“Finally we meet.”

Ebony slickback mane, grey streaks and an even lighter shade of grey than Ditzy's coat, the Principal of EQU--somewhere around his late forties, early fifties--had attired himself with a fawn cloak, leather sashes across his vest, as through their slots hid many silvered daggers and pointy objects. Through all these observations of the elderly stallion, there was one question that forcefully rammed itself against my cranium: How does he not feel hot under all those layers of clothes?

I mean, c'mon, I'm just honest enough to say that even I feel a bit warm under my vest and jacket. Then there's this guy with a vest, a shirt over that vest, a robe over that shirt over that vest, a hoodie over that robe over that shirt over that vest, a cloak over that robe over that shirt over that vest, a cape, and leather sashes.

He's old, he's weighted down, and he's agile enough to catch most curfew-breaking ponies in this school.

"Even I'm feeling hot, standing a table away!" Kill commented. "And I'm not even physically real!" 

Behind his desk, the pony sat on his haunches in between two towering sentinels of paperwork; neatly stacked, not a paper out of place and somehow by the mystics of the Goddesses, perfectly balanced. The stack on his right was labelled "Paperwork" as was the stack to his left, "Budget." Life must be tough being the principal to run this joint-- it's literally filled with ponies, for one. Two, the wide variety of subjects and living arrangements, not to mention electricity and heating bills for during the winter.

But other than that, this University practically relies on itself with all of its gardens, plantations, and not to mention all the ponies who contribute their unique talents. We're just like one big happy village.

"I'm not happy, Graze. Not. One. Bit," emphasised Headmaster Shadow Mark as he pulled back his hood, revealing lust-red tired eyes.

He trotted back and forth, not once passing his mahogany desk, still flooded with the day’s paperwork. My eyes traced his movements slowly to the left as he made his way to the window, some broken parts and edges of the frame stuck together with duct tape. As my eyes traced him to the right, his head held up high, I observed a bright yellow sticky note protruding itself from the Budget stack, not another one visible for another ruler or two. He passed trophies, tons of them neatly beside each other as testaments to the victorious, golden sporting history of the school had been told in no matter than a couple of seconds.

Through this game of chronemics, I eyed down cluster of trophies in all of its beauty, and then to the top... two concrete spheres? One had a lightning bolt shooting from a cloud, and the other... three diamonds.

My ears twitched with the passing wind, as a chill jolted up and through my spine upon a new voice.

Come to me... I can grant you anything your heart desires. After all, I am very... generous...

"Did that ball just talk to us?" Joy perched himself behind my shoulders, bracing himself before the ominous voice.

"I think I know what my wish is going to be," Kill evilly rubbed his hooves with a laugh. He shot his to the sky, and shouted to the heavens. "I want to be an alico-"

"No, Kill, that's just stupid," Joy quickly interrupted his "Top of the world mood" with a slap, facehoofing from that fact that he was somehow related to-as said in his own words-that.

I shook my head from the two-now three-voices that spoke as I focused my attention back on the heavily clothed stallion, making his way in front of the heavily wooded reinforced desk as he set one dagger facing in my direction.

"Why didn't you run away?!" B-O-O-O-M! He slammed both his hooves upon the desk with such a powerful force. Both mighty stacks of paper jumped in the shock as they landed back neatly in their piles, not a single sheet out of place. The curved throwing knife spun in mid air, quickly caught between the feathers of his right wing as he flung the projectile, cracking the tiles before my hooves.

I glanced at the dagger-stricken tile, and back to Shadow Mark's stern composure with a furrowed brow, patiently waiting for his reaction.

"Oh-hohoho! You're just as fearless as Mr. Charge said!" the principal laughed, clapping his hooves as he sat on his haunches.

"Hahaha, sir," I faked a laugh with his, "I'm not fearless, I just didn't move because you'd be in big trouble if you--" Shing! Another dagger zipped passed my cheek, lightly slicing through my skin. A trickle of warm blood streamed down to the ground.

"If I did that?" he rhetorically asked. "Don't test me, Mr. Graze, I never miss my target, just look behind you!" he laughed once more. As ordered, I observed the frame around the door, counting eighteen silver daggers that remained untouched. "Huh, could've sworn I threw twenty..." he furrowed his beard. "Oh well, you win some, you lose some, but you get the idea, right?"

Mental note: Don't piss off the scary Headmaster.

"Well, at least we aren't dead. Isn't that right, Joy?" Kill asked, looking to the right to find his brother hiding behind my right shoulder.

"Yeah, right... not dead. Can we leave?" Joy begged.

Again, the headmaster seemed to be lost in space as even I could see through his tired eyes that his mind was only on one thing, and that was sleep. "Well, I could punish you for passing curfew... but it's like three o' clock in the morning, and I'm overburdened with work. Some students are all like 'Hey, I'm going to sneak out after 11 o'clock!'" he mocked a hefty voice of what I supposedly thought was Dumbbells and his crew. "But then, we have you, Mr. Graze, who has to go to the extreme and test an old pony's abilities at 3 o'clock in the morning and not even put up a fight! I mean, seriously, who doesn't like to go hunting at witching hour!"

"Sir, I'm injured... I can't really run or fly. I can limp away if you'd like," I offered the stressed pony.

"Nah, that's no fun... that's like dying on a piece of wooden furniture," he complained. The awkward silence filled in for my loss of words as I attempted to unravel whatever Charge's metaphor had insinuated. "My ancestors didn't know how to die properly. But, I'll let you go on one condition!"

"Oh, and what is that?" I surprisingly asked, extremely tired from all the contracts, bets, pacts and deals that needed to be made in one day.

"Next time you're in danger, try and practice running rather than being captured by the enemy. You adolescents these days seem like you know it all. Right now, if I was the enemy, you'd be dead," Shadow Mark explained, folding his hooves on the table. "As you can see, as I am the enemy, I've already caught you and struck you down twice."

"So, you're teaching me to run away?" I asked.

"No," he quickly responded. "I'm teaching you how to be tactically wise. You have the day off, tomorrow, being injured and all... and might I say, I am quite impressed with the level of skill you displayed against Grim today. I lost twenty bits to Chaser and stole back forty! Hohoho!"

"I hate Mr. Charge for not betting for us," Kill puffed with folded hooves.

"Oh, stop acting like a spoiled brat. The bet won't even exist if one pony wasn't against us," Joy made sense of the topic to the devil.

"Thank you?" I guessed it was worth to share a thanks for such compliments coming from the headmaster's topic-changing speech pattern.

"Prego!" Just play along, Graze and pretend you know what that meant. "Now, I think you should head back to your dorm and get some rest, those cuts aren't going to heal itself!" Shadow Mark released me from his office, guiding me through his door. "Well, unless you wanna stay and we can put alcohol, salt and mercury on those bad boys! Sure, you'd scream like a demented cow, but it gets the job done!"

"I think I'll pass, sir," I tried to pardon myself from the agonizing pain that was his ailment. "But, before I leave... what exactly is that thing?" I pointed my hoof towards the tri-diamond encrypted stone.

"You mean you don't know?" he raised a brow, questioning my knowledge on the matter at hoof. "That is one of the six Elements of Harmony, the Element of Generosity!" He then pointed at the sphere to the left. "The one beside it is the Element of Loyalty!" he paused for a moment, wiping the tiredness from his eyes. "I'll take the liberty of explaining what exactly these are, since you don't know."

"These stones are said to hold great power, each one of them a specific trait of magic that have been crafted and entitled to by no other than our princesses, Celestia and Luna."

He cleared his throat, continuing with History 101 of Equestria as he turned his back to bask in the concrete stones' awe." Even though the Elements of Harmony have already been chosen, the princesses can never been too careful, so as a back up plan, per say if one of the Elements were to have a misfortunate event, they could gather these stones scattered all over Equestria and conquer whatever evil may show up, if it does. The hard part is not finding the location, but to actually find and nab it in that location."

This seems quite interesting. "Wait, how is it so hard to 'nab'? I mean, can't you just grab it and run?" I asked.

"Well, for me, yes... for other ponies... whoo," he exhaled in relief, scratching the back of his head, "other ponies aren't really chosen for this sort of loot. They are inexperienced and it's too dangerous."

"How so?" I sat on my haunches, showing that I was willing to learn even at these wee hours of the morning. Any other circumstance, though? Pftch, hell no.

"You see, you have to be a chosen, either that or to have a high resistance to magic--and when I mean high, I mean extravagantly high. One can be easily killed or corrupted by its power. If you are accepted by the Element, you be shall guided to the next and so on and so forth," he explained.

On the spot, I already had the intention to just poke at this whole 'Elements' thing with my curiosity. It was already late, but I had a day off tomorrow, so I could just sleep in.  

That's it, my mind has been made. "So," I innocently whistled, attracting Shadow Mark's attention as I popped up behind him, "how does one be accepted by that Element? Does it choose you or something?" My hoof drew closer to one of the stones.

With a quick slap away of my hooves, Shadow Mark continued his explanation as nothing ever happened, a curious glance here and there, but nothing much to be worried about. I could still continue my game.

"Why yes, for some, they actually do choose you," he continued. "I actually found Loyalty just lazing under the bell of Ponitaly's church," Shadow Mark explained, picking up Loyalty and dusting it off. "Generosity, I haven't had much interaction with it yet. I honestly do not know which of them is lazier," he stressfully sighed. "At least Loyalty lead me to Generosity." He slammed his head on the desk with a thud, muttering some words to himself. "Why don't you speak to me?!" he shouted at the orb.

"What if I gave it a try?" I hopefully reassured the headmaster with my enthusiasm. "I mean, I already heard it spoke to me." I turned my back from him as I had successfully planted the bait. With a peek of my eye and a silent chuckle I watched his head arise from my point.

"Y-you heard it spoke?" Shadow Mark asked in disbelief.

"Hook. Line. And Sinker." Kill, Joy and myself respectively commented on my success.

"Celestia as my witness, I did," I gently smoothed the icing of propaganda on the cake. "If it ignores you, sir, by all due respect and knowledge on the topic, you are not chosen. If you think I'm lying, why don't you give it to me for a test run? What can go wrong?" I shone my teeth with a smug smile.

In bemuse, the headmaster reached for the Element of Generosity, dusting it off with a wing as he gave me a strict glance. "You're a  smooth talker, you know that?" He then threw the ball towards me.

"Yeah, I pride myself on that," I quickly replied, catching Generosity within my hooves as I smiled, teeth gleaming at its presence in my possession. "What exactly am I supposed to do now? Is there like a ritual or something to unravel its secrets?"

"Hmm... yes,yes, there is!” he cheered on. “All you gotta do is close your eyes and concentrate on the orb, and it shall speak to you," he advised. "It must have your undivided attention," he warned.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Joy worriedly commented beside the Element of Generosity, a boulder in comparison to his size.

"Souls, I need more souls!"The three of us heard the orb exclaim.

"See? It just wants our souls," Kill unworryingly smirked. "Pftch! As if we need those anyways," he laughed in the face of danger.

"Kill, we are souls! Nothing but souls! I just don't know, man, I don't like the idea of messing with magic that we have no experience with," Joy sighed, leaning on the other side of the boulder.

Upon contact, Joy's touch--added with Kill's and mine--the orb brightly shone, exploding with a flash of blinding light throughout the office. I dropped the Element of Generosity, drawing back my hooves to shield my eyes from the blinding light.

I don't know what it was, but I couldn't open them, my eyes were forced shut as I screamed in pain. My mind was violently attacked, I could feel my ears bleed as high pitched frequencies noises beated against my drums. "Aggghhhh!" I came to my knees, screaming as I could feel my ears bleed.

Through my thoughts, I saw heard and this snowy pattern as the high pitch interference tortured me; something like static on a television screen, but only through intervals did I pick up a signal and saw this.

Upon sighting, the static became more violent, succumbing me to unconsciousness as the torture became unbearable to withstand in my already beaten state. That stallion, he was in a forested area, and that was the only thing clear to me... if Shadow Mark was correct, that was where the next Element of Harmony was.

I should tell him, hopefully once I wake up.