Retired to Equestria

by Yet Another Mask

The Retirement Party

Two things were running through Damien’s mind as Pinkie introduced him to everyone that failed to escape her watchful gaze. First was that in terms of refreshments and entertainment the party was surprisingly childish. Everything felt like it wouldn’t be out of place at a young child’s party. The second, exceedingly surprising thing was that he was actually enjoying it. Pinkie had somehow managed to infect him and everyone in the room with her seemingly bottomless happiness and had rekindled a tiny spark of innocence that Damien had though long extinguished. Introductions came and went, he found himself shaking hooves with everyone from the other Elements of Harmony to even the most humble of ponies that Ponyville had to offer.

Before long he found himself playing several juvenile party games with a fervor that had until recently only surfaced when he was faced with a particularly challenging hero. He also found, to his great satisfaction, that many of the skills he had perfected in his lifelong quest to keep from being murdered were surprisingly applicable in a social setting.

After six tied rounds of pin the tail on the pony against Pinkie Pie he managed to extricate himself from the game with the excuse of his stomach’s loud and continual reminders about the tables of snacks. He approached one of the tables happily and began to take stock of the spread before him. Everything was so colorful and new to him, in the end he simply picked up what was closest to him and took a bite. What began as a simple tasting quickly devolved into a full-fledged feast as he did his best to sample every single confection he could. Although such sweets weren’t unheard of back home he had never known that they came in such a variety of shapes, colors, and flavors.

Eventually the torrent of gluttony subsided and Damien managed to retreat from the snack tables, a difficult endeavor for anyone faced with Pinkie’s sugary treats. Despite the satisfaction he was feeling he knew something was missing. Something that no party he had ever attended was complete without. His eyes glinted as he spied a stool that would make an excellent platform. It was time to start telling stories.

<-[XXXXX]->

Gilda on the other hand was having a far less enjoyable time. The trip to the stairs had been a harrowing experience for her. Every snack was suspect, every ledge a danger, every time a pony grew close to her she felt herself shy away. This was one of her parties. Something was going to happen. She knew it. Even as fast as she was moving her constant detours made the trip to the stairs take several minutes. Several minutes that she was terrified that one of Pinkie’s loser friends would recognize her. Several minutes that she was sure Dash would see her.

She let out a sigh of relief when she finally managed to reach the second floor. Her eyes widened as she realized that she was shivering slightly and bit back a curse at her own fear. She was Gilda! She was the best! She was not scared of a bunch of lame ponies! Despite her constant attempts at dispelling the building unease in her chest she couldn’t shake the feelings that the party had brought up.

She could hear the raucous party-goers continuing to laugh and cheer downstairs. A sour grimace crossed her beak as she remembered her own Pinkie Pie Party. It had started out well enough. But then the pranks began. Looking back at it she had to admit that a couple of them were actually pretty funny, but when they had all come one after another... Her eyes narrowed and a feral growl rumbled deep in her throat. They had singled her out. They had all been laughing at her. All those ponies had ganged up on her just to humiliate her! Ponies always did that. You either fit into their nice little idea of how things should be or they ganged up on you. It didn’t matter if you were a griffon or a zebra, a buffalo or a dragon. If you didn’t fit into their nice and tidy little world they would run you out.

Before she knew it her wings were twitching in anger, her claws scoring shallow grooves in the wooden floor. She mentally face-taloned as she realized how worked up she was getting over those dweebs. She was better than them. She didn’t need them, they needed her. Even if they didn’t realize it they needed her. As the rage left her she realized just how emotionally and physically drained she was. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it to no avail before heading down the hallway. Damien wouldn’t mind if she just took one of the rooms right? There were three of them after all and he would just have to deal with it if he didn’t agree with her choice.

<-[XXXXX]->

The moment she had seen Gilda Rainbow Dash had made herself scarce. There had to be some reason that she had come back to Ponyville and Dash doubted it was a good one. Memories of the fight they had had at Pinkie’s Party, of the second fight they had had later that night. Dash’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. She had known Gilda wouldn’t just leave things at that. She had always been easily angered and had always gone for revenge. Chances were Gilda was here to hurt Pinkie or maybe even Dash.

She followed after Gilda carefully, making sure to stay in her blind spots and prepared to zip off, sans rainbow trail of course, the moment it looked like she was about to turn around. What she saw confused her though. Gilda had always been strong and brash. But this time there was something different about her. She seemed to be making her way through the crowd in such a way to cause as little trouble as possible. She was going out of her way to avoid everyone and everything. The old Gilda would have just barged straight through everything in her path. If it didn’t move fast enough that was its problem and not hers.

As soon as Gilda reached the stairs she sped up immensely, causing Dash to curse silently and nearly zip all the way up the stairs. She skidded to a halt as she saw that Gilda had stopped at the top of the stairs and was… shivering? That couldn’t be right. This was Gilda! Although she had avoided everypony downstairs… Dash felt a momentary pang of sadness for her erstwhile friend before reality reasserted itself. Gilda, scared? She would believe it when she saw it. Gilda hadn’t changed at all since their time at flight camp and there was no way she would have changed in the months that had passed since they had broken off their friendship.

Dash felt a rush of certainty as she saw Gilda’s wings twitching and heard the soft sound of talons scratching the floor. Gilda was angry. She was right. Gilda hadn’t changed. She was still the short fused bully that she had always been. Wasn’t she? Dash continued to watch as Gilda visibly deflated and trudged off down the hall. As she watched her walk out of sight Dash was torn between wanting to confront the griffon and confusion at what she had witnessed.

On one hoof Gilda was back and there was no way that was a good thing…. Right? On the other hoof she hadn’t been acting like her usual gruff self so was something wrong? Trapped in indecision Dash ground her hooves against her temples in a vain attempt to force things to make sense. Unfortunately all this did was increase her already throbbing headache, a headache that vanished in a flash when she realized just what she had to do. The sheer obviousness of the solution was staggering; she couldn’t believe she had missed out on it before. Damien. A resolute grin forming on her lips she turned to head back to the party.

<-[XXXXX]->

The first thing that Dash noticed as she went back to the party was that it seemed far too quiet for a Pinkie Pie Party. The second was the massive crowd of ponies in the middle of the room. Wondering what was going on she flew over and saw, to her surprise, Damien standing on a stool with the biggest grin she’d ever seen on a griffon’s face.

“-so the Dark Lord Shadow Mane is stuck in his own dungeon, being held at sword point by the princess he had captured. The hero that had come to save her is unconscious on the floor between them and Shadow Mane can’t muster the strength to cast another spell or even try to wrestle the sword from the princess. Then the princess pokes him with the sword and demands that he kidnap her again so she doesn’t have to go back to her boring etiquette classes! In the end the kidnapped princess has the once Dark Lord tied up and is dragging him off so he can ‘kidnap’ her again!” Damien regaled with a chuckle as the audience he had managed to acquire burst into laughter with him. He smiled as he saw how well his, slightly altered, stories were being received. Maybe he’d be able to get work as an entertainer! He basked in the happy feelings of a job well done as the audience dispersed, all except for one pony.

Damien cursed inwardly as he recognized the pony is question. “Ah, hello Miss Dash. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Yeah, for starters you can tell what’s up with Gilda,” the pegasus replied, her voice held no malice but was far from friendly.

“Not really sure. I met her in the Everfree and she offered to lead me to Ponyville when she found out I was headed there.” He smiled. “I was a bit lost.”

“Gilda offered to help you?” Dash asked incredulously.

“I assume there were underlying reasons other than altruism involved but yes. She offered to help me.”

Dash was silent for a moment. “You really don’t know anything about her do you?”

“Well I know she’s rude and brash. She is an extreme pessimist and holds all sentient life in the lowest regard. Quick to anger and has an impressive death glare. And she has a history with this town, you and Pinkie in particular if today was any indication.”

Dash was pleasantly surprised at how much Damien had already managed to figure out about Gilda. “That still doesn’t explain why she’s still here. She did just offer to show you the way to the town right?”

“Yes and that put me in her debt. Debts are either meant to be paid or used to keep track of who’s winning. Therefore I offered her a heavily discounted rate for renting out one of my spare rooms. She agreed that it was bound to be better than the nest she had in the Everfree so she accepted.”

Before Damien could continue Dash held up a hoof to stop him. “She had a nest in the Everfree? Like she was living there?”

“For quite some time if the general lived-in state of the nest is to be believed. When we reached the edge of the forest she paused, like she wasn’t sure she could leave. She also had already figured out how to enter the town in a low key manner and said she didn’t want to meet certain ponies yet.” Damien was taking a gamble here. This could either buy Gilda the time she needed to do… whatever it was she was trying to do or it could completely demolish her timetable.

Dash’s expression grew hard at the last sentence. “Do you know what she’s trying to do?”

Damien had to resist the urge to smile, there was a steel in this mare’s voice. A willingness to do whatever it took to make sure that whatever Gilda was planning wasn’t going to bring harm to her friends. Loyalty, he almost chuckled to himself, an admirable trait, both for its inherent uses as a virtue and for how easy it made it to manipulate people. “I have no idea what she wants from your or your town,” he admitted. “However since I am going to be living here I’m not going to let her do anything that would jeopardize what little peace I’ve managed to acquire. That sort of treachery is unforgivable. You have my word that nothing will happen to harm anyone here.”

Dash looked doubtful for a few moments before nodding curtly and swooping forward to jab Damien in the chest with a firm hoof. “Okay, but if anything happens to anypony I’ll make you regret it.”

Damien nodded with a smile to reassure Dash of his attentions. His smile turned to a grin as she flew off to raid a snack table. There’s nothing quite like the predictability of a virtuous soul after all.

<-[XXXXX]->

Lyra and Bon Bon watched as Rainbow Dash flew away from Damien, a look of grudging acceptance on her face.

“Well?” Lyra asked Bon Bon as they drew their heads together conspiratorially.

“I have no idea. I’m used to noticing if ponies are acting weird, not griffons,” Bon Bon responded with an exasperated sigh.

“But Luna’s message said the dimensional breach occurred over the forest and he apparently came out of the forest pretty soon after the breach was reported.”

“But he’s a griffon. Whenever anyone comes through the shield they are always turned into a pony. Always! He’s also actually speaking Equestrian. It was hard to tell since he isn’t a pony but the beak movements match up with what he’s saying. There’s no translation spell in place.”

“But he also apparently knew the layout of the town! He headed right for Pinkie Pie!”

“There are maps of Ponyville available if you look for them, and Pinkie is rather famous.”

“What about that story he told us? He said it was made up but-”

“He’s probably just a really good storyteller that likes to make up stories. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“What about the weird gaps in his knowledge? He didn’t know where to get residency. If he had been planning on moving here wouldn’t he have checked up on that beforehand?”

“That just shows that he doesn’t think things through. We need to get find something that would show he’s not from here if we wanted to take him in. All we have to go on right now is that he’s weird.” She rolled her eyes. “And weirdness is a little common here.”

“Fine, maybe it isn’t him but if it isn’t then what about the anomaly? They never happen without reason. Something always comes through them.”

“But it isn’t always something bad Lyra,” Bon Bon said as she looked pointedly at her friend. “Maybe he did come from somewhere else; maybe he isn’t really a griffon. We’ll just keep him under surveillance until we know for sure.” Her eyes became downcast before she continued, “and we’ll get a team to check the forest for anyone that might be out there. There’s a chance that whatever came through the anomaly didn’t survive or is lost out there.”

“I almost hope so. It always makes the situation so much easier to contain.” She saw the horrified look on Bon Bon’s face and quickly added, “I hope that they’re lost I mean. I wouldn’t want anyone to die just to make things easier for us.”

“I should hope so.” Her expression brightened. “Now let’s go and actually enjoy the party. It has been a whole week since Pinkies last party after all.”

<-[XXXXX]->

From behind another glass of Pinkie’s delicious punch Damien watched the two mares head towards a game of Pony, Pony, Pegasus with a satisfied smile. Apparently they didn’t realize just how sharp a griffon’s ears were, even before being magically enhanced.

So the princesses not only had a way to determining when someone entered their world unannounced but also had a group that specialized in dealing with such incursions. He drained the glass he held and quickly filled it back up, telling stories was always thirsty work after all. Of course so was eavesdropping and maniacal plotting but if asked he would just mention the storytelling. “Hey Pinkie,” he said to the empty air.

In the blink of an eye the party pony was at his side. “Yeah? Is something wrong with the party? Please tell me something’s not wrong with the party!” She gasped and flew into the air. “Something is wrong with the party isn’t there? Are there too many balloons? Not enough balloons? Oh! The STREAMERS!”

“No! No, the party is fine, great! Fantastic even! I haven’t had this much fun at a party in… Pit I don’t know but it’s amazing!” Damien quickly assured her. He could have sworn her fur had been darkening during her rant and had no desire to see what would have happened next.

“Oh!” she chirped as she returned to her cheery self. “Whatcha need?”

“Lyra and Bon Bon, they were talking about how they thought I had come from another universe. Why don’t they just ask you? Given your powers of observations and deduction it would seem like the sensible thing to do whenever something strange happens. You were able to sense my scryings before I got here and recognized me even though we had never met after all.”

“Oh that’s easy peasy. I’m not supposed to know about it! Lyra and Bon Bon do such a good job of hiding things all the time and I can’t just go around telling everypony their secrets! I even made a Pinkie Promise with myself that I wouldn’t ruin everything they worked so hard for.” She grinned happily at the bemused expression on Damien’s face.

“I… see…” he said slowly. “Thank you for your time Pinkie. I appreciate the help.”

“Okie Dokie Loki!” she exclaimed as she bounced off to join in a game of Twister.

“But how to deal with this?” Damien muttered to himself as he swirled the glass of punch in his talon. “I could always go and tell them what I am, or was, directly… but I don’t know how they deal with outsiders here. They did seem to hint at a chance that some might end up staying and living here peacefully but do I want to take the risk of being sent back? I suppose no one would recognize me as a griffon so I’d probably get a couple years to reestablish my power before everyone started trying to kill me again.” He drained the glass and stared into it. “On the other hand I could just ignore them and continue on with my original plans. Become a well enough established individual that my sudden disappearance would at least bring attention to the wrong people. Prove that I am capable of living here peacefully and without incident.” He smiled. “Yes. That will work beautifully. I’ll even get to have fun leading them on. Besides, it’s not like they even asked me whether or not I used to be human.” He chuckled to himself happily as he headed off to see what other games there were to play.

Comments

[iloveportalz0r]

I LIKE IT

[Tonto the Trotter]

Damien's my kind of Griffon, great character and great story so far . I look forward to reading more.

[Fourpony]

A game of manticore and pony is a-hoof.

[PieisGood4U]

SIr. This is a brilliant overlord.
Keep the good work up.

May i ask if there is as spelling error?
"something that no party he had even attended was complete without."
isnt it supposed to be ever?
"something that no party he had ever attended was complete without."

Now a random quote of greatness. (not made by me)
"We nod, smile, and die of a heart attack before anyone asks questions."

[Lord_Kalbario]

Twilight:how incredulously Astounding! such a predicament has failed to lead me into the conclusion that this may otherwise lead into common placed scenarios surrounding other works of fiction of common origin and direction.
Me: Twilight! are you using my laptop to abuse the brains of poor bronies again!? >:(
Twilight: uh... No?
Me: such a nice mare(n_n)

[ADrunkChangeling]

I believe I have glimpsed the inner workings of Damien's mind... It's a broken record singing "TROLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL"

[nemryn]

Hey, Gilda does kinda have a point. Harmony is just 'fitting in' on a large scale, after all.

[Kicks Mcgee]

Ha, I love that Lyra and Bon Bon are Luna's secret 'Ponies in black'

[werewolf435]

181912
t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ4bM3G2HvvMKSc1q-_8SslW3jzgT0J8jttduDkce-853xaDCCGpJohsM3S5w

[jaked122]

This is great. Evil overlord, perfect addition to equestria.

[Azure Flame]

Uhh... I don't get the crossover but cool story brah.

[Niklashg]

757317 its not a crossover its just Generic Overlord gets bored of being overlord.

[nightelf37]

Lyra and Bon Bon beinggents of some kind? That's new.

Anyway, Overlord in Equestria is great story! (Since he's retired, I don't want to call him evil.)

[The Number Pie]

Her eyes became downcast before she continued, “and we’ll get a team to check the forest for anyone that might be out there. There’s a chance that whatever came through the anomaly didn’t survive or is lost out there

Possible reference?
wormholeriders.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/A.R.C-Logo-Click-to-Visit-Primeval-on-ITV-386x384.jpg
img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121208103632/primeval/images/thumb/0/06/1x1forestOfDeanAnomaly.png/479px-1x1forestOfDeanAnomaly.png