//------------------------------// // Old Friends Reunite // Story: The Sixty Billion Double Dollar... Pony? // by Jet Edge //------------------------------// "Princess Celestia!" A royal guard called, galloping towards the princess. "What is it Steelhoof?" she asked, noticing some urgency in his eyes. "The outsider, he's starting to wake up and the doctor wants to see you!" The two ponies started heading towards the infirmary, making no communication whatsoever on the way. When they arrived at the castle infirmary, the doctor stopped Celestia at the door to give her a few precautions. "Princess, the outsider must stay calm as his body is still severely injured. He has a huge gash in the back of his head, and whenever he tries to remember how he got here, he just draws a blank memory, maybe if something could jog it, we would find out where he's from. Along with that, he says his body is really sore and it shows, as he has bruises all over him. Try to keep him from using his right arm, as it's broken, wherever he was beforehoof must have been horrible..." the doctor informed her before stepping aside and letting her enter. Celestia walked in and saw the outsider, who had a piece of gauze around his head and a cast around his injured shoulder. He had a short, black mane along with a tail of the same look. Along with that, he had blue eyes, and a white stomach with a blue coat of fur all the way to his neck, his head's fur being brown. His cutie mark was that of a cross. It was cut in half with one side being all white with some light shining around it, while the other side was all dark, blood red with fire engulfing the cross. There was a demon horn on the dark red side too. Along with the fire, there were skulls, demons with pitchforks, dragons, and other such devious things while the white side had angels with harps, clouds, and angel wings around it, with some holy words that were very small but were things like 'grace,' 'amen,' and 'holy.' To any passerby, this would just look like any strange cutie mark, but this one was different in a way, it looked like... it looked like the two sides of the cross were... at war. If you looked closely, the detail on the mark was so fine, you could almost see the two sides moving around, fighting, like a good vs. evil type of war. The outsider looked up, seeing only Celestia. "What's with the big horse?" He asked the doctor with a questioning voice. "What? This is Princess Celestia, she rules Equestria." "Really? A land ruled by a horse?" He asked, still unaware to the fact that he's a pony, as he never really bothered to check himself yet. The doctor did give him some powerful painkillers. "What do you mean? We're all ponies, so of course!" He replied with glee. "What?" he looked down and noticed his pony body, "What the hell?!" he screamed as he turned to the doc and pointed with the uninjured hoof, "I thought you were dressed that way for humor! Isn't laughter the best medicine?! Nobody would take you seriously dressed that way! They'd think it was all a joke!" He screamed as he just now realized how much pain he was in and fell back in the bed, screaming in agony. "Where are you from outsider?" asked the doctor, completely oblivious to the pain the outsider was in, in fact, it gave him a good chuckle! "Actually let's start with the basics, what's your name?" He just sat there miserably, "Ugh... Nicholas D. Wolfwood." Disgust filled his face, he wasn't too big into animals. "Well Mr. Wolfwood, you should consider yourself lucky! That gash on your head could have been fatal!" They talked about his wounds and such when a clamor was heard outside of the room. "Princess Celestia," Steelhoof announced as he poked his head into the room, "Twilight Sparkle, her friend Pinkie Pie, and another outsider are here to see you, should I allow them access?" "Sure! I haven't seen Twilight for a while, it will be good to see her again!" she smiled as they entered. Upon Vash and Twilight entering, the very first thing that Wolfwood noticed were Vash's glasses. "Needle Noggin?!" he exclaimed as he saw Vash enter. "Wolfwood?!" was also yelled, but by Vash. "What the hell are you doing here?!" They both screamed, pointing a hoof at each other in unison. "Me?! What about you?!" They kept pointing at each other until Wolfwood's arm started bleeding profusely, causing him to throw himself back, writhing in pain violently from the injury. "Goddammit Needle Noggin! What did you do this time!? Why the hell are we ponies!?" He yelled at Vash, holding his injured arm, staining the white bed sheet with his blood. He started to settle down due to his light headedness from blood loss. "Please Mr. Wolfwood, you need to calm down, you aren't gonna get better that way! In fact, you could die from blood loss!" The doctor informed him as he quickly tried to bandage up the wound with sterilized bandages. Celestia felt it would be best to use her magic to restrain Wolfwood so he couldn't get anymore injuries. "You two know each other?" Twilight was astounded, but before her answer could be delivered, Pinkie shot past her and before anypony could blink, the pink pony was on top of Wolfwood, jumping on him saying about a million words a minute. All that could be made out were, "Oh... new friend... know Vash?!" "Pinkie! Down girl!" Twilight ordered, picking her up with her magic. She set her friend down on the ground, and as quickly as she came, she had left again. "Uh... who was that?" Wolfwood was confused by what just took place, but just quickly forgot about it, "Yes, we do know each other, this one gets me in deeper shit than I usually get into on my own." "Wolfwood, how did you get here anyway?" Vash asked him, curious as to who else could be here too. If Wolfwood was here, who's to say that Meryl or Millie weren't far away. "Well, I don't quite remember, but I'll tell everyone what I do remember." He cleared his throat as he began. "Well, I had taken a job to bring in a bounty worth a thousand double dollars. As I arrived at the guy's shack, I had been grabbed from behind by some thug and knocked out. I had woken up tied to a chair, face to face with with the man himself, Mal Furente. 'So Mr. Wolwood, it is my understanding that you know Vash the Stampede,' He smirked at me, 'Well tell me now, where is the Humanoid Typhoon today? Frilten Town? Sonter City? Maybe... Fanner Town?' I just denied his questions, knowing that deep down, you're a good guy, and it was no place for a fallen preacher to rat you out. I spat in his face, making him angry with me, to the point that his only methods left were torture. He had his goons break my arm, subject me to burns from his beat up cigar. He continuously interrogated me for about three days, trying to get you for the sixty billion double dollars on your head until he gave up on me. He decided to try and kill me, he had his goons bash my head in repeatedly until I lost consciousness and, when I woke up, I was here, being cared for by the doctor, then a few minutes later the big horse over here." "Princess Celestia..." Twilight butted in, correcting Wolfwood. "What?" "The 'big horse' as you call her, that's Princess Celestia!" She held her chin high with an elitist's smile on her face. "Okay... Nice to meet you princess... I guess. Anyway, why are we ponies and how the hell did we get here?" "Well, technically you two are stallions." Wolfwood could already tell Twilight was going to be a total pain when it came to knowledge, but just played along with her, hoping that it would return them to normal quicker. "Thank you miss know it all..." "You're welcome! But to answer your question, it probably has something to do with those flashes of lights that have been appearing recently..." Twilight put a hoof to her chin as she stated to them, "Wow, you two are certainly taking this whole thing better than I had thought..." Wolfwood sighed, "Well, it may not be the best situation, but we've been in weirder ones, after all, he's a plant..." He pointed at Vash as everypony turned to him. "Speaking of which," Started Celestia, "What is your name anyway?" Vash got real serious now, his face straightening out, eyes poking straight ahead, "Well if you must know, I am known as..." Wolfwood brought a hoof to his face as he just said in disgust and disbelief, "Oh no, here he goes..." Vash began to state his name to the Alicorn, "Valitinez, Alkilanella, Xifaix Sicidaboherez..." He paused as Celestia opened her mouth to talk, but Vash continued, "...Gombigobella BLUE Stratavari, Tatenfrent Pierre, Andri Charton-Haymos, Ivanovici Baldeus George, Doitzle-Kaiser the Third..." Vash finished stating his full name to the now confused Celestia, "Well uh... I-it's nice to meet you Mr. uh... Valitenez..." she struggled to remember his full name. "That's not what she meant you dumb-ass!" Wolfwood screamed at him, then turned back to Celestia, "Don't hurt yourself, just call him Vash, that's what everyone calls him." Vash held out a hoof as a sign for a hoof shake, Celestia smiled and giggled from what she had just witnessed from Vash, "Vash the Stampede ma'am. Nice to meet you." Vash was still oh so serious. Celestia still smiled warmly at him, "Princess Celestia, but the pleasure is all mine. So what did you two need to see me for?" "Well, we wanted to know if you had any idea as to why me and Wolfwood are here." Vash stated as they heard two familiar voices outside in the hall. "Hey! Hey! Stop pushing!" "Meryl, I think she's trying to bring us somewhere! Maybe she knows where Mr. Vash is." "Is that..." Vash turned to Wolfwood as Pinkie pushed two mares in, which Vash and Wolfwood instantly recognized. They were both astonished that these two were here. So astonished that they both yelled in unison, "Meryl?! Millie?!"