(Consider the insane length of this chapter as an apology for the prank I pulled on you all earlier. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about I replaced this chapter with a rickroll. Also, I think I finally figured out why the huge stories have pre-readers, because this was insane. -N64Fan)
It had been a busy week for Inventor as he now lay in bed back in Ponyville, he heard soft snores coming from Scootaloo’s room across the hall and noticed that she was sleeping peacefully without the melody of the music box floating through the air. “I guess she has gotten over her nightmares, that’s good. They seemed to drive her insane.” The man smiled to himself as he laid his head to rest on the pillow. He had been more than insane once, and now that he was finally recovering with the help of these ponies the last thing he needed was his daughter to follow in his footsteps.
As the man fell into his sleep he immediately felt something wasn’t quite right, the normal flow of equations wouldn’t come to him and the darkness seemed to swirl around his mind. Trying to force equations into his head did nothing to help and the darkness only increased its movements when he did so, after a few moments it felt like the blackness was suffocating him and, with a gasp, Inventor forced himself into consciousness and looked around the room quickly.
The sun had started to rise but other then that nothing in the room had changed, aside from that he noticed that the snores from Scootaloo’s sleeping had been replaced with a muffled weeping noise, springing from his bed immediately Inventor dashed to the orange filly’s room and flung the door open in urgency. As he did so the filly looked up at him in fear. Beside fear there was something else in her eye, something that hurt Inventor more than anything else could. She didn’t recognize him.
The filly immediately darted out of the room and down the stairs where she burst out the front door. Inventor followed suit, making sure to grab his top hat from the hat rack before running out the door and slamming it shut behind him, he glanced around and saw a flash of orange disappear around a house. With a burst of adrenaline Inventor was running after his daughter, something was wrong, something had happened, and the scariest thing about it was that Inventor had no idea what it could even possibly be.
After a few more turns through town Inventor realized that Scootaloo was heading to Rarity’s boutique. With this in mind Inventor took a shorter route through an alley and arrived just as the door opened so Scootaloo could come in, when she saw the man approaching she quickly ran into the building and the door shut.
Slowing his pace Inventor stood at the door and knocked on the wooden entryway, from beyond he could hear the fashionista berating the babblings of Scootaloo, “There is no such thing as monsters like the ones you’re talking about, Scootaloo, honestly.” The mare said just before she opened the door with her magic, when she saw Inventor in the doorway she froze.
“Hello Rarity. Sorry to disturb you but Scoots ran out of the house and I saw her come here, I think something must have happened but-” Inventor stopped as he saw the same look of confusion on the white mare’s face, one that quickly shifted to a protective glare as she spoke over her shoulder.
“Sweetie, take Scootaloo and go to your room, then lock the door.” The white filly nodded her head at her sister’s command. A look of surprise was on the white filly’s face as the orange pegasus wore the same look of fear she had that morning. With that the two fillies went to their room.
“Rari-” Inventor tried once more as he reached to the white unicorn.
She backed away, “I know not what you are, monster. But you will not enter this house!” She shouted loudly. Inventor looked at her first in surprise but his face quickly dropped to an apathetic stare before he did something that she didn’t expect, he slowly turned around so his back was to the door and sat on the ground.
After a few minutes of confusion for the mare the man eventually spoke over his shoulder, “Aren’t you going to get Twilight so she can have the princess come and throw me into a dungeon?” He asked with a poisonous tone that seemed to cause himself hurt when he spoke. “Wouldn’t want some wild animal running loose in Ponyville would you?”
She slowly nodded and sent a magical message to Twilight, she had learned the spell recently and she had wanted to try it out. She received a brief response from the lavender mare before assuring her that the message had been sent to the princess.
Minutes later the lavender mare arrived and saw the man sitting in front of the house so she stopped to look at him. Inventor glanced once at the lavender mare and, seeing the same lack of recognition in her face as the others he turned his head back to gaze at the sky. Twilight knocked on the door and the door was hesitantly opened by Rarity, when she saw it was Twilight she quickly opened the door the rest of the way and let out a sigh of relief.
“Oh it’s so good to see you darling, this ruffian appears to have kidnapped Scootaloo and then chased her when she tried to run away.” Inventor flinched at this as if he had been in pain but remained silent.
Twilight caught the look and stood in front of the man, “Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?” She said as she eyed the human.
“It doesn’t matter what I say, maybe if you remembered me I could do something about that accusation but, as things are right now, you won’t listen to what I have to say. Regardless of how true it is.” He said as he glanced at the lavender mare once again, “But I will say that I would never, under any circumstances, purposefully harm that pegasus filly.” his eyes turned cold as he spoke and the lavender mare felt the sudden urge to leave him alone.
Twilight nodded slowly and retreated into the boutique, “Celestia sent Luna to pick him up because she will be busy with a few things today.” A crack of lightning split the air outside and both mares looked to see the black sky carriage descending with Luna in tow. As it landed the princess exited the vehicle and looked at the man who sat almost completely still outside the boutique.
“I assume this is the monster we are supposed to pick up?” Luna said as she glared hatefully at the man, “The creature that disturbed the peace and is under suspected kidnapping of one foal?” Inventor twitched again and stood from the ground, he nodded to the princess and turned to lock his eyes on the ground.
“Aboard the carriage then, we will escort you to the dungeon where you will serve the correct amount of time for these crimes as assigned by my sister and then you will be released into the Everfree.” Silent save for the ticking noise, that was once more from an unknown origin for all the ponies, Inventor boarded the flying transport and remained standing as Luna nodded once to Twilight and Rarity before the carriage was back in the air and heading for Canterlot.
The flight was without words, Luna was looking steadily ahead of the carriage as the pegasi flew the transport and Inventor remained silent as he looked at the floor. Upon arrival to the castle Inventor was taken into the dungeon and told that that night Celestia would be coming to judge him. He didn’t respond as he was placed in his cell.
The guards were hesitant of this prisoner as they went about their duties, scared by the unknown origin of the creature and fearful of what he could do. Around midday one of the cells next to the man began to get loud and was causing quite a ruckus, just as one of the guards was about to quiet down the cell the man barked a loud “SILENCE!” And the cell fell quiet, as did the murmurs that had been circulating the room, the remainder of the day was kept by the ticking that echoed off the walls, it annoyed a few of the prisoners but they were to scared by this creature to say anything about it.
Eventually nighttime ticked around and Celestia made her slow descent into the dungeon, as she arrived several of the already quiet prisoners moved to the back corner of their cells. After a few steps she arrived at the door to the man’s cell and she turned to face him, with a wave of her hoof she sent the guards out of the room to take a break while she spoke to this creature.
“Hello Celestia, how is Luna handling the whole nightmare thing?” He said as he glanced up at the white alicorn.
“She is handling it.” Celestia said, slightly unnerved by the man's knowledge. “But that is beside the point, you know why you are here?”
“I know my charges, yes.”
“How do you plead?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t matter, none of it matters, the reasons I was told for why I am in here aren’t even the reasons you showed up at all.”
“So why am I here then?”
“Because there are gaps in your memory, gaps that start about a month back where you can’t recall anything from a duration of time. But of course that’s not why you’re here either, no the reason you are here is because Luna and Twilight share these symptoms and that scares you. You don’t care if I did anything to you, you care that I may have done something to your sister and your apprentice. That’s why you’re here.”
Celestia looked surprised for a moment before she hid it under her impassive monarch mask. “You seem to know quite a bit about it, am I supposed to take your words for a confession of guilt?”
“That’s why nothing matters, because if I say the truth I become a suspect, if I tell a lie, I become a suspect, even if I told you right now all the different things you’ve said to me in an attempt to receive some form of trust from you I would only appear more guilty, no matter what I say you're going to keep me in this dungeon.”
Celestia was about to say that she would never do such a thing but Inventor jumped in front of her speech, “Don’t lie to yourself you would do anything to keep your sister safe. So instead lets see if I can win my freedom with a bargain, a bet if you will, one that will appear heavily in your favor.”
Celestia wasn’t one for betting but this man seemed to know quite a few things that she needed answers too, “What’s the bet?”
“I bet you my freedom that I can break out of the cell with you watching and fully able to do anything you would like to stop me.”
“I’ll take your bet but, if you fail, I would like to ask you several questions that you will answer truthfully and to the fullest extent of your knowledge.” Celestia said as she looked at him. She did not think herself overly prideful but there was no doubt in her mind that she could stop this creature from exiting.
“Oh, Celestia, I was going to do that anyhow.” Inventor said with a smile in her direction, the white alicorn felt like she had seen that grin before but the next words of the man kept her from thinking about it any further. “Ready, Set, GO!”
In a split second the man tossed a small pebble through the squares of the cell door towards Celestia, she sidestepped the rock and watched it sail by. When she turned back to face the man the cell door was falling towards her, she attempted to grab it with magic but something was dampening her spell as the door continued to fall slowly, it was at about a forty five degree angle before Celestia managed to raise it and put it back in place.
Without Inventor inside of it.
She glanced to her side and saw Inventor sitting comfortably on the ground as he looked at the ground, “How did you manage to get the door to fall?” She asked. Inventor reached into his coat pocket and pulled out three strips of metal, with a confused look she turned back to the door and realized that the pins of the hinges were all missing.
“But when did you-”
“First thing I did when they put me in there, I thought the maniac in the cell next to me would draw the attention of the guards and they would notice but I got him to shut up and the guards never did check the door.” Inventor said as he slowly stood from the ground. With a resigned sigh he tossed the bits of metal lightly towards the sun princess who slid them into position once again with her magic, which she found to be back at full strength. “Well, let's go have tea or something and I can tell you everything I know about the memory wipe, what do you say, can't possibly hurt any and even if I did escape where would I go?”
Still shocked by what had just happened, Celestia nodded and Inventor let her lead the way out of the dungeon. Hoping that the presence of the monarch would quell the guards.
“But, how did you remove those pins? They were sealed in with magic and made by the finest blacksmiths.”
“Cross-neutrality field created by a parallel EMP wave operating on the correct wavelength easily displaced the magical binding on the hinges, That left only regular hinges to hold me in, regular hinges that are easily trumped by a fulcrum and a fair amount of force.” Inventor said with a glance to the white alicorn.
“I am not ashamed to say that I hardly understood a word you just said, frankly I think that you were quite insane to try what you did.”
Inventor smiled in return, “Too bad this is the first time you remember me, if you recalled me from prior to the mind wipe you would think that was I just said was quite simple and that my insanity was relative.”
“What did you do?”
“Jumped off your sister’s balcony to an almost certain death, you wanted to put me in the dungeon then too.”
Celestia was silent for a moment as they began their ascent up the staircase, she looked to Inventor once and then looked back up the stairs. “What’s your name? And what are you?” She said with curiosity potent in her voice.
“Inventor, and I’m nearly human.” he said with a smile in return.
“Nearly?”
“Human.”
Taking the vague remark as a hint to let the conversation drop they continued the walk up the stairs, a few guards caught sight of Inventor following Celestia and ran off in a hurry, on the floor immediately following that one Luna met with the two.
“Are you alright sister? Is this creature forcing you to do anything?” Celestia was about to calm Luna’s fears when she was once more interrupted by Inventor.
“That string on your hoof. How did it get there?” Inventor said with a glance to the dark blue alicorn.
“Why is that of any importance?”
“Well, why would a princess such as yourself walk around with a string tied around her forehoof, surely it must be important, so why are you wearing it?” Celestia glanced first to her sister who wore a confused look on her face and then to Inventor who seemed to have a glimmer of hope behind his eye though his face remained stoic.
“Someone, important, gave it to me, I think.” She said as she closed her eyes and tried to remember who it was that had made the item important to her.
“Someone? Don’t you mean ‘Somepony’?” Inventor replied.
“No, it wasn’t a pony, it was, ugh I can’t remember, why is this important?” Luna said as she looked once more at Inventor, he hung his head slightly as he shook it back and forth.
“Nevermind, doesn’t matter.” he said.
“Sister? why are you walking with this creature?” Luna said as she shifted her gaze to Celestia.
“He said that he knows something about the memory gaps, he brought up the subject before I even spoke of it.” Celestia said as she looked at the man once more, the hope was gone from his eyes and he was staring at the ground, “We made a deal and he’s going to tell me what he knows over tea.”
“I need to return to my night duties, best of luck to you sister.” Luna said as she channeled magic into her horn before disappearing in a blue flash. The two once again continued their trek up the stairs, this time with a despairing mood that seemed to hang over the human.
Eventually they reached the floor of Celestia’s room and the two began to make their way through corridors. “You gave her that string didn’t you?” Celestia finally said to break the tension that had begun to settle in.
“I used it for a demonstration prior to me jumping off the balcony, I must have made quite an impression on her if she decided to start wearing it as a bracelet.” Inventor said with a sad tone ringing through his voice, “For a minute there I almost...” He let the sentence drop off without completing it and Celestia decided that they could talk some more once they had arrived in her room.
Not too many steps later they found themselves at the door to the white alicorn’s room, the door was sealed much like the door to the elements of harmony, she stuck her horn into the hole and channeled a brief spell that opened the door, as it swung open Celestia regally walked into the room and settled herself with her legs underneath her. In front of her was a bright white stone table that sat in the middle of the massive room.
Inventor was not awed as he shuffled in after her and took a cross-legged sitting position that brought the table mid-way up his chest, the white alicorn once again channeled magic and a steaming tea set appeared on the table, not waiting for an invitation Inventor poured himself a cup of tea and began to sip it slowly.
“Haven’t had tea in a while.” He said offhandedly. His remark was followed by silence as the white alicorn poured herself a cup, the two were silent as they drank their tea, Inventor’s ticking being the only noise in the room.
After a few minutes he finally spoke up, “Are memories connected to a person directly? If somepony were to travel back in time and make it so that someone never existed then would all the people who knew him in the future forget about him or would they retain memory of him and merely wonder where he had gone to?”
“I believe that they would forget all about him, since it would be that he never existed, of course any unicorn that uses time-travel magic is bound by certain laws that are set forth in the spell so theoretically it could only happen through some alternative timetravel source.” Celestia said as she looked at him.
“I see, and how are Luna’s nightmares? I realize I asked you already but more specifically I am wondering if they suddenly stopped altogether last night.” Celestia nodded, her sister had told her that wonderful bit of news when she had also informed her of the missing gaps in her memory. “Then I suspect I know the exact cause of why the sudden gap in memory occured.” Inventor said with finality.
“But, I am going to need you to do me a favor first, something to prove my point. Can you identify and visually show souls?” He asked, Celestia hesitated.
“I can if my sister helps me, showing a visual of a soul takes large amount of energy and it can almost certainly cause horrible side effects if done alone.”
Inventor nodded, “Then I ask that she be here as soon as she can, I suspect I can bring back the memories of the people who forgot me if I do this fast enough, and, in doing so, fill in all gaps in your memory and the memories of Luna and Twilight.” At his words Celestia felt she could trust him, she didn’t remember why she could trust him, but the feeling was there all the same. With a glance around herself Celestia grabbed a paper and pen and wrote up a short note. After she finished the note disappeared in a flash of white.
“She’ll be here as soon as she can.”
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After a tired night with the crusaders Scootaloo was walking past a familiar house, she stopped and looked at it before realizing it was the house that she had ran out of that morning. The other crusaders looked to the orange pegasus as a tear ran out of her eye. “Why do I miss him so much?” She said with a breaking voice. “Why do I feel like he cared for me much more than I could ever expect anyone too?”
Her questions were met with silence from the other two crusaders as they nestled up next to the orange pegasus filly, they didn’t know anything to say to comfort her so the least they could do was to be there for her. Scoots eventually ended up in a curled up fetal position and began to cry as the moon rose slowly.
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“You called, sister?” Luna said as she entered Celestia’s room, she had used her own spell to unlock the white stone door and now saw Inventor looking at the ground with Celestia sipping a cup of tea slowly.
“Indeed I did, Inventor here says that he knows how to give us back the memories we’ve been missing, he also claims its connected to your nightmares suddenly stopping dead.” Celestia said as she rose from the ground, “But he says in order to prove his theory we need to visually manifest a soul.”
Luna looked between Inventor and Celestia, she was about to refuse the idea when she noticed the string still tied around her hoof, with a sudden assurance that she could trust the creature she looked to her sister. “Alright, I will assist with this.” She turned her gaze to Inventor “What soul do you need us to visually manifest?”
“Mine.” Came the reply as he stood from the ground as well. Celestia nodded her head and looked to Luna, the moon princess returned the nod and the two of them began to focus magic through their horns. The magic in the room slowly began to build before the two alicorns cast their magic at the same time.
Both collided in midair and circled around each other before forming an odd grey magic projectile, the projectile hit Inventor squarely in the chest but he remained unaffected, after a few moments the magic swirled around the human and a visualization of his soul appeared, Luna gasped and Celestia let her gaze drop to the floor.
Inventor’s soul was visualized as what appeared to be himself but rows and rows of chains covered his entire body, long lengths of chains were wrapped tightly around his wrists and stuck to the ground. Unfazed by the apparition Inventor was looking wildly around the room, eventually he found what he was looking for.
“There.” Inventor said as he pointed his hand to the wall of the room, both alicorns moved their gaze to where he as pointing and saw something they didn’t expect to, a second soul had appeared and Inventor was looking at it gravely. It was a pegasus with a blue mane, coat and eyes, its cutie mark was a heart with pins in it and a line sewed the length of the side. The one obvious fact that made a shiver run down Celestia’s spine was the look on its face. The look was one of pure fear.
“Solidify him into existence, how much magic do you need?” Inventor asked hurriedly as he doffed his cap and peered inside it, he reached inside and looked desperately at the two alicorns.
“The amount of magic needed would be preposterous, we would need at least six times the magic we have now..” Luna said and Inventor immediately set to work, knobs were spun inside the hat and steam began to shoot forth from the cap, a loud hissing noise filled the air and he looked to the alicorns.
“Cast the spell, I’ve amplified your magic.” There was a brief pause where the sisters looked at each other. “Just do it!” He said loudly.
Sharing another simultaneous nod the two princesses did as they were asked to and the magic they cast at the projection of a soul was amplified as it moved through the air. When it hit the blue pegasus a flash echoed around him, slowly, yet steadily the magic set to work and he entered the world of the living. He looked around fearfully until he saw Inventor, then his face turned to surprise.
The man quickly turned away as the magic amplifier overloaded and exploded, the man caught the majority of the blow with his chest as he landed on the ground next to the hoofs of the princesses.
“Inventor!” Luna shouted, “That was stupider than when you jumped off my balcony.” she said with an angry tone.
“Eh, at least you remember me now.” Inventor said. He slowly rotated his head as red wounds began to appear on his white shirt. “Hey Insight, don’t suppose you know any healing magic with the darkness inside of you?” The blue colt was much younger then he had been when Inventor had transformed into him, in fact he looked to be only a year or two older then Scootaloo.
Despite the question the colt was frozen stiff as a look of disbelief covered his face, he hadn’t heard the words of the man, the alicorns glanced at the blue colt before Celestia turned her gaze to the bleeding man at her feet, “That was interesting.” She said as she lowered her horn to his chest, the magic aura covered him from head to foot and not only did the wounds disappear but the blood stains vanished from his clothes.
“You know me, I like to keep you on your toes.” As soon as he finished speaking a scroll appeared in front of Celestia and dropped to the ground, “And that will be the letter begging you not to kill me.”
-------------------------------------------A few hours later--------------------------------------
“I still don’t understand how you managed to create a soul!” Luna said excitedly as Inventor sat, resting, against the wall. Despite that he was healed by Celestia his body was still in a fair amount of pain from the wounds existing in the first place. Insight was sitting with them, only slightly more aware of his surroundings then when he had first come into the physical plane.
“I didn’t intend to, nor did I fully expect that I could repeat it if I tried. The transformation due to magical residue had an unexpected side effect, it took a little of the rampant anti-magic of the forest and applied it to the transformation, when the shape of a pony was detected the magic created a seed a copy of the pony that somepony would see, because of that fact that it creates a copy of an already existing pony chances are that this seed would simply die off, but due to the way I transformed into a pony the seed grew and, just last night, sprouted.”
“I still don’t understand two things Inventor,” Celestia said “How did you know about this alternate soul in the first place? How did you know that the soul had been hatched last night?” She paused at this before continuing, “And how did you know that it was connected to, let alone that it was using, nightmares?”
“Because it was using magic to cut my existance off to other ponies, the only magic that exists in the Everfree, beside the anti-magic, were the Elements and Nightmare Moon. The elements are missing completely from the location so that left only one thing, nightmares. Of course I wasn’t sure of this fact until you confirmed that Luna’s nightmares had disappeared.”
“But why would he destroy all memories related to you?” Luna said curiously. Insight looked at her with a scared look on his face and the night princess regretted bringing it up at all, the question was quickly answered once more by Inventor however.
“He was only at a maturity level of, oh, probably about five years?” He glanced to the blue pegasus colt who nodded. “When you were five what did you do when you wanted someone to pay attention to you? You probably pestered them and pestered them and eventually you would cause something that would make them pay attention to you. That’s all he did and I can’t say I fault him for it. He was trapped in the darkness of me and several others that he had absorbed, I can only imagine he would want out of there.”
“But that leaves just one more question, what are we going to do with him, he’s born of darkness so I’m sure more then a few ponies will be put off by that and we can’t have him in the castle due to restrictions on the number of people, even if we could he wouldn’t be taken care of like a pony of his age should.” Luna said as she looked to the blue pegasus, she only then noticed that his cutie mark was no longer on his flank. She decided to keep quiet about it though and turned her gaze to Inventor expectantly.
“And he’ll need someone who has some knowledge of odd types of magic...” Celestia said with a glance to Inventor, Insight looked pleadingly at the man his eyes as big and pouty as they could get.
“Of course I’ll do it, I’m sure that Scoots would like a brother, but Twilight gets to teach him magic, I’m no good at it.” Inventor said with a grin.
The rest of the conversation was idle chat before Inventor declared that it would be best for him and Insight to get back to the town. The train ride was mostly silent bar the ticking noise and the wheels on the track.
It was in the middle of the train ride through the middle of the day that Insight spoke up, “I’m so sorry for causing all this mess.” he said as he looked to Inventor who returned a grin.
“You’ve seen some of my darker memories, I apologize for that by the way, you should know that this ‘mess’ is nothing to me, its just like a regular adventure, almost died, check, scared the crap out of my friends, check. Its been a busy day I suppose but look, the most important thing that happened today is something that probably slipped your mind.”
Insight looked at Inventor with a tilted head as Inventor continued, “Its your birthday and I sent a letter ahead to Pinkie Pie.” A grin spread across the small colt’s face and the train arrived at the Ponyville station, a look out the window revealed a party all set with several ponies milling around the food. Pinkie Pie called the others over to stand by the train and when the door opened they all shouted a loud surprise.
After the initial burst of happiness was out several of the elements in addition to Trixie looked at Insight with disbelief on their faces, “Hello everyone, nice to see that everyone’s memory came back, this is Insight, as I’m sure a few of you know. There was an incident with a magical backfire that I didn’t fully expect and, long story short, it’s Insight’s first birthday today!”
“It’s his first?” Pinkie said before taking a long gasp, “You didn’t tell me it was his first! I need to go get more cake!” The mare was off in a blur leaving the remainder of the elements and the showmare to approach Insight and begin to ask him questions. As Twilight was about to join the questions Inventor tapped her on the snout and she looked up at him indignantly.
With a smile he led her away from the small colt who was doing his best to answer the question that were being posed to him and towards some of the tasty confections that rested on the table. “I need to ask you a question Twilight.” Inventor said with a look to the unicorn.
“What is it Inventor?”
“Something I can’t do on my own and that I would like you to help Insight with. You see, he can utilize magic. Not unicorn magic though, shadow magic, he inherited it from my transformation at the Everfree. And since you are the element of magic as well as having magic as your special talent I was hoping that you could teach him the basics sometime after school.”
“Sh-shadow magic?” Twilight said eyeing the colt who was beginning to shrink away from the constant questions of the librarian’s friends. “But, I’m not even sure that shadow magic works like unicorn magic, let alone the safety of using it period.”
“Look, you get to learn about shadow magic, he gets to learn how to control shadow magic, it really is a win win for both of you when you think of it.” Inventor said with a smile.
Twilight let out a sigh “Fine, I guess when you put it that way it’s a good plan.” She said and Inventor smiled at her.
“I knew it was, now I’m expecting to get tackled by my daughter in a few -” He was silenced as Scootaloo jumped up and tackled him, he pretended to get hit and fell to the ground. “Ahh, Insight, help me, your sister is attacking me.”
“Sister?” Insight and Scootaloo said at the same time before catching each others eyes, Insight began to slowly back away as Scootaloo took a running leap and pinned him to the ground.
“I have a brother? This is the best day ever!” Scootaloo said as she looked at the blue pegasus she had just pinned, “He doesn’t have a cutie mark either! He can join the crusaders, right guys?” Sweetie Belle and Applebloom appeared from the crowd and ran over to the orange pegasus.
“Cutie Mark Crusaders, Recruiters, yay!” They shouted loudly, Inventor shook his head resignedly and walked to the punch bowl while his daughter initiated the new blank flank into the group. The remainder of the party went off without much of a hitch, Pinkie quickly arrived with more cakes and the CMC attempted to receive their cake eating cutie marks with their new member.
On the walk home both of the foals that Inventor had adopted were grumbling about a stomach ache and a lack of cutie mark to show for it. The man continued to smile at the antics of the children as they walked the path back to the house, as they were walking an elderly mare that Inventor couldn’t remember seeing before stopped the man in his path.
“Man to stone and dust to ashes.” She said to him before walking away, when he turned to look for her again she was missing and had left no clue to ever having been there, with one more glance around Inventor looked back to the foals and saw that they were swaying on their feet, he grabbed Scootaloo by the neck and placed her into the rest of his arm. Afterwards he looked to Insight who waved him off.
“I can make it, you shouldn’t have to worry about me again tonight.” With a nod to the resolute colt Inventor finished the trip home and led them inside, he placed Scootaloo into her bed and led Insight into his room to take his bed. The colt refused for a few moments but when Inventor told him that the bed would just go unoccupied for the night Insight reluctantly climbed into the bed and Inventor went downstairs.
The man leaned against the wall and rested his head against the cool wood, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, death to death and rust to rust.” Were the last words in the house that night as the man fell into a sleep that was once more filled with math equations that ran hurriedly around his mind and kept the motionless darkness at bay.
(It was so long, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, then at the end of the tunnel, the one I had entered from, I saw all of my readers who got rickrolled holding nooses and making slitting noises with their mouths, boy let me tell you was that inspiration or what! - N64Fan)