////
Desperation
////
“I can’t do this.”
“You need to stop being a pussy.”
“I think I’ve earned the opportunity to be upset!”
“Because god knows that you’ve been a rock for so long, right?”
“Just look at her!” Dax shouted back, his attitude in a place Alex had never seen before, “She’s just as fucking beautiful as the last time we saw her!”
Upon passing out in the Wonderbolt change room, Alex was brought to his magic mind-room, where he was able to converse with his alter-ego freely, in an endless black space that either of them could manipulate freely. Something that annoyed him, as he wished to return to the living world as quickly as possible.
“You need to calm down,” Alex said coolly, trying his best to get a look at Dax’s face, as he looked away from him, “Geez, I didn’t know you were the crybaby in my head too.”
“I can be whatever you make me,” Dax growled, turning around showing his truly upset mood to Alex in the form of puffy eyes and stained cheeks, “I’m what you suppress, you idiot!”
Alex scowled and sat back in a chair that appeared behind him, “What is that supposed to mean? You and I both know that I cried a lot over that mare.”
“Not enough, bucko!” Dax shot back, forcing himself to return to his usual, dick-like attitude, “You’ve been head over hooves for her since the day you met her, and you know it!”
“Head over hooves?” Alex asked, scoffing, “Since when did you start talking so much like a pony?”
“You’re more pony than human now, Alex.” Dax said, before shaking his head and returning to the issue at hoof, “H-how is this even happening right now? Why would you want to shut out these feelings?”
“Maybe it’s because I’m just a strong person,” Alex said, shrugging.
“Oh come off of it,” Dax said, approaching Alex and tapping his hoof against his chest, “This isn’t about being strong!”
“If you’re what I suppress, maybe you’re just the weak one, and I’m the strong one.” Alex said again, only further upsetting his dark side.
“You’re strong?” Dax asked, his rage growing to a new point, “So how about this?”
In front of the two of them, Dax constructed an image in their mind of Rainbow Dash and Speed, savagely going at it on a bed. It was gut wrenching for both of them to see, and Alex put an end to the image as quickly as he could.
“Why are you trying so hard to set me off?!” Alex shouted, feeling every emotion inside of him start to bubble over the surface.
“Because I wanna know what the hell is wrong with you!” Dax shot back.
Standing up from his seat, Alex determinedly stomped toward Dax, and unleashed true anger on him.
“You’re me! Don’t act like you don’t know!” Alex shouted, relieving Dax of some of the suppressed emotion, “What do you expect me to do when I look at Dash? Cry? Break down and show her what she did to me?”
“Well—“
“There is nothing in this world that I want more than that mare. You and I both know that we considered forgetting everything, and just living with her!” Alex shouted, throwing his arms in the air, “Jesus, I wish that I was weak enough to just let it go! But every single day for the rest of my life, it’d be there. Her screwing that guy would be in the back of my mind, festering to the point that I have a stroke, or fucking kill myself!”
Dax knew all of this, and only frowned.
“So! When I come face to face with this mare, who betrayed me beyond comprehension, I should show all of those emotions to her? I should take the future that I’ll never have with her, and shove it down her throat, to the point that it destroys her too?” Alex was seething, he was at this breaking point he had never truly experienced before, and it was horrifying, “But, despite it all, I still love the shit out of her! So! Maybe if I act strong, if-if she sees me keeping face… then, well, then maybe it’ll make things easier for her…”
Silence hung in the air between them, as Alex closed his eyes and forced himself to not cry again.
“Thank you.” Dax said simply.
Alex didn’t respond. He just looked down at the ground. The sprawling blackness.
“So, do you want to go back?” Dax asked, content with the amount of release Alex had had, “Because we can take our time in here if you like. I slowed things down for us.”
Alex considered the proposal for a moment, before he had to stop himself and talk to Dax for a moment.
“You can do that?” Alex asked, sitting back down on his chair, “How much magic do you know that I don’t?”
“Plenty,” Dax shrugged, unsure himself how he had a stronger grasp of chaotic magic than Alex, “But I suck at your happy-magic. So I guess it makes us even.”
The two sat in silence, as their minds both wandered parallel to one another. However, as they did this, it became apparent that neither of them needed to be silent.
“I guess we can hear each other, huh?” Alex asked, as Dax nodded to him, “We might as well bounce off each other a little bit.”
“It’s a lot like talking to yourself, you know,” Dax pointed out.
“Maybe. But, I think it’ll make things easier,” Alex sighed, leaning back in his chair, and placing his legs on a new foot stool.
Dax nodded and took a similar position, in a recliner that appeared under his butt, kicking up the leg rest to accommodate his pony body.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Alex started them off, thinking back to the days when he was still under the influence of the changelings, “After all that time, when we thought we were keeping that terrible secret from her… she was doing all of those things behind our back.”
“Well, we knew it was happening the first time,” Dax said, right next to Alex in his memories, “The changeling spell over us almost broke when the scout told us what was happening.”
“They had to drag us back to the hive because we were losing our mind!” Dax laughed, before going quiet, “God, if only we had broken free, we could have stopped it.”
“All of this would have been avoided,” Alex exhaled, closing his eyes and trying to remember the day once again, “I wish we could go back and just kick that kid’s ass for taking her away from us.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Dax said quickly, pointing to Alex with a stern look on his face, “We do not need a temporal paradox.”
“I know,” Alex sighed, having seen enough Star Trek to know what happens when you muck with time, “If I go back and kick Speed out of town, then Dash will never cheat. But, if she never cheated, then I’d never have a reason to go back and get rid of Speed. So, if I never go back, then no one will get rid of Speed, and she will cheat, leading me to go back, and get rid of him, but then I don’t go back because she didn’t, and… boom! Paradox all over my face.”
“My head hurts,” Dax complained, having only barely understood Alex’s explanation, “But. You’re right.”
“I just wish that I could see that Dash again, you know?” Alex muttered, “The one who hadn’t cheated, the one who spent all her time looking for me… How could she have changed so much?”
“Couldn’t go see that one either,” Dax said quickly, squashing his hopes, “If you went back, she’s remember that. You’d have an ever more complicated time explosion then.”
“I know. I am you, after all.” Alex said, still loving the idea, “If only we could just bang her, then wipe her memory.”
Alex laughed for a moment, but froze.
Both of them sat up and made eye contact at the same time.
“We could do that.” Dax said.
“We could do that shit out of that.” Alex reiterated, “If we wipe her memory, we could go see her at any point before Speed, and have a fresh, unspoiled Dash.”
“You make that sound so terrible.” Dax winced, “But… Christ if it isn’t a good plan.”
“Do you have the spell to do it?” Alex asked hopefully, his mind now dead-set on this plan, “Tell me you can take me back in time.”
“You know I do,” Dax said, standing up, “I can even do you one better.”
////
In a blinding explosion of magical energy, Alex found himself inside of the barracks in Ponyville, right next to his locker in the change room.
“Why are we back here?” Alex asked, unlocking his slot, “All I have in here is my armor.”
”Wouldn’t it be more fun to surprise her in this?”
Alex thought about it, and had to admit that it would be fun to reveal himself as the armored pony once again. He did love the dramatics of it all.
“You win,” Alex smirked, as he grabbed the suit, threw it on the floor, and placed his hooves in their slots, before cast a quick spell beginning the suit-up process.
The metal clanked its way up each of his legs, and made its way to his midsection, which was promptly covered itself. The process continued until the final pieces slid over his eyes, completely masking his identity from anypony that didn’t know him. Which, in the past, was everypony.
”God damn we’re cool in this shit.”
“Really, really, really cool.” Alex nodded, walking over to the mirror and inspecting himself, “I’d bang me.”
”I wouldn’t”
“Hey…” Alex said, noticing the strange hanging in the air, “Isn’t everypony missing us at the stadium?”
”Things have been slowed down a ton. Think… a month to one second.”
“So…” Alex began.
”They won’t even notice us gone.”
“Good.” Alex said, “The last thing I need is to miss that ceremony.”
“You sure do care a lot about seeing her.”
“You know.” Alex said simply, “If I’m strong, maybe it’ll help us both move on.”
”And moving on for you, is going back in time and having your way with her in the past, and then erasing her memory?”
“It was your plan too,” Alex shook his head, “We’ll worry about the repercussions when the time comes.”
”You’re the boss.”
“Dang flipping right I am.”
Once again, Alex was surrounded by the blinding light that came with magic of this caliber, and watched in awe as the entire world rewound in front of him, as a pace that was truly staggering. He watched both him and Dash, among others, come in to the change room several times, before the building was promptly deconstructed around him, and he was left standing in a field with the sun and moon circling through the sky fifty times a second, as the ground was filled with snow, then golden foliage, then green once again, as the spell slowed, until it finally stopped, just after winter had ended more than a year ago.
“And finally…” Alex said, holding his breath, as his body vanished from Ponyville.
////
He IS Speed, I knew it.
Things are about to get very interesting.
Either she'd (she would) or she'll (she will)
WARNING, THEORY (Could be Right, Could be Wrong)
This is a cliche... Is like becoming your own grandfather... I think he is going to fuck Dash... Dash don't know is Alex, and in the end it was him the one that fucked Dash everytime
4978394 You just blew my mind.
I figured he was Speed, but originally though he was sneaking out under the changeling spell, but time travel shenanigans? What a Twist.
So what I'm getting from this is that Rainbow cheated on Alex with Speed who is actually Alex. I know Alex is an idiot, but DAMN!
4978394 Wait... How duz that wrk? How is he Speed?
So basically, your character is going to go back in time, trick the person he loves into cheating on him is perfect for her thanks to all his foreknowledge, the leave her to have MONTHS of guilt and heartache over doing it with another guy while your SI was missing and possibly died before he mind rapes her into forgetting everything, and lets not forget to do the same to the rest of the girls so they won’t hate Dash for being tricked into a relationship when she was vulnerable when they find out.
And that’s supposed to make everything better…
Knew it! It's inFamous story telling!
4978447
Think about it, he goes back in time and has his fun then alters her memory, she thinks hes someone else. He figures out that he is the pony she slept with and realises that he has to do it several more times to avoid a temporal pair of socks (lol bravest warriors refrence) I mean if this Speed character was really in love with Dash, why hasnt he come looking for her yet?
Oh...... My...... Gosh......
I get it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know what you did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't have to read other comments, I know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are devious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my Gosh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great chapter. Please have the next one out soon.
Oooooooooooooooh. I see what you did here. But why, I dunno something still smells fishy about it, for example even if Dash was with Alex the whole time. Dash did still think she was cheating and was okay with it. I think the trust issue should still be there, but I'm pretty confident it will be all sent away. And my small hopes of Alex and pinkie pie to crashing down. Ah well. Had to expect the couple on the cover picture to stay together.
Yaay for positive feedback temporal paradox loops, that physisists hate because it screws with their desire to have divine free will. That is, they have the free will to alter their experiments, and it doesnt matter that their experiments as a result, dont.
4978465
Time travel...
That was serious mindfuck
alex IS speed isnt he this will get very interesting indeed
For those of us who called time travel via the obvious cliffhanger references, congratulations to us, we're good at extrapolation!!!
Time travel! What could possibly go wrong?
Well then, that wraps this up pretty easily. Going back to the main story soon methinks.
-Missy
Oh dear
Oh, goody. Temporal Paradoxes straight out of a Heinlein novel.
This won't end well.
God damn it author.
I had a productive day in mind.
So much for that.
But, this story is worth it.
4979212
Relativity, Captain Braxton. Blow up the ship during a ping pong game.
Good episode.
Sweet mother of cliffhangers...
Aside from that, everyone in the comments appears to be right, Alex IS Speed. And now, he'll probably feel like the biggest idiot in the world once he realizes.
Time to wait it out...Which will probably take a while, according to the note at the end of the chapter.
If only if there were a way to time travel IRL...I'd travel not to the past, but TO THE FUTURE!
OOOOH Shit, me has a theory
I have reason to believe that speed was actually Alex...
4979374 As much as i hope that that is the case.
I would like to point out that RD didn't know that and still believed she was cheating on him and continued doing it. It's far easier to forgive in this case but it's still an existing problem.
Assuming the theories about Speed being Alex are true...THIS is why you don't use time travel for stupid shit. Because he and Dax have the bright idea of going back to screw a pre-cheating Dash...they CREATE a cheating Dash and thus add a shit-ton of drama to their lives that could have been avoided if they didn't decide to mix thinking with their dick and time travel. Seriously, I almost hope that Speed ISN'T Alex, just because if he IS, this whole arc is the result of him being an idiot and deciding to use time travel to get laid!
4979478
No, it's not. Why? For starters if Speed IS Alex, that means she wasn't cheating even if she thought she was. Second, the only reason she will have thought she was is because in addition to going back and screwing HER, he also screwed with her memories, making her BELIEVE she was cheating when she wasn't. So yeah, if Alex turns out to have been Speed, this whole thing is HIS fault.
4978433
4979594 He specifically said that he would erase her memories of the event.
Dash still remembers Speed which means that yes she did think she was cheating on him and remembers doing so and if she thought she was and continued it then she is a cheater. If someone thinks they are cheating, then they are cheating.
4979949
But that's just it. If they WIPED her memory like that says, she wouldn't remember doing anything with him or anyone AT ALL. The fact that she does means A: he's disguising himself as Speed (to avoid a paradox)to do this which means he's just as culpable because he's creating the situation which causes her to 'cheat', all for the sake of him getting one last booty call (or 11) , or B: he's altering her memories of the encounters to change him into Speed in her mind which is worse because then none of it is actually Dash's fault because ALEX changed her memories and thus gave her all the guilt and anguish that led up to this situation.
Again though, all this hinges on Speed actually turning out to be a time traveling Alex. If not, then yes, Dash is guilty (doesn't mean the using time travel for sex thing is any less a stupid move though) and while I hope they get back together, she and Alex need to finally confront that issue instead of running away from it and each other....again.
4980084 I hope they get back together.
All i am saying is that she thought she was cheating on him and still continued it. Even if it IS him. The point is she believed she was and still did it. She still cheated. Granted he will be just as much to blame that i do not argue. All i am saying is that she cheated by her own logic.
Ok so it seems like we're coming to the end of The Betrayal Story Arc, but after something this huge are we just going to jump right back into accepting their dark sides? Because if I remember correctly only rarity has conquered her dark side so far. If so, it seems like there is still quite a lot of story left to go before the finale.
Oh my lawd, my mind is full of fuck right now.
Yeah, that has absolutely no potential to go wrong.
In the end he'll just disguise himself to be Speed to make it even more fun, and he realizes that he actually WAS Speed all that time.
Oh the drama.
Or not
4981127 and then to find out that Nightmare Moon had messed with Dash's feelings a bit during that time.
4979949 I think what happened as i said, Alex messed up the memory spell, now that i think about it more, maybe he messed up and hit himself with the memory spell, wiping his own memory
4982832 In which case it wouldn't really be his fault. Look if he goes back and does something, which im guessing he will, that makes him equally guilty in this then thats that. i am not arguing about an event that will happen.
All i am saying is that unless he goes back in time, fucks her and she knows its him and then replaces her memories with ones of speed. Then Dash by her own logic cheated on him.
Destiny does take priority over almost everything at the moment. And Dr. Hooves is gonna be pissed when he finds out that Alex did this
4984170
Actually, game is beat and level cap is reached. Pretty short stuff if you ask me.
as much as Alex being Speed makes him sound like a total ass, 1) It's a paradox if he doesn't, he has to. 2) he kind of is an ass anyways lol it's okay 3) I believe Dash was coercerced into it by "Speed" anyways so cheating blame is lessened. Especially if he uses magic to convince her.
4984776
Have you tried exploration/patrols and all the strikes? I played the beta, and to be honest I was completely content during those three days just with Old Russia and the limited time on the moon. right now I'm only a level 6 but I plan on taking just as long or more before I leave earth for the other planets
4984971
I got the story missions and side missions done, did (i think) all the strikes. Played enough pvp to get sick of it, spent a few hours on each planet doing patrols and fighting the world bosses.
That being said, I've played it like 30 hours so far on my days off, and after playing so much borderlands in anticipation of the Pre-Sequel, I'm just a little used to the open world-lots of quests-lots of levels system... I'll just take a break from it then work on getting top tier gear.
4985094
That makes sense. I'm really siked for the pre-sequel and for the Tales from the Borderlands. Theyre both gonna be awesome. I cant wait to play as Claptrap. Lol
4984776
Destiny doesn't end after the last mission.
There's still the vault of glass on venus to open and conquer.
And the strikelist for the vanguards...
i want to kiss you right now but I'm not gonna cus I'm not gay
4989839
I'm always down for some straight kiss-practicing. Not gay whatsoever. Just two guys kissing. Not gay.
Not too much tongue.
I reiterate, not gay .
4989891 Im not even living at this moment
Destiny, Destiny, Destiny... Destiny is love, Destiny is life... Already playing a level 26 Blade Dancer sub-class :/