//------------------------------//
// Boring train rides, part 1 
// Story: The life and times of Xante, Baron of the Frozen Wastelands, First among Liches, Lord of the Dead, and Fabulous Rainbow Magic User. 
// by Ssendam the Masked 
//------------------------------//

I walked through the streets of the Crystal Empire, occasionally waving to a couple of former slaves I recognised. Naturally, I kept a big grin on my face while my mind whirled. Celestia ordering me around was a first, but then again, she HAD narrowly beaten me with her sister a thousand years ago. Who knows how strong she is now? It's always better to be cautious then to be ressurecting. Still, if they have trains, then I was going to get a little bit of fun out of it. After all, Celestia hadn't told them that I knew what a train was. I don't think that she remembered. Alucard had blown rational thought out of the water entirely.

As soon as I saw the train, I cowered away. "What is that foul metal beast! Do not worry, Twilight and extremely colourful friends, if you don't move it probably won't see you!" Twilight was about to correct me when I saw that ponies were getting into it. 
"It seems to have some sort of mind control that is luring ponies in to be eaten! Such vile trickery! Why has the Princess not slain this vile beast of steel and other materials!"

Twilight's eyes widened and her own aura started glowing when she saw my hands light up with a rainbow glare. I wasn't really going to attack the train but I made out that I was doing so just to get her to loosen up a bit. The pink one, who was looking at my actions and my last sentence in particular, seemed to have caught on to what I was doing and said so clearly.
"You do know what a train is!" My aura died down.
"Darn, you got me. Yes, I DO know what a train is, and I thought that was a good way to get everybody relaxed." Twilight pressed two fingers to her forehead in an attempt to be calm. Her dragon just looked at me with a deadpan expression.
"Weird sense of humour you've got there, weirdo." I stuck my tongue out at him. He stuck his out in return. 

Twilight just glared at us. "Stop it, both of you." 
"He started it!" I pointed an accusing finger at the dragon, who glared at me in return.
"No, you were the one who started it."
Twilight sighed. "I don't care who started it, I'm finishing it." I pouted, but kept quiet. Better not get a time out this early into my stay.

I hate train rides.

That was the first thing that came to me when I got on the train. It always felt like I was entering some sort of giant beast. I haven't even been in many trains! Yet the feeling that this was just plain wrong stuck in my mouth like a bad tooth. And this train didn't even have a snack bar or coffee like the modern Earth trains do. Or did. Time's passed here rapidly, I might go back to my home, look at their world and find that they've either barely advanced or breached the fabric of the universe with their large Hadron collider. 

"Hey, keep moving, creep." And this was another thing I hated about a train ride- the company I would have to keep with no respite at all. I didn't mind some of these mares- the white one was positively charming, Pink was an absolute riot to be around and yellow was my kind of person. But blue with rainbow hair rubbed me in all the wrong ways. 

I grumpily sat down. "Okay, okay, I'm just sitting down." Rainbow Hair continued glaring at me. 
"Look, the Princesses don't trust you, and neither do I. So just keep in sight, okay?" I shrugged, new Genji gloves proudly displayed. They were a gift, and the ability to be immune to Toad was a useful spell in some corners of the multiverse. Soon as I could get some wards on it, I was going to change its colour to suit the rest of my wardrobe. Actually, maybe a recolour of my entire outfit would be good. White would be a good contrast, especially after a thousand years of wearing black. Still, black was a classic colour and I am very good at wearing it, so...

"Hey, Earth to creepy lich guy!" She was really getting annoying. I frowned. "Excuse me, but would you mind not spitting in my face, please?" I wiped a bit of spittle off my face for emphasis. Blue scowled, but grudgingly retreated. The purple unicorn-Twilight- came up next to me. 

I waved my hand.
"Hello! This is the cool side of the train, you know." I briefly thought about messing with her head a bit more, but then again she was my sort of parole officer, so out of niceness I decided to be polite and know the names of my parole officers. After all, I was going to be spending a lot of time with them.
"So!" I clapped my hands together and both Rainbow Hair and Twilight jumped a bit at the sudden motion. The thing about these ponies is that they're so jumpy all the time. It's kind of annoying, but a forgvable character quirk what with the herd mentality.
"Since I'm going to be with you guys for a while, it would be prudent to know your names."

I pointed at the blue one. "I would like to know your name, ma'am." She glared at me.
"The name's Rainbow Dash. Got it?" 
"Charmed." I quickly gripped her hand and kissed her hand before she could react. She freaked out a bit, waving her hand around and glaring at me. I then turned to the white one. 
"And you, fair maiden? I promise, I don't bite." She hmphed. 
"Well, you certainly threatened me back then." I couldn't really fault her for giving me the cold shoulder.
"...fair enough. I'm sorry about that, and I believe that we can overcome that unfortunate chapter in our lives by cordial discussion."

Before she could introduce herself the pink one suddenly appeared behind me. It was all I could do not to freeze her in place. As it was, my aura instinctively flared up and the seats around me were covered in frost. Pink one seemed to regard that as a cool trick.
"You like cordial too?" 
"Indeed. I am a cordial cordial lover." I grinned; pink mare had a good sense of humour, and apparently a good dictionary. I looked over at Twilight. With a friend like that, why bother with a dictionary? 
"Your name is, surprising pink mare?"
She giggled, gripping my hand with an iron grip and shaking my hand so hard it felt like it might fall off.
"HEY! Name's Pinkie Pie, but my friends call me Pinkie! And since you're going to be with us for quite a while, hopefully you'll become a friend! OH! We should have a 'Welcome to Ponyville party and-" 
Rainbow quickly covered Pinkie's mouth, but she just kept talking through the interruption, though muffled. I raised an eyebrow. "Is she-"
"Pretty much." 

I think that I am going to like Pinkie Pie a lot more now. This'll be fun. I turned to white one. "Madame, I have not had the pleasure of knowing your name."
She blushed a bit. I have had five hundred years to work on my charm, I am the master of getting people over to my side. It's one of the most awesome ways to be evil, persuading heroes that interfering with you is not worth their time. "Well, I'm Rarity." I took her hand and repeated the kissing gesture. It's always important to be polite. She accepted it with a strained smile. I could tell that as soon as there was an oppertunity to wash her hands, she was going to hit that hand with a piece of steel wool.

I then turned to the poor yellow mare, who seemed to be as terrified as an old lady in the same plane as a bearded ethnic minority. Then again, from her perspective, I have fought her high rulers in single combat and almost won, so there was some nervousness. I smiled with my mouth closed and addressed her softly.
"Hey, what's your name, miss?" She looked away and mumbled something. I looked at Twilight.
"Shy?"
"Very. Her name's Fluttershy." I waved at her. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Fluttershy." She mumbled something that might have been a pleased to meet you back, but I wasn't counting on it. The shy usually come round.

"What about me?"
I turned to the small dragon sitting next to Twilight. "Of course, silly me. Forgive me; I'm one thousand, six hundred years old, and I'm liable to forget things." The other ponies in the carriage were fascinated by that, judging by the way they leant in.
"...you're that old?" I shrugged with a relaxed attitude. 
"Yes. Why, do you want to know my secret and want to try it out?" Twilight shook her head.
"No, no, I was just wondering. So, that's Spike, in case you were wondering." 
"Trust me, eternal life SOUNDS good for the first hundred years or so, but then you discover that certain extremities are unlikely to survive the test of time, you have nothing to do, and your philactery is ridiculously hard to keep safe."

Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight. "What's a philactery?" 
Twilight tapped her fingers together, frowning at me. "It's a forbidden black magic. You see, when a necromancer gives in to necromancy-"
"I didn't give in to necromancy, necromancy gave in to me."
"Right... anyway, when a necromancer gives in to his own necromancy, he starts to turn undead himself. He'll eventually die if his body is destroyed. But what a powerful lich does is simply remove their soul from their body and put it into an object, typically a necklace or amulet. That way, if their body is destroyed, then they'll simply regenerate around their philactery." 

I nodded. "Yes, that's true. I put my philactery in a rather nice silver amulet, right in my extremely cavernous vaults, surrounded by wards and traps." Just because I'm a reformed villain doesn't mean that I'll tell my caretakers everything. And if Rainbow Dash ever got it into her head to destroy me, I'd rather play it safe and give her the location of my fake philactery. Twilight smiled warily at me. 
"That's... good to hear." 

The train chugged along and I soon got bored. I hate being bored. I was desperate to do something, and evidently Pinkie Pie was as well. For a while, the two of us occupied ourselves in safe ways- you know, like huffing on the windows and drawing on them. Soon, that wasn't enough. This led to our current situation. 

Twilight stared at Xante as he built a snowfort in the middle of the train carriage and tried, for the umpteenth time to explain why this was a bad idea. "Xante, I know you're bored, but having a snowball fight- in a closed carriage, no less!- is a really dumb idea." 
"...why?" He said it with such a confused expression, as if not having a snowball fight in a train carriage was utter madness, that she almost gave in to what her instincts were telling him and slapping him. Logic prevailed that this person was not only likely senile and a living history book, but was also capable of giving Celestia a run for her money. 

"In any case, Twilight, you should probably join in." She levelled a glare at Pinkie, who had built her own snowfort. "Pinkie, you're not helping." 
Pinkie shook her head. "I am helping! We've got a snowball fight to start, so could you referee?" 
"No. Look, just consider the fact that both of you are fully grown adults. Is having a snowball fight in the middle of a train carriage the sort of thing an adult would do?" 
"Are you implying that we're too old for a snowball fight? I'll have you know that age is mental." 

Twilight just gave up at that point. Standing in the face of Pinkie Pie's logic was futile. "Fine. FINE! Have your snowball fight. See if I-" 

It was at this point that the train started rocking on its wheels. Xante looked around, good humour mostly gone. "Does this often happen on your train rides?" Twilight shook her head. 
"No, this is decidedly out of the ordinary." Applejack looked up, already pulling out a lasso. At Twilight's questioning stare, she simply said, "What? If you don't have it, you'll want it." Xante nodded.
"A piece of wisdom that many over the ages have ignored."
"Uh, right." She turned to Twilight. 
"Well, Twi? Do we have a plan of action?" 
Twilight nodded. "I think I have a plan, girls. We go up front, see what's causing this commotion. You," here she indicated Xante, "Stay here. I'm sorry, but we still don't really trust you, excluding Pinkie Pie." 

I was a bit annoyed by this order. "Can you enforce this in any way? This sounds interesting, I want to see it." I turned, and flung open the door, revealing a pink forcefield. Experimentally, I poked it and was rewarded with my bony finger rapping on its hard as rock surface. I then glared at Twilight. 
"What is this? Some sort of cage?" She smiled apologetically.
"Look, Xante, I do agree with you that this is completely unnecessary-"
"-But Celestia ordered me to keep this barrier up." A white unicorn jumped down outside. His purple armour was so shiny, that it caught the sunlight and reflected it into my eyes. I shielded them., annoyed. 
"And who are you?" 

He looked me straight in the eye. "Shining Armour, Prince of the Crystal Empire and Captain of the Royal Guard."