//------------------------------// // Chapter 108 - New Friends // Story: Dadonequus Discord (Book 2) // by CrazedLaughter //------------------------------// “So, Yona, you’re not really mad about me knocking you out?” You asked. Things were calm now, you all decided to take a rest by the river to cool off and relax for a moment. Yona was still mostly in the dark about what happened after she conked out, Gallus had returned and wanted nothing else to do with anything else that was extra freaky, Smolder was glad everything had calmed down, and you and Silverstream? You had allowed her to cuddle you close to her chest as you sat down in front of her. It was risky, but you managed to subdue your libido thanks to the fact that Silverstream really wasn’t in love with you at all. She respected you, but also found you too adorable not to snuggle with, and just being close was a huge honor for her. How could you not let her snuggle with her hero? “Only if Anon not mad Yona sent him into tree. Yona impressed as Yona thought tough hero colt head was only bad rumor.” Yona said, rather pleased about the whole thing as she dabbed her hoof in the water. “Yak honor not tarnished by a tie, so it’ll be ok.” Yona then turned her head to Gallus, feeling confused about something. “But Yona also don’t understand why Gallus looks green, Yona didn’t know griffons could change color.” Every one of you just kind of look away, as his reason, aside for Silverstream, made you all feel rather squeamish in some way. Finally Gallus just said in a calm but slightly nervous fashion. “I, uh, just feel a little sick, that’s all. I don’t complain about it though, we griffons are tougher than that.” “That good, Yona was worried something was really wrong. But now Yona want to know how Anon get such strong head, Yona just don’t understand and want to know so Yona can get stronger too!” It seems she was really eager to learn your awesome technique of… Wait, you don’t even train your head. You just kinda fall on it a lot. Egh, was that it? How pathetic. “Oh, er, I just smash it into things.” You chuckle, obviously not being fully truthful “Works out great for me.” “Huh, Yona confused. Yaks smash all the time… Oh wait, maybe that it, ponies don’t smash all the time, so Anon get strong head by training like yak.” Yona nods, satisfied with that conclusion. “Yona feel good about this, as it shows yak method is best method for head smashing. Yona now understands how Anon got so strong.” W-wut?! That’s bullshit, your method of… Ok, again, let’s not admit the truth on how your head got so damn hard. “Oh, uh, yep. Yak method is best method. Ahagmmmm!” Suddenly, you soften up again as Silverstream snuggles you close, swaying from side to side. “This is why Anon is legendary! Not only is he a master of chaos magic, but he trains in the arts of other creatures! Guys, we gotta get Headmare Twilight to make a class about Anon! He’s already like an element… Um, a seventh element of harmony!” Silverstream said, fangasming once more. “Uhhh. I don’t know.” Smolder contested “Anon is pretty cool, but I wouldn’t say a whole class based around him would be a good idea. What element would he be? What would we even learn?” “Egh, if it’s anything like today, it’d be how to lose your lunch in two seconds.” Gallus said, relaxed, but obviously not ok with anything having to do with actually learning about you. It seems today, and what he knew of the aftermath of you thrashing Sharpclaw during Nightmare Night, made him believe the class would be more maddening than insightful. “Hmph.” The hell were they talking about? There’s a lot to learn about you! Hell, fuck the Storm King, you saved an entire world before and befriended one of Equestria’s ultimate evils. Not to mention preventing Starlight from even coming close to either using your horn to warp Equestria or letting her pull off her original plan using time shenanigans. Seventh element? You’d be the element of getting shit done! You hop away from Silverstream, and look to the group, determined to justify Silverstream’s words. “I actually think Silverstream has a good point.” Hell, this could be the class you could teach, Professor Anon. “Not tooting my own horn here, but with my magic, I could make lessons about myself wicked cool. I’d be able to teach you guys about all my victories, and teach everycreature how to be as heroic as I am.” “Uh, look, I don’t want to sound insulting or anything. But considering how it looks like you get your victories, I’d never end up signing up for that class.” Yeah, Gallus really wasn’t up for it. “I’m with Gallus. Plus, I’d rather hang out with you than you be my teacher. Could you even imagine how awkward it would be? Everycreature would accuse us of cheating since we’re already friends. Not that I mind, but you know what I mean. Also, it's pretty narcissistic for you to teach a class about yourself, just saying” Smolder added. “Yona is fine too, Yona just want to learn about friendship.” Yona also added. “Thinking about it now, I guess I already know everything I need to know about you, Anon. Plus, I got to hug you too! I already feel like maybe I already learned everything I need to know. Being a hero sounds reaaaaallllyyyy great though! Maybe…” And then suddenly, the ever cheerful hippogriff suddenly frowned as she began to nervously rub at her arm. “Maybe I would have been able to stop the Storm King myself… I dunno, erm, maybe?” Suddenly, she just shivered and looked down, not looking anyone in the eye. “Although, if I messed up, then everycreature would have been gone. So maybe, learning to be a hero is a bad idea.” “Silverstream? Why you sad? Yona didn’t think it was bad idea, Yona even think you can be great hero!” Yona said, trying to cheer up her friend. “Yona would help too, Yona would show evil Storm King how yaks smash!” “Yeah, I’d help too. C’mon Silverstream, that guy can’t be that big a deal. And even if he was.” Smolder made a fist as she gave Silverstream a confident smile. “I doubt the guy could take us on. Yona could throw him off balance, knock him down, and I could cook him up! Then you could lay down the final blow on that creep! We could even be a team if we got Sandbar and Ocellus to help, then we’d be unstoppable! Isn’t that right, Gallus?” “What?! Why would we… Ugh, ok, I guess I’d help too. Every team needs a griffon, especially you guys. We know every dirty trick in the book, so I could definitely tell you if something was off.” Gallus said, joining in on the pep talk the moment he really noticed how Silverstream looked. Whatever it was, it really seemed the Storm King had caused her some sort of trauma. Hmmm… “Awww… You guys…” Silverstream slowly began to smile, then began to cry as she rushed her friends for a big group hug. “You guys are the most amazing friends any hippogriff could ever have! I’m so glad I came here, I’m so happy! You guys are more amazing than stairs, castles, and hayburgers put together!” She just snuggled onto them, none of them even the least bit uncomfortable about it, it was a heartwarming sight to see. These guys needed to learn friendship? Fuck, it looked like they were already good at it. What the hell could they possibly learn from Twilight’s school? Hell, what could you even learn? Once again, the entire concept was looking pretty stupid to you. But not wanting to ruin the moment, you try to offer some encouraging words yourself. “Tch, it looks like you guys became the best of friends real quick. I bet Headmare Twilight would have had you skip a grade or given you a diploma or however she does things, I dunno, but you get what I mean.” “You re-OH NO! HEADMARE TWILIGHT! THE LESSON! PROFESSOR PINKIE!” Silverstream flew up in a panic and began to wave her arms about “Everycreature, we gotta get back to town and finish saying hi to everypony before we get in trouble for not doing that!” “H-hey, relax, Silverstream. Hmm, but you’re right, ah well…” Smolder let out a content sigh as she took a stretch and looked back down the path. “This was all pretty cool, but I bet even Ocellus and Sandbar noticed we’re not in town.” Gallus hovered upwards, ready to fly back. “Eh, I’ve been kinda ready to go back. Also, if you’re worried about them telling anycreature where we went, then don’t. They’re pretty cool about these kinds of things… I think?” “No, Yona think Gallus is right. Sandbar and Ocellus are very very nice. We safe.” Yona adds  “Oh, then I guess I sort of freaked out over nothing. Oh! Anon, do you want to come with us to say hi to everycreature? I know you know Ocellus, but you’d get to meet Sandbar! I think you’ll really like him!” Silverstream said, really hoping you’d say yes. “Actually…” Silverstream was rather touchy touchy, and being seen in town in such a way would probably cause some rumors to spread that you don’t need at the moment. Plus, you had a job to do, you had to go see Twilight and tell her the news. She was really gonna sperg, but better to tell her than to just hide it. “I sort of have something important to do. But I’ll be a student day after tomorrow, so it’ll all be good.” “Yeah! That’s right! Professor Fluttershy had mentioned that too! I’m so excited for that! I mean, I don’t know why the hero colt would also need to go to friendship school, but I’m still super excited about it! Yeah!” Silverstream flew down and gave you a gentle little hug. “I’ll see you later, Anon. Whatever is super important, I hope it really works out for you!” Ngh… If she knew you were helping a known villain who could be seen as an equal to the Storm King, then she’d probably change her mind on that. Whatever, it’ll be fine. “Thanks, and you… All of you, I really hope you all like it here.” And with that, you all said your goodbyes. Smolder, however, lingered for another moment, approaching you once more before leaving. “Hey, Anon, before I go. I gotta ask you something.” Hmm? “Yeah, what’s up, Smolder?” “Look, this talk about you stopping villains and all that? It made me wonder about something Ocellus had talked to me about. You remember, right? That bug queen she used to listen to?” Oh no, you remember she had wanted to ask you about that. Ugh, ok, how much did she know then? “Yeah, I remember, er, what about it?” You ask. “Just seems weird, y’know? She told me not to tell anycreature, and that if I wanted to know more about it, that I should ask you. I don’t know why she’d tell me that, I guess she was worried about what I’d think if she told me more. Anyway, what she told me about you two is that you guys actually talked to each other. What was all that about? I would have thought you’d cream her or something.” Smolder really did seem interested in this for some reason.  But why would Ocellus just randomly tell her?! You had to know that before you even had this conversation. “Um, well, before I even say anything about that. Er, could you tell me why Ocellus would even tell you about it? Seems weird considering you guys only knew each other for a day.” Whatever reasoning it was, it better be good. “We had a lot of time to talk before classes actually started. I dunno, we just kind of clicked since we both knew you. It’s kind of funny though, I asked her the same question. She said she just wanted somecreature to talk to about it that wasn’t another changeling, that also knew you, and didn’t mind too much about bad stuff. Given I’m a dragon, bad stuff doesn’t really bother me. If it’s that big a secret, then I can keep it safe since you’ve been keeping mine pretty good. So, wanna let me in on it? You don’t really have to, but I kind of want to know, seems pretty juicy.” Smolder said, ready to listen to what you had to say. “Uh, but uh…” Goddammit, fucking bugs, you swear to god. Can’t keep a secret worth shit despite being so secretive. “Don’t you gotta go back to town?” “Yeah… But now this just started nagging me and I just want to know what’s up. You don’t have to give me ALL the details, just tell me enough and I’ll ask Ocellus for the rest. I’m pretty sure she’ll be comfortable enough to give me the whole story if you’re willing to tell me enough of what was going down with you and, Chrysalis, I think she said her name was? Yeah, I think that’s it.” Smolder said. Really curious about the relationship between you and Chrysalis. This really was uncomfortable, but what were you going to do? You know how these things go, if you don’t give her something then she’ll probably do something that will make the situation worse. “Fine, fine, ok. Look, Me and Chrysalis ended up being roommates thanks to my Dad’s magic. Before you say anything, yes, it sounds weird, but that’s how things are.” “I wasn’t gonna say anything. I already know everything about you is really weird. So, uh, just keep going. I want to know how this went, considering she was supposed to be really evil.” Smolder said, unphased by anything thus far. “Oh, uh... Hmm. Anyway, her, her hive, and me pretty much hung out every once and awhile. But when it came to me and her specifically, we basically tried to get one another to see why we should follow a certain path, good and evil basically. Chrysalis and I became friends this way, we had a lot in common, and had an understanding on a bunch of things. We shared a lot of laughs, we even saved another universe together. Everything was good until her hive, including Ocellus, just turned sides.” You look over to Smolder, and still noticed she was unphased. “And that’s the short version. None of that bothers you at all? That I was friends with a big time villain?” Smolder shrugged “I dunno, I don’t even really know her, just that she was bad. Anon, I’m a dragon, a lot of us did a whole bunch of really bad stuff until Princess Ember turned things around. Even I did stuff I wasn’t proud of. So uh, y’know, whatever, I was just curious about it since Ocellus really doesn’t strike me as the…” Smolder raised her claws and made a malicious face “RAWR, EVIL MAWHAHAHAHA! Ha… Ok, that was dorky. But you get what I mean. Sounds like Chrysalis needs to take friendship classes more than Ocellus does, but whatevs, it sounds like you’re still trying to help her. So, that true? Are you trying to help her?” Huh, never mind, you expected a freakout or some sort of lecture on how you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. Then again, Smolder was a dragon, and a young one at that, something you should have considered. “Uh, yeah. She’s my friend, y’know? Everypony thinks I’m still obsessed with it, but really, I just don’t want to see her do something that… I dunno, might get her sent to Tartarus… Or worse. It’s complicated, the friendship I mean. But really, if any of my friends ended up in a really bad situation, I’d be there to help them out.” That’s true, isn’t it? You helped Starlight keep things together. “Heh, I guess that’s why you’re the hero colt then.” Smolder said with an honest yet condescending chuckle as she goes over to pat your head. “Well, I can say this, you’ve already shown me that you’re an awesome friend. So it's even more awesome you’re willing to look past all that bad stuff to try to help that evil queen. Well, Anon, I’ll tell you what. If you even need my help, you come looking for me, ok?” Well damn, really? That’s so damn awesome! “Yeah, sure! Thanks, Smolder, that really means a lot.” “Heh, I’d probably charge you a gem or two every now and then, but I think you already got me enough of them to last you a million favors.” Smolder says with a chuckle. Oh really? You shoot her a cute look at shift your eyebrows at her. “Or are you just giving me freebies because we’re already such good friends?” Smolder just looks stoically at you as she points “Don’t push your luck. Dragons don’t really do freebies” She then shoots you a smirk of her own. “But if you want me to, I could just say that you owe me for all the time I had to spend with helping my brother heal up after what you did to him.” “Woah, woah, ok ok. I get it. Anyway, you better get going before somecreature notices you’re gone.” You say with a wink. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, seeya around, Anon. Oh, and you need more calcium in your diet. Just saying.” Smolder says with a giggle as she flies off. “Seeya… HEY WAIT! WHAT’S THAT SUPPO-bah, she’s gone.” Did she just imply your bones looked brittle or something? She better be joking, goddamn, she better be joking. You are not brittle! Why does that upset you so much?! Fuck this, gotta go see Twilight. Hopefully she’s still in the mindset of that promise, because this will be a doozy.