• Published 24th Apr 2012
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic -- Off The Record - The King of Hearts



A new pony is introduced to Equestria just before the fight with Nightmare Moon in Episode 1. Changing the entire story.

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Shock and Awe

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Shock and Awe
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Alex held his breath, standing outside of his uncle’s door, at only a few minutes after six in the morning. He knew that he’d be up, but wasn’t sure if he was busy, as he could be in the morning, or, if he was even around. Although, only a couple of days had passed since he had last been here, with Twilight and the rest of the girls thanks to the time difference, and Chet hadn’t mentioned anything...

Turning around, Alex looked back to his house, wondering if it might be a better to come back later. He didn’t exactly want Chet half-paying attention to their conversation, while Alex tried to drop the ‘pony’ bomb. He’d probably misunderstand, and then Alex would have to explain things twice.

He could just see it. He would articulate his point expertly, cover every base, and leave himself feeling incredibly satisfied. But, then Chet would turn around, and say ‘What was that?’ Then, he’d explain it a second time, stumbling over his point terribly, until his uncle thought that he had lost his mind completely!

It just wasn’t worth the risk! He’s come back later. Yes. That would be the plan.

“You gonna stand there all day?” Chet’s voice came from behind Alex, making him jump in place, as he turned around with a terrified look on his face, “Good to see you back here so soon.”

“Oh, sorry!” Alex said, “You’re busy! I’ll come back later!”

“I’m not busy.” He said, leaning back at the weird attitude, “I’ve got to pick up groceries for a date with Tammy, but that’s at like, seven.”

“In an hour?” Alex asked, surprised that they would plan a date so early in the morning.

“At night, kid.” Chet shook his head, clearly seeing that something was up with Alex, “I was just about to watch Star Wars. Come in! We can jam it out together. I need to talk to you about that diamond you gave me!”

“Oh, can that wait?” Alex asked, “I’d rather just relax for a few hours, you know?”

Chet tried not to laugh. ‘Wait’ he asks? He was sitting on a billion dollar gem, and Alex wanted to talk about it later.

“Fine. After the movie.” Chet said, knowing that Alex had been though a lot recently, and discussing his possession of a likely stolen gem would only be negativity at this point, “You’re coming in, right?”

Alex thought for a moment. He knew that a movie would be the kind of distraction that he didn’t want, but at the same time, he hadn’t seen those movies in a long ass time.

“Tell me we’re watching Episode One though,” Alex said, his eyebrow raised at he pointed at Chet.

“What the hell is with you and that movie? It was god-awful!” Chet laughed, as Alex walked past him in to the house.

“A kid blows up an entire space station!” Alex defended, “Twelve year-old me was blown away! I wanted to be a badass like him!”

“And now look at you! You’re just a loser with no girlfriend.” Chet laughed, before regretting his rather poor attempt at a joke, “Uh… Sorry about that one, maybe too soon, huh?”

“Na,” Alex laughed nervously, knowing that telling Chet about his engagement would have to wait until he was done explaining all the pony stuff, “I’m fine.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve manned up over the past few days,” Chet smiled, patting him on the back as he sat down in the living room next to his nephew, “If you want a snack or something, you can just grab it out of the kitchen.”

“I’m fine for now,” Alex shook his head, relaxing on the couch he had spent so many nights on when he was a kid, watching movies with his mom, dad, and uncle.

A pang of sadness hit him, as he thought about how normal things used to be for him. He’d get up, eat breakfast with his parents, go to school, come home, dick around for a few hours, eat dinner, then go to bed. While it was nothing compared to his life now, he sometimes wished he could go back and just spend a day with them.

“You okay?” Chet asked, pulling Alex’s attention, “You look bummed. That joke was in poor taste.”

“It’s not the joke,” Alex shook his head, “I was just thinking about mom and dad.”

“Oh.” Chet said, his own expression dulling at the memory of his lost brother and sister-in-law, “Yeah, I think about them all the time too.”

“I loved how we used to watch movies in here on Fridays.” Alex asked, feeling himself get a little choked up at the old tradition he used to be so fond of, “Even when I was in high school, I was dying to come home at the end of the week to watch something here.”

“You should have been out banging chicks, Alex.” Chet chuckled, “But, I guess I can’t complain that you wanted to spend time with your family. You were always a weird kid.”

Alex laughed, he had no idea.

////

Twilight had insisted that Alex take her to the library as soon as they were all up in the morning. Of course, when she said ‘all of them,’ Twilight truly meant when ‘she’ was awake.

So, at the tender time of five fifteen in the morning, she had him wide awake, and driving her and Rainbow Dash down to the library, so they could ‘beat the lines.’ But, as she learned, a library in this world was about the same as one in Equestria.

Still, that didn’t stop her from getting her hands on every history book she could find. But, as she had anticipated, there were a lot of them, spanning thousands of years. Needless to say, she was giddy.

After spending a good half hour gathering books, Twilight returned to the table where Rainbow Dash sat, her attention on a short, rectangular book.

“Oh, Garfield. You can’t eat all that lasagna!” Dash laughed, flipping to the next page as she noticed Twilight walking toward her with her massive stack of books, “Hey! Find everything you need?”

“I think this just about does it,” Twilight nodded, dropping each book on the table and reading the title out to Dash, “I’ve got the history of this world in my hands! There are books about evolution, cavemen, um… ancient E…Egypt, Greece and Rome, the dark ages, the renaissance, discovering the new world, civil wars, industrial revolution, two wars that the whole world participated in… and, well, from there it gets to be less sparse, because record keeping obviously got a lot better, and a lot more got written—“

Dash bust out in laughter, her attention completely back on her book, “This cat is such a dick!”

Twilight frowned. Dash may have gone through some life changing moments over the past few years, but she was exactly the same as ever.

After she finally got a hold of herself, and stopped cackling, Dash looked at Twilight and raised her eyebrows in interest, “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Never mind.” Twilight exhaled, plopping down in her seat and opening the first book, on the first section of human history.

And that was how the two sat for the next few hours, as Twilight devoured book after book, wanting nothing more than to catch all the way up to current affairs, so she could proclaim herself an expert on human history.

Dahs, on the other hand, had worked her way through half of the comics in the ‘kids’ section of the library. Something she had picked up, was her ability to read incredibly fast. Back when she was searching for Alex, she forced herself to read at such a pace, that massive reports, or books that she needed to study, were nothing more than a few hours of her time, versus several days.

But, now, here she was, putting that skill to use, so she could speed read books intended for immature audiences, and boy did she love it!

Still, time passed them by, and they both began to notice themselves get pretty hungry.

Looking up at the clock, Twilight was shocked to see that it was already eleven in the morning.

“How have we spent five hours doing this already?” Twilight asked, looking at the still engaged Rainbow Dash, “I guess it’s true what they say, time does fly when you’re having fun!”

Dash looked up from her book, and gave a slightly pained expression as her stomach growled audibly, “What are we doing for lunch? I’m practically wasting away here!”

“Well, there’s that one diner across the street,” Twilight muttered, remembering the terrible experience she already had there, “But I don’t think that place is such a good idea.”

“Why not?” Dash asked, having missed out on that trip, “That’s where you guys ate the meat, right?”

“Uh, yeah…” Twilight mumbled, “But they serve… horse meat…”

“Oh! Right!” Dash laughed, having completely forgot about that story, “You sure you don’t wanna go over there and give it a try?”

“Are you serious?” Twilight asked, shocked that Dash would even consider such a thing.

“Well, it’s not like I’d be eating it. Just you would be!” She replied, holding her composure completely.

She frowned, “Very funny, Dash. But let’s be serious here for a few minutes.”

She cracked a smile as she reached in to her breast pocket and pulled out a one hundred dollar bill, “Alex gave me this to pay for food… I think it’s a lot, so why don’t we browse around a bit? There’s a bunch of places around here from what I remember.”

“How much meat is there though?” She asked, knowing the answer, but hoping that Dash knew something she didn’t.

“Oh, it’s everywhere,” Dash said, shaking her hands in front of her, “But most places will give you a salad if you ask.”

“Thank goodness,” Twilight exhaled, “The last thing I need is to get weird looks because I’m asking for hay or something.”

“Speaking of hay, how’ve you been feeling about Alpha?” Dash asked out of the blue, as Twilight gave her a confused look.

“What does Alpha have to do with hay?” She asked, tilting her head.

“Honestly, I just wanted to ask about him, but couldn’t be bothered to come up with a good transition,” She laughed, before seeing that Twilight wasn’t really amused to be having this conversation.

“I… I don’t think I wanna talk about it,” Twilight said, as she looked away from Dash.

“I just wanted to be clear with you here,” Dash said, “You know that he did everything he did to keep us protected, right?”

Twilight gave a single nod, not investing herself in the topic.

“And you know that he left to take hold of the changeling empire, and steer it toward the better, right?” Dash asked next.

Twilight gave the same response.

“But you’re still mad at him?” Dash then questioned, pursing her lips as she waited for Twilight to respond.

“Of course I am!” She shouted, standing up and slamming her hands on the table.

“Shh!” A voice came from across the room.

Blushing furiously, Twilight sat down and put her hands on her cheeks, rubbing them down her face, idly enjoying the foreign sensation.

“Of course I’m mad at him.” Twilight said at a much more appropriate volume for a library, “He didn’t even say goodbye to me… He just took off.”

“I’m sure he had a good reason for doing that.” Dash frowned, maybe she shouldn’t have brought this up. The trip was supposed to take her mind off of Alpha, and she was just bringing him back up, but, she was already in at this point, “You know that, right?”

Twilight was silent.

“He did bring out this monster inside of you, just so he could—“

“Save Canterlot?” Twilight asked, shutting Dash up, “Save Equestria? How could I be mad for that? He stopped me when he needed to, didn’t he?”

Dash nodded quickly.

“You know, the trust is,” Twilight said, surprised that she was opening up like this, when she had refused to do so before, “I was so happy to find out that he wasn’t some double agent… When he told me that the two of us needed space a few days ago, I felt like my heart was going to explode.”

Dash knew that feeling.

“I-I cried myself to sleep because I thought he didn’t like me!” Twilight continued, leaning back in her chain and crossing her arms, “Then, I found out that he was just protecting me from becoming some kind of slave to the changelings… I felt so much relief, that there was no room for anger.”

Dash nodded, a smile growing on her face, happy that Twilight felt that way toward him. It was so… cute.

“He’s spent so much of his time in Ponyville with me,” Twilight sighed, thinking back to all of their time together since he came back from stone in Alex’s form, “He stuck to me in the crystal kingdom, being my bodyguard... He held me at night while I was filling with that dark magic, making sure I couldn’t hurt myself... I mean, he kissed me when he was disguised as Alex!”

Dash laughed out loud. For some reason that just cracked her up.

“But, after all that, he takes off, and leaves me wondering… Maybe I really don’t mean as much to him.” Twilight muttered, looking down at her lap, and wiping her eyes with her thumb and index finger, “I just need to talk to him one more time.”

“When will you get that kind of chance?” Dash asked, figuring that Alpha was more or less the king of the changelings now, “He’s probably pretty hard to get to now.”

“You watch me.” Twilight said, giving Dash a small, sly smile, “If I went to the hive, he’d see me. I’d shout outside of the castle until he had to come outside.”

“So, you’re not given up on him then?” Dash asked.

“Well, if he’s really not interested, I’ll have to give up,” Twilight answered, “But, you can bet your rump that I’ll be hearing it from him. He didn’t make me… fall in love with him, just to run off and never speak to me again.”

Dash’s eyes went wide, “You’re in love with him?!”

Twilight felt so happy, to have finally said the words out loud, and in the proximity of a friend.

“I really do,” She said almost silently, “I was inviting him to sleep with me before the wedding.”

“Like- sleep-sleep?” Dash asked, her mouth wide, shocked that Twilight was so forward with her advances on men, “Even I wasn’t that forward my first time with Alex!”

“It’s not as if I asked him to rut me, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight scolded, trying to sound as lady-like as possible about the situation, “I just… figured that one thing would lead to another.”

Dash smirked.

“You haven’t even gone on a date with him!” Dash teased, “What happened to the third date rule?”

“He and I have spent days together in that library,” Twilight responded, “We’ve had dinner together so many times… we’ve gone to see movies- as friends, and some days we would just sit in the library, and talk. For hours! I know so much about him, I might as well be married to him.”

“Married huh?” Dash laughed, completely blown away by just how infatuated by Twilight was with Alpha, “Are you sure you’re mad at him?”

“Oh, believe me.” Twilight gave a single nod, “He’ll be on his knees begging for my forgiveness if this is one of those stunts he loves to pull.”

“Probably not the only thing he’ll be doing on his knees…” Dash muttered, laughing to herself as Twilight shook her head at the immaturity.

“Grow up, Dash.” Twilight said, trying not to smile herself, “Come on, let’s find something for lunch.”

////

The credits for Star Wars Episode Six were scrolling up the screen as Alex stood up and stretched his arms above his head.

“Man, I never get sick of that!” Chet laughed, “The way he saves him at the end like that!”

“Any father would do that,” Alex had concluded, “I mean, I would for my kid. Even if he kissed his sister.”

“That was always so weird,” Chet responded, standing up next to Alex and walking in to the kitchen, “I just felt like they could have changed the story a bit, and not had that weird kiss at all.”

Alex followed behind him, and sat down at the kitchen table, looking out the window next to the table, looking at Chet’s property, and feeling nostalgic once again.

About fifty meters away from the house was an old tree with a completely trashed tree-house in it. Alex had played in it for years when he was a kid. But, like most things in the world, it was old, and eventually he put his foot through a floor board and got about fifty splinters on his right leg. That was the last day he had played in it. From there, it had just been allowed to rot.

“So, why did you come back so fast?” Chet asked, joining Alex at the table, holding the diamond Alex had given him in his palm, facing the ground to keep it hidden, “I’d like to see you around a lot more.”

“Well, the truth is… I came back to come clean,” Alex exhaled finally, “I’ve been putting it off, but I need to sit down with you, and give you the whole truth.”

Chet couldn’t even begin to describe the relief he was feeling at this moment.

“Thank god, kid!” Chet laughed, lifting the diamond up, and placing it on the table, “You need to tell me where the hell you got this from, right now!”

Alex laughed nervously as he scratched the back of his neck, “That’s a complicated one to answer…”

“I got it appraised, Alex.” Chet said, looking over his shoulder as if someone might hear what he had to say, “It could be worth a billion bucks! Where the hell did you get it?!”

Alex opened his mouth. He was here to tell the truth, but knew that the truth would only lead to disbelief. But, on the flip side, lying about it would only stall things.

“Okay,” Alex said, placing his hands flat on the table, “I need to start from the beginning.”

“The beginning?” Chet asked, half-knowing when that was, “The night your mom and dad died.”

“Well… Yes. And no…” Alex growled. There was no way he could open with, ‘I went to a cartoon world and more or less became a magic wielding god!’

There was only one way for that to end.

Institutionalized.

He had to prove he was telling the truth, before he came out with it.

“So?” Chet asked, holding back his impatient tone to keep Alex comfortable, “Come on man!”

“I… I can use magic.” Alex said, his heart pounding harder than it ever had in his life, every second taking a minute to pass, as he looked Chet in the eyes, reading every emotion as it passed through his face.

“Okay… So that’s how you slipped the gem in to my hands?” Chet asked, really confused at the strange admittance, “Sleight of hand?”

“What? No no no,” Alex shook his head, just wanting to get to the ‘proving’ part. “Like, a wizard! I can cast magic spells!”

Chet pursed his lips. Alex really hadn’t changed all that much. Always full of bullshit, just like his dad. In a way, it made him happy to see. His brother’s legacy was being carried on, and his nephew hadn’t lost his sense of humor.

“Magic, huh?” Chet laughed, wiggling his fingers, “You’ve gotta show me some of that! What can you do? Pull a rabbit out of a hat? You can guess my card?”

“I’m serious!” Alex restated, his mind completely crapping itself, as he tried to think of the best way to illuminate his skill to Chet, “Whatever you want! I’ll do it!”

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me, Alex.” Chet said, shaking his head, before deciding that he wouldn’t be the one to back down from all this BS, “You can’t even think of one magic spell to show me?”

Alex huffed, not responding.

“You know what?” Chet said, snapping his fingers at Alex, “Can you use the force? I’m sure a wizard like you would have no problem with that!”

“You want me to levitate something?” Alex asked, nodding quickly, “I mean, I should have just done that in the beginning—“

“No way!” Chet shook his head, playing completely in to what he thought was just a big joke, “You said you could do anything! I wanna see some of that force lightning! That shit the emperor uses on Luke!”

“Well, I don’t know if that’s the best thing for me—“

“What?” Chet challenged, ready for Alex to finally back down, “You said you could do anything!”

Alex opened his mouth, before closing it. He knew what Chet was doing. He didn’t believe him, and he was playing along, as if this was some kind of big fallacy. So, Alex decided that he would play right along with him.

“Well, we’d better go outside then,” Alex gestured to the sliding door, “I wouldn’t want to lightning the house, right?”

Chet nodded in large, slow motions, “That’s a smart idea, Alex. Can never be too safe.”

Chet stood up, and opened the door, gesturing for Alex to leave first.

“Thank you.” Alex said politely, walking out on to the grassy field, heading a safe distance away from the house, “Don’t fall behind old man!”

“Old man he says,” Chet muttered to himself, laughing as he closed the door and caught up with Alex, both standing out in the noon sun, “Oh, hey! Do you think you could deal with the rotten tree there? I mean, you magic should have no problem with that, right?”

How Chet hadn’t cracked up yet was a mystery to Alex. But, that wouldn’t matter for much longer.

“Lightning might not be the best at removing it.” Alex said, shrugging, but still acting as if he were playing along.

“Don’t even worry about it,” Chet shook his head, “Just try your best.”

Alex laughed out loud, stepping forward from Chet, as he squinted at the tree.

He had cast a lot of spells in his time. He fired lasers out of his horn, set things in fire, brought the dead back to life… But, as ashamed as it made him to think it, this would be the single most satisfying moment out of all of those.

Alex felt his magic course through his veins as he began to channel it slowly, not wanting to start bleeding from his eyes too quickly here.

“Hey, I don’t think I can shoot it out of all my fingers,” Alex called, turning back to Chet, “I can do it with two fingers together though.”

“You know what I’ve always said, Alex!” Chet said back, “Lightning is lightning, out of one finger or ten!”

“It’s true,” Alex laughed back to him, “You always say that.”

Turning back to the tree, Alex looked to his fingers as he tested the channel of his chaotic magic.

A few sparks shot out of his pressed index and middle finger on his right hand.

Perfect. He was ready to go.

Stretching out his right arm to its full length, Alex curled his ring, and pinky finger, while pointing his thumb straight up, shaping his hand like a gun.

“Having performance issues?” Chet asked, “No need to be ashamed, lots of guys have that problem.”

Alex looked over his shoulder and smirked, his arm still pointed at the tree.

“I’ll let you be the judge of that.”

Chet barely had enough time to register the electricity sparking around Alex’s arm, before a massive, blinding, and deafening blast of lightning fired from his fingers, directly impacting the tree in the field, and completely obliterated it, sending pieces of shrapnel exploding in all directions, completely covering the field in chips of wood.

Chet stood in silence, his mouth hung open, as he scratched his cheek quickly.

Alex couldn’t help but smile at the reaction he had gotten. The smart ass deserved it.

“Y-Y-You—How… What did you…” Chet stammered, her mouth quivering, “What kind of trick it that?! You had that set up in advance!”

“You’re the one that told me to use lightning!” Alex rebutted, shaking his head, “How could I have known?”

Chet pointed to him and shook his head, “This had better be a joke! There is no way you’re a wizard!”

Alex winced at seeing Chet’s arm. A piece of wood must have hit him, as blood was running down to his elbow, and dropping to the ground quite steadily.

“Oh shit, your arm!” Alex said, running over to his Uncle, as Chet looked at it himself.

“Oh... I-I didn’t even notice it,” He said, as the stinging sharply began, “God damn, why does it always start to hurt when you see it’s there?”

Alex wasted no time, and poured some more magic in to his hand, concentrating it on his palm this time. Then, in an instant, he placed it over the gouge, and poured more chaotic magic in to Chet’s arm.

He winced at the stabbing pain in his head. Healing magic always cost the most… It only made sense it would feel like a knife in his brain when he was a human.

Chet only watched in awe as the wound on his arm closed itself, and stopped both bleeding, and hurting. It was as if nothing had even happened.

Chet looked up to Alex, his face completely unreadable.

“Heh,” Alex said, panting as a blood began running down his cheek from his eye, and down his jaw line from his right ear, “Who’s… the idiot now?”

Everything went black.

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