Wiping the confetti off his fur, Havoc stared at Diane. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s been six months since we last saw each other, you silly! I wanted to spend a few days with my best friend slash big brother slash uncle!”

“You can’t be around me, my magic is poisonous to you!” he cried, moving away from her.

“Don’t be overprotective, Havoc. It took almost a year for that to affect me, a few days won’t hurt me. By the way, who’s your friend?”

“Who?”

“I saw her just before she turned invisible.”

“Fffffuuuuuuck,” Screwball cursed as she turned visible. “Now Pinkie Pie has seen me.”

“Not exactly,” Havoc said. “Diane, this is Screwball, my girlfriend who is also a chaos pony created by Discord and who would rather keep that fact in secret. Screwball, this is Diane, my best friend slash little sister slash niece. She’s also a mirror pool clone of Pinkie Pie and she would rather keep that fact in secret. So yeah, please don’t try to kill each other because you are more similar than you think, yadda yadda. Diane, are you sure that this is safe? Did all of my magic exit your body?”

“Don’t worry, as I told you in my letters: it took me only a month to fully recover. Hold, is she the same Screwball you were hiding from because she nearly killed you twice?”

“Yep, that’s me. I’m glad to finally meet you face to face, Diane. Havoc has talked a lot about you.”

“Oh! Okie dokie lokie! I’m really happy you found somepony other than me who can stand you when you aren’t acting as a pony, Havoc.”

“Yeah, it’s not easy to withstand so much autism, but I think I’m doing fine,” Screwball said. “Please, come inside and close the door before anypony else notices me.”

“Where did you get that party cannon, Diane?”

“From a party supplies stores, duh!” she answered as she pushed it into the house so she could close the door. “So, this is your new place?”

“Yeah. I still have to check it out, I just arrived. Come, let’s take a look and then we can talk over some bomb ass tea.”

Havoc’s new house turned out to be rather average. The ground floor had a kitchen, a dining room, and a large living room with a large chimney; while the first floor had a bathroom and two bedrooms. Everything was already furnished in the prevalent Canterlot fashion: dignified, opulent and relatively impractical. “Why in hell does the toilet seat have ornaments? It’s like they are meant to make you feel uncomfortable whenever you sit.”

Both Screwball and Diane shrugged, unable to discern the reason behind it. They were walking to the entrance when Diane noticed something. “Hey, I think there’s a trapdoor here!” she exclaimed as she stepped on a mat, her clopping much louder than before. Removing it uncovered a small trapdoor, which prompted the three of them to wonder aloud what could there be in the basement.

“A party room!”

“Dead bodies!”

“BDSM room?” Havoc offered, trying to reach the middle ground.

The three of them decided to discover it right away, so they quickly opened it and descended through the dark ladder. After nearly falling down the stairs, Screwball turned her beanie into a floating sphere of light, illuminating the area. The basement turned out to be disappointingly empty, save for the giant cobwebs that covered everything.

“Aaaaw,” Havoc whined as he burned off all the cobwebs with a snap of his fingers. “Well, at least we can turn this room into anything we want. Maybe an underground spa?”

“Or a place where you can lure unsuspecting ponies and turn them into cupcakes,” Screwball offered, smirking at Diane.

“Don’t be silly, Screwballs. You don’t turn ponies into cupcakes, you add them into the stew.”

“Girls, girls, don’t fight,” Havoc asked as they walked back to the ground floor. “Everyone knows that the best way to eat you ponies is raw and while you are still screaming. Now, Diane, do you have a place to stay?”

“I’ve been sleeping in an inn since I got here last Monday.”

“...What day is it today, again?”

“Saturday.”

“Huh. Well, you can stay here if you want. No point in wasting money if you can sleep here, right?”

“Alright, but if you get all noisy and expect me to clean the results of your love, I’m leaving.”

“That won’t be an issue, she never gives me any.”

“Oh, you poor thing… Well, I’m going to get my stuff, I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

As soon as she exited the house, Havoc let out a long sigh. “There’s no way in Hell I’m surviving both of you.”

“Hm… Would she agree to a threesome?”

“EEEEW! No! She’s, like, a little sister to me! And for the record: I’ve never had incestuous feelings towards my actual sister.”

“See? This is why Knightbane is more popular than you. He never says no to threesomes and doesn’t afraid of anything.”

“I don’t know why did you even suggest a threesome. It’s not like we are fucking, so there’s no need to spice up our sexual life with additions and innovations so it doesn’t get boring.”

“Yep, I’m a prude Canterlot mare who won’t lift her tail for the first draconequus who whispers sweet nothings to her. Now, Discord showed me the book of rules you have to follow if you want to stay out of trouble. You really, really need to check it or you’ll be neck-deep in shit before you realize it.”

“Seriously?”

Screwball solemnly nodded as she handed him a booklet. “I’m not saying that they tricked you into becoming a slave of these rules by giving you a house and some money, but…”

“That is exactly what they did,” Havoc concluded as he opened the booklet. “It’s only got 20 or so pages, it can’t be that bad, can it?”

“Read. I’m going to make lunch while you do.”

Havoc did so, and his frown became more and more pronounced with each page he flipped. He sat on a couch, which only creaked slightly under his weight, and continued until Screwball came back from the kitchen with a chickpea salad and pumpkin soup. “It’s a nice detail that the pantry is supplied already, but I’ll have to buy some missing stuff. Did you read the whole thing already?”

“I’m halfway through. Some of these are plain bullshit. ‘Shapeshifting in a way that will make those without magical awareness unable to discern your real aspect is forbidden’. How am I supposed to walk around without everypony pointing and freaking out then? And that rule about not being able to leave Canterlot without asking first? It’s clear that they want us to stay out of their minds until they actually need our powers.”

“So are you staying or not?”

“I don’t know, Screwball. I don’t know,” Havoc remained silent for a few seconds before continuing. “I’ll check the rest of the rules after lunch and then we’ll see.”

“Just wait until you read the ones that your fellow humans wrote.”

Havoc nearly choked on the soup when she said that. “Shit, they let some of us write rules?” Quickly eating what was left of the food, Havoc resumed reading the rules, this time shouting obscenities from time to time.

“‘Every human must asks for permission from the others before romantically approaching a pony’?! What the fuck is this? ‘It is forbidden to join others in their adventures unless they approve’? I can’t believe Luna and Celestia approved all of this.”

“So?”

“These rules are complete bullshit, but if they expect me to follow them they are dumber than I thought. Unpack your stuff, honey, we are staying.”

“Neat,” she said as she turned her beanie into a pair of sunglasses and donned them. “I’m going to take a walk around town. No offense but I want some time alone to interact with regular ponies. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

A few seconds after Screwball left, Havoc realized that he had nothing to do and nobody to talk to for the next hour. “Hm… Might as well spy on Knightbane’s threesome.”

In order to avoid drawing attention, Havoc changed into his owl form before leaving the house, and then used his magic senses to try to find any remains of magic that could lead him to Knightbane’s location. Luckily for him, the changeling’s wings had been releasing his unique musical magic at all times, so following the residual remains of it was an easy task.

They also tasted like lemonade.

He eventually found himself in front of a house in the other end of the low nobility area of the city. Turning back to his draconequus form, then becoming invisible, Havoc looked through the house’s windows one by one, finding nothing alive inside. But then he approached the last window, which seemed to be vibrating, and when he peeked through he found the last thing he expected to see: Knightbane playing a guitar while a grey earth pony played a cello and a white unicorn played on a turntable. Opening the window a few millimeters allowed him to hear what they were playing.

“What the fuck?” Havoc said before he could cover his mouth. Fortunately, the loud music drowned out his words. When they finished that song, he decided to leave the other human to his own devices and go back to his house.

As he flew over Canterlot, he tried to think of ways to keep himself busy for the rest of the day. After discarding mowing the lawn, writing a clopfic about Discod and Chrysalis, and cutting stuff with Infernal Soul to see what happened; he decided to turn his new bedroom into a chaos domain so he would never find himself powerless.

“Okay, what now?” he asked himself when he was done, since Diane wouldn’t return in at least twenty minutes. “Oh, I know! It’s time to bake!”

Thirty minutes later, Diane knocked on Havoc’s door, carrying her weight in luggage. “It’s not locked, come in!” he shouted from the inside.

Diane found him in the kitchen, wearing an apron with “⠎⠥⠉⠅ ⠍⠽ ⠙⠊⠉⠅” written on it, and pulling a tray full of brownies out of the oven. “What are you cooking?”

“Special brownies,” he replied with a huge grin.

“Havoc, what did you do to those brownies?” she asked, a bit hesitant.

“You know how my left arm grows leaves? Yeah, I spiked the batter with some of those. I honestly have no idea what will happen to those who eat them.”

“Oooooh! Can I try one?”

“I think you are the last pony who should eat these, what with them being charged with my magic which is deadly for you. I expect the other humans who live here to eventually come over to meet me, so I’ll offer them brownies and then see what happens.”

“So you aren’t even going to try to cause a good first impression.”

“Well, we are sort of supposed to eventually kill each other, so why would I want to make friends with any of them?”

“Havoc, don’t be a retard. Celestia and Luna wouldn’t let all of you live here if killing each other were the only way to win this game or whatever it is. Calm down, make friends and try to have fun. How many friends have you made in Equestria since you came here, other than me and Screwball?”

“I’ve made a lot! There’s… Uh… Drogur?”

“He’s more of a boss than a friend to you, so he doesn’t count.”

“Those teen dragons?“

“Didn’t you abandon them because they were a bunch of insane jerks?”

“Hm… Comet Tail and Cloudy Sunset?”

“Yeah, I guess those count. So you have made a total of four friends in… Two years? That’s not a number to be proud of. Try to make new friends, Havoc, I really mean it.”

Havoc sighed. “Alright, I’ll do it. But I’m still giving a brownie to anyone who knocks on the door. Acting all polite and proper would be hiding how I really am.”

Diane rolled her eyes, but said nothing. A few minutes later, when she had already unpacked her luggage and was wondering if she should ask Havoc to soundproof her room so his antics wouldn’t wake her in the middle of the night, she heard a knocking on the main door.

“I’m coming!” Havoc gleefully shouted as he ran towards the door. When he opened it, he found a living stark white human skeleton wearing a blue armor and looking at him with curiosity. “Wow! Too spooky!”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” the skeleton said without enthusiasm. “You are the new guy, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Name’s Havoc,” he said, extending his hand.

“Daniel Garino,” the skeleton replied, shaking Havoc’s hand. “I’m not sure whether I’m glad or not to see a second draconequus living here, though.”

“A second draconequus,” Havoc repeated.

“Yeah, his name is Draken, he lives on the other end of the street.”

“Huh, thanks for the warning. By the way, I made these brownies for anyone who decided to come over to say hi…But now I wonder if…”

“Don’t bother with me, I don’t eat.”

"So... What do you run on?"

“I don’t know, magic.”

“Magic is the explanation to most of what I do, so I won’t question further,” Havoc said as he put the tray full of brownies away.

“I’ve gotta ask… Where are you from?”

“Same, Texas to be precise. We seem to be the majority here, but I’ve met an australian douche and a really disturbing spaniard.”

“Figures. Are there many bronies or…”

“Yeah I was gonna tell you ‘bout that. Around half of us were bronies back on Earth, but some people seem to come from… Let’s say alternate versions of Earth. There’s this fella from a world with a lot of dangerous magic items, and another from a crazy sci-fi world.”

“You don’t say… Oh, do you know if any other human is going to be knighted tonight?”

“Beats me. Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet ya, but there’s a lot of stuff I wanna get done today so I can’t stay around.”

“Until we meet again, then.”

When Daniel was out of sight, Diane approached Havoc. “You’re lucky he couldn’t eat your brownies. I don’t think he would have enjoyed whatever those do to ponies.”

“I guess you’re right. Again. Fine, I won’t trick people into eating these without warning them about their potentially dangerous secondary effects.”

“It’s not that hard, see? If you could live as Golden Shower the accountant for nine months, you can make friends and not make everypony hate you with mean pranks.”

Listening to Diane’s advice, Havoc behaved as more humans visited him along the day. Most of them had turned into furry creatures with varying amounts of power, maturity and mechanical limbs that replaced missing ones. Sadly, none of them accepted Havoc’s brownies once he explained their unusual ingredients. Since people arrived faster than they left, Havoc soon found himself sitting on the living room while drinking tea with five other former humans, while Diane locked herself in a bedroom so they wouldn’t see her. The five of them were roughly human-sized and shaped, but different enough to easily distinguish them from a real human. One of them was a yellow goblin-like creature with a robotic right arm named Slav, who seemed to really enjoy talking about himself. He said that he was a bugbear when Havoc asked him about it. Another was a man named Jaime who had been turned into a female fox-like creature with many tails and a japanese vibe to him/her. Out of all of them, she seemed to be the most level-headed, which wasn’t a real achievement given that most of the humans seemed to be at least mildly insane. There were also a four-winged anthro eagle named Truenus, a jackal-like one whose name Havoc soon forgot, and a weasel-like one who was child-sized.

They were discussing how hard would it be to open a portal to Earth when a dark presence made itself known. Even the non-magical ones could feel it, as shivers running up their spines and a weight in their hearts. Havoc tried to find the source of it, but it seemed to cover the whole area, confusing his senses.

“There he is,” Jaime muttered.

Turning, Havoc found an unsettling being crouching on a corner and moving erratically. It resembled a human, but its whole skin seemed to be made of gray lycra, and its limbs had more joints than they should, some of them bent backwards compared to those of a human. Its face was placed atop of its head, where most of a human’s hair would be, and it resembled a plastic mask instead of an actual face.

“Plastic Pinocchio,” Slav spat. “I was hoping he wouldn’t show up.”

“Is he dangerous?” Havoc asked, getting ready for a fight to the death.

“No, at least for the moment,” Jaime answered. “The Princesses have him on a short leash. He is, after all, the main reason why we have to follow all these new rules.”

“That is hardly fair on me, is it?” Havoc heard inside his mind as Plastic Pinocchio mumbled and gurgled incoherently, its head shaking with violence. The voice was extremely polite and soft, in contrast with the creature in front of him. “It is in the lion’s nature to hunt and devour the gazelle, just as it is in my nature to spread my influence.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” the weasel said.

“Is it, now? Be that as it may, I am not here to discuss my activities. I have come to see the newcomer with my own eyes.” Plastic Pinocchio’s humanoid hand pointed at Havoc, as convulsions shook his head and shoulders. “Havoc the draconequus. I have a message for you, one which you must not divulge, least you bring destruction to all that you hold dear.”

“Tell me, then.”

“Nothing good ever comes out of this one,” Slav said. “Don’t listen to him.”

A thick and redish substance oozed out of Plastic Pinocchio’s mouth and eye sockets as everyone but Havoc collapsed on the floor. Summoning his hammer, Havoc prepared to fight Plastic Pinocchio.

[[Translated version here: Link]]

“No te preocupes, no he venido a luchar. Sólo me he asegurado de que no nos interrumpirán. Puedes comprobarlo por tí mismo, la marca de mi Señor en sus rostros sólo los ha paralizado. Pero aún pueden oírnos, así que no hables en inglés. Sólo tú debes saber esto.”

Confused by Plastic Pinocchio’s sudden change to the only other language he knew, Havoc checked on the others. Pinocchio’s magic had created a mark on each of them: crudely drawn eyes on their closed eyelids. The marks were acting as binding spells, making them unable to do anything other than breathing and weakly whimpering.

“Creo que fuiste demasiado rudo,” Havoc slowly replied, his Spanish rusty after years without speaking it. “Pero escucharé el mensaje, ya que tanta importancia le da.”

Havoc heard faint laughter in his mind before Plastic Pinocchio continued talking through telepathy. “De acuerdo. Mira, cuando veo a una persona por primera vez, sueño con su futuro. Hace meses que vi el tuyo, y desde entonces he querido ponerme en contacto contigo. Desgraciadamente, viajar no es fácil para mí. Cuando supe que te iban a nombrar caballero, decidí reunirme contigo tan pronto como me fuera posible.”

“¿Hace meses? ¿Cuándo?”

“Fue en el Everfree Forest, en el castillo de las princesas. Te vi llegar con un clon de Pinkie Pie, pero me mantuve alejado por si acaso. También soñé con su futuro, pero lo que ví no te incumbe. Iba a contaros lo que ví al día siguiente, pero al ver al draconequus gigante que os acompañaba decidí que era demasiado peligroso. Quizás tuvieras pesadillas esa noche, es un efecto secundario de mi magia. Probablemente las tengas esta noche también, y todos los días que estés cerca de mí durante más de unos segundos.”

“Qué chingada. ¿Pero qué fue lo que vio esa noche?”

“Primero te veo en medio de un desierto, con otra persona. Tenéis una cantimplora violeta y blanca, pero no hay suficiente agua para los dos. Sólo sobrevivirás si le dejas morir de sed. Luego tienes una lámpara mágica. De ella sale un genio que te otorga un deseo. Un deseo egoísta sólo te traerá desdicha. Finalmente, te veo atrapado en un ataúd. Intentar escapar hará que te quedes sin aire antes de que nadie pueda salvarte. Eso es todo lo que ví.”

“¿Por qué las visiones del futuro no pueden ser claras por una vez?”

“Pues si estas te parecen enrevesadas, deberías haber oído las de Celestia y Luna,” Pinocchio’s head shook violently for a few seconds before he continued. Ahora me voy a marchar. Los otros volverán a la normalidad en un minuto.”

Havoc blinked, and in the fraction of a second his eyes were closed, Plastic Pinocchio disappeared. “Well, that was weird.”

One exact minute after Plastic Pinocchio left, the marks on the other chesspieces disappeared as they struggled to get up.

“I hate that guy so much,” Slav said. “What did he tell you?”

“Uh.. He told me that nobody must learn about what he told me.”

“And you are believing him?”

Havoc shrugged. “After what I’ve seen, I don’t want to get on his bad side.”

“I hate Plastic Pinocchio, he always triggers me,” the weasel complained. “I’m going back to my place.”

“Yeah, me too,” Slav said.

They all left at the same time, but Jaime turned to say some last words before going outside. “The last one who trusted in Plastic Pinocchio’s advice for the future suffered a long and terrible death. He claims that he just tells things as he sees them, but I’m sure he twists everything around in order to make you get the worst possible outcome. Be careful, Havoc.”

“I will take that into account. Until we meet again.”

Nodding, Jaime left. A few seconds later, Diane walked downstairs. “That was quite the doozy. I know I told you to make friends, but I won’t complain if you decide not to make friends with that Pinocchio guy.”

“I guess he is the really disturbing spaniard the skeleton guy warned me about. I feel like taking a shower after feeling his magic,” Havoc added, grimacing. Then his ears perked up as an idea sparked in his mind. “Diane, do you feel anything wrong? Maybe his magic can affect you.”

“I feel super duper stupendous,” she chirped, grinning wide. “You don’t need to worry, I’m an adult and I can take care of myself.”

After living with Diane for months, Havoc had learned to distinguish when she was actually cheerful and when she was hiding how annoyed she felt behind the hyper-happy act. This time it was the latter.

“You’re right, but last time you almost died and I can’t stop thinking about it. You are the most important pony in my life, Diane.”

This time she genuinely smiled at him. “You’ll be the first to know if I ever stop feeling healthy as an apple. But, in the meanwhile, stop asking about it every five minutes.”

“Aye, aye. Well, now that it’s just the two of us, I really want to know what you’ve been up to for the last months. There’s only so much letters can tell.”

And just like that, Havoc opened Pandora’s box. A few hours later, Screwball’s return interrupted Diane’s endless recount of her life’s events.

“Wow,” Havoc said when he saw Screwball. She had styled her hair into a ponytail,as well as straightened it. Her eyes no longer looked like spirals, having a common shape and blue hue instead. She wore large saddlebags filled with items, which seemed to be crushing her under their weight, as she was panting and sweating heavily.

“Celestia’s sweaty teats it’s so hot out there,” she cursed as she let her bags fall. “I forgot we are in July. If only I could keep myself cool with magic.”

“Yeah… Now that you mention it, it sure is hot,” Havoc said, having just realized that his magic was the only thing stopping him from feeling like a turkey in an oven. “Uh... What’s with the sudden change of looks?”

“I asked Discord if he could tell Celestia about me so I could stop hiding,” she explained as she caught her breath. “He promised that he will. Eventually. In the meanwhile, he’s given me these magic contact lenses so I can pass for a normal pony. The problem is that doing any magic will turn them off for awhile, so now I have to walk to places and feel the heat like everypony else.”

“So, that’s how you looked like before going all chaotic and stuff?”

“Yep, do you like what you see?” she said as she wiggled her eyebrows, making him laugh.

“Let me help you with those bags.”

As he picked the bags with his wooden hand, Havoc saw a less obvious change in Screwball. “Hey, this wasn’t here before!” he exclaimed, pinching her now noticeable larger belly with his diamond dog hand.

Blushing heavily, Screwball bucked his hand away.

Diane gasped loudly. “Oh my gosh, Havoc! You can’t just call a mare fat like that!”

Havoc’s smirk vanished as he realized how deep he had dug his own grave. “I’m sorry?”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Screwball coldly replied as her disguise vanished and a humongous mallet appeared on her hooves.

Havoc could only drop the bags on the floor before Screwball’s weapon flattened him against the ground, turning him into a pizza-shaped draconequus.

“For your information, I didn’t know I had gotten so out of shape. I just learned that the same magic that makes my eyes look like this also keeps my body fit. The moment Discord’s magic returned me to my original appearance, all the extra weight I had unknowingly gained revealed itself.”

“Look on the bright side of things,” Havoc said as he waringly glanced at the hammer. “If you had learned about it in a couple of years from now, maybe we would have needed a cart to move you around and a constant chaos magic input to fight back the heart attacks.”

“You want me to hit you again?”

“I’m really sorry for talking without thinking. I still think you are beautiful, though,” he quickly added.

“You’re lucky we have a guest,” she said, pointing at Diane with her mallet. “But you are sleeping on the couch tonight.”

A few seconds later, Screwball’s changed back to her non-chaotic form.

“Now that I’m over the surprise, I really wanna tape that ass.”

“You mean TAP that ass, right?” Diane asked.

“No, I don’t,” he said as a roll of duct tape appeared on his hands.

Screwball glared at him. “Don’t you dare. I’m going to take a shower now. I’m really not in the mood for your antics now, so don’t try anything.”

“So now it’s ‘my’ antics instead of ‘our’ antics?” he asked.

“You two sound like a married couple already! It’s so cute!” Diane said, making both of them sigh.

“Fine, I won’t do anything,” he said as he picked back the saddlebags and took them to the kitchen. “Uh… How did you pay for these?”

“With my money, duh.”

“I had sort of assumed that she had no money at all,” he whispered to Diane, who simply shrugged.

By the time Screwball returned to the living room with a towel wrapped around her mane, Havoc was losing his fifth game of chess in a row against Diane.

“Why are you so good at this?” Havoc asked in frustration.

“It’s not my fault that you are so predictable.”

“Curse your gypsy magic that lets you see what I’m going to do. I yield.”

“Havoc, I think that this Knightbane guy will show up soonish,” Screwball said. “Maybe you should take a shower and get ready for the ceremony.”

After smelling his own armpit and grimacing, Havoc agreed. “I could even trim my beard and stuff while I’m at it,” he thought aloud as he walked upstairs.

“Alright,” Screwball said when Havoc was gone, sitting in front of Diane. “Now that we’re alone, I have a lot of questions. First: how similar to Pinkie Pie are you?”

“Fine by me, but you’ll answer my questions if I answer yours. I have all of Pinkie Pie’s memories until the moment she entered the Mirror Pool. Our lives have been very different from that point, what with her still living with all the ponies I consider my friends and family while I had to leave with Havoc so I wouldn’t die. What’s with you two? First he was trying to hide away from you so you wouldn’t kill him, and now you are a step away from being all lovey-dovey.”

“Back when Discord was imprisoned, he ordered me to kill Havoc. Discord and Havoc’s player aren’t exactly best friends. When he changed his mind regarding friendship and ponies, he told me that, instead of killing Havoc, I had to watch over him to ensure that his player isn’t trying anything. I guess that, after living with him for a couple of months, I have grown fond of that idiot. How long did you two live together? He’s never been very talkative about the time between my last fight against him and the Gem Fido war.”

“Around nine months. We moved to Trottingham and lived like regular ponies. Save for the tyrannical ruler who was a human turned into thestral which we had to overthrown with the help of the rightful ruler of the city, everything was pretty normal. How did you become a ‘chaos pony created by Discord’?”

Screwball told her the story behind her transformation, and they continued exchanging questions for several minutes. When Havoc returned, his fur clean and shiny and his beard trimmed into a less hobo-like shape, they were chatting about more trivial topics.

“I just don’t know how diamond dogs are supposed to participate in the Equestria Games,” Screwball said. “Most of the games are designed around pegasi and griffons already, and last I checked dogs couldn’t fly. The games in which they CAN participate will be incredibly one-sided in most cases. Nopony can hope to beat a diamond dog in boxing or weightlifting, but ponies are faster in long distance races.”

“I guess they will compete against each other, like how griffons never compete against ponies in swimming.”

“Oh, there you are,” Screwball said when she noticed Havoc. “You didn’t leave the bathroom covered with your hairs, did you?”

“Don’t worry about that, I made sure everything was clean up there. I have always found hairs on the bathtub really gross. Oh, Screwball, I have been thinking…”

“About time you did,” Diane piped in, making them groan.

“If people see you coming in and out of the house… Won’t they start making questions?”

“I’ve got it covered. Many of the others humans have housekeepers, either because they spend a lot of time out of Canterlot, or because they are dumb teenagers who would end up starving and setting everything on fire by accident.”

“I love that alibi, what about you?” he asked Diane.

“I’m leaving in a few days so I’ll just stay out of sight. It’ll be like playing hide and seek. I also learned to do this.”

Diane produced her fake element of Laughter and put it on around her neck. After gleaming briefly, the necklace changed her appearance, turning her into a white pegasus with a yellow mane.

“Surprise!”

“Of course you had to say that. Well, that’s good enough for me. Now we only need to wait for that changeling to come over.”

As if on cue, they all heard someone knocking on the door.

“I really need to check if that happens because of sheer luck or if there’s some magic shenanigans behind it,” Havoc wondered aloud while Screwball and Diane went upstairs to stay out of sight.

“Sup?” Knightbane said as Havoc opened the door. “Did you make lots of friends while I was away?”

“Yeah, I met this Plastic Pinocchio guy. I think we’ll be best friends in no time.”

“Please tell me you’re joking,” he said, dismayed.

“Don’t worry, I’d rather never see that… man again.”

Knightbane breathed in relief. “Had me worried for a second. Well, time’s a wastin’ so follow me.”

“There’s some serious knighting to be done,” Havoc said as they flew towards the palace.