//------------------------------// // Back To Normal // Story: The Battles Of Today, The Wars Of Tomorrow // by Fryguy //------------------------------// Things are getting better in Equestria, The princesses are back on the throne, the ponies are back in their homes, and Neffison was gone. Geoffrey was named as a hero, Somepony who Equestria could trust. Without him, Equestria may have been in a dark age forever and ever. He was highly rewarded as well, but after a couple of days, he left, but he said goodbye before he departed for somewhere in the unknown. Twilight was heading over to Applejack's farm, sweet apple acres. It's been awhile before Twilight has visited the apple farm, well, before Neffison came to power anyways. Applejack and Applebloom were pulling out some weeds near some apple trees, their time being forced to work left them and all the other ponies extremely weak, and tired, instead of healthy and strong. Whip marks were everywhere on their bodies, something that Twilight was tired of seeing on everypony. "Howdy Twilight! How are you doing?" Applejack asked Twilight when she first caught sigh of her walking towards the barn. "I'm fine, but what about you? That evil tyrant had you beaten and forced to work as slaves, and you were one of the ponies who was a slave the longest!" Applejack sighed, Twilight was in fact correct, but Neffison seemed not only ruthless, but just plain nasty, to the Cutie Mark Crusaders mostly, he would sometimes taunt them to doing the forced labor to try to get their cutie marks. Something Applejack disapproved. "Twilight, to tell you the truth, I think that darn Neffison will in time return, but also do something extremely horrible to the club Applebloom is in." Twilight, confused, asked. "Why?" Applejack started looking at Applebloom, her younger sister was talking to her friends who just came over, the little fillies were talking about a big meeting for all the Cutie Mark Crusaders to came too, for during their time as slaves, many new crusaders were recruited. The parents of the crusaders allowed their young fillies to come to the meeting. Things were going to be perfect was what they said. "He despised them." Applejack said back to Twilight. The purple unicorn knew that instant that Neffison hated the Cutie Mark Crusaders. But why? Twilight then shook her head and thought to herself, "Twilight, don't worry about the reason, just be happy that you helped Equestria be free again." Twilight then said to Applejack. "I'm sorry on how Neffison was treating them. But is there more that I need to know on how he treated you?" Twilight asked, she wanted to know everything, how that evil tyrant treated her friends, the ponies of Equestria. "Yes, hear this, he was actually patient with all of us." Twilight froze from that remark, a patient side of Neffison, no way! But Applejack was the element of Honesty, she had to be telling the truth. "He....was...patient with you?" Twilight had to force the question out of her mouth, for it was hard to ask. "Yep, but he still whipped us, but he had as take our time to finish the workload. Surprisingly." Applejack said, and showed Twilight some scars which she said came from some whippings near her tail. But most marks were everywhere on her back. Twilight looked at the marks, and to her surprise, their wasn't as many as she thought. But there were still a lot, and it would take a while to heal completely, but Twilight was also impressed by how everypony, including Pinkie and Fluttershy, survived the painful experience, but Neffison might return, thought Twilight, and sadly Geoffrey had to leave, he had to go on his way, but when Neffison does return, we'll be ready! Neffison must have had been throwing knifes at a wall for hours now because when he was done, over a thousand knifes were stuck in the wall, he kept screaming. "WHY?! JUST WHY?! WHY WAS I SO FOOLISH TO FACE THE PRINCESSES AND GEOFFREY BY MYSELF?!! WHY?!" During the evening, some servants who were brave enough to approach him tried to calm him down and cheer him up by saying. "Neffison, please calm down, we know you are the mightiest alicorn ever to live, even though your insane, you are still a brave and clever warrior, and you will, and we do mean that you will have Equestria under your influence again, and make them your slaves again. But when you do, remember our advice, make them work faster, and if they're not, you can whip them like crazy, or your guards can, that will make them so distracted that they won't have time to think about their freedom ever again!" When Neffison heard the advice, he smiled, he had to agree that he was too patient with his slaves. Soon Neffison was laughing like his insane self, and started running towards his room. Guards had to dive out of his path because he was running so fast. Neffison gritted his teeth as he entered his room, on a desk was a map of Equestria, as he looked at the map of the free ponies, he said to himself. "They are free, they are happy, they are in control of their own land." But he began to make a evil smile while still gritting his teeth, and with his magic, picked up the map, and said. "Not for much longer." As he said this, he started to burn the map with his magic, and begin laughing. "OH HO HO!!! MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!!!! OH HO HO HO HO HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA! MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!! MWA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" The map was turning into burnt shreds, and Neffison continued laughing throughout the night. His armor doing it's reguler melody. He was going to regain Equestria as his own, and enslave the ponies again! But first, he was going to target a simple filly crusader club. To Be Continued.....