Human

by DannyJ

Chapter 27: The Unholy Trinity.

"TO THE SOLDIER!" Second screamed into the air.

"THE CIVILIAN!" First responded.

"THE MARTYR!"

"THE VICTIM!"

They joined in unison for the next line.

"THIS...IS...WAR!"

Just in front of them, dozens of royal guards charged in. The earth ponies carried swords, maces and javelins with their mouths, the pegasi flew above shooting at them with ranged weapons, be it arrows or crossbow bolts, and the unicorns were all launching heavy objects their way.

The two humans almost unconsciously leapt aside and twisted mid-air to avoid all the projectiles, and rolled across the floor to land next to each other again.

"IT'S THE MOMENT OF TRUTH AND THE MOMENT TO LIE!" Second yelled as he pulled back his hands.

"THE MOMENT TO LIVE, AND THE MOMENT TO DIE!" his son continued

The soldiers backed away as a ball of dust and sand began to swirl around between the older human's hands.

"THE MOMENT TO FIGHT!"

"THE MOMENT TO FIGHT!"

"TO FIGHT!"

"TO FIGHT!"

"TO FIGHT!"

On the last word, Second threw his hands forward and released a tornado. The ponies all screamed in fear as a whirlwind ripped down the streets of Canterlot, tearing up the pavement and stripping nearby structures of their paint. Trees planted by the roadside lost their leaves, and stray bricks and shards of glass that came off the weaker buildings shot through the air and hit soldiers left and right.

The unlucky ones got bricked in the face and fell unconscious, getting caught up in the storm and pulled into the chaos. Others had the good fortune to merely be pelted with flying debris in armoured places, and were able to escape to safety, either running into alleyways, or flying away if they were blessed with wings.

As the storm cleared, Second and First still stood exactly where they were before. The music that had been accompanying their singing was still playing in the background, only now with a different voice to be put to it. Second had stopped, and was instead clutching his chest and laughing.

"Harsh," First commented.

"Hahaha! Harsh, but fair!" his father responded, "They step up their game, so do we."

"To the edge! Of the Earth!" the other voice continued, "It's a brave new-"

The voice and the accompanying music was silenced as First pulled a little black square thing out of his pocket and tapped it with a thumb.

"I'm bored," said Second, "Let's see if there are any cafes around here. If they want to run away screaming again we'll just take whatever we want and leave the money on the counter. I'm tired of walking into restaurants full of food and still walking out hungry..."

They began to head back down the street they just came from, when First saw something out the corner of his eye.

"Hey, look! It's best pony."

"Celestia? Where?"

First slapped his father around the head.

"Fluttershy."

Just as he said, the familiar pegasus flew in above them and landed right in front of the two. Second and First looked to each other briefly, First with a shrug of confusion and Second with a very slight smile tugging the corner of his lips.

"Stop right there!" Fluttershy ordered, raising her voice almost to the point it was the volume of a normal pony's, "You will stop hurting ponies right now! How dare you do all this?!"

"Oh, look who's growing a spine!" Second taunted, "Watchu gonna do to me? I can shoot lasers! From my hands!"

Fluttershy's eyes homed in on Second's, boring into him as she gave the most fierce stare of her life.

"No. More. Violence."

Second buckled under the strain on it, and began clutching his head as if in pain. First looked to him in surprise as he heard the man wracked with sobs.

"No! Please!" he begged, "Stop it! I'm sorry! Please stop..."

Fluttershy eased up, and gave him a look of sympathy. Second was balled up on the floor helplessly, and First just looked on in horror. She trotted slowly towards him, and lifted a hoof to pat him on the back.

"There now-"

"PSYCH!"

Once she was in range, the human grabbed her by the throat and stood up again.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I GOT YOU MY FIST!"

First was still staring in horror, this time as his father punched Fluttershy in the stomach eight times before dropping her onto the floor. She didn't cry, but she was gasping for breath. So was Second, actually, because he had broken out into maniacal laughter.

"BAHAHAHAHAHEHEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHA!" he giggled, "Oh lawdy, that was the best! Don't you just love it when you subvert expectations?"

"...Dad. You just punched Fluttershy in the stomach. Repeatedly."

"I KNOW RIGHT?!"

"That's kinda fucked up."

"Language, boy. This is a kid's show."

Twilight and her friends were barely standing before their altar for a moment before a large purple claw snatched them all up and mashed them into the dragon's cheek. Tears ran down Spike's face as he held them close to himself, while the ponies wriggled about in his grasp trying to get into a more comfortable position.

He soon realised his mistake and pulled them back, holding his palm open instead and just letting them stand on it. He brought them up to his eye level.

"...Sorry...I just...I can't believe it's really you...All these years, and I've been so..."

Spike held them up to his face again, gently this time.

"I've missed you all so much."

Twilight nuzzled his cheek.

"We've missed you too, Spike," she said softly.

The others had a mixture of reactions. Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy also returned the affectionate gestures, while Rainbow and Applejack, neither being quite as touchy-feely, just sort of stayed at the back and smiled at him.

"I did what you said to. I kept saving ponies. I kept being a hero. I always remembered what you taught me. And the other dragons...I think they turned out good. Thanks to you guys."

"Aw, we didn't do anything. That was your good work, big guy," Rainbow Dash replied as she flew up in front of his nose.

As the dragon and the ponies continued to smile at each other, a different group of ponies on the ground just stared in bewilderment.

"...What the fuck is going on?" asked Gold Coin, "I'm so lost..."

"Come on, you slackers! Get back to work!"

The pony who Second had chosen as the foreman (forepony?) of his project continued to bark orders at the rest of the construction crew below, as he and Silver passed by him on the walkway. They were on the very edge of what appeared to be a giant silo.

Above them an open roof revealed the blue sky of day, and several vehicles parked on the edge of silo's top, along with cranes lowering materials down to the workers inside. At the bottom of the great pit, a giant steel cube was surrounded by many much smaller parts that seemed to be pieces of a more complex mechanism yet to be built.

Second looked down over the railing at it grimly. Silver sat next to him, also looking down at the same thing, but she had no idea what exactly it was, or what the significance was. Second's plan was as much a mystery to her as anything else he did.

"...You know," the human said nostalgically, "I remember a time...it was so long ago now...where I was just another guy. I'd wake up in the morning, roll over in the bed and swat at the alarm clock as it woke me up, and then my wife would lean over and get it for me. She'd get out of bed first and go take her morning shower, and I'd just lay there another half hour, trying to put off getting up, because I didn't feel like going to work that day. But I always ultimately did, because I needed the money..."

He looked at his melted ring.

"...And now, I am literally a cartoon supervillain. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN AGAIN?!"

Spike's hogging of the six mares didn't last forever. He eventually let them all go to speak to the others. Now he laid on his belly on the other side of the mountain, conversing with just Rarity alone.

"Oh, I am so sorry to hear, darling..." she said sympathetically.

"It's okay. Feynsetafiirre always was a problem child. I can't really say he surprised me. I tried to raise him right. I tried so hard..."

The unicorn spirit stroked the tip of his nose with a hoof.

"I know you did, Spike. Sometimes these things can't be helped, but you simply can't blame yourself just because one of them turned out such a brute. Besides, eighteen out of nineteen isn't bad..."

Spike just smiled at her.

"I think I have something in my eye. Both of them."

Twilight meanwhile was enjoying a reunion with her old mentor, Princess Celestia, who just like the old dragon had been crying her eyes out. She attempted to maintain her composure, but it just wasn't working. Though, these were tears of joy, and she felt no shame in that.

"I'm so glad to see you again, dear Twilight. It's been many long years since I saw you. Far too long. And you don't a day older than when I sent you off to Ponyville..."

Twilight chuckled.

"That's what happens with us mortals. Roughly a hundred years or so growing and aging, and then we die and snap back decades. I couldn't begin to tell you how good it felt to be able to walk without a stick again!"

"I'm just so glad I found you here!" she said, "After I went to the afterlife, and First told me you weren't there-"

"Oh. First."

That was Rainbow Dash butting into the conversation. She landed next to the two, and rolled her eyes with irritation.

"Don't get me started on First," she ranted, "That had to have been the worst day of my life, or...unlife...when I arrived in what was supposed to be pony heaven, and found it was being ran by one of the bad guys that we thought we'd defeated! Then there was the mind control, and the torture pits, and the-"

"Wait. What?!" Celestia demanded, "Torture?! When did this happen?"

"First keeps the ponies he deems to be wicked and beyond redemption out of the regular realms of the afterlife," Twilight explained, "He likes to think himself a god, passing judgement on evil. If he thinks they deserve it, he throws ponies into this netherworld he created, where they all experience their own personal hell. Forever."

The alicorn's mouth hung open.

"He...I can't believe it..." she muttered, "He never mentioned anything like that when I was with him..."

"Well he wouldn't do," Rainbow Dash replied, "because he's a liar. Like all humans are. Did you really think he'd tell you the truth if he thought you wouldn't do what he told you to?"

"Yeah," Twilight agreed, "And he seemed to completely miss the irony of him of all beings passing judgement on evil. He's not the most virtuous soul himself, and that hasn't changed in the past thousand years. Trust us, we know."

"That's why we all refused to stay there," Rainbow continued, "We didn't want to have First ruling over us, especially knowing what he can do. We couldn't beat him though. Not even attack him in his realm. He's all-powerful there, like Discord times a million. We could only do what he'd let us. And the most he'd allow was for us to all leave together and live as ghosts down here."

"So we became mentors to the Harmonites. They needed our wisdom, and we needed a permanent home. Not many places for a ghost to live in Equestria."

"I haunted my gigantic memorial for a while, playing pranks on the ponies living near it, but it just wasn't the same. Got too old too quick."

"And I went on a tour of the major libraries of Equestria. I eventually read everything ever, and then I had the same problem as Dash."

Celestia had become somewhat melancholy.

"Why didn't you come to visit me?" she asked, "Or Spike? Or any of your children or other family? You must have known that we were all grieving for you..."

"We all left the afterlife together. As one. Sure, you were all still mourning Applejack at the time, but the rest of us had all been dead for a number of years, and everypony had already moved on. We didn't think it'd be good to upset that, and open up old wounds. Besides, we did come see you a few times, to see how you were doing. Just...invisibly."

The princess smiled.

"Really though, it all comes down to Dramatic Convenience."

The smile was dropped immediately.

"You know about that?"

"First explained it to all of us when we initially showed up, so yes, we do know. It was disconcerting, definitely, but no worse than the revelations about First himself. And because it was still acting on us to stop us seeing you, we pretty much guessed that the Eclipse Crisis wasn't the last tale ever told about Equestria..."

As the two ponies explained the situation to Celestia, Luna was busy introducing Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie to the living ponies.

"And this here is Explodey McGee," said Luna, feeling strange just saying the name, "He's some kind of pony-shaped sludge monster, and likely our element of laughter."

Pinkie trotted up to Explodey, and she pulled a magnifying glass out from nowhere to begin examining the unicorn closely. She walked in circles around him, occasionally summoning other tools from some unseen pocket dimension to better scrutinise her target. At one point she lifted one of his forelegs and took a tape measure to his hooves to see how large they were, and after that she obtained an otoscope to look inside his ear.

Once she finished, she backed away and squinted at him, like she was trying to read a book that was on the other side of the room, and rubbed her chin.

"Hmmm..." she mumbled suspiciously, "You don't seem like you're full of laughter..."

She grabbed him by the shoulders and loomed over him, staring into his soul.

"What's your deal, Mr. McGee?" she whispered, "IF THAT IS YOUR REAL NAME!"

Explodey for his part seemed undisturbed by this.

"The doctors said that I'm an abomination," he explained cheerfully, smiling at her even as she glared at him, "I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. I just follow my friends around and try not to think too hard about the many horrors I witness and participate in on a daily basis."

Pinkie continued to eye him suspiciously for a moment, before breaking into a huge grin as well.

"Okie dokey! Just checkin'!"

"...And this is Gold Coin," Luna continued, ignoring the strangeness that just occured, "He's from the modern day Apple family, and helps run the financial side of things. He's also the element of generosity."

"Ah know who he is," Applejack responded, "Ah've always followed what became of my family."

She looked her great great great etc. grandson in the eyes.

"And...Gold Coin?" she said quietly.

"...Yes?"

Unexpectedly, the ghostly mare twisted around and bucked him right in the nose, knocking him onto his back and leaving him laying in the snow.

"AGH!" he wailed, "YOU FUCKING KICKED ME!"

Applejack stood over him, giving him a stern look.

"That's fer joinin' the Brotherhood of Man, ya stupid pony!" she yelled, "And Ah'd do the same to every one of the family before you who made the same mistake if Ah could!"

Her expression softened as the groaning stallion pulled himself up again.

"Though, credit where credit is due. Good on ya fer being the first one to leave it."

His eyes were watering as he looked back at her again, wiping blood off his nose.

"Thank you," he said venomously.

Luna again tried to ignore how oddly that encounter went, and tried to move on and introduce the others.

"...And this dark mare here is-"

"SUNNY," Sliske interrupted, "My name is Sunny. I'm a unicorn. Possibly the element of magic. Not an evil alien mind parasite at all. In fact, nopony is! Aliens are made up!"

The three ghosts looked to each other for a second, and all shrugged. Luna on the other hoof was growing increasingly more uncomfortable with the responses.

"...The stallion in the power armour is Soft Spoken."

"Pleasure," Softy greeted, holding out a hoof to the others.

They all shook it one after the other.

"Um, nice to meet you too..." whispered Fluttershy.

"Howdy."

"You remind me of Big Mac when he got older!"

"I don't know who that is, but thank you," Softy replied.

"Wow. That was surprisingly normal," Luna commented, "And this here is Canterlot's very own Captain Chain Mail, current head of the royal guard. Basically, the new Shining Armor."

"Please, your majesty."

Being compared to Shining Armor was a little excessive, in the captain's opinion. After all, Captain Armor had married into royalty and led Equestria to victory in several of the greatest wars in its history. Chain Mail was relatively new to the job, and had no such accomplishments to his name.

Unless this whole element of harmony thing could be counted in his military record?

"Can you make a giant, city-sized shield?" asked Pinkie.

"Well...no..."

"Shining Armor could make a giant shield. It was all purple and really cool and stuff, but it kept getting smashed by armies and supervillains."

"I can explode and regenerate!" Explodey boasted, "Chains, do you have a superpower?"

"...I can...survive without oxygen..." he said lamely.

"Well most of us here can do that," Luna pointed out, "Captain, if I were you, I'd think long and hard about getting yourself better superpowers if you want to fit in here."

"What?! But what about Gold Coin?! He's not got any powers either! He's not even a cyborg!"

"Correction, my friend. I do have a super power. It's called, being Gold Coin. It works by me being my usual awesome self and fighting alicorns and humans, sometimes with just my bare hooves, and winning through sheer determination alone. I am the Batmare of this team, while you are a B-lister nopony cares about."

"I thought you won those fights through sheer retarded luck?"

"You take that back!"

Gold Coin leapt at Chain Mail and they both tumbled to the floor and began fighting in the snow. Luna, the three ghosts and the rest of the living beings present all watched silently as the fight spiralled out of control, eventually ending with the two of them trapped in a giant sphere of snow that rolled over the edge of the platform and tumbled down the mountain.

"Sir, I really need to talk to you-" Silver began.

"Not. Now. Silver."

The pegasus stared incredulously at Lord Second as he kicked open another door and entered an empty but still lit lab, full of test tubes and other chemistry equipment, and began rifling through papers on the desk.

They had left the silo just a short while ago to begin wandering the underground science complex, one of many other properties ran by the Mages' Guild. Unlike most of their other research and development centres, this place looked like the inside of a submarine, with its many grey walls and metal doors. Some of them even had those weird wheel handles for no reason.

"Why won't you let me tell you this?!" Silver shouted, "I've been trying to confess to you all day that I-"

"Silver, do you know what I've been doing all day?" Second said tonelessly, "I've been making preparations to nuke several major cities, in between which I am also growing a cornfield, constructing an elevator, and building a shrink ray. Do you know how I even BEGIN explaining to you why I'm doing all this?"

Admittedly, she really couldn't see why he'd need to do any of those things.

"I don't have time for you to tell me whatever, because I am working overtime to pull off nine hundred different multi-stage villainous schemes, at once no less, just to make sure that I'm still alive a few days from now. Do you want me to list everything I have to do in the next few days alone? I'll do it right now for you. Pay attention:

"One. I have to get back to Canterlot and fight whatever armada Celestia conjures up to lead against me, and raise my own army to counter it, which I haven't even begun to do yet. Two. I need to contact Celestia and let her know in advance about my plans for nuclear Armageddon so she can prevent it. Three, I have to construct and launch multiple nukes, which I am forced to do by the will of the Pantheon, as penance for defying them before.

"Three. I need to coordinate with Celestia and the heroes a way for me to take a direct blast from the elements of harmony themselves and survive it without getting stoned or banished or some other horrible fate like I suffered last time, and hope they don't betray me. Four. I need to deal with Explodey McGee somehow so that I don't get fucked over later on.

"Five. I need to execute Project Pandora and Project Beacon as part of my next major plan, and somehow reach and kill the Pantheon of B. Twice. First the fake versions of them in the meta movie within a meta movie. Then the less fake but still not the real them versions that exist within the regular meta movie.

"Six. I then need to use Pandora to reach my real aggressors, however many levels up the cosmic hierarchy they may go, and fuck them in the eye socket. Seven. I get the fuck out of this damn pony universe and go home, and the rest of you can all die in ignorance for all I care."

Second was holding up seven fingers. He quickly counted them all up.

"...Yes, I think that's everything."

He lowered his hands.

"And I've got maybe four days, tops, to do all that."

Silver blinked.

"So tell me then. Now that you've heard about my problems, what is it that's such a problem for you that I have to be bothered with it?"

"...Nothing, sir..." Silver said dejectedly, "I'll tell you later..."

Gold Coin grumbled as he limped into line with the rest of his friends, the brace around his neck irritating him with every step. Chain Mail stood next to him, lacking any such injuries himself thanks to the armour, and with a smug grin on his face reminding his friend of that every second.

"You okay there, buddy?" he asked, "I'm sorry for doing that to you. I know I must be such a...pain in the neck sometimes!"

Chain Mail received a death glare the likes of which are only ever spoken of in legend.

"You two! Cut it out!"

The two snapped to attention, as the ghostly apparition of Twilight Sparkle marched in front of them. The others minus Rarity all stood in a line as well, directly facing them. In the far corner of the room, the princesses were holding a discussion with the spiders about something.

"If you really need our help with reactivating the elements so badly," the mare continued, "that means we all need to work together. That also means no more bickering, from either of you. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Chain Mail replied mechanically, giving her a salute as he did.

Twilight put a hoof on her face.

"...I'm not a drill sergeant. You don't have to salute me."

"...Sorry."

"But Rainbow Dash is, so salute her."

"Wait, what?"

The mare in question immediately flew over above them and landed in front of the two, where she began pacing back and forth. Twilight quietly withdrew.

"Alright, boys! Listen up!" she announced, "From this point onwards, you're all soldiers in the army of Rainbow Dash, the most awesome army ever assembled, and we don't tolerate embarrassments here! So you're going to do what I say, when I say it, and not make mules of yourselves. Do you hear me?!"

"Not make...mules...of ourselves?" asked Softy.

"THAT'S RACIST!" Explodey shouted.

"Nopony cares, you damn mutant," Gold Coin responded.

Rainbow Dash knocked the yellow earth pony on the nose in response.

"Ow! That's still sore!"

"No trading insults! No talking out of line! And no more fighting either! We need to shape you up, and every time you act like idiots, it becomes harder and harder to reactivate the elements!"

"She's right," Twilight added, "Friendship by itself really isn't enough. There does have to be actual harmony between the bearers for the elements to work. Every time any of the six of you fight each other, you only make our job more difficult."

"Looks like we're fucked then," Gold Coin commented.

"Why are y'all so foul mouthed?" asked Applejack, "Nopony in our day ever talked like that."

"The world is full of assholes, and we need words to describe them."

"BE QUIET!" Twilight snapped.

The room fell into silence.

"Good. Honestly, some ponies..."

"Alright, everypony!" Rainbow Dash continued, "We've got a lotta work to do to unlock these elements, so let's not waste any time! We're all going to bunch up in groups to help you train. We'll keep up the training until an element unlocks. If we keep at it and get no results, you'll be given a different group to try and bring out a different element. All clear?"

The six living ponies nodded in unison.

"Okay, so let's begin! First of all, Soft Spoken! You're with Fluttershy."

Fluttershy meekly trotted over to the old stallion's side.

"Captain, you're with me and Applejack."

"Huh? Okay..."

"Mister...Explodey..." she paused momentarily to facehoof, "You get Pinkie Pie."

"Hooray!" said Pinkie.

"Hooray!" Explodey said at the exact same time.

"...Dear Celestia, there's two of them..." muttered Gold Coin.

"And Twilight is going to be with Mystic and Sliske."

The alien spluttered.

"Sliske?! I am not Sliske! My name is Sunny, and I-"

"Give it a rest," said Applejack, "We all know who ya are. An' you're a terrible liar."

Sliske's head drooped.

"Hey, what group am I in?" asked Gold Coin.

"You already have your element," Twilight pointed out, "I'm not sure how, given that you're the hardest to work with of the bunch, but that means that you and Rarity can both sit this one out."

"...Where even is Rarity?" asked Soft Spoken.

"And just a little more detail on the side, and...done!"

Spike smiled at the cliff face in front of him, and then looked up to Rarity standing on the edge of it in front of him.

"Come take a look."

Unaffected by conventional physics anymore, Rarity leapt off the cliff without a second thought and floated down gently to land on the great dragon's nose. She turned around to see what he had made, and recoiled at the sight.

"Is this...me?" she asked, turning to look back at him with an awkward smile on her face.

"Yeah. Do you like it?" Spike asked, as he crossed his eyes to look back at her.

It looked like a foal's drawing of a pony, except carved into rock with claws instead of drawn on paper.

"Spike, darling, in the interest in being honest with you, you're not an artist."

Spike frowned at her.

"Well, fine then. We'll start again on another cliff."

Silver so dearly wished that she knew exactly what was going on. Exploring the lower levels of the silo however, watching all the technicians performing unknown upgrades to the cube, she really had no idea. Second's plan was an enigma, and she was still trying to piece it together in her mind.

From behind her, she heard a familiar voice.

"...Talkin' shit about me, thinkin' I wouldn't know, so I went up to him and I was all like, 'nigga, you been spreadin' shit around? You been dissin' me behind my back?!' And then lil' punk bitch was all-"

Silver turned around just in time to see Thug Lyfe emerge from behind the cube, along with one of the scientists.

"Thug Lyfe? What are you doing here?"

The brainwashed zebra suddenly became a lot less confident and boastful, and lot more unnerved and submissive.

"I was...doin' my job. My nigga Second told me to be here. Told me I gotta help keep dis extra shit the scientists are doin' to the cube secret. From the Pantheon."

"...Extra? What's being done to the cube?"

"Aw, hell no! Second said I can't let nopony say aloud what's actually goin' on, 'cause then the Pantheon could use that as exposition and make his plans part of the narrative. And my homie don't LIKE the narrative."

Silver glared at him. He began to falter under her gaze, but she nevertheless sighed in defeat.

"Fine then...Let him keep his secrets."

The groups had since left for different parts of the temple. Though Spike couldn't come inside due to his size, the spiders and princesses figured that he would be okay with Rarity to keep him company, and that they would go out to check on them later. For now though, the friendship training was underway.

"So, um..." Fluttershy muttered, "Let's start with learning a little bit about you, Mr. Spoken."

"Okay," the old stallion replied, "What do you want to know?"

"Well...The Harmonites said you did some bad things. Tell me about those."

He fidgeted.

"Bad things...They'll be talking about the vampires..."

"Vampires?"

"Yeah. You've heard of vampires, right?"

"Twilight's talked a bit about them in the past...but I've never really asked. I know that they drink blood to survive."

"Well, not exactly. They do drink blood, but it doesn't replace normal food for them, and they certainly don't die without it. For a vampire, it acts to counter the aging process. If they drink once every three days they'll perpetually stay at the age they were when they were turned. They normally live forever anyway, it's just that age makes you weak and they'd rather not be decrepit.

"The myth that they need it to survive was circulated by them to better justify their actions. Some vampires, very rarely, would try to bargain for blood in the old days. If ponies thought that they would die in agony without it, they were more likely to be charitable and make the trade. I played that card myself when I was trying to broker peace between the ponies of Tramplevania and a village of vampires in a nearby forest."

"Oh. I see."

Fluttershy's voice and expression stayed neutral, and she remained silent other than those three words, expecting him to continue.

"See, my family, or my adopted family rather, were all mercenaries, or soldiers, or hunters, or slayers. Ponies of war. My cousin, Van Helsing, he made a career as a vampire slayer. Tramplevania had a pretty bad infestation back then, so he made it his duty to protect this town he lived in at all costs at night, and hunt down their kind in the day when they slept."

"Oh, vampires are weak in the day! I know that too!" Fluttershy exclaimed, "Oh, I didn't mean to interrupt! Sorry. Please go on."

"Again, not really. Daylight by itself doesn't harm vampires. It just makes them more vulnerable to their actual weaknesses, which are garlic, stakes, and blessings of Celestia, which are usually placed upon holy symbols. It can be blessings of both princesses, but it can never be Luna by herself, because the night is a friend to vampires. Holy water or sacred fire is best, though water and fire by themselves are useless."

"Hm."

Fluttershy's lack of comment on that surprised him.

"Anyway, like I was saying. My cousin worked as the local slayer for a Tramplevanian village, and it was that same village where I came to work as ambassador for a time. Though it is Equestrian territory, Tramplevania is actually east of griffin country, far from the mainland."

He sighed.

"One night, during an attack, a vampire killed my cousin."

"Oh, I'm so sorry..."

"It's alright...But before he died, he passed on his mantle to me. He wanted me to deal with the problem. Told me not to sell myself short, just because I wasn't a fighter like the rest of the family. So I tried to do it my way. Went into the forest, found the vampires, tried to reach an agreement with them to stop the attacks and get them the blood they wanted."

"And it didn't work out?"

"No. The mayor wanted a better deal. He saw paying blood in exchange for peace as blackmail. He wanted to set up a more even trade. When I went back to look for the vampires again, they came to the village and massacred everypony."

Fluttershy paled.

"So then I...did the same to them..."

For a moment, there was quiet.

"...It always stayed with me. What I did to them, I mean. Before that day, I didn't even know I had that side to me. I never intentionally hurt anything before that day. And then..."

"I know what that's like," the pegasus said quietly, "I discovered that I could be mean too."

"You? Get out of here..."

"It's true. When I tried to be assertive, to stop being a pushover, I got...aggressive. I was mean to my friends, and other ponies...I made Rarity and Pinkie Pie cry."

"Oh..."

"When I realised what I was doing, I stopped. And then I knew I had to find a balance. Learning how to not let other ponies walk all over me, but...not be the one walking over them instead."

Softy pondered that.

"Sounds like my situation, in a way," he mused, "I never found any balance though. That side of me is dangerous. I don't want to be a fighter, and I never wanted to be. I'm not Helsing. I could never do that."

"It's not good to bottle up those feelings."

"They're not bottled up. I have no inner aggression to get out, and no need for violence to sate. I had a bad day, and it made me do bad things. It's just that simple. Now I just...I try to have more self control when I have those days."

Fluttershy smiled at him.

"Then, I think you've already learned your lesson."

"Yeah. Doesn't change what I did though. I keep trying to think of a way it could have gone differently, but looking back, I realise now that peace was never an option. It never could have ended any other way."

"Oh...Well, then it sounds like you really did do all you could."

"I know."

"Then, you can't keep feeling bad over what happened. You tried to fix things without violence, and that's what's important. Even if it didn't work, you still tried. You still did the right thing."

Softy wearily returned her smile.

"But what element does that make me? All my friends thought I must have been kindness. So does Rainbow Dash apparently, since she paired you with me. But how can I be when I did something like that?"

"Because even if they did throw it back in your face, you still showed them kindness. You still tried with them. And sometimes, trying is all we can do."

"So then, Mystic Chant, is it?"

The colt idly rubbed a hoof against the stone floor of the temple, trying not to look the ghostly unicorn in the eye.

"You're part of my family, aren't you?" asked Twilight, "The Sparkles?"

He nodded quietly. Twilight frowned.

"You don't talk much, do you?"

He shook his head.

"It's not because I'm a ghost, is it? I hope I'm not scaring you."

"No, miss."

"Well, then what is it?"

She looked over to Sliske, who was sat nearby and being very still.

"...Mystic has been through a lot," she explained, "With everything that's been going on in the past few days, he gets really uncomfortable if there isn't somepony he trusts around to watch him. Normally he sticks close to Soft Spoken."

"Doesn't he trust you?"

"He does, but normally I'm inside his mind, and I take over when there's danger."

Twilight looked to Mystic, and then back to Sliske again.

"I...see..."

She sighed.

"Look, Sliske, I know this is awkward, given how things were the last time we met..."

"I'm sorry."

"Yes, you've said that three times now."

"Well, I am."

"You don't have to keep apologising. I know all about what you've been through since your release. I know you're sorry, and I know you've changed. Looking at you now, I can see that for myself. So, don't feel that things need to be uncomfortable between us. I'm here to help teach you both how to use your element. I have nothing but your best interests at heart."

"Isn't it weird for you though?" asked Sliske, "You once used the elements to defeat me. And now you're teaching me how to use them against others?"

"No. If anything, I'm proud to see that somepony who was bad enough that we had to use the elements against them, has changed enough to use them herself. I think it gives me faith that there's good in everyone."

The grin on Second's face as he read the tome of demonic lore could only be described as cartoonishly evil, which was appropriate given everything. He turned the pages with a slow, deliberate savouring. It was everything he wanted to know and more. Everything he had suspected was true. All his theories were confirmed. And his plan would require no modifications.

He had guessed everything exactly right.

"Someone's pleased with himself."

The smile was wiped from Second's face. His expression darkened, and he sat back in his chair and laid the book down on the table in front of him. Behind him, he heard the footsteps as the new visitor walked over to his side. He looked towards Nathan, as he pulled over the chair opposite him and sat down as well.

His brother leaned in slightly, sitting on the edge of the seat.

"Nice to see you again, Howard."

"Likewise. What are you doing here again?"

Nathan twiddled his thumbs idly.

"Got news for you. The movie is cancelled."

"Cancelled?" asked Howard, sitting up again suddenly.

"They made two out of three. The movies were meant to be a trilogy. A cash-in. But they bombed. The first movie did poorly, and everyone who saw it decided that the second one wasn't worth it. Considering they were made to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of Friendship is Magic, not including any of the original show's main characters turned out to be a massive mistake. The modern day continuation of the brony fandom were not happy about how it all turned out, and with very little chance of financial success, the studios cancelled the third movie and left the trilogy untied."

Howard closed his eyes and sighed.

"So what does this mean for me then?"

"It means you're saved."

"Huh?"

"The movies were cancelled because there was little chance of profit. But a feature length animated project is much more expensive to produce than a book."

"Wait..."

"I was a writer for the original show, and I've still got much respect for that. And after TV and movie writing, I moved into books as well. You're now looking at the author who was chosen to novelise the first two movies of the trilogy, and round out the story by concluding it in a third book, which will be mostly my original material with light inspiration from the early draft scripts for the planned third movie."

Howard was stunned.

"So...You're calling the shots now?"

"That I am, little bro. And because I'm feeling generous, I'm going to do you a solid by facilitating your escape."

"You don't mean-?"

"No. I won't be writing into the story that you return to the human world. Because that wouldn't work. I can't control our home universe like I can this one. It doesn't work like that. What I can do though, is leave enough open space for your plans to work. So, here's how this is going to happen.

"Point one, your defeat at Canterlot. It's coming soon, a few days at most, but I'll make sure you survive it. The Elements of Harmony will use their powers for the first time there. They will put an end to the zombie problem, including your own condition, and you will appear to die. That will resolve the first level of the story, the one which is meant to be Equestria's fictional reality.

"Point two, we have to resolve this meta bullshit that the idiots behind the failed movies thought up. I won't lie, I'm throwing a large amount of continuity down the crapper during the novelisations, and ignoring a lot of plot holes. It'll be your job to keep track of all the side characters, and make sure that you can abuse and exploit any element that I forgot to its fullest extent.

"We resolve the meta movie how it was intended to though. Your plan's first level will execute after Canterlot. You bring the fictional Pantheon of B to Equestria. You can expect them to be maniacally evil and about as powerful as you. Kill them, and move on. That's the second level resolved."

"And the third level?"

"The third level is us. Actual reality. This is where things get tricky. In the second level, after the Pantheon of B go down, we're going to skip to an epilogue. There will be a big party, and all the subplots will be resolved, and you'll be accepted by all the ponies, and we can have a nice moral about redemption and the good in everyone and yada, yada, yada.

"I'm going to end the book on a line by you during your speech at this party, giving you free reign to do whatever you need a little while before and after it. This is where you'll take down the big boss himself, and find your way home. That part will not be in the novel.

"Just like this conversation we're having now, and our last one in Canterlot, the only guidance from me you'll be getting is head canon. Only it will be head canon I've canonised without telling anyone. Little details I added in the novelisation of the second movie, such as Canterlot Mountain being split open...Helps glue everything together."

"This is insanely complicated, I hope you realise."

"Trust me, Howard, I had to make a flow chart to understand it myself. But to put it in simple terms, all you have to do is continue with whatever plans you had before. And I can save you the trouble of worrying about screen time and that racist caricature of a zebra too. I've got a schedule for you right here."

Nathan reached into a pocket at his side and pulled out a large black square with a smooth screen.

"...Is this an iPad?"

"It's kinda sorta like one, but not really. Apple makes the iPads, but nowadays every big company has their own version of it. I don't even remember all the brand names half the time. I think this is Samsung..."

Howard tapped it, and it turned on. Surprisingly, the screen began projecting a 3D hologram of a chart in front of him.

"...You have holograms in your iPads now?"

"Yep."

"God, I miss Earth..."

"You'll find in there a list of all the scenes in all the books, and describing exactly what will happen. Additionally, a digital copy of the book itself. I encourage you not to read ahead, because spoilers, but if you need to make alterations to your plans for any reasons, check to see whether or not it's in the book first. If it is, you're gonna need to make further changes to remain outside of the narrative."

Howard powered down the holographic device and set it down next to the demon tome.

"...Thank you."

"Anything to help."

"Nathan? Did you canonise me being named Howard in your books?"

"Of course."

"...I thought you did."

"Is there a problem with that?"

Howard sighed.

"Oh, where to begin..."

"So...what do I need to do?"

"First thing's first!" Pinkie announced, "Let's see how good you are at making ponies laugh!"

"I can do that!" Explodey replied.

"Great! Let's see some!"

"Oh...Umm..."

Explodey looked around.

"Wait a moment. I need to get some props..."

Pinkie waited patiently as Explodey dashed in and out of various doors around the temple, returning with a table, a lamp, a cash register, some shelves, several bird cages, plastic boxes, packets of animal food, and many other strange items.

"Mr. Explodey? What's all this for?"

"It's part of a sketch!" Explodey said excitedly as he dropped a load of dog bowls on the floor, "When Lord Second created me, he made me with an inherent knowledge of some aspects of human culture. I don't know lots about them as a race, but I do know about human TV shows and movies."

"Oooh! That sounds fun!"

"It is!"

Explodey ran out and came back again with a roll of carpet which he began to lay underneath all the other items of furniture.

"I'm going to re-enact a sketch from a TV show I saw in my memories, called Monty Python."

"Sounds great!"

"It will be, just wait! I need a parrot..."

Pinkie reached into her mane and pulled out a plastic green parrot, just as Explodey wanted. It was transparent like her, but she tossed it over to him, and he was able to catch it as if it were solid.

"Perfect!"

He placed the parrot inside the cage.

"Now, I'll have to play both parts, but bare with me here."

He levitated the birdcage with the parrot laying inside, and marched up to the counter.

"Ahem-" he began.

KABOOM!

The nearby wall exploded, showering chips of ancient stone brick everywhere. Explodey and the Pinkie were sent flying, along with all the props of the recreated pet shop.

"Ow..."

They both stood up at the same time, and found themselves looking out through a massive hole in the wall at a raging snowstorm outside, and floating just next to them, a hot air balloon being flown by several ponies in black armour. Explodey recognised them as the Knights of Man.

"Uh oh."

The bulkiest knight leapt out of the basket and into the temple, crawling through the hole in the wall. As he marched up to Explodey, he reached to a holster at his side, and drew a golden revolver, which he held using a mechanism attached to the hoof of his armour.

"You quote a single line of dialogue from that fucking sketch and I kill you where you stand."

Without missing a beat, Pinkie jumped in front of his gun.

"Betcha can't kill me though!" she giggled.

"Shit. She's right, boss," said one of the ponies in the basket, "We'd better retreat. I ain't down for fighting ghosts. That just ain't fair."

"Silence!" said the leader, "We can and will! For we have been given, SUPERNATURAL POWER, by our lord and master, Emperor Second, hallowed be his name!"

"Why worship Second though?" Explodey interrupted, "He's not the messiah! He's a very-"

BANG!

He shot through the transparent mare in front of him, and hit Explodey in the head. The unicorn immediately dropped.

"I TOLD YOU ABOUT QUOTING! DIDN'T I TELL YOU?!"

Explodey awoke to find himself in the afterlife. Again.

Huh? I'm dead again? What happened this...Oh wait. Yeah, I remember. Some ponies can't appreciate good comedy.

He looked around to try and find First. Though he appeared to be alone in the mist initially, he eventually saw a light in the distance, and began to gallop towards it.

"Hey! First! Is that you?!"

Sure enough, it was. First was sitting at a big wooden desk, dressed in a smart business suit and sweating heavily. He had a number of telephones sat in a semicircle on the desk before him, all of them ringing. Two he had pressed the receivers of against the sides of his head, being held in place by his shoulder muscles, while he held another one away from him in his left hand.

Simultaneously, he was signing documents with his right hand and filling out forms. A waste paper basket was overflowing at the side of the desk, and several stacks of folders were built up next to it, all marked with a big red stamp saying 'CLEARED'.

"Yes, I know he wasn't supposed to die, but sometimes the schedule gets fucked and nopony deigns to tell me. I- Hang on. No! Next Wednesday! Not this one. Sorry. Back again. Yes? Kay. Send out one of our replacement reapers. No, right now. This can't wait any longer."

He took a break from the document signing to hang up one of the phones, and grabbed another, which he brought up to his ear.

"You're on hold. Just a minute."

He held the new phone away from him and brought the one he held in his left up to his now free ear.

"Steel, I don't fucking care. If they're unsatisfied with the service, tell them to find a new afterlife ran by a deity that gives a shit."

He switched to the phone in his right hand that he had most recently picked up.

"This is Lord First, thank you for waiting. No, I don't care about your grandchildren. We operate a no-ghost policy. Six exceptions only, and they've already been made."

He hung up yet again and grabbed the next ringing phone.

"Hey, you're on. Oh, it's you. Hang on."

He turned to Steel's phone.

"Sorry, you'll have to be put on hold. I got another call from someone important."

He put down that phone and returned to the new one.

"Back. What do you fucking want now? ...Look, I know it's tedious work, but I need you for this. Please don't put me in this position. I like to think that we're friends, and I need you for this, I literally do not have the time to- Well fuck you too then! If you've got a problem with the way I run things then you can ferry the fucking souls yourself! I am up to my neck in shit right here! I'm a god! I don't have to deal with this!"

There was a slight pause.

"Go fuck yourself."

He slammed the phone down, but this time didn't pick up another, even though they were still ringing. His attention was directed to the other phone still being held against his ear with his shoulder muscles.

"What?! What do you mean you let him into-?! Bitch, he was a fucking serial killer! Get him out of there and put him where he belongs! ...No, the mail sorting room. OF COURSE I MEAN THE SEVENTH CIRCLE YOU MORON!"

He hung up again and picked up the last active phone laying on his desk.

"Please tell me it's good news."

Silence.

"Well, kill him then, and I'll have a chat with him personally."

More silence.

"Cancer, preferably. Make it lingering and painful too. I always hated him."

He slammed down the final phone and turned to Explodey.

"What the fuck do YOU want?" he asked, "The afterlife is meant to be your final destination. You can't keep just coming and going as you please! And in case you haven't noticed, I'm a little busy here! We just had an apocalypse, and I still haven't got an accurate death toll! I can't leave these ponies alone for a second, so whatever you have to say, please just make it quick, so I can get back to my incredibly stressful cosmic office job!"

"I was hoping to see Broad Sword again while I'm here."

"Go look for him yourself then! What do I look like?! Your fucking tour guide?!"

"Jeez, calm down. What's wrong with you?"

"APOCALYPSE?! HELLO?! WHAT DO YOU THINK IS WRONG WITH ME?! NO WONDER MY WORLD STILL HASN'T HAD ARMAGEDDON YET, IF THIS IS THE KIND OF SHIT THAT GOD HAS TO DEAL WITH! I WOULD PROCRASTINATE TOO!"

"I really think," said Howard, "That this was all our fault. The both of us. We're ultimately responsible for this fate. More specifically, you, and your actual use of my name in the text. I think that's what did it. I think the reason that this character, Lord Second the MLP villain, is me, is because you used my name here in this book. Not my full name, but there's enough of me in it. It's..."

"Something I wouldn't have done if not for the fact that you already disappeared into Equestria."

"Which may have been because of this. It's a big circle. Time between our universes is really screwy..."

Nathan bowed his head.

"Self fulfilling prophecy," he commented.

Howard looked at him for a moment, and then stood up to walk over to the other side of the room, where he leaned against the wall.

"Why do you think it happened?" he asked, "Why do you think it was me?"

Nathan shrugged.

"Multiverse theory states that all possibilities exist simultaneously," he suggested, "Of course some universes will perfectly mirror works of fiction. I think that's what's going on here. I don't think this universe is below or controlled by our own. I think all universes are probably equal and all influence each other."

"Makes sense."

"Then again...Fiction often involves travel between universes. You write a story about a guy being removed from a universe of humans and dumped into a universe full of ponies...I mean, that was the premise the two parter that introduced the Lord Second character."

"So Lord Second had to be a human pulled from another universe."

"And maybe that's what happened. I don't think anything special was going on. I don't think I wrote that story and caused you to be here and be this person. I think...I think you were randomly picked out of a hat. One person who most resembled Lord Second as I wrote him. I based him on you, so you fit the bill. And the powers that be just randomly decided that the character would be removed from the same universe that his writer lived in. Just luck. Really bad luck. I think that's what it is."

Howard sighed.

"And those writers are just...made to be the gods of other universes," he mused, "You wonder sometimes, don't you? What if all realities are fictional somewhere else? What if all the all-powerful gods are just regular people who write, on the other side of that dimensional wall?"

Nathan smirked.

"That'd be pretty funny, actually. I'd like to imagine a world where Jesus is some kid, writing stories about himself and his dad as saviours of a race of fictional beings called humans that he made up."

Howard smiled slightly.

"...That would be funny," he agreed.

Both the men chuckled slightly.

"...I miss this, you know," said Howard, "I miss when we got along."

"Yeah...Didn't happen often, did it?"

"...You ever think we were too tough on Brian?"

"Brian was...He..." Nathan tried to find the words. "Brian was human. Just like you and me. I think he made mistakes. We did too. Our whole family was one giant screw up since dad was left on his own. You probably don't remember mom, but...I do. If she'd lived...maybe we would have all been closer."

Howard smiled.

"If I ever do come back to the real world again, I want to start things over. With you, and Brian. I'll not forget all this."

"If. Big if. I still don't know if any of this will have an impact at all. I'm writing these books, like I said, but it's just a circumstance I came into. It's not like I desperately went begging for the job because I thought it'd bring you back. For me this is all...idle daydreaming. A what-if fantasy playing out in my mind that I decided to indulge for kicks. In all honesty, I don't think I ever will see you again."

"...Glad you have such faith in me."

"Maybe I will, though. Maybe you'll come back one day. Perhaps one of these days, your body will be found somewhere up in Canada, or you'll return alive with Anthony in tow, and explain that you were taken by a human trafficking ring the whole time, or something like that. Or maybe, my optimism will pay off, and I'll look up one day, and see a portal open in the skies over Connecticut."

"It'll happen. I'll make it so."

"At least you're confident."

"Why shouldn't I be? I've got a god to watch my back now."

"So you do. Now go work on your plan, little brother, or else I'll have to smite you."

Howard strolled back over to his chair and sat in it again. He picked up the hologram pad and began playing around with it.

"One last thing," said Howard, as he focused on the pad, "Carol. Is she...?"

Nathan paused.

"She's alive. Tried remarrying, but it never worked out for her. She lives by herself in your old home in Vancouver."

Howard nodded.

"Thank you."

"I'll be off, then."

"...Try to patch things up with Brian."

"I will. Bye."

Nathan turned away from Howard and began to walk across the room again. He didn't go for the door though. He just trudged slowly towards the opposite wall, arms held out either side of him. Halfway across the floor, he began to crumble. Before he could reach the wall, he had collapsed into a pile of ash and a now dirty suit.

Second snorted.

"Show-off."

"Hmm..."

Twilight levitated Sliske and studied her curiously. She flipped her over and poked her belly like a biologist examining a dissected frog, while the alien just lay awkwardly still and put up no resistance. Celestia loomed over her former student's shoulder, overjoyed to once again be participating in experiments and studies with her.

"Your opinion, princess?" asked Twilight.

"Honestly, this is the first I've heard about this."

Twilight donned a pair of glasses and a pencil and notepad.

"So, tell me more about this illness."

"Well..." Sliske recalled, "It happened immediately after I escaped from Explodey's mind. Mystic and I were forcibly separated in there. He returned in his own body later, but I was the first one to escape, in my natural form. Shortly thereafter, I left to go into Ponyville and find out from the residents what happened to the dragons while we were all absorbed.

"I possessed a mare there to search her memories, and immediately after doing so, I became violently ill. I was physically sick, my senses were dulled, and it didn't improve until I left the host. She was definitely not ill before, so it was something to do with me. While in that body, I also gained that cutie mark I told you about."

"And none of this happened again when you took the demon host?"

"No."

Twilight tapped the pencil against her chin.

"Hmm...Show me the cutie mark. What did it look like?"

A demon's body was capable of changing shape, but it wasn't done often, and not easily either. Sliske had to concentrate to make the cutie mark she had before appear on her flank, which until now had remained bare.

"There."

Sliske now bore a mark of a blue silhouette of a rearing unicorn, just like before. Twilight looked at it briefly, and then her eyes darted over to Mystic, who was wandering around the temple and idly kicking at the floor just a few feet away.

"Interesting," she said, "Sliske? If you could perhaps vacate the demon body for a moment? I'd like to perform some tests."

"Will it be safe? What if the demon I took it from comes back trying to reclaim it once I'm gone?"

"I don't think that's very likely. Besides, even if it does, we can just kick it out again. Please, now."

Sliske sighed. As she did, a black smoke escaped from her mouth, and her body went limp and lifeless, which was Twilight's cue to end her levitation and drop it. The smoke reformed in the air, growing eyes and a row of sharp teeth again.

Twilight winced.

"Is my natural form unsettling to you?" Sliske asked telepathically.

"A little bit. You're essentially a cloud of shadow with a face. I don't like those."

"Well...What do you want me to do?"

"Mystic?"

The unicorn colt turned his head when he heard his name, and trotted over.

"What?" he asked.

"Would you be okay with Sliske using your body again? Just for a bit?"

Until now, Mystic had been quiet and subdued. Hearing that though, he immediately perked up.

"Yes! I mean, sure!"

Twilight turned to the alien again.

"If you please?"

Sliske's facial features vanished again as the cloud of darkness swarmed down towards Mystic, who inhaled it all one second and sprouted giant teeth and a long serpentine tongue the next.

Twilight's eyes immediately darted to the cutie mark, which was also changing shape. Sliske noticed, and looked back at it as it changed from an imitation of her natural form into a Yin-Yang symbol, only with the white representing the Yang side replaced by cobalt blue instead. The darker parts remained the normal colour.

"...I thought so," said Twilight.

"Thought what? What did you think?"

Sliske's raspy hissing voice had returned now, too.

"The cutie marks. They represent synthesis. Mystic's means that he works best with, perhaps even depends on you, and yours means the same about him! You're extremely different, but you're not opposing forces. Your contrasts come together to form a greater whole."

Sliske looked at the cutie mark again.

"That hassssssss never happened to me with a hossssst before..."

"The times are changing, and so are you."

The alien sighed.

"...Sssso what caussssed my sssssicknessssss then?"

"If I had to take a guess, it was you rejecting the host out of inadequacy. You and Mystic are such a perfect combination that any other pony host seems terrible in comparison now."

"Ssssssso why can I ussssse the demon hosssst body without consssssssequencccccce?"

"Because a demon body is half spirit anyway," Twilight explained, "That's why you're not rejecting it like that other pony; it's like just being your normal self, only more physical, rather than possessing another entity outright. Or maybe it's because that body has no other consciousness for you to wrestle with? I can only speculate.

"But that's what I think. It's almost like not being in a host at all. It's closer to your natural form, only you can change its shape to suit you. That's also probably why the demon body doesn't mutate the teeth like your normal hosts do."

"Hmm..."

At that moment, Pinkie leapt through the nearby wall.

"Twilight! There are some bad ponies here with a hot air balloon!"

"A hot air balloon?!" Twilight responded, "How DARE they?! Come on, Pinkie!"

The two ghosts galloped away in a hurry, and jumped through the walls.

Well...Looks like we might be seeing some action.

Can we go see it, Sliske?! Please?!

Sure. Here, let me show you how we do an intangibility spell.

Celestia watched as Mystic then suddenly turned transparent and leapt right through the wall as well, giving chase after the two ghosts.

"...Did everypony just forget I was here?"

The afterlife was sweet. Everywhere Explodey looked, ponies were having fun and enjoying life. Or unlife. Afterlife? Post-life?

There were hundreds of thousands of ponies everywhere though, of all different colours and races and talents. Some frolicked around aimlessly, just enjoying the scenery, some ate and drank at picnic tables, some played board games with each other at little tables or flew kites or sang songs or read books or performed or attended shows.

At one point he saw some ponies in lab coats huddled together around a large table, upon which they had set up many test tubes of oddly coloured chemicals. The ponies all had science themed cutie marks and were gleefully mixing the chemicals together. Explodey stopped for a second to observe as the chemicals all exploded in their faces, leaving black scorch marks over their clothes and bodies. The scientists all laughed together.

Scientists in life, and after they die they spend all eternity doing experiments together...

He wondered if there was something in this vast valley for everypony. Would pegasi who loved racing have set up a flight course somewhere around here? Was there a restaurant around for the passionate chefs who lived for their culinary designs? Did the great artists all congregate somewhere in a grand gallery of all their most amazing creations?

A foal ran past Explodey's legs, nearly tripping him over and breaking him out of his trance. He remembered what he was down here for. He'd only be dead for so long, and then he would have to leave.

He needed to find Broad Sword. What were the chances of doing that though? He could ask around if anypony had seen him anywhere, but how likely was it that anypony would even know him?

Explodey turned to the nearest pony, a green pegasus mare.

"Excuse me, have you seen a pony called Broad Sword around here?"

The mare turned around to reveal Mrs. Smith.

"Oh, hello deary!" she replied cheerfully, "Nice to see you again!"

One has to remember that in a world ruled by the laws of Dramatic Convenience, a pony like Explodey McGee spat in the face of laws of physics and took a dump on probability's lawn.

"Mrs. Smith? Since when did you die?"

"Attack on Canterlot. Got eaten by a zombie. How about you?"

"Shot. It's temporary though."

"Good for you, deary. Not enough ponies get to see the mortal world again after we leave it."

There was an awkward pause.

"So...Broad Sword?"

"Oh, right! Let me get him. SWORDY!"

From a nearby crowd of ponies, Broad Sword emerged, looking confused.

"What is it, m-"

His eyes widened as he saw Explodey waiting for him.

"Y-You!"

"I'll leave you two alone," the old mare said as she cantered away.

"Swordy!"

"Ow! Explodey...You're doing it again..."

"Doing what?"

"Hugging me too tight to breathe."

"Sorry."

"...You're still hugging me."

"But you can breathe now."

"Explodey...This is a public place...There are ponies watching..."

"No there aren't."

"But ponies can still see us! Come on! You know I get easily embarrassed!"

"You're cute when you blush."

"Explodey!"

"You aren't giving me much incentive to let go here..."

Broad Sword looked left and right, and then whispered something into the unicorn's ear.

"...Now there's a convincing argument," Explodey replied.

He dropped Broad Sword immediately.

"Come on! Let's go right now!" he said excitedly as he bounced up and down.

"Yeah, sure..."

Broad Sword looked around.

"Umm...I think the ice cream place was this way..."

"I'MSORRYI'MSORRYI'MSORRYI'MSORRY!"

The lead knight struggled and screamed as a ghostly Twilight Sparkle held him against the wall with her magic, anger burning in her eyes. The rest of the knights were pressed against the same wall either side of him in a line.

In the middle of the room, Sliske examined the body of Explodey, which for once was not regenerating or doing anything weird. To say it was a cause for concern would be massively understating things.

"This doessssssn't look good..." said Sliske, "I think there'sssss a real danger he may actually be dead thisssssss time."

"He'd better not be," Pinkie sulked, "He didn't even get to show me his sketch yet. He'll be so disappointed if he's trapped in First's land and can't show me!"

"If First has him, I don't know what we could do..." Twilight muttered.

"Twilight!"

The ponies looked over to one of the other walls as Celestia galloped through, just deactivating her own intangibility spell.

"Twilight, what...happened..."

She covered her mouth as she saw the state of Explodey.

"No...not again..."

"Princess. Go get your sister and the others. We've got a major problem."

"You two!"

Silver and Thug Lyfe, previously sitting and staring as the scientists worked on the cube at the bottom of the silo, were surprised to hear Second's voice behind them. He emerged from a nearby elevator. Behind him, Nuclear Anomaly followed closely, looking just as confused as they usually were.

"I've got extremely good news!"

His broad grin seemed to suggest the same.

"We're in the clear!" he announced, "All my plans have guaranteed success, and I no longer have a need for a racist stereotype to keep them hidden! So Thug Lyfe, mission accomplished. Job well done, my friend! You can finally have your dignity back."

"No prob, L.S."

"NOW. Since everything is on track here and the scientists know exactly what I want, that means that there's nothing more for me to do until after I am defeated at Canterlot. So very shortly, I am going to be leaving Secopolis again to set the stage for my defeat."

Nuclear Anomaly had left Second's side, and now stood between Silver and Thug Lyfe.

"You three...You're the most important part of this. You're my best soldiers. My unholy trinity. And you're going to be what makes it all possible. I want you right there at ground zero when everything goes down, because I need you all with me for this. Can I depend on you?"

"YES, SIR!" they responded in unison.

"Great! Now pay close attention..."

"Hello! Welcome! Glad you could make it!"

The mare coughed and waved her hoof around to clear the smoke. She was a pegasus, at least in appearance. Youthful looking, an aquamarine coat and a frizzled mane that was the colour of sand. She was scorched in places, but nothing bad. Behind her was a giant boulder laying in the grass, with a perfectly square shaped hole in it that was pouring smoke into the sky.

"Activate...extractor fans..." she gasped.

There was a whirring sound and the smoke began to clear. As the mare leaned against this boulder, an upbeat mauve unicorn with a yellow mane stood nearby, smiling at her.

"Will you be wanting to check in?" she asked.

The pegasus nodded silently. Behind her, the square closed up, and now it appeared to be just a rock.

"Come on, let's get you to the main building."

She followed her new acquaintance back towards the red and yellow two storey building on the other side of the field. Between them and it, the grass was littered with all kinds of things. Trees, other rocks, lawn decorations, umbrellas, tables and chairs; the list went on.

"...I see I'm not the first here..."

"Nope! We've been flooded with refugees for months now. I know it only happened a few days ago relative to my time, but a lot of your friends went further back to escape."

"...How many?"

The unicorn bowed her head.

"Just a couple dozen. Not many survivors at all, sadly...I'm sorry about your planet."

"Don't worry about it...It's not your problem..."

She looked over the unicorn, and then noticed something odd. On her flank, she didn't have an hourglass. Instead, it was a stopwatch.

"...Wait, I've heard of you! Dinky, right? You're the Doctor's kid! The one who's half pony!"

Dinky smiled at her uneasily.

"In the flesh," she replied.

"I almost can't believe it. What are you doing here?!"

"...Taking in refugees," Dinky replied flatly.

"No, I mean in this time period! I heard you died a year ago in a nuclear explosion!"

"Oh, spoilers! Thank you!" Dinky said sarcastically.

The two of them continued to trot along towards the building, when Dinky stopped them.

"Wait, a year ago normal time, or a year ago for you?"

The time lady paused.

"...Yes, a year ago for me. A friend told me he had been tracking a distress signal sent by his future self. He said he found you dead in an irradiated wasteland on this very planet. The radiation was what caused him to regenerate into his fourth body."

"Uh-oh..." Dinky muttered, "His future self? Your friend wouldn't happen to have been a renegade called the Keeper, would he?"

"...He's in there sending out a distress signal right now, isn't he?"

Dinky nodded her head slowly.

They both looked over to the house.

"Well...I guess this is the end..." the unicorn said, sounding resigned.

And at that precise moment, the whole building exploded, and gave birth to a mushroom cloud.

"Nuclear Anomaly," Second began, crouching in front of the stallion in question, "Your job is two fold. For the moment, I need you here, in Secopolis."

"Okay," said Anomaly, "What for?"

"Your special talent lends itself well to the creation and launching of nuclear missiles. The scientists here are just putting the finishing touches into creating several for me. You're going to provide the core materials for them to complete the project. That, was what Project Atom was intended to be. It's a start-up kit for making nukes."

"Oh..." the unicorn responded, "Was that...why I was made?"

"Yes. This was the purpose of your creation. I stated my defiance to the Pantheon, refusing to let their narrative absorb me. Their response was to send Anger, Ambition and Creativity to create you, and force me through Project Atom to nuke several Equestrian cities during the attack on Canterlot."

Anomaly's eyes widened.

"And...I'm...going to help you do that?"

"Yes. And I'm sorry. But we haven't got a choice in the matter right now. However, thanks to a friend of mine, I happen to know the exact results of the nuclear attacks, and everything the Pantheon had planned is going to explode in their faces. All I need to do is send a letter, and all you need to do is fulfil your original purpose."

"...Okay. I'll do it."

"Good. And the second thing you need to do, is that once you're done here and the scientists no longer need you, you're to make your way to Canterlot to join me immediately. There, you'll finally meet your brother."

"I can't believe it! They still have ice cream parlours in the afterlife!"

"Yeah, I thought you'd like it."

Explodey buried his face in a bucket full of ice cream, not bothering with the scoop he had been provided with.

"So...How are the others? Are you all getting by alright without me?"

"Mhhfff, fffhmm..."

Explodey pulled his head out of the bucket and swallowed, though ice cream was still all around his face.

"It could be worse," he explained, "When you died, everypony got more angry than sad about it. We were upset that you were gone, but there were a million things happening at once, and there still are, so there wasn't much time to dwell on it. There was a zombie apocalypse just a few days after it happened, and we see so many ponies die on an almost daily basis that it loses a lot of its punch. Though I was still super depressed."

His head disappeared into the bucket again briefly while he got another mouthful.

"We still had a lot of moments though, where everything would just stop while everypony remembered you and became all sad. Like when we went to see your mother!"

"Uh...She didn't...reveal anything else private, did she?"

"Like showing us all your baby pictures?"

"She didn't! Did she?! Please tell me she didn't?!"

Explodey only grinned.

"WHY?!"

Broad Sword smashed his face against the counter.

"I'm kidding! She didn't."

The earth pony sat up again.

"I really hate you sometimes."

"Oh, don't be like that! Let me have my fun. I'm only here for a little while anyway."

"Hmph."

Broad Sword turned his head away and crossed his forelegs indignantly.

"Hey, Broad Sword?"

He turned back again.

"What, Expl-?"

Next thing he knew, Explodey was kissing him.

It was brief. The other stallion pulled away a second later, leaving Broad Sword frozen stiff, eyes wide in surprise. He tried to say something, but the moment he did, he realised that he now had some of the ice cream on his face too, some of which dripped off onto the ground between them. He grumbled, before grabbing a napkin to clean the rest off his face.

"...Okay," he said, "Never do that immediately after eating ever again."

"Killjoy."

Second turned to the zebra.

"Thug Lyfe. You I want right by my side in Canterlot."

"F'real?"

"You're not my best fighter, but you're damn good either way, and you're undoubtedly the loudest and most obnoxious of all my elite special forces. Your purpose will be to assist me in the battle, making a final stand against the heroes when they breach the palace. You may also meet some friends of yours there. Your main objective will be distraction, holding off the Elements as long as possible, so that I can get clear before all the shit goes down."

"...Kay. I can do that."

"Good man!"

The human finally turned his attention to Silver.

"And you..."

The room was cold from the chill winds drifting through the hole in the temple wall. Two alicorn princesses, six ghostly mares, three stallions, a colt possessed by an alien and a number of spiders all stood in a circle around Explodey's still unmoving body.

Through the hole in the wall, one could see the massive eye of a dragon, clinging onto the outside of the temple and looking in at them, while in the corner, several whimpering knights huddled together, stripped of their armour and trying not to look directly at the extremely angry spider who towered over them, giving them intimidating glares from all of his eyes.

"He's still not getting up..." Chain Mail observed.

"Your brilliance knows no bounds," Gold Coin responded dryly.

"Agghhh!" Twilight groaned in frustration, "I can't believe this! We were getting so close as well! We might have even been able to unlock the elements today!"

"And we can't do that now...why?" asked Sliske.

The unicorn gestured to the knights in the corner.

"Because these jokers shot him with a weapon designed to suppress his regeneration! And now he might actually be permanently dead! Now we're down an element, and the rest are all useless!"

"Well, we've been down an element for a while," said Softy, "Broad Sword, who was intended as our element of loyalty, died several days before we even arrived here. You still seemed pretty confident that you could get the elements working for us."

"Yes, but at least there were still six of you then!"

Twilight began pulling her hair.

"Agghhhhh! Why can nothing ever- Just- Just, aggghh!"

Having flashbacks to the last time her friend was this stressed, Rarity sat by her side and put a hoof on her shoulder.

"Calm down, Twilight. Everything is going to be fine. He might still be okay. And if not...then we'll just have to think of something."

Twilight looked up and sighed.

"No," she said, "We can't do this without him. We need to get Explodey back."

"And how, if he's actually dead, are we going to do that?" asked Gold Coin.

"Simple," Twilight answered, "We go to First's afterlife, and take him back."

Celestia felt a sudden chill in the air, and it wasn't the wind from outside.

I don't care if you say he's reformed. I know what I saw.

Second rules with an iron fist on Earth, and his son First does the same in Heaven!

I can be a ghost if I want to. Who's gonna stop me? You?

But if you'll recall, even the seemingly good humans can't be trusted.

A creature like that has no right to rulership over ponies, living or dead.

You betrayed me after we struck a deal. I am not happy about that.

As soon as we stop Second, we should find a way into the afterlife and reclaim it from First.

Don't try to talk about things you don't understand, pony. I've been at this job for a long time.

I am really beginning to dislike him again.

More importantly, you do not want to make an enemy of me.

Don't get me started on First

But remember what I said. Drop them on Canterlot. That city's fucked anyway. And if you've got a large army in Canterlot and can't risk early deaths, then drop them on Ponyville instead.

Wait. What?! Torture?! When did this happen?

The afterlife needs to be regulated, and it just so happens that I am the universe's most efficient celestial beauracrat.

If he thinks they deserve it, he throws ponies into this netherworld he created, where they all experience their own personal hell. Forever.

I'd estimate eleven million dead.

We couldn't beat him though. Not even attack him in his realm. He's all-powerful there, like Discord times a million.

Life's a bitch, ain't it?

Well he wouldn't do, because he's a liar. Like all humans are.

Choose wisely.

Celestia looked to her sister, who had tried to keep a neutral expression, but whose eyes betrayed the fear she really felt. By the hole in the wall, she could see Spike's eye too had widened slightly after hearing Twilight's proposal.

"...Hmph. Really?" Gold Coin responded, "Rescue from the afterlife? Sounds like a good time. I hope you know the way there..."

"You I need to stay here."

Silver was surprised at her instruction.

"Pardon, sir?"

He placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Silver, you're my best mare. You're the smartest and strongest soldier of all my forces as far as I'm aware. You outlasted the Horses of the Apocalypse against Anger, you're the sole survivor of Canterlot, and I'm confident in your abilities.

"I need you to stay here in Secopolis and keep it running in my absence. Because after Canterlot, I need to come back here for stage two, and to execute the plan. And when I do, I need my city clean. No civil wars. Everyone where they should be. Projects Pandora and Beacon ready to activate at my command. And most important of all, I want to see the place well defended, because something big is coming our way. You'll know when you see it.

"So, Silver? Can I do that? Can I trust you with my city?"

Silver opened her mouth to respond. It remained hanging open for several seconds while she tried to formulate a response. Words failed her.

"Can I?"

"...Yes, sir. Of course you can trust me. I won't let you down!"

Second smiled at her.

"I knew I could depend on you. Build your forces, Commander Silver Vein. When I return, I expect a standing army of a thousand heavy troopers ready and waiting. Our enemies will burn together, and you will be the instrument of our divine vengeance."

"NO. Fuck you. FUCK you!"

First didn't just slam the phone down this time. He smashed it into the desk so hard that the phone shattered into pieces of plastic and wiring, and the desk itself broke cleanly in half, causing all the other phones to clatter to the floor around him, even as they continued to ring.

He grabbed his hair and covered his face with his forearms, before letting out an anguished moan.

"WHY?!" he demanded, screaming to no-one in particular, "What is WRONG with these idiots?! Am I exclusively hiring the mentally retarded to assist me?! Why is NO-ONE around here competent?! Why is EVERYONE such a problem except me?!"

His blood was boiling, and he could tell because his stomach was being scalded where it poured out of his permanent wound. That was the downside to being a spiritual being. Some expressions applied to him were disgustingly literal.

With a click of his fingers, the top draw of the broken desk opened up and a roll of bandages floated out. He pulled off his suit jacket and began to remove his shirt to address the issue, but he stopped just after he finished unbuttoning it.

He looked over his shoulder, and turned around.

"What the...?"

He stepped over the desk and walked into the mist a little way. There was a strange sensation on the wind. New, but also strangely familiar, like he had seen it before but it was different this time. In the silence of the void, he closed his eyes and took a long sniff of the air.

"...Rebellion," he uttered, treating the word with disgust and contempt.

He clicked his fingers with his left hand, and a rapier materialised in his right.

"Fine then, Twilight Sparkle. You want to play this game again? Let's see if you've gotten any better since last time..."

END.