> For The Swarm
>  by VanishingAct
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: The Story must begin somewhere...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘So are you ready yet?!’

‘I’ll be out the door in five.’ I replied to the phone. The guy that was phoning was a friend of mine. Not the bestest of best friends, but we shared common interests, like video games, sports etc. I wasn’t ever gonna let him know about how I was a brony though, oh no. That was my personal delight, and I would have been damned if anyone found out. I have my close friends and they have all expressed disgust in fandoms and such.

‘Dude, that shit’s for fuckin’ weaboos, anyone who watches it should be ashamed of themselves.’ That was another of my cohort’s reaction to me casually mentioning Naruto. I distinctly remember one of the guys in our class avoiding him for the rest of the year after that. Not everyone has the capacity to love and tolerate, I’m afraid.

Oh yeah, class. I’m 15, just so you know.

Anyway, I put the phone down and started getting ready to head out to the youth centre, joy of joys. It had originally been Mum’s idea to make me go there, something about meeting new people and drivel like that. It didn’t help matters that Davey decided to start going, which practically made it obligatory to go in Mum’s book. A mixture of not having much to do on Saturdays and nagging from both my dear mother and Davey forced me to get off my lazy arse and go.

Arse, not ass.

Davey was one of these hopeless romantic types, you know the ones. ’Love at first sight’ and all that jazz. He had two problems which made it so that he wasn’t able to garner any attention from girls.

1)	He went to an all boys school, like myself. This obviously impeded matters as this meant that he wasn’t in much contact with humanity’s better half. He considered once about whether he was bisexual, before most of the class, including myself, shut down that train of thought. School’s hard enough as it is, much more so when someone you’ve known well for 4 years is giving you the look.
2)	He was loud and boisterous around us guys, but was cripplingly shy when it came to girls and when I say shy, I mean Fluttershy level shy. He moaned about butterflies in his stomach and his head going funny when around them and shit like that. I never understood why though. They’re just your average, garden variety human beings, right? No need for nerves.

And this is where the youth club and I come into the mix, the youth club being the meeting grounds of us youths, as it were, and I was there to provide support for the guy, make him feel comfortable around females.

In other words, make him realise that he has freakin’ balls.

He told me to dress plainly, so I cast away my standard, house lounging PJs and threw on a simple white shirt and black trousers. I went to the bathroom and had a look in the mirror. Black hair, brown eyes, 5’3’’, yeah that’s me all right. I washed my face, grabbed my phone and headphones and made for the door.

‘You be back home by 8:00pm, y’hear?’

‘Where else would I go, Dad?’

‘I was a kid like you once, I know what you think like. 8:00pm’

‘Alright, Dad!’

‘Love ya!’

‘Right back atcha!’

I chuckled at my Dad’s profession of love to me. He tended to do that often, but it wasn’t till I was twelve until he truly told me why.

‘Y’see, there’s gonna be one day where your old man won’t be around to tell you that he loves you anymore. I just want to cherish the years I have remaining knowing that I told you several times. I just want ya to know.’

‘Well duh, of course you love me, and of course I love you! Stop being so melodramatic about it already, it’s not like you’re gonna die all so soon or go missing or something like that!’

I laughed again at my response at the time. Since when does a twelve year old scold their dad for being melodramatic? My stance hadn’t changed though. Of course a father loves his son and vice versa. What would humanity be without parent figures to teach and give understanding, direction and love?

I opened the door to find Davey, sitting on the doorstep, or rather, was sitting on the doorstep. No-one told him that our door swings outwards, and so he was currently sprawled out on our driveway.

‘...Ow...’ mewled Davey.

I couldn’t contain myself, so I just laughed at the demise of my formerly well groomed friend, dust all over his blue skinny jeans, mud on his shoes and a leaf in his hair, fallen from the tree in the drive.

Try picking up any girls like that, sucka!

‘Yeah, yeah, laugh it up why don’t you? Give us a hand at least.’

I lent him my right hand, which he used to pull himself up gracelessly off of the grassy driveway.
‘We’ll be off then, shall we?’ I chirped before realising that my good friend was cupping his nose in his hand. Turned out that it was bleeding profusely so I pulled a tissue from my pocket (Be prepared, Scout’s motto!) and handed it to him, which he thanklessly accepted.

We started out short walk down the road, only two blocks till we were there.
‘So who is she, then?’ I inquired.

‘Whu?’ replied Davey, nose still stuffed with tissue.

‘Don’t fool me around, Davey, there’s always one when it comes to you.’

‘Effuckef Ben, I ai’ gudh dim fo divs’

‘You what?’

Davey removed the tissue and continued.

‘Just shut the fuck up, Ben.’

Oh right that reminds me. The name’s Ben Brown, not that it will matter soon enough.

‘Oh come on, don’t be like that! Just tell me and then I’ll can it.’

‘Fine. Her name’s Mercedes.’ Davey started to go red. 

‘Spanish?’

‘No, English’. Wait what? Since when is ‘Mercedes’ an English name?


‘Strange name for a Brit.’

‘The name doesn’t matter,’ Said Davey in a sing-song tone. 

Oh here we go again... I rolled my eyes.

Davey, oblivious to my motion, continued, ‘No, it is the person that lies behind the name, fair of face and of sweet scent, ...’ and etcetera, etcetera. If you’ve ever read classical British love poems, that’s basically what Davey here was saying.

I cut him off before he started about how unworthy anyone was to have this Mercedes chick, I’d heard it all before. ‘Gee, why don’t you just marry her in secret already? Perhaps kill her cousin the day after and then run off to a different town in wait of her word? Just don’t buy poison when you go back, loverboy!’

That shut Romeo up nicely. We were at the door to the centre when he asked a question of his own.

‘And what about you then? Got a special someone on your mind?’ The normally playful tone that adorned Davey’s speech had returned.

‘No.’ I replied curtly.

‘Seriously?’

‘Yup.’

‘There’s nothing there?’

‘I’ve already told you about this, Davey, I’m not interested in any romantic relationships with the opposite sex.’ I quickly realised that I shouldn’t have added that last part but not before Davey could latch onto it.

‘So you would be fine with relations with the same sex?’ Davey’s smile was now venomous.

‘N-‘

‘I never knew you swung that way, Benny, my boy, but we are a modern society and as such I whole heartedly accept that this is who you are,’ He swung the door open and waltzed in, a spring in his step. ‘I shan’t judge you any differently as I have before. I fact, I think I respect you more now that you have come out.’ He said, just loud enough so that everyone in the hall could hear. As much as I hated his guts then, I still couldn’t help but thinking that this was the Davey I was friends with, not that ponce speaking like he has a rod up him. I resented every infatuation that Davey got, because I knew they would go away as quickly as they came. Davey was a funny guy when he wasn’t moping around, moaning about all the things that could have been.

All the things that could have been if you weren’t such a gigantic pussy! I thought.

All of a sudden I realised that he had clammed up and had shrunk his body form.

‘She’s here.’ He whispered. 

She was at the second of the pool tables, chalking up her cue, certainly fair of face as Davey proclaimed. As for scent, I wasn’t able to tell past the sweaty chess players that we were in front of. I could certainly understand my friend’s attraction to her, especially as she took to the table, bending over to hit the cue ball, in those tight jeans of hers...

Hey, I may not want female company, but I appreciate a good arse as much as the next man!

Anyway, I turned to Davey and said ‘Well, we can’t do anything about her now, I mean, look at the state of you,’, for Davey was still covered in the mud and dust from his fall, and his nose was still bleeding out. ‘Just grab a chess table, I’ma grab myself a drink and be over in a sec, ‘kay?’ Davey nodded his approval of my plan, tissues covering his nose again and sat at a table, making sure that he was out of sight.

‘The hell will I do with ya...?’ I remember sighing to myself as I went past the pool tables and some old guy I hadn’t seen before. He regarded me with a tender look in his eyes as if he was...

Dad?

I quickly brushed off the thought and headed over to the drinks table. I hadn’t had a drink since the journey here and my throat was getting rather scratchy, so I went over to get a cup of Sprite. It was only when I got to the stand that I realised the usual guy wasn’t there. Instead there were two guys, roughly 6 years my senior, one in a blue shirt with black hair hidden by a fedora and blue eyes and the other in beige with ginger hair and...

Purple eyes? What?

My rational mind quickly came to the rescue, brushing them off as contacts, after all, purple eyes are impossible, right?
However, their appearance didn’t matter to me at the time; the more pressing matter was...

‘Where’s Larry?’

‘Oh, erm, he’s in the hospital!’ said Blueshirt, in an almost panicky tone.

‘Wait what? What for?’ I replied with alarm. Larry was a nice guy, someone I liked. He held a conversation without going too far, knew when something was bothering you and did his best to at least listen to your problems, if you so chose to say them, so hearing the news that he was in the hospital was distressing to say the least.

‘Erm, err...’ Blueshirt stumbled over his words, almost as if he was unsure of what to say...

Anxiety about telling me bad news, I had presumed at first.

‘Well, he needs a hip replacement.’ He said finally. I let out a sigh of relief, not only because Larry wasn’t in any imminent danger, but also that he was finally getting that darn hip fixed.

‘Oh, good,’ I said cheerily, ‘So who are you guys then?’

‘Call me Phil, my friend’ said Blueshirt in a warm and friendly voice, as if he had known me for years. He held out his hand and I shook it, noting the firmness of his grip, strong but not overpowering.

‘And I’m Stodge, pleased ta meetcha!’ said his cohort, in a more regular tone, the one you hear from friendly people the first time you meet them. This warm display made my lips curl into a neat smile. I guess you could say that it filled my heart up with sunshine! That at least made me forget the conundrum of his odd name.

‘So, what will it be then?’ asked Phil.

‘Sprite can.’

‘That will be 50p, my good friend.’

I paid and took my drink in hand, pulled the ring and sipped a little. That refreshing lemony taste graced my tongue once again, dear Lord this stuff was good, but amongst all of that there was something strange mixed in. It tasted like... bananas? Whatever it was, it certainly was making me feel woozy. My thoughts quickly became disorganized and my vision became murky and distorted. 

‘So!’ chirped Stodge, happy as ever but muffled this time. ‘Ever hear of a place called Equestria?’

‘Yeah..’ I managed, noting that my speech had become slurred, before returning to thoughts of Tibetan doughnuts.

I like doughnuts. Said my intoxicated mind.

‘So how would you like to go to Equestria?’ said Stodge.

I remember managing a ‘Hell yeah!’ before hitting the ground.



After what felt like hours, I managed to finally regain consciousness. I hadn’t gained control of my eyes yet, so I couldn’t tell where I was.

Wait... What happened?

I started piecing together what had happened that night (at least, at the time I thought it was still night).

At house.

Davey called.

Youth centre.

Done deal.

Dad’s goodbyes.

Davey fails.

Davey mopes.

Davey calls me gay.

Daveyshy.

DAT ASS.

Need drink.

Blueshirt and Beigeshirt.

Can of Sprite.

Tibetan doughnuts.

Equestria.

I realised there was something missing in my thoughts, in between the Sprite and the doughnuts.

Why was I thinking of doughnuts... wait a minute....

Loading...

Loading...

Loading...

I got drugged!

Well shit. I thought to myself. I was now passed out somewhere after getting drugged by a couple of guys I hadn’t met 
before. It was then that I noticed the softness that enveloped me.

Duvet?

So I had a duvet around me. I breathed easy, realising that I was probably at home, and not a minute too soon.

But something is amiss...

This bed was too soft. It wasn’t my crusty, hard lumpy bed that I usually occupied.

Then... I’m not home... Where am I?!

Panic quickly set in. I’d been captured! Whisked away to wherever those curs lived! They were probably planning something for me! My mind flashed to the news a few days ago...

‘Police are now planning on targeting these so called ‘rape rings’...’

Shitshitshitshitshitshiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!

I had to open my eyes, to see where I was, and to find any escape. I struggled, pushing up against my eyelids with violence and determination until light flooded in. And it hurt.

After the initial sting of the light overload, I decided to look around. This room had blue walls, with patterns along the ceiling and a lavish chandelier, with crystals adorning it.

Rich rapist. I thought to myself morbidly.

‘Brother, check it out!’ cried a cheery voice. That Stodge guy. ‘Our guest is awake! How are you feeling?!’

Guest?! Seriously?! You capture me and then call me your guest?! And as for how I’m feeling, pissed off doesn’t even cover it!!

‘Well I’m sorry to hear that, my friend, but I assure you we didn’t take you out of malevolence.’ Said that warm and friendly voice. Phil. He walked up to the bed, with a strange clacking coming from behind him.

Well this is it. Time to prepare my anus.

And then the owner of ‘Phil’s voice peered over the bed. I looked at him oddly. His fedora was now something fitting of a musketeer, with a bright orange feather through it. And his face was... blue?! He had ears poking out of his hat, but these weren’t human. They were longer and stood on end, flicking left and right every so often. There was also something else protruding from his hat.

A horn? What?

I looked at him with more intent now. He didn’t have a nose, rather, he had an angular snout where his nose and mouth 
were placed.

A... A pony?!

LogicAndReasoning.exe has discovered a fatal error with the plugin WhatYouAreSeeingRightNow.dll. System shall now attempt reboot.

And with that, I passed out for the second time that evening.

> Chapter 1: The Start of The Swarm
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I stirred.

I have really got to stop doing this...

I opened my eyes and once more found the blue walls, the patterns, and the chandelier. Looking around I found a few more objects of interest. A table was against the wall, facing a window. On it were a few pieces of parchment, an ink and quill and stamps of some sort. Letter writing desk.

Who writes the letters though?

I flicked my mind back to what had happened in the few moments before I was unconscious. And then I realised.

Phil. Phil the pony.

So I was in Equestria now?! Awesome! I couldn’t help thinking that he could’ve just asked me instead of drugging me.

‘Terribly sorry about that my friend, you see, you being your rational self would have immediately said ‘No.’ Owing to the fact that until recently, you believed my world to be fictional.’ Said ‘Phil’ plainly, entering the room.

'You..You can read my thoughts?!’ I thought.

‘Why yes, good friend, that seems to be a side effect of us bringing you here...’ he replied, still with the British accent that he had at the youth centre.

More like Trottingham accent, Benny. 

‘Haha, you certainly do have a sharp mind! Why yes, we are here in Trottingham, more specifically Trottingham Palace! What do you say, my friend, do you like my humble abode?’ laughed ‘Phil’ with a glint in his eye.

I decided that I should speak to him this time, rather than thinking it to him. Some part of my brain thought it rude to use telepathy in close quarters.

I meant to say ‘It is certainly a nice palace you have here.’ but the words didn’t come out. Instead, the Prince (I realised that’s what he was after he declared the palace his home) received a strange warbling chirp, a cross between a bird and a Mexican girl rolling her R’s.

‘Yes, indeed...’ said the Prince looking forlornly outside the window. ‘I should probably explain before you ask your next question that you are unable to speak due to the current form that you inhabit.’

I suppressed a ‘This isn’t even my final form!’ thought and inquired ‘Form? What do you mean?’.

‘Well...’ said the Prince in an uncertain tone, ‘I’m probably going to have to bring my brothers here before I can explain. Could I ask you to wait while I do that?’

I nodded my approval, noting that my entire body had been thrown off balance by the action.

I need a damn mirror.

In the meanwhile, the Prince’s horn began to glow a light blue, similar to his coat. His short black mane rippled slightly under his hat and his wings were flared.

An alicorn? I thought to myself privately. But of course. Royalty.

A light presence started to fill my head and a loud voice called out, 

‘Storgia! Agapé! You are needed by my side to explain the situation to our friend!’

I realised that this was the Prince mentally contacting his brothers, and that this was invading my head due to the fact that the three of them had a mental contact with me due to the summoning. I guessed that now was the moment I would find out why I was summoned.

I heard a voice resounding in my head soon after the call.

‘Cooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnggggg!!!!!’, said the happy, sing-song voice. This was that ‘Stodge’ guy! I reckoned that this was the Storgia that the Prince was looking for. I attempted to reach out to him and inquire as to his thinly disguised name.

‘It was the best I could come up with at the time!’ whined Storgia as he materialised into view. He was an alicorn stallion about the same height as ‘Phil’ with a beige coat like his shirt at the youth centre and had a matted, ginger mane.

‘Seriously, brother? You may as well have given him your actual name when we first met, for it would have aroused the same amount of suspicion,’ Said the Prince, chiding his brother. ‘Anyway, now is not the time for pointless bickering, for we have a friend to greet!’

‘Hooray!’ cheered Storgia, almost like a child.

I mean like a foal.

Storgia span on the spot before facing me (while I was still in the bed) and giving a bow with an exaggerated flourish.

‘I am Prince Storgia Cadenza of Trottingham, pleased to meet you!’ he almost shouted the words. He continued, ‘Ooh, did you hear about the Grand Galloping Gala a few days ago?! It was an absolute disaster! I swear, it was so scandalous tha- oof!’ his brother had shoved him in the side.

‘This guy is like a less hyperactive, more eloquent Pinkie Pie...’ I remember thinking, and then quickly turned my thoughts to what he had said.

‘The Grand Galloping Gala? So I’m a few days after season 1?’

The blue stallion then turned to me, removed his hat and said ‘And I am Prince Filio Cadenza, ever at the service of his subjects,’ He had a wry smile on now. He replaced his hat and continued, ‘I’m sorry for my elder brother, Prince Agapé Cadenza’s absence, for he is currently meditating. He should meet you in due time, so don’t worry about him now.’

‘Heh, yeah, Ol’ Gappy’s always stuck in thoughts, like this one time, he was so busy trying to work out how Earth ponies hold things in their hooves, that he didn’t look where he was going and he tripped up during the Royal Garden Party in front of all the nobles! He was so embarrassed that he didn’t dare to come out of the castle for anoth- eheh, ehehe...’ he would have continued rambling were it not for Filio giving him the stare.

‘Brother, now is not the time for idle gossip!’

‘Right, yeah, sorry...’ said Storgia, suddenly finding more interest in the ground.

I quickly realised that I hadn’t brought up something of interest during the brothers’ introductions, and brought this to the attention of Prince Filio.

‘Prince Filio Cadenza, as in-‘

‘Yes, yes...’ Filio said in a bored tone, like he had said it all before. ‘Brother of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza...’

‘Princess Mi Amore Cadenza-Sparkle now, Filio.’ Storgia corrected his brother. ‘Oh, did you hear about the Royal We-‘

‘Storgia!’ snapped Filio.

The beige stallion went silent again.

‘Well, now I know that the Royal Wedding’s happened, but Storgia said the Grand Galloping Gala was a few days ago... so there must have been another Gala between the Wedding and now, so who crashed this one?’

‘Hehe..’ chuckled Filio, ‘You’ll learn about those fellows later, but for now, let us focus on who you are, young Benjamin 
Brown, is it?’

‘Yeah, that’s me.’

‘Well then I think that our first port of call should be a mirror, then, don’t you?’

‘Oh thank goodness, yes!’

He pulled a blue hand mirror from the desk using his magic (wait, was this his personal mirror?!) and placed it in front of me, mirrored side away.

‘Now, good fellow, before I continue, I must warn you that what you may see could very well shock you, and cause you to pass out much like you did earlier. That was uncalled for by the way.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Right, well anyway, are you absolutely sure you’re ready?’

I nodded the affirmative, noting my loss of balance again.

‘My body is ready.’

Prince Filio spun his mirror around with his blue aura and let me soak in my new look. The first thing I noticed was my head, or should I saw my body? My head/body was white up to a point past my tiny mouth, at which point it abruptly became a charcoal grey.

So that’s what happened to my clothes.

I then took note of my eyes. Huge things, nearly taking up the entirety of my upper head/body. They were the same colour as my original eyes, a woody brown, but with no pupils or white part, instead I had three shines in each. My form was completely round, apart from 4 tiny little black legs and 4 paper thin wings on my back, veined with a few lines.

Most importantly of all, I’d worked out why the bed was so large.

I’m tiny.

That was when realisation set in. The oddity of my own body structure had interested me far more than where I had seen it before until now. I knew what I was.

I was a Parasprite.

'So I’m a tiny bug with a bad case of reproductive bulimia, just perfect...’ The sarcasm plain to hear in my thought voice.

‘I don’t think it’s so bad...’ chirped Storgia. ‘Besides, who wants to be a pony, or a gryphon, or a dragon, or a timberwolf, or a... yeah, we done goofed. Sorry.’ Storgia was now on the floor of Filio’s room, looking darn depressed. I almost felt bad for him at this point. Key word: almost.

‘Now, now, brother, there’s no use crying over what wasn’t in our own hand!’ Filio said as he attempted to console his sad sibling.

‘But you’re the guys that brought me here, right?’ I thought to Filio.

Filio nodded, sitting on the floor next to his brother, who was practically sobbing right now.

‘That’s correct, my observant friend, and while the other Masters were able to choose the form that their Piece took, we didn’t possess enough power to do so, and so the world chose to shape you into a form that fit best your personality and our goal for you in this world.’

‘Wait what? Masters? Pieces? What?! And how in Tartarus does my personality and your aims make me a Parasprite?!’

‘This is going to take quite a bit of explanation...’ said Filio with one of those tones that told you it was a long story. ‘This is only to the best of my knowledge, but I understand that on the day that Discord was free- you do know who Discord is, right?’

I gave another nod, this one sending me rolling off the pillow I had come to call my bed. Filio was laughing at my antics and soon enough Storgia was too.

‘Yeah, yeah, let’s all laugh at the guy who has yet to figure out how to control his body yet!’

Filio wiped a tear from his eye and continued, ‘Well anyway, on the day Discord was freed, he decided to travel to a different dimension, or is it planet? Universe? I have to admit that I haven’t the foggiest which it is...’

I quickly realised that he was going to go into deep thought about the issue and so mentally prodded him.

‘Home, right?’
‘Yes indeed, where you call home. During his brief tenure there, he decided that he needed a being that could cause chaos effortlessly, fitting to his desires. It turns out that your former species were just what he wanted.’

I nodded sagely, making sure not to overdo it. ‘Yeah, I guess we have a tendency to fuck shit up.’

He returned the nod, graciously ignored my gratuitous cursing and went on, ‘Since that day, Gods of this realm have been following his example, bringing humans from your world and others-‘

‘Wait, there are humans on other worlds?!’

‘Apparently so, somehow. As I’ve already said, I do not know much about the process.’ That didn’t set my mind at ease though. Humans on other worlds? Maybe that Ancient Aliens guy was right...

Filio sensed my distress and inquired. I shot him a thought saying nothing was wrong and he continued, ‘So they brought humans to this world, each gaining different forms, none becoming ponies, and all with different purposes. Some Masters will set their piece free to do as they will. Some will give them a task to uphold. Some force them into a task and etcetera.’

‘...But why humans? Why not themselves?’

‘Ah yes, I knew you were going to ask this question soon.’ The blue Prince cleared his throat and explained, ‘It is to the best of my knowledge that the Gods are unable to do as they please by themselves, and so use the Pieces in their stead. I also believe it is a means to some sort of end.’ He said morosely.

‘What end?!’ So many questions, arggghhh!!! What the hell was going on here?!

‘That, I regrettably do not know.’ Filio’s ears drooped to the sides of his head. I gathered that this was an expression of shame. There were three more questions that I needed to ask him now though, so I mentally projected to him the words:

‘So are you my Game Master? What do you want to do with me? And when did you decide to bring me here?’

‘Right, yes.’ Declared Filio, straightening himself up. ‘To answer your first question, technically, all three of us brothers are your Masters, due to the fact that all three of us brought you here, and for the second, you need to know more about who we are.’ This was quickly turning into exposition central, so I motioned for him to continue.

‘We four siblings are the Sovereigns of Love, meaning that we embody and strive to maintain and uphold each of our different kinds of love throughout Equestria.’

‘Different kinds of love?’ I thought to myself. ‘Haven’t I heard this before?’

‘Storgia over there,’ said the mentioned’s brother, pointing to his still dejected sibling on the floor, who was stamping his hoof into the floor every so often, ‘Is the Sovereign of Affection, that is to say, he presides over the natural love and friendship that ponies have for each other, as shown by the happiness that ponies have when they greet each other during chance encounters in the street, for example. Storgia takes personal delight in seeing others smile, for then he knows he is doing his job correctly.’

Well that explained a lot. Storgia was like a less hyperactive, more eloquent Pinkie Pie because he, in principal, worked for the same goal. And I wasn’t particularly appreciative of the form he gave me, thus explaining his intense sadness.
Filio went on. ‘I myself am the Sovereign of Fellowship, the bond between friends and brothers, loyal to each other till the end!’ He said that part with a particular glint in his eye. Looked like someone enjoyed their job. It also explained the musketeer hat and the rapier that was hanging on the wall. 

‘My sister Mi Amore, whom most ponies know as Cadence is-‘

I cut him off abruptly. ‘The Sovereign of Romance.’  

‘Haha! I knew we made the right choice in choosing you! Not that we did have any choice... but anyway, yes! Mi Amore is the Sovereign of Romance, that which is what you scorn!’ He spoke the words with a slight menace and a knowing stare.

‘I’m going to go ahead and assume that I was the one that was chosen because Cadence wasn’t involved in the summoning process, which would’ve led to a different person being here, one not so resentful of romance.’  I blurted. I mean come on, it’s obvious isn’t it?

‘Is everything so obvious to you?’ inquired Filio with that same chuckle. ‘Yes, you are correct once again, although we weren’t expecting one who was so critical of romance either.’

‘I have my reasons.’

‘I know you do.’ Filio had that smirk on again, what thoughts lay behind it, I couldn’t tell.

‘And last of all, we have the eldest of us, Agapé, the Sovereign of Unconditional Love. Now I have to admit, I find it hard to understand his field in full, so I believe it is best that he explain it.’ I really needed to meet this Prince Agapé guy, I mean, how a guy can ignore the human that he summoned for his own aims (which I still didn’t know!) to go and meditate is beyond me, and when his own brother cannot explain what he does, it just fills my brain with fuck!

‘Now, you are probably wondering what role you bear in this.’ Yes, yes I am. Please, by all means continue. ‘The simple truth is that we need someone to help us mend the world.’

‘Mend the world? What?!’ If my brain was full of fuck earlier, it was now contaminating my bloodstream.

Prince Filio looked past his brother to the window forlornly. ‘Yes, you heard correctly. Equestria and the rest of Equis, although no-one wishes to admit it, have deep inequality. Ponies shun all that isn’t themselves, even when it is aiding them.’

‘Society is racist?’

‘In a nutshell, yes.’ He now had his eyes on his city, illuminated by a few streetlamps and Luna’s moon above. He let out a mirthless laugh before continuing. ‘There is even a law in place that prevents non ponies from carrying weapons! It is simply preposterous I tell you!’ His voice was crescendo-ing. ‘How is that even fair, or just?! How does it even make sense?!’

‘Filio..’ Storgio whined as he finally got up from the floor. His brother paid him no attention.

‘That’s right, it doesn’t! We can’t carry on living in a world like this, where it is paradise for all of us ponies-‘

‘Filio.’

‘and the fucking depths of Tartarus for everypony else!’ A bead of sweat rolled down Filio’s face, which was contorted into an expression of violent rage, a vein protruding from his forehead. I was honestly scared at this point. If looks could kill, Filio would have been a mass murderer.

‘Filio Cadenza! You stop that right now, or you’ll make yourself sick!’ Storgia had finally spoken up, wishing his brother to stop his rant, which may have ended up in a broken desk.

‘I-‘he paused for a second before letting out an audible sigh. ‘You’re right... I’m sorry that you had to witness such an outburst, young friend, but as you can see, I deplore the situation we are in and thus hope that you can help us. I shall elaborate over dinner, Master B-...’ He stopped to think again here. ‘Aha! I know just the trick that’ll set all of our minds at ease! A new name!’

‘A new name?!’ I asked incredulously.  I had no idea right now.

‘A new name!’ screamed Storgia happily, his giddy grin once more on his face. ‘Oooh, what shall it be, what shall it be?!?!?!’ he asked as he zipped across all the different regions of Filio’s room, including in his closet and on his chandelier. Filio gave a grin and returned to me.

‘Yes, a new name, one that will suit you more here in Equestria; do you really want to go on an adventure as Ben Brown?’

Hell knew I didn’t! My name’s alright, it just lacks the sheer badass that was being asked of me at the time.

‘No.’

‘Well then, it is settled! From today you shall be known by a new-‘

‘Aniseed!’ Storgia blurted as he bounced on Filio’s bed, causing me to wobble about on the mattresses.

‘Aniseed? What?’

‘Aniseed...’ Filio had started to play with that idea. ‘Why that is a rather novel name, a near perfect descriptor of our friend!’

‘...How exactly...?’

‘Allow me to explain. Aniseed is rather bitter, like yourself-‘

‘I am not bitter!’ I never wanted to admit it but I was very much so.

Filio continued, still smiling. ‘But it has its roots in herbal medicine, fitting to what your purpose shall be.’

‘It’s also good in liquorice!’ shouted Storgia.

I have to say, after all that, I actually wanted my name to be Aniseed. We probably weren’t gonna think of anything better anyways.

‘...Aniseed it is!’
‘Huzzah!’ cheered Filio, raising a hoof into the air. ‘Now, onto the last name-‘

‘Oooooooh!!!!’

‘Storgia, I think it’s best if Aniseed thinks of his own one.’

‘Awwwwww.....’

Filio turned to me and said ‘Now, Aniseed, I want you to think of this carefully. This name shall define you for all of your days in Equestria. You should probably make it befitting of the species you are and most importantly, make it badflank!’ 

His grin was enormous.

I now began to think. I’m a Parasprite, and what does a Parasprite do? We eat. Now to make eating sound awesome. We practically inhale food, and we use our mouths to do so... wait a minute... I have it!
‘My name,’ I declared in most epic fashion. ‘Is Aniseed Vortexmouth!’

‘Haha, I knew you’d be able to do it! Well met, Sir Vortexmouth! Now-‘

He was cut off by a loud growling from his stomach. His face flushed red as it did so.

‘Hehe, I suppose now would be a good time for dinner!’ He opened the door and motioned to a red Earth pony in a suit.
‘Hoofservant! Let the cooks know that we shall be dining early tonight, and remind them about the special order!’ The special order was for me, no doubt.

The hoofservant nodded silently and marched off to the kitchens.

‘Well then, now that’s sorted, I think we should make a move. Shall we?’

Storgia lifted me onto his back with his magic and we three started off to the dining hall, where I, Aniseed Vortexmouth, would make a few more interesting discoveries about my circumstances.


> Chapter 2: Dinner with Royalty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have I ever told you how much I love memes? Meh, you probably worked that out beforehand anyway. What kind of a brony doesn't enjoy memes?

I'm talking about memes now because I was acting one out now on the dining table of the Cadenzas. It was a rather small one, with room that would only accomodate eight ponies, so I assumed that this was the personal dining room, rather than a grand dining hall for all of nobility to feast in. There were 4 large chairs that were set out; they were each light blue in colour, similar to the walls of Prince Filio's bedroom and indeed most of Trottingham Castle, or at least, what I had seen of it during our walk to the dining room. Each of the chairs had a letter embroidered on to it with what I can only assume to be gold thread; one with the letter 'S', the one adjacent to that had 'F', the one across the table had 'A' and the last one next to that had the letter, you guessed it, 'M'. Storgia and Filio had taken their respective chairs, while Agapé's was left empty. How could he still be meditating? Myself, being far too small to use a chair, was seated on the table itself, in front of where Cadance would be sitting, if she were here. We were discussing the recent events at the Grand Galloping Gala, which led to my usage of the Skeptical 3rd World Kid.

'So you're telling me, that there were not one, not two, but five humans in attendence at the Gala?!'

'That's what we were able to find out, yes.' said Filio in a calm tone.

'And one of them punched the Princess Luna in the face?!?'

'Again, yes, that happened. I should probably ask Auntie Luna about how she is feeling after that.'

'Don't worry about it Filly! It takes more than a right hook to take Auntie Luna down!!' said Storgia in that same happy tone.

'What have I told you about calling me 'Filly'?'

'Sorry, Filio.' Damn, was Storgia a wallflower or what?

'Anyway,' I continued, 'Do you have any info on these Pieces?' If I was gonna come into contact with any of these guys, which I invariably was going to, it'd serve me well to know what I was faced with, 'cos after all, it'd be a crap Game without inter-Piece action...


Goddesses', that sounded so wrong.


Filio came to the attention and said 'Actually, yes, we do have information on a few of the more infamous Pieces that are known...' the way he said infamous just told you it was a stand in for 'the ones that fuck all the shit up'.

'The first is Griffin of the Griffin Pirates.' I rolled my eyes at this. I guess that some people tend to want to indulge their wildest fantasies when in a new world...

That being said, I wasn't going to rest easy here until I got a hug from Fluttershy.

And the name, seriously, what the hell? Griffin the griffin? Which unimaginative bastard named you?! I made it a point to bring up his stupid name if I ever met him.

'Griffin's first recorded appearance was in Stalliongrad Prison, where he was detained for possessing a weapon and for not paying the toll.' I heard him mumble something else around, '...what everyone only gets detained for...'

'He was involved in a prison break,' Now I'm listening... 'Resulting in the release of himself, along with his accomplice Gilda the griffin, and a certain Trixie the unicorn.' Wait what?!?!? Gilda and Trixie are with this guy?!?! Griffin, you've gleaned some respect from moi, your name is still stupid, and I shall still bring it up with you.

'Since then, he's been involved with uniting two tribes of cat-people,' 'kay, that means furries exist in Equis. 'Adding them to his crew, as it were, freeing slaves from the Diamond Dogs, the deaths of several dragons, including a black dragon, from which he forged his weapon, and we are given to believe that he had some involvement in ending the Changeling Invasion. He is also rumoured to be completely insane, with an insatiable bloodlust. He is currently planning on taking over the now barren Griffin Dominion and the Diamond Dog continent, Gem Fido, to which extent he has been on a 'rock and roll' tour of Equestria, ending in Canterlot, one day after the Grand Galloping Gala.'

My mind was now rolling. This Griffin guy, in the however long he's been here, has freed slaves, and by the way, I didn't know slavery was happening until that moment, killed dragons, made a weapon from one, helped in the Royal Wedding invasion, plans to take over not one but two continents and went on a rock tour? Griffin, you've gained a fuckton of respect from me, your name is still stupid, but I shall not question it for fear of a gruesome death.

'The second i-'

'Lemme tell the next one, Filio, you make it sound so booorrriiiinnngg!!!' Storgia butted in.

Filio replied with an exasperated sigh which everyone would recognise, and then 'Allright then, Storgia, go ahead...'

Storgia paused to clear his throat, and then promptly blew out all the torches in the room.

'Whoa, what the fuck?!'

'Don't worry, Aniseed,' Filio said to me mentally. 'As much as it pains me to say it, you're in for a treat!'

There were a few more seconds of silence and then a deep voice, like the ones announcing actors' names in adverts for epic films.

'Diamond Dog legend foretells that when the Sun and Moon are reunited,' The darkness swirled infront of me until it became a familiar illusion of two ponies I know very well.

Celestia and Nightmare Moon...

Nightmare Moon suddenly exploded and in her place was the Princess Luna, in her diminutive form as seen in Season 1, Episode 2. The two princesses nuzzled eachother before swirling off into the darkness. The voice continued.

'There will rise a hero, from a distant land.' A faint stick figure faded into view. 'A wolf, with a coat as white as the moon.' The figure was quickly taken over by a view of the back of a bipedal wolf, gazing into the moonlight, both shimmering in an eerie light. 'Wielding the blade of dragon's bane,', a katana materialised into the illusion wolf's hands. 'He shall cleave his land of that which oppresses, and unite them.' The wolf looks over his shoulder, grimaces, and then with expert precision, does a decapitating slice with the blade, ending the illusion and lighting all the torches in the room.

'So... awesome...'

'I know, right? Storgia has a certain knack for illusions, in fact, I was surprised that it wasn't on his cutie mark!'

'Thank you, thank you! Really, you are too kind!' Storgia had ended up standing on the dining table and was currently bowing to us. Having heard the legendary tale, I inquired to Filio as to why he thought the legend was a human.

'Well, for one, it is a wonder that he exists at all. The wolves of old died out long ago.'.

'And so you think he was summoned in the form of a wolf?'

'That's pretty much the thought process, yes.'

It sounded like such an error, but it was the only thing that we could go on. How often does a species come out of extinction without magical intervention? There were now 2 humans I had to watch out for, but I needed info on the others.

'So, we have an axe crazy griffin rock god and a legendary wolf continent liberator thing. Anyone else?

Filio prepared to speak up but was interrupted by a knocking on the door.

'Ah, yes, come in, please.'

The door opened and in walked a chef pony accompanied by two waitresses, holding covered dishes with magic. They laid out dishes for each of us; two in front of each of the Princes, and three in front of me. The chef then spoke up.

'Dinner is served, your Majesties.'

'Thank you, sir, but you need not be so formal with us.' Filio said with a sincere smile on his face.

'Enzo!' Storgia piped up, 'How has everything been?! Has dear Carmelita begun to show yet?'

'Haha, yes she has, your Majesty!', Enzo's face suddenly lit up with a bright smile. Storgia's did the same as they went into discussion about possible names for Enzo's incoming foal.

Storgia is doing his job well... I thought to myself privately. Can I?. It was bugging me slightly that I was going up against Gods know how many others in this Game. How am I, one Parasprite, going to be able to compete with all of the others? I was at least consoled by the fact that most of the humans I had heard about were put here to seemingly do good.

As I was thinking this, Storgia's conversation with Enzo had ended and the latter had left with the waitresses. Filio lifted the silver lids off of each of our dishes that were now in front of us.

'I didn't know what sort of food you liked, so I had the standard teenage affair prepared. How do hay chips and a daisy sandwich sound to you?' Filio asked me as he lifted my lid.

And by my alicorn Prince Game Masters, the smell! If heaven existed, it smelled like this! It was like the best fish and chips you could think of, but so much better! I just wanted to scoff all of it down right away!

But I had a problem. I hadn't worked out how to fly yet, and I was unable to walk up to plate, or climb up it, or do the bouncing thing that Pinkie made the Parasprites do...

In other words, I was being denied my deliciousness.

'Erm, guys, help.' I said rather pitifully.

The brothers were both amusing themselves yet again at my helplessness. It wasn't fair! I wanted my food and I couldn't have it! I continued to wave my legs at the plate in a pleading manner.

'Come on help me this isn't fair I want my foo-oooo-ooo-oo-od!' Not the most dignified of my moments.

Filio finally stopped teasing and gave me a magical lift onto my plate. Finally, it's mine! The chips were stacked as high as my own height. So not particularly high, but still, for me, this was gonna be a challenge...

Or was it...

I'm a Parasprite. The kings of eating. This is nothing.

I stretched my mouth out and took a bite out of the chips. And it was delicious!

I continued, mouthful after mouthful, until they were all gone. Storgia and Filio were both staring at me, mouths agape.

I had eaten all of my chips in about 2 seconds.

The Princes straightened themselves up slightly. Filio decided to speak up.

'So, um... enjoy your chips?'

'Uh, yeah...' This was so awkward, I swear down. I had probably broken all rules of etiquette in front of the Princes! I resolved with myself that I should explain.

'Parasprite reflexes, I guess, heh heh...'

'Oh no, no, that's perfectly fine. I mean it was just... wow.'

'Yeah.'

'...'

'I'll have the sandwich a little slower, shall I?'

'Can we stop being awkward now?!' Storgia asked with a miffed look on his face.

'... So, humans!

'Yes, as I was saying...'

I soon learnt about the other three guys at the Gala, one who was 'The Iron Handed Terror' Celt, a bugbear with a bounty after getting piss drunk at the Gala, ending up in a fight between him and Griffin, which resulted in a curbstomp. His whereabouts were currently unknown. The second was a dragon of undiscernable name and gender, who was the one that attacked Princess Luna in a fit of rage for an unknown reason. Its whereabouts were also currently unknown. The third was a changeling who took a more humanoid form (guess he misses being human. I know that feel. I want my hands back.) and went by the name of 'Knightmare'. He owns a 7 string guitar, the strings being rainbow lightning (dafuq?) and is musically adept. He was currently at the Royal Palace of Canterlot. The night ended with the Nightmare which possessed Princess Luna possessing Octavia, turning her into Nightmare Octave, who was eventually defeated by Knightmare (Knightmare takes out Nightmares, oh yeah), but not before a mass breakout at Canterlot Zoo, which had to be dealt with by Griffin, who killed pretty much everything. 

Some kickarse party.

'And I guess that answers your third question back in my room.'

'Third question?'

I backtracked my thoughts to when we were in the room. And then I remembered.

'I asked you guys about when you decided to bring me here.'

'Yeah, after the Grand Scandalous Gala, we decided 'hey, it's not fair, all these so called Gods putting you guys here to have an influence, and we can't have our say, especially after Auntie Celestia brought one of you too!', so we decided that we were gonna try it out, just to see what would happen, and it worked, so here you are!' Storgia explained to me. It seemed like sound enough logic, given the circumstances (such as I'm a fucking Parasprite in Equestria) but there was one detail that had to be mentioned.

'Princess Celestia has a Piece?!'

'Yes, that Knightmare fellow is here by the grace of our dear aunt!'

The stakes must have been high if the co-monarch of Equestria herself was putting a Piece down. I now seriously needed to know just exactly what the flying feather was going on with these Gods putting humans here. Why? To have an influence. On what?

I didn't know. And that bugged me, pun not intended.

I had finished my daisy sandwich by now. The Princes had both finished whatever they were eating. It was then that I noticed a pulling in my stomach (do I have a stomach?), as if I needed to vomit.

'Uh oh.' Seen enough MLP to know where this is going. 'Guys, tissue, now.'

Storgia levitated a tissue in front of me and I gave up on resisting. I spat out the inevitable brown glob onto the tissue and watched it form colour and wings, finally opening its eyes.

So there it was, 2 Parasprites. And yes, yes I did say the line.

'THE PARASPRITES HAVE BEEN DOUBLED!!!'

After Storgia and Filio stopped staring at me awkwardly, I realised that I had a problem on my hands legs. There is a new Parasprite around. I have to look after it. Crap. I thought the best thing to do would be to give it a name at least.

Now to think. This was my son. Who I had. Without sex. A virgin birth. I had it.

'Your name is now Jesus.'

'Seriously Dad? For real?'

Holy shit it speaks!

And it knows about the Bible... 

'Yeah, turns out I know everything you know, which is surprisingly little...'

'Oi!' So I had a smack talking son too? Great...

Soon after I had thought that, the reflex came back and I spat out another two globs. These two became yellow and blue, and flew up next to the red Jesus.

'Well, then I guess you're Joseph...' said I, pointing to the blue one, 'And you're...' 

Crap. All out of Bible.

What? I'm an Atheist, never paid attention in RS lessons.

Well, was, before y'know, hearing about all these human summonings.


Let's think of something relating to Jesus...

Wait a minute...

Stable next door.

'Hello, Brian.'

Monty Python is awesome.

'Well, I suppose you should greet your brothers, Jesus.', while I work out just what the hell I'm going to do with you...

'Salutations, idiot siblings!'

I hate Jesus.


While all this was happening, the Princes where staring at me awkwardly for the third time that night.

'Did... did you not hear that?'

'Hear what?' Storgia asked. 'You were chirping a bit... wait, were you speaking to them?'

'Yeah.' What else would I be doing? 'It was nothing important.'

As I said that, would you believe, yet another pull from my stomach!

'Three's enough for one night, dammit!'

I suppressed the reflex and suddenly it had dissapeared completely. I felt lighter. Better. More powerful.

Wait what?!

And guess what the Princes were doing? That's right, staring awkwardly. 

I let out an exasperated sigh. 'What is it this time?!

Filio pointed with a hoof at me. 'Your wings.'

I looked back and my wings..

Were fucking.


Glowing.

'Holy dear mother of you guys!', what, think I'm freaking out over nothing? Come back when one of your limbs starts pulsating.

'Huh.' Filio put a hoof to his chin. 'It seems as if your magical resonance suddenly spiked after you didn't spit another Parasprite.'

'Listen, that's all very well and good, but do you know how to unresonify my magic?!'. At the time, this shit was eerie as hell. I was in a perfectly stable state before this, and now, for all I knew, I was a ticking time bomb.

'...Try spitting. I want to see what happens.'

I didn't need persuading. I go for the spit and what happens?

A Hadouken. That's how I describe it best. A freaking white chi ball came out of my mouth. 

Needless to say, I was stoked.

'I got magic baby!!!'

Except it didn't really do anything. It collided in the wall and just dissapated. Heh. I have hidden magic that does nothing? This needed to be researched.

But more importantly, my wings stopped glowing.

'Hooray, we have been saved from the terrible fate of absolutely nothing.'

'Shut up, Jesus.'

'Well, that's interesting...' Filio said, 'It seems Parasprites have a special brand of magic. That is unless Agapé granted it as your gift...'

'Gift? What?'

The Princes both stood up from the table and addressed me while I was still on my plate.

'The series of spells that allowed us to enter your world and bring you here leaves a large surplus of magic surrounding the caster,' Filio begun to explain. 'What is done with this magic is in the hands of the caster, but they, more often than not, choose to use this magic to give their Pieces special abilities or items.'.

'So you think my magic was Agapé's gift?'

'He refrained from telling me, but I suspect it is. Agapé is a sort of magic enthusiast.'

Well now I at least know something about the guy. But this idea of gifts got me interested.

'Say.. did either of you two give me any gifts?'

Filio was now grinning. Storgia was doing the same, but so hard, he looked like he could explode.

'As a matter of fact, yes,' Filio started. Storgia kept silent. 'Seeing you as you are now for the first time, I wondered whether you would have trouble communicating, knowing that Parasprites don't usually possess the ability to do so naturally. I therefore used the magic to allow you to be able to telepathically communicate with anything in your line of sight. Your communication with us, however, is without bounds.'

'Well that's handy.'

'Ah yes, and one more thing. In case of the world pulling a U-turn and giving you the ability to speak normally, I prevented the eventuality of a useless gift by adding an extra. You should be able to communicate with anypony regardless of language, and to animals as well. Nifty, eh?'

I approved of the gift Filio gave me. Communication with anything? Looks like I'll be able to hear what Angel thinks in that douchebag mind of his...

At this point, Storgia was pent up with excitement, shaking like a jackhammer and was almost foaming at the mouth.

I guessed that he was waiting for me to ask what his gift was. If it was making him this excited, it must be awesome, right?

'And what did you give me, Sto-'

'I gave you a map!!!'

Whut? 'A... a map?'

'Yes, but not just any old map! I gave you a map,', he pressed his front hooves into his temples, 'IN YOUR MIND!!!'



...Whut?

I looked over to Filio and raised a (nonexistant) eyebrow. He just did the shrug, you know the one.

'Storgia, what do you mean?'

'Hear me out here! Just close your eyes and focus!'

'If you say so...'

I closed my eyes and started to concentrate.

'You have no idea how stupid you look right now.'

'Shut up, Jesus!'

After a few more seconds, an object came into view.

'See anything, Aniseed?' Storgia asked.

'I see a green arrow... and nothing else.

'Perfect! It worked!'

'...but it's just an arrow...'

'Ah, yes, see, the arrow is you, and I think you are too far away. You need to... what's the word when you make the map bigger?'

'Zoom in?' I hazarded.

'Yes! You need to zoom in!'

I willed my focus to get closer to the arrow and it started. The arrow remained the same size but a blue expanse came into view. When it fully filled my vision I stopped it. It looked strangely familiar.

And then I realised. It was a completely perfect floor plan of Trottingham Palace. Or at least the areas I had seen.

'I got Trottingham Palace, but that's all on this map.'

'That's to be expected. See, I wasn't able to put a full map of Equis into your mind, so instead, I left it empty but constantly updating to have all of the places that you have already visited. And I bet that if I show you a map of the known world that we have, it should get implanted into your mindmap!'

'Wow, that's... surprisingly crafty of you Storgia.'. If this worked, it would have meant that Storgia would have single handedly overcome the issue of not having enough magic, by circumventing the need for it entirely.

It was the magic equivalent of trolling.

'I'm not finished!' Storgia brought me back to attention, 'In addition, you should be able to label ponies or other beings of interest, and track their movements! Try it!'. He sounded eerily similar to a video game tutorial...

Regardless, I opened my eyes and focussed on Storgia, supposing that that was how it was done, and sure enough, on the map, across the table from the green arrow that was me, was Storgia's cutie mark, several blue and red hearts arranged to form one heart, and his name: Prince Storgia Cadenza.

'Now watch!'

I heard the tell tale clopping of hooves that told me that Storgia was moving about, and his mark on the map started moving to match his movements.

'Which part of the room am I in?!'

'Right corner.'

He moved some more.

'And now?'

'At the window.'

'Brilliant! Everything works as intended! I can't wait to show Gappy that it actually worked!', exclaimed Storgia as I exited the mindmap, coming back to the room. I quickly remembered that I should probably mark Filio on the map as well. His mark, a red heart with two swords crossed behind it, and on the heart in black two interlocked hooves, grasping eachother, was placed onto the map.

Filio then walked over to the door and opened it. Stifling a yawn, he said, 'Well, I think we've had enough learning about ourselves for one night,' he started chuckling a bit, 'I say it's high time we got some rest, don't you?'.

'Sounds like a plan.'

'Yeah, I guess we should...'

'Listen, that's all very well and good, but unlike you guys, I actually have things to do with my life, so if you'll excuse me...'

'Jesus, don't you fly out of that window now!'

'And how are you going to stop me?'

Stupid, technically correct Jesus! He had now flown out of the window and was nearly out of sight. With nothing to focus on, neither of the Princes could TK grab him.

'Shit! He'll tear up the Royal Garden!'

From outside I heard a distant voice.

'Screw you, beeyatch!'

Fucking Jesus! How in Equis was I meant to force him back here?

Wait.. force him back...

How did Pinkie do it?

Music.

I went and whistled the first thing that came into my head. Fearing the worst, I had expected nothing to happen, but soon enough, I saw a small red dot flying up to the window.

'Gotcha!'

Jesus came flying back through the window and came to hover around me, all while spouting enough curses to make a sailor blush.

'Well, thank goodness that that episode is over!', said Filio, 'We should make our leave now. Shall we?'.

Storgia once again levitated me and the other three Parasprites onto my back and we started off towards the guest quarters, where I would be staying. On the way, I turned to face Jesus.

'Hey Jesus!'

'What?!'

'Screw you, beeyatch!'

You have no idea how good that felt.





Author's notes: This chapter was basically Aniseed learning about what is going on here and getting a few of his powers. The Hadouken shall be explained in due time, be patient!

Second point to make, I need to mention a few references. Griffin is from BlackWing's Griffin the Griffin, the legendary wolf is Aoi from Io's The Blue Stranger, The Red Curtain, Celt, 'The Iron Handed Terror' is from Troutking's What was Lost, the unnamed dragon is Ember from Tamara Bloodhoof's Dancing Flames, Cooling Ember and Knightmare is from JJ Malcolm's From Nobody to Knightmare. I suggest you read all these fics, they are the absolute bomb!

Thirdly, shoutouts to all of you guys who favourited, especially DataPacRat, who has an awesome Chessverse story in Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me... Seriously so good.

Finally, be warned, for the next chapter shall contain a large amount of feels.

Thank you, and that is all!

-TheAirHideous








 




> Chapter 3: For Want of my Previous Life
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Parasprite tears are blue. I owe this knowledge to my realisation that night.

I had lost my old life.

I should explain. My life was pretty mundane up until now. Nothing serious really happened, bar that one series of events. The most excitement I ever got was rushing to turn the house alarm off after walking into the house at the end of a school day. School was pretty uneventful. Go, work, talk with friends about inconsequential things and return. There wasn't much there to cause drama, no 'who's going out with who' 'cause it was all guys, and no real worry of failure or stress because it was selective, meaning you were either smart or had genius level intellect. Our own little world, sheltered from the outside world.

I had my friends, a few but they were there. They consisted of the people who had more substantial personalities than the wannabe badmans or the trying too hard nerds at our school. We did things normal friends do, like go to the park, play football (soccer for you guys that call it that), talk about random shit. We sometimes fell onto the topic of the meaning of life. Bar the answer '42', we usually ended up saying it was meaningless.

Meaningless. I used to wonder whether that meant nothing I ever did really mattered. Given the fact that I wasn't doing anything substantial with my life, it really seemed like it didn't. I was to wander the Earth, get a job, work and die, as unknown as I was the day I was born. 

I never liked that idea. I never liked knowing that I was insignificant. That I couldn't change anything. And there were a load of things I wanted to change, first and foremost, prejudice. It is a logical fallicy to judge an individual based on others' actions. That's the way it works in my mind anyway. An action cannot be attributed to an entire group of people, just because a few in the group do it. If only other people realised that.

And I couldn't make them realise either. I'm 15 for crying out loud! No-one would stop to listen to you. Just keep living their same old lives, profiling people by how they were born and raised, rather than the person behind the body.

It frustrated me.


It really frustrated me.


But what was I to do?

Mill around on the internet, that's what.

I discovered MLP as I was entering Year 10. I watched and laughed at how a show who's target audience was young girls could enamour so much of the internet, myself included. I watched and marvelled at the near perfect world the ponies had, and sometimes lamented that our world couldn't be like that, and that I couldn't do anything.

And then my dad would come back from work. And I don't know what it was, but he made me feel that maybe there was some meaning to it all. Maybe there was some way that I could help. He made me feel like I could climb any mountain, reach any goal. He had this phrase; 'Anything is possible. You just have to believe it is.'. I listened to his words, in his prescence believing them, but doubting as soon as he left the room. I wanted to keep that belief with me forever.

I loved my dad. I loved him so much.

But it was all gone now. He was gone.

I was never to have that belief ever again.

'Fuck...', I whispered to myself. Just that, over and over. I had no other words.

I was in one of the several guest bedrooms of Trottingham Palace on the pillow of the large four poster king sized bed. The other three Parasprites were on the other side, sleeping where my feet would have been, were I human.

The curtain fluttered even though the window was shut. I payed no notice, instead choosing to wallow in my own misery.

A gray light surrounded me. Suddenly I was filled with memories in my head, of when I was younger, playing with dad, laughing at the pranks we pulled on mum, my dad failing to shuffle in epic fashion.

Then it went further back, all the way back to when I was born. Mum and dad naming me, bringing me back home, giant smiles on their faces. I felt a spike of anger at that but I cooled it off.

'Strange.', a honeyed Trottingham accent said plainly. 'Most don't react so badly to their parents' smiles.'

I froze up at this. 

'Who's there?!'

The curtain fluttered again and then...

'I'm here.'

I turned to my left side to see the voice. Standing before me was a grey alicorn with warm orange eyes. He looked upon me with unadultered kindness as if he was my own father. 

I then remembered him from the youth club, the man sitting at a table next to Filio and Storgia's, sipping his drink and looking on at the rest of us, a sense of peaceful happiness in his eyes.

I looked back at his pony form, his pure white mane, parted in the middle, lying straight down, the tips of the hairs fluttering in a nonexistant breeze, as Princess Celestia's mane does. I always attributed that to the immortality of the alicorns. Does that mean that-

'Unlikely. While I may have increased longevity, I don't think that I am immortal. My aunts are the only true alicorns remaining. Myself and my siblings are but simple mutations of regular ponies' genetic structure.'

Were my thoughts really so loud?

'No, I'm just an attentive listener. Prince Agapé Cadenza, pleased to meet you.'

Were I in the mood to talk, I would have greeted him and then bombarded him with the several questions I had accumulated over the evening, but I wasn't so I didn't. We lay in silence for a minute or two. The Prince then decided to speak up.

'Want to talk about that anger spike?'

'It's personal.'

'Oh.'

There were a few more seconds of silence.

'Another time?'

'Another time.'

He had incurred those memories in an attempt to make me feel better, right? Well it hadn't worked.

There were a few more moments where we didn't talk, in which Agapé walked over to the window and looked out over the city, something that was regularly done by all three of the brothers, I had now realised. He held a wry smile on his face, finding an invisible joy in the air.

'My brothers probably didn't elaborate on who I am, did they?'

'No.'

'Heh, it's always easier to hear it from the ponies' mouth anyway.' said he as he turned towards me, those ethereal tips of his mane still fluttering. 'They call me the Sovereign of Unconditional Love, which can mean different things to different people. The first, and may I admit the one I most loath is patriotism, the love of one's country...'

I know the feel. It's not-

'Not the country that makes the person.'

'Could you please stop doing that?! I like to know the feeling that I'm alone in my head!'

'Force of habit. Sorry.'

He turned back to the window and continued. 'The second is far more palatable. It is the love that my aunts and to a lesser extent we siblings feel towards our subjects as their rulers and vice versa.'. That at least explained his near constant serene smile on his face.

'See a pattern, here?'

'What pattern?', I didn't really recognise much similarity between the two, besides the fact that love toward the Princesses could possibly breed patriotism.

'Well, maybe this next one should make it more blatant. It's what you feel for your father and what your father feels for you.'

That did nothing more than bring more tears to my eyes, staining the bed with the blue dye. I wasn't able to get the thought out of my head, He's gone, he's gone, he's gone.

'...Fuck.'

'I'm glad you are feeling this way. It means you can appreciate what it is I preside over.'

'Glad? You're glad that I'm an emotional trainwreck?!'

'I wouldn't call emotions caused by losing one's father being an emotional trainwreck. I know how it feels myself. This is perfectly normal.'

'Wait, your dad is-'

'Oh, no, no, but I've seen many ponies struggle with bereavement, and believe me, you are doing better than a lot of them.'

I found some sort of solace in his words, and felt slightly better as a result. We lay in silence once again, choosing to remain in our own heads, thinking about what we wished.

Eventually, Agapé continued with his lecture. 'The link between them is that all three rely on a relationship with something or someone that is absolutely helpless and needs to be cared for, looked after, nurtured. Patriotism is an exaggeration of that feeling to encompass the land that you live on.'

I nodded lazily, only half listening, my mind still on my father. Pull yourself together, people have been through this and worse!

'I'm telling you this for a reason you know.' That brought my attention back to Agapé, his voice becoming ever so slightly sharper. 'As your father once cared for you, you must now care for them,' he said, pointing to the sleeping bodies of Jesus, Joseph and Brian. 'And it won't end here either. You will need to show your entire swarm the same care that he showed you.'.

My mind slowly pondered the gargantuan task of looking after just the three I had with me today, let alone a whole swarm. But then Agapé turned to me and something profound, that probably changed my mind.

'And I couldn't think of anybody better to do it.'

'Bruv do you even know who I am?! I'm bloody 15, for fucks sake, I can't go-'

'When we entered your world we were given 3 weeks to find our champion. We wanted one who was one with all three of our attributes. We sense those who are attuned to them by seeing a sort of aura around them. You were the one that exuded the highest amounts of all three. You were the person we needed.'.

So I wasn't just some Tom, Dick or Stanley that they'd found? That they'd actually had to seek me out?! Wait, that only means one thing. I have meaning.

Of course you have meaning, Be- I mean Aniseed! Else Filio wouldn't be going on about 'mending the world'! Else I wouldn't bloody be here! Well if this is what my meaning is, far be it for me to shy away from it!

Yeah. In my original world, I couldn't change a darn thing. Here however, that was gonna change. I'm gonna stop this racism, even if it means I have to eat someone's Tartarus bound genitals!

Yeah! I'm gonna do it. I'm bloody well gonna do it!

'I'm gonna fuckin' do it Agapé!! Wait, where did he go?!'

He had left as soundlessly as he came, the only trace of him being here was the open window.

'Confound these ponies, they drive me to social revolution.'.



Author's note: This chapter was basically to introduce our third Prince and GM, Agapé, and to give an insight into our hero, Aniseed.

This is the first time I've written anything 'feely' or emotionally charged, so comments are requested kindly.

That's all, thanks guys and stay hideous.

-TheAirHideous.
> Chapter 4: Edumacation, Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up, opened my eyes and let my body be overwhelmed by the warm rays of Celestia's sun. From my still open window, I could see that there wasn't a cloud in the sky today, and from the curtains deign that there was a faint breeze.

All in all, it was a perfect day in Trottingham.

Today begins the first day of the rest of my new life! I told myself cheerily. I was still riled by my realisation yesterday. I can do things to help! And I bloody well shall!

I still missed Earth though. If only there were some way to tell dad I was here or something.

Still, never wanting to dampen my mood, I looked over at the three Parasprites. Or what should have been three Parasprites.

'Bloody Jesus...' I thought to myself.

'Hey old man, I'm up here.'

I looked up toward the headboard to find my red son, seated atop the thing, staring at me with his yellow eyes.

'Old man my arse, you're like 5 hours younger than me!'

'5 hours is a long time, y'know!'

'Yeah, for someone who's only lived 12!'

Jesus flew down and pointed to a region on the bed.

'Those chuckleheads left some notes for you, chump.'

I ignored Jesus' impersonation of a certain mercenary from Boston and looked at the two pieces of paper. Mmm, scented. As he had said, the Princes had each left notes for me. I would have pulled them to me, had I any means to do so, and since I hadn't figured out how to fly yet, I was left unable to take the letters.

'It's fun, watching you struggle.'

'Shut up, Jesus. Joseph, Brian, gives us a ha-leg.'

The blue and yellow Parasprites both woke to hear their names and flew over to my side.

'I'll help you!' 'Kay, so Joseph is the happy-go-lucky one...

'Wait, what's going on?' and Brian is the spaced out one. 

Both Parasprites took a letter in their mouths and flew over to me.

'Hey, don't eat those things, yeah?'

They carefully placed the two letters they brought over to me. Brian sat by my side as did Joseph while Jesus flew around me. I looked over the closest one to attempt to read it, but quickly found out something that really shouldn't have been surprising. Equestria had its own language, a strange myriad of curves and squiggles, accented with horns and hooves. 

'Bollocks.' How the hell was I meant to read this?!

Not sooner had I said that but the letters rearranged themselves in my head. They changed and coalesced until they became...English.

'I guess that's how...'

'So what's it say, anyway?' Brian asked.

'I don't know...' I replied, 'Let's find out...'



To my dear friend Aniseed,
If you are reading this then it means that my gift works flawlessly. Impressive, eh?

I take that you have settled in nicely at our humble abode. I don't have much time to write, but I have been sent to investigate a few happenings concerning a black powder explosion at the edge of town, so regrettably I will not be able to have breakfast or lunch with you.

You have the entirety of Trottingham Palace at your disposal, so feel free to look around. I suggest that you go to the library, you may find a tome or two that may explain your strange powers, otherwise you can go to the training grounds, where I have a junior ready to teach you how to fly.

Have you met Agapé yet? I suggest you try to find him in the afternoon. He's normally at the West Spire then.

After that, all I can say is to make yourself at home!

Yours sincerely with the greatest of regards,
Prince Filio Cadenza



'So?'

'It basically says that Filio can't be around till dinner and that we can go around the entire castle if we wish.'

I checked the mindmap and found Filio far to the east of the castle, in the black space that hadn't been filled in. He was mostly stationary, moving every now and then, and not by much. Most likely he was at the crime scene.

I also saw the red and blue heart arrangement that was Storgia's mark flitting wildly between places. So he was out too, and who knew what kind of shenanigans he was getting up to? I was yet again reminded of a certain pink pony and shuddered. I looked to Storgia's note (it was obviously his, now I knew he was out) and read.



Hey Ani!! Storgia here, just letting you know that I'm on my daily run through town, meeting new ponies and such, cos that's what I do every day!! Now I probably realise you're a bit sad that you weren't able to see me, but fear not!! I shall be back by lunch, so we can talk about everything then!

Is my map working properly? I think you should go to the library and look at a few maps, see if my little trick worked! Anyhow, look at the time, I must be leaving! Byeeee!



'That... was interesting...'

I now had some sort of a plan of what to do today. There were a few details missing, but I still had the general idea.

'So what are we waiting for, let's get going!!' shouted Joseph.

'I'm fine going on without him.' Bloody Jesus.

'Where are we going?' And of course, last but not least Brian.

'Not yet you guys! I still need to work a few things out!' Yeah, like how to get out of this damn bed!

Suddenly without warning, I felt a large, papery thing well up in my throat, desperately trying to get out. I obliged, and out of my mouth fell a third note.

'Welp, that's something you don't see everyday.'

'No shit Jesus.' Unless you watch back to back episodes of MLP that is.

I waited for the taste of paper to get out of my mouth (Spike I feel for you bro) and then looked at the third note.



For Aniseed Vortexmouth,
If you are reading this, then my experiment concerning the mental link between Master and Piece has worked. We should now be able to send letters and other objects between ourselves.

I shall now be engaging in High Court, I need to resolve some bothersome case concerning a string of petty thefts, joy of joys. I should be finished shortly after lunch, so I beseech you come up to the West Spire then, I have yet to give you my gift.

My brothers have probably omitted a few details. There should be a servant coming round who shall help you around the castle until you learn to fly and shall comply with most of your requests to the best of her degree. Breakfast shall be served when you wish and lunch will be at 12:30pm.

One last note: If you see an ominous looking Earth pony mare with a white coat and purple mane, do not be alarmed. She is a close friend of Filio's and can often be seen around the castle, although I do not think she will take it so well if you started talking to her.

And one last note, welcome to Equestria, here's to making a difference!

Your friendly neighbourhood Prince, Agapé Cadenza



'K, how the flying fuck did he reference Spider- that doesn't even- what the f- arghhhh!'

While my brain was melting, more words were written, no, burned onto the note. 



P.S. Internet.



'....what?'

That took a while to sink in. How does he know about the internet? One more thing to ask him.

After all that, as if on cue, three sharp knocks hit the door of the guestroom, and then..

'I was given orders by Royal Decree to enter without permission, so I hope you're decent in there!'. The voice was that of a mare, Trottingham accent, refined but with a slight bit of grit.

The doorknob turned and in walked a slim red unicorn with an unkempt mane tied in a ragged... ponytail.

This pony has a ponytail.

Suffice to say I lawled. Hard. I mean come on! 

'Who's there?'. And she hadn't seen me, or any of the three Parasprites. The room was pretty big but even so, we stick out like a sore thumb against all this blue.

'Yo, miss, over here!' I said most eloquently, not sure whether my telepathy was tooled to peripheral hearing.

She turned to the bed, meaning that it definitely was, but was unsure of whether to walk over to the bed.

'I'm not sure where you're going with this, mister...'

Did she just... for real? I wasn't even implying that at all!

'Seriously miss, your employer sent you up here 'cos I can't move, literally.' I managed without having my brain implode.

She still looked anxious to move. Dammit, lady, I want out of this bed!

'That's the honest truth, take it or leave it.'

With a sigh she nervously trotted over to the bedside, looked over and-

'Ohai.'

'ARRGHHHH!!!!!'

I shouldn't have done that. I'm terrible. Still, it was worth it.

After she got over the initial shock of the bugs in the bed (heh, guess I'm a bedbug), she straightened herself up and asked if I was the guest she was looking for, to which I responded yes. I learned that her name was Blazing Ruby, known to most of her friends as just Ruby, and we made a bit of small talk, which was kinda awkward for her, considering the fact that I was a bedridden Parasprite. Eventually, I got bored and hungry, and asked her to lift me onto her back, which was taken as yet another sexual advance, until I explained that it was the only way that I was going to get anywhere. Seriously though, I don't even have any...

Wait...

I. Have. No. Genitals.

'Well this sucks nonexistant balls.'



'Holditinholditinholditinholditinholditin!'

This was me, schooling my fledgling swarm on how to not reproduce. This was happening in the dining room, after the four of us had eaten an obscene amount of Prench toast and Spaneighsh omelettes (seriously, Enzo is best chef pony). Ruby was desperately trying to hold on to her breakfast as my Parasprites attempted to do the same.

'So who are you anyway?' she said with a sickly shade of green upon her face.

'An alien, summoned by the Princes to get rid of prejudice.' I deadpanned. 'Keep holding, all four of you.'

'...You're joking.'

'I'm being dead serious. That's the honest truth, take it or leave it.' I figured on settling on a philosophy that said if they don't ask, don't tell, but if they do, I'll let them know. It'd just complicate matters if I didn't, right?

'...I don't believe-'

'Look, why would the Princes have a Parasprite guest? One who can speak? Capable of displaying emotion in a pony-ish way? Who arrived without entrance at 7:00pm? They do do entrances for guests right?'

'Well, yeah..'

'Then why wasn't I given one?!', being logical is so much fun...

'Because they wanted to keep this undercover?', until it gets shot, that is.

'I, uhh...' I struggled to find anything to say, and eventually caved in. 'Just believe me, okay?'.

'Whatever.'

It was at that point that the Parasprites failed to hold it, and spat out three new ones, before Ruby keeled over and lost the battle with her stomach.

With a sigh, I pointed to the new ones. 'Alvin, Simon and Theodore. Got that?'

They nodded the affirmative and then I motioned to Ruby, who was still on the floor.

'I'll just wait for you to sort yourself out there.'

Ruby groaned.



'So you get your wings and... flap 'em?'

Such was the extent of my excellent flying tuition, although I guess that teaching someone a skill that comes natural to all flyers can be kinda hard. Still, I guess I had to listen to the blue pegasus in front of me.

And getting your wings and flapping them? Hard as balls.

Seriously, in human terms, it was like someone got four arms and attached two to each shoulder blade and told you to learn to use them. Without knowing how. 

So I had to take a few minutes of attempting to use my wings before they actually started working. And boy, oh boy did they work. That rapid flapping of the wings bugs have? That is definitely not an acquired skill.

So up into the air I flew, higher and higher, faster and faster, feeling the air thinning out and the sun beat down harder and harder.


And then I realised I didn't know how to stop.

And my genius peers, down on the ground, save for my my flying instructor, do you know what they said?

'Aniseed, stop!'

'Don't you think I'm bloody well trying?!'

So I rose up into the air, all the while thinking I just wanna stop!.

And then it happened.

I stopped rising.

An adverse effect of this was that I started falling.

'MOTHERLOVINGSUGARTITTYSPRINKLESALTYBALLCONGLOMERATESHITTINGBALLSACKHELLONASCHNITZELSTICKINTERSPECIALBUTTBASHI-'

And then I hit the ground.



'I could've at least left a crater..'

'Well you did make some sort of a dent in the ground.'

'Yeah, but that really isn't crater material, y'know?'

'You do realise that you don't nearly weigh enough to cause a crater.'

'Heh, I guess you're less dense than you look!'

'Shut up Jesus.'

'That wasn't even that funny.'

Wait what? 'You heard that?!'

Ruby gave me a sideways glance. 'Umm... Yes?'

But Parasprites can't speak, right? 'Jesus, explain.'

'So yeah, turns out that telepathy you got brushed off onto the rest of us.'

Joseph piped up; 'It sure did!'

'And you guys didn't bother to tell me why?'

I was met with six shrugging Parasprites, which looks really strange by the way.

With a sigh, I carried on flying down the corridors of Trottingham Palace. My flyng lesson had just finished after 2 more hours of learning how to control and maneuver. Thankfully enough, flying seems to be Parasprite instinct, meaning that after my lesson, I was flying as well as any other Parasprite. We now had about an hour until lunch, giving us enough time to head to the library and look at a few maps and maybe a newspaper. It was a strange sight to see for the caretakers of Trottingham castle, seven Parasprites flying in a V formation above their friend and coworker, Blazing Ruby. She smiled nervously as everyone looked at us all in strange wonder, knowing that Ruby had undertaken an important task, the nature of which was unknown until now. Nearly everypony was paying us some sort of notice whenever we walked past them, all except one, walking out of the library and heading in the opposite direction.

An Earth pony mare, white, or as every fanfiction writer ever would have it, alabaster coat and a mane and tail of deep purple, looking slightly dishevelled but still flattering her figure. She was wearing purple sunglasses, obscuring her eyes from view and around her neck was a black choker, all of which raised my suspicions as to whether she really was just a friend to Filio.

The cutie mark confirmed it. This thing couldn't be called a cutie mark. This was a tramp stamp. I mean seriously, a lipstick kiss mark with four fangs! 

I stopped myself from continuing the thought when I realised what I was doing. This is prejudice. This is the mentality, the sickness that I have sworn to cleave from this land, only with a less fanciful vocabulary. What I was doing was wrong and I should strive to remove all thoughts of it from my brain. I couldn't believe myself. I'm an idiot, the biggest on-

'I'd hit that.' said Jesus, just loud enough for her to hear.

Excuse me, I meant the second biggest idiot. 'Fly, you fools!'

The Parasprites heeded my call and ducked into the library. Ruby however, was left outside, facing the icy glare of the pony.

'Erm, uhh...'



It took about ten minutes for Ruby to come into the library, during which time we had failed in our quest to gain maps or newspapers of any kind thanks to a very unhelpful librarian, who kept raving about worms refusing to eat the books while rocking back and forth upon seeing us.

I turned to greet Ruby but before I could she blurted out.

'3 minutes to explain that I'm not a filly fooler, 2 minutes to explain that it was you,' she pointed at Jesus, 'And 5 minutes of listening to her detail the many ways to kill you.'.

'Oh come on! She should feel honoured that I'd like to do her!'

'Indeed, one should feel flattered by being lusted after by an insect with no sexual organs.' I replied sarcastically. 'Anyway, Ruby, can you help us with this librarian? She's stark raving and won't listen to us.'

Ruby quickly dealt with the librarian as though she had done it before, comforting her and pulling her out of her mental stupor before getting the newspapers and maps requested.

Item 1: Map of Equestria.

This basically had all of the major towns and cities of Equestria. I looked at a few names that I recognised; Baltimare, Manehattan, Canterlot. I also saw Ponyville and Fillydelphia, and remembering the two cities' history with Parasprites, decided to skip going to them until I had a plan worked out. 

Flutterhugs will have to wait.

Anyway, I decided to test Storgia's theory. I focussed on the map long and hard and then closed my eyes. Instead of the dense black void I was used to seeing, I saw a large green expanse littered with letters. A perfect copy of the map lay before me, and I was able to see the three marks denoting Filio, Storgia and myself.

Inside my head, I heard a distant voice.

'YEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!! Storgia: 1, Agapé, erm,... yeah, go Storgia!'

I chuckled at Storgia's antics and put the first map to the side.

Item 2: Map of the known lands of Equis.

Pretty much the map of Equestria, just less detailed and including the lands surrounding it, including Gem Fido (D-Dog territory, most probably), the Great Southern Rainforest (probably like the Everfree but more jungly), the Changeling Wasteland (was not expecting that) and the Zebra Isles. I noticed the map ending at the Northern Wastes at the top and an unknown region at the bottom. The map was unfinished, which I realised when I put it down onto the mindmap, there still being black spaces when zoomed out. Will have to investigate in the future.

Item 3: Map of Trottingham.

'Nuff said. I got it into my head and saw Storgia flying towards the castle. Crap, almost time for lunch. Got time for one more thing though.

Item 4: Trottingham Post, latest issue.

A broadsheet newspaper (I was dissapointed to find that they have tabloids in Equestria, getting rid of judgemental people is gonna be hard). I was able to get a quick read about Griffin and his pirate organisation conducting the concert today and the events of the GGG. I also managed to catch something of a WTF article. 

'ROC SET ON FIRE'.

Seriously, that was the article name.

I read on.

'Amid the chaos of the Grand Galloping Gala, a roc managed to break free of Canterlot Zoo, terrorising ponies across the streets of Canterlot and causing thousands of bits worth of damage to property. The roc was eventually apprehended and killed by a mysterious non-equine, who set the beast on fire. We here at Trottingham Post applaud this brave act of heroism, and wish the person safe travels wherever he may go'.

I looked at the picture accompanying the article. What I saw was a well and truly toasting roc, screeching amid the flames on his body, and off to the side was a sort of black Diamond Dog? No, it was a black wolf, with neon green markings, but the tail and ears were feline. I had no idea what this thing was. And that only meant one thing.

'Another one...'

'What do you mean?' Ruby asked.

'With the Princes' permission, I'll explain everything, but for now, we need to have lunch.'

We all exited the library and set off for the dining hall. I still had my thoughts on the end of the article.

There was hope for acceptance of all species as equals. I just need to find a way.

'Til then, I've still got learning to do.



First of all, references. The black powder explosion was caused by Shade in Doctor D's Quest of a Nobody. The wolfy guy was Jack Daniel from Reaper1543's Travels of a Hunter.

Second of all, shoutouts to Fordregha, author of Through Feline Eyes, who favourited me a few days back.

Lastly, I split this into two parts otherwise it would have been like 8000 words long. Don't worry, not all days in Ani's life will be this long!

Thanks for reading,

-TheAirHideous
> Chapter 5: Edumacation, Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was yet again back on a dining plate in the same old dining room with my 6 Parasprites. Blazing Ruby was invited in and we we were all munching to varying degrees of speed on a fine salad, with pinenuts, olives and onions. Storgia chose this time to ask me about the map, even though he knew the outcome.

"Yeah, worked like a dream."

"Hahaaa! Hear that, Gappy?! You said it couldn't be done but oh how I proved you wrong!"

Blazing Ruby sat at her seat, mouth agape in slight disbelief as Prince Storgia Cadenza shouted and motioned at thin air.

From the back of my head I heard Agapé's voice.

"Storgia, how many times? We know we have a mental link but other ponies don't. Please do try to remember that next time..."

"Right yeah, sorry, Gappy."

"Oh, and while I'm here, Aniseed, are you finished? We need to have that meeting, remember?"

I looked at my plate, which had been empty for quite some time.

"Yeah, I'll be right up. Gotta go, Prince Storgia."

"See you around when you're not all hung up with stuff'n'stuff'n'stuff!"

"Yeah, same."

I looked at Blazing Ruby who was now finished up and ready. she got up when she heard that we were going to leave, as did my Parasprites. We all bid Prince Storgia good day and made to leave, which was when Blazing Ruby spoke up;

"Why were you two staring at eachother for two minutes?"

"Long story."

It wasn't, but I was too bothered with all my questions for Agapé to care.



"I should like to speak with Aniseed alone, if you all would be so kind."

Blazing gave her same old bow and left discretely. The Parasprites on the other hand...

"Oh come on!"

"Not cool, man!"

We have a right to be here!"

"I ain't movin'!"

"Guys, please!" I shouted at them, "I full well understand that you'd like to hear what Agapé wants to say but he wishes for it to be private. I'll give you the details after, so it doesn't matter anyhow. So if you would..."

With groans and grumbles they all flew out single file. Somehow though, I was able to feel something coming off of them... Frustration? Was that it? That would have to be studied, but first...

My eyes narrowed as I turned to face Agapé, my mind readied with all the questions I had accumulated. Oh how I was going to query the shit out of him...

"Before you ask, my knowledge of the internet is due to the fact that I was on Earth for around 1 Earth week, during which time we had tracked you down but were unable to persue you. This left me very bored and one thing led to another..."

I nodded sagely. The internet be a veritable rock for all bored souls.

Now, first question.

"What is this?" I said, motioning towards the newspaper that had been laid on his desk.

"Why, Aniseed, that is a roc. On fire."



A small silence oppressed us before the small pat of a faceleg was heard.



"No, I mean the thing next to the roc on fire."

"... I can honestly say I haven't the foggiest."

Knew it. Human likelihood: very high.

"It could possibly be a resident of the Great Southern Rainforest, though, given its feline tail and paws, but then again, it also has features akin to a Diamond Dog..."

Ah. Human likelihood: Not as high.

"Oh well, doesn't matter all that-"

"You think it's human, don't you?"

Seriously, I need to work out some anti-mind reading techniques. Or just stop being so damn predictable... 

"Uh, yeah, kinda..."

"Well, good! It's nice to know that you've been trying to do some detective work, given what little information we have about all of this. Speaking of which, that's part of the role I personally want you to play."

"A detective?" 

"Yes. See, I believe that Aunt Celestia has been witholding information from us three about just what is going on here. Add to that everything else that needs to be figured out about why humans are here and what they're going to do, I need someone who can get me reliable information, rather than hearsay. I therefore want you to find out how a human got here when and if you encounter one and what they are going to do, and mark them on your map as well. Whereabouts of Pieces will be handy to have in case something big happens during the Game."

Which pretty neatly brought me to my next question.

"Yeah, about that, why is it called the Chess Game anyways? Prince Filio kinda mentioned it but..."

"Yes... Aniseed, if I told you that I knew exactly what was going on and that I wasn't allowed to tell you, I'd be lying. I have no knowledge of what is going on but that Discord widened a sort of interdimensional rift that allows those powerful enough to pull humans into this. We heard the name when we came back with you, and not much else, which is exactly why I need you to retrieve this information."

Well there went that question. Ah, but then another one came to my mind, about why Cadance didn't hel-

"Hey Dad, did you see where I put my magic theory book?", and in through the door walked a pink (I'm talking lighter than Pinkie Pie, darker than Sweetie Belle) unicorn mare, or do I say filly? She looked too young to be anywhere near Twilight's age, and too old for CMC standard either. I concluded therefore, that this was a teenage pony, anywhere between 14 and 16, like yours truly. Her magenta mane fell straight down across one side of her head, and on the other lay an ornate pin laden with a topaz (or some other gem with that colour, anyway). And her gray eyes narrowed as she saw me...

Oh, bol-

She telekinetically seized me with her pink glow and then walked over to open the window, but not without Agapé taking his turn to facehoof.

"Clair, please let go of the Parasprite."

"Dad, that thing will eat the entire castle if we don't get rid of it now!"  

"Hrk... Can't... breathe..."

She turned her icy glare back to me, "You are an insect, your respiratory system consists of several holes across your body through which air passes. Technically speaking, you do not need to breathe."

Why didn't I remember that?! "Oh."

"But I am cutting off your airflow."

"...Shiiiiiiiii..."

Yeah, this wasn't good, being choked by this crazy mare. I could sense distress coming off of me and from the door as well. The Parasprites must have picked up the signal.

With another shake of his head, Agapé broke Clair's magic bond and set me on the table, "Clair, honestly, where are your manners?"

His daughter just looked bemused.

"Remember what I said this morning?"

"...but that can't be right, Parasprites are non-sapient."

"You just had a conversation with one." I deadpanned. I mean, seriously?

And then, nothing. Clair put her hoof to her face in thought while Agape stared at her.

"Well?" Agapé verbally poked Clair.

"Hm?"

"What do you say when you greet a guest?" Agapé said mockingly.

She rolled her eyes before turning back to me and making a gesture which I assumed to be a curtsey. "Clair Rose, a delight to meet you." she said begrudgingly.

I saw fit to respond in an equally eloquent manner, after all, she didn't expect me to be sapient, let alone well spoken.

"Enchanté, mademoiselle. Aniseed Vortexmouth, an absolute pleasure it is to be in your company."

It had the effect I wanted. She backed up and held her face in slight shock for just a few moments before returning to a scowl. Priceless.

Agapé afforded himself a slight chuckle at his daughter's reaction before speaking again. "There should be a copy of that book in the library Clair."

"Thanks Dad, I'll check there," she said. She turned back to me, wearing almost a spiteful look, and walked out of the door.

Agapé, smiling, gave a light shake of his head before turning back to me, "So now you've met the slightly mental filly I call my daughter."

I mulled this over before I realised, "Wait, does that mean you're-"

"No, Aniseed, I am not married. Clair is my adoptive daughter."

"Good." I'm starting to like Agapé more and more, I mean, not marrying, adopting, those are all things I stand for!

Stood for, rather, given that I probably can't get married in this form and that I already have 6 children that are biologically related to me.

Agapé trotted over to the window of his study, affording himself a brief glance over Trottingham before speaking again.

"Is there anything you have left to ask me? I did bring you up here for a reason of course, and I know the feeling when you have an overload of unanswered questions."

"Yeah, two things actually," I started, "So you, Filio and Storgia only just had enough power to bring me here, so why didn't you get Princess Cadance to help you with that?"

Agapé nodded. "Now that is a good question. It was my original intention that all four of us siblings would contribute to you being here, but that changed due to unforseen circumstances..."

"Such as?"

"Namely the fact that Mia already had a Piece when we asked her."

"...Whut.". That makes next to no sense. If three alicorns can barely summon a Piece, how in hell can one alicorn, who let me stress is a relation to the aformentioned three and therefore should have an equal amount of power, summon one? I may be unfamiliar with magic, but I'm sure it doesn't work that way!

"I should probably explain how our power works." Agapé began. "Our base power is far higher than that of regular unicorns, but still pretty low, when the grand scheme of things is considered, however, owing to our identities as the Sovereigns of Love, our power increases when we are experiencing or surrounded by our aspect of love. You should probably be able to guess where this is going..."

"Shining Armour gave her the power to go to Earth."

"The most logical conclusion." concluded Agapé. 

"So who's Cadance's Piece anyway?"

"Well, from what I've been told, she's a 12 year old girl that is a sort of changeling halfbreed, beyond that I don't know much at all...".

Damn, isn't 12 a bit young to get zapped into a new world? I mean, you've barely worked out living on Earth, when suddenly, Equestria. I mean, I can understand giving this new chance to those that have lost all hope on Earth, or could make a positive difference to Equestria, I can even understand a cosmic prank, but Cadance wouldn't do that, so why? Could it be that...?

No. Not possible. A twelve year old's life cannot suck that much. I refuse to believe it.

"You seem distressed, Aniseed. Tell me, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing, really..."

"If you say so..." and the next thing that happened, I can't really explain, but I felt his concern, as if emotion has become an equatable force. Granted, this being Equestria, it is, but this was an entirely new experience. I mean, knowing that feel, that's granted, but feeling that feel, as it is being felt, that's different. 

Naturally, I thought to act on this, so...

"Seriously, Agapé, it's fine, you don't need to worry..."

Suddenly the concern switched to delight and success.

"It worked..."

"What?"

"My gift, or at least part of it, worked." He announced with a large grin. "You see, part of my aim was to get you perfectly in touch with emotions, which I soon worked out was far easier than originally thought, thanks to the special hivemind properties of the Parasprite. I simply had to expand this to encompass all beings with similar mental processes to ponies, which are most sentient beings, and it seems to have worked, judging by your reaction."

Well, that explains that. So I'm some sort of empath now? This should probably help. If anything it should give me more tact when conversing. But hang on...

"Only part of it?"

"And now we come to why I wanted you here." The grin widening slightly. "It was why I wasn't present for dinner last night, which you'll have to excuse me for. As you know, holding items can be a challenge for most ponies. Earth ponies tend to use their mouths, pegasi their wings and unicorns their magic. Life would be incredibly difficult without this ability, wouldn't you agree? And you don't have that ability being a Parasprite, which is where this comes in." He punctuated the word be unveiling a small blue box. He used his magic to lift the top open and revealed a small, metallic and silver laurel wreath.

"By my calculations, this should be able to respond to your magic signature and turn it into magical force, much like a horn, and therefore you should be able to perform basic unicorn magic with this."

Move over Princess Luna, Agapé is best fucking pony.

"I... I don't know what to say..."

"Strange. I was expecting you to swear profusely in joy."

"Permission to do so?"

"Granted."

"FUCK YES!!! HOLY SHIT BOLLOCKS YES!"

"...Done?"

I allowed myself to catch my non-existant breath before replying, "Done."

"Well, you should probably give it a trial before you start singing my praises." he said, placing the wreath neatly on my head before pointing to a toothpick on his desk.

Well, magic is probably concentration based so...

I imagined the toothpick lifting. A few short seconds passed before it was surrounded by a silver aura, and started to fly, slowly but surely.

"Fuck. Yes."

Agapé looked on proudly. "Well, that's all the business I have with you and most of your questions seem answered, so I suppose until next time?"

"Of course." I replied. "And can I take this toothpick?"

"Well, yes, but I'm not quite sure what you'd use it for."

"Believe me, I need it."



"LOOK AT MAH SWAG!!!"

I was undeniably awesome right there, with my wreath on my head, toothpick in mouth. I was the shit.

"Nice!" went Joseph.

"Awesome!", and Brian.

"SWAG!" said Alvin, Simon and Theodore in unison.

"You do realise that Julius Caesar only wore a wreath because he was self concious about his baldness?"

"Don't wanna hear it, Jesus."

"What is 'swag' anyway? And what happened in there?" inquired Ruby.

"Yeah, what the fuck happened to make you release panic so much? We thought you were gonna fuckin' die!" added Jesus.

"Oh, you felt that? Don't worry, I'll explain on the way to the library."



Author's note: I am so damn sorry for how long this took, it's just that with schoolwork etc, it's hard to find time to write. I have my ideas in check, I just need time!

And for the next chapter, don't worry, it's gonna be the following day (finally)!

Till next time

-TheAirHideous
> Chapter 6: Canterlot, Ho!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

So the rest of the day elapsed pretty uneventfully. We tried to read a few books of law (and failed), tried to discover more about our magic (and failed), and we even tried to find a way that we could disguise ourselves as a single pony so that everypony wouldn't freak when they saw us. Guess how that went down?!

I really hoped that this wasn't going to become a recurring theme.

The most interesting part of the day apart from the meeting with Agape came at dinner, where all three brothers were finally present for a single meal. Filio began to recount his investigation into the black powder explosion, which ultimately ended up in them working out the trajectory of the guy who set it off, which we believed to be in the general direction of the Dragon Badlands. He also showed me the guy's wanted poster, which read as follows:





WANTED


“The Dark Coat” : Real name unknown. Crimes: Not paying the Trottingham toll, assaulting guards for no apparent reason, causing vast amounts of property damage, resisting arrest, escaping from Trottingham prison, destroying property of the Trottingham guard and lollygaggin’. Worth: 16,000 Bits.



Above the text was a neat drawing of something I knew extremely well, that being a cloak of Organisation XIII. This realisation came to a shock for all of us, which resulted in all 6 of us' thoughts linking, which resulted in...

"HOLY SHIT!" we all shouted in unison.

"So you recognise it?" Filio asked tentatively.

"Well, yes, but at the same time I don't know who that is, nor what it can do. It's very definitely a Chess Piece though."

It can't be an actual member of Organisation XIII, right? No, that's silly, the Kingdom Hearts universe doesn't exist!

I must keep on remembering that until very recently I believed that Equestria didn't exist. So then what? The multiverse exists? Very probably, but I remember Agape saying that only the rift between Earth and Equestria was widened...

Then it must be someone from Earth...

Wait, what was that?!

Joseph waved a leg to me, identifying himself as the providor of this thought.

Then a god must have sent him... went Brian.

So said god was influenced by KH... Jesus added.

"And thus he made his piece in the form of one of their cloaks." I concluded audibly.

"What was that, Aniseed?" Filio enquired.

"Nothing," I responded curtly, "Just figuring about the thing."

It was strange, not only why he had assumed the form of an Organisation XIII cloak, but how we came to that conclusion. Granted it was a simple conclusion to make, but the way we each integrated our thoughts into the mix... was this hivemind? I immediately saw various ways in which we could use this to our advantage. We could be able to quickly gain information on our surroundings by spreading out as far as we could, then just as quickly make informed conclusions on what to do, given the circumstances.

We would be the ultimate scouts. We all stated in unison.

"Aren't you all going to begin eating?!" Storgia asked rather loudly, snapping us all out of our reverie. 

All of the Parasprites said something in the general direction of yes and began dining on pasta with curly kale, spinach and some sort of cheese, which I made a guess at being mozzarella.

Agape then took his turn and described to us the court case he dealt with in the morning, weaving the tale of a kobold thief, running amok the streets of Trottingham, pilfering whatever he could from its upper class, whether it was jewels or just plain bits. Eventually he was apprehended by the Trottingham Guard, taken to court, long story short, 6 months and a fine for all the damages.

It was then that something far more interesting was brought up, brought to the table by Filio, in fact.

"Well, Aniseed, I hope you can wake up early for tomorrow."

Myself and the six Parasprites looked up from our plates.

"Why?"

"Oh nothing, just-"

"THE ROYAL KNIGHTING CEREMONY!!!" Storgia blurted before teleporting around the room in excitement, shortly before he was held in telekinesis by both Filio and Agape, the former with a cross look painted on his face, and the latter bore a humoured visage.

"Yes," Agape continued, "A royal knighting ceremony is being held at Canterlot which we are expected to attend. Now this would be pretty routine except for the fact that-"

"Except for the fact that there are some very important people that are going to be knighted." Filio finished.

The way he said 'people' instead of ponies sent alarms into my head.

"Chess Pieces?"

"Indeed. Knightmare, Griffin and the Lunar Legend are all going to be ordained as Knights of the Realm."

"Wait a minute there!", Jesus entered into the conversation, "The Lunar Legend and Knightmare I can understand, but the pirate? The plundering, murdering guy who never abides by the law and, may I stress, identifies himself as a pirate? Him?"

"I will admit that I am bemused too..." Filio said.

Agape spoke up, "I have a theory. Seeing as he refers to himself as a pirate, he probably doesn't want to be seen as good. I think this is my dear aunt's method of... what's the word... 'trolling' him?"

...By the gods, that is brilliant! Give the guy who is always stating that he's the bad guy status as a good guy to wider society. He'll find it harder and harder to keep up the bravado and ultimately will be very, very pissed about it.

"Parasprites, it seems 'Trollestia' is a thing, and I for one am perfectly okay with that."

"So anyway," Storgia said, "This is a perfect opportunity to catch a look at these guys and mark them, so that we can track their movements!"

"Aye, we might not know what they plan to do, but at least we'll know where they are when they do it." Filio added.

"And besides, we still need to meet with Aunt Celestia. I still have cause to believe that she is witholding information, and we need answers." Agape stated with a certain amount of vigour.

"What is this whole 'Chess Game' thing anyway?", the until now ignored voice of Clair rang out, "What's in it for all these gods? I mean, stuff like this doesn't happen every day!" 

"And that, my dear niece, is what we intend to find out." Filio said.

"So remember Ani, you need to wake up early in the morning so that we can leave early, 'kay?" went Storgia.

"Yeah, that's fine." I responded.

We all looked at the table before us. We had long since finished dining and the serving ponies were coming in to clear the table. Each of the sprites hopped off their plates and began to hover in the air, while the 4 ponies left their chairs.

"Well, if we're all done here, I suppose we better retire for the night." Agape stated while wiping his mouth.

"Yes, let's. We've a long day ahead of us, so it'd do us good to get some rest." Filio agreed.

"Alrighty then!" Storgia shouted somewhat jarringly, "You guys go and sleep, I've got some flying to do!" and with that, Storgia saw fit to shoot out of the window, leaving behind an orange blur.

"Storgia finds it hard to sleep," Filio explained, "He tends to go flying to help himself get tired."

"...Right."

"So anyway, I'll be seeing you all at the morn. I trust you both shall be up bright and early." Filio said whilst glaring at Agape.

"Hehe, you have nothing to fear, brother, I'll remember this time." Agape said with a chuckle, "Aniseed, you'll be able to show yourself to your bedroom, right?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Parasprites, let's roll."

And with that, we flew out of the room, ready to take rest in preparation for the journey to Canterlot.



When I woke up, instead of feeling a soft warm quilt around me, I was feeling the bite of the cool air and an unusually strong breeze. Strange.

I opened my eyes and looked around, but instead of the bedroom I saw the open sky, a few clouds in the sky here and there, and Celestia's sun in full view. I groaned as I realised what had happened.

"I told you to wake up early, Ani!" Storgia's voice rang out in my nonexistant ears, off to the side, "How do you sleep through all this anyway?!"

I looked behind me to see what I was seated on. It turned out to be a chariot, laden with gold trimmings and pulled by two blue pegasi, one of which I recognised very well.

"Aren't you the guy that taught me to fly yesterday?"

"Yep, that's me," replied an airy voice against the wind, "Name's Crosswind, officer in the Trottingham Guard."

"And how are the colts treating you?" asked Filio, "No doubt they would have pulled a prank on you by now!"

"Poison Joke in my lower body armour, Captain Filio. You don't even want to know what that did."

"Hehe, rest assured that they only do it in jest, they'll grow on you!"

"What, the guards or the Poison Joke?"

There was a short pause before it gave way to chuckling from most of the convoy's part, which included Crosswind's cohort, the rest of my swarm, Agape, and Clair Rose. I did a short smile as I saw the two of them looking over the edge of the chariot, pointing out all the points of interest on the ground below. As I did so, I realised I had no idea how far along the journey we were.

"Hey, Filio, how close are we to Canterlot?"

"Not long now, in fact, we should see it as we go through these clouds!"

"Wait, what? Through a cloud?!"

Flying through a cloud was strange, to say the least. Since a cloud is pretty much just condensed water vapour, there was dampness everywhere. Dew settled on all of the swarm's wings, rendering us temporarily unable to fly. It also seemed like alicorns had cloud manipulation as expected, when Storgia reached out and threw a cloudball at Filio's face, which left him completely drenched.

And as we came through, the view, just wow. Shining spires rose up into the sky, daring to grasp at the heavens, draped in finest gold. Cobblestone roads paved the way for the hooves of the great and the good below us, weaving around market stalls, with fine foods and baubles everywhere. At the upper levels, the houses weren't even houses; these things were mansions, easily 10 bedrooms or more. Man, Caesar and all those other aristocrat ponies had it made. And just ahead, dwarfing even those stupendously large abodes, lay Canterlot Castle. Carved out of a harsh mountain, the grand and astute structure stood proud, the monumental feat of engineering was proof of ponykind's apparent control over their world.

And as we saw this, the swarm and I all spoke in unison; "Canterlot, here we come!"
> Extra Chapter 1: Under the Cover of an Illusion
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

At last in familiar surroundings, I thought that I would finally be able to move around the castle by myself. The thing I didn't realise, however was that the show's scope of Canterlot Castle was far smaller than the actual thing, and so we found ourselves in strange places we had never seen before.

The Cadenza brothers had given us leave to explore the entirety of the castle as we waited for the ceremony to begin. Storgia wanted to visit the main city and see what had changed whereas Filio had some business in the city as well. Agape and Clair both opted to stay in the castle and visit Princess Celestia and Cadance, but wished for our prescence to not be revealed at that point, so we were on our own and had to hide.

"This sucks!" Jesus exclaimed loudly from the vase, "There's nothing to do and were cramped in here like old Christmas decorations!".

"Shhh!" We all cried out mentally at Jesus, "We can't let ourselves be heard!"

"But who says there's nothing to do?" I replied, "He said don't be seen, not don't move. This place is practically crawling with Chess Pieces, least we can do is investigate them further."

"Sounds like a plan!" Jesus said, "Let's go!".

At once we all tried to fly out of the vase, but came across a little problem.

"Simon, you're on the top, can you get out?"

"I'm trying!"

It was at this point that we all came to realisation, and our thoughts coalesced and became the same idea.

"We're stuck, aren't we?"



The sky, limitless and blue, stretched far over the city of Canterlot, and Celestia's orb shone down its might and glory onto the city below. The guilded alabaster buildings stood tall and proud much like their owners, and the white cobble roads accented each step of the very important ponies, heralding their prescence and making them feel larger than life.

The crowds were thick and slow moving today due to the knighting ceremony that was happening, which so many ponies has heard was happening, and everypony wanted a piece of the action. However, amidst all the hustle and bustle, there were two ponies standing among the crowds, reluctant to move and conversing with each other.

"You know, this would be so much easier if I wasn't royal.", the tall white unicorn stated with an air of frustration.

"But you must remember, your Highness, that if you weren't you wouldn't be able to.", the blue pegasus next to him replied.

The unicorn, significantly taller, turned to his cohort. "Hm. If I wasn't royal, I wouldn't need to either. I envy you, Crosswind, do you know that?"

With a chuckle, Crosswind replied. "What possibly could you envy me for, Prince Filio?"

"You're a pony." Filio said simply, with the utmost sincerity. "You're all these ponies' equal. Sure, there may be some status with being a Guard, but even so, you can relate with eachother. I, on the other hand, am elevated to a status where no-one could even dream of being, royalty. They see an alicorn in the street and suddenly they bow down, suddenly you're so much better than them when in all honesty you're not! I tell you if I didn't have these stupid wings they wouldn't look twice at me!" Filio turned to Crosswind as the issue started to come out. "It's not as if I even asked to be there, it was just determined when I was born, 'This colt is royalty, all hail.', and sometimes I almost wish I..."

He couldn't bring himself to say it. As this conversation was happening, a commotion was building up in the street, the flow of ponies sped up and the noise increased. Amid the clamour, a few voices could be made out.

"There's an alicorn at the market stalls!"

"What, an alicorn?!"

"Prince Storgia Cadenza!"

"Come on mares, one of us is gonna get a royal wedding!"

At this last comment Filio couldn't help but laugh.

"Storgia better step carefully, otherwise he may end this morning unwillingly engaged!"

But within his chuckles at the situation, a point had still been made. Filio turned back to Crosswind, always one with open ears, and continued.

"Storgia, he loves attention, it's in his nature to. As the Sovereign of Affection, there's nothing more he enjoys than the general joy that ponies get from being with eachother, and when you're able to bring them together just by being yourself, that's perfect. He's just one big bundle of happiness, and it rubs off on everyone he meets. I, on the other hand am completely different. I deal with friendships, intimate bonds between people who've been with eachother, seen eachother at their best and worst, know eachother and care for eachother. How am I able to form bonds like that when I'm shut off by my title? I try to with yourself and the rest of the squad but sometimes it just feels so fruitless. I mean, I'm the Sovereign of Fellowship, but sometimes I just feel so detached from that." Filio turned to Crosswind, who had been listening and nodding the entire time. "Pathetic, isn't it?"

Crosswind took a moment to articulate his thoughts inside his head before responding. "No, not at all, Filio. It's perfectly natural. I honestly can't think of a better friend than you, and I'm pretty sure the entire squad agrees. Sometimes, we're just put into situations we can't do much about, we just have to make the most of them. You can't be friends with everyone, but you can at least stay loyal to the rest of us, and loyal to yourself too. There are several ponies out their who'd be brothers in legs if only they realised it. You can help them at least."

Filio took a while to ponder this before smiling. "You know, you're right. I shouldn't be drowning myself in woe when there are other people I can help." He, in his white unicorn's guise, smiled at Crosswind. "I'm glad you're my friend Crosswind.".

Crosswind simply smiled back.

Filio suddenly took note of the amount of time they had been standing in the pathway. "Storgia gave me 2 hours with this illusion, enough time to go there, get the negotiation over with and to get back to the castle before it breaks. I reckon that if we tread carefully, we could get back to the castle without the illusion without being noticed. Let's have fun with this. Know a good pub around here?"



Crosswind did indeed know a good pub, owing to a cousin who had recommended it to him should he ever visit Canterlot. The Split Hoof was an old, rickety establishment, eaten away by time and rot, in the outer areas of Canterlot where there wasn't much in the way of grandeur or high society. Exactly what Filio was thinking of.

The place didn't have much in the way of customers owing to the early hour at which they had arrived. The only beings inside were a black bat-winged pegasus, with luminous yellow eyes with his head held lamely on the chipped wooden table, his hoof tracing the top of his empty glass with no purpose, a green Earth pony with a short blue mane, reading a notebook with intent and the bartender, a crusty grey unicorn with stubble and a permanent wide grin. Filio looked between the two customers and grinned to Crosswind before charging up a spell. Two hearts, similar to his interlocked hooves and swords mark appeared in front of him. Filio then willed these to move towards his two targets before making them burst in front of them. Of course, this was completely invisible to all but Filio, but its effect, subtle as it was, was easy to see.

The Earth pony looked up from his notebook and looked around the entire bar, from the cheap furnishings to the new ponies who had walked in to the bar counter, before his eyes settled on the bat-winged pony on the opposite side of the bar. He looked at him staring at his glass morosely, and wondered what had happened to him to put him in such a bad mood, but quickly shook his head to put this thought out of him, and returned to his book. But he still wasn't able to throw the thought of the pony away, and eventually his curiousity peaked, and with that his closed his book and trotted over to the bat winged pony.

"Hey you two! You gonna stand there all day or come over here some time soon?!"

The call of the bartender had broken the prince and his guard's observation of the two ponies. They looked at eachother before trotting over to the counter, all the while listening in to the conversation that had started.

"So, what happened?"

"Nothing I really want to talk about."

"Go on, you can tell me. I'm all ears."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Not like I've anything better to do."

The bartender trotted over to Filio and Crosswind, while cleaning a greasy mug and said to them, "So, what'll it be?"

"Just a regular pint, thanks." said Crosswind.

"The same here, mate." went Filio after, masking any hint of royalty in his voice.

The bartender nodded and started to fill their drinks, and the duo carried on listening to the conversation.

"So the house might be seized?"

"Mate, this isn't a 'maybe', it's gonna happen unless I can get a 'trusted' pony to say that I can pay back the darn loan."

"Hmm... tell you what, I think I might be able to do that?"

"R-Really?"

"Yeah. I'm an accountant, trusted enough?"

"Y-Yeah! That'll work! Oh my..."

"What?"

"I, I just don't- wow, thanks, bro."

"Heh, glad to help. Can I get your address down?"

"Yeah, sure. Take down the address of my lender too."

By this time the bartender had finished filling Crosswind and Filio's glasses and had handed them to the ponies. Filio, in light of the solving of the batwing's problem, sought to celebrate and realised the perfect way to do so.

"And a drink for these two gentlecolts, on me!"

Both the Earth pony and the batwing turned to Filio and Crosswind in surprise.

"Oh, I just heard how your problem was solved, so I thought 'why not?'"

"Heh, wow, this day just gets better and better!"

All the colts eventually received their drinks and entered conversation of a more light humoured sort, with each telling stories about each of their lives. The batwing, who's name was Moonlight, complained about his sister's new coltfriend (it was always somepony new), how he always stank of BO and piss and was about as structurally sound as a piece of paper. Seabreeze, the Earth pony went on about his boss, to which Crosswind cheekily agreed that his boss was also an arsewipe, before giving anecdotes about training and the guard life. Filio started talking about his siblings, one with no grasp of the real world, a second who was far too serious for his own good and a third who thought she was better than everyone else since she got married (all lies of course, purely for banter). And they each cried with laughter and drank their drinks and knew the feels that they all felt, so much so that they were all loath to have Crosswind and Filio leave after an hour's stay.
> Chapter 7: Sneaky Sneaky
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eventually, thanks to collaborative thinking and an extensive amount of reasoning, we eventually found a way out of that darn vase.

By eating it.

Yeah.

"So, now what?" Simon asked the million pound question right there.

"Well, we already came from one direction." I stated, waving my leg at said corridor, "So the only way to go is forward, really."

"Then we go! No time to waste!" Brian, removed from his usual quiet self exclaimed. I looked at him curiously, wondering where this sudden vigour had come from, before removing the thought from my head and reasoning that there were much more important things to focus on.

Like spying.



"We're just going in circles!" Jesus shouted, "There's nobody here! No-one!"

"Jesus, shut up!" We all hushed him in unison, "You never know what, or who, is around the corner." I continued the thought.

"But it's true! We've been going round for well over an hour and have found jack shit!"

"Shut up!"

"Yeah I get it! I-"

"No seriously, shut up!" we whispered. "And get down."

Around the corner, we saw them, two humanoid forms. The first was a rather shrimpy changeling looking guy, you know, holes in his legs and his wings, red eyes and two webbed appendages on his head. On his person he carried a guitar, sleek and black. I knew good craftsmanship when I saw it, and knew this must have been made by the finest luthier in Canterlot or something. This had to be the Knightmare that we were told of.

The second on the other hand was much taller. Dark scales, black but not as dark as Knightmare, were covering her person acting as a formidable shield, however it didn't hide the sleek and toned form of the person. The deep purple eyes gave away nothing, and the corners of it's mouth were curled into a wry grin. This, we worked out, was our unnamed destructive dragon, and it was female. Honestly wasn't expecting that one.

"Gentlesprites, we have found Chess Pie-"

"WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" Holy shit, what the fuck?!?

My mind seared from feeling Knightmare's anger as he screeched at the dragon and immediately began morphing. What was once a diminutive and weak form gave way to one of strength and power, easily standing a head over the dragon that had obviously angered him.

"What the actual..."

The dragon seemed unfazed by all of this. Facial expression didn't change or anything. There was no emotion to sense. She'd make a good poker player. All she did was step away from the wall she was leaning on and in the most composed of voices said, "I'm a guest here."

"But that makes no sense-"

"Then why-"

"A GUEST!?" Knightmare snarled with rage, reciprocating the thoughts of myself and the swarm. "A GUEST?! YOU ARE A GUEST NOW?! GUESTS DON'T GO BEATING THE HOST INTO A BLOODY PULP! NOR DO THEY UNLEASH ANCIENT EVIL DEMONS TO RUN AMOK! NOR DO THEY GO THREATENING OTHER GUESTS!"

Well, shit, looks like Filio and Storgia used the British understatement on what really went down here, holy crap. So, the release of the Nightmare was caused by Miss Dragon here as well as the whole 'beat the shit out of Luna' thing. Yeah, I'm not one to prejudge, but I'd still bet quite a bit on her causing the zoo outbreak as well. So why is she a guest?

"Do you even know why I beat Luna to a bloody pulp? Oh and if you're wondering, I did fix her up afterwards, not a scratch on her. Damn well took a lot of strength to do that." As she folded her arms, together as a swarm we started pooling ideas.

"Do you think she-"

"Plain hatred, calling it."

"Then why did she heal her?"

"...makes no sense."

"We're obviously missing information." I finished it right there. She obviously knows something we don't. 

Knightmare was seething with rage and I could both feel it and see it. He obviously wanted nothing more to do with her and so turned around, slowly and deliberately, as if he was struggling to control himself.

The next thing I know, what was once Miss Dragon became a black and purple blur and dashed around Knightmare faster than he turned around.

"Whoa..." was the general thought of the swarm.

"Excuse me, um, Knightmare, was it? But you might not want to try and run or forget about someone who can move faster than wind, just saying." Her mouth curled into a smug smile and I could definitely feel the self-satisfaction coming off of her. Knightmare's rage meter on the other hand was just increasing more and more.

"I'll give you two seconds to leave me alone before I throw you through a wall. I'm a LOT stronger than you think, little miss Mary Sue."

"Pretty decent description, I'll give him that." I thought to myself. The rest of the swarm agreed. No seriously, first the poker face, then the Whirlwind Sprint. A bit OP, don't you think? Besides, she's a dragon, a black one at that. I researched some species in the library and found that black dragons have the hardest scales and are generally the highest rank. A bit too convenient that she's one of them, no? Obviously her Master must have had that in mind...

She unfolded her arms and tapped at her head before responding. "Two things. One, I have a weakness, and it's pretty damn big, and two, I'm not moving and I already know you could probably throw me through a wall. Thing is, unlike the 'Lunar Legend', that doesn't kill me or hurt too much." Okay, this girl is up herself too much, it has to be said. Being the Sue is bad enough, but knowing you're the Sue? Seriously? She grinned widely and that smug feeling was only amplified. "Come on."

"Don't care if it hurts, I just want you outta my way. I've had a LONG day and I don't feel like dealing with a smug-ass egomaniac right now... why do you think I'm avoiding Griffin?"

Next thing I know, Miss Dragon's choking Knightmare, pinning him to the wall, her eyes flashing between the original purple and a blood red and, get this, not one but TWO emotional wavelengths. The first was angry, enraged, whatever synonyms you have all fit here, but the other...

I can't really describe it all that well, but it was a lot more... primal. It was in sync with the first, but still, it felt so much more malevolent, like it wanted to do everything the first wanted but 100 times worse. I'm not even going to lie, that disturbed me somewhat.

"I'm not going to go into much detail," the dragon started with gritted teeth and restraint in her voice, "but I am not an egomaniac. Luna stole the life I hated, only to deliver me to a living hell. I've lost more here than I believe you have, mister 'Happy-Go-Lucky', and Griffin can go fuck himself for all I care, he's an asshole and I can't wait for the day someone takes him down a peg or two." The second frequency died down, the first cooled down a little and the black claw that was previously around Knightmare's neck fell back to her side.

"Luna's piece?"

"Luna's piece." I confirmed. That clears up one question I had and replaces it with a whole slew of others. This was happening quite a lot. Knighmare moved to speak.

"Honestly," he began, still gathering his breath, "I don't know what I lost... my only memories of Earth are working for an organisation called 'The SCP Foundation' and meeting Celestia."

Allow me to break away from Knightmare's monologue just to say HOLY SHIT SCP FUCK THE WHAT DON'T LET 173 GET ME.

But seriously, whaaaaaaat? SCP? On my Earth? No way. I don't believe it. Knightmare, I call your bluff. He continued.

"I've had most of my memories taken from me. I don't know if I lived a good life, wasted it away or went through hell and back. I don't KNOW what my life was like outside of working for a bunch of murderous lunatics who think that being smart gives them free reign to control the world from behind the scenes. I've been working on recovering my memories. So yeah. As far as I know, maybe you have lost more than me. I don't know, nor do I care, I've been here for less than a week and already I've nearly been killed FIVE TIMES, raped once and had to rebuild a town that was destroyed by someone who wanted to kill me... So yeah. You aren't the only one having a shitty time in Equestria."

...Wow. He was completely sincere. Not a single sense of any smugness or humour in his emotions, just sadness and anger. I suppose that means he was telling the truth, which only raises questions now that the SCP Foundation is confirmed to be a thing...

Then again, we're not in that universe anymore, are we? Trifling can come later.

Miss Dragon turned away from Knightmare, feeling remorse and deep sadness. She looked to the ground, shuddering slightly and...

Oh God, is she crying?

In whispers, she finally spoke. "I've lost my father and my brother, my sister is the only person I have left, and the FUCKER," She punctuated the word by slamming her fist into the wall, causing the stone to be crushed to dust. "That killed my father is walking free! Hell, he's a hero in everyone's goddamn opinion!"

Wait.

Did she just say that...?

...I know I don't have the full picture, but still. The fact that she had her father killed is just...

That's not right. That's not right at all. Fuck. I know what I'd do if that had happened to me. I'd chase the fuck down and... well, make him pay. Miss Dragon's a lot more violent than me, and if she's anything like me, which I suspect she is, Griffin better start running. 

Knightmare curled and sat down on the ground, looking a lot more diminutive than normal. 

"I know how you feel... When I heard of the mighty 'Griffin the Griffin', I expected some kind of awesome badass hero... What I got was a depraved nutcase who talks up and down about how he was bullied and how he hates them... but that's exactly what he is... a bully, a tormentor. He just doesn't care about anyone he's not close to. Even then, he still treats his 'friends' as nothing but tools to use."

Miss Dragon turned to Knightmare, blood red tears streaming down her face, and spoke. "It's nice to know I'm not the only one who sees him for what he truly is."

"We need more heroes. If Griffin's the best we've got... then it's up to those of us who see beyond the glory and glamour to take up the job... I don't know about you but... I'm not gonna let that bastard hog all of his unearned glory..." Here he stood back up and shifted into his normal, shrimpy changeling form. "I've got to get to a knighting ceremony... Knowing Griffin, he'll probably ditch it just to be a dick. Care to join me?"

Wiping her tears, Miss Dragon faced Knightmare and smiled a little. "Only if I get to be the understudy."

"I have no idea what you're talking about... no, literally. I'm missing all but a few years of an eighty year life, I have NEVER been to a knighting ceremony before."

She laughed a little. "It's not that common. What I was referring to was acting, and moreover my desire to stay in the background. A changeling is one thing, a dragon? That's stretching it."

"If Loony's okay with you, then I think I can handle. Just... don't break anything. And you hurt Celestia, and I break YOU. Got it?"

"I only hurt people who shatter my world, or threaten to do so, so Celestia is safe." She extended her hand towards Knightmare. "The name's Ember."

"I learned that much from Ritz." Knightmare responded before taking her hand and shaking it slightly. "The name's Knightmare. Truce?"

"Truce."

And with that, the two parted ways, Knightmare heading the way he intended and Miss Dragon, or rather Ember, came down the corridor that we were in. Luckily enough, she walked past the plinth we hid behind without any indication of knowing that we were there, so crisis averted.

"Well that was interesting." Alvin plainly stated.

"No kidding." Brian added.

"We got some answers..." Joseph said.

"And a fuckton of questions as well." Jesus ended the thought.

"We're missing a whole load of information," I explained. "We learned why Ember was here, but we didn't really work out who she is, besides the fact that she has a deceased father and brother. Ritz seems like her sister and is apparently in the castle, so we could eke some answers from her. But what the hell was that second emotion wavelength I felt? What was that? A second personality? Is she schizophrenic? And then there's the whole situation about her father and Griffin. We don't have the full picture on any of this and we need answers. We also need to find Cadence's piece too, can't forget about that."

Right then, I felt a voice in my head.

"Aniseed, are you there? the distinct voice of Prince Agapé rang out. "Meet me at the castle grounds in ten minutes, we'll teleport to the ceremony from there."

"Okay, will be there!" I responded before turning back to the swarm. "Later. We'll look for answers after this." Looking up at the wall, we found a window that was slightly open, and so we each jumped out in turn, ready to meet up with Agapé to attend the ceremony with one thought in our minds:

'What the actual fuck have we gotten ourselves into?'