And in a flash, you both were inside Twilight’s castle, or to be more exact, right inside the cutie mark chamber.
“Oh hey! You’re both here!” You hear Spike say. It seems he had already been waiting and ready for the both of you all morning, not at all surprised by your sudden appearance. “Awesome! I’ve been waiting all morning to show you guys something that’s gonna get you pumped!”
“Woah! Slow down! We just got here” You didn’t even get a chance to look around the area to see who and what was around, and you did notice you were one member short. “Hey, where’s Big Mac?”
“He’s already at the alley.” Spike holds up a bowling bag with a confident smile on his face “As for us, I got us something that’ll show everypony that we mean business.”
“Mean business? Ohhhh!” Discord gets excited and zips over to Spike to look over the bag “Are we going to blow open a tear in reality to send our opponents through with whatever is in that bag?” Discord then stands tall as he shakes his fist in the air “TO SHOW OUR ADVERSARIES THAT THE GUILD IS THE ULTIMATE IN ALL THINGS BOWLING!?”
“Uhhhhh...sort of?” Spike looks a little put off and confused as he places the bag on the cutie map table and takes out a bowling ball made out of emerald that had the name “The Guild” engraved on it with golden letters. It shimmered and shined whenever any light hit it. “I got us all this cool custom bowling ball we can all use. I mean, it kind of shows that we’re going to be the best team there. No…” Spike stands tall and raises his fist along with Discord “IT TOTALLY SHOWS THAT WE’RE THE BEST TEAM EVER! ONE WHICH WILL CRUSH OUR FOES WITH OUR MIGHTY ABILITY TO ROLL A BALL!”
Discord looks over to Spike with a nod and a smirk “Nice way to word it, Garbunkle”
Spike takes a bow “Thank you, Captain Wuzz”
You just put your hoof to your face. “Ok you two, can we not act like nerds when we get there? Please? We’re gonna be in public.”
Spike calls for Discord to lower his head so he could whisper to him “What’s his problem?”
Discord whispers back “He still has a ‘splitting headache’ from our last session”
“Splitting...he-he-HAHAHAHAHA!” Spike loses it and falls over, pointing at Discord with joviality “I get it! Because he got an axe to his head!”
You narrow your eyes towards the both of them. “...That’s not funny, you know…”
Discord shrugs as he gives you a pat “Relax, Anon, it’s not like it killed you. We did agree to give your character a huge increase in defense for all cranial injuries. You’ll be fine! I mean, Conan will be fine.” Discord ends his words with a slight chortle
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up you two. It was just a bad roll, that’s all.” Goddammit, it was really humiliating though.
“Come on, Anon, relax! We’re only messing with you a little bit. You’re one of us, one of the guys!” Spike hops down from the table and walks over to you. He then gives you a thumbs up. “You’re the hero colt! And part of ‘The Guild’. We know it was a bad roll. Everypony gets one sometimes, and it’s pretty funny when it happens, right? Are you saying you wouldn’t laugh at Discord if he got a critical miss at something like, erm, knocking on a door?”
“Hey! I’ll have you know that a critical miss on knocking on a door shouldn’t result in something humiliating, at least when it comes to me.” Discord interjects
“Maybe, but what if it was a cursed door or something? It’d probably react by using it’s entire frame to knock you into a pulp. Like…” Spike smacks his fist into his palm multiple times “...Ironically being knocked on BY the door, that’d be pretty funny.”
Discord being physically smacked by a door? Heh, that made you smirk “Now that would be funny.”
Discord crosses his arms and looks away with a gruff snort “Well, I don’t think so.”
“C’mon, Dad. Don’t KNOCK IT until you try it! Eh? HAHAHA!” You break into laughter, sure it was a dumb pun, but it always was extra funny if it cheesed Discord off. Especially when Spike joined in on your mocking laughter.
“Ugh...Whatever. Don’t you have a princess to talk to about your invitation?” Discord says, unamused by the laughter going on around him.
“Huh?” Spike stops laughing when he realized what Discord meant. “You mean the invitation to Twilight’s Friendship School?” Spike looks to you with curiousness “You’re gonna go? That’s awesome!”
“Err...no” You shake your head “I’d rather not. I just want to let Twilight know that I’m declining her offer, that’s all. She’s here, right?”
Spike seemed kind of disappointed by your answer as he pointed towards the other wings of the castle “I mean, yeah, she’s prepping stuff up for when the school is built and ready for classes. But why aren’t you going, Anon? You’re from another dimension, right? This would be a great way for you to learn how ponies do friendship. And I’m talking all the ins and outs of it. I mean, look at me, I’ve learned all about living with ponies by learning from my pony friends here in Ponyville.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t learn that in a school, right?” You ask him.
“Well...no” Spike replies
“Exactly. I think I’ve learned enough through experience just like you have. And it’s not like friendship is a foreign thing to me. I think I’ll be fine” You tell him
“I guess… I mean, I thought it’d be pretty helpful for you. But I can’t force you to go either.” Spike states. But then he looks back towards the inner wings of the castle and then back at you with concern “But Twilight is probably gonna try to convince you, so just go easy on her, ok? I know you kind of got this chip on your shoulder with her, but she only wants to see you get better, you know?”
..Dammit, Spike. He was looking at you with pleading eyes to be as easy with Twilight as possible. This had to mean that Twilight was probably going to be really annoying when you tell her no. “Ok, ok...I’ll do my best, I promise”
“Thanks dude, we’ll wait for you here. Been meaning to go over a few of my ideas for the next campaign with your dad anyway”
“Ahh! I had been meaning to ask you about that.” Discord said as he sat down at Fluttershy’s chair, eager to hear what Spike had to say. “Do tell me everything.”
“Alright, so…” Was all you heard from Spike talking to Discord as you made your way to the main castle library where Twilight most likely was residing.
When you got there, you could in fact see Twilight looking over a bunch of scrolls as she sang silently to herself. She was obviously full of zeal when it came to this whole school business, it almost made you want to not talk to her at all. But you knew it was better to get this over with sooner rather than later.
“Hey, Twilight, you busy?” You ask as you enter the library.
“Huh? Hmm? Oh! Anon! Hello! Good morning!” Twilight says with happy cheer in her heart “Are you ready for that bowling game you’re going to have? I have to say, Spike has been pretty excited about it for quite some time. He felt pretty bad about not getting to bowl with you before, so seeing him so happy to bowl with ‘The Guild’ makes me happy too. Thank you for having the time for that, by the way, I know school and training with Rainbow Dash has left your schedule pretty tight. ”
“Oh...Yeah, um..You’re welcome.” Dammit Twilight, you didn’t have to act so thankful and happy go lucky. You now felt bad that you might be crushing her good mood. But…
No, you had to talk to her about this. If she was truly a princess and of regal status, then she should be able to fucking understand that you don’t want to go to her school. Besides, she and the other princesses already put you through enough shit, you didn’t need any more of it.
“Anon, are you alright?” Twilight looks to you with concern. She seemed antsy about the fact that you didn’t look as cheerful as she predicted.
“I’m fine, I just came up here to talk to you about your school.”
“OH!” Twilight got super excited now and jumped up, hovered, and floated over to you as she looked to you with a happy and near Pinkie-like grin. “That’s great! I didn’t expect you to personally accept, but I appreciate you coming to tell me all the same! I have to say, Anon. I’m already really excited to have everycreature learning everything they need to know about friendship. But to have you, somecreature from the outside world, learning our ways of friendship makes me fee-”
Ok, that’s enough. You put your hoof up at her to get her to stop right there. “Twilight, I’m actually declining your offer...and er…” What the fuck word was she using? “Everycreature?”
“Oh, it’s a very inclusive word for all the kinds of...Wait.” Twilight has a double take when she realizes what you said beforehand. “You don’t want to go? WHAT?! WHY?!”
Here we go…”Twilight, I appreciate the invitation. But I just don’t feel that your school isn't a good fit for me. I mean, what else do I have to learn about friendship anyway? I reformed Starlight, Trixie...sorta, and Tempest. And then there’s the fact I already have so many friends already, including a marefriend. I think I already mastered the magic of friendship.”
“Anon, while I do agree you have an amazing knack for friendship that many ponies don’t, there’s also a few faults you have that I think could use some improvement. The way you approached befriending Queen Chrysalis was-” And then you cut her off again.
Nope, she has no more right to fucking use that against you. “Twilight…” You look at her with a more serious stare as your voice hardens “Don’t you dare. I already admitted I got obsessive when it came to trying to reform her. But at the end of the day, I still managed to BEFRIEND her. I already learned through experience to be more careful, alright? So don’t do that to me.”
Twilight doesn’t reply for a moment as she ponders on what to say. She could see that you were still sensitive when it came to Chrysalis, and decided to try treading softer ground with you. “I understand. But I still think there’s still a few important things you can learn about friendship. I don’t mean to offend you, but you kind of still have a few ways to go to learn about harmony and love. You can sometimes be very mean, Anon. Mean in a way that only the most of the nastier dragons can be.”
“You mean with Stygian, don’t you?” You ask her
She nods “That, and a few other things. For Stygian...Anon, I understand that I was with Starswirl’s conclusion myself when it came to Stygian being the Pony of Shadows. But you were meaning to destroy him even after the truth of it was revealed, you nearly destroyed him. That’s not the pony way at all.”
You’ve had this conversation with her before. You had a good reason to continue your attempt to destroy Stygian. How could you be so sure that his begging and pleading after his shadow form was destroyed wasn’t just an act or a trick? “We’ve gone over this, I didn’t want to take any risks. You said Starswirl was the best of the best and never wrong, so how could you expect me to stand down?”
Twilight sighed, she knew she was partly to blame due to her fangasming when it came to Starswirl and the original six’s return. “I suppose I shouldn’t have. But he was begging for his life, Anon. We’re not like Sombra or the humans you have told me about from your old world. I don’t blame you for your actions, but I still think there are certain facets of your understanding of friendship that can be improved. You’re the hero colt, Anon. I just want you to have more compassion in the way you handle situations like this. Because it’s not just the way you tried to handle Stygian either. You can be mean to other ponies too. I’ve heard you put zippers on Snips’s and Snail’s mouths a few weeks ago, is that true?”
Ugh...So she knew about that, huh? “Yeah, I guess. They were getting uppity again. They thought since I was getting some training from an element that they deserve training from me. They wanted to battle my ‘Bowser’ form for Celestia’s sake! If they couldn’t handle zippers on their mouths then that’s on them, I’ve told them before to stop with the hero worship.”
“I know Snips and Snails can be a little overbearing sometimes, but that’s no excuse to use that kind of magic on them, especially when it lasted until midnight. Their mothers came to me scared out of their wits, Anon. And the way they panicked when I couldn’t undo your spell? Well... Nopony deserves that. Do you understand?” Twilight looks at you with a near mother like expression of sterness.
Nope, you weren’t having none of this shit. “Twilight, look. You are one of the few who even know my true age. Maybe this body has regressed me some, but I still know that when somepony tells you enough and you don’t listen, then consequences will happen. It’s not like I hurt them or anything either, it was simply a punishment. As I said, I have a handle on friendship, just not in the way a pony would handle things. Besides, why do you need a friendship school anyway? You, of all ponies, should realize friendship is an experience, and not something you can learn in a classroom.”
“I beg to differ on that one, Anon. My school isn’t just about learning friendship. It’s to bring unity to everycreature across the world. And more than that, it’s to give those who have felt shunned and alone a place to feel accepted,validated, and have the ability to forge friendships they never thought they’d be able to have. Everycreature deserves to learn, experience, and spread friendship to everycreature else. My school will make sure nocreature feels left out, no matter what.” Twilight explains.
Wut? “Uhm, ok, that’s all well and good. But friendship isn’t that difficult. Again, given how you used to be, and don’t ask how I know, I got a feeling the school might be a little too much.”
“No worries, I won’t question how you knew how I used to be. But do you remember how Starlight used to be? Tempest? Trixie? Your father? And since I know you know, Moondancer? I mean, I’ll even mention Princess Luna.”
What was she getting at? “Yeah, what about them? I reformed like half the ponies on that list myself.”
Twilight nodded “Right. But you also know about the Cutie Map and how it specifically designates one or two or even all of us to fix a specific friendship problem. And then there’s the fact that there could be many others who have felt hurt and abandoned like those I’ve mentioned. You, Anon, know for a fact that someponies just don’t take things too well and are willing to destroy the world just to get even with it. You can’t be there for all of them, just like I can’t be. But with my school, I can bring them all together and bring harmony to all. That’s my goal, that’s what I want. I know you’re smart, so if you think I’m wrong, I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.”
Uhh…
Hmm…
Shit, you hadn’t thought of that. Equestria did seemed filled with this kind of shit. Twilight, in that regard, was mostly right. You couldn’t reform everyone nor could you be in everyplace at once. And given how Starlight had become evil over just one friend abandoning her...Ugh, fine. “No, I have nothing. I guess that's pretty solid when you put it that way."
Twilight nodded in triumph, and gave you a warm smile “I’m glad you understand.”
You did, but still… “I do, but I still don’t want to go. I guess I can cool my jets a little, but I still think it’s pointless for me to go. So let’s just let bygones be bygones, alright? I respect your school if you respect my decision not to go, alright? Please? I really don’t want to keep this up, I have a bowling game to get to.”
Twilight sighed, she really wanted you to go, but she knew that she really couldn’t force you either. She nods “Alright, that sounds very fair to me. Thank you for understanding, Anon.”
“Yeah, yeah… I guess. Whatever, good luck with the school, ok? And don’t push me, please? I appreciate our friendship, but my life is my life, and I have a good handle on it these days.”
Twilight nods again “I understand, and thank you. Good luck with your bowling game, alright?”
You nod, and calm yourself a bit now that this was over “Thanks, well, seeya Twilight.”
And with that, you made your way back to the cutie map room. Dammit, she had to mention Chrysalis. Whatever, it’s fine, it’s the past. It was time to bowl, time to win, and time to show off your new found skills.