//------------------------------// // The Grind // Story: Death March to Equestria // by Toxicfox //------------------------------// School of Friendship BlackJack glumly walks toward the main entrance of the ridiculously named school. "Hey daddy why are you so upset? We get to meet al kinds of new people shouldn't you be excited?" the dragon curiously asks flying over his shoulder. "It's school Clover...School!!" he says with a cringe as they enter." No sensible creature over the age of 10 can enjoy school, that's fact" he says as they walk through the halls. the students stare at the two odd creature walking past them. Clover was passable as a new student and already catching the attention of the male and some female dragon students, The human however was getting suspicious and even some terrified looks. "What is that thing?" a pony student whispers to her hippogriff friend. "I don't know, but It looks scary" she responds. BlackJacks eyes scan across the halls as he walks, almost every creatures stats and levels averaged between Levels Five to Ten. as he turns the corner he spots a unique set of stats Twilight Sparkle{Princess of Friendship} Lvl: 125 HP: 900/900 MP:1500/1500 Spike Sparkle {Dragon Lord (Former)} Lvl: 20 Stage:2 HP: 500/500 MP: 100/100 Twilight spots the 2 as they approach "Hello, you must be Black Jack" she says smiling extending her hoof. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, hand Mare of the school of Friendship" "BlackJack " he says happily shaking her hoof. "And this is Clover" he adds pointing to empty space "Uhhhh...Hi Clover" spike says akwardly patronizing. "Huh?" He says looking around him. The dragon girl is no where in sight "Oh no" he says concerned. "What's wrong?" Spike asked with a curious look. "Clovers run off somewhere" black Jack responds pulling up his screens "Maybe she's already made a friend" Twilight comments optimistically. Stop right there!!!* a voice roars around the corner. Suddenly Clover Dashes by over the group clutching a majestic light blue dress and a bowl of gems under her arms, immediately after a orange dragon with smeared lipstick on her face flies after her. Acquired skill: Aerodynamic Acquired skill:Stealing ["huh so I can gain skills from her actions too, good to know"] He watches as the dragons continue flying back and forth, Smolder closely catching up to Clover. But with a devious smirk blackjack quickly upgrades her stats using her unspent skill points Clover♧ STR: 15->25 VIT:15->20 DEX:10->20 LCK:5->7 INT:5->8 EDU:15->25 with her new boost clover managed to outmaneuver smolder causing her to crash into a pillar, afterwards she flew back to her master. "Hey dad, check out the loot I got" she say landing infront of him and holding out her prizes. BlackJack want to laugh, but seeing the looks on Twilight and Spikes faces as they helped smolder held him back. "What is wrong with you!" Twilight yells approaching clover. "You could've seriously hurt her!" "Hey...I'm a tough dragon, I can handle a little crash!!" Smolder says prideful as she returns to her feet but slightly wobbles "See? *munch* She's fine." Clover says eating one of the gems from the bowl. "It still wasn't very nice." Spike says flying to her with a stern look "Hey the only people I need to be nice to are Daddy BlackJack and Princess SunButt" she says proudly dropping the bowl of gems. a small snort escapes BlackJack as he continues to hold his laughter, even Spike gave a slight chuckle at her comment. "Besides, it was fun" clover says as she tries to put the dress on, Seeing her struggle with it blackjack kneels down and begins to help her put it on properly "Sorry about that, she has a lack of common sense." He apologizes as he helps the dragon slip her arms through the petticoat sleeves. "Well that's obvious" smolder comments picking up her bowl of gems." Stealing gems is so immature" how old is she anyway? "Two... maybe three hours." BlackJack says casually as he zips up the dress. "There we go." He says standing to his feet. Acquired Skill: Dresser Clover giggles in excitement and begins looking at herself. Taking his eyes of her BlackJack notices the three creatures frozen with shocked expressions on thier faces. "What?"he says confused "3 hours!!!"Smolder yells enraged," your telling me I got out flown by a baby fresh out of her egg!!! " "Calm down smolder" spike says trying to ease the tension. "Let's go get some icecream and rubies that'll help" he says as they walk down the hall. "H..h...how?......" twilight stammers trying to get her question out. After a bit of hyper ventilation and excited jabbering twilight managed to regain her words. "Maybe we should go somewhere private fo talk" "I agree" blackjack replys. Twilights office Several minutes have passed, spike has rejoined the group and even brought tea for everyone. Twilight sits at her desk sipping her tea, Clover still wearing the dress sits on BlackJacks lap sipping her tea. BlackJack on the the other hand was taking the opportunity of the silence to experiment with his skill tree, since his avatars leveling was caused by a glitch it had also loaded him with 10 times more SP than he was allowed. "Sooo" twilight says attempting to break the silence. BlackJack closes his screens and looks at the princess. "Princess Celestia has asked me to show you around the school to help you get adjusted to our world and the creatures in it." Twilight says with joyful tone " with that we can start you with one of our beginner courses of equestrian culture and then we can..." "Stop"Black Jack says patting Clovers head signaling her to get up. Clover flies up and lands next to spike standing only inches shorter than him due to his mohawk like spikes. "No offense princess but I have no intention of attending classes" he says standing and walking to the window. "What? Why not" twilight says confused "Because I'm too old to attend a school for something as simple Friendship" he says ending the sentence with air quotes. Twilight and spike look at each other shock by his words "Look, my species learns everything about friendship when we are children and it naturally develops within us "Really?" Twilight says writing on a stray piece of paper. " go on" "We are naturally adaptive to new environments especially developed ones like your pony society" BlackJack says rambling on, as twilight continues writing." We are omnivorous and out skin and hair come in many different colors depending on where we are born." " uh huh uh huh"Twilight continues writing with her expression getting more and more excited. "We also have 3 foot long sex organs and the ability to impregnate creatures by looking at them" he says looking at twilight with an arrogant smirk "You can what!!!!" She says jumping up with her face blushing bright red. BlackJack bursts out laughing at the embarrassed mare. " hehe so are you done with your reasearch then" he says with a wide smile "Yep yep"she says rapidly nodding her head rolling up the scroll. " Anyway! I'd also like to know how clover is so big despite being born literally hours ago" she says calming down and sitting. "Oh I used magic speed up her growth." He says petting Clover. Twilight and spike looks at him confused since equestrian magic can only hatch the eggs not increase thier age, plus raising a creature isn't something to be rushed. "Why would you do that" she asks with a concerned look " to save time" he says calmly picking up clover and holding her like a baby "What do you mean save time?" Twilight ask slightly bothered by his response " stage one dragons have no useful skills or even the ability to speak, that's why I prefer to skip the first stage" he says tickling clovers nose as she giggles "But she's a living creature you shouldn't rush her age for your convenience" she says strictly with spike nodding in agreement looking slightly upset. Acquired title: Coldhearted "I don't see her complaining" he says putting clover down in the chair and giving her a gem "You don't know what kind of side effects the magic will have on her" she says lecturing him as her turns around with an annoyed look on his face "You mean like him?" he says pointing at spike spikes face turns to confused shock as he looks at twilight who's eyes widen with surprise and guilt." what's he talking about twilight?" the dragon asks shaken "..I..I" twilight says struggling to answer her little brother. Used Skill: Analysis "When she hatched you with her magic it was uncontrolled and the side effect was your stunted growth" Blackjack says looking at the small dragon, with his stats pulled up in full Spike Sparkle Breed: Rare Lvl:20 Stage: 3 STR: 5 VIT:5 DEX:7 LCK:3 INT:20 EDU:10 Status: stunted growth, malnourishment "He's also malnourished, have you been feeding him nothing but gems his whole life? " he says looking at twilight" you do know that 80% of a dragon's diet is meat right? gems are a good for filling a belly but not for health and protein which also explains why he's so weak." Spikes eyes widen realizing that everything he said makes sense, his size, his weakness, his whole personality. he loved his family and friends greatly but he had always wonder why he was so different from other dragons, why his wing came in so late. he finally had his answer. All spike could do is drop to his knees and cry as clover walked to him patting his head. "It's my fault..."twilight says tearing up and dropping her head in guilt ["oh shit, this got dark fast"] Blackjack felt pretty awful, clearly this issue was bigger than he thought it'd be and it clarified a thought he had in the back of his mind since he got here, he's definitely not in a game. he reaches out and pets twilights mane, surprised twilight lifts her head to see his calm smile. "Its not your fault you couldn't have known" he says with a caring face while rapidly pouring SP into his charisma tree. "Everyone makes mistakes, the important thing is to learn from them." Acquired Title: Wise Man Acquired Title: Horse Whisperer "but because of me...."she's stopped by blackjacks finger over her muzzle. "Calm down, I think I can help him" he says reaching into his pocket while scrolling through his inventory, he kneels down to spike who looks at him with tearful eyes as he pulls out a vial of sky blue liquid Stat recovery potion(Max) removed "drink this and it should remove the effects and resume your growth cycle, but you'll need to start eating better and training if you want to build your strength" he says handing him the bottle r.. really? this will fix me? spike says looking up at the man with hope in his eyes "your not broken kid, just a little sick" blackjack says with a warm smile petting the dragons head "No fair!! I want you to pet me too" Clover says pouting, as spike chuckles "*sigh* yeah yeah" black jack says petting her with his other hand. Twilight begins to dry here tears and smiled, she was extremely grateful to Blackjack for not only lifting her spirts but fixing her long standing mistake. she found it odd how a creature who spoke so coldly with harsh logic could also be so caring and supportive, It was almost like he was being of living harmony. Blackjack stood up watching spike as he drake the potion -Spike's Status: Default- Acquired Title: Caretaker Acquired Title : Dragon Breeder ( Lesser 2 ) With that Dark moment passed, twilight introduces blackjack and Clover to her friends and the school, after introductions the students fear of the man faded, naturally Pinkie Pie called for a party and with her party cannon it was setup without issue. Acquired skill: Party Planning Acquired Schematic : Party canon during the party, smolder walked up to Clover still wearing her dress and pulled her away from the party, Blackjack slowly followed acting as if he was going to the snack table to make sure his little dragon was safe. Used Skill: Eavesdropping "Hey...so um.....Can I have my dress back please?" she asked embarrassed "Huh? oh sure" she says removing the dress and handing it to smolder " it's really cute but I think it looks better on you" she says smiling at the now red faced orange dragon. "you...you think so?" she asks looking to the side"weren't you a little embarrassed being seen?" "Why would I be? Dragons look great in anything" she says happily before running back to the party. Night falls as the moon rises, Twilight and her friends decide to keep their party going at the castle of Friendship. they gather snacks and Cider for their fun. The dragons turned in an hour later, while the ponies kept partying in the map room. "Hey blackjack you seem like a tough guy think you outdrink me and Applejack?" rainbow dash says holding up her mug challenging him. "Your on!" he says clacking his mug against hers, the cider was basically soda compared to human booze but after chugging mug after mug he began to get a good buzz. "your....pretty guud brack jack" rainbow says drunkly putting her arm around his neck "He's one hay of a drinker" applejack agrees raising her mug. as the contest continues, Twilight and Pinky had already passed out, Fluttershy and Rarity had already gone home the only ones left were the three drunkards. Applejack and Rainbow were already blasted from the 4 barrels of Cider they drank but blackjack was only mildly buzzed and still drinking before he knew it time had passed and every pony had already passed out. "Huh either my tolerance is too high or their drinks are weak" he says grabbing the cider barrel and chugging it. after finishing the last of the cider, blackjack wanders the halls of the castle and happens upon the library. he enters and begins looking through the shelves for anything of interest. Item Acquired: Equestrian Atlas Item Acquired: Basic Magic Item Acquired: Magical Lore Item Acquired: Equestrian history Item Acquired: Creatures of Equestria Blackjack read through each book learning much about Equestria and its magic -Map Updated- Skill Acquired: cartography Skill Acquired: Teleportation magic Skill Acquired: Speed reading Title Acquired: Researcher 20+ other things Acquired Amazingly the constant updates to his Hud were making him sleepier than the reading. he eventually began to lose consciousness as he opened the final book on his list. right as he got to the first page he passed out with his head in the book -Bestiary Updated-