Johan sat in front of his house a smile on his face, forelegs crossed in front of his chest, and an extremely proud look on his face.
Since he had met Platinum, he had made some very big changes to the house that's for sure! The porch, which now featured a nice and stable roof and fence, was only the start. The two of them had practically bulldozed the old shack.
In the week since they had put up the porch, him and platinum went about tearing down the roof and walls and rebuilding the shack from the ground up. Thanks to platinum's magic it was incredibly easy and almost free! All they had to do was walk down to a nearby quarry, rip a couple boulders out of the wall (Microcline with a hardness rating of 6.3 and a nice series of crystalline grooves for those interested in boring stuff like geology), use magic to polish and cut the boulder into perfect bricks, and boom they were in business!
With a bit of stacking and mortaring, the bricks had formed a perfect rectangular house, and with a little fan-dangling with wooden planks and clay tiles, the house had a roof. The next day they had given said house a second floor, an attic, and much more easy to use amenities, like running water, an actual bathroom, and an upstairs bedroom. The entire bottom floor of the house was taken up by a living room and the kitchen, and this time they were even separate rooms! What made things better was that this time the house had windows with actual glass inside of them, which Platinum had made by gathering up some sand and super heating it.
Johan was honestly surprised at just how much Platinum's magic trivialized the job. It literally seemed that Platinum was putting no effort into making this house, but at the very least, the unicorn had gone out of his way more than once to make Johan feel like he was being included, leaving his mark on the house if you will. Like how he gave Johan the job of actually applying mortar to the bricks, or nailing down the clay tiles to the roof. It was actually a ton of fun for the deer!
The house was sure looking nice now that was certain. The polished microcline bricks made the house a beautiful cyan in color, (which was insanely nice because cyan was Johan's favorite color, though Platinum claimed that it was his second favorite color after platinum white, which was kinda obvious) and the porch with additional rocking chair out front looked so unbelievably comfy.
Johan couldn't help but giddily trod in place before practically sprinting inside of the house. He threw open the brand new door, made from wood from a tree chopped down from the Everfree, cause Platinum liked to live dangerously, and ran inside to be met with... disappointment.
The inside of the house was so barren. Sure it had all the furniture from his old shack inside, like his couch and his bed upstairs, and it had the new toilet, sink and bathtub in the new bathroom (which was also upstairs and, like the bedroom, walled off from the rest of the house), but besides that, it really didn't have anything. That was a total bummer to the deer. What was the point of a brand new spacious house if he had nothing to fill it.
"Why so glum bud?" Johan suddenly heard from above. The deer turned his head to see Platinum walking down the new stairs, cyan eyes locked on him.
"Oh trust me, I ain't glum, just a little... bummed I guess." Johan said with a shrug.
"Aren't they the exact same thing?" Platinum asked as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
"Uh.... Maybe? Sorry I am not really a linguist." Johan grumbled as Platinum approached him. "I'm just... ya know... I think this place is really empty ya know? But ya know, It took me months to save up to get a single recliner so I don't imagine myself being able to fill this place out in like... my entire lifetime?"
Platinum stared at the stag for a couple seconds before suddenly chuckling.
Johan raised an eyebrow as the chuckling stallion before he held out a hoof, a left over microcline brick wrapped in a white hue levitated through the air, coming in through the still open front door and landing in his hoof.
"Allow me to demonstrate why I am called Platinum Shine." the unicorn said. With a blinding flash of his horn, the brick was suddenly transmuted.
Johan, who had been forced to look away due to aforementioned flash, turned back to Platinum. In the unicorns hoof was now a solid ingot of platinum.
All Johan could manage was a long, drawn out, excited gasp.
Johan kicked open a door to a pawnshop and strode outside, two saddlebags hanging from his side absolutely loaded with bits. Platinum was waiting for him outside. It was early in the morning the next day, the store having just opened. Platinum had requested they do it then for some reason, something about 'not wanting to make a scene or something.'
"Who's the richest deer in Equestria?" Johan asked pointing to himself with a hoof, an act which almost caused him to loose his balance and stumble to the ground, "This guy!"
Platinum chuckled as the deer marched past him a smug but, at least to Platinum, ultimately cute look on his face. The unicorn let out a small snicker as he followed after him.
"So your special talent is to turn things into platinum?" Johan asked looking at Platinum with a raised eyebrow as the two walked in the direction of quills and sofas. Johan did not want to go back to Mustang's Recliners.
"Yeah, I actually got my special talent when I accidentally turned the clothes my foster mom was wearing into a solid suit of platinum. They had to cut her out with an industrial saw, but we didn't really care. That suit made us rich." Platinum said before laughing. "Only problem is that if I do it too much I end up devaluing platinum and crashing the Equestrian Economy."
"Oh. So is it kinda like King Midas's touch?" Johan asked as the two passed through town center. It was, like the rest of town, empty.
"Who's touch?" Platinum raised an eyebrow.
"King Midas. He was a king who got cursed with the ability to turn anything he touched into gold. He got really sick of it afterwards." Johan said with a shrug. "Well... actually he turned his daughter into a solid golden statue but... ya know."
"Oh, do you mean King Morabas? Who was cursed by discord to have a golden touch?" Platinum asked in reply a raised eyebrow.
Johan stopped in his place and turned to Platinum slowly. "Morabas? As in the breed of horse?"
Platinum nodded.
"I fucking hate this place sometimes." Johan said with a sigh as they approached a bridge. Two ponies were standing on the bridge, a cream colored earth pony with deep blue and pink hair, and a unicorn he recognized, which instantly gave him a headache.
"Oh hey Johan! How's it... going..." Lyra said with a wave. She had a smile on her face, which instantly vanished when she saw who Johan was with. It was instantly replaced by a look of fear.
Johan raised an eyebrow as the two mares screamed and latched onto each other shaking in fear. "Um uhh... are you too ok?" he asked as he stepped onto the bridge and approached them.
"N-no! Stay away!" The two cried before, they rose onto their back legs and threw themselves off the bridge into the slow moving creek below them.
Johan blinked a couple times, watching as they rapidly swam away.
The deer turned his eyes to Platinum who just had a blank look on his face.
"W-what was that about?" Johan asked. The unicorn sighed and turned trodding off the bridge towards the store they were going.
"I think it's pretty obvious that it was about me." Platinum said as the walked ahead, Johan quickly ran up to catch him. "Thus is the life of an ex-villain in Derek's world. There is no such thing as redemption anymore, only the villains who were beaten by him and disappeared, or the villains who swear eternal revenge."
An awkward silence dominated the two, before Johan turned to him and gulped. "S-so uhhh why did you give up villany?"
Platinum sighed. "I guess... I was just sick of being hated. Big difference it made."
Johan looked away and the silence returned.
"W-why did you become a villain in the first place? Maybe if that got out, it might help fix your reputation?" Johan asked.
Platinum sighed. "To be honest. I was never really a villain. I suppose the proper term for me was extremist vigilante. I didn't go around robbing banks or killing the innocent or anything like that."
"W-what did you do?" Johan asked the unicorn. The unicorn straightened up.
"I killed jackasses. Corrupt politicians, rich scummy tycoons, people like that." Platinum said, a slight smirk coming to his face.
"A-are you a communist?" Johan asked nervously.
"Communist? Oh god no. As if someone like me can be a communist. Nah if a rich person pays their taxes and gives to charity and does nice stuff like that, I don't have any trouble with them." Platinum said stretching his back. "Guys like Filthy Rich are also harmless. Sure they are rich but they don't hurt anyone. His wife's a bitch though."
The unicorn's smiled widened as a dark smirk came to his face. "I went for no holds barred dicks. Like this one guy who bought an entire town and tried to bulldoze it to the ground so he could mine under it for gold. I kicked that bastard into a vat of molten gold. It was fun."
"S-sounds like you liked doing." Johan said with a gulp.
This only lead to Platinum letting out another sigh.
"I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, really I did. And hey, I did save that village, but as time went on, people only grew to hate me. They didn't know why I was killing the rich and politicians around Equestria, only that I was doing it. I was plastered as an insane villainous mass murderer. Then Derek showed up."
Platinum's eye twitched with anger. "The first time we fought, we did so in the center of a crowded city. Our fight brought down more than a couple skyscraper, which ruined my reputation even more. The second fight was far worse. We leveled an entire town in that one. I tried to pay the residents to rebuild afterwards, but instead they chased me out claiming they didn't want my 'stolen' money. The third fight was when I snapped. Literally."
Platinum stopped in place and sat on his haunches, holding his fore-hooves in font of him and balling them into fists. "I got so mad at him that battle that I just plain bum rushed him and snapped his arm. I mean, he totally deserved it right?"
"Oh most definitely." Johan said with a nod.
"Yeah, but... after that I just... I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't put up with the fighting, and the hatred and the fear. So I resolved to put up my villain hat and... I'm trying to be better but I don't think it matters anymore ya know?" Platinum said with a sigh, lowering his head rather shamefully.
Johan approached the unicorn and put a hoof on his shoulder. "You know what? It means a ton to me at least. Thank you for all the help you've given me. Really."
Platinum looked up at the deer. A smile came to his face too. "You're welcome."
There was another pause.
"Wanna help me pick out some furniture?"
"Yep!"