//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 *Rewritten* 
// Story: Maximum Ride: Cause Saving Just One World is Too Easy 
// by Jspang 
//------------------------------//

	That night, I had the same dream.

Again, I fought through the crowd of flyboys. Again, I saw Ari collapse. Again, I held him in my arms, begging him to stay with me as I felt his life inexorably drain away. Again, I sat there, holding his lifeless corpse and crying as the rest of the world faded away.

But... something felt different, this time.

I got the feeling I was being watched, and immediately I was lucid. The pain of Ari's death didn't disappear, but I knew that I was dreaming, now. Standing, I left his body lying on the ground, where it too dissolved, leaving only the blank expanse of white. The nothingness was completely unbroken, save for the silhouette of a single pony, an alicorn, to be exact.

Something told me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was looking at the real Luna, not some figment of my admittedly strange imagination. Apparently, she could use some kind of creepy dream magic, but that wasn't really what was on my mind at right that second. I was a little busy being outraged at the gross invasion of privacy.

She came closer, showing me that her eyes were wide and full of pain and sympathy. "Max... I didn't-"

"No."

"But, your friend-"

"No, Luna. You don't get to be sorry. What gives you the right to barge into my goddamn mind?! This is my business, and you had no reason or permission to see this shit." All thoughts of diplomacy were pretty far from my mind at this point.

It seemed like my reaction had caught the princess off her guard. "I... I had to know that you were telling the truth. We cannot simply throw ourselves behind ones as strange as you so soon, not without some sort of verification."

I exploded. "Well there are better ways of doing that then invading my FUCKING DREAMS!" I almost took a swing at her, but settled with a dark, threatening glare at the last second. "Get out."

Luna took another, cautious step forward, despite everything. "Max, I know the pain you are feeling right now. You cannot keep such pain bottled inside you. It becomes a poison that eats you from the inside out."

I didn't need this. "Get the fuck out of my head."

She remained where she was. "Please, Max. Just let me help you through this. You are not the only one who has lost those dear to you. You must discuss this matter, if not with me, then with somepony closer to you." Through the red that was slowly sneaking into my vision, I could see that her face spoke of losing many loved ones over the years. I could see genuine pain and loss in her eyes, but her tone only conveyed honest concern for me. It was enough to snap me out of my murderous rage.

Taking a few deep, calming breaths, I tried my best to consider the situation from her perspective. She had every right to be suspicious of the flock. It wasn't necessarily her fault that she happened to enter into a nightmare. Come to think of it, the real reason I was so pissed off at her wasn't because she now knew about Ari's death, it wasn't even that she had invaded my dream. I hate showing vulnerability, and me bawling my eyes out over Ari looks pretty frickin' vulnerable. Princess Luna, being a total stranger, seeing a side of me that I don't even let most of the flock see really caught me off guard, and as you've probably figured out by now, I don't react well when I'm surprised. 

"Ari... made some mistakes," I finally said, after realizing I had been silent for way too long while I gathered my thoughts. "But at his heart, he was a kid. Ari never got a chance to have a childhood and grow up. He had a terrible life, and the whitecoats used him. Ari didn't deserve what they put him through. In the end, he died protecting us, and I won't be able to forget that... ever." In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. Why not just pour my heart out to her now?

She nodded solemnly. "We never truly stop hurting over the death of those close to us. The best anypony can do is honor their memories by keeping them in our thoughts and hearts." The fact that this bleeding heart crap was legitimately making me feel better really tells you about my mental state.

I let out a sigh. "thank you." She was right, dammit. Just talking about it with someone was lessening the burden. Despite everything, a small grin crossed my face. "I don't suppose you still wanna poke around my head some more?"

The princess gave me a soft smile of her own. "I think that you've clearly suffered even more than you claimed to have at the hooves of these 'whitecoats.' Rest assured that my sister and I will not allow such heinous crimes to continue in our realm."

"Then are you inclined to acquiesce to my request?"

"Are you mocking me?" she asked, pointedly narrowing her eyes.

"Nay, fair maiden! Thou woundeth me with they saucy toungue!"

Luna stepped closer, looking directly into my eyes. "'Twould behoove you to mind your words, for only a true dullard of a mouse would speak ill of a lioness in her presence." Her glower melted into an expression of quiet amusement as she let out a chuckle. "I believe the phrase goes, 'get on my level.'" Still laughing to herself, she turned away and disappeared.


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When I woke up, my reaction was remarkably calm, considering that I had been sleeping in an unfamiliar place. To my surprise, I actually remembered every detail of my dream conversation with Luna. The princess's advice seemed to have stuck with me, and that made this the first time in a while that I didn't wake up blubbering like a toddler.

I tossed the covers of my enormous, ludicrously fluffy bed aside and sat on the edge, stretching and yawning. A quick glance outside told me it was just after sunrise. I took a moment to marvel at some of the new information I had acquired last night before bed. One of the most prominent had been the fact that Celestia and Luna control the movement of the sun and moon, respectively. Yeah. Let that one sink in for a minute.

Eventually, I got tired of questioning Equus's physics (or lack thereof) for the thirtieth time and stood up, making my way towards the bathroom. I'll spare you the more gruesome details, but rest assured that Gazzy would have been impressed. After (and probably because of) my morning ritual, I decided to actually pay attention to my personal hygiene for once. Nobody had commented on it, but we looked like hell after our flight and fight. My mom's constant hints that I should freshen up more had taken their toll recently. I paused for a moment and laughed quietly. The biggest problem I'd had over the last few months had been my mom's lighthearted nagging. Go figure. I stepped out of the shower and threw my old clothes back on. Bad idea. I made a mental note to get them cleaned as soon as possible.

Back in my bedroom, something was wrong. Something felt... out of place, like something was there that shouldn't be. Gut instincts have never steered me wrong in the past, so I dropped into a low crouch and swept my eyes around the room once again, but nothing was there.

Immediately, I sighed, relaxed, and straightened up. "Fang, you asshole, show yourself."

The jerk materialized leaning nonchalantly against a wall with a small smirk on his smug face. "I just can't get one by you, can I? What tipped you off, Sherlock?"

I waved a hand in front of my face in an exaggerated motion. "Your B.O. You could make a skunk cry right now." 

He ignored me.

"Well good morning to you, too, sunshine."

"Celestia wants us to join her for breakfast," came the terse reply.

I sighed theatrically. "You have way too much energy in the mornings. If you don't calm down, I'm gonna have to put you in a time-out." Fang couldn't even be bothered to reply and simply shook his head. He was probably overwhelmed by my comedic genius. "When did you talk to her?"

"I took a walk."

"Really?" I grinned. "The princess allowed such a foul monster to roam her castle's corridors unattended?"

His smirk grew wider. "Nah. I left the beast in here."

"Har, har."

Fang suddenly became gravely serious. "Speaking of monsters..." He produced a rolled-up newspaper from his jacket pocket and tossed it to me. "Check out the front page."

When I unrolled the paper, a picture of Rainbow Dash and myself greeted me. Whoever had taken it had caught us when we were arguing in the courtyard, and the face I was making was pretty horrifying. My lip was curled up in a snarl and the look in my eyes suggested that I was about two seconds away from tearing the pegasus's throat out. What worried me most, however, was the headline.


Monsters in Canterlot?
Celestia's Newest Guest Threatens the Bearer of the Element of Loyalty


It was quiet for a moment.

"Wasn't Rainbow Dash honesty or something?" I ask, only half joking. I ignored Fang's eye roll and continued, a bit more seriously. "This is definitely something we need to straighten out with Celestia. I hate to say it, but we probably need to make some sort of public appearance so that the princesses can vouch for us. Refusing to acknowledge anything will just make them even more paranoid."

Fang simply shrugged and grunted what I hoped was an affirmative. What can I say? The dude's an expert conversationalist.

I stuffed the paper into my windbreaker's pocket and started towards the door. "I guess it's time to get everyone up." As a response, Fang pushed off the wall and fell into step behind me.

Stepping out into the hallway, I took stock of the multiple guestroom doors. I had memorized each flock member's room last night, and I headed for the one who I knew would be hell to wake up, because I'm kind of a sadist. Thoughtfully, I made sure to knock extra loud to make my presence known to the room's occupant in case he wasn't decent. I also made sure that the door slammed into the wall when it swung open.

Iggy was sprawled both around and under the covers of his bed, contorted in a position that didn't look physically possible. I couldn't tell where his wings ended and his arms began, he was in suck a tangle of ridiculously long limbs. A sinister smirk crossed my face when I noticed that he was stirring and groaning from all the noise I was making. "Rise and shine, Igster!" I chirped loudly, because I'm just caring like that. "It's time for breakfast!"

The lanky teen simply rolled over and moaned, "Not if you're fixing it, it's not." He let out a sigh as he drifted back off to sleep. "Bite me," he added as an afterthought.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," I clicked my tongue and shook my head. "We can't have that now, sleepyhead," I quipped with false cheeriness as I wandered over to the side of his bed. Fang suppressed a chuckle when I flashed him a jaunty wink and reached for the bottom of Iggy's mattress.

With a mighty heave, sheets, mattress, and mutant alike went airborne. Iggy's half-awake squeal of surprise is something that I will always cherish. His head poked up over the now-empty bed frame and fixed me with a bleary-eyed glare that did absolutely nothing to quell my hoots of laughter.

"There will be vengeance," he muttered without the slightest trace of irony. "I swear it."

"Bring it, beanpole."

Without another word, Iggy flipped me off, pushed past Fang, and exited the room, presumably to plan his so-called vengeance with Gazzy.

Nudge and Angel were much easier to wake up, seeing as Nudge was up as soon as I mentioned Pinkie Pie and Angel was waiting for me with Total in her arms when I opened the door. I love her to death, but that girl gets creepier every damn day.

When we had all gathered in the hallway that connected our rooms, I set off purposefully in the direction that I was certain we had came from last night. I was feeling adventurous, so we wandered the corridors for several minutes, passing many identical stairways and doors. We weren't lost, though. My internal compass (just another perk of being a mutant birdkid) was steering me in the right direction, until we found a wall where the doors should have been.

"What the hell?!" I yelled, glaring at the offending structure as if it would simply disintegrate and allow us access.

Fang shook his head ruefully and fixed me with that infuriatingly confident, easy smile of his. "Max, you can't rely on your internal compass. The architects didn't build this place to fit what you think it should be like."

"Yeah, well they should've," I grumbled. "How do you know where anything is, anyway?"

His grin widened as he chuckled. "Celestia told me." I glared after him as he spun on his heel and turned a corner. "Come on, fearless leader!" I heard him shout.

The jerk had us at the double doors from last night in less than two minutes, so I guess he won that one. For those of you keeping track at home, that would be Fang: 1, Max: 258. I punched him in the shoulder before shoving the doors open and guiding the flock in like the great leader I am.

All the ponies were already gathered around the table, save for Pinkie Pie. She popped out of a gap in the tile at our feet, scaring the shit out of all of us. I think Total may have even pissed a bit, though he would never admit it and I was a little busy having a heart attack. ""Wha... How... When? Why?!" I stuttered dumbly at her.

The living threat to the stability of the multiverse simply flashed me a cheeky grin that said that she knew many things that I didn't. "Life has many doors, Ed-boy."

"What." It wasn't really a question, but more of a statement intended to relay the failure of all of my mental facilities.

"Oops, sorry," she chirped, her infuriating grin unmoved. "Wrong meme." The pony pranced back over to the table and took a seat, as if she had completely explained herself, leaving a dumbfounded flock in her wake.

I shook my head to try and rearrange my thoughts and became aware of Rainbow's hysterical laughter. All the others were snickering to some degree as well, and I realized that if this sort of thing happened on a regular basis, then we must have looked pretty ridiculous. I also realized that I just couldn't bring myself to care anymore.

Twilight took pity on us and spoke up, "It's better to just not question Pinkie. She operates on a different plane than us mere mortals."

Slowly, the gears started turning in my head again, and I made my way over to the table and took a seat, smiling gratefully at the unicorn. 

"Sugarcube, ya need to understand that Pinkie Pie is just gonna be Pinkie Pie, and the less ya question it, the fewer headaches yer gonna put up with," Applejack quipped with a light chuckle.

"I'll try to keep that in mind."

Everyone fell silent once again as the food was brought out. Once again, everything made my mouth water, and I didn't even know what all of it was. This time, however, we made a point not to dive into the meal like starving animals. That's not to say we had good table manners by any stretch of the imagination, but at least we didn't traumatize anyone this time.

The food was delicious... again, and pretty soon the ponies started to engage us in polite conversation. It actually felt... nice. Enjoying a meal with anyone outside the flock isn't exactly something we do often.

I finished my breakfast quickly. Nice as it was, we still needed to get down to business. The whitecoats weren't gonna sit around, waiting for us to make the first move. I set down my fork and swallowed before addressing the solar princess, who had remained strangely silent until now. "Did you come up with any kind of plan for getting rid of the whitecoats?"

She nodded solemnly. "Yes. I intend for us to leave soon after we finish here. I am sorry, Max, but I must talk to them as well. I know now beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have been through terrible things at their hands," Luna winced at that. "But I could not live with myself if I acted without first obtaining their side of the story."

That was all I could ask for, really. All she would need as proof of their malignant intentions was two minutes of Lady Hitler's self-important squawking. I nodded my assent and piled a little more scrambled eggs on my plate. while waiting on the others to finish. I really didn't want to think about why ponies have eggs.

"Additionally," she said, proving that nothing can ever be easy for us. "I have arranged a press conference for you all to take place upon our return. I'm sure that you all have seen the article printed about you?" Oh yeah. I knew I had forgotten something. Fang stole the paper from my pocket and passed it around the table and made sure that everyone saw me in all my printed rage.

"Jesus, Max! You look like you're about to kill her!" Gazzy yelled, before softly describing the image and article to Iggy.

Celestia cleared her throat, and the room became quiet again. She's really good at that. Princess Celestia kinda has that whole 'disappointed mother' thing going on that instantly demands your respect and attention. Even the flock, rebels though we are, couldn't help but shut up the second she made a sound. "Quite. As I'm sure you can imagine, it is immensely important that  my little ponies understand exactly who you are and why you're here, as well as your benevolent intentions. I'm afraid that they tend to fear the worst when confronted with the unfamiliar."

Luna chuckled and shook her head admonishingly. "I told you all this 'freedom of the press' nonsense is just that, sis. If the public isn't going to treat it with respect and responsibility, then why should they be allowed to use it?"

Wait... what?

"We have been over this many times, Luna, and we will discuss it once again, later. I do not wish to become a tyrant. Our ponies should be free to do as they wish, if they are not harming anypony."

The smaller princess lowered her head and muttered, "Yeah but... they're being stupid."

Nudge looked up from her plate at that, a confused expression adorning her face. "If you knew that everybody would freak out about us, then why didn't you try to keep us out of the public view? Twilight had us go through all these backroads and junk in Ponyville. Why just bring us in a huge, golden chariot?"

Luna blushed through her fur (somehow) and mumbled something while her sister just stared, a playful glint in her eye. "What was that, Princess?" Pinkie Pie asked cheekily, pulling out a comically large ear trumpet from who knows where and holding it up to the alicorn. "I didn't quite catch that."

"I didn't let her, okay?!" she shouted directly into the trumpet and blushing furiously. Pinkie was unfazed. "I was really excited at the prospect of meeting real aliens, so I just pestered her until she sent for them directly, rather than waiting for nightfall like she originally planned."

The room was silent for a moment, but then Celestia spoke, "She can be very persuasive."

That did it. For what felt like the twelfth time in as many hours, we burst into real, happy laughter. The image of Luna bugging her sister like a regular younger sister seemed so ridiculous, but believable. "Wait, wait, wait," Applejack managed between snorts. "Y'all mean ta tell me that ya just pestered her like Apple Bloom does ta me until ya revealed a huge potential threat or asset ta tha country? And ya just let her?" Wow. The mare was smarter than I originally gave her credit for.

All eyes turned to the solar diarch once again. "I repeat my earlier statement." She let the laughter go on for another minute or so before clearing her throat and indicating her desire for silence. "Well, if you are all quite finished, then I suggest that we prepare to leave."

Rainbow Dash jumped out of her seat and hovered over the table, boxing with an invisible enemy. "Alright! Let's go show those whitecoats who's boss!"

As the pegasus turned and flew towards the door, Celestia raised a hoof and called after her. "Rainbow, please wait a moment." She had the look of someone who had forgotten to say something and was seriously regretting it. Coincidentally, that was exactly what happened. "Actually, I neglected to mention that the Element bearers will not be joining us. I intend to only bring myself, Luna, and the flock."

I swear to God their jaws hit the floor. This is not an exaggeration. They unhinged like a friggin' snake's and extended to their hooves, like a cartoon. It was really off-putting. Then, as one, they began to protest.

"Oh come on!"

"Ah beg yer pardon?!"

"I believe we can take care of ourselves. Thank you very much!"

"Um... if you don't mind..."

"Princess, I hate to second-guess your judgement, but-"

"I LIKE YELLING, TOO!"

The awkward silence Pinkie's outburst caused actually gave the princess time to explain herself. Maybe there was a method to the strange mare's madness. Although, considering she chose that moment to stick her hoof into her mouth and blow, causing her mane to "pop" and then "reinflate," I couldn't be too sure.

"Anyway," Luna began, staring at Pinkie warily. "What my sister was trying to say was that we're both fully aware of your capabilities. Your previous triumphs display that very clearly. However, confronting these whitecoats with two princesses, their mortal enemies, and six bearers of the most powerful magical artifacts in existence-"

"And a dog!" Could you ever figure out who it was that said that?

Celestia nodded in agreement and amended her sister's statement. "And a dog, may prompt them to attack us preemptively. While bringing the flock will not improve their mood, I do wish to have them present in case the worst happens." None of the ponies seemed particularly happy about it, but they agreed to Celestia's proposal begrudgingly. She addressed the Avian-Americans in the room alone, now. "That said, I know what these... people have put you through, but I am asking you to at least allow them to explain themselves. After all, you did say that this particular group simply wished to leave your world, correct?"

Iggy's face darkened menacingly. "They sure didn't seem to have healthy plans for this place, either."

Both sisters nodded grimly, apparently agreeing. "Should the worst occur," Luna remarked, "We are prepared to defend Equestria by any means necessary."

Well that didn't sound ominous at all.

"Okaaaaay," Nudge uncomfortably entered the conversation. "After that vaguely threatening comment, how about we go ahead and get ready to leave?"

Celestia and Luna stood from the table as one. "I agree. I would prefer to give the whitecoats as little time to meddle in my kingdom as possible until we are absolutely sure of their intentions. Luna and I will be back in a few moments. We need to settle a few matters before we depart. Please feel free to make yourselves at home until we return." With that, the two alicorns rose and exited the room, leaving behind six ponies, six mutants, and a dog, all of which were in way over their heads.


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It had taken much less time than Julia had expected to reach the edge of the Everfree Forest, as the Nightmare called it. Thanks to the creature's guidance, the small army of robotic eraser units had made great time, even through the choking underbrush of the forest. The trees dwindled and eventually gave way to a small plain, but the Nightmare advised her host to hold the robots just inside the tree line, out of sight.

She sighed as she considered the mountain and the city jutting our from its side. How would you propose we approach Canterlot without being seen? she thought impatiently.

The research director felt the Nightmare smirk from wherever she resided in her brain. It was an altogether unsettling feeling. Who said anything about stealth?