”

“Put him through a trial.” Celestia said simply. “If he passes, then he moves onto the Minosia mission. If he fails, then I’ll take care of him from there. Sound like a plan?”

“By your orders, Princess.” He said, inclining his head.

Celestia nodded sharply. “Garrison, don’t hurt anyone for silly reasons. Or crash through anymore windows.”

“You’re leaving?” I asked.

“I do have a country to run, after all. I’m sure you understand.”

I shrugged. “You could always leave it to rot and ruin for a week long adventure in fun, Sun, and sand somewhere. That sounds nice to me, at least.”

“You aren’t a Princess.” Celestia huffed. “What sounds nice to you might not sound nice to me, but that does sound nice to me, so stop mentioning it. Work is even more tedious when your head is filled with thoughts of places you’d rather be.”

“Oh well. Have fun with your business.”

She gave me a flat look. “I won’t. Butthead.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “... I feel like I’ve heard that a lot.”

“You probably have with the way you talk to the Princess.” The Ranger guy said edgily.

“He has nearly no memories of what civilization is like, Desert Horizon. It’s unrealistic of you to expect him to know how to treat royalty, and I for one find it a little refreshing and even more amusing to see a creature that doesn’t actually know why he has to be good, but still stays on his best behavior. It’s simply interesting.” Celestia said cheerfully

“You make me sound like a bit of a naughty pet.” I said irritably.

“You’re more like a senile child.” She replied.

“Bite me, pup.”

“You mean ‘foal’, and I’m older than you, even if you are a thousand years old. Respect your elders.”

I pointed at Desert Horizon. “Make him respect his elders and I’ll consider it.”

“The elder you’re telling him to respect is half senile and half apathetic.”

“Yeah, so?”

They both gave me looks, but I just smiled. “What? Did you expect a senile man to give a damn?”

“Case in point.” Celestia said flatly.

Desert got a chuckle out of it. “I’ll take him on, Your Majesty, but I want Flash Frost to train him.”

“Flash Frost? He’s one of your Wyrms, isn’t he?”

“He sure is, Your Majesty.”

“... I remember hearing about Flash Frost, and I don’t believe much of it was good.” Celestia said dubiously.

“He’s a little harsh, but he’s a great Ranger. I think he’ll really get a kick out of our fella here.” Desert said with a devious smile.

The Princess sighed. “I want you to keep Garrison relatively safe, Horizon.”

“He’ll be fine, Your Majesty. Just leave it to me.” He tapped his chest twice.

“He’d better be.” She replied warningly. “Garrison?”

“Yes, Princess?”

“Do try to succeed. I know that I’m throwing you into the middle of things without a break for water, but I know someone who knew you well, and she said that Garrison Varas was anything other than an underachiever.”

“Just to be clear, you’ll help me remember more about Equis if I go do the thing in Minosia for you, no?” I asked.

Celestia gave me an odd look. “I would do it if you bothered to ask, no favour required.”

“Ah. Would you mind restoring my memory?”

“I wouldn’t, but you didn’t say please, so now you have to go to Minosia and ‘Do the thing.’.” She replied, adding heavy air quotes.

“Beaver house.” I muttered.

“Beaver- Oh. Clever.” Celestia complimented.

“I don’t get it.” Desert said plainly.

“Dam.”

“... That was pretty clever.” He nodded. “I think Flash Frost’s gonna like you.”

“If I have to shoot him, am I going to be arrested?” I inquired for future knowledge.

“Yes, but if you prove that it was reasonable self-defense, then you won’t be arrested for very long.” Celestia reassured me.

“You’d be hard-pressed to nail him anyway. The Wyrm’s faster than you’d expect.” Desert said, doubting me and my abilities.

I nodded. “I’ve been underestimated before. The last thirty things that underestimated me were killed and had their tasty, tasty hearts eaten.” I thumbed my lower lip, salivating heavily as I remembered the flavour of Hellcat heart.

Desert and Celestia both started at me. “... You ate their hearts?” Celestia asked.

I looked at her calmly. “They ate me too, I just got the last bite.”

“... You’re going to have to explain that, Garrison. You’ve mentioned it before, but something tells me that you’re not exaggerating.”

I nodded. “For about three or four hundred years there were Hellhounds that would chase me down and eat me. Then I learned how to fight them and started taking more and more of them with me whenever they hunted me down. It took some time, but I eventually managed to clear an entire pack without taking heavy damage. After that, I earned The Grey’s respect and got an audience with Dissida, the Goddess of Hell, or like the Empress of Equis, to give an example. I seduced and kinda-sorta sexually assaulted her into being my slave slash Matron for the next thousand years, but I’m pretty sure she’s going to keep me around after I die for good so we can go back to killing things and having gentle lovings. We never actually went hunting together, but we did kill stuff.” I thought of a particularly fun instance and chuckled. “Oh yeah, you can drown a person with two waterskins and a wet cloth.”

Celestia stared at me and Desert Horizon cleared his throat. “... So you’re well versed in the art of straight up homicide.”

“I dabble.” I admitted modestly.

“It sounds like you do a lot more than just ‘dabble’.” The Princess said tonelessly.

I shrugged. “Dabble, excell; they’re both descriptors that I haven’t had to use in a few hundred years. Either way, can I go take that test so I can sleep now?”

“For now I’m going to get a Senior Ranger to oversee your aptitude test, then we’ll talk about getting you on a trial mission.” Desert said authoritatively.

“Sounds like I won’t be sleeping for awhile longer.” I sighed.

“You just woke up not even two hours ago.” Celestia commented.

“I stayed awake for centuries at a time in The Grey. I also slept for a century at a time, and I’m pretty sure this is one of those centuries that I just wanna sleep in.” I said lackadaisically.

She rolled her eyes. “Like I said earlier: Try to pass these tests. It’s very important that you assist me with the task in Minosia.”

“Am I very important?”

“If you’re a Ranger, you’re expendable.” Desert answered like he was quoting a book.

Celestia gave him a dark look. “Nopony is expendable, Desert Horizon.”

He nodded. “Nopony is expendable.”

I caught his emphasis and so did Celestia, but she actually approved of the fellow’s racism, which both confused and bothered me quite a bit for the simple fact that she’d said that she wanted him to keep me alive, but she was letting the fellow get away with obvious racism. It didn’t really make much sense to me, but I didn’t get paid for things to make sense to me, so I just resolved to kill Desert if he ever came to be a problem. I doubted that I could easily kill Celestia, so when she left and Desert lead me to the Ranger Corps training ground, I started thinking of ways that I could possibly end her without getting caught outright or being the first person under suspicion. I wondered how many people knew that I had Wind Magic, but I threw away my treasonous thoughts when Desert put a bow in my hands.

It took a few shots to get a feel for the weapon, but after three shots to test the draw weight and accuracy, I managed to start landing hits on target, and by the time I’d gotten my seventh shot off, I’d managed to start up a decent hot streak with all of my arrows landing in the centermost circle of the target. Desert nodded along while I sent all the arrows he’d given me downrange one after the other, going faster as I went along since I just wanted to empty the quiver and be done with that portion of the test. Once all my arrows were gone, Desert and I took stock of my damage and saw that I’d put a few arrows on top of each other, but other than that, most of them landed within the innermost circles.

“Little rusty and you could use a little extra speed on your nock-and-draw, but other than that, you’re a damn fine shot, Garrison.” Desert complimented begrudgingly.

I nodded. “I’m a better shot with my own bow, and I’m way better with a crossbow anyway.”

He smirked. “You’ll have to find time to grab your stuff and show me what you’re working with. I’m sure a few off duty Rangers wouldn’t mind testing their mettle against a new face.”

“Well, I can show you both right now if you’d like.”

Desert gave me a once over followed by a confused look. “Even if you were using a shortbow with a great draw, it wouldn’t be invisible.”

I extended my left hand and opened it, forming my Air Bow in a few seconds. “I don’t use wood, I use wind.”

“... Hot shit. Does that actually do damage?”

“Let’s clear the target and find out, shall we?” I proposed.

He didn’t waste any time and immediately started pulling arrows out of their temporary homes, handing them off to me to be shoved back into the quiver. Once the arrows were all freed, picked up, or thrown away, Desert brought me back to the target. “Alright, Blowhard, let’s see where this takes us.”

I gave him a look. “Blowhard?”

“Do you know what it means?”

“I’ll send you into the sky for an hour. I’m capable of doing that.” I think.

He rolled his eyes. “Shoot the hay, dammit.”

I rolled my eyes in turn and summoned the Air Bow and an arrow, prepping for the launch portion of the process by imagining the arrow as a cone of weightless metal, ready to piece the heavens, but instead of aiming on the vertical ‘Y’ axis, I did the ‘X’ axis thing and let my arrow fly at the target. When I let the wind blow, shall we say, it took a moment for the arrow to actually take flight, but when it did, it whipped up dust and ripped grass out of the earth as it flew to the target before piercing straight through it and impacting a wall quite some distance behind it. I blinked a few times and took a few steps to the left of the target so I could see where I’d hit the wall, and surely enough, there was a dark gouge in the stone some distance away.

“Well then. Didn’t expect that to happen.” I said lazily, looking back to Desert.

He stared at the target. “... Beaver House.”

“I know, right? What’s the next test?” I asked.

“... I’m gonna get Flash Frost to finish up your assessment. Wait here.”

“Can I sleep in the target if I push it over?”

Desert Horizon gave me the blankest look I’d gotten since I’d asked Mark how Hellhounds reproduced. “If you really buckin’ wanna sleep, don’t be here when I get back. I won’t say anything to the Princess if you want to wait until tomorrow to finish this stuff up.”

I sighed. “If I slack today, I have to do stuff tomorrow. I’d rather just do everything today so I can sleep all day tomorrow.”

Desert shook his head. “The crazy ones are always the strongest.” He muttered darkly.

“I’m not crazy, I’m senile. If I was young I’d be crazy, but I haven’t been young since I was thirteen.”

“I’m not even gonna ask, Garrison. Flash will be here soon enough, so don’t doze off.”

“I’ll be awake when he gets here.” I said pleasantly.

Desert walked off without saying goodbye and I was a little miffed at that. I thought he was being more than a bit rude at that point since I’d just showed him my super-special, super-secret surprise, but I decided to not shoot him in the back and instead summoned my Wind Wings and launched myself into the air for a few minutes of unrestricted freedom. Flying was the most magical thing I’d experienced since I’d actually learned about Magic, and seeing the world from so high in the sky made me feel like nothing else in the world, though I knew that there was another thing that used to give me a similar feeling. At the time, I couldn’t remember what it was, but the more I thought about it while climbing through the thinnest layers of air into the coldest heights of the sky, the more I became certain that it used to be a who, not a what. I suppose you could technically call a person a thing, but that’s even more rude than walking away without saying goodbye, so I’m not going to do that.

After I’d had my fun in the sky, I let myself free-fall back to Equis for a while, letting the wind slow my descent ever so slightly while I plummeted toward the ground at about half the speed I usually took off at. However, since I wasn’t flapping my nearly invisible wings or making any sort of move to save myself in any manner of speaking, I got tackled out of my descent by a well-meaning Pegasus who nearly got punched for messing with my Heppy-Heppy Fun-Smile Time in the skies above the clouds. The Pegasus managed to slam me into a decently large loud that was rather pleasant to land on, though I was a little irritated to say the most. By that I do mean that I wasn’t really all that upset.

The flying tackler of innocent people apparently thought it was a good time to untackle me and disentangle themselves from my person, which is when I saw that the person who tackled me just so happened to be a Mare with blonde coat and a tri-toned blue mane that looked quite fetching with the windswept look. My ‘savior’ had a medium build for a woman, if not leaning more toward the heavy side for what I remembered about things that flew with normal wings, though that’s not saying much. When I’d been so lovingly grappled out of the sky, I hadn’t been paying attention to the indubitable softness of the woman in front of me, but now that she was resting on my thighs, giving me a concerned, worried look, I couldn’t help but notice that her bum was quite soft.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay!?” She asked frantically. “Did somepony fly you up to the stratosphere and just drop you or something!?”

I propped myself up on my elbows and blew some hair out of my face. “Not quite. I was having a bit of fun, faffing about with some Wind Magic. I was perfectly safe, but thank you for trying to save me.”

She blinked thrice in quick succession. “... I guess you’d be falling through the cloud if you didn’t have some kinda Wind Magic, huh?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I’m guessing that the only things that can land on clouds are creatures like us.”

“Pegasi, Griffins, Frost Dragons, and Wind Mages are the only ones who can get up this high without a flying machine of some kind, but I’m more worried about being so sorry for tackling you!” She got off of me and offered me a hand up.

I took it and gave her a little smile. “All’s forgiven, Lover. I’d like to get acquainted a little better, but I have a Ranger to see about a test of some kind, so I’ll have to hope to see you again.”

The Mare gave me an apologetic smile. “Again, I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions, but if you’d like to give me the chance to actually do something toward making it up to you, I know this Turkine place that serves the best bacon you’ve ever had.” She let her brows bounce a few times. “All Stallions love bacon, right?”

“I’m too old to remember what it is, but it sounds tasty. I don’t know when I’ll be done with my testing and whatnot, but my name is Garrison if you need to find me and I’m not falling out of the sky.”

She blushed and giggled. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Garrison. I’m Sunshower, by the way.”

I gave her another smile. “I was just about to ask, though I have to say that the pleasure’s mostly mine. After all, I wasn’t afraid of anyone falling at the ground and not missing the target three minutes ago.”

Sunshower giggled some more and gave me a lovely smile that made me remember that Dissida was actually fucking hideous. “I don’t know about that, Mr. Garrison. I’m not sure if I know too many ponies who’d be happy to be tackled out of a dive.”

“For one, I’m not a Pony. Two, I wasn’t diving, I was falling with poise and grace. Three, there is no three, but it will be substituted by four, which is that getting tackled wasn’t all that bad. It’s not like you’re particularly bony or sharp.” I reasoned with logical rationalities.

“Are you calling me fat?” Sunshower huffed.

“If the belt doesn’t fit~” I taunted.

She whacked my arm and I gave her a shit-eating grin while she said, “I am not fat, Mister!”

“I never said you were. I was just asking if your belt was functional.” I said amusedly.

Sunshower gave me a look, but she didn’t put any steel behind it. “Next time you decide to fall, maybe I won’t catch you.”

“What if I’m falling into your arms? You’d be obligated to catch me then.”

“Obligated, not duty-bound. If you fall, you fall.” She said, raising her chin and turning her head, folding her arms while giving me some playful side-eye.

“I’ll be sure to remember that if I ever see you before you see me.” I said, smirking deviously.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sunshower asked.

I shrugged. “You’ll find out.”

Before she could answer, I jumped off of the cloud and soared down to the ground where my feet met solid, shitty earth that was nowhere near as nice as the cloud. I kinda wished that I’d talked to Sunshower a little more, but I wondered if it was because she was cute or if it was because I didn’t want to do the Ranger thing. Either way, when I touched down back at the target I’d nearly annihilated, there was a tall cloaked creature that was sitting on said target, checking what appeared to be a pocket watch from time to time. As I landed, the fellow dropped his hood and I saw that it was a Draconic creature of some kind, but memories of what an Equisian Dragon was supposed to look like surfaced, and the thing in front of me most certainly wasn’t a Dragon, which meant that it had to be a Naga. However, Naga don’t have legs, and their scales tend to come in dull colors with little to no shine. However, the creature in front of me wasn’t something I’d run across before since it had multicolored scales that made it seem a little less distinguishable from dark, polished river stones. It also had a tail without spikes on it like a Naga, but its snout was squared like a Dragons, though the pointed ‘nose’ was definitely a Naga feature. I didn't think the fellow had wings since I hadn’t seen anything bulging from his cloak, which left me with three options. One was that I was dealing with a horribly maimed Dragon, and another was that I was dealing with a beautifully mutated Naga. The third option was that the two races got down and dirty and spat out the elegant looking creature in front of me, which didn’t surprise me all that much since I’d seen some Crimson Fucker and a Fear-Turkey fucking like no tomorrow in The Grey. That’s right: A Crimson Fucker fucked a Fear-Turkey in Hell, and I had the honor of watching from start to finish.

Feathers. Feathers and bloody cum everywhere.

Anyway, I waved at who I assumed to be Flash Frost and he nodded. “Garrison?”

“That’s me.” I answered.

“Someone said they saw you take off like a Pony out of Tartarus.” He scoffed. “Figured you were scared of Wyrms.”

I tilted my head at him. “Worms? I thought that was a slur for Naga.”

“No, it’s for Wyrms with a ‘Y’. My race.”

“Ah. No, I don’t really remember enough about many of the races to care about them.” I said plainly.

He blinked slowly. “So you don’t care that my parents were different races?”

“... Should I?” I asked awkwardly, giving him the oddest look I had in my arsenal.

“Why wouldn’t you?” He asked confusedly. “Hybrids are the bottom of the barrel, Guy.”

“I stopped caring about race over a thousand years ago. Other than those fucking Birre’ Schan arsewipes, anyway. Dune-digging bastards.” I spat on the ground.

“Someone doesn’t like sand.” Frost scoffed.

“Someone doesn’t think a person can get by in life without hating people because they’re different.” I snorted.

He shrugged. “Tushie. I think. I don’t know if that’s the actual word, but it’s not important. What is important is that I get this damn test over with so I can go back to banging my girlfriend.”

I nodded. “Sounds good to me. When do we bang her?”

He gave me a shitty look. “Touch her and I’ll castrate you.”

“I don’t know who she is. You’d have to introduce us.”

“You’re already testing my fucking patience.” He groaned.

“It’ll get better. Let’s go take a test and see if I pass that one, no?”

He nodded and got off of the target, showing off at least six and a half feet worth of height. Dragons varied in size and weight like any other race, but most Naga tended to be tall and muscular, so I could see where the snakeman in Flash Frost showed its face. He didn’t wait for me to say anything else as he took us to a training course of some kind, but before he could say a word, I threw myself at it since it seemed like fun. There were bars that you could climb on top of and walk over if you had good enough balance, a wall that was all too easy to scale, a low net that looked like you had to crawl under it, and a few other minor challenges that didn’t end up being all that challenging. I ended up getting dirty because it was just that kind of test, but I was expecting to get some mud on me in any case, and I’d spent the better part of a thousand years covered in various types of blood, so I wasn’t exactly worried about it.

Flash Frost didn’t say anything when I came back to him after finishing the course, and that’s because he was nowhere to be seen. I scratched my head and looked around for him, but he was nowhere to be seen, which left me with a good bit of my day left to spend and nothing to spend it on. I figured I could do a little more flying, so I headed up into the clouds once more before finding a lake somewhere off in the distance. I hurtled myself towards it at a breakneck speed, charging up a coil of wind to push me off of a small cloud, but then something weird happened: I hit a wall of air that felt like cushioned bricks and nearly fell ouit of the sky, but I manage to recover and still make a dpretty speedy descent and dive into the lake I’d seen. I wondered what in the unholy name of Hell was with the invisible wall, but I figured that it’d be a problem for another day. After a good rinse or several, I flew myh way back to the skies above Canterlot and started loooking for the fluffiest clouds that I could find, searching for one that I liked and landing on it. The cloud was the most comfortable thing I’d ever laid on, and when I grabbed another cloud and pushed it over the first one for a bit of shade, I was in a state of pure bliss, and the best part was that nobody could see me as long as the clouds stayed together, and since I hadn’t given myself much room, It would be a challenge for anyone to see me.

Which is how I fell asleep over Canterlot Castle and woke up while falling in an unfamiliar part of town. The first thing I registered was the panic of not being supported anymore, and the second thing I did was open my eyes to see a darkened sky with a pale blue Moon hanging overhead. I couldn’t think straight with the adrenaline surging through my veins and the sleep fogging my mind, but luckily someone was nearby to tackle me for a second time that day, though the pure ridiculousness, the sheer astronomical odds of my actual savior and my unneeded one being one in the same threw me through a loop when Sunshower and I landed on yet another cloud, though this one hung lower in the sky than most.

“Dear Celestia, you crazy Stallion! You can’t tell me you meant to get busted out of a cloud! What would you have done if I wasn’t just getting home!? Would it like, kill you or something to be careful!?”

I blinked a few times and rubbed my cheeks. “That was a bloody fuckin’ awful nap.”
“... I might actually have to put a weighted vest on you.” Sunshower said making a face.

“You could always keep sitting on me like you are. I can’t really do much, and there’s no
steel involved this way.” I compromised.

Sunshower rolled her eyes and got off of my hips, sitting next to me. “I know you didn’t mean that in a perverted way, but I still don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

I stayed laying down because I was getting tired again with the adrenaline petering out of my system. “At least wait until you’re not tackling me as a way to say hello to start leading me on, in that case. I could use a beautiful friend to hopelessly pine after or something of the sort.” I replied casually.

She chuckled exhaustedly. “You don’t look at every angle when you speak, do you?”

“It’s a nuance I’ve forgotten over the passage of time. When you’re technically dead, you find that words matter less in general.”

“... You died?”

“I have
.”

“... You’re alive.”

“I tricked a very powerful being into resurrecting me, to make a long story very short.” I replied, making that lengthy tale into a bite-sized chunk of syllables.

“... Is that really true though?” She said doubtfully, giving me a teasing smirk.

I nodded and sat up so I could start taking my armour off. “One moment.”

“What are you doing?” Sunshower asked.

“There’s something that will prove my words, in essence.” I said, shedding my cloak, Doug, and beginning on unbuckling my cuirass.

“So you’re the type to strip on the first date?” She teased a little awkwardly.

“Well, the last relationship I entered was initiated via propositioning so I wouldn’t keep dying, so I suppose you could say that.”

“... How old did you say you were again?”

“One thousand and twenty-seven years old.” I answered automatically.

“Oh.”

“I look good for my age, don’t I?” I chuckled.

“... So… You’re not like, undead, are you?” Sunshower inquired hesitantly.

I slid my cuirass and shirt off shortly before unstrapping one of my gauntlets. Once it was off, I offered my wrist to my new friend. “Would you like to check for a pulse?”

She brushed my hand aside and put her freaky Pony ear to my chest. “Ah… Your heart sounds really strong, like it’s a bass drum or something.”

“Interesting. Maybe I was born to be a drummer?” I mused.

Sunshower rested her head against my chest for a few more moments before I started playing with one of her ears, making it flick as I drew little circles on it. “That tickles!”

“So does the fur on your ear.” I replied. “I’m just not all that ticklish.”

She pulled away and raised a brow. “Am I supposed to take that bait?”

“No, you’re supposed to be looking at my back.”

“Oh. What’s on your back?”

I turned to face the opposite direction and she gasped. “Each dark scar is for a death. Every light one for a year I lived in the grey. The pink ones are from hunting the things that used to kill me.”
“... Holy shit. H-How much did all of that hurt!?” Sunshower asked frantically.

I turned back around and started putting my stuff back on. “Being eaten was pretty bad
The first few times, but after that things got better. From that and being whacked by stuff for about five hundred years by a thing that’s too damn strong for her own good, it’s not like I couldn’t and can’t deal with little stuff like that. Stubbing my pinky toe, however, is the worst thing that’s ever happened to mankind since we first learned of fire.”

“Okay, you’re either ridiculously tough or you’re out of your mind.” Sunshower chuckled in disbelief.

“I wouldn’t say tough so much as apathetic, but that’s enough about me. What about you? Have you died yet?”

“Uh, no. No I haven’t.” She answered. “I guess you have me beat there.”

“I wouldn’t really consider it winning.” I said, more than a little amused.

Sunshower looked like she didn’t know how to feel at the moment. “I guess you’re right.”

“Say, what colours are in your mane? I like the blues. They remind me of the sky when you fly straight up with how it darkens and lightens.”

She blushed for some reason that I didn’t get and coughed. “Well, the darkest blue is sapphire blue, the lightest is cornflower blue, and the one in the middle is royal blue. What about you? Your mane looks lovely.”

I finished with my gear before I took a lock of my hair and examined it. “I don’t know what colour I’d call it. Fossil grey, perhaps?”

“Whatever the exact name is, it looks soft. Would you mind if I…?” She asked, trailing off.

I figured that she wanted to do the obvious, so I said, “Of course, though you’ll have to answer a question for it.”

She raised a brow. “The question is?”

“What do you do for a living?”

“Ah, I’m a coordinator for the Wonderbolts. I help assign missions and occasionally plan events. Yourself?”

“I think I’m a Ranger, but I’m not entirely sure. Celestia is pushing for me to do a thing that I don’t honestly feel like doing, but there are worse ways to spend time.” I shrugged. “I don’t know how, but I do know that I have a bank account for some reason.”

“How do you have a bank account if you’re a thousand years old?” Sunshower asked suspiciously.

“The Grey doesn’t exist on Equis. It’s another plane entirely.” I explained.

“... So what? You’ve been gone for how long here?”

“I don’t know. Celestia knows me, but she won’t tell me anything about myself until after I do her favour.”

“O-kay. Okay then. I’m sure she has a good reason.”

“I’m sure she does, though I’d really just like to find a good place to sleep. Maybe I’ll take some clouds higher so no ones messes with it.” I said, giving thought to another napping spot.

Sunshower patted my leg. “Hotels have beds that don’t usually break, you know.”

“That depends on how many people are on the bed.”

She pursed her lips. “Sometimes it only takes two.”

“I’ve heard that it’s more fun with three.” I commented idly.

“So have I, but three people sleeping in the same bed sounds hot and sweaty to me.”

“Coffee!” I gasped. “I can’t believe I forgot about coffee!”

“Threesomes make you think of coffee?” Sunshaower asked amusedly.

“Hot things make me think of coffee. You make me think of blueberry hotcakes.”

She casually checked out her mane and coat. “Smartass.”

“Have you ever had blueberry hotcakes?” I asked.

I received a look for my words. “Of course I have, Goofball.”

“Then you should know full well that it was a compliment.” I chastised, wagging a finger at her.

“I’ll kick you if you try to put syrup on me.” She chuckled.

“What about honey?”

“Kinky.” She murmured to herself. Louder, she said, “Honey’s even harder to get out of your fur, Garrison.”

“Wouldn’t it just wash off with water?”

“It has to be pretty hot to get yourself unsticky.”

“I thought sticky was the result of being hot?”

She chuckled some more. “Are you thinking of tar?”

“I might be. I was wondering how they put your feathers on.”

Sunshower shook her head and laughed and looking at the Moon. “Stars above, I really should be getting home…”

“I wouldn’t hold it against you if you decided to leave.” I replied kindly.

She looked at me and gave me a little smile. “Are you sure you don’t want to make a few layers of clouds and grab some blankets from my place? A little Avain camping never hurt anypony.”

I returned her smile. “Sounds good to me.”

“You either sit your happy arse back down or I drop you.” Roxy said frostily, her fingers already a solid pale blue.

“Snow Dove, listen I-”

“Max, You’ve already got Twilight flipping out about you, and all you’re doing right now is standing around at home. You just had the biggest stroke since they first popped up, Smoky. You need to get off of your feet, put your hands in your lap, and twiddle your thumbs for a little bit while we figure out where the Hell half of your universe went. Okay?”

I started rubbing my temples. “For the love of God-”

“Sit.”

“Fuckin’ change my name to Bojack so you actually have a reason to ride my ass.” I grunted, walking over to the easy chair I’d kept for millions multiplied by millions of years to have the seat Roxy so desperately wanted me to take. “Alright. I’m sitting.”

She’d followed me over and conjured a chair of her own so she could be next to me. “Sparky, this is for your own good. You’ve had the longest of times to things your way, and now its time for Twilight and I to fix your fuck-ups, as per the usual.”

“Bite me.”

She nibbled on my neck, making me pull away and give her a look. “You told me to bite you.”

“Next time I’m dropping a hot coal down your shirt.”

“Well, ow.” Roxy huffed.

“An ice cube wouldn’t do anything.” I snorted.

“It’d make my nipple hard depending on where it went.” She countered.

I sighed and leaned back in my chair, brooding for a few minutes that stretched on. “This fucking sucks.”

“I’ll say. I have to look at you while you’ve got the edgy half-silver, half-black hair going on.”

“I’d make you shut up, but I was told to sit.”

“You need time to recharge, Max. You might still be the Omnium, but you’re not as strong as you used to be right now.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” I growled.

“You’re welcome. You need someone telling you that you have officially come back to the realm of having limits that aren’t just arbitrary rules.”

I groaned. “Can I kill myself yet?”

“Nope. I wish you could.”

“Dayum.”

“Well it’s either that or the end of everything in fucking existence, Babe. You can’t honestly be blaming me here.”

“I’m not, Frosty. One for all, I suppose.” I sighed.

Roxy caressed my arm. “Garrison will pull through, Max.”

“It took me five years to gain enough firepower to take Discord down, and that was with my whole crew of insanely overpowered Alicorns. I-”

“Max, how long did it take you to start using Dark Magic?”

“Yes, ask the guy who just had the biggest stroke in recorded history about events that happened before you existed.” I deadpanned.

She coloured. “Fair enough, but a little respect goes a long way. Keep that in mind.”
I nodded and she continued. “Still, it took you about a year to actually start using Dark Magic. Garrison’s only technically been on Equus for eight months and look at what all he’s done so far! He took down the most popular choice for usurper of the Iron Crown and he’s on his way to go clear the seat, and he taught himself how to fly and shoot arrows of wind! He’s done the Hell trip and he came out of it a lot better than you did, and it’s looking like your Chosen has some possible allies in his very near future, so he’s kinda doin’ better than you at the moment.”

“Fuck off though.” I replied.

“I didn’t mean any offense, Smoky Bear.”

“Offense taken.” I rubbed my chest. “My poor feelings. How you impacted them so heavily.”

“Want a slinger?” She offered.

“Feelings healing.” I replied cheerfully.

She rolled her eyes and thus began the most holy of mouth hugs. Twilight’s tongue is still better for it, but the walls of her cheeks aren’t as noice as Roxy’s, so suck it and swallow like Twilight. Don’t be a spitter like Roxy.

Anyway, once I’d had a chance to return the favour, Roxy offered to conjure me up whatever I needed, but I just glared at her until she rolled her eyes and started throwing bouncy balls at me. We made forts and started a bouncy ball war with little shooters that would make the little buggers hurt plenty if you got hit by one. We both would have ended up with plenty of bruises if either of us could bruise anymore, but the important part was that we had fun for awhile and my mind wasn’t on my imminent death as opposed to the gentle passing into the Void as I’d been expecting. The distraction was nice, but when I accidentally hit Twilight in the back of the head with a ricochet, things went from fun to scary in zero seconds flat.

“Lovely. While I’m working my tail off, you two are screwing around shooting bouncy balls at each other.” Twilight growled.

Roxy gave her a steely look. “This is an aspect, Twilight. I’m still training both of our replacements as we speak, so maybe you’d like to get something off your chest?”

“Being Fate sucks.” Twilight snarled fiercely.

The room fell silent.

“... Twilight, I-” I started.

She glared at me with pure hatred in her eyes and I dropped the ball-shooter. I’m not even going to make a fucking joke about that because the fecal matter was so palpable. “Kaid Gadai, I have been married to you longer than most universes have existed, and through all of that, you took care of me. You looked out for me. You loved me. All this time, ever since I nearly ran into you the first time we met, I’ve known you. I’ve learned about you. I understand you. There isn’t a being in Existence that knows you better than I do, Kaid, but you don’t know me as well as I know you anymore.”

“Twilight, you’re scaring me.” Roxy said fearfully, icing up. “We both love Max, don’t we? I mean, he’s an arse sometimes, but-” Twilight stuck an open hand in her direction before closing it.

That’s how Twilight Sparkle killed my second wife. How she killed her best friend.

“Kaid. Look at me.” Twilight commanded.

I couldn’t drag my eyes away from where Roxy once stood. “... How?”

“Look. At. Me.”

I turned to her, my eyes streaming tears of liquid obsidian. “She loved you.”

There was no mercy in Twilight’s gaze. “I bet it hurts right now, but don’t worry, Max. It won’t hurt much longer.”

The room was warded by Q-b M-e D-i C-f, or in other words, a Quark-based Magically-venerated Divinity-infused Chaos-fount. In other words, I wasn’t the Maximus Omnium anymore, because that spell was supposed to be something only I could use. However, just because I recognized the spell didn’t mean I gave two shits about it. The woman I’d set my heart on marrying back when I was still semi-human was staring me down with lethality and venom in her gaze, just after she’d killed our wife, a former part of myself. If Twilight was the Maximus Omnium and she’d just killed the fourth oldest Maximus Ultima, then there were no possibilities that anything was going to stand in her way. Through the lens of Nonexistence, I saw that Twilight held enough power to do whatever the bloody fuck she wanted, and there were few groups of Gods that would be able to stop her. I personally trained the woman how to fight. I taughther my brand of creativity with Magic. I’d told her the secrets that only I was supposed to know.

She’d broken the first promise I’d ever asked her to make.

I didn’t know what to say. My soul had just been crushed to death by my heart, leaving behind a mangled corpse. “... Roxy…” I whispered.

Twilight extended her hand and prepared to snap her fingers. “Get over it. People die in worse ways every Goddamn nanosecond, so don’t you dare give two shits about whether or not she lives.”

I just shook my head.

Her gaze hardened further. “Consider this the last favour I’m ever going to do you. Think of it as payment.”

I didn’t understand. Even as I saw her middle finger slide down her thumb, I couldn’t comprehend that Twilight ‘Cherry’ Sparkle, my pretty little Pony, my heart and my world, my foundation and my love, would be the one to do me in.

… How could you? How could you do this, Cherry…? We loved y

Author's Notes:

Fuck me, am I right?

Much love to all of my readers

As Always,❅Stay Cool, Kids❅