Two weeks later...

“For the umpteenth time, NO, I will NOT be the coach of Twilight's goddamn School of Fiendsip, Celestia.” Said Praeratus with a growling tone, never tearing his his gaze away from the screen linked to the drone he was using at that moment to survey the Dragon Lands in search of any sign of bioweapon activity. The ship was hovering several hundred meters over the realm since the drone's range was somewhat limited, and Praeratus wanted to show

That said, despite Ember's warning to her people about the arrival of the alien dragon, a lot of dragons got scared senseless by the flying machine, both the big one and the small one. A few even breathed fire at the drone, probably because they were scared yet unwilling to admit their fear in front of their peers or didn't really fear it but wanted to show their bravado anyway.

Unfortunately for the 'brave' dragons, the drone was designed to withstand temperatures far higher than their fire... and a taser that left them paralyzed for several hours. The burns weren't life-threatening, it served as a good way to make the other dragons see what would happen if they followed their peer's examples, and Ember only asked him to at least not break their bones, so it was good.

In contrast, even the largest ones refused to even fly below the ship after Praeratus deliberately melted a giant boulder with the thrusters, even though he only wanted to warn them.

When Praeratus landed at the behest of Celestia, many dragons were surprised that the alien looked so much to them. Naturally there was a certain teen dragon that thought he was some kind of freak instead of a real dragon, but instead of going into a rage as both royals feared he simply glared at him and said:

“You think I care if a bunch of reptiles see a synapsid as one of them? Yes, synapsid, I came from a womb and sucked from a tit, deal with it lizard boy.”

Of course, not everything related to their arrival was negative. Celestia was happy that she could be on the Dragon Lands without it being official business, most dragons were more curious than scared of the ship, and Praeratus was quite willing to answer their questions. Granted, most of those questions were mostly about his time in the military and the beasts he had hunted, but it was a nice change from scared ponies.

“Why not?” Asked Celestia, who was sitting behind him in the couch, drinking tea and petting Cyranus' head. The gorgonops, grunting in bliss, was laying his head on her lap, but in a way that didn't support his weight on her body to crush her. “And it's School of FRIENdship, not Fiendship.”

“I don't care. Also, do you want me to remind you again of why? Hell, WHY are you still pestering me with that?” Growled Praeratus. “Pretty sure that by now you know I won't accept.”

“Twilight practically begged me to pester you until you gave in, and I always keep my word, especially if its from a friend, even if it doesn't work.” Celestia replied before taking a sip of her tea. “Besides, you told you liked the idea.”

“And I still do, I just don't want to be part of it.”

Twilight had the brilliant of idea of making a school were creatures of all shapes and sizes could learn friendship like ponies. Admitedly she already had it before (and in fact she had the school built before leaving to the Convocation), but the Unity Hall's fiasco made her to bring it forward instead of waiting.

Praeratus had to give when it was due: the school would allow the children of other species to mingle with each other and, eventually, become friends, and since the teachers were her own friends and former Element Bearers (plus Starlight and a few more), she was sure it would work out in the end. Her friends approved of it, Celestia and Luna approved of it, and even Praeratus saw it as a way to counter Neighsay and Aspen's blatant racism.

The only problem was that she also wanted Praeratus to be a teacher. The coach, to be more precise.

Obviously the xeno-hunter refused, making clear that he a soldier, not a teacher, and reminded her that the bioweapons were still at large and evolving, and he didn't want to waste time as some coach. Besides, the only 'physical education' he could think about were military drills, screaming at the top of his lungs, more drills, a recreated fight or two, even more drills, impaling recruit's hands in walls with metal knives, playing instruments on the run, and yet even more drills. He was a former hyper soldier, not a teacher.

Besides, that wasn't the only reason.

This forced the purple alicorn to take drastic measures: give him the feared art known as 'puppy dog eyes', which until now had never failed her (and in turn she had been unable to resist). When this obviously failed (because he was a millenium-old dragon ex-soldier from space that could lift buildings with his mind), she asked Fluttershy to give him the 'Glare'. That backfired espectacularly when Praeratus glared back with his only eye; not even Rainbow Dash and Discord could get her out when she hid under her bed for days.

This forced Twilight to take even more drastic measures to assure his collaboration in her future school.

Beg Celestia herself to convince him in person. She was still sleeping at his ship from time to time, and he outright screamed he cared about her. That obviously meant were friends and he would had to help her since friends helped each other. It was a proven fact, proven by hundreds of years and by herself, the Princess of Friendship.

Therefore, that meant he would have to hear Celestia out and help Twilight! Right? RIGHT!?

(I'm writing like this to show how unhinged Twilight is getting).

Yes, but also not exactly.

You see, while Celestia always approved of Twilight's ideas, even she thought that making Praeratus the coach of the School of Friendship was a bad idea, especially since, if he accepted, he would be the only real teacher on the school: instead of teaching normal subjects like Music or History, they would teach the Element of Harmony they represented (Honesty, Laughter, Loyalty, Kindness, Generosity and Magic).

Indeed, that was also another reason Praeratus refused to be the coach: as far as he cared, he would be the only real pedagogue in a school 'full of kooks that teached things that could get kids killed'. Naturally this offended the former Elements, but they promptly shut up when he reminded them that there were things out there that wouldn't care about beint generous or nice,

The last reason was the one he thought of as the most glaringly obvious: the bioweapons were still out there, having been in and planning for two weeks, and who knew what were they doing. Either the natives of Equus had the memory of simple robots or they deliberately chose to forget the attack on the Hall of Unity, becaus everyone except Celestia and Luna (and maybe Spike, given that every time he had to walk near the Everfree he practically begged Praeratus to go with him, sometimes with/alongside Celestia) continued with their daily lives despite the fact that the bioweapons were definitely kidnapping, experimenting and butchering numbers of ponies, griffins and such to study them and become stronger, and mindwiping the minds of anyone who saw them to hide their tracks. To make things worse, psionically-induced mental changes were practically undetectable to him unless he used his full power to scry on those minds, and the mental walls of the sophonts of Equus were already weak as they were, so if a blue psionic didn't drive them mad a purple one would.

Besides, Praeratus had to admit that, as much as he wanted to, worrying over those deaths and kidnappings would lead to nothing, so he forced himself to shrug it off and keep searching from the bioweapons. What DID bother him, however, was the fact that all of the royals he met begged him to not reveal the actions of the bioweapons (well, all but Aspen, who didn't know it since he wasn't there when it ambushed them and they didn't want to tell him and make things worse). When he asked (as in, he roared) why, they said that their subjects were already on the edge by the appearance of the demons, they didn't want to throw all of Equus into chaos by revealing that those same monsters were abducting and killing creatures without being no one noticing.

Praeratus didn't like it, but they were right. Plus, they also pointed out that, as powerful as he was, he couldn't be everywhere at once.

At least he hasn't used the 'thing'. That was good.

“Are you really sure there's nothing I can't do to convince you?” Continued Celestia, having finished her tea.

Praeratus gave a deep breath as to not scream at her. Just what would it take to finally shut her up about the damn school!?

“No Celestia, there's nothing that will change my mind about this 'School of Friendship'. Now” He said , turning off the drone after bringing it back and getting up from his chair. “, I'll take us back to Ember's place and say goodbye. We've been here for two days already and haven't found nothing about the bioweapons.”

Celestia watched in anguish as the therawyrm walked out of the living room without changing his mind back. Yes, it wasn't the end of the world, but Celestia had promised Twilight that she would convince Praeratus, and as it has been told before, she made good of her promises.

'What to do now?' She thought before looking down at Cyranus

“Oooh, what do I do Cyranus?” She said to the gorgonops. Cyranus simply grunted at her as if shrugging before standing up and trotting to his corner, making her groan.

'What will I tell Twilight, that the School of Friendship will have to be without physical education? If it were another issue I would tell her to simply let it go, but she's very enthusiastic about the school and what it could do to bring the races of Equus together, and so am I.'

She looked intensely at the floor of the ship, which was now shaking as it flew towards Ember's home, trying to formule another plan to make Praeratus change his mind. Despite her innate wisdom and a thousand years of experience, she got nothing to help.

The alabaster alicorn sighed in defeat and rested her chin on her hands.

'I supposed I'll have to tell Twilight that the School of Friendship will end up without a coach. Well, at least I can say I tried... and failed, yet again.' She thought morosely, remembering all the times she had lost (admitedly those involved fighting, but the situation brought them to her mind): her sister becoming Nightmare Moon, Discord returning, Chrysalis invading, Tirek escaping... Sure, this 'defeat' was simply not getting the help of Praeratus.

Didn't stop her eyes from getting watery; she was still strong enough enough to not cry completely, but not enough to not sniffle and tear up a bit.

“I'm a failure..” She said while covering her

Cyranus, seeing his new friend in such a deplorable state in which he had never seen her before, walked up to her and rubbed his head on her arm. He always did it when the same thing happened to Praeratus and it always worked..

Celestia, wiping away her tears with her sleeve, hugged the gorgonops before smiling down at him.

“Thanks Cyranus.” She said before hugging him again, prompting the alien hound to purr in satisfaction. “I don't want to insult Philomena but, between you and me, you are much better at comforting ponies than her. Yes, she can warm them, but so can you, and you won't scorch them if they touch you. You're also a good guard dog, although you're a biiit...” She said before trailing off for a second, realizing what she just said.

'Wait a minute. Good guard dog... guard dog... guard... THAT'S IT!'

Celestia stood up, smiled at a startled Cyranus and hugged him. “You just gave me an idea! A great idea” She said before kissing Cyranus on the head and flying to the cockpit, leaving a confused gorgonops alone on the living room.

Meanwhile, Celestia couldn't avoid smiling and congratulate herself after realizing how to make Praeratus joing Twilight's school, and being able of make good of her promise to the lavender alicorn. As she was about to enter the cockpit, she ceased flying and walked normally, trying now to not smile in front of the therawyrm.

“Celestia, I can hear you coming you know.” Said Praeratus without looking back at her. “And if you ask me one more time about Twilight's little project... I can't promise I won't scream.”

“Oh no, I gave up on that.” She said as she walked to the pilot's seat. “But can I ask you something? It's still related with the school, but not about you.”

“Sure.”

“Do you remember that the School is placed in Ponyville, right?”

“Well, yes, I went there a couple time before, you know. And received a 'warm welcome' the first time.” Praeratus said in a sarcastic tone, remembering very well the angry mob that tried to attack him the first time he came to the outright medieval town, just after Pinkie Pie gave him a genuine.

While none ended in the hospital, and in the end he admited he went a bit too far with it, Praeratus made painfully clear that he wouldn't tolerate being further attacked, and when Twilight tried to scold him by saying that fighting back against scared ponies was wrong, he rebuked that attacking people that simply looked scary was even more wong, and it was their fault they were xenophobic town hicks, not his. Alright, that last part might have more out of spite than anything, but still.

“And you know that the Everfree Forest is right next to the town.”

“So?”

“Well, from time to time the town is attacked by creatures from the forest... sometimes even Ursa Majors.”

“What!?” Praeratus exclaimed, looking at her in bewilderment and accidentally turning off the engines while it was still flying. The falling ship would have crushed Ember and the other dragons if Praeratus hadn't catched it telekinetically, after which he carefully laid it on the rocky ground. He sighed in relief, but then he glared at Celestia, who then realized that maybe, just maybe, telling him that while he was flying the ship wasn't a good idea. “Excuse me, I think I didn't year you. Could you please repeat what you just said?” He asked with a sweet tone and a smile... that showed all of his pointy, curved teeth.

It was at that moment that Celestia remembered, that Praeratus hadn't been told about Ponyville 'weirdness'.

Well, at least it's longer than the previous chapter... But don't worry, the last chapter of 2019 will be longer and will have actual action!