War Heart flew back to the penthouse of the apartment complex where Kacey was waiting on his laptop. He looked at War Heart, “You did well, certainly there will be a party tonight.”, Kacey said in his regular tone as he returned to looking at his computer. War Heart went into the bathroom and took off his shirt, looking at where he was shot before. Luckily it only left a large bruise. He walked out of the bathroom to his bedroom to change. When he finished, he heard voices in the main room, he peaked out of the door to see Kacey talking to the turquoise haired woman he saw before.

“I’m pretty sure he isn’t gay, Trish…”, Kacey said to her.

“He was the only one not ogling me out there, even some of those Blunt slimes were eyeing me.”

“He says he’s from somewhere called Equestria, I’ve never heard of it before, but maybe they look for something different in women, and you just don’t have it.”

“Uh huh, whatever.”

“Don’t bother about it, go make some tea or something.”, Kacey pointed to the kitchen.

War Heart walked into the room, Trish whipped out a handgun and aimed it at him. War Heart kept walking forward, not even flinching at the handgun pointed at him.
“What does ‘gay’ mean?”, War Heart asked.

Trish put on a look of confusion and turned to Kacey, she mouthed the words, “Is he serious?”, to Kacey who only shrugged in reply.

“It’s nothing, War Heart, don’t worry about it.”, Kacey said to War Heart.

“Fine.”, War Heart walked towards Trish.

Trish looked up at him, “Quite a big one, aren’t ya?”, she questioned rhetorically.

“I guess you’re Kacey’s sister…?”, War Heart asked.

“Yep, Trisha Turner. Leader of Turncoat Mercenary Corps.”, she stated with confidence.

“I’m War Heart.”

“I figured, little brother likes you, I’ve yet to decide on what I think of you, but so far you’re alright.”

“Right, I’m going to leave now.”, War Heart said as he turned away.

“Where are you going?”, Kacey asked off handed.

“… For a flight, just need some time.”, War Heart said to them as he closed the door to the roof on his way out.

“What’s up with him? He seems… depressed… Is he always like that?”, Trisha asked Kacey.

“I already know he is not from anywhere around here. I don’t know where he is from, but I do know that where he originates, honour, kindness, and nobility is valued. Unlike the world here where corruption runs rampant. He feels alone because he is not among those he knew from wherever he came from. He probably misses a close friend or lover and since he knows he is an idol to some of our troops, he doesn’t want them to see him disheartened, no good for morale. He’ll go somewhere to cry it out or sit and brood, a common tactic for one to deal with such emotions.”

“How do you know so much about him?”

“Well, over the years, I’ve tried to learn all I can about everything, including the nature of people. The mind is fragile and can only operate along certain guidelines.”

“So, in other words, you look up a bunch of online classes?”

“Sure, if that helps you sleep at night.”

“I’m just surprised that you aren’t some fatty, sitting on that computer all day.”

“I go for runs on occasion, I’m still fit somewhat.”

“Right…”

“There will probably be a party tonight, will you be staying?”

“You know what… Sure, I haven’t had a good party in a while.”

War Heart flew over the city, watching over its people, seeing the streets still littered with the bodies of Blunts and Heroes from the battle before. He saw some woman getting mugged by a man in a dark red hoodie. War Heart dove towards them, passing in between two apartment buildings. He was about to get pass the buildings until he felt a sharp pain in his torso, feeling a rush that forced him to lock up all his muscles and hit the ground with a violent smash. His vision was hazy as the man in the red hoodie and the woman walked towards War Heart who was on the ground, barely conscious. The man in the hood smiled, revealing fangs like a vampire. Two more men in hoods came to his side. The woman snapped her fingers, the three men started kicking War Heart, brutally beating the barely conscious ball of pain. After about a minute they stopped. The woman stood in War Hearts view, “Well, Angel of War, it seems you have fallen.”, she pulled out a handgun and aimed it at War Heart’s face. War Heart laid his head down, having no energy left in him. He closed his eyes, a gunshot was heard. The blackness took him.

Meanwhile, in Equestria, Twilight Sparkle was walking towards the lab that she and Fizz had built. She got there and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Twilight rose an eyebrow and sounded the buzzer, “Fizz, I’m here, but the door is locked.”

There was a small pause before the intercom was answered, “Yes, Uh, You may not want to come in at the moment…”

“What’s going on, Fizz?”

“Well, I’m about to test out a new power source, I don’t know if you like having your skin flayed off in a blast of heat and radiation as well as having a sickness that could cause you and your children to grow extra limbs and whatnot.”

“… What the hay are you doing in there!?”

“I told you what I’m doing.”

“I mean, why are you in there if it is so dangerous!”

“Well, somepony has to press the ‘On’ button, duh.”

Twilight sighed, knowing there was no way to stop him.

“Firing in three… Two… One… Go!”

A loud explosion came from inside the lab, the large steel door being pushed outwards a slight bit, startling Twilight, “Fizz! Fizz are you alright!?”, there was no reply. The door clicked and slowly began to open. A pony walked out, missing a leg and most of its skin, it hobbled towards Twilight groaning, “Braaaaains…”, it said in a half moan. Twilgiht was severely frightened by this creature and backed away in terror.

“That really didn’t go as planned.”, the pony shook its head, “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost Twilight, something the matter?”, he asked as if nothing happened.

“You… But… how!?”, she asked in disbelief.

“Well, I may have forgotten to mention I am immortal by mean of regeneration. I also installed a solid casing around my skull so that my brain stays intact at all times. Just watch, my skin will grow back soon, as well as this leg I happen to have lost.”, Fizz took out his bottle of green viscous fluid and downed it quickly. He held out his stump of a leg to show Twilight the magic of his elixir. The bone began to slowly form and muscle grew around it. His skin regenerated at random patches on his body, soon returning him to his regular self, leaving the last thing to reconstruct was his eye. He closed the eyelid for a moment and waited a few seconds before opening it to reveal a new baby blue eye.

He stretched a bit, “Much better…”, he said, not noticing the disgusted look on Twilight’s face. He looked at her with an eyebrow raised, “What…?”

“That is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen…”

“Oh, well you’ll get used to it, just don’t tell anyone about it.”

“I don’t think I’d want to.”

“Excellent, then there is nothing to worry about then!”, Fizz walked back into the lab with Twilight.

“What exactly were you doing?”

“Well, I tried using Uranium to make a reactor to create energy for the Singularity Spawning Device, but I kind of had a design flaw, I forgot that there were just too many neutrons going around and creating fission so it achieved critical mass and I had a meltdown of the explosive variety. I also suggest that you stay in that booth while I work in here, also put on this suit.”, Fizz pulled out a yellow rubber suit and a helmet that would cover her whole body.

“Alright…”, She took the suit and went into the new booth that fizz apparently installed. She donned the suit and watched Fizz begin cleaning up the mess the reactor left.

“Use Uranium, they said… It’s totally safe and clean, they said…”, Fizz grumbled as he was cleaning, “I knew I should have had more control rods… Maybe a better casing too…”, Fizz finished up the cleaning and dumped the stuff into a slot in the wall that was marked as ‘Scrap and Dangerous Waste’. He pressed a button next to it and the entire lab filled with a white gas after a few seconds. The gas cleared out and Fizz waved to Twilight.

Twilight came out of the booth, “Is everything okay?”, she asked.

“Yes, you can take off the suit now.”, he told her as he went to his desk and drew up some new plans quickly.

“What are you doing now?”, Twilight took off the helmet and walked over to him.

“Well, I was trying to think of something that would give us a lot of energy and not explode like that. I figured, why not thorium?”, he explained after he spat the pencil out of his mouth.

“What’s Thorium?”, Twilight asked as she looked at the complex sketch.

“Well, it is a radioactive metal. I’ll use it for the reactor and create a safe source of energy that we’ll be able to pull off making this rift.”

“Then what is that big thing next to the reactor?”, she pointed to a structure adjacent to it.

“Well, that will be a Hyper Capacitor. It’ll store the electricity, of course, I’ll probably build more than one.”

“How long will this take?”

“If my estimate is accurate, another two years. Unless I come out with some sort of breakthrough that I can come up with a way to make more energy faster.”

“What if we’re too late to find War Heart?”

“Twilight, you must believe me, a pony like him doesn’t just die.”

“He’s still mortal, Fizz, We’re not all invincible like you.”

“Right… Minor detail, but I’m sure he’s still alive.”, Fizz rubbed his chin in thought.

“What do we do now?”, Twilight asked.

“I’m going to need to prepare some things, wait outside until I come for you.”, he told her as he began pushing her out with his front hooves then closed the door.

“Umm… Okay.”, Twilight sat down outside the lab and waited.

“Okay, I’m alone now. What am I going to do about finding this thorium…?”, he paced for a moment. “There is the alchemy approach… Though it might be a bit of a danger to pull it off with Twilight… To do such a thing she needs to first understand the inner works of matter itself. To reconstruct any matter would require a breaking down of atoms which is just dangerous as is… To split up a multitude of atoms and put them together to form a new element would require tremendous amounts of magic. I’d hate to put her in danger of getting herself blown up… I guess I could ask her if she is willing to do this… but to put my descendant in danger at all is terrible… I guess I have little choice…”, Fizz sighed and walked towards the door and opened it, Twilight sitting outside waiting. She rose and walked to him, “Do you have everything you need?”, Twilight asked.

“Well, kind of. I need your assistance for something. We need to obtain thorium, but there are no decent sources of it anywhere in Equestria.”

“Then why do you need my help?”

“I need you to perform alchemy magic to transmute some heavy metals into thorium. It will require you to learn the science of the atom. You will break them apart and reconstruct them into a new substance. Though I must mention that every time this is done, it will cause an explosion. It is a dangerous art, but needed for our goal.”

Twilight paused for a moment, wondering if this was all really worth the effort. War Heart was a good friend to her, he did so much for everypony and asked for nothing in return. She had saved his life once before, which happened to also be her first kiss. She never told him of it, but if he was alive, she wanted him to know, and find out if there was something there between them, “I’ll do it.”, she said with a determined look in her eye while facing Fizz.

“Fantastic! Oh I am so proud of you, sticking your neck out for science and others.”, Fizz said as he wrapped his front legs around her in an embrace.

“Uh, excuse me?”, Twilight was feeling a bit uncomfortable from this sudden outburst of affection from Fizz.

“Oh, it’s just… Umm… Well… I find your dedication to be quite…”, he tried to quickly come up with a good word to describe what he was thinking of, “… Fetching… That you would go so far for your friend.”, Fizz talked to himself in his head, ‘Nice recovery!’, he thought to himself.

“Uh, Fizz… Do you… Like me?”, Twilight asked hesitantly.

“Well, Of course I do! You are a wonderful pony who is intelligent, talented, and wonderful to have for company.”, Fizz said all this, meaning it in a totally platonic, and somewhat oblivious view on what he said.

Twilight looked away and blushed, “I had no idea you saw me that way…”

Fizz was walking towards Ponyville, “I’m sure anypony with eyes and a brain can see that.”, he said matter-of-factly while rolling his eyes with a light smile on his face.

“Where are you going?”, Twilight asked as she ran up to join him at his side.

“Well, I figured I may as well treat you to dinner.”, he said, thinking of it more as a favour for her agreeing to go through with learning alchemy magic.

“Oh… Well, thank you. That’s very sweet of you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The walk into Ponyville was silent. The sun was setting and everypony was either heading home or going out to the restaurants in town. Fizz walked into one of the more high end restaurants. He waited at the front with Twilight beside him. A stallion came to the desk with a moustache and a dress coat, “Dinner for two?”, he asked in a polite manner.

“Why, yes my good sir.”, Fizz replied.

“This way.”, he lead them both to a table covered in red silk. Wine glasses placed on the table as well as lit candles. Fizz walked up to the table and pulled out the chair for Twilight, “Take a seat.”, he said in a friendly manner.

“Thank you.”, Twilight said as she sat down. Fizz took his seat across from her and looked at the menu, not paying much attention to her as he read. Twilight was looking at the menu as well, but was a bit distracted by her glance turning to Fizz. He put down the menu, “They don’t have much here, do they?”, he commented.

“I wouldn’t know, I never have been in here. Usually it’s only couples who come here…”

“Well, that’s silly, you must have been here at least once.”

Twilight looked down and shook her head.

“Oh, well at least you now know what you’re missing.”

“I guess so…”, Twilight said with a smile.

Fizz smiled back, “This has a splendid look, if only the food here was a bit less… strange… What is spaw-get-high?”

“I think you mean, spaghetti, it’s noodles and the put tomato sauce on it. I read about it in one of my books.”

“Well, it looks strange… I think I’ll have some with a cup of Earl Grey Tea with four sugars and lots of milk.”, Fizz said as he looked over the menu once more.

“I think I’ll have some spaghetti too. I don’t know what to have for a drink though.”

“I could order some wine, if you want.”

“I think I only ever had honey wine with War Heart…”

“Oh, did you spend an evening with him then?”

“Yes, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie, and I all spent the night then.”

Fizz’s jaw dropped, “Wow, impressive…”

“What is?”

“Nothing, he must’ve been a good host.”

“He was a very good host.”

The waiter came to their table, “Would you like anything to drink while you wait for your order?”, he asked, looking down his nose at the two ponies.

“Well, I’ll have the spaghetti, and a bottle of white wine.”, Fizz told the waiter, who was writing down their order. The waiter turned to Twilight, “and you, Madame?”

“I would like the same as him, please.”, she smiled politely. The waiter nodded and left, returning shortly with a bottle of wine and filled their glasses. He placed the bottle on the table and left. Fizz downed the entire glass right away, alcohol in general had not affected him for the longest time now. Twilight stayed still, just staring at him like he was crazy. She wasn’t sure if that was how one drank wine, so she readied herself and did the same as Fizz and downed the glass herself. She shivered from the taste of the alcohol hitting her tongue, not accustomed to it since she had only consumed it once before. Over the course of an hour she had drank another glass of wine with Fizz, her reflexes began to slow, her perceptions of barriers both physical and social began to fade. Fizz remained completely unaffected by the alcohol, totally forgetting other ponies are susceptible to such a thing. Their dinner went rather well, Twilight was very giggly when intoxicated. They left the restaurant towards Twilight’s house, she was somewhat off-balance on the way there. They reached the door to the library, Twilight turned to Fizz and leaned towards him, getting her face close to his. Fizz backed his head away a little bit, “Umm… Good night?”, he said, not really knowing what Twilight was doing.

“I had a good time tonight.”, she kept staring into his eyes, smiling.

“I did too…”, his eyes shifted from side to side.

Twilight leaned in more and closed her eyes, expecting a kiss.

“Twilight what are you doing?”

“We were just on a date, weren’t we?”

“Ohhhhh… I was just treating you to dinner for deciding to go through with learning the alchemy magic… I meant it as a reward, plus I don’t feel that way about you.”

“What is there something wrong with me?”, Twilight asked.

“Well, Yes… The fact that you are one of my descendants prevents me from even finding the slightest romantic interest in you.”

“… What?”

“I’m your very great grandfather from like two centuries ago. Also, I’m married, and still very much in love with my wife.”

“Okay then…”, Twilight said downtrodden, not really listening to what he said, her very selective hearing of only the words ‘No’ and ‘I’m not interested’ that her intoxication caused. She felt rather embarrassed and depressed at the same time as she walked inside the library, closing the door after she entered. She stumbled upstairs to her room and collapsed on her bed, looking up at the stars and the moon through the window. The silence set in and she finally realized how alone she really felt. She closed her eyes and hoped she would stop thinking about it as she drifted off to sleep.

Fizz was standing outside, “She really took that badly… Hopefully she won’t remember anything tomorrow.”, he said as he walked back to the lab and began working on Twilight’s new workspace for tomorrow.

He opened his eyes to bright white lights above him, forcing him to squint just to see only blurry silhouettes. He turned his head to the left to see a tray of bloody surgical tools and bandages. He could hear a beep every few seconds, feeling like it was in tune with his very heart. He tried to sit up, but the pain of movement was too immense. He remained motionless. He couldn’t speak, he had a tube going into his mouth and down his throat.

“Ah, so it seems we are waking up.”, a male Italian voice said. War Heart couldn’t see where the source came from. A man wearing a bloody smock walked into view, “I guess you want to know where you are, you’re in safe hands, rest assured, they pay me very well to keep people alive. I can’t do it legally mind you, lost my license a long while back. My name is Giacomo. You’re going to wake up some time later, but for now… I’m told to keep you asleep until the time is right.”, he said as he prepped a few things, “Night Niiiiiiight…”, Giacomo said as he waved his hand slowly in front of his patient’s face. The blackness creeping back into the patient’s view, slowly overtaking it and fading everything out once more..