//------------------------------// // [edited] Chapter 10 // Story: Enraged // by MineLittleDashie //------------------------------// POV: Present Day: Canterlot Express I let out a long sigh as I sat back against my seat, angling my head towards the roof of the train car. Telling the story from all those years ago had been more taxing on my brain than I had thought. Dropping my head, I realized that all six ponies were still staring at me, their expressions ranging from slight fear (poor flutters) to shock. Even Pinkie's mane had gone flat. I glanced towards Twilight, expecting questions to come hurtling my way, but from her cocked head and twitching ears, I think I broke her. Surprisingly, it was Rarity who broke the silence. "Um, but if you were able to talk during the whole thing, why didn't you just explain the situation to the princesses?" I nodded slowly. Spending several millennia in stone had given me a lot of time to think, and that same question had presented itself before me several times. Thankfully, I thought I had the answer. "It's complicated, but basically Ares threatened to harm to my friends unless I agreed to come here and distract the princesses until Discord was ready with his plan, so telling them would've been going against that plan and would've brought my friends harm." I rubbed my left arm bashfully. "Besides, I don't think that they would've settled down and listened after my fight with the guards, or I might have just been stupid about the whole thing." I felt something land gently on my shoulder. I turned my head and was met with the kind and understanding gaze of the pink maned pegasus. "Don't feel too bad Rage, we all make mistakes." She said, giving me a small smile. "Not ones that can almost destroy an entire city without effort." I replied, dropping my head. Well that kinda killed the mood. The rest of the day was passed in silence, despite some half-hearted attempts by Pinkie to lighten the atmosphere. Night eventually fell and we lowered the backs of the seats to make beds for ourselves. Since I was bigger than a normal pony, twilight and Applejack gave up their seats so that I had a bed comprised of an entire row of three seats. I was just getting comfortable under one of the blankets that the conductor had provided us when I heard a shuffle of hoof on carpet, followed by a slight vibration as the unknown pony landed on my bed. I felt a hoof poke me, so I turned over and was surprised to see Fluttershy standing there. "Mm, What's wrong Fluttershy?" I grunted rather sleepily. She hid behind her mane and pawed one of the seat cushions before answering. "I-I just wanted to know if I could sleep with you? I-I mean, if that's okay with you." "Why?" The confusion was clearly audible in my sleepy voice. "Um, well... You seemed so sad when you told us your story, that I thought you might need somepony to help comfort you." I smiled. "Fluttershy, you and your friends have been kinder to me than anypony here has ever been before. I appreciate your concern, and accept your offer. I think having a friend close by is exactly what I need right now." The yellow pegasus mare madea strange squeaking sound, before burrowing under the blanket and snuggling up next to me. I smiled at her for a moment more before turning over and closing my eyes. "Maybe this won't be so bad after all." I muttered quietly to myself before I lost myself in the dream world. ----------------------------------------------------- Let it be recorded that I had never had a worse night in the history of my existence. Well, the sleeping part was fine, the dreams, not so much. And I know Luna had something, no, Everything to do with it. I mean, why else would she be in every one of my dreams!!!! Being tortured by Luna! Playing lowly servant to Luna! Running from a giant Luna who continuously screamed "second chances", and who was determined to stomp me into oblivion! She was clearly behind it all! Thank god Twilight woke me up when she did, otherwise getting smacked by a riding crop made of cacti would've been added to that list. So yeah, by the time I woke up, we were only an hour from our destination, and Twilight wanted us to triple check that we had everything. I quick search revealed that I still had my clothing, armor, and sanity, so I was good. Twilight was not amused. As it turns out, the train actually arrived at the station a few minutes early, which was good because I was getting pretty bored with nothing really to do but talk with the others. We retrieved our luggage and stepped off the train. Ponies standing at or by the station stared at the sight of me, but I ignored them. It was decided that since my arrival was rather unexpected, the first course of action, after dropping off our luggage, would be to introduce me to the mayor and explain the situation. It was elected that I should go with Twilight and that we would all meet up in front of town hall in half an hour. After saying goodbye to the other five element bearers, I began following Twilight through town towards her house, which I was interested to see. Luckily, nopony freaked out, but we did get some strange looks from several ponies. I had hoped that looks would be the worst of it, but at one point, shit happened. We (Twilight and I) were crossing through the market square, when Twilight stopped and her ear twitched. She frowned, before turning her head and looking behind us. Her pupils shrunk, and she let out a resounding gasp before dropping to the ground, hooves over her head. I spun around to get a glimpse of the potential threat, only to have my sight blocked as something hit me at high speed and latched onto my face. I let out a muffled scream of surprise followed by the ever telling noise... *POOF* ------------------------------------------ 3rd POV Twilight heard Rage's quiet scream, followed by a familiar sound. She raised her head and turned around to find a very confused Mint colored unicorn sitting on the ground. "W-where'd it go?" The unicorn gasped, her head twisting almost in a full circle. It was then that Twilight noticed the tiny flailing hooves in the unicorn's grasp. "Let go! He can't breathe!" She screamed in horror. The mint colored unicorn looked down in surprise, before her expression changed to one of horror, and she jumped away from the one she had unintentionally held prisoner in her grip. "Oh my gosh! Are you ok? I'm soooooo sorry!" The unicorn stammered, staring at the rose-red colt that she had been suffocating only moments earlier. The colt took a huge breath, greedily sucking in any available air, then exhaled slowly before answering. "Y-yeah, I'm f-fine. You just s-startled him." The mint green unicorn wiped her forehead. "Oh, good. Hey, you haven't happened to see a-" "LYRA HEARTSTRINGS! Just what do you think you're doing?!" Shouted Twilight, marching up to the pair, both of whom had their ears laid back. "I-I.....thought I saw a human." Lyra whimpered meekly, refusing to meet the eyes of the angry librarian. Twilight continued to glare at the human obsessed unicorn for a few moments, before rolling her eyes and turning away. "Come on Rupert." She snorted. With one last glance at Lyra, who was now being comforted by Bon-Bon, the little colt quickly chased after his guide. 'My will to control this power.... is pathetic.' --------------------------------------------------- Back to 1st POV It was several minutes until Rage reappeared, breathing heavily. "What was that?" I gasped. My heart felt like it was beating a million miles a minute, while tumbling in a clothes dryer. Twilight didn't even turn around to face me. "Just our crazy neighborhood anthropologist. I apologize though, she can get a little out of hoof." I frowned as a thought struck me. "An anthropologist? How would she know about humans?" Twilight shrugged. "I don't know, but we have more pressing matters on our hooves. Such as getting you settled into Ponyville." "Right." We walked in silence for a few more minutes before a new conversation broke out. However, this time it was Twilight who started it. "Hey Rage, can I ask you something?" I grinned widely and opened my mouth. "And yes, I know that I just asked one, but seriously though." My grin disappeared. "Sure." The purple unicorn turned around to face me, her face twisted in confusion, but I could see her eyes sparkling with curiosity. "What was it like, being petrified. The others that escaped had all seemed to have lost a good chunk of their sanity, if they had any at all to begin with. But you came out just fine. Why?" I raised an eyebrow. "Who said I was still sane?" I asked, my face contorting into a joker-like grin. "Maybe I'm just better at holding it in than most." Once again, Twilight looked unamused. "Jeez Twi, at least crack a smile will ya." I said, returning my expression to a neutral frown. "But seriously, it helped that I was asleep for 3000 years of it. It's like dreamless sleeping, I went to sleep then woke up. No time for me to go crazy then." "What about the other 4000 years?" Twilight had started walking again. I thought about that for a second. "Well, how many of the escapees had multiple 'characters' in their head? I think talking to Rupert helped." "Hmm. Seems plausible." Twilight admitted. "But what about you being up-to-date on changes in the world? I know the train didn't exist 7000 years ago, but you didn't even bat an eye at it." "Discord filled me in. He's elected himself as "chairman of current events", and goes out of his way to inform the others of important events throughout history." Twilight shook her head. "Questions for another time. Ah, here we are!" I looked up and gaped at the huge tree that stood before us. "This is your house?!" I gasped. The others had told me that Twilight lived in a tree, but I didn't actually think they meant it! "Yep!" Twilight looked at me proudly and gestured to the door. "Welcome to the Golden Oaks Library." I bent over to see inside and gasped in delight. Back on Earth I had been somewhat of a bookworm, so I was ecstatic at the sight of all the books inside the tree. Ducking under the pony sized doorway, I entered the library with a Twilight right behind me. Taken over by curiosity, I walked over and scanned the shelves. Books like Hover, Float, and Soar: A Pegasus Flight Manuel and Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone lined the shelves, while a few sat on a round wooden table in the center of the room. "Spike!" Twilight called, and almost immediately there was the sound of footsteps. I turned, just in time to see a purple and green lizard run down some stairs, I assumed these led to Twilight's quarters, and embrace Twilight in a hug. "Twilight you're back!" He cried excitedly. "What was it the princesses needed you for?" "Nothing major, just wanted us to help a friend out." Twilight replied, gesturing at me with a hoof. "Who..." Spike trailed off when he saw me, his eyes growing larger as he took in my huge armored form. Figuring that I should make the first move, I stepped foreword and crouched, reaching out a hand towards him. "Name's Rage. How are you?" "I'm good." Spike said uncertainly as he gingerly reached out and grasped my hand. Twilight smiled at us as Spike and I shook hands. "Now I'm going to go upstairs and unpack, so you two get to know each other a bit more. Okay?" "Will do Twilight!" We responded as the unicorn disappeared up the stairs. "Ya know," I said, scrutinizing Spike carefully, "if I didn't know better, I'd say you're a dragon." "You're right, I am! And assistant to Twilight." Spike proudly proclaimed. I returned to my full hight and shook my head. "A dragon working for a unicorn.... Now I've seen everything." At that, we both burst out laughing. Spike and I conversed for a time, asking and answering questions. I told him about my past and my plans of reformation, which he agreed to help with. Twilight eventually came back down, clearly happy that Me and Spike had hit it off so well. "Alright Rage," she said, interrupting mine and Spike's discussion over dragons in Equestria vs dragons in myths on Earth. "You ready to go?" Just as I was about to respond, there was a rapid banging at the door. Using her magic, Twilight opened the door and let in a worried looking Rainbow Dash. "Dash, what's the matter?" She asked. "There's a large crowd of ponies heading this way, Twi. And they've got the mayor at the front. I don't think you're gonna have enough time to think of a good explanation that will breeze his history past the rest of the town." I stood from the chair I had placed myself in and joined the two ponies at the door, just in time to see a large herd of Ponyville residents moving towards us. "We'll think of something." I winked at Twilight. "I'm sure we will. After all, we've all faced worse."