Death, Sacrifice, and the man in blue

by MrTyrannousaurusX

Chapter 21: False Prophets

In his old world ran by the cruel, sin-ridden hearts of humans, wolves donning a masquerade of sheep’s flesh was a normal occurrence. In fact, the very people providing a crude mockery of stability and protection were the most ravenous of them all. Lawyers, politicians, even the organs of the government that allegedly have the population’s best interest in mind. Building a dome of security and trust, one they vow to keep intact until their dying breath.

Lies. All lies. Trickery flowed through their veins. Their facade of good nature was a deception Levi, along with countless others, fell for. When that skull-hewing explosion ravaged his ears and consumed his vision, Levi was fully certain the blazing wrath of justice was in full effect. His punishment for the wretched life he chose to live. But when he awoke in a realm governed by talking horses and dragons, he pounced on the opportunity for a second chance. A new reason to breathe and trudge through whatever hardship life hurled at him. Not an existence built on incomprehensible guilt and innumerable sleepless nights, honeycombed with sin a preacher would vomit at the sight of. No second-hand murder. No assisted suicides. No blood on his or his brother’s hands. Just living in peace. Leaving the nigh-constant deceit to rot in the past.

Wolves in sheep’s clothing tenanting a world forged with positivity and forgiveness were two concepts that shouldn’t mix. And if that recipe for ruination ever came to actualization, there wasn’t a shard of a doubt that the bane of all those involved would briskly follow.

Silver Spears was far beyond the point of being considered a meager wolf. A classification that suited her better by leaps and bounds was a beast. A ravenous, inhuman monster hellbent on summoning havoc on whoever at any time or place. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if she salivated at the prospect of getting her sullied, carmine-stained hooves on Levi next behind closed doors. After all, he was the only one that was seeking retribution for the world-altering injuries she exacted on Spitfire. One of his closest friends, in spite of the short span they’ve been aware of each other. Instead of looking down at his marred, decimated form with a vile hybrid of disdain and satisfaction, she cradled him in the loving arms of salvation. His savior in mortal flesh. It wasn’t fair to her the cards fate dealt her. She rescued him without a flake of hesitation, but he couldn’t return the favor.

His mind was boggled to the utmost when none of her subordinates, friends, or even family accepted his offer of traveling to the Tavern with him. Surely, out of everyone she knew, he wasn’t the sole deviant to Silver’s cycle of anguish and woe. An ouroboros of misery and boundless agony. A series of deadly attacks and forlornly failed persecutions that altered the lives of so many. It was a miracle that he had enough nerve to stand up and shout his defiance with all the air in his lungs. Rushing headlong to the kernel of all her sinister deeds. Only for his courage to die the moment digits met the cold steel of the door handle. Needless to say, shame ravaged him as he trekked out of the Dashers’ compound. Vowing to never step foot in there again.

Unleashing a flurry of punches and curses right where tens of muscular ponies resided and slept was a ghastly idea from the start. If revenge is what he wanted, a semi-secluded location with no security measures or loyal inferiors to fight her battles was a must. And this dingy, run-down bar smack-dab in the middle of nowhere was borderline euphoric to the male. A flashing neon sign pointing to the place Silver would ne’er see the same again after tonight. Dead-center in a vast expanse of rich inky indigo, dotted with small pinpricks of white and far-off distant homes and businesses. Plates of hueless fluff providing a basis for humble abodes or restless shops that never saw a wink of sleep since its inception. Slaving away tirelessly night after night in utter and complete solitude. Stretching far beyond the darkened horizon was the Rainbow Factory, resting soundly on its own colossal lush platter. Spitting thick snakes of multi-colored smog into the atmosphere. Viewed as injurious environmental peril to some, a prison operated by wage-slaves to others, and the controversial face of Cloudsdale by all.

The city was beautiful. That was a fact the man couldn’t deny. It was a crying shame the circumstances surrounding each of his visits always ended in tragedy in some form or another. Whether it be meeting a future adversary or confronting the odious aforementioned adversary.

Maybe he’d take Alan here someday. That would be a trip nothing could possibly spoil.

The brunet shook the thought away.

Levi vividly recollected that moment days prior where he gazed into those molten bronze irises. Faux-hospitality coloring her features. Wide beam a frail facade for the monstrosity that lied beneath the surface. The brunet pierced her masquerade with ease like a whetted edge against wet cardboard. Seeing her for what she truly was. Evil. Pure, unbridled, undisputed evil. In the half-week following the Silver debacle, Levi’s hours seemed to drag. Both in the hospital and in the sanctity of his own home. Clemency from the ravenous legions of dread and forlorn assumptions was alien. And over the past seventy-two hours, it was beginning to culminate into an impossible prospect. His own psyche was betraying him.

The treachery solely chose to manifest itself when respite was in fingers-reach. A hailstorm of concern-filled speculations and theories regarding the well-being of his best friend. Unintelligible guilt at the blitz he couldn’t save Spitfire from. The anger was arguably the worst by far. Unlike woe or worry, the choler that consumed him was painful. Stinging his nucleus and setting his brain ablaze at every possible opportunity. When his attention wasn’t sucked into a conversation or an activity of some sort, it returned. Each and every time somehow worse than the last.

Pinkie Pie, for reasons unknown to the masses, was the proud possessor of an entire genus of tan-colored training dummies in her so-called “Party Cave.” All of them identical in body shape and tint. All of them vandalized with vibrant colors in all kinds of patterns and manners. The only viable reason as to why she owned them was to test her myriad of gizmos and the gargantuan party cannon. Either way, Levi saw an opportunity and seized it by the throat, using the lifeless mockeries of ponies as sword practice. When those whistling winds of rage snagged him, he grabbed his sword and marched outside. Greeting his soon-to-be victims with an irate glower and a maw of gritted teeth. Then, he began his wild swinging. One after another, heads flying every which way. Limbs divorced from their hard plastic torsos, sliced like creations of butter. None were spared from the slaughter. Lines of dopes ready to die. And die they most certainly did. When the heaving, sweat-drenched human had enough of the savagery, he holstered his blade and abandoned the broad graveyard. Left it to be disposed of by a significantly calmer and well-mannered Levi the next day.

Now, there was no need to unleash his internal resentment on guiltless inanimate objects. He was here. Finally here. A terrifyingly short distance separated the predestined casualty from the perpetrator. Velvet cobalt button-down sleeving his attenuated frame, sleeves rolled to expose a set of rank forearms. Dark denim jeans nearly becoming one with the dense tenebrosity encompassing the city. A generous handful of achromatic pinpoints were sprinkled fairly around his tense chassis. An elderly leather sheath, wrinkled and beset by disfiguring fissures, dangled from his waist, the weight resting against his thigh like a belt of hefty stones. Never concluding their tireless, futile efforts to drag the male to the floor. A pearly-white and gold-ringed hilt protruded from its old home, giving away to a crystalline blade of unequaled beauty beneath. Harboring a honed edge that, despite the untold number of families of plastic dummies he chopped down mercilessly, saw dulling as a foreign idea. Even with three days worth of nearly non-stop hacking and slashing, not a sign of the wear it was subjected to was evident. Not yet, at least.

Levi’s emerald orbs unrivaled the tawdry lightbulb dangling from the holey ceiling. Glimmering far brighter than any sorry-excuse for slipshod management could ever begin to comprehend. Albeit shimmering for all the wrong reasons. Bona fide astonishment reared its head at the absence of moths flocking towards the dingy source of illumination. He could only imagine what insectoid horrors lied just above his head. An ardent war between the Arachnid Kingdom and the Moth Empire was surely in full execution. Levi’s blazing irises scanned every inch, nook, and cranny of the ramshackle bar, his disdain almost applying a glossy varnish to the drab vandyke walls. The taxidermied animal heads stationed above the plethora of tables and chairs fixated him with an undeniable glower, each one more intense than the next. The aftermath of a deer decapitation glared in spite of its mug being frozen in a perpetual state of fake tranquility. Smoky orbs of a grizzly’s pate staring deep into his. Gaping jaws and soulless optics coming nowhere close to striking fear into the Man in Blue. It was a mystery of whether they showed fervent indignation towards Levi or the elder behind the bartop.

An enigma he cared extremely little to solve. After all, he didn’t travel all this way to stare at wall-mounted corpses in a gimcrack saloon. There was a job to do. A cycle to break. Justice to allocate. Duties that needed to be fulfilled. And Levi’s shoulders were the ones that creaked and groaned beneath the weight of his harrowing responsibilities.

Thin bleached shafts pierced jerry-built blinds, slender belts of serene moonlight painting the macabre ornaments. Some bars deviated from the factory default setting a vast majority of their brethren were set to. Stretching longer and rangier or shattered by an awkward bent angle or a fixation in the unbelievably low-quality shades. Sending splinters and shards alike scattering across whatever mundane spot on the umber wall needed a breath of life. Like an artist from beyond the stars being thrown into a frenzy upon the defunct relics. Feverishly whipping her brush of milky luster every which way, throwing her influence around the room in a spell of hectic mania. Floors, tables, glasses, stock-stiff heads of long-dead animals, not a thing was spared from her uncultivated fit.

A wrinkled visage belonging to a lean, primordial frame was the owner of this less-than-boastable Tavern. Moonshine, his name was. Courtesy of Thunderlane’s boundless and unfading knowledge of every location, both unfrequented and bustling, that Cloudsdale brought to the table. It mattered little how drastic or expansive the amount of souls who visited were. The Wonderbolt knew it. And the Rusty Tavern was no exception from his seemingly never-ending expanse of knowledge.

Levi deliberated heavily on the grueling trip from his humble, down-to-earth library in Ponyville to this dilapidated blight among the Equestrian sky. A deviant from the loch of indigo with an untold end, altering starkly from the gentle blanket of tintless pinpoints honeycombing the airglow. An internal battle waged by a transparent sense of right and wrong raged within. Cannons blasting and soldiers impaled with enemy swords at every opportunity. War knew no bounds, after all. The carnage was endless. And he hoped with every ounce of his being that, by the time he came face-to-face with his adversary, he’d have his answer clear as her guilt. But he didn’t. Hell, even that didn’t appear blatant anymore. Whether it was a trick of the male’s indecisive psyche or one of Silver’s manipulative snares was a discussion for another day. A time and a place far from the demarcations of this lifeless husk of a building.

The dark floorboards protested at his presence. Mayhaps sensing his sinister intent intensifying with each burdensome stride he took. His leather sheath rhythmically slapped his thigh with every step, the crystal blade bouncing and rocking within Levi’s thralls. Even with a shaft of shade generously provided by the flat brim of his hat, the Man in Blue could feel his disdain attempting to drill into his skull. Yet it hit like a rotten branch to a wall of platinum. Discriminate however he likes to, there wouldn’t be a difference to be noticed. He was here for a reason and, try as he might, Moonshine couldn’t reorient his blazing path. Perhaps he recognized the purpose in his movements. The undying determination to reach his goal, no matter how nefarious they prove to be.

Levi’s emerald flicked from the cavernous holes he bore into the uneasy pegasus to his loyal confidant emerging from her manacles of stiffness. Stretching her cyan limbs for what she perceived to be a century of ear-straining and more-than-noticeable eavesdropping. Somehow, by some miracle, Rainbow Dash wasn’t caught in the act. Viewed simply as an abnormal nameless character brooding in the darkest recesses of the Tavern, untouched by the warm billows of candlelight. No flask or signs of attention to herself. Just her, a beloved entry in the Daring Do series, and the maroon bench she was all-but welded to. Exactly the way Levi wanted it.

With her lower half no-longer secreted beneath the elderly mahogany table, the cloak spilling down her forelimbs and the hood baggily draped over her skull only did so much. Her multi-colored locks peeking from beneath the mantle, adding some desperately-needed life to the otherwise dead, rotting corpse of a building, waiting for a dire natural disaster to blow it into oblivion. Cast its decaying remains for the civilians below to dispose of accordingly. When the pair met dead-center in the full expanse of tumbledown floorboards, the nonpermanent spy and her temporary superior shared a trifling handful of hushed words. Although they kept there optics trained on the ground the entire length of there cursory interaction, the sincerity braided within her words was hulking.

“Don’t do anything you’re gonna regret, Levi. Now's not the-”

“Time or the place. I know, Dash. You don’t gotta worry about me,” Levi assured.

“Go home. Make sure Twilight never hears about this.”

The cyan pegasus nodded, the minute sliver of her muzzle laying bare contorted into an abnormal frown. As though her lips were engaged in a fiery, passionate war for what emotion to accurately display. One side was concern for Levi’s actions, knowing full-well what exactly he came here to do. The opposing side was a bent variation of satisfaction.

Just as quickly as Silver’s Tavern escapade was soiled by the esteemed Wonderbolt, Rainbow left. Shrouding every living soul in an impossibly thick quilt of unwavering, spartan silence. A veil was drawn between two factions in Silver’s heart. A conflict eerily similar to the one perhaps still raging on Rainbow’s visage. Two cabals were entangled in the vile vines of battle, both skirmishing valiantly for unshakable superiority over the silver-haired pony’s being. Either fear or defiance would emerge victorious and plant their flag on that sinister Autumn night. Eye contact only stoked the blistering inferno behind the prison bars of her ribs, charring them to no end. Her brain told her to run for the hills and never look back until her extremities failed her, collapsing into a sweat-bathed, fatigued mound of twisted limbs and an oily mane. But her body turned her blood into swiftly-drying cement. Encasing her eager, feverish wings that itched for the rush of flight in a new skin of concrete. Part of her pondered briefly over whether her frame’s outright denial of her orders was an allocated punishment decided by a higher being. One looking over every action, sin, and transgression no matter how small and judging her for it. And this was their righteous judgment. Made a slave by her own body and forced to sit and endure whatever the male had in store to rectify her destructive behavior.

Levi approached ever-so-closer. Beaten-down shoes not welcomed by the senior planks beneath him. Instrument of doom slapping his thigh with every short, calculated stride. His glower firmly locked to her side profile, in spite of the lack of acknowledgement it received from its donee. He didn’t care. As long as she was more-than-aware that lour was freshly implanted onto his mug, that was all that mattered to him. After all, scrutinizing her beneath his wrathful stare wasn’t his sole objective.

The pates of the animals forever adhered to the wall bore holes into his callous, unbothered irises, not bothering to pay what remained of their stock-stiff corpses any mind. A deer with the tranquility and resolve of death plastered on its tan flesh managed to garner a form of malice. The ill-omened yellow and black-dotted orbs of a beheaded goat tried and failed to slay the brunet where he stood with resentment alone. Floppy brown ears pierced with two gold rings. A set of whetted canines erupting from her bottom jaw like bleached, razor-sharp spires that barely grazed her cat-like nostrils. It was poles apart from what a regular, run-of-the-mill mountain goat would resemble. But then again, the only images of the aforementioned animal were limited solely to nature documentaries on a flat-screen and polished images from a decades-old textbook. Perhaps they always looked like this in person. This was Equestria he was talking about. Nothing at all remotely bore a similarity to the wretched world his genesis took place in. Lastly of all, Levi couldn’t mull about decapitated noggins without at least recognizing the king of the wall they all were mounted on. That ravenous, bloodthirsty grizzly who, even in its not-so-peaceful quietus, harbored its primal instincts for two things alone. Food and survival. Those necessities died with the beast they controlled, he knew that well. But unnerving couldn’t begin the cumbersome task of describing it.

As Levi began to wonder when the next strident groan would defile his ears, his question was briskly answered by the dingy stool. Adding the faintest trace of life to the pub for a fraction of a second. The stone-grey body beside him shuffled uncomfortably against the grainy wood of her seat, keeping her hooves stationary now became a chore to accomplish. This was precisely what the Man in Blue wanted out of her. Making a spectacle of her involuntary anxious tics and jerks while continuing his undying scrutiny. His scowl like a pencil of sunlight through a magnifying glass with her being the unfortunate ant, becoming a compulsory star of this sadistic show with no prize or entourage. Just him and the wrath within, waiting for the ideal moment to tear the pegasus to shreds. There was no doubt that was what he came all this way for. No-one, especially somebody with Levi’s level of notoriety and uniqueness, forsakes sanctuary without a valid reason. But this… this was as valid as it gets.

Moonshine’s dull globes met Silver’s for a desultory instant. Showering her in that fatherly, unconditional comfort that she ne’er knew she needed. A sensation she adored wholeheartedly. Much to her despair, his seafoam green leer focused on the foreign creature before him. Vibrant orange rag ceasing all movements, deeming the mug clean enough for the time-being.

“Can I…help you?” The elder asked.

Levi laid his hands upon the pockmarked bartop, right palm over his left knuckles. Moonshine suppressed a flinch at the sudden movement.

“Apple cider.”

“From the Apple family?”

“Sure.” Levi was utterly apathetic towards the origin.

“You’re one lucky fella,”

Moonshine pocketed his towel and stacked the semi-pristine cup to the side. He turned around, scanning his mammoth ranks of spirits for the thing to satisfy Levi’s hankering. The stark orange slender-necked bottle snagged his attention like a fish to a barbed hook.

“You got the last bit.” Moonshine spoke, his voice reduced to a stretched groan as he reached high above his head. Scooting the wide-bodied flask off the venerable shelf. He blew a plume of dust off the pitcher’s rump, popping the cork with a satisfying noise everyone loved without a shadow of a doubt. Mayhaps the sole exception being the indifferent human, staring deep into the bottle’s mouth while the waterfall of liquidized copper flowed.

The mug scraped harshly across the wood, as if its owner paid the counter’s well-being little-to-no heed in any regard. Levi’s foot bounced against the rung of the stool. Not in excitement, but something else. Something unidentifiable. A feeling Silver wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of, bereft of a shadow of a doubt. Perhaps it was better for it to remain cloaked in anonymity.

When times got tough back in Tuscaloosa, alcohol was his muse. His rock. The rigid adamant totem of support that held his sore bones and aching heart unconditionally. No matter the time of day or the weather, it was there. Rushing to his aid whenever it was required. The bond he and his liquor shared was a match made in Heaven. He paid minimal mind to the ruinous consequences that inevitably awaited him at the end of this mistake-paved road. His psyche drew a wool over his eyes to how outright pathetic this once unshakable soldier of a man appeared. All that he truly cared in any fashion about was his trauma being ailed, if only for a fleeting moment in a drunken stupor. When a person can only find comfort in the bitter orange fathoms of a bottle, they were practically a living breathing corpse. A dead man shambling through the boundless graveyard of sucked-down glasses clouding their living room floor. A pale, sickly cadaver with blood somehow inhabiting his veins and bile roaring from his hung-over form.

Levi’s thousand yard stare stretched into the tawny abyss wreathed by his fingers and palm. The serrated teeth of the upcoming tart bite began to blossom on his tongue before the rim ever reached his lips. His memory was too vivid for his own good, it seemed. One would be forgiven for assuming the brunet was subjugated by a hailstorm of traumatic flashbacks. The horrors of whatever war or unspeakable violence he was entwined in staining his mind.

“How much?” Levi inquired, somehow breaking his iron-solid staring contest with the terracotta-colored chasm.

“Seven bits for the glass.” Moonshine rumbled in reply, “Unless you aren’t through with it.”

Levi ogled with abnormal lust at the glass held in his manus. His hand delved into his jean pocket, fingertips grazing the craggy surfaces of the four golden coins inside. The absence of his cellphone was still somewhat foreign to the male, but that lifeless, paltry hunk of glass and metal bore no place in Equestria. No whisper that reminded him of that hellish impercation that was Alabama belonged there.

Silence shifted uncomfortably in its throne. Nothing possessing the hallmarks of a sound dared to disturb the quietude, sans the dullened acapella of crickets lying beyond the doors. If the lie of the land was anything unlike his current state of affairs, the atmosphere would be peaceful. Dare he say heavenly. Auditory euphoria. Yet, it struck unease in the senior in front and the sinner beside him. A wisp of the perturbation he wrought threatened to permafrost his blood stream.

The building’s rusted hinged and rot-infested skeleton retained a state of unbroken stillness. Until the Man in Blue spoke once more.

“Maybe I’ll have a few more. We’ll see.”

His brain prepared another utterance. Lips parted, yellowed teeth separated. Only to be cast into silence by Levi’s abrupt interjection.

“Do you mind leaving me and her alone for a few minutes? Hate to be a bother but it’s…”

Levi shot a glance to the perturbed pegasus at his left. Her glass of similarly colored poor decisions in liquid form ne’er departed from her hoof gripping it. The only thing within arms-reach that could stand a chance against the wrathful cage of imprisoned emotions.

A monster of her own creation.

“It’s really important. And private.” Levi concluded, faux sincerity bleeding through the final syllable.

His visage was stone-cold, bereft of any hint or the faintest of nudges towards anything exhibiting semblance to the countenance of innocence. A face free of ill-intent and an immortal lust for maltreatment towards the sinner shifting distressfully at his elbow. Moonshine, a pony with decades under his belt and limitless experience in reading people, should’ve detected Levi’s more-than-despicable goals in the blink of an eye. Cradle his loyal customer and friend in the ginger arms of salvation. Bless her with heavenly deliverance from the grisly fate she was tethered to if this inaction persisted. A solitary glare from the Tavern owner, and it would’ve been tail lights for the Man in Blue.

But somehow, by some incomprehensible miracle, Levi remained. Practically welded to that ramshackle bar stool, waiting for the rightfully perplexed elder to vacate the pair. Essentially heaving Silver into the gaping, salivating jaws of a malnourished wolf to snap down on. An inhumane beast whose illimitable hunger could only be satiated by the blood of a righteous sinner. While the human separated from her by scanty centimeters was the furthest thing from one, those eyes told a different story. A tale of horror and upcoming bloodshed. She wouldn’t be surprised if the male was secretly the canine her brain illustrated. Cursed in some way shape or form by a witch to inhabit the slender fleshy frame of a human being.

“I don’t see why not,” Moonshine replied. Centuries seeming to pass since his last reverberating utterance. “as long as you don’t go runnin’ off without payin’. I don’t take too kindly to thieves.”

“Do I strike you as that type? A thief?”

Moonshine dragged his orbs from the brunet’s kempt locks to the crest of his waist. Perhaps he knew, perhaps he didn’t. A mystery Levi hoped he would never solve.

Moonshine shook his head, swiveling his wrinkled chassis. Something glimmered in the deep, murky recesses of his optics. Something Levi, even with his best efforts put forth, failed to put a name to. Almost knowing but still poisoned with barely noticeable whispers of ignorance. Levi never realized how hard reading people truly was until now.

‘Come back! Please! I need somepony to save me! Anypony at all! Moonshine!’

That harrowing series of pleas, agony thoroughly woven between each individual letter, clawed fruitlessly at the demarcations of her lungs. Forlornly scratching the palisades of her lips like ravenous legions of demons raking the only exit to Hell. Begging with all the air in their lungs to be liberated from the confines of her mind and be given life. The ability to spill her internal squalls into the endless sterile desert of sound that populated the bar. Sprinkle some life into the extraordinarily stark air, even if it harbored undertones of dread to the highest degree.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t would’ve been a better way of putting it. Moonshine’s hooves moved in drawn-out strides, bringing forlorn moans into existence every time his weight pressed into the dying planks. His rat tail materializing from the drooping rear of his hat slithering down his nape disappeared behind his shirt collar, peppered with slender lanes of silver. Her only chance of any variation of mercy had swung open the tintless doors to the malodorous kitchen and vanished into oblivion. As though the heavens above decided that clemency from this dastardly destiny was outlawed. Plucking her soon-to-be savior essentially from the world around her being the final nail in the coffin for her. The grim, wearisome tale of Silver Spears was coming to an end tonight. Right there on the rotten treen floorboards, the heads of deceased creatures all around her observing her grotesque yet, although they’d refuse to admit it, righteous end. A twisted modern-day gladiator arena, it was. She always assumed the ponies generations before her had deserted those customs to the cruel hand of time. Left to rot in a time long-lost. But, like he had done many times before and would probably continue to do, Levi rewrote history. And he’d do it again that fateful, cataclysmic night.

The brunet snaked his fingers into the handle of his mug, strangling the glass with a white-knuckle grip. He brought the copper-colored liquid to his eager maw, practically trembling with lust at the prospect of satisfying his badgersome urges. Without hesitation, the bitter hellfire-in-a-glass robbed him of his breath. He withstood the desire to jerk in surprise at the sensation. That damned acidity clung to his lips despite his tongue’s prevalent efforts. The mug clinked gently as he returned it to the bartop, creating another halo of precipitation to add to the titanic collection.

Levi swallowed. An futile attempt to rid his throat from the boundless wrath of the tart. His Adam's apple bobbed before he cleared his throat. Appearing and sounding a lot more obnoxious and raucous in the barren wasteland they found themselves in.

Just him, his rage, and the one who marred his beloved-by-all friend with zero remorse. If any soul was able to see them at that moment, they’d give Silver a new, much more fitting, name. A walking corpse.

Silence’s reign stretched on for a handful of seconds before Levi’s low, menacing tone deposed it.

“I take it you know why I’m here, right?”

“I-”

It was Silver’s turn to clear her throat now. She paused for a long while after.

“I can probably guess why.”

Levi hummed. A vile compound of choler and a hunger for retribution bleeding into the air. “I bet you could.”

“You were the one at my compound, weren’t you?”

The question didn’t deserve an answer from the wrathful man. It didn’t even merit something as small as a gesture of any kind or alteration. For reasons unknown to him, the gangrene-ridden husk known only as his heart harbored its own unique ideas for this interaction. A small snippet of the abnormal array of choices it would decide to make being the conscious effort to humor the bastard.

“I was,” Levi replied in that self-same timbre, dripping menace onto the dark planks beneath him.

“Why couldn’t we handle this there?”

“Crowded. Too many of your lackeys around.”

“‘Lackeys’?”

Levi returned the glass to the pockmarked countertop sharply. Not with enough brute force to be considered a callous slam, but just barely teetering on the edge of being considered one. The brunet withdrew a mountainous breath from the warmed-over atmosphere, his eyes closed briefly. The malice he channeled through his irises, siphoned straight from the source, could be felt galaxies away. He wouldn’t be surprised if her grand-children had nightmares about it.

“I’m not here for a discussion. You know why I’m here. Don’t play stupid now.”

“I’m not playing anything,” Silver retorted, “I’m waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For you to beat me, kill me, go on a tirade. Whatever you have rehearsed, get on with it.”

Something shimmered in Levi’s emeralds. A sense of understanding, like puzzle pieces finally clicking into their respective locations. The cipher had an answer at long last.

“This isn’t your first rodeo, is it?”

Silver stared off into oblivion, hooves clutching her half-empty glass like a security blanket.

“I’m not the only one with the nerve to stand up to you, am I? You’ve been here before.”

Silver took a swig. “If that’s the way you wanna put it, then yeah, I’ve been here a lot.”

“There is no ‘way to put it’, Spears. There’s only the way it is,” He replied, “nothing more, nothing less.”

“Then I guess that’s the way it is, Levi.”

The male’s fingernails threatened to impale the soft flesh of his palms. Knuckles resembling tiny cue balls more than a vital portion of his hand. Veins obtruding from beneath the veil of his skin, the vibrant blue and green colors matching illy with the ichor that flowed within. The manifold of canals that all fed into one central hub. That being his slamming, vexed, roaring heart, doing it’s damndest to cling to every last thread of his previous emotions. The ones that, once upon a time, held a rigid monarchy over his frame before the blighter at his oblique materialized into the picture. Walking straight out of whatever portal to Hell she dawned in and wreaking havoc and discord as far as her hooves could carry her. To say he was dumbfounded by her blinding nonchalance to his intemperate advances would be a criminal understatement.

Here they were. Enveloped in solitude at the dead of night in a chiefly deserted pub. No-one around for miles. The closest building he could spot amidst the ocean of white pinpoints and indigo was a small cake shop far into the distance, and even that distance couldn’t successfully carry her woeful screams. Behind that lie the monstrous titan of concrete and solid steel vomiting prismatic smog into the formerly pristine Cloudsdale air. In other words, an acute lack of salvation. Meaning that the dull-witted pegasus, despite what her panic-racked brain was pushing her to believe, was utterly and completely robbed of her discretion. Repose was alien now. Yet she couldn’t seem to accept she was no longer in any sort of control over her current predicament. Levi didn’t like beating around the bush all too often, but relishing in his soon-to-be triumph over the ruthless sod was a necessity. An opportunity he couldn’t shoulder the regret of missing.

However, in the unplumbed entrails of his psyche, an inkling stood defiant against the unwavering forces of foul intentions. A rebel who aimed to ignite a gas trail leading to an explosive, world-altering revolution against the unholy ranks storming his home. One with a rock-solid set of morals that refused to be deviated in any way shape or form. Standing unshaken by the vile ventures taken to undermine his good nature. This freedom fighter sent pure, unbridled disgust rippling throughout every inch of his form. Even while a legion of whetted spikes, courtesy of resentment, fixated his core without a waft of ruth to be discerned, it managed to subvert their attacks. Assuming there stead was the furthest thing from good. But at the very least, it opened his eyes to the atrocity he was preparing himself to commit. Perhaps influence the soon-to-become criminal with a future arrest warrant issued by Celestia herself to go home. Find another way to prosecute the dastardly pony bereft of muddying the waters with vigilante justice.

That was the mutineer’s plan. In spite of his supreme endeavors to lay waste to his vengeful spirits, not a thing could dissuade the male from his warpath. A tragedy to some, if not everyone, but a royalty to him. The closest thing to heavenly bliss that a living mortal could experience.

“Part of me thinks you haven’t comprehended what I’m here for.”

For the first time, and most likely the last, in their entire conversation, the pair locked eyes. One plagued with a futile haze of defiance pulling a wool over her orbs to her state of affairs. The other like a polluted river, only undying hatred and bloodlust undertook the grim responsibilities of sewage.

“I have. Did you really think you’re the only one in Equestria who hates me? A lot of ponies do, they just don’t do anything about it.”

“Guess I’m the first, huh?”

Silver gave a small hum of agreement. Her lips found the familiar smoothness of the rim of the glass, downing the concluding gulp to her drink, returning the vacant cup to the bartop.

Levi released a miniscule, unidentified murmur from the chamber of his lungs. He couldn’t tell if it was always this way and he never noticed it, but Platinum’s sword’s hilt ne’er looked as appealing as it did right then.

“I didn’t expect this conversation to be a conversation at all.”

“What did you expect?”

“‘You don’t have to do this, Levi,’” He mocked in an obnoxious, strident tone. “‘There has to be another way! There has to be!’”

“You really think I’d beg?”

“Yeah. I think you would,” Replied the brunet. “Did Spitfire beg?”

Silver choked on the quietude enshrouding the bar.

“What?”

“Fractured skull. Broken wing. Dislocated jaw. Doctor said she may not wake up from her coma for weeks. Months at the worst.”

With each gruesome detail Levi spilled into the air, the more Silver’s body beckoned her to collapse like a fist into herself. Not out of debilitating guilt for her sins. The furthest thing. She was more worried of what his culminated hate and choler for her actions would manifest into.

“She’s gonna carry those scars for the rest of her life because of you.”

He paused, his bone-splitting grip strangling the hand folded into his.

“Let me ask you something,” Spoke Levi, “what went through your mind when you decided that the Wonderbolts would be your next target?”

She said nix. The staring contest with the inanimate wall beginning to climb towards it’s apex. A cannonball of sweat was born on her forehead, beginning to rush down her muzzle.

“The most popular flying team in all of Equestria? Countless wins under their belt? What led you to attack their leader of all ponies?”

Silver pressed her hooves into the underside of the table. Again, eye contact was a thing of the past.

“I didn’t think sociopaths existed here but… guess I was wrong.”

“Where’s your proof?”

Levi paused.

“What did you just say?”

“Where’s your proof?” She repeated like the loathsome broken record she was. “You’re gonna go to the Princess and give her what? Suspicions?”

Levi chuckled, his digits easing into his left back pocket. “I thought you’d never ask.”

His manus emerged from the denim cavity, the argent, carmine-stained smoking gun clutched charily with the utmost caution in his fingertips. The ends of his index and thumb seized the stem of the frayed feather. Each individual silvery thread that united as one to form the abominable quill were frayed. Some merely divided by millimeters that qualified as viewable by the skin of their teeth, others split apart like the aftermath of a hatchet chop. Spanning from the middle to centimeters away from the plume’s tip was deep scarlet, ever-so-slightly darkened by the passage of time. Despite the mortifying event having occurred in days that have long-since passed him by, the world-altering pain his dear friend experienced still radiated from the grim artifact. Combers of agony rhythmically pulsed from it, even after countless hours of it being in his possession. Even the slightest glimpse of half-grieving, half-alarming sight was enough to transform his bloodstream into bubbling rivers of tumbling magma.

Levi gave the contemptible object a cursory twirl before laying it down upon the stained bartop in the middle point between them. Silver’s gaze turned icy, a slight pang of fear adulterating it in the face of her efforts to mute it. Another emotion hid in plain sight Levi’s too became arctic, but for an all-too-nefarious reason that anyone of any intellect could identify.

“I asked for proof.”

Levi cocked a brow. “Excuse me?”

“I asked for proof. This just looks like a feather with blood on it.”

“It’s your feather and I think you could guess who’s blood it is.” Replied Levi, growing more infuriated by the second.

“How do you think the Princesses are gonna feel about this?”

“Celestia and Luna have brains, Levi. Did you forget?”

“Anyone with a brain can see how fucked up you are. It’s gonna be a field day for the… whoever runs the law here. Judge, courts, whatever.”

The corners of Silver’s mouth crimped. Her heart surged. “This isn’t anything. You look a lot crazier than me holding a blood-stained feather in your back pocket.”

“You must not have very good hearing,” Levi retorted. He shifted in his stool and faced the entirety of his frame towards her. “I said it’s yours. In the hallway right after it happened.”

“Is there a way of telling if it belongs to me specifically?” Silver prodded. “I mean, there’s probably hundreds of millions of pegasi in this city alone with that same color.”

“You don’t know that for certain,”

“It’s a safe bet,” Silver responded, “for all I know it could be my cousin up in Manehattan.”

‘Manehattan, huh?’ Levi thought. Another nugget of information chipped from the gargantuan gold mine of potential knowledge Equestria offered.

“Only problem is it was you, not him. I’m sure Celestia will see it that way, too.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Dumbfoundedness painted his features. He leaned towards her a bit more. His hand hovered above the enticing hilt of his blade. Dangerously close.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” He all-but growled. “Spitfire is the leader of the Wonderbolts. That’s practically Celestia’s team as much as it is hers.”

“The way I see it, you’re pretty much damned from here.”

Silver’s irises were unsure of her destiny. A battle between what was right and what was wrong raging within. She hesitated a moment before speaking.

“H-Have you stopped to think about where you fit into all of this?” She asked. “After all, you sent a spy here to follow me. Came in here with a weapon. You don’t look so good yourself.”

A pair of pears of sweat cruise down her visage like a macabre bowling tournament.

“I look better than you. Way better.”

His hand shaved off a few more inches between his primed palm to the metallic handle of his sword. The brunet’s eyes glistened in the faded shafts of moonlight beaming upon his velvet blue attire. An alluring sight for just about anyone else under circumstances deviating from Silver’s. For her, it was a nightmare of epic proportions unfolding before her broadened, dread-struck eyes. Another bullet of perspiration betrayed her emotionless face. Has her shirt always felt this constricting? Was it’s ultimate goal to strangle her? Was it too aware of her deepest secrets?

“That’s a p-pretty low b-bar, I guess.”

Levi grinned in amusement, yet the malice remained. “It is.”

More distance was trimmed. His fingers desired to wiggle like a cowboy in an all-chips-in duel in the 1800s reaching for his revolver. The wrathful Western sun unleashing its unbridled fury upon the two. Wisps of sands brushing their jean-clad legs and forelimbs respectively. Their faces shielded by the wide, drooping brims of their leather hats. In fact, he would’ve preferred that wholeheartedly over this sorry-excuse for a stand-off in this lazy recreation of a saloon. At least then someone could pay the proper price for their ill-omened deeds. Blood.

It was precisely what Levi wanted to paint and lather the nigh-black planks with, smothering them in a glistening varnish of fresh, repugnant crimson. One swing of his sword, and all of this heartbreak and seemingly boundless mental anguish could finally end. The survivors of this tragedy could be granted a chance to heal, no longer tethered to their vile prison of memory by grievous wounds. Everything that was and will ever be associated with Silver Spears would be spurted across the Tavern floor. A thin scarlet pencil drawn across her throat. Ichor thrown every which way. Her quivering frame, racked with terror from her inescapable demise, collapsing to the ground drowned in her bodily fluids. Levi would most likely stand too. Watching in a brew of satisfaction and guilt at the writhing entanglement of limbs and blood. Squirming with feverish intent of being liberated from the ever-so-tightening chains of death. Thrashing and swinging wildly with all the strength her limbs still harbored. It would take minutes for her to die. More than enough time to watch with panicked, bloodshot eyes as her empire of endless misery crumbled. Nothing beside would remain, sans a woeful Levi fleeing from his sins and a corpse pockmarking the Rusty Tavern.

That’s what he longed for. It’s the origin of the illimitable hunger annexing his orbs. The seed that sprouted his rapid-fire breaths. Alongside the clenching of his teeth. Strangling grip on his hilt. And last but especially not least, the adrenaline gnawing at his veins and wreathing his bones. Electrifying his skeleton like the jagged jaws of jumper cables biting his flesh.

The bar stood stock-still. All of Equestria followed suit. That ramshackle pub held its breath with an iron-tight grip. Silver was, in every regard, a faux-warrior staring into the sharpened eyes of a Basilisk. Lying in dreadful wait for the assured expiry she knew was arriving. This was the Man in Blue. There was no such thing as “fighting back” against Celestia’s lapdog. It was foreign beyond comprehension. If a friend, or dear she say slave, of royalty wanted her head on a silver platter, his wish would be granted. No relent. No ruth. No iota of anything remotely similar to mercy or respite. Just a cruel, unavoidable destiny she had every chance to derail, but failed too.

Deep down, she was well-aware she chose this. It was made more-than-lucid by the hundreds of dodged bullets over her transgression-riddled years that eventually, someone would come by that wasn’t like a regular pony. Somebody that wouldn’t tolerate her remorseless nature and blatant blind eye to suffering or consequences for a second. All her life she had been sauntering down a rusty belt of railroad tracks, awaiting the inexorable freight train shouldering the weight of her immorality to come barreling down. Swaying dangerously on those rickety tramlines. Enveloping Silver in its broad cone of vivid direful yellow, like the eager slavering maw of an underfed beast. Its mammoth metallic and wooden torso, nigh-unfathomable in length, would come jetting down that lengthy, desolate burrow eaten alive by tenebrosity. And then, it would collide, leaving Silver and everything she stood for to rot in a casket six-feet below ground. Out of sight, out of mind.

However, it didn’t matter if Silver suddenly decided now was a good time to fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness. A more accurate term would be mercy. Levi’s hand fully seized the pearlescent hilt of his weapon. Eyes ravenous, his imprisoned fury restrained by faltering chains clawing at his retinas for freedom. An outlet to dispense his intramural wrath onto the sod and permit his being liberty from the agony that came with storing anger. The constant pangs in his heart. Sleepless nights and thoughtless days spent mindlessly hacking and slashing plastic mockeries of life to bits. Reduce the once flourishing field posterior to the Library to a loch of decapitated heads and amputated limbs. More of a shoestring budget recreation of a warzone than a pasture now. All because of her. The good-for-nothing, worthless, remorseless bastard who not only brutalized his dearest friend, but left her to die. That was arguably the worst part of the entire travesty in his eyes. Beating a pegasus and pushing her to the brink of a cruel demise was one thing. Punishable by the highest penalty Equestria could bring to the table in its own right. But what would’ve happened if Levi hadn’t found her? Who would’ve? Would she have perished from oceans of blood spewing from her split skin and flagrant wounds? Would another with far-less relent than he had have found her? What would they have done? Would Silver still be talking to him or would she have long-since bit the dust in an act of callous redress?

An unforgiving blanket of demolition was cascaded down onto the formerly tranquil, lush landscape of his psyche, bringing the life that was once flourishing to no end to an abrupt demise. Thoughts ran rampant. Assumptions and fictitious scenarios formed violent rebellions, launching a full-scale revolt against the Man in Blue. All of them armed with the undying goal of deposing the dithering male.

Levi was hesitant, doubtful of the imminent boundless hellfire he was about to unleash upon his serene life. Revenge always had a price. When you live in a city strangled by violent, tyrannical hobos and cruel maniacs all with a common objective, that rule becomes ever-so-clear. Friends, family, significant others. It didn’t matter. If someone close to you was callously robbed from this Earth by a remorseless sod, vengeance was the last thing tacked down on a list of retaliations. An endless cycle of bloodshed and purgatory. A ouroboros perpetually devouring its own gore-bathed tail. Retribution never ended. That was one of the titanic catalog of reasons as to why Tuscaloosa was as diabolical as it was. The homeless lost their domiciles and the dealers gained their cutthroat nature from someone or something. After all, it was highly unlikely, but not completely out of the picture, that a man wakes up and chooses barbarity or anarchy.

He couldn’t begin to stomach the concept of Twilight dealing with the fallout of his, as much as he despised admitting it, sickeningly selfish declaration of war. Levi vividly recollected that hivemind somehow known as a “compound” like the back of his quivering hand. The incomprehensible number of robust, ironclad pegasi crawling up and down those tiled halls, the air unimaginably spongy with their secreted resentment. Almost as though they could see right through his undeniably thin veil of calm, breaching the doors to his soul and get an all-expenses-paid view within. The sweltering inferno of anger burning their retinas being the only thing dissuading them from following through.

Let the braces of relent cuffing Levi’s wrist break and the crystalline dagger fly from his holster, there would, bereft of an iota of confusion, be hell to pay. An entire army of fliers against him, a measly dragon a quarter of his height, and a bookworm unicorn didn’t appear to be favorable odds. And enlisting the help of merely those two was a mountainous“if” in its own right. In a perfect world, Levi was successful in recruiting Twilight and Spike to essentially wage an all-out, animus-rooted skirmish. And in an even more perfect world, Levi emerged victorious above the imposing likelihood of his defeat. Only problem being that, when retribution was the center of discussion, triumph harbored no meaning. Non-existent, for lack of a better word. It bore no truth. Becoming the winner of a never-ending loop of misery and death simply wasn’t implanted within the demarcations of reality. Levi knew that better than anyone. It would take countless hands to accurately measure how many lives he’d witness crash and burn from the perpetual recursion. Standing and observing helplessly as their comrade was haphazardly slaughtered and tossed aside, fully intent on beheading the one who dared to disturb their imaginary bubble of peace. Despite knowing the full length of the decision they made to join the narcotics business to begin with.

Violent recrimination was an alien prospect to the happy-go-lucky citizens of Equestria. That fact alone was the closest thing to Heaven on earth a mortal like himself could experience. Equus, a euphoric fantasy that was tethered only to his wildest dreams of stupor, had finally become his reality. A blemishless wonderland that granted him and, hopefully, his lost comrade a chance to restart and begin anew. Forge a new name for themselves as the sole humans to have entered these lands in what he could only assume to be centuries. Possibly even longer than his meager mind was able to fathom.

Equestria was a gift from God. Plain, simple, and straight. He saw the hardships and, at long last, answered Levi’s forlorn years of begging for a second chance. An opportunity to right his wrongs in whatever way possible and desert his sins in Alabama. Run far away from the shattered shackles that once bounded him rigidly to Tuscaloosa. Tear his roots from the vile, blood-stained dirt. Plant his essence in that enraptured Library he was fortunate enough to call home. Even a trifling remembrance of the name sent his heart into an animated frenzy of beats and pounds. Miserably longing for that tranquil warmness and welcoming scent of tree sap to embrace him. Mayhaps, by some miracle, he could at least come close to drawing the curtain on this disgusting tale and conclude his ravenous fury. Bring it to its unceremonious demise. In simpler words, give Silver an ultimatum she couldn’t turn down.

Levi closed his eyes, breathing as deep as his lungs would allow. A hand vibrating with unrestrained malice ceased the barbaric asphyxiation of his sword’s hilt, moving shakily through the stale air and coming to rest upon the bartop. His manuses clasped gently together, but the waves of unbridled wrath still radiated in rhythmic pulses. Reeling breaths to satisfy his galloping heart was akin to pulling a leviathan from the ocean with a trifling stick and string. The urge to beat Silver’s head into a muddled macabre oatmeal of bone and brain persisted, but he refused to give in.

“I’ll be honest…” Levi spoke slowly, his teeth threatening to collide with one another with each word. “You deserve to die for what you did. And I should kill you.”

Levi paused. “But…even though you don’t deserve it, I’ll be fair.”

Silver’s was an unintelligible conglomeration, but Levi cared little to decipher what each individual strand of emotion was. He stared forward akin to the bastard at his elbow for the majority of their conversation.

“How about this…” Levi shifted in his stool. “A. You resign. Confess to everything you did to the Princess and whatever happens to you after that… I could care less.”

“Or B. You don’t.”

“What happens if I don’t?”

Levi glowered at her. “It would be better for both of us if you don’t find out.”

“Why should…” Silver hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Why should I be afraid of you? You-”

“Celestia gave me this sword for a reason.” Levi interjected, “There’s a reason I’m here in the first place. To protect.” Levi downed a swig, scrunching his face before continuing in utter stoicism.

“The way I see it, taking you out of the picture is protecting a lot more people than…” Levi’s words perished in his mouth, their corpses being left to rot behind his air-tight lips.

“Actually, I don’t owe you an explanation.”

Levi raised the bottom of his tawny mug to the heavens above, relishing in the singing of his throat like a mudslide of raw flame traveling down his esophagus. He returned the glass to its precipitation halo desecrating the bartop before sliding the slender legs of his stool back. To absolutely no-one’s surprise at all, the elderly chair cried out in fatigue and anguish. With all of their sorrows and woes escaping from its hinges with a singular strident wail. The man stood, his legs and beaten brown shoes rejoiced from the newfound liberation from their cursory prison beneath Moonshine’s countertop. Bones moaned while they stretched. His back popped and crackled like a soothing fire. He dug into his left jean pocket and fished out his coven of golden doubloons, allowing them to rest soundly in his closed fist.

“But, Levi, wait-”

“Moonshine!”

“Just a minute!” The old stallion called back, echoing throughout the dingy confines of the kitchen. Clamorous banging and clanging of pots and pans butting heads swiftly followed, adding some desperately-needed life into the otherwise colorless air.

“Levi, please, there has to be another way! I can’t resign. I can’t leave my team without a good leader. And I’ll die before I leave them over this slander.” Her pathetic pleas to rescue her dying career of infamy fell on deaf, disregarding ears. If the titanic kingdom of fear and brutality led entirely by Silver had to collapse, he had no problem at all being the Trojan Horse. If cruelty was her language, he would speak it. Didn’t make a damn difference to him.

When his globes caught the willowy, gray-haired frame of the Tavern’s owner cross his sight, he wasted no time in letting the coins clatter onto the counter in a raucous mess of sound.

“Put it on my tab.” Levi spoke, “It’s the Man in Blue.”

The brunet shoved his hands into his now-deserted pockets and began his departure from that wretched, dirt-poor pub. Protecting his hands preemptively from the sharpened bite of the cold Cloudsdale air. Bracing for the inescapable scowl from the sheet of clouds above him.

“Another damn tab. I miss when people paid honestly.” He heard Moonshine grumble to his back.

Levi hadn’t necessarily considered his way back to homebase throughout their entire predestined discussion. All he cared about was making it as clear as realistically possible to her how grave her current situation was. Either take his gift of mercy he practically delivered to her on a silver platter, or don’t. In truth, he really didn’t know what would happen if option B was the pill she eagerly swallowed. And if he was honest, he didn’t desire to know anytime soon. Revenge was vile. A sickening cycle. That had been made as lucid as a cloudless day in Alabama countless times. The illimitable newspaper clippings of some major dealer went down in flames, with vengeance being the one who ignited the inferno. Alongside the hundreds of mugshots or I.D. photos flashing across his small TV screen, the reporter’s voice filling him in on all the gruesome details he never knew were doable to another human. Shot, stabbed, trapped in a house fire, drive-by, bludgeoned to death. He heard it all. There was ne’er a shortage of ways to perish when drugs and money were hanging in the air free for the taking. The way anyone else saw it, they were just easy pickings. Take out the one who wanted it and the prize was all there's.

How far or how short Equestria’s limits for forgiveness reached was an enigma. Perhaps those brawny, meat-headed fliers occupying that dastardly compound had a transparent sense of right and wrong. Unlike their leader, followed a strict set of unwavering morals. Or maybe, and the more grounded-in-reality scenario, they were almost identical to their leader. Trying to keep the Dashers’ reputation spick and span, utterly free from the cancers of defamation and character assassination. Key word being “try”. With a head honcho with a barbarous nature like hers, it was a miracle the team and its entirety weren’t ruthlessly slaughtered by the family of those she maimed. Levi could hardly believe how, at the very least, Silver hadn’t died long before his arrival. Beating innocent, guilt-free ponies half-to-death and leaving them to rot in a lake of their own bodily fluids. By all laws of society, freedom should be a feeling she missed dearly. Not one she gloried in on a daily basis. Whether locked in a dungeon with a missing key or hung at the gallows, she shouldn’t be in the position she was now.

Yet here he was. Standing outside the temporary prison for Silver Spears putting her life in her own hands. Him being the one playing a glorified game of cops and robbers, with him being the relentless law prowling the streets for his adversary. He wasn’t fully keen on Luna at the moment for blatant reasons, but he knew for certain that Celestia was the best overlord Equestria could ever ask for. So it was miraculous to say the least how Silver, a pegasus drowning in an ocean of damning evidence, still drew breath and bore witness to the morning sun everyday. Part of him wanting to relinquish his duties as a faux-officer of the law and leave her fate in Celestia’s hooves. Watch with a satisfied grin while she gets dragged away in shackles to her eternal mortal confinement. Having a noose hug her neck would also be fine with the man. Regardless, she needed to face punishment in this life or the next. And he couldn't shoulder the mental burden of fretting over her next move. After all, he still hadn’t fully acclimated to life in a world governed and occupied solely by equines yet. On top of that, there was that fleeting but all-too-feasible chance that Gary was alive. Somehow able to breach the veil separating the deceased and the living for a second time. If he was piloted by bloodlust and an undying hunger for retribution, he would’ve done the same thing. Another reason why recrimination wasn’t a topic for consideration.

Thunderlane should be returning within the hour. The clock long-passed twelve, now venturing further into the average night owl’s territory. About thirty minutes until one. All Levi had on his hands now was time. Precious time to ponder and internally wrestle with his current state of affairs. Imagine how euphoric that familial warmth of Twilight’s voice, combined with the natural feel of the library, would be as it greeted him upon his arrival home. All he could do was wait.

He glanced over his shoulder at the gimcrack saloon staring daggers into the back of his head. Seeing Silver still hunched over the bartop, smothering her sorrows in that choler bottled-hell. An attempted tug at the heartstrings for some, but a struggle to not chuckle for others. Him included.

‘Just pick A, you sorry bastard.’ Levi thought, swiveling his cranium to face the endless abyss of tenebrosity before him. The darkness appeared to almost stare back with an intense leer.

‘Please. Pick A.’