//------------------------------//
// Ch.7 Control 
// Story: Friendship: the Gathering 
// by Arcanum -Phantasy 
//------------------------------//

It was a bright and sunny day in Ponyville, the rustic town full of the usual sounds one would normally hear in a place so full of life. Stall owners sold their wears to anypony interested or with bits to spare in the town market. Inns, restaurants, taverns, and cafés were offered their own brands of mirth to whoever could afford their services. Only a small handful of public buildings were voided of the town's noise. The fact that one of these was not a building to begin with was just as interesting as it was hilarious.
Set a fair distance from the buildings and homes that surrounded it, the Golden Oaks Library stood tall and proud. Unlike its neighbors, the library was not a normal building, but a literal treehouse. A red door was built into the tree's massive trunk along with a few small windows placed further up. A few balconies could be seen in the gaps between the branches and leaves of its thick canopy. Standing by the door was a simple sign showing an open book, the only clue as to the nature of the building.
Upon entry, one would be greeted by dozens of rows of book aisles, a few tables to study by, and multiple nooks built into the living walls to house tomes that didn't fit in with the sections owned by the aisles. Unavailable to the public, the second floor served as the residential area to for the building's owner and her trusted draconic assistant. Said pair sat at a wide table in their dining room with their five friends. 
An awkward silence filled the room, each of them locked into it in their own unique ways.
Twilight massaged the bridge of her muzzle, eyes closed in the face of a slowly growing migraine settling below her horn. Pinkie gave Rainbow a soft glare over her glass of juice, said mare nervously looking away from her while rubbing her still bandaged leg under the table. Applejack gave Rarity a flat stare, leaving the mare sheepishly staring into her cup of tea while she mixed it with a spoon. Fluttershy sat quietly in her seat, softly smiling at her own cup with a thousand-yard stare and a small blush.
This held for a few more minutes, before Rainbow finally broke the silence.
"I get it! I was stupid, okay?!" she groaned, crossing her arms and looking away from her glowering friend.
"That's puttin' it a mite mildly," Applejack deadpanned, taking a sip from a mug of coffee.
"I told you we worked it out," Pinkie sighed, disappointment creeping into her glare.
"I know," she groaned, frustratingly running her hands through her messy mane. "I just...when you said he pulled a knife on you, I just blanked-out that part."
Everypony, sans Fluttershy, let out tired groans at that.
"Ah can't really blame ya' for gettin' rilled up," Applejack sighed. "Ah probably would've done the same if'n Ah'd heard somepony did somethin' like that, too."
"So, after you attacked him, he cut up your leg?" Spike asked, stepping into the room with a platter of sandwiches.
"No," she grumbled. "His cat did that."
"His...cat?" Rarity blinked.
"You didn't see it?" Rainbow asked, brows up and eyes wide.
"No, I'm afraid not," Rarity frowned, eyeing her friend's leg with a bit of trepidation.
"Ah think Ah saw it," Applejack mused, scratching her chin in thought. 
Pinkie nodded, surprise clear on her face as she studied her friend's leg. 
Twilight and Spike shrugged, struggling to remember if they had seen the creature in question.
"How could you all miss it!" Rainbow cried. "It was a giant ball of fluff, claws, and teeth! If Anon hadn't called it off, I'm sure that monster would've taken my leg off!"
"Jinx is not a monster!" Fluttershy frowned, suddenly snapped out of her trance by her friend's outburst. "He is a good and lovable kitty that cares about his friend."
Everypony blinked at that, not used to getting such a fiery reaction out of the mare.
"B-B-But! I mean, c'mon Flutters! Look what he did to my leg!" Rainbow sputtered, gesturing to the limb in question.
"Well, you did try to attack his owner," Spike frowned, taking a sandwich off of the platter before setting it onto the table.
"Yeah..." she sighed. "The guy's pretty cool too, so I feel even worse about it. Probably should've asked the cat to take a few more swings at me on the way out."
"I know how you feel," Rarity frowned, staring into her cup. "Honestly, how much more of a heel could I be? After being so accommodating to me, what do I do? Insult all of the work he put into his home. I am honestly surprised he was so civil with me."
"Ah keep tellin' ya' not to run your mouth off," Applejack deadpanned, grabbing a sandwich. 
"Hopefully we didn't leave too much of a bad impression on him," Twilight sighed. "The last thing we want to do is scare him into becoming a hermit."
"Ah don't know, twi," Applejack sighed. "The fella seemed pretty guarded when I met him. He's probably a bit of a hermit already."
"I don't think so," Pinkie smiled, stuffing three sandwiches into her mouth. 
"What do you mean, darling?" Rarity asked, cringing a bit at her friend's poor manners.
Gulping down her mouthful, she continued.
"Well, when I visited him, I said I'd throw him a welcome party, but he told me not to. When I asked him why not, he told me that he didn't like big crowds."
"And that proves he isn't a hermit, how?" Rainbow asked.
"Duuuuuuh, Dashie!" she merrily continued. "That means he likes small groups!"
Struggling to follow, the prismatic-maned mare gestured for her to elaborate further.
Pinkie rolled her eyes and pointed at Fluttershy and Twilight.
"He's like them!"
"Huh!?" the group exclaimed.
"I...don't know how I'm supposed to take that," Twilight blinked.
Fluttershy looked equally confused. 
"I think I get what she's trying to say," Spike nodded, giving Twilight a knowing side-eye. "You're saying that he just likes to be alone a lot."
"Or with ponies he can trust," Pinkie nodded, crossing her arms with a satisfied smirk.
Twilight thought on that for a moment, then face-palmed with a groan when the answer came to her.
"He's an introvert," she mumbled.
"A what?" Rainbow blinked.
"An introvert," she repeated, letting her hand fall to her side. "They are ponies that tend to shy away from large social gatherings or situations that require interacting with a lot of people."
"So an almost-hermit?" Rainbow asked.
Pinkie let out a small giggle at that while the rest of the table gave her flat looks.
"They also tend to shy away from overly flashy or loud events," she continued. "Combine that with being in a radically unfamiliar environment, it's no surprise that he would feel the need to defend himself."
"So he wouldn't like it if something really big happened," Spike mused, then gulped as he nervously asked, "Like....meeting a princess?"
Twilight froze, a look of horrified realization slowly crossing her paling face.
"Girls! We've got to move!" she cried jumping to her feet and running towards the door. 
The rest of the group wasn't that far behind her, confusion and worry clear on their faces while they kept pace. As she started running down the street in the direction of Anon's house, a single thought echoed in her skull.
Oh please tell me we're not too late!


***


If there was one thing Anon took pride in, it was his sense of introspection. It was one of the few things that helped him keep his sanity back on Earth. He knew who he was and what he didn't want to be. He knew what he could do if pushed and tried to avoid anything that could lead to that. He understood his emotions and like a wild beast under his care, kept them tamed and under strict control.
As such, while he laid on his living room couch idly petting his cat, he was at a loss over the events of the day before. For a fleeting moment, Fluttershy had introduced him to an emotion that he had never felt before. One that he wasn't sure if he liked or not. That put him on edge. One thing he knew from his past life was that new wasn't always good, a fact that added to the caution he felt about his situation as a whole. 
He didn't trust them, but he also didn't have any real reason to dislike the mares he had met the last few days. Well, he had a few reasons to hold a grudge towards Rainbow and Rarity, but he felt that he had mostly worked things out with them. If nothing else, he felt that he could be at least civil with them if they ever met again. He could be friendly with the rest, but that was as far as he was willing to get with them. Once he was sure that there was no funny business going on, then he would consider changing that. Until then, he was definitely going to be carrying more knives when he left the house. As for Fluttershy in particular? He knew that his best option was to avoid her; at least until he could figure out what his odd feeling was.
"It's always one thing after the other," he sighed, "Is a nice quiet life too much to ask for?"
Jinx gave him a grumbling mew, his purring almost rattling his human's ribs. Anon chuckled at that, rolling his eyes as he plucked an open bottle of beer off of the coffee table. As he took a long pull from the bottle, he tried for the thousandth time to figure out what Fluttershy did to him. 
The late afternoon they spent together had been relatively mundane.
After his card lecture, the two of them spent the whole time getting to know each other. He learned that she had a real knack for working with animals. A knack that apparently worked from the smallest mouse to the largest manticore. Knowing that those existed only added to his need to find a better weapon in the future. She also revealed that she and her friends were each bearers of ancient magical artifacts called the Elements of Harmony. Apparently, Rainbow held loyalty, Rarity held generosity, Applejack held honesty, Pinkie held laughter, Fluttershy held kindness, and Twilight held magic. She didn't appreciate him laughing when she mentioned Rarity's element, insisting that he simply caught her on a bad day. Taking her word for it, he let the topic drop in favor of more pleasant subjects. 
Off and on throughout the meeting, he kept getting hit with small doses of that odd feeling, especially when their eyes would meet. 
When it was over, he gently guided her out of the door and went to bed early for the night. Much like he was at the moment, his mind refused to let him rest on the matter. Now, there he laid, functioning on only two hours of sleep getting a chest massage by his purring guard-cat and trying to put this mystery to rest.
After what felt like an hour of metaphorically banging his head against a wall, quick knock at the door pulled him out of his thoughts. Grumbling under his breath, he gently pushed off his cat and made his way towards the door.
"Wonder who it is this time?" he sighed, grabbing the doorknob.
What he saw when he opened the door froze him in place.
Standing just an inch shorter than him was a snow white mare with a flowing mane. Said mane looked as if it was made of a mix of light and hair that shined in a sifting aurora of blue, pink, purple, and green that waved behind her in an unfelt breeze. A golden ornate dress framed her elegant hourglass figure, molding to her frame like a curtain of pure melted metal.  A matching crown and pendant completed the look, both sporting a large amethyst cut into a diamond shape at their hearts. Her lavender eyes and smile held a welcoming warmth, but were largely ignored by the human that stood before her. Instead, his focus was firmly locked onto her long horn, large wings, and the small group of white-coated, gold armored guards that stood beside and behind her. Each of them from a different tribe. Each of them holding a spear or had a sword sheathed on their hip. Each turning his blood into ice.
Before the royal pony could say anything, he slammed the door shut, grabbed his cat, and ran further into his house.
"I knew it! Fucking knew it!" he whisper yelled as he ran into his bedroom.
Locking the door and shoving a dresser in front of it, he ran to the rug at the middle of the room.
"Please be there, please be there, please be there," he quickly muttered to himself as he folded the rug in half.
Doing so revealed a small trapdoor.
When he opened it to reveal a staircase, he let out a relieved breath, leaned the rug against the door, and closed it on the way down, hiding it from view. Cat still in hand, he raced down the stairs, the action activating several motion lights to reveal an underground hallway. At the end, a steel door with a code lock came into view. The second he reached it, he quickly punched in the code, waited for a mechanical beep and click, then pulled the door open and ran into the room beyond.
The second the door locked shut behind him, a series of long lights set into the ceiling flickered into life. The room in question was a massive one-hundred-by-one-hundred foot steel cube. One half of the room was dominated by large plastic totes filled with enough food and water to last both of them at least two years. The other half of the room had a table, desktop computer, a large gas-powered generator, and a wall with a wide variety of knives on display.
Setting Jinx down, he flicked on the generator and then turned on the computer. While he waited for it to boot-up, he scanned through his knife collection for four blades in particular.
"C'mon, c'mon, please tell me I didn't leave them up- Ah! Here they are!"
Sporting a relieved smile, he pulled four ornate knives off of the wall. Instead of metal blades, they had a massive curved obsidian fang set into their handles. Said handles were made of bone with a grip made of snake skin. 
"These probably won't help much, but they're going to have to do."
Sliding them under his belt, he ran back to the computer. 
On the screen, eight windows from eight security cameras showed him what was going on. Four screens showed that there were guards at all four sides outside of his house, while the remaining three showed that the kitchen, living room, study, and bedroom had at least one guard checking them out. What none of them showed him was were the royal was. Prows furrowed, he made the cameras pan around to give him a better look at the rooms and perimeter of his house, but she refused to come into view.
"Where is she?" he mumbled, frantically checking the cameras. "Did she leave her guards to get back up? Does she see me as that much of a threat? No, she probably would've sent a Pegasus guard to do that."
"Indeed," a female voice agreed.
From behind him.
From very close behind him.
Slowly, he turned around.
Standing about five feet away from him, cradling his cat like a large fluffy newborn, was the royal. Ice ran through his veins as his hands shot to his daggers. Before he could draw them, a golden aura surrounded his body and locked it in place.
SHIT!
"No need for that," she smiled, lightly scratching Jinx behind his ears.
Anon sighed, slumping in the royal's arcane grip as a defeated agreement echoed through his head.
Welp, I'm f-ed.


***


To say Anon was nervous was an understatement of titanic proportions.
After he was basically dragged out of his panic room, he was quickly made to take a seat at his dining room table by a couple of guards the second he was free from her magic. That didn't surprise him all that much. What did was how the guards actively avoided touching his daggers. In fact, they seemed legitimately scared of them, doubly so when it came to the Unicorns. He quickly filed that away when the royal took a seat across from him, still smiling and petting his loudly purring housemate.
The two sat in stiff silence, a ring of guards sternly watching them from a safe distance from all sides of the room. He could already imagine what kind of experiments she had in mind for him. If what his previous guests said was true, than most things in this world had some kind of magic to keep them safe from most things. She was probably going to see what he was resistant to. Lords knew what she would want to test first. She'd probably want to dissect him too at some point. Worse yet, she'd probably want to keep him as some sort of exotic pet that she could show off to whoever came to visit.
I should've known better, he thought, a bitter lump forming in his throat. 
"You're name is Anon, correct?" the royal asked.
Keeping a few bitter words locked behind a clenched jaw, he nodded.
Her smile softened, then with a small bow of her head, said, "A pleasure to finally meet you. I am Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria and Princess of the Sun."
"Nice to meet you," he tersely replied. 
Her smile wilted a bit, taken aback slightly by the man's abrasive attitude. The guards in the room tensed at his tone, some looking to be a step away from drawing their weapons. Anon didn't care. He knew that he was done, no matter what he said or did.
"I take it one of the mares told you about me," he frowned, leaning back in his chair. "Can I at least know who?"
"Why would you need to know that?" she asked, a cautious edge entering her tone.
"Well, I'd like to know who I'm gonna haunt after you do whatever to me," he sighed. "I'd think I deserve at least that much."
"What?" she blinked.
"Gotta say," he continued, looking around his kitchen with a rueful smile. "It's kind've flattering that you think I'm such a big threat that you brought all of these guards with you. Two or three probably would've been enough, but this is almost overkill. Just that one Unicorn could probably blow me up with a single fireball or whatever else she's got in her spell slots."
As he said that, he pointed to a nearby Unicorn guard to his left.
The guard in question looked just as horrified as Celestia felt by his assessment, taking a step back.
"I-I-I would never," the guardsmare sputtered. "I'm a field medic!"
"Oh, sorry," he sighed, giving her an apologetic smile before dropping it when he shifted his focus back towards Celestia. "Hell, I'm pretty sure you could do a million different things to me all on your own. So, let's cut the crap and tell me what you plan to do to me."
The guards gasped, none of them sure what to make of this odd situation. Never before had they heard anyone speak to their ruler in such a manner. Celestia was equally surprised, not just by the way he was treating her, but just how different he was acting compared to how Twilight described him in her letter. While she did write that he could be a bit gruff, she also stated that he was relatively friendly once he got to know her. A far cry from the cynical and paranoid being sitting before her now.
Did I do something wrong?
"Well," she started. "I first would like to formally welcome you to Equestria."
A bit late for that, he thought, bitterly.
"Next, I wanted to see if what my student said about you is true."
"Like what?" he asked, raising a brow.
"She said that you come from a world without magic," she replied, a hint of intrigue coloring her tone. "That instead, your kind uses technology."
He nodded.
"I don't know if Ponies have the same thing, but that panic room was the best example I can give you."
"We do have something similar," she nodded. "Though ours lacks an active armory."
"Never hurts to be prepared," he shrugged.
"Indeed," she frowned, eyeing his daggers. "Care to explain where you got those?"
He stared down at the daggers and a soft smile graced his lips.
"Keepsakes from my grandmother. Said she used them to ward off a curse some twit tried to stick on her. I'd usually keep one on me as a good luck charm, but I guess I left them in the panic room to keep them safe at some point."
"I see," she nodded. "I would highly recommend that you keep them down there."
"I was going to anyway," he frowned. "Why?"
"I do not know what kind of magic was used to craft them, but it is clear to me that those daggers hold a great power," she stated, a cautious glint in her eyes as she stared at the weapons. "Until the nature of that power can be revealed, I suggest keeping them hidden."
Wait, the've actually got magic in them? Guess grandma's rituals worked after all.
"Got it," he nodded, then asked, "If these are that dangerous, how come you're not trying to take them from me?"
"Simple," she giggled. "They won't let me."
"Huh?"
Waving off his confusion, a more professional air surrounded her.
"While we are on the topic, why do you have so many weapons stored beneath your house?"
"My world isn't a very safe place," he sighed. "When things get bad, they get really bad. After I retired from the... family business, I stored all of my best knives down there in case things got that bad. I'll go down there every now and then to check on my supplies or sharpen a few blades, but that's about it."
"You never bring any of them out of the room?" she pressed.
"I might toss out some bad food or bring up some knives for when I go hunting, but that's about it."
"That is....understandable," she allowed. "But I must ask; what kind of job would require the need for so many blades?"
Anon's expression darkened, his gray eyes falling to the ground with a deep hint of shame.
"My family called me a Professional," he spat. "And with all due respect, your highness, I'd like to drop it there."
Nodding in understanding, she granted his request in favor of a less grim topic.
Before she could voice any other inquiries, the front door burst open and six familiar mares frantically ran in. A loud racket filled the air as guards tried to keep Twilight and her friends from rushing into the dining room. Celestia watched the struggle with a small smile while Anon fell further into his seat with a groan.
It looked more and more like a quiet and peaceful life was just not in the cards for him.