After a few minutes of hiding from Lavan, he seemed to have cooled down to some extent and was currently cuddling with Sun horse in one of the many bedrooms in Twilight's castle.
I don't want to think about what else they might have done in that room.
I, on the other hand, was too busy catching up with Twilight, we talked about Starlight Glimmer, a mare who had recently became her pupil.
She also told me about her new niece, which is good for her, I guess. To be honest, I either forgot or didn't know that Cadence (Twilight's sister-in-law who I haven't written about because I don't believe I've actually talked to her) was pregnant. The child was a filly named Flurry Heart, which sounds so saccharine that only she could have come up with it.
"John, seeing as most of your powers came from Lavan... How are you going to lead the guard?"
Eating the cupcake Pinkie had gifted to me earlier, I shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to be a tactical leader."
But you need to be able to defend yourself, John! If something happens, you'll need to be able to protect other ponies too."
"My natural good looks and charm?"
"You cant defend yourself with things that don't exist." ...Did i just get roasted? I think I did.
"I have no clue then."
"Well get one soon, I don't want you to get hurt."
"Neither do I, Sparkplug."
Suddenly a loud banging sounded at the door. Spike came from wherever he was before shouting, "I'll get it!" Before he was bashed aside by an extremely quick, dark blue blur.
Then I was flattened by the blur. It hugged me very tiightly afterwards.
"You're back! I thought you were gone! When the princess told me you didn't come back I thought you just left us to go home!" I was about to open my mouth when I founded it silenced by a very soft pair of lips.
Where did this come from? Not that I'm complaining but...
I wrapped my fingers through her mane tugging her gently closer, and she closed her eyes, moaning into my mou-
"Ahem." Twilight coughed.
Moon quickly leapt upwards, "I'm sorry Ma'am, I was rather... caught up and didn't notice you." Twilight glared at her. "We will take our business elsewhere Princess Sparkle, sorry for the disturbance." In an act of suprising strength and agility, Moonflower grabbed my arms with her suction cup-like hooves and flew us away, Sonic and Tails style, except she had wings instead of two propeller tails.
You get the idea.
We were gliding through one of the castle's many hallways until Moonflower dived into one she deemed suitable and she Immediately tossed me onto the plush queen sized bed.
"Uh, Moon?"
"Yes Sweetie?" Sweetie? Never called me that before.
"Are you in estrus?"
"Yessss! I-I mean yes, yes I am."
"Is this thing just the estrus or..." I left the sentence unfinished as the heated mare slammed her lips against mine, slipping a lot of tongue.
She moved away from me the tiniest bit, her lips grazing mine as she whispered, "It's not just the Estrus."
the rest of this page seems to have remained blank, somewhat as if someone wouldn't want to share this moment with random people who came across such a book.
----
After five minutes of assorted games like the horizontal tango and a one-sided sausage eating contest, a knock sounded at the door startling both of us.
"John? Are you in here?" Spike. Fuck, why'd it have to be Spike.
"Yeah, bud? What d'ya need?"
"Twilight was wondering if you had chosen what weapon you were going to learn to fight with." He opened the door.
"Spike." The mare next to me snuggled closer. "This isn't what it looks like."
"So Moonflower wasn't helping you pick?" Wait, he can't actually be that naive can he?
"She was. Neither of us really came to a conclusion yet though."
"Oh, Ok. See you at dinner then."
"Bye." He lightly closed the door behind him and I let out a breath that I wasn't sure I was holding. "That was clo-
Spike quickly opened the door, "For the record, I totally know you guys were having sex." He then agily shut it before I could respond.
I was sat up in bed for one very long minute, stroking Moon's mane as I thought, "Shit." The mare underneath the covers yawned loudly. "Is getting really sleepy after sex a mare thing?"
"Only when we're in estrus." She mumbled through the covers.
"Are you sure? Because it could just be me."
I was given a light thunk on the knee for that one. As my revenge, I removed the covers from her body, making her open her eyes and scrunch her face up at me in mock anger.
"You don't know what evil you have unleashed, Human."
"But you're way too adorable to be evil." I booped her nose causing her scrunchiness to increase to heart attack inducing levels.
"You're gonna put me in a coma if you get anymore adorable you know."
She didn't like that, "Listen here, mister. You can call me sexy or beautiful but I am not ador-" boop.
The next 10 minutes consisted of chasing each other and moving our fun times to my room, which was conveniently not too far away. Spike had dropped off the stuff I had brought back with me and placed it by the bed, except for my phone, which I was keeping on my person.
Moon was too busy rolling around on my bed like a dog with an ichy back.
"You look really silly right now."
She looked at me with lidded eyes, turning and opening her hindlegs towards me. "How about now?"
----
I think Moonflower might have passed out, it was to be expected, I suppose. Most mares tend to pass out when their heat is satisfied, As it becomes easier and safer for conception to occur.
That won't happen, as ponies have 64 chromosomes while humans have 46.
Yeah, I researched this shit, don't judge me. Basically, we aren't genetically compatible.
So back to reality, I was looking at her for a minute and combing my fingers through her fur. I was yawning as much as she was snoring, so I just nodded off next to her. It was a pleasant rest, and the first I'd had since the train back home.
----
Dinner was a loud affair, with Spike pretending to puke as Lavan and Sunbutt were feeding each other at the far end of a large crystal dining table, while Twilight shushed him. Moonflower was wolfing down a salad from across the length of the bus sized slab of gems, while I was eating some imported sausages and mashed potato. I found out that Spike didn't know how to make gravy, so we made some quickly, with magical assistance from Twi, of course.
*dun Dun DUN*
An unusually loud noise came from my pocket, silencing the table. I immediately recognised the overly dramatic tone as my phone's notification sound, and pulled it out accordingly.
'Remember to take doggo for walk after food.'
I was rather unimpressed. I expected some kind of big reveal, or something major was about to happen. I unlocked and flicked through my notification tab, deleting the alarm and going back to eating.
Those sat at the table soon began talking again, but Twilight had her big purple eyeballs on me.
"John, did you forget to tell me about what you brought back?"
"Nope." I continued talking between mouthfuls. "Its just that some of it is none of your business." She seemed rather shocked at my open denial, and irritated by my attitude, and her expression ended up as a blend between the two.
"Tell me. I have to know if you brought something dangerous, John." She sternly told me.
"You know, you're starting to sound like Sunbutt," I pointed my fork at Celestia, who was currently feeding lavan an ice cream, which turned to coloured vapour before he even touched it. "And no, Its no more dangerous than a book."
"I'll take your comparison as a compliment." She beamed.
Rolling my eyes, I mumbled. "I wouldn't, it worries me. If she's turning someone into a worthy successor, where does that put her?"
"We need to talk about your attitude towards the princess, actually about your attitude to everypony."
"Pff, sorry Mum." I mockingly whined in a high pitched voice.
Sparkle growled, gritting her flat herbivore teeth together.
Dinner soon came to a close and Twilight ushered me away, while Moonflower followed us from a distance. She didn't think I noticed her, but the salad she had stank like the set of a scat porno set on fire while a bunch of dead skunks were getting cooked as well, meaning I could smell her from a mile away. Twilight wrinkled her nose up in front of me, probably thinking it was the meat I had.
You had to be there to experience that, as I don't think I could properly put it into words.
Anyway, Twilight let me into her room, sat down on a pillow by a lit fireplace and ushered me towards a larger pillow beside her. Shrugging, I plopped myself down and sat cross-legged.
"John, why do you hate Celestia?"
"Twilight, I don't hate her, I actually quite enjoy her company but her entire existence runs in the face of my beliefs." She motioned for me to continue, not satisfied woth the answer. "The Sun does not rotate around the Earth. Its a simple fact and if your explanation of why it is true involves any words that rhyme with tragic I'm going to teleport away, and this conversation will never be spoken of again." I can't even teleport but she doesn't know that.
After failing to accomplish anything from that conversation, I walked out of her room and kicked one of the walls. The wall proceeded to put up a fight and hurt my foot in retaliation.
Stupid wall.
If she wouldn't listen to anyone but Celestia, then she wasn't going to do or believe anything unless she told her.
This entire page was useless so I'm tempted to just tear it out and forget about it.
But I'll keep it here, because why not.
----
The next morning, I completed my morning rituals and went outside, finding lava dripping from above, onto the now ashen spot in the sea of green grass that covered practically all of Ponyville.
Walking around the puddle, I could see Lavan hanging upside-down from one of the balconies. Promptly deciding to ignore his bullshit, I walked into town and bought some stuff with money I nicked from Twilight.
Don't look at me like that.
I'm sure she has enough money to keep living comfortably.
It's not like she's a princess or anything...
As I was walking through one of the wide open streets of the town, I could see a little blue dot wiggling around a few metres in front of me. Blinking, I dismissed it as a simple trick of the eye until it suddenly became substantially larger, and surrounding ponies began crowding around it.
Then it disappeared. A moment of silence encapsulated the street as they waited for something to happen.
For a second, I could see a blue figure in front of me, and then something dropped onto the roof of a nearby house.
One pony yelled out in anger, most likely the owner of the cottage.
I asked him if he could open the door as a colourful pegasus flew towards the scene.
"What happened? I heard somethin' smash from my cloud."
"Some...thing just dropped into a house." I turned to her, you think you could airlift me in? It would be easier than going through the door and getting up to the thing that dropped in."
"No. Do it yourself."
"You're just worried you're too weak to lift me." I smugly smiled.
"Nuh-uh, Pinkie's already used that trick on me, and it's not gonna work again!"
I thanked the guy who gave me his weird pony keys that I had to fiddle with for a minute before getting a decent grip.
Unlocking the door, I could see that the floor above had caved in slightly from the impact, there were splintered pieces of wood scattered around on the floor, luckily nobody/pony else was inside, so I didn't have to worry about that.
From upstairs i could faintly hear some familiar music.
This looks like a job for me
So everybody, just follow me
'Cause we need a little Controversy
'Cause it feels so empty, without me!
"What's that?" Rainbow said from behind me, which for the record did not scare me at all.
After my (definitely not) near-heart attack. I responded, "Music. Some people wouldn't 'dignify it' with that title though."
"Oh... It's catchy."
"That's probably the first thing we've ever agreed on."
"Pff, yeah. But only because you always talk so much horseapples. I mean do you really expect me to believe that ponies like you managed to go ten times faster than me?"
"More like twenty-five but you can keep believing that, Skittles, I said heating up one of the door hinges and then pushing the door away once the metal had gone soft. I kept the heat contained, so it didn't set the house on fire trying to melt... whatever metal door hinges are made of.
The door led into a small corridor, two of 3 rooms on either side, a few names and keep out signs on some of the doors. Their was a flight of stairs right next to the door I came from anyway, so I just walked upstairs instead, hitting my head on the ceiling once or twice on the way up, while Rainbow was spewing nonsense about how the Wonderbolts could beat the human air force or something silly like that.
Once I was upstairs, I could see the source of the song, a boombox. There was a little note. 'If found please return to-' there was an address from that I didn't recognise.
"Welp, its mine now." I burned off the address and flicked the power off. At Rainbow's look, I rolled my eyes. "It's not as if this belongs to anyone else any more and I doubt ponies know what a boombox is."
"Yeah I do! Vinyl Scratch has one."
"Does technology just exist here? I mean, You live in middle age cottages, but you have a DJ with tech from the communication age. Then there's a hydroelectric power station somewhere."
"Translate that from egghead to normal pony, please."
"And this is why I don't like talking to you."
"Sheesh, someone can't take a joke."
Gritting my teeth, I teleported out to get away from the irritating little... Wait, I thought I couldn't use magic anymore?
"That would be my doing, Johnno." Looking up, Discord had his snout pressed up against my nose. "Good afternoon! My, oh my, what do we have here!" The Draconequus slinked his arms under the boombox, lifting it from my hands. "What a fancy doohickey. Can I have it?"
"Not yet, Q. I need to give it to the squishy ponies. Could you drop me precisely in front of Twilight?"
With a snap, I was face to face with a massive poster of a dumb vampire. "Wrong Twilight. Put me in front of Twilight Sparkle and give me the boombox. Another snap and I was in front of Purple Smart.
"Take this. It might be different from the Equestrian version."
"Excuse me?" Book pone questioned.
I sighed, pointing at the box. "Human tech. Could be different from the ones you have."
"Oh. Okay. Celestia sent this to you." Sparkplug levitated a letter to me, while placing the boombox somewhere.
I nabbed it quickly in my magic, for a second my faded orange flame mixing with Twilight's pink aura, turning it into a dark purple flame until she released the letter.
Undoing the seal, I began to read.
Your first regiment will be arriving shortly.
~♡ Celestia
Blinking I re-read her sign off, verifying that she had indeed drawn a heart.
"Bizarre."
"What's bizarre? Twilight asked, flying up to eye-level before hovering in space. "Why did she write a heart at the end?"
"You ask as if I have any idea myself. Are the barracks ready to receive? I have the timetables on me."
Suddenly, from off-screen, a wild Spike appeared! "The barracks are ready, Cap'n."
"Good. What's the time?"
"Time to get a watch." Sparky and the midget dragon HILARIOUSLY sniped back, using one of the most original jokes to ever exist.
"Please end yourselves. Also, why am I the one doing this? I'm pretty sure all of them are better trained than I am." I mean, I can understand that I was in a big fight, but I got my arse beat. I can't fathom why I of all people/ponies got chosen.
"There are only three trained mages of different arts in the group. The rest will be going through standard guard training."
"Ok. You still didn't answer my question though."
"I've given you this position because I believe you can do it, and Princess Celestia agrees."
"M'kay." I didn't have time to voice any other concerns because a large contingency of guards came bustling through the front door in ordered file while two robed unicorns and a really tall earth pony moved to the head of the pack and separated themselves. They, I assumed, were the three mages of the group. Twilight handed me a list of names, some of whom were just plain weird.
Summer Oak: Tall unicorn stallion with a thick brown coat and dull golden tufts of fur growing around his spine covering the top of his head and merging into his tail. Specialises in plant based magics and medicine. He comes from up north and is used to colder climates.
Silhouette: Young mare, Dark grey fur, black mane and tail that seems to shine with a dark purple when she uses magic, Interesting. Specialising in shadow magic.
Rocky Arids: A camel, measuring up to Celestia, except this guy is built like a brick shithouse. Seems he was born in modern day egypt. Born of a long line of gifted camels with extremely potent control of earth.
"Welcome, people. Get yourselves comfortable because in a few days we'll be giving you chances to prove yourselves. The princess and I have devised a set of aptitude tests as well as a dueling tournament as monthly occurrences. The aptitude tests will be quick enough that they will barely take time out of your day."
I turned to Twilight. "If you would do the honours." Her horn began to glow as sheets of paper magically teleported in front of each member. "These are timetables, they dictate when and where you are to be on a day-to-day basis, each guard has weekly patrol shifts and training time, any time not allocated on the sheet is free time to do as you please. Any questions?" A single hoof emerged from the sea of ponies. "Yes?"
"Do patrols span across Ponyville or the castle?"
"Good question. Half of them are in castle and half of them are not. Patrol times with a star over them are in castle and the rest are in Ponyville. Anyone else?" I took the silence as a negative. "Then Spike will show you the barracks, good night." Ponies poured out of the room behind Spike who was marching out, feeling proud of himself. As soon as people left the room I breathed a sigh of relief. "Well that was terrifying."
"I think you did really well." Twilight nudged me in the side.
"You didnt see the judgemental look in their eyes, peering into your soul. God, talking to crowds is really fucking difficult. I was literally sat there internalising my anxiety for so long it felt like hours."
"Calm down John, it was only a minute."
"A minute of torture..." I mumbled. "I think I'm just gonna go outside and take a breather." I strolled out of the overly large front door and sat down on the foot of the castle steps, comfortably sat myself down. Resting my head on my hand, I took in the cool evening air and peered at the simmered down activity around Ponyville.
After about five minutes I got bored and started counting how many of each colour of pony was walking past. I had almost forgotten myself and was just blankly staring towards the town centre, unsure of what was going on around me when a pink hoof tapped at my foot, pulling everything back into focus.
"You're John, right?" The source coming from the purple maned mare above me, I believe she fit the description of 'Starlight Glimmer' a pony that Twilight had been talking about recently.
"I am, you must be Starlight, Twilight's told me a bit about you." She cringed slightly.
"Not too much, I hope?" She smiled, slightly awkward.
"Not more than your name and how you look. Why, does she know something weird about you? A deep seated phobia? A bizarre fetish?" I got a giggle from that.
"No, not quite." She seemed relieved about me not knowing whatever it is she was talking about. "Are you coming back in?
"Nah, I'm gonna stay out for a bit longer." Besides I needed to see how badly my magic was affected by the loss of Lavan.
Once I heard the loud 'clunk' of the door slamming behind me, I pushed myself to my feet snd started concentrating as hard as I could. Sadly I was only able to keep up a weak ember. A shred of what I could've done with him.
At least now I can begin to improve my own magic, instead of clinging to Lavan for support.
And so I spent several hours trying to bolster what was available to me by keeping the flame up for as long as possible, to no avail. Perhaps it isn't to do with power as much as it is to do with technique?
I'll have to try this out in the morning, for now though time to head back inside and sleeeeeeeeeeep...
----
Ah, what a peaceful night's sleep.
"Wake me up! (Wake me up inside) I can't wake up." My phone screeched.
"Why did I change my alarm to this again?" I sighed, rolling out of bed and tapping the snooze button before attempting to return to dreamland.
"SIR!"
One heart attack later and I was wide awake, standing on the bed while a non-descript unicorn stallion was stood by my bedside.
"Princess Twilight ordered me to deliver you this!" Ok. That doesn't explain why you're yelling. He passed a small letter that I threw on the bed.
"Tell her I'll read it when I'm able, also could ya chill with the volume, mate. Its nine in the morning. Humans require a bit more sleep than ponies and tend to wake up a lot slower." That was of course complete bullshit that I made up to get extra hours of sleep every morning. "Anyway, I'll dress myself and be down in a minute."
"Yes sir. Sorry for the disruption, sir." He spoke, this time a few tones softer. "I was ignorant to your people, sir." Jeez, this guy is a bit intense.
"Listen man- stallion, whatever. I don't really mind if you want to treat me like this but, to be honest I'd prefer if you just dropped the Sir and called me Smith. Because most of you have been in more fights than I have."
"But we didn't take part in the dethroning of Chrysalis."
"You also didn't get beaten to a pulp in the dethroning of Chrysalis. So thats one thing you have over me." As we were talking I was quickly clothing myself and had just finished putting on a shirt when a loud thud sounded below us. "What was that?"
"They must've missed some of the soundproofing on the dueling and casting room. Happens a lot at Canterlot." Of course the loudest room in the place would be underneath mine. "I've been told the current match is quite intense, sir."
"Who's fighting?" I asked, pushing my head through the collar of my shirt.
"Silhouette and Rocky Arids, sir."
"Mind teleporting us down there?" I grabbed a pair of trousers before we were both pulled through to the Dueling room. A couple eyes drew to us, which then turned to a lot of eyes when they realized my dignity was only protected by a pair of annoyingly tight boxers, I quickly scrambled to cover myself.
After some awkward seconds of rushing to put my trousers on, the room pulled its attention back to the fight, where the camel bull was balancing himself on a large pillar of rock, planting his hooves firmly as minerals and stones were flowing around his forelegs. The dark unicorn mare was firing beams of dark purple magic rapidly, while the earth pony sent pillars to block the spell before it collided, each spell shrieking as it collided with the rock before dispersing. He wrapped the mare in a tentacle-like appendage made of sand before she fazed into shadow and slipped out, appearing behind him charging a spell to finish him.
Whack! In a move that the shady mare clearly didn't see coming, the Camel reared up on his forelegs and bucked her off the pillar, knocking her unconscious.
"Rocky Arids has been declared the victor!" Apparently someone was commentating on that match.
Rocky Arids interested me, as he was probably the first new species of sapient life that I had seen since coming here. I really need to get that clarified. Because I've been eating bacon, but from what I've heard, Pigs are capable of founding cities.
He noticed me as I approached, snapping to attention. I quickly told him it wasn't necessary, which he was quite happy about considering how he had physically exerted himself. He spoke with a surprisingly soft spoken egyptian accent, something I didn't expect for one as huge as he was. Sitting down, he thanked me for allowing him to relax, "I am not one for unneeded exertion, captain, and I see now that you are not one for unneeded pomp and circumstance. Most other higher-ups do not have the same casual nature as you."
"Its no problem, man. I'm just trying not to be a cunt." He blinked.
"I was informed of your... colourful vocabulary before but I was not aware that such a word was still spoken of today."
"What, cunt?"
"Yes, that slur is very old griffish slang. Two to three hundred years old, I believe."
"Cool, I guess."
We sort of stopped talking after that and I remembered that I was in charge, so I sent everyone off to their respective jobs while I goofed off. A patrol walked by once or twice so I pretended that I was doing something important until they passed.
After I got bored, I decided to test my magic a bit more and, after an hour or so of experimentation, discovered that I could actually absorb heat from my surroundings and use a stronger form of it while in contact with objects. This ability was making me question whether or not my magic was actually based on heat, rather than fire. Although if this was true how come I can't flash-freeze anything but I can set something ablaze with ease?
I wonder if it's possible to increase the size of my mana quicker than normal?
----
"I have to what!?"
"You have to meditate in magma, or anything else that reaches such high temperatures. The strongest fire mages have been known to meditate for upwards of a day inside the core of a volcano." Twilight explained, magically waving about a tome big enough to kill with a blow to the head.
"Right. What if the magma hardens over the top of me while I'm inside?"
"You'll have to be mined out or reheat the magma yourself."
"...What if I can't heat the magma up?"
"Then you'd be, as you say, 'fucked'." She quoted.
"Language, Twilight."
"John, I don't even know what that word means." I then proceeded to give her the definition of what language meant until she bopped me lightly with the book.
"I ain't gonna tell you what that word means, Twiggles, you precious little pure-hearted purple horn horse." I smiled patronizingly and pinched her cheeks. The pout she made, almost made the next book slap worth it.
Almost.
Well, it's around this time I'd usually end this entry with a huge cliffhanger, but nothing really happened over the next few weeks.
Why are you still reading? I'm only writing this so I can get a few more words in to make it seem like the rest of the entries.
--A torn page--
In the deep, no light pierced the gaps that sunk downward, seemingly unending.
An unkempt group of hooves slowly pressed against the dirt covered rocks, followed by a cloak that swiftly concealed what little could be seen of what was lurking underneath it.
Like a ghost, the hooded stallion glided downwards, deeper, the only illumination was a single spell, a lantern of murky purple magic, seething and flicking off sparks of energy, arcing like lightning every so often.
Deeper.
Deeper.
Deeper.
The air was thin enough to suffocate down here. Not a problem, as he hadn't needed to breath for centuries.
The prize was now in sight, two large changeling corpses, one with a single large dragonfly-like wing of red and one coloured blue and wingless. Each were surrounded by mountains of drones.
A simple flex of the figure's will had his magic flood each corpse, dragging their souls back inside and crushing them.
The two royal changelings had their eyes flood with purple leaving only the black pit of their pupils and turned to their master. The magic ceased as the last frone stood, a veritable army now stood at attention, awaiting orders.
The red and blue changeling spoke in sync. "Lord, may we make a request as our first order?" They were answered with a nod. "We would like to take revenge on the ones who killed us here."
"Vengeance is my quest as well, changeling. I will not stop you from taking yours." Glowing orange eyes leered from beneath the hood.
"Thank you." They looked upwards into the darkness.
The hooded necromancer's horn glowed faintly, and the entire army warped to the surface. In the light of the desert area, the carapace of the changelings seemed to simultaneously molt, bleaching their carapace a light gray, before they cracked and shed them completely.
"I trust you can find your way home." The mage disappeared with a shriek of dark magic, leaving the resurrected hive behind in silence.