Xero's After-the-Final Fight

by The P Co

The Heart is "Blue, but so is "Death", Part 2

Xero touched down at the site of the picnic, closing his wings and walking up to the giant blanket-type thing that picnics usually take place on, he sat down near Rainbow Dash and the CMC.

He looked over all the food, he saw a large plate of fries, but of course, since he was British...

"Oi, Pinkie, be a dearie and pass me the chips." Xero requested in full british accent.

"Okie dokie lokie!" the all pink mare replied, tossing over a bag of potato chips.

"No no no, not the crisps, the chips." Xero corrected, tossing the bag back.

"Oh, right, Brimish, here ya go." Pinkie tossed over the (enter non-denominational term for fried potato stick things here).

"Thanks." Xero replied, muching on the fried potato sticks, causing his two ponies of choice to laugh.

They kept laughing, he swallowed the chewed up potato-ey mush, and looked to both of them

"Oi, U wot M8? R U 'avin a giggle ther M8? I'll rek U cunt, swar on me mum, I'll bash yer fookin head in, u better shut ur mouth u cheeky cunt swer to Luna I'll hook u in the gabber M8." Xero joked, the phrases were basically the british equivalent of ghetto.

The black clad man rubbed his now greasy fingers in both of their manes.

"Ew heeeey." the 2 pegasi complained, swatting away his dirty hands.

"Just kidding ladies, I love ya both, c'mere." he assured, cleaning his hands with a convenient bit of technology.

He pulled them both close, earning a another, shorter complaint, before they both gave in.

He had his lovely marefriend, his adorable little sister, and lots of good friends.

Life was peaceful.

Xero had a blade ready for the throat of whatever threatened that.

At that moment, Spike ran up to the scene, huffing and puffing, and with dragon breath, he could easily blow a house down.

"Twi-*huff*-light *huff huff huff* I have *huff* a *huff* letter *huff huff* for *huff huff huff*" he didn't finish his sentence as his lungs were forced empty by a puff of magical fire, the small dragon collapsed, still heavily breathing but somewhat more even.

"Hmm? Let's see, dear Twilight, I am writing to you about the upcoming wedding in Canterlot, ooh, I wonder who's getting married, okay, let's see, I am tasking each of you, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, with assistance with the wedding preparations, open parentheses, list below, close parentheses." Twilight read off exactly what was written, raising the scroll as she read further.

"I've not got much ink in this well, and the storage is all the way downstairs, so I'll keep this brief, Pinkie Pie, party stuff, Rarity, dresses for the bride and bridesmaids, Applejack, food, Fluttershy, bird choir, Rainbow Dash, Sonic Rainboom to tie it all together, and my fathful student, u will be de genral manager of evryting, barly any ink left, so closin it her, sined, Prnces Celest." Twilight recited the instructions, trying to keep steady with the broken wording she was reading.

The others were giddy at the opportunity to help with a wedding, Xero stood and walked a few meters away, a finger to where his ear supposedly was.

"That's nice and all, but who's getting married?" Twilight broke the excitement with the question.

"Oh, *huff* right, I probably should have given you *huff* this one first." Spike responded sheepishly, his breathing was steady again, he brandished a rolled up scroll, Twilight took it in her magical grasp.

"Okay, let's see, dear lucky pony/ponies, you are cordially invited to the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and...." Twilight trailed off, her mouth and the scroll dropped.

Spike picked up the scroll, cleared his throat, and finished reading.

"*ahem* Twilight's big brother." he added, everypony gasped, then congratulated the leader of the group.

"Congratulations to yer brother fer gettin' ta marry a princess." Applejack started.

"I can only imagine how you feel, darling." Rarity added.

"You have a big brother too? Cool!" Scootaloo piped up.

"And he's marrying a princess." Pinkie jumped into the stream of words.

Some other shit was said, miraculously moving to the train ride, Xero hasn't said anything.

The human took his hand off of his ear and spoke.

"Sweet, Jordan is getting married to the Princess of Loooove." he stated suddenly.

"Who's Jordan?" most of the ponies present querried the odd statement.

"Duh, Captain Sparkles, the guy getting married to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza." Xero informed.

"But, my brother's first name is Shining, not Jordan, and how did you even know, when we tried to get you to follow us, you didn't respond to even Pinkie's screaming." Twilight argued.

"Huh? Hold on," Xero instructed, putting a hand to his ear again, a few seconds later he took it off "Oh, it's Captain Sparkle, not Sparkles, damnit, oh well." he sighed.

"I still wish I could at least get a phone call, Celestia literally knows he can afford it." Twilight grumbled.

"Why is that?" the other 5 still did not recieve many details about Twilight's brother.

"Because he's a captain in the unicorn Royal Guard, pays big money." Xero revealed.

"How'd you know that?" Twilight was confused at the bluish-black-with-white-highlights haired man's knowledge.

"Phone call." Xero explained concisely.

"From who?" Twilight interrogated.

"My close friend Princess Luna, her majesty, the highness, Goddess of the Night, called me on my internal telephonetic communicator, and informed me of the wedding, which includes who is actually being wed, while my internal telephonetic communicator is activated, no sound comes in, and no sound comes out." Xero answered extensively.

"Princess Luna called you? Why?" Twilight continued her questioning.

"Like I said, we're close friends, I killed the nightmare spirit, I defeated Discord, I'm a soldier, so she respects me as much as I respect her, and we're friends, so she called me to tell me about the wedding, which, I repeat, includes the ponies being wed." Xero revealed.

"Mmm hmm, I see, well, come on, we're a few seconds from Canterlot." Twilight announced, standing up.

Xero equipped the Speed suit, leaving the train through the top hatch, he and Scootaloo flew off once the train was inside the forcefield, a pair of guards came up to see what was going on, but being flipped off by Xero gave them enough of a sign to back off.

The pair split up shortly before reaching the castle, Xero went to the courtyard-like area that only the Class 4 Generals and their guests were allowed to be in, seeing Mogar counting while perched on a cloud, Aran and Derek galloping for their lives to find a hiding spot, Xero announced his presence.

"Sup Mogar, I'm joining in, alright, so start over with the counting." Xero greeted, flying off to hide.

"Okay, motherfucker, I was at 99, shit, I gotta start ALL THE WAY OVER NOW." the seasonal-camoflauge-armor wearing stallion complained.

With the pegasus of the group counting again, Xero found a decent spot and used his recently designed invisibility mechanism, which he called, in honor of his favorite TV show, the Chameleon Circuit.

The game began.

Twilight trotted angrily past all of the guards, none stopped her, they knew not only who she was, Celestia's student, but the implications of said status put her, surprisingly enough, in higher regard than the whole of the army, minus the Class 4 Generals and the Princesses' personal guards, but that was a negligable percentage.

Clearing away from the fury of the lavender mare by at least 3 meters, the guards did NOT want to end up blocking her path.

Twilight knew her anger was a bit un-called-for, if her brother was simply too busy with physical work that inhibited his ability to contact her, then that was the state of affairs, and trying to change the past would, as she experienced after the events of the Starswirl the Bearded archives, NOT A GOOD FUCKING IDEA.

But she doubted he was so swamped with work that he couldn't even take the time to write his own letter, or, as she had ranted about, make a phone-call.

Her perception turned back on when she ran right into a tree.

"OW, ugh, stupid tree, where am I?" she looked around, curious as to where her legs had taken her.

She was in the large courtyard-like area in the center of the main.... army..... building..... thing (I have no idea).

She saw her brother, Captain Shining Armor, in his purple painted captain's armor, giving orders to some guards.

She had a malicious idea.

"Now remember, soldiers, we are the ROYAL GUARD!" Shining was giving a morale speech, unknown evils tended to put quite the damper on confidence in the RG.

"We are POWERFUL, we are DISCIPLINED, the MOST IMPORTANT of ALL LAW ENFORCEMENT, WE CAN DO THIS, STAND UP AND BE STRONG, COURAGEOUS, and be PROFESSIONAL ABOUT IT, and most importa-" he was cut off by the arcane zapping sound that accompanied a teleportation, he was about to look around when something about the size and weight of a full grown mare landed on his back rider style.

"And most importantly, try to look pretty, like Shiny here, he's pretty enough to get married." Twilight finished the sentence, sitting on her brother's back, forelegs on his helmet to help look over the white stallion's mohawked mane at the captain's subordinates.

Shining just stood there shocked at the invasion of personal privacy.

The guards chuckled to themselves.

"Alright, you 2 get over to the north wall, me and Shiny need to talk." the lavender mare ordered, the guards saluted Shining and galloped off.

"I, uh, uhhhhhh." the blue maned captain's mind was forced to reboot after the experience, hearing his little sister giggling snapped him back to reality.

"Hey Twily!" he greeted, trying to be lighthearted about the event that had just transpired.

"Hey BBBFF, how's life." Twilight replied casually.

"It's, um, good, um, can you get off of me please?" Shining was feeling embarrassed at the physical closeness his sister had created.

"Let me think about it... nope, I'm just going to let you do the walking while I talk." the younger of the 2 unicorn's tone was casual, even though she was imposing the actions upon the older of the 2.

"*sigh* Alright, so, what did you want to say?" Shining walked, he needed a vantage point to see that everything was going smoothly.

Walking up to a high connecting bridge, the pair conversed.

"So, why didn't you tell me in person, or even a phone-call, or at the very least a letter, that you were GETTING MARRIED!?" Twilight got immediately to the point.

"I tried, I really did, but every waking moment I've had was forced to be spent maintaining military cohesiveness, or keeping Cadence from having a heart-attack, she's overly stressed about the fact that later the same day we announce the fact that we're getting married, a threat has been made against Canterlot as a whole, the rough, scratchy, greenish-black writing from the letter, which was mud-caked and worn, was a pretty horrifying message." Shining explained.

"What was the message?" Twilight knew that the threat had to be dealt with ASAP.

"Well, it said 'we're coming to Equestria, first Canterlot, and we're going to suck your hearts dry.', which sent chills through everypony present, all of the members of the military that were still inside the borders of Equestria at the time, and all that have come back since then are immediately sent here, and positioned, we've got almost all of Canterlot monitered at all times, in fact, the only 5 soldiers who aren't on extensive watch duty are myself, being the Captain of Tactics, the only one qualified to amass a formation like this, and the Class 4 Generals." the white stallion went on.

"I see, and what are they doing, the Generals?" the lavender mare querried, those 3 had a not just a track-record, but a whole ocean's worth of records of somehow being horrible for the job, and perfect for the job, at the SAME DAMN TIME.

"They're doing what they always do, a whole lot of nothing, nothing important anyways, they're acting like stallion-foals, playing schoolyard games and napping, at least, that's what they do during the day, which is the only time anypony can get an audience with them, but frankly, I fear the worst from them, they're mentally unstable, Aran is a well-intentioned-extremist, Derek could take out anypony in a 10-mile radius if he did a face-fetlock turn, and Mogar is unstable enough already, he'd just act out on his threats, they got to their ranks somehow, but the reason has long fallen into obscurity." the captain continued.

"Yeah, they've shown extremities with their skills, Mogar does well for a pegasus with melee only, Derek's cutie mark is brass shoes around a star, and Aran is a pure-blooded warrior, they're the most qualified because they made themselves qualified." Twilight revealed.

"How do you know so much about the soldiers?" the older sibling questioned.

"Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, I was born at home and raised IN THE CASTLE, I KNOW EVERYPONY THERE, AND THEY KNOW ME!" Twilight answered brashly.

"Right, I keep forgetting." Shining half-apologized, these things were known to him, but he rarely lended hem any mind.

The 2 ponies looked out over Canterlot, while this vision point wasn't the best, it offered a pleasant view of the city, and a perfect view of the city walls.

"So, you must have heard of the new Class 4 General, he's pretty much all the mid-tier soldiers talk about, some guy named Xero, supposedly from Great Brimain, and he's a speed demon, kinda like that friend of yours, Rainbow... Flash?" the stallion revived the conversation.

"Yeah, i know him, he lives in Ponyville airspace, plus, he and Rainbow Dash are actually together, like, together together, not like you and this other mare, but close, he's a cool guy when you get to know him, and he actually manages to have 'being an asshole' as part of his charm, the most remarkable thing though, is his general state of being, he may be brash, and cocky, and excessively rude, and crude, and harsh, and mean-spirited, but it's in his nature to be harmful to others, it's the only way he knows how to survive." Twilight was quite insightful about her bluish-black-with-white-highlights haired, tall-ish, bipedal friend, he had given some information, and Twilight had figured out the rest.

"What's wrong with him? Did he grow up in a bad city, or is he like an isolated farmer?" Shining knew that sometimes, ponies would separate themselves from others, teach themselves things, and learn from nature, this had, of course, malicious effects on their minds, to see and treat everything as a threat.

"No, let's just say, he's not actually a pony, he's something much different." Twilight informed.

"I'm guessing by your lack of explanation, it's something that I would have to see/experience to understand." the white stallion knew that this was the case for many things that his little sister experienced and attempted to inform others about.

"Yeah, pretty much, it's an experience, like drinking and stuff." the lavender mare, t'was an evil miracle, but she lacked the words to convey her point.

"And stuff?" the knight asked sarcastically.

"And stuff." Twilight assured, equally sarcastic.

The pair laughed, still in their awkward-for-one position, they laughed loudly, just being in eachother's presence made them happier.

"So, *sigh* who's the lucky mare, I don't think I caught her name." Twilight asked, recovering from her laughter.

"I already said, it's Cadance, your old foalsitter." the captain responded with pride.

"Cadance? Cadance my old foalsitter? The best foalsitter in the history of foalsitters?" Twilight questioned rhetorrically, she knew the answers already.

"Well, yeah, that's actually how we met." the older sibling added.

"Wow, nice catch." the multi-color maned unicorn congratulated, giving her brother a nudge of approval.

"Wow, you've... changed, Twily." the blue maned unicorn observed.

"I know, but you're still the same old you, and that's how I like you." Twilight hugged Shining around the neck, easier than normally due to the fact that she was still on his back like a rider.

"Excuuuu~uuuse me, but what the HELL is GOING ON here?" Cadance piped in, walking up the stairs in one of the 2 connecting towers, she did not like what she saw, some random mare riding on her fiance's back, hugging him and giving him compliments.

"*gasp* CADANCE!" Twilight exclaimed, scrambling to get off of her brother and to her hooves.

Immediately getting in front of the pink alicorn, her newfound excitement banished the sleepy feeling she had gotten while riding on her brother's back.

Cadance just stared at Twilight with a mixture of condescending and confusion.

"It's me! Twilight, Remember?" the unicorn exclaimed, getting really close to Cadance now.

"Uh huh." the princess dismissed the lavender pony and went to her fiance's side.

"Right, well, Cadence is going to be stopping by every so often to check up on the wedding preparations, I'm not able to do so because I've got too much work, managing 1000+ soldiers and all, and I believe you're the preparations manager, no?" the stallion revealed.

"Yeah, I should probably get back to work anyways." Twilight said sheepishly, teleporting away.

Twilight appeared in the kitchen, she could teleport several kilometers at this point, so the trip wasn't hard at all.

Applejack was rushing back and forth, seemingly doing everything by herself, the helping staff was not being helpful, seemingly doing nothing but beinh fat slobs and directing a camera-pony, yelling obscenities that, no matter how loud, were censored by a crow at the window. (it's the Epic Meal Time guys but ponified)

Twilight cheered up considerably while talking to her friend, things like that, simple friendship, had established an effectiveness on her, she felt better overall when she was just... being a friend.

Time for a checklist.

"Cake." Applejack started off, dabbing a small amount of icing on one of the borders, completing the whole thing.

"Check." Twilight announced, ticking off a box on the list.

"Ice sculpture." the orange mare continued, chipping off an errant bit of ice on a heart shaped sculpture.

"Ooooh, check." the lavender mare was dazzled at the shiny formation, not enough to tick off another box, though.

"Tha best darn apple tarts ya eved did taste?" the earth pony asked more than stated, tossing an apple tart to Twilight, the other pony catching it in her mouth.

"Mmmmm, check." the unicorn cheered up further at the delicious taste of the apple tart.

"THE MOST EPIC *squawk*ING FOOD-THING YOU MOTHER*squawk*ERS HAVE EVER SEEN!?!?!" the leader of the group of stallions shouted, his loud voice booming throughout the kitchen.

"What the fuuuuuu...." Twiligth trailed off at the sight of the... food-thing.

It was gigantic, it could easily feed 100+ ponies, a 1:1 scale painting of Cadance and Shining Armor, written in chocolate sauce was 'love tastes good', what wasn't covered in an image of the couple and writing was instead covered in haycon strips, it could only be described in 1 word.

Epic.

"AND WE GOT A MINIATURE ONE FOR SOME *squawk*ING SAMPLING FOR YA FLANKS!" the bearded stallion yelled, tossing over a scaled down version, about 1:10 size.

Twilight poked it a few times with a fork, the images of the 2 ponies seemingly 'bled' a strawberry sauce of some sort, like a mixture of glaze and jelly, with some pure juice in there to thin it out.

She took a few bites, sharing the scrumptious treat with Applejack.

The 2 mares ate happily, Twilight sensed eyes aimed at her, she turned to see a camera.

"And there's some footage of 2 little fillies eating, for all you man-whores and and lesbians out there, you know who you are, you watch us cook every TUESDAY!" the audacious head stallion said to the camera, turning it away from the 2 mares.

"What the hell?" the 2 mares pondered aloud, still eating.

The 6 stallions left, the camera-pony chasing after them.

The 2 mares kept eating the food-thing (I have no words to describe it, it's like cake/pie/some other baked good)

Cadance chose that moment to walk in.

"Are you... eating on the job?" the pink princess half-demanded the information, mostly confused.

"I believe it's called a 'lunch break' by most workers." Twilight answered cheekily with a shit-eating grin.

"Right, whatever, is the food at least somewhat prepared?" the somewhat snobby sounding alicorn querried, Twilight knew something was up, she knew Cadance more than almost anypony, maybe even more than Celestia herself.

Cadance was being a stuck-up demanding bitch, expecting everything to be perfect when not even an HOUR of preparation had passed, and acting like she was above being a bitch for demanding such, and generally being too much different than her normal self.

Or maybe Twilight was disoriented and possibly inebriated, that was possible, she did drink a few glasses of wine before she came here.

How many was it?

Like, 5-6.

How does Xero have that much wine?

Where the hell does he get it all from?

Wait, stop, Twilight, get your head in the game!

Damnit, Cadance is leaving.

Applejack hoofed over a small bag of apple tarts to the pink princess, the alicorn gave a fake smile, Twilight was seemingly the only one who percieved it, though, as Applejack kept smiling.

"Umm, right, thanks." Cadance replied to the statement that had apparently been made, Twilight hadn't been paying much attention until this point.

"No problemo, I know how you brides get, so worried and stressed out ya forget to put a little somethin' in your belly." the orange pony philosophized.

While the earth pony had her back turned, Cadence threw the bag of tarts into the trashcan, without even so much as a pause.

Twilight was almost seething at this point, Cadance did not do stuff like that! She would have either politely declined if she did not want any, said something if she didn't like them in the first place, or kept them if she really wanted them.

T'was simple logic, Twilight knew something was up now.

She teleported to her next destination, to Rarity.

Appearing in the style tower, as she had dubbed it long ago, Twilight found Rarity almost floating around the workspace.

The white unicorn was moving around the dresses that she had made, Twilight analyzed them, they were so beautiful that she would have killed to wear any of them.

"Nice to see that the dress production is under way, they look great." Twilight announced cheerily.

"Oh why thank you Twilight, nopony has bothered with even so much as a peep, not even the guards." Rarity almost sang, her mood had been quite dampered with the stresses of making 4 dresses in 1 day, no secondary motivation added, driven only by duty to be fabulous at what she did, which was making clothes

"Well, then they're all stupid flankholes." the lavender mare insulted the others.

"Now Twilight, it's not nice to say such things about ponies who can't be here to defend themselves." Rarity chastized.

"Oh fine, they're all stupid assholes then." Twilight reworded, going in the opposite direction of niceness

"*sigh* That's not much better, but I must finish these ensembles for the bride and her bridemaids." Rarity got herself back on track, Twilight merely sighed and walked around the fashion constructions, slowly checking off the boxes, admiring the fabulousness of the garments.

Cadance entered the room, still as irate as before.

"Are the dressses ready yet?" Cadence asked, even her tone was agitated.

"Not completely, but about 95 or so percent, I'm just putting on the finishing touches, darling." the fashionista assured.

"I see, so so so sorry to dampen the mood, but make it a different color, like, add some black, and some green, plenty of green." the princess of love instructed.

"Blech." the archmage pretended to vomit, imagining her old foalsitter wearing something so gothic-sounding was almost sickening.

"Who said that?" the pink pony looked around, not noticing the lavender mare ticking off boxes while getting ticked off herself.

"Ooh, pretty." the bridesmaids rushed into the room, fawning over their dresses.

"Make them all different colors." Cadance demanded.

"RIght, of course, your majesty." Rarity complied.

"I sense a disturbance in the royal force." Xero said suddenly, he could tell somepony just called somepony who was a princess but was not Luna 'majesty'.

"Found you dude." Derek mockingly said, tapping Xero on the chest.

"And I hit that 'Soulja Boy' and said..." Xero gathered his strength.

"What the fu-" the not-squishy-at-all wizard was cut off by Xero rubbing his middle finger all over his face.

"FuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU!!!" Xero rapped at the chamber door of Derek's self-assurance.

"I... I don't..... I don't know....... how to........ respond to that......" the unicorn was drawing nothing but blanks.

"Somepony gave advanced praises to someprincess other than Luna." Xero explained.

"Oh, I see, I personally prefer Luna over Celestia as well, they say that Celestia would have somepony banned from the castle if they tried to take one of her feathers, which implies that that act was a big enough issue at one point to invoke the application of rules against it, despite the fact that Celestia never flies, like, NEVER, almost never, at least, she's probably flown about 10 times in the all of her life." Derek ranted.

"I know, it makes one wonder, just as they would if somepony using a zweihoofer with one hoof were to use it with both hooves, what if somepony did something more, like trying to take her whole wing off, or both." Xero extrapolated.

"Man, I don't even want to think about that." Derek changed the subject.

"RIght, I actually need to go, I have a sister that I should attend to." Xero dismissed himself, flying off.

"Alright.... then,,," the unicorn C4G said to the departing human, turning around to look for his other hiding comrade.

Twilight was thoroughly pissed off (in case the transition didn't tell you enough)

Cadence was being a COMPLETE bitch now, the NORMAL Cadance would at least politely decline Pinkie Pie's party ideas, and that would be assuming that she didn't accept them.

This was not the pretty pink princess of love that the lavender archmage mare knew and loved, no, this was somepony else, or maybe Cadence had some sort of mental illness now, before, all the times that Twilight was sure she would recieve a scolding or even a spanking, Cadance had stayed calm, through broken windows and burnt books, Cadence had always stayed kind and considerate.

Something had happened, something bad, something REALLY FUCKING BAD!

Twilight rushed to find Celestia, the only pony who she knew would take her seriously, Shining would probably dismiss her worries and try to make Cadence out to have merely reached a new threshold of mental overwhelming.

Opening the intricate and intelligent looking doors, the lavender pony rushed inside the intel-room she knew so well, the alabaster alicorn she knew even better was standing in front of a telescope, looking out, she turned to see who had entered, and smiled at the sight of her student.

"Ah, Twilight, nice of you to come by here, please, take a seat, if you wish." Celestia at least had the decency to acknowledge the fact that Twilight was a grown mare and could make her own decisions, even if it was just something as simple as choosing to sit down.

"Princess, nice to see you too, but there is something more important, I think something has happened to Cadance." Twilight wasted no time in getting up-close and personal with her mentor, gripping her by sides of the face and smooshing her cheeks together, forming the 'why wub woo' face.

"Uh huh, and what do you think has happened to my dear niece?" Celestia asked, staying calm even at the uncomfortably close proximity.

"Either a mental affliction or complete replacement, that's what, I don't care about anypony caring about how I talk, so I'll just say it outright, she's being a pain in the ass and a bitch, forcing unrealistic demands, expecting everything to be done in unreasonably small amounts of time, changing what I damn well KNOW she would accept with happiness and joy, and other shit too, she's being, for lack of a better term, un-Cadence." Twilight explained at length, her grip on the solar deity's face loosening somewhat.

"I see, well, I'll see what I can do to try to talk to her, don't get your hopes up, as even I can only do so much." Celestia half-accepted, she didn't really feel like Twilight had based her claims on anything.

"Ugh, fine, I need to be elsewhere, anyways." Twilight teleported away without another word.

"Hmm, Twilight does seem quite upset, I'm sure she's just stressed out, nothing serious." Celestia would later look back at this moment and want to strangle her past-self for not handling the situation more responsibly, or at least beat herself halfway-to-death.

Looking back through the telescope, the present Celestia dismissed her student's claims, looking back out over the blank sky.

Twilight, meanwhile, seethed in anger, she was going to snap, and somepony was going to get REALLY hurt when she did.

Nopony took her seriously, they would all want to strangle their past-selves for not alleviating the situation as soon as possible.

Xero, on the other, would strangle all of them, he knew when to take people seriously, ponies too.

It was all a matter of time.

And transition.

Twilight chugged her glass of grape vodka, she ordered it for the sole reason of needing something to diffuse her anger with.

And drinking sugary beverages with high alcohol content was an excellent activity that not only fit the bill, but did the job better than most other activities.

"So, all of you are probably too busy fawning over your jobs to notice that Cadance is being, well, to put it nicely, she NOT BEING CADENCE-Y." Twilight proclaimed.

"How does somepony not act like themself?" Rainbow Dash asked simply, stretching her wings.

"Well, first, she's the princess of love, which not only includes your standard 'I love you, you love me, let's go out and fuck like bunnies' kind of love, but being friendly and nice, she hasn't been either, I know her, or at least I thought I did, she's been lying, deceiving, amongst a few other things, Applejack, did you know that after she said she 'love love loved' your apple tarts, she tossed them in the trash?" Twilight ranted, she would go at this from a tactical point.

"Well, she was probably just trying to spare my feelings, nuttin' to it." the orange farmer replied.

"No, she wouldn't do something like that, not the sparing your feelings thing, if she didn't want them, she would have declined them up front, if she didn't even like them, she would have told you after she ate the first one." Twilight reassessed.

Xero and Scootaloo arrived at the table after a long conversation with Luna, they ordered drinks and got comfortable, listening to the conversation their friends were having.

Conversation that was quickly being taken over by debate.

"Now then, Rarity, do you honestly think that anypony would wear some shit like a black and green dress to something as important as their own fucking wedding?" Twilight demanded, ripping the refilled glass of grape vodka from the waiter's hand and gulping it down, shoving it back to the worker pony to be refilled again.

"Well, I guess Cadance just has unique tastes." the white fashionista dismissed.

"Yeah, an acute form of liking big pink frilly things, like that fancy shit you like, but times 10, she's not gothic, and the closest things that I know of that she's worn to black is a winter sweater, and the closest thing to green is a spring hat, she would want the most 'pretty pretty princess' dress she could get, just to add more to here already being one." Twilight revised.

"Well she did yell at one of my birds at rehearsal." Fluttershy meekly added.

"Oh see now that's not Cadence, she never yells, the closest she gets is giddy squeals of excitement, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't excited." the lavender archmage assured.

"Are ya sure ya ain't just makin' somethin' outta nothin', purely for other reasons?" Applejack posed the powerful query.

"Oooh, the armor-piercing question, bane of all emotion." Xero remarked

"What reason could I POSSIBLY HAVE?" Twilight wasn't really raging, so much as she was confused at what her orange friend could be impying.

"Well, I mean, couldn'it be that you... and your brother... I mean... um, how can I put this..." Applejack had her point ready to be conveyed, but the conveying part was hard.

"You don't want Cadance to marry your brother, because secretly, it's you who wants to marry him?" Pinkie threw the point at Twilight's face.

Xero stopped, took a big drink of wine....

... And swallowed it.

Then he placed a large amount of bullets in his mouth and did a huge spit-take.

The clattery metal ammunitions bounced on the table, each one rolling to a stop.

One round fell off the table and landed on a particular part of the ground.

This part had a nail sticking straight up.

The bullet landed primer-first on top of the nail.

The shot fired off, not only launching into the air, but making a really loud noise.

The full metal jacket/armor piercing/incendiary/HE/cyanide/muzzle-activation straight-tracer/rocket round bullet fired its entirety into the air, and hit a bird.

The bird landed, bloodied and burning on the street.

A posh pony fainted at the sight.

Which knocked over a window-sill bound basket.

Which rolled underhoof to a pony carrying a crate of matches.

Said pony slipped, causing matches to spill out onto the street.

Another pony carrying a bundle of dynamite tripped over the matches, lighting them.

Said dynamite bundle rolled away to a merchant's cart.

The merchant saw the dynamite rolling towards his cart of precious produce, he wished he had appendages with which to flip off the alicorn of fate, but he did not, so instead, when the leafy greens were blown sky high, he shouted something he shouted much more than he would like.

"MY CABBAGES!" the merchant yelled.

Xero laughed at the scene.

"Oh HA my Luna wo-*wheezing laughter*-ow, oh bloody he-*wheezing laughter again*-ell that was more ent-HA-rtaining than a HA pile of cunts." the brit forced out, pounding his fists on the table in an attempt at alleviating the humorous energy.

"Well, that was a snowball and 31 halves." RD jokingly stated.

"Boy, that escalated quickly, I mean, that really got out of hoof fast." Pinkie added.

"Screw this, and screw you." Twilight was fed up with the situation.

She did the only she could at this point.

She placed her hooves firmly on the underside of the table.

Xero and Scootaloo quickly gathered the bullets and flew off before what happened next happened.

Twilight's rage ignited, she did the only thing that was logical at this point.

She stormed off, half stalking gait, half fiery-muscle-feeling sprint.

She was going somewhere.

Twilight entered the home she knew so well, after all, it was where she grew up.

Ever since she had moved out to live with Celestia in the castle, her brother had become the Sparkle Estate's prime proprieter (or whatever the fucking term is), shield designs were the main theme, like either some sort of conceitedness, or going back to his roots, she knew it was the latter.

Her parents were on extended vacation, almost permanent, actually, they were already rich enough, how else would they be able to live in the upper-crust area of Canterlot?

Shining was a grown stallion and a soldier, Twilight was a grown mare and a heroine, so they clearly did not require assistance any more.

Frantically looking around the foyer, she heard the hoofsteps near her.

"Hey Twily, nice of you to stop by, check it out, your big bro's looking pretty good huh?" Shining greeted, gesturing to his suit, one owned by a dearly held family member.

Twilight's anger had dissolved, leaving only sadness, she turned to her brother, trying to smile, only to make a quivering frown, her mouth lacked the strength to lift itself.

"You don't look too good, what's wrong?" the white stallion knew that his little sister would try (and fail) to smile when she had acute sadness.

"*sigh* It's just, Cadence has been acting completely unlike herself lately. It's like she's somepony else just wearing Cadance's skin." Twilight admitted her thoughts after a reassuring look from her brother.

"Well, listen Twily, make sure that this is indeed a problem, and not you thinking something and then it turns out that it's almost completely false. Whatever you're thinking of claiming, be sure of it." Shining instructed.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." the lavender mare surrendered, she would need to think of something to back up her claims, but she didn't have a lot of time.

"Of course I'm right, I'm the older sibling." the white stallion joked.

"Yeah, just like you were 'right' when I helped you with almost all of your classes, in fact, the only 2 I didn't help with were literature and PE, and the former is the base of education, while the latter is just about pure physical work, so essentially, I'm the one who earned your degree." the archmage reminisced, it was quite a sight and sound when her big brother, about 7 years older than her, came to her for help, she was happy to oblige, of course, she loved learning.

"Okay, come on, I was kinda right, I picked the right tutor." the captain joked again.

The sibling shared a few laughs, ending in a quick hug.

"Okay, seriously? Get away from him!" Cadence came down the stairs quickly, pushing Twilight from her brother and holding onto him.

"Cadance, calm your tits, I'm his SISTER, IF YOU COULDN'T FUCKING TELL!" Twilight snapped, she could not believe that the pink princess not only did not recognize her, even WITH her name, but thought she was some sort of... 2nd special somepony in her brother's life.

"Oh... um..." Cadence blushed in embarrassment, she did not expect this turn of events.

"Well, anyways, I'll leave you 2 to... whatever you 2 do when you're alone, I'm not one to judge." Twilight said, merrily trotting away.

She had a plan, and Xero could very well help her.

The man in question was....

...not giving a fuck, granted he was sleeping at the moment, but if he had 'sleep-fuck's to give, he still wouldn't give them.

The blue clad man and his (at least he thought so) adorable little sister shared a cloud, for some reason the room had:

A; no properly working AC, so they couldn't warm the place up
B; no proper door insulation, so they might as well have had the doors wide open
C; the bed was not comfortable, so they brought in a cloud

Under a thick, dark blue blanket, Xero and Scootaloo held eachother close for warmth, it was a peaceful moment.

The peaceful moment turned into peaceful several hours, it was morning, almost noon, summer-time, so the air was pleasantly warm and mostly dry.

Twilight threw the doors open.

"XERO I NEED YOUR HE-" she was cut off immediately.

*BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG*

Xero had suddenly summoned the Joy Colts, firing off all 24 rounds in 12 2-shot blasts, his hands hurt like hell keeping the muzzle-rise below 5 inches, but even then, all 24 bullets missed.

Twilight narrowly avoided pissing/shitting herself (which, because no pants, would end up all over the floor and be really disgusting).

"TWILIGHT STOP BEING A CUNT AND SHOUTING!" Xero shouted.

"You're being a hypocrite, Xero." Twilight countered.

Xero felt a tugging at his side, he looked over and found Scootaloo clinging onto him, her forelegs wrapped around his torso.

"What were you 2 doing sleeping on a cloud together?" Twilight knew the concept was not unheard of, but the ages of those siblings had been a very small younger sibling, and a fully grown older sibling.

"Cadance loves and tolerates your brother with her vagina, oh, and WE WERE bloody SLEEPING." the dark/light haired man explained.

"Okay, whatever, listen, I need your help, Cadence is not herself, I mean, it's like she stopped being the princess of love, and started being the princess of annoying-acting-royalty." Twilight assessed.

"I see, like the Queen of bally England on crack (other illegal drugs are available at the cost of possibly being arrested and put in jail for possession and usage of illicit substances) and is actually not the Queen of England but is instead a type of shape-shifter." Xero suggested nonsensically.

"Shape-shifter? Like a Mimic or a Changeling?" Twilight had heard of such creatures, both were very dangerous.

"Yes, it's not an inanimate object, so it's a Changeling, trust me, I play a lot of video games that have this shit in them, I know that Mimics imitate inanimate objects and attack those who disturb them, feeding on blood and other bodily fluids, where as Changelings take the form of somepony and feed off of their life-force/life-energy, both are dangerous." Xero spoke at length.

"Well, if they did that, then they would be apprehended and driven to extinction, for us, Changelings feed off of love, the love that other ponies have for the pony they imitate." Twilight revealed.

"Okay, so, 2 things, 1, that's easy enough, 2, why didn't the changeling take over for Shining Armor? With Cadence being the bloody Princess of Love, then the scum would go from rags to riches, metaphorically speaking." Xero had removed himself from the cloud, carrying his little sister so as to not disturb her (surprisingly, she was still asleep).

"Alright then, come on, they're practicing the wedding now, so we don't have much time, we have to stop this before they get married for real." Twilight directed, rearing up before taking off at great speed, Xero (comically) ninja ran while still (for some odd reason) carrying Scootaloo, the orange pegasus nuzzled him and gripped him tighter.

Literally flying down the halls, faster than Twilight, Xero poured on the speed, he needed to assess the situation before anything was done to change it.

It was all just a matter of time.

Quickly and quietly, like always, Xero entered the ceremony hall, everything was almost completely decorated, certain major parts were not put up, for the sole fact that it would be superfluous.

Leaning against one of the side pillars, the one on the right, in the middle of the row, he set Scootaloo down and began preparing his weapons.

Wolverine? check. APS? check. Every other sword? check. Blue Death? check, Grudge? check.

Holding the Grudge a little while longer, this was the second thing that Omega had, still working, by the end of the Kary fight.

Omega, Kary....

NO, XERO GET YOU HEAD IN THE GAME, DON'T THINK ABOUT THEM!

NEVER THINK ABOUT THEM!

DON'T LET IT GET TO YOU!

STOP!

IT'S IN THE PAST, ME, LET IT GO!

How can I let it go if I never get over it?

NO, STOP IT, SELF!

The armor-piercing question was instantly removed, he sealed up the wound with denial, he didn't want to, saw no purpose to, to... to.....

To look back, he had nothing to smile about in his past, he never wanted to think about any of that ever again.

Scootaloo stirred, but otherwise stayed still, laying out flat again.

"Xero, Scootaloo, so nice of you to attend the practice." Celestia greeted.

"Don't thank me, I genuinely do not like you and personally wish you would not speak to me." Xero eloquently denied.

"Right, whatever, where was I? Oh yes." Celestia got back on track.

Xero tuned the alabaster princess out, opting to clean the Grudge, as it had (somehow) gathered dust in it's disuse.

The solar princess got back to her announcement, the doors were almost blasted off of their hinges.

"STOP!" Twilight screamed, she was pissed.

Nopony knew how to react to that.

"THIS MAY JUST BE A REHEARSAL, BUT THAT CADANCE IS NOT THE REAL CADENCE, SHE'S A FAKE!" Twilight knew that her current state would displace her credibility, but she needed this to be resolved now.

"What do you mean?" 'Cadance' asked innocently, trying to further discredit Twilight.

"I MEAN, she's NOT THE REAL CADENCE, IS IT NOT OBVIOUS YOU DUMB CUNT?!" Twilight shouted, getting very closer to the altar, about in-line with Xero.

She turned to the brit, who gave her a thumbs up.

"Ugh, if she's just going to throw insults around for no reason, maybe we should just ignore her." 'Cadence' offered the wisdom.

"YOU NEED TO STOP IGNORING ME!" Twilight wasn't necessarily pissed off, per se, she was just trying to get her point to hit home, and now they were ignoring her?

She would not stand for this, no amount of shouting or stomping until she was raspily breathing or fracturing her leg bones would convey her logic and knowledge properly.

She needed to take action, and now.

Looking to her british friend, she noticed the rifle he held, harshly ripping it from his grasp, she plucked a hair and immediately over-rode and reset the DNA lock to herself, the lights and frame turned purple.

She took aim, by the time the ponies had enough time to react, and Xero recovered from the shock to move, she already had the deadly weapon aimed and ready to fire.

The massive plasma round shot through the air impossibly fast, illogically fast, 10 miles in 1 second, Twilight still (somehow) missed, she tried to redirect the shot, tried with all her might, but Xero tackled her, holding her up by the neck and punching her in the face a few times, he tended to get a little bit PISSED OFF when his stuff was stolen right from his hands.

Celestia cried out in pain, the shot had missed 'Cadance', but hit Celestia, and in Twilight's (failed) attempts at correcting the bolt of destructive matter, and practically ripped Celestia's wings off.

Twilight stopped, Xero had only punched her a few times, and reclaimed his rifle, taking a few steps back, he let the events unfold.

Everypony except Twilight was at Celestia's side in a second, Twilight stood there, stunned.

Shining was the first to regain his mental bearings.

"ARE YOU CRAZY? YOU JUST BLASTED CELESTIA!" the white stallion rebuked.

"YOU COULD HAVE HIT ME!" 'Cadence' added.

Twilight was crushed, everypony sobered up a little, and realized it was her fault.

They passed by her, shunning her.

She was angry, she hated being ignored like this.

Only Rainbow Dash, Xero, and Scootaloo remained.

Well, them, and Celestia, who almost dragged herself away.

"Some guards will come by to take you to the dungeon, you'll be serving hard time for a long time, Twilight, you're under arrest for assault of myself, and you're disowned as my student as well, if you try to come to the wedding, I'll have you executed ASAP." Celestia stated, her tone was low, grave, filled with hatred and laced with quite a bit of blood and ichor.

Twilight shed a tear, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Rainbow Dash was in the middle of going over to Xero when Twilight collapsed at the altar, crying.

Xero briefly considered going after the others, forcing them to deal with the problem, rather than lock it away.

RD looked to him, he looked back at her.

They came to a silent agreement.

The lavender mare sobbed quietly, Xero drew the Steven, ready for any foolish guards who would think that they could arrest the archmage without resistance.

Nopony came, Twilight continued to cry, Rainbow Dash, being her loyal self (and the influences from Xero) still just sat there, comforting Twilight however she could.

Rainbow Dash began stroking Twilight's mane like her father always did, giving little shushes and assurances, it wasn't much, but it was highly effective.

"*sniffle* *sigh* I guess this is it, what happens now?" the lavender mare sat up from her laying position, wiping away her tears.

"Now we-" Xero got cut off.

"Now, you, never, appear, again." the almost serpentine voice proclaimed.

The trio looked towards the altar, standing there was none other than Cadance, or at least, what they knew only looked like Cadence.

The pink princess flared up her horn with sickly green magic, a toxic green fire circle began forming around the archmage and the flyer.

She was stunned when 6 warm lines of constriction wrapped around her.

She looked down at the offending objects.

Xero had grabbed her with the Blood Wires, diamond strong, neon red, and viciously sharp.

The black long-coat clad man swung Cadance over his head, slamming her on the ground between the altar and the door, audible snaps of bones and maybe even cartilage rang out clear.

It was like music to the black/white haired cyborg's ears.

Xero pinned the supposed 'princess of love' and began rapidly punching her, using a special technique to deal massive damage.

The technique was to straighten out his fingers completely, the force from the jab would be concentrated into the impact from his middle finger, luckily, his middle fingers were strong from years of flipping people (and ponies) off, as well as being the only parts of his hands that were fully robotic.

Cadence didn't stand a chance.

Red patches of skin shone through her coat, blood was being shed soon after.

Xero almost stopped in shock, but kept going.

The blood was green (with a hint of blue).

Harmless green flames covered the restrained royal, revealing her true self.

Queen Chrysalis.

Xero brought his Boomknives into the equation, using the blade-spike grip guards to add more damage to his strikes.

From jabbing, to punching, and then to stabbing, Chrysalis was quickly dying.

Xero got off of her, standing up tall.

He brought out his most potential filled sword.

The Sword of Weakness to Swords.

Spinning the device, numbers flew from the changeling's body.

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536, 131072, 262144, 524288, and finally 1048576.

No kill like overkill.

Chrysalis was reduced to a mangled corpse.

Xero dismissed the Sword of Weakness to Swords.

He looked over to the pair of ponies.

They were gone.

He took it upon himself to break a window whilst fleeing from the scene.

Not so much 'fleeing' as he was.... 'advancing in a different direction'.

Meaning he was going to find them.

He was long gone by now, however, Chrysalis had managed to gather enough power to change herself into Cadance again, as a last cursing of fate.

Guards came to the still-open-door, seeing the mangled corpse of 'Cadence'.

Their first incentive was to throw up, and then bring this news to the others.

Who knows what this would change.

Xero dug straight down, he could fly, so it was okay.

Disintegrating stone and dirt beneath him, using his warping tools to send the bits away, he wasn't entirely sure if his theory was correct.

His theory was that: E=MC squared.

Oh yeah, and since the fire bubble dragged the 2 mares into the ground, then it would make sense that they were underground.

He broke through to a cave.

The light of the sun shone into the place.

Descending, making a deafening noise as his feet collided with the stone floor, Xero flinched.

"Fuck, gotta stay quiet." he cursed fate, using his ninja skills to pad along the ground at high speeds.

His velvet-like tread proved useful, nightvision was essential, and a small bit of light, amplified by too many times to count, allowed him to see where he was going.

But where did he need to be?

That was the hard part.

Turning on his music, he didn't bother controlling the flow of sounds, he was alone.

Twilight opened her eyes, it was dark, she gathered her thoughts, trying to stay calm.

She cast out a light spell, simple yet effective.

The light shone out, revealing her surroundings.

Gems, in a cave, an underground cave.

The supposed 'lost underground cave of gems'.

She looked around for anything to hint towards a way out.

She turned to see Rainbow Dash, shakily standing up, rubbing her head.

"Ugh, what happened?" the cyan mare asked, her head felt like it slammed into stone.

"We were trapped in this cave, come on, Dash, get your head in the game and help me find a way out of here." Twilight directed, letting her leadership skills flow throughout her thoughts.

"Right, okay, cave? I hate caves, could you make that light brighter?" RD was quite claustrophobic, it came with the freedom of being the best flyer in Equestria, the fear of having that freedom taken away.

Twilight wordlessly increased the light level, illuminating the whole of the area around them, a large dome-like room with the walls/ceiling covered in gems, these crystals blocked magic, rendering any attempt at teleporting out useless.

Twilight decided, if the crystals wanted to pull shit like that? Blast those suckers.

She let loose a powerful bolt of energy, it reflected off of the crystal face, and down again, blasting the wall.

The broken wall revealed a beaten up Cadance looking at the floor, she moved slowly, obviously either fatigued, starving, dehydrated, or all 3.

Her face lit up when she saw Twilight.

Twilight ran over, keeping her magic bolt ready in case this was a trick.

"Twilight, oh thank Celestia you found me, I've been down here for almost a week." Cadence smiled, her voice was crackly.

Twilight's hard glare softened, she used a combination of spells to summon up a good amount of water for the pink princess.

Cadance drank from the floating bubble of liquid life, her strain visibly decreased, she guzzled the whole thing, looking better already.

"Thank you, I was afraid I would just...." the alicorn of love trailed off, though still grateful, hugging the lavender mare she knew so well.

Twilight did not object, despite the filthiness Cadence had accumulated and was now rubbing off on her.

"Come on, stop hugging and let's get out of here!" Dash wasn't one to enjoy such... quote 'mushy feely stuff'.

Even with her and Xero, they made it a point to never go 'all googly eyes' for eachother, it ruins concentration and stuff.

They were about to leave to find a path to the surface when they stopped, they saw a 3 pairs of red eyes, predatorial looking, meant to instill fear in those who gazed upon them.

A sound came from the darkness, they weren't sure if the beast was making it, or the magic of the thing poured the sound directly into their ears.

The song stopped after a few seconds, however, and a new song took its place, booming into the room.

*SHING*

Twilight fired off a magic bolt at the possible predator.

What happened next was unexpected.

Xero zoomed through the caves, his song ran out of time, he came up to a room as the last several notes ran off, before he could notice, the next song started, one he played when he just wanted to kill everyone.

The only light coming from his body was from his visor, 3 sets of red eyes, predatorial looking, made to instill fear in his opponents.

He saw the 3 ponies, Dashie, Twilight, and what he could only assume to be the real Cadance.

They stared at him, he realized that the only part of him that they could see were his visor's eyes, his velvet tread and dark attire practically made him a shadow.

He grinned mischeiviously, if his life were a table-top-RPG, then his alignment on the moral compass would be 'Chaotic Neutral'.

Thus, he drew a blade, making extra sure to make the sound as loud as possible, it was an APS, made of diamond,

*SHING*

Twilight fired off a bolt of magic, Xero whipped the blade into the line of fire to protect himself.

It absorbed the magic, glowing bright with energy now, illuminating his body..

Xero looked at the blade quizzically, he swung it swiftly at a wall, launching out an energy arc, he could make something of this, magic storage, an upgrade to the Aeroblade, perhaps.

Dismissing the blade, Xero looked back at the group.

"Hey, I came looking for you 3, no doubt what chaos that killing that fake will cause, we need to get back to the surface, come on, I know the way out." Xero revealed, gesturing for the 3 mares to follow him.

The quartet zoomed through the tunnels, it was a matter of time before the human of the group's uncleaned assault would prove to be a bigger problem then he could shake a sword at, and his sword shaking skills were... well..... I'm pretty sure I don't even need to explain.

Exiting via the hole in the ceiling that Xero had made, the 3 ponies and 1 cyborg were hellbent on getting out of their and back to civilization.

Scootaloo's breath was forced from her body as she collided with the stone floor of the dungeon.

She was having the best sleep of her life, and apparently was mistaken for the mauling of Princess Cadence, they had taken her knives, the Rambos, a pair of wicked bladed Bowie knives.

Her hoodie was untouched, the guards were more disciplined than to go pilfering through a mare's clothing.

Her .50AE Deagles, the Cop-Caps, were in her pockets, the copper finish had lost some redness, but the power was the same, and with 10 round capacity, the guns were amazingly dependable.

She shot out the lock, much to the surprise of the scrawny pale stallion and the eldritch-eyed stallion in the cell next to her.

Her neighbors were of no concern, she left posthaste.

Using her sneaking skills to bypass the guards, she exited the castle dungeons, only to come muzzle-first into Princess Celestia.

"Ah, young Scootaloo, I was about to come get you, as it turns out, you are innocent, the atrocity that occured was commited by 3 others, my former student Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Xero, you are free to go, but I must say, if you're already out, then you must know this already, I must go, the law needs to be brought down." Celestia turned and left, the sterile white bandages stood out against her white coat, which looked quite dull, she was depressed, and that permeated into her coloration.

Scootaloo gave a coy smile, suppressing the urge to make it into a shit-eating grin.

Taking off out of one of the 'window ports', as they were called, large window-sized holes in the wall for pegasi to exit or enter the castle halls.

She needed to find a way out of there, find something to do, maybe she would visit Luna?

Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

Doing an aileron roll leading into a sharp turn, she flew to the black roofed tower that made up Princess Luna's chambers.

She briefly wondered where Xero was.

Hell, she wondered where both he, and Rainbow Dash were.

Xero, Rainbow, Twilight, and Cadence ran into the throne room, it had been at least an hour, the main problem was getting everypony up his tunnel, after that, things were easy, Xero, as usual, led the charge.

His main problem was not leaving the charge in the dust.

Bringing up the Aeroblade, upgraded ASAP after his magic storage discovery, he opened the doors somewhat, not wanting to damage them.

The group of 4 stopped and looked to the throne, Luna was there, looking a little groggy, like she had woken up only a few minutes ago.

Scootaloo walked out from behind the throne, seeing her brother, friend, idol, and the real Cadance, she waved.

The orange pegasus and the black clad man almost telepathically communicated, a series of small, indescripable messages conveying any amount of knowledge needed.

Celestia chose that moment to enter.

"Luna, I'm feeling better now-." the solar princess stopped, her voice hitched upon seeing the quartet of ponies and man.

"GUARDS, HERE, NOW!" the (now frantic) white alicorn shouted, she was very worried about what might happen if things went unchecked.

The room filled up with guards in less than half a minute, surrounding the group.

"Dashie, Cadence, Twilight, go to them, I'm the one they want." the ninja directed, summoning the Masamune and the Steven, doing the ninja sword standing move with the Steven, looking around at the guards.

It was at this moment when he had an epiphany, it hit him like a ton of bricks.

His vision went negative colors.

His ears were ringing like a flashbang had gone off.

So many innocent lives.

Honor.

Do not harm the innocent.

There is a special place in hell for people like you, self.

Don't do it, do NOT KILL THEM.

Even when I die, I would like to spend eternity with my friends.

Friends.....

That's a word I've never used to describe them.

Ugh, NO, ME, DON'T THINK ABOUT IT!

Thinking about it just makes the pain worse.

Dismiss.exe

Dismiss Weapon.name.Masamune

Dismiss.exe

Dismiss Weapon.name.Steven

If they want me, they can have me, I'm not going to make this a problem.

I'm not becoming a fugitive/pariah again.

Xero stood there, his weapons were gone, locked away safe in his base.

"SEIZE HIM!" Celestia commanded, taking this chance immediately.

"STOP!" Luna counter-commanded, siding with her 'knight in leather armor'.

The royal knights, for all their coherence and wisdom that allowed them to keep the job, they did not know what to do.

"I SAID SEIZE HIM!" Celestia would not allow this opportunity to escape.

"I SAID STOP!" Luna would not allow this to happen.

Xero stood in the middle of a crowd of guards, he would have to be the deciding factor.

"I'M BRIMISH, TRAINED BY THE JAPONESE, I HAVE A ZANBATō AND I'M SIDING WITH LUNA!" he shouted, silencing everypony. (just find out what 'Zanbatō' literally translates to).

Proving his statement, he summoned his new APS design, a straight katana-style blade, 2 inches wide, half an inch thick, 50 inch long blade, 13 inch long handle, able to compact itself at intervals of 5 inches for 10 folds.

Everypony, including Celestia, but not Luna. looked at him in fear.

"But I will not use it, I will fight honorably, like a gentleman, I will not pierce the flesh in this fight, if you so wish to fight me, I will use my skills of fisticuffs to battle, I refuse to shed the blood of the innocent." the black clad man announced, cracking his knuckles.

Celestia blinked hard a few times, that certainly was a sobering statement.

Xero stood tall and proud, he was changing, as much influence his behaviour and mindset had on the ponies, the ponies had influenced his own behaviour and mindset just as much.

The guards backed away slowly, they weren't sure about this.

Celestia called the attack.

The ninja folded his wings tightly against his body, jumping into the air, his previous song was cut short, whatever it was, and a new track took its place.

The main difference between Xero's and Omega's styles of unarmed combat were;

With Omega, you could last 1 or 2 punches, and if you're lucky, maybe 4.

With Xero, each punch makes a small crack in the bone he's hitting, the catch is that he's punching you 20-30 times per second.

Putting all of the blunt force he could behind his shots, he had managed to gain a few pounds, though his body had long before cleared out from the random shit that was put there by what he ate back on earth, which was 99% dry rations, 1% whatever sweet thing he could find, his diet had been replaced by plants and more sweets, if his pancreas wasn't 85% mechanical, he would have developed diabetes in the first month.

The first month of work for MBORF, that is, he was paid monthly, and his first incentive with his money was video games and action movies.

Since he already lived with his team in the luxury apartment that Omega and Askad had picked out, and the 2 more responsible men kept it stocked with whatever consumables the group needed, Xero blew his first check on gaming systems and a few games.

Funny enough, while Omega, Askad, and Kary initiated 'Protocol: Facepalm' at his lack of priorities, not just with money, but with ANYTHING.

While they complained about Xero's habits, Xero complained that the games he had picked out were all done in 3 weeks, leaving him with a week to do nothing.

After the second month, they complained further, Xero barely did any work anymore, every waking minute that wasn't spent doing missions was instead spent playing whatever the day's game was.

Granted, his skills hadn't deteriorated, rather, his training had come from whatever he felt like copying from fighting games and movies, he had become so good that he only needed to half focus on anything that wasn't the latest button masher or high priority mission.

It wasn't really an unreasonably large amount of skill, he only did what came naturally.

Back to the point, he had managed to gain a few kilograms, though that didn't do a very advantageous improvement, he had more power to put behind his attack, which was a god-send in any type of combat.

Despite doing only non-lethal blows, which left him to pressure points and KO's, he still fought off all of the guards.with little difficulty.

He was worried, these ponies, despite being strong, were taking heavy damage from his accurately placed strikes, but they got up and tried to apprehend him again.

He would end up beating the Royal Guard to death if they didn't stop.

"Hoooooooohhhhhhhhhh." Xero heard the poor 'japanese guy in awe' voice from a window, one of the few that weren't stained glass.

Aran, Derek, and Mogar were watching the fighting, jaws agape in awe at their fellowman's skills.

Xero realized something, something clever.

He could pull rank.

"I ORDER YOU ALL TO STOP!" he shouted, adding in his voice amplifier mechanism to slam the point into their heads.

Every single pony in a suit of armor stopped and saluted him.

"As your GENERAL, I COMMAND YOU TO STOP ATTACKING ME, AND IN THE PLACE OF THAT ORDER, I COMMAND YOU... to help the newly returned Princess Cadance to prepare for her wedding, this includes re-planning, cleaning her up, etc., do this... and I won't have you all discharged." the black clad soldier held his voice steady for his statement, he tried (and succeeded) to sound like an authority figure.

The soldiers immediately filed out of the room, leaving only the 2 princesses of the sky and the winged ninja (who also contained 2 of 4 apocalypse souls, Fury (NMM) and Strife (Discord)) to brew their thoughts.

"I can't believe that you think you can get out unscathed, Xero, you will be punished for your crimes, you and Twilight." Celestia's voice dripped with ichor.

Xero, surprisingly, shed a tear, Celestia and Luna didn't understand it at the moment, but thanks to the viewer's allowed insight, you can know that Xero held Twilight's friendship in high regard, she was like a female Omega, sure there was RD, but she was the perfect love interest, they were almost identical in interests and preferences, but Twilight was special.

He didn't like to get emotionally attached, but he and Omega had both realized, after the 'Eliminate XV' mission, that all they had to give themselves hope was eachother, brothers in arms, a friendship forged in the fires of battle.

Xero had even managed to fool himself into thinking that Omega wasn't even really dead, that he had ended up in Equestria too, after all, they were like a lot of high class military teams......

And as the sayings go, 'True soldiers don't die, they go to hell and regroup.' of the USMC

'The easy day was yesterday' as the US Navy Seals said.

But his favorite was the British SAS saying, modified to be more explanatory.

'Those who dare are those who win.' he didn't want to have his 2nd best friend be punished for his mistake.

"No, don't punish Twilight, she suffered from a 'Spur-of-the-moment-action' attack, she didn't think her actions through, and it was my mistake for letting her get my equipment, and even further for teaching her how to unlock it." he didn't sound like he was pleading her, but he was.

If push came to shove, he was an expert at 'God of War'.

"*sigh* Fine, I will consider you responsible for the acts that took place, you will be punished for it, severely." Celestia announced.

Xero proceeded to remove his cybernetic attachments, his middle fingers, parts of his thumbs, several plates along his torso, even his ankles and some teeth.

He groaned from blood loss, and was quickly getting worse.

But he was still standing.

The black clad soldier did not collapse in an onslaught of fatigue, no....

He put his attachments back onto his body, the blood rivers stopped immediately.

Xero collapsed at this point, not from heavy loss of vital fluids, but from pain.

It was hell to remove those pieces, and more hell to put them back.

"There, I put myself through hell, you have no idea how much this hurts right now, I actually can barely stay conscious at this poi-*cough*... poin-*cough* point...." despite his near fantasy parameters and thresholds, he blacked out.

Celestia sighed in defeat, these actions, which had taken 40 seconds, had done more than she would have done in 40 hours.

Luna was at her soldier's side, magically removing the spilled blood and putting him onto her back, teleporting to the medical ward for aid.

Things were getting fixed, kind of.

It was at that point that the shield surrounding Canterlot dissipated, Shining Armor had blacked out from exhaustion.

The lifeless corpses of changelings rained from the sky, the hive-mind of the whole species having died along with their queen.

The black husks were cleared out, Xero was still unconscious throughout all of this, and several ponies were injured in the avalanche of bodies.

Xero woke up to find himself floating, he saw Omega floating a few meters away, he waited until the red-clad man stirred to speak.

"Hey, are you awake now?" the blue clad man asked, like Xero, Omega was wearing a jacket in this dream-type-thingy, though his was dark red rather than dark blue, his shirt was white with a red templar cross in the middle, his skin was still the same light gray, it was grAy for Omega because he was from America, it was greEy for Xero because he was from England.

"Yeah, why are we here again?" Omega asked, Xero figured that he hadn't been told where he was either.

"I don't know man, but it's great to see you, how've you been?" Xero asked, just like with their first unconsciousness-induced conversation, the younger man was a lot more civil and noticeably more polite.

"Great, you?" Omega answered

"I've been great too, so, let me guess, killed Chrysalis with dual Judgement Blades?" Xero knew about his own Judgement Blades, but kept them under lock and key, he didn't want to freely allow himself such destructive power.

"How'd you know?" Omega answered.

"Hey man, I was infected too, I just died much later, I have dual Judgement Blades as well, though mine have blue lights where as I guess yours have red." Xero had hoped that Omega had his own Judgement Blades, as he felt like it would be fair, seeing as how the older man died because of the infection that gave the weapons to him.

"Yeah man, so, we seem to be at the same point in the show, I guess the only question is...." Omega trailed off.

"Will it stay that way by the time we get our next conversation." Xero posed the ugly question, he had watched the show up to the final point, when Twilight became an alicorn, he hoped that Omega knew about the development.

"Yeah, I hope it does, if either of us are ahead, even by 1 sentence, the lasting changes could be massive, possibly paradoxing." Omega extrapolated.

"Right, well, did you meet the other Class 4 Generals?" Xero asked, effectively changing the subject.

"Yeah, Thorn Forge the earth pony, Blue Comet the pegasus, and Shanka Grim the unicorn, why?" Omega asked.

"Funny, for me it's Aran Braveheart the earth pony, Mogar Ragom the pegasus, and Derek Ganter the unicorn, odd names for ponies, but whatever." Xero replied.

Xero felt a soothing sensation.

"Hold on, I think I'm being healed." Omega announced.

"Yeah, me too." Xero responded.

"I guess this is goodbye again." Omega said.

"Right, goodbye." Xero said back to him.

They were both gone.

Waking up slowly, feeling dysania setting in on the plush, soft, pleasantly-but-not-overly warm bed, he activated a tiny spike of adrenaline, forcing himself awake, he sat up and looked around.

The room was decorated in various shades of black, dark blue, and purple, giving it the illusion that it was carved from the night sky.

The light was even a moon suspended from the center of the dome-like ceiling, reflecting the light off of a shining orange ring.

Princess Luna, her highness and majesty, stood in front of a mirror, putting on her regalia, she noticed the black-clad man staring at her and spun around so that fast her tiara fell off.

"Ah, my most trusted guard, I hope to slept well." the goddess of the moon greeted cheerily.

"Yeah, like a rock..." Xero didn't really know what else to say, he looked around further.

He found Rainbow Dash and Twilight sleeping on the large, royal bed, Twilight was several feet away, Rainbow Dash was holding Xero around his midriff.

Scootaloo was sleeping on a cloud, she looked really cute, and the sight warmed Xero's heart.

*SSSSSHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNG*

Xero whipped around at the sound of metal-on-metal and was met with Luna drawing a gigantic katana from a black and silver sheath.

It was REALLY FUCKING GIGANTIC, HOLY SHIT!

The blade was 80 inches long, the hilt was 20 inches long, 100 INCHES MOTHERFUCKER IT SHOULD BE REALLY HEAVY!

The blade had the wavy flat-progression that all katanas were supposed to have, a small curve at the end, but overall straight.

Several elongated kanjis were engraved on the black flat and filled in with silver, the handle had it's own separate set on purple wrappings, 6 strand, only the pins for the grip-blocks were visible.

The blade kanjis read 'Dark Goddess, of magic, power, death, and the moon.' with a wider bracing part that only had 'moon' on it.

The crossbar was a straight square rod, an outward facing crescent moon on both ends.

The handle kanjis, written in silver ink, read 'Eternal Death before Dishonor'.

The pommel was simply a full moon.

"Tis my gift to you, my most trusted soldier, my personal guard, Xero, a symbol of your service and loyalty to me, princess of the night and goddess of the moon." Luna slowly levitated the blade over.

"I... just..... wow." Xero didn't know what to say, besides 'this is really bloody cool'.

"This is, the Lunar Zanbato." the dark blue alicorn revealed.

"It is an honor to wield an armament of such magnitude, I must query, though, was this blade forged by your own hooves?" Xero let his accent through, he was getting really giddy though, if Luna confirmed this, then....

"That is correct, this blade was forged by my own hooves, blessed with my power, some might even say... 'forged by the goddess', perhaps." the lunar princess confirmed.

"SWEET, FORGED-BY-THE-GODDESS LEVEL ITEM, WOOHOO!" Xero lost it, the gamer inside him could not be unexcited about such an item as this.

"What's with all the noise....?" RD mumbled, though unawoken from her lover's outburst.

"Right, shit, um, I love this, but I must give you something in return, hmmmm...." Xero just couldn't take this gift no problem, it was too epic.

"It is not really any trouble, my most trusted soldier, it is a ceremonial gift, just as useful as a weapon as it is an ornamental piece." Luna tried to dismiss the concerns.

"Oh, I know, take Twilight!" the britishman offered.

"Ha ha ha, I am sure that Twilight is a free mare, and I think she would not like being sold to somepony, even a princess, like an auctionary object." the dark royal laughed.

"No, I mean, like, take her under you wing, so to speak, like a student, I know Celestia went super PMS on her and disowned her as a student, but I know it's my fault, and I want to make it up to her, she's like a second Omega to me, and I don't leave my true friends out to hang and dry," the ninja almost ranted.

"Omega? Who is that? I have never heard you speak of him before." the blue alicorn querried.

"*sigh* He was a true friend, like I said, he was a lot like Twilight, smart, a good leader, and he always strived to solve everyone's problems, even the one person that karma would drown in piss and shit for her transgressions, Kary, it wasn't until he..... died...... that he gave up on trying to turn her back to the side of good. He was the ballsiest man I've ever met. There are, of course, differences, like with me and Rainbow Dash, Omega was red, dark red, like blood, he used guns all the time, with a few instances of melee combat, he enjoyed the thrill of a fight, the sound of bones breaking, the feel of blood splattering on him, the energy of impacting something into someone else's body, the joy of killing, it was his love and life, but me? I live for honor, I don't kill anyone who doesn't deserve it, I make each strike efficient and powerful, I'm not a bloodhound or an ax-wielding omnicidal maniac, I just do what I have to, whatever that may be...." the cyborg trailed off at the end, he mentally scolded himself for thinking about the past, he didn't want to go through the pain of getting over it, it was easier to just put it away.

"I, I don't know what to say about a man like that, Xero, but I must say, he had to have had plenty of redeeming qualities to be such a friend to you as he was, and by the way, I would be very happy to teach Twilight, she has too much potential to go to waste." the lunar princess accepted.

"Thank you, I feel like I owe her something, something to repay her for all the trouble I've put her through. I've decided that this is the way I'll do it. Again, thank you." the black-with-white-highlights haired man spoke with gratitude heavy in his voice.

He reached out and took Luna in his embrace, it was a tight hug, one of happiness and praise.

Luna was shocked for a few seconds before returning the hug.

Everything was going to be fine.

Hopefully.

*grrrooooowwwwwowwwwww*

"Can I get some steaks with the Lunar Zanbato?" the black-clad man joked.

"Sorry, but, no, it would be preferable that the nobles, no matter how snot-nosed and stuck-up they are, be kept alive." the dark royal laughed.

"Right, so, how about breakfast, huh?" the gruff young man suggested.

"Best idea I've heard all day, and I work during the night." the blue alicorn replied, removing her socks and leading the human to the dining hall.

They would have a hearty meal of whatever-the-fuck-the-chefs-made.

The other generals would attend too, their helmets present but their body armors absent, the light gray coated/brown maned unicorn, the tan coated/white maned earth pony, and the pale yellow/black maned pegasus.

Twilight and RD were awoken by Scootaloo.

"Hey, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, wake up, some servants delivered us breakfast." the orange pegasus announced, sliding her large plate in front of her and digging in.

The archmage and the speedster groggily rose and made their ways to the table.

"I have a messahge from Master Xero, to Twilight Sparkle." a fancy servant entered with a letter.

Twilight took the letter in her magical grasp and opened it.

"Dear Twilight, have Dashie read you this letter." Twilight read the first line out loud.

RD snatched the letter out of the air and got ready to read.

"*ahem* Oi, m8, I'm not some bloody jerkass like a lot of ponies think, anyways, cunt, Luna has happy-as-hell agreed to help you learn all of that shit that you like, courtesy of me, Xero, don't focus too much on the shitty bollocks and ballsing it up, just accept it, Celestia is too much of a damn harlot to get over it, so I hope you like the dark arts, sincerely, Fuck You, but not really, Xero Termveli (Termveli is my self-given last name, it's short for Terminal Velocity), cool, you get to learn with Luna." the spectral maned mare congratulated.

"What can I expect with this, though, is it going to be the same? Different? Easier? More difficult? Will there be a lot of tests? No tests? I just don't know." the lavended unicorn was getting really worried.

"Twilight, as bro always says, CALM YOUR TITS! It's gonna be fine, Luna is cool, no doubt you'll learn a lotta stuff with her, more than Celestia, no doubt." the youngest of the 3 mares interrupted.

After that development was effectively muted by the orange and violet filly, the trio ate in silence.

What would the future hold?

Only time would tell.

The forces of War and Death brewed their plans while this peace reigned.

Why?

Because FUCK YOU that's why.

/chapter