Life of a Wanted Changeling Season 4: At Luck's End (Comment Driven Story)

by BrownDog77

Episode 0: Season 3 Recap

In a dark empty room, a wooden stage sits. Behind it is a gigantic Equestrian Flag. Hoofsteps are heard within the darkness, and suddenly several large spotlights illuminate the stage.

From behind the platform walks an old grisled changeling. A bowler hat sits atop his head, and a half lit cigar is wedged between his teeth. He stops in the middle of the platform and looks out to his audience (Us). He then salutes with his right hoof to his forehead and the sound of trumpets can be heard. As the music dies, he lowers his hoof and says.

“Be Seated…Now I want you to remember, that no commentor ever finished a comment driven story by writing it on his own. He finished it, by having the other dumb commentors write it with him. And commentors, all this dumb stuff you’ve heard about the series never being finished, is a load of horse dung. Commentors traditionally love comment driven stories. All REAL commentors LOVE putting the protagonist through hell and back!” The older changeling then stomps his hoof in disgust and glares.

“Alright, enough of this. Hope you all like this classic reference ya dang uncultured kids.” He shakes his head in disgust even though he shouldn’t technically be able to see us. “Yeah yeah, but I know the drill. This is a recap so at times like these I can break the fourth wall like it ain’t nobody’s business.”

Well yes that’s true but you shouldn’t insult-

“I’ll insult who I dang well please,” he harrumphs, “So don’t give me no sass Narrator. Let me have my say!”

Fine… The old grumpy bug then looks at all of us.

“For three years you lot have been reading the fate of my Grandbug and his family. Not only that, the majority of you have been steering that fate. And I must say…I give you an 80 out of 100.” He then stamps his hoof and the Equestrian Flag rises up and out of sight.

“I mean, kudos to keeping him alive and all, but Cheese and Rice people, some days I think you might need a chill pill. Heck, the whole reason I disappeared from his life was so he wouldn’t have to deal with the dark stuff.” He then lets out a sigh. “But then again, Lady Luck’s will is always against me and mine, so I can’t blame you all outright. So I give you all a B Minus for your part. But for the love of the gods people, cheer up!”

“Grandbuggy!” comes an adorable filly voice as Nightshade walks out onto stage, “You’re supposed to be recapping, not berating the audience.” The young black alicorn with purplish blue hair then looks to us, “But just so you all know, I give you all a solid A for helping Daddy, Mommy and I.”

“You’re too lenient kiddo,” he says as he rubs her mane. “But you’re right. We better get this ball rolling. The new readers are probably confused as all heck.” Nodding, Nightshade looks back to us as a projector screen descends behind them.

“Hello to returning and new readers, My name is Nightshade. I’m technically only 3 and a half years old, but mentally and physically I’m just as old as my friends the Cutie Mark Crusaders. My Dad Bugze is the titular Wanted Changeling, and my Mom is Selena, she used to be Nightmare Moon. This here is my Great Grandbuggy.”

“I’m Specialist 117,” he waves, “Otherwise known as Quick Fix, but most folks call me Grandbuggy. And yes, while I may be an old fart, it doesn’t mean I ain’t tough as nails, or that the mares don’t love me.” Rolling her eyes at his antics Nightshade speaks up again.

“Yeah Yeah. So anyway, welcome to the Season 3 Recap. This will help you all get up to speed before we dive right into this final season. And if you’re wondering where Daddy is, he’s still screaming at the sky over Ms. Twilight being crowned a Princess.”

“NOT REAL!!! THIS ISN’T REAL!!!” comes a panicked shout in the off camera distance.

“There’s a very obvious joke I could make at that, but I’m not going to. It’s as tired and outdated as all the references in this series. But ya, You really should go read the series from the beginning,” Grandbuggy urges, “But then again we know not everyone can read what is essentially a story with a one million word count, so cliff notes do come in handy.”

“That they do Grandbuggy,” Nightshade agrees. “But before we recap the latest season, we’ll let you skim over the Season 1 and 2 Recap first. It’s about 20,000 words between the two of them, but what would you rather have? 20,000 or a million?” She clicks the clicker in her hooves and a slide with the links comes up.

“We’ll be here when you get back,” she smiles.

“However long that takes. Let’s get some snacks while they’re gone,” Grandbuggy suggests.

“Heck Ya!” she hoof pumps.

They then rush off the stage to get whatever snacks they’re in the mood for. And just so all you know, we don’t normally let our characters break the fourth wall. The Recap is a special case and-

“They know the drill! Get on with it!” Grandbuggy’s voice comes from offscreen.

*Sigh* Alright to the new folks, here’s the recap links. To those who know the drill onward to the timeskip.

Season 1 Recap

Season 2 Recap

“And We’re Back!” Nighshade chirps as she brushes sprinkles off her lips.

“I know, I know, don’t rush me! I don’t want to get a brain freeze!” Grandbuggy implores as he finishes his ice cream cone. After they are both presentable again, Grandbuggy coughs into his hoof.

“Alright then you primitive screwheads, we’re gonna let the narrator take care of the bulk of this stuff, but we’ll still add some insightful commentary into the mix.”

Which is probably going to be mostly Riffs.

“You know it!”

“Just like last season, we’ll break the story into arcs so it’s easier on all of our sanities’. It is over 20,000 words after all,” Nightshade explains as she hits the clicker and a picture of a snowy Crystal Empire shows up.

“The first one is…”

After the Events of the otherworld, Bugze the Wanted Changeling was suffering from shock and Trauma as he traveled with Nigthshade off the grid. With Selena, the mare formerly known as Nightmare Moon, still comatose, he feared using his own power.

“He didn’t want to chance a fight because he said Mommy was sick. He didn’t want to risk her…going away…” Nightshade says trepidly as she looks down and Grandbuggy puts a hoof on her shoulder.

Indeed, but even with his guilty conscious, his orichalcum caused wound was still not fully healed. Despite that though, he still tried to be the best father he could be. While helping Nightshade practice her magic, a little mishap happened.

“I uh..heh heh. I kind of teleported us clear into the arctic because I was thinking heavily about how Ms. Twilight would be proud of me,” she admits.

Because the unicorn was on her mind, she and her dad ended up near the borders of the Crystal Empire where Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Elements were along with Spike and Shining Armor. And with the only warm clothes of Bugze’s being his Hooded Offender cloak, this was a recipe for disaster. After some panicking and failed attempts at stealth, Bugze made a break for it just as the former King of the Crystal Empire appeared in his smokey glory.

“The Deadly 6 all were busy being chased by him, so Dad slipped into the Empire place.”

With the sun shining inside, Bugze dressed himself in his El Hunko outfit, while Nightshade shifted into her Pegasus form, and attempted to find a doctor as his chest wound had begun to bleed his Midnight Blue Blood again.

Encountering the Deadly 6 triggered flashbacks to the otherworld, so he tried to avoid them, but as is usually the case, this failed.

“Lady Luck is not on my line’s side,” Grandbuggy mumbles.

After entering the Crystal Castle, Bugze had no luck finding a doctor, but did find some interesting artifacts. Including a large ornate mirror where his image changed.

“FORESHADOWING!!!” Grandbuggy “coughs” into his hoof. “Ahem, excuse me.”

Right…but eventually, Bugze found an overtaxed Princess Cadance keeping up the barrier and his flashbacks of her other self stabbing him caused him to panic. It didn’t help that Flash Sentry, his Best Bro Frenemy Forever was there. After a bit of back and forth, and more injuries, the two directed Bugze to the infirmary.

With barely enough bandages and pain pills, Bugze found Spike scared and alone over an open pit which Twilight had gone down. On Nightshade’s behalf, he went to go help the dragon.

“Well of course I did! You think I was just going to let my Dad walk off without helping my bestest friend?” she accuses.

No of course not. I just meant…never mind. Anyway, in helping Spike, Bugze went down the stairwell into the pit and found Twilight staring intently at a door and crying, and he soon fell into the same trap. Bugze viewed not only petty fears, but his true innermost nightmares. The loss of his loved ones, and the fear of becoming a monster.

“He was crying and whimpering my name when I snapped him out of it,” Nightshade adds.

After escaping this trap, Twilight implored “El Hunko” to help with the Crystal Fair while she looked for the Crystal Heart since he was an outsider as well. Bugze agreed, more so to get out of her presence, and after failing to achieve a slinky world record, he began to help in his own way. This of course was counter intuitive as he traumatized countless crystal ponies with a pickle jar, made Fluttershy give Rainbow Dash a black eye, and screamed in many of their faces.

“Sometimes I wonder what I did wrong to make the boy not have the common sense the gods gave corn,” Grandbuggy shakes his head.

So after earning the ire of the Elements, Bugze’s PTSD kicked in where he saw all of their dead counterparts and had an attack in an empty tent. Pinkie Pie came along to talk things over with him, and in his grief he spilled his guts, referring to her as Pinkamena, the ally he lost in the other world. Though shocked, Pinkie Pie comforted the distraught Bugze and even helped reassure him that it was not his fault.

After hugging her in thankfulness, with a mountain of stress of his shoulders, he accidentally knocked askew his hat and mask and Pinkie Pie found out El Hunko’s true identity. But because she had promised to hear him out and that anything learned in that tent would not leave it, she chose to keep his identity a secret. She also revealed that she never truly hated Bugze, but was just a whim of how the story went. But then, after something good happened, of course something bad followed. The barrier fell and King Sombra came on in.

“He was a real big jerk in his smoke form. Though we did find he had a weakness to all things cute and fluffy,” Nightshade chuckles.

Yes, apparently Sombra has a soft spot for huggable little creatures, especially those from a petting zoo. A fact which was used against him quite a few times. Not wanting to use his cloak powers, Bugze helped the Deadly 6, and Flash Sentry to slow Sombra down, but eventually the barrier fell completely. And then with a shout from Nightshade, Bugze watched in fear as Spike plummeted down the spire and Shining Armor threw the weakened Cadence out the window.

“To be fair, I found the whole thing confusing and scary too,” Nightshade admits.

“Nightshade, sometimes in life, if you love something, you gotta hurl it like a javelin,” the old bug responds, not explaining anything at all.

So instead of Cadence grabbing Spike and the Heart and saving the day, Bugze used his telekentic plasmid powers to catch the both of them and the heart fell to Sombra. Now fully physical and possessing the heart, Sombra began his assault. In the chaos of the fight, Bugze changed outfits in secret, becoming the Hooded Offender again. In the end though, it became fruitless as Sombra launched crystal spear at Cadence, believing her to be his old enemy Princess Amore. Shining armor dove in the way, taking the blow making everyone think he was dead (Though he was only critically injured).

With this final outrage, Bugze lost control of his rage, and the nightmare cloak came forth in force, but not like it had in the past. The cloak morphed and enhanced his body at an alarming rate as the full brunt of Selena’s remaining power flowed forth, turning him into a mindless beast.

“It’s because that saucy mare in his head wasn’t around to keep the power in check. With no guidance, it just flowed out of control,” Grandbuggy explains.

“Yeah, Daddy lost it a bit there in Phase 4. He attacked Sombra, and all kinds of destruction started happening. And that’s when I realized I had to save the day,” Nightshade declares in determination.

She knew that if this rampage continued, not only would countless innocents be hurt, but her mother could die as well. And so Nightshade rallied the Elements to stop him before it was too late.  But even then, she knew it wouldn’t be enough. If the day was to be saved, she had to stop Sombra and return the Heart. And with everypony else fighting her dad, she recruited the only one left.

“That’s right. Me and Spike set out to go and kick Sombra’s flank. And we totally won too! I beat him at his crystal bending, kicked his flank six ways to Sunday, and when he tried to cheat with his Smoke form, Spike fried his butt off, and then I started peeling the heart off his chest. We were like the best superhero duo ever!” Nightshade jumps up and down in excitement.

“Yeah, I seen the videos the Doctor had on file. Shade and her coltfriend are a force to be reckoned with,” Grandbuggy agrees.

“He’s not my coltfriend Grandbuggy!” Nightshade shrieks in embarrassment.

“Not with that attitude,” Grandbuggy chuckles as Nightshade hurriedly changes the subject.

“A-Anyway, long story short we were denied our rightful victory because Daddy rampaged over and knocked Sombra away from us,” she huffs and crosses her forelegs.

As Phase 4 and Sombra fought, the former Dictator was eventually defeated and the heart torn from his chest. Nightshade was somewhat able to calm Phase 4, but Sombra in his defeat claimed that he finally saw the truth, that Nightshade was a battery of power for the Hooded Offender. Phase 4 didn’t take kindly to this, and despite everyone’s pleading, the monster unhinged it’s jaw and devoured the fallen king.

“That’s an image I wish I could forget,” Nightshade shudders.

With no Sombra to target, Phase 4 set its sights on everyone else, and that’s when Nightshade decided to put a stop to it all. Whipping up a sandstorm, and riding on his back while earth bending crystal shackles, she subdued him long enough for Spike to place the Crystal Heart back upon the pedestal. The magic of the Empire then washed over Bugze and launched him and Nightshade into the sky and out of the Empire, but not before Spike witnessed her true Alicorn form.

“In the sky, daddy changed back to normal, but passed out. And since I didn’t know how to fly, we plummeted and I had to random teleport us again. We ended up in a dumpy cabin where I stood watch over him for a few days. Thankfully Mommy was still alright, but she was a lot smaller than when I’d last seen her months ago, and she wouldn’t move from her bed. When dad woke up, I told him the whole story.”

It was a hard thing for him to hear, but he now more than ever understood how important it was to not use the cloak. The fight had served to partially reopen his chest wound, and drain him of strength, so the two of them stayed in the cabin to recuperate. While there, a letter from the Mysterious Friend arrived, chastising his actions, and to be wary of the town in that area and to “trust no one.”

“And that’s when the next nightmare happened…” Nightshade shivers as a new slide shows up displaying a town covered in fog.

In her quest to find soup ingredients in the woods, Nightshade followed a strange filly into a town called Sunny Town.

“The adults were all creepy, and no one had their cutie mark, they were partying as if it were normal. And then in the middle of all that strangeness, I found Applebloom.”

Nightshade’s fellow Cutie Mark Crusader had also followed a strange filly into the town, and so Nightshade realized this whole place was in the middle of the Everfree Forest. Luckily, Applebloom didn’t recognize Nightshade in her Alicorn form. The two fillies then both compared how strange the town was and looked for the mysterious filly as they walked to the north side of the town. At the same time, Bugze had awoken and seen Nightshade’s note about looking for soup. He waited as long as he could, but eventually couldn’t handle it and went out after her. It’s then that he came across a gift from “A Friend.” A bonafide Chainsaw.

“Groovy,” Grandbuggy quips and Nightshade snorts.

He then set out, coming across the same filly Nightshade and Applebloom saw, and he too entered Sunny Town. While he enjoyed their hospitality, Nightshade and Applebloom found a house the filly disappeared into, and in the fireplace, they found a horrifying discovery.

“They were the charred bones of a filly…Naturally this freaked Applebloom and I the buck out, and then the whole town…changed.”

The sunlight returned to the encroaching darkness, and the town began to peel and age rapidly as a heavy fog rolled in. Bugze witnessed this first hoof and heard figures within the mist, which revealed themselves to be the undead members of the town. And as Bugze began to fight this horde, Nightshade and Applebloom were visited by the spirit of the dead filly Ruby.

“She told us that she had been killed by the town when she got her cutie mark because they feared them. Apparently they’d been hit by the Cutie Pox and labeled all marks evil. Ruby’s wrath had brought this curse upon the town, but she told us she wanted it to finally end and for everyone to pass on in peace.”

And the only way to do that was to bury her bones outside the town. Gathering up her bones, Applebloom and Nightshade then fought their way back to town where they eventually met back up with Bugze. But then the Zombies began to groan in fear and run as the true horror revealed himself.

“It was Pyramid Head! Freaking Pyramid Head! Just like how he was in the videogame!” Nightshade shouts. “Ruby’s spirit had brought him to the town all those years ago, and then he saw dad and thought he was guilty too, so he attacked him.”

“Well that’s kind of what he’s meant to do kid,” Grandbuggy says.

“It was still freaky as all Tartarus. We still don’t even know how he even exists.”

“Most legends are based on reality Shade. Videogame characters are no exception.”

Well said. But yes, the Executioner targeted Bugze as an enemy, and a battle did ensue, which was completely one sided.

Bugze held on as long as he could, and even Nightshade and Applebloom were able to help from the dreamscape, but when it came down to it, the only way to win was to escape and bury Ruby.

Covered in zombie gore, and his new chainsaw broken, Bugze fled through the Everyfree, eventually finding a meadow surrounded by the dead. The three of them then rapidly dug and buried the forsaken filly, and the curse was finally lifted. The dead spirits moved on, and Pyramid Head went back from whence he came after a tender reunion with Ruby.

“It actually was kind of sweet. All he ever wanted to do was protect and avenge her,” Nightshade points out.

With the monsters gone, Nightshade and Applebloom passed out in the Inventory while Bugze dragged himself to Zecora’s. With the adrenaline wearing off, his body started giving out on him due to lack of food and healing from the Crystal Empire. Luckily Zecora took them in. While still asleep, she used her medicinal magic to finally close his chest wound and turn it into a scar. Also, in the dreamscape Applebloom finally figured out that the Alicorn that looked like Nightshade actually was Nightshade.

“I still don’t get how the perception filter thing works,” she grumbles.

“Don’t try to think to hard about it kiddo. When it comes to the Doctor and his weird alien tech, only he can wrap his mind around it,” Grandbuggy reassures her.

“I guess so. But anyway, I made her keep my secret, and told her I would see her again. She and I had gained some sort of deeper understanding that night, not to mention Ruby said we had shared blood, whatever that means.”

“The little apple filly? Well yeah because she’s your cousin,” Grandbuggy points out.

“Wait What?!” Nightshade responds. “How?”

“Huh? You still don’t know?” Grandbuggy asks confused.

She hasn’t been told by anyone in story yet you stupid old bug!

“Oh…Well she ain’t gonna remember this anyway. So long story short, which someone will have to tell you this season, you’re related to the Apples. Your Dad’s mom, my daughter, was Granny Smith’s first child.”

“Oh…But…wouldn’t that make Applejack and Dad cousins too?” she asks in disgust.

“Yeaaahhh…I’m really going to have to talk to the boyo about that. There are just some lines you do not cross,” Grandbuggy shakes his head.

“Let’s uhhh…Let’s move on,” Nightshade says with a shiver. The next slide displays the Everfree woods with Zecora’s house and a metal door on the ground with a bright light shining out of it.

Yes. Let’s. After Zecora took Applebloom home, she allowed Bugze and Nightshade to heal at her home, after hitting Bugze in the head with the whacking stick for faking his death that is. Also, she trained Nightshade a bit in the art of fighting.

“Zebra Sensei is best Sensei!” she chirps.

Then, Bugze received another letter from his friend with a map to a safe location. After bidding farewell to Zecora they travelled to this location deep within the woods which turned out to be a hidden bunker set up by Grandbuggy himself.

“Ayup. Bunker 04, my own little home away from home. I spent years outfitting that place with all manner of things that would be useful for my boyo. Plenty of food, his favorite movies, videogames, a holodeck and weapons, useful files, the whole shebang,” he brags.

“It was pretty cool, but most of the food was rotten and we only stayed there for awhile,” Nightshade points out.

“Well excuse me little miss sass. When I launched myself into space, I’d thought he would have left the Hive and found it. I took him there a few times when he was younger. I didn’t expect him to stay in the army for several years, bond with Nightmare Moon and have a kid with her and just generally bumblebuck his way around Equestria. The food would have been fresh then.”

Anyway! While sleeping in the Bunker, Bugze attempted to visit Selena in her resting chambers in the depths of his mind, but he was suddenly attacked by the shadowy king he’d eaten only days prior.

“I only found out about him later. Let me tell you, it’s a relief off your shoulders to find out the guy your dad cannibalized turned out to still be alive.”

Indeed. Trapped within Bugze’s body, he wanted to be freed, and the only way to do that was to kill him. But in the course of the fight, with so much dark magic flung around, a certain somepony awoke and saved the day.

“Mommy!” Nightshade cheers.

That’s right. Selena awoke from her bedside, rejuvenated after siphoning and stealing Sombra’s dark magic. She then attacked Sombra using Bugze’s own mindscape. She had the advantage having been there for years already. After his defeat, she imprisoned Sombra deeper within Bugze’s subconscious.
After a tender reunion between the two, and some explaining on why the Crystal King was inside Bugze’s head, the both of them finally have a restful sleep after so long, with Selena visiting Nightshade’s dreams.

“It was great seeing her again,” she smiles. “She used to be so tall, but now she looks almost exactly like Princess Luna, just with a darker coat and mane.”

“I actually prefer the new figure,” Grandbuggy chimes in. “Tall mares have legs for days, but when it comes down to it, they’re harder to-“

OI! Children present!

“Oh bugger off,” Grandbuggy rolls his eyes.

“I don’t understand half of what he says when he gets like this anyway,” Nightshade rolls her eyes.

Ahem. So, after resting in the bunker until the food ran dry, the reunited family began to plan for the next step of their journey. Bugze found an old Bingo Style book within the bunker with wanted posters for several criminals.

“I used to dabble with bounty hunting in my free time, for the extra cash. Cigars don’t come cheap, and I liked spoiling the boy with his video game stuff,” Grandbuggy says nonchalantly.

“With Mommy back, Dad could fight again, and since we were kind of broke, he figured he’d round up a few baddies for cash. So he made a new costume.”

Using various clothing from Grandbuggy’s wardrobe, Bugze became a red clad bounty hunter with a skeletal toothy mask known as, The Crimson Vengeance.

“Why did you even have that mask Grandbuggy?”

“It was a gift from a friend way back in the day…which just so happens to be in the future…possibly.”

Bugze still felt like his costume was incomplete though, and when he saw a bull from the Longhorn Gang named Stampede in the bingo book, he coveted his red cloak.

“He was obsessing over that thing for days,” Nightshade shudders and clicks the slide, showing Bugze’s bounty hunter visage chasing after bandits.

So with his first targets in site, Bugze started his new career.

After some mishaps, Bugze arrived in Dodge Junction, found the location for the Gang’s hideout and attacked it. In True Grit style, he and Nightshade jumped two of the bulls at their cabin, and Bugze finally got his red cloak.

“I also found a gun from Smash Bros that shot a big laser. Daddy’s used it off and on, but it’s mine!” Nightshade says excitedly.

After a bit of interrogation, the rest of the gang showed up, with King Longhorn himself. And in classic fashion, Bugze started wailing on them. In the end, the bulls were no match, and so Bugze delivered them, ala Inventory to the sheriff for the bounty. The only problem was, he couldn’t collect it due to not actually having a Bounty Hunter’s license.

“I still call bullspit on that one,” Nightshade growls.

“Nah it’s true kid. Sadly no matter where you go in the universe, it’s hard to escape bureaucracy.”

The sheriff was nice enough to give some bits though, and so Bugze headed to Batlimare so he could get his Bounty Hunter License. Along the way though, he spied a Zebra shaman within the woods named Blaze who was on his updated bounty hunter sheet. Deciding that he could capture him and turn him in after getting his license, Bugze went to attack, only for someone else to attack first.

“Aqua: XX years old. A blue unicorn trained in the ways of water of manipulation, or bending. Former life as a hired mercenary, including being employed by Flag Burner during the Fillydelphia incident where her leg was broken by the Hooded Offender,” Grandbuggy reads off from a vanilla envelope.

“Why do you have a dossier on her?” asks Nightshade.

“I borrowed it from Jack. My input on her is she’s got a nice flank.”

Very enlightening. So Aqua engaged Blaze in a fight, and worrying about the loss of a bounty, Bugze stepped in when the Zebra got the upper hand. After knocking out the evil zebra, Aqua and Bugze fought over who would claim him, and in the process Bugze let his anger get the better of him and the cloak came out. He then tried to drown a very frightened Aqua.

“I stopped him though,” Nightshade speaks up. “It’d been so long since mom and dad used the cloak they kind of went overboard. I CPR’d her till she woke up then I chewed dad out and he tried to sound all high and mighty like he usually does when it comes to my safety, so I pointed out his hypocrisy by reminding him that he promised not to kill anymore.”

And it worked, he backed off. But now that the cat was out of the bag that the Crimson Vengeance was the Hooded Offender, Bugze attempted to make amends with Aqua and he and Selena swore not to recklessly use the Nightmare Cloak while being The Crimson Vengeance.

“And because the boy is a chip off the old block, he was able to smooth talk the lady into trusting him,” Grandbuggy smirks.

“Or he just apologized for being a dumbflank and meant it,” Nightshade rolls her eyes.

“I’ve heard it both ways,” Grandbuggy shrugs.

Aqua did come to become more steady around Bugze, and she admitted that after Fillydelphia she tried to distance herself from Mercenary work since it had only been a job for her. The two agreed to share the bounty on Blaze. But first, they needed to get their Bounty Licenses, as Aqua didn’t have one either. In Baltimare, a bound and gagged Zebra on Bugze’s back walking down the street caused racial tensions, and some jerkass guards took Blaze off their hooves.

“No money for that either,” Nightshade sighs.

After a long strenuous, and infuriating process, the two got their licenses, and over lunch Aqua suggested to do a bounty together to make up for their past feud.

“That’s when I first really met her. She’s nice once you get to know her and get past all her snarkiness,” Nightshade reminisces.

And so, the two Bounty Hunters decided to take on a local gang in the bingo book, The Extra Lives Gang. A group of Videogame obsessed cosplayers who stole, imported, and sold black market videogame memorabilia led by a griffon in a Samus Aran Zero Suit, who went by Samus.

“Mmph. Griffon Gals in skin tight latex? Sign me u-*BONK*”

“Not now you old coot!” Nightshade admonishes.

After infiltrating their dockside base, Aqua and Bugze encountered many of the obsessed cosplayers, and witnessed their actual functional videogame weapons. After defeating the gang with Aqua water bending the ocean water, they learned from the leader Samus that the gang itself were just subcontractors to the Video Game Mafia. A mafia that was headed by a leader of the Crimson Knights.

“DUN DUN DUNNNNN!!!!” Grandbuggy and Nightshade shout in unison.

Yes the Crimson Knights, the radical splinter faction of Bugze’s fan club The Horde that arose after the Fillydelphia incident. Since Bugze had been recovering and looking for a cure for Selena, he had avoided this Terrorist Cell to avoid a fight. But now that he had a lead, he figured it was time to take out their management.
After turning in the rest of the Extra Lives and keeping Samus hostage, they traveled to the Video Game Mafia’s hideout in Bastion, Masshaychusetts to begin the hunt for the Crimson Knight Leaders. Aqua decided to stick with Bugze since the Crimson Knights had never actually paid her after Flag Burner died, and she felt like she was owed for being a part of something so horrible.

Along the train ride though, Bugze and Selena decided to finally confront the tyrant within their mind, as for the last few bounties he had been pushing Bugze mentally into dangerous situations, such as the urging to kill Aqua in the river. Pulling him out of the subconscious where he had been with his horrible movie torture, the two began setting the law for him. Also, they let Nightshade in on the secret.

“When I saw him in the cage in Daddy’s mind, I kind of did feel sorry for him. But Mom and Dad let me know that if anyone was to somehow get this guy to calm down and maybe even help out, it was going to be me. So I started to make him my friend, whether he wanted to or not.”

“Hmmph. Sounds like pony logic in a nutshell,” Grandbuggy snorts.

“Well I Am mostly a pony. But I showed Sombra I’m just as much part changeling when I shifted my forms. He kept thinking mom and dad weren’t actually my parents and were using me as a battery or something, so I showed him otherwise.”

And in forcing her friendship on him, he did crack enough to leak some information. Including the bitterness of losing the only pony he’d ever loved, Radiant Hope. But the full story of that would not come till later.

“I worked on him practically every night though. He liked calling me the Young Overlord and stuff like that,” she smiles.

So while this system was implemented, in the real world, Bugze, Selena, Nightshade and Aqua prepared for their next phase in this adventure. The slide changes to a wanted poster for several different creatures in black cloaks.

Using the list of Generals from the Otherworld, he knew who his targets in this world were.

Kichi: A videogame obsessed changeling with a skewed pyramid of respect. Started a franchise and Mafia just so he could feed his addiction, and used children to as batteries.

Rutherford and Solarkness: A rich foreign wyvern, and an intelligent/belligerent Timberwolf who more than anything wanted to make a movie, no matter how many got hurt or almost died to make their vision come to light.

Kersey: A massively overweight speciest earth pony with delusions of grandeur and self entitlement. An inflated and murderous ego made him believe he was significant for the financial stability of the Crimson Knights, even though he hated them all and just wanted to watch his shows and have good food.

Pony Spartan (Changer): A hybrid pony/changeling with a misplaced quest of Vengeance and a high opinion on his abilities. Studied arcane magic to enact his plans against his former colleagues, believing they had left him to die.

Brown Dog and Snap Drake: A Drunken Idiotic Diamond Dog and Pony Best Friend Duo who did random, disruptive shenanigans for the laughs. Lazy and apathetic, they followed their own beat.

Grey Rebl and Erised the Ink Moth: An OCD addled clean freak stallion with braces and a history of violence, and an old pale changeling with sinister blood powers, and a hatred for his own kind.

These 9 made up the primary infrastructure of the Crimson Knights. And so the Crimson Vengeance came for them. Nightshade clicks the slide button and picture of a Pizza Eatery with a Cartoon Bear on it pops up.

The first Knight to be hunted was Kichi the Changeling, the leader of the Videogame Mafia, and proprietor of the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza in Bastion. Through investigations, Bugze learned that not only were the animatronics creepy as all heck, but the atmosphere felt wrong too.

“The Pizza was pretty mediocre too,” Nightshade adds.

Waiting until nightfall, Bugze and Aqua dragged Samus into the pizzeria to search for the hidden hideout. But after all of them idiotically ate a slice of random pizza sitting on the Night Guard’s vacant desk, they all passed out. When Bugze came too, Aqua had been kidnapped, Samus was gone, and Kichi was acting like a true supervillain and made Bugze go through videogame trials to get keys and unlock the hideout door.

“There’s something about the classic hammy villains that always leaves me longing for the past,” Grandbuggy mumbles.

With both Selena and Sombra drugged within his mind, Bugze forged ahead. The entrances to each of the trials hidden within the pizzeria, and to make matters worse, the Animatronic Fazbear mascots roamed the halls seeking blood. After dodging fur covered murderous robots, and convincing one of them to become cannibalistic, Bugze made it to the the first trial which turned out to be a miniboss fight.

“That’s poor level designing right there,” Nightshade complains.

The fight was against a changeling with a skeleton mask and blue hoodie named Silver Strange.

Silver Strange: Subordinate/Buddy of Brown Dog and Snap Drake who was on loan to Kichi. Has the ability to conjure physical hard light magical constructions, which look like bones.

After a Sansational fight, Bugze was able to defeat him and retrieve the first key. The next trial was a maze of nothing but PUZZLES. And not even fun puzzles, some of them were the worst most frustrating puzzles ever made. Eventually Bugze just cheated and burn through the walls to the end, snagging the key and unknowingly setting the place on fire.

“You say ‘unknowingly’ but come on, it’s Daddy. You know how he is when it comes to fire,” Nightshade snarks.

“Heh, that’s genetic kiddo. Fire is the great equalizer after all…Though even I admit the boy enjoys it a little too much.”

Right, he should get that checked out. But anyway, Bugze then took on his third challenge, and escort mission through a “zombie” area. The subject was Samus who had a deadly health bar collar on, and the zombies were both actors and animatronics. Suffice to say, Samus did not appreciate her boss putting her life in danger. So after completing the trial and gaining the key, she joined Bugze to fight Kichi.

Inside the hideout, a drugged Aqua was tied to a chair and Kichi dramatically revealed he had been recording everything and was going to use the images of Bugze smashing his stuff as blackmail and sue him, but Bugze had other plans. Namely smashing everything and him. Then came the boss fight. Kichi rode and controlled the massive combination of Animatronics that the Mangle bot had been cannibalizing while the trials were completed. This abomination was called Mangeloid, and it was a tough fight. If Kichi got hurt, he’d heal himself with the children he kept there who gave him love. But with good ol grit, and help from Samus, Bugze was able to beat him and the bot down to its last legs. And then the fight got interrupted.

Changer (The Former Pony Spartan) rushed in and tried to kill steal the weakened enemy. Bugze wasn’t having any of that though, and sucker punched the guy as they all noticed the building was on fire. After interrogating Kichi, everyone left the building and the Knights, along with Kichi and Silver were handed over. Changer skulked into the night, and the police thought greatly of the Crimson Vengeance because of this, but he was already planning his next attack from the info he’d gotten from Kichi. For her help, Bugze let Samus go, and the griffon revealed her real name, Gretta, and that she was going home to Griffonstone. And then from the ashes of Freddy Fazbears, a miniature plush version of Mangle still tried to attack but that didn’t last long.

“Yup. Mangle is my adorable little pet now,” Nightshade squeaks in excitement as she pulls the teddy bear sized pink and white fox animatronic out of her inventory. “Say Hi Mangle.”

The robot gives a mechanical bark and waves to us causing Grandbuggy to shiver.

“What’s wrong Grandbuggy?”

“Nothing, just never had the best luck with robots,” he shudders.

With this new addition, Bugze and Aqua got their payment while Selena sobered up. They then found out that keeping Sombra drugged without the two of them being loopy was a viable option and so decided to keep drugging him to keep him placated. Bugze then wrote a letter to Cadance, whom he hadn’t spoken too since the Empire Incident, and set off to Applewood.
While he traveled, Shining Armor had caught wind of the bounty hunters who took down a Knight, and after some shenanigans and jumping to conclusions, a twitchy Flash Sentry was sent to Applewood to investigate claims of a Crimson Knight film.

The next Slide shows the Applewood sign with the wanted poster for Solarkness and Rutherford.

In Applewood, Bugze quickly found the location of Solarkness and Rutherford. The two knights had been attempting to make a movie based on images they and their counterparts had received from the events of the otherworld. Thankfully, they all thought it was fiction. The problem is that in staying authentic and not using CGI, they were recklessly harming their actors and extras. Teaming up with Flash Sentry, and letting him know that Baker Sylvester Tennant was still alive (which he was thankful for), they infiltrated the studio as extras with Nightshade actually getting a big part.

“Which I didn’t even get paid for,” she grumbles. “Stupid movie not being released. I can’t even claim that!”

Also while there, Aqua reunited with her old fighting teacher, Maude Pie.

“She’s very very monotone,” Nightshade shudders.

With this team up, they set out to sabotage a scene and expose the Knights. After doing so, they began battling the two who had secret weapons of their own, a tantabus and a wendigo. Aqua pushed her abilities when fighting the Wyvern who had his own water powers, and Bugze struggled against the self regenerating timberwolf. Unfortunately, the overpowered One Punch Mare Maude couldn’t just end the fight as she had to stop another epic fight that was rocking Applewood.

Due to idiotic shenanigans, Snap Drake and Brown Dog had set up a conflict between horrible directors Michael Beigh and M. Night Shamalamadingdong hoping that the two would kill each other. Instead the fight only served to wreck the majority of the Applewood movie district, delaying countless films for months and years to come. While she stopped that dumbness, Bugze battled the Tantabus within his mind, while Aqua, Flash, and Nightshade stopped Solarkness and Rutherford.

“Also around that time I met Garble, my favorite punching bag.”

Oh right. Yes, Garble the dragon had been working at the studio in the pony world as punishment by his father Smaug. He’d also been searching for his Ex-Girlfriend Crackle with no luck. In a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Nightshade beat him down, and then he swore to defeat her one day.

“He hasn’t. It’s pretty hilarious how many times I kick his nads into his throat.”

“Thatagirl. But remember, always save your signature move for the final blow, it’s much cooler that way,” Grandbuggy coaches.

With the knights defeated in his sleep, Bugze decided to handle the interrogation, and by adhering to their hatred, was able to make them sell out the location of a Knight neither of them liked in Vanhoover, Kersey. With this info, he knocked them out and gave them to the cops, where the Crimson Vengeance legend grew even more.

“We then went to Whinny Land and it WAS the happiest place on earth…until we accidentally burnt some of it down…” Nightshade admits guiltily while Grandbuggy puts a reassuring hoof on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry kid. The Walt Whinny Company has practically all the money in the world. They’ll be back on their hooves in no time.”

So with this family attraction being left in the ashes along with most of Applewood, the team moved onto Vanhoover.

The next slide comes up showing a Sapphire Shores Concert and Kersey’s wanted poster.

When arriving in the large city, the gang needed to find the one lead that could lead them to Kersey. This turned out to be a messenger that took his orders and was his go between while he stayed shut in his apartment. After some sleuthing they knew this messenger would be at the Sapphire Shores Concert going on that night, and that she would have a certain candy on her that they could track.

“Heh, stupid pop music. You kids these days got no taste. Whatever happened to some good old Rock and Roll?” Grandbuggy complains.

After getting some scalp tickets, Bugze and Nightshade went in disguise since their regular forms had been banned by the security. As they separated trying to find the messenger, Bugze ended up making a ruckus as he attacked Blue Blood who was being a jerk to a filly that looked similar to Nightshade’s disguised form. Beating him up and throwing him up through the stage, he interrupted the opening Colt Band act and Sapphire Shores decided to make a publicity stunt by saying she was captured by the Hooded Offender.

“When dad came back out, Mom was angry at him and he was mumbling about “Never Meet Your Idols.””

With good reason. Sapphire Shores attempted to seduce him, all for the purpose of publicity, and he had attempted to drug Selena before he figured out the jig to keep her from talking.

“Stupid boy. Rule number one is never piss off the ball and chain,” Grandbugg shakes his head in disappointment.

But yes, after being disgusted by her selfishness, Bugze fled, with her vowing vengeance, and encountered Aqua and Nightshade who had already captured the messenger.

“She was a pink haired changeling named Candy,” Nightshade adds. “And boy does she not do well under psychological torture.”

You all can be very convincing with your horrible movies. But yes Candy was another unbound changeling Knight who would later join the ranks of the imprisoned, but that comes later. With her information, Bugze and company committed identity theft and spent a vast amount of the Crimson Knight funds, along with Kersey’s personal funds on random things around the city. The obese pony only noticed when a bunch of exercise equipment was sent to his house and he went to investigate at the bank.

“He was like…I still can’t even describe his level of fatness. There are just no words,” Nightshade says mystified.

When he arrived, he attempted to run and fight, but failed miserably…that is until he took an experimental formula that turned him into a five story tall kaiju pony.

“Hah, is that what they’re calling a kaiju nowadays? Godzilla would be disappointed,” Grandbuggy spits unimpressed.

“You had to be there old bug. Those mountains of fat will forever haunt my dreams…”

Gross. But yeah, Bugze and Aqua took on the giant, and a lot of property damage was had. And then the fight was interrupted by two combatants. Changer showed up once again, and attacked Kersey, but both were interrupted when a 9 foot tall mecha showed up.

“Ah yes, Strong Head. I heard he’d given your dad a hard time in the past,” Grandbuggy says with a scowl.

“Yeah, he used to be Mr. Sentry’s jerk boss. Apparently he works for Blueballs now,” Nightshade gags.

He does. Prince Blueblood called in for him and the prototype armor that Shining Armor’s new classified program had been building to combat The Hooded Offender. When buildings started to crumble, they both figured it was Bugze and sent the armor out. Being a massive jerkass though, he was more than willing to test out his armor on some Knights, no matter who got in the way.

“It was a pretty cool mech too, and dad did a trick where he kept making sure all three of them wailed on each other instead of him.”

“Reminds me of the time I got that Sontaran to kick the crap out of the Ice Warrior for me, heh heh.”

So while the three fought, Bugze and Aqua protected civilians. Eventually they all became battered and bruised, with Changer being thrown into the air, the armor falling to pieces, and Kersey barely standing until Bugze gave the final punch to the gut, making him puke up most of the formula. Before he passed into a coma, Kersey gave Bugze his next two targets out of spite. Brown Dog and Snap Drake. Because of his reckless behavior, Strong Head was arrested and put on trial with Shining Armor, while Kersey’s bounty was collected and The Crimson Vengeance was seen even more as a hero.

“And from what I understand, the piece of crap is still in Armor’s program, but more like a servant to that Sentry kid,” Grandbuggy reads from a folder that says Top Secret.

“Where do you keep getting all these files?” asks Nightshade.

“Well I could tell you kid, but instead let’s just click that button and go to the next slide,” he says as he stashes the file under his hat.

“Fine,” Nightshade relents and clicks the button showing a Hippie Commune with Brown Dog’s, Snap Drake’s, and Changer’s wanted poster.

With Kersey’s info, the bounty hunter gang tracked the Goops and Stuff business back to its source in a Hippie Commune. Brown Dog and Snap Drake had been traveling with the merchandise wagon chain for several weeks after the Applewood incident, and on the outskirts of Vanhoover, an injured Changer landed in their midst. They nursed him back to health, and the revenge seeking Halfling reconnected with his idiotic friends, seeing that the entire “leaving him to die” thing wasn’t how he remembered it. While they reconnected, Bugze about tore his hair out at the Hippie Camp’s actions.

“I’ve said it a million times, Hippie chicks are into the free loving thing, but everything else about ‘em you just gotta slap ‘em down!” Grandbuggy barks.

“Dad tried not to, but I did ruin their garbage dinner. Can you believe they tried to trick me into eating Healthy?! That Pizza Was NOT Pizza!!!” Nightshade rants.

Yes, you caused quite an uproar, though it’s understandable when your Dad accidentally got you a contact high and you tried to pull the moon out of orbit.

“Wait, what happened now?” Grandbuggy sputters.

Bad Parenting. Also, she got another chance to wail on Garble.

“Now THAT I do remember,” Nightshade beams.

So after a day and night of dealing with Hippies, the wagon chain returned and Bugze was prepared to face down Brown Dog, Changer and Snap Drake…but they immediately just gave up. Brown Dog and Snap Drake’s reasoning was that everyone else was already captured, and that it was too much effort to fight when all it would do is mess up their Hippie friends’ place, and Changer figured he’d be able to wail on the others for vengeance if he was taken to the same prison as them. So they willingly went with Bugze to be turned into the police.

“It was very anticlimactic. Heck, they even gave up the last two guys immediately,” Nightshade complains as she clicks the clicker showing an evil looking Asylum with Grey Rebl’s and Erised the Ink Moth’s pictures.

“Now that fight was anything but anticlimactic,” Grandbuggy comments.

On the Outskirts of Tall Tale, the gang approached Arkhay Asylum where the last two Crimson Knight Leaders were said to be. Coming up with a typical Bugze plan, he decided that the only way to enter was to pretend to be crazy and get committed.

“It was surprisingly easy now that I think about it,” Nightshade ponders. “Do you think Daddy actually is crazy?”

“Everyone’s crazy Shade, some are just better at hiding it than others,” Grandbuggy philosophizes.

Once inside, Bugze decided to investigate while waiting for the Noon Visiting Hours so that Aqua and Nightshade could give him his inventory inside a cake. What he found was truly disturbing. Oblivious dazed guards going through the motions, crazy ponies left to their own devices, and worst of all Dr. Quacksalver was employed. Ironically he was the only one in the whole nuthouse that was acting like himself.

Bugze then discovered the horrific truth. Everyone in the Asylum was being controlled by Erised through his Ink Blood which he’d infected the food and drink with. His plan was to lure Princess Celestia and several royal guards into the Asylum and cause a massacre to prove a point to the princess about how killing your enemies was the only way to truly make a difference. A philosophy he’d lived by, and thought was vindicated by the Hooded Offender’s actions in Fillydelphia. Meanwhile, Grey Rebl was using Insane Scientists to mass produce the Videogame weapons which Bugze and friends had kept stumbling over, and even Plasmids and Vigors.

After relaying the info to Aqua and Nightshade, Bugze got his Inventory, only to lose it to a loon who took it down into the weapons lab beneath the Asylum. Bugze and Selena then went Batmane on the grunts below, destroying the weapons and the lab, before engaging in battle with Grey Rebl and his Mighty Mop. While that battle waged, Aqua and Nightshade had been able to warn the Guards of the trick, and led their forces before Princess Celestia arrived to stop Erised’s plan.

“I’ve seen the footage, you sure know how to take control of a battle kid. I’m so proud of you,” Grandbuggy beams.

“Thanks. I am pretty good at fighting after all. The majority of the time I don’t is because Dad would have a cow and freak out, but when I’m needed, you better believe I’m gonna bring the pain,” she says cheerfully punching one hoof into another.

Eventually Aqua defeated the majority of the mind controlled inmates via waterbending the water pipes in the building, and Bugze defeated Grey Rebl, whose body was then puppeted by Erised himself and aided with several of his Ink Clones.

“They tried to take over Dad’s mind and body, and they brought him and Aqua to the main office, but then I intervened, and then Mommy took care of the rest,” Nightshade hoofwaves.

Selena overtook the Ink Moth’s Hive Mind and made inert the sway his Ink Blood had on everyone who had been controlled, thus ending the battle. Within a hidden room, they found the real Erised, pale, sickly and on a gurney. Unable to handle how The Crimson Vengeance was able to win without taking a life, he attempted suicide but Bugze would not let him go that easily and kept him alive with his Power Glove until paramedics took him away. With the leaders down, the Guards secured the facility and celebrated The Crimson Vengeance and Aqua. When Princess Celestia was sited flying in, Bugze rightfully did not want to meet with her for fear of her figuring out who he really was, so Aqua caused a distraction by being the center of all the Guard’s praise while Bugze slipped into the night.

The next day, Bugze and Nightshade met Aqua at the train station for some big news. For her role in taking down the Crimson Knights, she was being awarded a medal and was offered a job by the Solar Princess. The Princess also wished to thank the Crimson Vengeance personally, but she had told her he was a very private pony. This helped somewhat, but she was still bent on rewarding Bugze’s bounty hunter avatar for his actions.

“And then came the goodbyes. I never did like goodbyes…” Nightshade trails off.

With the Crimson Knights dismantled, Bugze didn’t have an obligation to run around anymore, and he could finally return to Appleloosa. Bugze, Selena and Nightshade bid their farewells to Aqua and the partnership that took down a criminal organization was dissolved.

“Don’t be so melodramatic, it’s not like they didn’t team up again,” Grandbuggy riffs.

Yes, but that comes later. So, with the Hunt for the Crimson Knights over, The Wanted Family traveled towards the sanctuary of Appleloosa, but like usual, fate had other plans.

After walking for some days, Nightshade realized how close they were to Ponyville and wanted to stop by for a visit.

“Well yeah, that’s where all my friends are.”

Bugze of course didn’t want to risk it, but before their argument could get out of hand, someone interrupted them.

“Ugh,” Nightshade gags, “I’m still not comfortable with that jerk, even if he says he’s good now.”

“Good is a relative term. I’ve glimpsed the future and he’s not so much good, as not quite a jackass as he used to be,” Grandbuggy explains.

“Whatever. That chaos jerk still set us back a year, so I’d rather not talk to him,” she huffs and crosses her forelegs.

If you couldn’t tell, the someone who interrupted their familial squabble was Discord himself. Naturally when faced with the God of Chaos who screwed them over a year ago, Bugze, Nightshade and Selena reacted in the most predictable way possible and tried to beat him up. And shocker, it didn’t work.

“Hey, I got two good hits in,” Nightshade shouts.

Regardless, he quickly put a stop to your battle and explained that Princess Celestia had had the Deadly 6 Reform him so that he could peacefully bring in the Hooded Offender without any more bloodshed. A pretty solid plan on paper, but Discord is Discord. He said that he instead would pretend to not be able to find Bugze, as he wanted at least someone out there to keep creating chaos, as long as it didn’t involve murder. He also shocked them even more when he apologized for trying to take Nightshade hostage when the Elements were pointed at him stating that he had been desperate.

“We’ve looked down the barrel of those guns many times before, and I guess I can kind of see that,” Nightshade reluctantly agrees.

“Still, if I ever see his future timeline counterpart again, I’m putting my cigar out on his tongue for that little stunt,” Grandbuggy declares.

Even still, he announced that he would watch the shenanigans every now and again, and keep your location a secret as penance for the hostage thing. Bugze still didn’t believe Discord was really reformed, especially when he said Fluttershy was the one to do it single handedly.

“Even Discord was offended by that statement. Ms. Fluttershy is tougher than a lot of ponies give her credit for. Now if only she wasn’t so Yanderish sometimes,” Nightshade shudders.

“Hey, you can’t spell Psychotic without hot,” Grandbuggy jokes.

Anyway, Bugze rushed forth towards Ponyville to prove Discord a liar, much to Nightshade’s happiness. When they got there though, everything appeared to be fine, aside from the sea of Pinkie Pies hopping everywhere.

The slide clicks showing countless Pinkie Pie clones

Bugze immediately blamed Discord for this mess, even though Selena kept telling him she didn’t sense chaos magic, so he rushed forth to stop the chaos.

“It was more annoying than destructive, but a lot of ponies were tired of the Pinkie Pies,” Nightshade explains.

Bugze even zapped one of the poor mares, and ended up finding out they were sapient, albeit with only a basic understanding of the world. After finding out from the real depressed Pinkie Pie that the clones weren’t the work of Discord, Bugze felt himself slide into depression. When Rainbow Dash took the real Pinkie away for a test, he chased after them and witnessed something truly horrible.

“Ms. Twilight was killing them,” Nightshade sniffles. “If they couldn’t watch the paint dry, she would blow them up and send their souls back to the mirror pond. It was…it was horrible,” she shudders and Grandbuggy wraps a hoof around her shoulders.

Bugze, Selena and Nightshade were understandably shocked by this turn of events, so The Crimson Vengeance busted into the town hall, subdued the Deadly 6 and led the Pinkie Pies to freedom at the train station. He was even able to shame Twilight into realizing what she had actually been doing, which bought the Pinkie’s time to board the train. Letting them know that Appleloosa was a safe place to live, he gave out the majority of his Bounty Money to the remaining Pinkie Clones and provided one more distraction to keep the Deadly 6 from following them. Changing into his long believed dead Baker Sylvester Tennant costume, he jumped off the train, shocking the Deadly 6 enough to make them forget about the Pinkies.

“They didn’t think it was him at first, but when I popped out and ran to hug Spike, they all believed him. Boy was it good to see him again.”

“I’m sure your little coltfriend was happy to see you too honey,” Grandbuggy ruffles her mane.

“What?! H-He’s not my coltfriend Grandbuggy,” Nightshade stammers with a blush.

“Oh right, sorry. I meant your drakefriend,” he teases.

“N-no, it’s just…MOVING ON!” she hurriedly clicks the clicker, showing a stock image of Ponyville.

Naturally, the mares wanted to know how the heck BST and Nightshade were still alive after the fire supposedly took their lives, so Bugze led them back to Golden Oaks Library to tell the story, which gave the Pinkies all the time in the world to be safe.

As BST, he explained to the girls that he hadn’t meant to fake his death, but that after the Changelings kidnapped Nightshade, he moved on and stayed with his brother, who he claimed was The Crimson Vengeance. While that was going on, Nightshade was introduced to the library’s newest resident, Crackle, who had been squatting there ever since taking Spike and the girls away from the Smaug fight.

“Crackle is under the delusion that Daddy will come back for her, so she refused to leave. Or at least that’s what Spike says, I can’t understand her.”

Aside from meeting unwelcomed house guests, Nightshade also confided in Spike how it really was her back in the Crystal Empire that he’d seen. He also let her know that Applebloom had told him about the events of Sunny Town, so the two of them decided to go fill in the rest of the CMC immediately. So they rushed past the adults into the town, which got Bugze anxious. After a few more apologies and some group hugs, Pinkie decided to immediately tell the whole town about BST’s return party and ushered the others out the door to plan it after they blocked off the Mirror Pool entrance. Left to his own devices for awhile, Bugze naturally didn’t sort his priorities well and decided to track down Nightshade and Spike before anything could happen.

“I’ve told him time and time again to stop being a psycho like that. Honestly, what does he think Spike and I are going to do?” Nightshade huffs frustrated.

“Every father’s worst fear is that his little girl will end up with a guy, sitting in a tree, if you know what I mean. Unlike your Dad though I say go ahead and sit away Shade.”

“Grandbuggy!!!” she shouts and covers her face in embarrassment while the old bug laughs.

Whether it was true or not, Bugze had psyched himself up about it so much even Selena began to worry, so they set out into town. Along the way, Bugze cleverly avoided Aloe who had learned he was back, ran into Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, which went better than expected. Eventually he did make it to the treehouse where NONE of his worst fears were coming true. Instead he interrupted a pretty touching reunion between Nightshade and the rest of the CMC who were filled in about the Empire and Sunny Town, and sworn to secrecy. Luckily the CMC were just as happy to see BST back from the dead and hugged him into submission.

A few hours later, Bugze with Nightshade and the rest of the girls and Spike went to the party where BST gave his alibi and said that he was sorry everyone thought he was dead. Twilight tried to convince BST to stay for longer than a visit so that Princess Celestia could ask about his brother, so he lied and said he would. In actuality he was planning on leaving before that meeting could occur.

Then he met with Ditzy “Derpy” Do who he hadn’t seen since the events of the Otherworld, and while she was happy to see him, she felt guilty about how the Doctor had left things with him. She didn’t know what the Doctor’s final words to him had meant, and only knew that Grandbuggy and Granny Smith had been his companions way back when. She then went on to explain that she hadn’t seen him for a year, and was heartbroken because she had always thought the two had something together. Bugze comforted her as best he could.

Bugze was also cornered by Aloe, Applejack and Rainbow Dash who were still a bit upset about thinking he was dead since they all had crushes on him, so he had to play clean up duty and apologize like his life depended on it. They of course relented and forgave him, and Applejack even convinced him to help set up the farm for her Family Reunion that would be taking place soon.

“Dad sure had a lot going on at that party. All I did was eat a lot of snacks.”

“Well don’t forget when yours truly first got to finally speak to you, albeit incognito,” Grandbuggy reminds her.

“Oh Right! I had just kicked Thunderlane in the nards for trying to steal my baked goods, when an old grey stallion that I didn’t know was Grandbuggy showed up and told me I had to diversify my attack moves.”

“I taught her the all important throat punch. A move that has saved my bacon more times than I can count,” he beams.

“Yup. I then used it on Caramel’s girlfriend Sassaflass when she stole my pie while I was talking to Grandbuggy.”

Your parental advice is suspect at best.

“It’s because it ain’t parental advice, it’s Great Grandfather wisdom.”

Whatever. So while Nightshade was learning more poor lessons, Bugze and Fluttershy had a private conversation outside since she was the only one that knew BST and the Hooded Offender were one and the same. She was overjoyed to see Bugze, but she had misplaced anger for Selena who she mistakenly blamed for the destruction at the Crystal Empire and the eating of Sombra. Bugze attempted to set the record straight, but she would not concede, and so Selena came forth and said her piece to Fluttershy in brutal honesty.

“Fluttershy really doesn’t like Mommy. That’s when her Yandere look comes out the most when talking about her, and I don’t know why,” Nightshade says flabbergasted.

“It’s simple math kiddo. When two mares both like the same guy, the claws come out.”

“But that’s a stupid way to act.”

“Oh really? How do you feel when that Rarity gal is hugging Spike?”

“That Make-up Abusing Whorse Can Go Right Back to Tartarus Where She Belongs!!!” the filly shouts before her eyes go wide as Grandbuggy smiles trollishly at her. “I-I mean…Shut Up!”

Getting back on track, the two mares still had some ice between them, but the air was cleared for the time being while Bugze made peace. Afterward, the party continued on with many reunions and fun times, and for the next few days, Bugze would help set up the Apple farm for the approaching reunion. But before that happened, a certain young filly came to town…

“Uh Oh…” Nightshade says in dread as her ears wilt in guilt.

And Nightshade ended up learning a very painful lesson. She looks down and away from us as she clicks the clicker and the next slide shows a pictogram of a crying filly.

The filly that arrived was Babs Seed, Applebloom’s cousin from Manehattan who had come down a week earlier before the Reunion occurred. While initially reluctant to take part in Nightshade and the CMC’s shenanigans, they all wanted her to have a good time and they showed her the pumpkin parade float they’d made.

“We spent so long building that thing…” Nightshade whimpers.

But in the midst of showing it off, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon showed up to mock the CMC, but Nightshade wasn’t having any of it. She exited the pumpkin surprising the two fillies. They hadn’t gone to the party and had only heard rumors of BST and Nightshade returning. They had felt guilty when they thought Nightshade had died and how they left things off.

“I didn’t know! How could I have known?” Nightshade wails as Grandbuggy pats her back.

You couldn’t have. Nightshade began to harass them back and told them off. She was further reinforced by Babs Seed who joined in. The two rich fillies were shocked and scared, but Nightshade and Babs took and broke Diamond’s Tiara and Silver’s glasses, much to the shock of Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Nightshade then threatened them with her glowing eyes of anger and shoved them back into the pumpkin float which dislodged one of its wheels.
As the two fillies ran off crying, the float broke down and nearly crushed the two as well. And riding on the high of bullying, Nightshade and Babs declared it Diamond and Silver’s fault and rushed after them, chasing them through the Apple Trees.

“I…” Nightshade starts before sniffling and looking towards us with teary eyes. “I was a real jerk. I went overboard. I learned my lesson soon enough, but at the time, I actually thought I was justified and in the right…How could I ever have been so blind?”

“There there honey,” Grandbuggy comforts, “Nobody in this Universe is perfect. We all have our faults and screw ups. The only thing you can do is learn from them and hope to move on.”

Well said, and it’s a lesson she did indeed learn not long after this. But before that, the two frightened fillies had run off away from Nightshade and Babs, with the rest of the CMC looking for them to keep anything worse from happening. Luckily Bugze found the two first, and his fatherly instincts kicked in when seeing two bullied crying children and he comforted and hugged them. When the CMC showed up, they all told Bugze what had happened and he was filled with disappointment over Nightshade’s actions.

Learning that Nightshade and Babs had gone over to Diamond’s house to look for her, Bugze took the five fillies back to the Apple House and explained the story to Big Mac, Applejack and Granny Smith, and he had the CMC and the two rich fillies make amends with each other, citing that what their parents taught about getting ahead in the world was bullspit.

“Yeah, Diamond doesn’t have the best relationship with her mother…” Nightshade says sadly.

Once the girls were settled, Bugze took Big Mac with him as they went to Diamond’s House where they found the two fillies attempting to light a Molotov cocktail. Both Big Mac and Bugze scolded the two and Bugze laid down the law for Nightshade. How she wasn’t acting like a good guy, how she was being a bigger bully than they ever were.

“He went on and on until I finally saw the truth. But what was worse was that he kept blaming himself for being a bad father figure. That he showed me how to fight but not be responsible. It was some pretty deep stuff, and made me see how much of a butthead I’d been.”

Bugze and Mac then took the two back to the farmhouse where many apologies were had, from all sides. But eventually, it came time to take Diamond and Silver home. Mac and Bugze took the two fillies back to Diamond’s house, where Silver was staying while her parents were out of town.

When they got there though, they encountered Spoiled Rich and her horrifying upturned nose. Suffice to say, Bugze did not like her, or her badmouthing, or the fact that she appeared to have had a few drinks. Luckily though, Diamond and Silver met with Filthy Rich while they dealt with Spoiled. Mac and Bugze then had a chat with the Filthy, who actually turned out to be a decent pony who realized he had to change up how he raised his daughter and was very understanding of the whole situation.

“Exactly. Not every rich guy’s a jerk. Look at me. I’m a multibillionaire and I’m fine,” Grandbuggy boasts.

“You Are?” Nightshade asks intrigued.

“Well…not on this planet…” he admits.

After reaching an understanding, Filthy pretended to throw the two out to keep favor with his wife, and in Bugze’s terrible acting he accidentally threw a bottle of healing potion at Spoiled’s face, which ended up fixing her nose, which she and Filthy were extremely thankful for. That night, after returning back to his Shed, Bugze and Selena decided to give out Nightshade’s punishment in the form of a psychological Nightmare. Nightshade shudders at the memory and shuts her eyes.

She saw images of her friends abandoning and being afraid of her, of being seen as a monster and a bully. And then, she saw a past memory of a young Bugze being picked on, and then even being afraid of her. Selena didn’t let the nightmare go long though and comforted her daughter after the message was received.

“And I haven’t forgotten it either. I never want to be seen like that. I’ll never be a bully again.”

Good. Hopefully you keep to that promise. But after that after school PSA, some more lighthearted stuff came about. Nightshade, if you would.
She clicks it and the slide shows a bunch of Apple Family members dancing.

The day of the Apple Family reunion came along to Sweet Apple Acres, and with it a lot of new stalkers entered BST’s/Bugze’s radar, much to Applejack’s chagrin.

“But that means we’d be related to them too right?” asks a disgusted Nightshade.

“Eyup. Boy are things going to be awkward when that bombshell is dropped,” Grandbuggy chuckles.

Bugze of course warded off these mare’s advances, and instead hung out with Braeburn who he hadn’t seen in years. Also, a new feud was started between Bugze and Bon Bon who took all the good snacks, and Grandbuggy even showed up in disguise.

“Yeah, I went as Candy Apple. Been awhile since I changed into a mare, but most of Smithy’s extended family are mares, so it was less chance of me getting caught. I just wanted to say hi to the boy. I even made sure him and Shade here got their snacks later that night.”

You’re truly a hero to all of us you senile old bug. But anyway, through certain shenanigans, a horde of fruit bats descended upon the Reunion, which didn’t sit well with Bugze.

“Who knew Daddy was so afraid of bats? I don’t see why though, they’re adorable.”

“Might have something to do with that time I took him to that abandoned mine shaft to scare off some meddling kids and their talking dog. There were a lot of the little pests there,” Grandbuggy theorizes.

Whatever the case, Bugze freaked out and ended up destroying the Apple Barn, but luckily everyone chipped in to build a new one.
The slide clicks and it shows two stallion hooves locked in a manly shake.

Some days later, Bugze attempted to leave via train while the Deadly 6 traveled to the Crystal Empire, but Twilight had anticipated this and invited Flash Sentry to town. Thrilled by being reunited with his best Bro, Flash made Bugze miss his train and the two got to hang out.

“I anticipated that, mostly because Ms. Twilight had told me beforehand. So while Daddy was dealing with his bromance, I went to go hang out and eat cake with Spike.”

Spike was going to be watching the Deadly 6’s pets, and Nightshade had decided to pitch in and help, just so long as she got to have some cake. But then…
The next slide shows Angel, Tank, Winona, Opalescence, Gummy, and Owlowicious running amok in front of a stampede of zoo animals.

“Yeah, while dad was catching up, I had a crazy day. First I found Spike knocked out by Tank, which almost happened to me, then I integrated Mangle into the mix of animals, then I found out I couldn’t actually eat gems and I chipped my tooth, which hurt like a mother bucker.”

“But your tooth looks fine,” observes Grandbuggy before a glint comes to his eye. “Let me guess. Zebra magic?”

“Zebra magic,” Nightshade agrees.

So the young Dragon and Filly traveled with the unruly pets to go find Zecora and get her tooth fixed so that Bugze wouldn’t freak out and not let Nightshade hang around with Spike anymore. They found her fairly early, and so as not to take the animals into the Everfree, they waited at the edge by Fluttershy’s cottage till Zecora came back out. Also during this time, Angel Bunny fell in love with Mangle.

“However the heck that works,” Nightshade shrugs.

But as they traveled to the cottage, they were joined by the CMC and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon who had become friends with the group, though things were still awkward between them and Nightshade. When they got to the cottage, Harry the Bear had been throwing a party for all the animals, so the children all gushed over them. And then Angle started a bunny cult to the worship of Mangle, which caused a domino effect that led into a stampede.

“I still don’t know how that happened!”

As the animals stampeded into town, with the fillies all strapped to different animals, Bugze and Flash saw and attempted to stop it with no luck. Thankfully, one mare was able to stop it through the power of shaming.

“Ms. Cheerilee of all ponies. She gets really scary when she has to. I don’t know how Applebloom survived having her as a Sister in Law for so long,” Nightshade ponders.

“Or how Smithy’s Grandson even got away from such a mare. Let me tell ya, the strong willed ones are the hardest to leave. But by the gods, have you seen that mare in a cheerleader outfit?” Grandbuggy adds with his mouth drooling.

“Yeah, Daddy and Mr. Sentry had the same reaction,” Nightshade shakes her head in bemusement.

With the stampede stopped, Nightshade drank the tooth fixing tonic, with Bugze none the wiser and for the next few days, everyone prepared for the upcoming Derby Race.

“Oh heck ya. Me and Daddy made an awesome Derby car. We called it the Fury Dragula. We’d been watching Fury Road over and over again, so of course we had to make it metal as Tartarus, but also stylish. Daddy added in the traditional layer by making it look like something from an old show.”

“More than half the kids in your class wouldn’t be able to name the show it came from,” Grandbuggy shakes his head.

While building the Fury Dragula, Nightshade and Bugze also stopped a sister problem between the CMC and their respective Deadly 6 siblings. They simply had them switch partners so that each filly could try something different. Flash Sentry had also brought his little brother First Base to join in on the festivities. With all the cars made, the race began, and it was the most epic children’s derby race in history.

“We were sideswiping others, throwing out traps, rocking out to metal. It was awesome,” Nightshade jumps up and down in remembrance.

Their hard work and ingenuity paid off, and Nightshade and Bugze won the race, just as their cart fell apart.

“It now rides eternal, shiny and chrome on the fury road,” Nightshade salutes.

After that epicness, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash decided to make it up to their sisters for not being their partners in the race, and so planned a camping trip which Bugze and Flash were roped into as well. And on that trip, a long hidden secret was finally revealed.

The next slide clicks into place, showing Bugze staring up at the moon with Selena at his side.

The camping trip went rather smoothly, that is after Bugze shamed Rarity for making Sweetie Belle carry all the luggage.

“She’s not even the athletic one, how the heck does that twig pull that much?” asks Grandbuggy.

“She’s tougher than she looks, all my friends are. Though even I admit McStabFlank making her pull that is a big pile of-“

ANYWAY! Everyone trekked along nicely, and at night ghost stories were told around the campfire.

“They had nothing on Sunny Town,” Nightshade boasts.

Indeed, which is why poor Scootaloo was having intense nightmares that night. Selena also sensed the presence of Princess Luna within Scootaloo’s mind and warned Nightshade from dream walking with her. So not only did Scootaloo and Nightshade not get any sleep, but neither did Bugze, Flash, and his little brother due to Rainbow Dash’s jet engine snoring. After a second day of tired traveling, the party set up camp in a cave where Nightshade knocked out Scootaloo with the Luna plushie, and with distributed ear plugs, everyone finally slept, but within the dreamscape, Bugze and Selena had the most important conversation of they’ve had.

“Hey! What are you doing Grandbuggy?” asks a confused Nightshade as the old bug plugs her ears with his hooves.

“Sorry Kiddo, but this is private info between your mom and pops.”

“But you said I wouldn’t remember anything on this recap!”

“You won’t. But while I’ll more than likely spill the beans on your genealogy this season, this is something you need to hear from your parents directly,” he points out.

“Ugh. Fine!” she huffs and crosses her forelegs.

“Alright, do your thing,” he orders as if he’s the one in charge of this story.

Selena had conjured up a peaceful Night Sky environment so that she and Bugze could talk alone. Earlier, a comment by Bugze to Sombra about covering words not lessening their truths had caused her to finally admit something to Bugze. The truth about Nightshade’s origin.

She admitted that after jumping into Bugze when he found her armor, Nightshade had been created through an act of transmutation using bits of her and Luan’s shared blood and Bugze’s. The magic used came from bits of her fractured soul, and from a wealth of Love Magic within Bugze that came from Cadence’s and Shining’s love blast.

Nightshade had been created to become the new body for Nightmare Moon herself, and was only a child because of the limited power. After draining herself and recuperating within Bugze, she saw that the body somehow had its own personality and soul, and wasn’t just a husk so she switched gears into giving Bugze power in which to protect her vessel. But as time went on, she began to see Nightshade not as a vessel, but as her own daughter which she had brought into this world. The tipping point came when Discord attacked, and she abandoned her plans of becoming flesh again via Nightshade. She would never attempt transmutation again for fear of bringing another child into this world for such a horrid goal.

After laying out this truth to Bugze, the changeling was rightly shocked and asked why she hadn’t told him this before. She tearfully admitted that she was felt tremendous guilt and shame for how she used to be, and how she thought of her precious daughter. She also confessed that she hid the truth for so long because she was afraid of Bugze hating her again, losing what they had become over the years, and viewing her for like the monster she used to be. Despite these fears though, she could not continue lying to Bugze, after all they’d been through, and would face whatever his judgment was.

And against her greatest fears, he embraced her and forgave her. He told her that who she was in the past was not who she was now. That Nightmare Moon was dead, and that Selena, the caring mother of his child that had saved his life, was the mare she truly was. No matter where Nightshade came from was irrelevant, just so long as they cared for her as they did now.

Relieved, the two took comfort in one another and gained an even more trust, and something even deeper in one another. So much so that Bugze declared that he Pinkie Promised he would find a way to give Selena a body again. While she was flattered, she also pointed out that so long as Sombra was in his head, she would not leave him alone with him. So Bugze also swore to figure out a solution for the former King they kept drugged almost daily.

After a hug that went on a little longer than either side had planned, their little tender moment was interrupted by a shout from Nightshade.

“Alright filly, we can resume listening,” Grandbuggy takes his hooves out of her ears.

“Great. Where are we?”

“You’re friend running off into the woods like a chicken with her head cut off.”

“Don’t call her chicken! She hates that,” Nightshade demands before looking back to us. “OK, so what happened was Scoots had another Nightmare and pedaled off into the dark woods, so I woke up Dad to go and get her before she got hurt.”

“Lot of good that did. My idjit boy followed the Pegasus filly into a river and right over a waterfall. The Rainbow Haired tomcolt with the tight flank caught the filly, but he plummeted and nearly drowned. Thankfully this old geezer was there to save the day.”

Although Bugze didn’t know it at the time, only seeing a shadowed shape with a familiar voice, Grandbuggy had dragged Bugze out of the river and resuscitated him. So not only did he learn the truth of his daughter and the mare in his head, but also the suspicion that his Grandbuggy was still alive somehow.

“Rainbow Dash eventually flew back with all of them, but yeesh, I’m surprised Dad was able to fall asleep again. And what do you mean by the truth about-“

“Spoilers!” Grandbuggy shouts.

“Cut that out! I hate when the Doctor says that!” she growls.

“Who do you think taught him that one?” Grandbuggy trolls.

After many revelations in one night, Bugze and Co continued on with the trip, and after that, life in general. Over the next days, he worked, had bro time, and just settled into routine like BST had done a year before. He even uncovered how Flash had been taking the wrong kind of drugs which made him more boisterous and temperamental as opposed to the calming pills he was supposed to be subscribed. Though that did little in appeasing the angry voices that still plagued him. But then came the day he knew would be their last in Ponyville.

The next slide clicks and shows the clock timer from Majora’s Mask fittingly enough.

After receiving a warning from his mysterious friend early in the morning, Bugze told Nightshade it was time to leave, and to say her goodbyes to her friends while he did the same. He had been wanting to leave for some time to avoid the dreaded meeting with Celestia so that she could ask him about his “brother” the Crimson Vengeance, and with the letter he finally had the excuse.

“I hate that stupid mysterious friend…” Nightshade scowls.

Nightshade reluctantly followed her father’s orders and sullenly went into town to say her goodbyes, though she ran into road block after road block.

“Everyone was way too busy. Applebloom was doing homework, Scootaloo was practicing with Rainbow Dash, and Sweetie Belle was helping her sister with clothes. Even Spike was busy with library chores…I thought my heart was going to break not being able to hang out with any of them one last time…”

It actually was pretty depressing…But she did end up spending the rest of the day with the two fillies whom she never would have thought would be her friends.

“Silver and Diamond kept me company. Through them I got to have some closure that day…”

And while Nightshade had one more day of fun, Bugze gave parting flowers to his frenemies, and his stalker crowd, including Octavia who had been rebuilding the Horde with Lyra as the small, devoted fan club it had started out as.

“Stalkers, Fan clubs, I’ve heard it both ways,” Grandbuggy hoof waves.

At the end of the day though, both Father and Daughter met at the train station where Flash Sentry was leaving back to Canterlot. Bugze said goodbye to his bro, while Nightshade sulked in the inventory. Early the next day, Bugze and Nightshade left for the edges of town, and Nightshade’s mood had not improved.

“You’re darn right it didn’t improve. I was leaving behind my friends again. I love Appleloosa, but I love them too.”

Trying to comfort his depressed daughter, Bugze shed his BST disguise on the edge of town, but before they could move further, a magical dome encased the town, separating the two. Panicked about possible danger, Bugze ordered Nightshade back to town, thinking it was a defensive barrier, but before she left he made her Pinkie Promise not to fight.

“I was panicked alright? Maybe if I hadn’t made that promise things would have turned out differently.”

Perhaps, but who’s to say? But no, Nightshade ran back into town, while Bugze ran into Twilight Sparkle who recognized him without his disguise, which led to a less than welcome greeting. Almost simultaneously, Father and Daughter learned the truth. The one who erected the dome was none other than Trixie Lulamoon.

Trixie had returned to Ponyville with a fancy new necklace that gave her immense power, while also degrading her mind. She believed in her warped mind that she never actually betrayed the Hooded Offender, and that she was tricked by Twilight and the rest of the Deadly 6 into putting Bugze in jail. She also declared that by taking over the town, she would be doing it in retribution for the Hooded Offender and that he would eventually come to be her friend again.

“She had completely lost it, she even had this little black and white bear that she kept talking to, and she made it talk back in a different voice,” Nightshade shivers.

So while she enslaved the rest of the town, and Nightshade was forced to hide due to her promise, Bugze naturally freaked out and tried to punch his way into the dome to no avail. Reluctantly, he and Twilight called a temporary truce and sought Zecora’s help. With little information, Zecora’s solution was to train the both of them via montage.

And while all that was going on, Bugze and Twilight were forced by Zecora to talk to each other about their grievances. Twilight laid out her problems, about how Bugze says one thing and does another, like wanting to be left alone, yet always ending up in the middle of things and making them worse, or how ponies always get hurt around him.
Bugze countered that he truly didn’t want to be in the thick of the things, and just wants to be left alone with his daughter. He admits that his faults were his own, and he had regrets, but that he wasn’t going to submit anytime soon, and how he hated how things ended up between him and the Deadly 6. He told her straight up that when they got into the dome, he WAS going to hurt Trixie. His hatred for her was too great, and ultimately it was her that set him down this path of violence. Not agreeing with each other, but with a better understanding, Bugze and Twilight continued their training.

“And while he got his noggin whacked in, this little one led a revolution,” Grandbuggy boasts with pride.

“That’s right. I gathered Spike, the CMC, and all the colts and fillies from school and we joined forces with the adults from the Horde to take down Trixie’s reign. Since none of us had the firepower she had, and because I was still keeping my promise not to fight, I led a prank war on her.”

From water balloons, to fireworks, and explosive wubs, Nightshade and her army tormented the crazed Unicorn on the streets.

“She didn’t know what hit her, and throughout it all, none of us got hit by her.”

“Well that was mostly thanks to your coltfriend saving your bacon right?” teases Grandbuggy.

“Spike’s Not My Coltfriend! Sure we spent a lot of time alone, eating and hanging out, sure we kept going to movies together and holding hooves, and sure I kissed him on the cheek when he shot that fire out and dissolved Trixie’s wild blast that almost hit me…but that doesn’t mean we’re dating…” she trails off a blush on her cheeks and Grandbuggy just smiles smugly.

“Shut Up! Point is, Spikey-I mean Spike dissolved that blast, and the war continued, but eventually we all ran out of steam when she got serious and sang a villain song…”

Quite right denier.

“Hey!”

Trixie captured the majority of the pranksters, save for Nightshade and sang a catchy number, and it was at that point that Nightshade had enough and confronted Trixie.

“I said I was Ms. Twilight’s number one pupil, which is technically true, and somehow she and I ended up in a duel, WHICH I TOTALLY WON BY THE WAY!!!” she shouts.

“Sore subject?” asks her Great Grandbug.

“I moved the freaking moon! That should have made me win by default!”

That was one of only a few things that went on in this magic duel, though no one believed that she actually moved the moon and that it was only an illusion.

“Grrr.”

But Nightshade and Trixie used their skills in magic, never once did Nightshade break her promise of fighting, but after the ping pong match Trixie called a technicality and declared herself winner.

“Bullspit!”

Rightfully angered, Nightshade almost broke her promise to fight her, as the anger that had been in her heart for so long enveloped her.

“She was the reason Daddy was always on the run. Why we were always hunted. Why I didn’t get to stay with my friends…”

As her friends attempted to hold her back, it was when a certain dragon called her by name did Trixie’s smug demeanor vanish. Recognizing Nightshade’s name, she teleported the two across town to talk. Trixie asked why she had the name of the Offender’s child, and Nightshade revealed her true alicorn form and declared herself to be his daughter. Trixie had an opposite reaction, becoming overjoyed since she had remembered seeing Nightshade while she slumbered, and was excited that Bugze was nearby. Bugze on the other hand, was not so thrilled. Having seen Nightshade in the sky giving an epic ping pong strike…

“Don’t ask.”

...He had rushed back to the dome, leaving Zecora and Twilight behind and started punching on the dome with reckless abandon, which caught the attention of Trixie and Nightshade. Teleporting over, Trixie lifted the dome, and allowed Bugze in.

“With him there, I decked Trixie across the cheek and jumped into the inventory. I knew how much dad wanted to beat her up…I regret that now…” Nightshade says solemnly.

And Bugze did what he did best. After knocking her into town, he told the citizens to evacuate as his anger brought forth the cloak, directly to Phase 3, much to the shock of the showmare. The brutal fight then began in earnest, and Bugze didn’t hold back, but even then her magic with the alicorn amulet was immensely greater than his and Selena’s. Only because of her own damaged mind, and confusion for wanting to be his friend again allowed Bugze to land blows, which slowly chipped away at her. Her confusion, and calling him a friend pushed Bugze even further into rage, and the fight spilled into the Apple Orchard where the shack he and Nightshade had staid was destroyed.

“I’ll miss that crummy little place…”

At the end of his rage, Bugze was eventually able to overpower Trixie enough to get through past the Amulet’s influence. By simply abandoning her after she’d been beaten, she took off the amulet and saw through the fog. After throwing the cursed item away, Bugze attempted to flee, but a distraught Trixie clung to him and begged for forgiveness.

She spoke about how the night she’d betrayed him was the single greatest mistake she’d ever made, and how she blamed herself for all the trouble Bugze had gone through since then. She didn’t want to bring despair to others, she had only wanted to use the Amulet to have the power to send word out so that he could return, and she could make amends. The black and white bear she carried was symbolic of the despair and hope she felt inside, and that it represented that neither she nor Bugze were fully gone past the point of saving. But the amulet twisted her intentions. Tearfully she begged for forgiveness and to be friends again…but…

“The boy made another big mistake. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive, and let the festering hurt go…” Grandbuggy shakes his head in grief.

Bugze refused to forgive her, but he did not shout. He plainly told her that it was far too late for them to start over again, and that ultimately, it was Trixie that ruined his life. What little hope she’d held onto was squashed at this declaration, and the despair fully enveloped her. Seeing herself as the root of everyone’s problems, she came to the wrong epiphany. That if she were not around, everyone from Bugze, to the citizens in Ponyville would have much happier lives. And before Bugze could stop her, she picked up a shard of crystal he’d bent and…well she…

“She tried to kill herself,” Nightshade finishes looking down. “Mom told me afterwards, you don’t have to sugar coat it. Heck, I shouldn’t even say tried, she did kill herself, because she didn’t come back without help.”

Yeah…Trixie stabbed herself in the stomach, and Bugze attempted to save her. He frantically told her that he did forgive her, but by then, she did not believe, and told him he didn’t have to pretend to care for her. Begging forgiveness for being a monster, her heart stopped beating in his arms, and that is how the Deadly 6 and the rest of the town came upon him holding her lifeless body.

“Oh boy…” Nightshade sighs in unhappiness.

“It’s alright kid, I’ve got this part,” he pats her shoulder before looking back to us.

“My boyo was reeling from shock, I mean, how could he not be holding a dead mare? A dead mare who said ending her life was to make him happy. The evil shadowy turd king in his mind took this opportunity to overwhelm his psyche by unloading all of his repressed guilt over the last three years at once, and this turned him near catatonic. And then…then…Aw buck, I can’t talk about this either,” the old bug shudders. “Take it away narrator, we’ll stay silent,” he assures as she wraps a leg around the filly’s shoulders.

OK. I’ll try to be quick. Sombra had told Bugze previously that he kept the guilt somewhat suppressed because it amused him, but he had been storing it for such an occasion to get Bugze killed and release him. After months of being kept prisoner and drugged nearly every day, he took his opportunity to strike when Bugze and Selena forgot to sober him up. With Bugze’s mind all but gone with remorse, and Selena floundering in the shockwaves and unable to communicate, he begged the horrified towns folk to save Trixie. Several doctors rushed to her, but their prognosis was grim, and said it would take a miracle. And just at that moment, they were teleported to the hospital with the showmare’s body.

Princess Celestia had shown up on her planned arrival in the town, which Bugze had desperately been trying to avoid. Angered and saddened that her plan with Discord to avoid more bloodshed had seemingly failed, she demanded to know why Bugze did the things he did, but he could not answer as he was broken. Picking up Trixie’s bloodstained bear plush, he droned on and on that he deserved this, and just gave up. Princess Celestia passed judgment upon him, and handed out the Elements of Harmony to the Deadly 6 who all began to power up, even Fluttershy who believed everything was Selena’s fault.

At the crux of their power, Bugze all but embraced his doom, but the mare in his head would not let him go down that easily. Selena took control of Bugze’s body, and lashed out with her power, interrupting the Element charge up, and dispelling Celestia’s holding magic. She then began shouting through his mouth that “They Wouldn’t Take Him!” and defiantly struck a defensive pose. With this declaration came a turning point as Celestia recognized the voice coming out of the changeling’s mouth.

She angrily declared that it was Nightmare Moon inside the changeling, which shocked all of the townsfolk and especially the Deadly 6, and Selena who realized her mess up. Celestia then demanded that Selena “Release” her puppet, but she refused and after using Bucking Bronco on everypony, she teleported Bugze deep into the Everfree.

There she tried to reach Bugze, but he was too far gone. Angry and tearful, she lashed out at Sombra for what he had done, and after defiant back talk from the king, she let him know that he had just screwed up his own plan for getting free. Since Sombra had never been hit by the Elements of Harmony, she told him how they served to erase all darkness in their path, which would include him. And now they would always try to use them on Bugze because they were no longer hunting him, but her.

She then locked Sombra deeper away into the subconscious and placed Bugze’s consciousness into the same bed she’d laid comatose in. Promising him that she would fix this, she took direct control and made a path for the Grandbuggy’s bunker to weather out the storm. Along the way, she filled Nightshade in on what had happened.

“I’m glad she told me the truth,” she speaks up suddenly. “After being kept in the dark for so long, it was nice to know the full story…even if it was horrible. I swore I would help Daddy get better, and that I would confront Sombra over what he’d done. I had hated Trixie, but I never wanted her dead.”

“Thankfully Sunbutt’s interference did serve one good purpose,” Grandbuggy chimes in. “That showboating mare was saved and in a coma. Though my boy and his family didn’t know that.”

While Selena and Nightshade stayed in the Bunker, the mood of everyone else changed drastically. Princess Celestia was convinced that Nightmare Moon, not Bugze, was the true mastermind over the last three years of chaos, and that Bugze was just another victim like Luna had been. Her thoughts were shared by everyone else from the Deadly 6, to Shining Armor, and even Cadance and the Military. So sure of themselves, the new plan changed from stopping the Hooded Offender, to saving him and finally ending the threat of Nightmare Moon. Discord himself already knew this secret, but didn’t give it up, and Celestia changed his orders (which she thought he was still following) from confronting Bugze, to only observation and reporting due to Nightmare Moon’s involvement.

Later, in a Top Secret Super Max prison, Shining Armor had quizzed all the captured Knight Leaders about the Offender, but they had no clue about where his power came from, so he dropped the ball on them. Dumbfounded at technically being Cultist’s of Nightmare Moon, they were told that with the influx of three hundred of their fellow Knights turning themselves in, they would be shipped out to a new complex in the near future. All of this happened over the course of a few weeks, and in that time, Selena and Nightshade had attempted to cure Bugze of his ailment.

“I also confronted Sombra in that time. He was chained up in his cell in Dad’s head, and he looked like he had given up as well.”

Nightshade had asked him again and again why he did what he had done, the hurt evident in her voice. She asked if her Friendship had meant anything to him, and surprisingly, he held guilt within his voice.

“Not for Dad though, but for me,” Nightshade corrects. “He told me that me being his friend had only served to remind him of the one friend he had ever had, and how he hated feeling like that again. He told me the full story of what Radiant Hope had done, and how she had betrayed him, and how he had left her to age and die alone as the only Crystal Pony in the world. He said that it wasn’t worth it to feel like that again.”

Regretful over his breaking of Nightshade’s trust, he told her to leave him to his solitude, and no matter how much she begged him to reconsider, he stopped speaking.

“Mom eventually came in and sent him back to the depths, and he didn’t raise any kind of fuss about it. She told me that sometimes you can’t reach everyone. But I told her I wouldn’t give up so easily. But first, we had to get dad better.”

It took some time, but eventually Mother and Daughter were able to chip away at the guilt that had overwhelmed Bugze by letting him know that he was still loved and get him out of his haze, though he still refused to take back control of his body.

“But that guilt was about to be lessened greatly on the morning of one of my top ten most chaotic days ever, when someling from the past dropped by my bunker,” Grandbuggy mutters and clicks the slide, showing a circle with a shadowy figure in it.

“Mom and I were preparing to leave the Bunker to gather more food when the knocking came at the door. Using the monitors, we saw who it was. It was the pink haired changeling who’s buddies had kidnapped me last year.”

“Cinnamon “Sin” Sugar,” Grandbuggy reads off. “Former popular girl in school turned exceptional drone officer. Can’t say I ever liked her, what with the crap they put my boyo through.”

Despite what had happened in the past, the site of her at the door was enough to lift Bugze from the Haze enough to want to come forth into his body again. Someone he had thought had died due to his actions was alive and well, and at that moment, it was what he needed.

“Mom and Dad made me hop in the Inventory, didn’t want to take any chances they told me. It wasn’t the time to argue, so I did, but me and Mangle listened to their whole conversation.”

Selena and Bugze invited the mare in, who said something profound. They’d found where the rest of the Hive and Queen Chrysalis were being held, and they needed his help to free them.

“And boy were Mom and Dad surprised at that. She even said it didn’t matter if “Nightmare Moon” was in control, they really needed his help.”

Leading her into the living room, Bugze and Selena began to speak to Sin…that is after a very, very heartfelt apology to her over the dragon incident. She wasn’t at all prepared by the apology and was taken aback. She explained that they all had survived, though they had been scarred heavily. She sported claw marks across her face, Vicky’s wings had been slashed into uselessness, Biff and Tannen had body scarring, with one missing an ear, and Mongo had lost his voice due to a slashed throat. Though only serving to make Bugze feel worse, she ensured him that they were all fine, and better in fact since they found the Queen.

After reassuring Bugze enough times, she began to apologize herself for their actions, and told him that the Queen had ordered her to come to him for help after the Trixie incident. For months, the Five had been organizing a prison break out, and each of them had become bound to Chrysalis, meaning they were now high ranking officers, but also directly linked to her, meaning she could see and hear through their bodies, and would get extreme power boosts from the entire hive. Bugze told her, for the first time taking over his body, that if he were to help, then she and the others would have to abide by his rules. He wanted to ensure that in this break, No Pony would be harmed at the prison, and that Chrysalis would be left behind. He would help free the imprisoned and starving, but that he didn’t owe anything to Chrysalis. Sin was confused by this, since she claimed that the Queen and Bugze used to be friends. The fog in Bugze’s memories lessened somewhat and he kept seeing flashes of his larvaehood, but he was still adamant…until Sin placed a magic disk on the counter and the Queen herself had a chat with him.

“Little Prissy Chryssy all grown up,” Grandbuggy spits in disgust. “I always told him she was a bad egg.”

Chrysalis was pale and malnourished, as were many of the imprisoned hive, but even still she demanded that Bugze help save their kind. Bugze didn’t want to help if ponies were to be hurt, but she justifiably pointed out how much their own kind were hurting BECAUSE of the ponies. Bugze was understandably rude to his former Queen, but she kept at it, trying to use their past as motivation. While talking to her, the fog in Bugze’s mind lifted on many of his larvaehood memories, and he remembered that he and Chrysalis used to be friends. She had been his only friend clear up until high school where she distanced herself, and it was revealed that she was the mare at the school dance that had orchestrated his embarrassment. Apparently her mother’s tutelage of not interacting with her lessers finally sank in. Angered at her betrayal, she had one more bombshell to drop. She had killed him.

“Turns out the little whorse had ended him when he was giving Cousin Cadence food,” Nightshade grits her teeth.

“He wasn’t dead for long thank the gods. I don’t know if I could go through with that again like I did for his parents,” Grandbuggy grimaces.

Turns out Chrysalis hadn’t gone completely from their former friendship, because she used an ancient artifact and bound it to Bugze’s heart to get it beating again. The Nightmare Jewell, which had been created by Nightmare Moon a thousand years ago was used to bring him back to life. Hearing this, certain mysteries began to make sense to both Bugze and Selena. How she was so easily able to bond to him three years prior when she was but a shadow of a soul, how memories of his past were fuzzy due to being clinically brain dead for a time, and why his blood was Midnight Blue instead of the usual changeling green. After all these revelations, Bugze was filled with determination and told Chrysalis that the changeling she killed was dead, and that he was Bugze, and because he could still see the desperation and even guilt in her face, he chose to do the right thing and save the starving changelings, but on HIS terms.

As he had for Sin, he told Chrysalis that if he was going to help, no one at the prison would be hurt, and that things should change between the changelings and ponies. Also, that after it was all done, he and his daughter would be left alone. Chrysalis seemed a bit ticked off at hearing about Nightshade, and learning that Bugze was a father, but she hastily shook this off and agreed to Bugze’s demands. She then allowed Sin to reveal the rest of the plan, and bid Bugze farewell, saying she eagerly awaited him.

Sin, a bit overjoyed then explained to Bugze the plan. With him in the lead, and backed by her and the other four, they would lead their forces in a quick assault on the prison, freeing all the prisoners, and escaping. When asking where they would get the numbers to do such a thing, she claimed that they had 300 changeling drones to help as well. When he asked where she had found those numbers, she dropped yet another bombshell.

“There were a lot of those that morning,” Nightshade muses.

“And they didn’t end there,” Grandbuggy adds.

It turns out, the 300 changelings were in fact the Crimson Knights who had “Surrendered” when their leaders were captured. You see, the Crimson Knights hadn’t actually been a real organization for many many months. Every member was actually a changeling that had been cut off from the Hive, and they had used the Knights as cover to hide their presence. They put the Generals Bugze had taken out in charge due to each of them being incompetent and nuts, while they followed their own agenda.

“They’d been Hydra’d,” Nightshade exclaims.

“Didn’t see that coming did ya chumps?” Grandbuggy smirks cheekily.

With their resources, Sin, Mongo, Vicky, Biff and Tannen were able to also upgrade themselves even further with the plasmids created at Arkhay Asylum. Sin had lightning powers, Mongo had immense brute strength, Vicky had telekenisis, and the twins had fire and ice. So on top of being the Queen’s chosen, they also had powers that couldn’t be stopped by magic alone.

After the Crimson Vengeance messed things up by taking out the leaders, the changelings “turned themselves in” so that they could overcrowd the Classified prison where they were kept, and a new one would be built for them to be transported to. Thanks to their meddling, they had it built in the badlands, and the ponies unknowingly would be transporting their enemies closer to their goal.

Once they broke out of the train, all they would need to do is consume the love of ponies in the closest town between the rail line and the prison where Chrysalis and the Hive were kept. Bugze objected to this, but Sin insisted that it was vital, stating that not only would the three hundred need enough love to fight, but also to give to the starving imprisoned who would need the energy to escape, but Bugze refused to budge. And then came the kicker. The town that was going to be consumed for it’s love was Appleloosa.

“Friggen Bugs,” Nightshade huffs.

That was when Bugze declared that there had to be another way, and that Appleloosa couldn’t be sucked of it’s love. Disappointed, Sin revealed that that option was too late since that part of the plan had already gone into effect twenty minutes prior.

The last slide clicks and we show two opposing forces, one side with the Sin and her Changelings, and the other side, Bugze and the Crimson Knights.

Angered over the attack on his one true home, Bugze then declared that the deal was off, and tried to head off to Appleloosa immediately, but Sin stopped him. Upset and confused over his inability to do what she and the others thought necessary, she said that she couldn’t allow him to interfere if he wasn’t going to help. Before a fight could even break out, she shocked him in the horn, and stuck a piece of the old changeling throne to Bugze’s chest, which cancelled out all other magic aside from his innate abilities, which had never been good. Saying that only she could remove the stone, she said that the Queen, and even she had really wished to have his help to ensure things went smoother, but that things had to proceed. They would come back for him if all went according to plan. She then declared that she forgave him before knocking him out.

“And she slimed up the Inventory, meaning I couldn’t hop out and help,” Nightshade adds.

“And she welded my dang bunker door shut. That ain’t cheap ya know?”

But while Bugze was knocked out and powerless, someone did come to his aid. Someone in a big blue box, and no it wasn’t the Doctor.

“I didn’t know who it was at first. All I knew was he was some old Changeling in a nice hat with Aqua, some handsome stallion, and a recolor of Cadence,” Nightshade admits.

“That’s OK kiddo, I had to save the dramatic reveal for when he woke up now didn’t I” Grandbuggy winks.

That’s right. Grandbuggy gathered Bugze into the TARDIS, which he was driving incidentally, and he wasn’t alone.

“Torchwood, Jack’s own little gang of do-gooders.”

Captain Jack, the immortal stallion and friend of the Doctor, and his team of Aqua, and Mia, who was actually the Cadence from the otherworld with her memories erased, her fur and mane a different color, and a new lease on life. They all came to Bugze’s defense.

“When I made my grand reveal, I geeked out over this little adorable punching machine,” he pats Nightshade, “And when the boy woke up, he was sure happy to see me.”

“He punched you really really hard though,” Nightshade points out.

“As I said, Happy to See Me…”

Grandbuggy explained how they were all going to come to the aid of Appleloosa, but as they were in a Time Machine, they had enough time to get reacquainted and to plan. Grandbuggy explained that after he’d been exiled, he had launched himself to the moon to quote, “Bang the Mare in the Moon Before he died.”

“Ya, so imagine my surprise when I didn’t even leave the atmosphere, got picked up by the Doctor in a younger form, told me my Grandson needed my help and described what he’d been through in my absence. Although on the plus side he did get to that Mare in the Moon before I could, heh heh.”

That’s not quite what happened and you know it. But yeah, Grandbuggy had been saved all those years ago, and had been picked up by the present Doctor who warned him of the Appleloosa invasion. Naturally, Grandbuggy had some objections.

“I was downright pissed. I’d told the Doc to watch over the boy when I was exiled, but then I hear about all the crap he’d gone through and was still going through, so I did the only logical thing at the time.”

He kicked the Doctor out of the TARDIS the day of the Invasion (which explained his absence for the past year and why Derpy thought he’d left her), and used it to go back in time and look over Bugze and Nightshade in the time where he knew where they’d be.

“Which explains how I was at all those locations incognito while they were in Ponyville. Everything in a nice neat bow right? You think you’re so clever,” he complains to the narrator who all but pays his salary.

So after some sleuthing, Grandbuggy gathered Torchwood, got Bugze, and then they were on their way to get the Doctor, whom it would seem like only minutes since he had been kicked out.

“Dad took that all in rather well I think. But I think when you told him about Trixie still being alive is what really got him,” Nightshade says pointedly.

“He all but broke down in happiness, knowing her death wasn’t on his shoulders, and I let him cry it out. I then gave him a bit of a pep talk about the importance of choice, and that he had to choose how his emotions effected him, and not to be controlled by them completely. That seemed to work, but he also let me know that even if she was still alive, he had pushed her to the edge, and that he would learn from his mistakes.”

Bugze then met with the others, and after a happy reunion with his old bounty hunting partner, he met Jack, who kept hitting on him, causing Grandbuggy to momentarily kill the horn dog.

“That wasn’t traumatizing at all seeing a guy killed with a hatchet then come back to life like it was nothing. Nope, not at all,” Nightshade’s voice drips sarcasm.

And after a few nervous missteps, Bugze was able to meet with Mia, and face the mare who had almost killed him. As he spoke with her, he realized she was a completely different pony. She was Cadence to a point in her memories, but after her ascension, she had been given new ones. Ones that took over the horror she had gone through in the other world. Mia was kind, happy to meet him, and by her own admission, a Heavy Shipper.

Once the meet and greet was over, it came time to plan. They would split into teams, infiltrate the dome, keep the Chosen Five and their troops busy while another group rescued and evacuated the civilians. The Doctor would take out the relay points outside that were keeping the dome up, and when that was accomplished, the TARDIS would send out it’s own signal, turning it into a dome that would keep the Changelings in. They then picked up an irked Doctor, and filled him in.

“I was told to stay on the TARDIS and watch over the civilians, when all I wanted to do was help out and kick some butt, but Dad wouldn’t have it,” Nightshade laments. “He didn’t want me in ANY battle anywhere near Appleloosa. I didn’t understand why he was so scared by this, but then he and Mom took me aside and they told me about what had happened in that other dimension. A part of me kind of wishes they’d never told me…but I finally understood why Dad had been so paranoid for me that year.”

“That’s life kid. But you had your part to play, just like everyone else. Including all those idiots on the inside,” Grandbuggy smirks.

The idiots on the inside being The Crimson Knight Leaders themselves. You see, while Bugze was busy getting knocked out and rescued, and planning in Time and Space, the Knights had been putting up a resistance. When the train breakout had occurred, they had been confronted by Changelings who had been disguised as their guards, and they were told the truth. That for the last year, they had been nothing but patsies, leaders of nothing, and played for fools. They then said that they would be used for one last bit of usefulness and drained of their love.

The Knights were of course very shocked at this turn of events, but more so were they pissed off. Especially after the Changelings revealed how they had orchestrated everything about them, including their many falling outs which occurred when Changer had “died” in the Zeppelin accident. More than a little irked, Brown Dog, Grey Rebl and Rutherford broke out of their bonds, beat the crap out of those guards and freed the others. They then started to organize their own plan while they heard the chaos going on outside, with Brown Dog surprisingly taking up a leadership role which all but confused everyone, including himself.

They broke out of the train and headed towards a safe haven to shore up and defend, which turned out to be the local Tavern, using the still comatose Kersey’s body as a shield and weapon. Their goal was to find some of the actual guards from the train to get the magic restraining shackles off of their magical heavy hitters like Silver, Changer, and Erised, and in their mad dash, Appleloosan towns folk followed them to safety. Then came an intense round of what was essentially Neighzi Zombies as the Knights protected panicked civilians, and fought for survival, even calling a truce with the few real guards from the train. They even made allies out of a group of Pinkie Clones, who had been living in Appleloosa since Bugze had saved them. Eventually the Knights got their shackles off, and even got their cloaks and gear back.

Together, Brown Dog, Snap Drake, Kichi, Grey Rebl, Rutherford, Changer, Solarkness, Kersey (still comatose), Candy, Silver Strange and Erised the Ink Moth all joined hooves/claws/paws, and together, after so long of being apart, they were finally unified as the band of rejects they’d always been. And together, they were able to make due and last out the Changelings for the first Twenty Minutes, which got the attention of Biff, Tannen, Vicky and Mongo. So much so that they even offered them a chance to just walk away, since they were the only ones really putting up a resistance. The Knights refused, and they kept fighting, even though the bar began to crumble, and they knew it was a losing battle, until the TARDIS showed up in their midst and Mia put up a defensive barrier around it.

That’s when Bugze, dressed as the Hooded Offender, walked out of the TARDIS, shocking them and causing them all to have mixed emotions, especially when he told them the plan he’d come up with and how there would be No Killing. Any reservations most of them felt were washed away by desperation, awe, or the fact that Grandbuggy was also there.

“The changelings in that group who were in the know how understood my glory,” he boasts. “Also, my boy offered them the promise of a freedom of sorts. Not absolute freedom, but something far better than what the Equestrians had put them through.”

And so, four groups were created to deal with Four Changeling Leaders outside before Sin arrived. Brute Strength vs Mongo, Elemental powers vs the twins, and those best at running vs Vicky. They would distract the changelings while Grandbuggy, Jack and Mia rescued the citizens.

“And then they did just that. I had enough time to get all those poor cocooned souls into the TARDIS, along with anypony else left standing, while the Doctor and his group of Buffalo helped take down the relays. And honestly, the distractions worked so well because neither side really gained an advantage, despite taking a lot of lumps.”

Bugze and Aqua had joined the Elementals against the twins, and even they hadn’t gained any ground, what with Bugze having his Cloak and Shadow powers suppressed by the throne stone. The Runners gave Vicky a massive headache, and the Powerhouses kind of just got the crap beat out of them by the roided out Mongo. It was then that the Knights employed their last minute weapon. Earlier Erised used his blood magic and found out that Kersey still had some growth serum in his blood, and so, in desperation, Brown Dog awoke Kersey, insulted him, and had him grow. Though shorter than his debut in Fillydelphia, he was still as tall as a building. Angry at the diamond dog, and everything in his way, he started smashing any changeling that got in his way. He was eventually taken down, but it bought even more time, and had the added benefit of thinning out the drone numbers even more. Unfortunately Sin arrived during this time, having defeated the Buffalo outside, and she engaged in battle with Chrysalis watching through her eyes.

With everyone regrouped, Bugze, Aqua, and the Knights clashed with the Five. Eventually the Doctor was able to get the last relay point, and the dome changed to TARDIS blue. Utterly devastated at the loss of the battle, and realizing that they now no longer had the forces to free the hive, Chrysalis declared that Bugze had sealed every changelings deaths. Deciding that if the hive were to die, she would at least take him out, or at least punish him, she flooded the Five with all the will of the Hive Mind. It caused their bodies to become more powerful, but it was steadily killing them. It was then that Bugze realized that if he were to save them, he would have to utterly, and totally beat them.

Taking out his Jetstream Sam sword, which was a reversed bladed high frequency sword,

“Password for opening: Rorouni,” Grandbuggy quips.

He used the blade to slice into his own chest, cutting the stone off of it, and earning him yet another deep seated scar, but he did so willingly.

“He and Mom had to save those guys from their own stupid selves,” Nightshade nods. “He had no other choice.”

With the full power of the cloak finally back to him, Bugze engaged the Five in an epic battle, while the injured Knights took refuge within the TARDIS with everyone else. Repeatedly, Bugze would get through to the conflicted sides of the Five, only for the Chrysalis’s control to squash it. With the clock ticking, Bugze went all out, but even with Selena’s help, the Five were too much for him, and they began to lose control and go into Phase 4, the same mindless beast from the Crystal Empire.

“I saw him losing it on the monitors in the TARDIS. We all did,” Nightshade shudders at the memory. But then Grandbuggy took me aside and told me something important.”

“I told her that there was someone else that could still help her Dad win this fight.”

Nightshade immediately understood and entered the dreamscape. While Bugze and Selena struggled with the Five, she confronted Sombra within his prison, and begged him for help. Even with the prison bars and his chains destroyed, at first he declined.

“I had to all but slap him upside the head. He had given up, but I hadn’t. I let him know I had forgiven him, and when he asked why I told him because that’s what friends do,” Nightshade says in determination. “I let him know that if he ever considered me a friend, that he would help mom and dad right then and there.”

Nightshade’s motivation finally sparked Sombra into action, telling her to wake up, he willingly gave his powers to Bugze and Selena who were able to keep Phase 4 under control, only it wasn’t quite Phase 4. With the added power, willingly given, Bugze reached his true peak of power, the Awakened Form. Crystaline wings of many colors replaced the batwings, along with his horns, tusks and claws being covered in a crystalline layer. The cloak itself became a solid grey, where as it had been deepest black before. Sombra only claimed that he did this for Nightshade’s sake, but hehis help brought new powers to the fold. With three minds working together, Bugze was able to use this form to turn the tides. It was no cake walk, and the Five still fought all out, but one by one, Bugze was able to defeat them. But even knocked out, they were still dying. The only way for him to win, was to enter the Hive Mind itself, and so he did.

Within the Hive Mindscape, Bugze encountered the shadowy forms of the three hundred drones, along with the five, and Chrysalis herself. The former queen by this point had gone off the deep end, going full Yandere on Bugze, insisting that she could still be joined with him and his new power, but then immediately saying that she hated him for dooming everyling to die. And to this, Bugze made an epic speech to them, about the power of choice, and the hard decision that is forgiveness. He asked for forgiveness from all of his former bullies, for what he had done to them, and encouraged them to see the goodness still left within them and to not let it die.  He was successful, and Sin and the rest turned against Chrysalis, who lost it. As the Hive Mind flared with her madness, Bugze, with his connection to Selena used his ultimate trick. Remembering and realizing that back at the cave, he had controlled the others with the Insect Swarm plasmid, which also manifested their angry rants via his own anger, he knew that he could control the Hive Mind. But he didn’t control it this time. This time, he broke it.

Shattering the Hive Mind released the chosen and the rest of the Changelings from it’s bond, and saved their lives. Back in the waking world, Bugze stood victorious, and though Appleloosa had been seriously damaged, not one life had been taken. Out of the TARDIS, every single citizen came out to view him, and he lowered his hood, showing the townsfolk that he was the Bugze they all remembered. He declared to them that Nightmare Moon no longer existed, and that Selena, the Princess of the Night had helped save them all, as well as the Crimson Knights. He ordered everyone to gather the wounded, and to help put every changeling into the TARDIS. The few remaining conscious guards followed suit, thankful for getting out of this situation in one piece.

“I have never been so proud of daddy as I was in that moment. He finally had people looking at him and Mom as the heroes they are,” Nightshade says wistfully.

“And it was about dang time,” Grandbuggy agrees. “And as everyone was following his orders, we helped the wounded, put the Changelings into the TARDIS, and took a trip to the Changeling prison.”

There, Bugze had Mia give out enough love to revitalize many of the starving, and he gave them a choice. For the family and friends and anyone else who wanted change and freedom, they were welcome to come with him, but for those that wanted to stay with Chrysalis, that would be their choice, with no Hive Mind compelling them. A vast majority actually chose to be loyal to their queen, but a good percentage took Bugze up on his word, and were reunited with their friends and family within the TARDIS. Bugze then bid Chrysalis a terse goodbye, with Selena berating her for good measure. His last words to her was for her to be happy. Since her mind had slipped a little, she clearly missed the point of that, and instead began concocting a scheme.

“Of course she would miss the point,” Grandbuggy shakes his head. “Well after that trip, we dropped the Changelings three years into the future where ol Antler head and his trippy colors could deal with them.”

“Who?” asks Nightshade.

“King of the changelings, kind of a wimp but he’s got a good heart, even if he’s painted like a pansy.”

“Oookaaay?” Nightshade says unsurely.

“You don’t need to worry about him. But yeah, me and the Doc then had a talk, and he let me know he was gonna be mortal for awhile because it turns out the dummy had a filly with that cute wall eyed mare he kept around. He had only found out recently do to time shenanigans, but because I’d kicked him out, he hadn’t been able to tell her for like a year…I kind of feel guilty for that.”

“So wait, the Doctor isn’t going to be around this season?” Nightshade asks in surprise.

“Nope, not as he usually is. He’s going blue boxless and staying in Ponyville. Can’t say I blame the guy. Sometimes it’s good just to sit back and relax with family.”

The Doctor also rather ominously warned about earning “HER” wrath and attention even more now that you were back. Care to enlighten?
The old bug frowns at that,

“Sorry bud, but that’s spoilers.”

Oh fine! Well after that crypticness, Bugze and company then offered the Knights a choice for all their hard work in saving Appleloosa. They could be free as long as they became Agents of Torchwood. All but two of them agreed to this. Erised, who stubbornly couldn’t accept forgiveness and non lethalness, and Kersey who did what haters did best…which is hate. The former ended up in a pocket watch by the Doctor who gave it to Jack, while the latter ended up on an abandoned planet with healthy food and documentaries, truly a fate worse than death. And so, the Knights exited the story with a future to look forward to.

Bugze then visited Trixie within her comatose dreamscape, and asked for her forgiveness, letting her know that he forgave her in kind. He told her to never give up on hope, and that when she woke up, to let the doctors and psychiatrists help her. Calling her a friend, Trixie was able to forgive herself somewhat and had the power to wake up. Bugze and family then exited back to Appleloosa where they helped rebuild the town, and the guards kept their secret. The story about how the Crimson Knights were actually Changelings spread, and even the so called leaders were covered by Torchwood by being possibly K.I.A.

With a hopeful outlook on life, Bugze declared to Selena that their next step was to get her a body, and possibly Sombra as well, since he’d come a long ways with helping them win the day. With this plan in mind, a tender moment occurred, only to be shattered by some devastating news. Twilight Sparkle had ascended into an Alicorn, and been crowned the Princess of Friendship.

“I STILL CALL BULLSPIT ON THAT!!!” comes the erratic voice of the main character as the orange haired changeling somehow bursts forth through the stage in a splinter of wood.

“Daddy?!” Nightshade exclaims in surprise.

“What the heck you doin boy? We don’t own this thing, it’s a rental!” Grandbuggy chides.

“WHO CARES?!! SPARKLE IS A PRINCESS! WHAT HOPE DO RENTALS HAVE TO STOP HER?!!” His voice then changes to an annoyed flabbergasted feminine voice.

“Bugze, there’s nothing we can do about that now, but for the love of me just stop screaming,” Selena implores.

“No, keep screaming bug. Scream until you pass out!” Sombra says cruelly.

“NEVER! WOULD YOU KINDLY BURN?!” he yells as he sets the stage on fire and runs off. Nightshade sighs at this and looks back to us as the fire starts spreading.

“Now you know why he wasn’t helping recap. But anyway, that’s all that really happened, and I’m excited to see what we get up to in Season 4.”

“Well said Shade. But yeah, say whatever segue you got left narrator, me and the kid need to go bonk that idjit in the head a few times.” He then looks to the rest of us and says, “Good Luck you ugly motherbuckers.” He then plops Nightshade on his back as the two of them rush off the fire consumed stage after the screaming Bugze.

And well, I guess it’s best they don’t hear these plot points, even if they won’t remember them. Somewhere near the Crystal Empire, Radiant Hope exited the realm of the Umbrum (Sombra’s people) with the sole mission of finding and saving her friend.

Elsewhere, in some sort of secret base, the true mastermind behind a lot of Bugze’s pain was revealed to be the “friend” who kept writing him letters. He was an earth pony named DWC, and he swore that by Lady Luck, Bugze and everyone he loved would continue to suffer. He even had some loyal henchmen he claimed were the true Crimson Knights, and that they had a secret weapon built from parts of Strong Head’s mech. Also, DWC was shown to have a rallying point for these devoted nutjobs. A badly injured and scarred stallion inside a cryogenic healing tube, with cybernetic parts replacing his damaged ones.

Flag Burner.

And, because I the narrator couldn’t get enough shocks, there was one more. In the future, all the Changelings and their families from Appleloosa were under the care of the future Changelings led by King Thorax. Sin felt the happiest she’d ever been in her life, until a bomb was dropped on her. According to Thorax, The Hooded Offender had perished in battle two years previously, dying a hero…

And on that ominous note, the recap is finished. Is the future set in stone, or can destiny be changed? Only time will tell. For right now though, the family is still upset about the coronation of Twilight Sparkle, even months later, but they do have a goal in mind, To get Selena and Sombra their own bodies. A goal which Captain Jack has some leads on. A goal that has solutions in ancient artifacts scattered around Equus, and through a magical mirror to an alien, but familiar world…

Now, with that in mind, maybe we should evacuate before the fire consumes us all? Remember, screaming helps you run faster.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!