Alexander Fleming, as he called himself, could not be happier right now. Well, that wasn't completely true. If his marefriend would just hurry up and get here already, then he'd be perfectly happy. Still, not much could beat an evening picnic on a hill with a view of the coast and the upcoming sunset, the golden sphere of light slowly sinking beneath the waves. Vanhoover was beautiful in the spring, and the faint scent of flowers permeated the air as the sunlight warmed his skin. Around him ponies talked, and played, and just unwound after a long day of work, much like he was. No one glanced twice in his direction except for a few tourists. Why would they? He wasn't exactly new here.
Alex sighed in contentment, turned his back to the evening sun, and scanned the horizon, a gentle breeze ruffling his tunic. She should be here any minute now. The thought send tingles of anticipation dancing over his nerves and across his heart. The flight from Canterlot was always a lengthy one, but she refused to teleport due to 'inexperience' and the hints he'd dropped about her moving hadn't been noticed. At least, he thought they hadn't been noticed. Hard to tell with a Princess.
Hold up. Alex turned and glared at the eyepatch-wearing stallion who kept glancing at him, dropping his hand to his waist suggestively. The stallion wisely decided to walk away, and Alex sighed as he went back to scanning the skies. Working security for a major shipping company had its drawbacks, especially when the local mobs kept trying to smuggle cargo through his port. He was pretty sure the only reason he didn't have more scars was that most ponies, er, creatu-beings on this planet didn't know how to fight a human. He was smaller and faster than a minotuar, and much more nimble than any quadruped he'd ever met. Between that and a combat style nothing he encountered would be familiar with, he'd managed to avoid getting seriously hurt on the job. He rubbed his right forearm. Except that one time...
"Hold still, you big baby," Cadance chided through a mouthful of bandages as she wrapped his forearm in gauze, "I can't do this right if you keep squirming."
"Well, excuse me, Princess," Alex replied with a delirious giggle, "I didn't ask for that hippocampus to throw his sword at my face. I mean honestly, who does that? It's a stupid idea, and a good way to get yourself killed." Alex smirked, "Like it did to him two seconds later. I need to thank Sharp Tail for that, by the way."
Cadance tugged sharply on the bandage, causing Alex to let out a gasp of pain, "Hey, what was that for?" he asked.
"That was for being callous," Cadance said snippily, "you shouldn't be so, so..."
"Apathetic?"
"Yes, that. You shouldn't be like that when you kill somepony! Everypony has loved ones, and... I can feel when their ties get cut. It's not pleasant."
She finished tying the bandage off just before he drew her into a hug, cradling her against his chest, "Relax, Caddy, I'm safe. I didn't die, and I'm not going to. I've tasted actual combat and survived a whole bunch of times by now, so my chances have gone way up."
Cadance sighed and leaned into him as he started on her ears. Cadance loved her ear scratches. Just like True Stri- nope, not thinking about her.
The thud on hooves on the grass approaching him drew him out of his thoughts, and he lowered his gaze to find the love of his life, Cadance, walking up to him. His heart skipped a beat as his eyes drank in her presence, from the from the glinting of her coat in the sun to the way her perfectly styled mane outlined her face. The attraction wasn't just physical, either. Cadance was gentle, beautiful, considerate, soft, gorgeous, had a wonderful laugh along with a wit that could cut steel, was just all around the best pony Alex had ever met, and of course good looking enough to cause traffic accidents. End of story.
A worried frown crossed his face as she drew close enough for him to read her facial expressions. The smile Cadance was wearing was clearly fake, and the bags under her puffy eyes told Alex she'd been crying. Also, she always flew to meet him, a habit left over from her time as a pegasus, and the only reason she would walk somewhere would be for the benefit of others. Then his gaze drifted to the right and he saw she was standing next to a white and blue stallion Alex didn't know.
Alex sized him up as the pair walked into speaking range before stopping and an awkward silence fell. He was built, but not overly so, and moved with the balanced gait of a well trained fighter. His eyes scanned their surroundings in a pattern that only came from experience, which meant he'd seen combat, probably more than once. He seemed too uptight to be a merc, and too wealthy to be a mere security guard like Alex was, so that meant military, active more likely than ex. That conclusion brought Alex back to his current big question: who was this stallion, and did his presence have anything to do with Cadance's distress? If it did, Alex wasn't about to let him get away with it, soldier or not. Anyone who touched Cadance answered to Alex, no ifs, ands, or buts.
"Caddy," Alex said evenly, focusing his tension into his hand and preparing to act, "Is this man bothering you?"
To Alex's surprise, Cadance's smile faded, replaced by a look of utter misery. Her head drooped, causing her mane to hide her face as Alex stepped forward in alarm. She muttered that sounded like, "My fault," causing the stallion to pat her gently on the back. Alex hissed between his teeth. That was his job! Why was this intruder doing it?
Cadance's horn glowed before Alex could move close enough to intervene. A small white sphere floated out of it, circling lazily around her head before making a beeline straight for Alex. He stiffened in surprise, Cadance never used her magic on him, and the orb sank into his chest. For a moment Alex didn't move, then he staggered backwards, tripped over a stray root, and sat down hard on the blanket he'd set out, before wrapping his arms around his legs and planting his face in his knees.
The world stilled. Or at least, that's how it seemed to the three occupants of that hilltop. Then wearily, Alex looked up, his expression totally blank. "Cadance," he said slowly, seeming to have trouble finding the words, "What did you do to me?"
Cadance broke down crying as she collapsed where she stood.
"I'm sorry," she gasped between sobs, "I'm so sorry. I didn't know-"
"I had another marefriend," Alex said slowly, "I was happy with her. When you came to proposition me I turned you down. But then..."
"It was an accident!" Cadance said desperately, "I didn't even know I could do that by accident! When you came back later that night I should have realized, but I was so happy you'd changed your mind that-"
"You slept with me," Alex said, looking like what he was saying hadn't sunk in yet, "You do realize I was saving myself right?"
"Not until afterwards," Cadance sniffled, "I just thought you'd decided not to anymore. It wasn't until you wanted to stay together that I began to suspect..."
"But why?" Alex interrupted as she trailed off, a hint of anger starting to creep into his voice, "If you knew what had happened so quickly, why didn't you stop it right away?"
"Ah," The stallion spoke up when Cadance choked on the words, "That's where I come in. I'm sorry we have to meet under these circumstances, Mr. Fleming. Captain Shining Armor, of the Royal Guard. I was Princess Cadenza's fiance, but," here he glared at her, causing her to flinch, "After hearing about how she treated you I'm beginning to have second thoughts. In any case, I kept wondering where she was disappearing off to, and when I found out she was seeing you in secret I confronted her about it."
He sighed, and drooped slightly, hinting that he was far more tired than he appeared, "That's why we're here. It appears her highness," his tone sharpened as he spoke her title, causing another flinch, "Was so torn up about what she'd done to you that she couldn't face it, forcing herself to play along and hope something else would make it go away. I, I am truly sorry for what happened to you, Mr. Fleming. It's not something I would wish on anypony."
"Cadance's fiance." Alex paused, then, addressing Cadance, "So you didn't have the strength to own up to it yourself?" He let go of his legs, letting them slide across the blanket with a faint scritching sound. "I should have guessed a Princess wouldn't have the spine for that."
Cadance winced, and Captain Armor said, "Sir, I know you're mad about this, but you have to understand that Cadance would never do this of own free will. She's better than that!"
"BETTER THAN THAT!?" Alex roared, causing a few nearby heads to turn as he leapt jerkily to his feet and strode forward until he loomed over the prone alicorn and her 'coltfriend,' "SHE DATE RAPED ME! You can't just ask for forgiveness and make it all better! It's been three months, Cadance. Three. Months. True Strike found someone else last week. I can't just go back to my old life like nothing happened. There's isn't a life left to return to!"
"Please!" Cadance begged, "You have to believe I didn't do it on purpose!"
Alex let out a laugh, a sharp bark of sound devoid of all humor, "You do realize that makes it worse, right?" he said dryly. His hand moved towards the knife holstered on his belt before he clenched his fist and forced it away. "Captain, get her out of here before I do something I'll regret."
"But-" Cadance's jaw snapped shut as Alex's hand twitched again, and she turned and walked away. That walk broke into a canter, then a gallop, then her wings spread as she took flight, soaring away blindly with her tail between her legs. Shining and Alex watched her go, before the stallion turned and patted the human's knee gently. He opened his mouth, but Alex spoke up before he speak.
"Let me guess. Since she's a princess she's not going to trial for this, is she?" Captain Armor opened his mouth, closed, then shook his head.
"Of course. For a moment I forgot this country was an autocracy. This kind of shit is the reason my people don't have nobles anymore, you know?"
Alex spun on his heel and headed towards the city, his stance and expression causing ponies to scramble out of his way.
"Mr. Fleming!" Captain Armor shouted after him, "I'm sorry. When you calm down, I'm here if you need to talk."
Alex paused, then looked over his shoulder. "Does anything you'll say involve me getting justice?" he asked, his voice as hard and sharp as volcanic glass. When the guardspony didn't reply, Alex said, "That's what I thought," and kept going, leaving the picnic dinner unopened and uneaten behind him. After he'd long since vanished into the city, Shining Armor had gone home, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the grass Alex had walked over began to glow green, beating in tune with the fighter's damaged heart.
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Alex stalked through the streets of Vanhoover, ponies of all shapes and sizes stepping aside as he passed. He may only ever carry his knife while not 'on duty,' but the towering thunderhead of his presence was more than enough incentive to make them move. He'd been a fool, a complete and utter fool to think that a Princess would ever fall for him. Heh, The Princess of Love. What a joke. The moment she didn't get what she wanted she cast a spell that enthralled him to her every whim, as if she was entitled to everything he had, willingly given or not. This betrayal hurt, of course, but nowhere nearly as much as losing True Strike did now that Alex was free. False love lost didn't cut like real love did, something he could only appreciate after the fact. Of course, that didn't stop his chest from feeling like it was caving in on itself.
True Strike was cream coated pegasus with an eye patch and a sickly sweet disposition. She was fiercely loyal, ruthless beyond all compare, and loved sweet-talking her opponents even as her hoof-blades flayed them open. Off duty, that skill with a weapon became skill with her tongue, shooting carefully worded barbs that made everyone within hearing range burst out laughing save her victims. Beautiful, smart, and deadly. A dangerous combination.
She was also he one who'd hired him as a guard in the first place. When Alex had showed up in Equestria after getting lost on the way to an SCA* event out in the scrub lands of Mississippi, he hadn't known what to do at first. One moment he was driving along a back road, trying to make sense of the site directions and kicking himself for not buying a car adapter for his phone, and the next he was going down a dirt path headed straight for Vanhoover. Sure, he'd been packed for a week of what was basically camping in a medieval war, but once he was certain that no, he wasn't hallucinating, and no, wherever he'd ended up was not a fairy grove or a pocket dimension or some crap like that, it didn't stop him from needing to get a job before his supplies ran out. He'd set up his tent (a collapsible Marquee pavilion mounted on a trailer bed he'd been pulling) in a secluded park on the nice side of town, then gone looking for work.
He quickly determined that his day job as a chemical tester was worth jack shit in an early industrial society without any of his credentials, so after working the problem over for five minutes according to a clock, he'd sucked it up, strapped on a sword and some armor, and wandered into the seedier side of town looking for a bar that catered to mercenaries. He'd gotten a lot of strange looks, but no more than the odd minotuar or gorilla he'd seen walking around, so it wasn't much of an issue.
Normally, doing something like this rated very high on Alex's list of 'dumb ideas.' However, firearms didn't seem to exist here, wherever 'here' was, and anyone who wanted to bother him had to guess whether the unknown, large, and heavily armed and armored creature was worth pissing off. In most cases, the answer to that was no. Also, he didn't have any of the local currency on him, so anyone trying to rob him was wasting their time.
Eventually his luck paid off, and Alex tailed a group of armored pegasi back to a smoke covered tavern named The Demon's Roost. He'd gone in, asked for a water (ordering a hard drink when he couldn't pay was just begging for more trouble) and when the barkeep asked why he didn't want something stronger, mentioned his employment status. True Strike had overheard, and offered him a job, provided he could prove his skill. He'd responded by suggesting they go out back and spar, to which she'd agreed. Ten minutes and much raised dust and scuffling later, he had a job guarding the southernmost ports from hippocampi raiders as they loaded and unloaded cargo from the far east.
In reality, working security was much like being a lifeguard: a lot of intense training for extreme scenarios, but mostly Alex just stood around looking intimating. A ship the looked secure was most of the way towards being secure, and the hippos tended to strike on the open ocean anyway. Only the desperate clans ever roamed close enough to shore to be a threat.
This meant Alex spent a lot of time standing around, bored out of his mind, with nothing to do except talk to the other guards. Friendships quickly blossomed, and something more with the mare who'd recruited him in the first place. It had taken him a while to admit his feelings for anything that wasn't a human, and longer still to work out how to approach her without getting kicked in the groin, but he'd managed it somehow. His life had been pretty sweet for a while. Then Cadance had shown up and shot it all to hell.
A shadow blocked his path, and with a start Alex realized he'd started walking on autopilot, moving not towards his home, but the docks. The Demon's Roost stood before him, and it occurred to Alex that his feet must know him better than he did, because he sorely needed a drink. He pushed the doors open and entered. The bar was just like it always was, smoky, stinky, and completely grunge free. Alex had never been able to pry the secret of how they kept the place clean from the owners, but he suspected magic of some sort. It was always magic on this f'ed up planet.
"Hey, Al," said Hops, the brown unicorn who manned the bar, as Alex pulled up a stool, "What'll it be?"
"I don't care," Alex grumbled, "Just give me something strong."
Hops raised an eyebrow but didn't pry, instead turning and starting to fill a shotglass.
As he waited, another pony, this one an indigo pegasus, pulled up a stool next to him, "You haven't been in here for a while," said True Strike's coltfriend (the name had slipped Alex's mind), "Bit of a surprise, to be honest. Thought you were gone for good."
While the pain Alex had caused True Strike did affect their relationship somewhat, his interactions with her new coltfriend had always been cordial. As another guard in a different section of the company, they mostly kept to their own business, and tried not to talk about True Strike the few times when they did interact.
"I needed a drink," Alex said simply, taking the glass that had been placed before him and downing in one go, "Another." He said flatly, and Hops went about refilling his glass.
Sure Hoof (Ah, that was his name) raised an eyebrow, "Got mare troubles?" he asked, a hint of a smirk creeping into his voice.
"Try the biggest mare trouble ever," Alex snarled, "Turns out the Princess never wanted to date me in the first place. She just wanted a lay, and when I told her no she took it by force, cast a love spell on me and everything. She undid the spell and dumped me this afternoon, and only because her fiance made her do it. Bitch."
Sure Hoof stared at him in shock, "...You really expect me to believe you were mind controlled?" he said incredulously.
"I don't care whether you believe me or not," Alex ground out, taking the glass he was offered and knocking it back, "That's what happened, and nothing either of us believes," he snorted, "Will do anything to change it."
Sure Hoof glared at him, then furrowed his brow for a moment, seemingly thinking it over, before reaching out and patting Alex on the shoulder. Alex flinched at the first one, but relaxed a bit for the followups. "That must be rough, bud," Sure Hoof said finally.
"Tell me about it." Alex let out a sharp burst of air as he reached into his pocket and started paying his bill, "I mean, that bitch ruined my life, and it's not like she's getting arrested or anything for it. Noooo, she's a Princess. They're above the law." That last sentence was so bitter even Sure Hoof's ears went flat.
Alex slapped the money on the counter and leaned back with a sigh, "So yeah, that was my shit for today. What about you?"
"Just the usual," Sure Hoof said, gamely latching onto the topic change, "My boss is dating another boss after breaking up with a third boss, and the sniping between them has gotten so bad they're messing with the shipments to get back at each other. One of them tried to drop a box of anvils on the other today. She missed, but it made a big hole in the pier. Almost got my tail too."
Alex's lips twitched. Normally a story like this would get a chuckle out of him, but he wasn't feeling it tonight. The hole in his heart was getting in the way, and it twisted again as his attention returned to it.
Alex nodded, then stood up abruptly and headed for the back of the building. "I need to hurt something," he muttered.
Sure Hoof nodded back and stayed where he was. He'd seen this enough times before.
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Slash-slash-slash-slash. Alex worked a steady rhythm with his knife on the practice dummy, going for the legs, the neck, the back, the face, then back to the legs. Stupid nobility and their stupid laws. Back home if someone pulled something like this they be in prison for life if they weren't straight up executed. And she gets off with what, a warning? Well, a warning, a boatload of guilt, and the distrust of everyone in the know, but still. Fucking Monarchies.
Alex struck at the neck again, working his knife harder and deeper before following up with a roundhouse kick that knocked the dummy's head clean off and sent it skittering across the training ground. He knew that would come out of his tab, but he didn't care. He needed to break something, but he still had just enough self control to avoid committing murder. Barely. There was probably a solution here, one involving copious amounts of blackmail and media exposure, but Alex was too angry, frustrated, and depressed to work out the details. Instead, he settled for ripping the practice dummy apart with his bare hands.
A hiss of air behind him both made him start and look around just as he finished breaking the dummy's artificial spine, a picture of Cadance in his head overlayed with the dummy's torn foam innards and shredded cloth skin. True Strike was standing in the doorway to the bar, glaring at Alex with enough intensity to set his hair on fire. Even after their breakup, she still caught his eye, the faint lines under her eyes that made her whole face light up when she smiled only barely visible. Alex never really stopped loving anyone he started a relationship with, something he considered both a blessing and a curse. The curse side was definitely showing itself now. He stared at her for a moment, opened his mouth, then realized he had nothing to say, nothing he could say that undo everything that had happened between them, and closed it. The stallion still inside the bar was proof enough of that.
The memory of their breakup was fuzzy, but Alex did recall quite a bit of physical pain on his part. True Strike had been both a close friend and his marefriend, and while he might be able to get the friend part back, assuming he could get her to sit still and listen long enough that he could explain what happened (already unlikely in the extreme, assuming she didn't just skewer him), there was no way she'd ever trust him like that again. That door was closed, permanently.
That thought throbbed painfully, wracking his body with twitches before settling into his heart. It lodged neatly next to the guilt and and slowly building anger, just above the Pits of Despair and a hair to the right of the Regretful Forests. Alex tried not to make a habit of blaming anyone but himself, because the only actions that would change were his own, but there really wasn't any way he could have prevented this.
What small trace of magic he had (a slight boost to his coordination that made his fingers more swift and sure) were no match for spells from a unicorn of any caliber, let alone an alicorn working directly with her special talent. He couldn't have known that denying Princess Cadance the chance to sample, "Every kind of love in Equestria," and she had put it, would have backfired like this. However much he tried not to think it, he did anyway: Princess Cadance was solely responsible, and only she should be blamed. There was nothing he could change by blaming himself, short of never trusting anypony with a horn ever again, and that was just stupid.
He sighed, a long, soft, tired sound, all his fury draining out of him like someone had stuck a vacuum cleaner up his ass. He just wanted to sleep. To forget this ever happened. His bones ached, ached in a way that only a day spent fighting should be able to cause, though the alcohol's numbing effect was starting to sink in. "I'm sorry," he told True strike, making her blink in surprise. It occurred to him that he'd never apologized for his actions over the last few months, and that that needed fixing, "For everything. I'd tell you what happened, but just can't deal with this right now. Your colt has the rest of the story, you can ask him." He shoved the remains of his target into the corner and walked through the door, no longer caring enough to stay out of True Strike's range. Her special talent was finding weak points, and-ooh, yeah, there it was. Forehoof right in the stomach. He deserved that.
He almost vomited from the force of the blow, but True Strike knew just how hard to hit to prevent that from happening. After all, she was downrange, and if he spewed chunks it would be all over her.
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Much later, when the sun had set and the stars were out in full, Alex finally made it home, stomping across the plot of land he rented that was bare save for his truck (now out of gas), a scattering of archery butts and practice dummies, and the tent that was his home. He ripped the tarp that served as the door to his tent out of the way, and stumbled over to the couch, the trailer bed the tent was mounted on wobbling slightly under his feet. He sprawled on the furniture with a groan, quickly running a hand over his face. He felt like crap. Nothing else to say on the matter.
Honestly, what else could be said? That Cadance had ruined a perfectly good relationship through her own spinelessness and lack of impulse control? That his circle of friends had decayed into nonexistence because all he cared about was her, so the only person he had to share his woes with was almost an enemy? That just last week, True Strike had finally laid him off and he hadn't even noticed? Or maybe the only thing left to say was that the realization that Cadance didn't love him, had never loved him, and that he'd never really loved her either had torn his heart into so many pieces he couldn't actually tell what he was feeling anymore?
His heart throbbed again, much more strongly this time, and the room started to tilt over Alex's head. Huh. Unless Alex had completely missed a very important kind of book over the years, he was pretty sure being heartbroken didn't cover this, even when drunk. He tried to sit up, only to realize his muscles weren't responding, before the aching hole in his chest grew a third time and he was unable to focus on anything else. Also, if whoever was screaming could cut it out, he would greatly appreciate it.
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In a cavern far below the Badlands, down a pit so dark you literally couldn't see your hoof in front of your face, a spark of green traced the edges of a black pod melded to the wall. That spark became two, then five, then a curving line that turned into an oval and began to steam. The outer shell of the pod fell away, revealing a green membrane pulsing softly in the darkness. The membrane bulged, tore, and finally burst open, spilling green slime and a large equine form across the ground. Slowly, the changeling climbed to her hooves, fluttering her wings and shaking her limbs to remove the last traces of stasis goo. Her horn pulsed once, and the cavern lit up, small orbs lining the upper walls shining a sickly green for the first time in centuries. Hundreds of smaller pods surrounded the first, and each started sparking much like hers had as their Queen took her first breath of air in 300 years.
Her respite didn't last long, though, and soon she had dried enough to spread her wings and buzz into the sky, taking the appearance of a griffon in order to avoid attention. Something had awoken her, a pulse of magic she had only felt a few times before, and she needed to investigate. A glimmer of hope blossomed in her chest before she stamped it down again. It was probably nothing. It hadn't been anything the last five times, and she didn't want to get her hopes up. She'd go confirm it wasn't worth bothering with, gather enough love energy to go back to sleep, and wait. Wait for the Crystal Empire to return, so that she may exact vengeance on the pony who had turned her into a monster.