warning, this next part has blood and gore in it. if you do not want to read such content, skip to the "*****" please
It was horrifying, the scene in front of my eyes. I don’t want to describe it for you, but I’ll do my best.
The walls of the room were blackened and charred from what I could assume was great fire. All of them were this way with the exception of one area; it was coated in a dark crimson liquid... it was BLOOD! I focus on the blood covering the place... so much blood somepony... er... someone was killed in here, but something seemed familiar... the pattern was in the vague outline of a human and it seemed to be streaked down the wall along with spray outward from it, but that wasn’t the worst part. There on the floor... Oh Celestia... It was covered in a massive amount of the crimson blood along with small lumps of tissue from what was once a body... muscle tissue... small parts of internal organs... and small pale shards... pieces of bones! The large block of smoldering metal that used to be Dillon’s engine was setting in the center of the room and smaller shards of it were lodged though out the walls and ceiling of the room. Dillon's once working engine was now no more than a shattered lump of metal... it looked as if it had been ripped apart by a tremendous force. The crimson appearance of the room brought me back to the seriousness of this memory, but I thanked Celestia that my senses of smell and taste were blocked at this moment. I know that the room must have smell horrible and I would almost guarantee with the amount of biological tissue spread around the air would have a taste as well, but young Dillon was not as fortunate as I was sure his senses were taking in the full impact of the scene.
*****
I felt sad that he had to go through this, angry that his father made him see this, guilty that the stallions might have to remember this, but Dillon's scared and cracking voice drew my attention back to him.
“Who was it?” he asked in a shaking voice.
“Tina.” His father said simply.
Dillon froze; he seemed to know exactly who that was. He looked at his father, the man nodded, then he looked at the cop, he had a solemn look on, his glasses covering his eyes. Then he looked back into the room.
All of the color drained from his normally tanned face. His features dropped. He just stopped. The scene stopped. I knew I had been scarred for life at that moment, I couldn’t imagine what had happened to Dillon.
-----
The scene switched, only now it wasn’t from his memory, it was the black void. Older Dillon in front of me. I decided to move on.
“Now for his time in Ponyville.” I tried to access his more recent memories, to find out what had happened before and during his time in the castle.
When I opened my eyes I was no longer in a black world of nothingness, I was now in an alleyway. I was waiting for something to happen. When nothing did I looked around. I saw Dillon sitting in a chair with a shiny metal object in his hand. His eyes were closed. I looked around some more, nothing, just a normal Ponyville alleyway. Then a small filly walked into the alley. It was Dinky, the filly that found him.
She walked up to the human and took a few tentative steps, then Dillon opened his eyes. He seemed to stare at the filly, recognizing her somehow. Then he slowly put the shiny metal object down and into a small box.
“Hi, I’m Dinky.” she said cheerfully.
Dillon said some words, but I didn’t understand them at all. Just like when he first arrived.
Dinky stared at him funny, apparently she hadn’t understood either, then she said “follow me, Dillon.” She knew Dillon’s name.
They walked out of the alley and I was forced to follow, I was still wondering how the little filly knew his name, but I knew I should focus on the rest of the memory, up until I get there at least.
They reached the edge of the alley and looked out onto the market place, Dillon stopped and stared, jaw drooping a little. Dinky had walked away and was now back.
“Coming?” she asked.
Dillon nodded. He followed the filly out into the middle of the crowd, when they got there everypony was staring. There was a silence I remember, I was there. I looked around in my ghostly body and found me in the crowd, picking my way to the front.
“hello.” This was Dillon, he said ‘hello’ in our language.
That’s right about when I made myself known.
I asked “How do you know our language?”
He responded with “sort of.” And his hand extended tilting side to side.
“Aha!” I yelled, I knew what was about to happen.
I charged my horn up and hit him with the learning spell. He instantly learned our language. He wobbled a little, but got his footing.
“Sir, are you ok?” I asked.
“Yes, I am quite fine, Ms.…” he had said this in Equestrian.
“Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle.” I told him.
“Well, Ms. Sparkle, I thank you for-” I cut him off.
“I had only taught you our language-” now he cut me off.
“Retaught, I had already known some Latin, as I had demonstrated back there.” This took me by surprise. I had heard him say ‘hello’ but I only thought that Dinky had said that to him and he caught on.
“Oh, ok. I thought that was you just being smart, obviously I was wrong.” I said with a shrug.
“Hey, are you implying I'm not smart? For your information, where I come from, you guys as dumb as dirt!” this had grabbed the attention of everypony in the market once again.
“Maybe we should move this little conversation of ours to my place.” I said in a hushed tone.
“Maybe your right.” he replied.
-----
The scene switched.
It was that night.
The night that me and Dillon… were looking through the relationships 101 book.
Was I going to be forced to watch this?
The answer was no, it was when we were done, I was watching me sleeping in the bed, Dillon lying next to me. But he wasn’t asleep. He was lying there with his eyes wide open.
I watched for what felt like several minutes, or it could have been a few seconds, I couldn’t tell. Then he got up and went downstairs while I silently followed.
He went into the main room of the library, right up to the couch. He got on his hands and knees, then looked under it. Reaching his hand beneath the couch he pulled out a small box... I remember this box! This was the box he put his silver metallic object in from earlier, but I began to wonder what he’s doing with it, and why did he hide it?
He opened it and the silvery metallic object from earlier lay there with a handful of smaller metal things that I didn't recognize. He removed the thing from the box then closed it and put the metal thing in his pocket. It was large enough to form a unshapely series of lumps in his pocket, though whether he was hiding it again or simply carrying it, I could not tell.
He carefully and quietly made his way to the library's main entrance and left without so much as a look back.
-----
The scene changed.
Now we were in the Everfree forest, but Dillon didn’t seem afraid or anything. But I did detect a hint of determination in his eye.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the box, got the small metal thing out and slipped seven of the smaller metal things inside. He fidgeted with the thing in his hand then pointed it at a tree.
He moved one of his fingers into a ring at the bottom of the metal object and with a slight movement of his finger... BANG... a thunderous eruption of sound and fire came from the object. I covered my ears and closed my eyes tight from the assault on my vision and hearing... What happened?